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The letter which he sent has been preserved. It was written from Tortona, on June fifteenth, 1796. Life is but a vain show because at such an hour he is absent from her. His passion had clouded his faculties, but if she is in pain he will leave at any hazard for her side.
Kleber received at the same time a parting letter of instructions one of the most singular pieces that ever proceeded from Napoleon's pen. "I send you," said he, "English gazettes to the 10th of June. You will there see that we have lost Italy; that Mantua, Turin, and Tortona are blockaded.
Of Tortona and Voghera I carried away only the ghost of an impression, for we darted through their long main streets, deserted in the noon-tide hour, and darted out again onto the straight white ribbon of road that was leading us across all Northern Italy.
Three routes were open to Melas. The most direct was by way of Tortona and Piacenza along the southern bank of the Po, through the difficult defile of Stradella: or he might retire towards Genoa, across the Apennines, and regain Mantua by a dash across the Modenese: or he might cross the Po at Valenza and the Ticino near Pavia.
They were attacked at Rotto Freddo by a detachment of Austrians, under general Serbelloni, who maintained the engagement till ten in the morning, when Botta arrived; the battle was renewed with redoubled rage, and lasted till four in the afternoon, when the enemy retired in great disorder to Tortona, with the loss of eight thousand men, a good number of colours and standards, and eighteen pieces of cannon.
Count Gages, with thirty thousand men, took possession of Serravalle; and advancing towards Placentia, obliged the Austrians to retire under the cannon of Tortona; but when don Philip, at the head of forty thousand troops, made himself master of Acqui, the king of Sardinia and the Austrian general, unable to stem the torrent, retreated behind the Tanaro.
And so with universal rejoicing we have returned here, by the grace of God, and already we hear that Lodi, Piacenza, Pavia, Tortona, and Alessandria have driven out the French, and returned of their own free will to our allegiance.
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