DEATH OF GENERAL MARCEAU.
"Soldiers," said he, "you are ill fed, almost naked. The government owes you much, but can do nothing for you. Your patience, your courage, do you honor, but procure you neither glory nor advantage. I am about to lead you into the most fertile plains in the world. You will there find large cities, rich provinces; you will there find honor, glory, and wealth. Soldiers of Italy, will your courage fail you?"
On the 12th of April his troops were in motion. A series of desperate battles and of resplendent victories ensued. At the close of two weeks Napoleon issued the following proclamation:
"Soldiers, in a fortnight you have gained six victories, taken twenty-one pairs of colors, fifty-five pieces of cannon, several fortresses, and conquered the richest part of Piedmont. You have made fifteen thousand prisoners, and killed or wounded more than ten thousand men. You had hitherto been fighting for barren rocks, rendered glorious by your courage, but useless to the country. You now rival, by your services, the army of Holland and the Rhine. Destitute of every thing, you have supplied all your wants. You have gained battles without cannon, crossed rivers without bridges, made forced marches without shoes, bivouacked without brandy and often without bread. The Republican phalanxes, the soldiers of liberty alone, could have endured what you have endured. Thanks be to you for it, soldiers. Your grateful country will owe to you its prosperity; and if your conquest at Toulon foreboded the glorious campaign of 1793, your present victories forbode one still more glorious. The two armies which so lately attacked you boldly, are fleeing affrighted before you. The perverse men who laughed at your distress, and rejoiced in thought at the triumph of your enemies, are confounded and trembling.
"But, soldiers, you have done nothing, since more remains to be done. Neither Turin nor Milan is yours. The ashes of the conquerors of Tarquin are still trampled upon by the murderers of Basseville."[457]
Napoleon now summoned all his energies to drive the Austrians out of Italy. In two months the work was done; and Paris, France, Europe was electrified by the narrative of deeds of daring and success, such as war had never recorded before. In all the towns and cities of Italy the French armies were received as deliverers, for the subjugated Italians were eager to throw off the hateful yoke of Austrian despotism. Napoleon, having unbounded confidence in himself, and but very little respect for the weak men who composed the Directory, took all matters of diplomacy, as well as war, into his own hands, and, sustained by the enthusiasm of his soldiers, settled the affairs of Italy according to his own views of expediency.
The Royalists, hoping for the overthrow of the Republic and for the return of Louis XVIII., were exceedingly chagrined by these victories. They left no means of calumny untried to sully the name of Napoleon. Europe was filled with falsehoods respecting him, and reports were circulated that General Hoche was to be sent from Paris to arrest him in the midst of his army. These rumors assumed such importance that the government wrote a letter to Napoleon contradicting them; and General Hoche, with the magnanimity of a man incapable of jealousy, over his own name published a letter expressing his admiration of the commander of the Army of Italy.
"Men," he wrote, "who, concealed or unknown during the first years of the foundation of the Republic, now think only of seeking the means of destroying it, and speak of it merely to slander its firmest supporters, have, for some days past, been spreading reports most injurious to the armies, and to one of the general officers who commanded them. Can they, then, no longer attain their object by corresponding openly with the horde of conspirators resident at Hamburg? Must they, in order to gain the patronage of the masters whom they are desirous of giving to France, vilify the leaders of the armies? Why is Bonaparte, then, the object of the wrath of these gentry? Is it because he beat themselves and their friends in Vendémiaire?[458] Is it because he is dissolving the armies of kings, and furnishing the Republic with the means of bringing this honorable war to a glorious conclusion? Ah! brave young man, where is the Republican soldier whose heart does not burn with the desire to imitate thee? Courage, Bonaparte! lead our victorious armies to Naples, to Vienna; reply to thy personal enemies by humbling kings, by shedding fresh lustre over our armies, and leave to us the task of upholding thy glory."
Still the Royalists were busy with incessant plots and intrigues for the overthrow of the government. The treasury was utterly bankrupt, paper money, almost utterly worthless, flooded the land, and the finances were in a state of inextricable embarrassment. The Jacobins and the Royalists were equally eager to demolish the Directory by any conceivable measures of treason and violence. Never was a nation in a more deplorable state, harassed by a foreign war which demanded all its energies, and torn by domestic dissensions which no human wisdom seemed capable of healing.