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The plan which the Russian conqueror had marked out on the slate for the Austrian generals was literally fulfilled. In less than three months he had cleared Lombardy and Piedmont of the troops of France. He forced the passage of the Adda against Moreau and his army, compelling the French to abandon Milan, which he entered in triumph.
They therefore resolved that the army should march to the siege of Carravaggio, hoping that Lodi would surrender, on that fortress being wrested from the enemy's hands. The count obeyed, though he would have preferred crossing the Adda and attacking the Brescian territory.
He now called himself Taaffe. He had been a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, and secretary to Adda the Papal Nuncio, but had since the Revolution turned Protestant, had taken a wife, and had distinguished himself by his activity in discovering the concealed property of those Jesuits and Benedictines who, during the late reign, had been quartered in London.
The enemy being between the French and the Adda, no other line was open but that southward through the low country, over the Po; and to follow that implied something akin to a disorderly rout. Nevertheless, all the generals were in favor of this suggestion except one, the fiery hotspur who tells the tale, who disdained the notion of retreat on any line, and flung out of the room in scorn.
Had he concentrated all his forces at the nearest point of the Adda which the French could cross, namely Pizzighetone, he would have rendered any flank march of theirs to the northward extremely hazardous; but he had not yet sufficiently learned from his terrible teacher the need of concentration; and, having at least three passages to guard, he kept his forces too spread out to oppose a vigorous move against any one of them.
He understood a little of what hydraulic science can compass; he knew what canalisation meant, and its assistance to traffic and trade; he had seen the waterworks on the Po, on the Adige, on the Mincio; he had heard how the Velino had been enslaved for the steel foundry of Terni, how the Nerino fed the ironworks of Narni; he had seen the Adda captive at Lodi, and the lakes held in bond at Mantua; he had read of the water drawn from Monte Amiata; and not very many miles off him, in the Abruzzo, was that hapless Fuscino, which had been emptied and dried up by rich meddlers of Rome.
Not wishing to fire, lest the great game should be disturbed, I contented myself with riding after the buffaloes, wonderfully followed on foot by Adda, who ran like a deer, and almost kept up with my horse, hurling his three lances successively at the buffaloes, but without success.
The Valtelline is an Italian valley, connected with the rest of the peninsula by ties of race and language. It is, moreover, geographically linked to Italy by the great stream of the Adda, which takes its rise upon the Stelvio, and after passing through the Lake of Como, swells the volume of the Po.
Louis XII. commanded his in person, with Louis de la Tremoille and James Trivulzio for his principal lieutenants; the Venetians were under the orders of two generals, the Count of Petigliano and Barthelemy d'Alviano, both members of the Roman family of the Orsini, but not on good terms with one another. The French had to cross the Adda to reach the enemy, who kept in his camp.
We must have Mantua, likewise; in return, we give you Mentz; and not the Adige, but the Adda, must be our frontier." "Ah! I see new difficulties, new subterfuges!" exclaimed Bonaparte, and his eyes darted a flash of anger at the diplomatist. This angry glance, however, was parried by the polite smile of the count.
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