The Count of Las Cases recounts in the Memorial this conversation which he had with Napoleon at Saint Helena: "We said to the Emperor, speaking of the Italian campaign and the swift and daily victories which had made it so famous, that he must have got great pleasure out of it. 'None at all,' he replied.

'But at least Your Majesty gave some to those who were at a distance.'

'Possibly; at a distance one reads about the triumphs and ignores the state of things. If I had had any pleasure, I should have rested; but I always had danger in front of me, and the day's victory was at once forgotten in the necessity of winning a new one the next day.'"

Early in 1797 the war had to be resumed, and Bonaparte, who had caught a fever by bivouacking in a marsh near Mantua, was in a state of illness and exhaustion which filled the army with despair. Stendhal describes his appearance at the time, with his hollow, livid cheeks, which inspired the emigres to say, "He is of a most beautiful yellow!" and they drank to his speedy death. "Only his eyes and their piercing glance announced the great man. This glance had won for him the confidence of the army, which forgave him for his feeble appearance, loving him only the better for it. They often compared their little corporal with the superb Murat, and their preference was for the puny general who had already won so great glory."

Austria was about to make a final effort. The great cities of that empire were sending battalions of volunteers. Those of Vienna had received from the Empress banners embroidered by her own hands.

Bonaparte was at Bologna, January 10, 1797, when he heard that the Austrians, to the number of sixty thousand men, were advancing by Montebaldo and the Paduan plains. In the night between the 13th and 14th of January he was on the eminence of Rivoli. The weather had cleared after very heavy rain. In the moonlight the general examined the lines of the enemy's camp-fires, which filled the whole region between the Adige and Lake Garda. the air was all ablaze with them. The bivouac fires indicated forty or fifty thousand Austrians.

The next morning at six, there were to be at Rivoli only twenty-two thousand French troops. Never did Bonaparte show more amazing rapidity of conception, decision, and execution. January 14, he won the battle of Rivoli; he marched all that night with Massena's division, which had won the victory; the evening of the 15th, he was before Mantua; the 16th, he won the battle of Favorita.

In three days the Austrian army, reduced to half its original size, completely disorganized, weakened by a multitude of killed and wounded, had lost twenty-two thousand men taken prisoners, its artillery, and baggage. Massena's division had marched and fought incessantly for four days, marching by night and fighting by day. Bonaparte could boast that his soldiers had surpassed the famous speed of Caesar's legions.

"The Roman legions," he wrote at the time, "used to make twenty-four miles a day; our men make thirty and fight in the intervals."

He also wrote to Carnot: "The esteem of a few such men as you, that of my comrades and the soldiers, sometimes, too, the opinion of posterity, and above all, the state of my own conscience, and the prosperity of my country, alone interest me."

February 3, Wurmser surrendered at Mantua. Bonaparte, who had accorded honorable conditions to the venerable Austrian general, was unwilling to be present at the scene of his humiliation, and was already in the Romagna when he and his staff marched out before the French troops. The studied indifference with which Bonaparte denied himself the agreeable spectacle of a marshal of a great reputation, the commander-in-chief of the Austrian forces, at the head of his staff, giving up his sword, was a matter of surprise to all Europe.

A few days later he wrote to the Directory: "I was anxious to show French generosity to Wurmser, a general more than seventy years old, to whom fortune has been unkind, but who has never ceased to show a constancy and a courage that history will not forget."

The war with Austria came to a pause; that with the Holy See continued. February 10, Bonaparte wrote to Josephine as follows: "We have been at Ancona for two days. We captured the citadel by a sudden attack, after a little firing. We took twelve hundred prisoners. I have sent fifty officers to their homes. I am still at Ancona. I don't send for you, because our work is not done yet; but I hope it will be finished in a few days. Besides, the country is very hostile, and everybody is afraid. I leave for the mountains to-morrow. You never write; and yet you ought to send me a line every clay. I beg of you to take a walk every day; it will do you good. I have never been so tired of anything as I am with this horrid war. Good by, my dear. Think of me."

February 13, he wrote again from Ancona: "I hear nothing from you, and I am sure that you don't love me. I have sent you newspapers and different letters. I am leaving at once, to cross the mountains. The moment anything is settled, I shall send for you: that is my most earnest desire. Thousands and thousands of kisses."

February 16, three days before the signing of the Treaty of Tolentino, he wrote from Bologna: "You are gloomy; you are ill; you don't write to me; you want to go to Paris. Don't you love your husband any more? This thought makes me very unhappy. My dear one, I find life unendurable, since I hear of your low spirits. I hasten to send Mascati, that he may prescribe for you. My health is not very good: my cold holds on. I beg of you to take care of yourself, to love me as much as I love you, and to write to me every day. You can't imagine how uneasy I am. I have told Mascati to escort you to Ancona, if you desire to go there. I will send you word where I am. Perhaps I shall make peace with the Pope, and be with you soon: that is my most ardent wish. I send you a hundred kisses. Remember that nothing equals my love, except my uneasiness. Write to me every day. Good by, my dear."

February 19, Bonaparte signed the Treaty of Tolentino with the Pope. He was but three days' march from the capital; and nothing would have been easier for him than to enter the Eternal City in triumph. He was wise enough to decide otherwise.

At this period he thought it best to be gentle towards religion. Prince Metternich has observed in his Memoirs: "Napoleon was not irreligious in the ordinary sense of the word. He did not acknowledge that there had ever existed a sincere atheist; he condemned deism as the result of rash speculation. As a Christian and a Catholic, he assigned only to an established religion the right of governing human society. He regarded Christianity as the corner-stone of all true civilization, and Catholicism as the religion most favorable to the preservation of the order and peace of the moral world; Protestantism he looked upon as a source of trouble and discord.

He compelled the Pope to cede Avignon and the Venaissin, Bologna, Ferrara, and the Romagna, and to pay a subsidy of thirty millions. But at the same time, he wrote to him this respectful letter, quite unlike the usual language of France during the Revolution: "I must thank Your Holiness for the courteous expressions contained in the letter which you have been kind enough to write to me. Peace has just been signed between the French Republic and Your Holiness. I am glad to have been able to contribute to his personal repose. All Europe is aware of the pacific and conciliatory disposition of Your Holiness. The French Republic will be, I hope, one of the truest friends of Rome. I send my aide-de-camp to convey to Your Holiness the unfailing esteem and veneration which I feel for his person."

The same day the peace of Tolentino was concluded, February 19, 1797, Bonaparte wrote the following letter to Josephine, who was then at Bologna: "Peace has just been signed with Rome. Bologna, Ferrara, the Romagna, are ceded to the Republic. The Pope gives us shortly thirty millions and many works of art. I leave to-morrow morning for Ancona, and thence for Rimini, Ravenna, and Bologna. If your health permits, come to Rimini or Ravenna, but I beg of you, take care of yourself.

"Not a word from you; Heavens! what have I done ? To think only of you, to love only Josephine, to know no other happiness than hers, does all that make me worthy of such a cruel fate? My dear, I beg of you, think of me often, and write every clay. You must be ill, or you don't love me! Do you think my heart is made of marble? Do my sufferings move you so little? How little you know me! I should not have believed it. You to whom nature has given intelligence, gentleness, and beauty, you who rule alone over my heart, you who, doubtless, know only too well the absolute power you exercise over my heart, write to me, think of me, and love me. Ever yours."

This letter, dated February 19, at Tolentino, is printed in the collection published by Queen Hortense as the last written by Napoleon to Josephine during the first Italian campaign. It is much to be regretted that Josephine's letters to her husband have not also been preserved; but it is fair to suppose from Napoleon's repeated reproaches, that his wife wrote very cool answers to the sentimental effusions of her passionate husband.

She was proud of him; she admired his glory, and was dazzled and fascinated by his success. Still we may doubt whether she loved him; and love, even between married people, cannot be commanded. If later Napoleon became less ardent, it may be because he was disappointed in the return which his love met. We should be inclined to think that Madame de Remusat was not wholly mistaken when she thus expressed herself on this delicate subject: "Bonaparte's letters betray the emotions of a jealousy which varies between despondency and threats of violence. Then we find gloomy thoughts, a sort of disgust with the passing illusions of life. Possibly the cold reception with which his ardent feelings were met had its influence upon and at last benumbed him. Perhaps he would have been a better man if he had been more, and especially better, loved."

Moreover, it may well be that Josephine's coldness was the result of calculation. There are men who are more fascinated by indifference than by surrender, and who prefer a changing sky to the monotonous blue of doting love. We must not forget that Josephine had to deal with a conqueror, and that love is like war. She never yielded; she let herself be won; had she been more tender, more loving, possibly Bonaparte might have loved her less.

The war was not yet over. Austria, with its inexhaustible resources, was perpetually renewing the struggle. Its armies were ever springing from the ground. After Beaulieu, Wurmser; after Wurmser, Alvinzy; after Alvinzy, the Archduke Charles. This German prince, who had won his spurs in Germany, came to Italy. Bonaparte, with thirty thousand men, hastened to encounter him, in a bitter cold, over mountains covered with snow.

March 13, 1797, he crossed the Piave; the 16th, he defeated the Archduke in the battle of Tagliamento; soon he arrived at Gradisca; a few days later he took Laybach and Trieste; the 26th, he entered Germany; the 29th, he captured Klagenfurt. Whether from fatigue and physical exhaustion or from prudence and craft, he felt that the hour of peace had struck. He had won enough fame as a soldier; now he was to appear as a peacemaker.

This unrivalled manager understood how to arrange peace with as much art as he had shown in carrying on war. After crossed swords, the olive branch; after fury, moderation; after glory, peace and rest. France was all aflame for this young man who flattered in turn its glory and its interest, and kept such close touch with public opinion. March 31, he wrote to the Archduke Charles a letter, replete with philosophy and the love of humanity after the fashion of the time, and its publication, a few days later in the Moniteur had an enormous effect.

In it Bonaparte said: General, brave soldiers make war, but love peace. . . Have we killed enough men and done enough harm to humanity? This sixth campaign begins under unhappy auspices; whatever may be its issue, we shall kill between us, a few thousand men more, and we must at last come to an understanding, since everything, even human passions, has an end... You, General, who by birth are so near the throne, and so superior to the petty passions which often animate ministers and governments, are you determined to deserve the title of the Saviour of Germany? . . . As for me, if the overture which I have the honor of making to you, can save one man's life, I shall be prouder of the civic crown which I shall deem myself to have earned, than of all the sad glory which may come from military triumphs."

April 15, Bonaparte arrived at Leoben. His advance seized the Semmering; the French were only twenty-five leagues from Vienna. The Archduke Charles requested a suspension of hostilities. Bonaparte acceded, and, April 18, he signed the preliminaries of a peace on the following conditions: Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine to be ceded to France; cession of Lombardy for the purpose of making it an independent state, in consideration of an indemnity to Austria from the Venetian territory.

Towards the end of April he returned to Italy, and when he reached Treviso, May 3, an order of the day was published, in which he declared war against the Venetian Republic, which had declared against him before the preliminaries of Leoben, and had seen French soldiers massacred. General Baragney d'Hilliers seized the lagoons, forts, and batteries of Venice, and, May 16, hoisted the tricolor flag in the Piazza of Saint Mark. Bonaparte had returned to Milan.