een Bonaparte's patron, and was still his
friend. The young General's mind was made up to the alternative of
conquest or ruin, as may be judged from his words to a friend at taking
leave of him. "In three months," he said, "I will be either at Milan or
at Paris;" intimating at once his desperate resolution to succeed, and
his sense that the disappointment of all his prospects must be the
consequence of a failure.

With the same view of animating his followers to ambitious hopes, he
addressed the Army of Italy to the following purpose: "Soldiers, you are
hungry and naked; the Republic owes you much, but she has not the means
to acquit herself of her debts. The patience with which you support your
hardships among these barren rocks is admirable, but it cannot procure
you glory. I am come to lead you into the most fertile plains that the
sun beholds: rich provinces, opulent towns; all shall be at your
disposal. Soldiers, with such a prospect before you, can you fail in
courage and constancy?" This was showing the deer to the hound when the
leash is about to be slipped.

The Austro-Sardinian army, to which Bonaparte was opposed, was commanded
by Beaulieu, an Austrian general of great experience and some talent,
but no less than seventy-five years old; accustomed all his life to the
ancient rules of tactics, and unlikely to suspect, anticipate, or
frustrate those plans formed by a genius so fertile as that of Napoleon.

Bonaparte's plan for entering Italy differed from that of former
conquerors and invaders, who had approached that fine country by
penetrating or surmounting at some point or other her Alpine barriers.
This inventive warrior resolved to attain the same object by turning
round the southern extremity of the Alpine range, keeping as close as
possible to the shores of the Mediterranean, and passing through the
Genoese territory by the narrow pass called the Boccheta, leading around
the extremity of the mountains, and betwixt these and the sea. Thus he
proposed to penetrate into Italy by the lowest level which the surface
of the country presented, which must be of course where the range of the
Alps unites with that of the Apennines. The point of junction where
these two immense ranges of mountains touch upon each other is at the
heights of Mount St. Jacques, above Genoa, where the Alps, running
northwestward, ascend to Mont Blanc, their highest peak, and the
Appenines, running to the southeast, gradually elevate