The Narbonnese forms the proconsul's basis of operation, but it is partly composed of populations recently subjugated, whose fidelity is as yet doubtful. Rome has in Gaul allied peoples, but they have lost their preponderance. The different states, divided among themselves by intestine rivalries, offer an easy prey to the enemy; but let the Roman army come to occupy their territory in a permanent manner, and thus wound their feelings of independence, and all the warlike youth will unite, eager to begin a struggle full of perils for the invaders. Cæsar is obliged, therefore, to act with extreme prudence, to favour the ambition of some, repress the encroachments of others, and spare the susceptibility of all, taking care not to wound their religion, their laws, or their manners; he is obliged at the same time to draw a part of his forces from the country he occupies, and obtain thence men, subsidies, and provisions. The greatest difficulty experienced by the commander of an army operating in a country the good-will of which he seeks to conciliate, is to enable his troops to live without exhausting it, and to assure the welfare of his soldiers without exciting the discontent of the inhabitants. "To seek to call," says the Emperor Napoleon I. in his _Mémoires_, "a nation to liberty and independence; to desire that a public spirit should form in the midst of it, and that it should furnish troops; and at the same time to take from it its principal resources, are two contradictory ideas, and to conciliate them is the province of talent."[559]
Thus, to fight between two and three hundred thousand Helvetii and Germans, to hold in dominion eight millions of Gauls, and to maintain the Roman province--such is the task which Cæsar has undertaken, and, to carry it out, he has as yet only at hand a single legion. What means will he have to overcome all these obstacles? His genius and the ascendency of civilisation over barbarism.
[Sidenote: Campaign against the Helvetii.]
II. Cæsar starts from Rome towards the middle of March, 696, and arrives in eight days at Geneva. Immediately the Helvetii, who had appointed their rendezvous on the banks of the Rhine towards the 24th of March, the day of the equinox, ask his permission to cross Savoy, with the intention of going to establish themselves in Saintonge. He adjourns his answer to the 8th of April, and employs the fifteen days thus gained in fortifying the left bank of the Rhone, from Geneva to the Pas-de-l'Ecluse, in raising troops in the Roman province, and in renewing the old bonds of friendship with the Burgundians,[560] who will soon furnish him with men, horses, and provisions.
