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
