took place between the advanced guard of the French army and the troops under General Otto, released from the siege of Genoa, which Massena had been compelled to evacuate. The action continued with alternate success until the next day; but the French were in the event victorious, and the battle was gained with a loss to the Austrians of 6000 prisoners and 12 pieces of cannon.

General Melas was at this time advancing into Provence, scattering his forces, neglecting the passes of the Alps; in short, facilitating, without intending to do so, the French plan of the campaign. Roused from his dreams of conquest, this brave veteran hastily collected his troops, and marched upon Alessandria, with an army numerically stronger than the French, and provided with 15,000 excellent cavalry. Aware that the decisive moment approached, Buonaparte closely watched the operations of Melas, with the greater part of his forces, while detachments captured the Austrian magazines at Brescia, Novi, Macarea, and also cut off their rear.

On 13th June the French army arrived at San Juliano, and the day was spent on both sides in reconnoitering and making dispositions for the important battle, which, on the succeeding day, was to determine the fate of Lombardy. On the morning of the 14th the exchange of musketry at the out-posts aroused both armies. The. French, disposed in two lines, occupied the village of Marengo and the debouché of a defile towards it, planted with vineyards. The Austrian army was drawn up in three columns on the plains without the village. It consisted of nearly 6000 men, with 80 pieces of The amount of its cavalry has been already stated. The highest calculation of the French force did not raise it beyond 50,000 men, of whom 3000 were cavalry: they had only 30 pieces of cannon; and it should moreover be recollected, that the reserve of this army, amounting to 12,000 men, nearly a fourth of the whole number, had been detached upon a different service by the First Consul. It followed consequently that until the French reserve could be brought into the field, which was not accomplished before four o'clock

cannon.

23,800 men were opposed to nearly 60,000 for eight hours. The action soon became general, and in a short time, most sanguinary. The superiority of the Austrians, not only in the number of troops, but in their artillery and cavalry; and the nature of the ground, favourable to the operations of that army, enabled them to press severely upon the consular troops. Vast numbers of wounded soldiers were brought into the rear. After a long and desperate resistance, the right and left wings began to recede. It was in vain, that the Chief Consul rode through the ranks, animating and rallying the men. The pressure of the Austrians, whose courage elicited, even from their enemies, the highest encomiums, could no longer be withstood. Charges of cavalry, the formation of solid squares of infantry were ineffectually attempted. The centre was compelled to follow the movement of the wings; and the utmost exertions of Buonaparte were required to prevent the retreat of the army from degenerating into a disorderly flight.

The village of Marengo was then taken by main force, and at this critical period of the battle (about three o'clock) there did not remain above 7000 combatants, with 12 pieces of cannon, in a situation fit for action, to resist the strenuous efforts of the Austriam army, flushed with triumph, and anticipating the entire destruction of their enemies; an event which must infallibly have occurred had they been driven from the defile. At this moment the heads of the columns composing the reserve were descried from afar. The hopes of the French began to revive. Still their situation remained in the highest degree perilous; and, in all probability, the arrival of the reserve would only have enabled them to effect an orderly retreat, but for an important error on the side of the Austrian commander. Conceiving that he had subdued the whole French army, and that it only remained to cut off their retreat, he extended his line with a view to surround the position at the head of the defile, still held with the tenacity of despair by the First Consul. From three to four o'clock the time was occupied in making dispositions for the attack by

the French reserve; and during this period, whole ranks of the Republicans were swept away by grape-shot. At length the preparations being completed, the divisions of the reserve rushed from the defiles and precipitated themselves on the Austrian centre; the remainder of the army re-formed, and advanced once more into the field. The irruption of the reserve, composed entirely of fresh troops, led on by the brave Desaix, was irresistible; the village of Marengo was, in a moment, recaptured, and the hostile centre pierced. The example of this phalanx of heroes acted electrically upon the rest of the army. The Austrians, whose ranks were disordered, attempted to retrieve the fortune of the day. Their second line presented a formidable resistance, and the bayonet was the weapon almost exclusively employed; but a brilliant charge of cavalry by Murat; the capture of an entire column of 6000 men by a force of 300 horse, under the younger Kellerman; the explosion of a powder waggon in the midst of the Austrian columns, and a movement of the Chief Consul, which turned one of their wings, decided the fate of the day. The Austrian army fled, closely pursued by the French. Numbers were drowned in the Bormida. If the battle was murderous to the French, who lost at least 8000 men, it was still more destructive to the Austrians; their loss was reckoned at 15,000 men, killed, wounded, and prisoners, and 26 pieces of cannon.

This loss, heavy as it was, might have been retrieved, had not Melas been entirely surrounded. In front was the victorious army of Buonaparte; in his rear were the united forces of Massena and Suchet, amounting to nearly 20,000 men; on his right flank hovered the division of General Thureau, which menaced Turin. The troops had lost their magazines, and in a few days they must have perished with hunger had they failed to effect a passage through their opponents. Moved by these weighty and distressing considerations, Melas sent an officer to the head-quarters of Buonaparte, who negociated with Berthier the terms of an armistice, which was of course sufficiently unfavourable to the vanquished.

In this manner was the fate of half Lombardy decided in a campaign of about twenty days. Had Napoleon been defeated in the battle of Marengo, his army would unquestionably have been destroyed, as there was no possible means of retreating. After the armistice, the Chief Consul repaired to Milan, and spent a short time in reorganizing the Cisalpine Republic. On 25th June he passed on, by way of Turin, Mount Cenis and Chamberry, and arrived at Lyons on 28th. He was received with the greatest distinction. All France was intoxicated with the splendour of his achievements.

The anniversary of the revolution was celebrated with great pomp at Paris on 23d of September; when the standards taken in Italy, and at the battle of Marengo, were presented to the government. The speeches of the Chief Consul on that occasion, and in reply to a committee, whose object was to entreat his acceptance of some signal mark of the public gratitude, are striking, and develope his sagacity and self-government, before prosperity had emboldened him to throw off the mask of disinterestedness.

In Germany the career of Moreau rivalled the brightness of Buonaparte's fame. We cannot afford space to follow him in his various movements. Suffice it to remark, that after several bloody battles, he was enabled to accomplish that part of the plan of the general campaign which required him to detach a powerful division of his troops across the mountains of Switzerland, to co-operate with the army of reserve in Italy. It is not possible for us, in a work like the present, to enter into particulars of the German campaign. We can only mention, that finding himself reduced to a situation of the greatest

* On this occasion we cannot feel much surprise at the personal activity and bravery of Napoleon. Like Richard III, in the field of Bosworth, he knew that all must be staked. "The glare of a courage thus elicited by danger (observes an able modern writer,) where fear conquers fear, is not to be compared to that calm sunshine which constantly cheers and illuminates the breast of him, who builds his confidence on virtuous principle; it is rather the transient and evanescent lightning of the storm, and which derives half its lustre from the darkness that surrounds it."

peril, the Emperor Francis sued for an armistice, by which he surrendered the three fortresses of Ulm, Ingolstadt, and Phillipsburg, and left the French army in undisturbed possession of the whole of Suabia and a part of Bavaria.

Thus relieved for a time from the operations of war on the continent, Buonaparte had leisure to coquet with the allies in respect to the conclusion of a general peace. It was clearly his interest to treat with each power separately, and, therefore, negociations for a maritime truce were conducted in this country between Mr. Hammond and M. Otto; but which proved abortive; Buonaparte insisting upon advantages which could be neither safely nor honourably conceded. With Austria he appeared for a time to succeed better; and preliminaries of peace were actually signed by the Austrian plenipotentiary on the basis of the treaty of Campo Formio; but they were disavowed by the Emperor. Buonaparte found leisure also to court the Emperor Paul, who, disgusted with the sequel of the Italian campaign under Suwarrow, and capriciously incensed at the British Government for some alleged irregularities as to the representations which had been made of the conduct of the Russian troops in the expedition to the Helder, in 1799, not only withdrew from the coalition, but entered into an intimate correspondence with the First Consul, who, by personal flattery, the influence of French agents, and, above all, the charms of a French mistress, (Madame Chevalier,) gained as great an ascendency as it was possible for address like his to acquire, over the boisterous passions of so complete a barbarian.

In the midst of these occupations, Buonaparte still continued to promote the internal prosperity of France; and amidst other ameliorations which distinguished this period of his government, effected one important and salutary improvement, the equalization of weights and measures. He also revised the list of emigrants, and restored to their native country not only individuals, but entire classes of persons.

Whilst thus engaged in projects that could not fail of benefiting his country, an attempt was made to assassinate