conclusion that this indulgence towards the soldiers and severity towards civilians was the result of a fixed determination to link indissolubly to his fortunes the generals and rank and file.  The contrast in his behaviour was often startling.  Some of the civilians he imprisoned:  others he desired to shoot; but as the hardiest robbers had generally made to themselves friends of the military mammon of unrighteousness, they escaped with a fine ridiculously out of proportion to their actual gains.[51]

The Dukes of Parma and Modena were also mulcted.  The former of these, owing to his relationship with the Spanish Bourbons, with whom the Directory desired to remain on friendly terms, was subjected to the fine of merely two million francs and twenty masterpieces of art, these last to be selected by French commissioners from the galleries of the duchy; but the Duke of Modena, who had assisted the Austrian arms, purchased his pardon by an indemnity of ten million francs, and by the cession of twenty pictures, the chief artistic treasures of his States.[52] As Bonaparte naively stated to the Directors, the duke had no fortresses or guns; consequently these could not be demanded from him.

From this degrading work Bonaparte strove to wean his soldiers by recalling them to their nobler work of carrying on the enfranchisement of Italy.  In a proclamation (May 20th) which even now stirs the blood like a trumpet call, he bade his soldiers remember that, though much had been done, a far greater task yet awaited them.  Posterity must not reproach them for having found their Capua in Lombardy.  Rome was to be freed:  the Eternal City was to renew her youth and show again the virtues of her ancient worthies, Brutus and Scipio.  Then France would give a glorious peace to Europe; then their fellow-citizens would say of each champion of liberty as he returned to his hearth:  “He was of the Army of Italy.”  By such stirring words did he entwine with the love of liberty that passion for military glory which was destined to strangle the Republic.

Meanwhile the Austrians had retired behind the banks of the Mincio and the walls of its guardian fortress, Mantua.  Their position was one of great strength.  The river, which carries off the surplus waters of Lake Garda, joins the River Po after a course of some thirty miles.  Along with the tongue-like cavity occupied by its parent lake, the river forms the chief inner barrier to all invaders of Italy.  From the earliest times down to those of the two Napoleons, the banks of the Mincio have witnessed many of the contests which have decided the fortunes of the peninsula.  On its lower course, where the river widens out into a semicircular lagoon flanked by marshes and backwaters, is the historic town of Mantua.  For this position, if we may trust the picturesque lines of Mantua’s noblest son,[53] the three earliest races of Northern Italy had striven; and when the power of imperial Rome was waning, the fierce Attila pitched his camp on the banks of the Mincio, and there received the pontiff Leo, whose prayers and dignity averted the threatening torrent of the Scythian horse.