A soldier gets the taste of
conquest. So Napoleon whirled round those Austrian generals, who didn't
know where to poke themselves to get out of his way, and he pelted 'em
well--nipped off ten thousand men at a blow sometimes, by getting round
them with fifteen hundred Frenchmen, and then he gleaned as he pleased.
He took their cannon, their supplies, their money, their munitions, in
short, all they had that was good to take. He fought them and beat them
on the mountains, he drove them into the rivers and seas, he bit 'em in
the air, he devoured 'em on the ground, and he lashed 'em everywhere.
Hey! the grand army feathered itself well; for, d'ye see the Emperor,
who was a wit, called up the inhabitants and told them he was there to
deliver them. So after that the natives lodged and cherished us; the
women too, and very judicious they were. Now here's the end of it. In
Ventose, '96--in those times that was the month of March of to-day--we
lay cuddled in a corner of Savoie with the marmots; and yet, before that
campaign was over, we were masters of Italy, just as Napoleon had
predicted; and by the following March--in a single year and two
campaigns--he had brought us within sight of Vienna. 'Twas a clean
sweep. We devoured their armies, one after the other, and made an end of
four Austrian generals. One old fellow, with white hair, was roasted
like a rat in the straw at Mantua.
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