[265] At Bassano, on the 9th of March, Buonaparte thus addressed the troops--"Soldiers! the taking of Mantua has put an end to the war of Italy. You have been victorious in fourteen pitched battles and seventy actions; you have taken 100,000 prisoners, 500 field-pieces, 2000 heavy cannon, and four pontoon trains. The contributions laid on the countries you have conquered have fed, maintained, and paid the army; besides which you have sent thirty millions to the minister of finance for the use of the public treasury. You have enriched the Museum of Paris with 300 masterpieces of the arts of ancient and modern Italy, which it had required thirty centuries to produce. You have conquered for the Republic the finest countries in Europe. The Kings of Sardinia and Naples, the Pope, and the Duke of Parma, are separated from the coalition. You have expelled the English from Leghorn, Genoa, and Corsica. Yet higher destinies await you! You will prove yourselves worthy of them! Of all the foes who combined to stifle the Republic in its birth, the Emperor alone remains before you," &c. [266] "The river is pretty deep, and a bridge would have been desirable; but the good-will of the soldiers supplied that deficiency. A drummer was the only person in danger, and he was saved by a woman who swam after him."--MONTHOLON, tom. iv., p. 73. [267] Montholon, tom. iv., p. 72; Jomini, tom. x., p. 33. [268] Jomini, tom. x., p, 38; Montholon, tom. iv., p. 77. [269] Montholon, tom. iv., p. 81. [270] "No extraordinary contribution was levied, and the inhabitants gave no occasion for complaint of any kind. The English merchandise at Trieste was confiscated. Quicksilver, to the value of several millions, from the mine of Idria, was found in the imperial warehouses."--MONTHOLON, tom. iv., p. 82. [271] Jomini, tom. x., p. 56; Montholon, tom. iv., p. 83. [272] See the report of the agents of the Venetian government.--DARU, tom. v., p. 584. Napoleon says, "the fury of the people carried them so far as to murder _four hundred sick in the hospitals_."--MONTHOLON, tom. iv., p. 133. [273] Montholon, tom. iv., p. 91. [274] Montholon, tom. iv., p. 101. [275] Buonaparte first mentions this circumstance as having taken place at Leoben, afterwards at the definitive treaty of Campo Formio. The effect is the same, wherever the words were spoken.--S.