In these three days Buonaparte lost 8000 men: the slaughter among his opponents must have been terrible. Davidowich, in never coming up to join Alvinzi after his success over Vaubois, and Wurmser, in remaining quiet at Mantua, when by advancing with his garrison he might have incommoded the French rear, were guilty of grievous misjudgment or indecision. Once more the rapid combinations of Napoleon had rendered all the efforts of the Austrian cabinet abortive. For two months after the last day of Arcola, he remained the undisturbed master of Lombardy. All that his enemy could show, in set-off for the slaughter and discomfiture of Alvinzi's campaign, was that they retained possession of Bassano and Trent, thus interrupting Buonaparte's access to the Tyrol and Germany. This advantage was not trivial; but it had been dearly bought. A fourth army had been baffled; but the resolution of the Imperial Court was indomitable, and new levies were diligently forwarded to reinforce Alvinzi. Once more (January 7, 1797) the Marshal found himself at the head of 60,000: once more his superiority over Napoleon's muster-roll was enormous; and once more he descended from the mountains with the hope of relieving Wurmser and reconquering Lombardy. The fifth act of the tragedy was yet to be performed. We may here pause to notice some civil events of importance which occurred ere Alvinzi made his final descent. The success of the French naturally gave new vigour to the Italian party, who, chiefly in the large towns, were hostile to Austria, and desirous to settle their own government on the republican model. Napoleon had by this time come to be anything but a Jacobin in his political sentiments: his habits of command; his experience of the narrow and ignorant management of the Directory; his personal intercourse with the ministers of sovereign powers; his sense daily strengthened by events, that whatever good was done in Italy proceeded from his own skill and the devotion of his army,--all these circumstances conspired to make him respect himself and contemn the government, almost in despite of which he had conquered kingdoms for France. He therefore regarded now with little sympathy the aspirations after republican organisation which he had himself originally stimulated among the northern Italians. He knew, however, that the Directory had, by absurd and extravagant demands, provoked the Pope to break off the treaty of Bologna, and to raise his army to the number of 40,000,--that Naples had every disposition to back his Holiness with 30,000 soldiers, provided any reverse should befall the French in Lombardy,--and, finally, that Alvinzi was rapidly preparing for another march, with numbers infinitely superior to what he could himself extort from the government of Paris;[11] and considering these circumstances, he felt himself compelled to seek strength by gratifying his Italian friends. Two Republics accordingly were organised; the