Place at the table was found for Bellarion, and he was informed of the situation and of the resolve which had been all but reached. With his own twelve hundred, and with three thousand men that Montferrat would send after leaving a sufficient force to garrison Vercelli, Facino could put eight thousand men into the field, which should be ample for the undertaking. They were well mounted and well equipped, the equipment including a dozen cannon of three hundred pounds apiece and ten bombards throwing balls of two hundred pounds.
“And the plan of campaign?” Bellarion asked.
It was expounded to him. It was extremely simple. They were to march on Milan and reduce it. All was in readiness, as he would have seen for himself; for as he rode into Alessandria he had come through the great encampment under the walls, where the army awaited the order to march.
When Facino had done, Bellarion considered a moment before speaking.
“There is an alternative,” he said, at last, “which you may not have considered. Boucicault is grasping more than he can hold. To occupy Milan, whose people are hostile to a French domination, he has drawn all his troops from Genoa, where he has made himself detested by his excessive rigours. You are confusing the issues here. You plan under the persuasion that Milan is the enemy, whereas the only real adversary is Boucicault. To cover himself at one point, he has uncovered at another. Why aim your blow at his heart which is protected by his shield, when you may aim it at his head which is unguarded by so much as a helmet?”
They made him no answer save with their eyes which urged that he, himself, should answer the question he propounded.
“March, then, not on Milan, but on Genoa, which he has so foolishly left open to attack—a folly for which he may have to answer to his master, the King of France. The Genoese themselves will offer no resistance, and you may take possession of the city almost without a blow.”
Approval came warm and eagerly from the Marquis Theodore, to be cut short by Facino.
“Wait! Wait!” he rasped. The notion of Theodore’s ambitions being entirely gratified before Theodore should have carried out any of his own part of the bargain was not at all in accordance with Facino’s views. “How shall the possession of Genoa bring us to Milan?”
“It will bring Boucicault to Genoa,” Bellarion answered.
“It will draw him from his stronghold into the open, and his strength will be reduced by the fact that he must leave some force behind to keep the Milanese in subjection during his absence.”
So strategically sound did the plan appear to Facino upon consideration that it overcame his reluctance to place the Regent of Montferrat at this stage in possession of Genoa.
That reluctance he afterwards expressed to Bellarion, when they were alone.
“You do it, not for Theodore, but for yourself,” he was answered. “As for Theodore …” Bellarion smiled quietly.
“You need not grudge him any advantages. They will prove very transient. Payday will come for him.”
Facino looked sharply at his adoptive son. “Why, boy,” said he, at last, in a voice of wonder. “What is there between you and Theodore of Montferrat?”
“Only my knowledge that he’s a scoundrel.”
“If you mean to make yourself the scourge of scoundrels you’ll be busy in Italy. Why, it’s sheer knight-errantry!”
“You may call it that,” said Bellarion, and became thoughtful.
II
The Battle of Novi
The rest of this affair—this campaign against the too-ambitious vicar of the King of France—is a matter of history, which you may read in the chronicles of Messer Corio and elsewhere.
With a powerful army numbering close upon twelve thousand men, Facino descended upon Genoa, which surrendered without a blow. At first there was alarm at the advance of so large an army. The fear of pillage with its attendant violence ran though the Genoese, who took the precaution of sending their women and their valuables to the ships in the harbour. Then the representatives of the people went out to meet Facino, and to assure him that they would welcome him and the deliverance from the French yoke provided that he would not bring his troops into the city.
“The only purpose for which I could wish to do so,” Facino answered from the litter to which he was confined by the gout, grown worse since he had left Alessandria, “would be to enforce the rightful claims of the Marquis of Montferrat. But if you will take him for your prince, my army need advance no nearer. On the contrary, I will withdraw it towards Novi to make of it a shield against the wrath of the Marshal Boucicault when he returns!”
And so it befell that, attended only by five hundred of his own men, Theodore of Montferrat made his state entry into Genoa on the morrow, hailed as a deliverer by the multitude, whilst Facino fell back on Novi, there to lie in wait for Boucicault. Nor was his patience tried. Upon Boucicault confidently preparing for Facino’s attack, the news of the happenings in Genoa fell like a thunderbolt from a clear sky.
Between fury and panic he quitted Milan, and by his very haste destroyed what little chance he may ever have had of mending the situation. By forced marches he reached the plains about Novi to find the road held against his jaded men. And here he piled error upon error. Being informed that Facino himself, incapacitated by the gout, had been carried that morning into Genoa, and that his army was commanded in his absence by his adoptive son Bellarion, the French commander decided to strike at once before Facino should recover and return to direct the operations in person.
The ground was excellent for cavalry, and entirely of cavalry some four thousand strong was Boucicault’s main battle composed. Leading it in person, he hurled it upon the enemy centre in
