An ardent
Jacobin, he enlisted in the
Lombard Legion, the first army unit of the newly formed
Cisalpine Republic, shortly after the French invasion of northern Italy and, by 1798, reached the rank of
colonel. In 1800, after being promoted to the rank of
brigadier general, he led the
1er Brigade of the Cisalpine troops and served in the division commanded by
Giuseppe Lechi, protecting, near
Mincio river, the operation of the French army under
Napoleon Bonaparte, that was crossing the
Po in the campaign that ended in the
Battle of Marengo. In 1805, he was named to command the place of
Milan, and, the following year, joined the marshal
André Masséna in his campaign against the
Kingdom of Naples, that fell under the French rule after brief combat. In 1807, he was sent on the aid of the Italian general
Pietro Teulié, who was besieging the fortress of
Kolberg, in
Prussia. After the death of Teulié he received the command
ad interim of the division and, in June, conquered the fortified position. The following month the division under his command took the Swedish fort of
Stralsund, one of the last actions of the entire war. For his distinguished service, he was awarded with the rank of
division general, and took command of the ''1er division d'infanterie de l'Armée d'Italie'' (i.e. First Infantry Division of the Italian Army), stationed in
Padua. At the start of the
War of the Fifth Coalition, in 1809, his division
fought in Sacile under
Prince Eugène, in the opening movement of the campaign that lead to the
Battle of Wagram. It was from this period the remarkable note on him written by one of his fellow officers, the Italian Colonel
Carlo Zucchi: He to tell the truth was an intrepid soldier in front of the major dangers, had great uprightness of the soul, but then he let him go to the major flatteries towards the French; he constantly used their language by writing or by speaking in the midst of Italian soldiers, and rather than cause some trouble to the superior officers of the French army, he would have omitted to act with fairness to his subalterns. ==References==