On the 22d of May Napoleon left Milan, in pursuit of the Austrians. Beaulieu, in his retreat to the mountains of the Tyrol, had thrown fifteen thousand men into the almost impregnable fortress of Mantua, to arrest the progress of the conqueror. He knew that Napoleon could not follow him leaving such a fortress in the possession of his enemies in his rear. Austria was raising powerful reinforcements, and the defeated general intended soon to return with overwhelming numbers, and crush his foe. Napoleon had hardly advanced one day's march from Milan when a formidable insurrection broke out. The priests, incited by the Pope, had roused the peasants, who were very much under their influence, to rise and exterminate the French. They appealed to all the motives of fanaticism which the papal church has so effectually at its command, to rouse their military ardor. They assured the ignorant peasants that Austria was pouring down an overwhelming army upon the invader; that all Italy was simultaneously rising in arms; that England, with her powerful fleet, was landing troops innumerable upon the coasts of Sardinia; that God, and all his angels, were looking down from the windows of Heaven to admire the heroism of the faithful, in ridding the earth of the enemies of the true religion, and that the destruction of Napoleon was sure. The enthusiasm spread from hamlet to hamlet like a conflagration. The friends of republicanism were, for the most part, in the cities. The peasantry were generally strongly attached to the church, and looked up with reverence to the nobles. The tocsin was sounded in every village. In a day thirty thousand peasants, roused to frenzy, grasped their arms. The danger was most imminent. Napoleon felt that not an hour was to be lost. He took with him twelve hundred men and six pieces of cannon, and instantly turned upon his track. He soon came up with eight hundred of the insurgents, who were intrenching themselves in the small village of Banasco. There was no parleying. There was no hesitancy. The ear was closed to all the appeals of mercy. The veteran troops, inured to their work, rushed with bayonet and sabre upon the unwarlike Italians, and, in a few moments, hewed the peasants to pieces. The women and children fled in every direction, carrying the tidings of the dreadful massacre. The torch was applied to the town, and the dense volumes of smoke ascending into the serene and cloudless skies, from this altar of vengeance, proclaimed, far and wide over the plains of Italy, how dreadful a thing it was to incur the wrath of the conqueror.