The Austrian artillerymen were bayoneted at their guns before the other troops, whom Beaulieu had removed too far back in his anxiety to avoid the French battery, could come to their assistance. Beaumont pressing gallantly with his horse upon the flank, and Napoleon's infantry forming rapidly as they passed the bridge, and charging on the instant, the Austrian line at once became involved in inextricable confusion. The contest was almost instantly decided; the whole line of Austrian artillery was carried; their order of battle broken; their troops routed and put to flight. The slaughter of Austrians amounted to vast numbers, while the French lost but 200 men. Thus did Bonaparte execute with such rapidity and consequently with so little loss "the terrible passage," as he himself called it, "of the bridge of Lodi." It is justly called one of the most daring achievements on record. The victory of Lodi had a great influence on Napoleon's mind. He declared subsequently that neither his success in quelling the "Sections," nor his victory at Montenotte, made him regard himself as anything superior; but that after Lodi, for the first time the idea dawned upon him that he would one day be "a decisive actor," as he himself put it, on the stage of the military and political world. That he was a fatalist is well-known, it being a frequent expression with him that "every bullet is marked." On this occasion the soldiers conferred on him the nick-name of "Little Corporal." The original cause of the appellation, as applied to Bonaparte, has been related by Napoleon himself. He says that when he commanded near the Col di Tende the army was obliged to traverse a narrow bridge, on which occasion he gave directions that no women should be allowed to accompany it, as the service was particularly difficult, and required that the troops should be continually on the alert; to enforce such an order he placed two captains on the bridge with instructions, on pain of death, not to permit a woman to pass. He subsequently repaired to the bridge himself, for the purpose of ascertaining whether his orders were being scrupulously obeyed, when he found a crowd of women assembled, who, as soon as they saw him, began to revile him, exclaiming: "Oh, then, _petit corporal_, it is you who have given orders not to let us pass!" Some miles in advance Napoleon was surprised to see a considerable number of women with the troops. He immediately ordered the two captains to be put under arrest and brought before him, intending to have them tried immediately. They protested their innocence, asserting that no women had crossed the bridge. Bonaparte caused some of the females to be brought before him, and learned with astonishment, from their own confession, that they had emptied some casks of provisions and concealed themselves therein, by which means they had passed over unperceived.