After the victories of Bonaparte at Marengo, of Moreau at Hohenlinden, and those of Brune and Murat in Italy (Pô plain and Tuscany), the Austrians separated from the second coalition and signed the Treaty of Lunéville with France on February 9 1801. Naples then signs peace in Florence, and Paul I's Russia distances itself until his successor Alexander I concludes a secret peace agreement with Bonaparte on October 10, 1801.
In the United Kingdom, William Pitt is reversed on March 13, 1801. The isolated British consider peace. Bonaparte awaits the results of the Egyptian expedition. But this one turns badly after the assassination of Kléber and the army taken over by Menou is lost in the sands.
The London preliminaries finally opened and were signed on October 1, 1801 (9 Vendémiaire, Year X). The Amiens congress begins on December 5. It brings together the French Republic, the Kingdom of Spain and the Batavian Republic (ex-United Provinces) on one side, the Kingdom of the United Kingdom on the other. The French representation is directed as in Lunéville by Joseph Bonaparte, the Spaniards by the Chevalier d'Azarra and the Batavians by the lawyer Schimmelpenninck. The British representation is led by Lord Cornwallis, and also engages on behalf of the Ottoman Empire, its ally.
The Peace of Amiens was concluded on March 25, 1802 (4 Germinal Year X), then signed on the 27th at the Town Hall. It stipulates that all the possessions of each party taken by act of war will be restored, except the island of Trinidad and Ceylon, left to the British. The Cape of Good Hope returns to the Dutch, the borders are fixed between French Guiana and Portuguese Guiana, the republic recognized in the Sept-Isles, the fishing rights of Newfoundland and on the wood of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon delimited , the rights of the Nassau family in the Netherlands compensated, and finally the status of Malta and its knights very precisely established in its independence from the United Kingdom and France. Naples and Rome will have to be evacuated by France, Portoferraio by the United Kingdom.
Peace is broken after the return to power of William Pitt the Younger, who declares war on France, and organizes the Third Coalition.