This period of Bonaparte’s career may well be lingered over by those who value his invigorating influence on Italian life more highly than his military triumphs.  At this epoch he was still the champion of the best principles of the Revolution; he had overthrown Austrian domination in the peninsula, and had shaken to their base domestic tyrannies worse than that of the Hapsburgs.  His triumphs were as yet untarnished.  If we except the plundering of the liberated and conquered lands, an act for which the Directory was primarily responsible, nothing was at this time lacking to the full orb of his glory.  An envoy bore him the welcome news that the English, wearied by the intractable Corsicans, had evacuated the island of his birth; and he forthwith arranged for the return of many of the exiles who had been faithful to the French Republic.  Among these was Salicetti, who now returned for a time to his old insular sphere; while his former protege was winning a world-wide fame.  Then, turning to the affairs of Central Italy, the young commander showed his diplomatic talents to be not a whit inferior to his genius for war.  One instance of this must here suffice.  He besought the Pope, who had broken off the lingering negotiations with France, not to bring on his people the horrors of war.[64] The beauty of this appeal, as also of a somewhat earlier appeal to the Emperor Francis at Vienna, is, however, considerably marred by other items which now stand revealed in Bonaparte’s instructive correspondence.  After hearing of the French defeats in Germany, he knew that the Directors could spare him very few of the 25,000 troops whom he demanded as reinforcements.

He was also aware that the Pope, incensed at his recent losses in money and lands, was seeking to revivify the First Coalition.  The pacific precepts addressed by the young Corsican to the Papacy must therefore be viewed in the light of merely mundane events and of his secret advice to the French agent at Rome:  “The great thing is to gain time....  Finally, the game really is for us to throw the ball from one to the other, so as to deceive this old fox."[65]

From these diplomatic amenities the general was forced to turn to the hazards of war.  Gauging Bonaparte’s missive at its true worth, the Emperor determined to re-conquer Italy, an enterprise that seemed well within his powers.  In the month of October victory had crowned the efforts of his troops in Germany.  At Wuerzburg the Archduke Charles had completely beaten Jourdan, and had thrown both his army and that of Moreau back on the Rhine.  Animated by reviving hopes, the Imperialists now assembled some 60,000 strong.  Alvintzy, a veteran of sixty years, renowned for his bravery, but possessing little strategic ability, was in command of some 35,000 men in the district of Friuli, north of Trieste, covering that seaport from a threatened French attack.  With this large force he was to advance due west, towards the River