Italian provinces over which she had no legal jurisdiction; she has set her heel upon freedom and public justice, crushed out, so far as she could, the nationality of Italy, and constantly jeopardized by her secret intrigues the safety of Sardinia, the only remaining constitutional government.

In this review of admitted facts in reference to the two leading belligerents, we have made no pretence of examining the principles involved in reference to the law of nations, for we doubt if there be anything in that law applicable to the case. Very many theories are put forth under the sanction of international law which can not be found in the books, and the diplomats of Europe have a fashion of covering their newly discovered principles and precedents with the mantle of Grotius, Puffendorf and Vattel in a manner which would somewhat astonish those publicists were they alive to hear them. Probably none of the parties involved in the present war have technically violated the law of nations; but the diplomatic code of Europe is a very different matter. Still different and higher in the scale, are those eternal laws of honesty, honor and good faith which should govern nations as well as individuals, and according to which, men and history will pass judgment upon the present struggle in Europe.

THE KEYS OF ITALY.

In looking back upon the campaign of 1796, the first of Napoleon Bonaparte's expeditions into Italy, one is struck with the fact that the brunt of the strife was

borne on the lines of the Mincio and Adige, and that the fortresses on the latter river were the great obstacles in the progress of a military conquest whose rapidity and success had never been surpassed in the history of arms. Napoleon I, then twenty-five years old, a young bridegroom, and but recently raised to command, entered Italy late in March, 1796, with an army of about forty thousand men, which number it never exceeded during the campaign, while the forces of the allies reached fifty thousand, and were frequently reenforced by fresh troops, or rather by fresh armies from Austria. By the 21st of April, he had fought and won the victories of Monte Notte, Millesimo and Mondovi; on the 9th of May, captured Lodi, and by the 15th of that month entered Milan. In less than two months he had made himself master of Lombardy, and brought Sardinia to terms, by compelling her to renounce the coalition, cede to France Nice, Savoy and Piedmont west of the Alps, and to grant his troops a free pass through her dominions. On the 28th of May he entered the Venetian territory, after a sharp engagement on the line of the Mincio, but it was not until January of the following year that the fall of Mantua completed the conquest of Italy. In the interim the great battles of Castiglione, Arcole and Rivoli were fought, four large armies raised by Austria to defend her possessions were destroyed, and Napoleon had several times been brought to the brink of destruction, from which he was only saved by the rapidity of his movements, and his military genius in moving with the whole force of his little army against separated bodies or wings of the enemy.

But the fact stands out clear on the record, that the fortifications of Mantua, defended by only a moderate force, were the great obstruction of the campaign, and postponed the triumph of the French for half a year. This is the more striking as they had entered the noble and strongly fortified city of Verona early in June; and at the same time occupied Legnano on the Adige, while the Austrian commander, Beaulieu, had given up Peschiera soon after the battle of Lodi. During a brief portion of the campaign, the Austrians held Legnano and Verona; but they were compelled to leave both these places, so that at the commencement and during most of the seige of Mantua, the French held three angles of the famous quadrilateral, viz., Peschiera, commanding Lake Garda and the roads to Verona; Verona, controlling the great road to the Tyrol, and with Legnano protecting and protected by the Adige, and forming with that river the great line of defence between the Alps and the Po. But with all these advantages, six months elapsed after its first investment before Mantua capitulated.

These reminiscences of the campaign of 1796 may be useful in aiding us to form conjectures—for we do not aspire to opinions as to the probable result of the movements of the allies now concentrating their forces in and around the strategic square. It must be admitted in behalf of the first Napoleon, that he was compelled for some time to abandon active operations against Mantua by the invasion of successive troops of Austrians whom he met and overcame in the open field, and that the result of the seige was thus virtually decided.

On the other hand, the improvements of modern times. have placed Mantua within three days of Vienna, whence immense masses of Austrians, swiftly gathered from all parts of the empire, may be carried to the scene of action, without the necessity of a slow and toilsome march through the mountains. The fortifications themselves have been vastly strengthened since 1796; the stern frontiers of nature now bristle with all the crafty barriers invented by modern military science. Louis Napoleon has four huge fortresses to invest, while it took his military predecessor six months to conquer one. Peschiera, which did not surrender to the Sardinians in 1848, until after a contest of nearly two months, may succumb; Verona and Legnano may fall; but Mantua, situated in the middle of a lake, surrounded by unhealthy marshes, whose miasma is pregnant with death, protected by the power of inundating the enemy, and by fortresses which seem almost impregnable, may protract the defence for months, even against the new French artillery and the skill of the military schools of Paris, developed and matured before Sebastopol. It is possible that some short and severe engagement may settle the question without the horrors of a protracted seige; but unless this should be the case, it seems highly probable that Louis Napoleon may have to knock many times at the gates of the fortresses, before he obtains. the keys of Italy and permission to walk into Venice.

A BREATHING SPELL.

In the career of every man, prince or peasant, there is said to be an opportunity for wiping out the blunders of the past and commencing a new record with his fellow-men and with heaven. There is a tide in the moral world, as in the mortal life, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune; to an honest and good fortune, resulting from an acknowledgment of the mistakes of the past, expiation for mischief already committed, and a wise choice for the future. Happy is he who seizes the auspicious crisis of his fate to erase the stain upon his conscience, or the blot upon his fame, and by some noble and expiatory act convince his fellows that their condemnation was premature and ill-founded, and that he is still worthy of their respect and esteem! The heathen moralist has written that a good man struggling with misfortune is a spectacle for the admiration of the gods, but we can conceive a worthier spectacle — that of a powerful ruler, whose reputation has been damaged by an unscrupulous policy, bad faith and unprincipled ambition, seizing upon some opportune and golden moment in the flush of victory to prove by a great act of wisdom and magnanimity that the designs of his heart are neither cruel nor selfish, and to justify, whatever may have been his previous errors, his essential sincerity and honor as a prince who has a true regard for the happiness of his people, and a noble desire to obtain the approval of the world and of history.

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte needs just now but one