to all feelings of jealousy, he raised an army of 150,000 men,
the very elite of the troops of France, the veterans of a hundred
battles, and placed them in the hands of Moreau, the only man in
France who could be called his rival. Napoleon also presented to
Moreau the plan of a campaign in accordance with his own energy,
boldness, and genius. Its accomplishment would have added surpassing
brilliance to the reputation of Moreau. But the cautious general
was afraid to adopt it, and presented another, perhaps as safe, but
one which would produce no dazzling impression upon the imaginations
of men. "Your plan," said one, a friend of Moreau, to the First
Consul, "is grander, more decisive, even more sure. But it is not
adapted to the slow and cautious genius of the man who is to execute
it. You have your method of making war, which is superior to all
others. Moreau has his own, inferior certainly, but still excellent.
Leave him to himself. If you impose your ideas upon him, you will
wound his self-love, and disconcert him."

Napoleon, profoundly versed in the knowledge of the human heart,
promptly replied. "You are right, Moreau is not capable of grasping
the plan which I have conceived. Let him follow his own course. The
plan which he does not understand and dare not execute, I myself
will carry out, on another part of the theatre of war. What he fears
to attempt on the Rhine, I will accomplish on the Alps. The day may
come when he will regret the glory which he yields to me." These
were proud and prophetic words. Moreau, was moderately victorious
upon the Rhine, driving back the invaders. The sun of Napoleon soon
rose, over the field of Marengo, in a blaze of effulgence, which
paled Moreau's twinkling star into utter obscurity. But we know
not where, upon the page of history, to find an act of more lofty
generosity than this surrender of the noblest army of the Republic