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He was high in the esteem of Buonaparte, who had formed the greatest expectations from him, and grieveatly lamented his fall.

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The duke of Parma, in whose fight, as it were, the French had croffed the Po, and defeated the Austrians twice in one day, did not dare to prolong the contest on his part, with fo irrefistable a foe. requested an armistice from Buonaparte, and obtained it on condition of paying a large contribution in money, horfes, and provifions, of delivering into the poffeffion of the French, twenty capital paintings to be chosen by them, and of fending without delay commiflaries to Paris, to conclude a peace with the republic: on these terms the duke procured a neutrality for his dominions, which was concluded on the ninth of May.

The uninterrupted successes of the French had now struck their enemies with universal consternation. Beaulieu himself, though an expert and intrepid warrior, thought it more prudent to act on the defenfive, than to attack them with troops continually defeated The bravery of the Austrians, though undeniable, had not been proof against their impetuous valour and unyielding enthusiasm. They feemed to have reversed the character formerly attributed to them, of impatience and unsteadiness, and to have affumed that of firmness and con. ftancy.

Their exploits had now opened to them the road to Milan, the captare of which would give them the poffeffion of Lombardy, and effect the expulfion of the Auftrians from Italy. This was the project of Buonaparte, whose glory would be completed by fuch an achievement;

and whose thirst of fame would thereby be gratified to the utmost extent of his wishes.

Between him and that capital of Austrian Italy lay the remains of the Imperial forces, determined to risk another battle for its prefervation. They were pofted on the other fide of the Adda, over which stood a long bridge, which Beaulieu had intended to break down, but was prevented from doing by the quick approach of the French general. It was protected, however, by fo numerous an artillery, that the Auftrians did not imagine the French would be able to force a pailage over it.

On the tenth of May, the French army arrived in fight of this bridge, before which stood the town of Lodi, filled with the Imperial troops, which were also posted in every place around it in the most advantageous order of battle that the fituation of the town and its environs would admit. Beaulicu had, on this occafion, difplayed uncommon skill, coufcious that, on the iflue of this day, the fate of Auftria in Italy wholely depended, and that, were he defcated, all future refiftance would be vain.

The battle began at nine in the morning. The approaches to Lodi were vigouroully attacked by the French, who, after an obstinate difpute, drove the Auftrians into that town; where a refolute fight enfued: but the French had again the advantage, and forced them to retreat across the bridge to their main body, which was drawn up in order of battle, with formidable batteries on their right and left to guard the paffage of the bridge. A battery was planted on the oppofite fide by the French, and a violent cannonade nonade was kept up, on both fides, during great part of the day.

But the French general was convinced, that unlefs he fucceeded in effecting a paflage over the bridge, his failure would be conftrued into a defeat, and the reputation of the French arms would fuffer in the opinion of the public. Full of this idea, which was certainly well founded, he determined to try every effort, and to encounter every perfonal ritk, in order to carry a point on which so much appeared at issue. Forming together the selectest bodies of his army, he led them in perfon to the attack of the bridge, in the midst of a most tremendous fire. The intrepidity he displayed was neceflary to confirm the courage of his men, whom the greatnefs of the danger seemed to stagger: but his prefence, and that of all the chief officers in the French army, animated the foldiers to fuch a degree, that they rushed forward with an impetuofity which nothing was able to withstand. They crofied the bridge and affailed the whole line of the Austrian artillery, which was inftantly broken. They fell with equal fury on the troops that advanced to charge them, who were thrown into diforder, and put to flight on every fide. The victory was complete. Had it not been for the excessive fatigue undergone by the French, a great proportion of whom had marched ten leagues that day to join the army, the loss of the imperialifts though great

would have been much greater. It was owing to the approach of night that the French desisted from the

purfuit. Favoured by darkness, Beaulieu withdrew from the field of battle, after lofing upwards of two thousand men, killed, wounded, and taken, and twenty pieces of cannon. The lofs of the French was confiderable: the croffing of the bridge alone cost them near a thoufand of their boldest men, who were destroyed by the batteries pointed on it from the Austrian fide of the river.

This defeat of the Imperial army appeared so decisive to marshal Beaulieu that he durft not venture to stop the progress of the victors towards Milan. Collecting the wrecks of his army, he made a speedy retreat towards Mantua, purfued by a large body of the French who, in their way, seized on Pizzighitona and Cremona, two places of note. The main body under Buonaparte proceeded to Milan, after taking Pavia, where all the Auftrian magazines fell into the hands of the French.

Buonaparte entered Milan the fif teenth of May, five days after the battle of Lodi, which, conformably to his opinion and that of his rival, Beaulieu, proved wholly decifive of the fate of Lombardy. Here the French general thought it neceffary to allow his people fome days of repose, after the unceafing toils of a whole month, marked by uninterrupted victories.

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CHAP. VII.

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Exultation of the French at the Successes of their Armies. -Their Army in Italy animated by the Praises of their Countrymen, and the Conversation as well as the Proclamations of Buonaparte to a high Paffion for Glery.Eaters the Duchy of Modena. - Spoliation of Monuments of Antiquity and Art.-Abhorrence of the Italian Nobility and Clergy towards the French greater than that of the inferior Claffes. - A general Infurrection, ready to break out, quashed by the Vigilance and Promptitude of Buonaparte. The Auftrians, under General Beaulieu, with the Connivance of the Venctians, take Poffeffion of Pefchieva.-Buonaparte advances against Beaulieu, who retreats to the Tyrolefe. -The Venetians tremble before the French. Difmijs from their Territories the Brother of the late and Claimant of the Crown of France. --Buonaparte takes Poffeffion of Verona. Blockades Mantua. Prepares to march into the Tyrolese. - Detained by Infurrections in the Districts, known under the Name of Imperial Fiefs.-Thefe being I pprefied, he carries his Arms to the Southward. Reduces Tortona, BoVigna, and Urbino. - Menaces Rome. Armiflice between the Pope and Buonaparte. --Suspension of Hoftilities with Naples. --Buonaparte the Friend and Patron of Men of Learning and Science. Ambitious Views of the Feach Republic. Infurrection in Lugo. Quelled, and the City reduced by the French. The Blockade of Mantua converted into a clofe Siege.-Raised ty Marshal Wurmfer. - Actions between the French Army and that of the Auftrians, reinforced by Detachments from Mantua. - Kemarkable Instance of Prefence of Mind in Buonaparte. The Auftrians driven back beyond the Adige.

THE news of these af onihing

fuccefles had, in the mean time, filled all France with exultation. A fplendid festival was appointed, at Paris, by the Directory, in order to celebrate them with fuitable magnificence. To render it more folemn, it was accompanied with fpeeches to the citizens, and ealogiums of the victorious army, pronounced by Carnot, the profident of the day, and calculated to anmate the public againft the enc

mies of France, particularly the English; and to encourage the nation to bear up chearfully againft the preffures of the war, by the prospect of terminating it finally to the advantage and glory of France.

During an interval of five days rest, allowed by Buonaparte to his foldiers, he did not forget to address them in his ufual manner, and to excite their ardour, by a recital of their exploits, and a representation of the honours and applaufe beftowed • "Ye have taken away the gods which I made, and what have I more?"-Judges

stowed upon them by their country, and by a profpect of the future triumphs awaiting them.

He was now meditating expeditions into the territories of those princes of whose enmity to France sufficient proofs had been given. A detachment of his army had already entered the duchy of Modena, the fovereign of which had fled to Venice with his treasures. From this city he deputed a minister to the French general, with whom he concluded a fufpenfion of arms on much the fame conditions as those granted to the duke of Parma.

The fpoliation of the repofitories of art, which was now annexed to the conditions of treaties with the Italian princes, proved one of the most vexatious as well as mortifying circumstances of the French invafion. The monuments of painting and of statuary, which adorned their palaces, cities, and churches, were viewed by the natives with a mixture of delight and veneration. They entertained a species of affection for them; and, in the presence of fome of them, they placed not a little confidence. They had become a kind of tutelary deities and household gods. The Italians were sensible of emotions not altogether diffimilar to those of the Ifraelite Micah, into whose house armed men from Dan entered, and took away "the graven image, and the ephod, and the feraphim, and the molten image."* In one respect, the oppreffions of the French in Italy were greater than those of the northern hordes under Attila and Odoacer; for those chiefs did not trouble the Romans with de

The

mands of pictures, statues, and sculptures. It seems to be the fate of the great models of the arts, like the arts themselves, to travel from the east, by the west, to the north. Perhaps their tour in this direction is not yet terminated To deprive the poor Italians of objects so long endeared to them, by habit and poffeffion, seemed an act of tyranny esercifed upon the vanquished in the wantonness of power. Those objects had been respected by all parties, in the viciffitude of those events that had fo frequently fubjected the places that contained them to different matters. French were the first who had conceived the idea of feizing them as a matter of mere property. Herein they were accused of confulting their vanity rather than their tafte for the fine arts. The Romans, in their triumphant periods, had plundered the Greeks of all the master-pieces they could find in their country. This appeared to the French a precedent fit for their imitation, and a fanction for robbing the Italians of what they esteemed the most valuable part of their property, and the most honourable proof they ftill retained of their former fuperiority in those departments of genius. The conduct of the French, in tearing the monuments of antiquity and art from Italy, and carrying them to Paris, was universally condemned and execrated by all civilized nations. It was, in truth, in some measure, plucking the rofe from the tree.

Motives of this nature, confpiring with the dissatisfaction experienced by multitudes, at the irreverence

xviii. 24.

which the French testified for the religious practices of the natives, enabled those who hated them, on this account, to instil their hatred into others, and to inflame their indignation against men who prefumed to more fenfe in those matters than other nations.

The two claffes, whose inveteracy to the French was most notorious, were the nobility and the clergy; as the French did not fcruple to avow their enmity and contempt for both, it was natural that these should bold them in abhorrence. In their fpeeches and conversations, public and private, the former seldom failed to reprefent the nobles as tyrants, and the priests as impoftors. The depreffion which both these orders of men had fufferred in France, shewed what was intended for them in other parts of Europe, were the French to fucceed in the vast defign imputed to them, of intirely fubverting the political and religious system of this quarter of the globe. Actuated by these apprehenfions, feveral of the most resolute of the nobility, and most zealous of the clergy, refolved, it was laid, to incite the commonality to rife against the French, on the first opportunity that should feem favourable to such a defign. The day fixed upon for its execution, was the twenty-fourth of May. Early in the morning, Buonaparte fet out for Lodi, at the head of a strong detachment. He had hardly reached that place, when he was informed, by an express, that an almost general infurrection was spreading through Lombardy. The alarm bells were ringing every where, and the peasantry and lower claffes throughout the country, inftigated by the nobles and the clergy, were up in arms, and intent on the VOL. XXXVIII.

massacre of all the French they could meet with. Rumours were circulated, that Beaulieu, strongly reinforced, was on his march to Milan, and that a number of French detachments had been surprised and put to the sword. Incensed at the ideas of equality upheld by the French, the nobles had difmifled their domestics, telling them, that being their equals, they could no longer employ them as servants. The partisans of Austria were, in short, exerting all their activity to raise commotions, and no place was free from them.

On the receipt of this intelligence, Buonaparte hafted back to Milan with a large body of horfe and foot. He arrested a number of fuspected perfons, and ordered those to be shot who had been taken in arms. He intimated to the archbishop, and to the clergy and nobles of the city, that they should be responsible for its tranquillity. A fine was impofed for every fervant difcharged, and every precaution taken to prevent the conspiracy from gaining ground.

It was principally at Pavia, that the confpirators were the most numerous. They had feized on the citadel, guarded by a small party of French, whom they made prifoners. Being joined by some thousands of peafants, they refolved to defend the town, and refused admittance to Buonaparte, on his fummoning them to furrender. But a body of French granadiers burst open the gates, on which those who had the custody of the French, who had been compelled to furrender in the citadel, fet them at liberty. None of them were milling: had violent hands been laid upon them, the determination was taken to destroy Pavia, [H]

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