Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/284

260 tion of being a strictly honest man, to distribute the money, etc., given to the poor and needy, and to make all inquiries about the applicants for relief, and thus it happened that Joseph la Brosse, a French emigre, found himself accidentally acting as an officer of that Emperor of whom his subordinates used to say, "Our master wishes us to shear his sheep, but not flay them."

This noble general, who was called elsewhere, had for a more or less immediate successor a man of quite a different stamp, the celebrated Fouché, Duke of Otranto,—another personage whom Joseph la Brosse saved from misfortune.

Bonaparte lost all the ground he had gained, and as his armies were driven back towards France, all the legations packed their papers into wagons and returned to Paris. The Austrians in their turn took the offensive as the French retired before them. The French still occupied Trieste, though the port was blockaded, and on all the heights which commanded the town were Austrian flags, and batteries of artil-