The twelfth of May, 1796, in north Italy, at Tavazzano, on the roadfrom Lodi to Milan. The afternoon sun is blazing serenely over theplains of Lombardy, treating the Alps with respect and the anthillswith indulgence, not incommoded by the basking of the swine and oxen inthe villages nor hurt by its cool reception in the churches, butfiercely disdainful of two hordes of mischievous insects which are theFrench and Austrian armies. Two days before, at Lodi, the Austrianstried to prevent the French from crossing the river by the narrowbridge there; but the French, commanded by a general aged 27, NapoleonBonaparte, who does not understand the art of war, rushed the firesweptbridge, supported by a tremendous cannonade in which the young generalassisted with his own hands. Cannonading is his technical specialty; hehas been trained in the artillery under the old regime, and madeperfect in the military arts of shirking his duties, swindling thepaymaster over travelling expenses, and dignifying war with the noiseand smoke of cannon, as depicted in all military portraits. He is,however, an original observer, and has perceived, for the first timesince the invention of gunpowder, that a cannon ball, if it strikes aman, will kill him. To a thorough grasp of this remarkable discovery,he adds a highly evolved faculty for physical geography and for thecalculation of times and distances. He has prodigious powers of work,and a clear, realistic knowledge of human nature in public affairs,having seen it exhaustively tested in that department during the FrenchRevolution. He is imaginative without illusions, and creative withoutreligion, loyalty, patriotism or any of the common ideals. Not that heis incapable of these ideals: on the contrary, he has swallowed themall in his boyhood, and now, having a keen dramatic faculty, isextremely clever at playing upon them by the arts of the actor andstage manager. Withal, he is no spoiled child. Poverty, ill-luck, theshifts of impecunious shabby-gentility, repeated failure as a would-beauthor, humiliation as a rebuffed time server, reproof and punishmentas an incompetent and dishonest officer, an escape from dismissal fromthe service so narrow that if the emigration of the nobles had notraised the value of even the most rascally lieutenant to the famineprice of a general he would have been swept contemptuously from thearmy: these trials have ground the conceit out of him, and forced himto be self-sufficient and to understand that to such men as he is theworld will give nothing that he cannot take from it by force. In thisthe world is not free from cowardice and folly; for Napoleon, as amerciless cannonader of political rubbish, is making himself useful.indeed, it is even now impossible to live in England without sometimesfeeling how much that country lost in not being conquered by him aswell as by Julius Caesar.
However, on this May afternoon in 1796, it is early days with him. Heis only 26, and has but recently become a general, partly by using hiswife to seduce the Directory (then governing France) partly by thescarcity of officers caused by the emigration as aforesaid; partly byhis faculty of knowing a country, with all its roads, rivers, hills andvalleys, as he knows the palm of his hand; and largely by that newfaith of his in the efficacy of firing cannons at people. His army is,as to discipline, in a state which has so greatly shocked some modernwriters before whom the following story has been enacted, that they,impressed with the later gl