tese had, at the command of the King of Sardinia,
risen _en masse_, but being destitute of the enthusiasm of liberty, they
constituted a body without a soul. Before the middle of April, the army
of the Alps amounted to 75,000 men, opposed to which were only 40,000
Piedmontese and 10,000 Austrian auxiliaries. The committee of public
safety enjoined their commanders to drive the enemy over the mountains
and to seize the passes; and by the middle of May the whole ridge of
the Alps between Savoy and Piedmont, and the key of Italy, fell into the
hands of the republicans. On the frontier of Nice, the operations of the
French leaders were directed by Napoleon Buonaparte, whose design was to
turn Saorgio by its left, and cut off the retreat of its garrison by the
great road from over the Col di-Tende. The attacking army was divided
into three columns: the first, of 20,000 men, under Massena, advanced on
the first of April, intending to pass between Saorgio and the sea; the
second, under Dumerbion, of 10,000 men, remained in front of the enemy;
while the third, of equal force, directed its course to the upper
extremities of the valleys of the Vesabia, to communicate with the army
of Savoy by Isola. These movements were eminently successful: the rocky
citadel of Saorgio, surrounded by the French, surrendered at the first
summons; while the French, who ascended the Vesabia, drove the allies
back to the Col de Finisterre, and General Serurier cleared the valley
of the Tinea and established a communication with the army of Savoy by
Isola. Subsequently, the republicans became masters of all the passes
in the maritime Alps; and while from the summit of Mont Cenis they
threatened a descent on the valley of Susa and Turin from the Col di
Tende, they could advance to the siege of the fortress of Coni. It was
Napoleon's wish to push on to the conquest of Italy; but the convention
withdrew 10,000 men from the army of the Alps, in order to support that
of the Rhine, and the remainder were left to repose in their aerial
citadels.

In the meantime the Duke of York had been assisting the hereditary
Prince of Orange to cover the United Provinces; but their forces
were miserably insufficient, while the democratic party was again
corresponding with the French republicans, and giving them every
assistance. In Dutch Flanders, Cadsandt and Sluys were reduced before
the end of August, and by the beginning of October, after defeating the
imperialist g