Napoleon immediately gave him the command of a division; and they spent the night together in conversing about the affairs of Egypt.
The First Consul was anxious to tempt Melas to attack him at Stradella, where the ground was unfavourable to cavalry movements; but, after lying there unmolested for three days, he began to fear that the Austrian had resolved, either on moving to the left flank, crossing the Ticino, occupying Milan, and so re-opening his communications with Vienna;--or, on falling back to Genoa, overwhelming Suchet, and taking up a position where the British fleet could supply him with provisions--or even, in case of necessity, embark his army, carry it round to the other side of Italy, and by that means place him once more between his enemy and the German states.

Buonaparte, being perplexed with these apprehensions, at last descended into the great plain of Marengo, on which he had, not without reason, feared to abide the onset of Melas and the Austrian horse.

He was at Volghera on the 11th, and the next day at St.Juliano, in the very centre of the plain; but still no enemy appeared.

On the 13th, he advanced to the village of Marengo itself, and finding nothing even there but a scanty outpost, which retreated before him, concluded certainly that Melas had given him the slip, and marched either to the left on the Ticino, or to the right on Genoa.

In great anxiety he detached one division under Dessaix to watch the road to Genoa, and another under Murat towards the Scrivia.