around a little country-place called Petra Bona,
at the angle formed by the highroad from Marengo to Tortona, and the
Bormida, which crosses the road on its way to the Tanaro.

The corps of General Lannes was before the village of San Giuliano, the
place which Bonaparte had pointed out to Roland three months earlier,
telling him that on that spot the fate of the campaign would be decided.

The Consular guard was stationed some five hundred yards or so in the
rear of Lannes.

The cavalry brigade, under General Kellermann, and a few squadrons of
chasseurs and hussars, forming the left, filled up, along the advanced
line, the gap between the divisions of Gardannes and Chamberlhac.

A second brigade, under General Champeaux, filled up the gap on the
right between General Lannes' cavalry.

And finally the twelfth regiment of hussars, and the twenty-first
chasseurs, detached by Murat under the orders of General Rivaud,
occupied the opening of the Valley of Salo and the extreme right of the
position.

These forces amounted to about twenty-five or six thousand men, not
counting the divisions Monnet and Boudet, ten thousand men in all,
commanded by Desaix, and now, as we have said, detached from the main
army to cut off the retreat of the enemy to Genoa. Only, instead of
making that retreat, the enemy were now attacking.

During the day of the 13th of June, General Melas, commander-in-chief of
the Austrian army, having succeeded in reuniting the troops of Generals
Haddich, Kaim and Ott, crossed the Tanaro, and was now encamped before
Alessandria with thirty-six thousand infantry, seven thousand cavalry,
and a numerous well-served and well-horsed artillery.

At four o'clock in the morning the firing began and General Victor
assigned all to their line of battle. At five Bonaparte was awakened
by the sound of cannon. While he was dressing, General Victor's
aide-de-camp rode up to tell him that the enemy had crossed the Bormida
and was attacking all along the line of battle.

The First Consul called for his horse, and, springing upon it, galloped
off toward the spot where the fighting was going on. From the summit of
the hill he could overlook the position of both armies.

The enemy was formed in three columns; that on the left, comprising all
the cavalry and light infantry, was moving toward Castel-Ceriolo by the
Salo road, while the columns of the right and centre, resting upon each
other and comprising the infantry re