On February 7, 1800, the Consulate held a national vote, on the Constitution of the Year VIII. (The revolutionary calendar began in 1792, the year of the proclamation of the republic, so 1800 was the Year VIII.) More than 3 million people voted in favor of Napoleon and the new constitution; only 1,500 voted against it. The other two Consuls had very little power, and Napoleon Bonaparte, at age 30, had France in the palm of his hand.

He moved into the old royal palace of the Tuileries and proceeded to reorganize the French Government and fill the empty treasury. He also mapped out a plan to defeat Austria once and for all, while making sure French possessions in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy were secure.

In a bold move, he took 22,000 men across the Alps. Fighting snow, ice avalances, and winds, he marched horses, troops, and supply sleds across the Great St. Bernard pass in norhtern Italy. Finally, exhausted, hungary, and frozen, his army arrived at Marengo. He had been planning to take the Austrians by surpise, but 35,000 Austian troops took him by surprise instead.

Napoleon had sent one of his divisions, commanded by General Dsaix, on another mission. Now his badly outnumbered men were taking a beating from the Austrians. By the afternoon of June 14, 1800, it looked as if Napoleon had lost the Battle of Marengo in a sea of mud.

Then miraculously, Desaix appeared with his 5,000 men. "It is three o'clock," he said. "The battle is lost. But we have time to win another."

The Austrians, who thought the fighting was over, were completely unprepared for the renewed French attack. They fled, and the Battle of Marengo became a last-minute French victory for Napoleon.

Not only was Marengo a military victory that broke up the Second Coalition, it was a political victory as well. If Napoleon Bonaparte had been defeated there, as he almost was, his life, and the course of history, might have been very different.
- An Essay on Leadership
by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.