France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821 -- Fiction
The same day, and at the very hour when Diane de Fargas recovered her
brother in so pitiful and tragic a manner, three men came out of the
barracks of the Army of Italy, while three others issued from the
adjacent barracks, which were occupied by the Army of the Rhine. General
Bonaparte had demanded a reinforcement after his first victories, and
two thousand men had been detached from Moreau's army, and sent, under
command of Bernadotte, to the Army of Italy.
The six men made their way toward the eastern gate, walking in two
separate groups, each at a little distance from the other. This was the
gate behind which occurred the numerous duels which resulted from
personal rivalry of valor, and the differences of opinion between the
soldiers from the North and those who had always fought in the South.
An army is always modelled upon the characteristics of its general. His
peculiarities extend to his officers, and from them they spread to the
soldiers. The division of the Rhine, which had come South under
Bernadotte's command, was formed upon Moreau's model.
The royalist faction looked longingly toward Moreau and Pichegru. The
latter had been all ready to yield, but he had wearied of the indecision
of the Prince de Condé. Nor had he been willing to introduce the enemy
into France without having determined beforehand the conditions which
should circumscribe the rights of the prince whom he was admitting, as
well as those of the people who were to receive him. Nothing had
actually taken place between himself and the Prince de Condé except a
correspondence which had borne no fruit. He had, moreover, resolved to
bring about this revolution, not through his military influence, but
through that of the high position which his fellow-citizens had bestowed
upon him in making him president of the Five Hundred.
Moreau's Republicanism could not be shaken. Careless, moderate,
unemotional, with no taste for politics beyond his capacity, he held
himself in reserve, sufficiently nattered by the praise which his
friends and the royalists had bestowed upon his masterly retreat from
the Danube, which they likened to that of Xenophon.
His army, therefore, was like him, cold, phlegmatic and submissive to
his discipline. The Army of Italy, on the contrary, was composed of our
Southern revolutionists--brave hearts who were as impulsive in their
opinions as in their courage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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