the best generals of
division, Augereau, Massena, and Joubert, as well as of officers who
had shown their worth in many a doubtful fight; Lannes, the hero of
Lodi and Arcola; Marmont, noted for his daring advance of the guns at
Castiglione; Victor, who justified his name by hard fighting at La
Favorita; Murat, the _beau sabreur_, and Junot, both dashing cavalry
generals; and many more whose daring earned them a soldier's death in
order to gain glory for France and liberty for Italy. Still less ought
the soldiery to be forgotten; those troops, whose tattered uniforms
bespoke their ceaseless toils, who grumbled at the frequent lack of
bread, but, as Massena observed, never _before_ a battle, who even in
retreat never doubted the genius of their chief, and fiercely rallied
at the longed-for sign of fighting. The source of this marvellous
energy is not hard to discover. Their bravery was fed by that
wellspring of hope which had made of France a nation of free men
determined to free the millions beyond their frontiers. The French
columns were "equality on the march"; and the soldiery, animated by
this grand enthusiasm, found its militant embodiment in the great
captain who seemed about to liberate Italy and Central Europe.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VII

LEOBEN TO CAMPO FORMIO

In signing the preliminaries of peace at Leoben, which formed in part
the basis for the Treaty of Campo Formio, Bonaparte appears as a
diplomatist of the first rank. He had already signed similar articles
with the Court of Turin and with the Vatican. But such a transaction
with the Emperor was infinitely more important than with the
third-rate powers of the peninsula. He now essays his first flight to
the highest levels of international diplomacy. In truth, his mental
endowments, like those of many of the greatest generals, were no less
adapted to success in the council-chamber than on the field of battle;
for, indeed, the processes of thought and the methods of action are
not dissimilar in the spheres of diplomacy and war. To evade obstacles
on which an opponent relies, to multiply them in his path, to bewilder
him by feints before overwhelming him by a crushing onset, these are
the arts which yield success either to the negotiator or to the
commander.

In imposing terms of peace on the Emperor at Leoben (April 18th,
1797), Bonaparte reduced the Directory, and its envoy, Clarke, who was
absent in Italy, to a sub