Page:Life of Napoleon Bonaparte.pdf/8

8 Aiguilette, which commanded the English fleet; and other positions, occupied by the English, upon the mountains, were carried at the point of the bayonet. Ultimately compelled to abandon the place, the British retired in the night, and on the 20th of December, the French re-entered Toulon, when they inflicted dreadful vengeance on the royalists left in the city.

The rank of general of brigade was the reward conferred upon Bonaparte, for his services at the siege of Tonlon. In 1795, he was appointed General-in-chief of the army, and about the same time, his marriage with Josephine took place.

In February, 1796, the army in Italy might be considered as having no leader, and Napoleon was chosen, as the only man capable of extricating the army from the embarassing situation in which it was placed.

Free from the restraint he had so long felt in the capital, Napoleon soon gave full scope to that genius which required an ample theatre for action. His departure from Paris, to commence the celebrated Italian campaign of 1796, took place on the 21st of March, when he was the only individual that did not feel astonished at his good fortune. An intimate friend, congratulating him upon that appointment, having testified some surprise at his youth, Bonaparte drily made answer, “I shall return old."

At the period in question, the King of Sardinia, who, from the military and geographical situation of his dominions, was called the "Porter of the Alps," possessed strong fortresses at the opening of all the passages leading into Piedmont. The French army of Italy was then about thirty-one thousand strong, while nearly three times that number were opposed to them, having two hundred pieces of cannon. The character of the French troops was excellent, but the cavalry wretchedly mounted, and very deficient in artillery. They possessed no means of transporting military stores from the arsenals; all the draught