After the successful war it appears as if the victor had known no other feeling than joy, enthusiasm, and confidence. The mere name of the first Italian campaign calls up visions of zeal and triumph, and yet it was full of uncertainty and anxiety. Often everything seemed lost; often Bonaparte escaped as if by a miracle. The hostile armies, which appeared one after another; the perpetual dwindling of the heroic brigades; the illness which continually afflicted the young commander-in-chief and filled him with despondency, all that is forgotten before the glory of the results obtained, before the brilliancy of the victory.

But Bonaparte's soul was torn by ceaseless anxiety. What would be his place in history? Would he be called foolhardy or a hero? This depended on his success. And on what did his success depend? If he were beaten, all the old-fashioned tacticians would turn him to ridicule and prove by mathematical reasoning that his plans were all wild visions, and that defeat was inevitable because he knew nothing of the art of war.

In order to justify his self-confidence, he had to beat. His future depended on the numberless accidents which decide the issue of battles. At every moment of this memorable campaign he was on the edge of a precipice. A touch, and he was over. It is when we study the lives of the greatest men, the Caesars, the Alexanders, the Napoleons, that we are most impressed with the insignificance of human affairs and the very great importance of the most insignificant details of the most trivial incidents in the fate of republics and empires. There is an unknown force which mocks all human plans.

The faithful call it Providence; sceptics call it chance. But whatever its name, it exists everywhere. Almost all great geniuses are fatalists, because, when they examine their own triumphs, they see how small was their own part, and that often they have failed when, according to every reasonable view, they should have succeeded, and have succeeded when success was hopeless. But of these things public opinion takes no account. It cares for but one thing, success; and its favorites are those who have risked everything for everything, and won.

When Alvinzy's army was advancing towards the Piave, Bonaparte had but thirty-six thousand men to oppose to sixty thousand, and they were exhausted by three campaigns and by the fevers which they caught in the rice-fields of Lombardy. Any one else would have despaired.

November 5, he wrote to the Directory: "Everything suffers, and we are in face of the enemy! The least delay may be fatal to us. We are on the eve of great events. These delays are a terrible misfortune for us. All the troops of the Empire have reached their posts with surprising celerity, and we are left to ourselves. Fine promises and a few insignificant corps are all that we have received."

After a few successes of the outposts, followed by several serious reverses, Bonaparte had been forced to a double retreat. His left wing, under the command of Vaubois, had occupied Trent; it was driven back on Corona and Rivoli. He himself, with seventeen thousand men, had taken position before Verona, on the Brenta. He had been driven back into Verona, whence he wrote this brief letter to Josephine, November 9: "I reached Verona day before yesterday. Though I am tired, I am very well, very busy, always passionately devoted to you. My horse is waiting. A thousand kisses."

November 11, he attacked Alvinzy again, but again he failed. The two divisions of Augereau and Massena tried, November 12, to capture the heights of Caldiero. The unfavorable weather, the numerical superiority of the enemy, the strength of their positions, all contributed to the illsuccess of these two divisions, in spite of all their heroism. They were repulsed, and they withdrew into Verona. Then, perhaps for the first time, the valiant Army of Italy felt discouraged. Vaubois had not more than six thousand men. There were not more than thirteen thousand in Massena's and Augereau's divisions together.

The soldiers sadly said: "We can't alone do the work of all. Alvinzy's army, which faces us, is the one before which the armies of the Rhine and of the Sambre-et-Meuse retreated, and they are idle now: why should we have to do their work? They don't send us any re-enforcements; if we are beaten, we shall flee to the Alps, disgraced. If, on the other hand, we are victorious, of what use will the new victory be? We shall be confronted with a new army like Alvinzy's, just as Alvinzy has succeeded Wurmser, and in this unceasing and unequal struggle we must be ruined in the end."

The enemy were able to count the reduced forces of the French at their leisure. They felt confident of victory, and were already preparing the ladders with which they meant to scale the walls of Verona. Bonaparte's situation seemed desperate. Yet at this critical moment, on the day after his defeat at Caldiero, November 13, he found time to write an affectionate and reproachful letter to Josephine:

"I don't love you at all; in fact, I hate you. You are horrid, clumsy, stupid, a perfect Cinderella. You never write to me; you don't love your husband the least bit in the world; you know what pleasure your letters give him, and you won't send him six lines! What do you do all day? What is there serious enough to keep you from writing to your dear lover? What affection kills and throws to one side the love, the tender and constant love, which you promised him? Who is this wonderful creature, this new lover, who takes all your time, rules all your days, and prevents your writing to your husband? Josephine, take care; some fine night your door shall be burst open, and there I am.

Seriously, I am uneasy, my dear, at not hearing from you. Write me four pages at once, and all sorts of loving things which will fill my heart with love and emotion. I hope soon to hold you in my arms, and I shall cover you with a million kisses as hot as the equator."

Madame de Remusat, always disposed to deny Bonaparte any trace of feeling, and ready to maintain that he was all intelligence, was, in spite of herself, struck by the passion which fills this correspondence.

She says in her Memoirs: "I have seen some of Napoleon's letters to his wife written in the first Italian campaign... These letters are very singular; they are in an almost undecipherable handwriting, they are badly spelt, the style is strange and confused. Yet they have such a passionate tone, they are so full of real feeling, they contain expressions so warm, and at the same time so poetical, that there never lived a woman who would not have been glad to receive just such letters. They form a striking contrast with the delicate and measured smoothness of the letters of M. de Beauharnais. Moreover, what a thing for a woman to see herself -- at a time when men were controlled by politics -- one of the inspiring causes of an army's triumphal march! On the eve of one of his great battles, Bonaparte wrote: 'Here I am, far away from you! I seem to have fallen into the darkest shadows; I need the fatal fire of the thunderbolts which we are about to hurl at the enemy, to escape from the darkness into which your absence has cast me."'

Nevertheless the danger grew to be very serious. Some years later, Josephine told General de Segur, at Saint Cloud, that shortly before the battle of Arcole she had received a letter from Bonaparte in which he confessed that he had lost all hope, that everything was lost, and that everywhere the enemy was showing a force three times as large as his own; that nothing was left him but his courage; that probably he should lose the Adige; that then he should fight for the Mincio; and that this last position lost, he should, if alive, join Josephine at Genoa, whither he advised her to go.

Foreseeing the disorder, the bloodshed even, of which her departure from Milan would be the signal, Josephine decided to stay there, and she continued her usual life, with no change in her habits, going to the theatre with death in her heart, but presenting a calm front, in spite of the threatening air of a part of the populace of Milan. For three nights Italians went frequently even into her bedroom, waking her up, under the pretext of asking for news, but evidently in expectation of her departure, in order that their revolt might not be delayed a moment.

Before his men, Bonaparte assumed an air of perfect confidence. Even when his soul was torn by the cruelest distress and anxiety, his face remained impassible. At the very moment when he was promising his soldiers an early victory, he was writing to the Directory, November 14, an almost despairing letter:

"Citizens Directors, I owe you an account of the operations which have taken place. If it is not satisfactory, you will not ascribe the fault to the army: its present inferiority and the exhaustion of its bravest men makes me dread the worst. It may be that we are about to lose all Italy! None of the expected aid has reached us... I am doing my duty, and the same thing is true of the army. My soul is tortured, but my conscience is easy...

To-day, 24th Brumaire, the troops are resting. Tomorrow our movements depend on the enemy. I have no hope of preventing the raising of the siege of Mantua, which was ours, in a week. If this blow falls, we shall soon be behind the Adda, and further still, if no troops arrive... The Army of Italy, which is reduced to a mere handful, is exhausted. The heroes of Lodi, Millesimo, Castiglione, and Bassano have either died for their country or are in the hospital. There is nothing left but their reputation and their pride. Joubert, Lannes, Lannusse, Murat, Dupuis, Rambau, Chabran, are wounded...

The few who are left see death inevitable, amid such unending combats and with such inferior forces! Possibly the hour of the brave Augereau, of the fearless Massena, of Berthier, is close at hand! Then what will become of all these brave men? This idea disturbs me. I no longer dare to face death, which would bring discouragement and misery to all over whom I keep watch."

The letter begins in what is almost despair; it ends with hopefulness: "In a few days we shall make our final effort! If fortune favors us, Mantua will be taken, and with it Italy! Re-enforced by the army besieging that town, there is nothing I would not undertake!"

Everything seemed to point to Bonaparte's failure; but a secret voice whispered to him, "You will be saved!" There are men to whom difficulties are but a stimulus, whom danger only makes bold. The abyss causes them no giddiness, but only reassures and encourages them. Before beginning the fight, the young general thought that he saw Josephine's image. Like the knights of old who evoked the memory of their ladies before accomplishing their exploits, be derived an irresistible strength from the noble and chivalrous love that filled his heroic and poetic soul. It was a curious spectacle -- this man amid the most engrossing occupations, yet hungering for love, and in the moment of the most imminent peril consoling himself by expecting a kiss, a smile! This impetuous genius, in the most terrible crisis of his career, found time to be jealous, and to suffer pangs of love!

After promising his wife vast power and endless glory, what would he not suffer if his career were to be checked now at the start; if all these hopes were to be but a disappointment; if the pretended great man should appear as a mere young braggart, unworthy of the confidence of a Barras! What would then say his three mistresses, - Josephine, France, and Italy? To avoid such a disaster, he felt capable of prodigies. His genius, like his love, reached a pitch of wonderful intensity. Being anxious not to see Josephine till after a complete triumph, he remembered the line from the Cid,

"Issue a victor from the combat of which Chimene is the prize!"

November 17, at nightfall, the camp at Verona was called to arms. At the news of the last reverses the sick and wounded insisted on leaving the hospital and taking their places in the ranks with their wounds yet unhealed; and their presence filled the army with lively emotion. The columns started, passed through Verona, and issued from the gate called the gate of Milan, and took a position on the right bank of the Adige.

It was a solemn and anxious moment. They had no idea where they were going. The time of starting; the position they had taken on the right, and not on the left bank; the silence which was observed, while usually the order of the day announced an intended battle, the whole state of affairs made them think that they were about to begin retreat. They feared that they were about to abandon Italy, that promised land, which they had won with so much glory, and to lose the fruit of such hot struggles and such dauntless courage. Were the heroes of so many battles to be fugitives? The mere thought filled them with distress; they yearned to continue the struggle as long as they had a cartridge and a bayonet left.

So when instead of following the road to Peschiera, the army suddenly turned to the left, along the Adige, reaching Ronco before daybreak, where it found Andreassy there finishing the construction of a bridge, and discovered itself by a simple turn to the left, on the other bank of the Adige, there was general joy. "No!" exclaimed the soldiers, "we are not retreating. With twelve thousand men we can do nothing in the open country against forty-five thousand. Our general is leading us to the causeways in the vast marshes, where numbers will not count, but where everything will depend on the courage of the heads of the columns. Forward!"

Then, as it is said in the Memorial of Saint Helena, "the hope of victory fired every heart: every man promised to outdo himself in support of so fine and bold a plan."

When Bonaparte saw the glowing eyes of his soldiers before this battle of giants, he felt that with such men he could hope everything. There was about to begin a three days' battle, one of the most stupendous struggles that an army could ever undertake.

Three causeways run from Ronco, and all these are surrounded by marshes. The first, ascending the Adige, leads to Verona; the second, to Villa Nuova, passing before Arcole, which has a bridge a league and a half from the Adige, over the little river, the Alpon; the third descends the Adige, towards Albaredo. Three columns advanced simultaneously over the three causeways.

The centre column was marching on Arcole, and the skirmishers reached the bridge without being perceived by the enemy, who had been too careless to extend his outposts to the Adige, under the impression that the space between that river and the Alpon was an impassable marsh.

The causeway from Ronco to Arcole strikes the Alpon at a distance of two miles, and from there runs up the right bank of the river for a mile and turns at right angles to the right, entering Arcole.

Bonaparte reached this bridge which was to become so famous. He tried to cross it, but a terrible fire stopped the soldiers. Before this rain of bullets, this avalanche of cannon-balls and shells, even the boldest hesitated.

Bonaparte galloped forward, and when near the bridge, got off his horse. Augereau's men had sought refuge in the marsh, and were crouching along the edge of the causeway to escape the storm of bullets that had repelled them.

Their general shouted to them, "Are you no longer the men who conquered at Lodi?" and seizing a flag, he called to them and inspired them with his own courage. They followed him in spite of the deadly fire, and got within two hundred steps of the bridge, and were about to cross it, when a major seized Bonaparte by the waist, shouting, "General, you will be killed, and without you we are lost; you shall go no further!"

Then they fell back. The soldiers, unwilling to abandon their general, seized his arm, his hair, his coat, and dragged him with them in their flight, amid the dead and dying, through the smoke. In the confusion, without seeing what they did, they threw him over to the right, into the marsh, and lost sight of him. The Austrians were there.

Fortunately they failed to recognize him. A cry was heard, "Forward, men, to save the general!" Marmont, Louis Bonaparte, and a few other brave men rushed out, and tore the commander-in-chief from the thick mud into which he had fallen; they put him on his horse and charged the enemy, who at nightfall finally abandoned Arcole, retiring on San Bonifacio.

"That day," says the Memorial of Saint Helena, was one of soldierly devotion. General Lannes had hastened from Milan; he had been wounded at Governolo, and was still weak. He placed himself between Napoleon and the enemy, covering him with his body, and was wounded in three places, insisting on not leaving him. Muiron, the general's aide-decamp, was killed while covering his general with his body, a touching and heroic death."

The battle continued the next day, November 16, and the day after, the 17th. On the 16th, the Austrians were defeated on the dykes of the Adige and of Arcole. In the afternoon of the 17th, Bonaparte counted the losses of the enemy, and decided that it must have lost twenty thousand men, and that thus it was only one-third stronger than his own forces. Consequently, he ordered his troops to leave the marshes, and attack the Austrians on the plain. The army crossed the bridge that had been built at the mouth of the Alpon. There was killed young Elliot, one of Bonaparte's aides-de-camp.

At two in the afternoon, the French were engaged, their left wing at Arcole, their right in the direction of Porto Lignano. The enemy was defeated at every point, and, exhausted by a bloody contest of seventy-two hours, they retreated in the direction of Vicenza.

November 18, Bonaparte, who had secretly marched out from the Milan gate of Verona on the 14th, re-entered the town in triumph, by the left bank of the Adige, through the gate of Venice, the gate through which the Veronese expected to see the victorious Austrian army enter.

From that moment no one expected any serious defeat of the French. "It would not be easy," Napoleon himself said, "to conceive the surprise and enthusiasm of the inhabitants. Even the most hostile could not remain cold; and they added their congratulations to those of our friends." The stupefaction of some, the delight of others, were blended in the common transport, as if a miracle had happened.