leagues from Toulon.

The Austrians had occupied Genoa, the faithful ally of France. Their
vengefulness and their severe exactions caused them to lose the fruits of
their victory. The grandees were ruined by war-requisitions; the
populace were beside themselves at the insolence of the conquerors;
senators and artisans made common cause. An Austrian captain having
struck a workman, the passengers in the streets threw themselves upon him
and upon his comrades who came to his assistance; the insurrection spread
rapidly in all quarters of Genoa; there was a pillage of the weapons
lying heaped in the palace of the Doges; the senators put themselves at
the head of the movement; the peasants in the country flew to arms. The
Marquis of Botta, the Austrian commandant, being attacked on all sides,
and too weak to resist, sallied from the town with nine regiments. The
allies, disquieted and dismayed, threatened Provence, and laid siege to
Genoa. Louis XV. felt the necessity of not abandoning his ally; the Duke
of Boufflers and six thousand French shut themselves up in the place.
"Show me the danger," the general had said on entering the town; "it is
my duty to ascertain it; I shall make all my glory depend upon securing
you from it." The resistance of Genoa was effectual; but it cost the
life of the Duke of Boufflers, who was wounded in an engagement, and died
three days before the retreat of the Austrians, on the 6th of July, 1747.

On the 19th of July, Common-Sense Belle-Isle (_Bon-Sens de Belle-Isle_),
as the Chevalier was called at court, to distinguish him from his brother
the marshal, nicknamed _Imagination,_ attacked, with a considerable body
of troops, the Piedmontese intrenchments at the Assietta Pass, between
the fortresses of Exilles and Fenestrelles; at the same time, Marshal
Belle-Isle was seeking a passage over the Stura Pass, and the Spanish
army was attacking Piedmont by the way of the Apennines. The engagement
at the heights of Assietta was obstinate; Chevalier Belle-Isle, wounded
in both arms, threw himself bodily upon the palisades, to tear them down
with his teeth; he was killed, and the French sustained a terrible
defeat;--five thousand men were left on the battle-field. The campaign
of Italy was stopped. The King of Spain, Philip V., enfeebled and
exhausted almost in infancy, had died on the 9th of July, 1746. The
fidelity of his successor, Ferdinand VI., married to a Portuguese
princess, appeared