tua."* The troops of Provera were “ taken or killed." "The larger army of Alvinzi were close pursued from the bloody field of Rivoli, and never were permitted to draw breath or to recover their disorder." "The ground which the French had lost in Italy was speedily resumed. Trent and Bassano were again occupied by the French. They regained all the positions and strongholds which they had possessed on the frontiers of Italy before Alvinzi's first descent, and might perhaps have penetrated deeper into the mountainous frontier of Germany, but for the snow which choked up the passes." "One crowning consequence of these victories was the surrender of Mantua itself, which had cost so much blood," and which was surrounded with waters. The siege of that city had continued for six months, during which the garrison is said by Napoleon to have lost 27,000 men by disease, and in the numerous and bloody assaults that took place. This decisive event put an end to the war in Italy. "The contest with Austria was hereafter to be waged on the hereditary dominions of that haughty power and the scene of it reached to the fountains of waters. The power of Austria, the great stay of Rome, and the right arm of popery, having been broken in Italy, and Lombardy being wholly in possessson of Napoleon, he found leisure to avenge himself on the pope for those hostile demonstrations which, as yet, he had been contented to hold in check. The terror with which the priestly court of the Vatican received the tidings of the utter destruction of the Austrian army, and of the irresistible conqueror's march southwards, did not prevent the papal troops from making some efforts to defend the territories of the Holy See. General Victor, with 400 French and as many Lom Scott's Life of Napoleon, p. 246. + Ibid. p. 249 bards, advanced upon the route of Imola. A Papal force, in numbers about equal, lay encamped on the river Senio, in front of that town. Monks, with crucifixes in their hands, ran through the lines, exciting them to fight bravely for their country and their faith. The French general by a rapid movement threw his horse across the stream a league or two higher up, and then charged through the Senio in their front. The resistance was brief. The Pope's army, composed mostly of new recruits, retreated in confusion. Faenza was carried by the bayonet. Cotti and 3000 men laid down their arms; and the strong town of Ancona was occupied. On the tenth of February the French entered Loretto,* and rifled that celebrated seat of superstition of whatever treasures it still retained the most valuable articles had already been packed up and sent to Rome for safety.+ Victor then turned westward from Ancona, with the design to unite with another French column, which had advanced into the Papal dominion by Perugia. The priests had an image of the Virgin Mary at this place, which they exhibited to the people in the act of shedding tears, the more to stimulate them against the impious republicans. On entering the place, the French were amused with discovering the machinery by which this trick had been performed: the Madona's tears were a string of glass beads, flowing by clock-work within a shrine which the worshippers were to respectful to approach very nearly. Little a-molu fountains, which stream on the same principle, are now common ornaments for the chimney piece in Paris." Note, ibid. See also Scott's Life of Napoleon, Las Casas' Journal.-Such was the divinity and miraculous power of our Lady of Loretto-who has yet her place in the Roman breviary, and her worship and honour in the Roman Catholic churches. "The sancta casa or holy house of Loretto, is a little brick building, round which a magnificent church has been rear ed, and which the Romish calendar states to have been the original dwelling-house of the Virgin Mary in Nazareth, transported through the air to Italy by miracles. This was for ages the chief resort of Romish pilgrims; and the riches of the place were once enormous."-Compare with p. 132, &c. "The panic which the French advance had by this time spread, was such, that the Pope had no hope but in submission. The alarm in Rome itself recalled the days of Alaric the Goth. The treaty of Tollentino (12th Feb. 1797,) followed. By this the Pope conceded formally (for the first time) his ancient territory of Avignon; he resigned the legations of Ferrara, Bologna, and Romagna, and the port of Ancona; agreed to pay about a million and a half sterling, and to execute to the utmost the provisions of Bologna with respect to the works of art. On these terms Pius was to remain nominal master of some shreds of the patrimony of St. Peter. Bonaparte was satisfied, on the whole, that he should best secure his ultimate purposes by suffering the Vatican to prolong, for some time further, the shadow of that sovereignty which had in former ages trampled on kings and emperors." "In nine days the war with the Pope had reached its close; and having left some garrisons in the towns on the Adige to watch the neutrality of Venice, Napoleon hastened to carry the war into the hereditary dominions of Austria. He proceeded to the frontier of the Frioul. The Austrian army had once more on a double basis-one great division on the Tyrolese frontier, and the greater under the Archduke Charles himself on the Triulese.+ To give the details of the sixth campaign would be to repeat the story which has been already five times told. Bonaparte found the Archduke posted behind the river Tagliamento, in front of the rugged Carinthian mountains, which guard the passage in that quarter from Italy to Germany. Detaching Massena to the (river) Piave, where the Austrian division of Lusignan were in observation, he himself determined to charge the Archduke in front. Massena was successful in driving Lusignan before him as far as Belluno, and thus turned the Austrian flank. Bonaparte then attempted and effected the passage of the Tagliamento. After a great and formal display of his forces, which was met by similar demonstrations on the Austrian side of the river, he suddenly broke up his line and retreated. The archduke, knowing that the French had been marching all the night before, concluded that the general wished to defer the battle till another day; and, in like manner withdrew to his camp. About two hours after, Napoleon rushed with his whole army, who had merely lain down * Hist. of Napoleon, vol. i. pp. 90-93 in ranks, upon the margin of the Tagliamento, no longer adequately guarded, and had forded the stream, ere the Austrian line of battle could be formed. In the action which followed (12th March 1797,) the troops of the Archduke displayed great gallantry, but every effort to dislodge Napoleon failed; at length retreat was judged necessary. The French followed hard behind. They stormed Gradisca, where they made 5000 prisoners, and occupied in the course of a few days, Trieste, Fiume, and every stronghold in Carinthia. In the course of a campaign of twenty days, the Austrians fought Bonaparte ten times, but the overthrow of the Tagliamento was never recovered; and the Archduke, after defending Styria inch by inch as he had the Fiume and Carinthia, at length adopted the resolution of reaching Vienna by forced marches, there to gather round him whatever force the royalty of his nation could muster, and make a last stand beneath the walls of the capital." Vienna was panicstruck on hearing that Bonaparte had stormed the passes of the Julian Alps. The war with Austria was at an end. "The provisional treaty of Leoben was signed, April 18, 1797." The commentary is clear as full; the prophecy is not of any private interpretation, not a word of which is needed; and the judgment is so manifest, that, on reading this record of blood, as of all that have preceded them, it may be said, " he that hath ears to hear let him hear." But as yet the illustration is not complete; nor the full measure of the vial poured out. There was a spot, a portion of the waters, on which Attila had been, which Bonaparte had not touched; and instead, as he had purposed, of leaving the streams of Italy, and dictating peace under the walls of Vienna, he had injuries and treacheries to avenge against Venice. And in fulfilling, for the time, the appointed task, prescribed in the word of that God whom his directorial masters denied, Bonaparte, by his words, as well as by his actions, becomes the expositor of the *Hist. of Napoleon, vol. i. p. 96, 97. + Ibid. p. 98. sacred oracle, the first act of the fulfilment of which had already placed his name among the first of bloodstained heroes. "No sooner was the negotiation in a fair train, than Napoleon, abandoning for the moment the details of its management to inferior diplomatists, hastened to retrace his steps, and to POUR the full storm of his WRATH upon the Venetians. The Doge and his Senate, whose only hopes had rested on the successes of Austria on the Adige, heard with utter despair that the Archduke had shared the fate of Beaulieu, of Wurmser, and of Alvinzi, and that the preliminaries of peace were actually signed. The rapidity of Bonaparte's return gave them no breathing-time.”* The senate despatched agents to deprecate his wrath. "Are the prisoners at liberty ?" he said, with a stern voice, and without replying to the humble greetings of the terrified envoys. They answered with hesitation, that they had liberated the French, the Polish, and the Brescians, who had been made captive in the insurrectionary war. "I will have them all-all!" exclaimed Bonaparte, all who are in prison on account of their political sentiments. I will go myself to destroy your dungeons on the Bridge of Tearsopinions shall be free-I will have no Inquisition-I will hear of no Inquisition, and no Senate either-I will dictate the law to you-I WILL PROVE AN ATTILA TO VENICE."+ The tidings of the massacre of Verona, and of the batteries of a Venetian fort on the Lido having fired upon a French vessel, added new fuel to the wrath of Bonaparte. "The news of these fresh aggressions did not fail to aggravate his indignation to the highest pitch. The terrified deputies ventured to touch Hist. of Napoleon, vol. i. p. 100. Sir W. Scott's Life of Napoleon, vol. iii. pp. 316, 317. Bonaparte was not unused to this title, or designation-and complained that he had been "stigmatised as the MODERN ATTILA, ROBESPIERRE ON HORSEBACK," &c. both of whom in differ. ent ways, as the reader will be at no loss to see, were, prophetically, his predecessors.-Las Casas' Journal, vol. i. part ii, p. 307. |