"To-morrow I march upon Beaulieu. I shall compel him to recross the Po, I shall cross it forthwith, I shall take possession of the whole of Lombardy, and before a month is past I hope to be on the mountains of the Tyrol, there to join forces with the Army of the Rhine, and in conjunction with it to carry the war into Bavaria." Beaulieu was, in fact, overtaken. He returned in vain to try to oppose the passage of the Po; the Po was crossed; so he returned to shelter behind the walls of Lodi. A battle, lasting three hours, chased him from his position; and he formed a line of battle along the left bank, defending with all his artillery the bridge he had not had time to destroy. The French army, drawn up in serried columns, dashed at the bridge, scattering all before it, dispersed the Austrians, and went on its way over what was left of the enemy's army. Pavia was the next to submit, Pizzighitone and Cremona fell, the castle of Milan opened its gates, the King of Sardinia definitely accepted peace; the dukes of Parma and of Modena followed his example, and Beaulieu only just managed to shut himself up in Mantua. It was at this moment that news of Wurmser's advance reached him: he came with 60,000 men, 30,000 taken from the Army of the Rhine, 30,000 drawn from the interior of Austria. These 60,000 men advanced through the Tyrol. Let us now examine the state of the French army and of its adversaries. The French army had entered Italy with a strength of 30,000 to 32,000 men, of which they had lost 2000; nearly 9000 men had joined from the Army of the Alps, 4000 or 5000 had been added from the military centres of Provence and the Var. The army therefore numbered 44,000 to 45,000 men--disposed about the Adige or grouped round Mantua. In addition to these, two divisions could be reckoned on, drawn from the Army of the West, now that la Vendée was pacified. But these two divisions had yet to journey across France. The Austrian army comprised from 10,000 to 12,000 men, not including the sick and wounded shut up in Mantua; 12,000 or 15,000 men, the remnants of the various battles fought since the commencement of the campaign and dispersed through Northern Italy, and 60,000 men headed by Wurmser. The fame of this 60,000 men was spread abroad, and rumour boldly doubled its numbers. This time, so rumour had it, Bonaparte was not only going to encounter an army four times stronger than his own, but a general who was a match for him. Hannibal was to meet his Scipio; people repeated the old proverb, _L'Italia fu e sarà sempre il sepolcro dei Francesi._ Italy had been, and always would be, the grave of the French. That is what people said. Wurmser then, as we have said, had 60,000 men; of these 60,000 men he had detached 20,000, whom he had given to Quasdanovitch, with orders to march by the road which runs along by the lake of Garda, by the tiny lake of Idra and, after crossing the Chiesa, comes out at Salo.