The moral effect of the action at Lodi was incalculable. Bonaparte's reputation as a strategist had already been established, but his personal courage had never been tested. The actual battle-field is something quite different from the great theater of war, and men wondered whether he had the same mastery of the former as of the latter. Hitherto he had been untried either as to his tactics or his intrepidity. In both respects Lodi elevated him literally to the stars. No doubt the risk he took was awful, and the loss of life terrible. Critics, too, have pointed out safer ways which they believe would have led to the same result; be that as it may, in no other way could the same dramatic effect have been produced. France went wild with joy. The peoples of Italy bowed before the prodigy which thus both paralyzed and fascinated them all. Austria was dispirited, and her armies were awe-stricken. When, five days later, on May fifteenth, amid silent but friendly throngs of wondering men, Bonaparte entered Milan, not as the conqueror but as the liberator of Lombardy, at the head of his veteran columns, there was already about his brows a mild effulgence of supernatural light, which presaged to the growing band of his followers the full glory in which he was later to shine on the imagination of millions. It was after Lodi that his adoring soldiers gave him the name of "Little Corporal," by which they ever after knew him. He himself confessed that after Lodi some conception of his high destiny arose in his mind for the first time. CHAPTER XXVIII. An Insubordinate Conqueror and Diplomatist. Bonaparte's Assertion of Independence -- Helplessness of the Directory -- Threats and Proclamations -- The General and His Officers -- Bonaparte's Comprehensive Genius -- The Devotion of France -- Uneasiness in Italy -- The Position of the Austrians -- Bonaparte's Strategy -- His Conception of the Problem in Italy -- Justification of His Foresight -- Modena, Parma, and the Papacy -- The French Radicals and the Pope -- Bonaparte's Policy -- His Ambition. [Sidenote: 1796.]