Notwithstanding the haste I made to leave Sens, the necessary formalities and precautions detained me some days, and at the moment I was about to depart I received the following letter: 

Headquarters, JUDENBOURG,
19th Germinal, Year V. (8th April 1797).

The General-in-Chief again orders me, my dear Bourrienne, to urge you to come to him quickly.  We are in the midst of success and triumphs.  The German campaign begins even more brilliantly than did the Italian.  You may judge, therefore, what a promise it holds out to us.  Come, my dear Bourrienne, immediately—­yield to our solicitations—­share our pains and pleasures, and you will add to our enjoyments.

I have directed the courier to pass through Sens, that he may
deliver this letter to you, and bring me back your answer. 
(Signed) Marmont.

To the above letter this order was subjoined: 

The citizen Fauvelet de Bourrienne is ordered to leave Sens, and
repair immediately by post to the headquarters of the army of Italy. 
(Signed) Bonaparte.

I arrived at the Venetian territory at the moment when the insurrection against the French was on the point of breaking out.  Thousands of peasants were instigated to rise under the pretext of appeasing the troubles of Bergamo and Brescia.  I passed through Verona on the 16th of April, the eve of the signature of the preliminaries of Leoben and of the revolt of Verona.  Easter Sunday was the day which the ministers of Jesus Christ selected for preaching “that it was lawful, and even meritorious, to kill Jacobins.”  Death to Frenchmen!—­Death to Jacobins! as they called all the French, were their rallying cries.  At the time I had not the slightest idea of this state of things, for I had left Sens only on the 11th of April.

After stopping two hours at Verona, I proceeded on my journey without being aware of the massacre which threatened that city.  When about a league from the town I was, however, stopped by a party of insurgents on their way thither, consisting, as I estimated, of about two thousand men.  They only desired me to cry ‘El viva Santo Marco’, an order with which I speedily complied, and passed on.  What would have become of me had I been in Verona on the Monday?  On that day the bells were rung, while the French were butchered in the hospitals.  Every one met in the streets was put to death.  The priests headed the assassins, and more than four hundred Frenchmen were thus sacrificed.  The forts held out against the Venetians, though they attacked them with fury; but repossession of the town was not obtained until after ten days.  On the very day of the insurrection of Verona some Frenchmen were assassinated between that city and Vicenza, through which I passed on the day before without danger; and scarcely had I passed through Padua, when I learned that others had been massacred there.  Thus the assassinations travelled as rapidly as the post.