Such was the momentum of the attack that the grenadiers had scrambled over the barricades and were streaming through the streets before they encountered the first organised resistance. Napoleon was at the head of a loose company of his men when they turned a sharp corner into a small piazza. He just had time to register a line of levelled muskets and throw himself to the ground before they disappeared in a thick swirl of smoke and flame. The musket balls whipped overhead and struck several of the attackers down. At once Napoleon thrust himself up, stretched out his sword and bellowed at his men. ‘Forward! Forward! Get them!’
He rushed on, conscious of the grenadiers behind him stepping and jumping over their fallen comrades as they raced after their general. Napoleon ran into the swirl of gunpowder smoke and saw the dim grey shapes of the defenders ahead of him. The point of a bayonet pierced the gloom and stabbed forward towards his face. Napoleon let out a ragged gasp as he smashed the hilt of his sword against the bayonet and knocked the weapon away.Abruptly he was shouldered aside by one of the grenadiers who slammed his blade into the enemy’s guts and pushed him back into the ranks of his comrades. More grenadiers swept past as Napoleon stood close to the wall of the house, chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath. Ahead, the fight was already over, and when he moved on to catch up with his men he stepped over a dozen of the townspeople, cut down in the furious onslaught. Some were wounded and one was screaming as he clamped a hand tightly over the glistening guts protruding from his torn stomach.
When he reached the main square, Napoleon found Colonel Lannes and most of the men, already being re-formed into their units by their sergeants. In the far corner of the square, up against the side of the town hall, stood a small crowd of prisoners under close guard. Colonel Lannes was interrogating a tall thin man in fine clothes as Napoleon hurried up to him.
‘Who’s this?’
‘The mayor, sir. He’s offered to surrender the town. I told him, not until I have the garrison and Captain Linois safely in our hands. He’s sent a man to order their release.’
‘Good,’ Napoleon replied in relief. ‘Then it’s over.’
He turned to the mayor. ‘You must identify the ringleaders of this revolt.’
‘I will not betray them,’ the mayor replied in French.
‘We’ll see about that,’ Napoleon said curtly. ‘Take him over to the other prisoners.’
There was a sudden shout from one side of the square and the two officers turned to see what was happening. One of the grenadier companies had broken ranks and was running away from a tall house that overlooked the market. On the roof Napoleon could see a handful of men throwing tiles down on the French soldiers. Three men were already down and as Napoleon watched another tile thudded into the shoulder of a fourth man, and he collapsed with a sharp cry of agony.
‘Don’t just stand there!’ Colonel Lannes bellowed. ‘Shoot the bastards!’
Musket fire crackled in the square and the tiles around the men on the roof exploded into fragments. They hurriedly ducked back out of sight and after a few more shots the grenadiers lowered their weapons.
‘Find those men,’ ordered Napoleon. ‘They can join the prisoners.’>
Within moments the company that Lannes led down either side of the buildings that the men had fled across came under bombardment from more roof tiles. The example had been set and soon more of the townspeople were on the roofs, raining tiles down on the French soldiers. Napoleon watched with growing frustration as the injured men were carried back into the square. Meanwhile Bourrienne and the colour party had found a clear route through the streets to join their general, and the secretary looked round in shock at the number of men lying on the paving stones having their wounds dressed before he approached Napoleon.
Napoleon nodded a greeting and shook his head wearily. ‘Christ, I hate fighting civilians. Reminds me of the time we had to put down that rebellion in Lyons.’
Bourrienne nodded at the memory of the first action that he and Napoleon had shared as junior lieutenants in the Régiment de la Fère. Napoleon took off his hat and mopped his brow. ‘For most of them it’s just some kind of game. They’ll hurl insults at soldiers one day, rocks the next, and the moment we open fire they cry “massacre” and accuse us of committing some kind of atrocity.’ Napoleon replaced his hat and gave it an extra push to fix it on his head, as if that might protect him from a stray tile. ‘They’re costing me too many men. It’s time the Italians were taught a lesson. We can’t afford to have this mess repeated in every major town behind our lines.’
He turned to a sergeant. ‘Find Colonel Lannes. Tell him that every time a tile is thrown at his men they are to break into the house concerned and kill everyone inside and then torch the place.’
The sergeant smiled cruelly, saluted, and then turned to trot across the piazza, following the sounds of musket fire. Bourrienne looked at his general warily.
‘Is that wise?’ he asked softly.
‘Wise?’ Napoleon shrugged. ‘I think so. Why? What are you thinking?’
‘I’m thinking that if we start butchering the people of Pavia then you are setting a standard for the behaviour of our men.And once word of this spreads to the other cities we’ll make enemies of all those who welcomed us as liberators.’
‘That may be so,’ Napoleon reflected. ‘On the other hand, it might be argued that I am saving lives in the long term. Once people hear of the fate of Pavia it will surely dampen any rebellious flames that burns in their hearts. It will save the lives of our men as well, Bourrienne, and that’s what really matters, is it not?’
‘If you say so, General.’
The fighting continued through the town until early in the afternoon, when flames and thick clouds of dark smoke rose into the sky and a dirty pall lay across Pavia. The bodies of those killed inside the buildings were dragged out into the streets and left in heaps to serve as a warning to others. Not a man, woman or child was spared and Napoleon hardened his heart at the sight as he made his way round the town after the fighting had ended.
‘They have only themselves to blame,’ he muttered to Bourrienne. ‘If they had not chosen to defy us, none of this would have happened. I swear it.’
Colonel Lannes was waiting for them in the main piazza once Napoleon had completed his inspection of the grenadiers’ checkpoints. A small band of older and sickly-looking French soldiers stood to attention behind Lannes.
‘Is this the garrison?’ Napoleon asked.
‘Yes, sir.They’ve been held in the cells beneath the citadel for the last three days. They’ve had no food and were left in their own filth.’
‘Where’s Captain Linois?’
Lannes turned and indicated a stoop-shouldered man with a thin moustache standing in front of the garrison.
‘Linois!’ Napoleon barked. ‘Come here!’
‘Yes, sir.’ The captain saluted and trotted over. As he stood before his general Napoleon’s nose wrinkled at the stench that hung round the man.
‘Linois, do you have any idea how much damage you have done to our cause?’
The captain’s gaze fell and Napoleon struck him on the side of the head and continued in a low harsh voice. ‘Once word reaches other cities that a French garrison has surrendered to the local rabble without firing a shot, what do you imagine they will think? As a result of your cowardice I’m going to have to double the size of the garrisons, and bolster them with good combat troops, instead of this rubbish that you command. Troops that I am counting on to defeat the Austrians. Well, what have you to say for yourself, Linois?’