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These misleading assurances encouraged Lamoricière, but in any case he would probably have thought it incumbent on him to make what stand he could. He was defeated by Cialdini on the heights of Castelfidardo "yesterday unknown, to-day immortal," as Mgr. Dupanloup eloquently exclaimed. Ancona fell to a combined attack from land and sea.
Lamoricière, Cavaignac, and Bedeau wrote pressing letters for reinforcements, and urged the return of Bugeaud. The most formidable foe of Abd-el-Kader reached the scene of action in October, 1845, bringing fresh forces, and in a week he took the field at the head of a hundred twenty thousand men.
The Pope had lately induced the French General Lamoricière to take the command of the Pontifical troops, and he and the King of Naples were organising their armies, with a view to co-operating at an early date against the common enemy at Turin.
Now Lamoriciere proposed a plan, in the execution of which he was eminently successful.
Arabs and Kabyles swarmed in all directions, and, crouching in nooks, were ready to open fire on the French army as it wound its way with steady march along the narrow causeway which hung midway on the mountain slopes. Valée had divided his force into three columns, one of which was led by Lamoricière, a man to become famous in Algerian warfare.
Abd-el-Kader's final defeat in 1848 was due less to the prowess of Lamoricière and Bugeaud than to the cunning of his traitorous ally, the sultan of Morocco, who, after having induced many of the princely saint's adherents to desert, finally drove him by force of numbers over the French frontier.
The romantic conquest of Sicily by Garibaldi, and his successes in Naples, whereby a junior branch of the Bourbon family has been sent to "enjoy" that exile which has so long been the lot of the senior branch, and the destruction of the Papalini by the Italian army of Victor Emanuel II., which asserted the superiority of the children of the soil over the bands of foreign ruffians assembled by De Merode and Lamoricière for the oppression of the Peninsula in the name of the venerable head of the Church of Rome, these are events even more striking than those by which the iron sceptre of Austria was cut through in the earlier year, because they have been accomplished by Italian genius and courage, the few foreigners in the army of Garibaldi not counting for much in the contest.
They, however, knew too well the intentions of France, and France had won the battle of Solferino. The brave Lamoriciere was assailed in his last retreat, both by sea and land. The bombardment lasted ten days, and was heard at Venice, the islands of Dalmatia, and even at Trieste. But not a friendly sail appeared in support of the besieged.
"Generals?" cried out a fourth voice. "I am one of you!" The three generals recognized M. Baze. A burst of laughter came from the four cells simultaneously. This police-van in truth contained, and was carrying away from Paris, the Questor Baze, and the Generals Lamoricière, Cavaignac, and Changarnier.
So long as the great art of oratory shall be appreciated in the countries of Fenelon and Bossuet, the funeral orations on Lamoriciere, by Bishops Pie and Dupanloup, together with the fine pages on the heroes of Castelfidardo, by Bishop Gerbet of Perpignan, Mgr. Plantier of Nismes, and other writers, will not cease to be read.
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