‘Firing party . . . present arms! Take aim!’

There was a final sob from Linois, a horrible animal noise from deep in his chest, and then Lannes swept his sword down.

‘Fire!’

The volley thundered out, echoing off the tall walls of the town hall as the musket balls ripped into Captain Linois, flattening him against the wall before he tumbled to the side, twitched once, and was still. Colonel Lannes marched stiffly across to his commander.

‘Sentence has been carried out.What are your orders, sir?’

Napoleon drew a breath to help strengthen his resolve. His work in Pavia was not yet complete. One final task remained to be carried out. He gestured across the Piazza to the prisoners. ‘Hang them. All of them.’

There was only the faintest look of surprise in Lannes’s face before he nodded solemnly and turned away to carry out his orders.

The grenadiers were in a subdued mood as they marched out of Pavia late in the afternoon. Napoleon did not want to linger in the devastated town overnight and resolved to let his men rest for the night only when they were some distance from the scene. Several wagons had been seized to carry the wounded back to the army, as well as the bodies of their fallen comrades. Napoleon did not wish to have them buried where the townspeople could desecrate their graves. They would be given full honours by the army once the column reached Brescia.

Behind them Pavia lay under its shroud of smoke, still and quiet as a ghost town. Napoleon drew rein and stared at the scene, feeling cold and tired. For a moment he yearned for a different life, or at least a period of respite away from the monstrous deeds that he had been compelled to carry out. Then he turned his horse away from the town and trotted forward to take up his place at the head of the column.

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

As soon as he reached the army headquarters in the bishop’s mansion in Brescia Napoleon dictated a letter for circulation to every town and city lying between his army and the border with France. There were to be no more uprisings. If any French soldiers were killed then the nearest town or village would be burned to the ground and any men caught under arms would be shot. Bourrienne took down his words in silence, and once his commander had finished he rose from his seat and left the room with a curt bow. Napoleon propped his head on his hands and stared at the far wall as the punitive attack on Pavia came back to him.The execution of civilians was not a new refinement, merely an inevitable feature of war. Bourrienne’s distaste for the measures that Napoleon had felt forced to carry out in Pavia was misplaced, Napoleon reassured himself.