the Mincio, had passed through Valeggio without halting, in pursuit of Beaulieu, by whom the village had been just before abandoned. Buonaparte with a small retinue remained in the place, and Massena's division were still on the right bank of the Mincio, preparing their dinner. At this moment the advanced guard of Sebottendorf, consisting of hulans and hussars, pushed into the village of Valeggio. There was but barely time to cry to arms, and, shutting the gates of the inn, to employ the general's small escort in its defence, while Buonaparte, escaping by the garden, mounted his horse and galloped towards Massena's division. The soldiers threw aside their cookery, and marched instantly against Sebottendorf, who, with much difficulty, and not without loss, effected a retreat in the same direction as his commander-in-chief Beaulieu. This personal risk induced Buonaparte to form what he called the corps of guides, veterans of ten years' service at least, who were perpetually near his person, and, like the Triarii of the Romans, were employed only when the most desperate efforts of courage were necessary. Bessières, afterwards Duke of Istria, and Marshal of France, was placed at the head of this chosen body, which gave rise to the formation of the celebrated Imperial Guards of Napoleon.154
The passage of the Mincio obliged the Austrians to retire within the frontier of the Tyrol; and they might have been considered as completely expelled from Italy, had not Mantua and the citadel of Milan still continued to display the Imperial banners. The castle of Milan was a place of no extraordinary strength, the surrender of which might be calculated on so soon as the general fate of war had declared itself against the present possessors. But Mantua was by nature one of those almost impregnable fortresses, which may long, relying on its own resources, defy any compulsion but that of famine.
The town and fortress of Mantua are situated on a species of island, five or six leagues square, called the seraglio, formed by three lakes, which communicate with, or rather are formed by, the Mincio. This island has access to the land by five causeways, the most important of which was in 1796 defended by a regular citadel, called, from the vicinity of a ducal palace, La Favorità. Another was defended by an intrenched camp, extending between the fortress and the lake. The third was protected by a horn-work. The remaining two causeways were only defended by gates and draw-bridges. Mantua, low in situation, and surrounded by water, in a warm climate, is naturally unhealthy; but the air was likely to be still more destructive to a besieging army, (which necessarily lay in many respects more exposed to the elements, and were besides in greater numbers, and less habituated to the air of the place,) than to a garrison who had been seasoned to it, and were well accommodated within the fortress.
To surprise a place so strong by a coup-de-main was impossible, though Buonaparte represents his soldiers as murmuring that such a desperate feat was not attempted. But he blockaded Mantua [June 4] with a large force, and proceeded to take such other measures to improve his success, as might pave the way to future victories. The garrison was numerous, amounting to from twelve to fourteen thousand men; and the deficiencies of the fortifications, which the Austrians had neglected in over security, were made up for by the natural strength of the place. Yet of the five causeways, Buonaparte made himself master of four; and thus the enemy lost possession of all beyond the walls of the town and citadel, and had only the means of attaining the mainland through the citadel of La Favorità. Lines of circumvallation were formed, and Serrurier was left in blockade of the fortress, which the possession of four of the accesses enabled him to accomplish with a body of men inferior to the garrison.155
To complete the blockade, it was necessary to come to some arrangement with the ancient republic of Venice. With this venerable government Napoleon had the power of working his own pleasure; for although the state might have raised a considerable army to assist the Austrians, to whom its senate, or aristocratic government, certainly bore good will, yet, having been in amity with the French Republic, they deemed the step too hazardous, and vainly trusting that their neutrality would be respected, they saw the Austrian power completely broken for the time, before they took any active measures either to stand in their defence, or to deprecate the wrath of the victor. But when the line of the Mincio was forced, and Buonaparte occupied the Venetian territory on the left bank, it was time to seek by concessions that deference to the rights of an independent country which the once haughty aristocracy of Venice had lost a favourable opportunity of supporting by force.
There was one circumstance which rendered their cause unfavourable. Louis XVIII., under the title of a private person, the Comte de Lille, had received the hospitality of the republic, and was permitted to remain at Verona, living in strict seclusion. The permission to entertain this distinguished exile, the Venetian government had almost mendicated from the French revolutionary rulers, in a manner which we would term mean, were it not for the goodness of the intention, which leads us to regard the conduct of the ancient mistress of the Adriatic with pity rather than contempt. But when the screen of the Austrian force no longer existed between the invading armies of France and the Venetian territories – when the final subjugation of the north of Italy was resolved on – the Directory peremptorily demanded, and the senate of Venice were obliged to grant, an order, removing the Comte de Lille from the boundaries of the republic.
The illustrious exile protested against this breach of hospitality, and demanded, before parting, that his name, which had been placed on the golden book of the republic, should be erased, and that the armour presented by Henry IV. to Venice, should be restored to his descendant.156 Both demands were evaded, as might have been expected in the circumstances, and the future monarch of France left Verona on the 21st of April, 1796, for the army of the Prince of Condé, in whose ranks he proposed to place himself, without the purpose of assuming any command, but only that of fighting as a volunteer in the character of the first gentleman in France. Other less distinguished emigrants, to the number of several hundreds, who had found an asylum in Italy, were, by the successes at Lodi and Borghetto, compelled to fly to other countries.
Buonaparte, immediately after the battle of Borghetto, and the passage of the Mincio, occupied the town of Verona [June 3,] and did not fail to intimate to its magistrates, that if the Pretender, as he termed him, to the throne of France, had not left Verona before his arrival, he would have burnt to the ground a town which, acknowledging him as King of France, assumed, in doing so, the air of being itself the capital of that republic.157 This might, no doubt, sound gallant in Paris; but Buonaparte knew well that Louis of France was not received in the Venetian territory as the successor to his brother's throne, but only with the hospitality due to an unfortunate prince, who, suiting his claim and title to his situation, was content to shelter his head, as a private man might have done, from the evils which seemed to pursue him.
The neutrality of Venice was, however, for the time admitted, though not entirely from respect for the law of nations; for Buonaparte is at some pains to justify himself for not having seized without ceremony on the territories and resources of that republic, although a neutral power as far as her utmost exertions could preserve neutrality. He contented himself for the time with occupying Verona, and other dependencies of Venice upon the line of the Adige. "You are too weak," he said to the Proveditore Foscarelli, "to pretend to enforce neutrality, with a few hundred Sclavonians, on two such nations as France and Austria. The Austrians have not respected your territory where it suited their purpose, and I must, in requital, occupy such part as falls within the line of the Adige."158
But he considered that the Venetian territories to the westward should in policy be allowed to retain the character of neutral ground, which The Government, as that of Venice was emphatically called, would not, for their own sakes, permit them to lose; while otherwise, if occupied by the French as conquerors, these timid neutrals might, upon any reverse, have resumed the character of fierce opponents. And, at all events, in order to secure a territory as a conquest, which, if respected as neutral, would secure itself, there would have been a necessity for dividing the French forces, which it was Buonaparte's wish to concentrate. From interested motives,
Montholon, tom. iii., p. 206.
Napoleon, Memoirs, tom. iii., p. 209.
Daru, Hist. de Venise; tom. v., p. 436; Thibaudeau, tom. i., p. 257.
Moniteur, No. 267, June 17; Montholon, tom. iv., p. 121.
Thiers, tom. viii., p. 225.
