marked tones of martial eloquence most eminently at his command, so effectually roused their pride and enthusiasm that they were clamorous to be led to the assault. He unfolded to them fully the peril which attended the enterprise, and animated them by reference to the corresponding glory which would attend the achievement. He knew that thousands must perish. But placing only a slight value upon his own life, he regarded as little the lives of others, and deemed the object to be gained worthy of the terrible price which was to be paid. There probably was not another man in either of those armies who would have ventured upon the responsibility of an enterprise apparently so desperate. Secretly dispatching a large body of cavalry to cross the river at a very difficult ford, about three miles above the town, which by some inconceivable oversight the Austrians had neglected to protect, he ordered them to come down the river and make the most desperate charge upon the rear of the enemy. At the same time he formed his troops in a line, under the shelter of one of the streets nearest the point of attack. It was the evening of the 10th of May. The sun was just sinking behind the Tyrolean hills, enveloping in soft twilight the scene of rural peace and beauty and of man's depravity. Not a breath of air rippled the smooth surface of the water, or agitated the bursting foliage of the early spring. The moment that Napoleon perceived, by the commotion among the Austrians, that the cavalry had effected the passage of the river, he ordered the trumpets to sound the charge. The line wheeled instantly into a dense and solid column, crowding the street with its impenetrable mass. Emerging from the shelter, upon the full run, while rending the air with their enthusiastic shouts, they rushed upon the bridge. They were met by a murderous discharge of every missile of destruction, sweeping the structure like a whirlwind. The whole head of the column was immediately cut down like grass before the scythe, and the progress of those in the rear was encumbered by piles of the dead. Still the column passed on, heedless of the terrific storm of iron and of lead, until it had forced its way into the middle of the bridge. Here it hesitated, wavered, and was on the point of retreating before volcanic bursts of fire too terrible for mortal man to endure, when Napoleon, seizing a standard, and followed by Lannes, Massena, and Berthier, plunged through the clouds of smoke which now enveloped the bridge in almost midnight darkness, placed himself at the head of the troops, and shouted, "Follow your General!" The bleeding, mangled column, animated by this example, rushed with their bayonets upon the Austrian gunners. At the same moment the French cavalry came dashing upon the batteries in the rear, and the bridge was carried. The French army now poured across the narrow passage like a torrent, and debouched upon the plain. Still the battle raged with unmitigated fury. The