A man's character was closely tied to the women in his life. When he was young, it was his mother; when he grew up, it was his wife; later, perhaps his daughter. During the Battle of Toulon, the one supporting Napoleon from behind was his mother, Letizia. Once he had a family, that role should have belonged to Josephine.
Bonaparte had indeed made a command error at the Battle of Marengo. Fortunately, a cavalry force had charged at the critical moment, turning defeat into victory. In the end, it was the Austrians who took off their uniforms and became prisoners.
Mercy was the privilege of the victor. After winning, Bonaparte looked upon the battlefield strewn with corpses and wrote to the Austrian Emperor in hopes of negotiating peace. Had he lost, the contents of that letter would have been very different.
It had been a war that gambled the fate of a nation. Without that victory, Napoleon Bonaparte could not have forcibly demanded that Francis II repay Belgium's national debt at face value.
When a war was lost, the bonds issued by that country became worthless paper. Everyone knew that rule. The Belgians had never imagined that the money they lent would one day be returned, and that was what gave Talleyrand the chance to make a fortune.
This measure not only won people's hearts, but also inflicted a massive financial loss upon Austria after its defeat, leaving it unable to raise an army again in a short time.
Unless the Austrians taught their subjects that the scraps of paper in their hands were money.
During the First Italian War, Bonaparte had not sent all the wealth back to France. Under an alias, he entrusted the spoils of plunder to bankers he considered trustworthy, while shifting the blame onto others.