by a secret sign, caused his whole staff to draw up around him, and when the bandage was removed from the messenger’s eyes, saluted him thus:  “What means this insolence?  Do you beard the French general in the middle of his army?” The German recognised the person of Napoleon, and retreated stammering and blushing.  He assured his commander that Lonato was occupied by the French in numbers that made resistance impossible.  Four thousand men laid down their arms; and then discovered that, if they had used them, nothing could have prevented Napoleon from being their prize.

Wurmser collected together the whole of his remaining force, and advanced to meet the conqueror.  He, meanwhile, had himself determined on the assault, and was hastening to the encounter.  They met between Lonato and Castiglione.  Wurmser was totally defeated, and narrowly escaped being a prisoner; nor did he without great difficulty regain Trent and Roveredo, those frontier positions from which his noble army had so recently descended with all the confidence of conquerors.  In this disastrous campaign the Austrians lost 40,000:  Buonaparte probably understated his own loss at 7000.  During the seven days which the campaign occupied he never took off his boots, nor slept except by starts.  The exertions which so rapidly achieved this signal triumph were such as to demand some repose; yet Napoleon did not pause until he saw Mantua once more completely invested.  The reinforcement and revictualling of that garrison were all that Wurmser could show, in requital of his lost artillery, stores, and 40,000 men.

During this brief campaign the aversion with which the ecclesiastics of Italy regarded the French manifested itself in various quarters.  At Pavia, Ferrara, and elsewhere, insurrections had broken out, and the spirit was spreading rapidly at the moment when the report of Napoleon’s new victory came to re-awaken terror and paralyse revolt.  The conqueror judged it best to accept for the present the resubmission, however forced, of a party too powerful to be put down by examples.  The Cardinal Mattei, Archbishop of Ferrara, being brought into his presence, uttered the single word peccavi:  the victor was contented with ordering him a penance of seven days’ fasting and prayer in a monastery:  but he had no intention to forget these occurrences whenever another day of reckoning with the Pope should come.

While he was occupied with restoring quiet in the country, Austria, ever constant in adversity, hastened to place 20,000 fresh troops under the orders of Wurmser; and the brave veteran, whose heart nothing could chill, prepared himself to make one effort more to relieve Mantua, and drive the French out of Lombardy.  His army was now, as before, greatly the superior in numbers; and though the bearing of his troops was more modest, their gallantry remained unimpaired.  Once more the old general divided his army; and once more he was destined to see it shattered in detail.