In Napoleon's first Italian campaign
he was contending solely for peace. At last he attained it, in the
treaty of Campo Formio, on terms equally honorable to Austria and
to France. On his return from Egypt, he found the armies of Austria,
three hundred thousand strong, in alliance with England, invading
the territories of the Republic. He implored peace, in the name
of bleeding humanity, upon the fair basis of the treaty of Campo
Formio. His foes regarded his supplication as the imploring cry
of weakness, and treated it with scorn. With new vigor they poured
their tempests of balls and shells upon France. Napoleon sealed the
Alps, and dispersed his foes at Marengo, like autumn leaves before
the Alps, and dispersed his foes at Marengo, like autumn leaves
before the gale. Amid the smoke and the blood and the groans of
the field of his victory, he again wrote imploring peace; and he
wrote in terms dictated by the honest and gushing sympathies of a
humane man, and not in the cold and stately forms of the diplomatist.
Crushed as his foes were, he rose not in his demands, but nobly
said, "I am still willing to make peace upon the fair basis of
the treaty of Campo Formio.
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