Presidency of Petiet, the French minister. At Turin, General Jourdan
directed the provisional government; at Genoa, General Dejean filled the
same functions; everywhere the paraded power of France was substituted for
the semblance of liberty; the Roman States were still in the hands of the
Neapolitans. The new Pope, Barnabus Chiaramonti, formerly Bishop of Imola,
who had shown himself well disposed towards the French, had just arrived
unexpectedly at Ancona, whence he negotiated his re-entry into the eternal
city. The First Consul assured him of his good intentions as regards the
Catholic Church, and the Holy See. The far-seeing _finesse_ of the Court
of Rome did not permit it to be deceived. The Secretary of the Sacred
College, Monsignor Consalvi, had said during the conclave, "It is from
France that we have received persecutions for ten years past; well, it is
from France that will perhaps come in the future our succors and our
consolations. A very extraordinary young man, and even more difficult to
be judged, rules there to-day. There is no doubt he will soon have
reconquered Italy. Remember that he protected the priests in 1797, and
that he has recently rendered funeral honors to Pius VI. Let us not
neglect the resources which offer themselves to us on this side." On the
day after the battle of Marengo preliminary negotiations already
commenced. The First Consul was officially present at the grand _Te Deum_
chanted in the cathedral of Milan. "Our atheists at Paris may say of it
what they will," wrote Bonaparte to Cambaceres.

During the night of the 2nd and 3rd July, 1800, Bonaparte re-entered
Paris, overwhelmed on the way by evidences of public joy, which were most
brilliantly manifested at Lyons. He had forbidden all preparations for his
return: "My intention is to have neither arches of triumph nor any species
of ceremony," he wrote to his brother Lucien, who had replaced Laplace at
the ministry of the interior. "I have too good an opinion of myself to
hold such baubles in much estimation. I know no other triumph than the