Josephine pleased the suitor by her amiability, and was attracted in turn by his ardent nature. She was in a position to advance his interests through her intimacy with Barras, who promised that Napoleon should hold a great position in the army if she became his wife. She married Napoleon in March 1796, undaunted by the prediction: "You will be a queen and yet you will not sit on a throne." Napoleon's career may then be said to have begun in earnest. It was the dawn of a new age in Europe, where France stood forth as a predominant power. Austria was against her as the avenger of Marie Antoinette, France's ill-fated Queen, who had been Maria Theresa's daughter. England and Russia were in alliance, though Russia was an uncertain and disloyal ally.
Want of money might have daunted one less eager for success than the young Napoleon. He was, however, planning a campaign in Italy as an indirect means of attacking Austria. He addressed his soldiers boldly, promising to lead them into the most fruitful plains in the world. "Rich provinces, great cities will be in your power," he assured them. "There you will find honour, fame, and wealth." His first success was notable, but it did not satisfy the inordinate craving of his nature. "In our days," he told Marmont, "no one has conceived anything great; it falls to me to give the example."
From the outset he looked upon himself as a general independent of the Republic. He was rich in booty, and could pay his men without appealing to the well-nigh exhausted public funds. Silently, he pursued his own policy in war, and that was very different from the policy of any general who had gone before him. He treated with the Pope as a great prince might have treated, offering protection to persecuted priests who were marked out by the Directory as their enemies. He seized property everywhere, scorning to observe neutrality. Forgetting his Italian blood, he carried off many pictures and statues from the Italian galleries that they might be sent to France. He showed now his audacity and the amazing energy of his plans of conquest. The effect of the horror and disorders of Revolutionary wars had been to deprive him of all scruples. He despised a Republic, and despised the French nation as unfit for Republicanism. "A republic of thirty millions of people!" he exclaimed as he conquered Italy, "with our morals, our vices! How is such a thing possible? The nation wants a chief, a chief covered with glory, not theories of government, phrases, ideological essays, that the French do not understand. They want some playthings; that will be enough; they will play with them and let themselves be led, always supposing they are cleverly prevented from seeing the goal toward which they are moving." But the wily Corsican did not often speak so plainly! Aiming at imperial power, he was careful to dissimulate his intentions since the army supporting him was Republican in sympathy.
Napoleon had achieved the conquest of Italy when only twenty-seven. In 1796 he entered Milan amid the acclamations of the people, his troops passing beneath a triumphal arch. The Italians from that day adopted his tricolour ensign.
The Directory gave the conqueror the command of the army which was to be used against England. The old desperate rivalry had broken out again now that the French saw a chance of regaining power in India. It was Napoleon's purpose to wage war in Egypt, and he needed much money for his campaign in a distant country. During the conquest of Italy he had managed to secure money from the Papal chests and he could rely, too, on the vast spoil taken from Berne when the old constitution of the Swiss was overthrown and a new Republic founded. He took Malta, "the strongest place in Europe," and proceeded to occupy Alexandria in 1798. In the following February he marched on Cairo.
England's supremacy at sea destroyed the complete success of the plans which Napoleon was forming. He had never thought seriously of the English admiral Nelson till his own fleet was shattered by him in a naval engagement at Aboukir. After that, he understood that he had to reckon with a powerful enemy.
The Turks had decided to anticipate Napoleon's plan for securing Greece her freedom by preparing a vast army in Syria. The French took the town of Jaffa by assault, but had to retire from the siege of Acre. The expedition was not therefore a success, though Napoleon won a victory over the Turkish army at Aboukir. The English triumphed in Egypt and were fortunate enough to win back Malta, which excluded France from the Mediterranean. Napoleon eluded with difficulty the English cruisers and returned to France, where he rapidly rose to power, receiving, after a kind of revolution, the title of First Consul. He was to hold office for ten years and receive a salary of half a million francs. In reality, a strong monarchy had been created. The people of France, however, still fancied themselves a free Republic.
War was declared on France by Austria and England in 1800, and the First Consul saw himself raised to the pinnacle of military glory. He defeated the Austrians at Marengo, while his only rival, Moreau, won the great battle of Hohenlinden. At Marengo, the general whom Napoleon praised above all others fell dead on the field of battle. The conqueror himself mourned Desaix most bitterly, since "he loved glory for glory's sake and France above everything." But "Alas! it is not permitted to weep," Napoleon said, overcoming the weakness as he judged it. He had done now with wars waged on a small scale, and would give Europe a time of peace before venturing on vaster enterprises. The victory of Marengo on June 14th, 1800, wrested Italy again from Austria, who had regained possession and power in the peninsula. It also saved France from invasion. Austria was obliged to accept an armistice, a humiliation she had not foreseen when she arrayed her mighty armies against the First Consul. Napoleon gloried in this success, proposing to Rouget de Lisle, the writer of the Marseillaise, that a battle-hymn should commemorate the coming of peace with victory.