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The exhausted condition of the French troops prevented the pursuit from being very vigorously continued, and at Vicenza Wurmser was allowed to collect the scattered remnants of his host. Here, also, the gallant spirit of the soldier seems to have awakened, for his measures henceforth are marked by the promptness, energy, and resolution, which could alone extricate his troops from the perilous situation in which they were placed. The pontoon train was lost, and three rivers, guarded by vigilant foes, had to be crossed before Mantua, now the only haven of refuge, could be gained. In front stood General Kilmain, with a French corps at Verona; General Sahuguet, with the blockading division, had taken up strong defensive positions behind the Tirone and the Molinella, and in the rear Napoleon pressed fiercely on the retiring Austrians with Massena's indefatigable division. Never was an army in greater danger than Wurmser's was at this moment, but if their errors had brought them into peril, the errors of their foes saved them at least from destruction.

The Austrian field-marshal, making a feint against Verona, threw himself rapidly upon Legnano, where there is a bridge over the Adige. The town, though surrounded by ramparts, and capable of some defence, was found occupied by only twenty-five French dragoons, who naturally fled on the advance of the Germans, and gave up the valuable post. Napoleon's statements, that the town was found unguarded, because some Austrian squadrons, which had crossed the river at Albaredo, had interrupted the French battalion intended for its defence, is a mere afterthought intended to conceal an error, for not a single Austrian soldier crossed the river till Legnano was secured. Wurmser

having given his troops a day's rest, and placed the town in a state of temporary defence, again commenced his march on the morning of the 10th; for Massena, having crossed the Adige in boats at Ronco, was already threatening to interrupt the road to Mantua: speed and resolution were alike necessary in such times. The advanced guards of the hostile armies encountered at Cerea, where a long and stern combat was fought for the possession of the village and the bridge over the Menago. The Austrians proved successful, and the French were obliged to fly so rapidly that Napoleon himself was in danger of being taken. Seven guns and 700 prisoners remained in the hands of the victors, who were allowed to continue their march without interruption, as it was expected that the Tirone would arrest their further progress. Nor was such danger wanting, for General Sahuguet was found strongly posted behind the river at Costellario, while Massena, to avenge his defeat at Cerea, was closing up, and ready to fall on the Austrian rear. But Wurmser here proved himself superior to his pursuers, opening a heavy fire of artillery on the French position at Castellaro, he forced a march to Villempenti, overthrew the troops in charge of the bridge, and not only secured the passage of the Tirone, but of the Molinella also. General Sahuguet, indeed, sent some regiments to regain the important post, but they were defeated with loss, 400 being taken prisoners by the Austrian hussars. The French general had now to think of securing his own retreat, which was not effected without danger, for having been overtaken near the Favorita, some of his troops were thrown into confusion, and sustained considerable loss.

On the 12th September the Austrians reached Mantua, but their troubles were not ended; for instead of entering the fortress, if only to rest and reorganise the troops, or pass over to the right bank of the Mincio, they encamped on the open ground, near the ducal palace of the Favorita, having the citadel in rear of their left wing, and the fortified suburb of Saint George in rear of their right. Here they were already attacked by Massena's division on

the 14th, but though the French gained some advantage in the first instance, the assailants were ultimately driven back with considerable loss; three guns and 500 prisoners fell into the hands of the Austrians.

Encouraged by the success of these different actions, Wurmser was induced to hazard a battle next day against the whole French army. Legnano, in which the Austrians had left a garrison of 1200 men, to cover their communication, had surrendered to Augereau, who had joined the main body: Victor and Sahuguet had done the same. The

four divisions amounted, by Napoleon's account, to 25,000 men, and these Wurmser ventured to engage with the 10,000 men of what he called the "operating army," the troops of the garrison taking, most unaccountably, no share in the action; and from the guns of the works, which were behind them, the Austrians could derive little or no aid. What object the field-marshal had in fighting this battle it is impossible to conjecture. If he thought that a battle could still retrieve the disasters of the campaign, it should have been fought with every disposable soldier that could have been brought out of the city; if it was fought merely for the honour of arms, not to allow an army to be inclosed within the walls of a fortress without striking one bold blow for victory, it was an ill-judged sacrifice, offered up at the shrine of a mere phantom, for whose smiles, however important they are at times, great national interests should never be wantonly risked. But though we blame the field-marshal's resolution to fight, it must be allowed that his troops maintained the combat with a degree of gallantry well deserving a different result. The superiority of the French, however, was too great, and the Austrians were driven into the fortress with a loss of 2000 men, and were, besides, dispossessed of the fortified suburb of St. George, which forms the head of one of the causeways leading

across the lake, and which the Republicans seized during the action. These were severe blows, indeed; the army was not only weakened and forced to seek shelter behind the walls of the fortress, their sphere of action was also confined by the loss of the village of St. George, the only outlet, besides the citadel, which they held on the left bank of the Mincio, a loss which, at an after period, led to still further disasters.

Including sick, wounded, and dispersed soldiers, belonging to different regiments, Wurmser brought about 10,000 men to Mantua; the garrison counted at that time 15,000 men, making in all a force of 25,000 men inclosed within the works. But of the garrison alone 6000 were unfit for duty; and owing to the sickness produced by the noxious exhalations from the lake and the surrounding swamps, fevers and infectious diseases soon spread among the soldiers of the "operating army," and, before the end of a month, little more than one half of the whole force was fit for duty. The blockade, however, could not be very strictly maintained, and the garrison remained long in possession of the Seraglio, a fertile district of country, extending between the Mincio and the canal as far as the Po, beyond which the Austrians occasionally extended their foraging parties, though they never threw a bridge over the river, as stated in the French accounts. During the whole of September and October Wurmser continued to make constant sallies from the fortress.

The combat of St. George ended the third act of the Italian campaign; an act which proved infinitely more disastrous to Austria than the former had been. The number of killed, wounded, and captured, was not much greater, as the loss, from the 1st to the 16th of September inclusive, did not amount to 12,000 men.* But fame, confidence, and reputation, had been lost; the morale of the troops had been destroyed; both divisions of the Austrian army had been routed; their matériel taken, and the remnants of the main body

In the Napoleon Memoirs, we have, of course, the usual exaggerations. At page 16, vol. i., it is said that the Austrians had 30,000 men killed and wounded; and that 14,000 were driven into Mantua along with Marshal Wurmser. This would give 41,000 men, or 4000 more than the whole of the Austrian force counted at the commencement of operations!

were blocked up in Mantua under the command of a field-marshal!

It is impossible, in describing these events, to refrain from paying a just tribute of admiration to the zeal and indefatigable exertions displayed by the French troops in following up the victories which Fortune had so liberally tendered them. Their hundred miles march from Trent to Cerea, performed amidst constant combats, and during which a river had to be passed on mere ferry-boats, is deserving of the highest praise. But the proofs of the military skill and great genius evinced by the commander during these operations are by no means so easily established: for a display of folly on one side offers no demonstration of the existence of wisdom on the other. Napoleon's march down the Brenta, in rear of Wurmser, has, of course, been lauded as one of the most splendid strategical movements ever undertaken in war. It was a very erroneous one, nevertheless, for it drove Wurmser into Mantua instead of keeping him out of it, and helped to chain down the French army for six months longer on the banks of the Adige. The impulse which the French derived from the first victories of the campaign, not only excited in full force, but had been augmented by every subsequent advantage, and naturally tended to hurl them in gallant style against the often-vanquished foes, who had, no doubt, been somewhat shaken by constant reverses, and whose errors are amply sufficient to account for the disasters experienced during the operations we have just been relating. The glaring mismanagement of the Austrians detracts in nothing from the merit of Napoleon, as far as that merit goes, on the contrary, he is to be commended for having reaped the benefit of their faults; but when the praise of high military genius is claimed for a commander, we expect to see formidable foes vanquished by skill and gallantry, mighty obstacles overcome, great things effected by comparatively small means, and splendid results produced by the able combinations of the vaunted leader himself, rather than by the overhasty flight of a rear-guard on one point, and the slothful tarrying of a couple of hostile brigades on another. Above all, we should have expected that a

tale related by the conqueror himself would have shone in all the simple and glorious majesty of truth, instead of being disfigured by the grossest and most unworthy exaggeration ever attempted to be imposed upon the world, exaggerations rendered doubly contemptible by constant efforts to conceal error and to make events appear the result of previous calculation, when we now discover, from the first unpremeditated despatches written at the time, as well as from the situation of his adversaries, that he wanted, when acting, the very knowledge on which, in his after-thoughts, he pretends to have founded his operations. It has also been a good deal the fashion to extol the activity of Napoleon, and particularly as exhibited during these campaigns. The personal activity of a commander who, in a carriage or on horseback, keeps pace with infantry masses and parks of artillery, need not, perhaps, be very extraordinary; and though a general has often to watch, and toil, and act, while his soldiers are resting, the generals of republican France were spared even much of this toil, by the peculiar method in which they carried on the war. They left the soldiers to provide for themselves as best they might, and trusted to Providence for the care of the sick and wounded.

It may amuse some of our readers to compare the indefatigable activity -for such, indeed, it was-displayed by Massena and others during these campaigns, with the extreme caution exhibited at a later period, and long before age had tamed their fire, when contending against the British. Nothing seemed above the courage of these commanders during the Italian campaigns, and the subsequent conquest of continental Europe must necessarily have added to their confidence; and yet it is wonderful to think how little of the indomitable spirit of enterprise so frequently evinced against other foes was shewn in their contest with the British. Mighty armies which had never recoiled from any gallant undertaking, stood paralysed at the sight of the lines of Torres Vedras; the same men who had forced the passage of the Po, the Rhine, Danube, and the Vistula, were arrested by the half fordable Tagus on one side, and the secondary Douro on the other; and

those who in their pride had gone forth to conquer kingdoms, only avenged the defeats sustained in every action, by the commission of atrocities, which the devastating bands of Attila could not have surpassed, and strove at last to hide the shame of flight and failure, under the ignoble boast of having "consumed the provisions of a whole province!"

Having seen what was the fate of Wurmser's army, let us offer a few words of speculation on what might have been effected by such a force had it been differently employed at the period of the advance towards Mantua.

That fortress was in no danger at the time, it was not even besieged, and as Napoleon's army did not much exceed 45,000 men, it could hardly undertake any distant expedition with more than 25,000, as 20,000, at least, required to be left for the blockade of the fortress. In general, 10 or 12,000 were sufficient for this service, but this was only because the rest of the army were at hand to support them, if necessary, an advantage that would have fallen away if the main army had removed to a distance. At the commencement of September, the period of which we are speaking, the French army of the Rhine had already passed to the eastward of the Tyrol, and left that mountain-fastness in rear of its right flank. Nothing had yet been decided in Germany, the French were still advancing; but the Austrian armies, though pressed back, were unbroken, and Fortune was about to turn against the invaders. If, under these circumstances, Wurmser, instead of marching down the Brenta, had passed rapidly through the Tyrol, and thrown himself in the rear of Moreau's army, at the moment when the Archduke Charles attacked them in front, does it not seem evident that the most decisive results would have been achieved, and that the battle of Amberg and Wurtzburg would have destroyed the invaders instead of merely driving them back across the Rhine? True, Napoleon might have followed the march of the Austrian fieldmarshal; but then he must first have mastered the Tyrol, and to subdue a very difficult mountain country, defended by 20,000 regulars-the army

under Davidowitch-aided by a skilful and warlike militia from 6000 to 7000 strong, would have been no easy task for the 25,000 men that could alone have been spared from the blockade of Mantua. At the best it must have required time, which was all that the Austrians wanted; for had the armies of Moreau and Jourdan been completely beaten while the army of Wurmser was unbroken, the conquerors could have detached troops enough to secure victory against Napoleon. Even the French government of the time, though not distinguished for much sagacity, perceived, as already shewn, the danger to be apprehended from such a blow; but the Aulic Council remained blind to the advantage of their position. It is but rarely, indeed, that cabinets, generally composed of civilians unacquainted with the science of war, form great and skilful plans for the conduct of military operations. They can consult officers of experience and ability on the projects which they form over the council-table; but all must feel that the mere advice of others on subjects of which we are personally ignorant, can never convey very clear and comprehensive ideas to the mind, and give the uninitiated a full insight of what can and cannot be effected with the means at their disposal. Hence it is that absolute monarchs at the head of armies have so often been the most successful commanders. Whether all ministers of state should commence their legislative career by going through a campaign and a course of drill, is a question which cannot be discussed here; though the principle certainly answered well in ancient Rome: but it is not affirming too much to say, that they ought to possess, at least, some military knowledge, have at least some acquaintance with the power and efficiency of that military engine on which, in these times-and till the return of the golden agethe peace and security of empires can alone be made to rest. How dreadfully deficient were the British cabinets who conducted our last great wars against France and America, need not be repeated at this day: the fatal truth has too deeply marked the blood-stained pages of history, to be denied by either Whigs or Tories.

THE PRIDE OF A SPOILED BEAUTY.

A TALE.

ADAPTED FROM THE FRENCH OF H. DE BALZAC.
CHAPTER II.-THE CONCLUSION.

THE next day Mademoiselle de
Fontaine manifested the desire of
taking a ride. Gradually she accus-
tomed her old uncle and her bro-
thers to accompany her in certain
very matutinal rides, very salutary,
she said, to her health. Notwith-
standing all her manœuvres of horse-
manship, she did not see the un-
known so speedily as the joyous
research she prosecuted might lead
her to expect. She returned several
times to the ball at Sceaux without
meeting the young Englishman, who
had fallen from heaven to rule over
and embellish her dreams. Although
nothing increases a girl's beginning
love like an obstacle, yet there was a
moment in which Mademoiselle de
Fontaine was on the point of aban-
doning her strange and secret pur-
suit, almost despairing of the success
of an enterprise, the singularity of
which can give an idea of the daring
of her character. She might have
wandered a long while round the
village of Châtenay, without meeting
the unknown. The young Clara, as
that was the name which Mademoi-
selle de Fontaine had heard, was not
English, and the supposed foreigner
did not inhabit the blossoming and
balmy groves of Châtenay.

One evening that Emilie was out riding with her uncle, who, since the fine weather had set in, had obtained a tolerably long cessation of hostilities from his gout, she turned her horse so rapidly, that her uncle had all the trouble in the world to follow her, she had set off her pony at so quick a pace.

"I suppose I am grown too old to understand these spirits of twenty," said the sailor to himself, as he put his horse to a gallop, "or, perhaps the youth of the present day does not resemble that of former days. But what is the matter with my niece? She is now walking as slowly as a gendarme patrolling the streets of Paris. Does she not look as if she wanted to knock down that

honest bourgeois, who seems to me like an author dreaming of his poems, for I think he has an album in his hand? By my faith, I must be a great fool! Is not this the young man we are seeking?"

At this thought the old sailor walked his horse gently on the sand so as to come noiselessly up to his niece. The vice-admiral had had too much experience in the year 1771, and the following ones-an epoch in our annals when gallantry was in fashion-not to guess at once that Emilie had, by the greatest chance, met the unknown of the ball of Sceaux. Notwithstanding the veil which age was drawing over his grey eyes, the Comte de Kergarouët recognised the indications of extraordinary agitation in his nicce, in spite of the immobility she endeavoured to give her countenance. The piercing eyes of the young girl were fixed in a sort of stupor on the stranger, who walked peacefully on before her.

"That's it!" thought the sailor, "she will follow him like a merchantman follows a corsair. Then, when he is gone she will be in despair at not knowing whom she loves, and at being ignorant whether he is a marquis or a bourgeois. Really young young heads ought always to have old heads like mine near them."

He suddenly pushed his horse so as to send on his niece's, and passed so rapidly between her and the young pedestrian, that he forced him to throw himself on the bank of verdure which formed the border of the road. Then directly stopping his horse the count exclaimed,

"Could not you get out of the way ?"

"I beg your pardon, monsieur," replied the unknown; "I did not know it was my place to make excuses because you nearly knocked me down."

"Come, my friend, that will do," retorted sharply the sailor, in a sneering tone of voice, which was

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