ng for you. Your patience and courage are honourable to you, but
they procure you neither advantage nor glory. I am about to lead you
into the most fertile valleys of the world: there you will find
flourishing cities and teeming provinces: there you will reap honour,
glory, and riches. Soldiers of the Army of Italy, will you lack
courage?" Two years previously so open a bid for the soldiers'
allegiance would have conducted any French commander forthwith to the
guillotine.

[Illustration: MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE CAMPAIGNS IN NORTH ITALY.]

But much had changed since the days of Robespierre's supremacy;
Spartan austerity had vanished; and the former insane jealousy of
individual pre-eminence was now favouring a startling reaction which
was soon to install the one supremely able man as absolute master of
France.

Bonaparte's conduct produced a deep impression alike on troops and
officers. From Massena his energy and his trenchant orders extorted
admiration: and the tall swaggering Augereau shrank beneath the
intellectual superiority of his gaze. Moreover, at the beginning of
April the French received reinforcements which raised their total to
49,300 men, and gave them a superiority of force; for though the
allies had 52,000, yet they were so widely scattered as to be inferior
in any one district. Besides, the Austrian commander, Beaulieu, was
seventy-one years of age, had only just been sent into Italy, with
which land he was ill acquainted, and found one-third of his troops
down with sickness.[38]

Bonaparte now began to concentrate his forces near Savona. Fortune
favoured him even before the campaign commenced. The snows of winter,
still lying on the mountains, though thawing on the southern slopes,
helped to screen his movements from the enemy's outposts; and the
French vanguard pushed along the coastline even as far as Voltri. This
movement was designed to coerce the Senate of Genoa into payment of a
fine for its acquiescence in the seizure of a French vessel by a
British cruiser within its neutral roadstead; but it served to alarm
Beaulieu, who, breaking up his cantonments, sent a strong column
towards that city. At the time this circumstance greatly annoyed
Bonaparte, who had hoped to catch the Imperialists dozing in their
winter quarters. Yet it is certain that the hasty move of their left
flank towards Voltri largely contributed to that brilliant opening of
Bonaparte's campaign, which his admirers have generally