His lieutenant, confounded by the display of this gigantic force, was in the very act of abandoning the position.

Napoleon instantly checked this movement; and bringing up more battalions, forced the Croats from an eminence which they had already seized on the first symptoms of the French retreat.

Napoleon's keen eye, surveying the position of the five encampments below, penetrated the secret of Alvinzi; namely, that his artillery had not yet arrived, otherwise he would not have occupied ground so distant from the object of attack.

He concluded that the Austrian did not mean to make his grand assault very early in the morning, and resolved to force him to anticipate that movement.

For this purpose, he took all possible pains to conceal his own arrival; and prolonged, by a series of petty manoeuvres, the enemy's belief that he had to do with a mere outpost of the French.