Liguria. So the 1st Hussars went back to France, but my father kept
me behind to become his aide-de-camp.

While we were at Nice, my father received an order from the war
ministry to go and take command of the advance guard of the army of
the Rhine, where his chief-of-staff Col. Ménard would join him. We
were very pleased at this, since want of supplies had reduced the
army of Italy to such a state of disorder that it seemed impossible
that it could be kept in Liguria. My father was not sorry to be
leaving an army which was disintegrating, and was likely to be
pushed back across the Var and into France. He prepared to move as
soon as General Masséna, who had been nominated to replace him, had
arrived. He sent M. Gault, his aide-de-camp, to Paris to buy maps and
make various preparations for our operations on the Rhine. But fate
had decreed otherwise, and my unfortunate father's grave was destined
to be in Italy.

When Masséna arrived he found no more than the shadow of an army:
the soldiers, without pay and almost without clothing and footwear,
existing on a quarter of the normal ration, were dying of
malnutrition as well as an epidemic of disease, the result of the
intolerable privations which they were suffering. The hospitals were
full but had no medicines. Some groups of soldiers, and even whole
regiments, were daily abandoning their posts and heading for the
bridge across the Var, where they forced a passage to get into France
and spread themselves over Provence, although saying that they were
willing to return if they were given food! The generals were unable
to remedy this appalling state of affairs. They became, daily more
discouraged, and all were requesting leave or retiring on the grounds
of ill-health. Masséna had expected that he would be joined in Italy