He marched from Trent towards Mantua, through the defiles of the Brenta, at the head of 30,000; leaving 20,000 under Davidowich at Roveredo, to cover the Tyrol.  Buonaparte instantly detected the error of his opponent.  He suffered him to advance unmolested as far as Bassano, and the moment he was there, and consequently completely separated from Davidowich and his rear, drew together a strong force, and darted on Roveredo, by marches such as seemed credible only after they had been accomplished.

The battle of Roveredo (Sept. 4) is one of Napoleon’s most illustrious days.  The enemy had a strongly entrenched camp in front of the town; and behind it, in case of misfortune, Calliano, with its castle seated on a precipice over the Adige, where that river flows between enormous rocks and mountains, appeared to offer an impregnable retreat.  Nothing could withstand the ardour of the French.  The Austrians, though they defended the entrenched camp with their usual obstinacy, were forced to give way by the impetuosity of Dubois and his hussars.  Dubois fell, mortally wounded, in the moment of his glory:  he waved his sabre, cheering his men onwards with his last breath.  “I die,” said he, “for the Republic;—­only let me hear, ere life leaves me, that the victory is ours.”  The French horse, thus animated, pursued the Germans, who were driven, 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.