and the lamentations of the famishing; the night was sadder still from hunger accompanied by delirious fancies. When every kind of seed had been exhausted, recourse was next had to herbs; monk's-rhubarb, sorrel, mallows, wild succory, rampions, were diligently sought for, and as greedily eaten as if they had been pleasing to the palate. Long files of people, men of every rank, ladies of noble birth, as well as plebians, were seen examining every verdant site, particularly the fertile orchards of Bisagno, and the delightful hills of Albano, to dig out of them those aliments which nature has destined solely for the ruminating beasts. For a time sugar was used: rose, violet, and candied sugar, and every kind of confection were in general

use.

The retailers, men and women, sold them in public, in elegant little baskets adorned with flowers and garlands-a strange sight in the midst of all these pallid, emaciated, and cadaverous faces; yet, thus powerful is the imagination of man, pleasing itself in embellishing that which, in its own nature, is most lamentable and terrible-a merciful dispensation of Providence, who wills not man's despair. But enough :-women of plebean, as well as those of noble birth, who were alike seen to feed on what was most loathsome in the morning, ate of the most delicate confections in the evening. That the sight of extreme misery does not correct iniquity in the evil-disposed, Genoa, in her utmost distress, afforded an example but too horrible; for some, devoid of every feeling of humanity, and actuated only by the vile spirit of gain, used chalk in the eatables they sold, instead of flour, of which not a few of the consumers died, suffering under the

agonies caused at once by hunger and by the deleterious compound.

During the siege, yet before the last extremities arrived, a pound of rice was sold for seven lire; a pound of veal for four; a pound of horse-flesh for thirty-two soldi; a pound of flour for ten or twelve lire; eggs at fourteen lire the dozen; bran at thirty soldi the pound. Before all was over, a bean was sold for two soldi, and a biscuit of three ounce weight for twelve francs, and none were at last to be had. Neither Massena, nor the other generals, would allow themselves greater indulgences than private individuals; they fared like the plebeians-a laudable instance of self-denial, and highly efficacious in enabling others to bear up against their privations. A little cheese and a few vegetables was the only nourishment given to the sick and wounded in the hospitals. Men and women, in the last agonies of starvation and despair, filled the air with their groans and shrieks. Sometimes, while uttering these dreadful cries, they strove with furious hands to tear out their agonised intestines, and fell dead in the streets. No one relieved them, for no one thought but of himself; no one heeded them, for the frequency of the circumstance had made it cease to seem horrible. Some in spasms and convulsions and contortions groaned out their last amidst crowds of the populace. Children, left by the death or the despair of their parents in utter destitution, with mournful gestures, and tears, and heart-broken accents, implored the pity of the passing stranger; but none either pitied or aided them; the excess of his own suffering extinguishing in each man's breast compassion for the misery of others. These innocent deserted

beings eagerly searched in the gutters of the streets, in the common sewers, in the drainings of the washing-houses, for a chance morsel of some dead animal, or any remains of the food of beasts, which, when found, was greedily devoured. Many who lay down alive in the evening were found dead in their beds in the morning, and children more frequently than adults: fathers accused the tardiness of death, and some hastened its approach by the violence of their own hands-citizens and soldiers alike. Some of the French preferring death to the anguish of hunger de stroyed themselves; others disdainfully flung down those arms which they had no longer strength to carry; and others, abandoning a habitation of despair, sought in the camp of the enemy, English or Austrian, that food and that pity which was no longer to be found amidst the French and Genoese. But cruel and horrible beyond all description was the spectacle presented by the German prisoners of war, confined in certain old barges anchored in the port; for such was the dire necessity at last, that for some days they were left without nutriment of any description. They eat their shoes, they devoured the leather of their pouches, and, scowling darkly at each other, their sinister glances betrayed the horrid fear of being at last reduced to a more fearful resource. In the end, their French guards were removed, under the apprehension that they might be made the sacrifice of ravening hunger: so great at last was their desperation, that they endeavoured to pierce holes in the barges in order to sink them, preferring to perish thus, rather than any longer endure the tortures of hunger. As commonly happens, a mortal

pestilence was added to the horrors of famine: the worst kinds of fevers carried off crowds from the public hospitals, the lowly hovels of the poor, and the superb palaces of the rich. Under the same roof, death might be seen in different shapes: one died, maddened by hunger, another stupified by fever; some pallid from extenuation, others livid with febrile spots. Every thing brought grief-every thing fear; for he who was still living awaited either his own death, or that of his nearest friends. Such was the state of the once rich and joyous Genoa; and the bitterest thought of all was, that her present sufferings could conduce nothing to future good, either as to her liberty or her independence.

The fortitude of all was exhausted. Massena alone retained his firmness, because his mind was bent on aiding the enterprise of the consul, and on preserving intact his reputation as an unconquered commander; but, at last, when honourable conditions were offered by Keith, he brought down his spirit to a composition, since even the loathsome and poisonous food Genoa was reduced to, could not last for more than two days longer. Yet still, his tone was rather that of a successful than of a defeated general: he insisted on the cession being called a convention, not a capitulation, which the allies were forced to grant. Mas sena and his troops, about eight thousand in number, were to leave Genoa, unrestricted by any conditions, either as to their persons or their allegiance.. They were free to return to France by land; and those who could not accomplish this march, were to be carried by the English ships to Antibes, or the Gulf of Juan. The German

No in

prisoners were given up. quisition was to be made as to the past, and those who wished to abandon Genoa were at liberty so to do; the allies were to furnish provisions, and take care of the sick; and on the 4th of June, the eity was to be delivered up to the Austrian and English forces. On the appointed day, accordingly, the first took possession of the gate of the lantern; the second of the mouth of the port. Then Otto entered in triumph with his army, Keith with his fleet; but the prize thus obtained by a tedious war of detail, was speedily wrested from them by a brief and vigorous campaign. The most ardent de mocrats went away with the French; amongst others, Morandi, the Abbate Cuneo, the advocate Lombardi, and the brothers Boc cardi. The bells were rung as for a festival, hymns were sung, and if bonfires were lighted by the partizans of the Austrians from affection, more were lighted by their enemies from fear. Every thing seemed to be as usual bread, meat, vegetables, and provisions of all kinds re-appeared in abundance, and those who abandoned themselves without restraint to the first impulse of appetite died in consequence. Thus many, who had not been destroyed by long inanition, were killed by satiety. The retailers and venders, excited by the greediness of gain, strove to keep up the prices, but the infuriated populace fell on

them in such a manner, as made them feel that hunger is a fierce counsellor. The peasants, under Azzeretto, endeavoured to sack the houses of the democrats, as they said, but, nevertheless, did not spare the aristocrats. But Hohenzollern, who had been left by Otto in command, restrained these excesses by military law. The Austrian commander created an imperial and royal regency, to which he called Pietro Paolo Celesia, Carlo Cambiaso, Agostino Spinola, Gian Bernardo Pallavicini, Girolamo Durazzo, Francesco Spinola di Gian Battista, and Luigi Lambruschini. The regency restrained the re-action of party vengeance ready to burst forth, by a laudable exertion of authority; but then came the opening of purses, an inevitable but cruel command in miserable Genoa. As for the rest, no sign was shown on the part of Hohenzollern, or of Melas, of any inclination, either towards the restoration of her ancient government, or her independence. Notwithstanding this, the aristocrats shouted vivas for the emperor, from hatred against the democrats, just as the democrats had sent forth vivas from France from hatred to the aristocrats ;-blind slaves and madmen, both the one and the other; for they could not see, that from their private animosities sprang the ruin of their country, and the domination of foreigners.

main body of the army, descending thence by the valley of Aosta into the Piedmontese plains. General Thureau, with a squadron of three or four thousand men, was ordered to march from the Maurienne and Upper Dauphiny, over Mount Cenis and Mount Ginevre, as far as Susa, and further, if necessary, for the purposes of encouraging a rising in that district against the Austrians, of alarming the people for the safety of Turin, and of cooperating with the force the consul intended to assemble on the banks of the Dora. General Moncey was to descend at the same time by the Lesser St. Bernard, with a chosen body of twelve thousand men, for the purpose of raising the country on the upper part of the plain of Lombardy, between the Tesino and the Adda. To favour a rising in the district between the Tesino and the Sesia, General Bethancourt was ordered to cross the Simplon, and to descend by Domo d'Ossola to the shores of the Lago Maggiore; where, narrowing its expanse, it permits the waters of the Tesino to flow from it. A detachment of five thousand men were to cross the Lesser St. Bernard, and meet the main body in the valley of Aosta, as the nature and the amount of the difficulties which a large body of men would encounter in crossing the Great St. Bernard were well known to the consul. Altogether the troops amounted to about sixty thousand men. Thus the consul embraced the whole of the Alpine region which extends from St. Gothard to Mount Ginevre, and threatened with invasion the plain of Piedmont and that of Lombardy. On the other hand, he hoped that Massena, keeping his ground

in Genoa, and Suchet in the Riviera, would detain Melas till he himself should come up to attack him both on his flank and ou his rear. Bold and wonderful, as we have already said, was this undertaking of the consul, but it might have drawn on him speedy and utter ruin, if Moreau had been defeated on the Rhine, or if Melas had been more prudent, more active, or better informed.

Having deluded the civilized Genevese, by his flattering discourses of peace, of benevolence, and courtesy, the first consul set forth on his stupendous enterprise, his forces being already assembled at Martigny, in the Valais, a district situated at the foot of the Great St. Bernard.

On the 17th of May, the whole body set out from Martigny for the conquest of Italy. Extraordinary was their ardour, wonderful their gaiety, and astonishing also the activity and the energy of their operations. Chests, coffers, troughs, cannon, wheel-carriages, sledges, barrows, litters, horses, mules, harnesses, saddles, baggage and ammunition, of every description, piled on pack-saddles, were assembled in one motley mass; in the midst of which the soldiers laboured to the utmost, while the officers, sparing no bodily exertion, were not less zealous and unremitting in their efforts. Laughter and song lightened their toils, repartees or good-humoured raillery passed from mouth to mouth: as if by common consent, however, they spared each other, and whatever was bitter in sarcasm, or pungent in wit, was directed against the Austrians. Thus proceeding, they seemed to be hastening, not to a fearful war, but to a festival; not to a dubious hazard, but to

certain victory. The multitude of various and mingled sounds were re-echoed from hill to hill, and the silence of these solitary and desert regions, which revolving ages had left undisturbed, was for a moment broken by the rejoicing voices of the gay and warlike.

The strange army, thus strangely assembled for the dangerous expedition, began the ascent by the steep hill in front of the hamlet of St. Pierre, which leads to the road passable for carriages. Precipitous heights, strong torrents, sloping vallies, succeeded each other with disheartening frequency. The prompt exertions of the soldiers were every instant demanded, to save the various vehicles which conveyed the artillery, from rolling down the precipices; and now supporting, now heaving and dragging the ordnance, they laboured unceasingly; while the more they laboured the more did the merriment of their jests and the ingenuity of their repartees increase. The slow-paced Vallenses collected in crowds from their houses, or more properly speaking, from their huts and caves; and, seeing a body of men so laboriously employed and yet so gay, they were lost in wonder, and could scarcely believe but that they were beings of another world. Being invited to lend their assistance, and paid for their aid, they rendered it willingly, but not three of their number could effect as much as the zeal of a single Frenchman. I should be unwilling to repeat all that the soldiers jestingly said to these good people, as to the tardiness of their movements, and the strange fashion of their attire.

In this manner the republicans reached St. Pierre. Lannes, with his division, arrived first; for,

owing to his incredible boldness and ardour, he was always chosen by the consul to take the lead in every enterprise of danger-an honourable distinction, which he not only willingly accepted, but anxiously sought. They had now reached an elevation, where skill or courage seemed as nothing against the potency of nature. From St. Pierre to the summit of the Great St. Bernard there is no beaten road whatever, until is reached the monastery of the religious order devoted to the preservation of travellers bewildered in these regions of eternal winter; narrow and winding paths, over steep and rugged mountains, alone present themselves to the eye. But here the pertinacity of human resolution, the power of human ingenuity shone conspicuous. Every means that could be devised was adopted for transporting the artillery and baggage; the carriages which had been wheeled, were now dragged, those which had been drawn, were carried; the largest cannon were placed in troughs and sledges, and the smallest slung on strong and surefooted mules. And thus this same passage, which Trivulzi accomplished in the severest season of the year, hauling up the aftillery of Francis the first, from rock to rock, over the wintry barriers, Buonaparte effected in the service of the republic by means of sledges, carriages, and beasts of burden.

The ascent to be accomplished was immense in the windings of the tortuous paths the troops were now lost, and now revealed to sight. Those who first mounted the steeps, seeing their companions in the depths below, cheered them on with shouts of triumph; they