to one, who considered himself, and who was deemed by others,
a rival--and thus to throw open to him the theatre of war where
apparently the richest laurels were to be won. And he know where
to look for a deed more proudly expressive of self-confidence.
"I will give Moreau," said he by this act, "one hundred and fifty
thousand of the most brave and disciplined soldiers of France, the
victors of a hundred battles. I myself will take sixty thousand
men, new recruits and the fragments of regiments which remain, and
with them I will march to encounter an equally powerful enemy on
a more difficult field of warfare."

Marshal Melas had spread his vast host of one hundred and forty
thousand Austrians through all the strongholds of Italy, and was
pressing, with tremendous energy and self-confidence upon the frontiers
of France. Napoleon, instead of marching with his inexperienced
troops, two-thirds of whom had never seen a shot fired in earnest,
to meet the heads of the triumphant columns of Melas, resolved
to climb the rugged and apparently inaccessible fastnesses of the
Alps, and, descending from the clouds over path-less precipices,
to fall with the sweep of the avalanche, upon their rear. It was
necessary to assemble this army at some favorable point;--to gather
in vast magazines its munitions of war. It was necessary that
this should be done in secret, lest the Austrians, climbing to the
summits of the Alps, and defending the gorges through which the
troops of Napoleon would be compelled to wind their difficult and
tortuous way, might render the passage utterly impossible. English
and Austrian spies were prompt to communicate to the hostile powers
every movement of the First Consul. Napoleon fixed upon Dijon and
its vicinity as the rendezvous of his troops. He, however, adroitly
and completely deceived his foes by ostentatiously announcing the