Tables, raised on trestles, appear to line the road. The people, in innumerable masses, are eating, drinking, singing, shouting, and acting plays in the open air. Even preaching is not neglected; for more than one pulpit has been improvisated between the theatres and wine-shops; from which hosts of greasy monks, not satisfied with giving their benediction to the passengers, and exhorting them to temperance and sobriety, gratify their avarice by the sale of consecrated chaplets, and little virgins, carved in ivory.
In the long and only street of the village of Marengo, every house, transformed into an inn, presents a scene of noise and confusion. To every window, the eyes of the spectators are attracted by strings of smoked hams or sausages; of quails or red partridges, or pyramids of gingerbread and cakes. People are pushing in, or pushing out at every door; Italians and French, soldiers or peasants; heaps of maccaroni, of marchpane, and other dainties, are beginning to disappear. In the dark and narrow staircases, people rub quarrelsomely against each other; some even compelled, by the rapacity of their neighbours, to raise over their heads the food they are carrying; while a cleverer hand and longer arm than their own, makes off, unperceived, with the savoury burden: whether a buttered loaf, figs, grapes, oranges, a Turin ham, a larded quail, a force-meat pie, or an excellent stufato, in its tureen; when cries of indignation, or shrieks of distress, accompanied by mockeries and loud laughter, resound on every side. The thief, in the ascending line upon the staircase, satisfied with his plunder, tries to turn back and run away. The victim, in the descending line, robbed of his dinner, attempts to return, and furnish himself with new provisions; and the flux and reflux of the crowd, disorganized by these irregular movements, is pushed partly into the street, and partly into the warehouse on the second story, amid oaths, imprecations, and peals of laughter; while their discomfiture is hailed, with added uproar, by the drinkers already established in the wine-shops of the ground floor, in defiance of the sage counsels of the monks.
From one room to another, among tables covered with dishes and surrounded with guests, are seen circulating the hostess and giannine, or waitresses of the house; some with gay-coloured aprons, powdered hair, and the coquettish little poniard, which forms part of their holiday costume; others with short petticoats, long braids of hair, naked feet, and a thousand glittering ornaments of tinsel or gold.
But to these animated scenes in the village or the road—the chamber or the street—to these cries, songs, exclamations, the noise of music, dancing, talking, and the jingling of plates and glasses, other sounds of a different nature are about to succeed.
In an hour the thundering noise of cannon will be heard; cannon almost harmless, indeed, and likely only to break the windows of the houses. The little street will echo with the word of command, and every house be eclipsed by the smoke of volleys of musketry, charged with powder. Then, beware of pillage, unless every remnant of provision has been placed in safety; nay, let the gay giannina look to herself: for a mimic war is apt, in such particulars, to imitate its prototype. In great particulars, however, no less: for nothing can exceed the majesty of the preparations for the sham-fight upon the plain of Marengo.
A magnificent throne, planted round with tri-coloured standards, is raised upon one of the few hillocks which diversify the field. Already the troops, in every variety of uniform, are defiling towards the spot. The trumpet appeals to the cavalry; the rolling of drums seems to cover the whole surface of the plain, which trembles under the heavy progress of the artillery and ammunition-waggons. The aide-de-camps, in their glittering uniforms, are galloping hither and thither; the banners waving to the wind, which causes, at the same time, a pleasing undulation of the feathers, aigrettes, and tri-coloured plumes; while the sun, that ever-present guest at the fêtes of Napoleon, that radiant illustrator of the pomps and vanities of the empire, casts its vivid reflections upon the golden embroideries, the brass and bronze of the cannon, helmets, cuirasses, and the sixty thousand bayonets bristling the tumultuous field.
By degrees, the troops, arriving with hurried march at the appointed spot, continue to force backward, in a wild semi-circle of retreat, the crowds of curious spectators, broken up like the rippling billows of the ocean, by the progress of one enormous wave; while a few horsemen charging along the line, proceed to clear the field for action.
The village is now deserted; the gay tents are struck, the trestles removed, the songs and clamours reduced to silence. On all sides are to be seen, scattered along the vast circuit of the plane, men interrupted in their sport or repast, and women dragging away their children, terrified by the flashing sabres, or loud neighing of the chargers.
It is no difficult matter to discern, by attentively examining the countenances of the men still collected under the same colours, to which among them the orders of the general-in-chief, Marshal Lannes, has assigned, in the coming fray, the glory of victory—to which the duty of being vanquished; while the gallant marshal himself, followed by a numerous état major, is seen tracing and reconnoitring the ground, on which it has been already his lot to figure with such distinction. He now distributed to each brigade its part in the coming battle; taking care, however, to omit in the representation the blunders of that great and terrible day, the 14th of June, 1800: for, after all, it is but a delicate flattery in military tactics, a madrigal, composed with salvos of artillery, which is about to be recited in honour of the new sovereign of Italy.
