to cross the Rhine, and had commenced hostilities on the very day of the signing of the preliminaries.  This information arrived seven days after the Directory had written that “he must not reckon on the co-operation of the armies of Germany.”  It is impossible to describe the General’s vexation on reading these despatches.  He had signed the preliminaries only because the Government had represented the co-operation of the armies of the Rhine as impracticable at that moment, and shortly afterwards he was informed that the co-operation was about to take place!  The agitation of his mind was so great that he for a moment conceived the idea of crossing to the left bank of the Tagliamento, and breaking off the negotiations under some pretext or other.  He persisted for some time in this resolution, which, however, Berthier and some other generals successfully opposed.  He exclaimed, “What a difference would there have been in the preliminaries, if, indeed, there had been any!”

His chagrin, I might almost say his despair, increased when, some days after his entry into the Venetian States, he received a letter from Moreau, dated the 23d of April, in which that general informed him that, having passed the Rhine on the 20th with brilliant success, and taken four thousand prisoners, it would not be long before he joined him.  Who, in fact, can say what would have happened but for the vacillating and distrustful policy of the Directory, which always encouraged low intrigues, and participated in the jealousy excited by the renown of the young conqueror?  Because the Directory dreaded his ambition they sacrificed the glory of our arms and the honour of the nation; for it cannot be doubted that, had the passage of the Rhine, so urgently demanded by Bonaparte, taken place some days sooner, he would have been able, without incurring any risk, to dictate imperiously the conditions of peace on the spot; or, if Austria were obstinate, to have gone on to Vienna and signed it there.  Still occupied with this idea, he wrote to the Directory on the 8th of May:  “Since I have received intelligence of the passage of the Rhine by Hoche and Moreau, I much regret that it did not take place fifteen days sooner; or, at least, that Moreau did not say that he was in a situation to effect it.” (He had been informed to the contrary.) What, after this, becomes of the unjust reproach against Bonaparte of having, through jealousy of Moreau, deprived France of the advantages which a prolonged campaign would have procured her?  Bonaparte was too devoted to the glory of France to sacrifice it to jealousy of the glory of any individual.