The command entrusted to Napoleon was forthwith announced to the soldiery; and they received the intelligence with enthusiasm—the mass of course little comprehending to what, at such a moment, such authority amounted.

The three Directors, meanwhile, who were not in the secret, and who had been much amused with seeing their colleague Sieyes set off on horseback an hour or two earlier from the Luxembourg, had begun to understand what that timely exhibition of the Abbe's awkward horsemanship portended. One of them, Moulins, proposed to send a battalion to surround Buonaparte's house and arrest him. Their own guard laughed at them. Buonaparte was already in the Tuileries, with many troops around him; and the Directorial Guard, being summoned by one of his aides-de-camp, instantly marched thither also, leaving the Luxembourg at his mercy. Barras sent his secretary to expostulate. Napoleon received him with haughtiness. "What have you done," cried he, "for that fair France which I left you so prosperous? For peace I find war; for the wealth of Italy, taxation and misery. Where are the 100,000 brave French whom I knew—where are the companions of my glory?—They are dead." Barras, who well knew that Buonaparte would never forgive him for having boasted that the conqueror of Italy and Egypt owed everything to his early favour, and whose infamous personal conduct in the articles of bribery and exaction made him tremble at the thought of impeachment, resigned his office: so did his colleagues, Gohier and Moulins. Sieyes and Ducos had done so already. Bernadotte, indeed, repaired to the Luxembourg ere Moulins and Gohier had resigned, and offered his sword and influence, provided they would nominate him to the command of the forces jointly with Napoleon. They hesitated: his word of honour given to Buonaparte, that he would do nothing as a citizen, rendered it indispensable that they should take that decisive step; by doing so they would at least have given the soldiery a fair choice—they hesitated—and their power was at an end. The Luxembourg was immediately guarded by troops in whom Napoleon could place implicit confidence. The Directory was no more.

Barras, in his letter, said that "he had undertaken his office solely for the purpose of serving the cause of liberty, and that now, seeing the destinies of the Republic in the hands of her young and invincible general, he gladly resigned it." By this courtly acquiescence he purchased indemnity for the past, and the liberty of retiring to his country-seat, there to enjoy the vast fortune he had so scandalously accumulated. The other two remained for the present under surveillance.

At ten o'clock on the same morning, the adverse Council of Five Hundred assembled also, and heard, with astonishment and indignation, of the decree by which their sittings were transferred from Paris (the scene of their popular influence) to St. Cloud. They had, however, no means of disputing that point: they parted with cries of "Vive la Republique! Vive la Constitution!" and incited the mob, their allies, to muster next morning on the new scene of action—where, it was evident, this military revolution must either be turned back, or pushed to consummation. During the rest of the day, Napoleon remained at the Tuileries: the troops were in arms; the population expected with breathless anxiety the coming of the decisive day. A strong body of soldiery marched to St. Cloud under the orders of Murat.

The members of both assemblies repaired thither early in the morning of the 19th; and those of the opposite party beheld with dismay the military investment of the Chateau. Scattered in groups about the courts and gardens, surrounded with the mob from the city, and watched by Murat and his stern veterans, they awaited with impatience the opening of the doors; which, in consequence of some necessary preparations, did not occur until two o'clock in the afternoon.

The Council of Ancients were ushered into the Gallery of Mars, and, the minority having by this time recovered from their surprise, a stormy debate forthwith commenced touching the events of the preceding day. Buonaparte entered the room, and, by permission of the subservient president, addressed the assembly. "Citizens," said he, "you stand over a volcano. Let a soldier tell the truth frankly. I was quiet in my home when this council summoned me to action. I obeyed: I collected my brave comrades, and placed the arms of my country at the service of you who are its head. We are repaid with calumnies—they talk of Cromwell—of Caesar. Had I aspired at power the opportunity was mine ere now. I swear that France holds no more devoted patriot. Dangers surround us. Let us not hazard the advantages for which we have paid so dearly—Liberty and Equality!—"

A democratic member, Linglet, added aloud—"and the Constitution—"

"The Constitution!" continued Napoleon, "it has been thrice violated already—all parties have invoked it—each in turn has trampled on it: since that can be preserved no longer, let us, at least, save its foundations—Liberty and Equality. It is on you only that I rely. The Council of Five Hundred would restore the Convention, the popular tumults, the scaffolds, the reign of terror. I will save you from such horrors—I and my brave comrades, whose swords and caps I see at the door of this hall; and if any hireling prater talks of outlawry, to those swords shall I appeal." The great majority were with him, and he left them amidst loud cries of "Vive Buonaparte!"

A far different scene was passing in the hostile assembly of the Five Hundred. When its members at length found their way into the Orangery, the apartment allotted for them, a tumultuous clamour arose on every side. Live the Constitution! The Constitution or death! Down with the Dictator!—such were the ominous cries. Lucien Buonaparte, the president, in vain attempted to restore order: the moderate orators of the council, with equal ill success, endeavoured to gain a hearing. A democrat member at length obtained a moment's silence, and proposed that the council should renew, man by man, the oath of fidelity to the Constitution of the year three. This was assented to, and a vain ceremony, for it was no more, occupied time which might have been turned to far different account. Overpowered, however, by the clamour, the best friends of Napoleon, even his brother Lucien, took the oath. The resignatory letter of Barras was then handed in, and received with a shout of scorn. The moment was come; Napoleon, himself, accompanied by four grenadiers, walked into the chamber—the doors remained open, and plumes and swords were visible in dense array behind him. His grenadiers halted near the door, and he advanced alone towards the centre of the gallery. Then arose a fierce outcry—Drawn swords in the sanctuary of the laws! Outlawry! Outlawry! Let him be proclaimed a traitor! Was it for this you gained so many victories? Many members rushed upon the intruder, and, if we may place confidence in his own tale, a Corsican deputy, by name, Arena, aimed a dagger at his throat. At all events there was such an appearance of personal danger as fired the grenadiers behind him. They rushed forwards, and extricated him almost breathless; and one of their number (Thome) was at least rewarded on the score of his having received a wound meant for the General.

It seems to be admitted that at this moment the iron nerves of Buonaparte were, for once, shaken. With the dangers of the field he was familiar—in order to depict the perfect coolness of his demeanour during the greater part of this very day, his secretary says—"he was as calm as at the opening of a great battle;" but he had not been prepared for the manifestations of this civil rage. He came out, staggering and stammering, among the soldiery, and said, "I offered them victory and fame, and they have answered me with daggers."

Sieyes, an experienced observer of such scenes, was still on horseback in the court, and quickly re-assured him. General Augereau came up but a moment afterwards, and said, "You have brought yourself into a pretty situation." "Augereau," answered Napoleon (once more himself again), "things were worse at Arcola. Be quiet: all this will soon right itself." He then harangued the soldiery. "I have led you to victory, to fame, to glory. Can I count upon you?" "Yes, yes, we swear it" (was the answer that burst from every line), "Vive Buonaparte!"

In the council, meantime, the commotion had increased on the retreat of Napoleon. A general cry arose for a sentence of outlawry against him; and Lucien, the President, in vain appealed to the feelings of nature, demanding that, instead of being obliged to put that question to the vote, he might be heard as the advocate of his brother. He was clamorously refused, and in indignation flung off the insignia of his office. Some grenadiers once more entered, and carried him also out of the place.

Lucien found the soldiery without in a high state of excitement. He immediately got upon horseback, that he might be seen and heard the better, and exclaimed: "General Buonaparte, and you, soldiers of France, the President of the Council of Five Hundred announces to you that factious men with daggers interrupt the deliberations of the senate. He authorises you to employ force. The Assembly of Five Hundred is dissolved."

Napoleon desired Le Clerc to execute the orders of the President, and he, with a detachment of grenadiers, forthwith marched into the hall. Amidst the reiterated screams of "Vive la Republique" which saluted their entrance, an aide-de-camp mounted the tribune, and bade the assembly disperse. "Such," said he, "are the orders of the General." Some obeyed; others renewed their shouting. The drums drowned their voices. "Forward, grenadiers," said Le Clerc; and the men, levelling their pieces as if for the charge, advanced. When the bristling line of bayonets at length drew near, the deputies lost heart, and the greater part of them, tearing off their scarfs, made their escape, with very undignified rapidity, by way of the windows. The apartment was cleared. It was thus that Buonaparte, like Cromwell before him,

"Turn'd out the members, and made fast the door."[31]

Some of his military associates proposed to him that the unfriendly legislators should be shot, man by man, as they retreated through the gardens; but to this he would not for a moment listen.

Lucien Buonaparte now collected the moderate members of the Council of Five Hundred; and that small minority, assuming the character of the assembly, communicated with the Ancients on such terms of mutual understanding, that there was no longer any difficulty about giving the desired colouring to the events of the day. It was announced by proclamation, that a scene of violence and uproar, and the daggers and pistols of a band of conspirators, in the Council of Five Hundred, had suggested the measures ultimately resorted to. These were—the adjournment of the two councils until the middle of February next ensuing; and the deposition, meantime, of the whole authority of the state in a provisional consulate—the consuls being Napoleon Buonaparte, Sieyes, and Ducos.

Thus terminated the 19th of Brumaire. One of the greatest revolutions on record in the history of the world was accomplished, by means of swords and bayonets unquestionably, but still without any effusion of blood. From that hour the fate of France was determined. The Abbe Sieyes, Talleyrand, and other eminent civilians, who had a hand in this great day's proceedings, had never doubted that, under the new state of things to which it should lead, they were to have the chief management of the civil concerns of France. The ambition of Buonaparte, they questioned not, would be satisfied with the control of the armies and military establishments of the Republic. But they reckoned without their host. Next day the three consuls met in Paris; and a lengthened discussion arose touching the internal condition and foreign relations of France, and the measures not only of war, but of finance and diplomacy, to be resorted to. To the astonishment of Sieyes, Napoleon entered readily and largely upon such topics, showed perfect familiarity with them in their minutest details, and suggested resolutions which it was impossible not to approve. "Gentlemen," said the Abbe, on reaching his own house, where Talleyrand and the others expected him—and it is easy so imagine the sensations with which Sieyes spoke the words, and Talleyrand heard them—"Gentlemen, I perceive that you have got a master. Buonaparte can do, and will do, everything himself. But" (he added, after a pause) "it is better to submit than to protract dissension for ever."

Buonaparte sent word next morning to Gohier and Moulins that they were at liberty. These ex-Directors were in haste to seclude themselves from public view; and the new ruler took possession the same evening of the Palace of the Luxembourg.

[Footnote 31: Crabbe.]



CHAPTER XIV

The Provisional Consulate—Reforms in France—Pacification of the Chouans—Constitution of the year VIII.—Buonaparte Chief Consul.

The upper population of Paris had watched the stormy days of the 18th and 19th Brumaire with the most anxious fears, lest the end should be anarchy and the re-establishment of the reign of terror. Such, in all likelihood, must have been the result, had Buonaparte failed, after once attempting to strike his blow. His success held out the prospect of victory abroad, and of a firm and stable government at home, under which life and property might exist in safety; and wearied utterly with so many revolutions and constitutions, each in turn pretending everything, and ending in nothing but confusion, the immense majority of the nation were well prepared to consider any government as a blessing which seemed to rest on a solid basis, and to bid fair for endurance. The revolutionary fever had in most bosoms spent its strength ere now; and Buonaparte found henceforth little opposition to any of his measures, unless in cases where the substantial personal comforts of men—not abstract theories or dogmas—nor even political rights of unquestionable value and importance—were invaded by his administration.

The two chambers, on breaking up, appointed small committees to take counsel during the recess with the new heads of the executive; and, in concert with these, Buonaparte and Sieyes entered vigorously on the great task of restoring confidence and peace at home. The confusion of the finances was the most pressing of many intolerable evils; and the first day was devoted to them. In lieu of forced loans, by which the Directory had systematically scourged the people, all the regular taxes were at once raised 25 per cent.; and the receipt and expenditure of the revenue arranged on a business-like footing. The repeal of the "Law of Hostages"—a tyrannical act, by which the relations of emigrants were made responsible for the behaviour of their exiled kinsmen,—followed immediately, and was received with universal approbation. A third and a bolder measure was the discarding of the heathen ritual, and re-opening of the churches for Christian worship; and of this the credit was wholly Napoleon's, who had to oppose the philosophic prejudices of almost all his colleagues. He, in his conversations with them, made no attempt to represent himself as a believer in Christianity; but stood on the necessity of providing the people with the regular means of worship, wherever it is meant to have a state of tranquillity. The priests who chose to take the oath of fidelity to government were re-admitted to their functions; and this wise measure was followed by the adherence of not less than 20,000 of these ministers of religion, who had hitherto languished in the prisons of France. Cambaceres, an excellent lawyer and judge, was of great service to Napoleon in these salutary reforms.

Many other judicious measures might be mentioned in this place. Some emigrants, cast on the shores by shipwreck, had been imprisoned and destined for trial by the Directory. They were at once set free: and, in like manner, La Fayette and other distinguished revolutionists, who had been exiled for not adhering to all the wild notions of the preceding administrations, were at once recalled. Carnot was one of these: Buonaparte forthwith placed him at the head of the war department; and the reform of the army was prosecuted with the vigour which might have been expected from the joint skill and talent of the provisional head of the government and this practised minister. The confusion which had of late prevailed in that department was extreme. The government did not even know the existence of regiments raised in the provinces: arms, clothing, discipline in every article, had been neglected. The organisation of the army was very speedily mended.

The insurgent Chouans next claimed attention: and here the personal character of Napoleon gave him advantages of the first importance. The leaders of those brave bands were disposed to consider such a soldier as a very different sort of ruler from the Pentarchy of the Luxembourg; and their admiration for his person prepared them to listen to his terms. The first measures of the new government were obviously calculated to soothe their prejudices, and the general display of vigour in every branch of the administration to overawe them. Chatillon, D'Antichamp, Suzannet, and other royalist chiefs, submitted in form. Bernier, a leading clergyman in La Vendee, followed the same course, and was an acquisition of even more value. Others held out; but were soon routed in detail, tried and executed. The appearances of returning tranquillity were general and most welcome.

Some of the party vanquished on the 18th Brumaire, however, still lingered in Paris, and were busy in plotting new convulsions. It was therefore the advice of all the ministers to condemn them to exile; and lists of proscription were drawn up and published. But Buonaparte only meant to overawe these persons: no one was apprehended: they kept quiet for a season; and the edict of exile sank by degrees into oblivion.

Meanwhile it was necessary that the government itself should assume some permanent form, ere the time arrived for the re-assembly of the legislative bodies. Their two committees met in one chamber with the consuls, and the outline of a new constitution was laid before them by Sieyes; who enjoyed the reputation of being the greatest of scientific politicians. The Abbe, however, had soon perceived that Napoleon was to be the real creator of whatever should be adopted; and, in the progress of the ensuing consultations, submitted, step by step, to the laconic Dictator, who accepted or discarded propositions, exactly as they happened to coincide, or be at variance with, his own notions of his own personal interest. He cared little in what manner the structure of the future representative assemblies might be arranged; but there must be no weakening of the executive power, which he was determined to vest virtually in himself alone, and by means of which, he doubted not, it would be easy to neutralise all other influences.

The metaphysical Abbe proposed a scheme by far too delicately complicated for the tear and wear of human business and human passions. The absurdity, even of the parts which Napoleon consented to adopt, became apparent to all when the machine was set in motion. The two most prominent and peculiar devices—namely, that of placing at the head of the state a sort of mock sovereign, destitute of any effective power, and capable at any time of being degraded by the vote of a single legislative body, under the title of GRAND ELECTOR; and secondly, that of committing the real executive power to two separate consuls, one for war and one for peace, nominally the inferiors of the Elector, but in influence necessarily quite above him, and almost as necessarily the rivals and enemies of each other; these ingenious twins were strangled in the birth by Napoleon's shrewd practical sense. "Who," said he, "would accept an office, the only duties of which were to fatten like a pig, on so many millions a year? And your two consuls—the one surrounded with churchmen, lawyers, and civilians—the other with soldiers and diplomatists—on what footing would be their intercourse? the one demanding money and recruits, the other refusing the supplies? A government, made up of such heterogeneous and discordant materials, would be the shadow of a state." He added two words, which at once decided the main question; "I, for one, would never be your Grand Elector."

The constitution actually announced by proclamation on the 14th of December, 1799, presents the following principal features. I. The male citizens who are of age, and who pay taxes, in every commune shall choose a tenth of their number to be the notables of the commune; and out of those notables the officers of the commune shall be appointed. II. The notables of the communes constituting a department, shall choose, in like manner, the tenth of their number to be the notables of the department; and out of these the officers of the department shall be appointed. III. The notables of all the departments shall, in the same way, choose the tenth of their number to be notables of France; and out of these the public functionaries of The State shall be chosen. IV. Three assemblies shall be composed of persons chosen from the notables of France, viz.—1. The Conservative Senate, consisting (at first) of twenty-four men, of forty years of age, to hold their places for life, and to receive, each, a salary equal to 1-20th of that of the chief consul: 2. The Tribunate, to be composed of 100 men, of twenty-five years of age and upwards, of whom 1-5th go out every year, but re-eligible indefinitely; the salary of each 15,000 francs (L625); and thirdly, The Legislative Senate, composed of 300 members, of thirty years of age, renewable by fifths every year, and having salaries of 10,000 francs (L416). V. The executive power shall be vested in three consuls, chosen individually, as chief consul, second and third; the two former for ten years, the last for five. VI. In order that the administration of affairs may have time to settle itself, the tribunate and legislative senate shall remain as first constituted for ten years, without any re-elections. VII. With the same view, of avoiding discussions during the unsettled state of opinion, a majority of the members of the conservative senate are for the present appointed by the consuls, Sieyes and Ducos, going out of office, and the consuls, Cambaceres and Lebrun, about to come into office; they shall be held to be duly elected, if the public acquiesce; and proceed to fill up their own number, and to nominate the members of the tribunate and legislative senate. VIII. The acts of legislation shall be proposed by the consuls: the tribunate shall discuss and propound them to the legislative senate, but not vote: the legislative senate shall hear the tribunate, and vote, but not debate themselves; and the act thus discussed and voted, shall become law on being promulgated by the chief consul. IX. Buonaparte is nominated chief consul, Cambaceres (minister of justice) second, and Lebrun third consul.

It would be rash to say that this could never have turned out in practice a free constitution. Circumstances might have modified its arrangements, and given the spirit of freedom to institutions not ex-facie favourable to it. But for the present it was universally admitted that, under these new forms, the power of the state must be virtually lodged in Buonaparte. He, in fact, named himself chief consul. His creatures chose the conservative senate, and the conservative senate were to choose the members of the other two assemblies. The machinery, thus set in motion, could hardly fail to remain under his control; and, looking at things more largely, the contrivances of making the electoral bodies in the departments choose, not their actual representatives, but only the persons from among whom these were to be chosen by the conservative senate, and of preventing the legislative senate from debating for themselves on the measures destined to pass into law, appear to have been devised for the purpose of reducing to a mere nullity the forms of a representative government.[32] However, the consuls announced their manufacture to the people in these terms:—"Citizens, the Constitution is grounded on the true principles of a representative government, on the sacred rights of property, of equality, and of liberty. The powers which it institutes will be vigorous and permanent: such they should be to secure the rights of the citizens and the interests of the state. Citizens! the Revolution is fixed on the principles from which it originated: IT IS ENDED." And in effect, books being opened throughout France, the names of the citizens who inscribed their acceptance of this new constitution amounted to four millions, while but a few votes to the contrary were registered—an irrefragable proof that the national mind was disposed to think no sacrifice too dear, so tranquillity could be obtained.

The circumstance, perhaps, which occasioned most surprise on the promulgation of the new constitution, was the non-appearance of the name of Sieyes in the list of permanent consuls. It is probable that the Abbe made up his mind to retire, so soon as he found that Buonaparte was capable not only of mutilating his ideal republican scheme, but of fulfiling in his own person all the functions of a civil ruler of France. Howbeit the ingenious metaphysician did not disdain to accept of a large estate (part of the royal domain of Versailles!) and a large pension besides, by way of "public recompense"—when he withdrew to a situation of comparative obscurity, as President of the Conservative Senate.

One of Buonaparte's first acts was to remove the seat of government from the Luxembourg to the old Palace of the Tuileries, "which," he significantly said to his colleagues, "is a good military position." It was on the 19th of February, 1800, that the Chief Consul took possession of the usual residence of the French kings. Those splendid halls were re-opened with much ceremony, and immediately afterwards Napoleon held a great review in the Place du Carousel. This was the first public act of the Chief Consul. Shortly after, he appeared in his new official costume, a dress of red silk and a black stock. Someone observed to him that this last article was out of keeping with the rest: "No matter," answered he, smiling, "a small remnant of the military character will do us no harm." It was about the same time that Buonaparte heard of the death of Washington. He forthwith issued a general order, commanding the French army to wrap their banners in crape during ten days in honour of "a great man who fought against tyranny and consolidated the liberties of his country."

Talleyrand, appointed minister of foreign affairs by Buonaparte, was now the chief partner of his counsels. The second Consul, Cambaceres, soon learned to confine himself to the department of justice, and Lebrun to that of finance. The effective branches of government were, almost from the first, engrossed by Napoleon. Yet, while with equal audacity and craft he was rapidly consolidating the elements of a new monarchy in his own person—the Bourbonists, at home and abroad, had still nourished the hope that this ultimate purpose was the restoration of the rightful king of France. Very shortly after the 18th Brumaire, one of the foreign ambassadors resident at Paris had even succeeded in obtaining a private audience for Messieurs Hyde de Neuville and Dandigne, two agents of the exiled princes. Buonaparte received them at night in a small closet of the Tuileries, and requested them to speak with frankness. "You, sir," they said, "have now in your hands the power of re-establishing the throne, and restoring to it its legitimate master. Tell us what are your intentions; and, if they accord with ours, we, and all the Vendeans, are ready to take your commands." He replied that the return of the Bourbons could not be accomplished without enormous slaughter; that his wish was to forget the past, and to accept the services of all who were willing henceforth to follow the general will of the nation; but that he would treat with none who were not disposed to renounce all correspondence with the Bourbons and the foreign enemies of the country. The conference lasted half-an-hour; and the agents withdrew with a fixed sense that Buonaparte would never come over to their side. Nevertheless, as it will appear hereafter, the Bourbons themselves did not as yet altogether despair; and it must be admitted, that various measures of the provisional government were not unlikely to keep up their delusive hopse. We may notice in particular a change in the national oath of allegiance, by which one most important clause was entirely erased: namely, that expressive of hatred to royalty: and an edict, by which the celebration of the day on which Louis XVI. died, was formally abolished. Sieyes, in opposing this last measure, happened to speak of Louis as "the tyrant":—"Nay, nay," said Napoleon, "he was no tyrant: had he been one, I should this day have been a captain of engineers—and you saying mass." The Bourbons were very right in considering these as monarchical symptoms; but shrewd observers perceived clearly in whose favour such changes were designed to operate. It appears that some of Napoleon's colleagues made a last effort to circumscribe his power, by urging on him the necessity of his immediately placing himself at the head of the armies in the field; expecting, no doubt, great advantages, could they remove him from the seat of government, at the time when the new machinery was getting into a regular course of motion. He sternly resisted all such suggestions. "I am Chief Consul," said he, biting his nails to the quick, "I will remain in Paris."

And it was, indeed, most necessary for his success that he should remain there at this critical epoch; for, in the arrangement of every branch of the new government, he had systematically sought for his own security in balancing against each other the lovers of opposite sets of principles -men, who, by cordially coalescing together, might still have undone him; or by carrying their animosities to extremity, overturned the whole fabric of his manufacture. It was thus that he had chosen one consul from the Republican party, and another from the Royalist; either of whom might, in his absence, have been tempted to undermine his sway; whereas both Cambaceres and Lebrun, overawed by his presence, proved eminently serviceable in drawing over to the interests of the Chief Consul innumerable persons, of their own ways of thinking originally, but no longer such zealous theorists as to resist the arguments of self-interest—those strong springs of hope and fear, of both of which Napoleon, while at the Tuileries, held the master-key. It was thus, also, that, in forming his ministry, he grouped together men, each of whom detested or despised the others; but each unquestionably fitted, in the highest degree, for the particular office assigned to him; and each, therefore, likely to labour in his own department, communicating little with his colleagues, and looking continually to the one hand that had invested him with his share of power. It was in vain that one party objected to the weathercock politics of Talleyrand. "Be it so," answered the Chief Consul: "but he is the ablest minister for foreign affairs in our choice, and it shall be my care that he exerts his abilities." Carnot, in like manner, was objected to as a firm republican. "Republican or not," answered Napoleon, "he is one of the last Frenchmen that would wish to see France dismembered. Let us avail ourselves of his unrivalled talents in the war department, while he is willing to place them at our command." All parties equally cried out against the falsehood, duplicity, and, in fact, avowed profligacy of Fouche. "Fouche," said Buonaparte, "and Fouche alone, is able to conduct the ministry of the police: he alone has a perfect knowledge of all the factions and intrigues which have been spreading misery through France. We cannot create men: we must take such as we find; and it is easier to modify by circumstances the feelings and conduct of an able servant, than to supply his place." Thus did he systematically make use of whatever was willing to be useful—counting on the ambition of one man, the integrity of a second, and the avarice of a third, with equal confidence; and justified, for the present time (which was all he was anxious about) by the results of each of the experiments in question.

It is impossible to refuse the praise of consummate prudence and skill to these, and indeed, to all the arrangements of Buonaparte, at this great crisis of his history. The secret of his whole scheme is unfolded in his own memorable words to Sieyes: "We are creating a new era,—of the past we must forget the bad, and remember only the good." From the day when the consular government was formed, a new epoch was to date. Submit to that government, and no man need fear that his former acts, far less opinions, should prove any obstacle to his security—nay, to his advancement. Henceforth the regicide might dismiss all dread of Bourbon revenge; the purchaser of forfeited property of being sacrificed to the returning nobles; provided only they chose to sink their theories and submit. To the royalist, on the other hand, Buonaparte held out the prospect, not indeed of Bourbon restoration, but of the re-establishment of a monarchical form of government, and all the concomitants of a court; for the churchman the temples were at once opened; and the rebuilding of the hierarchical fabric, in all its wealth, splendour and power, was offered in prospective. Meanwhile, the great and crying evil, from which the revolution had really sprung, was for ever abolished. The odious distinction of castes was at an end. Political liberty existed, perhaps, no longer; but civil liberty—the equality of all Frenchmen in the eye of the law—was, or seemed to be, established. All men henceforth must contribute to the state in the proportion of their means: all men appeal to the same tribunals; and no man, however meanly born, had it to say, that there was one post of power or dignity in France to which talent and labour never could elevate him. Shortly after Napoleon took possession of the Tuileries, Murat, who had long been the lover of his sister Caroline, demanded her hand in marriage. The gallantry and military talents of this handsome officer had already raised him to a distinguished rank in the army, and Josephine warmly espoused his interests: but Buonaparte was with difficulty persuaded to give his consent to the match. "Murat is the son of an innkeeper," said he,—"in the station to which events have elevated me, I must not mix my blood with his." These objections, however, were overcome by the address of Josephine, who considered Napoleon's own brothers as her enemies, and was anxious, not without reason, to have some additional support in the family. Her influence, from this time, appears to have remained unshaken; though her extravagance and incurable habit of contracting debts gave rise to many unpleasing scenes between her and the most methodical of mankind.

[Footnote 32: The morning after the constitution was announced, the streets of Paris were placarded with the following pasquil:—

POLITICAL SUBTRACTION. From 5 Directors Take 2 - There remain 3 Consuls From them take 2 - And there remains 1 BUONAPARTE.

This sufficiently expresses what was considered to be the essence of the new constitution.]



CHAPTER XV

The Chief Consul writes to the King of England—Lord Grenville's Answer—Napoleon passes the Great St. Bernard—The taking of St. Bard—The Siege of Genoa—The Battle of Montebello—The Battle of Marengo—Napoleon returns to Paris—The Infernal Machine—The Battle of Hohenlinden—The Treaty of Luneville.

Much had been already done towards the internal tranquillisation of France: but it was obvious that the result could not be perfect until the war, which had so long raged on two frontiers of the country, should have found a termination. The fortune of the last two years had been far different from that of the glorious campaigns which ended in the treaty—or armistice, as it might more truly be named—of Campo-Formio. The Austrians had recovered the north of Italy, and already menaced the Savoy frontier, designing to march into Provence, and there support a new insurrection of the royalists. The force opposed to them in that quarter was much inferior in numbers, and composed of the relics of armies beaten over and over again by Suwarrow. The Austrians and French were more nearly balanced on the Rhine frontier; but even there, there was ample room for anxiety. On the whole, the grand attitude in which Buonaparte had left the Republic when he embarked for Egypt, was exchanged for one of a far humbler description; and, in fact, as has been intimated, the general disheartening of the nation, by reason of those reverses, had been of signal service to Napoleon's ambition. If a strong hand was wanted at home, the necessity of having a general who could bring back victory to the tricolor banners in the field had been not less deeply felt. And hence the decisive revolution of Brumaire.

Of the allies of Austria, meanwhile, one had virtually abandoned her. The Emperor Paul, of Russia, resenting the style in which his army under Suwarrow had been supported, withdrew it altogether from the field of its victories; and that hare-brained autocrat, happening to take up an enthusiastic personal admiration for Buonaparte, was not likely for the present to be brought back into the Antigallican league. England appeared steadfast to the cause; but it remained to be proved whether the failure of her expedition to Holland under the Duke of York, or the signal success of her naval arms in the Mediterranean under Lord Nelson, had had the greater influence on the feelings of the government of St. James's. In the former case Napoleon might expect to find his advances towards a negotiation, in his new character of Chief Consul, received with better disposition than his predecessors of the Directory had extended to the last overtures of the English cabinet tendered by Lord Malmesbury. He resolved to have the credit of making the experiment at least, ere the campaign with the Austrians should open; and, discarding, as he had on a former occasion,[33] the usual etiquettes of diplomatic intercourse, addressed a letter to King George III., in person, almost immediately after the new consulate was established in the Tuileries, in these terms (Dec. 25, 1799).

"French Republic—Sovereignty of the People— Liberty and Equality. "Buonaparte, First Consul of the Republic, to his Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland.

"Called by the wishes of the French nation to occupy the first magistracy of the Republic, I have thought proper, in commencing the discharge of its duties, to communicate the event directly to your Majesty.

"Must the war, which for eight years has ravaged the four quarters of the world, be eternal? Is there no room for accommodation? How can the two most enlightened nations of Europe, stronger and more powerful than is necessary for their safety and independence, sacrifice commercial advantages, internal prosperity, and domestic happiness, to vain ideas of grandeur? Whence comes it that they do not feel peace to be the first of wants as well as of glories? These sentiments cannot be new to the heart of your Majesty, who rule over a free nation with no other view than to render it happy. Your Majesty will see in this overture only my sincere desire to contribute effectually, for the second time, to a general pacification—by a prompt step taken in confidence, and freed from those forms, which, however necessary to disguise the apprehensions of feeble states, only serve to discover in the powerful a mutual wish to deceive.

"France and England, abusing their strength, may long defer the period of its utter exhaustion; but I will venture to say, that the fate of all civilised nations is concerned in the termination of a war, the flames of which are raging throughout the whole world. I have the honour to be, &c. &c.

"BUONAPARTE."

It is manifest that the Chief Consul was wonderfully ignorant of the English constitution, if he really believed that the King (whose public acts must all be done by the hands of responsible ministers) could answer his letter personally. The reply was an official note from Lord Grenville, then secretary of state for the department of foreign affairs, to Talleyrand. It stated "that the King of England had no object in the war but the security of his own dominions, his allies, and Europe in general; he would seize the first favourable opportunity to make peace—at present he could see none. The same general assertions of pacific intentions had proceeded, successively, from all the revolutionary governments of France; and they had all persisted in conduct directly and notoriously the opposite of their language. Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Germany, Egypt,—what country had been safe from French aggression? The war must continue until the causes which gave it birth ceased to exist. The restoration of the exiled royal family would be the easiest means of giving confidence to the other powers of Europe. The King of England by no means pretended to dictate anything as to the internal polity of France; but he was compelled to say, that he saw nothing in the circumstances under which the new government had been set up, or the principles it professed to act upon, which could tend to make foreign powers regard it as either more stable or more trustworthy than the transitory forms it had supplanted."

Such was the tenor of Lord Grenville's famous note. It gave rise to an animated discussion in both Houses immediately on the meeting of the British Parliament; and, in both, the conduct of the ministry was approved by very great majorities. When, however, the financial preparations were brought forward, and it turned out that Russia was no longer to be subsidised—or, in other words, had abandoned the league against France—the prospects of the war were generally considered as much less favourable than they had been during this discussion. In the meantime the French government put forth, by way of commentary on Lord Grenville's state paper, a pretended letter from the unfortunate heir of the House of Stuart to George III., demanding from him the throne of England, which, now that the principle of legitimacy seemed to be recognised at St. James's, there could (said the pasquinade) be no fair pretext for refusing. Some other trifles of the same character might be noticed; but the true answer to Mr. Pitt was the campaign of Marengo.

Buonaparte rejoiced cordially in the result of his informal negotiation. It was his policy, even more clearly than it had been that of his predecessors, to buy security at home by battle and victory abroad. The national pride had been deeply wounded during his absence; and something must be done in Europe, worthy of the days of Lodi, and Rivoli, and Tagliamento, ere he could hope to be seated firmly on his throne. On receiving the answer of the British minister, he said to Talleyrand (rubbing his hands, as was his custom when much pleased), "it could not have been more favourable." On the same day, the 7th of January (just three days after the date of Lord Grenville's note), the First Consul issued his edict for the formation of an army of reserve, consisting of all the veterans who had ever served, and a new levy of 30,000 conscripts.

At this time France had four armies on her frontiers: that of the North, under Brune, watched the partisans of the House of Orange in Holland, and guarded those coasts against any new invasion from England; the defeat of the Duke of York had enabled the government to reduce its strength considerably. The second was the army of the Danube, under Jourdan, which, after the defeat at Stockach, had been obliged to repass the Rhine. The third, under Massena, styled the army of Helvetia, had been compelled in the preceding campaign to evacuate great part of Switzerland; but, gaining the battle of Zurich against the Russians, now re-occupied the whole of that republic. The fourth was that broken remnant which still called itself the "army of Italy." After the disastrous conflict of Genola it had rallied in disorder on the Apennine and the heights of Genoa, where the spirit of the troops was already so much injured, that whole battalions deserted en masse, and retired behind the Var. Their distress, in truth, was extreme; for they had lost all means of communication with the valley of the Po, and the English fleet effectually blockaded the whole coasts both of Provence and Liguria; so that, pent up among barren rocks, they suffered the hardships and privations of a beleaguered garrison.

The Chief Consul sent Massena to assume the command of the "army of Italy"; and issued, on that occasion, a general order, which had a magical effect on the minds of the soldiery, Massena was highly esteemed among them; and after his arrival at Genoa, the deserters flocked back rapidly to their standards. At the same time Buonaparte ordered Moreau to assume the command of the two corps of the Danube and Helvetia, and consolidate them into one great "army of the Rhine." Lastly, the rendezvous of the "army of reserve" was appointed for Dijon: a central position from which either Messena or Moreau might, as circumstances demanded, be supported and reinforced; but which Napoleon really designed to serve for a cloak to his main purpose. For he had already, in concert with Carnot, sketched the plan of that which is generally considered as at once the most daring and the most masterly of all the campaigns of the war; and which, in so far as the execution depended on himself, turned out also the most dazzlingly successful.

In placing Moreau at the head of the army of the Rhine, full 150,000 strong, and out of all comparison the best disciplined as well as largest force of the Republic, Buonaparte exhibited a noble superiority to all feelings of personal jealousy. That general's reputation approached the most nearly to his own, but his talents justified this reputation, and the Chief Consul thought of nothing but the best means of accomplishing the purposes of the joint campaign. Moreau, in the sequel, was severely censured by his master for the manner in which he executed the charge entrusted to him. His orders were to march at once upon Ulm, at the risk of placing the great Austrian army under Kray between him and France; but he was also commanded to detach 15,000 of his troops for the separate service of passing into Italy by the defiles of St. Gothard; and given to understand that it must be his business to prevent Kray, at all hazards, from opening a communication with Italy by way of the Tyrol. Under such circumstances, it is not wonderful that a general, who had a master, should have proceeded more cautiously than suited the gigantic aspirations of the unfettered Napoleon. Moreau, however, it must be admitted, had always the reputation of a prudent rather than a daring commander. The details of his campaign against Kray must be sought elsewhere. A variety of engagements took place with a variety of fortune. Moreau, his enemies allow, commenced his operations by crossing the Rhine in the end of April; and, on the 15th of July, had his headquarters at Augsburg, and was in condition either to reinforce the French in Italy, or to march into the heart of the Austrian states, when the success of Buonaparte's own expedition rendered either movement unnecessary.

The Chief Consul had resolved upon conducting, in person, one of the most adventurous enterprises recorded in the history of war. The formation of the army of reserve at Dijon was a mere deceit. A numerous staff, indeed, assembled in that town; and the preparation of the munitions of war proceeded there as elsewhere with the utmost energy: but the troops collected at Dijon were few; and—it being universally circulated and believed, that they were the force meant to re-establish the once glorious army of Italy, by marching to the headquarters of Massena at Genoa,—the Austrians received the accounts of their numbers and appearance, not only with indifference but with derision. Buonaparte, meanwhile, had spent three months in recruiting his armies throughout the interior of France; and the troops, by means of which it was his purpose to change the face of affairs beyond the Alps, were already marching by different routes, each detachment in total ignorance of the other's destination, upon the territory of Switzerland. To that quarter Buonaparte had already sent forward Berthier, the most confidential of his military friends, and other officers of the highest skill, with orders to reconnoitre the various passes in the great Alpine chain, and make every other preparation for the movement, of which they alone were, as yet, in the secret.

The statesmen who ventured, even after Brumaire, to oppose the investiture of Buonaparte with the whole power of the state, had, at first (as we have seen) attempted to confine him to the military department; or so arrange it that his orders, as to civil affairs, should, at least, not be absolute. Failing in this, they then proposed that the Chief Consul should be incapable of heading an army in the field, without abdicating previously his magistracy; and to their surprise, Napoleon at once acceded to a proposition which, it had been expected, would rouse his indignation. It now turned out how much the saving clause in question was worth. The Chief Consul could not, indeed, be general-in-chief of an army; but he could appoint whom he pleased to that post; and there was no law against his being present, in his own person, as a spectator of the campaign. It signified little that a Berthier should write himself commander, when a Napoleon was known to be in the camp.

It was now time that the great project should be realised. The situation of the "army of Italy" was become most critical. After a variety of petty engagements, its general saw his left wing (under Suchet) wholly cut off from his main body; and, while Suchet was forced to retire behind the Var, where his troops had the utmost difficulty in presenting any serious opposition to the Austrians, Massena had been compelled to throw himself with the remainder into Genoa. In that city he was speedily blockaded by the Austrian general Ott; while the imperial commander-in-chief, Melas, advanced with 30,000 upon Nice—of which place he took possession on the 11th of May. The Austrians, having shut up Massena, and well knowing the feebleness of Suchet's division, were in a delirium of joy. The gates of France appeared, at length, to be open before them; and it was not such an army of reserve as had excited the merriment of their spies at Dijon that could hope to withstand them in their long-meditated march on Provence—where Pichegru, as they supposed, was prepared to assume the command of a numerous body of royalist insurgents, as soon as he should receive intelligence of their entrance into France. But they were soon to hear news of another complexion from whence they least expected it—from behind them.

The Chief Consul remained in Paris until he received Berthier's decisive despatch from Geneva—it was in these words: "I wish to see you here. There are orders to be given by which three armies may act in concert, and you alone can give them in the lines. Measures decided on in Paris are too late." He instantly quitted the capital; and, on the 7th of May appeared at Dijon, where he reviewed, in great form, some 7000 or 8000 raw and half-clad troops, and committed them to the care of Brune. The spies of Austria reaped new satisfaction from this consular review: meanwhile Napoleon had halted but two hours at Dijon; and, travelling all night, arrived the next day, at Geneva. Here he was met by Marescot, who had been employed in exploring the wild passes of the Great St. Bernard, and received from him an appalling picture of the difficulties of marching an army by that route into Italy. "Is it possible to pass?" said Napoleon, cutting the engineer's narrative short. "The thing is barely possible," answered Marescot. "Very well," said the Chief Consul, "en avant—let us proceed."

While the Austrians were thinking only of the frontier where Suchet commanded an enfeebled and dispirited division,—destined, as they doubted not, to be reinforced by the army, such as it was, of Dijon,—the Chief Consul had resolved to penetrate into Italy, as Hannibal had done of old, through all the dangers and difficulties of the great Alps themselves. The march on the Var and Genoa might have been executed with comparative ease, and might, in all likelihood, have led to victory; but mere victory would not suffice. It was urgently necessary that the name of Buonaparte should be surrounded with some blaze of almost supernatural renown; and his plan for purchasing this splendour was to rush down from the Alps, at whatever hazard, upon the rear of Melas, cut off all his communications with Austria, and then force him to a conflict, in which, Massena and Suchet being on the other side of him, reverse must needs be ruin.

For the treble purpose of more easily collecting a sufficient stock of provisions for the march, of making its accomplishment more rapid, and of perplexing the enemy on its termination, Napoleon determined that his army should pass in four divisions, by as many separate routes. The left wing, under Moncey, consisting of 15,000 detached from the army of Moreau, was ordered to debouch by the way of St. Gothard. The corps of Thureau, 5000 strong, took the direction of Mount Cenis: that of Chabran, of similar strength, moved by the Little St. Bernard. Of the main body, consisting of 35,000, the Chief Consul himself took care; and he reserved for them the gigantic task of surmounting, with the artillery, the huge barriers of the Great St. Bernard. Thus along the Alpine Chain—from the sources of the Rhine and the Rhone to Isere and Durance—about 60,000 men, in all, prepared for the adventure. It must be added, if we would form a fair conception of the enterprise, that Napoleon well knew not one-third of these men had ever seen a shot fired in earnest.

The difficulties encountered by Moncey, Thureau, and Chabran will be sufficiently understood from the narrative of Buonaparte's own march. From the 15th to the 18th of May all his columns were put in motion; Lannes, with the advanced guard, clearing the way before them; the general, Berthier, and the Chief Consul himself superintending the rear guard, which, as having with it the artillery, was the object of highest importance. At St. Pierre all semblance of a road disappeared. Thenceforth an army, horse and foot, laden with all the munitions of a campaign, a park of forty field-pieces included, were to be urged up and along airy ridges of rock and eternal snow, where the goatherd, the hunter of the chamois, and the outlaw-smuggler are alone accustomed to venture; amidst precipices where to slip a foot is death; beneath glaciers from which the percussion of a musket-shot is often sufficient to hurl an avalanche; across bottomless chasms caked over with frost or snow-drift; and breathing

"The difficult air of the iced mountain top, Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing Flit o'er the herbless granite."[34]

The transport of the artillery and ammunition was the most difficult point; and to this, accordingly, the Chief Consul gave his personal superintendence. The guns were dismounted, grooved into the trunks of trees hollowed out so as to suit each calibre, and then dragged on by sheer strength of muscle—not less than an hundred soldiers being sometimes harnessed to a single cannon. The carriages and wheels, being taken to pieces, were slung on poles, and borne on men's shoulders. The powder and shot, packed into boxes of fir-wood, formed the lading of all the mules that could be collected over a wide range of the Alpine country. These preparations had been made during the week that elapsed between Buonaparte's arrival at Geneva and the commencement of Lannes's march. He himself travelled sometimes on a mule, but mostly on foot, cheering on the soldiers who had the burden of the great guns. The fatigue undergone is not to be described. The men in front durst not halt to breathe, because the least stoppage there might have thrown the column behind into confusion, on the brink of deadly precipices; and those in the rear had to flounder knee deep, through snow and ice trampled into sludge by the feet and hoofs of the preceding divisions. Happily the march of Napoleon was not harassed, like that of Hannibal, by the assaults of living enemies. The mountaineers, on the contrary, flocked in to reap the liberal rewards which he offered to all who were willing to lighten the drudgery of his troops.

On the 16th of May Napoleon slept at the convent of St. Maurice; and, in the course of the four following days, the whole army passed the Great St. Bernard. It was on the 20th that Buonaparte himself halted an hour at the convent of the Hospitallers, which stands on the summit of this mighty mountain. The good fathers of the monastery had been warned beforehand of the march, and they had furnished every soldier as he passed with a luncheon of bread and cheese and a glass of wine; for which seasonable kindness, they now received the warm acknowledgments of the chief.[35] It was here that he took his leave of a peasant youth, who had walked by him, as his guide, all the way from the convent of St. Maurice. Napoleon conversed freely with the young man, and was much interested with his simplicity. At parting, he asked the guide some particulars about his personal situation; and, having heard his reply, gave him money and a billet to the head of the monastery of St. Maurice. The peasant delivered it accordingly, and was surprised to find that, in consequence of a scrap of writing which he could not read, his worldly comforts were to be permanently increased. The object of his generosity remembered, nevertheless, but little of his conversation with the Consul. He described Napoleon as being "a very dark man" (this was the effect of the Syrian sun), and having an eye that, notwithstanding his affability, he could not encounter without a sense of fear. The only saying of the hero which he treasured in his memory was, "I have spoiled a hat among your mountains: well, I shall find a new one on the other side."—Thus spoke Napoleon, wringing the rain from his covering as he approached the hospice of St. Bernard.—The guide described, however, very strikingly, the effects of Buonaparte's appearance and voice, when any obstacle checked the advance of his soldiery along that fearful wilderness which is called emphatically, "The Valley of Desolation." A single look or word was commonly sufficient to set all in motion again. But if the way presented some new and apparently insuperable difficulty, the Consul bade the drums beat and the trumpets sound, as if for the charge; and this never failed. Of such gallant temper were the spirits which Napoleon had at command, and with such admirable skill did he wield them!

On the 16th the vanguard, under Lannes, reached the beautiful vale of Aosta, and the other divisions descended rapidly on their footsteps. This part of the progress was not less difficult than the ascent before. The horses, mules, and guns, were to be led down one slippery steep after another—and we may judge with what anxious care, since Napoleon himself was once contented to slide nearly a hundred yards together, seated.

On the 17th Lannes arrived at Chatillon, where he attacked and defeated a corps of 5000 Austrians—who received the onset of a French division in that quarter, with about as much surprise as if an enemy had dropped on them from the clouds. Every difficulty now seemed to be surmounted, and corps after corps came down into the plentiful and verdant valley, full of joy. But suddenly the march of the vanguard was arrested by an obstacle unforeseen, or, at least, grievously under-estimated. Midway between Aosta and Ivrea the Dora flows through a defile, not more than fifty yards in width: the heights on either hand rise precipitous; and in the midst an abrupt conical rock, crowned with the fortress of St. Bard, entirely commands the river, and a small walled town, through the heart of which lies the only passage. Lannes having vainly attempted to force the place by a coup de main, a panic arose, and this spreading to the rear, orders were given for stopping the descent of the artillery. The Consul had come as far as the town of Aosta when this intelligence reached him. He immediately hastened to St. Bard, where he found the troops in much confusion.

On occasions like this Napoleon rarely failed to vindicate the prestige of his reputation. After hastily surveying the localities, he climbed the height of the Albaredo, which rises on the one side above the fort, and satisfied himself that, though the path had hitherto been trodden only by solitary huntsmen, the army who had crossed the St. Bernard might, by similar efforts, find or make their way here also. A single cannon being, with the last difficulty, hoisted to the summit, he planted it so as to play full on the chief bastion of St. Bard. The moment this was arranged the troops began their painful march; and they accomplished it without considerable loss; for the Consul's gun was so excellently placed that the main battery of the subjacent castle, was, ere long, silenced. The men crept along the brow of the Albaredo in single file, each pausing (says an eye-witness) to gaze for a moment on Napoleon, who, overcome with his exertions, had lain down and fallen fast asleep upon the summit of the rock. Thus passed the main body, slowly, but surely. Meantime Colonel Dufour had been ordered to scale the wall of the town at nightfall; and his regiment (the 58th) performed this service so impetuously, that the Austrian troops took refuge in the castle, and the French made good their lodgment in the houses below. For some hours the garrison poured down grape-shot at half-musket distance upon the French, but at last out of compassion for the inhabitants, the fire slackened, and ere day broke Buonaparte had effected his main purpose. The streets of the town having been strewn with litter to deafen sound, the guns, covered with straw and branches of trees, were dragged through it under the very guns of St. Bard, and without exciting the least suspicion in its garrison. Next morning the Austrian sent on a messenger to Melas, with tidings that a large division of the French had indeed passed by the goat-tracks of Albaredo, but that most certainly not one great gun was with them. Buonaparte, meantime, was hurrying forwards with horse, foot, and artillery too, upon Ivrea.

The march of the Consul received no new check until he reached the town of Ivrea, where, after two days' hard fighting, Lannes at length forced an entrance, and the garrison, with severe loss, withdrew. Buonaparte then took the road to Turin, and the vanguard had another severe piece of service at the bridge of Chiusilla, where 10,000 Austrians had been very strongly posted. Lannes broke them, and pursuing as far as Orca, cut them off from their magazines at Chevagno, and seized a vast quantity of stores which had been embarked on the Po. The advance was now within one march of Turin, while Murat occupied Vercelli, and the other divisions (those of Moncey, Chabran, and Thureau), having accomplished their several Alpine journeys, were pouring down upon the low country, and gradually converging towards the appointed rendezvous on the Ticino. Buonaparte had thus overcome the great difficulties of his preparation, and was ready with his whole army to open the campaign in good earnest against Melas.

The blockade of Genoa had been kept up all this time; while Suchet resolutely maintained the last line of defence on the old frontier of France. On the 22nd of May Melas made a desperate effort to force the passage of the Var, but failed; and immediately afterwards received his first intelligence of the movements of Buonaparte, and the defeat of his own detachment at the bridge of Chiusilla. He perceived that it was high time to leave Suchet to inferior hands, and set off to oppose in person "the army of reserve." Suchet, on his part, was not slow to profit by the departure of the Austrian Commander-in-chief: he, being informed of Buonaparte's descent, forthwith resumed the offensive, re-crossed the Var, and carried Vintimiglia at the point of the bayonet. Pursuing his advantage, Suchet obtained the mastery, first of the defile of Braus, and then of that of Tende, and at length re-occupied his old position at Melagno, whence his advanced guard pushed on as far as Savona.

The garrison of Genoa, meantime, had been holding out gallantly. Massena for some time kept possession of the semicircular chain of heights on the land side, and was thus enabled to obtain provisions, despite the 40,000 Austrians under General Ott who lay watching him, and the English fleet under Lord Keith which completely blockaded the shore. A great effort made to dislodge him from the heights on the 3rd of April had failed. But by degrees the superiority of numbers proved too much for him, and being shut at last within the walls—where, to increase all his difficulties, a great part of the population was violently hostile to the French cause—his sufferings from want of provisions, and the necessity of constant watchfulness and daily skirmishes, began to be severe. In his sorties, Massena had for the most part the advantage; and never in the whole war was the heroism of the French soldiery more brilliantly displayed than during this siege.[36] The news of the expedition of Napoleon at length penetrated to the beleaguered garrison, and the expectation of relief gave them from day to day new courage to hold out. But day passed after day without any deliverer making his appearance, and the scarcity of food rendered it almost impossible to keep the inhabitants from rising en masse to throw open the gates. The English, meanwhile, anchored closer to the city, and having cut out the vessels which guarded the entrance of the harbour, were bombarding the French quarters at their pleasure. Everything eatable, not excepting the shoes and knapsacks of the soldiers, had been devoured, ere Massena at length listened to the proposal of a conference with General Ott and Lord Keith. If the French general's necessities were urgent, the English admiral's desire to get possession of Genoa, ere Buonaparte could make further progress, was not less vehement. Lord Keith frankly told Massena, that his gallantry had been such that no terms could be too good for him. The word capitulation Was omitted: the French marched out of the town with arms and baggage, and were allowed to proceed to Suchet's headquarters; and, on the 5th of June, Ott occupied Genoa.

General Ott, notwithstanding this success, had been very ill-employed in lingering before Genoa while Napoleon was so rapidly advancing; and Melas, utterly perplexed between Suchet on the one side and the Consul on the other, had in fact lain still, and done nothing. Buonaparte, between the 1st and 4th of June, crossed the Ticino with his whole army. Murat carried Turbigo on the 5th, the very day that Genoa fell; and on the 2nd, the Chief Consul himself once more entered Milan, where he was received with enthusiasm. Lannes, after various conflicts, occupied Pavia. Chapon and Thureau threatened Turin by two different routes; and Melas, at last roused to a sense of his imminent danger, abandoned the open country of Piedmont, took up his headquarters at Alessandria, and began to draw together his widely separated columns, and concentrate them for the inevitable battle which must decide the fate of Italy.

Buonaparte, meanwhile, was ignorant of the fall of Genoa. He supposed, therefore, that the army of Ott was still at a wide distance from that of the Austrian commander-in-chief, and meditated to pass the Po suddenly, and either attack Ott and relieve Genoa, ere Melas knew that he was in that neighbourhood, or, if he should find this more practicable, force Melas himself to accept battle unsupported by Ott. Lannes and the van, accordingly, pushed on as far as Montebello, where, to their surprise, they found the Austrians in strength. Early in the morning of the 9th of June, Lannes was attacked by a force which he had much difficulty in resisting. The Austrians were greatly superior in cavalry, and the ground was favourable for that arm. But at length Victor's division came up, and, after a severe struggle, turned the tide. The battle was a most obstinate one. The fields being covered with very tall crops of rye, the hostile battalions were often almost within bayonet's length ere they were aware of each other's presence; and the same circumstances prevented the generals, on either side, from displaying much science in their manoeuvres. It was a conflict of man against man, and determined at a dear cost of blood. The field was strewn with dead, and the retiring Austrians left 5000 prisoners in the hands of Lannes—who, in memory of this day of slaughter, was created afterwards Duke of Montebello. It was from the prisoners taken here that the Consul learned the fate of Genoa. He immediately concluded that Melas had concentrated his army; and, having sent messengers to Suchet, urging him to cross the mountains by the Col di Cadibona, and march on the Scrivia (which would place him in the rear of the enemy), halted his whole line upon the strong position of Stradella.

It was on the evening after Montebello, that General Dessaix, whom Napoleon considered as second only to himself in military genius, arrived at headquarters. Buonaparte had, as we have seen, on leaving Egypt, ordered Kleber to send Dessaix to France in the course of November. He had accordingly landed at Frejus shortly after the establishment of the new government, where he found letters from the Chief Consul, urging him to join him without delay. In these letters there were some melancholy phrases, and Dessaix, who really loved Napoleon, was heard to say, "He has gained all, and yet he is not satisfied." A hundred obstacles rose up to keep Dessaix from joining his friend so speedily as both wished. He was yet in France when the news of St. Bernard came thither, and exclaiming, "He will leave us nothing to do," travelled night and day until he was able to throw himself into his arms. Napoleon immediately gave him the command of a division; and they spent the night together in conversing about the affairs of Egypt.

The First Consul was anxious to tempt Melas to attack him at Stradella, where the ground was unfavourable to cavalry movements; but, after lying there unmolested for three days, he began to fear that the Austrian had resolved, either on moving to the left flank, crossing the Ticino, occupying Milan, and so re-opening his communications with Vienna;—or, on falling back to Genoa, overwhelming Suchet, and taking up a position where the British fleet could supply him with provisions—or even, in case of necessity, embark his army, carry it round to the other side of Italy, and by that means place him once more between his enemy and the German states. Buonaparte, being perplexed with these apprehensions, at last descended into the great plain of Marengo, on which he had, not without reason, feared to abide the onset of Melas and the Austrian horse. He was at Volghera on the 11th, and the next day at St. Juliano, in the very centre of the plain; but still no enemy appeared. On the 13th, he advanced to the village of Marengo itself, and finding nothing even there but a scanty outpost, which retreated before him, concluded certainly that Melas had given him the slip, and marched either to the left on the Ticino, or to the right on Genoa. In great anxiety he detached one division under Dessaix to watch the road to Genoa, and another under Murat towards the Scrivia. Dessaix was already half-a-day's journey from headquarters, when Napoleon received intelligence which made him hastily recall all his detachments. The Austrian general, after a long hesitation, had at length resolved to let a fair field decide once more the fate of Italy. On the evening of the 13th, his whole army mustered in front of Alessandria having only the river Bormida between them and the plain of Marengo; and early in the following morning, they passed the stream at three several points, and advanced towards the French position in as many columns.

The Austrians were full 40,000 strong; while, in the absence of Dessaix and the reserve, Napoleon could, at most, oppose to them 20,000, of whom only 2500 were cavalry. He had, however, no hesitation about accepting the battle. His advance, under Gardanne, occupied the small hamlet of Padre Bona, a little in front of Marengo. At that village, which overlooks a narrow ravine, the channel of a rivulet, Napoleon stationed Victor with the main body of his first line—the extreme right of it resting on Castel Ceriolo, another hamlet almost parallel with Marengo; Kellerman, with a brigade of cavalry, was posted immediately behind Victor for the protection of his flanks. A thousand yards in the rear of Victor was the second line, under Lannes, protected in like fashion by the cavalry of Champeaux. At about an equal distance, again, behind Lannes, was the third line, consisting of the division of St. Cyr, and the consular guard, under Napoleon in person. The Austrian heavy infantry, on reaching the open field, formed into two lines, the first, under General Haddick, considerably in advance before the other, which Melas himself commanded, with General Zach for his second. These moved steadily towards Marengo; while the light infantry and cavalry, under General Elsnitz, made a detour round Castel Ceriolo with the purpose of outflanking the French right.

Such was the posture of the two armies when this great battle began. Gardanne was unable to withstand the shock, and abandoning Padre Bona, fell back to strengthen Victor. A furious cannonade along the whole front of that position ensued; the tirailleurs of either army posted themselves along the margins of the ravine, and fired incessantly at each other, their pieces almost touching. Cannon and musketry spread devastation everywhere—for the armies were but a few toises apart. For more than two hours Victor withstood singly the vigorous assaults of a far superior force; Marengo had been taken and retaken several times, ere Lannes received orders to reinforce him. The second line at length advanced, but they found the first in retreat, and the two corps took up a second line of defence considerably to the rear of Marengo. Here they were, again, charged furiously—and again, after obstinate resistance, gave way. General Elsnitz, meantime, having effected his purpose, and fairly marched round Castel Ceriolo, appeared on the right flank, with his splendid cavalry, and began to pour his squadrons upon the retreating columns of Lannes. That gallant chief formed his troops en echelon; and retired in admirable order—but the retreat was now general; and, had Melas pursued the advantage with all his reserve, the battle was won. But that aged general (he was eighty-four years old) doubted not that he had won it already; and at this critical moment, being quite worn out with fatigue, withdrew to the rear, leaving Zach to continue what he considered as now a mere pursuit.

At the moment when the Austrian horse were about to rush on Lannes's retreating corps, the reserve under Dessaix appeared on the outskirts of the field. Dessaix himself, riding up to the First Consul, said, "I think this is a battle lost." "I think it is a battle won," answered Napoleon. "Do you push on, and I will speedily rally the line behind you."—And in effect the timely arrival of this reserve turned the fortune of the day.

Napoleon in person drew up the whole of his army on a third line of battle, and rode along the front, saying, "Soldiers, we have retired far enough. Let us now advance. You know it is my custom to sleep on the field of battle." The enthusiasm of the troops appeared to be revived, and Dessaix prepared to act on the offensive; he led a fresh column of 5000 grenadiers to meet and check the advance of Zach. The brave Dessaix fell dead at the first fire, shot through the head. "Alas! it is not permitted to me to weep," said Napoleon; and the fall of that beloved chief redoubled the fury of his followers. The first line of the Austrian infantry charged, however, with equal resolution. At that moment Kellerman's horse came on them in flank; and being, by that unexpected assault, broken, they were, after a vain struggle, compelled to surrender:—General Zach himself was here made prisoner. The Austrian columns behind, being flushed with victory, were advancing too carelessly, and proved unable to resist the general assault of the whole French line, which now pressed onwards under the immediate command of Napoleon. Post after post was carried. The noble cavalry of Elsnitz, perceiving the infantry broken and retiring, lost heart; and, instead of forming to protect their retreat, turned their horses' heads and galloped over the plain, trampling down every thing in their way. When the routed army reached at length the Bormida, the confusion was indescribable. Hundreds were drowned—the river rolled red amidst the corpses of horse and men. Whole corps, being unable to effect the passage, surrendered: and at ten at night the Austrian commander with difficulty rallied the remnant of that magnificent array on the very ground which they had left the same morning in all the confidence of victory.

It is not to be denied that Napoleon was saved on this occasion by the arrival of the reserve under Dessaix, and the timely charge of Kellerman. On the other hand it is impossible not to condemn the rashness with which the Austrian generals advanced after their first successes.

The discomfiture of the imperialists was so great, that rather than stand the consequences of another battle, while Suchet was coming on their rear, they next day entered into a negotiation. Melas offered to abandon Genoa and all the strong places in Piedmont, Lombardy, and the Legations—provided Buonaparte would allow him to march the remains of his army unmolested to the rear of Mantua. Napoleon accepted this offer. By one battle he had regained nearly all that the French had lost in the unhappy Italian campaign of 1799: at all events he had done enough to crown his own name with unrivalled splendour, and to show that the French troops were once more what they had used to be—when he was in the field to command them. He had another motive for closing with the propositions of General Melas. It was of urgent importance to regain Genoa, ere an English army, which he knew was on its voyage to that port, could reach its destination.

On the 17th of June Napoleon returned in triumph to Milan, where he formally re-established the Cisalpine Republic, and was present at a festival of high state and magnificence. He then gave the command of the army of Italy to Massena; and appointed Jourdan French minister in Piedmont—in other words, governor of that dominion; and set out on his journey to Paris. He halted at Lyons to lay the first stone of the new Place de Bellecour, erected on the ruins of a great square destroyed by the Jacobins during the revolutionary madness; and reached the Tuileries on the 2nd of July. He had set out for Switzerland on the 6th of May. Two months had not elapsed, and in that brief space what wonders had been accomplished! The enthusiasm of the Parisians exceeded all that has been recorded of any triumphal entry. Night after night every house was illuminated; and day following day the people stood in crowds around the palace, contented if they could but catch one glimpse of the preserver of France.

The effusion of joy was the greater—because the tale of victory came on a people prepared for other tidings. About noontide on the 14th of June, when the French had been driven out of Marengo, and were apparently in full and disastrous retreat, a commercial traveller left the field, and arriving, after a rapid journey, in Paris, announced that Buonaparte had been utterly defeated by Melas. It is said that the ill-wishers of the First Consul immediately set on foot an intrigue for removing him from the government, and investing Carnot with the chief authority. It is not doubtful that many schemes of hostility had been agitated during Napoleon's absence; or that, amidst all the clamour and splendour of his triumphant reception in Paris, he wore a gloomy brow; nor has any one disputed that, from this time, he regarded the person of Carnot with jealousy and aversion.

The tidings of the great battle, meanwhile, kindled the emulation of the Rhenish army; and they burned with the earnest desire to do something worthy of being recorded in the same page with Marengo. But the Chief Consul, when he granted the armistice to Melas, had extended it to the armies on the German frontier likewise; and Moreau, consequently, could not at once avail himself of the eagerness of his troops. The negotiations which ensued, however, were unsuccessful. The emperor, subsidised as he had been, must have found it very difficult to resist the remonstrances of England against the ratification of any peace in which she should not be included; and it is natural to suppose, that the proud spirit of the Austrian cabinet revolted from setting the seal to an act of humiliation, not yet, as the English government insisted, absolutely necessary. News, meantime, were received, of the surrender of Malta to an English expedition under Lord Keith and Sir Ralph Abercrombie;[37] and this timely piece of good fortune breathed fresh spirit into the Antigallican league. In fine, insincerity and suspicion protracted, from day to day, a negotiation not destined to be concluded until more blood had been shed.

During this armistice, which lasted from the 15th of June to the 10th of November, the exiled princes of the House of Bourbon made some more ineffectual endeavours to induce the Chief Consul to be the Monk of France. The Abbe de Montesquiou, secret agent for the Count de Lille (afterwards Louis XVIII.), prevailed on the Third Consul, Le Brun, to lay before Buonaparte a letter addressed to him by that prince—in these terms: "You are very tardy about restoring my throne to me: it is to be feared that you may let the favourable moment slip. You cannot establish the happiness of France without me; and I, on the other hand, can do nothing for France without you. Make haste, then, and point out, yourself, the posts and dignities which will satisfy you and your friends." The First Consul answered thus: "I have received your Royal Highness's letter. I have always taken a lively interest in your misfortunes and those of your family. You must not think of appearing in France—you could not do so without marching over five hundred thousand corpses. For the rest, I shall always be zealous to do whatever lies within my power towards softening your Royal Highness's destinies, and making you forget, if possible, your misfortunes." The Comte D'Artois (Charles X. of France) took a more delicate method of negotiating. He sent a very beautiful and charming lady, the Duchesse de Guiche, to Paris; she without difficulty gained access to Josephine, and shone, for a time, the most brilliant ornament of the consular court. But the moment Napoleon discovered the fair lady's errand, she was ordered to quit the capital within a few hours. These intrigues, however, could not fail to transpire; and there is no doubt that, at this epoch, the hopes of the royalists were in a high state of excitement.

Meantime, among the meaner orders of both the great parties, who regarded with aversion the sovereign authority of the Chief Consul, there wanted not hearts wicked enough, nor hands sufficiently desperate, for attempts far different from these. The lawfulness, nay, the merit and the glory of tyrranicide, were ideas familiar to the Jacobins of every degree; and, during the years of miserable convulsion which followed the imprisonment and murder of Louis XVI., the royalist bands had often been joined, and sometimes guided, by persons in whom a naturally fanatical spirit, goaded by the sense of intolerable wrongs, dared to think of revenge—no matter how accomplished—as the last and noblest of duties: nor is it wonderful that amidst a long protracted civil war, when scenes of battle and slaughter were relieved only by the hardships of skulking in woods and the fears of famine, the character of others, originally both pure and gentle, had come to be degraded into a callous indifference of dark sullenness of temper, fit preparatives for deeds, the thought of which, in earlier and better days, would have been horror and loathing.

It was among the Jacobins, who had formerly worshipped Buonaparte as the "child and champion" of their creed, that the first schemes of assassination were agitated. An Italian sculptor, by name Ceracchi, who had modelled the bust of Napoleon while he held his court at Montebello, arrived in Paris, and, under pretence of retouching his work, solicited admission to the presence of the new Caesar, whose Brutus he had resolved to be. The occupations of the Consul did not permit of this, and the Italian, having opened his purpose to Topineau, Lebrun, a painter, the adjutant-general Arena, Damerville, and others of kindred sentiments, arranged a plan by which Buonaparte was to have been surrounded and stabbed in the lobby of the opera house. But one of the accomplices betrayed the conspiracy; and Ceracchi and his associates were arrested in the theatre, at the moment when they were expecting their victim.

This occurred towards the middle of August; and it has been said that the Jacobin conspirators, being thrown into the same prison with some desperadoes of the Chouan faction, gave to these last the outline of another scheme of assassination, which had more nearly proved successful. This was the plot of the infernal machine. A cart was prepared to contain a barrel of gunpowder, strongly fastened in the midst of a quantity of grape-shot, which, being set on fire by a slow match, was to explode at the moment when Buonaparte was passing through some narrow street, and scatter destruction in every direction around it. The night selected was that of the 10th of October, when the Chief Consul was expected to visit the opera, and the machine was planted in the Rue St. Nicaise, through which he must pass in his way thither from the Tuileries. Napoleon told his friends at St. Helena, that having laboured hard all day, he felt himself overpowered with sleep after dinner, and that Josephine, who was anxious to be at the opera, had much difficulty in at last rousing and persuading him to go. "I fell fast asleep again" (he said), "after I was in my carriage; and at the moment when the explosion took place, I was dreaming of the danger I had undergone some years before in crossing the Tagliamento at midnight, by the light of torches, during a flood." He awoke, and exclaimed to Lannes and Bessieres, who were with him in the coach, "We are blown up." The attendants would have stopped the carriage, but, with great presence of mind, he bade them drive as fast as they could to the theatre, which he alone of all the party entered with an unruffled countenance. He had escaped most narrowly. The coachman, happening to be intoxicated, drove more rapidly than was his custom.[38] The engine exploded half a minute after the carriage had passed it—killing twenty persons, wounding fifty-three (among whom was St. Regent, the assassin who fired the train), and shattering the windows of several houses on both sides of the street.

The audience in the opera-house, when the news was divulged, testified their feelings with enthusiasm. The atrocity of the conspiracy roused universal horror and indignation, and invested the person of the Chief Consul with a new species of interest. The assassins were tried fairly, and executed, glorying in their crime: and, in the momentary exaltation of all men's minds, an edict of the senate, condemning to perpetual exile 130 of the most notorious leaders of the Terrorists, was received with applause. But Napoleon himself despised utterly the relics of that odious party; and the arbitrary decree in question was never put into execution.

The Chief Consul, nevertheless, was not slow to avail himself of the state of the public mind, in a manner more consistent with his prudence and farsightedness. It was at this moment that the erection of a new tribunal, called the Special Commission, consisting of eight judges, without jury, and without revision or appeal, was proposed to the legislative bodies. To their honour the proposal was carried by very narrow majorities; for after that judicature was established, the Chief Consul had, in effect, the means of disposing of all who were suspected of political offences, according to his own pleasure. Another law which soon succeeded, and which authorised the chief magistrate to banish disaffected persons, as "enemies of the state," from Paris or from France, whenever such steps should seem proper, without the intervention of any tribunal whatever, completed (if it was yet incomplete) the despotic range of his power: and the police, managed as that fearful engine was by Fouche, presented him with the most perfect means of carrying his purposes into execution.

A singular anecdote belongs to this time—(December, 1800). During the effervescence of public opinion consequent on the affair of the infernal machine, there appeared a pamphlet, entitled, "Parallel between Caesar, Cromwell, Monk, and Bonaparte"[39]—a production evidently designed to favour the assumption of regal dignity by the Consul. Appearing at such a moment, it could not fail to excite a vivid sensation; the confidential friends of Napoleon assured him, in one voice, that the publication was likely to injure him. He sent for Fouche, and reproached him violently for suffering such a pamphlet to appear. The minister of police heard him with perfect coolness, and replied that he had not chosen to interfere, because he had traced the manuscript to the hotel of his brother Lucien. "And why not denounce Lucien?" cried Napoleon; "he ought to have been arrested instantly, and confined in the Temple." The Consul having spoken thus, quitted the apartment, shutting the door with violence. Fouche smiled, and whispered to De Bourienne—"Confine the author in the Temple! Lucien showed me the manuscript; I found it full of corrections in the handwriting of—the First Consul!" Lucien, informed of his brother's wrath, came forthwith to the Tuileries, and complained that "he had been made a puppet and abandoned." "The fault is your own," answered Napoleon; "it was your business not to be detected. Fouche has shown himself more dexterous—so much the worse for you." Lucien resigned forthwith the office which he held in the ministry, and proceeded as ambassador to Spain.

How far these disturbances in the French capital might have contributed to the indecision of the Austrian cabinet during this autumn, we know not. Five months had now elapsed since the armistice after Marengo; and the First Consul, utterly disgusted with the delay, determined to resume arms, and to be first in the field. Between the 17th and the 27th of November his generals received orders to set all their troops once more in motion. Everywhere the French arms had splendid success. Brune defeated the Austrians on the Mincio, and advanced within a few miles of Venice. Macdonald occupied the mountains of the Tyrol, and was prepared to reinforce either the army of Italy or that of the Rhine, as might be desired. Moreau, finally, advanced into the heart of Germany, and was met by the Archduke John of Austria, who obtained considerable advantages in an affair at Haag. The Archduke, elated by this success, determined on a general engagement, and appeared in front of the French on the evening of the 2nd December, at Hohenlinden, between the Inn and the Iser.[40] At seven, on the morning of the 3rd, the conflict began. The deep snow had obliterated the tracks of roads; several Austrian columns were bewildered; and either came not at all into their positions, or came too late. Yet the battle was obstinate and severe: 10,000 Imperialists were left dead on the field: and Moreau, improving his success, marched on immediately, and occupied Salzburg.

The Austrian capital now lay exposed to the march of three victorious armies; and the Emperor was at last compelled to release himself from his English obligations, and negotiate in sincerity for a separate peace. Mr. Pitt himself considered the prosecution of the continental war as for the time hopeless. On reading the bulletin of Marengo, he said, "Fold up that map" (the map of Europe); "it will not be wanted for these twenty years."

A definitive treaty was signed at Luneville on the 9th February, 1801; by which the Emperor, not only as the head of the Austrian monarchy, but also in his quality of Chief of the German empire, guaranteed to France the boundary to the Rhine; thereby sacrificing certain possessions of Prussia and other subordinate princes of the empire, as well as his own. Another article, extremely distasteful to Austria, yielded Tuscany; which Napoleon resolved to transfer to a prince of the House of Parma, in requital of the good offices of Spain during the war. The Emperor recognised the union of the Batavian Republic with the French;—and acknowledged the Cisalpine and Ligurian Commonwealths; both virtually provinces of the great empire, over which the authority of the First Consul seemed now to be permanently established.

[Footnote 33: When he wrote from Clagenfurt to the Archduke Charles.]

[Footnote 34: Byron's "Manfred."]

[Footnote 35: The worthy Hospitallers of St. Bernard have stationed themselves on that wild eminence, for the purpose of alleviating the misery of travellers lost or bewildered amidst the neighbouring defiles. They entertain a pack of dogs, of extraordinary sagacity, who roam over the hills night and day, and frequently drag to light and safety pilgrims who have been buried in the snow.]

[Footnote 36: The following anecdote is given by Dumas:—"On one of these occasions, when a desperate attack was led on by Soult, there occurred a circumstance as honourable as it was characteristic of the spirit which animated the French. The soldiers of two regiments or demi-brigades, of the army of Italy, namely, the 25th Light, and the 24th of the Line, had sworn eternal enmity against one another, because that, previous to the opening of the campaign, when desertion and all the evils of insubordination prevailed in that army, disorganised by suffering, the former, in which discipline had been maintained, was employed to disarm the latter. The utmost care had been taken to keep them separate; but it so happened that these two corps found themselves one day made rivals as it were in valour, the one before the eyes of the other. The same dangers, the same thirst of glory, the same eagerness to maintain themselves, at once renewed in all hearts generous sentiments; the soldiers became instantly intermingled; they embraced in the midst of the fire, and one half of the one corps passing into the ranks of the other, they renewed the combat, after the exchange, with double ardour."]

[Footnote 37: Sept. 5, 1800.]

[Footnote 38: The man took the noise for that of a salute.]

[Footnote 39: "Napoleon dropped the u in his surname after his first campaign in Italy."—Bourienne.]

[Footnote 40: The poet Campbell has vividly painted the opening of the great battle which followed.

"On Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, And dark as winter was the flow Of Iser rolling rapidly:

But Linden saw another sight When the drums beat at dead of night, Commanding fires of death to light The darkness of her scenery," &c. ]



CHAPTER XVI

Affairs of Naples and of the Pope—The Emperor Paul of Russia—Northern confederacy against England—Battle of Copenhagen—Nelson's Victory—Death of Paul—Expedition to Egypt under Sir Ralph Abercrombie—Battle of Alexandria—Conquest of Egypt—The Flotilla of Boulogne—Negotiations with England—Peace of Amiens.

England alone remained steadfast in her hostility; and, as we shall presently see, the Chief Consul was even able to secure for himself the alliance against her of some of the principal powers in Europe; but before we proceed to the eventful year of 1801, there are some incidents of a minor order which must be briefly mentioned.

It has been already said that the half-crazy Emperor of Russia had taken up a violent personal admiration for Buonaparte, and, under the influence of that feeling, virtually abandoned Austria before the campaign of Marengo. Napoleon took every means to flatter the Autocrat and secure him in his interests. Paul had been pleased to appoint himself Grand Master of the ruined Order of the Knights of St. John. It was his not idle ambition to obtain, in this character, possession of the Island of Malta; and Buonaparte represented the refusal of the English government to give up that stronghold as a personal insult to Paul. Some 10,000 Russian prisoners of war were not only sent back in safety, but new clothed and equipped at the expense of France; and the Autocrat was led to contrast this favourably with some alleged neglect of these troops on the part of Austria, when arranging the treaty of Luneville. Lastly, the Queen of Naples, sister to the German Emperor, being satisfied that, after the battle of Marengo, nothing could save her husband's Italian dominions from falling back into the hands of France (out of which they had been rescued, during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, by the English, under Lord Nelson), took up the resolution of travelling in person to St. Petersburg in the heart of the winter, and soliciting the intercession of Paul. The Czar, egregiously flattered with being invoked in this fashion, did not hesitate to apply in the Queen's behalf to Buonaparte; and the Chief Consul, well calculating the gain and the loss, consented to spare Naples for the present, thereby completing the blind attachment of that weak-minded despot.