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Title: The History of Napoleon Buonaparte

Author: John Gibson Lockhart

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THE HISTORY
OF NAPOLEON
BUONAPARTE

BY

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART


LONDON & TORONTO J.M. DENT & SONS LTD.
NEW YORK E.P. DUTTON & CO


First issue of this edition: _February 1906_

Reprinted:                   _April 1906_; _May 1907_;
                             _July 1909_; _November 1910_;
                             _November 1912_; _March 1915_




INTRODUCTION

[LOCKHART, 1794-1854]


"Nations yet to come will look back upon his history as to some grand
and supernatural romance. The fiery energy of his youthful career, and
the magnificent progress of his irresistible ambition, have invested his
character with the mysterious grandeur of some heavenly appearance; and
when all the lesser tumults and lesser men of our age shall have passed
away into the darkness of oblivion, history will still inscribe one
mighty era with the majestic name of Napoleon."

These enthusiastic words, too, are Lockhart's, though they are not from
this history, but from some "Remarks on the Periodical Criticism of
England," which he published in _Blackwood's Magazine_. They serve, if
they are taken in conjunction with his book, to mark his position in the
long list of the historians, biographers and critics who have written in
English, and from an English or a British point of view, upon "Napoleon
the Great." Lockhart, that is to say, was neither of the idolaters, like
Hazlitt, nor of the decriers and blasphemers.

One recalls at once what he said of "the lofty impartiality" with which
Sir Walter Scott had written of Napoleon before him, and with which he
appears to have faced his lesser task. As a biography, as a writing of
history, as an example of historic style, Lockhart's comparatively
modest essay must be called a better performance than Scott's. But "the
real Napoleon" has not yet been painted.

Lord Rosebery, in his book on _Napoleon: the Last Phase_, asks if there
will ever be an adequate portrait? The life is yet to be written that
shall profit by all the new material that has come to light since Scott
wrote his nine volumes in 1827, and Lockhart published his in 1829. But
Lockhart's book has still the value of one written by a genuine man of
letters, who was a born biographer, and one written while the
world-commotion of Napoleon was a matter of personal report. It is
tinged by some of the contemporary illusions, no doubt; but it is
clearer in its record than Scott's, and while it is less picturesque, it
is more direct.

His comparative brevity is a gain, since he has to tell how, in brief
space, "the lean, hungry conqueror swells," as Lord Rosebery says, "into
the sovereign, and then into the sovereign of sovereigns."

In view of the influence of the one book upon the other, and the one
writer upon the other, it is worth note that Lockhart had a fit of
enthusiasm over Scott's _Napoleon_ when it first appeared, or rather
when he first read the first six volumes of the work, before they were
"out," in 1827. He thought Scott would make as great an effect by it as
by any two of his novels. This proved a mistaken forecast, but Scott was
paid an enormous price--some eighteen thousand pounds. When then John
Murray, who had already co-opted Lockhart as his _Quarterly_ editor,
thought of inaugurating a "Family Library," and he proposed to his
editor this other Napoleon book, it must have seemed in many ways a very
attractive piece of work. But owing partly to Lockhart's relations with
Scott, and partly to the need of avoiding any literary comparisons,
these small, fat duodecimos appeared anonymously. That was, as it has
been already mentioned, in 1829, two years after Scott's book.

To-day, it makes a capital starting-point for the long Napoleon
adventure, whose end, so far as it is prolonged by fresh literary
divigations, seems to be as remote as ever.

It is from the French side that one might chiefly draw those vivid and
sometimes questionable glimpses at first-hand, that can best add to
Lockhart's presentment. One must compare his retreat from Russia with
Rapp's and other remembrancers' accounts, and be reminded by Rapp to go
on to Jomini's _Vie Militaire_, and even turn for a single personal
reminiscence to a flagrant hero-worshipper like Dumas, in his rapid and
military biography.

"Only twice in his life," said Dumas, "had he who writes these lines
seen Napoleon. The first time on the way to Ligny; the second, when he
returned from Waterloo. The first time in the light of a lamp; the first
time amid the acclamations of the multitude; the second, amid the
silence of a populace. Each time Napoleon was seated in the same
carriage, in the same seat, dressed in the same attire; each time, it
was the same look, lost and vague; each time, the same head, calm and
impassible, only his brow was a little more bent over his breast in
returning than in going. Was it from weariness that he could not sleep,
or from grief to have lost the world?"

This is the French postscript to many English books about the victor and
loser of the world.

       *       *       *       *       *

The following is a list of the works of John Gibson Lockhart
(1794-1854):--

Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk, by Peter Morris the Odontist (pseud.)
1819; Valerius, a Roman Story, 1821; Some Passages in the Life of Mr.
Adam Blair, 1822; Reginald Dalton, a Story of English University Life,
1823; Ancient Spanish Ballads (trans.) 1823; Matthew Wald, a Novel,
1824; Life of Robert Burns, 1828; History of Napoleon Buonaparte, 1829;
History of the late War, with Sketches of Nelson, Wellington and
Napoleon, 1832; Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, 7 vols. 1836-8;
Theodore Hook, a Sketch, 1852.

Lockhart was a Contributor to "Blackwood," and Editor of the "Quarterly
Review" from 1825 to 1853.




LIFE OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE




CHAPTER I

     Birth and Parentage of Napoleon Buonaparte--His Education at
     Brienne and at Paris--His Character at this Period--His Political
     Predilections--He enters the Army as Second Lieutenant of
     Artillery--His First Military Service in Corsica in 1793.


Napoleon Buonaparte was born at Ajaccio on the 15th of August, 1769. The
family had been of some distinction, during the middle ages, in Italy;
whence his branch of it removed to Corsica, in the troubled times of the
Guelphs and Gibellines. They were always considered as belonging to the
gentry of the island. Charles, the father of Napoleon, an advocate of
considerable reputation, married his mother, Letitia Ramolini, a young
woman eminent for beauty and for strength of mind, during the civil
war--when the Corsicans, under Paoli, were struggling to avoid the
domination of the French. The advocate had espoused the popular side in
that contest, and his lovely and high-spirited wife used to attend him
through the toils and dangers of his mountain campaigns. Upon the
termination of the war, he would have exiled himself along with Paoli;
but his relations dissuaded him from this step, and he was afterwards
reconciled to the conquering party, and protected and patronised by the
French governor of Corsica, the Count de Marbœuff.

It is said that Letitia had attended mass on the morning of the 15th of
August; and, being seized suddenly on her return, gave birth to the
future hero of his age, on a temporary couch covered with tapestry,
representing the heroes of the Iliad. He was her second child. Joseph,
afterwards King of Spain, was older than he: he had three younger
brothers, Lucien, Louis, and Jerome; and three sisters, Eliza, Caroline,
and Pauline. These grew up. Five others must have died in infancy; for
we are told that Letitia had given birth to thirteen children, when at
the age of thirty she became a widow.

In after-days, when Napoleon had climbed to sovereign power, many
flatterers were willing to give him a lofty pedigree. To the Emperor of
Austria, who would fain have traced his unwelcome son-in-law to some
petty princes of Treviso, he replied, "I am the Rodolph of my race,"[1]
and silenced, on a similar occasion, a professional genealogist, with,
"Friend, my patent dates from Monte Notte."[2]

Charles Buonaparte, by the French governor's kindness, received a legal
appointment in Corsica--that of _Procureur du Roi_ (answering nearly to
Attorney-General); and scandal has often said that Marbœuff was his
wife's lover. The story received no credence in Ajaccio.

Concerning the infancy of Napoleon we know nothing, except that he ever
acknowledged with the warmest gratitude the obligations laid on him, at
the threshold of life by the sagacity and wisdom of Letitia. He always
avowed his belief that he owed his subsequent elevation principally to
her early lessons; and indeed laid it down as a maxim that "the future
good or bad conduct of a child depends entirely on the mother." Even of
his boyish days few anecdotes have been preserved in Corsica. His chosen
plaything, they say, was a small brass cannon; and, when at home in the
school-vacations, his favourite retreat was a solitary summer-house
among the rocks on the sea-shore, about a mile from Ajaccio, where his
mother's brother (afterwards Cardinal Fesch) had a villa. The place is
now in ruins, and overgrown with bushes, and the people call it
"Napoleon's Grotto." He has himself said that he was remarkable only for
obstinacy and curiosity: others add, that he was high-spirited,
quarrelsome, imperious; fond of solitude; slovenly in his dress. Being
detected stealing figs in an orchard, the proprietor threatened to tell
his mother, and the boy pleaded for himself with so much eloquence, that
the man suffered him to escape. His careless attire, and his partiality
for a pretty little girl in the neighbourhood, were ridiculed together
in a song which his playmates used to shout after him in the streets of
Ajaccio:

    "Napoleone di mezza calzetta
    Fa l'amore a Giacominetta."[3]

His superiority of character was early felt. An aged relation, Lucien
Buonaparte, Archdeacon of Ajaccio, called the young people about his
death-bed to take farewell and bless them: "You, Joseph," said the
expiring man, "are the eldest; but Napoleon is the head of his family.
Take care to remember my words." Napoleon took excellent care that they
should not be forgotten. He began with beating his elder brother into
subjection.

From his earliest youth he chose arms for his profession. When he was
about seven years old (1776) his father was, through Marbœuff's
patronage, sent to France as one of a deputation from the Corsican
_noblesse_ to King Louis XVI.; and Napoleon, for whom the count had also
procured admission into the military school of Brienne, accompanied him.
After seeing part of Italy, and crossing France, they reached Paris; and
the boy was soon established in his school, where at first everything
delighted him, though, forty years afterwards, he said he should never
forget the bitter parting with his mother ere he set out on his travels.
He spoke only Italian when he reached Brienne; but soon mastered French.
His progress in Latin, and in literature generally, attracted no great
praise; but in every study likely to be of service to the future
soldier, he distinguished himself above his contemporaries. Of the
mathematical tutors accordingly he was a great favourite. One of the
other teachers having condemned him for some offence or neglect to wear
a course woollen dress on a particular day, and dine on his knees at the
door of the refectory, the boy's haughty spirit swelling under this
dishonour, brought on a sudden vomiting, and a strong fit of hysterics.
The mathematical master passing by, said they did not understand what
they were dealing with, and released him. He cared little for common
pastimes; but his love for such as mimicked war was extreme; and the
skill of his fortifications, reared of turf, or of snow, according to
the season, and the address and pertinacity with which he conducted
their defence, attracted the admiration of all observers. Napoleon was
poor and all but a foreigner[4] among the French youth, and underwent
many mortifications from both causes. His temper was reserved and proud;
he had few friends--no bosom-companion; he lived by himself, and among
his books and maps. M. Bourienne, whose friendship for him commenced
thus early, says--"Buonaparte was noticeable at Brienne for his Italian
complexion, the keenness of his look, and the tone of his conversation
both with masters and comrades. There was almost always a dash of
bitterness in what he said. He had very little of the disposition that
leads to attachments; which I can only attribute to the misfortunes of
his family every since his birth, and the impression which the conquest
of his country had made on his early years." One day, at dinner, the
principal of the school happened to say something slightingly of Paoli.
"He was a great man," cried young Buonaparte, "he loved his country; and
I shall never forgive my father, who had been his adjutant, for
consenting to the union of Corsica with France. He ought to have
followed the fortunes of Paoli."

There is reason to believe that the levity and haughtiness with which
some of the young French gentlemen at this seminary conducted themselves
towards this poor, solitary alien, had a strong effect on the first
political feelings of the future Emperor of France. He particularly
resented their jokes about his foreign name _Napoleon_. Bourienne says
he often told him--"Hereafter I will do the French what harm I can; as
for you, you never make me your jest--you love me."

From the beginning of the revolutionary struggle, boy and youth, he
espoused and kept by the side of those who desired the total change of
government. It is a strange enough fact, that Pichegru, afterwards so
eminent and ultimately so unfortunate, was for some time his monitor in
the school of Brienne. Being consulted many years later as to the chance
of enlisting Buonaparte in the cause of the exiled Bourbons, this man is
known to have answered: "It will be lost time to attempt that--I knew
him in his youth--he has taken his side, and he will not change it."

In 1783 Buonaparte was, on the recommendation of his masters, sent from
Brienne to the Royal Military School at Paris; this being an
extraordinary compliment to the genius and proficiency of a boy of
fifteen.[5] Here he spent nearly two years, devoted to his studies. That
he laboured hard, both at Brienne and at Paris, we may judge; for his
after-life left scanty room for book-work, and of the vast quantity of
information which his strong memory ever placed at his disposal, the far
greater proportion must have been accumulated now. He made himself a
first-rate mathematician; he devoured history--his chosen authors being
Plutarch and Tacitus; the former the most simple painter that antiquity
has left us of heroic characters--the latter the profoundest master of
political wisdom. The poems of Ossian were then new to Europe, and
generally received as authentic remains of another age and style of
heroism. The dark and lofty genius which they display, their indistinct
but solemn pictures of heroic passions, love, battle, victory, and
death, were appropriate food for Napoleon's young imagination; and, his
taste being little scrupulous as to minor particulars, Ossian continued
to be through life his favourite poet. While at Paris, he attracted much
notice among those who had access to compare him with his fellows; his
acquirements, among other advantages, introduced him to the familiar
society of the celebrated Abbé Raynal. Napoleon, shortly after entering
the school at Paris, drew up a memorial, which he in person presented to
the superintendents of the establishment. He complained that the mode of
life was too expensive and delicate for "poor gentlemen," and could not
prepare them either for returning to their "modest homes," or for the
hardships of the camp. He proposed that, instead of a regular dinner of
two courses daily, the students should have ammunition bread, and
soldiers' rations, and that they should be compelled to mend and clean
their own stockings and shoes. This memorial is said to have done him no
service at the military school.

He had just completed his sixteenth year when (in August, 1785,) after
being examined by the great Laplace, he obtained his first commission as
second lieutenant in the artillery regiment _La Fere_. His corps was at
Valance when he joined it; and he mingled, more largely than might have
been expected from his previous habits, in the cultivated society of the
place. His personal advantages were considerable; the outline of the
countenance classically beautiful; the eye deep-set and dazzlingly
brilliant; the figure short, but slim, active, and perfectly knit.
Courtly grace and refinement of manners he never attained, nor perhaps
coveted; but he early learned the art, not difficult probably to any
person possessed of such genius and such accomplishments, of rendering
himself eminently agreeable wherever it suited his purpose or
inclination to be so.

On the 27th February in this year his father died of a cancer in the
stomach, aged forty-five; the same disease which was destined, at a
somewhat later period of life, to prove fatal to himself.

While at Valance Buonaparte competed anonymously for a prize offered by
the Academy of Lyons for the best answer to Raynal's Question: "What are
the principles and institutions by the application of which mankind can
be raised to the highest happiness?" He gained the prize: what were the
contents of his Essay we know not. Talleyrand, long afterwards, obtained
the manuscript, and, thinking to please his sovereign, brought it to
him. He threw his eye over two or three pages, and tossed it into the
fire. The treatise of the Lieutenant probably abounded in opinions which
the Emperor had found it convenient to forget.

Even at Brienne his political feelings had been determined. At Valance
he found the officers of his regiment divided, as all the world then
was, into two parties; the lovers of the French Monarchy, and those who
desired its overthrow. He sided openly with the latter. "Had I been a
general," said Napoleon in the evening of his life, "I might have
adhered to the king: being a subaltern, I joined the patriots."

In the beginning of 1792 he became captain of artillery (_unattached;_)
and, happening to be in Paris, witnessed the lamentable scenes of the
20th of June, when the revolutionary mob stormed the Tuileries, and the
king and his family, after undergoing innumerable insults and
degradations, with the utmost difficulty preserved their lives. He
followed the crowd into the garden before the palace; and when Louis
XVI. appeared on a balcony with the red cap on his head, could no longer
suppress his contempt and indignation. "Poor driveller!" said Napoleon,
loud enough to be heard by those near him, "how could he suffer this
rabble to enter? If he had swept away five or six hundred with his
cannon, the rest would be running yet." He was also a witness of the
still more terrible 10th of August, when, the palace being once more
invested, the National Guard assigned for its defence took part with the
assailants; the royal family were obliged to take refuge in the National
Assembly, and the brave Swiss Guards were massacred almost to a man in
the courts of the Tuileries. Buonaparte was a firm friend to the
Assembly, to the charge of a party of which, at least, these excesses
must be laid; but the spectacle disgusted him. The yells, screams, and
pikes with bloody heads upon them, formed a scene which he afterwards
described as "hideous and revolting." At this time Napoleon was without
employment and very poor; and De Bourienne describes him as wandering
idly about Paris, living, chiefly at his (M. de B.'s) expense, at
restaurateurs' shops, and, among other wild-enough schemes, proposing
that he and his schoolfellow should take some houses on lease, and
endeavour to get a little money by subletting them in apartments. Such
were the views and occupations of Buonaparte--at the moment when the
national tragedy was darkening to its catastrophe. As yet he had been
but a spectator of the Revolution, destined to pave his own path to
sovereign power; it was not long before circumstances called on him to
play a part.

General Paoli, who had lived in England ever since the termination of
that civil war in which Charles Buonaparte served under his banner, was
cheered, when the great French Revolution first broke out, with the hope
that liberty was about to be restored to Corsica. He came to Paris, was
received with applause as a tried friend of freedom, and appointed
governor of his native island, which for some time he ruled wisely and
happily. But as the revolution advanced, Paoli, like most other wise
men, became satisfied that license was more likely to be established by
its leaders, than law and rational liberty; and avowing his aversion to
the growing principles of Jacobinism, and the scenes of tumult and
bloodshed to which they gave rise, he was denounced in the National
Assembly as the enemy of France. An expedition was sent to deprive him
of his government, under the command of La Combe, Michel, and Salicetti,
one of the Corsican deputies to the Convention; and Paoli called on his
countrymen to take arms in his and their own defence.

Buonaparte happened at that time (1793) to have leave of absence from
his regiment, and to be in Corsica on a visit to his mother. He had
fitted up a little reading-room at the top of the house as the quietest
part of it, and was spending his mornings in study, and his evenings
among his family and old acquaintance, when the arrival of the
expedition threw the island into convulsion. Paoli, who knew him well,
did all he could to enlist him in his cause; he used, among other
flatteries, to clap him on the back, and tell him he was "one of
Plutarch's men." But Napoleon had satisfied himself that Corsica was too
small a country to maintain independence,--that she must fall under the
rule either of France or England; and that her interests would be best
served by adhering to the former. He therefore resisted all Paoli's
offers, and tendered his sword to the service of Salicetti. He was
appointed provisionally to the command of a battalion of National
Guards; and the first military service on which he was employed was the
reduction of a small fortress, called the Torre di Capitello, near
Ajaccio. He took it, but was soon besieged in it, and he and his
garrison, after a gallant defence, and living for some time on
horseflesh, were glad to evacuate the tower, and escape to the sea. The
English government now began to reinforce Paoli, and the cause of the
French party seemed for the moment to be desperate. The Buonapartes were
banished from Corsica, and their mother and sisters took refuge first at
Nice, and afterwards at Marseilles, where for some time they suffered
all the inconveniences of exile and poverty. Napoleon rejoined his
regiment. He had chosen France for his country; and seems, in truth, to
have preserved little or no affection for his native soil.

After arriving at supreme power, he bestowed one small fountain on
Ajaccio; and succeeded, by the death of a relation, to a petty olive
garden near that town. In the sequel of his history the name of Corsica
will scarcely recur.

[Footnote 1: Rodolph of Hapsburg was the founder of the Austrian
family.]

[Footnote 2: His first battle.]

[Footnote 3: Napoleon, with his stockings about his heels, makes love to
Giacominetta.]

[Footnote 4: Corsica became by law a French department only two months
before Napoleon was born.]

[Footnote 5: The report, in consequence of which Buonaparte received
this distinction, is in these words: "M. de Buonaparte (Napoleon), born
the 15th August, 1769, height four feet ten inches ten lines; good
constitution; health excellent; character docile, upright, grateful;
conduct very regular: has always distinguished himself by his
application to the mathematics. He is passably acquainted with history
and geography: is weak enough as to his Latin diction and other elegant
accomplishments: would make an excellent sea-officer: deserves to be
transferred to the Military School at Paris."]




CHAPTER II

     Buonaparte commands the Artillery at Toulon--Fall of Toulon--The
     Representatives of the People--Junot.


Buonaparte's first military service occurred, as we have seen, in the
summer of 1793. The king of France had been put to death on the 21st of
January in that year; and in less than a month afterwards the convention
had declared war against England. The murder of the king, alike
imprudent as atrocious, had in fact united the princes of Europe against
the revolutionary cause; and within France itself a strong reaction took
place. The people of Toulon, the great port and arsenal of France on the
Mediterranean, partook these sentiments, and invited the English and
Spanish fleets off their coast to come to their assistance, and garrison
their city. The allied admirals took possession accordingly of Toulon,
and a motley force of English, Spaniards, and Neapolitans, prepared to
defend the place. In the harbour and roads there were twenty-five ships
of the line, and the city contained immense naval and military stores of
every description, so that the defection of Toulon was regarded as a
calamity of the first order by the revolutionary government.

This event occurred in the midst of that period which has received the
name of _the reign of terror_. The streets of Paris were streaming with
innocent blood; Robespierre was glutting himself with murder; fear and
rage were the passions that divided mankind, and their struggles
produced on either side the likeness of some epidemic frenzy. Whatever
else the government wanted, vigour to repel aggressions from without was
displayed in abundance. Two armies immediately marched upon Toulon; and
after a series of actions, in which the passes in the hills behind the
town were forced, the place was at last invested, and a memorable siege
commenced.

It was conducted with little skill, first by Cartaux, a vain coxcomb who
had been a painter, and then by Doppet, an ex-physician, and a coward.
To watch and report on the proceedings of these chiefs, there were
present in the camp several Representatives of the People, as they were
called--persons holding no military character or rank, but acting as
honourable spies for the government at Paris. The interference of these
personages on this, as on many other occasions, was productive of
delays, blunders, and misfortunes; but the terror which their ready
access to the despotic government inspired was often, on the other hand,
useful in stimulating the exertions of the military. The younger
Robespierre was one of the deputies at Toulon, and his name was enough
to make his presence formidable.

Cartaux had not yet been superseded, when Napoleon Buonaparte made his
appearance at headquarters, with a commission to assume the command of
the artillery. It has been said that he owed his appointment to the
private regard of Salicetti; but the high testimonials he had received
from the Military Academy were more likely to have served him; nor is it
possible to suppose that he had been so long in the regiment of La Fere
without being appreciated by some of his superiors. He had, besides,
shortly before this time, excited attention by a pamphlet, called the
_Supper of Beaucaire_, in which the politics of the Jacobin party were
spiritedly supported; and of which he was afterwards so ashamed, that he
took great pains to suppress it. However this may have been, he was
received almost with insolence by Cartaux, who, strutting about in an
uniform covered with gold lace, told him his assistance was not wanted,
but he was welcome to partake in _his_ glory.

The commandant of the artillery, on examining the state of affairs,
found much to complain of. They were still disputing which extremity of
the town should be the chief object of attack; though at the one there
were two strong and regular fortifications, and at the other only a
small and imperfect fort called Malbosquet. On inspecting their
batteries, he found that the guns were placed about two gunshots from
the walls; and that it was the custom to heat the shot at a distance
from the place where they were to be discharged; in other words, to heat
them to no purpose. Choosing officers of his own acquaintance to act
under him, and exerting himself to collect guns from all quarters,
Buonaparte soon remedied these disorders, and found himself master of an
efficient train of 200 pieces; and he then urged the general to adopt a
wholly new plan of operations in the future conduct of the siege.

The plan of Buonaparte appears _now_ the simplest and most obvious that
could have been suggested; yet it was not without great difficulty that
he could obtain the approbation of the doctor, who had by this time
superseded the painter. "Your object," said he, "is to make the English
evacuate Toulon. Instead of attacking them in the town, which must
involve a long series of operations, endeavour to establish batteries so
as to sweep the harbour and roadstead. If you can do this--the English
ships must take their departure, and the English troops will certainly
not remain behind them." He pointed out a promontory nearly opposite the
town, by getting the command of which he was sure the desired effect
must be accomplished. "Gain _La Grasse_" said he, "and in two days
Toulon falls." His reasoning at length forced conviction, and he was
permitted to follow his own plan.

A month before nothing could have been more easy; but within that time
the enemy had perceived the importance of the promontory, which commands
the narrow passage between the port and the Mediterranean, and fortified
it so strongly, that it passed by the name of the Little Gibraltar. It
was necessary, therefore, to form extensive batteries in the rear of La
Grasse, before there could be a prospect of seizing it. Buonaparte
laboured hard all day, and slept every night in his cloak by the guns,
until his works approached perfection. He also formed a large battery
behind Malbosquet; but this he carefully concealed from the enemy. It
was covered by a plantation of olives, and he designed to distract their
attention by opening its fire for the first time when he should be about
to make his great effort against Little Gibraltar. But the
Representatives of the People had nearly spoiled everything. These
gentlemen, walking their rounds, discovered the battery behind the
olives, and inquiring how long it had been ready, were told for eight
days. Not guessing with what views so many guns had been kept so long
idle, they ordered an immediate cannonade. The English made a vigorous
sally, and spiked the guns before Buonaparte could reach the spot. On
his arrival at the eminence behind, he perceived a long deep ditch,
fringed with brambles and willows, which he thought might be turned to
advantage. He ordered a regiment of foot to creep along the ditch, which
they did without being discovered until they were close upon the enemy.
General O'Hara, the English commander, mistook them for some of his own
allies, and, rushing out to give them some direction, was wounded and
made prisoner. The English were dispirited when they lost their general;
they retreated, and the French were at liberty to set about the repair
of their battery. In this affair much blood was shed. Napoleon himself
received a bayonet-thrust in his thigh, and fell into the arms of
Muiron, who carried him off the field. Such was the commencement of
their brotherly friendship. His wound, however, did not prevent him from
continuing his labours behind Little Gibraltar.

That fort had very nearly been seized, by a sort of accident, some time
before his preparations were completed; a casual insult excited a sudden
quarrel between the men in Buonaparte's trenches and the Spaniards in
Little Gibraltar. The French soldiers, without waiting for orders,
seized their arms, and rushed to the assault with fury. Napoleon coming
up, perceived that the moment was favourable, and persuaded Doppet to
support the troops with more regiments; but the doctor, marching at the
head of his column, was seized with a panic, on seeing a man killed by
his side, and ordered a retreat, before anything could be effected.

A few days after, this poltroon was in his turn superseded by a brave
veteran, General Dugommier, and Napoleon could at last count on having
his efforts backed. But, for the second time, the Representatives did
their best to ruin his undertaking. The siege had now lasted four
months, provisions were scarce in the camp, and these civilians, never
being able to comprehend what was meant by bestowing all this care on a
place so far below the city as Little Gibraltar, wrote to Paris that
they saw no chance of success, and hoped the government would agree with
them that the siege ought to be abandoned. Two days before this letter
reached Paris, Toulon had fallen, and the Representatives gave out that
the despatch was a forgery.

The moment had at last come when Buonaparte judged it right to make his
grand attempt. During the night of the 17th of December he threw 8000
bombs and shells into Little Gibraltar, and the works being thus
shattered, at daybreak Dugommier commanded the assault. The French,
headed by the brave Muiron, rushed with impetuous valour through the
embrasures, and put the whole garrison to the sword. The day was spent
in arranging the batteries, so as to command the shipping; and next
morning--so true had been Buonaparte's prophecy--when the French stood
to their posts, the English fleet was discovered to be already under
weigh.

Then followed a fearful scene. The English would not quit Toulon without
destroying the French ships and arsenals that had fallen into their
possession; nor could they refuse to carry with them the Antijacobin
inhabitants, who knew that their lives would be instantly sacrificed if
they should fall into the hands of the victorious Republicans, and who
now flocked to the beach to the number of 14,000, praying for the means
of escape. The burning of ships, the explosion of magazines, the roar of
artillery, and the cries of these fugitives, filled up many hours. At
last the men-of-war were followed by a flotilla bearing those miserable
exiles; the walls were abandoned; and Dugommier took possession of the
place.

The Republicans found that all persons of condition, who had taken part
against them, had escaped; and their rage was to be contented with
meaner victims. A day or two having been suffered to pass in quiet, a
proclamation, apparently friendly, exhorted the workmen, who had been
employed on the batteries of the besieged town, to muster at
headquarters. One hundred and fifty poor men, who expected to be
employed again in repairing the same fortifications obeyed this
summons--were instantly marched into a field--and shot in cold blood;
not less than a thousand persons were massacred under circumstances
equally atrocious. Buonaparte himself repelled with indignation the
charge of having had a hand in this butchery. Even if he had, he was not
the chief in command, and durst not have disobeyed orders but at the
sacrifice of his own life. It is on all sides admitted that a family of
royalists, being shipwrecked on the coast near Toulon a few days after,
were rescued from the hands of the ferocious Republicans, solely by his
interference and address. Putting himself at the head of some of his
gunners, he obtained possession of the unhappy prisoners; quieted the
mob by assuring them that they should all be publicly executed the next
morning; and meanwhile sent them off during the night in artillery
waggons supposed to be conveying stores.

The recovery of Toulon was a service of the first importance to the
government. It suppressed all insurrectionary spirit in the south of
France; and placed a whole army at their disposal elsewhere. But he, to
whose genius the success was due, did not at first obtain the credit of
his important achievement at Paris. The Representatives of the People
never made their appearance on the eventful morning at Little Gibraltar,
until three hours after the troops were in possession of the best part
of the fortifications. Then, indeed, they were seen sword in hand in the
trenches, blustering and swaggering in safety. Yet these men did not
blush to represent themselves as having headed the assault, while, in
their account of the conflict, even the name of Buonaparte did not find
a place. The truth could not, however, be concealed effectually; and he
was appointed to survey and arrange the whole line of fortifications on
the Mediterranean coast of France.

It was during the siege of Toulon that Napoleon, while constructing a
battery under the enemy's fire, had occasion to prepare a despatch, and
called out for some one who could use a pen. A young sergeant, named
Junot, leapt out, and, leaning on the breastwork, wrote as he dictated.
As he finished, a shot struck the ground by his side, scattering dust in
abundance over him and everything near him. "Good," said the soldier,
laughing, "this time we shall spare our sand." The cool gaiety of this
pleased Buonaparte; he kept his eye on the man; and Junot came in the
sequel to be Marshal of France and Duke of Abrantes.




CHAPTER III

     Buonaparte Chief of Battalion at Nice--Fall of Robespierre--He is
     superseded--Buonaparte at Paris in 1795--The day of the
     Sections--Commands the Army of the Interior--Marries Josephine de
     Beauharnois--Appointed to the command of the Army of Italy.


From this time Napoleon advanced by rapid strides to greatness. His
admirable skill was still further displayed in his survey of the
fortifications above mentioned; and having completed this service, he
was appointed to join the army of Italy, then stationed at Nice, with
the rank of Chief of Battalion.

Here his advice suggested a plan by which the Sardinians were driven
from the Col di Tende on the 7th March, 1794; Saorgio, with all its
stores, surrendered; and the French obtained possession of the maritime
Alps, so that the difficulties of advancing into Italy were greatly
diminished. Of these movements, however, his superior officers reaped as
yet the honour. He was even superseded (Aug. 6, 1794) very shortly after
their success. But this, which at the moment seemed a heavy misfortune,
was, in truth, one of the luckiest circumstances that ever befell him.

It is not true that he was put under arrest in consequence of the
downfall of Robespierre; although there is no doubt that he was supposed
to belong to the party which that monster had made the instrument of his
crimes, and known to have lived on terms of friendship with his younger
brother. He incurred the suspicion of Laporte and the other
"Representatives" attached to "the army of Italy," in consequence of a
journey to the Gulf of Genoa, which he performed in obedience to secret
orders from Paris; and, so soon as his absence from headquarters was
thus explained, he regained his freedom. The officer, who came to
release him, was surprised to find him busy in his dungeon over the map
of Lombardy. The "Representatives," however, had certainly taken up a
general prejudice against him; for he did not reassume his functions at
Nice; and seems to have spent some time in obscurity with his own
family, who were then in very distressed circumstances, at Marseilles.
It was here that he fell in love with Mademoiselle Clery, whom, but for
some accident, it appears he would have married. Her sister was shortly
afterwards united to his brother Joseph, and she herself became in the
sequel the wife of Bernadotte, now King of Sweden. It is supposed that
Buonaparte found himself too poor to marry at this time; and
circumstances interfered to prevent any renewal of his proposals.

Before the end of the year he came to Paris to solicit employment; but
at first he met with nothing but repulses. The President of the Military
Committee, Aubry, objected to his youth. "Presence in the field of
battle," said Buonaparte, "might be reckoned in place of years." The
President, who had not seen much actual service, thought he was
insulted, and treated Napoleon very coldly. After a little while,
however, he was asked to go to _La Vendée_, as commandant of a brigade
of infantry. This he declined, alleging, that nothing could reconcile
him to leave the artillery, but really, if we are to follow De
Bourienne, considering the Vendean warfare as unworthy of him. His
refusal was followed by the erasure of his name from the list of general
officers _in employment_; and for a time his fortunes seemed to be in a
desperate condition. He thought of settling in some way in Paris; and
said to Bourienne, that, if he could afford to have a small house in the
street where his school-fellow lived, and to keep a cabriolet, he would
be contented. His elder brother had about this time married Mademoiselle
Clery, whose father, the merchant of Marseilles, gave her a handsome
dowry. "How fortunate," Napoleon would often exclaim, "is that fool
Joseph!"[6]

Talma, the celebrated tragedian, was one of his chief associates at this
time, and even then talked with confidence of the future fortunes of
"little Buonaparte." This player's kindness and Aubry's opposition were
both remembered. The Emperor always patronised Talma; and Aubry died in
exile.

Napoleon, despairing of employment at home, now drew up a memorial to
the government, requesting to be sent with a few other officers of
artillery into Turkey, for the purpose of placing that branch of the
Grand Seignior's service in a condition more suitable to the
circumstances of the times--in which it seemed highly probable that the
Porte might find itself in alliance with France, and assaulted by the
combined armies of Russia and Austria. No answer was returned to this
memorial, over which he dreamt for some weeks in great enthusiasm. "How
strange," he said to his friends, "would it be if a little Corsican
soldier should become King of Jerusalem!" Go where he might, he already
contemplated greatness.

At length Napoleon was nominated to the command of a brigade of
artillery in Holland. The long-deferred appointment was, no doubt, very
welcome; but in the meantime his services were called for on a nearer
and a more important field.

The French nation were now heartily tired of the National Convention: it
had lost most of its distinguished members in the tumults and
persecutions of the times; and above all it had lost respect by
remaining for two years the slave and the tool of the Terrorists. The
downfall of Robespierre, when it did take place, showed how easily the
same blessed deliverance might have been effected long before, had this
body possessed any sense of firmness or of dignity. Even the restoration
of the members banished by the tyrant did not serve to replace the
Convention in the confidence of the public. They themselves saw clearly
that a new remodelling of the government was called for and must be; and
their anxiety was to devise the means of securing for themselves as
large a share as possible of substantial power, under some arrangement
sufficiently novel in appearance to throw dust in the eyes of the
people.

A great part of the nation, there is no doubt, were at this time anxious
to see the royal family restored, and the government settled on the
model of 1791. Among the more respectable citizens of Paris in
particular such feelings were very prevalent. But many causes conspired
to surround the adoption of this measure with difficulties, which none
of the actually influential leaders had the courage, or perhaps the
means, to encounter. The soldiery of the Republican armies had been
accustomed to fight against the exiled princes and nobility, considered
them as the worst enemies of France, and hated them personally. The
estates of the church, the nobles, and the crown, had been divided and
sold; and the purchasers foresaw that, were the monarchy restored at
this period, the resumption of the forfeited property would be pressed
with all the powers of government. And, lastly, the men who had earned
for themselves most distinction and influence in public affairs, had
excellent reasons for believing that the Bourbons and nobility, if
restored, would visit on their own heads the atrocities of the
Revolution, and above all the murder of the King.

The Conventionalists themselves, however, had learned by this time that
neither peace nor security could be expected, unless some form of
government were adopted, in which the legislative and the executive
functions should at least appear to be separated; and they were also at
length inclined to admit the excellence of that part of the British
constitution, which, dividing the legislatorial power between two
assemblies of senators, thus acquires the advantage of a constant
revision of counsels, and regulates the political machine by a system of
mutual checks and balances. They were desirous, therefore, of proposing
some system which might, in a certain degree, satisfy those who had been
endeavouring to bring about the restoration of the monarchy; and the new
constitution of the year _three_ of the Republic (1795) presented the
following features. I. The executive power was to be lodged in Five
Directors, chosen from time to time, who were to have no share in the
legislation. II. There was to be a Council of Five Hundred, answering
generally to our House of Commons: and III. A smaller assembly, called
the Council of Ancients, intended to fulfil in some measure the purposes
of a House of Peers.

The outline of this scheme might perhaps have been approved of; but the
leading members of the Convention, from views personal to themselves,
appended to it certain conditions which excited new disgust. They
decreed, first, that the electoral bodies of France, in choosing
representatives to the two new Councils, must elect at least two-thirds
of the present members of Convention; and, secondly, that if full
two-thirds were not returned, the Convention should have the right to
supply the deficiency out of their own body. It was obvious that this
machinery had no object but the continuance of the present legislators
in power; and the nation, and especially the superior classes in Paris,
were indignant at conduct which they considered as alike selfish and
arbitrary. The royalist party gladly lent themselves to the diffusion of
any discontents; and a formidable opposition to the measures of the
existing government was organised.

The Convention meantime continued their sittings, and exerting all their
skill and influence, procured from many districts of the country reports
accepting of the New Constitution, with all its conditions. The
Parisians, being nearer and sharper observers, and having abundance of
speakers and writers to inform and animate them, assembled in the
several sections of the city, and proclaimed their hostility to the
Convention and its designs. The National Guard, consisting of armed
citizens, almost unanimously sided with the enemies of the Convention;
and it was openly proposed to march to the Tuileries, and compel a
change of measures by force of arms.

The Convention, perceiving their unpopularity and danger, began to look
about them anxiously for the means of defence. There were in and near
Paris 5000 regular troops, on whom they thought they might rely, and who
of course contemned the National Guard as only half-soldiers. They had
besides some hundreds of artillerymen; and they now organized what they
called "the Sacred Band," a body of 1500 ruffians, the most part of them
old and tried instruments of Robespierre. With these means they prepared
to arrange a plan of defence; and it was obvious that they did not want
materials, provided they could find a skilful and determined head.

The Insurgent Sections placed themselves under the command of _Danican_,
an old general of no great skill or reputation. The Convention opposed
to him _Menou_; and he marched at the head of a column into the section
Le Pelletier to disarm the National Guard of that district--one of the
wealthiest of the capital. The National Guard were found drawn up in
readiness to receive him at the end of the Rue Vivienne; and Menou,
becoming alarmed, and hampered by the presence of some of the
"Representatives of the People," entered into a parley, and retired
without having struck a blow.

The Convention judged that Menou was not master of nerves for such a
crisis; and consulted eagerly about a successor to his command. Barras,
one of their number, had happened to be present at Toulon, and to have
appreciated the character of Buonaparte. He had, probably, been applied
to by Napoleon in his recent pursuit of employment. Deliberating with
Tallien and Carnot, his colleagues, he suddenly said, "I have the man
whom you want; it is a little Corsican officer, who will not stand upon
ceremony."

These words decided the fate of Napoleon and of France. Buonaparte had
been in the Odéon Theatre when the affair of Le Pelletier occurred, had
run out, and witnessed the result. He now happened to be in the gallery,
and heard the discussion concerning the conduct of Menou. He was
presently sent for, and asked his opinion as to that officer's retreat.
He explained what had happened, and how the evil might have been
avoided, in a manner which gave satisfaction. He was desired to assume
the command, and arrange his plan of defence as well as the
circumstances might permit; for it was already late at night, and the
decisive assault on the Tuileries was expected to take place next
morning. Buonaparte stated that the failure of the march of Menou had
been chiefly owing to the presence of the "Representatives of the
People," and refused to accept the command unless he received it free
from all such interference. They yielded: Barras was named
Commander-in-Chief; and Buonaparte second, with the virtual control. His
first care was to dispatch Murat, then a major of Chasseurs, to Sablons,
five miles off, where fifty great guns were posted. The Sectionaries
sent a stronger detachment for these cannon immediately afterwards; and
Murat, who passed them in the dark, would have gone in vain had he
received his orders but a few minutes later.

On the 4th of October (called in the revolutionary almanack the 13th
Vendemaire) the affray accordingly occurred. Thirty thousand National
Guards advanced, about two p.m., by different streets, to the siege of
the palace: but its defence was now in far other hands than those of
Louis XVI.

Buonaparte, having planted artillery on all the bridges, had effectually
secured the command of the river, and the safety of the Tuileries on one
side. He had placed cannon also at all the crossings of the streets by
which the National Guard could advance towards the other front; and
having posted his battalions in the garden of the Tuileries and Place du
Carousel, he awaited the attack.

The insurgents had no cannon; and they came along the narrow streets of
Paris in close and heavy columns. When one party reached the church of
St. Roche, in the Rue St. Honoré, they found a body of Buonaparte's
troops drawn up there, with two cannons. It is disputed on which side
the firing began; but in an instant the artillery swept the streets and
lanes, scattering grape-shot among the National Guards, and producing
such confusion that they were compelled to give way. The first shot was
a signal for all the batteries which Buonaparte had established; the
quays of the Seine, opposite to the Tuileries, were commanded by his
guns below the Palace and on the bridges. In less than an hour the
action was over. The insurgents fled in all directions, leaving the
streets covered with dead and wounded: the troops of the Convention
marched into the various sections, disarmed the terrified inhabitants,
and before nightfall everything was quiet.

This eminent service secured the triumph of the Conventionalists, who
now, assuming new names, continued in effect to discharge their old
functions. Barras took his place at the head of _the Directory_, having
Sieyes, Carnot, and other less celebrated persons, for his colleagues;
and the First Director took care to reward the hand to which he owed his
elevation. Within five days from _the day of the Sections_ Buonaparte
was named second in command of the army of the interior; and shortly
afterwards, Barras, finding his duties as Director sufficient to occupy
his time, gave up the command-in-chief of the same army to his "little
Corsican officer."

He had no lack of duties to perform in this new character. The National
Guard was to be re-organised; a separate guard for the representative
body to be formed; the ordnance and military stores were all in a
dilapidated condition. The want of bread, too, was continually producing
popular riots, which could rarely be suppressed but by force of arms. On
one of these last occasions, a huge sturdy fishwife exhorted the mob to
keep to their places, when Buonaparte had almost persuaded them to
disperse. "These coxcombs with their epaulettes and gorgets," said she,
"care nothing for us; provided they feed well and fatten, we may
starve." "Good woman," cried the general of the interior, who at this
time was about the leanest of his race, "only look at me,--and decide
yourself which of the two is the fatter." The woman could not help
laughing: the joke pleased the multitude, and harmony was restored.

Buonaparte, holding the chief military command in the capital, and daily
rising in importance from the zeal and firmness of his conduct in this
high post, had now passed into the order of marked and distinguished
men. He continued, nevertheless, to lead in private a quiet and modest
life, studying as hard as ever, and but little seen in the circles of
gaiety. An accident which occurred one morning at his military levee,
gave at once a new turn to his mode of life, and a fresh impetus to the
advance of his fortunes.

A fine boy, of ten or twelve years of age, presented himself; stated to
the general that his name was Eugene Beauharnois, son of Viscount
Beauharnois, who had served as a general officer in the Republican
armies on the Rhine, and been murdered by Robespierre; and said his
errand was to recover the sword of his father. Buonaparte caused the
request to be complied with; and the tears of the boy, as he received
and kissed the relic, excited his interest. He treated Eugene so kindly,
that next day his mother, Josephine de Beauharnois, came to thank him;
and her beauty and singular gracefulness of address made a strong
impression.

This charming lady, the daughter of a planter, by name Tascher de la
Pagerie, was born in the island of Martinico, 24th June, 1763. While yet
an infant, according to a story which she afterwards repeated, a negro
sorceress had prophesied that "she should one day be greater than a
queen, and yet outlive her dignity."[7]

The widow of Beauharnois had been herself imprisoned until the downfall
of Robespierre. In that confinement she had formed a strict friendship
with another lady who was now married to Tallien, one of the most
eminent of the leaders of the Convention. Madame Tallien had introduced
Josephine to her husband's friends; and Barras, the First Director,
having now begun to hold a sort of court at the Luxembourg, these two
beautiful women were the chief ornaments of its society. It was
commonly said--indeed it was universally believed--that Josephine, whose
character was in some respects indifferent, possessed more than
legitimate influence over the First Director. Buonaparte, however,
offered her his hand; she, after some hesitation, accepted it; and the
young general by this marriage (9th March, 1796) cemented his connection
with the society of the Luxembourg, and in particular with Barras and
Tallien, at that moment the most powerful men in France.

Napoleon had a strong tendency to the superstition of fatalism, and he
always believed that his fortunes were bound up in some mysterious
manner with those of this graceful woman. She loved him warmly, and
served him well. Her influence over him was great, and it was always
exerted on the side of humanity. She, and she alone, could overrule, by
gentleness, the excesses of passion to which he was liable; and her
subsequent fate will always form one of the darkest pages in the history
of her lord.

Tranquillity was now restored in Paris; and the Directory had leisure to
turn their attention to the affairs of the army of Italy, which were in
a most confused and unsatisfactory condition. They determined to give it
a new general; and Buonaparte was appointed to the splendid command. It
is acknowledged, in one of Josephine's letters, that the First Director
had promised to procure it for him before their marriage took place.
"Advance this man," said Barras to his colleagues, "or he will advance
himself without you."

Buonaparte quitted his wife ten days after their marriage; paid a short
visit to his mother at Marseilles; and arrived, after a rapid journey,
at the headquarters at Nice. From that moment opened the most brilliant
scene of his existence; yet, during the months of victory and glory that
composed it, his letters, full of love and home-sickness, attest the
reluctance with which he had so soon abandoned his bride.

[Footnote 6: De Bourienne.]

[Footnote 7: According to some, the last clause ran "die in an
hospital," and this was in the sequel interpreted to mean Malmaison--a
palace which (like our own St. James's) had once been an hospital.]




CHAPTER IV

     The Army of Italy--Tactics of Buonaparte--Battle of Monte
     Notte--Battle of Millesimo--Battle of Mondovi--Armistice of
     Cherasco--Close of the Campaign of Piedmont--Peace granted to
     Sardinia.


Buonaparte at the age of twenty-six assumed the command of the army of
Italy; exulting in the knowledge that, if he should conquer, the honour
would be all his own. He had worked for others at Toulon, at the Col di
Tende, at Saorgio: even in the affair of the Sections the first command
had been nominally in the hands of Barras. Henceforth he was to have no
rivals within the camp. "In three months," said he, "I shall be either
at Milan or at Paris." He had already expressed the same feeling in a
still nobler form. "You are too young," said one of the Directors,
hesitating about his appointment as general. "In a year," answered
Napoleon, "I shall be either old or dead."

He found the army in numbers about 50,000; but wretchedly deficient in
cavalry, in stores of every kind,[8] in clothing and even in food; and
watched by an enemy greatly more numerous. It was under such
circumstances that he at once avowed the daring scheme of forcing a
passage to Italy, and converting the richest territory of the enemy
himself into the theatre of the war. "Soldiers," said he, "you are
hungry and naked; the Republic owes you much, but she has not the means
to pay her debts. I am come to lead you into the most fertile plains
that the sun beholds. Rich provinces, opulent towns, all shall be at
your disposal. Soldiers! with such a prospect before you, can you fail
in courage and constancy?" This was his first address to his army. The
sinking hearts of the men beat high with hope and confidence when they
heard the voice of the young and fearless leader; and Augereau, Massena,
Serrurier, Joubert, Lannes--distinguished officers might themselves
have aspired to the chief command--felt, from the moment they began to
understand his character and system, that the true road to glory would
be to follow the star of Napoleon.

He perceived that the time was come for turning a new leaf in the
history of war. With such numbers of troops as the infant Republic could
afford him, he saw that no considerable advantages could be obtained
against the vast and highly-disciplined armies of Austria and her
allies, unless the established rules and etiquettes of strategy were
abandoned. It was only by such rapidity of motion as should utterly
transcend the suspicion of his adversaries, that he could hope to
concentrate the whole pith and energy of a small force upon some one
point of a much greater force opposed to it, and thus _rob_ them
(according to his own favourite phrase) of the victory. To effect such
rapid marches, it was necessary that the soldiery should make up their
minds to consider tents and baggage as idle luxuries; and that, instead
of a long and complicated chain of reserves and stores, they should dare
to rely wholly for the means of subsistence on the resources of the
countries into which their leader might conduct them. They must be
contented to conquer at whatever hazard; to consider no sacrifices or
hardships as worthy of a thought. The risk of destroying the character
and discipline of the men, by accustoming them to pillage, was obvious.
Buonaparte trusted to victory, the high natural spirit of the nation,
and the influence of his own genius, for the means of avoiding this
danger; and many years, it must be admitted, elapsed, before he found
much reason personally to repent of the system which he adopted. Against
the enemies of the Republic its success was splendid, even beyond his
hopes.

The objects of the approaching expedition were three: first, to compel
the King of Sardinia, who had already lost Savoy and Nice, but still
maintained a powerful army on the frontiers of Piedmont, to abandon the
alliance of Austria: secondly, to compel the Emperor, by a bold invasion
of Lombardy, to make such exertions in that quarter as might weaken
those armies which had so long hovered on the Rhine; and, if possible,
to stir up the Italian subjects of that crown to adopt the revolutionary
system and emancipate themselves for ever from its yoke. The third
object, though more distant, was not less important. The influence of
the Romish Church was considered by the Directory as the chief, though
secret, support of the cause of royalism within their own territory; and
to reduce the Vatican into insignificance, or at least force it to
submission and quiescence, appeared indispensable to the internal
tranquillity of France. The Revolutionary Government, besides this
general cause of hatred and suspicion, had a distinct injury to avenge.
Their agent, Basseville, had three years before been assassinated in a
popular tumult at Rome: the Papal troops had not interfered to protect
him, nor the Pope to punish his murderers; and the haughty Republic
considered this as an insult which could only be washed out with a sea
of blood.

Napoleon's plan for gaining access to the fair regions of Italy differed
from that of all former conquerors: they had uniformly penetrated the
Alps at some point or other of that mighty range of mountains: he judged
that the same end might be accomplished more easily by advancing along
the narrow strip of comparatively level country which intervenes between
those enormous barriers and the Mediterranean Sea, and forcing a passage
at the point where the last of the Alps melt, as it were, into the first
and lowest of the Apennine range. No sooner did he begin to concentrate
his troops towards this region, than the Austrian general, Beaulieu,
took measures for protecting Genoa, and the entrance of Italy. He
himself took post with one column of his army at Voltri, a town within
ten miles of Genoa: he placed D'Argenteau with another Austrian column
at Monte Notte, a strong height further to the westward; and the
Sardinians, under Colli, occupied Ceva--which thus formed the extreme
right of the whole line of the allied army. The French could not advance
towards Genoa but by confronting some one of the three armies thus
strongly posted, and sufficiently, as Beaulieu supposed, in
communication with each other.

It was now that Buonaparte made his first effort to baffle the science
of those who fancied there was nothing new to be done in warfare. On the
10th of April, D'Argenteau came down upon Monte Notte, and attacked some
French redoubts, in front of that mountain and the villages which bear
its name, at Montelegino. At the same time General Cervoni and the
French van were attacked by Beaulieu near Voltri, and compelled to
retreat. The determined valour of Colonel Rampon, who commanded at
Montelegino, held D'Argenteau at bay during the 10th and 11th: and
Buonaparte, contenting himself with watching Beaulieu, determined to
strike his effectual blow at the centre of the enemy's line. During the
night of the 11th various columns were marched upon Montelegino, that of
Cervoni and that of Laharpe from the van of the French line, those of
Augereau and Massena from its rear. On the morning of the 12th,
D'Argenteau, preparing to renew his attack on the redoubts of
Montelegino, found he had no longer Rampon only and his brave band to
deal with; that French columns were in his rear, on his flank, and drawn
up also behind the works at Montelegino; in a word, that he was
surrounded. He was compelled to retreat among the mountains; he left his
colours and cannon behind him, 1000 killed, and 2000 prisoners. The
centre of the allied army had been utterly routed, before either the
Commander-in-Chief at the left, or General Colli at the right of the
line, had any notion that a battle was going on.

Such was the battle of Monte Notte, the first of Napoleon's fields.
Beaulieu, in order that he might re-establish his communication with
Colli (much endangered by the defeat of D'Argenteau) was obliged to
retreat upon Dego; the Sardinian, with the same purpose in view, fell
back also, and took post at Millesimo; while D'Argenteau was striving to
re-organise his dispirited troops in the difficult country between. It
was their object to keep fast in these positions until succours could
come up from Lombardy; but Napoleon had no mind to give them such
respite.

The very next day after this victory he commanded a general assault on
the Austrian line. Augereau, with a fresh division, marched at the left
upon Millesimo; Massena led the centre towards Dego; and Laharpe, with
the French right wing, manœuvred to turn the left flank of Beaulieu.

Augereau rushed upon the outposts of Millesimo, seized and retained the
gorge which defends that place, and cut off Provera with two thousand
Austrians, who occupied an eminence called Cossaria, from the main body
of Colli's army. Next morning Buonaparte himself arrived at that scene
of the operations. He forced Colli to accept battle, utterly broke and
scattered him, and Provera, thus abandoned, was obliged to yield at
discretion.

Meanwhile Massena on the same day had assaulted the heights of Biastro,
and carrying them at the point of the bayonet, cut off Beaulieu's
communication with Colli; then Laparpe came in front and in flank also
upon the village of Dego, and after a most desperate conflict, drove the
Austrian commander-in-chief from his post. From this moment Colli and
Beaulieu were entirely separated. After the affairs of Dego and
Millesimo, the former retreated in disorder upon Ceva; the latter, hotly
pursued, upon Aqui; Colli, of course, being eager to cover Turin, while
the Austrian had his anxious thoughts already upon Milan. Colli was
again defeated at Mondovi in his disastrous retreat; he there lost his
cannon, his baggage, and the best part of his troops. The Sardinian army
might be said to be annihilated. The conqueror took possession of
Cherasco, within 10 miles of Turin, and there dictated the terms on
which the King of Sardinia was to be permitted to retain any shadow of
sovereign power.

Thus, in less than a month, did Napoleon lay the gates of Italy open
before him. He had defeated in three battles forces much superior to his
own; inflicted on them in killed, wounded and prisoners, a loss of
25,000 men; taken eighty guns and twenty-one standards; reduced the
Austrians to inaction; utterly destroyed the Sardinian king's army; and
lastly, wrested from his hands Coni and Tortona, the two great
fortresses called "the keys of the Alps,"--and indeed, except Turin
itself, every place of any consequence in his dominions. This
unfortunate prince did not long survive such humiliation. He was
father-in-law to both of the brothers of Louis XVI., and, considering
their cause and his own dignity as equally at an end, died of a broken
heart, within a few days after he had signed the treaty of Cherasco.

Buonaparte meanwhile had paused for a moment to consolidate his columns
on the heights, from which the vast plain of Lombardy, rich and
cultivated like a garden, and watered with innumerable fertilising
streams, lay at length within the full view of his victorious soldiery.
"Hannibal forced the Alps," said he gaily, as he now looked back on
those stupendous barriers, "and we have turned them."

"Hitherto" (he thus addressed his troops) "you have been fighting for
barren rocks, memorable for your valour, but useless to your country;
but now your exploits equal those of the armies of Holland and the
Rhine. You were utterly destitute, and you have supplied all your wants.
You have gained battles without cannon, passed rivers without bridges,
performed forced marches without shoes, bivouacked without strong
liquors, and often without bread. None but republican phalanxes,
soldiers of liberty, could have endured such things. Thanks for your
perseverance! But, soldiers, you have done nothing--for there remains
much to do. Milan is not yet ours. The ashes of the conquerors of
Tarquin are still trampled by the assassins of Basseville."

The consummate genius of this brief campaign could not be disputed; and
the modest language of the young general's despatches to the Directory,
lent additional grace to his fame. At this time the name of Buonaparte
was spotless: and the eyes of all Europe were fixed in admiration on his
career.

[Footnote 8: Berthier used to keep, as a curiosity, a general order, by
which three louis-d'or were granted as a great supply to each general of
division, dated on the very day of the victory at Albegna.]




CHAPTER V

     The French cross the Po at Placenza--The Battle of Fombio--The
     Bridge of Lodi--Napoleon occupies Milan--Resigns, and resumes his
     command--Insurrection of Pavia--Military Executions--The French
     pass the Mincio at Borghetto--Beaulieu retreats behind the
     Adige--Mantua besieged--Peace with the King of the Two
     Sicilies--The Pope buys a Respite.


Piedmont being now in the hands of Buonaparte, the Austrian general
concentrated his army behind the Po, with the purpose of preventing the
invader from passing that great river and making his way to the capital
of Lombardy.

Napoleon employed every device to make Beaulieu believe that he designed
to attempt the passage of the Po at Valenza; and the Austrian, a man of
routine, who had himself crossed the river at that point, was easily
persuaded that these demonstrations were sincere. Meanwhile his crafty
antagonist executed a march of incredible celerity upon Placenza, fifty
miles lower down the river; and appeared there on the 7th of May, to the
utter consternation of a couple of Austrian squadrons, who happened to
be reconnoitring in that quarter. He had to convey his men across that
great stream in the common ferry boats, and could never have succeeded
had there been anything like an army to oppose him. Andreossi
(afterwards so celebrated) was commander of the advanced guard; Lannes
(who became in the sequel Marshal Duke of Montebello) was the first to
throw himself ashore at the head of some grenadiers. The German hussars
were driven rapidly from their position. Buonaparte himself has said
that no operation in war is more critical than the passage of a great
river; on this occasion the skill of his arrangements enabled him to
pass one of the greatest in the world without the loss of a single man.

Beaulieu, as soon as he ascertained how he had been outwitted, advanced
upon Placenza, in the hope of making the invader accept battle with the
Po in his rear, and therefore under circumstances which must render any
check in the highest degree disastrous. Buonaparte, in the meantime, had
no intention to await the Austrian on ground so dangerous, and was
marching rapidly towards Fomboi, where he knew he should have room to
manœuvre. The advanced divisions of the hostile armies met at that
village on the 8th of May. The Imperialists occupied the steeples and
houses, and hoped to hold out until Beaulieu could bring up his main
body. But the French charged so impetuously with the bayonet, that the
Austrian, after seeing one-third of his men fall, was obliged to
retreat, in great confusion, leaving all his cannon behind him, across
the Adda; a large river which, descending from the Tyrolese mountains,
joins the Po at Pizzighitone--and thus forms the immediate defence of
the better part of the Milanese against any enemy advancing from
Piedmont. Behind this river Beaulieu now concentrated his army,
establishing strong guards at every ford and bridge, and especially at
Lodi, where as he guessed (for once rightly) the French general designed
to force his passage.

The wooden bridge of Lodi formed the scene of one of the most celebrated
actions of the war; and will ever be peculiarly mixed up with the name
of Buonaparte himself. It was a great neglect in Beaulieu to leave it
standing when he removed his headquarters to the east bank of the Adda:
his outposts were driven rapidly through the old struggling town of Lodi
on the 10th; and the French sheltering themselves behind the walls and
houses, lay ready to attempt the passage of the bridge. Beaulieu had
placed a battery of thirty cannon so as to sweep it completely; and the
enterprise of storming it in the face of this artillery, and the whole
army drawn up behind, is one of the most daring on record.

Buonaparte's first care was to place as many guns as he could get in
order in direct opposition to this Austrian battery. A furious cannonade
on his side of the river also now commenced. The General himself
appeared in the midst of the fire, pointing with his own hand two guns
in such a manner as to cut off the Austrians from the only path by which
they could have advanced to undermine the bridge; and it was on this
occasion that the soldiery, delighted with his dauntless exposure of his
person, conferred on him his honorary nickname of _The Little Corporal_.
In the meantime he had sent General Beaumont and the cavalry to attempt
the passage of the river by a distant ford (which they had much
difficulty in effecting), and awaited with anxiety the moment when they
should appear on the enemy's flank. When that took place, Beaulieu's
line, of course, showed some confusion, and Napoleon instantly gave the
word. A column of grenadiers, whom he had kept ready drawn up close to
the bridge, but under shelter of the houses, were in a moment wheeled to
the left, and their leading files placed upon the bridge. They rushed
on, shouting _Vive la Republique!_ but the storm of grape-shot for a
moment checked them. Buonaparte, Lannes, Berthier, and Lallemagne,
hurried to the front, and rallied and cheered the men. The column dashed
across the bridge in despite of the tempest of fire that thinned them.
The brave Lannes was the first who reached the other side, Napoleon
himself the second. The Austrian artillerymen were bayoneted at their
guns, before the other troops, whom Beaulieu had removed too far back,
in his anxiety to avoid the French battery, could come to their
assistance. Beaumont pressing gallantly with his horse upon the flank,
and Napoleon's infantry forming rapidly as they passed the bridge, and
charging on the instant, the Austrian line became involved in
inextricable confusion, broke up, and fled. The slaughter on their side
was great; on the French there fell only 200 men. With such rapidity,
and consequently with so little loss, did Buonaparte execute this
dazzling adventure--"the terrible passage," as he himself called it, "of
the bridge of Lodi."

It was indeed, terrible to the enemy. It deprived them of another
excellent line of defence, and blew up the enthusiasm of the French
soldiery to a pitch of irresistible daring. Beaulieu, nevertheless,
contrived to withdraw his troops in much better style than Buonaparte
had anticipated. He gathered the scattered fragments of his force
together, and soon threw the line of the Mincio, another tributary of
the Po, between himself and his enemy. The great object, however, had
been attained: the Austrian general escaped, and might yet defend
Mantua, but no obstacle remained between the victorious invader and the
rich and noble capital of Lombardy. The garrison of Pizzighitone, seeing
themselves effectually cut off from the Austrian army, capitulated. The
French cavalry pursued Beaulieu as far as Cremona, which town they
seized; and Napoleon himself prepared to march at once upon Milan.

It was after one of these affairs that an old Hungarian officer was
brought prisoner to Buonaparte, who entered into conversation with him,
and among other matters questioned him "what he thought of the state of
the war?" "Nothing," replied the old gentleman, who did not know he was
addressing the general-in-chief,--"nothing can be worse. Here is a young
man who knows absolutely nothing of the rules of war; to-day he is in
our rear, to-morrow on our flank, next day again in our front. Such
violations of the principles of the art of war are intolerable!"

The Archduke, who governed in Lombardy for the Emperor, had made many a
long prayer and procession; but the saints appeared to take no
compassion on him, and he now withdrew from the capital. A revolutionary
party had always existed there, as indeed in every part of the Austrian
dominions beyond the Alps; and the tricolor cockade, the emblem of
France, was now mounted by multitudes of the inhabitants. The
municipality hastened to invite the conqueror to appear among them as
their friend and protector; and on the 14th of May, four days after
Lodi, Napoleon accordingly entered, in all the splendour of a military
triumph, the venerable and opulent city of the old Lombard kings.

He was not, however, to be flattered into the conduct, as to serious
matters, of a friendly general. He levied immediately a heavy
contribution (eight hundred thousand pounds sterling) at Milan,--taking
possession, besides, of twenty of the finest pictures in the Ambrosian
gallery.

The conqueror now paused to look about and behind him; and proceeded
still farther to replenish his chest by exactions, for which no
justification can be adduced from the ordinary rules of international
law. With Sardinia he had already reckoned; of the Austrian capital in
Italy he had possession; there was only one more of the Italian
governments (Naples) with which the French Republic was actually at war;
although, indeed, he had never concealed his intention of revenging the
fate of Basseville on the court of Rome. The other powers of Italy were,
at worst, neutrals; with Tuscany and Venice, France had friendly
relations. But Napoleon knew or believed, that all the Italian
governments, without exception, considered the French invasion of Italy
as a common calamity; the personal wishes of most of the minor princes
(nearly connected as these were, by blood or alliance, with the imperial
house of Austria) he, not unreasonably, concluded were strongly against
his own success in this great enterprise. Such were his pretences--more
or less feasible; the temptation was, in fact, great; and he resolved to
consider and treat whatever had not been with him as if it had been
against him. The weak but wealthy princes of Parma and Modena, and
others of the same order, were forthwith compelled to purchase his
clemency not less dearly than if they had been in arms. Besides money,
of which he made them disburse large sums, he demanded from each a
tribute of pictures and statues, to be selected at the discretion of
Citizen Monge and other French connoisseurs, who now attended his march
for such purposes.

In modern warfare the works of art had hitherto been considered as a
species of property entitled in all cases to be held sacred; and
Buonaparte's violent and rapacious infraction of this rule now excited a
mighty clamour throughout Europe. Whether the new system originated with
himself, or in the commands of the Directory, is doubtful. But from this
time the formation of a great national gallery of pictures and statues
at Paris was considered as an object of the first importance; and every
victorious general was expected to bring trophies of this kind in his
train. Whether the fine arts themselves are likely to be improved in
consequence of the accumulation in any one place of such vast treasures
as the Louvre were long exhibited, there has been, and will no doubt
continue to be, much controversy. It is certain that the arts of France
derived no solid advantage from Napoleon's museum. The collection was a
mighty heap of incense for the benefit of the national vanity; and the
hand which brought it together was preparing the means of inflicting on
that vanity one of the most intolerable of wounds, in its ultimate
dispersion.

The Duke of Modena would fain have redeemed the famous St. Jerome, of
Correggio, at the price of £80,000; and Buonaparte's lieutenants urged
him to accept the money. "No," said he, "the duke's two millions of
francs would soon be spent; but his Correggio will remain for ages to
adorn Paris, and inspire the arts of France." The prophecy was not
inspired. Of one thing there can be no doubt; namely, that the
abstraction of these precious monuments of art from the Italian
collections was deeply and permanently resented by the Italian people.
This sacrilege, as those enthusiastic and intelligent lovers of all the
elegant arts considered it, turned back many a half-made convert from
the principles of the French Revolution.

Buonaparte remained but five days in Milan; the citadel of that place
still held out against him; but he left a detachment to blockade it, and
proceeded himself in pursuit of Beaulieu. The Austrian had now planted
the remains of his army behind the Mincio, having his left on the great
and strong city of Mantua, which has been termed "the citadel of Italy,"
and his right at Peschiera a Venetian fortress, of which he took
possession in spite of the remonstrances of the Doge. Peschiera stands
where the Mincio flows out of "its parent lake," the Lago di Guarda.
That great body of waters, stretching many miles backwards towards the
Tyrolese Alps, at once extended the line of defence, and kept the
communication open with Vienna. The Austrian veteran occupied one of the
strongest positions that it is possible to imagine. The invader hastened
once more to dislodge him.

The French Directory, meanwhile, had begun to entertain certain not
unnatural suspicions as to the ultimate designs of their young general,
whose success and fame had already reached so astonishing a height. They
determined to check, if they could, the career of an ambition which they
apprehended might outgrow their control. Buonaparte was ordered to take
half his army, and lead it against the Pope and the King of Naples, and
leave the other half to terminate the contest with Beaulieu, under the
orders of Kellerman. But he acted on this occasion with the decision
which these Directors in vain desired to emulate. He answered by
resigning his command. "One half of the army of Italy," said he, "cannot
suffice to finish the matter with the Austrian. It is only by keeping my
force entire that I have been able to gain so many battles and to be now
in Milan. You had better have one bad general than two good ones." The
Directory durst not persist in displacing the chief whose name was
considered as the pledge of victory. Napoleon resumed the undivided
command, to which now, for the last time, his right had been questioned.

Another unlooked-for occurrence delayed, for a few days longer, the
march upon Mantua. The heavy exactions of the French, and even more
perhaps the wanton contempt with which they treated the churches and the
clergy, had produced or fostered the indignation of a large part of the
population throughout Lombardy. Reports of new Austrian levies being
poured down the passes of the Tyrol were spread and believed. Popular
insurrections against the conqueror took place in various districts: at
least 30,000 were in arms. At Pavia the insurgents were entirely
triumphant; they had seized the town, and compelled the French garrison
to surrender.

This flame, had it been suffered to spread, threatened immeasurable evil
to the French cause. Lannes instantly marched to Benasco, stormed the
place, plundered and burnt it, and put the inhabitants to the sword
without mercy. The general in person appeared before Pavia; blew the
gates open; easily scattered the townspeople; and caused the leaders to
be executed, as if they had committed a crime in endeavouring to rescue
their country from the arm of a foreign invader. Everywhere the same
ferocious system was acted on. The insurgent commanders were tried by
courts-martial, and shot without ceremony. At Lugo, where a French
squadron of horse had been gallantly and disastrously defeated, the
whole of the male inhabitants were massacred. These bloody examples
quelled the insurrections; but they fixed the first dark and indelible
stain on the name of Napoleon Buonaparte.

The spirit of the Austrian and Catholic parties in Lombardy thus
crushed, the French advanced on the Mincio. The general made such
disposition of his troops, that Beaulieu doubted not he meant to pass
that river, if he could, at Peschiera. Meantime he had been preparing to
repeat the scene of Placenza;--and actually, on the 30th of May, forced
the passage of the Mincio, not at Peschiera, but further down at
Borghetto. The Austrian garrison at Borghetto in vain destroyed one arch
of the bridge. Buonaparte supplied the breach with planks; and his men,
flushed with so many victories, charged with a fury not to be resisted.
Beaulieu was obliged to abandon the Mincio, as he had before the Adda
and the Po, and to take up the new line of the Adige.

Meanwhile an occurrence, which may be called accidental, had nearly done
more than repay the Austrians for all their reverses. The left of their
line, stationed still further down the Mincio,--at Puzzuolo, no sooner
learned from the cannonade that the French were at Borghetto, than they
hastened to ascend the stream, with the view of assisting the defence of
their friends. They came too late for this; the commander at Borghetto
had retreated before they arrived. They, however, came unexpectedly;
and, such was the chance, reached Valleggio after the French army had
pursued the Austrians through it and onwards--and, at the moment when
Buonaparte and a few friends, considering the work of the day to be
over, and this village as altogether in the rear of both armies, were
about to sit down to dinner in security. Sebetendorff, who commanded the
Puzzuolo division, came rapidly, little guessing what a prize was near
him, into the village. The French general's attendants had barely time
to shut the gates of the inn, and alarm their chief by the cry "To
arms." Buonaparte threw himself on horseback, and galloping out by a
back passage, effected the narrowest of escapes from the most urgent of
dangers. Sebetendorff was soon assaulted by a French column, and
retreated, after Beaulieu's example, on the line of the Adige.
Buonaparte, profiting by the perilous adventure of Valleggio, instituted
a small corps of picked men, called _Guides_, to watch continually over
his personal safety. Such was the germ from which sprung the famous
Imperial Guard of Napoleon.

The Austrian had, in effect, abandoned for the time the open country of
Italy. He now lay on the frontier, between the vast tract of rich
provinces which Napoleon had conquered, and the Tyrol. The citadel of
Milan, indeed, still held out; but the force there was not great, and,
cooped up on every side, could not be expected to resist much longer.
Mantua, which possessed prodigious natural advantages, and into which
the retreating general had flung a garrison of full 15,000 men, was, in
truth, the last and only Italian possession of the imperial crown,
which, as it seemed, there might still be a possibility of saving.
Beaulieu anxiously waited the approach of new troops from Germany, to
attempt the relief of this great city; and his antagonist, eager to
anticipate the efforts of the imperial government, sat down immediately
before it.

Mantua lies on an island, being cut off on all sides from the main land
by the branches of the Mincio, and approachable only by five narrow
causeways, of which three were defended by strong and regular fortresses
or entrenched camps, the other two by gates, drawbridges, and batteries.
Situated amidst stagnant waters and morasses, its air is pestilential,
especially to strangers. The garrison were prepared to maintain the
position with their usual bravery; and it remained to be seen whether
the French general possessed any new system of attack, capable of
abridging the usual operations of the siege, as effectually as he had
already done by those of the march and the battle. His commencement was
alarming: of the five causeways, by sudden and overwhelming assaults, he
obtained four; and the garrison were cut off from the main land, except
only at the fifth causeway, the strongest of them all, named, from a
palace near it, _La Favorita_. It seemed necessary, however, in order
that this blockade might be complete, that the Venetian territory, lying
immediately beyond Mantua, should be occupied by the French. The power
of this ancient government was no longer such as to inspire much
respect, and Buonaparte resolved that the claim of neutrality should
form no obstacle to his measures. The French Directory had already most
ungenerously trampled on the dignity of Venice, by demanding that she
should no longer afford a retreat to the illustrious exile, the Count of
Provence, eldest surviving brother of Louis XVI.[9] That unfortunate
prince had, accordingly, though most reluctantly, been desired to quit
the Venetian states, and had already passed to the Rhine, where his
gallant cousin, the Prince of Condé, had long been at the head of a
small and devoted army composed of the expatriated gentry of France.
Buonaparte, however, chose to treat the reluctance with which Venice had
been driven to this violation of her hospitality, as a new injury to his
government: he argued that a power who had harboured in friendship, and
unwillingly expelled, the _Pretender_ to the French monarchy, had lost
all title to forbearance on the part of the Revolutionary forces. This
was a gross and ungenerous insult, and it was a gratuitous one; for he
had a far better argument behind. The imperial general had, as we have
seen, neglected the reclamations of the Doge, when it suited his purpose
to occupy Peschiera. "You are too weak," said Buonaparte, when the
Venetian envoy reached his headquarters, "to enforce neutrality on
hostile nations such as France and Austria. Beaulieu did not respect
your territory when his interest bade him violate it; nor shall I
hesitate to occupy whatever falls within the line of the Adige." In
effect, garrisons were placed forthwith in Verona, and all the strong
places of that domain. The tricolor flag now waved at the mouth of the
Tyrolese passes; and Napoleon, leaving Serrurier to blockade Mantua,
returned to Milan, where he had important business to arrange.

The King of Naples, utterly confounded by the successes of the French,
was now anxious to procure peace, almost on whatever terms, with the
apparently irresistible Republic. Nor did it, for the moment, suit
Buonaparte's views to contemn his advances. A peace with this prince
would withdraw some valuable divisions from the army of Beaulieu; and
the distance of the Neapolitan territory was such, that the French had
no means of carrying the war thither with advantage, so long as Austria
retained the power of sending new forces into Italy by the way of the
Tyrol. He concluded an armistice accordingly, which was soon followed by
a formal peace, with the King of the Two Sicilies; and the Neapolitan
troops, who had recently behaved with eminent gallantry, abandoning the
Austrian general, began their march to the south of Italy.

This transaction placed another of Napoleon's destined victims entirely
within his grasp. With no friend behind him, the Pope saw himself at the
mercy of the invader; and in terror prepared to submit. Buonaparte
occupied immediately his legations of Bologna and Ferrara, making
prisoners in the latter of these towns four hundred of the papal troops,
and a cardinal, under whose orders they were. The churchman militant was
dismissed on parole; but, being recalled to headquarters, answered that
his master, the Pope, had given him a dispensation to break his promise.
This exercise of the old dispensing power excited the merriment of the
conquerors. The Vatican, meanwhile, perceived that no time was to be
lost. The Spanish resident at the Roman court was despatched to Milan;
and the terms on which the holy father was to obtain a brief respite
were at length arranged. Buonaparte demanded and obtained a million
sterling, a hundred of the finest pictures and statues in the papal
gallery, a large supply of military stores, and the cession of Ancona,
Ferrara, and Bologna, with their respective domains.

He next turned his attention to the grand duke of Tuscany,--a prince who
had not only not taken any part in the war against the Republic, but had
been the very first of the European rulers to recognise its
establishment, and had kept on terms of friendship with all its
successive authorities. Buonaparte, however, in pursuance of his system,
resolved that the brother of the emperor should pay for his presumed
inclinations. For the present, the Florentine museum and the grand
duke's treasury were spared; but Leghorn, the seaport of Tuscany and
great feeder of its wealth, was seized without ceremony; the English
goods in that town were confiscated to the ruin of the merchants; and a
great number of English vessels in the harbour made a narrow escape. The
grand duke, in place of resenting these injuries, was obliged to receive
Buonaparte with all the appearances of cordiality at Florence; and the
spoiler repaid his courtesy by telling him, rubbing his hands with glee,
during the princely entertainment provided for him, "I have just
received letters from Milan; the citadel has fallen;--your brother has
no longer a foot of land in Lombardy." "It is a sad case," said Napoleon
himself long afterwards--speaking of these scenes of exaction and
insolence,--"it is a sad case when the dwarf comes into the embrace of
the giant; he is like enough to be suffocated--but 'tis the giant's
nature to squeeze hard."

In the meantime the general did not neglect the great and darling plan
of the French government, of thoroughly revolutionising the North of
Italy, and establishing there a group of Republics modelled after their
own likeness, and prepared to act as subservient allies in their mighty
contest with the European monarchies. The peculiar circumstances of
Northern Italy, as a land of ancient fame and high spirit, long split
into fragments, and ruled, for the most part, by governors of German
origin, presented many facilities for the realisation of this design;
and Buonaparte was urged constantly by his government at Paris, and by
a powerful party in Lombardy, to hasten its execution. He, however, had
by this time learned to think of many idols of the Directory with about
as little reverence as they bestowed on the shrines of Catholicism; in
his opinion more was to be gained by temporising with both the
governments and the people of Italy, than by any hasty measures of the
kind recommended. He saw well the deep disgust which his exactions had
excited. "You cannot," said he, "at one and the same moment rob people
and persuade them you are their friends." He fancied, moreover, that the
Pope and other nerveless rulers of the land might be converted into at
least as convenient ministers of French exaction, as any new
establishments he could raise in their room. Finally he perceived that
whenever the Directory were to arrange seriously the terms of a
settlement with the great monarchy of Austria, their best method would
be to restore Lombardy, and thereby purchase the continued possession of
the more conveniently situated territories of Belgium and the
Luxembourg. The general, therefore, temporised; content, in the
meantime, with draining the exchequers of the governments, and cajoling
from day to day the population. The Directory were with difficulty
persuaded to let him follow his own course; but he now despised their
remonstrances, and they had been taught effectually to dread his
strength.

Napoleon, it is clear enough, had no intention to grant these Italian
governments anything but a respite; nor is it to be doubted that their
disposition to take part with Austria remained as it had been before
they entered into these treaties with France. That the purpose of deceit
was mutual, affords, however, no plea of justification--least of all to
the stronger party. "It will be well," says Sir Walter Scott, "with the
world, when falsehood and finesse are as thoroughly exploded in
international communication as they are among individuals in civilised
countries."

[Footnote 9: The same who became afterwards Louis XVIII. of France.]




CHAPTER VI

     Wurmser supersedes Beaulieu--Jourdan and Moreau march into Germany,
     and are forced to retreat again--The Austrians advance from the
     Tyrol--Battle of Lonato--Escape of Napoleon--Battle near
     Castiglione--Wurmser retreats on Trent, and is recruited--Battle of
     Roveredo--Battle of Primolano--Battle of Bassano--Battle of St.
     George--Wurmser shut up in Mantua.


The general was now recalled to the war. The cabinet of Vienna, apt to
be slow, but sure to be persevering, had at last resolved upon sending
efficient aid to the Italian frontier. Beulieu had been too often
unfortunate to be trusted longer: Wurmser, who enjoyed a reputation of
the highest class, was sent to replace him: 300,000 men were drafted
from the armies on the Rhine to accompany the new general; and he
carried orders to strengthen himself further, on his march, by whatever
recruits he could raise among the warlike and loyal population of the
Tyrol.

The consequences of thus weakening the Austrian force on the Rhine were,
for the moment, on that scene of the contest, inauspicious. The French,
in two separate bodies, forced the passage of the Rhine--under Jourdan
and Moreau; before whom the imperial generals, Wartensleben and the
Archduke Charles, were compelled to retire. But the skill of the
Archduke ere long enabled him to effect a junction with the columns of
Wartensleben; and thus to fall upon Jourdan with a great superiority of
numbers, and give him a signal defeat. The loss of the French in the
field was great, and the bitter hostility of the German peasantry made
their retreat a bloody one. Moreau, on the other hand, learning how
Jourdan was discomfited, found himself compelled to give up the plan of
pursuing his march further into Germany, and executed that famous
retreat through the Black Forest which has made his name as splendid as
any victory in the field could have done. But this reverse, however
alleviated by the honours of Moreau's achievement, was attended with
appearances of the most perilous kind. The genius of Carnot had devised
a great scheme of operations, of which one half was thus at once cut
short. He had meant Moreau and Jourdan, coalescing beyond the Rhine, to
march upon the Tyrol; while Buonaparte should advance from the scene of
his Italian conquests, join his brother generals on that frontier, and
then march in union with them to dictate a peace before the gates of
Vienna. All hope of this junction of forces was now at an end for this
campaign. The French saw themselves compelled to resume the defensive on
the western frontier of Germany; and the army of Italy had to await the
overwhelming war which seemed ready to pour down upon Lombardy from the
passes of the Tyrol.

Wurmser, when he fixed his headquarters at Trent, mustered in all
80,000; while Buonaparte had but 30,000, to hold a wide country, in
which abhorrence of the French cause was now prevalent, to keep up the
blockade of Mantua, and to oppose this fearful odds of numbers in the
field. He was now, moreover, to act on the defensive, while his
adversary assumed the more inspiriting character of invader. He awaited
the result with calmness.

Wurmser might have learned from the successes of Buonaparte the
advantages of compact movement; yet he was unwise enough to divide his
great force into three separate columns, and to place one of these upon
a line of march which entirely separated it from the support of the
others. He himself, with his centre, came down on the left bank of the
Lago di Guarda, with Mantua before him as his mark: his left wing, under
Melas, was to descend the Adige, and drive the French from Verona; while
the right wing, under Quasdonowich, were ordered to keep down the valley
of the Chiese, in the direction of Brescia, and so to cut off the
retreat of Buonaparte upon the Milanese;--in other words, to interpose
the waters of the Lago di Guarda between themselves and the march of
their friends--a blunder not likely to escape the eagle eye of Napoleon.

He immediately determined to march against Quasdonowich, and fight him
where he could not be supported by the other two columns. This could
not be done without abandoning for the time the blockade of Mantua; but
it was not for Buonaparte to hesitate about purchasing a great ultimate
advantage by a present sacrifice, however disagreeable. The guns were
buried in the trenches during the night of the 31st July, and the French
quitted the place with a precipitation which the advancing Austrians
considered as the result of terror.

Napoleon meanwhile rushed against Quasdonowich, who had already come
near the bottom of the Lake of Guarda. At Salo, close by the lake, and,
further from it, at Lonato, two divisions of the Austrian column were
attacked and overwhelmed. Augereau and Massena, leaving merely
rear-guards at Borghetto and Peschiera, now marched also upon Brescia.
The whole force of Quasdonowich must inevitably have been ruined by
these combinations, had he stood his ground; but by this time the
celerity of Napoleon had overawed him, and he was already in full
retreat upon his old quarters in the Tyrol. Augereau and Massena,
therefore, countermarched their columns, and returned towards the
Mincio. They found that Wurmser had forced their rear-guards from their
posts: that of Massena, under Pigeon, had retired in good order to
Lonato; that of Augereau, under Vallette, had retreated in confusion,
abandoning Castiglione to the Austrians.

Flushed with these successes, old Wurmser now resolved to throw his
whole force upon the French, and resume at the point of the bayonet his
communication with the scattered column of Quasdonowich. He was so
fortunate as to defeat the gallant Pigeon at Lonato, and to occupy that
town. But this great new success was fatal to him. In the exultation of
victory he extended his line too much towards the right; and this
over-anxiety to open the communication with Quasdonowich had the effect
of so weakening his centre, that Massena, boldly and skilfully seizing
the opportunity, poured two strong columns on Lonato, and regained the
position; whereon the Austrian, perceiving that his army was cut in two,
was thrown into utter confusion. Some of his troops, marching to the
right, were met by those of the French, who had already defeated
Quasdonowich in that quarter, and obliged to surrender: the most
retreated in great disorder. At Castiglione alone a brave stand was
made. But Augereau, burning to wipe out the disgrace of Vallette,[10]
forced the position, though at a severe loss. Such was the battle of
Lonato. Thenceforth nothing could surpass the discomfiture and disarray
of the Austrians. They fled in all directions upon the Mincio, where
Wurmser himself, meanwhile, had been employed in revictualling Mantua.

A mere accident had once more almost saved the Imperialist. One of the
many defeated divisions of the army, wandering about in anxiety to find
some means of reaching the Mincio, came suddenly on Lonato, the scene of
the late battle, at a moment when Napoleon was there with only his staff
and guards about him. He knew not that any considerable body of the
enemy remained together in the neighbourhood; and, but for his presence
of mind, must have been their prisoner. The Austrian had not the skill
to profit by what fortune threw in his way; the other was able to turn
even a blunder into an advantage. The officer sent to demand the
surrender of the town was brought blindfolded, as is the custom, to his
headquarters; Buonaparte, by a secret sign, caused his whole staff to
draw up around him, and when the bandage was removed from the
messenger's eyes, saluted him thus: "What means this insolence? Do you
beard the French general in the middle of his army?" The German
recognised the person of Napoleon, and retreated stammering and
blushing. He assured his commander that Lonato was occupied by the
French in numbers that made resistance impossible. Four thousand men
laid down their arms; and then discovered that, if they had used them,
nothing could have prevented Napoleon from being their prize.

Wurmser collected together the whole of his remaining force, and
advanced to meet the conqueror. He, meanwhile, had himself determined on
the assault, and was hastening to the encounter. They met between Lonato
and Castiglione. Wurmser was totally defeated, and narrowly escaped
being a prisoner; nor did he without great difficulty regain Trent and
Roveredo, those frontier positions from which his noble army had so
recently descended with all the confidence of conquerors. In this
disastrous campaign the Austrians lost 40,000: Buonaparte probably
understated his own loss at 7000. During the seven days which the
campaign occupied he never took off his boots, nor slept except by
starts. The exertions which so rapidly achieved this signal triumph were
such as to demand some repose; yet Napoleon did not pause until he saw
Mantua once more completely invested. The reinforcement and
revictualling of that garrison were all that Wurmser could show, in
requital of his lost artillery, stores, and 40,000 men.

During this brief campaign the aversion with which the ecclesiastics of
Italy regarded the French manifested itself in various quarters. At
Pavia, Ferrara, and elsewhere, insurrections had broken out, and the
spirit was spreading rapidly at the moment when the report of Napoleon's
new victory came to re-awaken terror and paralyse revolt. The conqueror
judged it best to accept for the present the resubmission, however
forced, of a party too powerful to be put down by examples. The Cardinal
Mattei, Archbishop of Ferrara, being brought into his presence, uttered
the single word _peccavi_: the victor was contented with ordering him a
penance of seven days' fasting and prayer in a monastery: but he had no
intention to forget these occurrences whenever another day of reckoning
with the Pope should come.

While he was occupied with restoring quiet in the country, Austria, ever
constant in adversity, hastened to place 20,000 fresh troops under the
orders of Wurmser; and the brave veteran, whose heart nothing could
chill, prepared himself to make one effort more to relieve Mantua, and
drive the French out of Lombardy. His army was now, as before, greatly
the superior in numbers; and though the bearing of his troops was more
modest, their gallantry remained unimpaired. Once more the old general
divided his army; and once more he was destined to see it shattered in
detail.

He marched from Trent towards Mantua, through the defiles of the Brenta,
at the head of 30,000; leaving 20,000 under Davidowich at Roveredo, to
cover the Tyrol. Buonaparte instantly detected the error of his
opponent. He suffered him to advance unmolested as far as Bassano, and
the moment he was there, and consequently completely separated from
Davidowich and his rear, drew together a strong force, and darted on
Roveredo, by marches such as seemed credible only after they had been
accomplished.

The battle of Roveredo (Sept. 4) is one of Napoleon's most illustrious
days. The enemy had a strongly entrenched camp in front of the town; and
behind it, in case of misfortune, Calliano, with its castle seated on a
precipice over the Adige, where that river flows between enormous rocks
and mountains, appeared to offer an impregnable retreat. Nothing could
withstand the ardour of the French. The Austrians, though they defended
the entrenched camp with their usual obstinacy, were forced to give way
by the impetuosity of Dubois and his hussars. Dubois fell, mortally
wounded, in the moment of his glory: he waved his sabre, cheering his
men onwards with his last breath. "I die," said he, "for the
Republic;--only let me hear, ere life leaves me, that the victory is
ours." The French horse, thus animated, pursued the Germans, who were
driven, unable to rally, through and beyond the town. Even the gigantic
defences of Calliano proved of no avail. Height after height was carried
at the point of the bayonet; 7000 prisoners and fifteen cannon remained
with the conquerors. The Austrians fled to Levisa, which guards one of
the chief defiles of the Tyrolese Alps, and were there beaten again.
Vaubois occupied this important position with the gallant division who
had forced it. Massena fixed himself in Wurmser's late headquarters at
Trent; and Napoleon, having thus totally cut off the field-marshal's
communication with Germany, proceeded to issue proclamations calling on
the inhabitants of the Tyrol to receive the French as friends, and seize
the opportunity of freeing themselves for ever from the dominion of
Austria. He put forth an edict declaring that the sovereignty of the
district was henceforth in the French Republic, and inviting the people
themselves to arrange, according to their pleasure, its interior
government.

The French general made a grievous mistake when he supposed that the
Tyrolese were divided in their attachment to the Imperial government,
because he had found the Italian subjects of that crown to be so. The
Tyrol, one of the most ancient of the Austrian possessions, had also
been one of the best governed; the people enjoyed all the liberty they
wished under a paternal administration. They received with scornful
coldness the flattering exhortations of one in whom they saw only a
cunning and rapacious enemy; and Buonaparte was soon satisfied that it
would cost more time than was then at his disposal to republicanise
those gallant mountaineers. They, in truth, began to arm themselves, and
waited but the signal to rise everywhere upon the invaders.

Wurmser heard with dismay the utter ruin of Davidowich; and doubted not
that Napoleon would now march onwards into Germany, and joining Jourdan
and Moreau, whose advance he had heard of, and misguessed to have been
successful, endeavour to realise the great scheme of Carnot--that of
attacking Vienna itself. The old general saw no chance of converting
what remained to him of his army to good purpose, but by abiding in
Lombardy, where he thought he might easily excite the people in his
emperor's favour, overwhelm the slender garrisons left by Buonaparte,
and so cut off, at all events, the French retreat through Italy, in case
they should meet with any disaster in the Tyrol or in Germany. Napoleon
had intelligence which Wurmser wanted. Wurmser himself was his mark; and
he returned from Trent to Primolano where the Imperialist's vanguard
lay, by a forced march of not less than sixty miles performed in two
days. The surprise with which this descent was received may be imagined.
The Austrian van was destroyed in a twinkling. The French, pushing
everything before them, halted that night at Cismone--where Napoleon was
glad to have half a private soldier's ration of bread for his supper.
Next day he reached Bassano where the aged Marshal once more expected
the fatal rencounter. The battle of Bassano (Sept. 8) was a fatal
repetition of those that had gone before it. Six thousand men laid down
their arms. Quasdonowich, with one division of 4000, escaped to Friuli;
while Wurmser himself, retreating to Vicenza, there collected with
difficulty a remnant of 16,000 beaten and discomfited soldiers. His
situation was most unhappy; his communication with Austria wholly cut
off--his artillery and baggage all lost--the flower of his army no more.
Nothing seemed to remain but to throw himself into Mantua, and there
hold out to the last extremity, in the hope, however remote, of some
succours from Vienna; and such was the resolution of this often
outwitted but never dispirited veteran.

In order to execute his purpose, it was necessary to force a passage
somewhere on the Adige; and the Austrian, especially as he had lost all
his pontoons, would have had great difficulty in doing so, but for a
mistake on the part of the French commander at Legnago, who, conceiving
the attempt was to be made at Verona, marched to reinforce the corps
stationed there, and thus left his proper position unguarded. Wurmser,
taking advantage of this, passed with his army at Legnago, and after a
series of bloody skirmishes, in which fortune divided her favours pretty
equally, was at length enabled to throw himself into Mantua. Napoleon
made another narrow escape, in one of these skirmishes, at Arcola. He
was surrounded for a moment, and had just galloped off, when Wurmser
coming up and learning that the prize was so near, gave particular
directions to bring him in alive!

Buonaparte, after making himself master of some scattered corps which
had not been successful in keeping up with Wurmser, re-appeared once
more before Mantua. The battle of St. George--so called from one of the
suburbs of the city--was fought on the 13th of September, and after
prodigious slaughter, the French remained in possession of all the
causeways; so that the blockade of the city and fortress was henceforth
complete. The garrison, when Wurmser shut himself up, amounted to
26,000. Before October was far advanced the pestilential air of the
place, and the scarcity and badness of provisions, had filled his
hospitals, and left him hardly half the number in fighting condition.
The misery of the besieged town was extreme; and if Austria meant to
rescue Wurmser, there was no time to be lost.

[Footnote 10: Vallette was cashiered. Augereau was afterwards created
Duke of Castiglione, in memory of this exploit.]




CHAPTER VII

     Affairs of Corsica--Alvinzi assumes the Command of the Austrians on
     the Italian frontier--The three Battles of Arcola--Retreat of
     Alvinzi--Battle of Rivoli--Battle of La Favorita--Surrender of
     Mantua--Victor marches on Ancona--Despair of the Pope--Treaty of
     Tollentino.


The French party in Corsica had not contemplated without pride and
exultation the triumphs of their countryman. His seizure of Leghorn, by
cutting off the supplies from England, greatly distressed the opposite
party in the island, and an expedition of Corsican exiles, which he now
despatched from Tuscany, was successful in finally reconquering the
country. To Napoleon this acquisition was due; nor were the Directory
insensible to its value. He, meanwhile, had heavier business on his
hands.

The Austrian council well knew that Mantua was in excellent keeping; and
being now relieved on the Rhenish frontier, by the failure of Jourdan
and Moreau's attempts, were able to form once more a powerful armament
on that of Italy. The supreme command was given to Marshal Alvinzi, a
veteran of high reputation. He, having made extensive levies in Illyria,
appeared at Friuli; while Davidowich, with the remnant of Quasdonowich's
army, amply recruited among the bold peasantry of the Tyrol, and with
fresh drafts from the Rhine, took ground above Trent. The marshal had in
all 60,000 men under his orders. Buonaparte had received only twelve new
battalions, to replace all the losses of those terrible campaigns, in
which three imperial armies had already been annihilated. The enemy's
superiority of numbers was once more such, that nothing but the most
masterly combinations on the part of the French general could have
prevented them from sweeping everything before them in the plains of
Lombardy.

Buonaparte heard in the beginning of October that Alvinzi's columns were
in motion: he had placed Vaubois to guard Trent, and Massena at Bassano
to check the march of the field-marshal: but neither of these generals
was able to hold his ground. The troops of Vaubois were driven from
that position of Calliano, the strength of which has been already
mentioned, under circumstances which Napoleon considered disgraceful to
the character of the French soldiery. Massena avoided battle; but such
was the overwhelming superiority of Alvinzi, that he was forced to
abandon the position of Bassano. Napoleon himself hurried forward to
sustain Massena; and a severe rencontre, in which either side claimed
the victory, took place at Vicenza. The French, however, retreated, and
Buonaparte fixed his headquarters at Verona. The whole country between
the Brenta and the Adige was in the enemy's hands; while the still
strong and determined garrison of Mantua in Napoleon's rear, rendering
it indispensable for him to divide his forces, made his position
eminently critical.

His first care was to visit the discomfited troops of Vaubois. "You have
displeased me," said he, "you have suffered yourselves to be driven from
positions where a handful of determined men might have bid an army
defiance. You are no longer French soldiers! You belong not to the army
of Italy." At these words, tears streamed down the rugged cheeks of the
grenadiers. "Place us but once more in the van," cried they, "and you
shall judge whether we do not belong to the army of Italy." The general
dropped his angry tone; and in the rest of the campaign no troops more
distinguished themselves than these.

Having thus revived the ardour of his soldiery, Buonaparte concentrated
his columns on the right of the Adige, while Alvinzi took up a very
strong position on the heights of Caldiero, on the left bank, nearly
opposite to Verona. In pursuance of the same system which had already so
often proved fatal to his opponents, it was the object of Buonaparte to
assault Alvinzi, and scatter his forces, ere they could be joined by
Davidowich. He lost no time, therefore, in attacking the heights of
Caldiero; but in spite of all that Massena, who headed the charge, could
do, the Austrians, strong in numbers and in position, repelled the
assailants with great carnage. A terrible tempest prevailed during the
action, and Napoleon, in his despatches, endeavoured to shift the blame
to the elements.

The country behind Caldiero lying open to Davidowich, it became
necessary to resort to other means of assault, or permit the dreaded
junction to occur. The genius of Buonaparte suggested to him on this
occasion a movement altogether unexpected. During the night, leaving
1,500 men under Kilmaine to guard Verona, he marched for some space
rearwards, as if he had meant to retreat on Mantua, which the failure of
his recent assault rendered not unlikely. But his columns were ere long
wheeled again towards the Adige: and finding a bridge ready prepared,
were at once placed on the same side of the river with the enemy,--but
in the rear altogether of his position, amidst those wide-spreading
morasses which cover the country about Arcola. This daring movement was
devised to place Napoleon between Alvinzi and Davidowich; but the unsafe
nature of the ground, and the narrowness of the dykes, by which alone he
could advance on Arcola, rendered victory difficult, and reverse most
hazardous. He divided his men into three columns, and charged at
daybreak (Nov. 15) by the three dykes which conduct to Arcola. The
Austrian, not suspecting that the main body of the French had evacuated
Verona, treated this at first as an affair of light troops; but as day
advanced the truth became apparent, and these narrow passages were
defended with the most determined gallantry. Augereau headed the first
column that reached the bridge of Arcola, and was there, after a
desperate effort, driven back with great loss. Buonaparte, perceiving
the necessity of carrying the point ere Alvinzi could arrive, now threw
himself on the bridge, and seizing a standard, urged his grenadiers once
more to the charge.

The fire was tremendous: once more the French gave way. Napoleon
himself, lost in the tumult, was borne backwards, forced over the dyke,
and had nearly been smothered in the morass, while some of the advancing
Austrians were already between him and his baffled column. His imminent
danger was observed: the soldiers caught the alarm, and rushing
forwards, with the cry, "Save the general," overthrew the Germans with
irresistible violence, plucked Napoleon from the bog, and carried the
bridge. This was the first battle of Arcola.

This movement revived in the Austrian lines their terror for the name of
Buonaparte; and Alvinzi saw that no time was to be lost if he meant to
preserve his communication with Davidowich. He abandoned Caldiero, and
gaining the open country behind Arcola, robbed his enemy for the moment
of the advantage which his skill had gained. Napoleon, perceiving that
Arcola was no longer in the rear of his enemy but in his front, and
fearful lest Vaubois might be overwhelmed by Davidowich, while Alvinzi
remained thus between him and the Brenta, evacuated Arcola, and
retreated to Ronco.

Next morning, having ascertained that Davidowich had not been engaged
with Vaubois, Napoleon once more advanced upon Arcola. The place was
once more defended bravely, and once more it was carried. But this
second battle of Arcola proved no more decisive than the first; for
Alvinzi still contrived to maintain his main force unbroken in the
difficult country behind; and Buonaparte again retreated to Ronco.

The third day was decisive. On this occasion also he carried Arcola;
and, by two stratagems, was enabled to make his victory effectual. An
ambuscade, planted among some willows, suddenly opened fire on a column
of Croats, threw them into confusion, and, rushing from the concealment,
crushed them down into the opposite bog, where most of them died.
Napoleon was anxious to follow up this success by charging the Austrian
main body on the firm ground behind the marshes. But it was no easy
matter to reach them there. He had, in various quarters, portable
bridges ready for crossing the ditches and canals; but the enemy stood
in good order, and three days' hard fighting had nearly exhausted his
own men. In one of his conversations at St. Helena, he thus told the
sequel. "At Arcola I gained the battle with twenty-five horsemen. I
perceived the critical moment of lassitude in either army--when the
oldest and bravest would have been glad to be in their tents. All my men
had been engaged. Three times I had been obliged to re-establish the
battle. There remained to me but some twenty-five _Guides_. I sent them
round on the flank of the enemy with three trumpets, bidding them blow
loud and charge furiously. _Here is the French cavalry_, was the cry;
and they took to flight."... The Austrians doubted not that Murat and
all the horse had forced a way through the bogs; and at that moment
Buonaparte commanding a general assault in front, the confusion became
hopeless. Alvinzi retreated finally, though in decent order, upon
Montebello.

It was at Arcola that Muiron, who ever since the storming of Little
Gibraltar had lived on terms of brotherlike intimacy with Napoleon,
seeing a bomb about to explode threw himself between it and his general,
and thus saved his life at the cost of his own. Napoleon, to the end of
his life, remembered and regretted this heroic friend.

In these three days Buonaparte lost 8000 men: the slaughter among his
opponents must have been terrible. Davidowich, in never coming up to
join Alvinzi after his success over Vaubois, and Wurmser, in remaining
quiet at Mantua, when by advancing with his garrison he might have
incommoded the French rear, were guilty of grievous misjudgment or
indecision. Once more the rapid combinations of Napoleon had rendered
all the efforts of the Austrian cabinet abortive. For two months after
the last day of Arcola, he remained the undisturbed master of Lombardy.
All that his enemy could show, in set-off for the slaughter and
discomfiture of Alvinzi's campaign, was that they retained possession of
Bassano and Trent, thus interrupting Buonaparte's access to the Tyrol
and Germany. This advantage was not trivial; but it had been dearly
bought.

A fourth army had been baffled; but the resolution of the Imperial Court
was indomitable, and new levies were diligently forwarded to reinforce
Alvinzi. Once more (January 7, 1797) the Marshal found himself at the
head of 60,000: once more his superiority over Napoleon's muster-roll
was enormous; and once more he descended from the mountains with the
hope of relieving Wurmser and reconquering Lombardy. The fifth act of
the tragedy was yet to be performed.

We may here pause to notice some civil events of importance which
occurred ere Alvinzi made his final descent. The success of the French
naturally gave new vigour to the Italian party, who, chiefly in the
large towns, were hostile to Austria, and desirous to settle their own
government on the republican model. Napoleon had by this time come to be
anything but a Jacobin in his political sentiments: his habits of
command; his experience of the narrow and ignorant management of the
Directory; his personal intercourse with the ministers of sovereign
powers; his sense daily strengthened by events, that whatever good was
done in Italy proceeded from his own skill and the devotion of his
army,--all these circumstances conspired to make him respect himself and
contemn the government, almost in despite of which he had conquered
kingdoms for France. He therefore regarded now with little sympathy the
aspirations after republican organisation which he had himself
originally stimulated among the northern Italians. He knew, however,
that the Directory had, by absurd and extravagant demands, provoked the
Pope to break off the treaty of Bologna, and to raise his army to the
number of 40,000,--that Naples had every disposition to back his
Holiness with 30,000 soldiers, provided any reverse should befall the
French in Lombardy,--and, finally, that Alvinzi was rapidly preparing
for another march, with numbers infinitely superior to what he could
himself extort from the government of Paris;[11] and considering these
circumstances, he felt himself compelled to seek strength by gratifying
his Italian friends. Two Republics accordingly were organised; the
Cispadane and the Transpadane--handmaids rather than sisters of