Public Sittings of the Directory, the military deeds of the campaign in
Italy, its political results, and the conquest of the monuments of art.

Most of the Italian cities looked upon their conqueror as a liberator-
such was the magic of the word liberty, which resounded from the Alps to
the Apennines. On his way to Mantua the General took up his residence in
the palace of the ancient dukes. Bonaparte promised the authorities of
Mantua that their department should be one of the most extensive;
impressed on them the necessity of promptly organising a local militia,
and of putting in execution the plans of Mari, the mathematician, for the
navigation of the Mincio from Mantua to Peschiera.

He stopped two days at Mantua, and the morrow of his arrival was devoted
to the celebration of a military funeral solemnity, in honour of General
Hoche, who had just died. His next object was to hasten the execution of
the monument which was erecting to the memory of Virgil. Thus, in one
day, he paid honour to France and Italy, to modern and to ancient glory,
to the laurels of war and to the laurels of poetry.

A person who saw Bonaparte on this occasion for the first time thus
described him in a letter he wrote to Paris:--"With lively interest and
extreme attention I have observed this extraordinary man, who has
performed such great deeds, and about whom there is something which seems
to indicate that his career is not yet terminated. I found him very like
his portraits--little, thin, pale, with an air of fatigue, but not of
ill-health, as has been reported of him. He appears to me to listen with
more abstraction than interest, and that he was more occupied with what
he was thinking of than with what was said to him. There is great
intelligence in his countenance, along with which may be marked an air of
habitual meditation, which reveals nothing of what is passing within.