One thing disturbed Bonaparte in the midst of all his success, and that was the perpetual attacks of the reactionary newspapers of Paris. The talk of the drawing-room, the sarcasms of the emigres, the unceasing declamation of the Royalist Club in the rue de Clichy had the power of exasperating his irascible nature. Besides, he dreaded the Restoration, which was not to take place till seventeen years later, and more than one emigre spoke of it as imminent in 1797. Bonaparte was unwilling at any price to be the second. The part of a Monk had no temptation for him; and no title, no wealth, could have persuaded him to work for any one but himself. It is also to be borne in mind, that if he had assumed some aristocratic methods, and found pleasure in the society of people of the old regime, he commanded an army of the most ardent and most sincere Republicans.

He had wrought such miracles with his men, only allying himself in appearance, if not in fact, with the Political passions which were the mainspring of their energy and enthusiasm. In their eyes, their general was always the man of the 13th Vendemiaire, the terror of the reaction, the sturdy Republican who had shattered the Royalist bands. He thought the time fitting for a grand Republican ceremony which should impress every one by a spectacle in harmony with the ideas and passions of the soldiers; consequently he decided that July 14, 1797, the anniversary of the capture of the Bastille, he would exhibit his troops at Milan under a purely Republican aspect, and gave orders for a great military festival upon that day, with a programme in perfect harmony with the Revolutionary memories and democratic sentiments of an army which contained so many Jacobins. This festival was to make an impression in Paris and to serve as a prologue to the 18th Fructidor.

This is a programme of the festival as it was drawn up by the commander-in-chief:

1. At daybreak a salvo of twenty of the largest cannon shall announce the festival.

2. The general shall be beaten at nine in the morning. At ten, when the troops start, another salvo shall be fired.

3. A third salvo shall announce the departure of the commander-in-chief for the scene of the festival, and another salvo shall be fired on his arrival. At the same time all the bands shall play the air, Ou peut-on etre mieux?

4. At noon precisely, the troops, after having made some manoauvres, will form in a square about the Pyramid. Then first six cannon will be fired for each one of the generals, La Harpe, Stengel, and Dubois; then five for each brigadier-general; then for each adjutant-general and chief of brigade in the division killed since the 23d Germinal, Year IV., the date of the battle of Montenotte.

5. The general commanding the division of Lombardy will give the flags to each battalion, and six cannon shall be fired at the moment he presents them.

6. The men shall receive double pay, and double rations of meat and wine.

7. The festival will terminate with drill and exercise. First, artillery practice; then flying at a target. There will be three prizes given to the three best shots.

8. Then there will be a match with broadswords and with rapiers, followed by a foot-race with three prizes.

9. The regimental bands shall play tunes and dance-music, and the soldiers, having piled their arms, shall be free to stroll about until the drums recall them to the ranks.

10. Officers who own horses and care to enter them for the race must have their names registered. The course will be from the country-house from which the horses started at the last race, to the Arch of Triumph.

11. At nightfall the Pyramid and the Altar of Country shall be illuminated, and bands placed about shall play patriotic dances.

It was not among his soldiers alone, it was also among the Italians, that Bonaparte developed a love of arms and of physical exercise. The whole population of Milan was transformed. In the schools, the streets, the drawing-rooms, in children's games, education, habits, and public opinion, there was a complete change.

At the theatre the Italian was no longer represented as beaten by the German matador; it was the Italian who beat and drove away the German. A martial air and a military spirit fascinated the women. Warlike marches took the place of religious songs and amorous serenades. Consequently, this celebration of July 14 enraptured the Milanese.

Bonaparte was never happier or prouder than when among his soldiers. Every regiment recalled happy memories. He had said at Lonato: "I was at ease; the 32d was there!" And for their sole reward the men of the 32d asked to have those few words embroidered on their regimental flag. In his account of the battle of Favorita, he had spoken of the "terrible 57th," and the proud 57th, fully rewarded for its losses by this one word, adopted henceforth the name of "The Terrible."

This celebration inflamed the pride and anger of the army; it was a great manifestation against Royalism. On the sides of a high pyramid were inscribed the names of the officers and men who had fallen on the field of honor since the battle of Montenotte. This funereal pyramid rose in the middle of a Field of Mars, which was decorated with all the attributes representing the victories of the army, as well as the emblems of liberty, of the French Republic one and indivisible, and of the Constitution of the Year III.

After different maneuvres, the troops formed in a square around the pyramid. The veterans and the wounded marched by, saluted by the troops. Drums were beating; the roar of cannon was incessant. Then the general reviewed the troops.

When he had reached the carabineers of the 11th Regiment of light infantry, he said, "Brave carabineers, I am glad to see you; you alone are worth three thousand men."

In front of the 13th, which formed the garrison at Verona, he exclaimed, "Brave soldiers, you see before you the names of your comrades murdered before your eyes at Verona; but their shades must be satisfied, the tyrants have perished with their tyranny."

The officers of each regiment, preceded by the band, went forward to receive the flags. "Citizens," said the commander-in-chief, "may these banners always be in the path of liberty and victory!"

While the army was marching by, a corporal of the 9th Regiment went up to Bonaparte, and said: "General, you have saved France. Your men, proud to belong to an invincible army, will make a rampart of their bodies. Save the Republic! Let the hundred thousand men who compose this army crowd together in defence of liberty." And tears ran down the brave soldier's face.

It is easy to imagine the enthusiasm of these heroes, covered with wounds and laurel, proud, and justly proud, of themselves, their courage, their triumphs, and indignant with the sarcasms which certain Frenchmen did not blush to utter against all this glory and all these sacrifices, so much unselfishness, and so many wonders. Inspired by the fumes of powder, their general's Republican proclamation, and carried away by warlike ardor, the wild applause of the crowd, and the grand military spectacle before their eyes, by the clash of arms, the sight of the flags, the roar of artillery, the trumpets, the drums, and the patriotic hymns, on this warm 14th of July, Bonaparte's soldiers were wild with wrath against the blasphemous defamers of liberty and glory.

In the evening Bonaparte gave a dinner to the officers and veterans, at which he proposed this toast: "To the shades of the brave Stengel, who fell on the field of Mondovi; of La Harpe, who died on the field of Formbio; of Dubois, who died at Roveredo; and to all the brave men who died in defence of liberty! May their spirits ever be near us! They will warn us of the ambushes set by the enemies of our country."

This was General Berthier's toast: "To the Constitution of the Year III, and to the executive Directory of the French Republic! May it, by its firmness, be worthy of the armies and high destinies of the Republic, and may it crush all the foes of the Revolution, who no longer mask themselves!" The band played Ca ira.

This was the toast of a veteran, all scarred with wounds, who had lost a limb: "To the re-emigration of the emigres!"

Toast of General Lannes, still bearing the marks of three wounds he had received at Arcole: "To the destruction of the Club of Clichy! The wretches! They wish more revolutions. May the blood of the patriots they have assassinated fall on their own heads!" The band played a charge.

In the course of the day the different divisions of the Army of Italy had signed addresses which were sent to the Directory by Bonaparte, and inserted in the Moniteur of August 12.

This is the address of Massena's division: "Does the road to Paris present more difficulties than that to Vienna? No. It will be opened by Republicans who have remained faithful to liberty; we shall defend it, and enemies will have perished."

Division Augereau: "Is it then true, conspirator, that you are anxious for war? You shall have it; Villains, you shall have it... You are crafty, astute, faithless, but more than all, you are cowards; and to fight you we have steel, virtues, courage, the recollection of our victories, the irresistible ardor of liberty. And you, contemptible instruments of your masters' crimes, you who, in your delirium, dare to believe yourself powers, when you are but vile reptiles; you who reproach us for having protected your property, for having carried far from your walls the horrors of war, and for saving the country; you, in a word, who have made scorn, infamy, outrage, and death the lot of the defenders of the Republic tremble! From the Adige to the Rhine and the Seine is but a step; tremble! Your iniquities are counted, and their reward is at the point of our bayonets."

Division Bernadotte: "The Republican constitution appears to be threatened. Our sensitive and generous souls are averse to believing it; but if the fact is true, speak! The same arms which assured national independence, the same chiefs who led the phalanxes, still exist. With such aid, you have but to wish it, to see the conspirators vanish from the picture of the living."

Division Serurier: "Speak, citizen Directors, speak and at once the wretches who polluted the soil of freedom will have ceased to exist. It will doubtless suffice to crush them, to summon some of our brave companions in arms from the armies of the Rhine and Moselle, and of Sambre and Meuse. We yearn to share with them the honor of purging France of its cruelest foes."

Division Joubert: "What! The odious Capet who for six years parades his shame from nation to nation, always pursued by our Republican phalanxes, would now bring them under the yoke, If this idea is revolting to any citizen whom love of country has once touched, how much more so to the old soldiers of the Republic!"

Division Baraguey d'Hilliers: "We renew the solemn oath of hatred to the factions, of war to the death to Royalists, of respect and fidelity to the Constitution of the Year III."

Division Delmas: "We have sworn to defend, to the last drop of our blood, the liberty of our country. If it is possible that it should ever perish, we are determined to be buried beneath its ruins."

Division Victor: "No more indulgence, no more half-way measures! The Republic or death!"

The day after these addresses were signed by the officers and soldiers, Bonaparte wrote to the Directory: "The soldier asks eagerly if, in reward for his toils and six years of war, he is to be assassinated in his hearthstone, at his return, -- the fate which threatens every patriot... Are there no more Republicans in France? After conquering Europe, shall we be forced to seek some little corner of the earth in which to end our sad lives? By one stroke you can save the Republic, and two hundred thousand lives which are bound with our fate, and secure peace within twenty-four hours: have the emigres arrested, destroy the influence of the foreigners. If you need force, summon the armies. Demolish the presses in English pay, which are more sanguinary than ever Marat was. As for me, citizen Directors, it is impossible for me to live amid such conflicting passions; if there is no way of putting an end to our country's sufferings, to crushing the assassinations and influence of Louis XVIII, I present my resignation."

Bonaparte's soldiers looked upon him as a William Tell, a Brutus, the terror of tyrants, the saviour of liberty. Perhaps there was not a man in his whole Army who suspected him of not being an ardent Republican. Yet, at that very moment, when he was, so to speak, the inspiring spirit of the 18th Fructidor, he was already, in intimate conversation, indicating his plans of dictatorship and empire.

In the Count Miot de Melito's memoirs there is to be noticed a very curious revelation: "I happened to be," he says, "at Montebello with Bonaparte and Melzi, and Bonaparte took us both a long walk in the vast gardens of this beautiful estate. Our walk lasted about two hours, during which time the general talked almost incessantly.

"What I have done so far,' he said, 'is nothing. I am now only at the beginning of my career. Do you think I have been triumphing here in Italy for the greater glory of the lawyers the Directory? Do you think it was to establish a republic! What an idea! A republic of thirty million men! With our morals, our vices, is such a thing possible? It is a chimera that fascinates the French, but which will pass away like so many others. What they need is glory, the gratification of the vanity; but they know nothing of liberty. Look at the army. The victories we have already won have given the French soldier his real character. I am everything for him. Let the Directory think of deposing me from my command, and we shall see who is master. The nation demands a man illustrious by reputation, and not for theories of government, phrases, and the speeches of theorists, which the French don't understand in the least. Give them a rattle, and they are satisfied; they will amuse themselves with it and let themselves be led, provided that one hides the end towards which one leads them...A party is moving in favor of the Bourbons. I do not mean to contribute to its triumph. I mean, some day, to weaken the Republican party; but it shall be for my own advantage, and not for that of the old dynasty. Meanwhile, I shall keep in line with the Republican party.'"

He had to dissimulate for a few years more and it was at the very moment that the young leader thus imprudently betrayed to Miot de Melito his most secret thoughts, that he assumed this thoroughly Revolutionary aspect before the eyes of his army, and that by sending Augereau to Paris he prepared for the 18th Fructidor, a day most fatal to the reactionary party, and full of the most direful results. We may say that in these circumstances, Bonaparte, who possessed all the Italian craft and astuteness, exhibited the skill and genius of a Machiavelli.