The convention in which at that moment the French government centered was attacked by the revolting Parisians. Bonaparte had no particular sympathy with the convention,--in fact, he had more with the rebels,--but when one of his friends in the government who knew his ability as an artillery officer asked him to take charge of the force protecting the Tuilleries, where the convention sat, he accepted--with hesitation; but, having accepted, he did his work with a skill and daring that earned him his first important command, that of general in chief of the French Army of the Interior. Four months later he was made commander in chief of the Army of Italy, the army that was disputing the conquest of northern Italy with Austria. THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN [Illustration: WHERE AN EMPEROR WAS BORN In this room Napoleon was born in 1769.] It was a ragged, disgusted, and half-revolting body, this Army of Italy, one that for three years had been conspicuous mainly for inactivity. Without waiting even for shoes, the new commander started it out swiftly on a campaign that for clever strategy, for rapidity of movement, for dash and courage in attack, was unlike anything Europe had ever seen. In less than two months he drove his opponents from Lombardy and had shut up the remnant of their army in Mantua. The Austrians shortly had a new army in the field. It took eight months to defeat it and capture Mantua; but it was accomplished in that period. Austria then called her ablest general, Archduke Charles, and gave him one hundred thousand men with which to avenge her disasters. With half the number Bonaparte advanced to meet the archduke, and drove him step by step to Vienna. After a year and seven months of campaigning General Bonaparte, now twenty-eight years old, signed his first treaty. By that treaty he formed a new republic in northern Italy and made a new eastern frontier for France. Before the treaty, however, he had filled her empty treasury, had loaded her down with works of art, and had given her a new place in Europe; a place that he had proved he could sustain. The glory of the Italian campaign thrilled the French people; but it disturbed the politicians in power. Bonaparte saw that if the government could manage it he would have no further opportunities for distinguishing himself. It was this sense that led him to urge that England, the only nation then in arms against France, be attacked by invading Egypt. The government consented promptly. It was a way of disposing of Bonaparte. What the government did not dream, of course, was that Bonaparte with this army hoped to found an oriental kingdom of which he should be the ruler.