the mounted batteries or light artillery on the coast, two pieces should not have escaped his observation."
In March, 1800, he punctures a card with a pin, and tells Bourrienne, his secretary, four months before, the place he intends to beat Mélas at San Juliano. "Four months after this I found myself at San Juliano with his portfolio and despatches, and that very evening, at Torre-di-Gafolo, a league off, I wrote the bulletin of the battle under his dictation." Similarly in the campaign against Austria:—
"Order of marches, their duration, places of conveyance or meeting of the columns, attacks in full force, the various movements and mistakes of the enemy, all, in this rapid dictation, was foreseen two months beforehand and at a distance of 200 leagues. . . . The battlefields, the victories, and even the very days on which we were to enter Munich and Vienna were then announced, and written down as it all turned out. . . . Daru saw these oracles, fulfilled on the designated days up to our entry into Munich; if there were any differences of time and not of results between Munich and Vienna, they were all in our favour. . . . On returning from the camp at Bologna, Napoleon encounters a squad of soldiers who had got lost, asks what regiment they belong to, calculates the day they left, the road they took, what distance they should have marched, and then tells
