To return to the siege. When he heard that my father had been
brought to Genoa, Colindo Trepano hurried to his bedside, and it was
there that we met once more. He helped me most tenderly to care for
my father, for which I am even more beholden to him because, in the
midst of these calamities my father had no one about him. All his
staff officers had been ordered to go and attend the
commander-in-chief; soon rations were refused to our servants, who
were forced to go and take up a musket and line up with the
combatants to have a right to the miserable ration which was
distributed to the soldiers. No exception was made, apart from a young
valet, named Oudin, and a young stable-lad, who looked after the
horses; but Oudin deserted us as soon as he knew that my father had
typhus.

My father fell ill with this dreadful disease, and at a time when
he was in the greatest need of care, there was no one with him except
me, Colindo and the stable lad Bastide. We did our best to follow
the doctor's instructions, we hardly slept, being endlessly busy
massaging my father with camphorated oil and changing his bedclothes
and linen.

My father could take no nourishment except soup and I had nothing
with which to make it but rotten horse-meat. My heart was breaking.

Providence sent us some help. The huge buildings of the public
ovens were next to the walls of the palace where we were living. The
terraces were almost touching. It was on the immense terraces of the
public ovens that the crushing and mixing took place of all sorts of
chicken food which was added to the rotten flour to make the
garrison's bread. The stable lad Bastide had noticed that when the