informed the Directory at Paris that, by means of a correspondence with
the disaffected party, he should be master of Naples by the time they
received the news of the capitulation of Capua--that this treachery soon
becoming suspected by the Lazzaroni, who were in the royal interest,
they seized all the arms; parading the streets, and vociferating the
names of the king and their tutelary St. Januarius--that General Mack
was regarded as a traitor; and the remains of the army which he had
commanded were considered as jacobins whom French gold had
corrupted--that Mack, not very unfavourably to the suspicions of the
Lazzaroni, fled from them to Championet, who gave him a passport and
escort to Milan; where, however, with true French protection, he was
seized as a prisoner of war, by order of the Directory--that the
Neapolitan army, equally terrified with their general at the menaces of
the numerous Lazzaroni, deserted, to that of the French, and was in two
days quite disorganized and annihilated--that the Lazzaroni, urged to
fury by the escape of their prey, attacked and drove in the advanced
posts of the French, and penetrated even to the line--that Prince
Molliterno, who had been chosen their general, did not escape their
menaces, when they found that he was entering into a negociation with
Championet--that they now every where plundered and massacred the
objects of their suspicions, however well or ill founded--that Prince
Molliterno, and his friends, seizing on the forts, called the French to
their assistance--and that, after numerous severe struggles, in which
vast numbers of the French, as well as of the Lazzaroni, were slain, the
latter were only finally subdued by stratagem.
In the momentary cessations from mutual slaughter, Championet offered
his protection to several of the terrified inhabitants. He professed a
most profound veneration for St. Januarius; and gravely invoked the
all-powerful saint, for the preservation of human lives, and the
restoration of peace, in the suffering city of Naples. A French guard of
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