HISTORY OF EUROPE. [175 



di Levante, and covered on that 

 side, the appi'oaches to Genoa. — 

 Upon this long and irregular line 

 from Genoa to the Great St. Ber- 

 nard, there were not more than 

 forty thousand men. From the Var 

 to Genoa there were scarcely twen- 

 ty-five thousand, almost all infantry. 

 A reinforcement of fifteen thousand 

 men from Switzerland, or from the 

 interior, were on the march to join 

 the army of Italy. Others were 

 likewise promised; but those which 

 arrived, were few in number, and 

 so great was the void in the ranks 

 of the French army, produced bj'' 

 an epidemic fever, and by deser- 

 tion, that Massena, in the month of 

 April following, had not more than 

 thirty-five thousand men in the 

 whole of the extent of the county 

 «f Nice, and of the state of Genoa. 

 The privations, distresses, and mi- 

 series, in which the soldiers were 

 left, during the rigours of winter, 

 were felt more sensibly, and suffered 

 with more impatience, during the 

 idleness of winter-quarters, than 

 they would have been amidst, the 

 toils of marches, and the tumults 

 of action. Several insurrections 

 broke out among the troops that 

 occupied the territories of Genoa. 

 Companies of infantry, and even 

 whole battalions returned into 

 France with arms and baggage. 

 Buonaparte and Massena exhausted 

 their oratorial exhortations in vain. 

 Nothing but severe examples, and 

 some hundreds of thousands of li- 

 vres extorted from the wretched 

 Genoa, could stop this contagious 



malady of insubordination and de- 

 sertion, which, no less than the 

 fever before mentioned, threatened 

 to leave the mountains of Liguria, 

 and the frontiers of France, with- 

 out defenders. 



On the Upper Rhine, general 

 Moreau had, by the end of Febru- 

 ary, made the necessary dispositions 

 for the immediate commencement 

 of the campaign. The force under 

 his command was estimated at one 

 hundred and thirty thousand men ; 

 without taking into the account the 

 aiTny of reserve at Dijon, under 

 the immediate orders of Buona- 

 parte, which, it \vas universally 

 believed, was destined to support 

 and co-operate with that of AIo- 

 reau. Neither the Austrians nor 

 any of the politicians of Europe, 

 penetrated the first consul's design 

 of marching his army, by the almost 

 impracticable route, which he actu- 

 ally took, into Italy.* The cavalry 

 of general Moreau amounted to 

 twent)' thousand; and he had eight 

 regiments of light artillery, with 

 thirty-two field-pieces, and sixteen 

 arquebuziers to each regiment. — 

 His head ^quarters were at Stras- 

 burg. The right wing of his anny 

 extended to the Helvetic Rhine, 

 and he had a considerable body of 

 troops assembled in the environs of 

 Rheineck. To this quarter he sent 

 a numerous park of artillery, with 

 a corps of pontonniers, so that there 

 was every appearance that this 

 wing of his army was to pass the 

 Rhine at this point. The force 

 and the position of this army an- 



• Tliis hoiveverwas, if not certainly foreseen, shrewdly conjectured by tn'O Frencli 

 generals, royalists, in London, who, when the writer of this, about the middle of 

 March, put the question, how it could be possible for all llie inventionof Buonaparte 

 to contrive means of sending relief in time to Genoa ? replied, that this was not ne- 

 cessary ; that it was possible, by a wider cordon, to blocUade and besiege the be- 

 siegers. 



