surrounded by the imperial troops which had passed at Lecco, by the Russian vanguard under Vukassovich, and the division of Rosenberg which had passed at Brivi. In this desperate situation, for which he was indebted to his negligence in not guarding the post at Trezzo, Serrurier defended himself with obstinate courage; nor did he surrender with the wrecks of his division till he had obtained liberty for the officers to return to France on their parole, and the immediate exchange of his soldiers against whatever prisoners of the allied army might be made on that day. General Melas, who commanded the left column, marched upon Cassano. He forced at first the entrenchments of the Ritorto Canale, which he passed on a pont volant, under the fire of the French. He then stormed the head of the bridge on the Adda so expeditiously, that he saved it from the fire, and made use of it to pass his whole division, which took post the same evening (April 27th) at Gorginzolo. The French army, the loss of which was very considerable, made its retreat through Milan during the night, and the allied armies entered it the following day (28th April). Vukassovich pushed his advanced guard as far as Como, and a body of Russian troops passed through Milan the same day.

The capital of the Cisalpine republic was now once more in the power of the Austrians; and the severest satire on the French government was the little regret with which the great majority of the people saw them enter. In the Cisalpine republic the great mass of the people had hailed the arrival of the French as the birth-day of freedom; but the French directory, like despots who had subjugated a people, rather

than magistrates of a free nation who had executed a trust, affected to fear that the explosion of growing patriotism would become electric and contagious; that this rapid flame would burn brighter among the inhabitants of Italy who were yet enslaved; that it would lead them to form a community of interests and that a system of policy would be introduced, so as to compose a formidable coalition of those different nations, which France would be unable to retain as instruments obedient to its will. Instead of seeking in the Italian republics powerful and faithful allies, capable of contributing to the general support, these ignorant men were anxious only to form republics in miniature, satellites attached to the planet of the French republic, and compelled to follow its motions without adding to its lustre.

The undoubted interests of the French republic would have been to have given real, and not nominal independence to those countries; restraining them, nevertheless, from falling into the errors and calamities of which France had been the theatre, by counsels of friendship and lessons of experience; to have directed that strong and irresistible commotion into a proper channel ; to have excited a national energy; to have attached the inhabitants; to have armed them with care and circumspection, and thereby create a second levy, who should have been not automatons subjected to their caprice, but men whose gratitude and union of sentiment would have more closely and surely enchained them under the common banner of liberty.

These were considerations into which the directory could not enter, Swollen by the pride of victory, one of the last expedients of which

they

they thought was securing those victories by foreign resources, they never dreamt of the possibility of reverses; they never considered that one of the most important means of strengthening the power of the French republic would have been by the physical and moral corroboration of the Cisalpine republic. A contrary plan was followed; and the directory beheld in the aggrandisement of this latter state nothing but a rival, whose power it was anxious only to limit. This principle was instantly followed. The directory did not stoop to mystery to conceal it, but complimented themselves on their wisdom and inflexibility, when they prosecuted those who thought differently from themselves on the subject.

The patriots in Italy, who took the name of Unitarians, the denomination given to those who were anxious for a larger independence to their country, and for a more uniform system in the government, or rather the junction of the whole of the allied Italian states into one republic, were the particular objects of proscription. Some allow ance might have been made for those regulators of states, had their system with respect to Italy presented any advantages for France; but the only thing they sought or found in its servile degradation was the privilege of being unjust with impunity. Italy was to them a theatre for anatomical experiments of the coarsest kind; each director cut it up according to his fancy. But the "griding discontinuous wound" was the systematic plunder which was regularly organised, both in the civil and military departments, the chief instruments of which were the harpy commissaries of the executive directory, and the itinerant contractors of the French

army, who, on the opening of the campaign, are represented by the indignant Italians themselves as birds of voracious and insatiate prey, sticking, with their beak and claws, on the mutilated corpses, and not to be moved or scared away, except by the noise and clangor of arms.

The conduct, therefore, of the French government in Italy was the reverse of the principles of common justice and policy., In order to bind by ties of amity a nation of inferior rank to one more powerful, strength should hold out a friendly hand to weakness, and place it on the same level; but the French Government raised an iron arm over the Cisalpine, and kept it crushed under its feet. Moderation ought to regulate the will of a strong people, and the directory put no other bounds to its ambition but those of its force? Fidelity in engagements is an inviolable and sacred guarantee to a weaker people, and they tore into shreds the most solemn pages of treaties! The laws, and, above all, the fundamental laws of an ally, ought to be respected; but the French trod under foot the most august of rights, broke the charter of their constitution, and ejected the supreme magistrates of a friendly republic with less ceremony than they would have broken the subaltern officers of a subjugated province! Instead of being equitable, disinterested, and faithful to their engagements, they were unjust, avaricious, and perjured. The requisitions of every kind, with which the inhabitants were tormented, in consequence of the irregularity of the military service, had made them execrate a change of government, in which they had found only a change of slavery.

They

They beheld nothing in Frenchmen but bands of ruffians, who for a while had made a parade of humanity, in order to accomplish with greater facility their plan of seduction, and enrich themselves with the spoils of the people.

Under such circumstances it is not wonderful that a portion, at least, of the Cisalpines, should have prayed for the return of the Austrians, whose yoke, though not less painful, would be at least more tolerable, as their systematic disposition betrayed less of violence and passion than the insolent vivacity of the French. The abhorrence entertained for the French fell likewise on their agents, the supreme magistrates of the Cisalpine republic, the creatures of their power, and the servile instruments of their will. The Cisalpine diThe Cisalpine directory, whom the legislative body, on the retreat of the French army towards the Adda, had invested with its powers, had created consultative commissions to aid them in the adoption of measures fitted to save their country in this alarming crisis.

The violent measures proposed by those commissaries proved more injurious than beneficial. Lists of proscription were rumoured about; every one suspect ed or trembled; and every purse was at first shut against the forced loan which they proposed. A proclamation of the directory restored a momentary confidence, and influenced partial payments of this exaction; but the great mass refused their contribution, since there were not French soldiers enough in Mi. lan to force the execution. A plan of levying fourteen or fifteen millions was also proposed by the commission of finance; as that of raising an army of Cisalpines, under the French title of Moveable Co

lumns, had been proposed by the military commission. Those expedients, which in the beginning of the reverses of the French army might have preserved the Cisalpine republic under any other command than that of Scherer, were now too late. Several of the departments were then in possession of the Austrian army; and a river and a battle only divided it and Milan.

On the news of the result of the battle on the Adda, the Cisalpine directory, without concerting any measures, even with Scherer, who, driven from the army, had retreated some time before to Milan, or with Bivaud, the French embassador, who fled precipitately from the seat of government, to the great discontent of the legislative body, whom, notwithstanding the precautions suggested eight days before by Rivaud, they left, as well as the archives of the state, to the mercy of the Austro- Russian army, into whose possession they fell when they entered conquerors into Milan.

Such are the leading causes of the ruin of the Cisalpine republic, sub. dued not so much by Austro-Russian valour as French corruption and tyranny. Opinions had routed the French armies before the chance of real war had been tried, and even Austrian or Russian avengers received a melancholy and momentary welcome. Suwarrow found therefore no impediment to his progress from popular disaffection, and continued his pursuit of the French army, extending his right into Upper Italy, and separating the left of Moreau's army from the lakes and valleys which led to the principal entries into Switzerland. From this operation the position of the right of Massena's army, however strong in itself, became extremely delicate. The situation of Lecourbe's

was to establish a nearer communication with the left of Hotze, to surprise some passage on the lofty mountains which separate the waters of the Inn from those of the Languard and the Albula, which two rivers flow through the valley of the Grisons, and throw themselves into the Rhine above and below Coire.

The difficulties of the country, which it is impossible to describe, the inclemency of the season, and the active defence of the French troops under the orders of Lecourbe, had rendered the partial attempts made by general Bellegarde of no effect; and the attack combined with Hotze, and made (1st May) on every point of the line, had no better success, with respect to the general project, which was that of penetrating into the Grisons. Lecourbe defeated the Austrian troops under the command of the former in the Lower Engadin, and repulsed them with considerable loss, taking the prince De Ligne, and part of his troops, prisoners; while the division under Hotze, which had surprised general Menars in the Grisons, in his attempt on the fort of Luciensteig, and had penetrated as far as Mayenfield, was attacked in flank by general Chabrand, and driven back, after losing considerable numbers, among which the regiment of the prince of Orange was entirely destroyed.

This first attempt of general Hotze to carry by main force the fort of Luciensteig, the key of the Grisons, was concerted with the Grisons themselves, and the inhabitants of the little cantons of Switzerland, 10,000 of whom took arms on a sudden, and surprised the French posts at Disentis and Hantz, with such rapidity, that

if the attacks of the preceding day had succeeded, and more union had existed between the insurgents within and the Austrians without, the retreat of the French, the division of general Lecourbe, who then occupied the Upper Engadin, and the communications by St. Gotherd, would have been infallibly cut off.

Disentis, in the high valley of the Hither Rhine, is the point of communication between the Grisons and the cantons of Glaris and Uri. A body of about 6000 peasants had poured down on the bridge of Rechenau, of which they had taken possession. Massena, who had not been able, by any diversion, to divide the forces of the archduke, hastened to strengthen his left, which had been considerably shaken in this last attack. He reinforced the post of Luciensteig, and detached Menars against the armed Swiss peasantry. This latter general dislodged them from Rechenau, and pursued them as far as Disentes, where he came up with the main body, which he dispersed, after killing about two thousand. Massena, meanwhile, attacked the Swiss of the little cantons on the side of the lake at Schwitz, where they were forced to lay down their arms; and also at Altorf, where 4000 men, baving sustained the charge with a few pieces of cannon, were cut in pieces or di spersed. General Soult, who commanded this expedition, pursued the wrecks of this army, as far as the Valley of Urseren, in order to prevent them from getting possession of the pass of St. Gothard. But it was not sufficient for the surety of the left of the French army in Switzerland to re-establish its internal communications; since, after the passage of the Adda, the pos

session