SEVENTH THOUSAND. LIFE or NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, EMPEROR OF FRANCE. BY J. G. LOCKHART, 4 VTCW EDITION, REVISED AND COKKKCTED. AUBURN AND BUFFALO: MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN, 1854. IDC903 Entered sctTdtaing to Jljst tf/ pbngress, A. D., 1851, by j. . . D JE R B. 7,.* t H I L L & Jl , In the Clerk's omc.e;o:-tUe/DJstri(* Cwt o t&fe United States for the Northern District of "tfe'w Vort AUBUEN : MILLKB, ORTON & MULLIGAN STKEEOTYPEBS AND PBINTEES. INTRODUCTION. THE following life of Napoleon Bonaparte is mainly an abridgment of Lockhart's Napoleon. Many parts have been re-written entirely, and the whole has been so carefully emended that it is believed that in this book will be found a better portraiture of the remarkable man whose history it relates than in the original work. An Englishman is. in many respects, unqualified to judge fairly of Napoleon ; and Lock- hart has failed to hold up his character in what, to an unprejudiced mind, would readily appear to be the proper aspect. It lias been the object of the Editor of the present work to remedy this defect, and to represent Bonaparte more as he was, when viewed as a subject of his- tory, than as he appeared to be when contemplated by an Englishman solely as the bitterest foe to his nation. There are various orders of greatness among which a great man may be classed. The first, because the highest, is moral greatness, where the soul binds itself to virtue, and passes its life in strict ad- herence to duty and truth. Nothing can break it from its allegiance. The storms may rage and the billows madly dash around it, but its " sure and steadfast" anchor enables it to ride securely amid the tem- pests and the waves. Whatever may befall it, nothing can shake its virtue. The rational spirit beats back every claim of sense, and rises with a serene complacency triumphant over every colliding interest. Such a soul does not shut itself up in cloisters, thinking it can best overcome temptations by fleeing from them; it does not mortify the body in the vain hope of resisting its appetites by destroying them ; it boldly meets its foe and vanquishes it in fair and open combat ; it keeps the body under subjection, but allows it to remain a body still. It moves among men, shedding all around its benign influences, winning men to admire and love the truth. Joy and peace and gladness flow from its steps as naturally as light issues from the uprisen sun. It may animate the body of a Howard, and the prisoner's heart shall leap with gladness, and the darkness of the dungeon flee away at its approach. It may live in a Wilberforce or a Clarkson, and the captive loses his fetters, and the slave walks forth a freeman at its voice. It may inspire the heart of a missionary of the Cross, and will be seen when the gentle Martyn joyfully dies under the Persian palm-tree, or the heroic Schwartz proclaims his sublime message to the waiting thousands of India, and gladly labors amid privations and toil for the cause he has espoused. It passes away from among us, and we think of it as of a star which has left our firmament to shed its rays over fairer scenes than any earth can boast. There have been such souls, but Bonaparte's greatness was not of this class. There was nothing in his life which allows us to rank him among the morally great. The Apostle Paul is the noblest human example of this character; but who would place Napoleon in the same rank of greatness with him ? IV INTRODUCTION. Next in order is intellectual greatness. A soul intellectually great lifts itself above the earth, and spends its life in a world of its own creation. It looks down upon the storm of human passions, itself above their tumult and unaffected by their rage. Its end is to know the truth. The truth is its food and its joy. It searches nature over that it may find the truth. It explores the earth, whose rock-bound volumes are made to open and disclose their hidden meaning to its gaze. It scans the heavens, and makes each star to minister to its cravings. Its ceaseless yearnings lead it to the human spirit, whose wondrous powers yield their tribute to its earnest scrutiny. Everywhere it is looking for the truth. This is its great mission, and it stops not till it accom- plishes it. It cares nothing for facts, only as these may give it prin- ciples. It searches for the science of things, but things themselves are valueless only as they illustrate it. It searches for the laws which regulate the universe, and will not rest till these are found. Now, here is greatness, and that too of a high order, though inferior to the former. There are more who belong to this class than to the morally great ; but we cannot rank Napoleon even here. He was not an in- tellectually great man, viewed as we have regarded the term. Plato, the world's great teacher in philosophy, stands in his sublime loneliness first of all who may claim this title ; but who would think of placing Napoleon in the same rank of greatness with him ? A third order of greatness is that of action. A great actor may be neither morally nor intellectually great in the sense above given to the terms. As an actor he has nothing to do with abstractions. His business is with men and things. Virtue and truth are nothing to him as ends, but are both subservient to the higher end with him of making everything move according to his grand purposes. His delight is in Revolutions, and the wild upheavirigs of society where long-established dynasties sink to nothingness, and powerful thrones crumble to dust in a day. War nourishes him with its scenes of carnage ; the roar of battle is sweet music in his ear. It is his joy to play with the wild elements of human passion, and guide them all according to his will The sceptre and the sword are the instruments lie wields ; the court and the camp are his home. When a nation is born, his name is written in blood or in tears upon its baptismal register. Men fear, but few love him. He awes all into submission, and makes them live only as he dispenses his favors. Now in this is greatness, and here we must place Napoleon. He was the greatest actor that the world has known since the time of Caesar. He sported with crowns and sceptres as the baubles of a child. He rode triumphantly to power over the ruins of the thrones with which he strewed his pathway. Vast armies melted away like wax before him. He moved over the earth as a meteor traverses the sky, astonishing and startling all by the suddenness and brilliancy of his career. Here was his greatness. The earth will feel his power till its last cycle shall have been run. He might have been great in his love of virtue or of truth, but he forsook these and chose a meaner end of life. Verily he hath his reward. " The warrior's name, Tho' pealed and chimed on all the tongues of fame, Sounds less harmonious to the grateful mind, Than his, who fashions and improves mankind." CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PA0B Birth of Napoleon His Education at Brienne and at Paris Enters the Army His First Military Service At Toulon Junot At Nice Fall of Robespierre Bonaparte at Paris He com- mands the Army of the Interior Marries Josephine Appointed to the Command of the Army of Italy His Tactics Campaign of Piedmont Peace granted to Sardinia The French cross the Po The Battle of Fombio The Bridge of Lodi Napoleon occupies Milan Mantua besieged Peace with the King of the Two Sicilies The Pope buys a Respite A. D. 1769-1796, . 9 CHAPTER II. Wurmser supersedes Beaulieu The Austrians advance from the Tyrol Battle of Lonato Escape of Napoleon Castiglione Wurrnser retreats on Trent, and is recruited He is shut up in Mantua Alvinzi is sent by Austria to Italy The three Battles of Arcola Retreat of Alvinzi Rivoli Surrender of Mantua Despair of the Pope Treaty of Tollentio The Archduke Charles Battle of Tagliamento Retreat of the Archduke * Treaty of Leoben Pichegru The Directory in Trouble, and appeal to Bonaparte Josephine The Court of Montebello ^ The Treaty of Campo-Formio A. D. 1796-1797, . . . 43 CHAPTER III. Napoleon at Rastadt He arrives at Paris His Reception by the Directory He is appointed to command the Army for the In- vasion of England He recommends an Expedition to Egypt Voyage to Egypt Malta surrendered Arrival in Egypt The March up the Nile Battle of the Pyramids -Cairo surrenders ^ Battle of Aboukir Bonaparte's Administration in Egypt Armaments of the Porte Bonaparte at Suez Siege of Acre Retreat to Egypt Ppfeat of the Turks at Aboukir Bonaparte VI CONTENTS. / P-VOB embarks for France Retrospect Bonaparte in Paris^ Revolu- tion of the 18th Brumaire The Provisional Consulate A. D. 1798-1799, . . ' ...-. , 72 CHAPTER IV. i/ Reforms in France The Chouans Constitution of the Year VIII. Bonaparte writes to the King of England Lord Grenville's Answer Movements for War Napoleon at the Alps Passes the Great St. Bernard Difficulties The taking of St. Bard The Siege of Genoa The Battle of Marengo Italy recon- quered Napoleon returns to Paris Reception there Plots against him Ceracchi The Infernal Machine Austria Battle of Hohenlinden Treaty of Luneville A. D. 1799-1800, . 110 CHAPTER V. Affairs of Naples and the Pope The EmperDr Paul of Russia Northern Confederacy against England Nelson Egypt The Flotilla of Boulogne Negotiations with England Peace of Amiens Results The Concordat The Legion of Honor Bonaparte President of the Cis- Alpine Republic First Consul for Life Grand Mediator of the Helvetic Confederacy St. Domingo Toussaint 1'Overture England refuses to carry out the Treaty Lord Whitworth Rupture of the Peace of Amiens Barbarous Course of England and France A. D. 1800-1803, 142 CHAPTER VI. War again French seize Hanover and Naples English take St. Domingo and other Colonies Scheme of invading England resumed Plots against Napoleon Murder of the Duke D'En- ghien Napoleon Emperor of France^ King of Italy New Coalition against France Napoleon heads the Army in Ger- many Operations of the War Battle of Austerlitz Treaty of Presburg Confederation of the Rhine Prussia declares War Bonaparte heads the Army Naumburg taken Battle of Jena Napoleon enters Berlin Humiliation of Prussia Inci- dentA. D. 18031806, -\B3 . CHAPTER VII. The Decrees of Berlin Napoleon renews the Campaign War- saw taken Battle of Pultusk Bennigsen Battle of Preuss- Eylau Taking of Dantzic Battle of Friedland Armistice Conferences of PiKit lYr.oe Coalition n^.iinst England In- CONTENTS. Vl / , PAQB ternal Affairs of "Franrt'.- T\\(* ^^minisff^t.ifm nf ISTapoleoiiJ His r l flborsI-'J 1 he flmirt^Rftla.t.inna with Spain and Portugal Intrigues of the Spanish Court Murat at Madrid Charles and Ferdinand abdicate at Bayonne Insurrection of the Spaniards against the French Napoleon visits Spain Reverses followed by Success A. D. 1806 1808, 206 CHAPTER VIII. Austria declares War Napoleon heads his Army in Germany Battles of Landshut and Eckmuhl Vienna Battles of Asperne and Essling, and Wagram Napoleon quarrels with the Pope Treaty of Schoenbrunn Napoleon divorces Josephine Marries the Archduchess Maria Louisa Deposes Louis Bonaparte State of the Peninsula Birth of the King of Rome Fouch6 Relations with Russia Military Preparations Cardinal Fesch "War proclaimed Arrangement of the Armies Passage of the Niemen Napoleon at Wilna A. D. 18091812, . 233 CHAPTER IX. Russia makes Peace with England, Sweden and Turkey Internal Preparations Napoleon leaves Wilna Smolensko Borodino Napoleon at Moscow Constancy and Enthusiasm of the Rus- sians Napoleon quits Moscow Battles Retreat Repeated Defeats and Sufferings of the French Passage of the Beresina Napoleon quits the Army His Arrival at Warsaw At Dresden At Paris Conspiracy of Mallet Prussia declares War Blucher Bernadotte Campaign of Saxony begins Battle of Bautzen Armistice Congress of Prague A. D. 18121813, . . . . 263 CHAPTER X. Napoleon and Metternich Intelligence from Spain Congress of Prague dissolved Austria declares War Battle of Dresden Culm Dennewitz Napoleon retires from the Elbe The Battle of Leipsic Hanau The Allies on the Rhine Germany and Denmark Declaration of the Allies at Frankfort Holland Italy Spain Obstinacy of Napoleon His Military Prepara- tions The Campaign of France Superhuman efforts of Bona- parte Ultimate Failure The Allies take Possession of Paris Napoleon abdicates Banished to Elba His Conduct and Occu- pations there Discontents in France Jealousy of the Army Napoleon escapes from Elba A. D. 1S13 1815, . . 297 V CONTENTS. CHAPTER XL Napoleon again in France The Hundred Days The Emperor upon the Throne once more Prepares for War He heads his Army on the Belgian Frontier Defeats Blucher at Ligny Battle of Quatre-bras The English fall back on Waterloo- Battle of Waterloo Napoleon arrives at Paris Abdicates again At Rochefort Embarks in the Bellerophon Decision of the English Government Napoleon banished to St. Helena- His Life at Longwood Sir Hudson Lowe The Health of the Captive fails Dies at St. Helena May 5th, 1821, aged 52 years A. D. 18151821, 854 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. CHAPTER I. BIRTH OF NAPOLEON His EDUCATION AT BRIENNE AND AT PARIS Enters the Army His First Military Service At Toulon Junot At Nice Fall of Robespierre Bonaparte at Paris He commands the Army of the Interior Marries Josephine Appointed to the Command of the Army of Italy His Tactics Campaign of Piedmont Peace granted to Sardinia The French cross the Po The Battle of Fom- bio The Bridge of Lodi Napoleon occupies Milan Mantua be- sieged Peace with the King of the Two Sicilies The Pope buys a Respite A. D. 1769-1796. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE was born at Ajaccio, on the island of Corsica, August 15th, 1769. Of his boyish days few anecdotes have been preserved in Corsica. His chosen plaything, they say, was a small brass can- non ; and, when at home in the school-vacations, his favorite retreat was a solitary summer-house among the rocks on the sea-shore, about a mile from Ajaccio, where his mother's brother (afterward cardinal Fesch) had a villa. The place is now in ruins, and overgrown with bushes, and the people call it " Napoleon's Grotto. 1 ' 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 at- tire, and his partiality for a pretty little girl in the neighborhood, were ridiculed together in a song which iO NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1776. his playmates used to shout after him in the streets of Ajaccio : " Napoleone di mezza calzetta Fa 1'amore a Giacominetta."* His superiority of character was very early felt. An aged relation, Lucien Bonaparte, archdeacon of Ajac- cio, called the children about his death-bed to take farewell and bless them : " You, Joseph," said the ex- .piring taati,'"'jare. r the eldest ; but Napoleon is the head of 4 tiis^ farnify. T.ake care to remember my words." Napoleon iook 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 profes- sion. When he was about seven years old (1776), his father was sent to France as one of a deputation from the Corsican noblesse to king Louis XVI. ; and Napo- leon, for whom admission had been procured 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 afterward, he said he should never forget the bit- ter parting with his mother ere he set out on his travels. His progress in Latin, and in literature generally, at- tracted no great praise ; but in every study likely to be of service to the future soldier, he distinguished himself above his contemporaries. 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^ among the French youth, and underwent many mortifications from * Napoleon, with his stockings about his heels, makes love 'to Gia- tominetta. f Corsica became by law a French department only two months before Napoleon wa^ born. A short time previously to his birth, an ineffectual effort had been imde by the Corsicans under General Paoli :<> rivci'.l the domination <'f the French. 1785.] PARIS. 11 both causes. The haughtiness with which some of these conducted themselves towards this poor, solitary alien, had a strong effect on his subsequent character. His temper was reserved and proud ; he had fe.w friends, no bosom companion ; he lived by himself, and among his books and maps. Yet, when any scheme requiring skill and courage was in agitation, he was pretty sure to be called in as temporary dictator. In 1783, Bonaparte was, on the recommendation of his masters, sent from Brienne to the Royal Military School at Paris ; this being an extraordinary compli- ment to the genius and proficiency of a boy of four- teen. Here he spent nearly three years, devoted to his studies. That he labored hard 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 pfaced 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, vic- tory, and death, were appropriate food for Napoleon's young imagination ; and, his taste being little scru- pulous as to minor particulars, Ossian continued to be through life his favorite poet. While at Paris, he attracted much notice among those who had access to compare him with his fellows; his acquirements, among other advantages, admitted him to the familiar society of the celebrated Abbe Raynal. 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 artil- lery 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 12 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1792 cultivated society of the place. His personal advan- tages were considerable ; the outline of the counte- nance classically beautiful ; the eye deep-set and daz- zlingly brilliant ; the figure short, but slim, active, and perfectly knit. Courtly grace and refinement of man- ners he never attained, nor perhaps coveted ; but he early learned the art, not difficult probably to any per- son possessed of such genius and such accomplish- ments, of rendering himself eminently agreeable wher- ever it suited his purpose or inclination to be so. In the beginning of 1792, he became captain of ar- tillery ; and, happening to be in Paris, witnessed the terrible scenes of the 20th of June, when the revolu- tionary mob stormed the Tuileries, and the king and his family, after undergoing innumerable insults and degradations, with the utmost difficulty preserved their lives ; and of the still darker 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 Tuille- ries. Bonaparte was disgusted at the terrible spectacle. The yells, screams, and pikes with bloody heads upon them, formed a scene which he afterward described as " hideous and revolting." As yet he had been but a spectator of the revolution, destined to pave his own path to sovereign power ; ere long circumstances called on him to play a part. General Paoli, who had lived in England since the termination of the Corsican struggle, was cheered, when the great French revolution first broke out, with the hope that liberty was about to be restored to that island. 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 libert^ , and avowing his aver- sion to the growing principles of Jacobinism, and the 1793.] CORSICA. 13 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. Bonaparte 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 even- ings among his family and old acquaintance, when the arrival of the expedition threw the island into convul- sion. Paoli, who knew him well, did all he could to enlist him in his cause ; he used, among other flatte- ries, to clap him on the back, and tell him he was "one of Plutarch's men/' But Napoleon had satisfied him- self 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 there- fore resisted all Paoli's offers, and tendered his sword to the service of Salicetti. He was appointed pro- visionally 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 horse- flesh, were glad to evacuate the tower, and escape to the sea. ~ The English government now began to rein force Paoli, and the cause of the French party seemed for the moment to be desperate. The Bonapartes were banished from Corsica, and their mother and sisters took refuge first at Nice, and afterward at Mar- seilles, where for some time they suffered all the incon- veniences 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 af- fection for his native soil. 14 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1793. This first military service of Napoleon was soon followed by other steps in his onward career. A few months previously to this, on the 21st of January, 1793, the king of France had been put to death . and in less than a month afterward, the convention had declared war against England. The murder of the king had in fact united the princes of Europe against th'e 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 al- lied admirals took possession accordingly of Toulon, and a motley force of English, Spanish, and Neapol- itans prepared to defend the place. In the harbor and roads there were about twenty-five ships of the line, and the city contained immense naval and military stores of every description, so that the defection jf Toulon was regarded as a calamity of the first by the revolutionary government. This event occurred in the midst of the reigr of terror. The streets of Paris were streaming with in- nocent blood ; Robespierre was glutting himself v ith murder ; fear and rage were the passions that divided mankind-, and their struggles produced on either side the likeness of some epidemic phrensy. Whatever else the government wanted, vigor to repel aggression from without was displayed in abundance. Two armies irn- mediately 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 Cartau.v, 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, their present in the camp several representatives of th pie, as they were called persons holding no m, character or rank, but acting as honorable spies f:r the government at Paris. The interference of lhe:- 1793.] SIEGE OF TOULON. 15 sonages on this, as on many other occasions, was pro- ductive of delays, blunders, and misfortunes ; but the terror which their ready access to the despotic gov- ernment inspired was often, on the other hand, useful in stimulating the exertions of the military. The younger Robespierre was one of the deputies at Tou- lon, and his name was enough to make his presence formidable. Cartaux had not yet been superseded, when Napo- leon Bonaparte made his appearance at head -quarters, with a commission to assume the command of the ar- tillery. It has been said that he owed his appointment to the private regard of Salicetti ; but the high testi- monials 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. However this may have been, he was re- ceived almost with insolence by Cartaux, who, strutting about in a uniform covered with gold lace, told him his assistance was not wanted, but he was welcome to partake in his glory. On examining the state of affairs, Bonaparte 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 gun-shots from^he walls ; and that it was the cus- tom 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 ac- quaintance to act under him, and exerting himself to collect guns from all quarters, he soon remedied al\ these disorders, and found himself master of an effi- cient train of 200 pieces ; and he then urged the gen- eral to adopt a wholly new plan of operations in the future conduct of the siege. The plan of Bonaparte appears now the simplest anc most obvious that could have been suggested ; yet it 16 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1793 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 at- tacking them in the town, which must involve a long series of operations, endeavor to establish batteries so as to sweep the harbor and roadstead. If you can do (his, 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 must fall." 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 im- portance of the promontory, and fortified it so strongly, that it passed by the name of the Little Gibraltar. It was necessary, therefore, to form extensive batteries behind La Grasse, ere there could be a prospect of seizing it. Bonaparte labored hard all day, and slept every night in his cloak by the guns, until his works approached perfection. He also formed a large bat- tery behind Malbosquet ; but this he carefully con- cealed from the enemy. It was covered by a planta- tion 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 efibrt against Little Gibraltar. But the representative!; 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 view so many guns had been kept so long idle, they ordered an im- mediate cannonade. The English made a vigorous sally, and spiked the guns before Bonaparte could reach the spot. On his arrival on the eminence behind, he perceived a long, deep ditch, fringed with brambles and willows, which he thought might be turned to advan- tage. He caused a regiment of foot to creep along 1793.J SIEGE OF TOULON. 17 the ditch, which they did without being discovered, until they were close upon the enemy. General O'Hara, the English commander, mistook them when they appeared, for some of his own allies, and rushing out to give them some orders, 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 con- tinuing his labors behind Little Gibraltar. That fort had very nearly been seized, by, a sort of accident, some time before his preparations were com- pleted ; a casual insult excited a sudden quarrel be- tween the men in Bonaparte's trenches, and the Span- iards 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 favorable, 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 super- seded by a brave veteran, General Dugommier, and Napoleon could at last count on having his efforts backed. As soon as the moment favorable to his pur- pose came, he determined to make his grand attempt. He threw 8,000 bombs and shells into Little Gibraltar, and having thus shattered the works, at daybreak* Dugommier commanded the assault. The French, headed by the brave Muiron, rushed with impetuous valor through the embrasures, and put the whole gar- rison to the sword. The day was spent in arranging the batteries, so as to command the shipping ; and next morning so true had been Bonaparte's prophecy * Dec. 18th, 1793. 18 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1793. jfi when the French stood to their posts, the English fleet was discovered to be already under way. 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 in- stantly sacrificed if they should fall into, the hands of the victorious republicans, and who now flocked to the waterside 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 miser- able exiles ; the walls were abandoned ; and Dugom- mier 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 work- men who had been employed on the batteries of the besieged town to muster at head-quarters. One hun- dred 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 atro- cious. Bonaparte himself repelled with indignation me 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 hands admitted that a family of royalists, being shipwrecked on the coast near Tou- lon 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 prison- ers ; quieted the mob by assuring them that they should all be publicly executed the next morning ; and mean- 1794.] FALL OF TOULON NICE. 19 while, sent them off during the night in artillery wag- ons supposed to be conveying stores. The recovery of Toulon was a service of the first importance to the French 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 endeavored to conceal the nature of his services, but the truth coi'.i'l ribt be effectually hid ; and Napoleon was re- warded by being 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, leaped out, and, leaning on the breast- work, wrote as he dictated. As he finished, a shot struck the ground by his side, and scattered dust in abundance over him and everything near him. " Good," said the soldier, laughing, " this time we shall do with- out sand.'"' The cool gayety of this pleased Bonaparte ; he kept his eye on the man ; and Junot came in the sequel to be marshal of France and duke of Abrantes. Bonaparte now began to advance by rapid strides to greatness. He soon completed his survey of the forti- fications, and the admirable skill displayed in these, joined to his conduct at Toulon, gained for him the appointment 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 French obtained possession of the maritime Alps, so that the difficulties of advancing into Italy were greatly dimin- ished. Of these movements however his superior offi- cers reaped as yet the honor. He was even super- seded very shortly after their success. But this, which at the moment seemed a heavy misfortune, was, in truth, oji3 of the luckiest circumstances that ever befell him. On the 28th July, 1794, he was put under arrest in 20 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1795 consequence of the downfall of Robespierre, being 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, " the representative of the people." He in vain disclaimed all participation in the ambitious de- signs of the Robespierres, and asserted that he would have poinarded his own brother, had he suspected him of forming schemes of tyranny. He was, indeed, after a few days, released from confinement; and the officer who came to release him was surprised to find torn busy in his dungeon over the map of Lombardy. For the moment, however, the prejudice was too strong to be entirely overcome ; and he 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 mar- ried. Her sister afterward married his brother Joseph, and she herself became the wife of his friend Berna- dotte, and queen of Sweden. It is supposed that Bo- naparte found himself too poor to marry at this time; and circumstances interfered to prevent any renewal of his proposals. In May, 1795, he came to Paris to solicit employ- ment ; but at first he met with nothing but repulses. The president of the Military Committee, Aubry; ob jected to his youth. " Presence in the field of battle," said Bonaparte, " might be reckoned in place of years." The president, who had not seen much actual service, thought he was insulted, and treated him so coldly that he actually tendered the resignation of his commission. This, however, was not accepted, and he lingered on amid the crowd of expectants. At length, despairing of employment at home, he meditated taking service with some foreign power, and even used some interest to gain permission to go to Turkey. " 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 contem plated greatness. 1795.] THE NATIONAL CONVENTION. 21 Ere this scheme could be put in execution, he was nominated to the command of a brigade of artillery in Holland. The long-deferred appointment was, no doubt, very welcome ; but in the mean time, his ser- vices were called for on a nearer and more important field. The French nation were now heartily tired of the national convention : it had lost most of its distin- guished members in the tumults and persecutions of the times ; and above all, it had lost respect by re- maining for two years the slave and the tool of the ter- rorists. The downfall of Robespierre, when it did take .place, showed how easily the same blessed de- liverance might have been effected long before, had this body possessed any sense of firmness or of dig- nity. 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 par- ticular, 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 soldiers of the republican armies had been accustomed to fight against the exiled princes and nobility, considered them as the worst en- emies of France, and hated them personally. The es- tates of the church, the nobles, and the crown had been divided arid 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 were desirous of proposing some system which might, in a certain de- gree, satisfy those who desire. 1 .he restoration of the 22 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [l"/95. monarchy ; and accordingly the new constitution of the year three of the republic (1795) presented the fol- lowing 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 gen- erally to our house of commons : and III. A smaller assembly, called the council of ancients, intended to fulfil in some measure the purpose of a house of peers. This scheme might probably 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 a- 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 de- ficiency out of their own body. It was obvious tha this machinery had no object but the continuance of the present legislators in power ; and the nation, and especially the superior classes in the city of Paris, weiv indignant at conduct which they considered as alike selfish and arbitrary. * The royalist party gladly len: themselves to the diffusion of any discontents ; and a formidable opposition to the measures of the existing government was organized. The convention meantime continued their sittings, and, exerting all their skill and influence, procured from many districts of the country reports accepting o-' the new constitution, with all its conditions. The Pur. being nearer and sharper observers, and having abun- dance of speakers and writers to inform and a them, assembled in the several sections of the city, and proclaimed their hostility to the convention and ics de- signs. The national guard, consisting of armed cit izens, almost unanimously sided with the enemies of the convention ; and it was openly proposed to ivusreh to the Tuileries, and compel a change of measurer In force of arms. The convention, perceiving their unpopularity and 1795.] INSURRECTION AT PARIS. 23 danger, began to look about them anxiously for the means of defence. There were in and near Paris 5,000 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 hun- dreds of artillery-men ; and they now organized what they called " the Sacred Band," a body of 1,500 ruf- fians, the most part of them old and tried instruments of Robespierre. With these means they prepared to arrange a plan of defence, and it \vas 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 sec- tion 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 pres- ence 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, of their number, had happened to be present at Toulon, and to have appreciated the character of Bonaparte. He had, prob- ably, 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. Bonaparte having been in the Odeon theatre when the affair of Menou occurred, had run out, and witnessed the result. He now happened to be in the gallery, and heard the discussion in which he was so much interested. He was presently sent for, and * Some accounts attribute these words, not to "Barms, but to Carnot. 24 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1795. asked his opinion as to the retreat of Menou. He ex- plained what had happened, and how it 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 de- cisive assault on the Tuileries was expected to take place next morning. Bonaparte 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 : Bar- ras was named commander-in-chief ; and Bonaparte second, with the virtual control. His first care was to despatch 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 can- non immediately afterward ; and Murat, who passed them in the dark, would have gone in vain had he re- ceived his orders but a few minutes later. On the 4th of October (called in the revolutionary almanac 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. Bonaparte, having planted artillery on all the bridges, and posted his battalions in the garden of the Tuileries and Place du Carousel, 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. Honore, they found a body of Bonaparte's troops drawn up there, with two cannons. It is dis- puted on which side the firing began ; but in an in- stant the artillery swept the streets and lanes, scatter- ing 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 Bonaparte had established : the quays of the Seine, op- posite to the Tuileries, were commanded by his guns be- 1795.J THE DAY OF THE SECTIONS. 25 low the. palace and on the bridges. In less than an hour the action was over. The insurgents fled in all di- rections, 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, con- tinued in effect to discharge their old functions. Bar- ras 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 re- ward the hand to which he owed his elevation. Within five days from the day of the Secttcns, Bonaparte was named second in command of the army of the interior ; and shortly afterward, Barras, finding his duties as di- rector sufficient to occupy his time, gave up the com- mand-in-chief of the same army to his " little Corsican officer." This invested Bonaparte with the chief military com- mand in the capita]., and, daily rising in importance from the zeal and firmness of his conduct in this high post, he 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 gayety. 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 Eu- gene Beauharnois, son of viscount Beauharnois, who fiad served as a general officer in the republican armies on the Rhine, and been murdered by Robespierre ; and sfcJc* bis errand was to recover the sword of his father. Bonaparte 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 Beau- harnois, came to thank him ; and her beauty and singu- lar gracefulness of address made a strong impression. 20 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1796. This charming lady was the daughter of a planter, by name De La Pagerie, and a native of St. Domingo/ While she was an infant, according to herself, a negro sorceress prophesied that " she should one day be greater than a queen, and yet outlive her dignity." Josephine, after her husband's death, had been her- self imprisoned until the downfall of Robespierre. In that confinement she had formed a strict friendship with another lady, who had now married Tallien, one of the most eminent of the leaders of the convention. Madame Tallien had introduced Josephine to her h* band's friends ; and Barras, the first director, havin^ now begun to hold a sort of court at the Louxem- bourg, these two beautiful women were the chief orna- ments of its society. It was commonly said that Jose- phine possessed more than legitimate influence over the first director. Bonaparte offered her his hand ; she accepted it ; and the young general by this means cemented his connection with the society of the Loux- embourg, and particularly with Barras and Tallien, at that moment the most powerful men in France. Tranquillity was now restored in Paris ; and the di- rectory had leisure to turn their attention to the affairs of the army of Italy, which seemed to be in a con- fused and unsatisfactory condition. They determined to give it a new general ; and Bonaparte was appointed to the splendid command. " Advance this man/' said Barras to tne other directors, " or he will advance him- self without you." He quitted his young wife just three days after their marriage ;* paid a short visit to his mother at Marseilles ; and arrived, after a rapid journey, at the head-quarters at Nice. From that mo- ment opened the most brilliant scene of his existence ; yet, during the months of victory and glory that com- posed it, his letters, full of love and home-sickness, at- test the reluctance with which he had so soon aban- doned his bride. Bonaparte at the age of twenty-six assumed tne com- mand of the army of Italy ; exulting in the knowledge, that if he should conquer, the honor would be all his * l)'h March, 1796. 1796.] NEW TACTICS. 27 own. 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 Na- poleon, " 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, in clothing, and even in food ; and watched by an enemy vastly more numerous. It was under such circum- stances 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 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 cour- age and constancy ?" This was Napoleon's first ad- dress to his army. The sinking hearts of the soldiers beat high with hope and confidence when they heard the voice of the young and fearless leader ; and Au- gereau, Massena, Serrurier, Joubert, Lannes distin- guished officers, who 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 Na- poleon. 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 great advantages could be obtained against the vast and highly -disciplined armies of Austria and her allies, unless the established rules and etiquettes of war 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 28 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1796. rob them (according to his own favorite phrase) of the victory. To effect such rapid marches, it was neces- sary 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 con- tented to conquer at whatever hazard ; to consider no sacrifices or hardships as worthy of a thought. In this way Bonaparte hoped for success which he knew he could gain by no other means. 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 aban- don the alliance of Austria : secondly, to compel Aus- tria, by a bold invasion of her rich Italian provinces, to make such exertions in that quarter as might weaken those armies which had so long hovered on the French frontier of the Rhine ; and, if possible, to stir up the Italian subjects of that crown to adopt the revolutionary system and emancipate themselves forever from its yoke. The third object, though more distant, was not less important. The directory had taken umbrage against the Roman Church, regarding it as the secret support of royalism in France ; and to reduce the Vati- can into insignificance, or at least force it to submission and quiescence, appeared indispensable to the internal tranquillity of the French nation. 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 stripe of comparatively level country which intervenes between those enor- mous 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 1796.] BATTLE OP MONTE NOTTE. 29 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 col- umn 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 Bonaparte made his first effort to baffle the science of those who fancied there was noth- ing new to be done in warfare. On the 10th of April, D'Argenteau came down upon Monte Notte, and at- tacked 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 valor of colonel Rampon, who commanded at Montelegino, held D'Argenteau at bay during the 10th and llth ; and Bonaparte, content- ing himself with watching Beaulieu, determined to strike his effectual blow at the centre of the enemy's line. During the night of the llth, 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 morn- ing 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 colors and cannon behind him, 1,000 killed and 2,000 prisoners. The centre of the allied army had been utterly routed, before either the commander-in-ohief at the left, or gen- 30 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1796. eral 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 Na- poleon's fields. Beaulieu, in order that he might re- establish his communication with Colli, (much endan- gered by the defeat of D'Argenteau,) was obliged to retreat upon Dego ; the Sardinian, with the same pur- pose in view, fell back also, and took post at Millesimo ; while D'Argenteau was striving to re-organize his dis- pirited troops in the difficult country between. It was their object to keep fast in these positions until succors 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, manoeuvred 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 ofFProvera with two thousand Austrians, who occupied an eminence called Cossaria, from the main body of Colli's army. Next morning Bonaparte him- self 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 Laharpe 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 Mil- lesimo, the former retreated in disorder upon Ceva ; the latter, hot*y pursued, through a difficult country upon Aqui : Colli, of course, being anxious to cover Turin, while the Austrian had his anxious thoughts already upon Milan. Colli was again defeated at Mon- 1796.] ADDRESS TO HIS TROOPS. 31 dovi in his disastrous retreat : he there lost his cannor, his baggage, and the best part of his troops. The Sar- dinian army might be said to be annihilated. The con- queror took possession of Cherasco, within ten 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 stand- ards ; reduced the Austrians to inaction, utterly destroy- ed 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 do- minions. He now paused for a moment to consolidate his col- umns on the heights, from which the vast plain of Lombardy, rich and cultivated like a garden, and water- ed with innumerable fertilizing streams, lay at length within the full view of his victorious soldiery. " Han- nibal forced the Alps," said he, gayly, as he now look- ed 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 valor, but useless to your country ; but now your ex- ploits equal those of the armies of Holland and the Rhine. You were utterly destitute, and you have sup- plied all your wants. You have gained battles without cannon, passed rivers without bridges, performed forced marches without shoes, bivouacked without strong li- quors, 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 Basse- ville." 32 NAPOLEON RONAPATTE. [1796. 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 Bonaparte was spotless ; and the eyes of all Europe were fixed in admiration on his career. Piedmont being now in the hapds of Napoleon, the Austrian general concentrated his army behind the Po, with the purpose of preventing the invader from pass- ing 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 sin- cere. Meanwhile, his crafty antagonist executed a march of incredible celerity upon PJacenza, fifty miles lower down the river ; and appeared there on the 7th of May, to the utter consternation of a couple of Aus- trian 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. Bonaparte 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 arrange- ments 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 Bonaparte accept battle with the Po in his rear, and therefore under circumstances which must render any check in the highest degree disastrous. Bona- parte, in the mean time, had no intention to await the Austrian on ground so dangerous, and was march- ing rapidly towards Fombio, where he knew he should have room to manoeuvre. The advanced divisions of the hostile armies met at that village on the 8th of May. The Austrians occupied the steeples and houses, and hoped to hold out until Beaulieu could bring up his 1796.] THE BRIDGE OF LODI. 33 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. 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. It was a great neglect in Beaulieu to leave it standing when he removed his head-quarters to the east bank of the Adda : his outposts were driven rapidly through the old strag- gling town of Lodi on the 10th; and the French, shel- tering themselves behind the walls and the 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 of a whole army drawn up behind, is one of the most daring on record. Bonaparte'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 un- dermine 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 mean time, he had sent general Beaumont and the cavalry to attempt the pas- sage 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. 34 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1796. and their leading files placed on the bridge. They rushed on, shouting Vive la Republique ! but the storm of grape-shot for a moment checked them. Bonaparte, Lannes, Berthier, and Lallemagne, hurried to the front, and rallied and cheered the men. The column dash- ed 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 sec- ond. The Austrian artillery-men were bayoneted at their guns ere the other troops, whom Beaulieu had removed too far back, in his anxiety to avoid the French battery, could come to their assistance. Beau- mont 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 rapid- ity, and consequently with so little loss, did Bonaparte execute this dazzlmg 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 ir- resistible daring. Beaulieu, nevertheless, contrived to withdraw his troops in much better style than Bona- parte had anticipated. He gathered the scattered fragments of his force together, arid soon threw the line of the Mincio, atributary of the Po, between himself and his enemy. The great object, however, had been at- tained : and no obstacle remained between the victo- rious invader and the rich and noble capital of Lom- bardy. The garrison of Pizzighitone, seeing themselves effectually cut off from the Austrian army, capitulated. The French cavalry pursued Beaulieu as far as Cre- mona, which town they seized ; and Bonaparte himself prepared to march at once upon Milan. It was after one of these affairs that an old Hungarian officer was brought prisoner to Bonaparte, who entered into con- versation with him, and among other matters questioned him " what he thought of the state of the war ?" " Noth- 1796.] ENTERS MILAN. 85 ing," 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 revolution- ary 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 muni- cipality 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 accord- ingly entered, in all the splendor of a military triumph, the venerable and opulent city of the old Lombard kings. The conqueror now paused to look about and behind him. 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 against the court of Rome. The other powers of Italy were, at worst, neutrals in the war ; with Tuscany and Venice, France had, in fact, friendly relations. But Napoleon knew, or believed, that all the Italian govern- ments, without exception, considered the French inva- sion of Italy as a common calamity ; the personal wishes of most of the minor princes (nearly connected as those 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 con- sider and treat whatever had not been with him as if it had been against him. The weak but wealthy prin- ces of Parma and Modena, and others of the same 36 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1796. order, were forthwith compelled to purchase his clem- ency 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. Bonaparte 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 Pes- chiera, 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 apparent 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 vet- eran 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 en- tertain certain not unnatural suspicions as to the ulti- mate 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. Bonaparte was ordered to take half his army, and lead it against the pope and the king of Na- ples, and leave the other half to terminate the contest with Beaulieu, under the orders of Kellermann. 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 1796.] INSURRECTION IN LOMBARDY. 37 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 ex- actions of the French, and even more perhaps the wan- ton 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 vari- ous 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 in- stantly marched to Benasco, stormed the place, plun- dered and burnt it, and put the inhabitants to the sword without mercy. The general in person appeared be- fore Pavia ; blew the gates open ; easily scattered the townspeople ; and caused the leaders to be executed. Everywhere the same system was acted on. The in- surgent 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 mas- sacred. These bloody examples quelled the insurrec- tions ; but they fixed the first dark and indelible stain on the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. 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. 38 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1796. The Austrian garrison at Borghetto in vain destroyed one arch of the bridge. Bonaparte supplied the breach with planks ; and his men, flushed with so many victo- ries, 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. Meantime, an occurrence, which may be called acci- dental, 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 Borgh- etto had retreated ere they arrived. They, however, came unexpectedly ; and, such was the chance, reached Valleggio after the French army had pursued the Aus- trians through it and onwards and, at the moment when Bonaparte and a few friends, considering the work of the day to be over, and this village as alto- gether in the rear of both armies, were about to sit down to dinner in security, SebetendorfF, who com- manded the Puzzuolo division, came rapidly, little guess- ing 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." Bonaparte threw himself on horseback, and galloping out by a back passage, effected the nar- rowest 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. Bonaparte, profiting by the perilous adven- ture of Valleggio, instituted a small corps of picked men, called guides, to watch continually over his per- sonal safety. Such was the germ from which sprung by degrees the famous imperial guard of Napoleon. The Austrian had thus, 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 1796.] VENICE INSULTED. 39 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 pos- sessed 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 awaited 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 govern- ment, 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 intrenched camps, the other two by gates, drawbridges, and batteries. 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 com- mencement was alarming ; of the five causeways, by sudden and overwhelming assaults, he obtained four; and the garrison were cut off from the main land, ex- cept 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 beyond Mantua, should immediately be occupied by the French. The power of this ancient government was no longer such as to inspire much respect, and Bona- parte resolved that the claim of neutrality should form no obstacle to his measure. 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. That unfortu- nate prince had, accordingly, though most reluctantly, been desired to emit the Venetian states, and had al- 40 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1796 ready passed to the Rhine, where his gallant cousin, the prince of Conde, had long been at the head of a small and devoted army composed of the expatriated gentry of France. Bonaparte, however, chose to treat the re- luctance with which Venice had been driven to this vio- lation of her hospitality, as a new injury to his govern- ment : he argued that a power who had harbored in friendship, and unwillingly expelled, the Pretender to the French monarchy, had lost all title to forbearance on the part of the revolutionary forces. Using this as a pretext for infringing on their neutrality, Bonaparte at once placed garrisons in Verona, and all the strong places of that domain. Planting the tri-color flag at the mouth of the Tyrolese passes, he left Serrurier to carry on the blockade of Mantua, while he returned to Milan to arrange important business there. The king of Naples, utterly confounded by the suc- cesses of the French, was now anxious to procure peace, almost on whatever terms, with the .pparently irresistible republic. Nor did it, for the n /ment, suit Bonaparte's views to contemn his advance- . A peace with this prince would withdraw some v* mable divi- sions from the army of Beaulieu ; and the listance of the Neapolitan territory was such, that th French had no means of carrying the war thither witl 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, abandoning the Austrian general, began their march to the south of Italy. This transaction placed another of Napoleon's des- tined 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. Bonaparte 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 head-quar- ters, answered that his master, the pope, had given him 1796.] MJLAN LEGHORN FLORENCE. 41 a dispensation to break his promise. 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. Bona- parte demanded and obtained a million sterling, a hun- dred 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 recognize its establish- ment, and had kept on terms of friendship with all its successive authorities. Bonaparte, however, in pur- suance 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 Tus- cany and great feeder of its wealth, was seized without ceiemony. The grand duke, in place of resenting these injuries, was obliged to receive Bonaparte with all the appearance 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 afterward, speaking of these scenes of exaction and insolence, " when the dwarf comes into the embrace of the giant, he is like enough to be suffo- cated; but it is the giant's nature to squeeze hard." In the mean time, the general did not neglect the great and darling plan of the French government, of thoroughly revolutionizing the north of Italy, and es- tablishing there a group of republics modelled after their own likeness, and prepared to act as subservient allies in their mighty contest with the European mon- archies. He was strongly urged to this, but he had by this time learned to think of many idols of the directory, 42 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1796. with about as little reverence as they bestowed on the shrines of Catholicism ; in his opinion more was to be gained by temporizing 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 minis- ters 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 Lom- bardy, and thereby purchase the continued possession of the more conveniently situated territories of Belgium and the Louxembourg. The general, therefore, tempo- rized ; content, in the mean time, with draining the ex- chequers 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 wisdom, and they had been taught effectually to dread his strength. CHAPTER II. "WuRitSER SUPERSEDES BEATJLIEU THE AuSTRIANS ADVANCE FROM THE TYROL Battle of Lonato Escape of Napoleon Castiglione Wurmser retreats on Trent, and is recruited He is shut up in Man- tua Alvinzi is sent by Austria to Italy The three Battles of Ar- cola Retreat of Alvinzi Rivoli Surrender of Mantua Despair of the Pope Treaty of Tollentino The Archduke Charles Battle of Tagliamento Retreat of the Archduke Treaty of Leoben Pi- chegru The Directory in Trouble, and appeal to Bonaparte Jo- sephine The Court of Montebello The Treaty of Campo-Formio A.D. 1796-1797. THE general was now recalled to the war. The cabinet of Vienna had at last resolved upon sending efficient aid to the Italian frontier. Beaulieu had been too often unfortunate to be trusted longer : Wurmser, who enjoyed a reputation of the highest class, was sent to replace him : 30,000 men were drafted from the ar- mies 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. Wurmser's army, when he fixed his head-quarters at Trent, mustered in all 80,000 ; while Bonaparte 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 Bonaparte 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 44 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1796 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 his right wing, under Quasdonowich, was ordered to keep down the valley of the Chiese, in the direction of Brescia, and so to cut off the retreat of Bonaparte 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 Quas- donowich, and fight him where he could not be sup- ported by the other two columns. This could not be done without abandoning for the time the blockade of Mantua, which was accordingly done. The guns were buried in the trenches during the night of the 31st July, and the French quitted the place with a precipi- tation which the advancing Austrians considered as the result of terror. Napoleon, meanwhile, rushed against Quasdono- wich, who had already come near the bottom of the lake of Guarda. At Salo, close by the lake, and fur- ther from it, at Lonato, two divisions of the Austrian column were attacked and overwhelmed. Augereau and Messena, 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. In the mean time Wurmser had forced their rear- guards from their posts, and flushed with these suc- cesses, he 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 Quasdo- 1796.] BATTLE OF LONATO. 45 novvich. He was so fortunate as to defeat a French di- vision at Lonato, and to occupy that town. But this new success was fatal to him. In the exultation of vic- tory 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, per- ceiving 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 al- ready defeated Quasdonowich in that quarter, and obliged to surrender : the most retreated in great dis- order. At Castiglione alone a brave stand was made : but this position was at length forced by Augereau. Such was the battle of Lonato. Thenceforth nothing could surpass the discomfiture and disarray of the Aus- trians. They fled in all directions upon the Mincio, where Wurmser himself, meanwhile, had been em- ployed in revictualling Mantua. A mere accident had once almost saved them. 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 Austrians remained to- gether in the neighborhood ; 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 ; his enemy was able to turn even a blunder into an advantage. The officer sent to demand the surren- der of the town was brought blindfolded, as is the cus- tom, to his head-quarters.; Bonaparte, 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 recognized the person of Na- poleon, and retreated stammering and blushing. He 40 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1796. assured his commander that Lonato was occupied bv the French in numbers that made resistance impossi- ble ; 4000 men laid down their arms ; and then discov- ered, that if they had used them, nothing could have prevented Napoleon from being their prize. Wurmser collected together the whole of his remain- ing 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 defeat- ed, 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 con- querors. In this disastrous campaign the Austriaris lost 40,000 ; Bonaparte probably understated his own loss at 7000. During the seven days which the cam- paign 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 rein- forcement and revictualling of that garrison were all that Wurmser could show, in requital of his lost artil- lery, stores, and 40,000 men. The victories so signally achieved were not to re- main undisputed. Austria, ever constant in adversity, hastened to place 20,000 fresh troops under the orders of Wurmser ; and the brave veteran, whose heart noth- ing could chill, prepared himself to make one more effort 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 un- impaired. 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. Bonaparte instantly detected the error of his 1796.J EOVEREDO THE TYROL. 47 opponent. He suffered him to advance unmolested as far as Bassano, and the moment he was there, and con- sequently 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 is one of Napoleon's most illustrious days. The enemy had a strongly in- trenched camp in front of the town; and behind it, in case of misfortune, Galliano, 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 ardor of the French. The Austrians, though they defended the intrenched camp with their usual obstina- cy, were forced to give way by the impetuosity of Du- bois and his hussars. The French horse, thus anima- ted, pursued the Germans, who were driven, unable to rally, through and beyond the town. Even the gigan- tic defences of Galliano 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 im- portant position with the gallant division who had forced it. Massena fixed himself in Wurmser's late head-quarters at Trent ; and Napoleon, having thus to- tally 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 forever 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 pleas- ure, its interior government. Wurmser heard with dismay of the utter ruin of Davidowich ; and doubted not that Napoleon would now march onwards into Germany, and endeavor to realize the great scheme of Carnot that of attacking 48 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1796. Vienna itself. The old general saw no cb%ace of con- verting what remained to him of his arm\ to good pur- pose, but by remaining in Lombardy, when he thought he might easily excite the people in his etnperor's favor, overwhelm the slender garrisons left by Bona- parte, and so cut off, at all events, the French retreat through Italy, in case they should meet with any disas- ter in the Tyrol or in Germany. Napoleon had intelli- gence which Wurmser wanted. Wurmser himself was his mark : and he returned from Trent to Primolano where the Austrian'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 old Austrian once more expected the fatal rencoun- ter. The battle of Bassano (Sept. 8) was a fatal repeti- tion of those that had gone before it. Six thousand Austrians laid down their arms. Quasdonowich, with one division of 4000, escaped to Friuli ; while Wurm- ser himself, retreating to Vicenza, there collected with difficulty a remnant of 16,000 beaten and discomfited soldiers. His situation was most unhappy; his com- munication 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 Mantau, and there hold out to the last extremity, in the hope, however remote, of some succors 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 so left his own position unguarded. Wurm- 1796.] ST. GEORGK APPROACH OF ALVINZI. 4& ser, taking advantage of this, passed with his army at Legnago, and after a series of bloody skirmishes, in which fortune divided her favors pretty equally, at length was enabled to throw himself into Mantua. Na- poleon made another narrow escape, in one of these skirmishes, at Arcola. He was surrounded for a mo- ment, and had just gallopped off, when Wurmser, com- ing up, and learning that the prize was so near, gave particular directions to bring him in alive ! Bonaparte, after making himself master of some scattered corps which had not been successful in keep- ing up with Wurmser, reappeared 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 Sept. ; and after prodigious slaughter, the French remained in possession of all the causeways; so that the blockade of the city and fortress was thenceforth complete. The garrison, when "Wurmser shut himself up, amounted to 26,000 : ere 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 Aus- tria meant to rescue Wurmser, there was no time to be lost. A powerful armament was once more fitted out by the imperial council for operations in 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. Bona- parte had received only twelve new battalions, to re- place all the losses of those terrible campaigns, in which three imperial armies had already been annihilated. The Austrian superiority of numbers was once more such, that nothing but the most masterly combinations on the part of the French general, could have prevent- 50 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1796. ed them from sweeping everything before them in the plains of Lombardy. Bonaparte heard in the beginning of October that Alvinzi's columns were in motion : he had placed Vau- bois 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. Napoleon him- self hurried forward to sustain Massena ; and a severe rencontre, in which either side claimed the victory, took place at Vicenza. The French, however, retreat- ed, and Bonaparte fixed his head-quarters at Verona. The whole country between the Brenta and the Adige was in Alvinzi'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 ardor of his soldiery, Bona- parte 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 oppo- site to Verona. In pursuance of the same system which had already so often proved fatal to his oppo- nents, it was the object of Bonaparte to assault Alvinzi, and scatter his forces, ere they could be joined by Da- vidowich. 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 1796.] BRIDGE OP ARCOLA, 51 action, and Napoleon, in his despatches, endeavored to shift the blame to the elements. The country behind Caldiero lying open to Davido- wich, it became necessary to resort to other means of assault, or permit the dreaded junction to occur. The genius of Bonaparte suggested to him on this occasion a movement altogether unexpected. During the night, leaving 1500 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, amid those wide-spread- ing morasses which cover the country about Arcola. This daring movement was devised to place Napoleon between Alvinzi and Davidowich ; but the unsafe na- ture 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 di- vided his men into three columns, and charged at day- break 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 de- fended with the most determined gallantry. Augereau headed the first column that reached the bridge of Ar- cola, and was there, after a desperate effort, driven back with great loss. Bonaparte, 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 ad- vancing Austrians were already between him and his baffled column. His imminent danger was observed, the soldiers caught the alarm, and rushing forwards, 52 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1796. with the cry " Save the general," overthrew the Ger- mans 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 Bonaparte ; and Alvinzi saw that no lime was to be lost if he meant to preserve his com- munication 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 Yaubois might be overwhelmed by Da- vidowich, 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 deci- sive than the first ; for Alvinzi still contrived to main- tain his main force unbroken in the difficult country behind ; and Bonaparte once more retreated to Ronco. The third day was decisive. On this occasion also he carried Arcola ; and. by employing two strata- gems, 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 quar- ters, 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 story. " At Arcola, I gained the battle with twenty-five horsemen. I perceived the critical mo- ment of lassitude in either army when the oldest and 1797.] FIFTH AUSTRIAN ARMY. 53 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. fierce 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 mo- ment Bonaparte commanding a general assault in front, the confusion became hopeless. Alvinzi retreated finally, though in decent order, upon Montebello. In these three days Bonaparte lost 8000 men ; the slaughter among his opponents must have been terrible. 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 inter- rupting Bonaparte'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 re- lieving 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 vigor 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. Na- poleon had by this time come to be anything but a ja- cobin in his political sentiments : his habits of com- 54 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1797. mand ; 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 was owing to his own skill and the devo- tion of nis army, all these circumstances conspired to make him respect himself and contemn the govern- ment, almost in despite of which he had conquered kingdoms for France. He therefore regarded now with little sympathy the aspirations after republican organization, which he had himself originally stimu- lated among the northern Italians. He knew, how- ever, that the directory had, by absurd and extrava- gant 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 him- self extort from the government of Paris ;* and con- sidering these circumstances, he felt himself compelled to seek strength by gratifying his Italian friends. Two republics accordingly were organized ; the Cispadane and the Transpadane handmaids rather than sisters of the great French democracy. These events took place during the period of military inaction which fol- lowed the victories of Arcola. The new republics has- tened to repay Napoleon's favor by raising troops, and placed at his disposal a force which he considered as sufficient to keep the papal army in check during the expected renewal of the Austrian's efforts. Alvinzi's preparations were, in the mean time, rapidly advancing. The enthusiasm of the Austrian gentry was effectually stirred by the apprehension of seeing the conqueror of Italy under the walls of Vienna, and volunteer corps were formed everywhere and marched upon the frontier. The gallant peasantry of the Tyrol had- already displayed their zeal ; nor did the previous * Bonaparte, to replace all his losses in the last two campaigns, had received only 7000 recruits. 1797.] THIRD ADVANCE OF THE IMPERIALISTS. 55 reverses of Alvinzi prevent them from once more crowding to his standard. Napoleon proclaimed that every Tyrolese caught in arms should be shot as a brigand. Alvinzi replied, that for every murdered peasant he would hang a French prisoner of war : Bonaparte rejoined, that the first execution of this threat would be instantly followed by the gibbeting of Alvinzi's own nephew, who was in his hands. These ferocious threats were soon laid aside, when time had been given for reflection ; and either general prepared to carry on the war according to the old rules, which are at least sufficiently severe. Alvinzi sent a peasant across the country to find his way if possible into the beleaguered city of Mantua, and give Wurmser notice that he was once more ready to attempt his relief. The veteran was commanded to make what diversion he could in favor of the ap- proaching army ; and if things came to their worst, to fight his way out of Mantua, retire on Romagna, and put himself at the head of the papal forces. The spy who carried these tidings was intercepted, and dragged into the presence of Napoleon. The terrified man confessed that he had swallowed the ball of wax in which the despatch was wrapped. His stomach was compelled to surrender its contents ; and Bonaparte prepared to meet his enemy. Leaving Serrurier to keep up the blockade of Mantua, he hastened to re- sume his central position at Verona, from which he could, according to circumstances, march with conve- nience on whatever line the Austrian main body might choose for their advance. The imperialists, as if determined to profit by no les- son, once more descended from the Tyrol upon two dif- ferent lines of march ; Alvinzi himself choosing that of the upper Adige ; while Provera headed a second army, with orders to follow the Brenta, and then, strik- ing across to the lower Adige, join the marshal before the walls of Mantua. Could they have combined their forces thus, and delivered Wurmser, there was hardly a doubt that the French must retreat before so vast an army as would then have faced them. But Napoleon 56 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. ["1797. was destined once more to dissipate all these victorious dreams. He had posted Joubert at Rivoli, to dispute that important position, should the campaign open with an attempt to force it by Alvinzi ; while Augereau's division was to watch the march of Provera. He re- mained himself at Verona until he could learn with certainty by which of these generals the first grand as- sault was to be made. On the evening of the 13th of January, tidings were brought him that Joubert had all that day been maintaining his ground with difficulty ; and he instantly hastened to what now appeared to be the proper scene of action for himself. Arriving about two in the morning, (by another of his almost incredible forced marches,) on the heights of Rivoli, he, the moonlight being clear, could distin- guish five separate encampments, with innumerable watch-fires, in the valley below. His lieutenant, con- founded by the display of this gigantic force, was in the very act of abandoning the position. Napoleon instantly checked this movement; and bringing up more battalions, forced the Croats from an eminence which they had already seized on the first symptoms of the French retreat. Napoleon's keen eye, survey- ing the position of the five encampments below, pene- trated the secret of Alvinzi ; namely, that his artillery could not yet have arrived, otherwise he would not have occupied ground so distant from the object of at- tack. He concluded that the Austrian did not mean to make his grand assault very early in the morning, and resolved to force him to anticipate that movement. For this purpose, he took all possible pains to conceal his own arrival ; and prolonged, by a series of petty manoeuvres, the enemy's belief that he had to do with a mere outpost of the PVench. Alvinzi swallowed the deceit ; and, instead of advancing on some great and well-arranged system, suffered his several columns to endeavor to force the heights by insulated movements, which the real strength of Napoleon easily enabled him to baffle. It is true that at one moment the bravery of the Germans had nearly overthrown the French on a point of pre-eminent importance ; but Napoleon him 1797.] BATTLE OF RIVOLI. 51 self, galloping to the spot, roused by his voice and ac- tion the division of Massena, who, having marched all night, had lain down to rest in the extreme of weari- ness, and seconded by them and their gallant general, swept everything before him. The French artillery was in position : the Austrian (according to Napoleon's shrewd guess) had not yet come up, and this circum- stance decided the fortune of the day. The cannonade from the heights, backed by successive charges of horse and foot, rendered every attempt to .storm the summit abortive ; and the main body of the imperialists was already in confusion, and, indeed, in flight, ere one of their divisions, which had been sent round to outflank Bonaparte, and take higher ground in his rear, was able to execute its errand. When, accordingly, this divi- sion (that of Lusignan) at length achieved its destined object it did so, not to complete the misery of a routed, but to swell the prey of a victorious, enemy. Instead of cutting off the retreat of Joubert, Lusignan found himself insulated from Alvinzi, and forced to lay down his arms to Bonaparte. " Here was a good plan/' said Napoleon, " but these Austrians are not apt to calcu- late the value of minutes." Had Lusignan gained the rear of the French an hour earlier, while the contest was still hot in front of the heights of Rivoli, he might have made the 14th of January one of the darkest, in- stead of one of the brightest, days in the military chron- icles of Napoleon. He, who in the course of this trying day had had three horses shot under him, hardly waited to see Lu- signan surrender, and to intrust his friends, Massena, Murat, and Joubert, with the task of pursuing the fly- ing columns of Alvinzi. He had heard, during the battle, that Provera had forced his way to the Lago di Guarda, and was already, by means of boats, in com- munication with Mantua. The force of Augereau having proved insufficient to oppose the march of the imperialists' second column, it was high time that Na- poleon himself should hurry with reinforcements to the lower Adige, and prevent Wurmser from either hous- ing Provera, or joining him in the open field, and so 3* 58 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1797. effecting the escape of his own still formidable garrison, whether to the Tyrol trt the Romagna. Having marched all night and all next day, Napoleon reached the vicinity of Mantua late on the 15th. He found the enemy strongly posted, and Serrurier's situa- tion highly critical. A regiment of Provera's hussars had but a few hours before nearly established themselves in the suburb of St. George. This danger had been avoided, but the utmost vigilance was necessary. The French general himself passed the night in walking about the outposts, so great was his anxiety. At one of these he found a grenadier asleep by the root of a tree ; and taking his gun, without wakening him, performed a sentinel's duty in his place for about half an hour ; when the man, starting from his slum- bers, perceived with terror and despair the countenance and occupation of his general. He fell on his knees before him. " My friend/' said Napoleon, " here is your musket. You had fought hard, and marched long, and your sleep is excusable : but a moment's inatten- tion might at present ruin the army. I happened to be awake, and have held your post for you. You will be more careful another time." It is needless to say how the devotion of his men was nourished by such anecdotes as these flying ever and anon from column to column. Next morning there ensued a hot skirmish, recorded as the battle of St. George. Provera was compelled to retreat ; and Wurmser, who had sallied out and seized the causeway and citadel of La Favorita, was fain to retreat within his old walls, in consequence of a desperate assault headed by Napoleon in person. Provera now found himself entirely cut off from Alvinzi, and surrounded with the army of the French. He and five thousand men laid down their arms. Various bodies of the Austrian force, scattered over the country between the Adige and the Brenta, follow- ed the example ; and the brave Wurmser, whose pro- visions were by this time exhausted, found himself at .ength under the necessity of sending an offer of capit- ulation. 1797.] SURRENDER OP MANTUA. 59 General Serrurier, as commander of the blockade, received Klenau, the bearer of Wurmser's message, and heard him state, with the pardonable artifice usual on such occasions, that his master was still in a condi- tion to hold out considerably longer, unless honorable terms were granted. Napoleon had hitherto been seated in a corner of the tent wrapped in his cloak ; he now advanced to the Austrian, who had no suspicion in whose presence he had been speaking, and taking his pen, wrote down the conditions which he was wil- ling to grant. " These," said he, " are the terms to which your general's bravery entitles him. He may have them to-day ; a week, a month hence, he shall have no worse. Meantime, tell him that general Bona- parte is about to set out for Rome." The envoy now recognized Napoleon ; and on reading the paper, per- ceived that the proposed terms were more liberal than he had dared to hope for. The capitulation was forth- with signed. On the 2d of February, Wurmser and his garrison marched out of Mantua ; but when the aged chief was to surrender his sword, he found only Serrurier ready to receive it. Napoleon's generosity, in avoiding being present personally to witness the humiliation of this distinguished veteran, forms one of the most pleasing traits in his story. The directory had urged him to far different conduct. He treated their suggestions with scorn : " I have granted the Austrian," he wrote to them, " such terms as were, in my judgment, due to a brave and honorable enemy, and to the dignity of the French republic." The surrender of Provera and Wurmser, following the total rout of Alvinzi, placed Lombardy wholly in the hands of Napoleon; and he had now leisure to avenge himself on the pope for those hostile demon- strations which, as yet, he had been contented to hold in check. The terror with which the priestly court of the Vatican received the tidings of the utter destruc- tion of the Austrian army, and of the irresistible con- queror's march southward, did not prevent the papal troops from making some efforts to defend the territo- 60 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1797. ries of the holy see. General Victor, with 4,000 French, and as many Lombards, advanced upon the route of Imola. A papal force, in numbers about equal, lay encamped on the river Senio in front of that town. Monks with crucifixes in their hands ran through the lines, exciting them to fight bravely for their country and their faith. The French general, by a rapid movement, threw his horse across the stream a league or two higher up, and then charged through the Senio in their front. The resistance was brief. The pope's army, composed mostly of new recruits, retreated in confusion. Faenza was carried by the bayonet. Colli and 3000 more laid down their arms : and the strong town of Ancona was occupied.* On the 10th of Febru- ary the French entered Loretto, and rifled that celebra- ted seat of superstition of whatever treasures it still retained: Victor then turned westward from Ancona, with the design to unite with another French column which had advanced into the papal dominion by Peru- gia. The panic which the French advance had by this time spread was such, that the pope had no hope but in submission. The peasants lately transformed into sol- diers abandoned everywhere their arms, and fled in straggling groups to their native villages. The alarm in Rome itself recalled the days of Alaric the Goth. The conduct of Bonaparte at this critical moment was worthy of that good sense which formed the origi- nal foundation of his successes. He well knew, that of all the inhabitants of the Roman territories, the class who contemplated his approach with the deepest terror were the unfortunate French priests, whom the revolu- tion had made exiles from their native soil. It is * The priests had an image of the Virgin Mary at this place, which they exhibited to the people in the act of shedding tears, the more to stimulate them against the impious republicans. On entering the place, the French were amused with discovering the machinery by whicr this trick had been performed : the Madonna's tears were a string of glass beads which flowed by clockwork, within a shrine which the wor- shippers were too respectful to approach very nearly. Little or-molu fountains which stream on the same principle, are now common orna- ments for the chimney-piece in Paris. 1797.] NEGOTIATION WITH THE POPE. 61 reported that one of these unhappy gentlemen came forth in his despair, and surrendering himself at the French head-quarters, said he knew his fate was sealed, and that they might as well lead him at once to the gallows. Bonaparte dismissed this person with court- esy, and issued a proclamation that none of the class should be molested ; on the contrary, allotting to each of them the means of existence in monasteries, wher- ever his arms were or should be predominant. This conduct, taken together with other circumstan- ces of recent occurrence, was well calculated to nourish in the breast of the pope the hope that the victorious general of France had, by this time, discarded the fero- cious hostility of the revolutionary government against the church of which he was head. He hastened, how- ever, to open a negotiation, and Napoleon received his envoy, not merely with civility, but with professions of the profoundest personal reverence for the holy father. The treaty of Tollentino (12 Feb. 1797) followed. By this the pope conceded formally (for the first time) his ancient territory of Avignon ; he resigned the legations of Ferrara, Bologna, and Romagna, and the port of Ancona ; agreed to pay about a million and a half sterling, and to execute to the utmost the provision of Bologna with respect to works of art. On these terms Pius was to remain nominal master of some shreds of the patrimony of St. Peter. By these successes Napoleon was now master of all northern Italy, with the exception of the territories of Venice, which government was ready at any moment to join Austria in ridding Italy of the French. Bona- parte heard without surprise that the doge had been raising new levies, and that the senate could still com- mand an army of 50,000, composed chiefly of fierce and semi-barbarous Sclavonian mercenaries. He demand- ed what these demonstrations meant, and was answered, that Venice had no desire but to maintain a perfect neutrality. Meantime, there was not wanting a strong party, throughout the Venetian territories of the main land, who were anxious to emulate the revolutionary movements of the great cities of Lombardy, and to 62 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1797 emancipate themselves from the yoke of the Venetian oligarchy, as their neighbors had done by that of the Austrian crown. Insurrections occurred at Bergamo, Brescia, and elsewhere ; and Bonaparte, though little disposed to give the inhabitants of these places the boon they were in quest of, saw and profited by the op- portunity of dividing, by their means, the resources, and shaking the confidence, of the senate. More than a month had now elapsed since Alvinzi's defeat at Rivoli ; in nine days the war with the pope had reached its close ; and, having left some garrisons in the towns on the Adige, to watch the neutrality of Venice, Napoleon hastened to carry the war into the hereditary dominions of Austria. Twenty thousand fresh troops had recently joined his victorious standard from France ; and, at the head of perhaps a larger force than he had ever before mustered, he proceeded to the frontier of the Frioul, where, according to his informa- tion, the main army of Austria, recruited once more to its original strength, was preparing to open a sixth campaign under the orders, not of Alvinzi, but of a general young like himself, and hitherto eminently suc- cessful the archduke Charles of Austria ; a prince on whose high talents the last hopes of the empire seemed to repose. To give the details of the sixth campaign, which now commenced, would be to repeat the story which has been already five times told. The archduke, fettered by the aulic council of Vienna, saw himself compelled to execute a plan which he had discrimination enough to condemn. The Austrian army once more commen- ced operations on a double basis one great division on the Tyrolese frontier, and a greater under the arch- duke himself on the Friulese ; and Napoleon who had, even when acting on the defensive, been able, by the vivacity of his movements, to assume the superi- ority on whatever point he chose to select was not likely to strike his blows with less skill and vigor, now that his numbers, and the quiescence of Italy behind him, permitted him to assume the offensive. Bonaparte found the archduke posted behind the 1797.] ARCHDUKE CHARLES. 63 river Tagliamento, in front of the rugged Carinthian mountains, which guard the passage in that quarter from Italy to Germany. Detaching Massena to the Piave, where the Austrian division of Lusignan were in observation, he himself determined to charge the archduke in front. Massena was successful in driving Lusignan before him as far as Belluno, (where a rear- guard of 500 surrendered,) and thus turned the Austri- an flank. Bonaparte then attempted and effected the passage of the Tagliamento. After a great and formal display of his forces, which was met by similar demon- strations on the Austrian side of the river, Bonaparte suddenly broke up his line and retreated. The arch- duke, knowing that the French had been marching all the night before, concluded that the general wished to defer the battle till another day ; and in like manner withdrew to his camp. About two hours after, Napo- leon rushed with his whole army, who had merely lain down in ranks, upon the margin of the Tagliamento, no longer adequately guarded and had forded the stream ere the Austrian line of battle could be formed. In the action which followed (March 12,) the troops of the archduke displayed much gallantry, but every effort to dislodge Napoleon failed ; at length retreat was judged necessary. The French followed hard behind. They stormed Gradisca, where they made 5000 prisoners ; and the archduke pursuing his retreat occupied in the course of a few days Trieste, Fiume, and every strong hold in Carinthia. In the course of a campaign of twenty days, the Austrians fought Bonaparte ten times, but the overthrow on the Tagliamento was never recovered ; and the archduke, after defending Styria inch by inch, as he had the Fiume and Carinthia, at length adopted the resolution of reaching Vienna by forced marches, there to gather round him whatever force the loyalty of his nation could muster, and make a last stand beneath the walls of the capital. This plan, at first sight the mere dictate of despair, was in truth that of a wise and prudent general. The archduke had received intelligence from two quarters of events highly unfavorable to the French. General 64 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1797. Laudon, the Austrian commander on the Tyrol fron- tier, had descended thence with forces sufficient to overwhelm Bonaparte's lieutenants on the upper Adige, and was already in possession of the whole Tyrol, and of several of the Lombard towns. Meanwhile, the Venetian senate, on hearing of these Austrian successes, had plucked up courage to throw aside their flimsy neutrality, and not only declared war against France, but encouraged their partisans in Verona to open the contest with an inhuman massacre of the French wounded in the hospitals of that city. The vindictive Italians, wherever the French party was inferior in numbers, resorted to similar atrocities. The few troops left in Lombardy by Napoleon were obliged to shut themselves up in garrisons, which the insurgent inhabi- tants of the neighboring districts invested. The Vene- tian army passed the frontier, and, in effect, Bonaparte's means of deriving supplies of any kind from his rear were for the time wholly cut off. It was not wonder- ful that the archduke should, under such circumstances, anticipate great advantage from enticing the French army into the heart of Germany ; where, divided by many wide provinces and mighty mountains and rivers from France, and with Italy once more in arms behind them, they should have to abide the encounter of an imperial army, animated by all the best motives that can lend vigor to the arm of man. The terror of the aulic council stepped in to prevent the archduke from reaping either the credit or the dis- grace of his movement. Vienna was panic-struck on hearing that Bonaparte had stormed the passes of the Julian Alps; the royal family sent their treasures into Hungary ; the middle ranks, whose interest is always peace, became clamorous for some termination to a war, which during six years had been so unfortunate ; and the archduke was ordered to avail himself of the first pretence which circumstances might afford for the opening of a negotiation. The archduke had already, acting on his own judg- ment and feelings, dismissed such an occasion with civility and with coldness. Napoleon had addressed a 1797.] TREATY OF LEOBEN VENICE. 65 letter to his imperial highness from Clagenfurt, in which he called on him, as a brother soldier, to consider the certain miseries and the doubtful suc- cesses of war, and put an end to the campaign by a fair and equitable treaty. The archduke replied, that he regarded with the highest esteem the personal charac- ter of his correspondent, but that the Austrian govern- ment had committed to his trust the guidance of a particular army, not the diplomatic business of the em- pire. The prince, on receiving these new instructions from Vienna, perceived, however reluctantly, that the line of his duty was altered ; and the result was a series of negotiations which ended in the provisional treaty of Leoben signed April 18, 1797. No sooner was this negotiation in a fair train than Napoleon, abandoning for the moment the details of its management to inferior diplomatists, hastened to re- trace his steps, and pour the full storm of his wrath on the Venetians. The doge and his senate, whose only hopes had rested on the successes of Austria on the Adige, heard with utter despair that the archduke had shared the fate of Beaulieu, of Wurmser, and of Al- vinzi, and that the preliminaries of peace were actually signed. The rapidity of Bonaparte's return gave them no breathing-time. They hastened to send offers of submission, and their messengers were received with anger and contempt. " French blood has been treacherously shed," said Napoleon ; " if you could offer me the treasures of Peru, if you cover your whole dominion with gold the atonement would be insuf- ficient the lion of St. Mark* must lick the dust/' These tidings came like a sentence of death upon the devoted senate. Their deliberations were unceasing ; their schemes innumerable ; their hearts divided and unnerved. Those secret chambers, from which that haughty oligarchy had for so many ages excluded every eye and every voice but their own, were invaded with impunity by strange-faced men, who boldly criti- cized their measures and heaped new terrors on their heads, by announcing that the mass of the people had * The armorial bearing of Venice. 66 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1797. ceased to consider the endurance of their sway as synonymous with the prosperity of Venice. Popular tumults filled the streets and canals ; universal confu- sion prevailed, in the midst of which Bonaparte ap- peared on the opposite coast of the Lagoon. Some of his troops were already in the heart of the city, when on the 31st of May a hasty message reached him, an- nouncing that the senate submitted wholly. He exact- ed severe revenge. The leaders who had aided the Lombard insurgents were delivered to him. The oligarchy ceased to rule, and a democratical govern- ment was formed, provisionally, on the model of France. Venice consented to surrender to the victor large territories on the main land of Italy ; five ships of war ; 3,000,000 francs in gold, and as many more in naval stores ; twenty of the best pictures, and 500 manu- scripts. Lastly, the troops of the conqueror were to occupy the capital until tranquillity was established. In their last agony, the Venetian senate made a vain effort to secure the personal protection of the general, by offering him a purse of seven millions of francs. He rejected this with scorn. He had already treated in the same style a bribe of four millions, tendered on the part of the duke of Modena. The friend employed to conduct the business reminded him of the proverbial ingratitude of all popular governments, and of the little attention which the directory had hitherto paid to his personal interests. " That is all true enough," said Napoleon, " but for four millions I will not place myself in the power of this duke." Austria herself did not hesitate to tamper in the same manner, though far more magnificently, as became her resources, with his republican virtue. He was offered an independent German principality for himself and his heirs "I thank the emperor," he answered, " but if greatness is to be mine, it shall come from France." The Venetian senate were guilty, in their mortal struggle, of another and a more inexcusable piece of meanness. They seized the person of count D'En- traigues, a French emigrant, who h^d been living in their city as agent for the exiled house of Bourbon ; and 1797.] PICHEGRU THE DIRECTORY. 67 surrendered him and all his papers to the victorious general. Bonaparte discovered among these docu- ments ample evidence that Pichegru, the French gene- ral on the Rhine, and universally honored as the con- queror of Holland, had some time ere this hearkened to the proposals of the Bourbon princes, and, among other efforts in favor of the royal cause, not hesitated even to misconduct his military movements with a view to the downfall of the government which had intrusted him with his command. This was a secret, the importance of which Napoleon could well appreciate ; and he forthwith communicated it to the directory at Paris. The events of the last twelve months in France had made Pichegru a person of still higher importance than when he commenced his intrigues with the Bourbons as general on the Rhine. Some obscure doubts of his fidelity, or the usual policy of the directory, which ren- dered them averse (wherever they could help it) to con- tinue any one general very long at the head of one army, had induced them to displace Pichegru, and ap- point Hoche, a tried republican, in his room. Pichegru, on returning to France, became a member of the coun- cil of five hundred, and (the royalist party having at this season recovered all but a preponderance) was, on the meeting of the chambers, called to the chair of hat in which he had his place. The five directors had by their conduct done every- tning to undermine their own authority, and now on the verge of ruin they were forced to invoke the aid of Napoleon. His acts had of late excited powerfully their resentment, but their imminent danger now forced them to overlook these. He had taken upon himself the whole responsibility of the preliminary treaty of Leoben, although the French government had sent general Clarke into Italy for the express purpose of controlling him, and acting as his equal at least in the negotiation. A clause in that treaty, by which Man- tua, the strongest fortress in Italy, and now, in conse- quence of Napoleon's own skill and zeal, rendered stronger than it ever had been, was to be surrendered 68 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1797 back to Austria, was judged necessary at the time by the general, in order to obtain from the emperor the boundary of the Rhine and the cession of Belgium. But the directory thought the conqueror underrated the advantages of his own position and theirs in consenting to it, and but for Carnot would never have ratified it. At the other side of the Italian peninsula, again, the victorious general, immediately after the fall of Venice, had to superintend the revolution of Genoa ; in which great city the democratic party availed themselves of the temper and events of the time, to emancipate themselves also from their hereditary oligarchy. They would fain have excluded the nobility from all share in the remodelled government ; and Napoleon rebuked and discountenanced this attempt, in terms little likely to be heard with approbation by the " Sires of the Louxembourg." He told the Genoese, that to exclude the nobles was in itself as unjust as unwise, and that they ought to be grateful for the means of reorganiz- ing their constitution, without passing like France through the terrible ordeal of a revolution. The rulers of France might be excused for asking at this mo- ment " Does the lecturer of the Ligurian republic mean to be our Washington, our Monk, or our Crom- well ?" He, however, received with alacrity the call of the trembling directory. He harangued his soldiery, and made himself secure of their readiness to act as he might choose for them. He not only sent his lieuten- ant Augereau to Paris, to command the national guard for the government, should they find it necessary to appeal immediately to force, but announced that he was himself prepared to "pass the Rubicon/' and march to their assistance, with 15,000 of his best troops. The directory, meanwhile, had in their extremity ventured to disregard the law against bringing regular troops within a certain distance of the capital, and summoned Hoche to bring a corps of his Rhenish army for their instant protection. It was by this means that the new revolution, as it 1797.] MONTEBELLO. 69 may be called, of the 18th Fructidor was effected. On that day (Sept. 4, 1797) the majority of the direc- tory, marching their army into Paris, dethroned their two opposition colleagues. Pichegru and the other royalists of note in the assemblies, to the number of more than 150, were arrested and sent into exile. The government, for the moment, recovered the semblance of security ; and Bonaparte heard, with little satisfaction, that they had been able to accom- plish their immediate object without the intervention of his personal appearance on the scene. He remon- strated, moreover, against the manner in which they had followed up their success. According to him, they ought to have executed Pichegru and a few ring- leaders, and set an example of moderation, by sparing all those whose royalism admitted of any doubt, or if it was manifest, was of secondary importance. It would have been hard for the directory at this time to have pleased Bonaparte, or for Bonaparte to have en- tirely satisfied them ; but neither party made the effort. The fall of Venice, however, gave Napoleon the means, which he was not disposed to neglect, of bring- ing his treaty with Austria to a more satisfactory conclusion than had been indicated in the preliminaries of Leoben. After settling the affairs of Venice, and establishing the new Ligurian republic, the general took up his residence at the noble castle of Montebello, near Milan. Here his wife, who, though they had been married in March, 1796, was still a bride, and with whom, during the intervening eventful months, he had kept up a correspondence full of the fervor of love, had at length rejoined him. Josephine's manners were wor- thy, by universal admission, of the highest rank ; and the elegance with which she did the honors of the castle, filled the ministers and princes, who were con- tinually to be seen in its precincts, with admiration. While Napoleon conducted his negotiations with as much firmness and decision as had marked him in the field, it was her care that nature and art should lend all their graces to what the Italians soon learned to call 70 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1797. the court of Montebello. Whatever talent Milan con- tained was pressed into her service. Music and dance, and festival upon festival, seemed to occupy every hour. The beautiful lakes of Lombardy were covered with gay flotillas ; and the voluptuous retreats around their shores received in succession new life and splendor from the presence of Napoleon, Josephine, and 'the brilliant circle amid whom they were rehearsing the imperial parts that destiny had in reserve for them. Montebello was the centre from which Bonaparte, dur- ing the greater part of this summer, negotiated with the emperor, controlled all Italy, and overawed the Louxembourg. The final settlement with the emperor's commis- sioners, though long delayed, was at length completed, and the treaty of Campo-Forrnio was signed on the 3d of October, 1797. By this act the emperor yielded to France Flanders and the boundary of the Rhine, in- cluding the great fortress of Mentz. The various new republics of Lombardy were united, and recognized under the general name of the Cisapline Republic. To indemnify Austria for the loss of those territories, the fall of Venice afforded new means of which Napoleon did not hesitate to propose, nor Austria to accept the use. France and Austria agreed to effect a division of the whole territories of the ancient republic. Venice herself, and her Italian provinces, were handed over to the emperor in lieu of his lost Lombardy ; and the French assumed the sovereignty of the Ionian islands and Dalmatia. In concluding, and in celebrating the conclusion of his treaty, Napoleon's proud and fiery temperament twice shone out. Cobentzel, the emperor's chief envoy,, had set down, as the first article, " The emperor rec- ognizes the French republic." " Efface that," said Napoleon, sternly, " it is as clear as that the sun is in heaven. Woe to them that cannot distinguish the light of either !" At the TE DEUM, after the proclamation of the peace, the imperial envoy would have taken the place prepared for Bonaparte, which was the most eminent in the church. The haughty soldier seized 1797.] DEPARTS FOR RASTADT. 71 his arm and drew him back. "Had your imperial master himself been here," said he, " I should not have forgotten that in my person the dignity of France is represented." Various minor arrangements remained to be cori- sidered, and a congress of all the German powers being summoned to meet for that purpose at Rastadt, Na- poleon received the orders of the directory to appear there, and perfect his work in the character of am- bassador of France. He took an affecting leave of his soldiery, published a temperate and manly address to the Cisalpine republic, and proceeded, by' way of Switzerland, to the execution of his duty. He carried with him the unbounded love and devotion of one of the finest armies that ever the world had seen ; and the attachment, hardly less energetic, of all those classes of society throughout Italy, who flattered themselves with the hope that the Cisalpine republic, the creature of his hands, would in time prepare the way for, and ulti- mately merge in, a republican constitution common to the whole Italian people. With what hopes or fears as to his own future fortunes, he abandoned the scene and the companions of his giory, the reader must form his own opinion. CHAPTEK III. NAPOLEON AT RASTADT HE ARRIVES AT PARIS His RECEPTION BT THE DIRECTORY He is appointed to command the Army for the Invasion of England He recommends an Expedition to Egypt Voyage to Egypt Malta surrendered Arrival in Egypt The March up the Nile Battle of the "Pyramids Cairo surrenders Battle of Aboukir Bonaparte's Administration in Egypt Arma- ments of the Porte Bonaparte at Suez Siege of Acre Retreat to Egypt Defeat of the Turks at Aboukir Bonaparte embarks for France Retrospect Bonaparte in Paris Revolution of the 18th Brumaire The Provisional Consulate A. D. 1798 1799. NAPOLEON was received by the assembled ministers at Rastadt with the respect due to the extraordinary talents which he had already displayed in negotiation as well as in war. But he stayed among them only two or three days, for he perceived that the multiplicity of minor arrangements to be discussed and settled, must, if he seriously entered upon them, involve the necessity of a long-protracted residence at Rastadt ; and he had many reasons for desiring to be quickly in Paris. His personal relations with the directory were of a very doubtful kind, and he earnestly wished to study with his own eyes the position in which the government stood towards the various orders of society in the all-influen- tial capital. He abandoned the conduct of the diplo- matic business to his colleagues, and reached Paris at the beginning of December. Nor was he without a feasible pretext for this rapidity. On the 2d of Octo- ber, the directory had announced to the French people their purpose to carry the war with the English into England itself; the immediate organization of a great invading army ; and their design to place it under the command of" citizen general Bonaparte." On quitting Rastadt Napoleon was careful to resume, 1798.] PARIS. 73 in every particular, the appearance of a private citizen. Reaching Paris, he took up his residence in the small modest house that he had occupied ere he set out for Italy in the. Rue Chanter eine, which, about this time, in compliment to its illustrious inhabitant, received from the municipality the new name of Rue de la Vic- toire. Here he resumed with his plain clothes his fa- vorite studies and pursuits, and, apparently contented with the society of his private friends, seemed to avoid, as carefully as others in his situation might have courted, the honors of popular distinction and applause. It was not immediately known that he was in Paris, and when he walked the streets his person was rarely recognized by the multitude. His mode of life was necessarily somewhat different from what it had been when he was both poor and obscure ; his society was of course courted in the highest circles., and he from time to time appeared in them, and received company at home with the elegance of hospitality over which Josephine was so well qualified to preside. But policy, as well as pride, moved him to shun notoriety. Before he could act again he had much to observe ; and he knew himself too well to be flattered by the stare either of mobs or of saloons. In his intercourse with society at this period, he was, for the most part, remarkable for the cold reserve of his manners. He had the appearance of one too much occupied with serious designs, to be able to relax at will into the easy play of ordinary conversation. If his eye was on every man, he well knew that every man's eye was upon him ; nor, perhaps, could he have chosen a better method (had this been his sole object) for prolonging and strengthening the impression his greatness was calculated to create, than this very exhi- bition of indifference. He did not suffer his person to be familiarized out of reverence. When he did ap- pear, it was not the ball or bon mot of the evening be- fore, that he recalled : he was still, wherever he went, the Bonaparte of Lodi, and Arcola, and Rivoli. His military bluntness disdained to disguise itself amid those circles where n meaner parvenu would have been I) 74 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1798. most ambitious to shine. The celebrated daughter of Necker made many efforts to catch his fancy, and en- list him among the votaries of her wit, which then gave law in Paris. " Whom/' said she, half wearied with his chilliness, " whom do you consider as the greatest of women ?" " Her, madam," he answered, " who has borne the greatest number of children." From this hour he had Madame de Stael for his enemy ; and yet, such are the inconsistencies of human nature, no man was more sensitive than he to the assaults of a species of enemy whom he thus scorned to conciliate. Through- out his Italian campaigns as consul as emperor and down to the last hours of the exile which termina- ted his life Bonaparte suffered himself to be annoyed by sarcasms and pamphlets as keenly and constantly as if he had been a poetaster. The haughtiness, for such it was considered, of his behavior in the high society of the capital, was of a piece with what he had already manifested in the camp. In the course of his first campaigns, his officers, even of the highest rank, became sensible, by degrees, to a total change of demeanor. An old acquaintance of the Toulon period, joining the army, was about to throw himself into the general's arms with the warmth of former familiarity. Napoleon's cold eye checked him ; and he perceived in a moment how he had alter- ed with his elevation. Bonaparte had always, on the other hand, affected much familiarity with the common soldiery. He disdained not on occasion to share the ration or to taste the flask of a sentinel ; and the French private, often as intelligent as those whom for- tune has placed above him, used to address the great general with even more frankness than his own cap- tain. Napoleon, in one of his Italian despatches, men- tions to the directory the pleasure which he often de- rived from the conversation of the men. " But yes- terday," says he, " a common trooper addressed me as I was riding, and told me he thought he could tell me the movement which ought to be adopted. I listened to him, and heard him detail some operations on which I had actually resolved but a little before." It has been 1798.] PARIS. 75 noticed (perhaps by over-nice speculators) as a part of the same system, that Napoleon, on his return to Paris, continued to employ the same trades-people, . however inferior in their several crafts, who had served him in the days of his obscurity.* The first public appearance of Bonaparte occurred (January 2, 1798) when the treaty of Campo-Formio was to be formally presented to the directory. The great court of the Louxembourg was roofed over with flags, an immense concourse, including all the members of the government and of the two legislative bodies, expected the victorious negotiator; and when he ap- peared, followed by his staff, and surrounded on all hands with the trophies of his -glorious campaigns, the enthusiasm of the mighty multitude, to the far greater part of which his person was, up to the moment, en- tirely unknown, outleaped all bounds, and filled the. al- ready jealous hearts of the directors with dark pre- sentiments. They well knew that the soldiery returning from Italy had sung and said through every village, that it was high time to get rid of the lawyers, and make " the little corporal" king. With uneasy hearts did they hear what seemed too like an echo of this cry, from the assembled leaders of opinion in Paris and in France. The voice of Napoleon was for the first time heard in an energetic speech, ascribing all the glories that had been achieved to the zeal of the French sol- diery for " the glorious constitution of the year THREE" the same glorious constitution which, in the year eight, was to receive the coup de grace from his own hand ; and Barras, as presiding director, answer- ing that " Nature had exhausted all her powers in the * A silversmith, who had given him credit when he set out to Italy for a dressing-case worth 501., was rewarded with all the business which the recommendation of his now illustrious debtor could bring to him ; and, being clever in his trade, became ultimately, under the patronage of the imperial household, one of the wealthiest citizens of Paris. A little hatter, and a cobbler, who had served Bonaparte when a subal- tern, might have risen in the same manner, had their skill equalled the silversmith's. Not even Napoleon's example could persuade the Pa- risians to wear ill-shaped hats and clumsy boots ; but he, in his own person, adhered, to the last, to his original connection with these poor artisans. 76 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [179S creation of a Bonaparte," awoke a new thunder of un- welcome applauses. Carnot had been exiled after the 18th Fructidor, and was at this time actually believed to be dead. The institute nominated Bonaparte to fill his place ; and he was received by this learned body with enthusiasm not inferior to that of the Louxembourg. He thenceforth adopted, on all public occasions, the costume of this academy ; and, laying aside as far as was possible the insignia of his military rank, seemed to desire only the distinction of being classed with those whose scientific attainments had done honor to their country. In all this he acted on calculation. " I well knew/' said he at St. Helena, " that there was not a drummer in the army but would respect me the more for believing me to be not a mere soldier." Some time before he left Italy, a motion had been made in one of the chambers for rewarding him with a grant of the estate of Chambord, and lost, owing solely to the jealousy of the directory. This opposition was on their part unjust and unwise, and extremely unpopular also ; for it was known to all men that the general might easily have enriched himself during his wonderful campaigns, and had, in fact, brought with him to the Rue de la Victoire no more than 100,000 crowns, saved from the fair allowances of his rank. No one can doubt how Napoleon regarded this part of their conduct. Every day confirmed them in their jealousy; nor did he take much pains on the other hand to conceal his feelings towards them. On many occasions they were willing to make use of him, al- though they dreaded in so doing to furnish him with new proofs of the vast superiority which he had reach- ed in public opinion above themselves ; and he was, on his part, chary of acceding to any of their proposals. On the 21st of January, the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI. was to be celebrated, according to cus- tom, as a great festival of the republican calendar ; and, conscious how distasteful the observance had by this time become to all persons capable of reflection, the government would 'fain have diverted attention from 1798.] WAR WITH ENGLAND. 77 themselves, by assigning a prominent part in the cere- monial to him, on whom, as they knew, all eyes were sure to be fixed whenever he made his appearance. Napoleon penetrated their motives. He remonstrated against the ceremony altogether, as perpetuating the memory of a deed, perhaps unavoidable, but not the less to be regretted. He told them that it was unwor- thy of a great republic to triumph, year after year, in the shedding of an individual enemy's blood. He knew how odious the barbarous ceremony was, and long urged the impolicy of its observance. But through the urgent representations of the directory, he was at length persuaded to appear in it as a private member of the institute, along with the rest of that association. His refusal to be there as the great general of the republic annoyed the timid directory ; and yet, being recognized in his civic dress, and pointed out to new myriads of observers, the effect which the government had desired to produce was brought about in spite of all Bonaparte's reluctance. The purpose of the assemblage was al- most forgotten ; the clamors of the people converted it into another fete for Napoleon. It has already been said, that as early as October, 1797, the directory announced their intention of com- mitting an army, destined for the invasion of England, to the conqueror of Italy. He wholly disapproved of their rashness in breaking off the negotiations of the preceding summer with the English envoy, lord Malms- bury, and, above all, of the abruptness of that proce- dure. But the die was cast ; and he willingly accepted the appointment now pressed upon him by the govern- ment, who, in truth, were anxious about nothing so much as to occupy his mind with the matters of his profession, and so prevent him from taking a prominent part in the civil business of the state. Solely owing to his celebrity, two of his brothers were already distin- guished members of the legislative bodies ; and there could be no doubt, that the gates of either would fly open for his own admission, if he chose it, on the next election. Whatever views of ulterior ambition might have 78 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. , [1798. opened themselves to Napoleon at this period, he weL knew that the hour was not yet come, in which he could serve his purposes better than by the pursuit of his military career. Civil matters were not yet ready for his interference, and as soon as he was fully satis- fied of this, he entered without further objections upon the new field thus opened before him. He proceeded to make a regular survey of the French coast opposite to England, with the view of improving 'ts fortifications, and of selecting the best points for *m narking the, invading force. For this service he was eminently qualified ; and many local improvements o* great importance, long afterward effected, were first suggested by him at this period. But the result of his examination was a perfect conviction that the time was nc.i yet come for invading England. He perceived that extensive and tedious preparations were indispen- sable ere the French shipping on that coast could be put into a condition for such an attempt : and the burst of loyalty which the threat of invasion called forth in every part of Britain the devotion with which all classes of the people answered the appeal of the government the immense extent to which the regular and volunteer forces were increased everywhere- these circumstances produced a strong impression on his not less calculating than enterprising mind. He had himself, in the course of the preceding autumn, suggested to the minister for foreign affairs, the cele- orated Talleyrand, the propriety of making an effort against England in another quarter of the world : of seizing Malta, proceeding to occupy Egypt, and therein f lining at once a territory capable of supplying to ranee the loss of her West Indian colonies, and the means of annoying Great Britain in her Indian trade and empire. To this scheme he now recurred, and the directory, influenced by his representations and opinion, at length gave it their consent. The Egyptian expe- dition was determined on ; but kept strictly secret. The attention of England was still riveted on the coasts of Normandy and Picardy, between which and Paris Bonaparte studiously divided his presence while it 1798.] EGYPTIAN EXPEDITION. 79 was on the borders of the Mediterranean that the ships and the troops really destined for action were assem- bling. Bonaparte, Jiaving rifled to such purpose the cabi- nets and galleries of the Italian princes, was resolved not to lose the opportunity of appropriating some of the richest antiquarian treasures of Egypt ; nor was it likely that he should undervalue the opportunities which his expedition might afford of extending the boundaries of science, by careful observation of natu- ral phenomena. He drew together therefore a body of eminent artists and connoisseurs, under the direction of Monge, who had managed his Italian collections : it was perhaps the first time that a troop of savans (there were 100 of them) formed part of the staff of an invading- army. The various squadrons of the French fleet were now assembled at Toulon in readiness for departure. As soon as Bonaparte arrived he called his army together, and harangued them. " Rome," he said, " combated Carthage by sea as well as land ; and England was the Carthage of France. He was come to lead them, in the name of the goddess of Liberty, across mighty seas, and into remote regions, where their valor might achieve such glory and such wealth as could never be looked for beneath the cold heavens of the west. The meanest of his soldiers should receive seven acres of land ;" where he mentioned not. His promises had not hitherto been vain. The soldiery heard him with joy, and prepared to obey with alacrity. The English government, meanwhile, although they had no suspicion of the real destination of the arma- ment, had not failed to observe what was passing in Toulon. They probably believed that the ships there assembled were meant to take part in the great scheme of the invasion of England. However this might have been, they had sent a considerable reinforcement to Nelson, who then commanded on the Mediterranean station ; and he, at the moment when Bonaparte reached Toulon, was cruising within sight of the port. Napoleon well knew, that to embark in the presence 80 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1798. of Nelson would be to rush into the jaws of rum ; and waited until some accident should relieve him from this terrible watcher. On the evening of the 19th May, fortune favored him. A violent gale drove the Eng- lish off the coast, and disabled some ships so much that Nelson was obliged to go into the harbors of Sar dinia to have them repaired. The French general it. stantly commanded the embarkation of all his troops ; and as the last of them got on board, the sun rose on the mighty armament : it was one of those dazzling suns which the soldiery delighted afterward to call " the suns of Napoleon." Seldom have the shores of the Mediterranean wit- nessed a nobler spectacle. That unclouded sun rose on a semicircle of vessels, extending in all to not less than six leagues : thirteen ships of the line and four- teen frigates (under the command of admiral Brueyes), and 400 transports. They carried 40,000 picked sol- diers, and officers whose names were only inferior to that of the general-in-chief ; of the men, as well as of their leaders, the far greater part already accustom- ed to follow Napoleon, and to consider his presence as the pledge of victory. The fleet was reinforced, ere it had proceed far on its way, by general Dessaix, and his division from Ita- ly ; and, having prosperous winds, appeared on the 10th of June off Malta. The knights of St. John were no longer those hardy and devout soldiers of the Cross, who for ages inspired terror among the Mussul- mans, and were considered as the heroic outguards of Christendom. Sunk in indolence and pleasure, these inheritors of a glorious name hardly attempted for a moment to defend their all but impregnable island, against the fleet which covered the seas around them. Bonaparte is said to have tampered successfully before- hand with some of the French knights. Division of counsels prevailed ; and in confusion and panic the gates were thrown open. As Napoleon was entering between the huge rocky barriers of La Valletta, Caflfa- relli said to him, " It is well there was some one within 1798.] CANDIA EGYPT. 81 to open the door for us ; had there been no garrison at all, the business might have been less easy." From Malta where he left a detachment of troops to guard an acquisition which he expected to find emi- nently useful in his future communications with France Bonaparte steered eastward ; but, after some days, ran upon the coast of Candia to take in water and fresh provisions, and, by thus casually diverging from his course, escaped imminent danger. For Nelson, soon returning to Toulon, missed the shipping which had so lately crowded the harbor, and ascertaining that they had not sailed towards the Atlantic, divined on the instant that their mark must be Egypt. His fleet was inferior in numbers, but he pursued without hesitation ; and taking the straight line, arrived off the Nile before any of the French ships had appeared there. Bonaparte, on hearing off Candia that the English fleet was already in the Levant, directed ad- miral Brueyes, to steer not for Alexandria, but for an- other point of the coast of Africa. Nelson, on the other hand, not finding the enemy where he had ex- pected, turned back and traversed the sea in quest of him, to Rhodes and thence to Syracuse. It is sup- posed, that on the 20th of June the fleets, almost touched each other ; but that the thickness of the haze, and Nelson's want of frigates, prevented an en- counter. Napoleon, reconnoitring the coast, ascertain- ed that there was no longer any fleet off Alexandria, and in effect reached his destination undisturbed on the 1st of July. At that moment a strange sail ap- peared on the verge of the horizon. " Fortune," ex- claimed he, " I ask but six hours more wilt thou re- fuse them ?" The vessels proved not to be English ; and the disembarkation immediately took place, in spite of a violent gale and a tremendous surf. They landed at Marabout, a mile and a half from Alexan- dria having lost many by drowning. Egypt, a province of the Ottoman empire, then at peace with France, was, of course, wholly unprepared for this invasion. The Turks, however, mustered what r orce they could, and shutting the gates of the city 6 82 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [1798. held out until the French forced their way through the old crumbling walls, and it was no longer possible to resist at once" superior numbers and European disci- pline. Two hundred French died in the assault ; the Turkish loss was much greater: and Bonaparte, after taking possession, abandoned the place for three hours to the unbridled license of military execution and rapine an atrocity for which there was only one pretext ; namely, the urgent necessity of striking awe and terror into the hearts of the population, and so preventing them from obeying the call of their military chieftains, to take arms in defence of the soil. Napoleon's conduct on this occasion was strangely contrasted with the tenor .of his General Order to the army before their disembarkation. " The people," he then said, " with whom we are about to live, are Ma- hometans : the first article of their faith is, There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his prophet. Do not contradict them : deal with them as you have done with the Jews and the Italians. Respect their muftis and imans, as you have done by the rabbins and the bishops elsewhere. . . .The Roman legions protected all religions. You will find here usages different from those of Europe : you must accustom yourselves to them. These people treat their women differently from us ; but in all countries, he who violates is a monster ; pillage enriches only a few ; it dishonors us, destroys our resources, and makes those enemies whom it is our interest to have for friends." Such was the text of Napoleon's General Order ; and such the comment of his first actions. To the people of Egypt, meanwhile, he addressed a proclamation in these words. " They will tell you that I come to destroy your religion; believe them not : answer that I am come to restore your rights, to punish the usurpers, and that I respect, more than the Mame- lukes ever did. God, his prophet, and the Koran. Sheiks and imans, assure the people that we also are true Mussulmans. Is it not we that have ruined the pope and the knights of Malta? Thrice happy they 1798.] EGYPT. 83 who shall be with us ! Woe to them that take up arms for the Mamelukes ! they shall perish !" Napoleon left Alexandria on the 7th of July, being anxious to force the Mamelukes to an encounter with the least possible delay. He had a small flotilla on the Nile, which served to guard his right flank : the infantry marched over burning sand at some distance from the river. The miseries of this progress were extreme. The air is crowded with pestiferous insects ; the glare of the sand weakens most men's* eyes, and blinds many ; water is scarce and bad ; and the coun- try had been swept clear of man, and beast, and vege- table. Under this torture even the gallant spirits of such men as Murat and Lannes could not sustain themselves: they trod their cockades in the sand. The common soldiers asked, with angry murmurs, if it was here the general designed to give them their seven acres? He alone was superior to all evils. Such was the happy temperament of his frame, that while others, after having rid them of their usual dress, were *till suffused in perpetual floods of perspiration, and the lardiest found it necessary to give two or three hours