Page:The life of Matthew Flinders.djvu/403

 his army forward from Haag, east of Hohenlinden, amid falling snow.  "By torch and trumpet fast array'd Each horseman drew his battle-blade, And furious every charger neigh'd To join the dreadful revelry. Then shook the hills with thunder riven; Then rush'd the steed, to battle driven, And louder than the bolts of Heaven  Far flashed the red artillery."

Decaen's division marched at five o'clock on the morning of December 3rd, and shortly before eight the boom of the Austrian cannon was heard. His troops pressed forward in a blinding snowstorm. An officer said that the guns seemed to show that the Austrians were turning the French position. "Ah, well," said Decaen, "if they turn ours, we will turn theirs in our turn." It was one of the few jokes he made in his whole life, and it exactly expressed the situation. The Austrian army was caught like a nut in a nut-cracker. Battered from front and rear, their ranks broke, and fugitives streamed away east and west, like the crumbled kernel of a filbert. Decaen threw his battalions upon their rear with a furious vigour, and crumpled it up; and almost at the very moment of victory the snow ceased to fall, the leaden clouds broke, and a brilliant sun shone down upon the scene of carnage and triumph. Ten thousand Austrians were killed, wounded, or taken prisoners, whilst 80 guns and about two hundred baggage waggons fell as spoils to the French. In this brilliant victory Decaen's skill and valour, rapidity and verve, had been of inestimable value, as Moreau was prompt to acknowledge.

The quick soldier's eye of Bonaparte recognised him at once as a man of outstanding worth. The