Napoleon’s presence, his reënforcements, his skilful dispositions, had put new life into the struggle; but as the morning wore away, and the afternoon commenced, it was evident that the Austrians would win. The French gave way at all points, and in parts of the field the rout was complete. Napoleon sat by the roadside swishing his riding-whip and calling to the fugitives who passed him to stop; but their flight continued. A commercial traveller left the field and sped away to carry the news to Paris that Napoleon had suffered a great defeat. Melas, oppressed by age and worn out by the heat and fatigue of the day, thought the battle won; went to his headquarters to send off despatches to that effect, and left to his subordinate, Zach, the task of the pursuit. But Desaix had come--“the battle is lost, but there is time to gain another.” Only twelve pieces of artillery were left to the French. Marmont massed these, and opened on the dense Austrian column advancing _en échelon_ along the road. Desaix charged, and almost immediately got a ball in the breast and died “a soldier’s beautiful death.” But his troops pressed forward with fury, throwing back in confusion the head of the Austrian column. At this moment, “in the very nick of time” as Napoleon himself admitted to Bourrienne, Kellermann made his famous cavalry charge on the flank of the Austrian column, cut it in two, and decided the day. The French lines everywhere advanced, the Austrians broke. They were bewildered at the sudden change: they had no chief, Zach being a prisoner, and Melas absent. In wildest confusion they fled toward the bridges over the Bormida, Austrian horse trampling Austrian foot, and the French in hot pursuit. Some sixteen thousand men were killed or wounded in this bloody battle, and very nearly half of these were French. But the Austrians were demoralized, and Melas so overcome that he hastened to treat. To save the relics of his army, he was willing to abandon northern Italy, give up Genoa, and all fortresses recently taken. From the field of Marengo, surrounded by so many dead and mangled, Napoleon wrote a long letter to the Emperor of Austria, urgently pleading for a general peace. Returning to Milan, he was welcomed with infinite enthusiasm. He spent some days there reëstablishing the Cisalpine republic, reorganizing the administration, and putting himself in accord with the Roman Catholic Church. Just as earnestly as he had assured the Mahometans in Egypt that his mission on earth was to crush the Pope and lower the Cross, he now set himself up as the restorer of the Christian religion. He went in state to the cathedral of Milan to appear in a clerical pageant; and he took great pains to have it published abroad that the priests might rely upon him for protection.