The reflection of the Austrian watch-fires in the wintry sky showed him their general position.

To an unskilled observer the wide sweep of the glare portended ruin for the French.

To the eye of Bonaparte the sight brought hope.

It proved that his foes were still bent on their old plan of enveloping him: and from information which he treacherously received from Alvintzy's staff he must have known that that commander had far fewer than the 45,000 men which he ascribed to him in bulletins.
[Illustration: NEIGHBOURHOOD OF RIVOLI.] Yet the full dawn of that January day saw the Imperialists flushed with success, as their six separate columns drove in the French outposts and moved towards Rivoli.

Of these, one was on the eastern side of the Adige and merely cannonaded across the valley: another column wound painfully with most of the artillery and cavalry along the western bank, making for the village of Incanale and the foot of the zigzag leading up to Rivoli: three others denied over Monte Baldo by difficult paths impassable to cannon: while the sixth and westernmost column, winding along the ridge near Lake Garda, likewise lacked the power which field-guns and horsemen would have added to its important turning movement.