It is not to be denied that Napoleon was saved on this occasion by the arrival of the reserve under Dessaix, and the timely charge of Kellerman. On the other hand it is impossible not to condemn the rashness with which the Austrian generals advanced after their first successes.
The discomfiture of the imperialists was so great, that rather than stand the consequences of another battle, while Suchet was coming on their rear, they next day entered into a negotiation. Melas offered to abandon Genoa and all the strong places in Piedmont, Lombardy, and the Legations--provided Buonaparte would allow him to march the remains of his army unmolested to the rear of Mantua. Napoleon accepted this offer. By one battle he had regained nearly all that the French had lost in the unhappy Italian campaign of 1799: at all events he had done enough to crown his own name with unrivalled splendour, and to show that the French troops were once more what they had used to be--when he was in the field to command them. He had another motive for closing with the propositions of General Melas. It was of urgent importance to regain Genoa, ere an English army, which he knew was on its voyage to that port, could reach its destination.
On the 17th of June Napoleon returned in triumph to Milan, where he formally re-established the Cisalpine Republic, and was present at a festival of high state and magnificence. He then gave the command of the army of Italy to Massena; and appointed Jourdan French minister in Piedmont--in other words, governor of that dominion; and set out on his journey to Paris. He halted at Lyons to lay the first stone of the new _Place de Bellecour_, erected on the ruins of a great square destroyed by the Jacobins during the revolutionary madness; and reached the Tuileries on the 2nd of July. He had set out for Switzerland on the 6th of May. Two months had not elapsed, and in that brief space what wonders had been accomplished! The enthusiasm of the Parisians exceeded all that has been recorded of any triumphal entry. Night after night every house was illuminated; and day following day the people stood in crowds around the palace, contented if they could but catch one glimpse of the preserver of France.