Indeed, Provera was lost from the moment he had failed to enter Mantua. Augereau was at his heels, Miollis in front of him, Bonaparte on his flanks, with Masséna's division.
Bonaparte spent the night in making his plans for the morrow.
My father remained where he was; it was an important post, as he was deputed to drive Wurmser back into the town with his 15,000 or 20,000 men—a garrison which, without reckoning Provera, was much stronger than the enemy which blockaded them.
During the night Provera managed to communicate with Wurmser, by means of a boat, and to plan for the next day a combined attack with that general upon la Favorite and Montada. No one in Mantua or in Provera's camp knew that Bonaparte had arrived with the troops that had fought on the previous day at Rivoli.
Had they been told, it would have sounded to them too incredible for belief, and they would not have believed it.
My father was attacked by Wurmser at five in the morning; it was a terrific struggle. After his letter to Serrurier of three days back he could not, and did not, retreat; he held his ground with two or three regiments and his own regiment of dragoons, till Bonaparte had time to send him the 57th demi-brigade under Victor, whose troops cut such a fearful gap in the enemy's ranks to get to my father's relief that from that day forth they went by the name of "the Terrible."
They found my father with 700 or 800 men, surrounded by dead; he had had one horse killed under him, a second had been slain by a cannon-ball, but its rider, whom they took for dead, rose triumphantly out of his glorious tomb.
Wurmser thus repulsed, fell back upon la Favorite; but la Favorite, defended by 1500 men, withstood Wurmser's efforts, and even made a sally. What with this sally, the repeated charges of my father and his dragoons, and Victor's heroic stubbornness, whose fresh troops fought with pent-up fury after being condemned to inaction whilst the rest of the army had been covering itself with glory at Rivoli, Wurmser was beaten back, and forced to re-enter the town.
From that time Provera, abandoned by his ally, was lost; caught between Bonaparte, Miollis, Serrurier, and Augereau, he and his 5000 men laid down their arms,—the rest of his troops had all been killed.
So the battles of Rivoli and la Favorite had been won in two days, two armies had been destroyed, and 20,000 men taken prisoner. All their guns and ammunition had been captured, and the Austrians rendered too demoralised to continue the campaign without raising a fifth army. All these events had resulted from the lucky chance of my father's taking the spy, combined with the fertile genius of Napoleon.