General Moreau had assured to our arms advantages which at length promised peace. Bonaparte perceived this, not without secret heartburning; but for a time he felt himself compelled to dissemble. "I cannot tell you all the interest I have taken in your admirable and wise manoeuvres," he wrote to Moreau; "in this campaign you have surpassed yourself." The orders of the First Consul caused the war in Italy to be ardently pushed forward. "Wherever a couple of men can plant their feet, an army can find the means of passing," said General Bonaparte; and Macdonald had led his 15,000 men across the passes of the Splügen, among rocks and glaciers, obliged to open a path by the oxen, who trod down the snow in order to permit the soldiers to advance; he left behind him numerous victims of cold and fatigue. The army of the Grisons had arrived at Trent, the efforts of General Wukassovich having failed to arrest its progress. Brune had conducted his operations more gently; when he marched towards the Mincio, in order to cross it at two points, the imprudence of the attack and the division of the forces led to a great shedding of blood; it was only on the 31st December that the passage of the Adige was at last effected. The corps of General Moncey rejoined the forces of Macdonald at Trent; the Count of Laudon, close pressed, could only save his troops by a subterfuge, by forestalling the armistice, which did not yet extend to the armies of Italy. He had rejoined the Count of Bellegarde, when all military operations were suspended by a convention signed at Treviso. Cobentzel and Joseph Bonaparte had remained at Lunéville during the resumption of hostilities, negotiating mutual concessions, of which the cannon every day altered the conditions. The success of his armies, and the attitude of the powers of the north, enlarged the pretensions of the First Consul; the Austrian plenipotentiary defended with persevering courage the frontier of the Adda, and the re-establishment of the Italian princes in their States, when the instructions of Bonaparte to his brother were all of a sudden altered. Order was given to retard the conclusion of peace; at the same time, as if for the purpose of calling upon Austria to bow to imperious necessity, the First Consul sent to the Corps Législatif a message, which was a bold evidence of the newest phase of his diplomacy. "Legislators, the Republic triumphs, and its enemies once more implore its moderation.