which the throne of Napoleon was embellished.

"Perhaps in that neglected spot is laid,
A heart once pregnant with celestial fire,
Hands which the rod of empire might have swayed.
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre."

The night after the battle of Bassano, the moon rose cloudless and brilliant over the sanguinary scene. Napoleon, who seldom exhibited any hilarity or even exhilaration of spirits in the hour of victory, rode, as was his custom, over the plain, covered with the bodies of the dying and the dead, and, silent and thoughtful, seemed lost in painful reverie. It was midnight. The confusion and the uproar of the battle had passed away, and the deep silence of the calm starlight night was only disturbed by the moans of the wounded and the dying. Suddenly a dog sprung from beneath the cloak of his dead master, and rushed to Napoleon, as if frantically imploring his aid, and then rushed back again to the mangled corpse, licking the blood from the face and the hands, and howling most piteously. Napoleon was deeply moved by the affecting scene, and involuntarily stopped his horse to contemplate it. In relating the event, many years afterward, he remarked, "I know not how it was, but no incident upon any field of battle ever produced so deep an impression upon my feelings. This man, thought I, must have had among his comrades friends; and yet here he lies forsaken by all except his faithful dog. What a strange being is man! How mysterious are his impressions! I had, without emotion, ordered battles which had decided the fate of armies. I had, with tearless eyes, beheld the execution of those orders, in which thousands of my countrymen were slain. And yet here my sympathies were most deeply and resistlessly moved by the mournful howling of a dog. Certainly in that moment I should have been unable to refuse any request to a suppliant enemy."

THE DEAD SOLDIER AND HIS DOG.

Austria was still unsubdued. With a perseverance worthy of all admiration, had it been exercised in a better cause, the Austrian government still refused to make peace with republican France. The energies of the empire were aroused anew to raise a fourth army. England, contending against France wherever her navy or her troops could penetrate, was the soul of this warfare. She animated the cabinet of Vienna, and aided the Austrian armies with her strong co-operation and her gold. The people of England, republican in their tendencies, and hating the utter despotism of the old monarchy of France, were clamorous for peace. But the royal family and the aristocracy in general, were extremely unwilling to come to any amicable terms with a nation which had been guilty of the crime of renouncing monarchy.

All the resources of the Austrian government were now devoted to recruiting and equipping a new army. With the wrecks of Wurmser's troops, with detachments from the Rhine, and fresh levies from the bold peasants of the Tyrol, in less than a month an army of nearly one hundred thousand men was assembled. The enthusiasm throughout Austria, in raising and animating these recruits, was so great that the city of Vienna alone contributed four battalions. The empress, with her own hand, embroidered their colors and presented them to the troops. All the noble ladies of the realm devoted their smiles and their aid to inspire the enterprise. About seventy-five thousand men were rendezvoused in the gorges of the northern Tyrol, ready to press down upon Napoleon from the north, while the determined garrison of twenty-five thousand men, under the brave Wurmser, cooped up in Mantua, were ready to emerge at a moment's warning. Thus in about three weeks another army of one hundred thousand men was ready to fall upon Napoleon. His situation now seemed absolutely desperate. The reinforcements he had received from France had been barely sufficient to repair the losses sustained by disease and the sword. He had but thirty thousand men. His funds were all exhausted. His troops, notwithstanding they were in the midst of the most brilliant blaze of victories, had been compelled to strain every nerve of exertion. They were also suffering the severest privations, and began loudly to murmur. "Why," they exclaimed, "do we not receive succor from France? We can not alone contend against all Europe. We have already destroyed three armies, and now a fourth, still more numerous, is rising against us. Is there to be no end to these interminable battles?" Napoleon was fully sensible of the peril of his position, and while he allowed his troops a few weeks of repose, his energies were strained to their very utmost tension in preparing for the all but desperate encounter now before him. The friends and the enemies of Napoleon alike regarded his case as nearly hopeless. The Austrians had by this time learned that it was not safe to divide their forces in the presence of so vigilant a foe. Marching down upon his exhausted band with seventy-five thousand men to attack him in front, and with twenty-five thousand veteran troops, under the brave Wurmser, to sally from the ramparts of Mantua and assail him in the rear, it seemed to all reasonable calculation that the doom of the French army was sealed. Napoleon in the presence of his army assumed an air of most perfect confidence, but he was fearfully apprehensive that, by the power of overwhelming numbers, his army would be destroyed. The appeal which, under the circumstances, he wrote to the Directory for reinforcements, is sublime in its dignity and its eloquence. "All of our superior officers, all of our best generals, are either dead or wounded. The army of Italy, reduced to a handful of men, is exhausted. The heroes of Millesimo, of Lodi, of Castiglione, of Bassano, have died for their country, or are in the hospitals. Nothing is left to the army but its glory and its courage. We are abandoned at the extremity of Italy. The brave men who are left me have no prospect but inevitable death amidst changes so continual and with forces so inferior. Perhaps the hour of the brave Augereau, of the intrepid Massena is about to strike. This consideration renders me cautious. I dare not brave death when it would so certainly be the ruin of those who have so long been the object of my solicitude. The army has done its duty. I do mine. My conscience is at ease, but my soul is lacerated. I never have received a fourth part of the succors which the minister of war has announced in his dispatches. My health is so broken that I can with difficulty sit upon horseback. The enemy can now count our diminished ranks. Nothing is left me but courage. But that alone is not sufficient for the post which I occupy. Troops, or Italy is lost."

Napoleon addressed his soldiers in a very different strain, endeavoring to animate their courage by concealing from them his anxieties. "We have but one more effort to make," said he, "and Italy is our own. True, the enemy is more numerous than we; but half his troops are recruits, who can never stand before the veterans of France. When Alvinzi is beaten Mantua must fall, and our labors are at an end. Not only Italy, but a general peace is to be gained by the capture of Mantua."

During the three weeks in which the Austrians were recruiting their army and the French were reposing around the walls of Mantua, Napoleon made the most Herculean exertions to strengthen his position in Italy, and to disarm those states which were manifesting hostility against him. During this period his labors as a statesman and a diplomatist were even more severe than his toils as a general. He allowed himself no stated time for food or repose, but day and night devoted himself incessantly to his work. Horse after horse sunk beneath him, in the impetuous speed