On his death in 1802 the duchies were incorporated with the French republic and his son Louis became "king of Etruria."
In the latter year the government of the French Republic confided to him a mission to Rome at the moment when it was a question whether the expelled pope would return to the Vatican with or without bloodshed.
The constitution was modelled on that of the French directory, and, lest there should be a majority of clerical or Jacobinical deputies, the French Republic through its general, Bonaparte, nominated and appointed the first deputies and administrators of the new government.
In the complimentary speeches delivered by the president of the French Republic and the tsar, France and Russia were referred to as allies, and the term " nations alliees " was afterwards repeatedly used on occasions of a similar kind.
The means whereby he engaged the energies of the Italians on behalf of the French Republic and yet refrained from persecuting the Roman Catholic Church in the way only too common among revolutionary generals, bespoke political insight of no ordinary kind.
