On receiving the answer of the British minister, he said to Talleyrand (rubbing his hands, as was his custom when much pleased), “it could not have been more favourable.”  On the same day, the 7th of January (just three days after the date of Lord Grenville’s note), the First Consul issued his edict for the formation of an army of reserve, consisting of all the veterans who had ever served, and a new levy of 30,000 conscripts.

At this time France had four armies on her frontiers:  that of the North, under Brune, watched the partisans of the House of Orange in Holland, and guarded those coasts against any new invasion from England; the defeat of the Duke of York had enabled the government to reduce its strength considerably.  The second was the army of the Danube, under Jourdan, which, after the defeat at Stockach, had been obliged to repass the Rhine.  The third, under Massena, styled the army of Helvetia, had been compelled in the preceding campaign to evacuate great part of Switzerland; but, gaining the battle of Zurich against the Russians, now re-occupied the whole of that republic.  The fourth was that broken remnant which still called itself the “army of Italy.”  After the disastrous conflict of Genola it had rallied in disorder on the Apennine and the heights of Genoa, where the spirit of the troops was already so much injured, that whole battalions deserted en masse, and retired behind the Var.  Their distress, in truth, was extreme; for they had lost all means of communication with the valley of the Po, and the English fleet effectually blockaded the whole coasts both of Provence and Liguria; so that, pent up among barren rocks, they suffered the hardships and privations of a beleaguered garrison.

The Chief Consul sent Massena to assume the command of the “army of Italy”; and issued, on that occasion, a general order, which had a magical effect on the minds of the soldiery, Massena was highly esteemed among them; and after his arrival at Genoa, the deserters flocked back rapidly to their standards.  At the same time Buonaparte ordered Moreau to assume the command of the two corps of the Danube and Helvetia, and consolidate them into one great “army of the Rhine.”  Lastly, the rendezvous of the “army of reserve” was appointed for Dijon:  a central position from which either Messena or Moreau might, as circumstances demanded, be supported and reinforced; but which Napoleon really designed to serve for a cloak to his main purpose.  For he had already, in concert with Carnot, sketched the plan of that which is generally considered as at once the most daring and the most masterly of all the campaigns of the war; and which, in so far as the execution depended on himself, turned out also the most dazzlingly successful.