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General Victor had already divined the advantages to be derived from this natural intrenchment, and be used it to rally the divisions of Gardannes and Chamberlhac. Bonaparte, approving Victor's arrangements, sent him word to defend Marengo to the very last extremity. He himself needed time to prepare his game on this great chess-board inclosed between the Bormida, the Fontanone, and Marengo.
The French vanguard under Gardane had in the afternoon easily driven the enemy's front from the village of Marengo; and Gardane had even reported that there was no bridge over the River Bormida by which the enemy could debouch into the plain of Marengo.
Its whole face was smooth and treeless, covered with a layer of pure snow. The camp commanded a full view of it up to its very crest. As Lucien was sitting quietly by the fire a singular sound, or rather continuation of sounds, fell upon his ear. It somewhat resembled the baying of hounds at a distance; and at first he was inclined to believe that it was Marengo on a view-hunt after the deer.
But there were enemies to be cleared out of the way, and he was not the one to go to sleep after mess; and his eyes, look you, traveled all over the world as if it had been a man's face. The next thing he did was to turn up in Italy; it was just as if he had put his head out of the window and the sight of him was enough; they gulp down the Austrians at Marengo like a whale swallowing gudgeons!
Had the gallant commander alluded to, Sir Nathaniel Dance, yielded when the French Admiral Linois, and his squadron, consisting of the Marengo, a line-of-battle ship of 84 guns, and the Belle Poule and Semillante frigates, each of 44, bore down on the China fleet, not less than six millions of English property, and some of the noblest trading ships that float on the ocean, must have been carried into the Isle of France.
The crisis most serious to me was during the interval from the battle of Marengo, to the attempt of George Cadoudal and the affair of the Duke D'Enghien" Napoleon now, with his accustomed vigor, took hold of the robbers an and made short work with them.
True, he now exposed his line of communications with France; but if the art of war consisted in never running any risk, glory would be the prize of mediocre minds. He must have a complete triumph. The question was not of abandoning this or that province: his political superiority was at stake. At Marengo, Austerlitz, and Wagram, he was in greater danger.
Bonaparte, long before returned from Egypt, and now, as First Consul, practically the absolute ruler of France, had overthrown all enemies on the Continent. Peace with Austria, after her disasters of Marengo and Hohenlinden, had been signed in February, 1801.
Incapable of suspecting the three ministers and Carnot, he attributed the movement which stirred all France to the hatred his brother had excited by the 18th Brumaire, and to the confident belief of the men of 1793 that defeat was certain in Italy. "The battle of Marengo detained Napoleon on the plains of Lombardy until the 25th of June, but he reached Paris on the 2nd of July.
He knew that none of them wished to propose it as Basil was the real master of Marengo but their glances were sufficiently intelligible to him. He looked at the downcast countenance of the once merry Francois, at the serious air of Norman at the wan cheek and sunken eye of Lucien, whom Basil dearly loved. He hesitated no longer.
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