Note 568 — Chapter XIX

"The first consul was partaking also of the prevailing gladness when he learned that a courier from Italy had brought an account of the loss of the battle of Marengo. The courier had been despatched at the moment when Paris every thing seemed desperate, so that the report of a defeat was general in before the first consul's return. Many projects were disturbed by his arrival. On the mere announcement of his defeat, his enemies had returned to their work, and talked of nothing less than overturning the government, and avenging the crimes of the eighteenth Brumaire."—Savary, tom. i., p. 190.