bove the
bridge, and were seen, amid the smoke, struggling to cross, though
without avail, and turn the right flank of the Austrian infantry,
which had been posted a safe distance behind the artillery on the
opposite shore. Quick as thought, in the very nick of opportunity, the
general issued his command, and the grenadiers dashed for the bridge.
Eye-witnesses declared that the fire of the Austrian artillery was now
redoubled, while from houses on the opposite side soldiers hitherto
concealed poured volley after volley of musket-balls upon the
advancing column. For one single fateful moment it faltered. Berthier
and Massena, with others equally devoted, rushed to its head, and
rallied the lines. In a few moments the deed was accomplished, the
bridge was won, the batteries were silenced, and the enemy was in full
retreat.

Scattered, stunned, and terrified, the disheartened Austrians felt
that no human power could prevail against such a foe. Beaulieu could
make no further stand behind the Adda; but, retreating beyond the
Oglio to the Mincio, a parallel tributary of the Po, he violated
Venetian neutrality by seizing Peschiera, where that stream flows out
of Lake Garda, and spread his line behind the river from the Venetian
town on the north as far as Mantua, the farthest southern outpost of
Austria, thus thwarting one, and that not the least important, of
Bonaparte's plans. As to the Italians, they seemed bereft of sense,
and for the most part yielded dumbly to what was required. There were
occasional outbursts of enthusiasm by Italian Jacobins, and in the
confusion of warfare they wreaked a sneaking vengeance on their
conservative compatriots by extortion and terrorizing. The population
was confused between the woe of actual loss and the joy of
emancipation from old tyrannies. Suspicious and adroit, yet slow and
self-indulgent, the common folk concluded that the grievous burden of
the hour would be lightened by magnanimity and held a waiting
attitude.

The moral effect of the action at Lodi was incalculable. Bonaparte's
reputation as a strategist had already been established, but his
personal courage had never been tested. The actual battle-field is
something quite different from the great theater of war, and men
wondered whether he had the same mastery of the former as of the
latter. Hitherto he had been untried either as to his tactics or his
intrepidity. In both respects Lodi elevated him literally to the
stars. N