had just left the hospitals of Brescia and Milan made their way to their
corps and shook hands with their comrades, from whom only illness or the
fortune of war had made them part. They seemed glad to see their old
tent, their old drum, their old colour-sergeant, and also the flag they
had carried to the battle and had not at any price allowed to be taken.
I may state here, en passant, that as many as six flags were taken from
the enemy in the first part of the day of Custozza, and were subsequently
abandoned in the retreat, while of the Italians only one was lost to a
regiment for a few minutes, when it was quickly retaken. This fact ought
to be sufficient by itself to establish the bravery with which the
soldiers fought on the 24th, and the bravery with which they will fight
if, as they ardently wish; a new occasion is given to them.

As long as I had only met troops, either marching or camping on the road,
all went well, but I soon found myself mixed with an interminable line of
cars and the like, forming the military and the civil train of the moving
army. Then it was that it needed as much patience to keep from jumping
out of one's carriage and from chastising the carrettieri, as they would
persist in not making room for one, and being as dumb to one's entreaties
as a stone. When you had finished with one you had to deal with another,
and you find them all as obstinate and as egotistical as they are from
one end of the world to the other, whether it be on the Casalmaggiore
road or in High Holborn. From time to time things seemed to proceed all
right, and you thought yourself free from further trouble, but you soon
found out your mistake, as an enormous ammunition car went smack into
your path, as one wheel got entangled with another, and as imperturbable
Signor Carrettiere evidently took delight at a fresh opportunity for
stoppage, inaction, indolence, and sleep. I soon came to the conclusion
that Italy would not be free when the Austrians had been driven away, for
that another and a more formidable foe--an enemy to society and comfort,