was only enabled by a masterly retreat through the Black Forest to reach
the Rhine. But the disaster of Moreau was more than redeemed by the
victories of Buonaparte. With the army which occupied the Riviera and
the Maritime Alps the young general marched on Piedmont at the opening
of the summer, separated its army from the Austrian troops, and forced
the king of Sardinia to conclude a humiliating peace. A brilliant
victory at the bridge of Lodi brought him to Milan, and drove the
Austrians into the Tyrol. Lombardy was in the hands of the French, the
Duchies south of the Po pillaged, and the Pope driven to purchase an
armistice at enormous cost, before the Austrian armies, raised to a
force of 50,000 men, again descended from the Tyrol for the relief of
Mantua. But a fatal division of their forces by the Lake of Garda
enabled Buonaparte to hurl them back broken upon Trent, and to shut up
their general, Wurmser, in Mantua with the remnant of his men; while
fresh victories at the bridge of Arcola and at Bassano drove back two
new Austrian armies who advanced to Wurmser's rescue.

[Sidenote: The Terror of Ireland.]

It was the success of Buonaparte which told on the resolve of the
Directory to reject all terms of peace. After months of dilatory
negotiations the offers of Lord Malmesbury were definitely declined, and
the English envoy returned home at the end of the year. Every hour of
his stay in Paris had raised higher hopes of success against England in
the minds of the Directory. At the moment of his arrival Spain had been
driven to declare war as their ally against Britain; and the Spanish and
Dutch fleets were now at the French service for a struggle at sea. The
merciless exactions of Buonaparte poured gold into the exhausted
treasury; and the energy of Hoche rapidly availed itself of this supply
to equip a force for operations in Ireland. At the opening of December
he was ready to put to sea with a fleet of more than forty sail and
25,000 men; and the return of Lord Malmesbury was the signal for the
despatch of his expedition from Brest. The fleet at Toulon, which was
intended to co-operate with that at Brest, and which had sailed through
the Straits of Gibraltar for that purpose, was driven into Port l'Orient
by an English squadron: but contrary winds baffled the fleet which was
watching Hoche, and his armament slipped away with little hindrance
towards the Irish coast. Had it reached Ireland unbroken and under such