While engaged in the rapid march from Roveredo, a discontented soldier, emerging from the ranks, addressed Napoleon, pointing to his tattered garments, and said, "We soldiers, notwithstanding all our victories, are clothed in rags." Napoleon, anxious to arrest the progress of discontent among his troops, with that peculiar tact which he had ever at command, looked kindly upon him and said, "You forget, my brave friend, that with a new coat, your honorable scars would no longer be visible." This well timed compliment was received with shouts of applause from the ranks. The anecdote spread like lightning among the troops, and endeared Napoleon still more to every soldier in the army. [Illustration: THE SOLITARY BIVOUAC] The night before the battle of Bassano, in the eagerness of the march, Napoleon had advanced far beyond the main column of the army. He had received no food during the day, and had enjoyed no sleep for several nights. A poor soldier had a crust of bread in his knapsack. He broke it in two, and gave his exhausted and half famished general one half. After this frugal supper, the commander-in-chief of the French army wrapt himself in his cloak, and threw himself unprotected upon the ground, by the side of the soldier, for an hour's slumber. After ten years had passed away, and Napoleon, then Emperor of France, was making a triumphal tour through Belgium, this same soldier stepped out from the ranks of a regiment, which the emperor was reviewing, and said, "Sire! on the eve of the battle of Bassano, I shared with you my crust of bread, when you were hungry. I now ask from you bread for my father, who is worn down with age and poverty." Napoleon immediately settled a pension upon the old man, and promoted the soldier to a lieutenancy. After the battle of Bassano, in the impetuosity of the pursuit, Napoleon, spurring his horse to his utmost speed, accompanied but by a few followers, entered a small village quite in advance of the main body of his army. Suddenly Wurmser, with a strong division of the Austrians, debouched upon the plain. A peasant woman informed him that but a moment before Napoleon had passed her cottage. Wurmser, overjoyed at the prospect of obtaining a prize which would remunerate him for all his losses, instantly dispatched parties of cavalry in every direction for his capture. So sure was he of success, that he strictly enjoined it upon them to bring him in alive. The fleetness of Napoleon's horse saved him.