After Bonaparte was made First Consul, Monti invoked his
might against the Germans in Italy, and carried his own injured virtue
back to Milan in the train of the conqueror. When Bonaparte was
crowned emperor, this democrat and patriot was the first to hail and
glorify him; and the emperor rewarded the poet's devotion with a chair
in the University of Pavia, and a pension attached to the place of
Historiographer. Monti accepted the honors and emoluments due to
long-suffering integrity and inalterable virtue, and continued in the
enjoyment of them till the Austrians came back to Milan a second time,
in 1815, when his chaste muse was stirred to a new passion by the
charms of German despotism, and celebrated as "the wise, the just, the
best of kings, Francis Augustus", who, if one were to believe Monti,
"in war was a whirlwind and in peace a zephyr." But the heavy
Austrian, who knew he was nothing of the kind, thrust out his surly
under lip at these blandishments, said that this muse's favors were
mercenary, and cut off Monti's pension. Stung by such ingratitude,
the victim of his own honesty retired forever from courts, and
thenceforward sang only the merits of rich persons in private station,
who could afford to pay for spontaneous and incorruptible adulation.
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