part of the Milanese against an enemy advancing from Piedmont. Behind this river Beaulieu now concentrated his army, establishing strong guards at every ford and bridge, and especially at Lodi, where as he guessed (for once rightly) the French general designed to force his passage.' "Beaulieu was again concentrating his scattered forces upon Lodi, for the purpose of covering Milan, by protecting the line of the Adda. "The passage of the Po,' said Buonaparte to the Directory, had been expected to prove the most bold and difficult manœuvre of the campaign, nor did we expect to have an action of more vivacity than that of Dego.' But we have now to recount the battle of Lodi.”+ In the face of the Austrian army, across a bridge "swept by twenty or thirty Austrian pieces of artillery, whose thunders menaced death to any one who should attempt that pass of peril," in the midst of "a storm of grape-shot," and in despite of " the tempest of fire," Bonaparte accomplished" the terrible passage," as he himself called it," of the bridge of Lodi." ་ The Aus It was, indeed, terrible to the enemy.' trian artillery were bayonetted at their guns. Napoleon's infantry forming rapidly as they passed the bridge, and charging on the instant, the Austrian line became involved in inextricable confusion, broke up, and fled. The slaughter on their side was great.' In their retreat they lost perhaps two thousand wounded and slain."§ "The passage of the bridge of Lodi trians of another excellent line of defence. ed the scattered fragments of his force threw the line of the MINCIO, another tributary of the Po, between himself and the enemy. No obstacle remained between the victorious invader and the rich and noble capital of Lombardy. The French cavalry pursued Beaulieu as far as Cremona, which town they seized; and Buonaparte himself prepared to march at once upon MILAN." "|| deprived the AusBeaulieu gathertogether, and soon "The movements which had taken place since the king * Hist. of Napoleon, vol. i. pp. 45, 46. + Scott's Life of Napoleon, vol. iii. p. 124. Hist. of Napoleon, p. 47. § Scott's Life of Napoleon, ib. p. 130. of Sardinia's defeat, had struck terror into the government of Milan, and the Archduke Ferdinand, by whom Austrian Lombardy was governed. But while Beaulieu did his best to cover the capital by force of arms, the measures resorted to by the government were rather of a devotional (!) than warlike character. Processions were made, relics exposed, and rites resorted to, which the Catholic religion prescribes as an appeal to heaven in great national calamities. But the saints they invoked were deaf or impotent; for the passage of the bridge of Lodi, and Beaulieu's subsequent retreat to Mantua, left no possibility of defending MILAN."* "On the 14th of May, four days after Lodi, Napoleon entered, in all the splendour of a military triumph, the vener able and opulent city of the old Lombard kings.' He took up his residence in the archiepiscopal palace; and church plate was seized as a part of the requisition." "+ "The Austrian had now planted the remains of his army behind the Mincio, having his left on the great and strong city of Mantua, which has been termed the citadel of Italy, and his right at Peschiera, a Venetian fortress. PESCHIERA STANDS WHERE THE MINCIO FLOWS OUT OF ITS PARENT LAKE, THE LAGO DI GUARDA. That great body of WATERS, stretching many miles backwards towards the Tyrolese Alps, at once extended the line of defence, and kept the communication open with Vienna. The Austrian veteran occupied one of the strongest positions that it is possible to imagine. The invader hastened once more to dislodge him."‡ Re "The heavy exactions of the French, and even more perhaps the wanton contempt with which they treated the churches and clergy, had produced or fostered the indignation of a large part of the population throughout Lombardy. ports of new Austrian levies being poured down the passes of the Tyrol, were spread and believed. Popular insurrections against the conqueror took place in various districts: at least 30,000 men were in arms. At Pavia the insurgents were entirely triumphant; they had seized the town, and compelled the French garrison to surrender. "This flame, had it been suffered to spread, threatened immeasurable evil to the French cause. Lannes instantly marched to Benasco, stormed the place, plundered and burnt it, and put the inhabitants to the sword without mercy. The general in person appeared before Pavia; blew the gates * Life of Napoleon, ib. p. 135. † Ibid. p. 137. Hist. p. 49. Hist. of Napoleon, vol. i. pp. 51, 52. open; easily scattered the towns-people; and caused the leaders to be executed, as if they had committed a crime in endeavouring to rescue their country from the arm of a foreign invader. Everywhere the same ferocious system was acted on. The insurgent commanders were tried by courtmartial, and shot without ceremony. At Lugo, where a French squadron of horse had been gallantly and disastrously defeated, the whole of the male inhabitants were massacred. These BLOODY examples quelled the insurrections; but they fixed the first dark and indelible stain on the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. "The spirit of the Austrian and Catholic parties in Lombardy thus crushed, the French advanced on the MINCIO. The Austrian army at Borghetto (situated on the Mincio) in vain destroyed one arch of the bridge. Bonaparte supplied the breach with planks; and his men, flushed with so many victories, charged with a fury not to be resisted. Beaulieu was obliged to abandon the Mincio, as he had before the Adda and the Po, and to take up the new line of the Adige. Beaulieu, evacuating Peschiera, marched his dismayed forces behind the Adige. Ere Augereau had time to approach Peschiera, it was evacuated by the Austrians."t "The Austrian had in effect abandoned for the time the open country of Italy. He now lay on the frontier, between the vast tract of rich provinces which Napoleon had conquered and the Tyrol. Beaulieu anxiously waited the approach of new troops from Germany, to attempt the relief of the great city of Mantua; and his antagonist, eager to anticipate the efforts of the imperial government, sat down immediately before it. Mantua lies on an island, being cut off on all sides from the mainland by the branches of the Mincio, and approachable only by five narrow causeways, of which three were defended by strong and regular_fortresses or intrenched camps, the other two by gates, drawbridges, and batteries. Situated amidst stagnant waters and morasses, its air is pestilential, especially to strangers. The garrison were prepared to maintain the position with their usual bravery; and it remained to be seen whether the French general possessed any new system of attack, capable of abridging the usual operations of the siege, as effectually as he had already done those of the march and battle. His commencement was alarming; of the five causeways, by VOL. II. * Hist. of Napoleon, vol. i. pp. 52-54. H sudden and overwhelming assaults, he obtained four; and the garrison were cut off from the mainland, except only by a fifth causeway, the strongest of them all, named, from a palace near it, La Favorita. It seemed necessary, however, in order that this blockade might be complete, that the Venetian territory, lying immediately beyond Mantua, should be occupied by the French. The imperial general had neglected the reclamations of the Doge, when it suited his purpose to occupy Peschiera. 'You are too weak,' said Bonaparte when the Venetian envoy reached his head quarters, 'to enforce neutrality on hostile nations such as France and Austria. Beaulieu did not respect your territory when his interest bade him violate it; nor shall I hesitate to occupy whatever falls within the line of the Adige. In effect, garrisons were placed in Verona, and all the strong places of that domain. The tri-colour flag now waved at the mouth of the Tyrolese passes; and Napoleon, leaving Serrurier to blockade Mantua, returned to Milan, where he had important business to arrange."* "With no friend behind him, the pope saw himself at the mercy of the invader; and in terror prepared to submit. Bonaparte occupied immediately his legations of Bologna and Ferrara, making prisoners, in the latter of these towns, four hundred of the papal troops, and a cardinal under whose orders they were. The churchman militant was dismissed on parole; but being recalled to head-quarters, answered that his master the pope had given him a dispensation to break his promise. This exercise of the old dispensing power excited the merriment of the conquerors. The nation mean while perceived that no time was to be lost. The Spanish resident at the Roman court was despatched to Milan; and the terms on which the holy father was to obtain a brief respite were at length arranged. Bonaparte demanded and obtained a million sterling, a hundred of the finest pictures and STATUES in the papal gallery, a large supply of military stores, and the cession of Ancona, Ferrara, and Bologna, with their respective domains."+ It formed a part of the generalship of Bonaparte to conquer kingdoms, as well as armies, in detail. He entered into treaty with the pope and with the king of Naples, after he held as his vassal the subject king of Sardinia. But he thereby prepared to meet a more formidable foe, who soon brought into requisition all the energies of his active mind, and all the undivided strength of his intrepid army. The strong but sluggish Austria was roused, by a succession of defeats, to put forth its power. The empire, venerable in years, was soon taught not to despise the infant republic. And aged generals, long versant in the art of war, were sent forth with veteran and wellappointed armies, to check the career of an "inexperienced youth, who conquered by the breach of all its rules!"" We have seen how the analogy which runs in right order from age to age, between the most momentous events that have ever been transacted on the theatre of the world, and the words of inspiration which declared the things that were to be, does not fail in the first campaign of Napoleon, as recorded by his historians. He was the Nelson of the land. Of all men it was he who had in his hand a vial of wrath to pour out upon the earth. And of all places on earth, he chose that very spot which was defined in explicit language, and long before determined by actions not, as yet, second to his own. It were superfluous to specify so minutely the events of succeeding campaigns, for the scene was the same, except in so far as he trode still more closely on the steps of Attila, along the rivers and fountains of waters-till the Corsican outrivalled the Hun, and poured his vial over them all, while the trumpet of the barbarian reached only to a part. And, interI weaving the words of the historian, without discolouring a fact, a succinct narrative may be attempted, to show, how the great captain of infidel France still farther illustrated a text by his deeds, before he became the head of the empire, and illustrated another. It was the plan of the French Directory, the scheme 6 |