Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/518

 4S0 Readings in European History some grenadiers of the legislative body charged the hall and cleared it. The seditious, thus intimidated, dispersed and fled. The majority, freed from their assailants, returned freely and peaceably into the hall, listened to the propositions for the public safety, deliberated, and drew up the salutary resolu- tion which will become the new and provisional law of the republic. Frenchmen, you will doubtless recognize in this conduct the zeal of a soldier of liberty, of a citizen devoted to the republic. Conservative, judicial, and liberal ideas resumed their sway upon the dispersion of those seditious persons who had domineered in the councils and who proved them- selves the most odious and contemptible of men. Bonaparte. 427. The campaign of Marengo as described by Bourrienne. Situation of Bonaparte after Brumaire. IV. Marengo and Luneville Bourrienne thus sketches the campaign of Marengo : It cannot be denied that if, from the 18th Brumaire to the epoch when Bonaparte began the campaign, innumer- able improvements had been made in the internal affairs of France, foreign affairs could not be viewed with the same satisfaction. Italy had been lost, and the Austrian camp fires might be seen from the frontiers of Provence. Bona- parte was not ignorant of the difficulties of his position, and it was even on account of these very difficulties that, what- ever might be the result of his hazardous enterprise, he wished to have it over as quickly as possible. He cherished no illu- sions and often said all must be staked to gain all. The army which the First Consul was preparing to attack, was numerous, well disciplined, and victorious. His own with the exception of a very small number of troops, was composed of conscripts; but these conscripts were com- manded by officers whose ardor was unparalleled. Bona- parte's fortune was now to depend on the winning or losing of a single battle. A battle lost would have dispelled all the