University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
THE BATTLE OF MILLESIMO.

Val d'Orazio, bosomed in hills, and elevated
far above the Pass of the Boccheta, where the
passage of Napoleon had been effected, was little
disturbed by the great invasion which threatened
the Italian states. Though the plains at
less than half-a dozen leagues distant were overrun
by foreign soldiers, while villages smoked
and castles tottered on either side of the conqueror's
route, the quiet Alpine hamlet, in which
the chief incidents of our story have occurred,
remained in happy ignorance of the actual ravages
of war. At times, it is true, some more
adventurous scouting parties from either army,
extending their explorations, had ascended to
the upper passes that embraced the Val d'Orazio,
and once a foraging detachment had threatened
the peasants with a forced acquaintance, so
far as concerned the latter's granaries. But as
spring opened without the actual presence of
conflict or its attendant sufferings, the good villagers
found abundant reason for thankfulness
in being spared the military visitation of either
friend or foe. Nevertheless, many a worthy wife
clung closer to her spouse, and perhaps Padre
Ambrosio murmured an additional prayer, when
at times the hollow-sounding deffles far down
beneath the hamlet, echoed and re-echoed to the
thunders of artillery, and made the hills respond
like great organ-pipes to the wild bruit that
whelmed their giant bases.

Such a bruit was rolling through gorges and
defiles at the hour of daybreak, when two individuals
emerged from a mountain gap on the
descending slope that conducted through alternate
declivities and ridges, from Val d'Orazio to
the Italian hillsides on which the lower pass of
the Boccheta opened. They were a man and
woman, the first apparently advanced in years;
as his steps were feeble, and had to be sustained
by his companion, who was quite youthful in
form and features. As they reached a jutting
point, commanding a wide sweep of prospect,
they paused to survey the valleys and plateaus
lying outspread for many leagues under their
observation.

The eastern clouds were fading before the advancing
beams of morning, and drifting slowly
from the mountain tops, and dividing in the lower
districts; but from the plains immediately beneath
their gaze, the beholders could distinguish
thick masses of vapor which arose, not from exhalations
of earth, but from the mingling of opposing
battle smokes vomited out of cannon and
rifles in the action of a fierce conflict which was
just unrolling its terrible pictures beneath the
brightening heavens.

About a mile from the base of the shelving
precipice on which the two travellers had halted,
a river, swollen at this season by the melting
snows, wound amid a rocky landscape for some

distance, and then, broadening, flowed near a
small town, which seemed to be the central position
of attack and defence of the large bodies
of troops now engaged in battle. Far beyond
the fortified buildings of this town could be discerned
a long line of troops hastily advancing,
whilst on the banks of the river many more
were drawn up in preparation for the strife. At
the same time skirmishing parties mingled in
close fight at various points upon the plains,
and from the opposite passes of the hills a dense
array of armed men swept like a torrent towards
the river side. It was evident that a fierce and
long contest was at hand.

“Father, we had better here remain,” said the
young woman to her companion, as she led him
to a ridge of rock, which, somewhat protected by
an overshelving cliff, offered a resting-place,
sheltered somewhat from the keen morning
breeze, which blew across the exposed portion
of the mountain-side.

“They are Frenchmen—and yonder is the
Austrian eagle,” said the old man, seemingly
absorbed in the view of the scene beneath them,
as he slowly seated himself on the rock to which
his daughter directed their steps. “There will
now be a brave fight, my child.”

“And these strange men who fight know not
each other!” replied the young girl. “Strange
that they should meet for the first time with such
hatred in their hearts!”

“Alas! there is hatred in all hearts,” said
the man.

“Till they are changed, my father.”

“O, if they be ever changed, Francesca!”
cried the ancient brigand, Tomaso, for it was he
who, thus led by his daughter, had wandered
many weeks before from Val d'Orazio. “O, if
indeed they be ever changed in this world!”

“Look!—behold, father — they are coming
hitherward!”

Tomaso looked in the direction which Francesca
pointed, and saw a large body of French
soldiers suddenly concentrate in column, and
wheel from a broken declivity at the distance of
half a mile, advancing rapidly to the pass
through which himself and daughter had descended.
In a few moments the heavy clatter
of their arms sounded distinctly below, and
while the old man and Francesca withdrew beneath
the shelving cliff, a dense array of soldiers
climbed the rocks and shelves around, and
swarmed in the wide pass, sweeping onward
with wonderful celerity, till they disappeared
among the hills.

It was one of Napoleon's sudden manœuvres,
by which detaching a portion of his main force,
he cast it as a compact missile, apparently directly
away from the field, but in reality causing
it to whirl, catapult-like, with tremendous
centrifugal power, right upon the object which
he wished to annibilate.

In the meantime the belligerents upon the
plains drew closer to each other, and the artillery
belching its wide-mouthed thunder, shook
the air for leagues around, darkening it at the
same time with increasing smoke vomited incessantly
forth, mingled with lurid flame, in which
the hurrying battalions of horse and foot were
half disclosed, seeming more like legions of
Alpine fiends than living men. Down from
every pass and gorge of the hills, out of innumerable
clefts and gaps in the lower mural of
rocks, the clustering troops of Frenchmen poured
in unbroken succession, centering and uniting
in column as soon as the nature of the
ground admitted, and thence deploying in squadrons
and battalions, marching separate till the
river was crossed, immediately after which the
column was re-united, and hurled compactly towards
the assaulted town. It was the battle of
Dego, more commonly termed Millesimo, the
third of Bonaparte's pitched fights, which opened
for him a conqueror's path over Italy.

Tomaso and his daughter watched the changing
fortunes of the conflict, whilst the morning
sun rose gradually towards its zenith, and cast
its rays faintly through the thick atmosphere
that overhung the plain. Comparatively secure
in the half-covered position they occupied, from
any mischance to which such near neighborhood
to a battle might otherwise expose them, and
alike fearful of proceeding on their route, or of
retracing their steps back to the mountain passes,
the two wayfarers resolved to await the close of
the engagement before resuming their journey.
They surveyed therefore the progress of events,
the father tracing with something of a former
spirit—for he had been a soldier in youth—the
rapid evolutions of the troops, the fierce charge
and bloody hand-to-hand combat; while the
daughter, closing her eyes, at each recurring
shock of hostile meeting, strove to shape her
thoughts to prayer for the souls of those who
were falling as thickly as autumn leaves before
the withering blast.

Meanwhile, hurried among other military

units to the close affray, obeying a charging
trumpet, or following the outstretched swords of
his officers, that gleamed like stars amid the
clouds of battle, Valentine, the hunter, found
himself lost in the confusion of the melee. Little
space was left him here for memory of the
past or thought of the future. Around him
flashed fast the flames of cannon and muskets;
in his ears rumbled a wild din of undistinguishable
sounds, the great boom of field-pieces, the
roll of volleying discharges of the lines on
either side, the sharp tirallade of the rifle brigades,
firing as they advanced and wheeled to
flank the central batteries. But at times, as the
young soldier looked up through a rift in the
smoke, he could catch a glimpse of some daring
figure in advance of the column, spurring his
bleeding steed to the van of conflict, and hear at
the same time the shout of his comrades in the
ranks, repeating the name of some gallant officer
raised to leadership of his companions by
the favor of the greater one, who led them all.

“Advance—Lannes! mon ami!” was the
sudden command of a slight-built commander,
who rode swiftly through the centre of the column.
His chapeau was drawn tightly over his
forehead, and his eyes gleamed like fire beneath,
showing a countenance pale as marble, the lips
pressed firmly together, and the nostrils dilated
with awful determination. He wore a gray surtout,
crossed by a simple sash; his cloak was
strapped at his saddle-bow, over which he leaned
as he rode, pointing with his unarmed hand towards
the dense clouds of smoke that enveloped
the strong entrenchments of the Austrians defending
the town of Dego. As this plain-looking
figure appeared, every heart in all that dense
column of soldiery stood still, to beat in a moment
after with redoubled animation—for the
men recognized their young general, Bonaparte,
and the cry that evermore greeted and followed
him rang along the line, “Vive la notre general!
vive Napoleon!”

“Advance! and carry the town!”

The order was borne from mouth to mouth,
and flew from leader to leader in the close array.
But ere it had been heard by a dozen others than
himself, the brave Lannes had thrown himself at
the column's head. Shouting the name of Napoleon
as a war-cry, he plucked his plumed chapeau
from his brow, waved it enthusiastically
thrice around his head, and then elevating it
upon the point of his sword, as a signal of advance,
plunged at once toward the Austrian
batteries; and behind him, crushing the earth
beneath them, trod the feet of a thousand men,
pressing on their leader, while a thousand voices
echoed his battle-cry with an inspiring shout
that rose high above the confusion of arms.

Valentine, borne forward in the headlong
charge, felt himself animated with the electricity
that pervaded all the rest. Handling his fusil
with the skill and precision of his comrades, he
bore his part in the combat as one who had
mingled in many a strife before. A portion of
the vast military automaton moved by the skill
of those who created the movements, he became
in a little space the soldier and the veteran.
Such is the brief apprenticeship required for the
hero, because excited passion fills the place of
experience, that a single battle is sufficient to
accomplish what a thousand drills and parades
might fail to determine.

But the fight grew dense and more desperately
sustained. Twice the French column, advancing
to the assault, were repelled by the steady
bravery of those who defended the town; twice
the tide of success was rolled back to the plain,
and the battalions and companies, dispersing in
their retreat, overspread the rocks and hillsides
around.

In the mid-ranks of the struggle, the young
soldier, Valentine, borne hither and thither as
the battle swayed, beheld an officer whose daring
demeanor more than once arrested his gaze,
and drew from his comrades their spontaneous
huzzas. This officer, apparently past the middle
period of life—though from his countenance,
clouded with dust and smoke, it was difficult to
determine his age,—was a man of tall figure
and a bearing at the same time majestic and
graceful. At the first hurried glimpse which the
hunter obtained of this brave superior, a thrill
of emotion unaccountably pervaded him. It
seemed to him, excited as were his impressions
by the scene and the part which he himself
bore in it, that some link of sympathy had become
suddenly revealed to his perception, uniting
him to the changing interests of the day's
strife. A recognition appeared to be established
in his mind, through which he beheld a companion
and kindred being mingling in the fortunes
of the field, and thenceforth he endeavored with
ardent gaze to keep in sight the unknown individual
who thus controlled him. In the first
hours of the engagement the attempt was difficult
enough—since he was forced mechanically
forward or back in the evolutions of the battalion,

of which he was but a mere integral,—and
he had no eye or thought save obedience to immediate
command, stimulated by the presence
of danger and the example of courage around
him.

But the third charge of the entire army, led
by the commander-in-chief in person, and supported
by his master-strokes of detached and
suddenly recalled flanking divisions, to cover
the advance of the centre, bore our youthful
combatant into the thickest of the affray, where
commanded the unknown officer whom his eyes
had sought during many hours of previous
fight.

It was amid the tumult and disorder of a bayonet
charge upon the outer batteries of the enemy,
met and repelled by a fierce sortie of the
defenders to protect their guns, that Valentine,
swept back and separated from the dense ranks,
beheld the gallant unknown surrounded by a
dozen foes, defending himself desperately against
their combined attacks. The color-bearer of the
regiment had been struck down, and the colonel,
for such was his rank, had snatched the eagle as
it fell, and lifting it above his head with one
hand, kept back with his single sword-arm the
flushed foemen who pressed forward to pursue
their advantage over the French. Valentine be
held the struggle, and turning with an uncontrollable
impulse from the disordered ranks,
threw himself boldly forward to the assistance
of his superior. It was full time for such aid,
indeed, for the colonel's sword was broken in
his hard defence, and he, himself, pressed sorely
by a crowd of foes, staggered before their furious
blows which fell upon his steel halbert.
The young hunter saw at a glance the danger of
the unknown officer, and pausing for no consideration
of peril to his own life, dashed into the
melee, and using his fusil as a club, whirled it
with terrible force against the weapons of the
Austrian soldiers. An assault so fierce and unusual
dismayed for a moment the enemy, allowing
the discomfited officer to possess himself of
the dead ensign's weapon, which had fallen with
the eagle from his grasp; and ere the attack
could be renewed, a new charge by a reserve division
of the French forced back the Austrians
in their turn, and changed the feature of the
strife once more. Valentine in the next instant
was separated from the man whose life he had
preserved, and found himself soon after combating
as before, in confusion and tumult of undistinguishing
action that had constrained his position
during the previous hours of conflict.