At three o’clock in the morning of the 3rd of June, the light infantry reached a bridge over the canal. It was untouched, and the Austrians were not there to defend it. Two companies of the French troops at once installed themselves in houses on the bank, and, by mattresses at the windows and otherwise, prepared a defence against any sudden attack. The remainder of the battalion crossed the bridge and disposed itself behind the stone walls of the gardens and the haystacks which were near at hand. In this way an enemy would be covered by the fire from each bank. MacMahon’s entire corps, comprising the divisions of Generals Espinasse and Lamotterouge, besides the light infantry of Camou, had been ordered to cross the river and canal by the bridges which had thus been secured. While the greater part were still at the pontoons, MacMahon and Camou, with a large body of troops, pushed on beyond the canal to Turbigo, a village farther north. The corps thus took the position, which it kept through all the subsequent fighting, of left wing (farthest to the north and east) of the long, scattered line of the allied armies. General Mellinet, with the Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard, was substituted for Espinasse at the bridge of San Martino to the south. The Austrian division of Clam-Gallas, which was occupying Magenta, faced all these troops approaching it from the north and west. The Turcos, whom MacMahon had brought with his other soldiers from their posts in Algiers, soon dislodged the few Austrian companies that were on guard at Turbigo. Seeing the way clear, MacMahon, with Camou and a small escort, rode forward to the hamlet of Robecchetto, where the two generals climbed the church-tower with the hope of ascertaining the position of the enemy. Instead, they saw a large number of the Austrian troops charging down on them. They had barely time to get to their horses and ride away, with the Austrians behind them in hot pursuit. The Algerian sharpshooters came to the rescue, and soon a serious battle was raging around Turbigo. At the same time a column of 4,000 men, preceded by a battalion of Tyrolese sharpshooters, was directed against the bridge over the canal, which the French troops had occupied in the early morning. The Austrian commander now foresaw the results of the negligence which allowed the allied troops to cross both river and canal above the positions on which he relied for defence. It was too late. Before the Austrian attack could dislodge the French infantry, who answered their fire from each end of the bridge, MacMahon had gained the day at Turbigo, and his cannon sounded nearer and nearer. The enemy, fearing to be cut off from their main body, hastily retreated. It was seven o’clock in the evening. The combat of Turbigo, which was the prelude of the morrow’s work, had been fought and won. Napoleon, who came up during the fray, gave the name to one of the broad, new streets he was opening in Paris.