columns of the French, fell into total disorder. Some, who were farthest to the right, pushed forward, in hopes to unite themselves to Quasdonowich, and what they might find remaining of the original right wing; but these were attacked in front by General Soret, who had been active in defeating Quasdonowich upon the 30th July, and were at the same time pursued by another detachment of the French, which had broken through their centre. Such was the fate of the Austrian right at the battle of Lonato, while that of the left was no less unfavourable. They were attacked by Augereau with the utmost bravery, and driven from Castiglione, of which they had become masters by the bad conduct of Valette. Augereau achieved this important result at the price of many brave men's lives;[175] but it was always remembered as an essential service by Buonaparte, who afterwards, when such dignities came in use, bestowed on Augereau the title of Duke of Castiglione.[176] After their defeat, there can be nothing imagined more confused or calamitous than the condition of the Austrian divisions, who, having attacked, without resting on each other, found themselves opposed and finally overwhelmed by an enemy who appeared to possess ubiquity, simply from his activity and power of combining his forces. A remarkable instance of their lamentable state of disorder and confusion, resembling in its consequences more than one example of the same sort, occurred at Lonato. It might, with any briskness of intelligence, or firmness of resolution, have proved a decisive advantage to their arms; it was, in its result, a humiliating illustration, how completely the succession of bad fortune had broken the spirit of the Austrian soldiers. The reader can hardly have forgotten the incident at the battle of Millesimo, when an Austrian column which had been led astray, retook, as if it were by chance, the important village of Dego;[177] or the more recent instance, when a body of Beaulieu's advanced guard, alike unwittingly, had nearly made Buonaparte prisoner in his quarters.[178] The present danger arose from the same cause, the confusion and want of combination of the enemy; and now, as in the former perilous occurrences, the very same circumstances which brought on the danger, served to ward it off. [Sidenote: ESCAPE AT LONATO.]