I am about to lead you into the most fertile valleys of the world: there you will find flourishing cities and teeming provinces: there you will reap honour, glory, and riches.

Soldiers of the Army of Italy, will you lack courage ?" Two years previously so open a bid for the soldiers' allegiance would have conducted any French commander forthwith to the guillotine.
[Illustration: MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE CAMPAIGNS IN NORTH ITALY.] But much had changed since the days of Robespierre's supremacy; Spartan austerity had vanished; and the former insane jealousy of individual pre-eminence was now favouring a startling reaction which was soon to install the one supremely able man as absolute master of France.
Bonaparte's conduct produced a deep impression alike on troops and officers.

From Massena his energy and his trenchant orders extorted admiration: and the tall swaggering Augereau shrank beneath the intellectual superiority of his gaze.

Moreover, at the beginning of April the French received reinforcements which raised their total to 49,300 men, and gave them a superiority of force; for though the allies had 52,000, yet they were so widely scattered as to be inferior in any one district.

Besides, the Austrian commander, Beaulieu, was seventy-one years of age, had only just been sent into Italy, with which land he was ill acquainted, and found one-third of his troops down with sickness.[38] Bonaparte now began to concentrate his forces near Savona.