He posted a small body of horsemen behind a spinney near the Austrian flank, with orders to sound their trumpets as if for a great cavalry charge.

Alarmed by the noise and by the appearance of French troops from the side of Legnago and behind Arcola, the demoralized white-coats suddenly gave way and retreated for Vicenza.
Victory again declared for the troops who could dare the longest, and whose general was never at a loss in face of any definite danger.

Both armies suffered severely in these desperate conflicts;[68] but, while the Austrians felt that the cup of victory had been snatched from their very lips, the French soldiery were dazzled by this transcendent exploit of their chief.

They extolled his bravery, which almost vied with the fabulous achievement of Horatius Cocles, and adored the genius which saw safety and victory for his discouraged army amidst swamps and dykes.

Bonaparte himself, with that strange mingling of the practical and the superstitious which forms the charm of his character, ever afterwards dated the dawn of his fortune in its full splendour from those hours of supreme crisis among the morasses of Arcola.