"If there were anything to eat in the enemy's camp, I should not be
concerned."

When Paris was in the hands of a mob, and the authorities were
panic-stricken, in came a man who said, "I know a young officer who can
quell this mob."

"Send for him."

Napoleon was sent for; he came, he subjugated the mob, he subjugated the
authorities, he ruled France, then conquered Europe.

May 10, 1796, Napoleon carried the bridge at Lodi, in the face of the
Austrian batteries, trained upon the French end of the structure. Behind
them were six thousand troops. Napoleon massed four thousand grenadiers
at the head of the bridge, with a battalion of three hundred carbineers
in front. At the tap of the drum the foremost assailants wheeled from
the cover of the street wall under a terrible hail of grape and
canister, and attempted to pass the gateway to the bridge. The front
ranks went down like stalks of grain before a reaper; the column
staggered and reeled backward, and the valiant grenadiers were appalled
by the task before them. Without a word or a look of reproach, Napoleon
placed himself at their head, and his aids and generals rushed to his
side. Forward again over heaps of dead that choked the passage, and a
quick run counted by seconds only carried the column across two hundred
yards of clear space, scarcely a shot from the Austrians taking effect
beyond the point where the platoons wheeled for the first leap. _The
guns of the enemy were not aimed at the advance. The advance was too
quick for the Austrian gunners_. So sudden and so miraculous was it all,
that the Austrian artillerists abandoned their guns instantly, and their