His aide-de-camp described the scene: “I managed to turn toward the general; he was standing at the head of the bridge of Clausen and holding it alone against the whole squadron; and as the bridge was narrow and the men could only get at him two or three abreast, he cut down as many as came at him.” Even Napoleon was won over, nicknaming Dumas ‘the Horatius of the Tyrol’, after the hero who saved Rome.