About sixty miles north of Mantua, at the northern extremity of Lake Garda, embosomed among the Tyrolean hills, lies the walled town of Trent. Here Wurmser had assembled sixty thousand men, most abundantly provided with all the munitions of war, to march down to Mantua, and co-operate with the twenty thousand within its walls in the annihilation of the audacious foe. The fate of Napoleon was now considered as sealed. The republicans in Italy were in deep dismay. "How is it possible," said they, "that Napoleon, with thirty thousand men, can resist the combined onset of eighty thousand veteran soldiers?" The aristocratic party were in great exultation, and were making preparations to fall upon the French the moment they should see the troops of Napoleon experiencing the slightest reverse. Rome, Venice, Naples began to incite revolt, and secretly to assist the Austrians. The Pope, in direct violation of his plighted faith, refused any further fulfillment of the conditions of the armistice, and sent Cardinal Mattei to negotiate with the enemy. This sudden development of treachery, which Napoleon aptly designated as a "Revelation," impressed the young conqueror deeply with a sense of his hazardous situation. Between Mantua and Trent there lies, extended among the mountains, the beautiful Lake of Garda. This sheet of water, almost fathomless, and clear as crystal, is about thirty miles in length, and from four to twelve in breadth. Wurmser was about fifteen miles north of the head of this lake at Trent; Napoleon was at Mantua, fifteen miles south of its foot. The Austrian general, eighty years of age, a brave and generous soldier, as he contemplated his mighty host, complacently rubbed his hands, exclaiming, "We shall soon have the boy now." He was very fearful, however, that Napoleon, conscious of the utter impossibility of resisting such numbers, might, by a precipitate flight, escape. To prevent this, he disposed his army at Trent in three divisions of twenty thousand each. One division, under General Quasdanovich, was directed to march down the western bank of the lake, to cut off the retreat of the French by the way of Milan. General Wurmser, with another division of twenty thousand, marched down the eastern shore of the lake, to relieve Mantua. General Melas, with another division, followed down the valley of the Adige, which ran parallel with the shores of the lake, and was separated from it by a mountain ridge, but about two miles in width. A march of a little more than a day would reunite those vast forces, thus for the moment separated. Having prevented the escape of their anticipated victims, they could fall upon the French in a resistless attack. The sleepless vigilance and the eagle eye of Napoleon, instantly detected the advantage thus presented to him. It was in the evening of the 31st of July, that he first received the intimation from his scouts of the movements of the enemy. Instantly he formed his plan of