Various
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. III, No. XVII, October 1851

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT

III. FIRST CAMPAIGN IN ITALY

The discomfiture of the insurgent sections at Paris, and the energy, tact, and humanity which Napoleon displayed in the subsequent government of the tumultuous city, caused his name to be as familiar as a household word in all parts of the metropolis. His slight and slender figure, so feminine and graceful in its proportions; his hand, so small and white and soft that any lady might covet it; his features, so mild and youthful in their expression, and all these combined in strange alliance with energies as indomitable, and a will as imperious as were ever enshrined in mortal form, invested the young general with a mysterious and almost supernatural fascination.

Famine was rioting in the streets of Paris. All industry was at an end. The poor, unemployed, were perishing. The rich were gathering the wrecks of their estates, and flying from France. There was no law but such as was proclaimed by the thunders of Napoleon's batteries. The National Guard he immediately reorganized, and soon efficient order was established. Napoleon was incessantly occupied in visiting all parts of the city, and words of kindness and sympathy with suffering he combined with the strong and inexorable arm of military rule. More than a hundred families, says the Duchess of Abrantes, were saved from perishing by his personal exertions. He himself climbed to the garrets of penury, and penetrated the cellars of want and woe, and, with a moistened eye, gazed upon the scenes of fearful wretchedness with which Paris was filled. He caused wood and bread to be distributed to the poor, and totally regardless of ease or self-indulgence, did every thing in his power to alleviate suffering.

One day when alighting from his carriage to dine at Madame Permon's, he was addressed by a woman who held a dead infant in her arms. Grief and hunger had dried up the fountain of life in her bosom, and her unweaned child had perished of starvation. Her husband was dead, and five children were mourning for food at home. "If I can not obtain relief," said the famished mother, "I must take my remaining five children and drown myself with them." Napoleon questioned her very minutely, ascertained her place of residence, and giving her some money to meet her immediate wants, entered the house and sat down with the guests at the brilliant entertainment. He was, however, so deeply impressed with the scene of wretchedness which he had just witnessed, that he could not obliterate it from his mind, and all were struck with his absent manner and the sadness of his countenance. Immediately after dinner he took measures to ascertain the truth of the statements which the poor woman had made to him, and finding all her assertions verified, he took the family immediately under his protection. He obtained employment for the girls in needlework among his friends, and the family ever expressed the most profound gratitude for their preserver. It was by the unceasing exhibition of such traits of character that Napoleon entwined around him the hearts of the French people.

There was, at this time in Paris, a lady, who was rendered quite prominent in society, by her social attractions, her personal loveliness, and her elevated rank. She was a widow, twenty-eight years of age. Her husband, the Viscount Beauharnais, had recently perished upon the scaffold, an illustrious victim of revolutionary fury. Josephine Tascher Beauharnais, who subsequently became the world-renowned bride of Napoleon, was born on the island of Martinice in the West Indies. When almost a child she was married to the Viscount Beauharnais, who had visited the island on business and was captivated by the loveliness of the fair young Creole. Upon entering Paris she was immediately introduced to all the splendors of the court of Maria-Antoinette. The revolutionary storm soon burst upon her dwelling with merciless fury. She experienced the most afflictive reverses of friendlessness, bereavement, imprisonment, and penury. The storm had, however, passed over her, and she was left a widow, with two children, Eugene and Hortense. From the wreck of her fortune she had saved an ample competence, and was surrounded by influential and admiring friends.

Napoleon, in obedience to the orders of the Convention, to prevent the possibility of another outbreak of lawless violence, had proceeded to the disarming of the populace of Paris. In the performance of this duty the sword of M. Beauharnais was taken. A few days afterward Eugene, a very intelligent and graceful child, twelve years of age, obtained access to Napoleon, and with most engaging artlessness and depth of emotion, implored that the sword of his father might be restored to him. Napoleon had no heart to deny such a request. He sent for the sword, and speaking with kind words of commendation, presented it with his own hand to Eugene. The grateful boy burst into tears and, unable to articulate a word, pressed the sword to his bosom, bowed in silence and retired. Napoleon was much interested in this exhibition of filial love, and his thoughts were immediately directed to the mother who had formed the character of such a child. Josephine, whose whole soul was absorbed in love for her children, was so grateful, for the kindness with which the distinguished young general had treated her fatherless Eugene, that she called, in her carriage, the next day, to express to him a mother's thanks. She was dressed in deep mourning. Her peculiarly musical voice was tremulous with emotion. The fervor and the delicacy of her maternal love, and the perfect grace of manner and of language, with which she discharged her mission, excited the admiration of Napoleon. He soon called upon her. The acquaintance rapidly ripened into an unusually strong and ardent affection.

Josephine was two years older than Napoleon. But her form and features had resisted the encroachments of time, and her cheerfulness and vivacity invested her with all the charms of early youth. Barras, now one of the five Directors, who had been established in power by the guns of Napoleon, was a very ardent friend of Josephine. He warmly advocated the contemplated connection, deeming it mutually advantageous. Napoleon would greatly increase his influence by an alliance with one occupying so high a position in society and surrounded by friends so influential. And Barras clearly foresaw that the energetic young general possessed genius which would insure distinction. Josephine thus speaks, in a letter to a friend, of her feelings in view of the proposed marriage.

"I am urged to marry again. My friends counsel the measure, my aunt almost lays her injunctions to the same effect, and my children entreat my compliance. You have met General Bonaparte at my house. He it is who would supply a father's place to the orphans of Alexander Beauharnais, and a husband to his widow. I admire the general's courage, the extent of his information, for on all subjects he talks equally well, and the quickness of his judgment, which enables him to seize the thoughts of others almost before they are expressed. But I confess that I shrink from the despotism he seems desirous of exercising over all who approach him. His searching glance has something singular and inexplicable, which imposes even upon our Directors; judge if it may not intimidate a woman.

"Barras gives assurance that if I marry the general, he will secure his appointment to the command of the army of Italy. Yesterday, Bonaparte speaking of this favor, said to me, 'Think they then, that I have need of their protection to arrive at power? Egregious mistake! They will all be but too happy, one day, should I condescend to grant them mine.'

"What think you of this self-confidence? Is it not a proof of excess of vanity? A general of brigade protect the heads of government! That truly is an event highly probable! I know not how it is, but sometimes this waywardness gains upon me to such a degree, that almost I believe possible whatever this singular man may take into his head to attempt. And with his imagination, who can calculate what he will not undertake."

Though the passion with which Josephine had inspired Napoleon, was ardent and impetuous in the highest degree, it interfered not in the least with his plans of towering ambition. During the day he was vigorously employed in his professional duties and in persevering study. But each evening found him at the mansion of Josephine, where he met, and dazzled by his commanding genius and his brilliant conversational powers, the most distinguished and the most influential men of the metropolis. In these social entertainments, Josephine testified that Napoleon possessed unlimited powers of fascination, whenever he saw fit to employ them. His acquaintance and his influence was thus extended among those who would be most available in the furtherance of his plans. On the 6th of March, 1796, Napoleon and Josephine were married, Napoleon being then twenty-five years of age. It was a union of very sincere affection on both sides. It can not be doubted that next to ambition, Josephine was to Napoleon the dearest object of his admiration and homage. Marriage had then ceased to be regarded in infidel France as a religious rite. It was a mere partnership which any persons could form or dissolve at pleasure. The revolutionary tribunals had closed the churches, banished the clergy, and dethroned God. The parties, contemplating marriage, simply recorded their intention in the state register of Paris, with two or three friends to sign the record as witnesses. By this simple ceremony Napoleon was united to Josephine. But neither of the parties approved of this mercantile aspect of a transaction so sacred. They were both, in natural disposition serious, thoughtful, and prone to look to the guidance of a power higher than that of man. Surrounded by infidelity, and by that vice with which public infidelity is invariably accompanied, they both instinctively reverenced all that is grand and imposing in the revelations of Christianity.

"Man, launched into life," said Napoleon, "asks himself, whence do I come? What am I? Whither do I go? Mysterious questions which draw him toward religion; our hearts crave the support and guidance of religious faith. We believe in the existence of God because every thing around us proclaims his being. The greatest minds have cherished this conviction – Bossuet, Newton, Leibnitz. The heart craves faith as the body food; and, without doubt, we believe most frequently without exercising our reason. Faith wavers as soon as we begin to argue. But even then our hearts say, 'Perhaps I shall again believe instinctively. God grant it. For we feel that this belief in a protecting deity must be a great happiness; an immense consolation in adversity, and a powerful safeguard when tempted to immorality.

"The virtuous man never doubts of the existence of God, for if his reason does not suffice to comprehend it, the instinct of his soul adopts the belief. Every intimate feeling of the soul is in sympathy with the sentiments of religion."

These are profound thoughts and it is strange that they should have sprung up in the mind of one educated in the midst of the violence, and the clangor, and the crime of battle, and accustomed to hear from the lips of all around him, every religious sentiment ridiculed as the superstition of the most weak and credulous.

When at St. Helena, Napoleon, one evening, called for the New Testament, and read to his friends the address of Jesus to his disciples upon the mountain. He expressed himself as having been ever struck with the highest admiration in view of the purity, the sublimity, and the beauty of the morality which it contained. Napoleon seldom spoke lightly even of the corruptions of the church. But he always declared his most exalted appreciation of the religion of Jesus Christ.

When Napoleon was crowned Emperor he was privately married again by Cardinal Fesch, in accordance with the forms of the church which the Emperor had re-established. "Josephine," said Napoleon, "was truly a most lovely woman; refined, affable, and charming. She was the goddess of the toilet. All the fashions originated with her. Every thing she put on appeared elegant. She was so kind, so humane – she was the most graceful lady and the best woman in France. I never saw her act inelegantly during the whole time we lived together. She possessed a perfect knowledge of the different shades of my character, and evinced the most exquisite tact in turning this knowledge to the best account. For example, she never solicited any favor for Eugene, or thanked me for any that I conferred upon him. She never showed any additional complaisance or assiduity when he was receiving from me the greatest honors. Her grand aim was to assume that all this was my affair – that Eugene was our son, not hers. Doubtless she entertained the idea that I would adopt Eugene as my successor."

Again, he said, of Josephine, "we lived together like honest citizens in our mutual relations, and always retired together till 1805, a period in which political events obliged me to change my habits, and to add the labors of the night to those of the day. This regularity is the best guarantee for a good establishment. It ensures the respectability of the wife, the dependence of the husband, and maintains intimacy of feelings and good morals. If this is not the case, the smallest circumstances make people forget each other. A son by Josephine would have rendered me happy, and would have secured the reign of my dynasty. The French would have loved him very much better than they could love the son of Maria Louisa; and I never would have put my foot on that abyss covered with flowers, which was my ruin. Let no one after this rely upon the wisdom of human combinations. Let no one venture to pronounce, before its close, upon the happiness or misery of life. My Josephine had the instinct of the future when she became terrified at her own sterility. She knew well that a marriage is only real when there is an offspring; and in proportion as fortune smiled her anxiety increased. I was the object of her deepest attachment. If I went into my carriage at midnight for a long journey, there, to my surprise, I found her, seated before me, and awaiting my arrival. If I attempted to dissuade her from accompanying me, she had so many good and affectionate reasons to urge, that it was almost always necessary to yield. In a word she always proved to me a happy and affectionate wife, and I have preserved the tenderest recollections of her.

"Political motives induced me to divorce Josephine, whom I most tenderly loved. She, poor woman, fortunately for herself, died in time to prevent her from witnessing the last of my misfortunes. After her forcible separation from me, she avowed, in most feeling terms, her ardent desire to share with me, my exile and extolled, with many tears, both myself and my conduct to her. The English have represented me as a monster of cruelty. Is this the result of the conduct of a merciless, unfeeling tyrant? A man is known by his treatment of his wife, of his family, and of those under him."

Just before his marriage, Napoleon received the appointment, to him most gratifying, of Commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. His predecessor had been displaced in consequence of excessive intemperance. Napoleon was but twenty-five years of age when placed in this responsible post. "You are rather young," said one of the Directors, "to assume responsibilities so weighty, and to take the command over veteran generals." "In one year," Napoleon replied, "I shall be either old or dead." "We can place you in the command of men alone," said Carnot, "for the troops are destitute of every thing, and we can furnish you with no money to provide supplies." "Give me only men enough," Napoleon replied, "and I ask for nothing more. I will be answerable for the result."

A few days after Napoleon's marriage, he left his bride in Paris, and set out for Nice, the head-quarters of the army of Italy. He passed through Marseilles, that he might pay a short visit to his mother, whose love he ever cherished with the utmost tenderness, and on the 27th of March arrived at the cold and cheerless camps, where the dejected troops of France were enduring every hardship. They were surrounded by numerous foes, who had driven them from the fertile plains of Italy into the barren and dreary fastnesses of the Alps. The Austrian armies, quartered in opulent cities, or encamped upon sunny and vine-clad hill-sides, were living in the enjoyment of security and abundance, while the troops of the distracted and impoverished republic were literally freezing and starving. But here let us pause for a moment to consider the cause of the war, and the motives which animated the contending armies.

France, in the exercise of a right which few in America will question, had, in imitation of the United States, and incited by their example, renounced the monarchical form of government, and established a republic. For centuries uncounted, voluptuous kings and licentious nobles had trampled the oppressed millions into the dust. But now these millions had risen in their majesty, and driving the king from his throne and the nobles from their wide domains, had taken their own interests into their own hands. They were inexperienced and unenlightened in the science of government, and they made many and lamentable mistakes. They were terrified in view of the powerful combination of all the monarchs and nobles of Europe to overwhelm them with invading armies, and in their paroxysms of fear, when destruction seemed to be coming like an avalanche upon them, they perpetrated many deeds of atrocious cruelty. They simply claimed the right of self-government, and when assailed, fell upon their assailants with blind and merciless fury.

The kings of Europe contemplated this portentous change with inexpressible alarm. In consternation they witnessed the uprising of the masses in France, and saw one of their brother monarchs dragged from his palace and beheaded upon the guillotine. The successful establishment of the French Republic would very probably have driven every King in Europe from his throne. England was agitated through all her countries. From the mud cabins of Ireland, from the dark and miry mines, from the thronged streets of the city, and the crowded workshops all over the kingdom, there was a clamorous cry ascending for liberty and equality. The spirit of democracy, radiating from its soul in Paris, was assailing every throne in Europe. There was no alternative for these monarchs but to crush this new power, or to perish before it. There can be no monarchist whose sympathies will not beat high with the allied kings in the fearful conflict which ensued. There can be no republican who will not pray, "God speed the Eagles of France." Both parties believed that they were fighting in self-defense. The kings were attacked by principles triumphant in France, which were undermining their thrones. The French were attacked by bayonets and batteries – by combined armies invading their territories, bombarding their cities, and endeavoring by force of arms, to compel a proud nation of thirty millions of inhabitants to reinstate, at foreign dictation, the rejected Bourbons upon the throne. The allies called upon all the loyalists scattered over France to grasp their arms, to rally beneath the banner of friends coming to their rescue, and to imbrue their country in the blood of a civil war. The French, in trumpet tones, summoned the people of all lands to hail the tri-colored flag, as the harbinger of their deliverance from the servitude of ages. From every city in Europe which Napoleon approached, with his conquering armies, the loyalists fled, while the republicans welcomed him with an adulation amounting almost to religious homage. And the troops of the allies were welcomed, in every city of France which they entered, with tears of gratitude from the eyes of those who longed for the restoration of the monarchy. It was a conflict between the spirit of republicanism on the one side, and of monarchical and ecclesiastical domination upon the other.

England, with her invincible fleet, was hovering around the coasts of the republic, assailing every exposed point, landing troops upon the French territory, and arming and inspiriting the loyalists to civil war. Austria had marched an army of nearly two hundred thousand men upon the banks of the Rhine, to attack France upon the north. She had called into requisition all her Italian possessions, and in alliance with the British navy, and the armies of the king of Sardinia, and the fanatic legions of Naples and Sicily had gathered eighty thousand men upon the Alpine frontier. This host was under the command of experienced generals, and was abundantly provided with all the munitions of war. These were the invading foes whom Napoleon was to encounter in fields of blood. It was purely a war of self-defense on the part of the French people. They were contending against the bullets and the bayonets of the armies of monarchical Europe, assailing them at every point. The allied kings felt that they also were engaged in a war of self-defense – that they were struggling against principles which threatened to undermine their thrones. Strange as the declaration to some may appear, it is extremely difficult for a candid and an impartial man severely to censure either side. It is not strange, contemplating frail human nature as it is, that the monarchs of Europe, born to a kingly inheritance, should have made every exertion to retain their thrones, and to secure their kingdoms from the invasion of republican principles. It is not strange that republicanized France, having burst the chains of an intolerable despotism, should have resolved to brave all the horrors of the most desperate war rather than surrender the right of choosing its own form of government. The United States were protected from a similar onset, on the part of allied Europe, only by the wide barrier of the ocean. And had the combined armies of monarchical Europe crossed that barrier, and invaded our shores, to compel us to replace George III. upon his American throne, we should have blest the Napoleon, emerging from our midst, who, contending for the liberties of his country, had driven them back into the sea.

When Napoleon arrived at Nice he found that he had but thirty thousand men with whom to repel the eighty thousand of the allies. The government was impoverished, and had no means to pay the troops. The soldiers were dejected, emaciate, and ragged. The cavalry horses had died upon the bleak and frozen summits of the mountains, and the army was almost entirely destitute of artillery. The young commander-in-chief, immediately upon his arrival, summoned his generals before him. Many of them were veteran soldiers, and they were not a little chagrined in seeing a youth, whom they regarded almost as a beardless boy, placed over them in command. But in the very first hour in which he met them, his superiority was recognized; and he gained a complete and an unquestioned ascendency over all. Berthier, Massena, Augereau, Serrurier, and Lannes were there, men who had already attained renown, and who were capable of appreciating genius. "This is the leader," said one, as he left this first council, "who will surely guide us to fame and fortune."

The French were on the cold crests of the mountains. The allies were encamped in the warm and fertile valleys which opened into the Italian plains. The untiring energy of the youthful general, his imperial mind, his unhesitating reliance upon his own mental resources, his perfect acquaintance with the theatre of war, as the result of his previous explorations, his gravity and reserve of manners, his spotless morality, so extraordinary in the midst of all the dissipated scenes of the camp, commanded the reverence of the dissolute and licentious, though brave and talented generals who surrounded him. There was an indescribable something in his manner which immediately inspired respect and awe, and which kept all familiarity at a distance.

Decres had known Napoleon well in Paris, and had been on terms of perfect intimacy with him. He was at Toulon when he heard of Napoleon's appointment to the command of the army of Italy. "When I learned," said he, "that the new general was about to pass through the city, I immediately proposed to introduce my comrades to him, and to turn my acquaintance to the best account. I hastened to meet him full of eagerness and joy. The door of the apartment was thrown open, and I was upon the point of rushing to him with my wonted familiarity. But his attitude, his look, the tone of his voice suddenly deterred me. There was nothing haughty or offensive in his appearance or manner, but the impression he produced was sufficient to prevent me from ever again attempting to encroach upon the distance which separated us."¹

A similar ascendency, notwithstanding his feminine stature and the extreme youthfulness of his appearance, he immediately gained over all the soldiers and all the generals of the army. Every one who entered his presence was awed by the indescribable influence of his imperial mind. No one ventured to contend with him for the supremacy. He turned with disgust from the licentiousness and dissipation which ever disgraces the presence of an army, and with a sternness of morality which would have done honor to any of the sages of antiquity, secured that respect which virtue ever commands. There were many very beautiful and dissolute females in Nice, opera singers and dancing girls, who, trafficking in their charms, were living in great wealth and voluptuousness. They exhausted all their arts of enticement to win the attention of the young commander-in-chief. But their allurements were unavailing. Napoleon proved a Samson whom no Delilah could seduce. And this was the more extraordinary, since his natural temperament was glowing and impetuous in the extreme, and he had no religious scruples to interfere with his indulgences. "My extreme youth," said he, afterward, "when I took command of the army of Italy, rendered it necessary that I should evince great reserve of manners and the utmost severity of morals. This was indispensable to enable me to sustain authority over men so greatly my superiors in age and experience. I pursued a line of conduct in the highest degree irreproachable and exemplary. In spotless morality I was a Cato, and must have appeared such to all. I was a philosopher and a sage. My supremacy could be retained only by proving myself a better man than any other man in the army. Had I yielded to human weaknesses I should have lost my power."

He was temperate in the extreme, seldom allowing himself to take even a glass of wine, and never did he countenance by his presence any scene of bacchanalian revelry. For gaming, in all its branches, he manifested then, and through the whole of his life, the strongest disapproval. He ever refused to repose confidence in any one who was addicted to that vice. One day at St. Helena, he was conversing with Las Casas, when some remark which was made led Napoleon to inquire, "Were you a gamester?" "Alas, sire!" Las Casas replied, "I must confess that I was, but only occasionally." "I am very glad," Napoleon rejoined, "that I knew nothing of it at the time. You would have been ruined in my esteem. A gamester was sure to forfeit my confidence. The moment I heard that a man was addicted to that vice I placed no more confidence in him."

From what source did this young soldier imbibe these elevated principles? Licentiousness, irreligion, gambling had been the trinity of revolutionary France – the substitute which rampant infidelity had adopted, for a benignant Father, a pleading Saviour, a sanctifying Spirit. Napoleon was reared in the midst of these demoralizing influences. And yet how unsullied does his character appear when compared with that of his companions in the camp and on the throne! Napoleon informs us that to his mother he was indebted for every pure and noble sentiment which inspired his bosom.

Letitia, the mother of Napoleon, was a woman of extraordinary endowments. She had herself hardly passed the period of childhood, being but nineteen years of age, when she heard the first wailing cry of Napoleon, her second born, and pressed the helpless babe, with thanksgiving and prayer, to her maternal bosom. She was a young mother to train and educate such a child for his unknown but exalted destiny. She encircled, in protecting arms, the nursing babe, as it fondled a mother's bosom with those little hands, which, in after years, grasped sceptres, and uphove thrones, and hewed down armies with resistless sword. She taught those infant lips to lisp "papa" – "mamma" – those lips at whose subsequent command all Europe was moved, and whose burning, glowing, martial words fell like trumpet-tones upon the world, hurling nation upon nation in the shock of war. She taught those feeble feet to make their first trembling essays upon the carpet, rewarding the successful endeavor with a mother's kiss and a mother's caress – those feet which afterward strode over the sands of the desert, and waded through the blood-stained snow-drifts of Russia, and tottered, in the infirmities of sickness and death, on the misty, barren, storm-swept crags of St. Helena. She instilled into the bosom of her son those elevated principles of honor and self-respect, which, when surrounded by every temptation earth could present, preserved him from the degraded doom of the inebriate, of the voluptuary, and of the gamester, and which made the court of Napoleon, when the most brilliant court this world has ever known, also the most illustrious for the purity of its morals and the decorum of its observances. The sincere, unaffected piety of Letitia rose so high above the corruptions of a corrupt and profligate church, that her distinguished son, notwithstanding the all but universal infidelity of the times, was compelled to respect a religion which had embellished a beloved mother's life. He was thus induced, in his day of power, to bring back a wayward nation of thirty millions from cheerless, brutalizing, comfortless unbelief, to all the consoling, ennobling, purifying influences of Christianity. When at the command of Napoleon the church bells began again to toll the hour of prayer, on every hill-side, and through every valley in France, and the dawn of the Sabbath again guided rejoicing thousands in the crowded city and in the silent country to the temples of religion – when the young, in their nuptials, and the aged in their death were blessed by the solemnities of gospel ministrations, it was a mother's influence which inspired a dutiful son to make the magic change, which thus, in an hour, transformed France from a pagan to nominally a Christian land. It was the calm, gentle, persuasive voice of Letitia which was embodied in the consular decree. Honor to Letitia, the mother of Napoleon!

The first interview between this almost beardless youth and the veteran generals whom he was to command, must have presented a singular scene. These scarred and war-worn chiefs, when they beheld the "stripling," were utterly amazed at the folly of the Directory in sending such a youth to command an army in circumstances so desperate. Rampon undertook to give the young commander some advice. Napoleon, who demanded obedience not advice, impatiently brushed him away, exclaiming, "Gentlemen! the art of war is in its infancy. The time has passed in which enemies are mutually to appoint the place of combat, advance hat in hand and say, 'Gentlemen, will you have the goodness to fire.' We must cut the enemy in pieces, precipitate ourselves like a torrent upon their battalions, and grind them to powder. Experienced generals conduct the troops opposed to us! So much the better, so much the better. It is not their experience which will avail them against me. Mark my words; they will soon burn their books on tactics and know not what to do. Yes, gentlemen! the first onset of the Italian army will give birth to a new epoch in military affairs. As for us, we must hurl ourselves on the foe like a thunderbolt, and smite like it. Disconcerted by our tactics, and not daring to put them into execution, they will fly before us as the shades of night before the uprising sun."

The commanding and self-confident tone in which Napoleon uttered these glowing sentences, silenced and confounded the generals. They felt that they had indeed a master. "Well," said Augereau, as he left the council, nodding very significantly to Massena, "we have a man here who will cut out some work for government, I think." "It was necessary for me," Napoleon afterward remarked, "to be a little austere, to prevent my generals from slapping me upon the shoulder."

The objects which Napoleon had in view in this campaign were, first, to compel the King of Sardinia to abandon the alliance with Austria; secondly, to assail the Austrians with such vigor as to compel the Emperor to call to his aid the troops upon the Rhine, and thus weaken the powerful hosts then marching against the Republic; and, thirdly, to humble the Pope, who was exerting all his spiritual power to aid the Bourbons in fighting their way back to the throne of France. The Pope had offered an unpardonable insult to the Republic. The French embassador sent to Rome, had been attacked in the streets, and chased home. The mob broke into his house and cruelly assassinated him, unarmed and unresisting. The murderers remained unpunished, and no atonement had been made for the atrocious crime. But how, with thirty thousand troops, unpaid, dejected, famished, and unprovided with the munitions of war, was mortal man to accomplish such results in the face of a foe eighty thousand strong, living in abundance, and flushed with victory!

Napoleon issued his first proclamation. It was read to every regiment in the army, and rang, like trumpet-tones, upon the ears of the troops. "Soldiers! you are hungry and naked; the government owes you much, and can pay you nothing. Your patience, your courage, in the midst of these rocks, are admirable, but they reflect no splendor upon your arms. I come to lead you into the most fertile plains the sun beholds. Rich provinces, opulent cities will soon be at your disposal. There you will find abundant harvests, honor, and glory. Soldiers of Italy, will you fail in courage?" It is not strange that such words, from their young and fearless leader, should have inspired enthusiasm, and should have caused the hearts of the desponding to leap high with hope and confidence. The simple plan which Napoleon adopted, was to direct his whole force against detached portions of the Austrian army, and thus by gaining, at the point of attack, a superiority in numbers, to destroy them by piecemeal. "War," said the young soldier, "is the science of barbarians; and he who has the heaviest battalions will conquer."

The whole army was instantly on the move. The generals, appreciating the wisdom and the fearlessness of their indomitable leader, imbibed his spirit and emulated his zeal. Napoleon was on horseback night and day. He seemed to take no time to eat or to sleep. He visited the soldiers, sympathized with them in their sufferings, and revealed to them his plans. It was early in the spring. Bleak glaciers and snow-covered ridges of the Alps were between Napoleon and the Austrians. Behind this curtain he assembled his forces. Enormous sacrifices were required to enable the soldiers to move from point to point with that celerity which was essential in operations so hazardous. He made no allowance for any impediments or obstacles. At a given hour the different divisions of the army, by various roads, were to be at a designated point. To accomplish this, every sacrifice was to be made of comfort and of life. If necessary to the attainment of this end stragglers were to be left behind, baggage abandoned, artillery even to be left in the ruts, and the troops were to be, without fail, at the designated place at the appointed hour. Through storms of rain and snow, over mountain and moor, by night and by day, hungry, sleepless, wet, and cold, the enthusiastic host pressed on. It seems incredible that the young Napoleon, so instantaneously as it were, should have been enabled to infuse his almost supernatural energy into the whole army. He had neither mules with which to attempt the passage of the Alps, nor money to purchase the necessary supplies. He therefore decided to turn the mountains, by following down the chain along the shores of the Mediterranean, to a point where the lofty ridges sink almost to a plain.

The army of Beaulieu was divided into three corps. His centre, ten thousand strong, was at the small village of Montenotte. The night of the 11th of April was dark and tempestuous. Torrents of rain were falling, and the miry roads were almost impassable. But through the long hours of this stormy night, while the Austrians were reposing warmly in their tents, Napoleon and his soldiers, drenched with rain, were toiling through the muddy defiles of the mountains, wading the swollen streams, and climbing the slippery cliffs. Just as the day began to dawn through the broken clouds, the young general stood upon the heights in the rear of Montenotte, and looked down upon the encamped host whom he was now for the first time to encounter in decisive conflict. He had so manœuvred as completely to envelop his unsuspecting enemy. Allowing his weary troops not an hour for repose, he fell upon the allied Austrians and Sardinians like a whirlwind, attacking them, at the same moment, in front, flank, and rear. The battle was long and bloody. The details of these horrid scenes of carnage are sickening. The shout of onset, the shriek of agony; the mutilated and the mangled forms of the young and the noble, trampled beneath the iron hoofs of rushing squadrons; the wounded crushed into the mire, with their bones ground to powder as the wheels of ponderous artillery were dragged mercilessly over them, and the wailing echo of widows and orphans in their distant homes, render these battle-fields revolting to humanity. At length the Austrians were broken and completely routed. They fled in dismay, leaving three thousand dead and wounded upon the field, and their cannon and colors in possession of the French. This was the first battle in which Napoleon had the supreme command; the first victory in which the honor redounded to himself. "My title of nobility," said he proudly to the Emperor of Austria, "dates from the battle of Montenotte." The Austrians fled in one direction to Dego, to meet reinforcements coming to their aid and to protect Milan. The Sardinians retreated in another direction to Millesimo, to cover their own capital of Turin. Thus the two armies were separated as Napoleon desired. The indefatigable general, allowing his exhausted and bleeding army but a few hours of repose, and himself not one, resolved, while his troops were flushed with victory, and the enemy were depressed by defeat and loss, to attack both armies at once. The 13th and the 14th of April were passed in one incessant conflict. The Austrians and Sardinians intrenching themselves in strong fortresses and upon craggy hill-sides, and every hour receiving reinforcements pressing on to their aid, cast showers of stones and rolled heavy rocks upon their assailants, sweeping away whole companies at a time. Napoleon was every where, sharing the toil, incurring the danger, and inspiring his men with his own enthusiastic ardor and courage. In both battles the French were entirely victorious. At Dego, the Austrians were compelled to abandon their artillery and baggage, and escape as they could over the mountains, leaving three thousand prisoners in the hands of the conqueror. At Millesimo, fifteen hundred Sardinians were compelled to surrender. Thus like a thunderbolt Napoleon opened the campaign. In three days, three desperate battles had been fought, and three decisive victories gained. Still Napoleon's situation was perilous in the extreme. He was surrounded by forces vastly superior to his own, crowding down upon him. The Austrians were amazed at his audacity. They deemed it the paroxysm of a madman, who throws himself single-handed into the midst of an armed host. His destruction was sure, unless by almost supernatural rapidity of marching, he could prevent the concentration of these forces and bring superior numbers to attack and destroy the detached portions. A day of inaction, an hour of hesitancy, might have been fatal. It was in the battle at Dego that Napoleon was first particularly struck with the gallantry of a young officer named Lannes. In nothing was the genius of this extraordinary man more manifest, than in the almost intuitive penetration with which he discovered character. Lannes became subsequently Duke of Montebello and one of the marshals of the Empire.²

In the midst of these marches and counter-marches and these incessant battles, there had been no opportunity to distribute regular rations among the troops. The soldiers, destitute of every thing, began to pillage. Napoleon, who was exceedingly anxious to win the good-will of the people of Italy and to be welcomed by them as their deliverer from proud oppressors, proceeded against the culprits with great severity, and immediately re-established the most rigid discipline in the army.

He had now advanced to the summit of Mt. Zemolo. From that eminence the troops looked down upon the lovely plains of Italy, opening, like a diorama beneath them. The poetic sensibilities of Napoleon were deeply moved by the majestic spectacle. Orchards and vineyards, and fertile fields and peaceful villages lay spread out, a scene of perfect enchantment, in the extended valley. Majestic rivers, reflecting the rays of the sun like ribbons of silver, meandered through meadow and forest; encircling the verdant hill-sides, and bathing the streets of opulent cities. In the distance stupendous mountains, hoary with eternal ice and snow, bounded and seemed to embrace in protecting arms this land of promise. Napoleon, sitting upon his horse, gazed for some time in silent and delighted admiration upon the scene. "Hannibal," he exclaimed, "forced the Alps; but we have turned them."

There was, however, not a moment to be lost in rest or reverie. From every direction the Austrians and Sardinians were hurrying to their appointed rendezvous, to combine and destroy this audacious band, which had so suddenly and fatally plunged into their midst. The French troops rushed down the declivities of the mountains and, crossing the Tanaro, rejoiced with trembling as they found themselves in the sunny plains of Italy. Dispatching Augereau to pursue the Austrian army, now effectually separated from their allies, Napoleon, with indefatigable perseverance, pursued the Sardinians in their flight toward Turin. He came up with them on the 18th at Ceva, where they had intrenched themselves, eight thousand strong.

He immediately attacked them in their intrenchments, and during the remainder of the day the sanguinary battle raged without any decisive result. The flash and the roar of artillery and of musketry did not cease, till the darkness rendered it impossible to distinguish friend from foe. The French slept upon their arms, ready to resume the combat in the earliest dawn of the morning. In the night the Sardinians fled, and again took a strong position behind the deep and foaming torrent of the Carsuglia. On the evening of the ensuing day, Napoleon again overtook them. A single bridge crossed the rapid torrent. The Sardinians were so strongly posted that it seemed impossible that they could be dislodged. Large detachments were hastening to reinforce them. The Austrians were accumulating in great strength in Napoleon's rear, and notwithstanding all these brilliant victories the situation of the French was perilous in the extreme. A council of war was held in the night, and it was decided, regardless of the extreme exhaustion of the troops, to make an assault upon the bridge as soon as the morning should dawn. Before the first gray of the morning the French, in battle array, were moving down upon the bridge, anticipating a desperate struggle. But the Sardinians, in a panic, had again fled during the night, and Napoleon, rejoicing at his good fortune, passed the bridge unobstructed. The indefatigable victor pressed onward in the pursuit, and before nightfall again overtook his fugitive foes, who had intrenched themselves upon some almost inaccessible hills near Mondovi. The French immediately advanced to the assault. The Sardinians fought with desperation, but the genius of Napoleon triumphed, and again the Sardinians fled, leaving two thousand men, eight cannon, and eleven standards in the hands of the conqueror, and one thousand dead upon the field. Napoleon pursued the fugitives to Cherasco, and took possession of the place. He was now within twenty miles of Turin, the capital of the kingdom of Sardinia. All was commotion in the metropolis. There were thousands there, who had imbibed the revolutionary spirit, who were ready to welcome Napoleon as their deliverer, and to implore him to aid them in the establishment of a republic. The king and the nobles were in perfect consternation. The English and Austrian ministers entreated the king to adhere to the alliance, abandon his capital, and continue the conflict. They assured him that the rash and youthful victor was rushing into difficulties from which he could by no possibility extricate himself. But he, trembling for his throne and his crown, believing it to be impossible to resist so rapid a conqueror, and fearing that Napoleon, irritated by a protracted conflict, would proclaim political liberty to the people, and revolutionize the kingdom, determined to throw himself into the arms of the French, and to appeal to the magnanimity of the foe, whose rights he had so unpardonably assailed. By all human rules he deserved the severest punishment. He had united with two powerful nations, England and Austria, to chastise the French for preferring a republic to a monarchy, and had sent an invading army to bombard the cities of France and instigate the royalists to rise in civil war against the established government of the country.

It was with lively satisfaction that Napoleon received the advances of the Sardinian King, for he was fully aware of the peril in which he was placed. The allied armies were still far more numerous than his own. He had neither heavy battering cannon, nor siege equipage to reduce Turin, and the other important fortresses of the kingdom. He was far from home, could expect no immediate reinforcements from France, and his little army was literally in destitution and in rags. The allies, on the contrary, were in the enjoyment of abundance. They could every day augment their strength; and their resources were apparently inexhaustible. "The king of Sardinia," says Napoleon, "had still a great number of fortresses left; and in spite of the victories which had been gained, the slightest check, one caprice of fortune, would have undone every thing." Napoleon, however, with the commissioners who had been sent to treat with him, assumed a very confident and imperious tone. He demanded, as a preliminary to any armistice, that the important fortresses of Coni, Tortona, and Alexandria, "the keys of the Alps," should be surrendered to him. The commissioners hesitated to comply with these requisitions, which would place Sardinia entirely at his mercy, and proposed some modifications. "Your ideas are absurd," exclaimed Napoleon, sternly; "it is for me to state conditions. Listen to the laws which I impose upon you, in the name of the government of my country, and obey, or to-morrow my batteries are erected, and Turin is in flames." The commissioners were overawed, and a treaty was immediately concluded, by which the King of Sardinia abandoned the alliance, surrendered the three fortresses, with all their artillery and military stores, to Napoleon, sent an embassador to Paris to conclude a definitive peace, left the victors in possession of all the places they had already taken, disbanded the militia, and dispersed the regular troops, and allowed the French free use of the military roads, to carry on the war with Austria. Napoleon then issued to his soldiers the following soul-stirring proclamation:

"Soldiers! you have gained in fifteen days six victories, taken one-and-twenty standards, fifty-five pieces of cannon, many strong places, and have conquered the richest part of Piedmont. You have made fifteen thousand prisoners, and killed or wounded ten thousand men. Hitherto you have fought on sterile rocks, illustrious, indeed, by your courage, but of no avail. Now you rival by your services the armies of Holland and of the Rhine. You were utterly destitute; you have supplied all your wants. You have gained battles without cannon; passed rivers without bridges; made forced marches without shoes, bivouacked without bread. The phalanxes of the Republic, the soldiers of liberty were alone capable of such sacrifices. But, soldiers! you have accomplished nothing while any thing remains to be done. Neither Turin nor Milan is in your hands. I am told that there are some among you whose courage is failing, who wish to return to the summits of the Alps and the Apennines. No! I can not believe it. The conquerors of Montenotte, of Millesimo, of Dego, of Mondovi burn to carry still further the glories of the French name. But ere I lead you to conquest there is one condition you must promise to fulfill: that is to protect the people whom you liberate and to repress all acts of lawless violence. Without this you would not be the deliverers, but the scourges of nations. Invested with the national authority, strong in justice and law, I shall not hesitate to enforce the requisitions of humanity and of honor. I will not suffer robbers to sully your laurels. Pillagers shall be shot without mercy.

"People of Italy! The French army advances to break your chains. The French people are the friends of all nations. In them you may confide. Your property, your religion, your customs shall be respected. We will only make war as generous foes. Our sole quarrel is with the tyrants who enslave you."

A large majority of Napoleon's soldiers and officers severely condemned any treaty of peace with a monarchical government, and were clamorous for the dethronement of the king of Sardinia, and the establishment of a Republic. The people thronged Napoleon with the entreaty that he would lend them his countenance that they might revolutionize the kingdom. They urged that, by the banishment of the king and the nobles, they could establish a free government, which should be the natural and efficient ally of Republican France. He had but to say the word and the work was done. The temptation to utter that word must have been very strong. It required no common political foresight to nerve Napoleon to resist that temptation. But he had a great horror of anarchy. He had seen enough of the working of Jacobin misrule in the blood-deluged streets of Paris. He did not believe that the benighted peasants of Italy possessed either the intelligence or the moral principle essential to the support of a well-organized republic. Consequently, notwithstanding the known wishes of the Directory, the demands of the army, and the entreaties of the populace, with heroic firmness he refused to allow the overthrow of the established government. He diverted the attention of his soldiers from the subject, by plunging them into still more arduous enterprises, and leading them to yet more brilliant victories.

Napoleon had no desire to see the reign of terror re-enacted in the cities of Italy. He was in favor of reform, not of revolution. The kings and the nobles had monopolized wealth and honor, and nearly all the most precious privileges of life. The people were merely hewers of wood and drawers of water. Napoleon wished to break down this monopoly and to emancipate the masses from the servitude of ages. He would do this, however, not by the sudden upheaving of thrones and the transfer of power to unenlightened and inexperienced democracy, but by surrounding the thrones with republican institutions, and conferring upon all people a strong and well-organized government, with constitutional liberty. Eloquently he says, "It would be a magnificent field for speculation to estimate what would have been the destinies of France and of Europe, had England satisfied herself with denouncing the murder of Louis XVI., which would have been for the interests of public morality, and listened to the councils of a philanthropic policy, by accepting revolutionized France as an ally. Scaffolds would not then have been erected over the whole country, and kings would not have trembled on their thrones; but their states would all have passed, more or less, through a revolutionary process, and the whole of Europe, without a convulsion, would have become constitutional and free."

The kingdom of Sardinia was composed of the provinces of Nice, Piedmont, Savoy, and Montferrat. It contained three millions of inhabitants. The king, by extraordinary efforts and by means of subsidies from England, had raised an army of sixty thousand men, trained to service in long continued wars. His numerous fortresses, well armed and amply provisioned, situated at the defiles of all the mountains, placed his frontier in a state which was regarded as impregnable. He was the father-in-law of both of the brothers of Louis XVI.; which brothers subsequently ascended the throne of France as Louis XVIII. and as Charles X. He had welcomed them, in their flight from France to his court in Turin; and had made his court a place of refuge for the emigrant noblesse, where, in fancied security, they matured their plans and accumulated their resources for the invasion of France, in connection with the armies of the allies. And yet Napoleon, with thirty thousand half-starved men, had, in one short fortnight, dispersed his troops, driven the Austrians from the kingdom, penetrated to the very heart of the state, and was threatening the bombardment of his capital. The humiliated monarch, trembling for his crown, was compelled to sue for peace at the feet of an unknown young man of twenty-five. His chagrin was so great, in view of his own fallen fortunes and the hopelessness of his sons-in-law ever attaining the throne of France, that he died, a few days after signing the treaty of Cherasco, of a broken heart.

Napoleon immediately dispatched Murat, his first aid-de-camp, to Paris, with a copy of the armistice, and with twenty-one standards taken from the enemy. The sensation which was produced in France by this rapid succession of astonishing victories was intense and universal. The spirit of antique eloquence which imbued the proclamations of the young conqueror; the modest language of his dispatches to the Directory; the entire absence of boasting respecting his own merits, and the glowing commendation of the enthusiastic bravery of his soldiers and of his generals, excited profound admiration. Bonaparte was a foreign, an Italian name. Few in France had ever heard it, and it was not easily pronounced. Every one inquired, Who is this young general, whose talents thus suddenly, with such meteoric splendor, have blazed upon Europe? His name and his fame were upon every lip, and the eyes of all Europe were concentred upon him. Three times in the course of fifteen days, the Council of Ancients and The Five Hundred had decreed that the army of Italy deserved well of their country, and had appointed festivals to victory in their honor. In very imposing ceremony Murat presented the captured standards to the Directory. Several foreign embassadors were present on the occasion. The Republic, thus triumphant, was invested with new dignity, and elevated, by the victories of the young general, to a position of respect and consideration which it had never attained before.

While these scenes were transpiring Napoleon did not forget the bride he had left in Paris. Though for seven days and nights he had allowed himself no quiet meal, no regular repose, and had not taken off either his coat or his boots, he found time to send frequent and most affectionate, though very short, notes to Josephine. Immediately after the victory of Montenotte, while the thunders of the cannonade were still ringing in his ears, he dispatched a courier to Josephine with the following lines, written in such haste and under such circumstances as to be scarcely legible.

"My beloved Friend,

"My first laurel is due to my country. My second shall be yours. While pursuing the enemy I thought of France. When he was beaten I thought of Josephine. Your son will send you a scarf surrendered to him by Colonel Morback, whom he took prisoner with his own hand. You see, Madame, that our Eugene is worthy of his father. Do not deem me altogether undeserving of having succeeded to that brave and unfortunate general, under whom I should have felt honored to have learned to conquer. I embrace you.

Bonaparte."

This delicacy of attention Napoleon ever manifested toward Josephine, even after their unhappy divorce, and until the hour of her death.

Napoleon having, by an advantageous treaty with Sardinia, secured his rear from assault, without a day's delay, commenced the pursuit of the discomfited remains of the Austrian army. Under their commander-in-chief, Beaulieu, they had retreated behind the Po, where they strongly intrenched themselves, awaiting the reinforcements which were hurrying to their aid.

Upon leaving the kingdom of Sardinia Napoleon first entered the states of Parma. The Duke of Parma, who had united with his more powerful neighbors, in the alliance against France, reigned over a population of but about five hundred thousand, and could furnish to the allies but three thousand troops. He was of course powerless, and sent envoys to solicit the clemency of the conqueror. Napoleon granted him an armistice upon his paying five hundred thousand dollars in silver, sixteen hundred artillery horses, and a large supply of corn and provisions. And here commenced one of those characteristic acts of the young general which have been greatly admired by some, and most severely censured by others. Napoleon, a lover and connoisseur of the arts, conscious of the addition they contribute to the splendor of an empire, and of the effect which they produce upon the imagination of men, demanded twenty of the choicest pictures in the galleries of the duke, to be sent to the Museum at Paris. To save one of these works of art, the celebrated picture of St. Jerome, the duke offered two hundred thousand dollars. Napoleon declined the money, stating to the army, "the sum which he offers us will soon be spent; but the possession of such a master-piece, at Paris, will adorn that capital for ages, and give birth to similar exertions of genius." No one objects, according to the laws of war, to the extortion of the money, the horses, the corn, and the beef, but it is represented by some as an unpardonable act of spoliation and rapacity to have taken the pictures. If conquest confers the right to the seizure of any species of property, it is difficult to conceive why works of art, which are subject to barter and sale, should claim exemption. Indeed, there seems to be a peculiar propriety in taking luxuries rather than necessaries. The extortion of money only inflicted a tax upon the people who were the friends of Napoleon and of his cause. The selection of the paintings and the statuary deprived not the people of their food, but caused that very class in the community to feel the evils of war, who had originated the conflict. It was making requisition upon the palace and not upon the cottage. But war, with its extortion, robbery, cruelty, and blood, involves all our ideas of morality in confusion. Whatever may be the decision of posterity respecting the propriety of including works of genius among the trophies of war, the occurrence surely exhibits Napoleon as a man of refined and elevated tastes. An ignoble spirit, moved by avarice, would have grasped the money. Napoleon, regardless of personal indulgence, sought only the glory of France. There is at least grandeur in the motive which inspired the act.

The Austrians were now reinforced to the amount of forty thousand men, and had intrenched themselves upon the other side of the Po, having this magnificent stream flowing between them and the French. It is one of the most difficult operations in war to cross a river in the face of an opposing army. It was difficult to conceive how Napoleon could effect the enterprise. He, however, marched resolutely on toward Valenza, making every demonstration of his intention to cross at that point, in defiance of the foe, arrayed in vastly superior numbers to contest the passage. The Austrians concentrated their strength to give him a warm reception. Suddenly by night Napoleon turned down the river, and with amazing celerity made a march of eighty miles in thirty-six hours, seizing every boat upon the stream as he passed along. He had timed the march of the several divisions of his army so precisely, that all of his forces met at the appointed rendezvous within a few hours of each other. Rapidly crossing the river in boats, he found himself and his army, without the loss of a single man, in the plains of Lombardy.

This beautiful and productive country had been conquered by the Austrians, and was governed by an archduke. It contained one million two hundred thousand inhabitants, and was one of the most fertile and rich provinces in the world. Its inhabitants were much dissatisfied with their foreign masters, and the great majority, longing for political regeneration, were ready to welcome the armies of France. As soon as Beaulieu, who was busily at work upon his fortifications at Valenza, heard that Napoleon had thus out-generaled him, and had crossed the river, he immediately collected all his forces and moved forward to meet him. The advanced divisions of the hostile armies soon met at Fombio. The Austrians stationed themselves in the steeples and at the windows and upon the roofs of the houses, and commenced a destructive fire upon the French, crowding into the streets. They hoped to arrest their progress until the commander-in-chief could arrive with the main body of the army. The French, however, rushed impetuously on with their bayonets, and the Austrians were driven before them, leaving two thousand prisoners in the hands of Napoleon, and the ground covered with their dead.

The French pursued closely upon the heels of the Austrians, from every eminence plunging cannon balls into their retreating ranks, and assailing them with the most destructive fire at every possible point of attack. In the evening of the same day, the exhausted and bleeding columns of the enemy arrived at Lodi, a small town upon the banks of the Adda. Passing directly through the town they crossed the river, which was about two hundred yards in width, by a narrow wooden bridge, about thirty feet wide. They were there received by the main body of the army of Beaulieu, which was strongly intrenched upon the opposite banks. The whole French army rushed into the town, and sheltering themselves behind the walls of the houses, from the incessant fire of the Austrian batteries, awaited the commands of their youthful leader, whom they now began to think invincible.

Napoleon's belief in destiny was so strong that he was an entire stranger to bodily fear. He immediately sallied from the town and reconnoitred the banks of the river, amidst a perfect shower of balls and grape-shot. The prospect before him would have been to most persons perfectly appalling. The Austrians, sixteen thousand strong, with twelve thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry, and thirty pieces of heavy artillery were posted upon the opposite banks in battle array, with their batteries so arranged as to command the whole length of the bridge by a raking fire. Batteries stationed above and below also swept the narrow passage by cross fires, while sharp-shooters, in bands of thousands, were posted at every available point, to drive a perfect storm of musket balls into the face of any who should approach the structure. Beaulieu conceived his position so utterly impregnable that he had not thought it necessary to destroy the bridge, as he easily could have done. He desired nothing more earnestly than that the French might attempt the passage, for he was confident that their discomfiture would be both signal and awful. Napoleon immediately placed as many guns as possible in opposition to the Austrian batteries, directing with his own hands, in the midst of the hottest fire, some cannon in such a manner as to prevent the Austrians from approaching to blow up the arches. He then entered the town, assembled his general officers, and informed them that he had resolved immediately to storm the bridge. The bravest of them recoiled from the undertaking, and they unanimously disapproved of the plan as impracticable. "It is impossible," said one, "that any men can force their way across that narrow bridge, in the face of such an annihilating storm of balls as must be encountered." "How! impossible!" exclaimed Napoleon, "that word is not French." The self-reliant mind of the young conqueror was seldom moved by the opinions of others. Regardless of the disapproval of his generals, he assembled six thousand picked troops, and addressing them in those marked tones of martial eloquence most eminently at his command, so effectually roused their pride and enthusiasm that they were clamorous to be led to the assault. He unfolded to them fully the peril which attended the enterprise, and animated them by reference to the corresponding glory which would attend the achievement. He knew that thousands must perish. But placing only a slight value upon his own life, he regarded as little the lives of others, and deemed the object to be gained worthy of the terrible price which was to be paid. There probably was not another man in either of those armies who would have ventured upon the responsibility of an enterprise apparently so desperate.

Secretly dispatching a large body of cavalry to cross the river at a very difficult ford, about three miles above the town, which by some inconceivable oversight the Austrians had neglected to protect, he ordered them to come down the river and make the most desperate charge upon the rear of the enemy. At the same time he formed his troops in a line, under the shelter of one of the streets nearest the point of attack. It was the evening of the 10th of May. The sun was just sinking behind the Tyrolean hills, enveloping in soft twilight the scene of rural peace and beauty and of man's depravity. Not a breath of air rippled the smooth surface of the water, or agitated the bursting foliage of the early spring. The moment that Napoleon perceived, by the commotion among the Austrians, that the cavalry had effected the passage of the river, he ordered the trumpets to sound the charge. The line wheeled instantly into a dense and solid column, crowding the street with its impenetrable mass. Emerging from the shelter, upon the full run, while rending the air with their enthusiastic shouts, they rushed upon the bridge. They were met by a murderous discharge of every missile of destruction, sweeping the structure like a whirlwind. The whole head of the column was immediately cut down like grass before the scythe, and the progress of those in the rear was encumbered by piles of the dead. Still the column passed on, heedless of the terrific storm of iron and of lead, until it had forced its way into the middle of the bridge. Here it hesitated, wavered, and was on the point of retreating before volcanic bursts of fire too terrible for mortal man to endure, when Napoleon, seizing a standard, and followed by Lannes, Massena, and Berthier, plunged through the clouds of smoke which now enveloped the bridge in almost midnight darkness, placed himself at the head of the troops, and shouted, "Follow your General!" The bleeding, mangled column, animated by this example, rushed with their bayonets upon the Austrian gunners. At the same moment the French cavalry came dashing upon the batteries in the rear, and the bridge was carried. The French army now poured across the narrow passage like a torrent, and debouched upon the plain. Still the battle raged with unmitigated fury. The Austrians hurled themselves upon the French with the energy of despair. But the troops of Napoleon, intoxicated with their amazing achievement, set all danger at defiance, and seemed just as regardless of bullets and of shells, as if they had been snow-balls in the hands of children.

In the midst of the thunders of the terrific cannonade a particular battery was producing dreadful havoc among the ranks of the French. Repeated attempts had been made to storm it, but in vain. An officer rode up to Napoleon in the midst of all the confusion and horror of the battle, and represented to him the importance of making another effort to silence the destructive battery. "Very well," said Napoleon, who was fond of speaking, as well as acting the sublime, "let it be silenced then." Turning to a body of dragoons near by, he exclaimed, "follow your General." As gayly as if it were the pastime of a holiday, the dragoons followed their leader in the impetuous charge, through showers of grape shot dealing mutilation and death into their ranks. The Austrian gunners were instantly sabred, and their guns turned upon the foe.

Lannes was the first to cross the bridge and Napoleon the second. Lannes in utter recklessness and desperation, spurred his maddened horse into the very midst of the Austrian ranks and grasped a banner. At that moment his horse fell dead beneath him, and half a dozen swords glittered above his head. With Herculean strength and agility he extricated himself from his fallen steed, leaped upon the horse of an Austrian officer, behind the rider, plunged his sword through the body of the officer, and hurled him from his saddle; taking his seat he fought his way back to his followers, having slain in the mêlée six of the Austrians with his own hand. This deed of demoniac energy was performed under the eye of Napoleon, and he promoted Lannes upon the spot.

The Austrians now retreated, leaving two thousand prisoners and twenty pieces of cannon in the hands of the victors, and two thousand five hundred men and four hundred horses dead upon the plain. The French probably lost, in dead and wounded, about the same number, though Napoleon, in his report of the battle, acknowledged the loss of but four hundred. The Austrians claimed that the French won the victory at the expense of four thousand men. It was, of course, the policy of the conqueror to have it understood that his troops were the executors not the victims of slaughter. "As false as a bulletin," has become a proverb. The necessity of uttering falsehood and practicing deception in all their varied forms, is one of the smallest of the innumerable immoralities attendant upon war. From time immemorial it has been declared that the weapons of deception and of courage are equally allowable to the soldier; "an virtus, an dolos, quis ab hoste requirat." If an enemy can be deceived by a false bulletin, there are few generals so conscientious as to reject the stratagem. Napoleon certainly never hesitated to avail himself of any artifice to send dismay into the hearts of his foes. Truthfulness is not one of the virtues which thrives in a camp.

"It was a strange sight," says a French veteran, who was present at this battle, "to see Napoleon that day, on foot on the bridge, under an infernal fire, and mixed up with our tall grenadiers. He looked like a little boy." "This beardless youth," said an Austrian general, indignantly, "ought to have been beaten over and over again; for who ever saw such tactics. The blockhead knows nothing of the rules of war. To-day he is in our rear, to-morrow on our flank, and the next day again in our front. Such gross violations of the established principles of war are insufferable."

When Napoleon was in exile at St. Helena, some one read an account of the battle of Lodi, in which it was stated that Napoleon displayed great courage in being the first to cross the bridge, and that Lannes passed it after him. "Before me! before me!" exclaimed Napoleon, earnestly. "Lannes passed first and I only followed him. It is necessary to correct that error upon the spot." The correction was made in the margin. This victory produced a very extraordinary effect upon the whole French army, and inspired the soldiers with unbounded confidence in their young leader. Some of the veterans of the army, immediately after the battle, met together and jocosely promoted their General, who had so distinguished himself by his bravery, and who was so juvenile in his appearance, to the rank of corporal. When Napoleon next appeared upon the field, he was greeted with enthusiastic shouts by the whole army, "Long live our little Corporal!" Ever after this he was the perfect idol of the troops, and never lost, even in the dignity of Consul and Emperor, this honorary and affectionate nickname. "Neither the quelling of the sections," said Napoleon, "nor the victory of Montenotte induced me to think myself a superior character. It was not till after the terrible passage of the bridge of Lodi, that the idea shot across my mind that I might become a decisive actor in the political arena. Then arose, for the first time, the spark of great ambition."

Lombardy was now at the mercy of Napoleon, and the discomfited Austrians fled into the Tyrol. The Archduke Ferdinand and his duchess, with tears in their eyes, abandoned to the conqueror their beautiful capital of Milan, and sought refuge with their retreating friends.

As the carriages of the ducal pair, and those of their retinue passed sadly through the streets of the metropolis, the people looked on in silence, uttering not a word of sympathy or of insult. But the moment they had departed, republican zeal burst forth unrestrained. The tricolored cockade seemed suddenly to have fallen, as by magic, upon the hats and the caps of the multitude, and the great mass of the people prepared to greet the French Republicans with every demonstration of joy. A placard was put upon the palace – "This house to let; for the keys apply to the French Commissioner."

On the fifteenth of May, just one month after the opening of the campaign at Montenotte, Napoleon entered Milan in triumph. He was welcomed by the great majority of the inhabitants as a deliverer. The patriots, from all parts of Italy, crowded to the capital, sanguine in the hope that Napoleon would secure their independence, and confer upon them a Republican government, in friendly alliance with France. A numerous militia was immediately organized, called the National Guard, and dressed in three colors, green, red, and white, in honor of the tri-colored flag. A triumphal arch was erected, in homage of the conqueror. The whole population of the city marched out to bid him welcome; flowers were scattered in his path; ladies thronged the windows as he passed, and greeted him with smiles and fluttering handkerchiefs, and with a shower of bouquets rained down at his feet. Amidst all the pomp of martial music, and waving banners, the ringing of bells, the thunders of saluting artillery, and the acclamations of an immense concourse of spectators, Napoleon took possession of the palace from whence the duke had fled. "If you desire liberty," said the victor to the Milanese, "you must deserve it by assisting to emancipate Italy forever from Austria." The wealthy and avaricious Duke of Modena, whose states bordered upon those of Parma, dispatched envoys to sue for peace. Napoleon granted him an armistice, upon the payment of two millions of dollars, twenty of his choicest pictures, and an abundant supply of horses and provisions. When in treaty with the Duke of Modena, the Commissary of the French army came to Napoleon and said, "The brother of the duke is here with eight hundred thousand dollars in gold, contained in four chests. He comes, in the name of the duke, to beg you to accept them. And I advise you to do so. The money belongs to you. Take it without scruple. A proportionate diminution will be made in the duke's contribution, and he will be very glad to have obtained a protector." "I thank you," replied Napoleon, coolly. "I shall not, for that sum, place myself in the power of the Duke of Modena." The whole contribution went into the army-chest, Napoleon refusing to receive for himself a single dollar.

Napoleon now issued another of those spirit-stirring proclamations, which roused such enthusiasm among his own troops, and which so powerfully electrified the ardent imagination of the Italians. "Soldiers! you have descended like a torrent from the Apennines. You have overwhelmed every thing which opposed your progress. Piedmont is delivered from the tyranny of Austria; Milan is in your hands, and the Republican standards wave over the whole of Lombardy. The Dukes of Parma and Modena owe their existence to your generosity. The army which menaced you with so much pride, can no longer find a barrier to protect itself against your arms. The Po, the Ticino, the Adda have not been able to stop you a single day. These boasted bulwarks of Italy have proved as nugatory as the Alps. Such a career of success has carried joy into the bosom of your country. Fêtes in honor of your victories have been ordered in all the communes of the Republic. There your parents, your wives, your sisters, your lovers rejoice in your achievements, and boast with pride that you belong to them. Yes, soldiers! you have indeed done much, but much remains still to be done. Shall posterity say that we knew how to conquer, but knew not how to improve victory? Shall we find a Capua in Lombardy? We have forced marches to make, enemies to subdue, laurels to gather, injuries to revenge. Let those who have whetted the daggers of civil war in France, who have assassinated our ministers, who have burned our ships at Toulon – let those tremble. The hour of vengeance has struck. But let not the people be alarmed. We are the friends of the people every where; particularly of the Brutuses, the Scipios, and the great men whom we have taken for our models. To re-establish the Capitol; to replace the statues of the heroes who rendered it illustrious; to rouse the Romans, stupefied by centuries of slavery – such will be the fruit of our victories. They will form an epoch with posterity. To you will pertain the immortal glory of changing the face of the finest portion of Europe. The French people, free and respected by the whole world, will give to Europe a glorious peace. You will then return to your homes, and your fellow-citizens will say, pointing to you, He belonged to the army of Italy."

Such were the proclamations which Napoleon dashed off, with inconceivable rapidity, in the midst of all the care, and peril, and clangor of battle. Upon reading these glowing sentences over at St. Helena, twenty years after they were written, he exclaimed, "And yet they had the folly to say that I could not write." He has been represented by some as illiterate, as unable to spell. On the contrary, he was a ripe and an accomplished scholar. His intellectual powers and his intellectual attainments were of the very highest order. His mind had been trained by the severest discipline of intense and protracted study. "Do you write orthographically?" said he one day to his amanuensis at St. Helena. "A man occupied with public business can not attend to orthography. His ideas must flow faster than his hand can trace. He has only time to place his points. He must compress words into letters, and phrases into words, and let the scribes make it out afterward." Such was the velocity with which Napoleon wrote. His handwriting was composed of the most unintelligible hieroglyphics. He often could not decipher it himself.

Lombardy is the garden of Italy. The whole of the extensive valley, from the Alps to the Apennines, is cultivated to the highest degree, presenting in its vineyards, its orchards, its waving fields of grain, its flocks and herds, one of the most rich and attractive features earth can exhibit. Milan, its beautiful capital, abounding in wealth and luxury, contained a population of one hundred and twenty thousand souls. Here Napoleon allowed his weary troops, exhausted by their unparalleled exertions, to repose for six days. Napoleon himself was received by the inhabitants with the most unbounded enthusiasm and joy. He was regarded as the liberator of Italy – the youthful hero, who had come with almost supernatural powers, to re-introduce to the country the reign of Roman greatness and virtue. His glowing words, his splendid achievements, his high-toned morals so pure and spotless, the grace and beauty of his feminine figure, his prompt decisions, his imperial will, and the antique cast of his thoughts, uttered in terse and graphic language, which passed, in reiterated quotation, from lip to lip, diffused an universal enchantment. From all parts of Italy the young and the enthusiastic flocked to the metropolis of Lombardy. The language of Italy was Napoleon's mother tongue. His name and his origin were Italian, and they regarded him as a countryman. They crowded his footsteps, and greeted him with incessant acclamations. He was a Cato, a Scipio, a Hannibal. The ladies, in particular, lavished upon him adulations without any bounds.

But Napoleon was compelled to support his own army from the spoils of the vanquished. He could not receive a dollar from the exhausted treasury of the French Republic. "It is very difficult," said he, "to rob a people of their substance, and at the same time to convince them that you are their friend and benefactor." Still he succeeded in doing both. With great reluctance he imposed upon the Milanese a contribution of four millions of dollars, and selected twenty paintings from the Ambrosian Gallery, to send to Paris as the trophies of his victory. It was with extreme regret that he extorted the money, knowing that it must check the enthusiasm with which the inhabitants were rallying around the Republican standard. It was, however, indispensable for the furtherance of his plans. It was his only refuge from defeat and from absolute destruction. The Milanese patriots also felt that it was just that their government should defray the expenses of a war which they had provoked; that since Lombardy had allied itself with the powerful and wealthy monarchies of Europe, to invade the infant Republic in its weakness and its poverty, Napoleon was perfectly justifiable in feeding and clothing his soldiers at the expense of the invaders whom he had repelled. The money was paid, and the conqueror was still the idol of the people.

His soldiers were now luxuriating in the abundance of bread, and meat, and wine. They were, however, still in rags, wearing the same war-worn and tattered garments with which they had descended from the frozen summits of the Alps. With the resources thus obtained, Napoleon clothed all his troops abundantly, filled the chests of the army, established hospitals and large magazines, proudly sent a million of dollars to the Directory in Paris, as an absent father would send funds to his helpless family; forwarded two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Moreau, who, with an impoverished army, upon the Rhine, was contending against superior forces of the Austrians. He also established an energetic and efficient municipal government in Milan, and made immediate arrangements for the organization and thorough military discipline of the militia in all parts of Lombardy. This was the work of five days, and of five days succeeding a month of such toil of body and of mind as, perhaps, no mortal ever endured before. Had it not been for a very peculiar constitutional temperament, giving Napoleon the most extraordinary control over his own mind, such Herculean labors could not have been performed. "Different affairs are arranged in my head," said he, "as in drawers. When I wish to interrupt one train of thought, I close the drawer which contains that subject, and open to that which contains another. They do not mix together, and do not fatigue me or inconvenience me. I have never been kept awake by an involuntary pre-occupation of the mind. If I wish repose, I shut up all the drawers and I am asleep. I have always slept when I wanted rest, and almost at will." After spending several successive days and nights without sleep, in preparation for a decisive conflict, he has been known repeatedly to fall asleep in the midst of the uproar and horror of the field of battle, and when the balls of the enemy were sweeping the eminence upon which he stood. "Nature has her rights," said he, "and will not be defrauded with impunity. I feel more cool to receive the reports which are brought to me, and to give fresh orders when awaking in this manner from a transient slumber."

While in Milan, one morning, just as he had mounted his horse, a dragoon presented himself before him, bearing dispatches of great importance. Napoleon read them upon the saddle; and, giving a verbal answer, told the courier to take it back with all possible dispatch. "I have no horse," the man replied, "the one I rode, in consequence of forced speed, fell dead at the gate of your palace." "Take mine then," rejoined Napoleon, instantly alighting. The man hesitated to mount the magnificent charger of the general-in-chief. "You think him too fine an animal," said Napoleon, "and too splendidly caparisoned. Never mind, comrade, there is nothing too magnificent for a French soldier." Incidents like this, perpetually occurring, were narrated, with all conceivable embellishments, around the camp-fires, and they conferred upon the young general a degree of popularity almost amounting to adoration.

The lofty intellectual character of Napoleon was also developed at the same time, in the midst of all the cares, perplexities, and perils of these most terrible conflicts, in a letter publicly addressed to Oriani, the celebrated mathematician. "Hitherto," he writes, "the learned in Italy have not enjoyed the consideration to which they were entitled. They lived secluded in their libraries, too happy if they could escape the persecution of kings and priests. It is so no longer. Religious inquisition and despotic power are at an end. Thought is free in Italy. I invite the literary and the scientific to consult together and propose to me their ideas on the subject of giving new life and vigor to the fine arts and sciences. All who desire to visit France will be received with distinction by the government. The citizens of France have more pride in enrolling among their citizens a skillful mathematician, a painter of reputation, a distinguished man in any class of letters, than in adding to their territories a large and wealthy city."

Napoleon having thus rapidly organized a government for Lombardy, and having stationed troops in different places to establish tranquillity, turned his attention again to the pursuit of the Austrians. But by this time the Directory in Paris were thoroughly alarmed in view of the astonishing influence and renown which Napoleon had attained. In one short month he had filled Europe with his name. They determined to check his career. Kellerman, a veteran general of great celebrity, they consequently appointed his associate in command, to pursue the Austrians with a part of the army, while Napoleon, with the other part, was to march down upon the States of the Pope. This division would have insured the destruction of the army. Napoleon promptly but respectfully tendered his resignation, saying, "One bad general is better than two good ones. War, like government, is mainly decided by tact." This decision brought the Directory immediately to terms. The commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy was now too powerful to be displaced, and the undivided command was immediately restored to him.

In the letter he wrote to the Directory at this time, and which must have been written with the rapidity of thought, he observes, with great force of language and strength of argument. "It is in the highest degree impolitic to divide into two the army of Italy; and not less adverse to place at its head two different generals. The expedition to the Papal States is a very inconsiderable matter, and should be made by divisions in echelon, ready at any moment to wheel about and face the Austrians. To perform it with success both armies must be under one general. I have hitherto conducted the campaign without consulting any one. The result would have been very different if I had been obliged to reconcile my views with those of another. If you impose upon me embarrassments of various kinds; if I must refer all my steps to the commissaries of government; if they are authorized to change my movements, to send away my troops, expect no further success. If you weaken your resources by dividing your forces, if you disturb in Italy the unity of military thought, I say it with grief, you will lose the finest opportunity that ever occurred of giving laws to that fine peninsula. In the present posture of the affairs of the Republic it is indispensable that you possess a general who enjoys your confidence. If I do not do so I shall not complain. Every one has his own method of carrying on war. Kellerman has more experience, and may do it better than I. Together we should do nothing but mischief. Your decision on this matter is of more importance than the fifteen thousand men the Emperor of Austria has sent to Beaulieu."

On the 22d of May Napoleon left Milan, in pursuit of the Austrians. Beaulieu, in his retreat to the mountains of the Tyrol, had thrown fifteen thousand men into the almost impregnable fortress of Mantua, to arrest the progress of the conqueror. He knew that Napoleon could not follow him leaving such a fortress in the possession of his enemies in his rear. Austria was raising powerful reinforcements, and the defeated general intended soon to return with overwhelming numbers, and crush his foe. Napoleon had hardly advanced one day's march from Milan when a formidable insurrection broke out. The priests, incited by the Pope, had roused the peasants, who were very much under their influence, to rise and exterminate the French. They appealed to all the motives of fanaticism which the papal church has so effectually at its command, to rouse their military ardor. They assured the ignorant peasants that Austria was pouring down an overwhelming army upon the invader; that all Italy was simultaneously rising in arms; that England, with her powerful fleet, was landing troops innumerable upon the coasts of Sardinia; that God, and all his angels, were looking down from the windows of Heaven to admire the heroism of the faithful, in ridding the earth of the enemies of the true religion, and that the destruction of Napoleon was sure. The enthusiasm spread from hamlet to hamlet like a conflagration. The friends of republicanism were, for the most part, in the cities. The peasantry were generally strongly attached to the church, and looked up with reverence to the nobles. The tocsin was sounded in every village. In a day thirty thousand peasants, roused to frenzy, grasped their arms. The danger was most imminent.

Napoleon felt that not an hour was to be lost. He took with him twelve hundred men and six pieces of cannon, and instantly turned upon his track. He soon came up with eight hundred of the insurgents, who were intrenching themselves in the small village of Banasco. There was no parleying. There was no hesitancy. The ear was closed to all the appeals of mercy. The veteran troops, inured to their work, rushed with bayonet and sabre upon the unwarlike Italians, and, in a few moments, hewed the peasants to pieces. The women and children fled in every direction, carrying the tidings of the dreadful massacre. The torch was applied to the town, and the dense volumes of smoke ascending into the serene and cloudless skies, from this altar of vengeance, proclaimed, far and wide over the plains of Italy, how dreadful a thing it was to incur the wrath of the conqueror.

Napoleon and his troops, their swords still dripping in blood, tarried not, but moving on with the sweep of a whirlwind, came to the gates of Pavia. This city had become the head-quarters of the insurgents. It contained thirty thousand inhabitants. Napoleon had left there a garrison of three hundred men. The insurgents, eight thousand strong, had thrown themselves into the place, and, strengthened by all of the monarchical party, prepared for a desperate resistance. Napoleon sent the Archbishop of Milan, with a flag of truce, offering pardon to all who would lay down their arms. "May the terrible example of Banasco," said he, "open your eyes. Its fate shall be that of every town which persists in revolt." "While Pavia has walls," the insurgents bravely replied, "we will not surrender." Napoleon rejoined in the instantaneous thunders of his artillery. He swept the ramparts with grape shot, while the soldiers, with their hatchets, hewed down the gates.

They rushed like an inundation into the city. The peasants fought with desperation from the windows and roofs of the houses, hurling down upon the French every missile of destruction. The sanguinary conflict soon terminated in favor of the disciplined valor of the assailants. The wretched peasants were pursued into the plain and cut down without mercy. The magistrates of the city were shot; the city itself given up to pillage. "The order," said Napoleon to the inhabitants, "to lay the city in ashes, was just leaving my lips, when the garrison of the castle arrived, and hastened, with cries of joy, to embrace their deliverers. Their names were called over and none found missing. If the blood of a single Frenchman had been shed, my determination was to erect a column on the ruins of Pavia, bearing this inscription, 'Here stood the city of Pavia!'" He was extremely indignant with the garrison for allowing themselves to be made prisoners. "Cowards," he exclaimed, "I intrusted you with a post essential to the safety of an army; and you have abandoned it to a mob of wretched peasants, without offering the least resistance." He delivered the captain over to a council of war, and he was shot.

This terrible example crushed the insurrection over the whole of Lombardy. Such are the inevitable and essential horrors of war. Napoleon had no love for cruelty. But he never hesitated to adopt any measures, however decisive and sanguinary, which he deemed essential for the accomplishment of his purposes. In such dreadful scenes he claimed to be acting upon the same principle which influences the physician to cut, with an unflinching hand, through nerves and tendons, for the humane design of saving life.

If war is right this was right. This bloody vengeance was necessary for the salvation of Napoleon's army. He was about to pursue the Austrians far away into the mountains of the Tyrol, and it was necessary to his success that, by a terrible example, he should teach those whom he left behind, that they could not rise upon him with impunity. War is necessarily a system of cruelty and of blood. Napoleon was an energetic warrior. He recoiled not from any severities which he deemed indispensable to the success of his horrible mission. "A man of refined sensibilities," says the Duke of Wellington, "has no right to meddle with the profession of a soldier." "Pavia," said Napoleon, "is the only place I ever gave up to pillage. I promised that the soldiers should have it, at their mercy, for twenty-four hours. But after three hours I could bear such scenes of outrage no longer, and put an end to them. Policy and morality are equally opposed to the system. Nothing is so certain to disorganize and completely ruin an army."

It is wonderfully characteristic of this most extraordinary man, that in the midst of these terrible scenes, and when encompassed by such perils and pressed by such urgent haste, he could have found time and the disposition to visit a literary institution. When the whole city of Pavia was in consternation, he entered the celebrated university, accompanied by his splendid military suite. With the utmost celerity he moved from class to class, asking questions with such rapidity that the professors could hardly find time or breath to answer him. "What class is this?" he inquired, as he entered the first recitation room. "The class of metaphysics," was the reply. Napoleon, who had but little respect for the uncertain deductions of mental philosophy, exclaimed, very emphatically, "Bah!" and took a pinch of snuff. Turning to one of the pupils, he inquired, "What is the difference between sleep and death?" The embarrassed pupil turned to the professor for assistance. The professor plunged into a learned disquisition upon death. The uncourteous examiner left him in the midst of his sentences, and hastened to another room. "What class is this?" he said. "The mathematical class," he was answered. It was his favorite science. His eye sparkled with pleasure, and seizing a book from one of the pupils, he hastily turned over the leaves and gave him a very difficult problem to solve. He chanced to fall upon an excellent scholar, who did the work very promptly and correctly. Napoleon glanced his eye over the work and said, "You are wrong." The pupil insisted that he was right. Napoleon took the slate and sat down to work the problem himself. In a moment he saw his own error, and returning the slate to the pupil, with ill-concealed chagrin, exclaimed, "Yes? yes! you are right." He then proceeded to another room, when he met the celebrated Volta, "the Newton of electricity." Napoleon was delighted to see the distinguished philosopher, and ran and threw his arms around his neck, and begged him immediately to draw out his class. The President of the University, in a very eulogistic address to the young general, said, "Charles the Great laid the foundations of this University. May Napoleon the Great give it the completion of its glory."

Having quelled the insurrection, in flames and blood, the only way in which, by any possibility it could have been quelled, Napoleon turned proudly again, with his little band, to encounter the whole power of the Austrian empire, now effectually aroused to crush him. The dominions of Venice contained three millions of souls. Its fleet ruled the Adriatic, and it could command an army of fifty thousand men. The Venetians though unfriendly to France preferred neutrality. Beaulieu had fled through their territories, leaving a garrison at Mantua. Napoleon pursued them. To the remonstrances of the Venetians he replied: "Venice has either afforded refuge to the Austrians, in which case it is the enemy of France, or it was unable to prevent the Austrians from invading its territory, and is consequently too weak to claim the right of neutrality." The government deliberated in much perplexity, whether to throw themselves as allies into the arms of France or of Austria. They at last decided, if possible, to continue neutral. They sent to Napoleon twelve hundred thousand dollars, as a bribe or a present to secure his friendship. He decisively rejected it. To some friends who urged the perfect propriety of his receiving the money, he replied:

"If my commissary should see me accept this money, who can tell to what lengths he might go." The Venetian envoys retired from their mission deeply impressed with the genius of Napoleon. They had expected to find only a stern warrior. To their surprise they met a statesman, whose profoundness of views, power of eloquence, extent of information, and promptness of decision excited both their admiration and amazement. They were venerable men, accustomed to consideration and power. Napoleon was but twenty-five. Yet the veterans were entirely overawed by his brilliant and commanding powers. "This extraordinary young man," they wrote to the senate, "will one day exert great influence over his country."

No man ever had more wealth at his disposal than Napoleon, or was more scrupulous as to the appropriation of any of it to himself. For two years he maintained the army in Italy, calling upon the government for no supplies whatever. He sent more than two millions of dollars to Paris to relieve the Directory from its embarrassments. Without the slightest difficulty he might have accumulated millions of dollars for his own private fortune. His friends urged him to do so, assuring him that the Directory, jealous of his fame and power, would try to crush rather than to reward him. But he turned a deaf ear to all such suggestions, and returned to Paris, from this most brilliant campaign, comparatively a poor man. He had clothed the armies of France, and replenished the impoverished treasury of the Republic, and filled the Museum of Paris with paintings and statuary. But all was for France. He reserved neither money, nor painting, nor statue for himself. "Every one," said he afterward, "has his relative ideas. I have a taste for founding not for possessing. My riches consist in glory and celebrity. The Simplon and the Louvre were in the eyes of the people and of foreigners more my property than any private domains could possibly have been." This was surely a lofty and a noble ambition.

Napoleon soon overtook the Austrians. He found a division of the army strongly intrenched upon the banks of the Mincio, determined to arrest his passage. Though the Austrians were some fifteen thousand strong, and though they had partially demolished the bridge, the march of Napoleon was retarded scarcely an hour. Napoleon was that day sick, suffering from a violent headache. Having crossed the river and concerted all his plans for the pursuit of the flying enemy, he went into an old castle, by the river's side, to try the effect of a foot-bath. He had but a small retinue with him, his troops being dispersed in pursuit of the fugitives. He had but just placed his feet in the warm water when he heard the loud clatter of horses' hoofs, as a squadron of Austrian dragoons galloped into the court-yard. The sentinel at the door shouted, "To arms! to arms! the Austrians!" Napoleon sprang from the bath, hastily drew on one boot, and with the other in his hand, leaped from the window, escaped through the back gate of the garden, mounted a horse and galloped to Massena's division, who were cooking their dinner at a little distance from the castle. The appearance of their commander-in-chief among them in such a plight roused the soldiers from their camp-kettles, and they rushed in pursuit of the Austrians, who, in their turn, retreated. This personal risk induced Napoleon to establish a body guard, to consist of five hundred veterans, of at least ten years' service, who were ever to accompany him. This was the origin of that Imperial Guard, which, in the subsequent wars of Napoleon, obtained such a world-wide renown.

Napoleon soon encamped before the almost impregnable fortress of Mantua. About twenty thousand men composed its garrison. As it was impossible to surmount such formidable defenses by assault, Napoleon was compelled to have recourse to the more tedious operations of a siege.

The Austrian government, dissatisfied with the generalship of Beaulieu, withdrew him from the service and sent General Wurmser to assume the command, with a reinforcement of sixty thousand men. Napoleon's army had also been reinforced, so that he had about thirty thousand men with whom to meet the eighty thousand which would compose the Austrian army when united. It would require, however, at least a month before Wurmser could arrive at the gates of Mantua. Napoleon resolved to improve the moments of leisure in disarming his enemies in the south of Italy.

The kingdom of Naples, situated at the southern extremity of the peninsula, is the most powerful state in Italy. A Bourbon prince, dissolute and effeminate, sat upon the throne. Its fleet had been actively allied with the English in the attack upon Toulon. Her troops were now associated with the Austrians in the warfare against France. The king, seeing the Austrians, and his own troops united with them, driven from every part of Italy except the fortress of Mantua, was exceedingly alarmed, and sent to Napoleon imploring peace. Napoleon, not being able to march an army into his territory to impose contributions, and yet being very anxious to detach from the alliance the army of sixty thousand men which Naples could bring into the field, granted an armistice upon terms so easy as to provoke the displeasure of the Directory. But Napoleon was fully aware of the impending peril, and decided wisely. The Pope, now abandoned by Naples, was in perfect consternation. He had anathematized republican France. He had preached a crusade against her, and had allowed her embassador to be assassinated in the streets of Rome. He was conscious that he deserved chastisement, and he had learned that the young conqueror, in his chastisings, inflicted very heavy blows. Napoleon, taking with him but six thousand men, entered the States of the Pope. The provinces subject to the Pope's temporal power contained a population of two and a half millions, most of whom were in a state of disgraceful barbarism. He had an inefficient army of four or five thousand men. His temporal power was nothing. It was his spiritual power alone which rendered the Pope formidable. The Pontiff immediately sent an embassador to Bologna, to implore the clemency of the conqueror. Napoleon referred the Pope to the Directory in Paris for the terms of a permanent peace, granting him however an armistice, in consideration of which he exacted the surrender of Ancona, Bologna, and Ferrara to a French garrison, the payment of four millions of dollars in silver and gold, and the contribution of one hundred paintings or statues and five hundred ancient manuscripts for the Museum in Paris. The Pope, trembling in anticipation of the overthrow of his temporal power, was delighted to escape upon such easy terms. The most enlightened of the inhabitants of these degenerate and wretchedly governed states welcomed the French with the utmost enthusiasm. They hated the Holy See implacably, and entreated Napoleon to grant them independence. But it was not Napoleon's object to revolutionize the states of Italy, and though he could not but express his sympathy in these aspirations for political freedom, he was unwilling to take any decisive measures for the overthrow of the established government. He was contending simply for peace.

Tuscany had acknowledged the French Republic, and remained neutral in this warfare. But England, regardless of the neutrality of this feeble state, had made herself master of the port of Leghorn, protected by the governor of that city, who was inimical to the French. The frigates of England rode insultingly in the harbor, and treated the commerce of France as that of an enemy. Napoleon crossed the Apennines, by forced marches proceeded to Leghorn, and captured English goods to the amount of nearly three millions of dollars, notwithstanding a great number of English vessels escaped from the harbor but a few hours before the entrance of the French. England was mistress of the sea, and she respected no rights of private property upon her watery domain. Wherever her fleets encountered a merchant ship of the enemy, it was taken as fair plunder. Napoleon, who regarded the land as his domain, resolved that he would retaliate by the capture of English property wherever his army encountered it upon the Continent. It was robbery in both cases, and in both cases equally unjustifiable. And yet such is, to a certain degree, one of the criminal necessities of war. He seized the inimical governor, and sent him in a post-chaise to the Grand Duke at Florence, saying, "The governor of Leghorn has violated all the rights of neutrality, by oppressing French commerce, and by affording an asylum to the emigrants and to all the enemies of the Republic. Out of respect to your authority I send the unfaithful servant to be punished at your discretion." The neutral states were thus energetically taught that they must respect their neutrality. He left a garrison at Leghorn, and then proceeded to Florence, the capital of Tuscany, where the duke, brother of the emperor of Austria, received him with the greatest cordiality, and gave him a magnificent entertainment. He then returned to Mantua, having been absent just twenty days, and in that time, with one division of his army, having overawed all the states of southern Italy, and secured their tranquillity during the tremendous struggles which he had still to maintain against Austria. In these fearful and bloody conflicts Napoleon was contending only to protect his country from those invading armies, which were endeavoring to force upon France the despotism of the Bourbons. He repeatedly made the declaration, that he wished only for peace; and in every case, even when states, by the right of conquest, were entirely in his power, he made peace, upon the most lenient terms for them, simply upon condition that they should cease their warfare against France. "Such a rapid succession of brilliant victories," said Las Cases to Napoleon at St. Helena, "filling the world with your fame, must have been a source of great delight to you." "By no means," Napoleon replied. "They who think so know nothing of the peril of our situation. The victory of to-day was instantly forgotten in preparation for the battle which was to be fought on the morrow. The aspect of danger was continually before me. I enjoyed not one moment of repose."

We must now leave Napoleon and his army, until our next Number, encamped before the walls of Mantua.

LIMA AND THE LIMANIANS

When Pizarro had completed the conquest of Peru, one of his first cares was to select a site for the capital of his new empire. The situation of Cuzco, far withdrawn in the depths of the Cordilleras, which admirably adapted it for the metropolis under the centralizing system of the Incas, rendered it unsuited for the capital of a commercial people, who were to be bound to another nation by the strict ties of colonial dependency. All the requisites of a central position, a good harbor, a fertile soil, and a delightful climate were found combined in the valley of Lurigancho, through which, emptying into the Bay of Callao, flowed the river Rimac, affording abundant facilities for irrigation, and producing exuberant fertility. Here, on the 6th day of January, 1535, the festival of the Epiphany, the conqueror of the Incas resolved to establish his capital city. He gave to it the name of La Ciudad de los Reyes– "The City of the Kings," in honor of the "wise men from the east," whom Catholic tradition has invested with regal dignity, who on that day, more than fifteen centuries before, had followed the star till it "stood over where the young child was." Twelve days afterward, the Spaniards having been gathered to the valley, the work was solemnly inaugurated by Pizarro laying with his own hand the foundation of the cathedral, which was dedicated to Nuestra Señora de la Asuncion– "Our Lady of the Assumption." The work of building was pushed on with an energy characteristic of Pizarro. From an hundred miles around the Indians were collected, and forced to build the hated city. The stern soldiers of the conquest laid aside their armor, and assumed the character of laborious artisans. The foundations of the public edifices were laid with a solidity capable of defying the attacks of time; and almost sufficient to resist the shocks of the earthquake, which at length taught the successors of the first builders that security was only to be attained by the use of slighter materials, and a more humble and fragile mode of erection.

In accordance with the old usage, which delighted to place a great city at some distance from its seaport, the spot chosen by Pizarro for his capital was about two leagues from the bay, whose waters were to be whitened with the sails of its commerce. From this point the plain descends westward to the sea-shore with a gentle slope. The city was laid out in the form of a semicircle or triangle, of which the Rimac formed the base. In order to secure as much shade as possible, the direction of the streets, instead of coinciding with that of the points of the compass, was made from northeast to southwest, so that both in the morning and the afternoon the shade of the buildings should fall upon the streets. Lying within twelve degrees of the equator, the buildings could of course cast no shadow, at any season, from the vertical noonday sun. These principal streets were crossed at right angles by others, so that each group of houses formed a quadrangle, all of nearly equal size. The general direction of the main streets nearly coinciding with the slope of the plain and the course of the Rimac, allowed the waters of the river to be conveyed through them in stone conduits, furnishing irrigation to the gardens, abundant spaces for which were left within the city.

The growth of Lima (for the name given by Pizarro to the city was early laid aside in favor of its present appellation, derived, by a change of letters to which the Limanians are still much addicted, from the name of the river upon which it stands) was as rapid as that of a tropical plant. In half a century from its foundation it is said to have contained 100,000 inhabitants; a rate of increase then unexampled in the history of colonization, and offering a striking contrast to the slow and almost imperceptible growth of the cities planted a century later upon the Atlantic shores of North America, though outdone by the marvels wrought in our own days upon the Pacific coasts. Is their speedy rise to be followed by a like speedy decline? As the mother country declined, the prosperity of Lima in like manner waned, though it is impossible, among the contradictory statements made, to arrive at any certain conclusion as to the population at different periods. But the large number of ruinous and uninhabited buildings shows a decrease of population. It is asserted upon competent authority that during the first thirty years of the present century not a single new building was erected within the walls; and it is doubtful if within the succeeding twenty years, as many buildings have been added to the city.

The distant view of Lima, as one approaches it from the sea is very magnificent. Entering the harbor of Callao, upon the right lies the bare and rugged island of San Lorenzo. In front are the noble but dilapidated castles, and the white houses of Callao, presenting a gay and somewhat grotesque appearance, with the flags of the foreign consuls fluttering before their residences. In the rear stretches a broad plain, sloping upward toward a crescent-shaped range of barren hills, which inclose the fertile valley of the Lurigancho. At the foot of the mountains, apparently, rise the countless spires and towers of Lima, drawn up in relief against their dark sides. Still further in the distance are seen the giant ranges of the Andes, whose snowy summits are usually vailed by thick and sombre clouds. The harbor of Callao is magnificent; and the landing, at a fine mole built of stone, and surrounded by a substantial iron railing, is good. The town itself, though displaying some commercial activity, is mean and insignificant. Leaving Callao for Lima, we pass the little village of Buena Vista; then half way to the city we come to a place called Magdalena, consisting of a pulperia or dram-shop, a convent, and a splendid church. Here in the olden time the Spanish viceroys, at the expiration of their five years' term of office, used to meet their successors, and deliver up their authority to them. The convent has been suppressed, and the church is deserted, but in front of it stands a ragged monk, with a tin dish in his hand, soliciting alms from the passers-by.

When within about half a league from Lima, we enter upon the fine road called the Alameda del Callao. It is beautifully shaded with poplars and willows, with a handsome promenade upon each side, furnished at regular distances with stone seats, and bordered with the quintas, or country houses of the wealthy Limanians, embowered in luxuriant gardens, and surrounded with fruit-trees. By this broad avenue, we enter, through an arched gateway, into the city of Lima. This Alameda was opened in 1800, on the 6th of January, the anniversary of the foundation of the city. It was laid out by a man who filled the post of viceroy of Peru, under the title of Marques de Osorno. The history of this man is somewhat singular. About the middle of the last century, a petty Irish shopkeeper, bearing the somewhat incongruous name of Don Ambrosio O'Higgins, occupied a little shop, which is still shown under the area of the cathedral. Times went hard with Don Ambrosio; he failed in his petty traffic, abandoned the little shop by the cathedral, bade farewell to his old friend and brother tradesman, La Reguera, and wandered to Chili. It was a time of Indian hostilities, and all other occupations failing, there was at least a demand for men to be shot. Don Ambrosio entered the army, showed himself brave and capable, gained promotion, distinguished himself, discovered the Indian city of Osorno, and was honored with the title of the Marques of Osorno. In 1786, he returned to Lima in the capacity of Viceroy, where, as archbishop, he found none other than his old friend, La Reguera. Trade had prospered with him; he had returned to Spain, studied, embraced the clerical profession, and was sent back to Lima as archbishop five years before O'Higgins came as viceroy.

The first impression which the traveler receives upon entering Lima, by no means fulfills the anticipations he had been led to form from its appearance at a distance. The entrance is by the periphery of the semicircle, upon the side furthest from the Rimac. This quarter contains only dilapidated squares and filthy houses. But as he advances toward the Plaza Mayor, the appearance of the city becomes greatly improved. The general aspect of the houses strikes an American as somewhat novel, from the fact that a large proportion of them consist of but one story, very few exceeding two. This mode of building is rendered necessary by the frequency of earthquakes, which render buildings of a more imposing architecture extremely insecure. The houses of two stories have usually two doors in front, opening upon the street. One of these is the azaguan, which constitutes the main entrance to the house; the other leads to the cochera or coach-house. The azaguan opens into a spacious patio or court-yard. Directly opposite this entrance are two large folding-doors, which open into the sala or hall of the dwelling-house, beyond which is the cuadro or reception-room, furnished as splendidly as the means of the occupant will allow. Adjoining the cuadro are the various rooms appropriated to the use of the family. The sala and cuadro are of the full height of the house, and the flat roof of these two apartments forms a sort of terrace, called the azotea, which is paved, surrounded with a railing, and covered with an awning. The second story of the remainder of the building contains rooms which open into a balcony projecting over the street. This balcony is boarded up to the height of about three feet, the remainder being composed of lattices or glazed windows, and forms the favorite lounging place of the inhabitants, where they can watch the passers-by in the streets. The peculiarity of the domestic architecture of Lima, by which, with the exception of the balcony, the rooms open not upon the street, but upon the court-yard, gives the city much the appearance of an Oriental town. Where the houses are of but one story, the almost entire absence of windows and openings gives the street a mean and gloomy appearance, almost like continuous lines of dead walls. But where the dwellings are of two stories, the long lines of balconies and verandas gayly ornamented and trellised, projecting far over the foot-pavements, present a gay and festive aspect. In some parts of the city are houses of much greater height, and of a far more imposing architecture. But they are to a great extent ruinous and dilapidated, having been abandoned by their ancient occupants, for fear of being overwhelmed in them by earthquakes. When tenanted at all, it is principally by the poorer classes, who are willing to brave the insecurity for the sake of the saving in the rents. The outer walls are usually of adobes, or sun-dried brick, as far as the first floor. The second story is usually composed of a wooden frame-work, upon both sides of which canes are nailed, or fastened by leather thongs, and the whole is then plastered over, and painted to imitate stone, the deception being aided by the apparent massiveness of the construction. The division walls are also made of canes plastered over. The roofs are flat, composed of rafters, covered with mats or cane, with a layer of clay spread above them, sufficient to exclude the rays of the sun and the heavy dews. A single prolonged shower would be sufficient to dissolve the whole city; but as it never rains there, these slight walls and roofs are all that is required. Lima is justified in placing her dependence in architecture upon a reed, rather than upon stone. The more solid and massy the walls, the less protection do they afford against the terrible earthquakes which are of periodical occurrence, and by which more than once the city has been reduced to a heap of ruins; while these light cane fabrics yield to the shock, and when it has passed resume their places, with little apparent injury; and even if demolished they do not occasion that fearful peril of life which results from the overthrow of more stable fabrics.

There are few places the inhabitants of which present so great a diversity of complexion and physiognomy as in Lima. There is every gradation and intermixture of race, from the fair Creoles of unmixed European descent, who pride themselves upon the purity of their Spanish blood, to the jet black negro of Congo, whose unmitigated ebony hue bears testimony equally unequivocal to his pure African lineage. Between these two extremes is an almost innumerable variety of mixed races, each having its own peculiar designation, indicating the precise proportion of European, Indian, and negro blood in their veins, each marked with its own peculiar physical, intellectual, and moral characteristics; and each finding its chief boast in the nearness of its relation to the white race, and looking down with contempt upon those a shade darker than its own.

In 1836, when the population of the city was a little more than 54,000, it was composed of about the following proportion of the different races: white Creoles, all of European, and mostly of Spanish descent, 20,000; Negroes, 10,000; of whom a little less than one half were slaves; Indians, 5000; mixed races, 19,000; these are of every shade of complexion, from the Mestizo, the child of a white father and an Indian mother, whom only a keen and practiced eye can distinguish from a White, and to whom no higher compliment can be paid than to inquire whether he is not a Spaniard, to the Zambo who can only show claim to a portion of white blood, on the ground that to all the vices of the negro race, he adds others peculiar to the Whites.

The white Creoles are of slender figure, and of middling height, with features strongly marked, fair complexion, and black hair. Like the descendants of the Spanish race throughout all the Western World, they have degenerated from the parent stock. The males have even in youth a look of premature age; as though the powers of nature were exhausted, and insufficient to develop a vigorous manhood. Indolence is their predominant characteristic. They are utterly indisposed to any continuous exertion, whether of body or of mind. If poverty compels them to pursue an occupation for a livelihood, they select some petty traffic, in which, if the gains are small, there is ample leisure to gossip and smoke their perpetual cigars. Those who are able abandon themselves to idleness, lounging about the streets or in the shops, at the coffee-houses or the gaming-table. The education of the Creole of Lima is very defective; the system of instruction pursued does little to develop his powers, and his innate indolence presents an insuperable bar to any efforts at self-cultivation. Riding is a universal custom, and almost every person keeps one or more horses; these are trained by the chalanes or professional horse-breakers to perform feats of every kind; one to which great value is attached, is to turn around upon the hind legs rapidly, when in full gallop. Tschudi, a recent German traveler, relates an instance which came under his own observation, which shows the certainty and dexterity with which the feat is performed. A friend of his rode full gallop up to the city wall, which at the spot is about nine feet broad, leaped his horse upon it, and made him describe a segment of a circle with his fore feet beyond the edge of the wall, while standing balanced upon his hind feet. The feat was performed a number of times in rapid succession.

The riding costume of a Peruvian cavalier is extremely picturesque and convenient. Its most striking feature is the poncho. This is a large fringed shawl with an opening in the centre, through which the head of the wearer passes; it then hangs gracefully over the shoulder, and falls nearly to the knee, leaving the hands and arms less embarrassed than any other species of cloak. These ponchos frequently display great brilliancy and variety; the color is often a snowy white, sometimes it is richly and fancifully embroidered; but the prevailing taste is for broad stripes of brilliant colors, such as orange, scarlet, blue, green, rose color, or combinations of all hues intermingled and diversified in every conceivable manner. The spurs used by the Peruvians are of enormous magnitude; old custom ordains that they should contain a pound and a half of silver; the rowels sometimes stand out four or five inches from the heel, with spikes of one or two inches in length, or even more. A broad-brimmed sombrero of fine Guayaquil grass is usually worn by equestrians. The trappings of the horses are often of a very costly description. Head-gear, bridle, and crupper are sometimes seen formed of finely-wrought silver rings linked into each other. The stirrups are massy blocks of wood of a triangular shape, quaintly carved, and ornamented with silver. The saddle is frequently adorned with rich embroidery in gold, and the holster inlaid with the same precious metal.

A cigar is the almost unvarying accompaniment of a Peruvian of any class. Basil Hall relates an odd expedient made use of to reconcile the free-and-easy habit of smoking in public places, with the stately requirements of Spanish etiquette of olden time, in the presence of the representatives of royalty. In the days when Peru was a Spanish colony, the vice-regal box at the theatre projected out somewhat into the pit, in full view of the Commonalty of the City of the Kings. As soon as the curtain fell between the acts of the piece, the viceroy was in the habit of retiring from the front to the rear of the box. No sooner was his back turned than, by a very convenient figure of thought, he was considered to be constructively absent. Every man in the pit would then draw forth his flint and steel (this was long before the days of Lucifers and loco-focos), light his cigar, and "improve" the time by puffing away at the fragrant weed. At the tinkling of the bell which announced the rising of the curtain, the representative of royalty returned to the front of the box, his constructive absence was ended, and every smoker paused in mid-puff.

Nothing indicates the decadence of a race more unerringly and decisively than the progressive change which comes over its tastes in its modes of amusement. Indolence and brutality go together. Displays of skill and courage cease to afford excitement to the jaded sensibilities; the stronger stimulus of suffering must be supplied. Thus as the Roman race declined, the shows of the arena grew more and more brutal. Cock-fights and bull-fights are the favorite amusements of the Limanians. A fondness for the latter is characteristic of the Spanish race every where; but in Peru the chief attraction is not the dexterity and courage of the performers, but the agony of the victims. Bull-fights in Spain may almost be characterized as humane exhibitions compared with those of Lima. At one witnessed by Hall in 1821, the matador, who should have given the death-stroke to an animal of extraordinary strength and courage, missed the mortal spot, and merely buried his sword in the body of the bull; in an instant he was tossed, apparently dead, into the air, by the maddened beast, who turned upon a horseman, whom he dismounted, goring the horse so that his bowels hung upon the ground. All this threw the spectators into an agony of delight; which was still further enhanced when the sinews of the bull, having been cut from behind by a crescent-shaped instrument fixed to a long pole, the poor beast dragged himself around the arena upon his mutilated stumps. But their ecstasy amounted to frenzy when a man mounted upon the back of the bull and spurred him around the arena with strokes of a dagger, until he fell exhausted by loss of blood.

Bull-fights are only an occasional luxury, but cock-fights are a daily standing dish. The cock-pit (coliseo de gallos) is a very handsome building; here cock-fights take place every day. The natural weapons of the fowls are not sufficiently deadly to satisfy the Limanian spectators; and in place of the spur of the right foot, which is cut off, is put a sharp curved blade of steel or gaff. Whatever else may be lacking, Lima can justly boast the finest amphitheatre in the world for the purpose of cock-fighting.

In Lima, as throughout the whole of Spanish America, the females are, both intellectually and physically, far superior to the males. All visitors at Lima speak in terms of warm admiration of the Limeñas, as the most charming and graceful women of South America. In figure they are usually slender, and somewhat above the middle height, with fair complexions, destitute of color, large, dark brilliant eyes, and abundant black hair. The charming Spanish epithet hechicera, by which they are designated, belongs to them in the full extent of its significance, not only on account of their rare personal beauty, but also by reason of the captivating grace of their deportment, and the natural amiability of their dispositions.

The first thing which attracts one's regard in Lima, is the singular and picturesque costume of the females. This costume, which resembles that of the Moors, to whom it owes its origin, takes the name of the two principal parts of which it is composed – it is called the saya y manto. It is worn only in Lima, and there only in the day time, as a walking-costume. The saya, as formerly worn, was a skirt or petticoat made of an elastic black silk, plaited at the top and bottom in small folds, and fitting so closely as to display the outlines of the figure, and every motion of the limbs. It was made so narrow at the bottom that the wearers were forced to take steps extremely short, which gave to their gait a mincing character more striking than modest. This, which is called the saya ajustada is now rarely seen. As now worn it forms a very graceful and elegant costume; the bottom plaits are taken out, so as to cause the skirt to stand out from the figure, which is not displayed. This is called the saya desplegada. It is always made of a dark-colored material. The manto is a thick vail of black silk, joining the saya at the back of the waist. It is brought up over the shoulders and head, and drawn over the face in such a manner as to conceal the features entirely, with the exception of one eye, which is visible through a small triangular space left open for the purpose. One hand retains the folds of the manto in their places while the other displays a richly embroidered handkerchief. Over the shoulders is thrown a shawl, usually of embroidered China crape. The Limeñas, effectually disguised in this national dress, to which they are enthusiastically attached, go out every where unattended. Any one can address them, and they violate no usage in accosting any one. The uniformity of the costume, in materials, shape, and color, and the perfect concealment of the features, makes identification impossible, so that the street becomes a perpetual masquerade. The costume which owes its origin to marital jealousy has in Lima become a most efficient aid to intrigue.

The Limeña in the street, shrouded in the saya y manto, differs as widely from the same Limeña at home, as the butterfly wrapped up in its chrysalis does from the same insect with wings fully expanded. At home, at the theatre, in the carriage, every where except when walking in the streets, or in church, the Limeña appears dressed in the newest French fashions. There is, however, one article of European costume which they uniformly refuse to adopt, and that is the bonnet. With here and there an exception, they obstinately reject any other head-dress than a light vail and their own abundant tresses. An inordinate fondness for flowers and perfumes is also a striking characteristic of a Limeña, whose presence is almost invariably announced by a vase of flowers and a flaçon of perfume, placed upon a table near which she reclines swinging in a hammock during the sultry hours of the day, amusing herself, now with examining a book of engravings, now with music, of which she is passionately fond, perhaps with embroidery – and not unfrequently with a cigar.

If man or woman were only an animal being – and if she could always be young and physically charming – this life of the Limeña might not seem so undesirable. But with her a thing of beauty is not a joy forever. If her reign is brilliant, it is brief. When her beauty fades she ceases to be a coquette, and becomes a beata or devotee. She renounces the vanities of the world, attends mass several times a day, makes frequent confessions, and takes up her abode during Lent in a house of penitence. She selects a confessor to whom she unburdens her conscience, and sends presents of sweetmeats and delicacies. At home she sinks into a cipher, scarcely more regarded than a piece of worn-out furniture. If a stranger, paying a visit to a young Limeña, respectfully rises to make a place for an aged woman who enters the cuadro, nothing is more common than for the daughter to say, with the utmost coolness, No se incommoda usted, es ma mamita "Don't incommode yourself, it's my mamma." Habit becomes a second nature, and the Limeña accommodates herself to her lot without a murmur. Such, with exceptions few and rare, is the lot of the hechiceras Limeñas, so highly endowed by nature, and worthy of a better fate.

Besides these Limeñas of European origin there is another class, descendants of the ancient Peruvians, who, though not beautiful like their fair neighbors, present some remarkable characteristics. Their complexion approaches the color of copper, with a pale tinge of gold. Their whole aspect has in it something bizarre, but at the same time not altogether unattractive. In dress they are fond of strange combinations. A balloon-like garment of white muslin or gaudy calico; a Guayaquil hat with high crown and immense brim, decorated with huge bows of ribbon on the "company side" of the head; their abundant hair carefully divided and pouring down their backs in sable cascades; and, foremost and above all, a well-fitting stocking and shoe upon a foot unimpeachably small, form their favorite costume. These cholitas are admirable horsewomen, usually riding astride, cavalier fashion, and wearing the formidable Peruvian spur.

The saya y manto is always worn when going to church. There the absence of seats obliges each female to kneel upon the flags, unless she be provided with a servant to carry a piece of carpet upon which to kneel. To look upon them reclining immovably against the walls or the base of a column, the eyelids drooping upon the pale cheek, or the look fixed upon the tracery of the roof overhead (for in church the manto is not rigorously closed) one might imagine the Limeñas to be statues of meditation. Only the sign of the cross rapidly traced over the forehead shows them to belong to the breathing world. In the sanctuary no sound disturbs the harmony of the sacred offices. The incense, the pious hymns, the soft breathing of the organ, and in some of the churches, the notes of numerous birds of song caged among the crystal lustres of the candelabra, are mingled with the solemn chant of the monks. Service over, and what a change! Life seems to reanimate those marble limbs; those fixed looks become lively and sparkling; and noise and bustle take the place of the former silence. As the fair Limeña leaves the cathedral the black musicians fill the air with the sound of their drums and clarinets, the lottery-men cry their tickets upon one side of the entrance, and upon the other a fat ecclesiastic vends the effigy of the saint who chances to be in fashion. The Limeña, restored to her proper character, draws the shrouding manto over her features; makes gay and lively answers to the insipid compliments paid her by the young men lounging under the portico; and buys with one hand a lottery ticket, and with the other a relic or an image which she hopes will make her number a lucky one.

The Indians in Lima number some 5000; they are active and industrious, in moral qualities far surpassing the mixed races, and fully equaling the whites, to whom, however, they are decidedly inferior in intellectual powers. They look upon Europeans with the feelings always entertained by a subjugated race toward their conquerors; a compound of fear, dislike, and mistrust. In 1781, under the lead of some of the descendants of the ancient Incas, an insurrection of the Indians took place in Peru, which was marked by the utmost atrocities. They defeated the whites in several engagements, burned a number of towns and villages, and captured the city of Sorrato, in which the surrounding inhabitants had taken refuge; of the prisoners who numbered 23,000, only 87 priests and monks were preserved alive. Their leaders were finally betrayed into the power of the whites, and put to death. The Indians then disbanded. The most rigorous measures of repression were thereupon adopted. Their language, dress, music, and dances were strictly forbidden, and every effort made to extinguish their national feelings. When the war of Independence broke out, the Indians took part against Spain, but with the secret design of reinstating the dynasty of their ancestors, and raising to the throne one of the race of the Incas. In many cases they directed their hostilities against the whites indiscriminately, without distinction of parties. In one place they vowed not to leave alive so much as a dog or a fowl who bore the hated color, and even scraped the whitewash from the walls of their houses in sign of utter detestation. Since the war of Independence they have made great advances, especially in the military art, and have used every means to secure as many fire-arms as possible. At as late a period as 1841, Tschudi, discovered by accident eighteen muskets hidden in the hut of an Indian in Central Peru, and upon asking for what purpose they were concealed was told that the time would come when they would be of use. The same writer also mentions incidents showing that many of the Indians are in possession of the secret of the existence of silver mines, far richer than any which are now known; and that the secret is handed down inviolably from father to son, until the time when their ancient dynasty shall be restored. Years of oppression and wrong under Spanish rule, only partially remedied since the Revolution, have wrought a great change in the character of the Indians of Peru. A settled distrust and melancholy have taken the place of the confiding and joyous disposition of the race who welcomed their Spanish visitors. Their songs, their dances, the whole tenor of their domestic life, wear a dark and sombre shade. Even in dress their favorite color is dark blue, which is with them the hue of mourning. These characteristics of the Indian race throughout the country, appear, though more or less modified, in the Indians in Lima.

The negroes in Lima number not far from 10,000 of whom less than half are slaves. The charter of Independence provides that no person in Peru shall be born a slave, but this provision has been modified by law, so as to allow a term of servitude varying from 25 to 50 years. Slaves brought from any other country, become free the moment they touch the soil of Peru. Hence if a master take his slave into Chili, the slave may claim his freedom on his return. Runaways, however, are liable to be reclaimed. The treatment of slaves in Lima is very gentle. A tribunal is erected having the special duty to protect the slaves from ill-treatment. A slave may claim his liberty upon paying his value; and in case he and his master are unable to agree upon the sum, it is fixed by the court; or he may sell himself to any other master who will pay the determined price, in spite of any opposition on the part of the owner. As the introduction of negroes from Africa has been for many years prohibited, the great majority of the slaves are born in Peru. These, though intellectually and physically superior to those born in Africa, are held of less value; their superior intelligence rendering them less docile, and more discontented with their condition. The free negroes of Lima are represented as a plague and a pest to society.

As a general rule the mixed races, which constitute about a third of the population of Lima, inherit the vices without the virtues of the pure races from which they sprung. Perhaps the sole exceptions to this are the Mestizos, the offspring of a white father and an Indian mother. They are of mild and gentle dispositions, but are also timid and irresolute. There are few Mestizos in Lima; but in the interior they are numerous. There they constitute the entire population of many villages, and call themselves whites, keeping aloof from the Indians. The most prominent characteristic of the Mulattos, the offspring of a white and a negro, is their remarkable imitative talent, and their consequent aptitude for mechanical pursuits; but they are extremely sensual and animal in all their tastes and instincts. The Zambos, sprung from an intermixture of the different castes of the colored race, and the Chinos, the offspring of the colored and Indian races intermixed in various degrees, are the most miserable and degraded of all the half-castes in Lima. They commit the most inhuman barbarities with the utmost indifference. Four-fifths of the prisoners in Lima are Zambos. They are usually athletic and muscular, with sunken eyes, thick lips, and noses much less depressed than that of the negro. The Chinos are morally about on a level with the Zambos; but physically they are much inferior. The mixed races of fairer complexion resemble the whites in moral and intellectual qualities in about the same degree that they approach them in color.

The general condition of morals in Lima, especially among the colored races, may be inferred from the following statement given by Tschudi. In ten months of the year 1841, the number of births was 1682, of which 860, more than one half, were born out of wedlock. The number of dead children exposed during the same time was 495, almost one third of the whole number of births. Of the illegitimate children nearly two thirds, and of those exposed a still larger proportion, were Mulattos. Though there can be no positive evidence of the fact, there is every reason to conjecture that the greater number of the children exposed, were murdered by their mothers. During the same period the number of deaths in the city was 2244, exceeding the births by 562. It has been found that for a long series of years the deaths have exceeded the births by about 550 a year.

There is an old Spanish proverb which styles Lima the Paradise of women, the Purgatory of men, and the Inferno of asses; but during the time of the carnival all claims to be considered a Purgatory even, to say nothing of Paradise, to man or woman, disappear. One of the favorite amusements of the season is to besprinkle passers by, from the balconies, with water, of which the purity is by no means above suspicion. The colored population assume the license of rolling the passers who do not choose to pay for exemption, in the street gutters, which offer remarkable facilities for this pleasantry, as they are ill-paved, and unswept, with a stream of water running through them. These gutters are used by the lower classes of the Limanian señoras in a manner peculiar to that city; they are accustomed to wash in them the plates, glasses, and dishes from their dinner tables. Another favorite amusement during the carnival is to suspend from the balconies a strong bag filled with fragments of glass and pottery. This is attached to a rope of such a length as to suffer it to fall within a few inches of the heads of the passengers. This sack is drawn up into the balcony; and when a person who has been selected as a victim passes underneath, it is flung just over his head. The rope prevents it from falling upon him, but the deafening crash which ensues within a few inches of his ears, is nowise soothing to the nerves. This practice is regularly prohibited by the police, but all attempts to suppress it have proved as unavailing as the efforts to prevent the use of fire-crackers upon our own Fourth of July.

There is a public lottery drawn every week in the Plaza Mayor, directly opposite the Cathedral, where a temporary platform is erected for the purpose. A ticket costs an eighth of a dollar, and the highest prize is 1000 dollars. As the hour for drawing approaches, the square begins to fill with a motley crowd of men, women, and children; armed soldiers, shovel-hatted priests, barefoot monks, bright-eyed tapadas (so a Limeña with her manto drawn over her face is called), spurred cavaliers, and ragged negroes. The numbers are placed in the wheels, and drawn out by boys belonging to the foundling hospital. To every ticket is attached a motto, which is usually an invocation to some favorite saint to accord good luck to that ticket; and when the fortunate one is ascertained this motto is read aloud for the edification of the bystanders. The lottery belongs to a society called the "Beneficencia," by whom it is farmed out, and the profits appropriated to the support of hospitals and charitable institutions. It is the usual practice of the Limanians to purchase tickets regularly; the negroes in particular, as elsewhere, are particularly addicted to trying their luck. Instances are not uncommon in which slaves have purchased their freedom with prizes drawn in the lottery of the "Beneficencia." In a small chapel belonging to the church of St. Dominic, were formerly exhibited relics of St. Rose, the patroness of Lima. Among them was a pair of dice, with which it was gravely said that, when the fair saint was exhausted by prayer and penance, the Saviour would appear and revive her drooping spirits with a friendly game. Of late years these uncanonical relics are not exhibited, but Stevenson, the author of a standard work on South America, relates that they were shown to him in 1805, when he kissed them with as much devotion as he would have manifested to any other pair.

Every morning at a quarter to nine o'clock, when the Host is elevated in the Cathedral, and in the evening at the hour of the Angelus, the great bell of the Cathedral tolls three measured strokes, which are repeated from all the many belfries of Lima. Every occupation is at once suspended, every hat is reverentially raised; every lip moves, uttering its whispered prayer. The evening prayer being ended, each one makes the sign of the cross, and bids the person next him buenas noches– "good-night." It is an act of courtesy to insist that one's neighbor shall take the precedence in the salutation; and he, not to be outdone in politeness, must waive the proffered honor. The courteous contest – "You say it," and "No, sir, you say it," is sometimes not a little amusing.

Lima is surrounded by a wall, now in a state of extreme dilapidation, and altogether unavailable for any purposes of defense. It is built of adobes, and dates originally from 1685, though much of that now existing is of more recent construction. A fine stone bridge crosses the Rimac, uniting the city with the suburb of San Lazaro. It consists of six circular arches rising thirty-six feet from the surface of the water. The piers are of brick, resting upon stone foundations of great solidity, of which no better proof is needed than that they survived the earthquakes of 1687 and 1746, by which almost every edifice in Lima was shattered. The entrance to the bridge is through a broad arch crossing the street, used for carriages, with smaller arches on each side for foot-passengers. This archway is surmounted with turrets and spires, and presents an imposing appearance. In the parapets are semi-circular recesses provided with stone seats which furnish a favorite resort in summer evenings. The view from the bridge is of great beauty. Westward the eye follows the silvery course of the Rimac, its left bank lined with convents, and splendid mansions of the more wealthy Limanians. The view closes with the broad Pacific. In the opposite direction the view is bounded by the range of hills, beyond the avenues of the Alameda del Acho; while beyond and above all, when the shrouding vail of clouds is lifted, so as to permit the sight, are beheld the snowy summits of the distant Cordilleras. The bridge was built in 1640, at an expense of 400,000 dollars, from designs by Villegas, an Augustin monk.

The Cathedral is situated on the eastern side of the Plaza Mayor. The foundation stone was laid by Pizarro himself on the 18th of January, 1534, twelve days after the choice of the site of the city. Ninety years after, the edifice was completed, and was solemnly dedicated on the 19th of October, 1625. It has a light, ornamented façade with large folding doors in the centre, and smaller ones upon each side. From each of the two corners rises an octagonal tower to the height of about two hundred feet, exclusive of the base, which is forty feet. These towers were thrown down by the great earthquake of 1746, by which almost the whole city was laid in ruins. They were rebuilt in 1800. The interior is singularly magnificent. The roof, which is beautifully paneled, rests upon arches supported by a double row of square stone pillars. The grand altar is adorned with seven Ionic columns, twelve feet in height, cased with pure silver, an inch and a half thick, and is surmounted with a massy crown of silver richly gilt. The tabernacle, seven feet high, is of wrought gold, studded with precious stones. On high festival days service is performed with a pomp and splendor not surpassed in any temple in Christendom. Many of the churches are ornamented with a profusion of silver even yet, though it is said that during the revolution a ton and a half of silver was taken in a single year from the ornaments of the churches, to supply the necessities of the state; yet such was the abundance with which the precious metal had been lavished, that this amount was hardly missed; a tale which would be incredible if related of any city other than the one which at a certain time paved with solid ingots of silver the streets through which a new viceroy was to make his entrance.

In the convent of San Francisco, is a small chapel containing an image of the Virgin, called del milagro, "of the miracle." It is related that during the great earthquake of 1630, this image, which then stood over the porch of the church looking toward the street, turned completely round, so as to face the high altar, and raised her hands in the attitude of supplication, and then implored mercy for the city, and thus saved it from utter destruction. A monk who conducted a recent traveler over the convent, related to him this miracle, and very naïvely expressed his wonder that the Madonna did not repeat her gracious interposition at the time of the earthquake of 1746, when it was no less needed.

The Oratorio de San Felipe Neri, formerly the convent of San Pedro, was the principal college of the Jesuits, who, at the time of their expulsion, possessed immense wealth. In 1773 a secret order was dispatched from the King of Spain, directing the viceroys to arrest all the Jesuits in the South American provinces, in a single night, and ship them to Spain. So secret was the order that the viceroy and those officers whose assistance was to be employed, were supposed to be the only ones who knew any thing of it. The viceregal council was summoned at 10 o'clock on the appointed night, and the royal order read to them. No one was allowed to leave the room, for fear that intelligence might be communicated to the Jesuits. At midnight the officers were sent to the convent to arrest the members of the order. The door was opened at the first summons, and the officer was conducted to the great hall of the convent, where all the brethren were assembled, each with a bag containing a few requisites for the voyage. So in all the other convents of the order. The same vessel which had conveyed the royal decree, had brought instructions from the Superior of the Jesuits in Madrid, who had gained intelligence of the secret, directed to the vicar-general at Lima, commanding him to be in readiness when the arrest should be made. The brethren were sent to Callao under a strong guard, and as soon as possible were put on shipboard. But when the eager officials made search for the immense wealth which was known to be in the treasury of the order in San Pedro, the keys of which were laid out in readiness for them in the apartment of the Superior, only a few thousand dollars were discovered. The rest had vanished like a vision. And to this day it has eluded the most vigilant search. An old negro, who was in the service of the convent, testified that for several nights he and his fellow-servants, with their eyes closely bandaged, were employed in conveying bags of treasure to the convent vaults, attended by two of the brethren of the order. He could give no clew to the place of concealment, except that he thought there was a subterranean spring near the spot.

The palace of the Inquisition stands upon what was formerly called the Plaza de la Inquisicion, now the Square of Independence (Plazuela de la Independencia). Upon this same square were also situated the University and the Hospital of La Caridad; whence it was sometimes styled the Square of the three Cardinal Virtues: the Inquisition typifying Faith; the University, Hope, and the Hospital, Charity. Few traces remain to denote the fearful uses to which the edifice of the Inquisition was devoted. It is now used in part as a storehouse for provisions, and in part as a prison. In the palmy days of Spanish dominion, Lima was the ecclesiastical metropolis of the whole Pacific coast of South America, and the Inquisition exercised its functions with a rigor hardly exceeded by that of Spain. When the Cortes abolished this tribunal in Spain and its dependencies, the building was thrown open to the populace, who speedily ransacked the apartments, and destroyed the implements of the Holy Office. Among those present was Stevenson, author of a standard work on South America, who has given a detailed account of the transaction. The customary array of racks, pillories, scourges, gags, thumbscrews, and other instruments of torture was found. The crucifix in the principal hall having been accidentally thrown down, it was discovered that the head was movable, and so arranged that a man concealed behind the curtains could cause it to move in token of assent or dissent. How many a trembling victim, overawed, confounded, and bewildered at seeing the movement of the lifeless head of the Redeemer, has confessed whatever the officials demanded, almost believing himself guilty of crimes he never committed. One article found was somewhat ludicrous. In one room was a large quantity of printed cotton handkerchiefs upon the centre of which was a pictorial representation of Religion, bearing a cross in one hand and a chalice in the other. The manufacturer had introduced these pious devices in the hope of facilitating the sale of his wares. But the Holy Office discovered gross impiety in the act of blowing the nose or spitting upon the symbol of the true faith; and to guard against temptation to such a profanation, had seized upon the whole consignment.

On the north side of the Plaza Mayor stands an unsightly edifice, now occupied by courts of justice and various government offices. This was formerly the palace of the Viceroys of Peru. The principal apartment bore the name of the Hall of the Viceroys. Here were arranged forty-four panels, each destined to receive the full-length portrait of a viceroy, as he entered upon his government, commencing with Pizarro. The last of these panels had been filled by the portrait of Pezuela, who held the office at the time when the insurrection broke out which severed Peru from the Spanish dominion. There was no room in the hall for the portrait of another viceroy. A similar coincidence is recorded in Venetian history. The effigy of the Doge who was in office at the time when the revolution took place which overthrew the Venetian oligarchy, filled the last of the niches which had been constructed to receive the effigies of the successive magistrates.

This is not the palace erected by Pizarro for himself. That stood on the opposite side of the square, and some remains of it are still shown in an obscure lane called the Mat-sellers' Alley. Here, on Sunday, the 26th of June, 1546, eleven and a half years from the time when the foundation of the City of the Kings was laid, its founder was assassinated. Pizarro had been warned that a plot was formed to assassinate him on his way to mass; but he took no further precaution against it than to absent himself from divine service that day. The conspirators then resolved to murder him in his own house. As they were crossing the Plaza one of them turned a little aside to avoid a pool of water. "What! afraid of wetting your feet, when you are to wade up to your knees in blood!" exclaimed the veteran Juan de Rada, the leader of the band. The dainty conspirator was ordered to return to his quarters as not worthy of a share in the enterprise. Pizarro was sitting with his friends after dinner, when the assassins rushed into the palace, through the open gate. The guests made their escape through the corridors, by climbing down into the gardens. Among them was Velasquez the Judge, who had boasted that Pizarro could receive no harm from traitors, while he "held in his hands the rod of justice." As Velasquez climbed down in making his escape, he needed both hands to aid his descent, and held his official wand in his mouth; thus verifying his boast, to the letter, if not in spirit. For a moment the assailants were held at bay by the attendants, but these were speedily dispatched. Pizarro, who had vainly attempted to assume his defensive armor, wrapping a cloak about his arm, sprang against the assassins, sword in hand, with the cry, "What ho, traitors! have ye come to kill me in mine own house?" Though more than three score years of age, he defended himself with desperate vigor, and had slain two of the assailants, when Rada, seizing one of his own comrades, flung him against Pizarro, who instantly ran him through the body. But while his weapon was thus entangled, Pizarro received a stab in the throat, and fell, and the swords of several of his enemies were at once sheathed in his body. He traced a cross with his finger in the blood upon the floor, and was in the act of bending down his head to kiss the symbol of his faith, when, with the name of "Jesu" upon his lips, he received a stroke which put an end to his life.

No place upon the globe enjoys a climate more equable than that of Lima. Not only are there no sudden and violent alternations of temperature, but the variations of the seasons are hardly known. Extremes of heat and cold are never experienced. The temperature at noon, in the shade in an open room, never rises above 80, and never falls below 60 degrees. The rays of a vertical sun are intercepted by a thin canopy of mist, called garuas, which for a considerable portion of the year hang over the city, resembling in appearance the canopy of smoke above a large town. The winds blow almost constantly from points between the southwest and the southeast. When they come from the former quarter they are cooled by passing over the immense expanse of the Pacific; when from the latter they have swept the vast forests toward Brazil and the frozen ranges of the Cordilleras. A northerly wind alone, which is of unfrequent occurrence, produces an oppressive sensation of heat. During the year, there are about 45 days when the sun is entirely unclouded, about 190 in which it is visible during no part of the day, and the remainder are usually cloudy in the morning, and clear in the afternoon. A shower of rain is a thing altogether unknown, but during February and March, a few large straggling drops occasionally fall about five o'clock in the afternoon. The garuas overhang the city almost without intermission from April to October. During June, July, and August there will not probably be a single unclouded day, and not more than three days in each month in which the sun can be seen at all. The gray canopy begins to lift in October, and gradually becomes thinner and thinner till April, when it again begins to gather. But this equable climate, apparently so desirable, is found to be productive of great physical lassitude, and to be unfavorable to health. It has been already noticed that the number of deaths constantly and greatly exceeds that of births. Among adults the most fatal disease is dysentery; then comes fever, usually intermittent; then consumption, inflammation of the lungs, and dropsy, the latter usually the result of intermittent fever.

Another fearful compensation for the mildness of the elements above the surface of the earth, is found in the frequency of subterranean disturbances. On an average, there are 45 shocks of earthquakes in the course of a year. These usually occur in the months from October to January, and again in May and June. But at intervals of from 40 to 60 years, the valley of the Rimac experiences an earthquake of far more desolating force, and by which Lima has several times been reduced to a heap of rubbish. The most destructive of these, since the European conquest were those of 1586, 1630, 1687, 1713, 1746, 1806 – two in each completed century; so that the experience of the past gives us every reason to anticipate that many years will not elapse before Lima will once more become a mass of ruins.

The most destructive of this regular series of great earthquakes was that of October 26, 1746. A little more than an hour before midnight, the earth began to tremble, and in three minutes from the time of the first shock, the city lay in ruins. Of more than 3000 houses, only 21 escaped entire. The towers of the Cathedral were overthrown. The bridge across the Rimac was almost the only public work which escaped, and of that one arch, upon which stood an equestrian statue of Philip V., was destroyed. But if Lima was sorely shattered, Callao was annihilated. The sea receded suddenly from the shore, and as suddenly rolled back with irresistible force, overwhelming the devoted city, with all its inhabitants, 5000 in number. Of these, it is popularly related, that only one escaped. A Spanish corvette which lay at anchor, was lifted sheer over the walls of the fortress, and deposited a full mile inshore, at a spot still designated by a cross erected to commemorate the fact. All the other vessels in the harbor were sunk. The modern town of Callao stands at the distance of two miles from the site of the old town, of which not a vestige remains. It is popularly affirmed that in a clear day the ruins of the old town may still be seen beneath the waves; but travelers, whose imagination is not keener than their vision, have vainly strained their sight to discover a trace of the lost city.

No familiarity with earthquakes is sufficient to do away with their terrors. The Limanian who has known them from childhood, no sooner feels the first shock, than he rushes from his apartment, with the cry of "misericordia" upon his trembling lips, no less than the foreigner who has never before witnessed these convulsive throes of nature. The moment a shock is felt the Cathedral bell begins to toll, all the belfries in Lima take up the sound, and summon the affrighted population to their devotions. A change has been wrought even in the form of church service, by the ever-present apprehension of these convulsions: the word "famine" being omitted and "earthquake" inserted among the evils from which deliverance is implored. The very architecture of Lima – its houses of a singly story – its plastered upper walls, its cane roofs, its towers and steeples of stuccoed wicker work – is a perpetual prayer against an evil which no human foresight can avoid, and no mortal power avert, and in respect to which the utmost that man can do, is in some degree to mitigate its consequences.

ALLY SOMERS. – A TALE OF THE COAST-GUARD

When I joined the Scorpion sloop of war, then (1810) on the West India station, there were a father and son among the crew whose names, as borne on the ship's books, were John Somers and John Alice Somers. The oddity in this country of giving a boy a female baptismal name had been no doubt jestingly remarked upon by those who were aware of it, but with the sailors the lad passed as Ally Somers. The father was approaching fifty, the son could not have been more than seventeen years of age. The elder Somers, who had attained to the rating of a boatswain, was a stern, hard, silent man, with a look as cold and clear as polished steel, and a cast-iron mouth, indicative of inflexible, indomitable firmness of will and resolution. The son, on the contrary, though somewhat resembling his father in outline of feature, had a mild, attractive, almost feminine aspect, and a slight graceful frame. I was not long in discovering that, obdurate and self-engrossed as the man appeared, the boy was really the idol-image in which his affections and his hopes were centred. His eye constantly followed the motions of the lad, and it appeared to be his unceasing aim and study to lighten the duties he had to perform, and to shield him from the rough usage to which youngsters in his position were generally subjected by the motley crews of those days. One day a strong instance in proof of this master-feeling occurred. Ally Somers some time previously, when on shore with a party dispatched to obtain a supply of water, had, during the temporary absence of the officer in command, been rather severely rope's-ended by one of the seamen for some trifling misconduct, and a few slight marks were left on the lad's back. The rage of the father, when informed of the circumstance, was extreme, and it was with difficulty that he was restrained from inflicting instant chastisement on the offender. An opportunity for partially wreaking his hoarded vengeance occurred about six weeks afterward, and it was eagerly embraced. The sailor who had ill-used young Somers was sentenced to receive two dozen lashes for drunkenness and insubordination. He was ordered to strip, placed at the gratings, and the punishment began. Somers the boatswain, iron or sour-tempered as he might be, was by no means harsh or cruel in his office, and his assistants, upon whom the revolting office of flogging usually devolved, influenced by him, were about the gentlest-handed boatswain's-mates I ever saw practice. On this occasion he was in another and a very different mood. Two blows only had been struck, when Somers, with an angry rebuke to the mate for not doing his duty, snatched the cat from his hand, and himself lashed the culprit with a ferocity so terribly effective, that Captain Boyle, a merciful and just officer, instantly remitted half the number of lashes, and the man was rescued from the unsparing hands of the vindictive boatswain.

Other instances of the intensity of affection glowing within the stern man's breast for his comparatively weak and delicate boy manifested themselves. Once in action, when the lad, during a tumultuous and murderous struggle in beating off a determined attempt to carry the sloop by boarding, chanced to stumble on the slippery deck, he was overtaken before he could recover himself, and involved in the fierce assault which at the forecastle was momently successful. I was myself hotly engaged in another part of the fight; but attention being suddenly called to the forepart of the ship by the enemy's triumphant shouts, I glanced round just in time to see the boatswain leap, with the yell and bound of a tiger, into the mêlée, and strike right and left with such tremendous ferocity and power as instantly to check the advancing rush. Our men promptly rallied, and the deck was in a few minutes cleared of every living foe that had recently profaned it. Ally Somers, who had received a rather severe flesh wound, and fainted from loss of blood, was instantly caught up by his father, and carried with headlong impatience below. When the surgeon, after a brief look at the hurt, said, "There is no harm done, Somers," the high-strung nerves of the boatswain gave way, and he fell back upon a locker, temporarily prostrate and insensible from sudden revulsion of feeling. Several times I was an unintentional auditor of scraps of conversation between the two while the lad was on the sick-list, from which I gathered that Ally was the sole issue of a marriage which had left bitter memories in the mind of the father; but whether arising from the early death of his wife, or other causes, I did not ascertain. Somers was, it appeared a native of the west of England, and it was quite evident had received a much better education than usually falls to individuals of his class.

At the close of the war Somers and his son were, with thousands of others, turned adrift from the royal service. Some months after my appointment to the command of the revenue-cutter, I chanced to meet the father in the village of Talton, about four miles out of Southampton, on the New Forest Road. He had, I found re-entered the navy, but chancing to receive a hurt by the falling of a heavy block on his right knee, had been invalided with a small pension, upon which he was now living at about a hundred yards from the spot where we had accidentally met. Ally, he informed me, was the skipper of a small craft, trading between Guernsey and Southampton. There was little change in the appearance of the man except that the crippled condition of his leg appeared to have had an effect the reverse of softening upon his stem and rugged aspect and temper. When paid off he was, I knew, entitled to a considerable sum in prize-money, the greater part of which he told me he had recently received.

About two months after this meeting with the father I fell in with the son. I was strolling at about eleven in the forenoon along the front of the Southampton custom-house, when my eye fell upon a young man in a seaman's dress, busily engaged with three others in loading a cart with bundles of laths which had been landed shortly before from a small vessel alongside the quay. It was Ally Somers sure enough; and so much improved in looks since I last saw him, that but for a certain air of fragility – inherited probably from his mother – he might have been pronounced a handsome fine young fellow. The laths, upward of two hundred bundles, which he was so busily assisting to cart, he had brought from Guernsey, and were a very common importation from that island: Guernsey possessing the right of sending its own produce customs free to England, a slight duty, only tantamount to what the foreign timber of which the laths were made would have been liable to, was levied upon them, and this was ascertained by the proper officer simply measuring the length and girth of the bundles. This had been done, and the laths marked as "passed." It struck me that the manner of Ally Somers was greatly flurried and excited, and when he saw me approaching, evidently with an intention to accost him, this agitation perceptibly increased. He turned deadly pale, and absolutely trembled with ill-concealed apprehension. He was somewhat re-assured by my frank salutation; and after a few common-place inquiries I walked away, evidently to his great relief, and he with his sailors continued their eager work of loading the cart. I could not help suspecting that something was wrong, though I could not make up my mind to verify the surmise his perturbed and hurried manner excited. Once in a skirmish on shore his father, the boatswain, had saved my life by sending a timely bullet through the head of a huge negro who held me for the moment at his mercy. Besides I might be wrong after all, and I had no right to presume that the officer who had passed the laths had not made a sufficient examination of them. The flurry of the young man might arise from physical weakness and the severe labor he was performing in such hot weather. These reasons, or more truly these excuses for doing nothing, were passing through my brain, when I observed the hasty approach of the collector of customs himself toward the cart, followed by several of his subordinates. Young Somers saw him as quickly as I did, and the young man's first impulse, it was quite plain, was flight. A thought, no doubt, of the hopelessness of such an attempt arrested his steps, and he stood quaking with terror by the side of the cart, his right hand grasping for support at one of the wheel-spokes.

"One of you lend me a knife," said the collector, addressing the officers of customs.

A knife was quickly opened and handed to him: he severed the strong cords which bound one of the bundles of laths together, and they flew asunder, disclosing a long tin tube of considerable diameter, closely rammed with tobacco! All the other bundles contained a similar deposit; and so large was the quantity of the heavily-taxed weed thus unexpectedly made lawful prize of, that a profit, I was assured, of not less than £500 or £600 would have been made by the audacious smuggler had he succeeded in his bold and ingenious attempt. The ends of the bundles had been filled up with short pieces of lath, so that, except by the process now adopted, it was impossible to detect that the cargo was not bonâ fide what it had been declared to be. The penalties to which Somers had rendered himself liable were immense, the vessel also was forfeited, and the unfortunate young man's liberty at the mercy of the crown. He looked the very picture of despair, and I felt assured that ruin, utter and complete, had fallen upon him.

He was led off in custody, and had gone some dozen paces when he stopped shortly, appeared to make some request to the officers by whom he was escorted, and then turning round, intimated by a supplicatory gesture that he wished to speak to me. I drew near, and at my request the officers fell back out of hearing. He was so utterly prostrated by the calamity by which he had been so suddenly overtaken, that he could not for several moments speak intelligibly. I felt a good deal concerned for so mere a boy, and one too so entirely unfitted by temperament and nerve to carry through such desperate enterprises, or bear up against their failure.

"This is a bad business," I said; "but the venture has not, I trust, been made with your own or your father's money?

"Every penny of it," he replied, in a dry, fainting voice, "was our own. Father lent me all his prize-money, and we are both miserable beggars."

"What in the name of madness could induce you to venture your all upon a single throw in so hazardous a game?"

"I will tell you," he went on hurriedly to say in the same feeble and trembling tone; "I am not fitted for a sea-life – not strong, not hardy enough. I longed for a quiet, peaceful home ashore. A hope of one offered itself. I made the acquaintance of Richard Sylvester, a miller near Ealing. He is a good man, but griping as far as money is concerned. I formed an attachment for his eldest daughter Maria; and he consented to our union, and to taking me as a partner in his business, if I could pay down five hundred pounds. I was too eager to wait long; besides I thought that perhaps – but it boots not to speak of that now; I set more than life upon this cast; I have lost, and am now bankrupt of resource or hope! Will you break this news to my father, and see – " His remaining firmness gave way as the thought he would have uttered struggled to his lips, and the meek hearted young man burst into tears, and wept piteously like a girl. A number of persons were collecting round us, and I gently urged him to walk on to the custom-house. A few minutes afterward I left him there, with a pro mise to comply with his request without delay.

I found John Somers at home, and had scarcely uttered twenty words when he jumped at once at the true conclusion.

"Out with it, sir!" exclaimed the steel-nerved man. "But you need not; I see it all. Ally has failed – the tobacco has been seized – and he is in prison."

Spite of himself his breath came thick and short, and he presently added with a fierce burst, while a glance of fire leaped from his eyes; "He has been betrayed, and I think I know by whom."

"Your suspicion that he has been informed against is very likely correct, but you will, I think, have some difficulty in ascertaining by whom. The custom-house authorities are careful not to allow the names of their informants to leak through their office-doors."

"I would find him were he hidden in the centre of the earth!" rejoined the ex-boatswain with another vengeful outcry which startled one like an explosion. "But," added the strong and fierce-willed man after a few moments' silence, "it's useless prating of the matter like a wench. We must part company at once. I thank you, sir, and will tell Ally you have called." I mentioned the other request made by his son. "That is a rotten plank to hold by," he said. "Ally's chance is over there, and it would be mere waste of time to call on the old man; his resolution is hard and unyielding as his own millstones. Maria Sylvester is gone with the five hundred pounds her father bargained for; and the girl's tears, if she shed any, will soon be dry. I warned Ally of the peril of steering his course in life by the deceptive light of woman's capricious smiles and vanities; but he, poor, flexile, gentle-minded boy, heeded me not. I may not longer delay: he will be anxious to see me. Good-day, sir."

The consequence which I chiefly feared came to pass, even more speedily than I had apprehended. It being impossible to liquidate the penalties incurred, Ally Somers was imprisoned as a crown debtor; and at that period, whatever may be the case now, revenue penalties could not be got rid of by insolvent-court schedules. The prospect of an indefinite term of imprisonment, with other causes of grief and depression, broke down the always fragile health of the prisoner, and he died, ere yet his youth was well begun, after about six months' confinement only.

The tidings were brought me by the old man himself. I was seated in the cabin of the Rose cutter when it was announced that John Somers was alongside in a boat, and wished to see me. I directed that he should be allowed to come aboard, and presently the old man, with despair visible in every line of his countenance, in every glance of his restless, flaming eyes, entered the cabin.

"I am come to tell you, sir, that Ally is dead."

"I was somewhat prepared for this bad news, Mr. Somers," I answered. "It's hard upon you, but it should be bravely borne with."

He laughed strangely. "To be sure, to be sure," he said, "that is wise counsel – very wise; but that which I want now more than wise counsel is ten pounds – ten pounds, which I shall never be able to repay."

"Ten pounds!"

"Yes: you may remember that I once saved your life. If that piece of service was worth the sum I have mentioned, you can now discharge the obligation. I have parted with every thing, and Ally's last prayer was to be buried beside his – Beside a grave, an early and untimely one, like his own, many miles away."

"I understand; it is a natural and pious wish, and you shall have the money."

"Thank you. The funeral over, I have but one more thing to do in life, and that is to assist you in securing Cocquerel while running one of his most valuable cargoes."

"Cocquerel, the Guernseyman you mean?"

"Ay, so he calls himself; but I fancy he at one time hailed from another port. He is the man who sold Ally's secret to the revenue-officers!"

"Are you sure?"

"As death! He was Ally's only confidant, and Ally's father is now in Cocquerel's confidence. It is but natural," added Somers, and a bitter, deadly sneer curled his ashy lips – "it is but natural, you know, that I should be eager to assist in pillaging a government which caged my son, and held him under its iron bars till life had fled. Cocquerel understands this, and trusts me fully; but that which he does not understand, know, or suspect," continued the fierce old man, sinking his voice to a whisper, and leaning forward with his face close to mine, "is that John Somers has found out who it was that sold his boy's life! Did he know that, and know me too, there would be sounder sleepers than he in these dark nights."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing more, of course," he replied in a more checked and guarded tone, "than to retort the trick he played Ally something after his own fashion."

"That is a fair revenge enough, and I'll not balk you. Now, then, for your plan."

Various details were discussed, and it was settled that on that day-week Somers was again to communicate with me. He then took leave.

At the appointed time Somers returned, and appeared to be in high but flighty spirits. Every thing was, he said, arranged, and success all but certain. His scheme was then canvassed and finally agreed upon, and he again left the vessel.

The arrangement for the surprise and capture of Cocquerel was this: – That notorious smuggler intended running a large cargo on the coast of Dorsetshire, on the north of Portland, at a place where the cliffs are high, precipitous, and abrupt, and at that time very inefficiently watched by the shore-force. Near the spot selected is or was a kind of cavern worn by the action of the sea in the chalky stratum, which at neap-tides was partially dry, and at the time of our enterprise would effectually conceal a boat from the observation of any one who did not actually peer in directly at its mouth. Cocquerel was to leave Guernsey the next day in a large boat, with two lug-sails, but chiefly depending for speed upon its sweeps. It was calculated that he would reach his destination about midnight. Somers had undertaken the duty of shore-signalman, and if danger were apprehended, was to warn the smugglers that hawks were abroad by burning a blue-light. The manner of running the cargo was to be this: – Somers was provided with a windlass and sufficient length of rope, with a kind of rope-cradle at the end of it, in which a man could sit, or a couple of kegs be slung, to reach the boat. The windlass he was to secure firmly at the edge of the cliff, and two or three of the men having been drawn up, other windlasses were to be fixed, by means of which it was calculated that in about half an hour the entire cargo would be safely carried off by the carts which Somers had undertaken to have ready on the spot. The signal for our appearance on the scene of action, the positive old man persisted, should be that agreed upon for the warning of the smugglers – the sudden ignition of a blue-light. This did not seem the cleverest possible mode of procedure; but as the cavern in which we were to conceal ourselves was but a few yards northward of the spot marked out for the landing, and Somers promised he would only give the signal when the smugglers were in full work, I had little fear that, if other accidents did not capsize our scheme, they would be able to escape us.

The next afternoon the largest boat belonging to the Rose was fully manned; and leaving the cutter quietly at anchor in the Southampton river just above Calshot, we pulled with the tide – for there was but a light air, and that favorable for the smugglers, not for us – to our hiding-place, which we reached about eight o'clock in the evening.

The hours crept very slowly and dismally away, amid the darkness and hoarse echoes and moanings of the cavern, into which the sea and wind, which were gradually rising, dashed and howled with much and increasing violence. Occasional peeps at my watch, by the light of a lantern carefully shaded seaward, warned us that ten, eleven, twelve, one o'clock had passed, without bringing the friends we so anxiously expected, and fears of ultimate disappointment were chilling us far more than the cold night-breeze, when a man in the bow of the boat said in a whisper that he could hear the dash of oars.

We all instantly listened with eager attention; but it was not till we had brought the boat to the entrance of the opening that the man's assertion was verified. There it was clear enough: and the near approach of a large boat, with the regular jerk of the oars or sweeps, was distinctly audible. The loud, clear hail of their shore-signalman, answered by the "All right" of the smugglers, left no doubt that the expected prey was within our grasp; and I had a mind to pounce upon them at once, but was withheld by a promise which I had been obliged several times to repeat, that I would not under any circumstances do so till the signal-flame sent its light over the waters.

As soon as the noise and bustle of laying in the sweeps, lowering the sails, and unstepping the masts, had subsided, we heard Somers hail the boat, and insist that the captain should come up before any of the others, as there was a difficulty about the carts which he alone could settle. The reply was a growl of assent, and we could hear by the click of the check to the cog-wheel of the windlass that Somers was paying out the rope. Presently Cocquerel was heard to get into the cradle I have spoken of, to which a line was fastened in order to steady his ascent from below. The order was given to turn away, and the renewed click, click, announced that he was ascending the face of the cliff. I could hardly comprehend this manœuvre, which seemed to indicate the escape of the man we were the most anxious to secure, and the order to shove off was just on my lips when a powerful blue-light flamed suddenly forth, accompanied by a fierce but indistinct shout, or roar rather, from Somers. The men replied by a loud cheer, and we shot smartly out; but having, to avoid a line of reef, to row in a straight direction for about a cable's length, the smugglers, panic-stricken and bewildered as they were, had time to get way upon their lugger, and were plying their sweeps with desperate energy before the revenue-boat was fairly turned in direct pursuit. The frantic effort to escape was vain, and so was the still more frantic effort at resistance offered when we ran alongside. We did not hurt them much; one or two were knocked down by the sailors' brass-butted pistols; and after being secured, they had leisure to vent their rage in polyglot curses, part French, part English, and part Guernsey patois, and I to look round and see what had become of Cocquerel.

The blue-light still shed a livid radiance all around, and to my inexpressible horror and dismay, I saw that the unfortunate man was suspended in the rope cradle, within about a fathom's length of the brow of the cliff, upon which Somers was standing and gazing at his victim with looks of demoniac rage and triumph. The deadly trap contrived by the inexorable old man was instantly apparent, and to Cocquerel's frenzied screams for help I replied by shouting to him to cut himself loose at once, as his only chance, for the barrel of a pistol gleamed distinctly in the hands of Somers.

"Lieutenant Warneford," cried the exulting maniac – he was nothing less – "I have caught this Cocquerel nicely for you – got him swinging here in the prettiest cradle he was ever rocked in in his life – Ha! ha! ha!

"Cut loose at once!" I again shouted; and the men, as terribly impressed as myself, with the horror of the wretched smuggler's position, swept the boat rapidly toward the spot. "Somers, if you shoot that man you shall die on the gallows."

"Cut himself loose, do you say, lieutenant?" screamed Somers, heedless of my last observation. "He can't! He has no knife – ha! ha! ha! And if he had, this pistol would be swifter than that; but I'll cut him loose presently, never fear. Look here, Jacques Cocquerel," he continued laying himself flat down on the cliff, and stretching his right arm over it till the mouth of his pistol was within a yard of Cocquerel's head, "this contains payment in full for your kindness to Ally Somers – a debt which I could in no other manner completely repay."

At this moment the blue-light suddenly expired, and we were involved in what by contrast was total darkness. We could still, however, hear the frantic laughter and exulting gibes of the merciless old man in answer to Cocquerel's shrieking appeals for mercy; and after a while, when the figures of the two men had become partially visible, we could distinguish the words, "One, two, three," followed by the report of a pistol, and a half minute afterward a dark body shot down the white face of the cliff, and disappeared beneath the waters!

The body of Cocquerel never reappeared, and the only tidings I ever heard of Somers were contained in the following paragraph which I read some years afterward in the "Hampshire Telegraph," a journal at that time published at Portsmouth:

"The body of an aged, wretched man was found frozen to death in the church-yard on Wednesday morning last, near two adjoining graves, one of which, that of Alice Maynard, recalls the painful circumstances connected with the sad story of the death of that ill-fated, and, as we believe, entirely innocent person. At the inquest holden on Friday, it was ascertained beyond a doubt that the deceased is John Maynard, who, after his wife's untimely death, assumed the name of Somers, and was, we believe, the person who shot a French smuggler, with whom he had quareled, at the back of the Isle of Wight, under somewhat peculiar circumstances, about seven years ago. He was buried in the grave that contains the body of his son, John Alice Maynard, which was interred there shortly before the commission of the homicide just alluded to. There has never been to our knowledge any regular investigation of that affair, but we believe that then, as before, Maynard's pistol was pointed by a frantic and causeless jealousy." [Plymouth Paper.]

There are several mistakes sufficiently obvious to the reader in this paragraph, but of the main fact that John Somers, alias Maynard, perished as described in the Devonshire journal, there can be no reasonable doubt.

MISERS

BY F. SOMNER MERRYWEATHER

Some years ago there lived in Marseilles an old man of the name of Guyot; he was known to every inhabitant, and every urchin in the streets could point him out as a niggard in his dealings, and a wretch of the utmost penury in his habits of life. From his boyhood, this old man had lived in the city of Marseilles; and, although the people treated him with scorn and disgust, nothing could induce him to leave it. When he walked the streets he was followed by a crowd of boys, who, hating him as a grasping miser, hooted him vociferously, insulted him with the coarsest epithets, and sometimes annoyed him by casting stones and filth at his person. There was no one to speak a kind word in his favor, no one to bestow an act of friendship, or a nod of recognition upon Guyot. He was regarded by all as an avaricious, griping old miser, whose whole life was devoted to the hoarding up of gold. At last this object of universal scorn died, and it was found that, by his parsimony, he had amassed an ample fortune. What was the surprise of his executors, on opening his will, to find these remarkable words: "Having observed, from my infancy, that the poor of Marseilles are ill-supplied with water, which can only be procured at a great price, I have cheerfully labored the whole of my life to procure for them this great blessing, and I direct that the whole of my property shall be expended in building an aqueduct for their use!"

When it was proposed to build Bethlehem Hospital, many benevolent individuals volunteered to solicit contributions by calling upon the inhabitants of London. Two of these gentlemen went to a small house in an impoverished neighborhood; for the pence of the poor were solicited as well as the pounds of the rich. The door was open, and, as they drew nigh, they overheard an old man scolding his female servant for having thrown away a match, only one end of which had been used. Although so trivial a matter, the master appeared to be much enraged, and the collectors remained some time outside the door, before the old man had finished his angry lecture. When the tones of his voice were somewhat subdued, they entered, and, presenting themselves to this strict observer of frugality and saving, explained the object of their application; but they did not anticipate much success. The miser, however, for such he was reputed in the neighborhood, no sooner understood their object, than he opened a closet, and bringing forth a well-filled bag, counted therefrom four hundred guineas, which he presented to the astonished applicants. They expressed their surprise and thankfulness, and could not refrain from telling the old gentleman that they had overheard his quarrel with his domestic, and how little they expected, in consequence, to have met with such munificence from him. "Gentlemen," replied the old man, "your surprise is occasioned by my care of a thing of such little consequence: but I keep my house, and save my money in my own way; my parsimony enables me to bestow more liberally on charity. With regard to benevolent donations, you may always expect most from prudent people who keep their own accounts, and who pay attention to trifles."

Audley was a celebrated miser of the time of the Stuarts; he amassed his wealth during the reign of the first Charles, and flourished amazingly under the protectorate of Cromwell. Audley was originally a clerk, with only six shillings a week salary, and yet out of this scanty sum he managed to save more than half. His dinner seldom cost him any thing, for he generally made some excuse to dine with his master's clients; and, as to his other meals, a crust of bread or a dry biscuit was regarded as fare sufficient after an ample dinner. In one circumstance he was somewhat different from other misers: he was clean, if not neat, in his outward appearance. But he was thus scrupulous in his apparel from principle; for Audley often asserted, that, to be thrifty, it was necessary to pay some respect to such matters. He was remarkably industrious, even when a young man. At an age when others were seeking pleasure, he was busy in lending out, and increasing his early savings. He was always ready to work when the usual hours of business were over, and would willingly sit up the whole night to obtain some trifling remuneration. He was never above soliciting trifles, and touching his hat to his master's clients. So rigid was he in his economy, and so usurious in his dealings, that in four years, during which time, however, he had never received more than a salary of six or eight shillings a week, he managed to save and amass five hundred pounds. The salary of the remaining years of his apprenticeship he sold for sixty pounds, and after a while, having made up six hundred pounds in all, he lent the whole to a nobleman for an annuity of ninety-six pounds for nineteen years, which annuity was secured upon property producing eight hundred a year. The nobleman soon died, and his heir neglected to pay the annuity. Audley had execution upon the property, and by legal trickery, in which he was well versed, he managed to obtain, in the way of fines and forfeitures, about four thousand pounds' profit upon his original six hundred. His master being one of the clerks of the Compter, Audley had many opportunities of practicing his disreputable cunning, and of obtaining vast sums by deluding insolvent debtors, and in deceiving their creditors. He would buy bad debts for a mere trifle, and afterward compound with the poor insolvent. One instance of his avarice and villainy is so curious, that we can not refrain from giving the anecdote to our readers. A tradesman, named Miller, unfortunately got into arrears with his merchant, whose name was White. Many fruitless applications were made for the debt, and at last Miller was sued by the merchant for the sum of two hundred pounds. He was unable to meet the demand, and was declared insolvent. Audley goes to White, and offers him forty pounds for the debt, which the merchant gladly accepts. He then goes to Miller, and undertakes to obtain his quittance of the debt for fifty pounds, upon condition that he entered into a bond to pay for the accommodation. The drowning man catches at a straw, and the insolvent, with many protestations of thanks, eagerly signs a contract which, without consideration, he regarded as one so light, and so easy in its terms, as to satisfy him that the promptings of benevolence and friendship could only actuate his voluntary benefactor. The contract was, that he should pay to Audley some time within twenty years from that time, one penny progressively doubled, on the first day of twenty consecutive months; and, in case he failed to fulfill these easy terms, he was to pay a fine of five hundred pounds. Thus acquitted of his debt of two hundred pounds, Miller arranged with the rest of his creditors, and again commenced business. Fortune turned, and he participated liberally in her smiles. Every month added largely to his trade, and at last he became firmly established. Two or three years after signing the almost forgotten contract, Miller was accosted one fine morning in October by old Audley, who politely demanded the first installment of the agreement. With a smile, and many renewed expressions of thankfulness, the hopeful tradesman paid his penny. On the first of the succeeding month, Audley again called, and demanded twopence, and was as politely satisfied as before. On the first of December, he received a groat; the first of February, one shilling and fourpence. Still Miller did not see through the artifice, but paid him with a gracious smile; perhaps, however, there was something cynical in the look of Audley as he left the shop this time, for the poor tradesman's suspicions were aroused, and he put his pen to paper, as he ought to have done years before, to ascertain the amount of his subsequent payments. Reader, what think you would have been the amount of the payment due on the first of the twentieth month? What sum, think ye, the little penny had become? No less than two thousand one hundred and eighty pounds! And what was the aggregate sum of all these twenty monthly payments? Why, the enormous sum of four thousand three hundred and sixty-six pounds, eleven shillings, and threepence? It sounds incredible; but, if you think it a fable, do as Miller did, and reckon for yourselves. Of course Miller refused the payment of his bond, and forfeited five hundred pounds by the benevolence and charity of the miser.

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1

Decres was afterward elevated by Napoleon to a dukedom, and appointed Minister of the Marine. He was strongly attached to his benefactor. At the time of Napoleon's downfall, he was sounded in a very artful way as to his willingness to conspire against the Emperor. Happening to visit a person of celebrity, the latter drew him aside to the fire-place, and taking up a book, said, "I have just now been reading something that struck me very forcibly. Montesquieu here remarks, 'When the prince rises above the laws, when tyranny becomes insupportable, the oppressed have no alternative but – '" "Enough," exclaimed Decres, putting his hand before the mouth of the reader, "I will hear no more. Close the book." The other coolly laid down the volume, as though nothing particular had occurred, and began to talk on a totally different subject.

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2

"The education of Lannes had been much neglected but his mind rose to the level of his courage. He became a giant. He adored me as his protector, his superior being, his providence. In the impetuosity of his temper he sometimes allowed hasty expressions against me to escape his lips, but he would probably have broken the head of any one who had joined him in his remarks. When he died he had been in fifty-four pitched battles and three hundred combats of different kinds." – Napoleon.

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