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The Italians defend their annexation of the Upper Adige by asserting that Italy's true northern boundary, in the words of Eugène de Beauharnais, written, when Viceroy of Italy, to his stepfather, Napoleon, "is that traced by Nature on the summits of the mountains, where the waters that flow into the Black Sea are divided from those that flow into the Adriatic."

Any one who has entered Italy from the north must have instinctively felt, as he reached the summit of this mighty mountain wall and looked down on the warm and fertile slopes sweeping southward to the plains, "Here Italy begins." Italy further justifies her annexation of the German-speaking Upper Adige on the ground of national security.

Thou hast more ill-favoured ones among them," said Pioche, with a glance at the grim faces of Rapp and Daru. "I've seen the time when thou'd have said, 'Is it Minette that was wounded at the Adige and stood in the square at Marengo? I'll give her the Cross of the Legion!" "And she shall have it!" said Napoleon.

"God Himself engraved on my heart the commandment to be loyal to my emperor, my country, and its laws; and if you call me reliable, dear friend, you merely say that I do my duty as a Christian, for the Bible says, 'Let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of sin. Therefore, do not praise me for that which is only my duty, and which Speckbacher and Wallner, and all our dear friends in the valley of the Adige, do just as well as I. For the rest, I must tell you, gentlemen, it is not so strange that we should be attached to the emperor; for the Bavarians are governing our country in such a manner as if they were intent only on making us love our emperor every day more and more, and long for him more intensely."

Bonaparte guessed, and his guess was very shrewd, that all told he was then confronted by 45,000. The Austrians have never made the facts clear, though their initial strength is set at 28,000. I have found no estimate of the reinforcements. The gorge by which the Adige breaks through the lowest foot-hills of the Alps to enter the lowlands has been famous since dim antiquity.

Pleasant Verona!" Verona is situated on the sides and at the base of a circle of hills, in a bend of the river Adige, by which it is divided, so that when the river is flooded by heavy rains, the low-lying parts of the town are soon under water. The name Verona brings a delicious flavour of romance and poetry with it.

In the month of June the Austrian army had entered Italy under the orders of Prince Eugene of Savoy-Carignano, son of the Count of Soissons and Olympia Mancini, conqueror of the Turks and revolted Hungarians, and passionately hostile to Louis XIV., who, in his youth, had refused to employ him. He had already crossed the Adige and the Mincio, driving the French back behind the Oglio.

They headed her off the narrow streets, where safety might have been, and kept her to the Lung' Adige. Round the great S the river makes she battled her blind way, trying for nothing, with wits for nothing, without hope, or understanding, or thought. She ran, a hunted woman, straight before her, and at last shook off the last of her pursuers by San Zeno.

The Austrian Cabinet perceived with satisfaction the approach of the bad weather, and insisted more strongly on its ultimatum, which was the Adige, with Venice. Before the 18th Fructidor the Emperor of Austria hoped that the movement which was preparing in Paris would operate badly for France and favourably to the European cause.

The great defensive strength of this plateau had from the first attracted his attention. There the Adige in a sharp bend westward approaches within six miles of Lake Garda.