All the resources of the Austrian government were now devoted to recruiting and equipping a new army. With the wrecks of Wurmser's troops, with detachments from the Rhine, and fresh levies from the bold peasants of the Tyrol, in less than a month an army of nearly one hundred thousand men was assembled. The enthusiasm throughout Austria, in raising and animating these recruits, was so great that the city of Vienna alone contributed four battalions. The empress, with her own hand, embroidered their colors and presented them to the troops. All the noble ladies of the realm devoted their smiles and their aid to inspire the enterprise. About seventy-five thousand men were rendezvoused in the gorges of the northern Tyrol, ready to press down upon Napoleon from the north, while the determined garrison of twenty-five thousand men, under the brave Wurmser, cooped up in Mantua, were ready to emerge at a moment's warning. Thus in about three weeks another army of one hundred thousand men was ready to fall upon Napoleon. His situation now seemed absolutely desperate. The reinforcements he had received from France had been barely sufficient to repair the losses sustained by disease and the sword. He had but thirty thousand men. His funds were all exhausted. His troops, notwithstanding they were in the midst of the most brilliant blaze of victories, had been compelled to strain every nerve of exertion. They were also suffering the severest privations, and began loudly to murmur. "Why," they exclaimed, "do we not receive succor from France? We can not alone contend against all Europe. We have already destroyed three armies, and now a fourth, still more numerous, is rising against us. Is there to be no end to these interminable battles?" Napoleon was fully sensible of the peril of his position, and while he allowed his troops a few weeks of repose, his energies were strained to their very utmost tension in preparing for the all but desperate encounter now before him. The friends and the enemies of Napoleon alike regarded his case as nearly hopeless. The Austrians had by this time learned that it was not safe to divide their forces in the presence of so vigilant a foe. Marching down upon his exhausted band with seventy-five thousand men to attack him in front, and with twenty-five thousand veteran troops, under the brave Wurmser, to sally from the ramparts of Mantua and assail him in the rear, it seemed to all reasonable calculation that the doom of the French army was sealed. Napoleon in the presence of his army assumed an air of most perfect confidence, but he was fearfully apprehensive that, by the power of overwhelming numbers, his army would be destroyed. The appeal which, under the circumstances, he wrote to the Directory for reinforcements, is sublime in its dignity and its eloquence. "All of our superior officers, all of our best generals, are either dead or wounded. The army of Italy, reduced to a handful of men, is exhausted. The heroes of