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He was beside you, doubt it not, when you annihilated, as you told us at supper, the enemies of your party on the steps of St. Roch. This Capuchin Friar has been your helper 'mid the smoke of battles. But for him, be assured, you would not have been victorious, whether at Montenotte or Millesimo or Lodi.
The French campaign opened on the 9th of April 1797, and the Austrians were beaten on the following day at Montenotte, and in a campaign of a month Bonaparte reached Milan. The success of the enemy increased to an extraordinary degree the difficulties of the British admiral.
"Well, you see, madame," said the forester, who asked no better than to tell the tale, "Farrabesche may have had good reason for what he did. He was the last of the Farrabesches, an old family of the Correze, don't you know! His elder brother, Captain Farrabesche, died ten years earlier in Italy, at Montenotte, a captain when he was only twenty-two years old.
We rap their knuckles at Montenotte; we hurry on to thrash them at Rivoli, Lodi, Arcola, and Millesimo, and we never let them go. The army came to have a liking for winning battles.
It seems that on the day that Masséna was making use of this odd expedient, which he had often used in the days when he was a smuggler, Bonaparte, realising that he was very young to be appointed commander-in-chief, and feeling on that account that he should come down hard on any officer who failed in his duty, ordered Masséna to be brought before a court-martial and accused of abandoning his post, which could result in a sentence of death or at the least cashiering!... But at the moment when the general was about to be arrested there began the famous battle of Montenotte, in which Masséna's and Augereau's divisions took two thousand prisoners, four flags and five artillery pieces, and completely routed the Austrian army.
My father's division, fiercely attacked by greatly superior forces, defended for two days positions at Cadibone and Montenotte, but eventually, seeing themselves on the point of being outflanked, they had to retire to Voltri, and from there to Genoa, where they shut themselves in, together with the two other divisions of the right wing.
Beaulieu, writing at a later date to Colonel Graham, the English attaché at his headquarters, ascribed his first disasters to Argenteau, his lieutenant at Montenotte, who employed only a third of the forces placed under his command.
Therefore, if you should say to an individual of the species Practical, "Do you know Madame Firmiani?" he would present that lady to your mind by the following inventory: "Fine house in the rue du Bac, salons handsomely furnished, good pictures, one hundred thousand francs a year, husband formerly receiver-general of the department of Montenotte."
On their road they failed to discern a vestige of the little town of Montenotte; like Tenes, of which not so much as a ruined cottage was visible on the horizon, it seemed to be annihilated.
While he was occupying Voltri, the boom of cannon echoing across the mountains warned his outposts that the real campaign was opening in the broken country north of Savona. There the weak Austrian centre had occupied a ridge or plateau above the village of Montenotte, through which ran the road leading to Alessandria and Milan.
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