the open Hohenlinden plateau. The enemy
had to march through thickly timbered country to the attack. The French
general instructed Decaen and Richepance to manoeuvre their two
divisions, each consisting of 10,000 men, through the forest, round the
Austrian rear, and to attack them there, as soon as they delivered their
attack upon the French front. The Archduke John believed Moreau to be in
full retreat, and hurried 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 Consulate had been established in December, 1799,
and the First Consul was anxious to attach to him strong, able men. In
1802 Decaen ventured to use his influence with the Government regarding
an appointment to the court of appeal at Caen, for which Lasseret, his
old master in law, was a candidate; and we find Bonaparte writing to
Cambaceres, who had charge of the law department, that "i