Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

Alvinzi sent a peasant across the country to carry dispatches to Wurmser in the beleaguered city. The information of approaching relief was written upon very thin paper, in a minute hand, and inclosed in a ball of wax, not much larger than a pea. The spy was intercepted. He was seen to swallow the ball. The stomach was compelled to surrender its trust, and Napoleon became acquainted with Alvinzi's plan of operation. He left ten thousand men around the walls of Mantua, to continue the blockade, and assembled the rest of his army, consisting only of fifteen thousand, in the vicinity of Verona. The whole valley of the Adige was now swarming with the Austrian battalions. At night the wide horizon seemed illuminated with the blaze of their camp fires. The Austrians, conscious of their vast superiority in numbers, were hastening to envelop the French. Already forty thousand men were circling around the little band of fifteen thousand who were rallied under the eagles of France. The Austrians, wary in consequence of their past defeats, moved with the utmost caution, taking possession of the most commanding positions. Napoleon, with sleepless vigilance, watched for some exposed point, but in vain. The soldiers understood the true posture of affairs, and began to feel disheartened, for their situation was apparently desperate. The peril of the army was so great, that even the sick and the wounded in the hospitals at Milan, Pavia, and Lodi, voluntarily left their beds and hastened, emaciate with suffering, and many of them with their wounds still bleeding, to resume their station in the ranks. The soldiers were deeply moved by this affecting spectacle, so indicative of their fearful peril and of the devotion of their comrades to the interests of the army. Napoleon resolved to give battle immediately, before the Austrians should accumulate in still greater numbers.

A dark, cold winter's storm was deluging the ground with rain, as Napoleon roused his troops from the drenched sods upon which they were slumbering. The morning had not yet dawned through the surcharged clouds, and the freezing wind, like a tornado, swept the bleak hills. It was an awful hour in which to go forth to encounter mutilation and death. The enterprise was desperate. Fifteen thousand Frenchmen, with frenzied violence, were to hurl themselves upon the serried ranks of forty thousand foes. The horrid carnage soon began. The roar of the battle, the shout of onset, and the shriek of the dying, mingled in midnight gloom, with the appalling rush and wail of the tempest. The ground was so saturated with rain that it was almost impossible for the French to drag their cannon through the miry ruts. As the darkness of night passed and the dismal light of a stormy day was spread around them, the rain changed to snow, and the struggling French were smothered and blinded by the storm of sleet whirled furiously into their faces. Through the live-long day this terrific battle of man and of the elements raged unabated. When night came the exhausted soldiers, drenched with rain and benumbed with cold, threw themselves upon the blood-stained snow, in the midst of the dying and of the dead. Neither party claimed the victory, and neither acknowledged defeat. No pen can describe, nor can imagination conceive, the horrors of the dark and wailing night of storm and sleet which ensued. Through the long hours the groans of the wounded, scattered over many miles swept by the battle, blended in mournful unison with the wailings of the tempest. Two thousand of Napoleon's little band were left dead upon the field, and a still larger number of Austrian corpses were covered with the winding-sheet of snow. Many a blood-stained drift indicated the long and agonizing struggle of the wounded ere the motionlessness of death consummated the dreadful tragedy. It is hard to die even in the curtained chambers of our ceiled houses, with sympathizing friends administering every possible alleviation. Cold must have been those pillows of snow, and unspeakably dreadful the solitude of those death scenes, on the bleak hill sides and in the muddy ravines, where thousands of the young, the hopeful, the sanguine, in horrid mutilation, struggled through the long hours of the tempestuous night in the agonies of dissolution. Many of these young men were from the first families in Austria and in France, and had been accustomed to every indulgence. Far from mother, sister, brother, drenched with rain, covered with the drifting snow, alone--all alone with the midnight darkness and the storm--they writhed and moaned through lingering hours of agony.

The Austrian forces still were accumulating, and the next day Napoleon retired within the walls of Verona. It was the first time he had seemed to retreat before his foes. His star began to wane. The soldiers were silent and dejected. An ignominious retreat after all their victories, or a still more ignominious surrender to the Austrians appeared their only alternative. Night again came. The storm had passed away. The moon rose clear and cold over the frozen hills. Suddenly the order was proclaimed, in the early darkness, for the whole army, in silence and celerity, to be upon the march. Grief sat upon every countenance. The western gates of the city, looking toward France were thrown open. The rumbling of the artillery wheels, and the sullen tramp of the dejected soldiers fell heavily upon the night air. Not a word was spoken. Rapidly the army emerged from the gates, crossed the river, and pressed along the road toward France, leaving their foes slumbering behind them, unconscious of their flight. The depression of the soldiers thus compelled at last, as they supposed, to retreat, was extreme. Suddenly, and to the perplexity of all, Napoleon wheeled his columns into another road, which followed down the valley of the Adige. No one could imagine whither he was leading them. He hastened along the banks of the river, in most rapid march, about fourteen miles, and, just at midnight, recrossed the stream, and came upon the rear of the Austrian army. Here the soldiers found a vast morass, many miles in extent, traversed by several narrow causeways, in these immense marshes superiority in number was of little avail, as the heads of the column only could meet. The plan of Napoleon instantly flashed upon the minds of the intelligent French soldiers. They appreciated at once the advantage he had thus skillfully secured for them. Shouts of joy ran through the ranks. Their previous dejection was succeeded by corresponding elation.

It was midnight. Far and wide along the horizon blazed the fires of the Austrian camps, while the French were in perfect darkness. Napoleon, emaciate with care and toil, and silent in intensity of thought, as calm and unperturbed as the clear, cold, serene winter's night, stood upon an eminence observing the position, and estimating the strength of his foes. He had but thirteen thousand troops. Forty thousand Austrians, crowding the hill sides with their vast array, were manoeuvring to envelop and to crush him. But now indescribable enthusiasm animated the French army. They no longer doubted of success. Every man felt confident that the _Little Corporal_ was leading them again to a glorious victory.

In the centre of these wide spreading morasses was the village of Arcola, approached only by narrow dykes and protected by a stream, crossed by a small wooden bridge. A strong division of the Austrian army was stationed here. It was of the first importance that this position should be taken from the enemy. Before the break of day the solid columns of Napoleon were moving along the narrow passages, and the fierce strife commenced. The soldiers, with loud shouts, rushed upon the bridge. In an instant the whole head of the column was swept away by a volcanic burst of fire. Napoleon sprung from his horse, seized a standard, and shouted, "Conquerors of Lodi, follow your general!" He rushed at the head of the column, leading his impetuous troops through a perfect hurricane of balls and bullets, till he arrived at the centre of the bridge. Here the tempest of fire was so dreadful that all were thrown into confusion. Clouds of smoke enveloped the bridge in almost midnight darkness. The soldiers recoiled, and trampling over the dead and dying, in wild disorder retreated. The tall grenadiers seized the fragile and wasted form of Napoleon in their arms as if he had been a child, and regardless of their own danger, dragged him from the mouth of this terrible battery. But in the tumult they were forced over the dyke, and Napoleon was plunged into the morass and was left almost smothered in the mire. The Austrians were already between Napoleon and his column, when the anxious soldiers perceived, in the midst of the darkness and the tumult, that their beloved chief was missing. The wild cry arose, "Forward to save your general." Every heart thrilled at this cry. The whole column instantly turned, and regardless of death, inspired by love for their general, rushed impetuously, irresistibly upon the bridge. Napoleon was extricated and Arcola was taken.

As soon as the morning dawned, Alvinzi perceived that Verona was evacuated, and in astonishment he heard the thunder of Napoleon's guns reverberating over the marshes which surrounded Arcola. He feared the genius of his adversary, and his whole army was immediately in motion. All day long the battle raged on those narrow causeways, the heads of the columns rushing against each other with indescribable fury, and the dead and the dying filling the morass. The terrible rebuke which had been inflicted upon the division of Vaubois still rung in the ears of the French troops, and every officer and every man resolved to prove that _he_ belonged to the army of Italy. Said Augereau, as he rushed into the mouth of a perfect volcano of flame and fire, "Napoleon may break my sword over my dead body, but he shall never cashier _me_ in the presence of my troops." Napoleon was every where, exposed to every danger, now struggling through the dead and the dying on foot, heading the impetuous charge; now galloping over the dykes, with the balls from the Austrian batteries plowing the ground around him. Wherever his voice was heard, and his eye fell, tenfold enthusiasm inspired his men. Lannes, though severely wounded, had hastened from the hospital at Milan, to aid the army in this terrible emergence. He received three wounds in endeavoring to protect Napoleon, and never left his side till the battle was closed. Muiron, another of those gallant spirits, bound to Napoleon by those mysterious ties of affection which this strange man inspired, seeing a bomb shell about to explode, threw himself between it and Napoleon, saving the life of his beloved general by the sacrifice of his own. The darkness of night separated the combatants for a few hours, but before the dawn of the morning the murderous assault was renewed, and continued with unabated violence through the whole ensuing day. The French veterans charged with the bayonet, and hurled the Austrians with prodigious slaughter into the marsh. Another night came and went. The gray light of another cold winter's morning appeared faintly in the east, when the soldiers sprang again from their freezing, marshy beds, and in the dense clouds of vapor and of smoke which had settled down over the morass, with the fury of blood-hounds rushed again to the assault. In the midst of this terrible conflict a cannon-ball fearfully mangled the horse upon which Napoleon was riding. The powerful animal, frantic with pain and terror, became perfectly unmanageable. Seizing the bit in his teeth, he rushed through the storm of bullets directly into the midst of the Austrian ranks. He then, in the agonies of death, plunged into the morass and expired. Napoleon was left struggling in the swamp up to his neck in the mire. Being perfectly helpless, he was expecting every moment either to sink and disappear in that inglorious grave, or that some Austrian dragoon would sabre his head from his body or with a bullet pierce his brain. Enveloped in clouds of smoke, in the midst of the dismay and the uproar of the terrific scene, he chanced to evade observation, until his own troops, regardless of every peril, forced their way to his rescue. Napoleon escaped with but a few slight wounds. Through the long day, the tide of war continued to ebb and to flow upon these narrow dykes. Napoleon now carefully counted the number of prisoners taken and estimated the amount of the slain. Computing thus that the enemy did not outnumber him by more than a third, he resolved to march out into the open plain for a decisive conflict. He relied upon the enthusiasm and the confidence of his own troops and the dejection with which he knew that the Austrians were oppressed. In these impassable morasses it was impossible to operate with the cavalry. Three days of this terrible conflict had now passed. In the horrible carnage of these days Napoleon had lost 8000 men, and he estimated that the Austrians could not have lost less, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, than 20,000. Both armies were utterly exhausted, and those hours of dejection and lassitude had ensued in which every one wished that the battle was at an end.

It was midnight. Napoleon, sleepless and fasting, seemed insensible to exhaustion either of body or of mind. He galloped along the dykes from post to post, with his whole soul engrossed with preparations for the renewal of the conflict. Now he checked his horse to speak in tones of consolation to a wounded soldier, and again by a few words of kind encouragement animated an exhausted sentinel. At two o'clock in the morning the whole army, with the ranks sadly thinned, was again roused and ranged in battle array. It was a cold, damp morning, and the weary and half-famished soldiers shivered in their lines. A dense, oppressive fog covered the flooded marsh and added to the gloom of the night. Napoleon ordered fifty of the guards to struggle with their horses through the swamp, and conceal themselves in the rear of the enemy. With incredible difficulty most of them succeeded in accomplishing this object. Each dragoon had a trumpet. Napoleon commenced a furious attack along the whole Austrian front. When the fire was the hottest, at an appointed signal, the mounted guards sounded with their trumpets loudly the charge, and with perfect desperation plunged into the ranks of the enemy. The Austrians, in the darkness and confusion of the night, supposing that Murat,[1] with his whole body of cavalry, was thundering down upon their rear, in dismay broke and fled. With demoniacal energy the French troops pursued the victory, and before that day's sun went down, the proud army of Alvinzi, now utterly routed, and having lost nearly thirty thousand men, marking its path with a trail of blood, was retreating into the mountains of Austria. Napoleon, with streaming banners and exultant music, marched triumphantly back into Verona, by the eastern gates, directly opposite those from which, three days before, he had emerged. He was received by the inhabitants with the utmost enthusiasm and astonishment. Even the enemies of Napoleon so greatly admired the heroism and the genius of this wonderful achievement, that they added their applause to that of his friends. This was the fourth Austrian army which Napoleon had overthrown in less than eight months, and each of them more than twice as numerous as his own. In Napoleon's dispatches to the Directory, as usual, silent concerning himself, and magnanimously attributing the victory to the heroism of the troops, he says, "Never was a field of battle more valiantly disputed than the conflict at Arcola. I have scarcely any generals left. Their bravery and their patriotic enthusiasm are without example."

In the midst of all these cares he found time to write a letter of sympathy to the widow of the brave Muiron. "You," he writes, "have lost a husband who was dear to you; and I am bereft of a friend to whom I have been long and sincerely attached. But our country has suffered more than us both, in being deprived of an officer so pre-eminently distinguished for his talents and his dauntless bravery. If it lies within the scope of my ability to yield assistance to yourself, or your infant, I beseech you to reckon upon my utmost exertions." It is affecting to record that in a few weeks the woe-stricken widow gave birth to a lifeless babe, and she and her little one sank into an untimely grave together. The woes of war extend far and wide beyond the blood-stained field of battle. Twenty thousand men perished around the marshes of Arcola. And after the thunders of the strife had ceased, and the groans of the dying were hushed in death, in twenty thousand distant homes, far away on the plains of France, or in the peaceful glens of Austria, the agony of that field of blood was renewed, as the tidings reached them, and a wail burst forth from crushed and lacerated hearts, which might almost have drowned the roar of that deadly strife.

How Napoleon could have found time in the midst of such terrific scenes for the delicate attentions of friendship, it is difficult to conceive. Yet to a stranger he wrote, announcing the death of a nephew, in the following affecting terms: "He fell with glory and in the face of the enemy, without suffering a moment of pain. Where is the man who would not envy such a death? Who would not gladly accept the choice of thus escaping from the vicissitudes of an unsatisfying world. Who has not often regretted that he has not been thus withdrawn from the calumny, the envy, and all the odious passions which seem the almost exclusive directors of the conduct of mankind." It was in this pensive strain that Napoleon wrote, when a young man of twenty-six, and in the midst of a series of the most brilliant victories which mortal man had ever achieved.

The moment the Austrians broke and fled, while the thunders of the pursuing cannonade were reverberating over the plains, Napoleon seized a pen and wrote to his faithful Josephine, with that impetuous energy, in which "sentences were crowded into words, and words into letters." The courier was dispatched, at the top of his speed, with the following lines, which Josephine with no little difficulty deciphered. She deemed them worth the study. "My adored Josephine! at length I live again. Death is no longer before me, and glory and honor are still in my breast. The enemy is beaten. Soon Mantua will be ours. Then thy husband will fold thee in his arms, and give thee a thousand proofs of his ardent affection. I am a little fatigued. I have received letters from Eugene and Hortense. I am delighted with the children. Adieu, my adorable Josephine. Think of me often. Should your heart grow cold toward me, you will be indeed cruel and unjust. But I am sure that you will always continue my faithful friend as I shall ever continue your fond lover. Death alone can break the union which love, sentiment, and sympathy have formed. Let me have news of your health. A thousand and a thousand kisses."

A vein of superstition pervaded the mind of this extraordinary man. He felt that he was the child of destiny--that he was led by an arm more powerful than his own, and that an unseen guide was conducting him along his perilous and bewildering pathway. He regarded life as of little value, and contemplated death without any dread. "I am," said he, "the creature of circumstances. I do but go where events point out the way. I do not give myself any uneasiness about death. When a man's time is come, he must go." "Are you a Predestinarian?" inquired O'Meara. "As much so," Napoleon replied, "as the Turks are. I have been always so. When destiny wills, it must be obeyed. I will relate an example. At the siege of Toulon I observed an officer very careful of himself, instead of exhibiting an example of courage to animate his men. 'Mr. Officer,' said I, 'come out and observe the effect of your shot. You know not whether your guns are well pointed or not.' Very reluctantly he came outside of the parapet, to the place where I was standing. Wishing to expose as little of his body as possible, he stooped down, and partially sheltered himself behind the parapet, and looked under my arm. Just then a shot came close to me, and low down, which knocked him to pieces. Now, if this man had stood upright, he would have been safe as the ball would have passed between us without hurting either." Maria Louisa, upon her marriage with Napoleon, was greatly surprised to find that no sentinels slept at the door of his chamber; that the doors even were not locked; and that there were no guns or pistols in the room where they slept. "Why," said she, "you do not take half so many precautions as my father does." "I am too much of a fatalist," he replied, "to take any precautions against assassination." O'Meara, at St. Helena, at one time urged him to take some medicine. He declined, and calmly raising his eyes to heaven, said, "That which is written is written. Our days are numbered." Strange and inconsistent as it may seem, there is a form which the doctrine of Predestination assumes in the human mind, which arouses one to an intensity of exertion which nothing else could inspire. Napoleon felt that he was destined to the most exalted achievements. Therefore he consecrated himself through days of toil and nights of sleeplessness to the most Herculean exertions that he might work out his destiny. This sentiment which inspired Napoleon as a philosopher, animated Calvin as a Christian. Instead of cutting the sinews of exertion, as many persons would suppose it must, it did but strain those sinews to their utmost tension.

Napoleon had obtained, at the time of his marriage, an exquisite miniature of Josephine. This, in his romantic attachment, he had suspended by a ribbon about his neck, and the cheek of Josephine ever rested upon the pulsations of his heart. Though living in the midst of the most exciting tumults earth has ever witnessed, his pensive and reflective mind was solitary and alone. The miniature of Josephine was his companion, and often during the march, and in the midnight bivouac, he gazed upon it most fondly. "By what art is it," he once passionately wrote, "that you, my sweet love, have been able to captivate all my faculties, and to concentrate in yourself my moral existence? It is a magic influence which will terminate only with my life. My adorable wife! I know not what fate awaits me, but if it keep me much longer from you, it will be insupportable. There was a time when I was proud of my courage. When contemplating the various evils to which we are exposed, I could fix my eyes steadfastly upon every conceivable calamity, without alarm or dread. But now the idea that Josephine may be ill, and, above all, the cruel thought that she may love me less, withers my soul, and leaves me not even the courage of despair. Formerly I said to myself, Man can not hurt him who can die without regret. But now to die without being loved by Josephine is torment. My incomparable companion! thou whom fate has destined to make, along with me, the painful journey of life, the day on which I shall cease to possess thy heart will be to me the day of utter desolation." On one occasion the glass covering the miniature was found to be broken. Napoleon considered the accident a fearful omen of calamity to the beloved original. He was so oppressed with this presentiment, that a courier was immediately dispatched to bring him tidings from Josephine.

It is not surprising that Napoleon should thus have won, in the heart of Josephine the most enthusiastic love. "He is," said she, "the most fascinating of men." Said the Duchess of Abrantes, "It is impossible to describe the charm of Napoleon's countenance when he smiled. His soul was upon his lips and in his eyes." "I never," said the Emperor Alexander, "loved any man as I did that man." Says the Duke of Vicenza, "I have known nearly all the crowned heads of the present day--all our illustrious contemporaries. I have lived with several of those great historical characters on a footing quite distinct from my diplomatic duties. I have had every opportunity of comparing and judging. But it is impossible to institute any comparison between Napoleon and any other man. They who say otherwise did not know him." Says Duroc, "Napoleon is endowed with a variety of faculties, any one of which would suffice to distinguish a man from the multitude. He is the greatest captain of the age. He is a statesman who directs the whole business of the country, and superintends every branch of the service. He is a sovereign whose ministers are merely his clerks. And yet this Colossus of gigantic proportions can descend to the most trivial details of private life. He can regulate the expenditure of his household as he regulates the finances of the empire."

Notwithstanding Napoleon had now destroyed four Austrian armies, the imperial court was still unsubdued, and still pertinaciously refused to make peace with republican France. Herculean efforts were immediately made to organize a fifth army to march again upon Napoleon. These exciting scenes kept all Italy in a state of extreme fermentation. Every day the separation between the aristocratic and the republican party became more marked and rancorous. Austria and England exerted all their arts of diplomacy to rouse the aristocratic governments of Rome, Venice, and Naples to assail Napoleon in the rear, and thus to crush that spirit of republican liberty so rapidly spreading through Italy, and which threatened the speedy overthrow of all their thrones. Napoleon, in self-defense, was compelled to call to his aid the sympathies of the republican party, and to encourage their ardent aspirations for free government.

And here again the candid mind is compelled to pause, and almost to yield its assent to that doctrine of destiny which had obtained so strong a hold upon the mind of Napoleon. How could it be expected that those monarchs, with their thrones, their wealth, their pride, their power, their education, their habits, should have submissively relinquished their exalted inheritance, and have made an unconditional surrender to triumphant democracy. Kings, nobles, priests, and all the millions whose rank and property were suspended upon the perpetuity of those old monarchies, could, by no possibility have been led to such a measure. Unquestionably many were convinced that the interests of humanity demanded the support of the established governments. They had witnessed the accomplishments of democracy in France--a frenzied mob sacking the palace, dragging the royal family, through every conceivable insult, to dungeons and a bloody death, burning the chateaus of the nobles, bruising with gory clubs upon the pavements, the most venerable in rank and the most austere in virtue, dancing in brutal orgies around the dissevered heads of the most illustrious and lovely ladies of the realm, and dragging their dismembered limbs in derision through the streets. Priests crowded the churches, praying to God to save them from the horrors of democracy. Matrons and maidens trembled in their chambers as they wrought with their own hands the banners of royalty, and with moistened eyes and palpitating hearts they presented them to their defenders.

On the other hand, how could republican France tamely succumb to her proud and aristocratic enemies. "Kings," said a princess of the house of Austria, "should no more regard the murmurs of the people than does the moon the barking of dogs." How could the triumphant millions of France, who had just overthrown this intolerable despotism, and whose hearts were glowing with aspirations for liberty and equal rights, yield without a struggle all they had attained at such an enormous expense of blood and misery. They turned their eyes hopefully to the United States, where our own Washington and their own La Fayette had fought, side by side, and had established liberty gloriously; and they could not again voluntarily place their necks beneath the yoke of kingly domination. Despotism engenders ignorance and cruelty; and despotism did but reap the awful harvest of blood and woe, of which, during countless ages of oppression, it had been scattering broadcast the seed.

The enfranchised people could not allow the allied monarchs of Europe to rear again, upon the soil of republican France, and in the midst of thirty millions of freemen, an execrated and banished dynasty. This was not a warfare of republican angels against aristocratic fiends, or of refined, benevolent, intellectual loyalists against rancorous, reckless, vulgar Jacobins. It was a warfare of frail and erring man against his fellow--many, both monarchists and republicans, perhaps animated by motives as corrupt as can influence the human heart. But it can not be doubted that there were others on each side, who were influenced by considerations as pure as can glow in the bosom of humanity. Napoleon recognized and respected these verities. While he had no scruples respecting his own duty to defend his country from the assaults of the allied kings, he candidly respected his opponents. Candidly he said, "Had I been surrounded by the influences which have surrounded these gentlemen, I should doubtless have been fighting beneath their banners." There is probably not a reader of these pages, who, had he been an English or an Austrian noble, would not have fought those battles of the monarchy, upon which his fortune, his power, and his rank were suspended. And there probably is not a noble upon the banks of the Danube or the Thames, who, had he been a young lawyer, merchant, or artisan, with all his prospects in life depending upon his own merit and exertions, would not have strained every nerve to hew down these bulwarks of exclusive privilege, which the pride and oppression of ages had reared. Such is man; and such his melancholy lot. We would not detract from the wickedness of these wars, deluging Europe with blood and woe. But God alone can award the guilt. We would not conceal that all our sympathies are with the republicans struggling for their unquestionable rights. But we may also refrain from casting unmerited obloquy upon those, who were likewise struggling for every thing dear to them in life.

The Directory, trembling in view of the vast renown Napoleon was acquiring, and not at all relishing the idea of having the direction of affairs thus unceremoniously taken from their hands, sent Gen. Clarke, as an envoy, to Napoleon's head-quarters, to conduct negotiations with the Austrians. Napoleon received him with great external courtesy, but that there might be no embarrassing misunderstanding between them, informed him in so many words, "If you come here to obey me, I shall always see you with pleasure; if not, the sooner you return to those who sent you the better." The proud envoy yielded at once to the master-mind, and so completely was he brought under the influence of its strange fascination, that he became a most enthusiastic admirer of Napoleon, and wrote to the Directory, "It is indispensable that the General-in-chief should conduct all the diplomatic operations in Italy."

While Alvinzi had been preparing his overwhelming host to crush Napoleon, the Pope also, in secret alliance, had been collecting his resources to attack the common foe. It was an act of treachery. Napoleon called Mattei from his fastings and penance in the convent, and commissioned him to go and say to the Pope: "Rome desires war. It shall have war. But first I owe it to humanity to make a final effort to recall the Pope to reason. My army is strong. I have but to will it and the temporal power of the Pope is destroyed. Still France permits me to listen to words of peace. War, so cruel for all, has terrible results for the vanquished. I am anxious to close this struggle by peace. War has for me now neither danger nor glory." The Pope, however, believing that Austria would still crush Napoleon, met these menaces with defiance. Napoleon, conscious that he could not then march upon Rome, devoted all his energies to prepare for the onset of the Austrians, while he kept a vigilant eye upon his enemies in the south. Some he overawed. Others, by a change of government, he transformed into fast friends. Four weeks passed rapidly away, and another vast Austrian army was crowding down from the north with gigantic steps to relieve Mantua, now in the last stage of starvation. Wurmser had succeeded in sending a spy through the French lines, conveying the message to Alvinzi, that unless relieved he could not possibly hold out many days longer.

Josephine had now come, at Napoleon's request, to reside at the head-quarters of the army, that she might be near her husband. Napoleon had received her with the most tender affection, and his exhausted frame was re-invigorated by her soothing cares. He had no tendencies to gallantry, which provoked Madame de Stael once to remark to him, "It is reported that you are not very partial to the ladies." "I am very fond of my wife, Madame," was his laconic reply. Napoleon had not a high appreciation of the female character in general, and yet he highly valued the humanizing and refining influence of polished female society. "The English," said he, "appear to prefer the bottle to the society of their ladies; as is exemplified by dismissing the ladies from the table, and remaining for hours to drink and intoxicate themselves. Were I in England I should certainly leave the table with the ladies. You do not treat them with sufficient regard. If your object is to converse instead of to drink, why not allow them to be present. Surely conversation is never so lively or so witty as when ladies take a part in it. Were I an Englishwoman I should feel very discontented at being turned out by the men, to wait for two or three hours while they were guzzling their wine. In France society is nothing unless ladies are present. They are the life of conversation." At one time Josephine was defending her sex from some remarks which he had made respecting their frivolity and insincerity. "Ah! my dear Josephine," he replied, "they are all nothing compared with you."

Notwithstanding the boundless wealth at Napoleon's disposal, when Josephine arrived at the head-quarters of the army, he lived in a very simple and frugal manner. Though many of his generals were rolling in voluptuousness, he indulged himself in no ostentation in dress or equipage. The only relaxation he sought was to spend an occasional hour in the society of Josephine. In the midst of the movements of these formidable armies, and just before a decisive battle, it was necessary that she should take her departure to a place of greater safety. As she was bidding her husband adieu, a cart passed by, loaded with the mutilated forms of the wounded. The awful spectacle, and the consciousness of the terrible peril of her husband moved her tender feelings. She threw herself upon his neck and wept most bitterly. Napoleon fondly encircled her in his arms, and said, "Wurmser shall pay dearly for those tears which he causes thee to shed." Napoleon's appearance at this time was deplorable in the extreme. His cheeks were pallid and wan. He was as thin as a skeleton. His bright and burning eye alone indicated that the fire of his soul was unextinguished. The glowing energies of his mind sustained his emaciated and exhausted body. The soldiers took pleasure in contrasting his mighty genius and his world-wide renown, with his effeminate stature and his wasted and enfeebled frame.

In allusion to the wonderful tranquillity of mind which Napoleon retained in the midst of all harassments, disasters, and perils, he remarked. "Nature seems to have calculated that I should endure great reverses. She has given me a mind of marble. Thunder can not ruffle it. The shaft merely glides along."

Early in January Alvinzi descended toward Mantua, from the mountains of Austria. It was the fifth army which the Imperial Court had sent for the destruction of the Republicans. The Tyrol was in the hands of the French. Napoleon, to prevent the peasants from rising in guerrilla bands, issued a decree that every Tyrolese taken in arms should be shot as a brigand. Alvinzi replied, that for every peasant shot he would hang a French prisoner of war. Napoleon rejoined, that for every French prisoner thus slain he would gibbet an Austrian officer, commencing with Alvinzi's own nephew, who was in his hands. A little reflection taught both generals that it was not best to add to the inevitable horrors of war by the execution of these sanguinary threats. With the utmost vigilance Napoleon, with his army gathered around him in the vicinity of Mantua, was watching the movements of his formidable enemy, uncertain respecting his line of march, or upon what points the terrible onset was to fall.

The 12th of January, 1797, was a dark, stormy winter's day. The sleet, swept by the gale over the bleak mountains, covered the earth with an icy mantle. The swollen streams, clogged with ice, roared through the ravines. As the sun went down a clear belt of cloudless sky appeared brilliant in the west. The storm passed away. The cold north wind blew furiously, and the stars with unwonted lustre, adorned the wintry night. As the twilight was fading a courier galloped into the camp with the intelligence that the Austrians had made their appearance in vast numbers upon the plains of Rivoli, and that they were attacking with great fury the advanced post of the French stationed there. At the same time another courier arrived informing him that a powerful division of the Austrian army was moving in another direction to carry relief to Mantua. It was a fearful dilemma. Should Napoleon wait for the junction of these two armies to assail him in front, while the garrison in Mantua, emerging from the walls should attack him in the rear, his situation would be hopeless. Should he march to attack one army, he must leave the road open for the other to enter Mantua with reinforcements and relief. But Napoleon lost not one moment in deliberation. Instinctively he decided upon the only course to be pursued. "The French," said the Austrians, "do not march; they fly." With a rapidity of movement which seems almost miraculous, before two o'clock in the morning, Napoleon, with thirty thousand men, stood upon the snow-clad heights overlooking the encampment of his sleeping foes. It was a sublime and an appalling spectacle which burst upon his view. For miles and miles the watch-fires of the mighty host filled the extended plain. The night was clear, cold, and beautiful. Gloomy firs and pines frowned along the sides of the mountains, silvered by the rays of an unclouded moon. The keen eye of Napoleon instantly detected that there were fifty thousand men, in five divisions of ten thousand each, whom he, with thirty thousand was to encounter upon that plain. He also correctly judged, from the position of the divisions, that the artillery had not arrived, and resolved upon an immediate attack. At four o'clock in the morning, the Austrians were roused from their slumbers by the rush of Napoleon's battalions and by the thunders of his artillery. The day of Rivoli! It was a long, long day of blood and woe. The tide of victory ebbed and flowed. Again and again Napoleon seemed ruined. Night came, and the genius of Napoleon had again triumphed. The whole plain was covered with the dead and the dying. The Austrians, in wild terror, were flying before the impetuous charges of the French cavalry; while from every eminence cannon-balls were plunged into the dense ranks of the fugitives. The genius of this stern warrior never appeared more terrible than in the unsparing energy with which he rained down his blows upon a defeated army. Napoleon had three horses shot under him during the day. "The Austrians," said he, "manoeuvred admirably, and failed only because they are incapable of calculating the value of minutes."

An event occurred in the very hottest of the battle which singularly illustrates Napoleon's wonderful presence of mind. The Austrians had completely enveloped him, cutting off his retreat, and attacking him in front, flanks, and rear; the destruction of the army seemed inevitable. Napoleon, to gain time, instantly sent a flag of truce to Alvinzi, proposing a suspension of arms for half an hour, to attend to some propositions to be made in consequence of dispatches just received from Paris. The Austrian general fell into the snare. The roar of battle ceased, and the blood-stained combatants rested upon their guns. Junot repaired to the Austrian head-quarters, and kept Alvinzi busy for half an hour in discussing the terms of accommodation. In the mean time Napoleon had re-arranged his army to repel these numerous attacks. As was to be expected, no terms could be agreed upon, and immediately the murderous onset was renewed.

The scene displayed at the close of this battle was awful in the extreme. The fugitive army, horse, foot, cannon, baggage-wagons, and ammunition-carts struggled along in inextricable confusion through the narrow passes, while a plunging fire from the French batteries produced frightful havoc in the crowd. The occasional explosion of an ammunition-wagon under this terrific fire, opened in the dense mass a gap like the crater of a volcano, scattering far and wide over the field the mangled limbs of the dead. The battle of Rivoli Napoleon ever regarded as one of the most dreadful battles he ever fought, and one of the most signal victories he ever won.

Leaving a few troops to pursue and harass the fugitives, Napoleon, that very night, with the mass of his army, turned to arrest the Austrian division of twenty thousand men under Provera, hastening to the reinforcement of Mantua. He had already marched all of one night, and fought all of the ensuing day. He allowed his utterly exhausted troops a few hours for sleep, but closed not his own eyes. He still considered the peril of his army so great as to demand the utmost vigilance. So intense was his solicitude, that he passed the hours of the night, while the rest were sleeping, in walking about the outposts. At one of them he found a sentinel, utterly worn down by fatigue, asleep at the root of a tree. Without awaking him, Napoleon took his gun and performed a sentinel's duty in his place for half an hour. At last the poor man, starting from his slumbers, overwhelmed with consternation, perceived the countenance and the occupation of his general. He knew that death was the penalty for such a crime, and he fell speechless upon his knees. "My brave friend," said Napoleon kindly, "here is your musket. You have marched long and fought hard, and your sleep is excusable. But a moment's inattention at the present time might ruin the army. I happened to be awake, and have held your post for you. You will be more careful another time." It is not surprising that such deeds as these, continually repeated at the campfires of the soldiers, should have inspired them with the most enthusiastic admiration of their commander-in-chief.

The hour of midnight had hardly passed before the whole army was again in motion. The dawn of the morning found them pressing on with all possible speed, hoping to arrive at Mantua before the Austrian force should have effected an entrance into the beleaguered city. All the day long they hurried on their way, and just as the sun was setting, they heard the roar of the conflict around the ramparts of Mantua. Provera was attacking the French in their intrenchments upon one side. The brave old Wurmser was marching from the city to attack them upon the other. An hour might have settled the unequal conflict. Suddenly Napoleon, like a thunderbolt, plunged into the midst of the foe. Provera's band was scattered like chaff before the whirlwind. Wurmser and his half-starved men were driven back to their fortress and their prison. Thus terminated this signal campaign of _three days_, during which the Austrians lost twenty-five thousand prisoners, twenty-five standards, sixty pieces of cannon, and six thousand men in killed and wounded. The Austrian army was again destroyed, and the French remained in undisputed possession of Italy. Such achievements filled the world with astonishment. Military men of all lands have regarded these brilliant operations of Napoleon as the most extraordinary which history has recorded.

Wurmser's situation was now hopeless, and no resource was left him but to capitulate. One half of his once numerous garrison were in the hospital. The horses which had been killed and salted down were all consumed. Famine was now staring the garrison in the face. Wurmser sent an aid-de-camp to the tent of Serrurier to propose terms of capitulation. Napoleon was sitting in a corner of the tent unobserved, wrapped in his cloak. The aid, with the artifice usual on such occasions, expatiated on the powerful means of resistance Wurmser still enjoyed, and the large stores of provisions still in the magazines. Napoleon, without making himself known, listened to the conversation, taking no part in it. At last he approached the table, silently took the paper containing Wurmser's propositions, and, to the astonishment of the aid, wrote upon the margin his answer to all the terms suggested. "There," said he, "are the conditions which I grant to your marshal. If he had provisions but for a fortnight and could talk of surrender, he would not deserve an honorable capitulation. As he sends you, he must be reduced to extremity. I respect his age, his valor, his misfortunes. Carry to him the terms which I grant. Whether he leaves the place to-morrow, in a month, or in six months he shall have neither better nor worse conditions. He may stay as long as his sense of honor demands."

The aid now perceived that he was in the presence of Napoleon. Glancing his eye over the terms of capitulation, he was surprised at the liberality of the victor, and seeing that dissimulation was of no further avail, he confessed that Wurmser had provisions but for three days. The brave old marshal was deeply moved with gratitude in acknowledging the generosity with which he was treated by his young adversary. Wurmser was entirely in his power, and must have surrendered at discretion. Yet Napoleon, to spare the feelings of his foe, allowed him to march out of the place with all his staff, and to retire unmolested to Austria. He even granted him two hundred horse and five hundred men, to be chosen by himself, and six pieces of cannon, to render his departure less humiliating. Wurmser most gratefully accepted this magnanimous offer, and to prove his gratitude informed Napoleon of a plan laid in the Papal States for poisoning him, and this undoubtedly saved his life. The remainder of the garrison, twenty thousand strong, surrendered their arms, and were retained as prisoners of war. Fifteen standards, a bridge equipage, and above five hundred pieces of artillery fell into the hands of the victor.

On the following morning the Austrian army, emaciate, humiliated, and dejected, defiled from the gates of Mantua to throw down their arms at the feet of the triumphant Republicans. But on this occasion also, Napoleon displayed that magnanimity and delicacy of mind, which accorded so well with the heroism of his character and the grandeur of his achievements. Few young men, twenty-six years of age, at the termination of so terrific a campaign, would have deprived themselves of the pleasure of seeing the veteran Austrian marshal and his proud array pass vanquished before him. But on the morning of that day Napoleon mounted his horse, and heading a division of his army, disappeared from the ground, and marched for the Papal States. He left Serrurier to receive the sword of Wurmser. He would not add to the mortification of the vanquished general, by being present in the hour of his humiliation. Delicacy so rare and so noble attracted the attention of all Europe. This magnanimous and dignified conduct extorted reluctant admiration even from the bitterest enemies of the young Republican general.

The Directory, unable to appreciate such nobility of spirit, were dissatisfied with the liberal terms which had been granted Wurmser. Napoleon treated their remonstrances with scorn, and simply replied, "I have granted the Austrian general such terms as, in my judgment, were due to a brave and honorable enemy, and to the dignity of the French Republic."

The Austrians were now driven out of Italy. Napoleon commenced the campaign with thirty thousand men. He received, during the progress of these destructive battles, twenty thousand recruits. Thus, in ten months, Napoleon, with fifty-five thousand men, had conquered five armies, under veteran generals, and composed of more than two hundred thousand highly disciplined Austrian troops. He had taken one hundred thousand prisoners, and killed and wounded thirty-five thousand men. These were great victories, and "a great victory," said the Duke of Wellington, "is the most awful thing in the world excepting a great defeat."