It was exactly what my father had been hoping for, although to some extent he shared the same dislike felt by his colleagues, who considered themselves experienced generals at the age of thirty-two and thirty-four years, and who objected to serve under a general aged twenty-six; yet the roar of the cannons and the sound of many battles had been ringing in his ears for a year, until he was quite ready to ask for service in Italy, no matter in what rank.
My father reached Milan, October the 19th, 1796.
Bonaparte gave him a cordial welcome, and Joséphine an even warmer reception; she had just joined her husband, and, as a Creole, was passionately attached to anything that recalled her beloved Colonies.
He found Bonaparte in a state of great uneasiness, and very angry because of the conduct of the Directory, which had deserted him. The Austrian generals were beaten, but Austria herself was not beaten.
The troops at the emperor's disposition in Poland, thanks to the promises Catherine had given him, were able to march to the Alps; many troops, too, were stationed to watch over the Danube and to keep an eye on Turkey; moreover, all the reserves of the Austrian monarchy were being prepared for Italy; a new and splendid army therefore was being equipped in Friuli, made up of the remnant of Wurmser's troops, those from Poland and Turkey, with reserves and recruits. Marshal Alvintzy was charged to take command of this fourth army, intended to avenge the honour of Colli, Beaulieu and Wurmser.
Bonaparte had not more than 25,000 men of the troops which had accompanied him to Italy, or had joined him there, with which to meet this new army; for the Austrian cannon had made great gaps in our ranks, in spite of their defeats. Some battalions had reached him from la Vendée, but they were greatly reduced by desertion; Kellermann, who had just despatched my father, sent word by him that he could not weaken the line of the Alps, as he was compelled to keep a watch on Lyons and the banks of the Rhone, where the Compagnies de Jésus were given over to all kinds of brigandage. Bonaparte clamoured vehemently for the 40th and the 83rd brigades with their 6000 men, and, if they should arrive, he would be equal to anything.
He wrote thus to the Directory:—"I am unwell, I can hardly sit my horse; there is nothing left me but courage, and that alone is not enough for the position I am in: our prestige is regarded as evaporated; send troops or Italy is lost."
Indeed, my father found Bonaparte very ill. The malady of which he complained was scurvy, which he had caught at Toulon in doing a very heroic act, in himself cleaning out a gun with the sponge of an artillery-man who had just been killed; he had neglected the disease, and it was wearing him out; he was frightfully thin, he looked like a walking skeleton with nothing alive about him but his eyes.