unable to rally, through and beyond the town. Even the gigantic
defences of Calliano proved of no avail. Height after height was carried
at the point of the bayonet; 7000 prisoners and fifteen cannon remained
with the conquerors. The Austrians fled to Levisa, which guards one of
the chief defiles of the Tyrolese Alps, and were there beaten again.
Vaubois occupied this important position with the gallant division who
had forced it. Massena fixed himself in Wurmser's late headquarters at
Trent; and Napoleon, having thus totally cut off the field-marshal's
communication with Germany, proceeded to issue proclamations calling on
the inhabitants of the Tyrol to receive the French as friends, and seize
the opportunity of freeing themselves for ever from the dominion of
Austria. He put forth an edict declaring that the sovereignty of the
district was henceforth in the French Republic, and inviting the people
themselves to arrange, according to their pleasure, its interior
government.

The French general made a grievous mistake when he supposed that the
Tyrolese were divided in their attachment to the Imperial government,
because he had found the Italian subjects of that crown to be so. The
Tyrol, one of the most ancient of the Austrian possessions, had also
been one of the best governed; the people enjoyed all the liberty they
wished under a paternal administration. They received with scornful
coldness the flattering exhortations of one in whom they saw only a
cunning and rapacious enemy; and Buonaparte was soon satisfied that it
would cost more time than was then at his disposal to republicanise
those gallant mountaineers. They, in truth, began to arm themselves, and
waited but the signal to rise everywhere upon the invaders.

Wurmser heard with dismay the utter ruin of Davidowich; and doubted not
that Napoleon would now march onwards into Germany, and joining Jourdan
and Moreau, whose advance he had heard of, and misguessed to have been
successful, endeavour to realise the great scheme of Carnot--that of
attacking Vienna itself. The old general saw no chance of converting
what remained to him of his army to good purpose, but by abiding in
Lombardy, where he thought he might easily excite the people in his
emperor's favour, overwhelm the slender garrisons left by Buonaparte,
and so cut off, at all events, the French retreat through Italy, in case
they should meet with any disaster in the Tyrol or in Germany. Napoleon
had inte