This alarming news awoke Bonaparte out of his dream of love, and neither Josephine’s tears nor prayers could keep him back.  He sent couriers to Paris, to implore from the Directory fresh troops and more money, to continue the campaign.  The Directory answered him with the proposition to divide the army of Italy into two columns, one of which would act under the commander-in-chief, General Kellermann, the other under Bonaparte.

But this proposition, which the jealous Directory made for the sake of breaking the growing power of Bonaparte, only served to lift him a step higher in his path to the brilliant career which he alone, in the depths of his heart, had traced, and the secret of which his closed lips would reveal to no one.

Bonaparte’s answer to this proposition of the Directory was, that if the power were to be divided, he could only refuse the half of this division, and would retire entirely from command.

He wrote to Carnot:  “It is a matter of indifference to me whether I carry on the war here or elsewhere.  To serve my country, and deserve from posterity one page of history, is all my ambition!  If both I and Kellermann command in Italy, then all is lost.  General Kellermann has more experience than I, and will carry on the war more ably.  But the matter can only be badly managed if we both command.  It is no pleasure for me to serve with a man whom Europe considers the first general of the age.”

Carnot showed this letter to the Directory, and declared that if Bonaparte were to be given up, he would himself resign his position of secretary of war.  The Directory was not prepared to accept this twofold responsibility, and they sacrificed Kellermann to the threats of Napoleon and Carnot.

General Bonaparte was confirmed in his position of commander-in-chief of the army in Italy, even for the future, and the conduct of the war was left in his hands alone.

With this fresh triumph over his enemies at home, Bonaparte marched from Milan to fight the re-enforced enemy of France in Italy.

On this new war-path, amid dangers and conflicts, the tumults of the fight, the noise of the camp, the confusion of the bivouac, the young general did not for one moment forget the wife he so passionately loved.  Nearly every day he wrote to her, and those letters, which were often written between the dictation of the battle’s plan, the dispatches to the Directory, and the impending conflict, were faithful waymarks, whose directions it is easy to follow, and thus trace the whole successful course of the hero of Italy.

To refer here to Bonaparte’s letters to Josephine, implies at once the mention of Bonaparte’s deeds and of Josephine’s happiness.  The first letter which he wrote after the interview in Milan is from Roverbella, and it tells her in a few words that he has just now beaten the foe, and that he is going to Verona.  The second is also short and hastily written, but is full of many delicate assurances