Brown still continued that masterly retreat which excited the admiration of all military men, and even of his enemy, the brave Belleisle, who followed him across the Var on the 25th May, and retook Mont Albano, Villa Franca, and Ventimiglia, from his garrisons, driving back forty-six Piedmontese battalions with terrible slaughter at the pass of Exilles, where the Chevalier de Belleisle (brother of the marshal), Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, fell, pierced with three wounds. Meanwhile Brown, with a force diminished to 28,000, continued his retreat towards Finale and Savona. The despatch, which was sent to him by Major-General Colloredo, detailing the affair at Exilles, was published in the _London Gazette_. In Lombardy he ordered two intrenched camps to be formed; one to hold 14,000 men, to guard the banks of the Tanaro; the other to hold 11,000, and guard the Po, near Pavia; but fatigue and want of food soon compelled all to seek quarters for the winter. The King of Sardinia marched to Turin; Brown established his head-quarters at Milan, after winning the praise of all Europe by his skilful operations in Provence. While here, by the severity of his remonstrance, he forced Marshal Schulemberg to abandon his important enterprise against Bisignano, and draw off his division to assist the King of Sardinia in covering Piedmont and Lombardy.
The remainder of that year he occupied by innumerable skirmishes and movements in defending the Italian States of Maria Theresa; among these (after the great review at Coni) was the march upon the Dermont, the assault by the French upon Maison Meau, the attack upon forty-three French battalions who were intrenched near Villa Franca, and other affairs, until the peace so happily signed in 1748, when he was sent by his mistress to Nice, where, in conjunction with the Duke de Belleisle and the Marquis de la Minas, he skilfully adjusted certain difficulties which had arisen in fulfilling the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. In reward for his many great and gallant services, the Empress-Queen now made him Governor of Transylvania where he won the love and admiration of the people by his justice, affability, and honourable bearing.
In 1752 he was made governor of the city of Prague, and commander-in chief of all the troops in the kingdom of Bohemia; and in the following year the King of Poland, as Elector of Saxony, honoured him with the Order of the White Eagle, the collar of which is a gold chain (to which a silver eagle is attached), and first worn by Udislaus V. on his marriage with a daughter of the Duke of Lithuania. In 1754 he was raised to the rank of Marshal of the Empire.