But to return to Basile. He had sense enough not to make his general
jealous of him by any unseasonable display of his talents, or any
officious intrusion of advice, even upon subjects which he best
understood.
The talents of the warrior and the secretary were in such different
lines, that there was no danger of competition; and the general, finding
in his secretary the soul of all the arts, good sense, gradually acquired
the habit of asking his opinion on every subject that came within his
department. It happened that the general received orders from the
Directory at Paris to take a certain town, let it cost what it would,
within a given time: in his perplexity he exclaimed before Basile against
the unreasonableness of these orders, and declared his belief that it was
impossible he should succeed, and that this was only a scheme of his
enemies to prepare his ruin. Basile had attended to the operations of
the engineer who acted under the general, and perfectly recollected the
model of the mines of this town, which he had seen when he was employed
as draughtsman by his Parisian friend. He remembered that there was
formerly an old mine that had been stopped up somewhere near the place
where the engineer was at work; he mentioned in private his suspicions to
the general, who gave orders in consequence. The old mine was
discovered, cleared out, and by these means the town was taken the day
before the time appointed.
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