The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot
Translated by Oliver C. Colt

THE MEMOIRS OF GENERAL THE BARON DE MARBOT.

Translated by Oliver C. Colt


Volume 1.

Table of contents

Chap. 1. Origins of my family. My father joins the bodyguard. The
de Certain family. Life at Lariviere. Episode in infancy.

Chap. 2. Outbreak of revolution. My father's attitude. He rejoins
the army. I go to Mlle. Mongalvi. My life as a boarder.

Chap. 3. My father is posted to Toulouse. He takes me with him.
The convoy of aristocrats. Life at Toulouse. I am taken to
Soreze.

Chap. 4. Life at Soreze. Early hardships. Visit of representative
of the people.

Chap. 5. I join my family in Paris. My father is given command of
the 17th division in Paris. He refuses to join with Sieyes and
hands the command to Lefebvre.

Chap. 6. My father is posted to Italy. How my career is begun. I
become a Hussar.

Chap. 7. My father leaves. Meeting with Bonaparte at Lyon. An
adventure on the Rhone. The cost of a Republican banquet. I am
presented to my commanding officer.

Chap. 8. Arrival at Nice. My mentor Pertelay. I become a true
Hussar. I join the "clique". My first duel. We rustle some
cattle. The "Clique".

Chap. 9. How I get immediate promotion. The capture of 17 enemy
Hussars.

Chap. 10. Campaign in Piedmont. General Macard. Capture of enemy
cannons. I am promoted to Sous-lieutenant. I become aide de camp
to my father.

Chap. 11. Retreat of the right wing of the army to Genoa. My
father wounded. The siege. My friend Trepano. Death of my father.
Famine and fighting.

Chap. 12. Episodes in the siege. Fate of Austrian captives.

Chap. 13. Napoleon crosses the St. Bernard. Massena yields.
Marengo.  I return to my family. My extreme prostration.

Chap. 14. I am temporary aide de camp to Bernadotte. We go to
Tours.

Chap. 15. At Brest and Rennes. I am posted to the 23rd Chasseurs,
in Portugal. Journey from Nantes to Salamanca. We form the right
wing of the Spanish army. Return to France.

Chap. 16. On the road from Bayonne to Toulouse. The inspection.

Chap. 17. The events at Rennes. My brother Adolphe is involved
and is sent to prison. Death of my brother Theodore.

Chap. 18. The school at Versailles. My mother's brothers.

Chap. 19. Preparations for invasion of Britain. I become aide de
camp to Augereau.

Chap. 20. Augereau.

Chap. 21. From Bayonne to Brest. 1804. Pichegru. Death of Duc
d'Enghien. Bonaparte becomes emperor.

Chap. 22. 1805. Institution of Legion of Honour. Camp at
Boulogne.  I am made lieutenant. Death of my brother Felix.
Russia and Austria declare war.

Chap. 23. The army heads for the Rhine. Mission to Massena.
Jellachich surrenders. The Hungarian Colonel.

Chap. 24. The march to Vienna. The battle at Dirnstein. Lannes
and Murat bluff their way across the Danube.

Chap. 25. Hollabrunn. I bring the flags captured at Breganz to
the Emperor. The danger of a white lie.

Chap. 26. The Prussian Ambassador. Austerlitz. I save a Russian
sergeant.

Chap. 27. Meeting of the Emperors. Return to my unit. Darmstadt
and Frankfurt.

Chap. 28. Mission to Prussia. Situation in Prussia.

Chap. 29. State of Prussian army. Wurtzberg. Saalefeld and death
of Prince Louis. Augereau and his former companions.

Chap. 30. Jena. The Cure. Auerstadt. The behaviour of Bernadotte.

The entry into Berlin.

Chap. 31. Demoralisation of Prussians. Origin of the house of
Rothschild. With Duroc to the King of Prussia. Graudentz. The
army at the Vistula.

Chap. 32. Crossing of the Ukra. Various encounters. Cantonments
on the banks of the Vistula.

Chap. 33. 1807. Made Captain. Eylau. Destruction of Augereau's
corps.

Chap. 34. My part in the battle of Eylau. My mare Lisette. I
escape death by a miracle. Return to Warsaw and Paris.

Chap. 35. Missions for the Emperor. I join Marshal Lannes.
Hostilities resumed June 11th.

Chap. 36. Battle of Friedland. I escape from dangers. Treaty of
Tilsitt.

Chap. 37. Mission to Dresden. An unwitting smuggler. An incident
at Mainz. Paris and La Houssaye.



Introduction. General, later the Baron, Marbot, came from a
family which might be described as landed gentry. His father
served in the bodyguard of Louis XV and later in the Republican
army. Marbot himself was a soldier from the age of 17 and fought
in the wars of the Republic and the campaigns of Napoleon. His
memoirs were written for his family and his intimate circle,
without thought of publication, and it was not until after his
death in 1854 that his family were persuaded to offer the
manuscript to publishers.

This is not a meticulously researched historical document, but
the reminiscences of an old soldier, writing of events which took
place many years earlier and I suspect that like most of us when
we try to recall things that happened forty years ago his memory
was a trifle indistinct.

By far the greater part of his narrative has the ring of truth,
but in my opinion there are places where his imagination has
embroidered the facts. This is particularly so when it comes to
some of his personal adventures. He also,in my view, describes as
real, events in which he did not take part and which may be no
more than popular rumour.

It has to be remembered that there were no inquisitive war
correspondents attached to the "Grande Armee" and news was what
was written in Napoleon's bulletins.

As an example of the kind of thing which raises a question in my
mind, in his opening chapter he says that he was a very sturdy
infant and that the only illness he ever suffered from was
small-pox. This does not seem probable; an outbreak of small-pox
in the family would be a disastrous occurrence, it is a disease
with a high mortality and could not be dismissed as a childish
complaint. He also goes on to describe how his head got stuck in
the cat-hole, but in the original he claims that his face turned
blue and that he was being strangled when his father removed the
door from its hinges to extricate him. Anyone who has attempted
to remove a door from its hinges knows that you cannot do so
without opening the door and using at least a screwdriver. It is
also an operation which is difficult to perform single-handed and
with a small child stuck in it even more so. He says that he was
about three or four at the time, and the long-term memory does
not start developing in a child until around the age of four. I
think it more than likely that that good Baron has a false
recollection derived from being told of these goings on by his
mother and truly believes that he remembers them. A misdiagnosis
of small-pox would not be surprising given the inadequate state
of medical knowledge and practice of the time.

I do not doubt that he ran great danger and was seriously injured
at Eylau, but there are elements in his recital which although
they enhance the drama and would pass muster with the lay reader,
are open to criticism by anyone with a medical training. He says
that while he was attempting to release the "Eagle" from its
standard, a bullet passed through his hat without touching his
head. As a result of this he claims that he found himself
paralysed and unable to use his legs to urge his horse forward,
although he remained mentally perfectly clear. He says that the
passage of the bullet close to his head caused bleeding from his
nose and ears and even from his eyes, signs which a clinician
would regard as probably indicating a serious fracture of the
base of the skull.

I am not a neurologist, but I can think of no neurological injury
which would produce the type of paralysis which he describes
except a high lesion of the spinal cord. What is more, within a
few moments he is in the saddle of a galloping horse and I cannot
imagine that anyone suffering from a form of paralysis could
remain there for very long.

The thoughtful reader may also wonder how the soldier who robbed
him as he lay unconscious could suppose that he was dead, an
unconscious person is quite plainly breathing.

Could it be that having been rendered unconscious as a result of
the fall from his horse, he has some degree of retrograde amnesia
and has invented details to fill the gaps in his memory, or could
it be that writing, as he was, for his family and friends, he was
indulging in a little pardonable exaggeration.

In spite of these reservations the story he tells is full of life
and interest, and gives a vivid impression of war as it was
fought then, including all its horrors and disasters.

In this translation I have not deviated from the gist of events,
but I have taken the liberty of making a variety of omissions and
emendations, with the aim of adding credibility to some of the
events, such as those noted above. I have also prefaced some of
his anecdotes, which he retails as fact, with the words "It is
believed that..." or something to that effect.

The campaigns can be followed by the use of a good atlas, but
unfortunately the many upheavals which Europe has undergone since
those days has resulted in many of the names of places being
changed. The curious reader may well find maps dealing with the
Napoleonic wars in any well stocked public library.

All translation requires some degree of paraphrase. What sounds
well in one language may sound ridiculous if translated literally
into another. I have endeavoured to produce a version of these
memoirs acceptable to the English-speaking reader, whether I have
succeeded or not only the reader can say.

Oliver C. Colt


THE MEMOIRS OF GENERAL THE BARON DE MARBOT.

Translated by Oliver C. Colt

Chap. 1.

I was born on the 18th August 1782 at my father's Chateau of
Lariviere, in the beautiful valley of Beaulieu, on the borders of
Limousin and Quercy--now the department of Correze--where my
father owned a considerable property.

The family of Marbot was of noble origin, although for a long
time they had not preceded their name by any title. To use a then
current expression, they lived nobly, that is to say on the
income from their estates, without engaging in any form of
employment. They were allied to and joined in the society of
several of the important families of the district.

I mention this because, at a time when the nobility were so
haughty and powerful, it shows that the family had a social
position of considerable standing.

My father was born in 1753. He had a rather fiery temperament,
but he was so good-hearted that, after a first outburst, he
always sought to make one forget any hasty words which he might
have uttered. He was a fine figure of a man, very tall and well
built, with handsome, manly features.

My grandfather had become a widower when my father was still at
school. His house was run by one of his elderly cousins, the
oldest of the demoiselles Oudinet of Beaulieu. She gave
unstinting care to my grandfather, who, having become almost
blind as a result of a flash of lightning, which had struck near
him, no longer went out of his manor. Thus my father, when he
reached manhood, faced by an infirm old man and an aunt devoted
to his least wishes, could have played fast and loose with the
family fortune. He did not, however, abuse his position, but as
he had a great fancy for a military career, he accepted a
proposal which was made to him by colonel the Marquis d'Estresse,
a neighbour and close friend of the family, which was to have him
enrolled in the bodyguard of the king, Louis XV.

Being under the auspices of the Marquis d'Estresse, he was
received in a number of houses; notably that of
lieutenant-general the Comte de Schomberg, the inspector-general
of cavalry, who, recognising my father's worth, had him posted to
his regiment of dragoons as captain, and took him as his
aide-de-camp.

On the death of my grandfather my father was still unmarried, and
his fortune, as well as his place in the Royal Bodyguard, put him
in a position to choose a wife, without the likelihood of being
refused.

There lived at that time, in the Chateau de Laval de Cere, about
a league from Lariviere, a family of noble rank but without much
money, named de Certain. The head of this house was stricken by
gout and so his affairs were managed by Madame de Certain, an
admirable woman, who came from the noble family of de Verdal, who
claim to have Saint Roch amongst the kinsfolk of their ancestors
on the distaff side, a Verdal, so they say, having married a
sister of the Saint at Montpellier. I do not know how much truth
there is in this claim, but before the Revolution of 1789, there
was, at the gateway of the old chateau of Gruniac, owned by the
de Verdals, a stone bench, which was greatly venerated by the
inhabitants of the nearby mountains, because, according to
tradition, St. Roch, when he came to visit his sister, used to
sit on this bench, from where one can view the countryside, which
one cannot do from the chateau, which is a sort of fortress of
the gloomiest kind.

The de Certains had three sons and a daughter, and as was the
custom at that time they added to their family name that of some
estate. Thus the eldest son was given the name Canrobert: this
eldest son was, at the time of which I write, Chevalier de St.
Louis and a captain in the infantry regiment of Penthievre; the
second son who was called de L'Isle was a lieutenant in the same
regiment; the third son, who had the surname La Coste served,
like my father, in the Royal Bodyguard; the daughter was called
Mlle. Du Puy,and she was my mother.

My father became a close friend of M. Certain de La Coste, and it
would have been difficult to do otherwise, for quite apart from
the three months which they spent in quarters at Versailles
during their period of duty, the journeys which they made
together, twice a year, were bound to make a bond between them.

At that time public coaches were very few in number, dirty,
uncomfortable, and travelled by very short stages; also it was
considered not at all fashionable to ride in them. So, gentry who
were old or in poor health travelled by carriage, while the young
and officers in the armed forces went on horseback. There was an
established custom among the Bodyguard, which today would seem
most peculiar. As these gentlemen did only three months on duty,
and as in consequence the corps was split into four almost equal
sections, those of them who lived in Brittany, the Auvergne,
Limousin and other parts of the country where there were good
small horses had bought a number of these at a price not
exceeding 100 francs, which included the saddle and bridle. On a
fixed day all the Bodyguards from the same province, who were
called to go and take up their duties, would meet, on horseback,
at an agreed spot and the cheerful caravanserai would take the
road for Versailles.

They made twelve to fifteen leagues each day, sure of finding
every evening, at an agreed and reasonable price, a good lodging
and a good supper at the inns previously arranged as stopping
places. They went happily on their way, talking, singing, putting
up with bad weather or heat as they did with accidents and
laughing at the stories which all, in turn, had to tell as they
rode along.

The group grew in size by the arrival of Bodyguards from the
provinces through which they passed until, at last, the various
parties arrived from all parts of France to enter Versailles on
the day on which their leave expired, and, in consequence, at the
moment of departure of those guards whom they had come to
relieve. Then each of these latter bought one of the ponies
brought by the new arrivals, for which they paid 100 francs, and
forming fresh groups they took to the road for their paternal
chateaux, where they turned the horses out to grass for nine
months, until they were taken back to Versailles and handed over
to other comrades-in-arms.

My father, then, was a close friend of M. Certain de La Coste,
who shared the same quarters and belonged, like him, to the
company de Noailles. On their return to the country they saw much
of each other, and he made the acquaintance of Mlle. Du Puy.
Mlle. Du Puy was pretty and high spirited, and although she would
have little in the way of dowry, and although several rich
matches were offered to my father, he preferred Mlle. Du Puy, and
he married her in 1776.

We were four brothers: the eldest Adolphe, myself the second,
Theodore the third and Felix the last. There was a gap of about
two years between our ages.

I was very sturdy and suffered only some minor illnesses, but
when I was about three, I had an accident which I can still
remember.

Because I had a rather turned-up nose and a round face, my father
called me "pussy-cat". It needed no more than this to give a
small child the desire to imitate a cat; so it was my greatest
pleasure to go about on all fours, mewing. I was also in the
habit of going up to the second floor of the chateau to join my
father in a library, where he spent the hottest hours of the day.
When he heard the "miaow" of his little cat, he came and opened
the door and gave me a picture-book to look at while he continued
his reading. These little sessions gave me infinite pleasure. One
day, however, my visit was not so well received as usual. My
father, perhaps absorbed in his book, did not open the door for
his little cat. In vain, I redoubled my "miaows" in the most
appealing tone which I could produce. The door remained closed.
Then I saw, at floor level, an opening called a cat-hole, which
is present in all the chateaux of the Midi, at the bottom of the
doors, to allow cats free access. This route seemed, naturally,
to be for me: I put my head through, but that was as far as I
could go. I then tried to withdraw my head, but my head was stuck
and I could go neither forward nor back, but I was so much
identified with my role as a cat that instead of speaking, to let
my father know my predicament, I "miaowed" at the top of my
voice, like a cat that is angry, and it appears that I did so in
such a natural tone that my father thought that I was playing,
but suddenly the "miaows" became weaker, and turned into crying
and you may imagine my father's concern when he realised what had
happened. It was only with great difficulty that I was freed and
carried, half unconscious, to my mother, who thinking I was
injured was much distressed.

A surgeon was sent for, who proceeded to bleed me, and the sight
of my own blood and the crowd of all the inhabitants of the
chateau, gathered about my mother and me, made such a vivid
impression on my young imagination that the event has remained
for ever fixed in my memory.

Chap. 2.

While my childhood was rolling by peacefully, the storm of
revolution which had been growling in the distance, drew ever
nearer, and it was not long before it broke. We were in 1789.

The assembly of the States General stirred up all manner of
passions, destroyed the tranquillity enjoyed by the province in
which we lived and introduced divisions into all families,
particularly into ours; for my father, who for a long time had
railed against the abuses to which France was subjected,
accepted, in principle, the improvements which were mooted,
without foreseeing the atrocities to which these changes were
going to lead; while his three brothers-in-law and all his
friends rejected any innovation. This gave rise to animated
discussions, of which I understood nothing, but which distressed
me because I saw my mother in tears as she tried to keep the
peace between her brothers and her husband. For my part, although
I did not understand what was going on, I naturally took sides
with my father.

The Constituent Assembly had revoked all feudal rents. My father
possessed some of these which his father had purchased. He was
the first to conform to the law. The peasantry who had been
waiting to make up their minds until my father gave them a lead,
refused to continue paying these rents once they knew what he had
done.

Shortly after this, France having been divided into departments,
my father was named administrator for the Correze and then a
member of the Legislative Assembly.

My mother's three brothers, and nearly all the nobility of the
county had hurriedly emigrated. War seemed to be imminent, so, to
persuade all citizens to take up arms, and also, perhaps, to find
out up to what point they could count on the populace, the
government arranged for the rumour to be spread throughout all
the communes of France, that the "Brigands" led by the emigres,
were coming to destroy all the new institutions. The tocsin was
rung by all the churches; everyone armed themselves with whatever
they could lay hands upon; a National Guard was organised; the
country turned into an armed camp while it waited for these
imaginary "Brigands" who, in every commune, were said to be in
the one next door. Nothing ever appeared, but the effect
remained: France found herself in arms and had shown that she was
prepared to defend herself.

We children were then alone in the country with our mother. This
alert, which was called "The day of fear" surprised me and would
probably have alarmed me, had I not seen my mother remain so
calm. I have always thought that my father had discreetly warned
her of what was about to happen.

All went well at first, without any excess on the part of the
peasants, who, in our part of the country, retained much respect
for the ancient families; but soon, stirred up by demagogues from
the towns, the country-dwellers invaded the houses of the nobles,
under the pretext of looking for hidden emigres, but in fact to
exact money and to seize the title deeds of feudal rents, which
they burned in a big bonfire. From the height of our terrace, we
saw these ruffians, torches in their hands, running towards the
Chateau d'Estresse, from which all the men had emigrated and
which was occupied only by women. These were my mother's best
friends, and so she was greatly upset by this spectacle. Her
anxiety was redoubled by the arrival of her own aged mother, who
had been driven out of her chateau, which was declared national
property because of the emigration of her three sons...!

Up until then, my father's property had been respected; largely
because his patriotism was known, and because, to give further
proof of it, he had taken service in the army of the Pyrenees as
captain in the Chasseurs des Montagnes, at the end of his term in
the legislative assembly. But the revolutionary torrent swept
over everyone; the house at St. Cere, which my father had bought
ten years before, was confiscated and declared national property
because the deed of sale had been signed privately and the seller
had emigrated before ratifying the deal before a notary. My
mother was given a few days to remove her linen, then the house
was put up for auction and was bought by the president of the
district who had himself arranged for its confiscation!

At last, the peasants, stirred up by some agitators from
Beaulieu, came in a body to my father's chateau and insisted,
though with some politeness, that they had to burn the deeds of
feudal rents which we still had, and make sure that emigres were
not concealed in the chateau.

My mother received them with fortitude, handed over the deeds and
pointed out to them that, knowing her brothers to be sensible
people, they should not suppose that they would emigrate only
then to come back to France and hide in her chateau.

They accepted the correctness of this line of reasoning, ate and
drank and having burned the deeds in the centre of the courtyard,
they left without doing any further damage, shouting "Long live
France and citizen Marbot!" And charging my mother to write to
him to say that they liked him very much and that his family was
quite safe among them.

In spite of this assurance, my mother felt that her position as
the sister of emigres might expose her to a great deal of
unpleasantness from which even her position as the wife of a
defender of the country would not protect her. She decided to go
away for the time being. She told me later that she took this
step because she was convinced that the revolutionary storm would
last only for some months. There were many people who thought
this!

My grandmother had had seven brothers, all of whom, as was usual
in the Verdal family had been soldiers and knights of St. Louis.
One of them, a former battalion commander in the infantry
regiment of Penthievre, had married, on retirement, the rich
widow of counsellor of the parliament of Rennes. My mother
decided to go and stay with her and was counting on taking me
with her, when I was smitten by a number of large and very
painful boils. It was impossible to travel with a child of eight
in such a state, and my mother was in great perplexity. She was
extricated by a worthy lady, Mlle. Mongalvi, who was much devoted
to her and whose memory will always be dear to me.  Mlle.
Mongalvi lived at Turenne and ran boarding establishment for
young ladies of which my mother had been one of the first
occupants. She offered to take me into her house for the few
months of my mother's absence. My father's agreement having been
obtained, I left and was installed there. "What!" you may say, "A
boy amongst young ladies?" Well yes, but do not forget that I was
a quiet, peaceable, obedient child, and I was only eight years
old.

The boarders who stayed with Mlle. Mongalvi, where my mother had
once been one of them, were young persons of some sixteen to
twenty years of age; the youngest being at least fourteen, and
were sensible enough to let me mingle with them.

On my arrival, all this little feminine flock gathered about me
and received me with such cries of pleasure and warm caresses
that, from the first instant, I thought myself lucky to have made
this trip. I figured that it would not last long and I believe
that, secretly, I even regretted that I would have only a short
time to spend with these nice young ladies, who did everything to
please me and argued as to who was to hold my hand.

However, my mother left and went to stay with my uncle. Events
moved forward rapidly. The terror bathed France in blood. Civil
war broke, out in the Vendee and in Brittany. Travel there became
absolutely impossible, so that my mother, who had thought to
spend two or three months at Rennes, found herself stuck there
for several years.

My father continued on active service in the Pyrenees and in
Spain, where his ability and courage had raised him to the rank
of divisional general; while I, having gone as a boarder for a
few months, stayed for some four years, which were for me years
of much happiness, clouded only, from time to time, by the memory
of my parents; but the good Mlles. Mongalvi and their boarders
would then redouble their kindness, to dispel those thoughts
which now and then saddened me. I was spoiled beyond belief by
the mistresses and the boarders; I had only to wish for something
to obtain it. There was nothing too good or too fine for me. My
health recovered completely.  I was clean and fresh, so they vied
with one another to cuddle me. During recreation, which took
place in a vast enclosure, where there was a fine garden, with
paddocks, vines and arbours, the young ladies would crown me and
garland me with flowers, then placing me on a little litter
covered with roses, they would take it in turns to carry me while
they sang. At other times I would play prisoners base with them,
having the privilege of always catching but never being caught.
They would read stories to me and sing songs. They competed to do
something for me.

I recall, that on hearing of the horrible execution of Louis XVI,
Mlle. Mongalvi had all the boarders on their knees, to recite
prayers for the repose of the soul of the unfortunate king. The
indiscretion of any one of us could have brought down disaster on
her head, but all the pupils were of an age to understand, and I
felt that it was something I should not talk about; so no one
knew anything about it. I stayed in this pleasant retreat until
November 1793.

Chap. 3.

When I was eleven and a half years old, my father was given
command of a camp which was set up at Toulouse. He took advantage
of a few days leave to come and see me and to arrange his
affairs, which he had not been able to do for several years. He
came to Turenne, to the house of one of his friends, and hurried
to my lodging. He was in the uniform of a general officer, with a
big sabre, his hair cut short and unpowdered and sporting an
enormous moustache, which was in remarkable contrast to the
costume in which I was used to seeing him when we lived
peacefully at Lariviere.

I have said that my father, in spite of his stern masculine
looks, was a kind man, and particularly toward children, whom he
adored. I saw him again with the keenest transports of delight,
and he overwhelmed me with caresses. He stayed for several days
at Turenne; he warmly thanked the good mesdames Mongalvi for the
truly maternal care they had taken of me; but when he asked me a
few questions, it was easy for him to see that though I had a
good knowledge of prayers and litanies and lots of hymns, my
remaining education was limited to some notions of history,
geography, and spelling. He considered also, that, being now in
my twelfth year, it was not possible to leave me in a boarding
establishment for young ladies, and that it was time to give me
an education which was more masculine and more extensive. He had
resolved therefore, to take me with him to Toulouse, to where he
had also brought Adolphe, and to place us both in the military
college of Soreze, the sole great establishment of this kind
which the revolutionary turmoil had left standing.

I left, after bidding a tender farewell to my young friends. We
headed for Cressensac, where we were joined by Captain Gault, my
father's aide-de-camp. While the coach was being got ready,
Spire, my father's old servant, who knew that his master intended
to travel day and night, made up packages of food.

At this moment a new spectacle was presented to me: a mobile
column, composed of gendarmes, national guards and volunteers,
entered the town of Cressensac with a band playing at its head. I
had never seen anything like it, and it seemed to me quite
superb, but I was unable to understand why, in the midst of all
these soldiers, there was a dozen coaches filled with old men,
women and children, all of whom looked extremely sad. This sight
infuriated my father. He drew back from the window and, striding
about with his aide-de-camp, whom he could trust, I heard him
burst out, "These miserable members of the convention have ruined
the revolution which could have done so much good. There you see
yet more innocent people who are being thrown into gaol because
they are landowners or are related to emigres; it is disgusting!"

Why, you may ask, did my father continue to serve a government
which he despised? It was because he thought that to confront the
enemies of France was honourable, but did not mean that the
military condoned the atrocities which the convention committed
in the interior of the country.

What my father had said, had interested me in the people in the
coaches. I gathered that they had been, that morning, seized from
their chateaux and were being led away to the prisons of
Souilhac. They were old men, women and children, and I was
wondering to myself how these frail people could present any
danger to the country, when I heard several of the children
asking for food. One lady begged a national guard to let her get
out to go and buy something to eat. He refused her, rudely, and
when the lady produced an "assignat" and pleaded with him to go
and buy some bread, he replied, "Do you take me for one of your
former lackeys?" This brutality angered me. I had noticed that
Spire had placed in the pockets of the coach, a number of
bread-rolls in the centre of which was a sausage; I took two of
these rolls, and drawing near to the coach holding the child
prisoners, I threw them in, when the guards were not looking. The
mothers and the children made signs to me of such gratitude that
I resolved to give food to all the other prisoners, and piece by
piece, I gave them all the provisions which Spire had made for
the two days journey to Toulouse, which we were about to make. We
left, at last, without Spire having any suspicion of the
distribution which I had just made. The little prisoners blew me
kisses and their parents waved to me; but no sooner were we some
hundred paces from the post-house than my father, who had been in
haste to get away from a spectacle which distressed him, and had
not wished to eat at the inn, felt hungry, and asked for the
provisions.  Spire pointed to the pockets in which he had placed
them. My father and M. Gault rummaged through all the interior of
the coach, but found nothing. My father grew angry with Spire,
who from the height of his seat, swore by all the saints that he
had stuffed the coach with food for two days. I was somewhat
embarrassed; however, I did not want poor Spire to be blamed any
longer, so I admitted what I had done. I expected to be scolded
for acting without authority, but my father put his arm round me
in the most affectionate manner, and many years after he still
spoke with pleasure of my conduct on this occasion.

From Cressensac to Toulouse the road was full of volunteers,
going to join the army of the Pyrenees, and making the air ring
with patriotic songs. I was charmed by this bustling spectacle
and would have been happy had it not been for my physical
suffering. I had never made a long journey by coach before, and I
was sea-sick throughout the trip, which decided my father to stop
every night to allow me some repose. I arrived at Toulouse
feeling very tired, but the sight of my brother, from whom I had
been parted for four or five years, gave me so much joy that I
very soon recovered.

My father, with the rank of divisional general, commanding the
camp situated at Miral, close to Toulouse, was entitled to a
billet, and the municipality had assigned to him the fine town
house of Resseguier, whose owner had emigrated. Madame de
Resseguier and her son had retreated to the most distant rooms,
and my father gave orders that the strictest regard was to be
given to their unhappy position.

My father's house was much frequented. Every day there were
visitors, and he had a great deal of expense, for although at
that time a divisional general received eighteen rations of all
kinds, and his aides-de-camp a similar amount, it was not enough.
He had to buy a host of things and as the state gave to a general
officer what it gave to a sous-lieutenant, that is eight francs a
month in cash, the rest being made up in assignats, the value of
which diminished daily, and as my father was very generous,
entertained many of the officers from the camp, had numerous
domestic servants (at that time called servitors), had eighteen
horses, a coach, a box at the theatre etc...He spent the savings
which he had accumulated at Lariviere, and it was from the time
of his re-entry into military service that the decline of his
fortune began.

Although the "Terror" was now at its height and class distinction
was greatly weakened in France, from whence all good manners
seemed to have removed themselves forever, my father knew so well
how to impose them on the many officers who came to his quarters,
that the most perfect politeness ruled in his salon and at his
table.

Among the officers employed at the camp, my father had taken a
great liking to two, who were invited more often than the others.

One was named Augereau and was the adjutant-general, that is to
say colonel of the general staff, the other was Lannes, a
lieutenant of Grenadiers, in a battalion of volunteers from the
department of Gers.

They became Marshals of the Empire and I have been aide-de-camp
to both of them.

At this period Augereau, after escaping from the prison of the
Inquisition at Lisbon, had come to fight in the Vendee, where he
was noticed for his courage and his quality of leadership. He was
an excellent tactician, a skill which he had learned in Prussia,
where he had served for a considerable time in the Foot-guards of
Frederick the Great; hence his nick-name of "The Big Prussian."
He had an irreproachable military turn-out, spick and span,
curled and powdered, with a long pig-tail, big, highly polished
riding boots and withal, a very martial bearing. This smart
appearance was the more remarkable because, at this time it was
not something on which the French army could pride itself, being
almost entirely made up of volunteers not used to wearing uniform
and very careless of their grooming. However nobody made fun of
Augereau about this, for he was known to be a brave and
accomplished duelist, who had given even the celebrated
Saint-George, the finest swordsman in France, a run for his
money.

I have said that Augereau was a good tactician; because of this,
my father had appointed him to direct the training of the
battalions of new levees, of which the division was largely
composed. These men came from Limousin, Auvergne, the Basque
country, Quercy, Gers and Languedoc. Augereau trained them well,
and in so doing he was unaware that he was laying the foundations
of his own future fame, for these troops, which my father then
commanded, formed later the famous Augereau division which did
such fine things in the Pyrenees and in Italy.

Augereau came almost daily to my father's house, and seeing that
he was appreciated, he devoted to him a friendship which never
wavered and of which I felt the benefit after the death of my
mother.

As for Lieutenant Lannes, he was a very lively young Gascon,
intelligent and cheerful, without education or training but
anxious to learn at a time when no one else was. He became a very
good instructor, and since he was very vain, he accepted with the
greatest delight the praises which my father lavished on him, and
which he deserved. By way of recompense, he spoiled, as much as
he could, his general's children.

One fine morning, my father received the order to strike his camp
at Miral and to lead his division to join the army corps of
General Dugommier, which was laying siege to Toulon, which the
English had captured in a surprise attack. My father then said to
me that it was not in a school for young ladies that I would
learn what I needed to know; that I needed more serious studies
and in consequence he was taking me, the next day, to the
military college of Soreze, where he had already arranged a place
for me and my brother. I was thunderstruck! Never to go back to
my friends with the Mesdames Mongalvi? That seemed impossible!

The road was covered with troops and guns, which my father passed
in review at Castelnaudary. This spectacle, which a few days
earlier would have delighted me, now failed to lessen the anxiety
which I felt about the teachers in whose presence I was about to
find myself.

We stayed overnight at Castelnaudary, where my father learned of
the evacuation of Toulon by the English (18th Dec 1793), and was
ordered to go with his division, to the eastern Pyrenees.
Whereupon he decided to deposit us, the very next day, at Soreze,
to stay there for a few hours only, and to set off immediately
for Perpignon.

On leaving Castelnaudary, my father ordered the coach to stop at
a famous tree under which the Constable Montmorency had been
taken prisoner by the troops of Louis XIII, following the defeat
of the supporters of Gaston d'Orleans, who had rebelled against
his brother. He chatted about this event with his aides-de-camp,
and my brother-- who was already well informed--took part in the
conversation. As for me, I had only the vaguest notions of the
general history of France and knew nothing of the details. It was
the first time I had heard of the battle of Castelnaudary, of
Gaston, of his revolt and of the capture and execution of the
Constable de Montmorency. I realised that my father did not ask
me any question on the subject because he was quite certain that
I would be unable to reply. This made me feel ashamed, and I
concluded that my father was right in taking me to the college to
be educated. My regrets then changed into a resolution to learn
all that I needed to know.

Nevertheless, my heart sank at the sight of the high sombre walls
of the cloister in which I was to be enclosed. I was eleven years
and four months old when I entered this establishment.

Chap. 4.

I shall now give you a brief history of the college of Soreze, as
I had it from Dom Abal, a former vice principal, whom I saw often
in Paris during the Empire.

When, under Louis XV, it was resolved to clear the Jesuits out of
France, their defenders claimed that they alone knew how to
educate children. The Benedictines, sworn enemies of the Jesuits,
wished to prove that this was not so; but as it did not suit
them, although they were studious and learned, to turn themselves
into schoolmasters, they selected four of their houses to be
turned into colleges, among which was Soreze. There they placed
those members of the order who had the most aptitude for
teaching, and who could, after working for several years, retire
to other monasteries of the order. The new colleges prospered,
Soreze in particular stood out, and the crowd of pupils, who
hurried there from all parts, made a larger number of teachers
necessary. The Benedictines attracted there many learned laymen,
who established themselves, with their families, in the little
town in which the monastery was situated. The children of these
lay teachers, who attended the college free as day pupils,
formed, later, a nursery of masters of all the arts and sciences.
Eventually the ability to give lessons at a very reasonable cost
led to the setting up of several boarding houses for young
ladies, and the little town became remarkable in that its
citizens, even the simple merchants, had an extended education
and practised all the fine arts. A crowd of foreigners,
principally English, Spanish and American, came to stay there, in
order to be near their sons and daughters during their education.

The Benedictine order was, in general, made up of very easy-going
men; they mixed with the world and entertained often, so they
were well liked; something that was very useful to those at
Soreze when the revolution broke out.

The Principal at that time was Dom Despaulx, a man of the highest
integrity, but who, being unwilling to subscribe to the "civic
oath" then exacted from the clergy, retired and spent several
years in retreat, from where he was later called by the Emperor
to fill one of the highest positions in the university.

All the other Benedictines at Soreze took the oath: Dom Ferlus
became Principal and Dom Abal Vice-Principal, and the college, in
spite of the revolutionary upheavals, continued to operate,
following the excellent start which it had been given by Dom
Despaulx.

Later, however, a law having been passed requiring the
secularising of the monks and the sale of their property, the
days of the college seemed numbered; but many of the most
important men in the country had been educated there, and they
wanted it to be there for their children; the inhabitants of the
town, even the labourers and peasants, respected the good fathers
and realised that the destruction of the college would result in
the ruin of the area. So an arrangement was made whereby Dom
Ferlus would become the owner of the college and the immense
property which belonged to it. Nobody attended the auction, and
the Principal became, at a very modest price, the owner of the
huge monastery and the land which it owned.  The administrators
of the department gave him plenty of time to pay. Everyone lent
him assignats which he repaid with some loads of wood; the vast
farms of the estate furnished food for the college and, lacking
money, Dom Ferlus paid the external teachers in provisions, which
suited them very well at a time when famine was rife in France.

On the death of Dom Ferlus, the college passed into the hands of
his brother Raymond Ferlus, a former Oration, now married, a
third-rate poet and man of little capacity. The college went into
decline when the restoration of 1814 allowed back the Jesuits,
who were determined to wreak revenge on the Benedictines by
destroying the edifice which the latter had erected on the ruins
of their order.

The university took sides with the Jesuits. M. Raymond Ferlus
handed over the college to his son-in-law, M. Bernard, a former
artillery officer who had been one of my contempories. He knew
nothing about running such an establishment, and, besides that, a
host of other good colleges sprang up as rivals, and Soreze,
losing its importance from day to day, became one of the most
mediocre institutions of learning.

I return now to the time when I was at Soreze. I have told you
how Dom Ferlus saved the college from ruin, and how, upheld by
the care of this enlightened man, it was the only great
establishment of its kind left standing by the revolution. The
monks adopted lay clothing and the appellation "Citizen" replaced
that of "Dom." Apart from that, nothing essential was changed in
the college and it continued to exist peacefully in a corner of
France, while the country was most cruelly being torn to pieces.
I say that nothing essential had changed because the studies
followed their usual course, and there was no breakdown of order,
but it was impossible that the feverish agitation which reigned
outside should not be felt in the college. I will say also that
Dom Ferlus, with diplomatic skill, presented the appearance of
approving of what he could not prevent. The walls therefore were
covered with Republican slogans. It was forbidden to use the word
"Monsieur". The pupils went to the dining hall or on walks,
singing the Marseillaise or other Republican hymns; and as they
heard continually of the achievements of our armies, in which
some of the older pupils were even enrolled as volunteers, and as
they were brought up in a military atmosphere, (since, even
before the revolution, Soreze was a military college, where one
learned drill, horse-riding, fortification, and so on), all this
youth had, for some time, adopted a warrior-like stance and
spirit which had led to a slackening of good manners. Added to
which the uniform contributed greatly to give them a very strange
aspect. The scholars wore big shoes, which were cleaned only
every ten days, stockings of grey thread, plain brown trousers
and jacket, no waistcoat, shirts undone, and covered with stains
of ink and red pencil, no tie, nothing on the head, the hair in a
pig-tail, often undone, and the hands....! Like those of a
coal-heaver.

Imagine me, clean, polished, dressed in clothes of fine cloth,
neat and tidy, thrown into the midst of seven hundred urchins,
got up as imps, and who, on hearing a shout of "Here are some new
ones!" left their games and came, in a mob to gather round us,
staring as if we were strange animals.

My father embraced us and left...! I was in a state of utter
despair! Here I was, alone, alone for the first time in my life,
my brother being in the upper school while I was in the lower. We
were in the middle of winter. It was very cold, but according to
school rules, the pupils were never allowed a fire!

Nevertheless, the pupils at Soreze were well fed, especially for
that time; for in spite of the famine which was sweeping France,
the good administration of Dom Ferlus provided an abundance of
food. The everyday fare was certainly all that could be desired
for school-children. However the supper seemed to me to be most
niggardly, and the sight of the dishes put before me disgusted
me: but had I been offered ortolans, I would not have been
tempted, my heart was so full. The meal finished as it had begun,
with a patriotic song. We knelt down at the couplet of the
Marseillaise which begins "Amour sacre de la patrie"...Then we
filed out, as we had come in, to the sound of a drum, and we went
to the dormitories.

The pupils of the upper school had each his own room, in which he
was shut in for the night; those of the lower school slept four
to a room, of which each angle contained a bed. I was put with
Guiraud, Romestan and Lagarde, who were my companions at table,
and almost as new as I was. I was quite happy with this. They had
seemed to me to be nice children, which, in fact, they were. But
I was taken aback when I saw the smallness of my bed, the
thinness of the mattress, and what displeased me most, the iron
bed-stead. I had never seen anything like it. However everything
was very clean, and in spite of my dismay I slept soundly, worn
out by the shocks to my system which I had suffered on this
fateful day.

The next morning, the drum beat reveille, making a horrible noise
in the dormitories, which I thought was quite atrocious; but how
do you think I felt when I saw that, while I was asleep, someone
had removed my beautiful clothes, my fine stockings and my pretty
shoes, and had replaced them by the coarse garments and heavy
footwear of the school? I wept with rage.

Having told you of the first impressions which I experienced on
my entry into the college, I shall spare you the recital of all
the torments to which I was exposed during the next six months. I
had been too pampered by the mesdames Mongalvi not to suffer
mentally and physically in my new position. I became very
depressed, and had my constitution been less robust, I should
have become ill. This period was one of the most unhappy in my
life. In the long run, however, work and familiarity enabled me
to cope with the situation. I was very fond of the lessons in
French literature, in geography, and above all, in history, and I
made progress in these subjects. I became passable at Latin and
mathematics and at horsemanship and fencing. I was an expert at
fire-arms drill and took much pleasure in the manoeuvres of the
school battalion which was commanded by a retired captain.

At the time when I entered the college, the convention was
imposing its blood-stained sceptre over France. Representatives
of the people, on various missions, infested the provinces, and
almost all of these who were of any importance in the Midi came
to visit Soreze, whose title of "Military Academy" sounded
pleasing to their ears.

Citizen Ferlus had a particular talent for persuading them that
they must maintain an establishment devoted to educating a
numerous youth, "The hope of the country". So he obtained all
that he wanted.  Often they would send us great bundles of
brushwood, destined to supply the army, our Principal having
persuaded them that we were a part of it, and were, in effect,
its nursery.

These Representatives were received and fˆted like Sovereigns. On
their arrival, all the pupils were dressed in their military
uniforms; the battalion was paraded before them; a guard was
mounted at every gate as if in a military barracks. Little
tableaux were enacted which exuded the purest patriotism; one
sang national hymns, and when they visited the classes,
particularly those of history, an occasion was always found to
produce some tirade on the excellence of Republican government
and the patriotic virtues which derived from it. I can remember,
in this regard, an occasion when Representative Chabot, a former
Capuchin, questioned me on Roman history. He asked me what I
thought of Coriolanus, who finding himself wronged by his fellow
citizens, forgetful of his former services, withdrew to the
country of the Volscians, sworn enemies of the Romans. Dom Ferlus
and the teachers feared greatly that I might approve of the
Roman's conduct, but I blamed him, saying that a good citizen
must never bear arms against his country, nor dream of any
vengeance against her, no matter how justified his discontent.
The representative was so pleased with my answer that he patted
me on the back, and complemented the head of the college and the
teachers on the sound principles which they inculcated in their
pupils!

This little success did not diminish the dislike I had for these
representatives. The actions of the convention filled me with
horror. Young as I was, I had, already, enough sense to realise
that it was not necessary to wallow in French blood in order to
save the country, and that the guillotinades and massacres were
appalling crimes.

I shall not discuss here the system of oppression which ruled,
then, in our unhappy country; this is a matter of history; but I
may say that however strong the colours used to paint the horrors
of which these terrorists were capable, the picture will be less
lurid than the reality. Perhaps the most surprising thing is the
stupidity of the masses, who allowed themselves to be dominated
by men, the greater part of whom lacked any ability: for whatever
may have been said, almost all the members of the convention were
of more than ordinary mediocrity and their boasted unanimity
arose from the fear they had of one another, since in their
anxiety to avoid being guillotined themselves, they agreed with
anything which the ringleaders proposed.

I saw, during my exile in 1815, many members of the convention
who like me were forced to leave France. They were completely
lacking in back-bone, and assured me that they voted for the
death of Louis XVI and a host of odious decrees solely to save
their own skins. The memory of these times has convinced me that
the worst form of government is that by the masses.

Chap. 5.

I reached the age of sixteen in August 1798. Six months later,
towards the end of February, I left the college of Soreze.

My father had a friend named M. Dorignac, who offered to take me
with him to the capital. It took us eight days to reach Paris,
where we arrived in March 1799, on the day when the Odeon theatre
was burned down for the first time. The flames were visible far
off on the Orleans road, and I thought, in my simplicity, that
the light came from furnaces operating in the city. My father, at
that time, occupied a fine mansion in the Faubourg-St-Honore
road, number 87, on the corner with the little Rue Vert. I
arrived there at dinner time: all the family were gathered there.
It would be impossible for me to describe the joy which I felt at
seeing them all together! This was one of the happiest days of my
life!

We were now in the spring of 1799. The Republic still existed,
and the government was now composed of the Directorate of five
members, and two chambers, one of which was called the Council of
Elders, and the other the Council of Five Hundred

My father entertained many members of society. There I made the
acquaintance of his intimate friend, General Bernadotte, and some
of the outstanding men of the period, such as Joseph and Lucien
Bonaparte, and also Napper-Tandy, the Irish leader, who had taken
refuge in France. At my mother's house I frequently saw Madame
Bonaparte and sometimes Madame De Sta‰l, already celebrated for
her literary works.

I had been in Paris for only about a month, when the term of the
legislature expired. It was necessary to hold new elections. My
father, fed up with the constant wrangling of political life, and
regretting that he was not taking any part in the army's
achievements, declared that he would no longer accept nomination
as a deputy, and that he wished to return to active service.
Events turned out in his favour. On the assembly of the new
Chambers there was a change of minister. General Bernadotte
became minister for war. He had promised my father that he would
send him to the army of the Rhine, and my father was about to set
off for Mainz, when the directory, learning of the defeat
suffered by the army of Italy, commanded by Scherer, appointed as
his successor, General Joubert, who commanded the 17th division,
(now the 1st,) in Paris.

This post having now become vacant, the directory, realising that
its great political importance required that it should be filled
by someone of capacity and determination, instructed the minister
for war to offer it to my father. My father who had resigned from
the legislature only to resume active service, turned the offer
down; but on Bernadotte showing him the letter of appointment,
already signed, and saying that as a friend, he begged him to
accept, and as a minister, he ordered him, my father gave in, and
the next day he went to install himself in the headquarters of
the Paris division, situated, at that time in the Quai Voltaire,
at the corner of the Rue de Saint-Peres, and which has since been
demolished. My father took as his chief of staff his old friend
Col. Menard. I was delighted by all the military suite with which
my father was surrounded. His headquarters were never empty of
officers of all ranks. A squadron of cavalry, a battalion of
infantry and six field-guns were stationed before his portals,
and one saw a crowd of orderlies coming and going. This seemed to
me much more entertaining than the exercises and translations of
Soreze.

France, and in particular Paris, were, at this time, in a state
of much agitation. We were on the brink of catastrophe. The
Russians, commanded by the celebrated Souwaroff, had just entered
Italy, where our army had suffered a major defeat at Novi, where
General Joubert had been killed. The victor, Souwaroff, was
heading for our army of Switzerland, commanded by Massena.

We had few troops on the Rhine. The peace conference begun at
Rastadt had broken down and our ambassadors had been
assassinated; now all Germany was arming once more against us,
and the Directory, fallen into disfavour, had neither troops nor
the money to raise them. In order to procure funds it decreed a
forced loan, which had the effect of turning everyone against it.
All hopes were pinned on Massena's ability to stop the Russians
and prevent them from entering France. The directory, impatient,
sent him courier after courier, ordering him to join battle; but
this latter-day Fabius, unwilling to risk the safety of his
country, was waiting for some false move, on the part of his
impetuous adversary, to give him the opportunity for victory.

At this point, I shall relate an anecdote which demonstrates on
how fine a thread sometimes hangs the destiny of states and the
reputation of generals. The directory, exasperated to see that
Massena did not obey the repeated commands to engage in battle,
resolved to relieve him of his post; but, as it was feared that
this general would take no notice of the order and simply stuff
it in his pocket, if it was sent by an ordinary courier, the
minister for war was ordered to send a staff-officer, charged to
deliver, publicly, to Massena his demotion, and to give to his
chief of staff, Cherin, the official letter which would confirm
him as commander-in-chief of the army.

When the minister told my father, in confidence, about these
plans, my father disapproved, saying that it would be dangerous,
on the eve of a decisive action, to deprive the army of
Switzerland of a general in whom it had confidence, and give the
command to a general who was more used to administration than the
direction of troops in the field. In addition, the position of
the armies might change; and he thought it essential that the
mission was given to a man with enough wisdom to assess the state
of affairs, and who would not hand Massena his dismissal on the
eve of, or in the middle of a battle.

My father, eventually persuaded the minister to give the task to
M. Gault, his aide-de-camp, who, under the ostensible pretext of
going to see if the suppliers had delivered the number of horses
stipulated in their contract, would proceed to Switzerland with
the authority to retain or to hand out the order for the
dismissal of Massena, and the installing of general Cherin,
according to the circumstances which might lead him to judge
whether this would be useful or dangerous. This was an enormous
responsibility to confide to the prudence of a simple captain,
but M. Gault fully justified the faith my father had in him.

Arriving at the headquarters of the army of Switzerland five days
before the battle of Zurich, he found the troops so full of
confidence in Massena, and Massena himself so calm and
determined, that he had no doubts of success, and, maintaining
the deepest silence about his secret powers, he took part in the
battle of Zurich and then returned to Paris, without Massena
suspecting that this modest captain had in his hands the
authority which could have deprived him of the glory of one of
the finest victories of the century.

Had Massena been rashly dismissed, this would probably have led
to the defeat of General Cherin and the invasion of France by the
Russians, followed by the Germans, and perhaps finally to the
overrunning of Europe. General Cherin was killed at Zurich,
without being aware of the intentions of the government towards
him.

The victory of Zurich, although, it prevented the advance of the
enemy into the country, gave the Directory only a momentary
respite. The government was everywhere crumbling; no one had
confidence in it. The treasury was bankrupt; the Vendee and
Brittany were in open revolt; the interior stripped of troops;
the Midi in turmoil; the chamber of deputies squabbling among
themselves, and with the executive. In short, the state was on
the verge of disaster.

Everyone in politics recognised that a major change was necessary
and inevitable; but although all agreed on this point, opinions
differed as to the remedy to be employed. The old Republicans,
who upheld the constitution of year III, then still in force,
believed that it would be sufficient to change several members of
the Directory. Two of them were removed and replaced by MM.
Gohier and Moulins; but this was the feeblest of palliatives for
the calamities which afflicted the country, and it continued to
be shaken by anarchy.

It was then that several members of the Directory, amongst whom
was the well-known Sieyes, thought, as did many of the deputies
and the great majority of the public, that to save France it was
necessary to put the reins of government in the hands of someone
resolute and already distinguished by services given to the
state. It was realised, also, that this would have to be a
soldier who had great influence in the army, and who was able, by
re-arousing national enthusiasm, to lead our banners to victory
and chase away the foreigners who were preparing to cross our
frontiers.

To speak like this was to point to General Bonaparte, but at this
moment he was in Egypt, and the need was pressing. Joubert had
been killed in Italy. Messena, though famous for several
victories, was an excellent general at the head of an army in the
field, but in no way a politician. Bernadotte did not seem to
have the capacity or the wisdom to repair the country's fortunes.
The eyes of the reformers then turned to General Moreau; although
the weakness of his character and his indecisive conduct on the
18th Fructidor raised some fears about his ability to govern. It
is certain, however, that lacking an alternative, he was asked to
head the party which intended to overthrow the Directory, and was
offered the title of President or Consul. Moreau, a good fighting
soldier, lacked political courage, and perhaps doubted his own
ability to cope with affairs in such a mess as were those of
France. Also he was self-centered and indolent and worried little
about the future of the country, preferring the repose of private
life to the agitation of politics. He refused the offer and
retired to his estate of Grosbois, to devote himself to hunting,
of which he was passionately fond.

Abandoned by the man of their choice, Sieyes and those with him,
who wished to change the form of the government, not feeling
themselves to be sufficiently strong or popular to achieve their
aim without the support of a general whose name would rally the
army to their side, were forced to turn their thoughts to General
Bonaparte.  The leader of this enterprise, Sieyes, flattered
himself that, having been placed in power, Bonaparte would busy
himself with the management and re-organising of the army, and
leave to him the conduct of the government, of which he would be
the master and Bonaparte but the nominal head. Events showed how
badly he was mistaken.

Imbued with this notion, Sieyes, through the intermission of the
Corsican deputy, Salicetti, sent a reliable secret agent to
Egypt, to inform General Bonaparte of the troubled state of
France, and propose to him that he should come back and place
himself at the head of the government. Having no doubt that
Bonaparte would accept readily and return promptly to Europe,
Sieyes put everything in motion to assure the execution of the
coup d'etat which he was planning.

It was easy for him to convince his fellow director,
Roger-Duclos, that their power was slipping away daily, and that
the country being on the brink of complete disorganisation, the
public welfare, and their personal interests, demanded that they
should take part in the establishment of a strong government, in
which they would contrive to place themselves in a less
precarious and more advantageous position.

Roger-Duclos promised his agreement to the proposed changes; but
the other three directors, Barras, Gohier and Moulins were
unwilling to give up their positions, so Sieyes and the leaders
of his party resolved to go over their heads, and to sacrifice
them after the event.

However, it would be difficult, not to say dangerous, even with
the presence of General Bonaparte, to overthrow the Directorate,
change the constitution and establish a new government, without
the support of the army, and, above all, that of the division
which occupied Paris. To be able to rely on this, it was
necessary to be sure of the co-operation of the minister for war
and of the general commanding the 17th division.

President Sieyes then sought to win over Bernadotte and my
father, by having them sounded out by several deputies who were
their friends and also supporters of Sieyes's plans. I have
learned since that my father replied to the vague overtures which
were put to him on behalf of the crafty Sieyes by saying that he
agreed that the country's misfortunes demanded a drastic remedy,
but that, having sworn to maintain the constitution of year III,
he would not use the authority he had over his troops to lead
them to its overthrow. He then went to Sieyes and handed in his
resignation as commander of the Paris division, and requested a
posting to a division on active service. Sieyes hastened to fall
in with his wishes, being only too glad to get rid of a man whose
devotion to what he saw as his duty, might abort the projected
coup. The minister, Bernadotte followed my father's example, and
was replaced by Dubois-Crance.

President Sieyes was, for some days, at a loss to find a
successor to my father. In the end, he gave the command to
general Lefebvre, who, having recently been wounded in the army
of the Rhine, was at that moment in the capital. Lefebvre was a
former sergeant in the Guards, a brave soldier, a good,
workmanlike general, provided that he was closely supervised, but
credulous in the extreme, with no understanding of the political
situation in France. So, by careful use of the words "Glory,"
"Motherland," and " Victory, " One could be sure of making him do
whatever one wished. This was just the sort of commander that
Sieyes was looking for. He did not even take the trouble to win
him over, or to warn him of what was about to happen, so sure was
he that on the day Lefebvre would not resist the influence of
General Bonaparte, and the cajoleries of the president of the
directorate.

He had made an accurate assessment of Lefebvre, for on the 18th
Brumaire, he placed himself and all his troops under the command
of General Bonaparte, to march against the Directorate and the
Councillors, to throw down the established government and create
the Consulate. This action made him, later, one of the Emperor's
greatest favourites. He was made a marshal, Duke of Danzig and
senator and was showered with riches.

I have rapidly outlined these events, because they explain some
of the reasons which led my father to Italy: a move which had
such a profound effect on his destiny and mine.

Chap. 6.

After handing over his command to General Lefebvre, my father
returned to his house in the Faubourg St. Honore and busied
himself with preparations for his departure to Italy.

A man's destiny is often influenced by the smallest of events. My
father and mother were very friendly with M. Barairon, the
director of registration, and one day, when they were going to
dine with him, they took me along. The talk was of my father's
coming departure, and the progress of my two younger brothers. At
last, M. Barairon asked, "And Marcellin, what are you going to
make of him?" "A sailor," replied my father, "Captain Sibille has
agreed to take him with him to Toulon." Then the good Mme.
Barairon, towards whom I have always felt the warmest gratitude,
observed to my father that the French navy was in complete
disarray, that the poor state of the country's finances would not
allow its rapid refurbishment, and, furthermore, its inferiority
vis-…-vis the English navy was such that it would spend most of
its time in harbour. She said that she could not think why he, a
divisional general, would put his son into the navy, instead of
placing him in a regiment, where the name and services of his
father would make him welcome. She ended by saying, "Take him to
Italy, sooner than send him to die of boredom, in a vessel shut
up in Toulon harbour."

My father, who had been briefly enticed by Capt. Sibille's
proposition, was too intelligent not to appreciate Mme.
Barairon's reasoning. "Well then," he asked me, "Do you want to
come to Italy with me and serve in the army?" I put my arms round
him and accepted, with a joy which my mother shared, for she had
not been in favour of my father's first idea.

As, at that time, there was no military academy, and one could
join the army only as a private soldier, my father took me right
away to the municipality of the first arrondissment, in the Place
Beauvau, and had me enlisted in the 1st Hussars, (formerly the
Bercheny), who were part of the division which he was going to
command in Italy. It was September the 3rd, 1799.

My father took me to a tailor, who had the job of making official
army uniforms, and ordered for me a complete outfit for a Hussar
of the 1st. As well as all the arms and equipment.

There I was!....A soldier!.....And was I not happy? But my
happiness was somewhat lessened when I reflected that this was
going to upset my brother Adolphe, two years older than me, and
still stuck in college. I then had the idea that I would not tell
Adolphe about my enlistment without telling him, at the same
time, that I wanted to spend with him the period which would have
to pass before my departure. I then asked my father if he would
allow me to be installed close to Adolphe, at Sainte-Barbe, until
the day when we would take the road for Italy. My father
understood the reason for my asking, and thought well of me for
it. He took me, the next day to stay with a M. Lanneau.

Can you imagine my arrival at college?...It was a recreation
period. All games stopped. All the pupils, big and small,
surrounded me. They vied with each other to touch part of my
equipment....In short, the Hussar was a complete success!

The day of the departure arrived....I said farewell to my mother
and my three brothers with the greatest sadness, in spite of the
pleasure I felt on starting a military career.

Chap. 7.

After my father had accepted a command in Italy, a division
became vacant in the army of the Rhine, which he would have
preferred; but an inescapable fate drew him towards the country
where he would find his grave.

One of his compatriots, and a personal friend, M. Lacheze, whom I
might call his evil genius, had for a long time been French
consul at Leghorn and Genoa, where he had business interests.
This wretched man, in order to lure my father to Italy, was
forever painting the most exaggerated picture of the country's
beauties, and pointing out the credit which might be gained by
dealing successfully with the difficult situation in the army
there, whereas there would be little opportunity to acquire
distinction in the army of the Rhine, where all was well. My
father was swayed by this specious reasoning, and believing that
there was more merit in going to the more dangerous post, he
persisted in his intention of going to Italy, in spite of the
objections of my mother, who had a secret presentiment which made
her wish for my father to go to the Rhine. This presentiment was
not false. She never saw her husband again!

To his present aide-de-camp, Captain Gault, my father now added
another officer, M. R*** who had come to him from his friend
General Augereau. M. R*** had the rank of major. He was a member
of a Maintenon family and had some ability and some education,
which he very rarely employed; for in a stupid manner, which was
then quite common, he swaggered about, forever cursing and
swearing, and talking of running people through with his sabre.
This bully-boy had only one virtue, very rare at this time: he
was always turned out with the greatest elegance. My father, who
had taken on M. R*** without knowing anything about him, now much
regretted it; but he could not send him back without upsetting
his old friend, Augereau. Although my father disliked him, he
thought, perhaps rightly, that a general should make use of the
military qualities of an officer, without worrying too much about
his personal manners; but, as he did not care to have the company
of M. R*** on a long journey, he had given him the job of taking
his coaches and horses from Paris to Nice, having under his
orders the old stud-groom, Spire, a highly responsible man, used
to the management of stables. The stable was large: my father had
fifteen horses, which with those of his aide-de-camp and of his
chief-of-staff and his assistants, together with those for the
wagons and so on, made up a fairly large group of which R*** was
the leader.

They left a month before we did.

My father took in his coach the fatal M. Lacheze, Captain Gault
and me. Colonel Menard, the chief-of- staff, followed, with one
of his assistants, in a post-chaise. A big rascal, my father's
valet, went ahead as a courier. We travelled in uniform. I had a
fine forage cap which pleased me so much that I wore it all the
time, but, as I put my head out of the coach window frequently,
because the coach made me travel-sick, it so happened that during
the night, when my companions were asleep, the cap fell into the
road. The coach, drawn by six vigourous horses, was going at top
speed. I did not dare have it stopped and so I lost my cap. A bad
omen! But I was to suffer far worse things in the terrible
campaign which we were about to undertake. This incident upset me
a good deal, but I said nothing about it for fear of being
chaffed about the way the new soldier was looking after his kit.

My father stopped at Macon, at the house of an old friend. We
spent twenty-four hours there and then continued our journey to
Lyons. We were not more than a few leagues from there, and were
changing horses at the post-house of Limonest, when we noticed
that all the postilions had decorated their hats with tricolour
ribbons, and that there were flags of the same colours hanging
from all the windows. We asked the reason for this demonstration,
and were told that General Bonaparte had just arrived in
Lyons...!

My father, who was certain that Bonaparte was still in the depths
of Egypt, treated this news as absurd, but he was taken aback
when, having sent for the post master, who had just returned from
Lyons, he was told, "I saw General Bonaparte, whom I know very
well, because I served under his command in Italy. He is staying
in some hotel in Lyon, and has with him his brother Louis,
Generals Berthier, Lannes and Murat, as well as a great, number
of officers, and a Mameluke."

This could hardly have been more positive; however the revolution
had given rise to so many falsehoods, and factions had been so
cunning in inventing stories which would serve their ends, that
my father was still in doubt when we entered the suburbs of Lyon.
All the houses were draped with flags. Fireworks were going off.
The crowd filled the streets to the point of preventing our coach
from moving. There was dancing in the public squares and the air
rang with cries of "Vive Bonaparte. Saviour of the country!" It
was evident that Bonaparte was indeed in Lyon. My father said, "I
was well aware that he was to be sent for, but I did not think it
would be so soon. The coup has been well organised, and there are
great events to come. I feel sure that I was right to leave
Paris. At least, in the army I can serve the country without
taking part in a coup, which, however necessary, I find
repugnant." Having said this, he fell into a deep reverie, which
lasted for the long time it took us to work our way through the
crowds to the hotel where our rooms had been prepared.

The nearer we got to the hotel, the thicker the crowd became, and
when we reached the door we saw that it was hung about with
Chinese lanterns and guarded by Grenadiers. It was here that
General Bonaparte was staying, in rooms that had been booked a
week before for my father.

Although quick-tempered, my father did not say a word when the
hotelier, who had been compelled to obey the orders of the
municipality, came with some embarrassment to make his excuses.
The inn-keeper having added that he had arranged for our
accommodation at another hotel....very good, though of second
grade....and run by one of his relatives, my father simply asked
Capt. Gault to tell the postilion to take us there.

When we arrived, we were met by our courier, a lively fellow,
who, heated by the long journey he had just made and the numerous
drinks he had downed at each post-house had complained most
loudly when he found that the rooms booked for his master had
been given to General Bonaparte. The latter's aides-de-camp
hearing this uproar and learning the cause, went to warn their
master that General Marbot had been displaced to make room for
him, and, at the same time, General Bonaparte saw through his
open window my father's two coaches pull up at the door.

He had not been aware, until then, of the shabby way in which my
father had been treated; and as General Marbot, recently
commandant of Paris, and now a divisional commander in Italy was
too important a man to be treated unceremoniously, and also as
General Bonaparte had good reason to make himself popular with
everybody, he ordered one of his officers to go down straight
away and ask General Marbot to come, as a fellow soldier, and
share his accommodation. Then, seeing the coaches leave before
his aide-de-camp could speak to my father, Bonaparte went
immediately, on foot, to offer his regrets in person.

The crowd which followed him set up a great noise of cheering,
which, as it drew near our hotel, should have warned us, but we
had heard so much since coming to the town that it did not occur
to one of us to look out of the window. We were all in the
drawing-room where my father was striding up and down, deep in
thought, when the valet-de-chambre, opening the double doors,
announced, "The General Bonaparte."

On entering, he hurried to embrace my father, who received him
very politely, but coolly. They had known each other for a long
time.

The explanations about the lodgings could be disposed of in a few
words between two such people, and so they were. They had much
else to talk about; so they went alone into the bedroom, where
they remained in conference for more than an hour.

During this time, the officers who had come with General
Bonaparte chatted with us in the drawing-room. I never tired of
examining their martial appearance, their sun-bronzed faces,
their strange uniforms and their Turkish sabres, hung from cords.
I listened with interest to their stories of the campaign in
Egypt, and the battles which were fought there. I took pleasure
in hearing them talk of such celebrated places as the Pyramids,
the Nile, Cairo, Alexandria, Acre, the desert and so on. What
delighted me most, however, was the sight of the young Mameluke,
Rustum. He had stayed in the ante-chamber, where I went several
times to admire his costume, which he showed me willingly. He
already spoke reasonable French, and I never wearied of asking
him questions.

General Lannes recalled having let me fire his pistols, when, in
1793, he was serving under my father in the camp at Miral. He was
very friendly toward me, and neither of us then foresaw that one
day I should be his aide-de-camp, and that he would die in my
arms at Essling. General Murat came from the same region as we
did, and as he had been a shop-assistant to a silk merchant at
Saint-Cere during the period when my family spent the winter
there, he had often come to the house, bringing purchases to my
mother. My father, also, had rendered him a number of services,
for which he was always grateful.  He gave me a hug, and reminded
me that he had often held me in his arms, when I was an infant.

General Bonaparte and my father having come back into the room,
they presented to one another the members of their suites.
Generals Lannes and Murat were old acquaintances of my father,
who welcomed them with great affability. He was a little distant
with General Berthier, whom, however he had seen before, when he
was in the bodyguard and Berthier was an engineer.

General Bonaparte, who knew my mother, asked me, very politely,
for news of her. He complimented me most warmly on having, while
yet so young, taken up a military career, and taking me gently by
the ear, which was always the most flattering caress which he
bestowed on those with whom he was pleased, he said to my father,
"One day this will be a second General Marbot." This prediction
came true, although at that time I had no expectation of it.
However I was very proud of these words. It takes so very little
to make a child feel pleased with himself.

When the visit was over, my father disclosed nothing of what had
been said between him and General Bonaparte; but I learned later
that Bonaparte, without stating his objectives clearly, had
sought, by the most adroit cajolements, to win my father over to
his side, and that, my father had always dodged the issue.

Disgusted at seeing the people of Lyon running in front of
Bonaparte, as if he was already the sovereign of France, my
father declared that he wanted to leave at dawn the next day; but
as his coaches needed some repairs, he was forced to spend an
entire day at Lyon. I profited from this to have a new forage cap
made, and, enchanted with this purchase, I took no notice of the
political conversations, about which, to tell the truth, I
understood little.

My father went to return the visit he had received from General
Bonaparte. They walked alone for a very long time in the hotel's
little garden, while their suites remained respectfully at a
distance. We saw them sometimes gesture with warmth, and at other
times speak more calmly; then Bonaparte, with a wheedling look,
went up to my father and put his arm through his in a friendly
fashion, probably so that the officials who were in the courtyard
and the many spectators who hung out of neighbouring windows
might conclude that General Marbot agreed with the plans of
General Bonaparte; for this crafty man neglected nothing to
achieve his aims.

My father came away from this second conversation even more
pensive than he had been after the first, and on coming back to
the hotel, he ordered our departure for the next day.
Unfortunately, the next day, General Bonaparte was to make an
excursion round the town  to inspect the heights suitable for
fortification, and all the post-horses were reserved for him. I
thought that at this blow my father would become angry, but he
contented himself by saying, "There is the beginning of
omnipotence." And told his staff to see if they could hire any
horses, so keen was he to get away from the town and from the
sights which offended him. No spare horses could be found. Then
Col. Menard, who was born in the Midi, and knew the district
perfectly, observed that the road from Lyon to Avignon was in
such a poor state of repair that the coaches might be badly
damaged if they attempted it, and it would be better to embark
them on the Rhone, the descent of which would offer us an
enchanting spectacle. My father, who was no great lover of the
picturesque, would, at any other time, have rejected this advice,
but as it gave him the opportunity to leave the town a day
earlier, he agreed to take to the Rhone.

Col. Menard then hired a large boat, the coaches were put on
board, and the next day, early in the morning, we all embarked: a
decision which was very nearly the end of us.

It was autumn. The water was very low. All the time the boat
touched and scraped along the bottom. One feared that it might be
torn open. We slept the first night at Saint-Peray, next at Tain,
and took two days to get as far down as the junction with the
Drome. There we had much more water, and went along rapidly; but
a dangerous high wind called the Mistral hit us when we were
about a quarter league above the bridge known as Pont
Saint-Esprit. The boatmen were unable to reach the bank. They
lost their heads, and set themselves to praying instead of
working, while a furious wind and a strong current were driving
the boat towards the bridge! We were about to crash against the
pier of the bridge and be sunk, when my father and all of us,
taking up boat-hooks, hurried forward to fend off from the pier
which we were about to strike.

The shock was so severe that it knocked us into the thwarts, but
the push had changed the direction of the boat, which, by a
miraculous piece of good fortune, shot through under the arch.
The boatmen then recovered a little from their terror and resumed
some sort of control of their boat; but the Mistral continued,
and the two coaches offering a resistance to the wind made any
manoeuvre almost impossible. At last, six leagues above Avignon,
we went aground on a very large island, where the bow of the boat
dug into the sand in such a way that it would not be possible to
get it out without a gang of labourers, and we were listing over
so far that we feared being swamped at any moment. We put some
planks between the boat and the shore and, with the help of some
rope, we all got ashore without accident, though with some
difficulty.

There could be no thought of re-embarking in the very high
wind,(although without rain), and so we pushed on into the
interior of the island, which we thought at first was
uninhabited; but eventually we came across a sort of farm, where
we found some good folk who made us very welcome. We were dying
of hunger, but it was impossible to go back to the boat for food,
and all we had was a little bread.

We were told that the island was full of poultry, which was
allowed to run wild, and which the peasants shot, when they
wanted some. My father was very fond of shooting, and he needed
some relaxation from his problems, so we borrowed guns from the
peasants, some pitch-forks and sticks, and we set off on a hen
shoot. We shot several, though it was not easy to hit them as
they flew like pheasants. We also picked up many of their eggs in
the woods. When we returned to the farm, we lit a big fire in the
middle of a field, around which we set up a bivouac, while the
valet, helped by the farmer, prepared the eggs and the chickens
in a variety of ways.  We supped well and then bedded down on
some hay, no one daring to accept the beds which the good
peasants offered us, as they seemed to us to be far from clean.

By day-break the wind had dropped, so all the peasants and the
boatmen took spades and picks, and after several hours of hard
work they got the boat afloat, enabling us to continue our
journey towards Avignon, which we reached without any further
accidents. Those that had befallen us were so embroidered in the
telling, that the rumour reached Paris that my father and all his
staff had been drowned.

The approach to Avignon, particularly when one comes down the
Rhone, is very picturesque. The old Papal Chateau; the ramparts
by which the city is surrounded; its numerous steeples and the
Chateau de Villeneuve rising opposite, combine to make a fine
prospect. At Avignon we met Mme. Menard and one of her nieces,
and we spent three days in the town, visiting the charming
outskirts, including the fountain of Vaucluse. My father was in
no hurry to leave, because M. R*** h d written to say that the
very hot weather,still persisting in the Midi,had forced him to
slow the pace of his march and my father did not wish to arrive
before his horses.

From Avignon we headed for Aix, but when we reached Bompart, on
the banks of the Durance, which, at that time, was crossed by a
ferry, we found the river so swollen by flood, that it would not
be possible to cross for at least five or six hours. We were
debating whether to return to Avignon, when the operator of the
ferry, a gentlemanly sort of person, who owned a charming little
castle on the height some five hundred paces from the river bank,
came and begged my father to rest there until the coaches could
be embarked. He accepted, hoping that it would be for a few hours
only; but it appeared that there had been heavy storms in the
Alps, where the Durance has its source, for the river continued
to rise all day, and we were compelled to accept lodging for the
night, which was offered most cordially by the owner of the
castle. The weather being fine we spent the day walking. It was a
break in our travels which I enjoyed.

The next day, seeing that the flood-water was running even more
rapidly than the evening before, our host, who was a devout
Republican, and who knew the river well enough to judge that we
would not be able to cross for twenty-four hours, hurried off,
unknown to us, to the little town of Cavaillon, which is about
two leagues from Bompart, on the same bank of the river. He had
gone to inform all the "Patriots" of the locality that he had in
his house divisional General Marbot. He then returned to the
castle, where, an hour or so later, we saw the arrival of a
cavalcade composed of the keenest "Patriots" of Cavaillon, who
had come to beg my father to accept an invitation to a banquet,
which they offered him in the name of all the notables of the
town, "Always so staunchly Republican."

My father, who found these sort of occasions far from agreeable,
at first refused; but these "Citoyens" were so insistent, saying
that everything had been organised and that the guests had
gathered, that my father gave in and went off to Cavaillon.

The best hotel had been decked with garlands, and was graced by
the presence of the local dignitaries from the town and its
outskirts. After an interminable number of compliments, we took
our places at a table laden with the most exclusive dishes. Above
all, there were ortolans, birds which thrive well in this part of
the country.

A great many toasts were drunk. Virulent speeches were made,
denouncing the "Enemies of liberty" and the dinner did not end
until ten o'clock in the evening. It was a little late to return
to Bompart, and anyway, my father could not with politeness leave
his hosts the moment the meal was over. He decided then to spend
the night at Cavaillon, and the rest of the evening was passed in
rather noisy talk. Eventually, one by one, the guests went home
and we were left alone.

The next morning, M. Gault asked the inn-keeper how much my
father owed for his part in the immense feast of the night
before, which he assumed was a communal meal in which each paid
for his own share.  The inn-keeper presented him with a bill of
more than 1500 francs.  The good "Patriots" not having paid a
single sou!...We were told that though some had expressed a wish
to pay, the great majority had replied that this would be "An
insult to General Marbot"....!

Capt. Gault was furious at this procedure, but my father, who at
first could not get over his astonishment, burst into laughter,
and told the inn-keeper to go and collect the money at Bompart,
to where we returned straight away, without saying a word of this
to the chatelaine; whose servants we tipped handsomely, and then,
taking advantage of the fall in the water level, we at last
crossed the Durance and made our way to Aix.

Although I might not yet be of an age to discuss politics with my
father, what I had heard him say led me to believe that his
Republican ideas had been much modified over the preceding two
years, and what he had experienced as a supposed guest of honour
at Cavaillon had severely shaken them, but he did not display any
ill-feeling on the subject of this banquet, and was even amused
at the anger of M. Gault, who said repeatedly, "I am not
surprised that, in spite of their cost, these scoundrels produced
so many ortolans, and ordered so many bottles of good wine! "

After spending a night at Aix, we left for Nice. This was the
last stage of our journey. While we were travelling through the
mountain and the beautiful forest of Esterel, we encountered the
Colonel of the 1st Hussars, who, escorted by an officer and
several troopers, was taking some lame horses, returned by the
army, back to the depot at Puy-en-Velay. This colonel was named
M. Picart and had been given his command because of his
administrative ability. He was sent frequently to the depot to
arrange for the equipment of men and horses, which he then
forwarded to the fighting units, where he appeared but rarely and
did not stay for long.

When he saw Col. Picart, my father had the coach stopped and got
out, and after presenting me to my colonel, he took him on one
side, and asked him to name an intelligent and well educated
non-commissioned officer who might be made my mentor. The Colonel
named Sergeant Pertelay. My father made a note of the name, and
we continued on our way to Nice; where we found M.R*** settled in
an excellent hotel, with our coaches and horses in first-class
order.

Chap. 8.

The town of Nice was full of troops, among which was a squadron
of the 1st Hussars, to which regiment I belonged. In the absence
of its colonel, the regiment was commanded by a Major Muller. On
learning that the divisional general had arrived, Muller came to
see my father, and it was agreed between them that, after a few
days rest, I should begin my service in the seventh company,
commanded by Capt. Mathis.

Although my father was very good to me, I was so much in awe of
him that I was very shy in his presence, a shyness which he
thought was greater than was really the case; he said I should
have been a girl, and often called me madamoiselle Marcellin,
which annoyed me very much, especially now that I was a Hussar.
It was to overcome this shyness, that my father wished me to
serve in the ranks, and in any case, as I have already said, one
could not join the army except as a private soldier. My father,
it is true, could have attached me to his personal staff, since
my regiment was part of his division, but, quite apart from the
notion which I have described above, he wanted me to learn how to
saddle and bridle my own horse and to look after my arms and
equipment; also, he did not want his son to enjoy the least
privilege, as this would have had a bad effect on the rest of the
troops. It was already enough that I was to be allowed to join a
squadron without undergoing a long and wearisome period of
training at the depot. I passed several days with my father and
his staff, travelling about the district round Nice, which was
very beautiful, but the moment for my entry into the squadron
having arrived, my father asked Major Muller to send him Sergeant
Pertelay.

Now, there were two brothers of this name in the regiment, both
of them sergeants, but having nothing else, physically or
mentally in common, the elder being something of a scamp, while
the younger was thoroughly respectable. It was this latter whom
the colonel had intended to appoint as my mentor, but in the
short time which he and my father had spent together, Col. Picart
had forgotten, when naming Pertelay, to add the younger:
furthermore, this Pertelay was not in the part of the squadron
which was stationed in Nice, while the elder was in the very
company, the seventh, which I was about to join.

Major Muller believed that the colonel had named the elder to my
father and that this wild character had been chosen to open the
eyes of an innocent and shy young man, which I then was. So he
sent us the elder Pertelay.

This example of the old type of Hussar was a rowdy, quarrelsome,
swashbuckling, tippler, but also brave to the point of
foolhardiness; for the rest, he was completely ignorant of
anything that was not connected with his horse, his arms and his
duties in the face of the enemy. Pertelay the younger, on the
other hand, was quiet, polite, and well-educated. He was a
handsome man and just as brave as his brother, and would surely
have gone far had he not, while still very young, been killed in
action.

Now to return to the elder. He arrived at my father's quarters,
and what did we see? A fine fellow, very well turned out it is
true, but with his shako tipped over one ear, his sabre trailing
on the ground, his red face slashed by an immense scar,
moustaches six inches long, which, stiffened by wax, curled up
into his ears, two big plaits of hair, braided from his temples,
which, escaping from his shako, hung down to his chest, and with
all this an air...! An air of rakishness which was increased by
his speech, which was rattled out in a sort of Franco-Alsatian
patois. This last did not surprise my father, as he knew that the
1st Hussars were the former regiment of Bercheny, which in
earlier days recruited only Germans, and where, until 1793, all
the orders were given in German, which was the language generally
used by the officers and men, almost all of whom came from the
provinces bordering the Rhine. My father was however exceedingly
surprised by the style and manner of my proposed mentor.

I learned later that he had hesitated to put me in the hands of
this bravo, but M. Gault having reminded him that Colonel Picart
had described him as the best N.C.O.in the squadron, he decided
to try it. So off I went with Pertelay, who, taking me by the arm
without ceremony, came to my room, showed me how to pack my kit
into my valise, and conducted me to a small barracks, situated in
a former monastery, and now occupied by a squadron of the 1st
Hussars.

My mentor made me saddle and unsaddle the pretty little horse
which my father had bought me; then he showed me how to put on my
cloak and my arms, giving me a complete demonstration, and having
decided that he had explained to me all that was necessary, he
thought it time to go for dinner. My father, who wished me to eat
with my mentor, had given us extra money to meet the expense.

Pertelay took me to a small inn, which was crammed with Hussars,
Grenadiers and soldiers of every sort. We were served with a
meal, and on the table was placed an enormous bottle of red wine
of the most violent nature. Pertelay poured me a glassful. We
clinked glasses. My man emptied his and I raised mine without
putting it to my lips, for I had never drunk undiluted wine and I
found the smell of this liquid disagreeable. I admitted this to
my mentor, who shouted, in a stentorian voice, "Waiter! Bring
some lemonade for this boy who never drinks wine." A gale of
laughter swept through the room. I was mortified, but I could not
bring myself to taste this wine, and as I did not dare to ask for
water, I dined without a drink.

A soldier's apprenticeship has always been hard going. It was
particularly so at the time of which I write. I had, therefore,
some unhappy experiences to suffer. A thing I found unbearable
was the requirement to share my bed with another Hussar. The
regulations allotted only one bed for two soldiers. N.C.O.s alone
were allowed to have a bed each. On the first night which I spent
in the barracks, I had already gone to my bed when a tall,
ungainly Hussar, who arrived an hour after the others, approached
it, and seeing that it was occupied, he unhooked a lantern and
stuck it under my nose to examine me more closely. Then he got
undressed. As I watched him, I had no idea that he intended to
get in beside me; but I was soon disillusioned, when he said to
me roughly, "Shove over, conscript!" And got into the bed, taking
up three-quarters of it, and began to snore loudly. I was unable
to sleep a wink, largely because of the revolting odour arising
from a large package which my comrade had placed under the
bolster, to raise his head. I could not think what this could be,
so to find out, I slid my hand gently toward this object and
found it to be a leather apron impregnated with cobbler's wax,
which shoemakers use to treat their thread. My amiable bed
companion was one of the men employed by the regimental
bootmaker. I was so disgusted that I got up, got dressed, and
went to the stables where I bedded down on a heap of straw. The
next day I told Pertelay of my misadventure, and he reported it
to the sub-lieutenant commanding the platoon. He was a
well-educated man named Leisteinschneider (in German, a
stone-worker) who was later killed in action. He understood how
painful it must be for me to have to sleep with a bootmaker, and
he took it on himself to arrange for me to have a bed in the
N.C.O's room, something which pleased me greatly.

Although the revolution had produced a great relaxation in the
general turn-out of troops, the 1st Hussars had kept theirs
exactly as it was when they were Bercheny's Hussars; so except
for the physical differences imposed by nature, all troopers had
to resemble one another in their appearance, and as the regiments
of Hussars of that period had not only pig-tails, but long
plaited tresses which hung from their temples and turned-up
moustaches, it was the rule that everyone belonging to the
regiment must have moustache, pig-tail and tresses. Now, as I had
none of these things, my mentor took me to the regimental
wig-maker where I bought a false pig-tail and tresses, which were
attached to my own hair, already fairly long, as I had let it
grow since my enlistment. These embellishments embarrassed me at
first but I got used to them in a few days, and it pleased me to
imagine that they gave me the appearance of a seasoned trooper.
It was a different matter when it came to the moustache I had no
more of a moustache than a girl, and as a hairless face would
have spoiled the ranks of the squadron, Pertelay, as was the
custom of Bercheny, took a pot of black wax, and with his thumb
he gave me an enormous curling moustache, which covered my upper
lip and reached almost to, my eyes. The shakos of the time did
not have a vizor, so that, when I was on guard duty, or during an
inspection, when one has to remain perfectly still, the Italian
sun, shining hotly onto my face, sucked the moisture out of the
wax of which my moustache was made, and, as it dried it pulled at
my skin in a most disagreeable manner. However, I did not blink.
I was a Hussar! A word that had for me an almost magical
significance; besides which, having engaged in a military career,
I understood very well that my first duty was to obey the
regulations.

My father and part of his division were still in Nice, when we
heard of the events of the 18th Brumaire, the overthrow of the
Directorate and the establishment of the Consulate. My father had
too much contempt for the Directorate to regret its downfall, but
he feared that, intoxicated by power, General Bonaparte, after
re-establishing order in France, would not restrict himself to
the modest title of consul, and he predicted to us that in a
short time he would aim to become king. My father was mistaken
only in the title, four years later Napoleon made himself
emperor.

Whatever his misgivings about the future, my father congratulated
himself on not having been in Paris on the 18th Brumaire, and I
believe that had he been there he might well have opposed the
actions of General Bonaparte, but in the army, at the head of a
division facing the enemy, he was content to adopt the passive
obedience of the soldier. He even rejected proposals, which were
made to him by a number of generals and colonels, to march on
Paris at the head of their troops. "Who," he said to them, "will
defend our frontiers if we abandon them? And what will become of
France if, to the war against foreigners, we add the calamity of
civil strife?" By these wise observations he calmed down the
hot-heads; but he was, nonetheless, very disturbed by the coup
which had just taken place: he adored his country and would have
greatly preferred that it could have been saved without being
submitted to the yoke of a dictator.

I have said that my father's principle reason for making me
enlist as a lowly Hussar had been to rid me of the simple notions
of a schoolboy, which had not been changed by my short
acquaintance with the world of Paris. The result exceeded his
expectations, for living amongst swaggering Hussars, and having
as a mentor a sort of brigand who laughed at my innocence, I
began to howl with the wolves, and for fear that I might be
mocked for my timidity, I became a real devil. This, however, was
not enough for me to be accepted into a sort of brotherhood,
which under the name of the clique, had members in all the
squadrons the 1st Hussars.

The clique was made up of all the biggest rogues, but, at the
same time, some of the bravest men in the regiment. The members
of the clique supported one another against all opposition,
particularly in the face of the enemy. They called themselves the
Jokers, and recognised one another by a notch cut into the metal
of the first button on the right hand row of the pelisse and
dolman. The officers were aware of the existence of the clique,
but as its worst crimes were limited to the adroit theft of
chickens or sheep, or some trick played on the local inhabitants,
and as the Jokers were always at the forefront in any action,
they turned a blind eye. I was young and feckless, and I longed
desperately to belong to this raffish society, which I thought
would raise my standing amongst my comrades; but it was in vain
that I frequented the salle-d'armes to practice swordsmanship and
the use of the pistol and carbine, and that I dug my elbows into
anyone who got in my way: allowed my sabre to trail on the ground
and tipped my shako over one ear, the members of the clique
regarded me as a child and refused to admit me to their society.
However, an unforeseen event led to my being accepted
unanimously.

The army of Italy was at this time in Liguria and spread out on a
front of more than sixty miles in length, the right of which was
in the Gulf of Spezzia, beyond Genoa, and the left at Nice and
Var, that is to say on the frontier of France. We had, therefore,
the sea at our backs, and we faced Piedmont, which was occupied
by the Austrian army, from which we were separated by that branch
of the Apennines which runs from Var to Gavi: a bad position, in
which the army ran the risk of being cut in two, which, in fact,
happened some months later.

My father, having been ordered to concentrate his division at
Savona, a small town, by the sea, ten leagues towards France from
Genoa, set up his headquarters in the bishop's palace. The
infantry was spread out among the market towns and villages of
the neighbourhood to keep watch on the valleys from which emerged
the roads which led to Piedmont. The 1st Hussars, who had come
from Nice to Savona, were encamped on a plain known as the
Madona. The outposts of the enemy were at Dego, four or five
leagues from us, on the forward slopes of the Apennines, whose
summits were covered in snow, whereas Savona and its surroundings
enjoyed the mildest of climates.

Our encampment would have been delightful if the rations had been
more plentiful; but there was at that time no main road from Nice
to Genoa; the sea was covered by English warships, so the army
had to live on what could be brought by detachments of mules
along the Corniche, or by small boat-loads, which could slip
unnoticed along the coast. These precarious supplies were
scarcely enough to provide, from day to day, sufficient food to
support the troops; but, happily, the country produced plenty of
wine, which enabled them to bear their privations with more
resignation.

One fine day I was walking along the beach with my mentor when we
came on a "taverna," where there was a charming garden planted
with orange and lemon trees, under which were tables at which sat
soldiers of all kinds. He suggested that we went there, and
although I had never overcome my distaste for wine, I agreed,
simply to please him.

In those days the cavalryman's belt did not have a hook, so that
when we went on foot, it was necessary to hold up the scabbard of
the sabre with one's left hand, and one could allow the end to
trail on the ground. This made a noise on the pavement, and
looked rather dashing, so of course I had to adopt this way of
doing things. Thus it happened that as we went into this garden,
the end of my scabbard came in contact with the foot of an
enormous horse-gunner, who was sprawled on his chair with his
legs sticking out. The horse artillery had been formed at the
beginning of the revolutionary wars from men taken from the
companies of Grenadiers, who took advantage of the occasion to
get rid of their most troublesome characters. The men of the
flying artillery, as it was then called, were known for their
dash, but also for their love of quarreling.

The one whose foot the end of my scabbard had touched, shouted to
me in a very rude tone of voice, "Hussar, your sabre drags too
much!" I was going to walk on without saying any thing, when
master Pertelay, nudging me with his elbow, whispered, "Tell him
to come and lift it up." So I said to the gunner "Come and lift
it up then!" "That will be easy!" he replied. Then, at another
whisper from Pertelay, "I'd like to see you do it!" I said. On
these words, the gunner, or this Goliath, for he was at least six
feet tall, sat up straight with a threatening air... But my
mentor pushed himself between him and me. All the gunners who
were in the garden came to support their comrade, but a crowd of
Hussars gathered beside Pertelay and me. There was a lot of angry
shouting with everyone talking at once; I thought there was going
to be a general melee. However as the Hussars were in a majority
of at least two to one, they took the matter the more calmly,
while the gunners realised that if they started something they
would get the worst of it, so in the end the giant was made to
understand that in brushing his foot with my scabbard, I had in
no way insulted him, and that should be the end of the matter.

During the tumult, however, a trumpeter from the artillery, of
about twenty years of age, had offered me some insults, and in my
indignation I had pushed him so roughly that he had fallen into a
muddy ditch. It was agreed that this lad and I should fight a
duel with our sabres.

We left the garden, followed by all the assistants, and found
ourselves by the edge of the sea, on fine solid sand, ready for
battle. Pertelay knew that I was quite a good swordsman; however
he gave me some words of advice on how I should attack my
adversary, and fastened the hilt of my sabre to my hand with a
large handkerchief, which he rolled round my arm.

My father hated duelling. Not only because of his own conclusions
about this barbarous custom, but also, I believe, because in his
youth, when he was a member of the bodyguard, he had acted as
second for a comrade of whom he was very fond, and who was killed
in a duel over the most trivial matter. However that may be, when
my father took command, he ordered the police to arrest anyone
caught engaging in swordplay and bring them before him.

Although the trumpeter and I both knew of this order, we had,
nevertheless, taken off our dolmans and taken up our sabres. I
had my back to the town of Savona, my adversary was facing it,
and we were about to begin our combat when I saw the trumpeter
duck to one side, pick up his dolman and make off at top speed.

"Coward!....Runaway!" I shouted, and was about to, pursue him
when two iron hands grasped me by the collar. I turned my head
and found myself facing some eight to ten police! I understood
then why my antagonist had cleared off, followed by all the
assistants, including master Pertelay, whom I saw disappearing
into the distance, as fast as their legs could carry them, for
fear of being arrested and brought before the General.

There I was! Disarmed and a prisoner! I picked up my dolman, and
looking very sheepish, followed my captors, to whom I had not
given my name, as they led me to the Bishop's palace where my
father was installed. He was at that moment with General Suchet,
who had come to Savona to confer with him on service matters.
They were walking in a gallery which overlooked the courtyard.
The police put me up before General Marbot, without any idea that
I was his son. The sergeant explained why I had been arrested.
Then my father, looking very severe, gave me a lively dressing
down, after which admonition, he said to the sergeant, "Take this
Hussar to the citadel." I left without saying a word, and without
General Suchet, who did not know me, suspecting that the scene he
had just witnessed had taken place between a father and his son.
It was not until the next day that he learned the truth, and he
has often spoken to me since, with laughter, about the episode.

On my arrival at the citadel, an ancient Genoese building
situated near the harbour, I was locked into a big room lit by a
high window, which faced toward the sea. I recovered slowly from
my fright. The reprimand which I had received seemed to me to be
deserved; however I was less concerned at having disobeyed the
General than I was at having upset my father. I passed the rest
of the day sadly enough.

In the evening, an old ex-soldier of the Genoan force brought me
a jug of water, a piece of ration bread, and a bale of straw, on
which I lay down, without being able to eat. I could not go to
sleep; at first because I was too upset, and later because of the
arrival of some large rats, which ran about me and soon made off
with my piece of bread. I was lying in the dark, a prey to my sad
reflections, when, at about ten o'clock, I heard the bolts of my
prison being drawn and I saw Spire, my father's old and faithful
servant. He told me that after my despatch to the citadel, Capt.
Gault, Col. Menard, and all my father's officers had asked him to
pardon me. The General had agreed, and had sent him, Spire, to
find me and take the order for my release to the governor of the
fort. I was taken before the governor, General Buget, an
excellent man, who had lost an arm in battle. He knew me and was
very fond of my father. He felt it his duty, after giving me back
my sabre, to give me a long lecture, to which I listened
patiently, but which made me reflect that I would get a much
worse telling-off from my father. I did not have the courage to
face this and decided to evade it, if that were possible.  At
last we were let out of the gates of the citadel. The night was
dark, and Spire went in front with a lantern. As we walked
through the narrow twisting streets, the good fellow, delighted
to be bringing me back, recounted all the comforts which would
await me at headquarters. "But," he said, "you must expect a
severe ticking-off from your father." This last remark put an end
to my doubts, and in order to let my father's anger cool off, I
decided it would be better not to appear before him for a few
days and that I would return to my bivouac at Madona. I could
easily have slipped away without playing any trick on poor Spire;
but fearing that he might be able to pursue me by the light of
his lantern, I gave it a kick which sent it flying ten paces from
him, and ran off while the good man, groping for his lantern,
shouted, "Ah...! You little blighter! I shall tell your father!"

After wandering for some time in the deserted streets, I found at
last the road to Madona, and made my way to the regimental camp.
All the Hussars thought I was in prison. As soon as one of them
recognised me by the light of the fires, I was surrounded and
questioned. There was much laughter when I described how I had
got away from Spire. The members of the clique were so satisfied
with my behaviour that they decided unanimously to admit me into
their society, which was preparing an expedition to go, that very
night, to the gates of Dego and steal a herd of cattle which
belonged to the Austrian army. The French Generals and even the
corps commanders were obliged to ignore these raids, which, in
the absence of regular rations, the soldiers carried out beyond
the advance posts in order to obtain food. In each regiment the
boldest soldiers had formed marauding bands who were marvellously
skilled at finding out where supplies were being assembled for
the enemy, and using ruse and audacity to lay hands on them.

A rascally horse-dealer had told the clique that a herd of cattle
which he had sold to the Austrians was in a meadow a quarter of a
league from Dego, and now sixty Hussars, armed only with their
carbines, were on their way to capture it. Avoiding the main
road, we went several leagues into the mountain by winding and
atrociously rough tracks. We surprised five Croats, who had been
left to guard the herd, asleep in a shed. To prevent them from
going to waken the garrison at Dego, we tied them up and left
them there. We drove away the herd without a shot being fired and
returned to the camp, tired out, but delighted to have played
such a successful trick on the enemy, and at the same time
acquired some food.

This event illustrates the already wretched condition of the army
of Italy, and demonstrates to what a state of disorganisation
such neglect will bring troops; whose officers are obliged not
only to tolerate these sort of expeditions, but to take advantage
of the supplies they procure without seeming to know whence they
come.

Chap. 9.

Happy in my military career, I had not even reached the rank of
corporal when I was raised immediately to that of sergeant. This
is how it came about.

On the left of my father's division was that commanded by General
Seras, whose headquarters were at Finale. This division, which
occupied the part of Liguria where the mountains are steepest,
was composed solely of infantry, the cavalry being unable to
operate, except in small detachments, on the few open spaces
which at this point separate the shore of the Mediterranean from
the mountains of Piedmont. General Seras, having been ordered to
push forward with the greater part of his division to reconnoitre
the area of Mount Santa-Giacomo, beyond which there were several
valleys, wrote to my father requesting the loan of a detachment
of fifty Hussars for this expedition; a request which could not
be turned down. So my father agreed and named Lt.
Leisteinschneider as commander of this detachment, of which my
platoon was a part.

We left Madona to make our way to Finale. There was, at that
time, only a very bad road along the sea coast, known as the
Corniche. The lieutenant badly injured his foot as a result of a
fall from his horse, and so the command passed to the next in
seniority who was a sergeant named Canon, a handsome young man,
capable and well-trained, and full of self-assurance.

General Seras, at the head of his division, advanced next day
onto the snow-clad slopes of Mount Santa-Giacomo, where we
encamped.  He had intended to go forward the next day, with he
almost certain expectation of making contact with the enemy; but
in how great a number? On this subject the General had absolutely
no information, and as his orders from the commander-in-chief
were to reconnoitre the Austrian positions at this point of the
line, but not to engage in combat if he found the enemy in
strength, General Seras reflected that if he advanced his
infantry division into the middle of the mountains, where often
one could not see enemy troops until one found oneself face to
face with them at a bend in a gorge, he might be led, in spite of
his wishes, into a major battle against superior forces, and
obliged to carry out a dangerous retreat.

He decided therefore to proceed with caution, and to push out,
three or four leagues in front of him, an advance party which
could probe the country and, most importantly, take some
prisoners, from whom he hoped to get some information; for the
peasantry either knew nothing or would not talk. As a small body
of infantry would be endangered if he advanced them too far, and
as, also, men on foot would take too long to return with the
information which he so urgently needed, it was to the fifty
Hussars that he gave the task of going ahead and exploring the
terrain. Then, as the country was very broken, he gave a map to
our sergeant, briefed him, in front of the detachment and sent us
off, two hours before daylight, repeating that it was essential
that we went ahead until we made contact with the enemy outposts,
from which he would very much like us to capture a few prisoners.

Sergeant Canon managed his detachment according to the book. He
sent out a small advance-guard, put scouts on the flanks and took
all the precautions usual in partisan warfare. When we had gone
some two leagues from the camp, we came on a large inn. Our
sergeant questioned the inn-keeper and was told that, a good
hour's march away, was a body of Austrian troops, the size of
which he did not know, though he knew that the leading regiment
contained some very unpleasant Hussars, who had maltreated a
number of the local inhabitants.

Having gathered this information, we set off once more, but
hardly had we gone a hundred paces, when Sergeant Canon, writhing
on his horse, declared that he had the most dreadful pain and
could not go any further. He handed the command to Sergeant
Pertelay, who was next in seniority. Pertelay, however pointed
out that he was an Alsatian and was unable to read French, and
could not, in consequence, understand the map or the written
instructions given by the general. He did not wish to accept the
command. All the other sergeants, old Bercheny Hussars, refused
for the same reason, as did the corporals.  In vain, as a matter
of duty, I offered to read the general's instructions and explain
our route on the map for any of the sergeants who would take
over; they all refused anew; then, to my great surprise, these
old sweats turned to me and said "Take command yourself. We'll
follow you and obey all your orders."

The rest of the party expressed the same wish, and it was clear
that if I refused, we would go no further and the honour of the
regiment would be blemished; for it was essential that the
general's orders were carried out, above all when it was perhaps
a matter of avoiding a disaster for his division. So I accepted
the command, but not without asking Sergeant Canon if he felt
able to continue. At which point he began to complain once more,
left us and returned to the inn. I promise you I thought he was
really ill, but the men of the detachment, who knew him better,
made some very disparaging remarks about him.

I think I can say, without boasting, that nature has endowed me
with a good stock of courage. I might even add that there was a
time when I enjoyed facing danger. My military record and the
thirteen wounds I have received in the wars are, I believe,
sufficient proof. So, on taking command of fifty men, placed
under my orders in such extraordinary circumstances,--me, a
simple Hussar, seventeen years of age--I resolved to prove to my
comrades that if I had neither experience nor military talent, I
was at least brave; and placing myself resolutely at their head I
set off in the direction where I knew we would encounter the
enemy.

We had been marching for a long time when our scouts spotted a
peasant who was trying to hide. They hastened to capture him and
bring him back. I questioned him. He came, it seemed, from four
or five leagues away, and claimed that he had not seen any
Austrian troops. I was sure he was lying, either from fear or
from cunning, because we were very close to the enemy
cantonments. I remembered then that I had read in a book about
partisan warfare, which my father had given me to study, that to
persuade the inhabitants of a country in which one is fighting to
talk, it is sometimes necessary to frighten them. So I roughened
my voice, and, trying to give my boyish face a ferocious look, I
shouted, "What! You rascal! You have been wandering about in a
country occupied by a great body of Austrian troops, and you
claim you have seen nothing? You are a spy! Come on lads, let's
shoot him right away."

I ordered four Hussars to dismount, indicating to them not to
harm the fellow, who, finding himself held by the troopers whose
carbines had just been loaded in front of him, was overcome by
such terror that he swore that he would tell me all he knew. He
was a servant in a monastery, who had been given a letter to take
to relatives of the Prior, and he had been told that if he ran
into the French, he was not to tell them where the Austrians
were; but now that he was forced to speak, he told us that a
league from us there were several regiments of the enemy billeted
in the villages, and that about a hundred of Barco's Hussars were
in a hamlet which was only a short distance away. Questioned
about the defensive precautions taken by these Hussars, he said
that before one reached the houses, they had posted a
picket-guard which was in a garden surrounded by hedges, and that
when he went through the hamlet, the remainder were preparing to
water their horses at a little pond on the far side of the
buildings.

Having received this information, I had now to make a plan of
action. I wished to avoid passing the picket-guard who, being
entrenched behind hedges, could not be attacked by cavalry, while
the fire from their carbines would perhaps kill several of my men
and give warning of our approach. To do this required that we go
round the hamlet, so as to reach the pond, and fall,
unexpectedly, on our enemies. But how were we to pass without
being seen? I then ordered the peasant to lead us on a detour,
and promised to set him free as soon as we reached the other side
of the hamlet, which we could see: when he refused to do so, I
had him taken by the scruff of the neck by one Hussar while
another held a pistol to his ear, which made him change his mind.
He guided us very well; some large hedges hid our movements, and
we got completely round the village to see, at the edge of a
small pond, the Austrian squadron peacefully watering their
horses. All the riders were carrying their arms, which is the
usual practice for outposts, but those in command had neglected a
precaution which is essential in war, that is, to allow only one
troop at a time to unbridle their horses and enter the water,
while the remainder stay on the bank ready to repel any attack.
Confident that there were no French about and relying on the
watchfulness of the guard posted at the entry to the village, the
enemy commander had thought this precaution unnecessary. This was
to be his downfall.

When I was some five hundred paces from the pond, I ordered the
peasant to be released, who ran off as fast as his legs could
carry him; then, sabre in hand, and having forbidden my comrades
to utter any war-cry, I advanced at full gallop on the enemy
Hussars, who did not see us until a moment before we arrived at
the pond. The pond's banks were too high for the horses to climb
out, and there was only one practicable way in, which was the one
that served as the village drinking place. It is true that this
was a wide area, but there were more than a hundred horsemen
crowded together there, all with their bridles in their hands and
their carbines slung, so unconcerned that some of them were
singing. You may imagine their surprise!

I attacked them immediately with carbine fire, which killed
several, wounded many and knocked out a lot of their horses. The
confusion was total! Nevertheless, their captain, rallying some
men who were nearest to the outlet, tried to force a passage to
get out of the water, and opened fire on us, which although not
sustained, wounded two of my men; they then engaged us, but
Pertelay having killed the captain with a blow from his sabre,
the rest crowded back into the pond. To escape from the carbine
fire, many tried to reach the other bank; several lost their
footing and a good number of men and horses were floundering in
the water. Those who reached the other side found that their
horses could not clamber up the steep edge and so they abandoned
them, and pulling themselves up by the aid of trees growing along
the bank, they fled in disorder into the countryside.

The twelve men of the picket-guard came running at the sound of
firing. We attacked them with the sabre and they also took to
flight. However there remained about thirty men still in the
pond, afraid to try to escape because we occupied the only way
out. They shouted to us that they were surrendering; I accepted
this and as they came to the bank, made them throw down their
arms. Most of these men and horses were wounded, but as I wished
to have some trophy from our victory, I chose seventeen horses
and riders who were fit, and placing them in the middle of the
detachment,I abandoned the rest and went off at the gallop, going
round the village, as before.

It was just as well that I made a rapid retreat, for as I had
foreseen, the fugitives had run to warn the nearby troops who had
already been alerted by the sound of gunfire, and within half an
hour there were five hundred horsemen on the banks of the little
pond and some thousands of infantrymen close behind them. We,
however, were two leagues away, our wounded having been able to
sustain a full gallop. We stopped for a short time on top of a
hill to bandage their wounds, and we laughed to see in the
distance several enemy columns following our trail, since we knew
that they had no hope of catching us, because in their fear of
falling into an ambush they were feeling their way forward very
slowly. Being now out of danger, I gave Pertelay two of the
best-mounted troopers and sent him off post-haste to inform
general Seras of the success of our mission; then marshalling the
detachment into good order, with our prisoners in the centre and
well guarded, I set off at a slow trot down the road to the inn.

It would be impossible for me to describe the joy of my
companions and the praises which they heaped on me during this
journey. It could be summed up in these words, which in their
minds was the highest commendation, "You are truly worthy to
serve in Bercheny's Hussars, the finest regiment in the world."

Meanwhile, what had been happening at Santo-Giacomo during my
absence? After several hours of waiting, General Seras, impatient
for news, saw some smoke on the horizon; his aide-de-camp put his
ear to a drum placed on the ground, a common expedient in
wartime, and heard the distant sound of gunfire. General Seras
was uneasy, and having no doubt that the cavalry detachment was
at grips with the enemy, he took a regiment of infantry with him
as far as the inn. When he arrived there, he saw, under the
cart-shelter, a Hussar's horse tied up to the rail; it was
Sergeant Canon's. The inn-keeper appeared and was questioned. He
replied that the sergeant of Hussars had gone no further than the
inn, and had been, for several hours, in the dining room. The
General went in, and what did he find but Sergeant Canon asleep
by the fireside with, in front of him, an enormous ham, two empty
bottles and a coffee cup! The wretched sergeant was woken up; he
attempted once more to make the excuse of a sudden indisposition,
but the accusing remains of the formidable meal which he had just
eaten, gave the lie to his claims of illness, so General Seras
was very short with him. The General's anger was increasing at
the thought that a detachment of fifty cavalrymen handed over to
the command of a young soldier had probably been wiped out by the
enemy, when Pertelay and the two troopers who were with him
arrived at the gallop to announce our victory and the approaching
arrival of seventeen prisoners. As General Seras, in spite of
this happy outcome, continued to berate Sergeant Canon, Pertelay
said to him, in his bluff outspoken way, "Don't scold him, mon
General, he's such a coward that if he'd been in charge we
wouldn't have succeeded!" A remark which did nothing to improve
the awkward position of Sgt. Canon, who was now placed under
arrest.

I arrived in the midst of these goings-on. General Seras broke
poor Sgt. Canon, and made him take off his chevrons in front of a
regiment of infantry and fifty Hussars. Then, coming to me, whose
name he did not know, he said, "You have carried out successfully
a mission which would normally be given only to an officer. I am
sorry that the powers of a divisional commander do not allow me
to promote you to sous-lieutenant, only the commander-in-chief
can do that, and I shall ask him to, do so, but in the meantime I
promote you to sergeant." He thereupon ordered his aide-de-camp
to announce this in front of the detachment. In order to carry
out this formality, the aide-de-camp had to ask my name, and it
was only then that General Seras learned that I was the son of
his comrade, General Marbot. I was very pleased about this,
because it demonstrated to my father that favouritism had nothing
to do with my promotion.

Chap. 10.

The information which General Seras obtained from the prisoners
having decided him to push forward, he ordered his division to
come down from the heights of Mont Santa-Giacomo, and to encamp
that evening near to the inn. The prisoners were sent to Finale,
and as for the horses they belonged by rights to the Hussars.
They were all of good quality, but, according to the custom of
the time, which was aimed at favouring poorly mounted officers,
captured horses were always sold for five louis. This was a fixed
price and was paid in cash. As soon as the camp was established
the sale began. General Seras, the officers of his staff, the
colonels and battalion commanders of the regiments in his
division soon took up our seventeen horses, which produced the
sum of 85 louis. This was handed over to my detachment, who, not
having had any pay for six months, were delighted with this
windfall, for which they gave me the credit.

I had some money, so I did not pocket my share from the sale of
the horses, but to celebrate my promotion, I bought from the
inn-keeper two sheep, an enormous cheese and a load of wine, with
which my detachment had a feast. This was one of the happiest
days of my life.

General Seras, in his report to General Championet included a
most flattering reference to my conduct, and said the same sort
of thing to my father; so when, several days later, I brought the
detachment back to Savona, my father welcomed me with the
greatest show of affection. I was highly delighted; I rejoined
the camp where all the regiment was united; my detachment had
arrived there before me and had told of what we had done, giving
me always the leading part in our success, so I was heartily
welcomed by the officers and soldiers and also by my new
comrades, the non-commissioned officers, who handed me my
sergeant's stripes.

It was on this day that I met the younger Pertelay for the first
time, he had come back from Genoa, where he had been stationed
for some months. I became friendly with this excellent man, and
regretted not having had him as my mentor at the beginning of my
career, for he gave me much good advice, which steadied me up and
made me break away from the wild men of the clique.

The commander-in-chief, Championet, intended to carry out some
operations in the interior of Piedmont, but having very little in
the way of cavalry, he ordered my father to send him the 1st
Hussars, who could no longer stay at Madon, in any case, because
of the shortage of fodder. I parted from my father with much
regret and left with the regiment.

We went along the Corniche as far as Albenga. We crossed the
Apennines, in spite of the snow, and entered the fertile plains
of Piedmont. The commander-in-chief fought a number of actions in
the area round Fossano, Novi and Mondovi, some of which were
successful and others not.

In one of these actions I had the opportunity of seeing
Brigadier-general Macard, a soldier of fortune whom the
revolutionary upheavals had carried almost straight from the rank
of trumpet-major to that of general! He was a good example of a
type of officer created by luck and their personal courage who,
although displaying much bravery before the enemy, were
nevertheless incapable of occupying effectively a senior position
because of their lack of education.

This extraordinary character, a veritable colossus, was well
known for one peculiarity. When about to lead his troops in a
charge against the enemy, it was his custom to shout "Let's go!
I'll put on my animal dress." Then he took off his uniform, his
jacket and shirt and retained only his plumed hat, his leather
breeches and his big boots! Thus, naked to the waist, he
displayed a torso almost as hairy as that of a bear, which gave
him a very strange appearance indeed.  Once in his animal dress,
as he called it, General Macard, sabre in hand, hurled himself at
the enemy horsemen, swearing like a pagan; but it so happened
that he rarely reached any of them, for at the unexpected and
terrible sight of this kind of giant, half naked and covered in
hair rushing toward them uttering the most fearsome yells the
enemy often fled in all directions, not knowing if they had to
deal with a man or some extraordinary wild beast.

General Macord was entirely ignorant, which sometimes amused the
more educated officers under his command. One day one of them
came to ask permission to go into a neighbouring town to order a
pair of boots. "Parbleu!" said the general, "This has come at
just the right time; since you are going to the bootmaker, sit
down and take the measurements of my boots and order a new pair
for me." The officer, much surprised, said that he could not take
the measurements as he had no idea how to do this, having never
been a boot-maker. "What!" exclaimed the general loudly, "I see
you sometimes spend whole days sketching and drawing lines
opposite the mountains and when I ask what you are doing, you say
you are measuring the mountains. How is it that you can measure
objects which are more than a league away, and yet you cannot
measure a pair of boots which are under your nose? Come on, take
the measurements quickly and no more nonsense." The officer
assured him that this was impossible. The general insisted;
swore; got angry; and it was only with great difficulty that
other officers, attracted by the noise, were able to put an end
to this ridiculous scene. The general could never understand how
a man who could measure mountains could not measure a pair of
men's boots.

You should not think, as a result of this anecdote, that all the
general officers in the army of Italy were like the good general
Macord. Far from that, they contained in their number many men
distinguished by their education and manners; but at this time
there were still some senior officers who were completely out of
place in the higher ranks of the army. They were being weeded out
little by little.

The 1st Hussars took part in all the battles fought at this time
in Piedmont, and suffered many losses in encounters with the
Austrian heavy cavalry. After some marching and countermarching,
and a series of almost daily minor engagements, General
Championet, having concentrated the centre and left of his army
between Coni and Mondovi, attacked, at the end of December,
several divisions of the enemy army.

The encounter took place on a plain dotted with small hills and
clumps of trees. The 1st Hussars, attached to General Beaumont's
brigade, were positioned on the extreme right of the French army.
As the number of officers and men who make up a squadron is laid
down in the regulations, our regiment, having suffered casualties
in the previous affairs, instead of putting four squadrons into
the line could put only three; but having done this, there were
some thirty men left over, of which five were sergeants. I was
one of this number, as were both the Pertelays. We were formed
into two sections and Pertelay the younger was put in command.
General Beaumont merely instructed him to scout on the right
flank of the army, and act as the situation seemed to require. We
then left the regiment and went to explore the countryside.

In the meanwhile, a fierce battle commenced between the two
armies, and an hour later, when we were returning to our own
lines without having spotted anything on the flank, young
Pertelay saw, opposite us, and consequently on the extreme left
of the enemy line, a battery of eight guns whose fire was raking
the French ranks.  Very unwisely, this Austrian battery, in order
to have a better field of fire, had advanced onto a small hillock
some seven or eight hundred paces in front of the infantry
division to which it belonged. The commander of this artillery
believed that he was quite safe because the position he occupied
dominated the whole French line, and he thought that if any
troops set out to attack him, he would see them and would have
time to regain the safety of the Austrian lines.  He had not
considered that a little clump of trees, close to where he was,
could conceal a party of French troops, and had thought no more
about it. But young Pertelay resolved to lead his men there, and
from there to fall upon the Austrian battery.

Pertelay, knowing that on the battlefield no one takes much
notice of a single horseman, explained his plan to us, which was
for us to go individually, making a detour by a sunken road, to
arrive one by one behind the wood on the left of the enemy
battery, and from there to make a sudden assault on it, without
the fear of cannon-balls, because we would be approaching from
the side. We would capture the guns and take them to the French
lines. The first part of this plan was executed without the
Austrian gunners noticing; we reached the back of the little
wood, where we re-formed the sections. Pertelay put himself at
our head. We went through the wood, and sabre in hand, threw
ourselves on the enemy battery at the moment when it was
directing a murderous fire on our troops. We sabred some of the
gunners, but the rest hid under their ammunition wagons, where
our sabres could not reach them. As instructed by Pertelay, we
did not kill or wound the men on the limbers, but forced them at
sword point to make their horses pull the guns toward the French
lines. This order was obeyed in respect of six guns whose riders
had remained on horseback, but the riders for the two other guns
had dismounted, and although some of the Hussars took the horses
by the bridle, they refused to move.

The enemy infantry were running to the aid of their battery;
minutes seemed like hours to us; so young Pertelay, satisfied to
have captured six guns, ordered us to leave the others and to
head, with our booty, at the gallop, for the French lines.

This was a prudent measure, but it proved fatal to our leader,
for hardly had we begun our retreat, when the gunners and their
officers emerged from their hiding places under the wagons,
loaded the two guns which we had not taken with grape-shot and
discharged a hail of bullets into our backs.

You can well imagine that thirty horsemen and six artillery
pieces, each drawn by six horses and ridden by three transport
riders, all proceeding in a state of disorder, presented a target
which the grape-shot could hardly miss. We had two sergeants and
several Hussars killed or wounded, as well as two of the
transport riders. Some of the horses were also put out of action,
so that most of the teams were so disorganised that they could
not move.  Pertelay, keeping perfectly cool, ordered the traces
of the dead or injured horses to be cut and Hussars to take the
place of the dead transport riders, and we continued quickly on
our way. However, the commander of the Austrian battery made use
of the few minutes we had taken to do this to direct a second
volley of grape-shot at us, which caused further casualties, but
we were so resolved not to abandon the six guns which we had
captured that we repaired the damage as well as we could, and
kept on the move. We were already in touch with the French lines
and out of the range of grape-shot, when the enemy artillery
officer changed projectiles and fired two cannon-balls at us, one
of which shattered the back of poor young Pertelay.

However, our attack on the Austrian battery and its outcome had
been seen by the French generals who moved the line forward. The
enemy drew back, which allowed the remnants of the 1st Hussars to
revisit the area where our unfortunate comrades had fallen.
Almost a third of the detachment were killed or wounded. There
were five sergeants at the beginning of the action; three had
perished; there remained only Pertelay the elder and myself. The
poor fellow was wounded but suffered almost more mentally, for he
adored his brother, whom we all bitterly regretted. While we were
paying him our last respects and picking up the wounded, General
Championet arrived with General Suchet, his chief-of-staff. The
commander-in-chief had witnessed the actions of the platoon. He
gathered us round the six guns which we had just captured, and
after praising the courage with which we had rid the French army
of a battery which was causing them the most grievous losses, he
added that to reward us for having saved the lives of so many of
our comrades, and contributed to the day's success, he intended
to use the power which a recent decree of the First Consul had
given him to award "Armes d'honneur" and that he would award
three sabres of honour and one promotion to sous-lieutenant to
the detachment, who should decide amongst themselves who the
recipients should be. We then regretted even more keenly the loss
of young Pertelay, who would have made such a fine officer.

The elder Pertelay, a corporal and a Hussar were awarded the
sabres of honour, which, three years later gave the right to the
Cross of the Legion of Honour. It remained to be decided which of
us would be sous-lieutenant. All my comrades put my name forward,
and the commander-in-chief, recalling that General Seras had
written to him about my conduct at Santa-Giacomo, designated me
sous-lieutenant...! I had been a sergeant for only a month! I
have to admit, however, that during the capture of the guns, I
had done no more than the rest of my companions; but as I have
already said, these good Alsatians did not feel that they had the
qualities to take command and become officers. They were
unanimous in choosing me, and General Championet, as well as
noting the favourable comments of General Seras, was perhaps also
glad to be able to please my father.

My father, however, was less than pleased with what he considered
to be my over-rapid promotion, and he wrote to me instructing me
to refuse it. I would have obeyed; but my father had written in
the same strain to General Suchet, the chief-of-staff, and this
latter had replied that the commander-in-chief would be very put
out to find that one of his divisional generals had taken it upon
himself to disapprove of a promotion which he had made. My father
then authorised me to accept, and I was gazetted sous-Lieutenant
in December 1799.

I was one of the last officers promoted by General Championet,
who, not being able to remain in Piedmont in the face of superior
forces, was compelled to re-cross the Apennines and lead his army
back to Liguria. He was greatly distressed to see his force
breaking down, because he was not given enough supplies to
support it, and he died two weeks after he had made me an
officer. My father, who was now the most senior divisional
general, was made provisional commander-in-chief of the army of
Italy, whose headquarters were at Nice. He therefore went there
and immediately sent back to Provence the few remaining cavalry,
as there was no longer any fodder in Liguria. So the 1st Hussars
went back to France, but my father kept me behind to become his
aide-de-camp.

While we were at Nice, my father received an order from the war
ministry to go and take command of the advance guard of the army
of the Rhine, where his chief-of-staff Col. Menard would join
him. We were very pleased at this, since want of supplies had
reduced the army of Italy to such a state of disorder that it
seemed impossible that it could be kept in Liguria. My father was
not sorry to be leaving an army which was disintegrating, and was
likely to be pushed back across the Var and into France. He
prepared to move as soon as General Massena, who had been
nominated to replace him, had arrived. He sent M. Gault, his
aide-de-camp, to Paris to buy maps and make various preparations
for our operations on the Rhine. But fate had decreed otherwise,
and my unfortunate father's grave was destined to be in Italy.

When Massena arrived he found no more than the shadow of an army:
the soldiers, without pay and almost without clothing and
footwear, existing on a quarter of the normal ration, were dying
of malnutrition as well as an epidemic of disease, the result of
the intolerable privations which they were suffering. The
hospitals were full but had no medicines. Some groups of
soldiers, and even whole regiments, were daily abandoning their
posts and heading for the bridge across the Var, where they
forced a passage to get into France and spread themselves over
Provence, although saying that they were willing to return if
they were given food! The generals were unable to remedy this
appalling state of affairs. They became, daily more discouraged,
and all were requesting leave or retiring on the grounds of
ill-health. Massena had expected that he would be joined in Italy
by several of the generals who had helped him to defeat the
Russians in Switzerland, among them, Soult, Oudinot and Gazan,
but none of them had yet arrived, and it was essential to do
something about the serious situation.

Massena, who was born in La Turbie, a village in the little
principality of Monaco, was one of the most crafty Italians that
ever existed. He did not know my father, but he decided on their
first meeting that he was a big-hearted man who loved his
country, and, to persuade him to stay, he played on these
sensitive areas, his generosity and his patriotism, suggesting to
him how much nobler it would be for him to continue to serve in
the unhappy army of Italy rather than go to the Rhine. He said
that he would take the responsibility for the failure to carry
out the orders given to my father by the government if he would
agree to stay. My father, beguiled by these speeches and not
wishing to leave the new commander in a mess, consented to remain
with him. He did not doubt that his chief-of-staff, Col. Menard,
his friend, would also give up the idea of going to the Rhine;
but this was not to be. Menard stuck to the order he had been
given, although he was assured that it would be cancelled if he
wished. My father felt very badly about this desertion. Menard
hurried off to Paris, where he took the job of chief-of-staff to
general Lefebvre.

My father went to Genoa, where he took command of the three
divisions which composed the right wing of the army. Despite all
the shortages, the winter carnival was quite gay in the town, the
Italians being so pleasure-loving! We were lodged in the
Centurione Palace, where we spent the end of the winter
1799-1800. My father had left Spire at Nice with the greater part
of his baggage. He now took on Col. Sacleux as his
chief-of-staff, an admirable man, a good soldier, with a very
pleasant personality, if somewhat solemn and serious-minded. He
had as his secretary a young man by the name of Colindo, the son
of a banker, Signor Trepano of Parma, whom he had picked up after
a series of adventures too long to relate here, who became my
very good friend.

Early in the spring of 1800, my father was told that General
Massena intended to give the command of the right wing to General
Soult, who had just arrived, and was much my father's junior, and
he was ordered to go back to Savona and head his old division,
the third. My father obeyed, though his pride was hurt by this
new posting.

Chap. 11.

A serious situation was developing in Italy. Massena had received
some reinforcements; he had established a little order in his
army, and the campaign of 1800, which led to the memorable siege
of Genoa and the battle of Marengo, was about to begin.

The snows which covered the mountains separating the two armies
having melted, the Austrians attacked us, and their first efforts
were directed upon my father's division, the third, stationed at
the right of the French line, which they wished to separate from
the centre and the left by driving them back from Savona to
Genoa.

As soon as hostilities commenced, my father and Col. Sacleux sent
all the non-combatants to Genoa; Colindo was among them. As for
me, I was thoroughly enjoying myself, exhilarated as I was by the
sight of marching troops, the noisy movements of artillery and
the excitement of a young soldier at the prospect of action. I
was far from suspecting that this war would become so terrible
and would cost me so dear.

My father's division, fiercely attacked by greatly superior
forces, defended for two days positions at Cadibone and
Montenotte, but eventually, seeing themselves on the point of
being outflanked, they had to retire to Voltri, and from there to
Genoa, where they shut themselves in, together with the two other
divisions of the right wing.

I had heard all the well-informed generals deploring the
circumstances which forced our separation from the centre and the
left, but I had at that time so little understanding of the
principles of warfare that I took no notice. I understood well
enough that we had been defeated, but as I personally had
overcome, before Montenotte, an officer of Burco's Hussars, and
taking the plume from his shako, had fastened it proudly to the
head-band of my bridle, it seemed to me that I was like a knight
of the middle-ages returning laden with the spoils of the
infidel.

My childish vanity was soon crushed by a dreadful event. During
the retreat, and at a moment when my father was giving me an
order to take, he was hit by a bullet in the left leg, which had
been wounded once before, in the army of the Pyrenees. The injury
was serious, and my father would have fallen from his horse if he
had not leaned on me. I took him out of the battle area. His
wound was dressed. I shed tears as I saw his blood flow, but he
tried to calm me, saying that a soldier should have more courage.
My father was carried to the Centurione Palace in Genoa, where he
had lived during the preceding winter. Our three divisions having
entered Genoa, the Austrians blockaded it by land, and the
English by sea.

I can hardly bring myself to describe the sufferings of the
garrison and the population of Genoa during the two months for
which this siege lasted. Famine, fighting and an epidemic of
typhus did immense damage. The garrison lost ten thousand men out
of sixteen thousand, and there were collected from the streets,
every day, seven or eight hundred of the bodies of the
inhabitants, of every age, sex, and condition, which were taken
behind the church of Carignan to an immense pit filled with
quick-lime. The number of victims rose to more than thirty
thousand.

For you to understand just how badly the lack of food was felt by
the inhabitants, I should explain that the ancient rulers of
Genoa, in order to control the populace, had from time immemorial
exercised a monopoly over grain, flour and bread, which was
operated by a vast establishment protected by cannons and guarded
by soldiers, so that when the Doge or the Senate wished to
prevent or put down a revolt, they closed the state ovens and
reduced the people to starvation.  Although by this time the
constitution of Genoa had been greatly modified and the
aristocracy now had very little influence, there was not, however
a single private bakery, and the old system of making bread in
the public ovens was still in operation. Now, these public
bakeries, which normally provided for a population of a hundred
and twenty thousand souls, were closed for forty-five days out of
the sixty for which the siege lasted. Neither rich nor poor could
buy bread. The little in the way of dried vegetables and rice
which was in the shops had been bought up at the beginning of the
siege at greatly inflated prices. The troops alone were given a
small ration of a quarter of a pound of horse flesh and a quarter
of a pound of what was called bread. This was a horrible mixture
of various flours, bran, starch, chalk, linseed, oatmeal, rancid
nuts and other evil substances. General Thibauld in his diary of
the siege described as "Turf mixed with oil."

For forty five days neither bread nor meat was on sale to the
public. The richest were able (at the start the siege only,) to
buy some dried cod, figs and some other dried goods such as
sugar. There was never any shortage of wine, oil and salt, but
what use are they without solid food? All the dogs and cats in
the town were eaten. A rat could fetch a high price! In the end
the starvation became so appalling that when the French troops
made a sortie, the inhabitants would follow them in a crowd out
of the gates, and rich and poor, women, children and the old
would start collecting grass, nettles, and leaves, which they
would then cook with some salt. The Genoese government mowed the
grass which grew on the ramparts, which was then cooked in the
public squares and distributed to the wretched invalids, who had
not the strength to go and find for themselves and prepare this
crude dish. Even the soldiers cooked nettles and all sorts of
herbage with their horse flesh. The richest and most
distinguished families in the town envied them this meat,
disgusting as it was, for the shortage of fodder had made nearly
all the horses sick and even the flesh of those dying of disease
was distributed.

During the latter part of the siege, the desperation of the
people was something to fear. There were cries that, as in 1756
their fathers had massacred an Austrian army, they should now try
to get rid of the French army in the same way; and that it was
better to die fighting than to starve to death, after watching
their wives and children perish. These threats of revolt were
made more serious by the fact that if they were carried out, the
English by sea and the Austrians by land would have rushed to
join their efforts to those of the insurgents, and would have
overwhelmed us.

Amid such dangers and calamities of all sorts, Massena remained
immovable and calm, and to prevent any attempt at an uprising, he
issued a proclamation that French troops had orders to open fire
on any gathering of more than four people. Regiments camped in
the squares and the principal streets. The avenues were occupied
by cannon loaded with grape-shot. It being impossible for them to
come together, the Genoese were unable to revolt.

It may seem surprising that Massena was so determined to hold on
to a place where he could not feed the inhabitants and could
scarcely maintain his own troops; but Genoa was, at that time, of
great importance. Our army had been cut in two. The centre and
the left wing had retired behind the Var. As long as Massena
occupied Genoa, he kept part of the Austrian army occupied in
besieging him and prevented them from employing all their forces
against Provence.

Massena knew also that the First Consul was assembling at Dijon,
Lyon, and Geneva, an army of reserve, with which he proposed to
cross the Alps by the St. Bernard pass, to enter Italy and to
surprise the Austrians by falling on their rear while they were
directing their efforts at taking Genoa. We therefore had the
greatest interest in holding the town for as long as possible.
These were the orders of the First Consul, and were subsequently
justified by events.

To return to the siege. When he heard that my father had been
brought to Genoa, Colindo Trepano hurried to his bedside, and it
was there that we met once more. He helped me most tenderly to
care for my father, for which I am even more beholden to him
because, in the midst of these calamities my father had no one
about him. All his staff officers had been ordered to go and
attend the commander-in-chief; soon rations were refused to our
servants, who were forced to go and take up a musket and line up
with the combatants to have a right to the miserable ration which
was distributed to the soldiers. No exception was made, apart
from a young valet, named Oudin, and a young stable-lad, who
looked after the horses; but Oudin deserted us as soon as he knew
that my father had typhus.

My father fell ill with this dreadful disease, and at a time when
he was in the greatest need of care, there was no one with him
except me, Colindo and the stable lad Bastide. We did our best to
follow the doctor's instructions, we hardly slept, being
endlessly busy massaging my father with camphorated oil and
changing his bedclothes and linen.

My father could take no nourishment except soup and I had nothing
with which to make it but rotten horse-meat. My heart was
breaking.

Providence sent us some help. The huge buildings of the public
ovens were next to the walls of the palace where we were living.
The terraces were almost touching. It was on the immense terraces
of the public ovens that the crushing and mixing took place of
all sorts of chicken food which was added to the rotten flour to
make the garrison's bread. The stable lad Bastide had noticed
that when the workmen of the bakery left the terraces, they were
invaded by horde of pigeons who had their nests in the various
church towers of the town, and were in the habit of coming to
pick up the small amounts of grain which had spilled onto the
flagstones. Bastide, who was a very clever lad, crossed the
narrow space which separated the terraces, and on that of the
public ovens he set up snares and other devices with which he
captured pigeons which we used to make soup for my father, who
found it excellent, compared to that made from horse.

To the horrors of famine and typhus were added those of a
merciless and unceasing war, for the French troops fought all day
on land against the Austrians, and when nightfall put an end to
the Austrian assaults, the English, Turkish, and Neapolitan
fleets, which were protected by darkness from the port's cannons
and the batteries on the coast, drew close to the town, into
which they hurled a great number of bombs which did fearful
damage.

The noise of the guns and the cries of the wounded and dying
reached my father and greatly disturbed him. He lamented his
inability to place himself at the head of the men of his
division.  This state of mind worsened his condition. He became
more gravely ill from day to day, and progressively weaker.
Colindo and I did not leave him for a moment. Eventually, one
night when I was on my knees by his bedside, sponging his wound,
he spoke to me, perfectly lucidly, and placed his hand
caressingly on my head, saying, "Poor child, what will happen to
him, alone and without support in the horrors of this terrible
siege?" Then he mumbled some words, among which I could
distinguish the name of my mother, dropped his arms and closed
his eyes...

Although very young and without much length of service, I had
seen many dead on various battlefields, and above all on the
streets of Genoa; but they had fallen in the open, still in their
clothes, which gave them a very different appearance to someone
who had died in bed. I had never witnessed this last sad
spectacle and I believed that my father had fallen asleep.
Colindo knew the truth but had not the heart to tell me, so I was
not aware of my error until some time later, when M. Lacheze
arrived and I saw him pull the sheet over my father's face,
saying, "This is a dreadful loss for his family and friends".
Only then did I understand that my father was dead.

My grief was so heartbroken that it touched even General Massena,
a man not easily moved, particularly in the present situation
when he had need of such resolution. The critical position in
which he found himself drove him to behave toward me in a way
which I thought atrocious, although now I would do the same in
the same circumstances.

To avoid anything that could lower the morale of the troops,
Massena had forbidden any funeral ceremonies, and as he knew that
I had been unwilling to desert the mortal remains of my
much-loved father, and thought it was my intention to go with him
to his graveside, he feared that his troops might be adversely
affected by the sight of a young officer, scarcely more than a
boy, following, in tears, his father's bier. So he came the next
day before dawn to the room where my father lay, and taking me by
the hand, he led me  under some pretext or other to a distant
room, while, on his orders, twelve Grenadiers, accompanied only
by one officer and Col. Sacleux, took the body in silence, and
placed it in a provisional grave on the rampart facing the sea.
It was only after this mournful ceremony was over that General
Massena told me of it and explained his motives for this
decision. I was overcome by misery. It seemed to me that I had
lost my poor father for a second time; that he had been deprived
of my last services. My protests were in vain and there was
nothing I could do but go and pray by my father's grave. I did
not know where it was, but Colindo had followed the burial party,
and he led me there. This good young man gave me the most
touching evidences of sympathy, and this at a time when everyone
thought only of themselves.

Nearly all the officers of my father's staff had been killed or
carried off by typhus. Out of the eleven which we were at the
start of the campaign, there remained only two; the commandant
R*** and me! But R*** was interested only in himself, and instead
of offering support to his general's son, he lived alone in the
town. M. Lacheze abandoned me also. Only the good Col. Sacleux
showed any interest in me, but having been given the command of a
brigade, he was constantly outside the walls combatting the
enemy. I stayed alone in the huge Centurione Palace with Colindo,
Bastide, and the ancient concierge.

A week had scarcely passed since my father's death when General
Massena, who needed a large number of officers in attendance
because some were killed or wounded almost every day, ordered me
to come and serve as aide-de-camp, as did R*** and all the
officers on the staff of those generals who were dead or unable
to mount a horse. I obeyed. I followed the general all day in
battle, and when I was not detained at headquarters, I went back
to the Palace, and at nightfall, Colindo and I, passing among the
dying and the dead bodies of men, women, and children which
littered the streets, went to pray at my father's tomb.

The famine in the town continued to worsen. An order went out
forbidding any officer from having more than one horse, the rest
were to be butchered. There were several of my father's left and
I was most unhappy at the thought of these poor beasts being
killed. I managed to save their lives by proposing that I should
give them to officers of the general staff in exchange for their
worn out mounts, which I then sent to the butchery. These horses
were later paid for by the state, on production of an order for
their delivery. I have kept one of these orders as a curiosity;
it bears the signature of General Oudinot, Massena's
chief-of-staff.

The cruel loss which I had just suffered, the position in which I
found myself, and the sight of the truly horrible scenes in which
I was involved every day, taught me more in a short time than I
would have learned in a number of happier years. I realised that
the starvation and disaster of the siege had made egoists of all
those who a few months before had been smothering my father with
attention.

I had to find within myself the courage and resource not only for
my own needs but to look after Colindo and Bastide. The most
pressing requirement was to find something for them to eat, since
they were given no food from the army stores. I had, it is true,
as an officer, two rations of horse meat and two rations of
bread, but all this added together did not amount to more than a
pounds weight of very bad food, and we were three! We very rarely
caught pigeons now, for their numbers had infinitely diminished.

In my position as aide-de-camp to the commander-in- chief, I was
entitled to a place at his table, where once a day was served
some bread, some roast horse and some chick peas; but I was so
embittered at General Massena having deprived me of the sad
consolation of attending my father's burial, that I could not
bring myself to sit down at his table, although all my comrades
were there and a place was reserved for me. But at last the wish
to help my two unfortunate companions decided me to go and eat
with the commander-in-chief. From then on Colindo and Bastide had
each a quarter of a pound of horse meat and the same amount of
bread. As for me, I did not have enough to eat, for the portions
served at the general's table were exceedingly small, and I was
worked hard. Often I had to lie on the ground to stop myself from
fainting.

Providence came once more to our aid. Bastide had been born in
the region of Cantal, and he had met, the previous winter,
another Auvergnian whom he knew, and who was living in Genoa
where he had a small business. Bastide went to visit this friend,
and was surprised, on entering the house, to smell the odour
which floats around a grocer's shop. Bastide remarked on this and
asked his friend if he had some food. His friend admitted that he
had, and begged Bastide to keep this a secret, since all food
found in private hands was confiscated and taken to the army
stores. The shrewd Bastide then offered to arrange the purchase
of any surplus provisions by someone who would pay cash and would
keep the secret inviolate. He came to tell me of his discovery.
My father had left me some thousands of francs, so I bought, and
brought back to our dwelling at night, a quantity of dried cod,
cheese, figs, sugar, chocolate etc. All of which was extremely
expensive, and the Auvergnian had most of my money. However I was
happy to pay whatever he asked, for I heard daily at general
headquarters suggestions that the siege would continue and the
famine get worse. Sadly, this in fact happened. My joy at having
procured some food was increased by the thought that I had
thereby saved the life of my friend Colindo, who, without it,
would have assuredly died of starvation, for he knew no one in
the army except me and Col. Sacleux, who was shortly to be struck
down by a dreadful misfortune.

Massena, attacked on all sides, seeing his troops worn down by
continual battle and famine, forced to hold down a large
population, driven to despair by hunger, found himself in a most
critical position, and believed that to maintain good order in
the army he needed to impose iron discipline. So any officer who
did not execute his orders immediately was dismissed, under the
power which the law gave at that time to the commander-in-chief.

Several examples of this kind had already been made when, during
a sortie which we had pushed forward some six leagues from the
town, the brigade commanded by Col. Sacleux was not in position
at the time ordered in a valley where it was meant to block the
passage of the Austrians, who thus escaped.

The commander-in-chief, furious at seeing his plans come to
nothing, dismissed poor Col. Sacleux by publishing his dismissal
in an order of the day. Sacleux may well not have understood what
was expected of him, but he was a very brave man. Assuredly he
would have blown his brains out, had he not been determined to
restore his honour. He took up a musket and joined the ranks as a
private soldier! He came to see us one day, Colindo and I were
sore at heart to see this excellent man dressed as a simple
infantryman. We said our good-byes to Sacleux who, after the
surrender of the town, was restored to his rank of colonel at the
request of Massena himself, who had been impressed by Sacleux's
courage. But the following year, when peace had been made in
Europe, Sacleux, perhaps wishing to rid himself completely of the
stigma with which he had been so unjustly branded, asked to be
posted to the war in Santa-Dominica, where he was killed at the
moment when he was about to be promoted to brigadier-general!
There are men who, in spite of their merits, have a cruel
destiny; of which he was an example.

Chap. 12.

I shall discuss only briefly the conduct of the siege or blockade
which we sustained. The fortifications of Genoa consisted at that
time of a plain wall, flanked by towers; but what made the place
well suited for defence was the fact that it is surrounded at a
short distance by mountains, the summits and flanks of which are
dotted with forts and strong-points. The Austrians continually
attacked these positions. When they took one, we went to retake
it, and the next day they came to take it again. If they managed
to do so, we went to chase them out once more. There was an
endless shuttling back and forth, with varying results, but in
the end, we remained in control of the terrain. These encounters
were often very fierce. In one of them, General Soult, who was
General Massena's right hand man, was climbing up Monte Corona at
the head of his men to retake a fort of that name, which we had
lost the day before, when his knee was struck by a bullet at a
moment when the enemy, who greatly outnumbered his party, were
running down from the top of the mountain. It was impossible with
the few troops we had at this point to resist the avalanche, and
a retreat was called for. The soldiers carried General Soult for
some way, on their muskets, but the intolerable pain which he
suffered decided them that he should be left at the foot of a
tree, where his brother and one of his aides-de-camp stayed with
him to protect him from being attacked by the first enemy troops
to arrive. Luckily there were among these some officers who had
much respect for their illustrious prisoner.

The capture of General Soult having encouraged the Austrians,
they pushed us back to the city wall, which they were preparing
to attack  when a heavy storm darkened the blue sky, which we had
had since the beginning of the siege. The rain fell in torrents.
The Austrians halted and most of them sought shelter in the
blockhouses or under the trees. Then General Massena, one of
whose principal gifts was the ability to turn to advantage the
unforeseen incidents of warfare, addressed his men, rekindled
their spirit, and having reinforced them with some troops from
the town, he ordered them to fix bayonets and led them, at the
height of the storm, against the erstwhile victorious Austrians
who, taken by surprise, retired in disorder. Massena pursued them
with such effect that he cut off some three thousand Grenadiers,
who laid down their arms.

This was not the first time that we had taken numerous prisoners,
for the total of those we had captured since the beginning of the
siege amounted to more than eight thousand; but having no food
for them, Massena had always sent them back, on the condition
that they would not be used against us for a period of six
months.  Although the officers held religiously to their promise,
the wretched soldiers, who went back to the Austrian camp
ignorant of the undertaking that their leaders had made on their
behalf, were transferred to other regiments and forced to fight
against us once more. If they fell again into our hands,
something that often happened, they were once more sent back and
transferred anew; so that there were very many of these men who,
on their own admission, had been captured four or five times.
Massena, angered at the lack of good faith on the part of the
Austrian generals, decided that this time he would retain both
officers and men of the three thousand Grenadiers whom he had
captured; and so that the duty of guarding them would not fall on
his troops, he had the unfortunate prisoners loaded into floating
hulks moored in the middle of the harbour with the guns of the
harbour mole aimed at them. He then sent an envoy to General Ott,
who commanded the Austrian troops before Genoa, to reproach him
for his failure to keep his word, and to warn him that he did not
consider himself bound to give the prisoners more than half the
ration of the French soldier; but that he would agree to an
arrangement which the Austrians might make with the British,
whereby vessels might bring, every day, food for the prisoners,
and not leave until they had seen it eaten, so that it could not
be thought that Massena was using this pretext to bring in food
for his own men. The Austrian general who may have hoped that a
refusal would compel Massena to send back the three thousand
soldiers, whom he probably intended to use again, turned down
this philanthropic proposal, and Massena then carried out his
threat.

The French ration was composed of a quarter of a pound of
disgusting bread and an equal amount of horse flesh; the
prisoners were given only half this amount! This was fifteen days
before the end of the siege. For fifteen days, these poor devils
remained on this regime!. Every two or three days Messena renewed
his offer to the enemy general; he never accepted, perhaps out of
obstinacy, or perhaps because the English admiral, Lord Kieth,
was unwilling to employ his long-boats for fear, it is said, that
they would bring typhus back to the fleet. However that may be,
the wretched Austrians were left howling with rage and hunger in
their floating prison. It was truly appalling! In the end, having
eaten their boots and packs, and perhaps some dead bodies, they
nearly all died of starvation! There were hardly more than seven
or eight hundred left when the place was surrendered to our
enemies. The Austrian soldiers, when they entered the town,
hurried to the harbour and gave food to their compatriots with so
little caution that many of them died as a result.

I have described this horrible episode, firstly as an example of
the sort of ghastly event which war brings in its train, but
principally to brand with shame the conduct and lack of good
faith of the Austrian general, who forced soldiers who had been
captured and released on parole, to take up arms against us once
more, although he had promised to send them back to Germany.

In the course of the fighting which took place during the siege,
I ran into a number of dangers but I shall limit myself to
mentioning two of the more serious.

I have already said that the Austrians and the English took it in
turns to keep us constantly in action. The first attacked us at
dawn, on the landward side, and we fought them all day; at night,
Lord Kieth's fleet would begin its bombardment, and try, under
cover of darkness, to seize the harbour; which forced the
garrison to keep a keen look-out on the seaward side, and
prevented it from having any rest or relaxation. Now, one night,
when the bombardment was more violent than usual, the
commander-in-chief was warned that the light of Bengal flares
burning on the beach had disclosed numerous boat loads of English
soldiers heading for the harbour breakwater.  Massena, his staff,
and the squadron of guides which went everywhere with him,
immediately mounted their horses. We were about a hundred and
fifty to two hundred horsemen when, passing through a little
square called Campetto, the general stopped to speak to an
officer who was returning from the harbour. Someone shouted "Look
out for bombs!" And at that moment, one fell onto the crowded
square.

I and several others had pushed our horses under a balcony which
overhung the door of an hotel, and it was on this balcony that
the bomb fell. It reduced the balcony to rubble, and bounced onto
the road, where it exploded with a fearful bang in the middle of
the square, which was lit for an instant by its malevolent light,
after which there was complete darkness. One expected many
casualties.  There was the most profound silence, which was
broken by the voice of General Massena, asking if anyone was
hurt. There was no reply, for by some miracle, not one of the
horses or men had been hit by the flying fragments. As for those
who, like me, had been under the balcony, we were covered with
dust and bits of building material, but nobody was injured.

I have said that the English bombarded us only at night. However,
one day, when they were celebrating some occasion or other, their
ships, dressed overall, approached the town in broad daylight,
and amused themselves by hurling at us a large number of
projectiles.  Those of our batteries which were in the best
position to reply to this fire, were located near the breakwater
on a big bastion in the form of a tower, known as the Lanterne.
The general ordered me to take a message to the officer in charge
of this battery, instructing him to direct all his efforts on an
English brig, which had insolently anchored a short distance from
the Lanterne. Our gunners fired with such accuracy that one of
our large bombs fell on the English brig, piercing it from deck
to keel so that it sank almost immediately. This so infuriated
the English admiral that he had all his guns trained on the
Lanterne, on which they now opened a violent fire. My mission
being completed, I should have returned to Massena; but it is
rightly said that young soldiers, not recognising danger,
confront it more coolly than those with more experience. The
spectacle of which I was a witness, I found very interesting. The
platform of the Lanterne was floored with flagstones and was the
size of a small courtyard. It was equipped with twelve cannons on
enormous wooden mountings. Although it may be very difficult for
ship at sea to aim its fire with sufficient accuracy to hit such
a small target as was the platform of the Lanterne, the English
managed to land several bombs there. As these bombs descended,
the gunners took shelter behind or underneath the massive timbers
of the gun mountings. I did the same; but this shelter was not
entirely safe, because the flagstones presented a great
resistance to the bombs, which, being unable to bury themselves,
rolled unpredictably about the platform in all directions, and
the fragments from their explosion could pass under or behind the
mountings. It was, therefore, absurd to stay there when, like me,
one was not obliged to do so. But I experienced a fearful
pleasure, if one can describe it thus, in running here and there
with the gunners whenever a bomb fell, and emerging with them as
soon as the fragments from its explosion had settled. It was a
game which could have cost me dear. One gunner had his legs
broken, others were wounded by bomb fragments, lumps of metal
which did terrible damage to anything they hit. One of them
sliced through the thick timber baulk of a mounting behind which
I was sheltering. However, I remained on the platform until Col.
Mouton, who later became Marshal the Comte de Lobeau, and who,
having served under my father, took an interest in me, while
passing, caught sight of me. He came over to the Lanterne and
ordered me sharply to come down and return to my post beside
General Massena. He added, "You are still very young, but you
should realise that, in war, it is stupid to expose yourself to
needless danger. Would you be any better off if you had a leg
smashed for no good reason?"

I never forgot this lesson, and I have often thought of the
difference it would have made to my life, if I had lost a leg at
the age of seventeen.

Chap. 13.

The courage and tenacity with which Massena had defended Genoa
would have very important results. Major Franceschi, sent by
Massena to contact the First Consul, had managed to slip through
the enemy fleet at night, both in going and coming. On arriving
back in Genoa he said that he had left Bonaparte descending the
St. Bernard at the head of the army of reserve. Field-marshal
Melas was so convinced of the impossibility of bringing an army
across the Alps, that while part of his force, under General Ott
was blockading us, he had gone with the remainder fifty leagues
away, to attack General Suchet on the Var. This gave the First
Consul the opportunity to enter Italy without resistance, so that
the army of reserve had reached Milan before the Austrians had
ceased to regard its existence as imaginary. The First Consul,
once in Italy, would have liked to go straight away to the aid of
the town's brave garrison, but to do that it was necessary for
him to unite all the elements of his force, such as the artillery
and military supplies, whose passage across the Alps had proved
extremely difficult. This delay gave Marshal Melas the time to
hurry with his main force from Nice in order to oppose Bonaparte,
who was then unable to continue his march towards Genoa without
defeating the Austrian army.

While Bonaparte and Melas were engaged in marches and
countermarches in preparation for a battle which would decide the
destiny of France and Italy, the garrison of Genoa found itself
reduced to its last extremity. The typhus epidemic was raging.
The hospitals had become ghastly charnel houses; starvation was
at its worst. Nearly all the horses had been eaten, and though
for a long time the soldiers had had no more than half a pound of
rotten food daily, the distribution for the following day was not
assured. There was absolutely nothing left when, on the 15th
Prairial Massena gathered all his generals and colonels together
and announced that he had decided to attempt a breakout with
those remaining men who were fit for duty, to try to reach
Livorno; but his officers declared unanimously that the troops
were no longer in a state to engage in combat, or even a simple
march, unless they were given sufficient food to restore their
strength, and the stores were completely empty! General Massena
then considered that, having carried out the orders of the First
Consul and facilitated his entry into Italy, that it was his duty
to save the remains of a garrison which had fought so valiantly,
and which it was in the country's interest to preserve. He
therefore resolved to treat for the evacuation of the place, for
he would not allow the word capitulation to be uttered. The
English admiral and General Ott had, for more than a month, been
making proposals for a parley, which Massena had always turned
down; but now, compelled by circumstance, he told them that he
would accept. The conference took place in the little chapel
which is situated in the middle of the bridge of Conegliano, and
which is, as a result, between the sea and the French and
Austrian lines. The French, English, and Austrian staffs occupied
each end of the bridge.  I was present at this most interesting
event.

The foreign generals treated Massena with much respect and
consideration, and although he demanded favourable conditions,
Admiral Kieth said more than once that the defense had been so
heroic that they did not wish to refuse them. It was then agreed
that the garrison would not be made prisoners, that they could
retain their weapons and could go to Nice, and that having
reached there they would be free to engage in further
hostilities.

Massena, who realised how important it was that the First Consul
should not be led into making any false move because of his
anxiety to go to the aid of Genoa, asked that the negotiations
should permit the safe passage of two officers through the
Austrian lines, whom he proposed to send to Bonaparte to inform
him of the evacuation of the town by the French. General Ott
opposed this because he intended to leave with some twenty-five
thousand men of the blockading force to go and join Field-marshal
Melas, and he did not want these French officers to warn General
Bonaparte of his movements. But Admiral Kieth overruled this
objection. The treaty was about to be signed when, from far away,
in the midst of the mountains, came the distant sound of gunfire.
Massena held up his pen, saying, "That is the First Consul, who
has arrived with his army." The foreign commanders were much
taken aback, but after a long pause it was realised that the
sound was that of thunder, and Massena appended his signature.

It is to be regretted that the garrison and its commander were
deprived of the fame which would have been theirs if they had
been able to hold Genoa until the arrival of Bonaparte; and
furthermore, Massena would have liked to hold out for a few more
days, to delay the departure of General Ott's men to join in the
battle, which was inevitable, between the First Consul and
Field-marshal Melas. In the event, General Ott was unable to join
the main Austrian army until the day after the battle of Marengo,
the result of which might have been very different if the
Austrians, whom we had great difficulty in overcoming, had had
twenty-five thousand more men with which to oppose us. The
Austrians took possession of Genoa on the 16th Prairial(May)
after a siege which had lasted two whole months.

Massena, as has been said, considered it so important that the
First Consul was informed immediately about the situation that he
had demanded a safe conduct for two aides-de-camp, so that if any
thing untoward befell one of them, the other could carry his
despatch. As it would be useful if an officer going on such a
mission spoke Italian, Massena chose a Major Graziani, an Italian
who was in the French service, but being a most suspicious man,
Massena feared that a foreigner might be corrupted by the
Austrians and delay his journey, so he sent me to make sure that
he made all possible haste.  This precaution was unnecessary as
Major Graziani was a man of probity who knew the urgency of his
mission.

On the 16th Prairial we departed from Genoa where I left Colindo,
whom I expected to collect in a few days time, as we knew that
the First Consul's army was not very far away. Major Graziani and
I reached it the next day at Milan.

General Bonaparte spoke to me with sympathy about the loss which
I had suffered, and promised that he would be a father to me if I
behaved myself well, a promise which he kept. He asked us endless
questions about the events which had occurred in Genoa, and about
the strength and movements of the Austrian forces we had come
through to reach Milan; he kept us by him, and had horses
provided for us from his stable, since we had travelled on post
mules.

We followed the First Consul to Montebello and then to the
battlefield of Marengo, where we were employed to carry his
orders.  I shall not go into any details about this battle, where
I ran into no danger; one knows that we were on the brink of
defeat, and might have fallen if General Ott's men had arrived in
time to take part in the action. The First Consul, who feared
that he might see them appear at any moment, was very anxious,
and did not relax until our cavalry and the infantry of General
Desaix, of whose death he was still unaware, had ensured victory
by overwhelming the Grenadiers of General Zach. Seeing that the
horse which I was riding was slightly wounded on a leg, he took
me by the ear, and said, laughing, "I lend you my horses, and
look what happens to them!" Major Graziani having died in 1812, I
am the only French officer who was present at the siege of Genoa
and the battle of Marengo.

After this memorable affair, I went back to Genoa, which the
Austrians had left as a result of our victory at Marengo. There I
rejoined Colindo and Major R***. I visited my father's grave,
then we embarked on a French brig, which in twenty-four hours
carried us to Nice. Some days later, a ship from Leghorn brought
Colindo's mother, who had come in search of her son. This fine
young man and I had come through some very rough times together,
which had strengthened the friendship between us, but our paths
were divergent and we had to part, albeit with much regret.

I have said earlier, that about the middle of the siege,
Franceschi, carrying despatches from General Massena to the First
Consul, had reached France by passing through the enemy fleet at
night. He took with him the news of my father's death. My mother
had thereupon nominated a council of guardians, who sent to the
aged Spire, who was at Nice with the coach and my father's
baggage, an order to sell everything and return to Paris, which
he then did.  There was now nothing to detain me on the banks of
the Var, and I was in a hurry to rejoin my dear mother; but this
was not so easy; public coaches were, at the time, very scarce;
the one that ran from Nice to Lyon went only every second day and
was booked up for several weeks by sick or wounded officers,
coming, like me, from Genoa.

To overcome this difficulty, Major R***, two colonels, a dozen
officers and I decided to form a group to go to Grenoble on foot,
crossing the foothills of the Alps by way of Grasse, Sisteron,
Digne and Gap. Mules would carry our small amount of baggage,
which would allow us to cover eight to ten leagues every day.
Bastide was with me and was a great help to me, for I was not
accustomed to making such long journeys on foot, and it was very
hot. After eight days of very difficult walking, we reached
Grenoble, from where we were able to take coaches to Lyon. It was
with sorrow that I saw once more the town and the hotel where I
had stayed with my father in happier times. I longed for and yet
dreaded the reunion with my mother and my brothers. I fancied
that they would ask me to account for what I had done with her
husband and their father! I was returning alone, and had left him
in his grave in a foreign land! I was very unhappy and had need
of a friend who would understand and share my grief, while Major
R***, happy, after so much privation, to enjoy once more,
abundance and good living, was madly jolly, which I found most
wounding; so I decided to leave for Paris without him; but he
claimed, now that I had no need of him, that it was his duty to
deliver me to the arms of my mother, and I was forced to put up
with his company as far as Paris, to where we went by mail coach.

There are scenes which are perhaps better left to the
imagination, so I shall not attempt to describe my first
heartbreaking meeting with my widowed mother and my brothers. You
can picture it for yourselves.

My mother had a rather pretty country house at Carriere, near the
forest of Saint-Germain. I spent two months there with her, my
uncle Canrobert, who had returned from emigration, and an old
knight of Malta, M. d'Estresse, a friend of my late father.
Adolphe was not in Paris, he was in Rennes with Bernadotte, the
commander-in-chief of the army of the west, but my younger
brothers and M. Gault came to see us from time to time. In spite
of the kindness and shows of affection which were lavished on me,
I fell into a state of sombre melancholy, and my health
deteriorated. I had suffered so much, physically and mentally! I
became incapable of doing any work. Reading which I had always
loved became insupportable. I spent the greater part of the day
alone in the forest, where I lay in the shade absorbed in my
sorrowful reflections. In the evenings, I accompanied my mother,
my uncle, and the old knight on their usual walk along the bank
of the Seine; but I took very little part in the conversation,
and hid from them my sad thoughts, which revolved always about my
poor father, dying for want of proper care. Although my condition
alarmed my mother, Canrobert, and M. d'Estresse, they had the
good sense not to make matters worse by any remarks which would
have only irritated a sick mind, but they sought gradually to
chase away the unhappy memories which were so affecting me by
bringing forward the holidays of my two younger brothers, who
came to live with us in the country. The presence of these two
children, whom I dearly loved, eased my mind of its sorrows, by
the care I took to make their stay at Carriere a happy one. I
took them to Versailles, to Maisons and to Marly, and their
childish happiness slowly brought back to life my spirits which
had been so cruelly crushed by misfortune. Who could have thought
that these two children, so lovely and full of life would soon be
no more?

Chap. 14.

The end of the autumn of 1800 was approaching; my mother went
back to Paris, my young brothers went back to school, and I was
ordered to join Bernadotte at Rennes.

Bernadotte had been my father's best friend, and my father had
helped him in various ways on many occasions. In recognition of
the debt owed to my family, he had written to me saying that he
had reserved a place for me as his aide-de-camp. I received this
letter at Nice when I returned from Genoa, and on the strength of
it, I refused an offer from General Massena to take me on as a
permanent aide-de-camp, and to allow me to spend several months
with my mother before joining him and the army of Italy.

My father had arranged that my brother Adolphe should continue
his studies in order to enter the polytechnic; so he was not a
soldier when my father died; but on hearing this sad news, he
rebelled at the thought that his younger brother was already an
officer, and had been in action, while he was still on a school
bench. He gave up the studies required for the technical arms,
and opted to join the infantry instead, which allowed him to
leave school.

He was presented with a good opportunity. The government had
ordered a new regiment to be raised in the department of the
Seine.  The officers for this regiment were to be selected by
General Lefebvre, who, as you know, had replaced my father in
command of the Paris division. General Lefebvre was only too
pleased to do something for the son of one of his old companions
who had died in the service of his country; he therefore awarded
my brother the rank of sous-lieutenant in this new unit. So far,
so good! But instead of going to join his company, and without
waiting for my return from Genoa, Adolphe hurried off to General
Bernadotte, who, without further ado, handed the vacant post to
the first brother to arrive, as if it was the prize in a race! So
when I went to join the general staff at Rennes, I learned that
my brother had been gazetted as permanent aide-de-camp, and I was
only a supernumerary, that is to say temporary. I was very
disappointed, because, had I expected this, I would have accepted
the proposal made by General Massena.  But this opportunity had
now passed. It was in vain that General Bernadotte assured me
that he would obtain an increase in the establishment of his
aides-de-camp, I did not think this likely, and was convinced
that I would soon be moved elsewhere.

Bernadotte's staff was made up of officers who nearly all reached
senior positions; four were already colonels. The most
outstanding was, undoubtedly, Gerard. He was very clever, brave
and had a natural talent for warfare. He was under the command of
Marshal Grouchy at Waterloo, and gave him some sound advice,
which could have led us to victory. Out of the eleven
aides-de-camp attached to Bernadotte's staff, two became
marshals, three lieutenant-generals, four were brigadiers and one
was killed in action.

In the winter of 1800, Portugal, backed by the English, had
declared war on Spain, and the French government had resolved to
support the latter. In consequence, troops were sent to Bayonne
and Bordeaux, and the companies of Grenadiers who belonged to
various regiments scattered throughout Brittany and the Vendee
were gathered together at Tours. This corps d'elite was intended
to be the nucleus of the so-called army of Portugal, which
Bernadotte was destined to command. The general had to move his
headquarters to Tours; to where had to be sent all his horses and
equipment, as well all that was required for the officers
attached to his service. But the general, partly to receive his
final orders from the First Consul and partly to take Madame
Bernadotte back, had to go to Paris; and as it was customary in
these circumstances during the absence of the general for the
officers of his staff to be permitted to go and take leave of
their families, it was decided that all the permanent aides could
go to Paris, and that the supernumeraries would go to Tours with
the baggage to supervise the servants, pay them every month,
arrange with the supply commission for the distribution of
forage, and the allotment of lodgings for the great number of men
and horses. This disagreeable duty fell to me and my fellow
supernumerary Lieutenant Maurin.

In the depths of winter and the most atrocious weather, we made
on horseback the long eight days journey from Rennes to Tours,
where we had all sorts of difficulties in setting up the
headquarters. We had been told that we would not be there for
much more than a fortnight, but we stayed there, bored stiff, for
six weary months, while our comrades were disporting themselves
in the capital. That was a foretaste of the unpleasant duties
which fell to me as a supernumerary aide-de-camp. So ended the
year 1800, during which I had undergone so much mental and
physical suffering.

The town of Tours had many inhabitants, and there were many
diversions; but although I received many invitations I did not
accept any of them. Fortunately my time was fully occupied in
looking after the large collection of men and horses, without
which the isolation in which I lived would have been
insupportable. The number of horses belonging to the
commander-in-chief and the officers of his staff amounted to more
than eighty, and all were at my disposal. I rode two or three
every day, and went for some long rides round Tours, which
although solitary, had for me much charm, and gave me gentle
solace.

Chap. 15.

The First Consul now changed his mind about the army of Portugal.

He gave the command to his brother-in-law, General Leclerc, and
kept General Bernadotte in command of the army of the west. In
consequence, the general staff, which my brother and the other
aides-de-camp had just joined at Tours, was ordered to return to
Brittany and betake itself to Brest, where the commander-in-chief
was to be stationed. It is a long way from Tours to Brest, but
the weather was fair, we were a young crowd, and the trip was
great fun.  I was unable to ride on horseback, because of an
accidental injury to my hindquarters, so I rode in one of the
commander-in-chief's coaches. We found him awaiting us at Brest.

The harbour at Brest held at that time not only a great number of
French vessels, but also the Spanish fleet, commanded by Admiral
Gravina, who was later killed at Trafalgar. When we arrived in
Brest, the two allied fleets were expected to take to Ireland,
General Bernadotte and a large invading force of French and
Spanish troops; but while we awaited this expedition,--which
never actually took place--the presence of so many army and naval
officers greatly animated the town of Brest. The
commander-in-chief, the admirals and several of the generals
entertained daily. The troops of the two nations mingled on the
best of terms, and I made the acquaintance of several Spanish
officers.

We were thoroughly enjoying ourselves at Brest, when the
commander-in-chief decided it would be a good idea to move his
headquarters to Rennes, a dismal town, but more in the centre of
his command. We had hardly arrived there when what I had foreseen
happened. The First Consul cut the number of aides-de-camp
allotted to the commander-in-chief. He was allowed only one
colonel, five officers of lower rank and no additional officers.
As a result I was told that I was to be posted to a regiment of
light cavalry. I would have resigned myself to this, if it had
been to return to the first Hussars, where I was known and whose
uniform I wore; but it was more than a year since I had left the
regiment, and I had been replaced, so I was ordered to join the
25th Chasseurs, who had just gone to Spain and were on the
frontier with Portugal around Salamanca and Zamora. I felt
increasingly bitter about the way I had been treated by General
Bernadotte, for without his false promises I would have been an
aide-de-camp to Messena and regained my place in the 1st Hussars.

So I was much discontented....But one must obey. Once I had got
over my resentment--which does not last long at that age--I could
not wait to get on the road and leave General Bernadotte, of whom
I thought I had good reason to complain. I had very little money.
My father had often lent money to Bernadotte, in particular when
he bought the estate of Lagrange; but although he knew that,
scarcely recovered from an injury, I was about to cross a large
part of France and all of Spain and, what is more, had to buy a
new uniform, he never offered to advance me a sou; and not for
anything in the world would I have asked him to do so. Very
luckily for me my mother had, at Rennes, an elderly uncle, M. de
Verdal of Gruniac, a former major in the infantry of Ponthievre,
with whom she had spent the first years of the revolution. This
old man was a little eccentric, but very good-hearted; not only
did he advance me the money which I desperately needed, but he
gave it to me out of his own pocket.

Although, at this period, the Chasseurs wore the same dolman as
the Hussars, theirs was green. I was foolish enough to shed a few
tears when I had to discard the Bercheny uniform, and renounce
the name of Hussar to become a Chasseur!

My farewell to General Bernadotte was somewhat cool; however he
gave me letters of introduction to Lucien Bonaparte, our
ambassador at Madrid, and to General Leclerc, our commander in
Portugal.

On the day of my departure, all the aides-de-camp joined me in a
farewell luncheon; then I set out with a heavy heart. I arrived
at Nantes after two days of travel, dog tired, with a pain in my
side, and quite sure that I would not be able to stand riding on
horseback the four hundred and fifty leagues which I had to cover
to reach the frontier of Portugal. By chance, however, I met in
the house of an old acquaintance from Soreze, who lived in
Nantes, a Spanish officer named Don Raphael, who was on his way
to join his regimental depot at Estramadura. We agreed to travel
together, and that I would be guide as far as the Pyrenees, after
which he would take over.

We went by stage-coach through the Vendee, where almost all the
market towns and villages still bore the marks of fire although
the civil war had been over for two years. These ruins made a
sorry spectacle. We passed through La Rochelle, Rochefort and
Bordeaux. From Bordeaux to Bayonne we rode in a sort of "Berlin"
which never went at faster than a walking pace over the sands of
Landes, so we often got out and walked alongside until we would
stop to rest under a group of pine trees. Then, sitting in the
shade, Don Raphael would take up his mandolin and sing. In this
way we took six days to reach Bayonne.

Before crossing the Pyrenees, I had to report to the general
commanding Bayonne. His name was General Ducos, an excellent man,
who had served under my father. Out of concern for my safety, he
wished to delay my entry into Spain for a few days, because he
had just heard that a gang of robbers had plundered some
travellers not far from the frontier. Even before the War of
Independence and the Civil Wars, the Spanish character, at once
both adventurous and lazy, had given them a noticeable taste for
brigandage, and this taste was encouraged by the splitting up of
the country into several kingdoms which once formed independent
states, each with its own laws, usages,  and frontiers. Some of
these states imposed customs duties, some, such as Biscay and
Navarre, did not; and the result was that the inhabitants of the
customs-free countries constantly tried to smuggle dutiable goods
into those whose frontiers were guarded by lines of armed and
active customs officers. The smugglers, on their part, had, from
time immemorial, formed bands, which employed force when cunning
was insufficient, and whose occupation was not considered in any
way dishonourable by the majority of Spaniards, who saw it as a
just war against the imposition of customs. Preparing their
expeditions, collecting intelligence, posting armed guards,
hiding in the mountains, where they lie about smoking and
sleeping, such is the life of the smugglers, who, as a result of
the large profits to be made from a single operation, can live in
comfortable idleness for several months. However, when the
customs officers, with whom they have frequent skirmishes, have
been victorious and confiscated their goods, these Spanish
smugglers, reduced to extremes, think nothing of becoming
highwaymen, a profession which they pursue with a certain
magnanimity, since they never kill travellers, and always leave
them the means to continue their journey. They had just done as
much to an English family, and General Ducos, who wished to spare
us the disagreeable experience of being robbed, had for this
reason decided to delay our departure; but Don Raphael assured
him that he knew enough about the habits of Spanish robbers to be
certain that the safest time to travel in a province was just
after a gang had committed some offence, because they then
cleared off and hid for a while. So general Ducos allowed us to
leave.

Draught-horses were at this time unknown in Spain, where all
coaches, even the king's, were drawn by mules. There were no
stage-coaches, and in the post-houses nothing but saddle horses.
So that even the greatest of noblemen, who had their own coaches,
were forced when they travelled to hire harness mules and go by
short stages. The comfortably off took light carriages, which did
not go more than ten leagues a day. The ordinary people attached
themselves to caravanserais of donkey-men, who carried baggage in
the same way as our carters, but no one travelled alone, partly
for fear of robbers, and partly because of the mistrust with
which a solitary traveller was regarded. After our arrival in
Bayonne, Don Raphael, who was now in charge, said to me that as
we were not such grandees that we could hire a coach, nor so poor
that we had to join the donkey-men, there remained only two
possibilities, either we rode on horseback or we took a seat in a
carriage. Travelling on horseback, of which I have done so much,
did not seem suitable, as we would have no means of carrying our
baggage, so it was decided that we should go by carriage.

Don Raphael bargained with an individual who agreed to take us to
Salamanca for 800 francs a head, and to lodge us and feed us on
the way, at his own expense. This was double what a similar
journey would have cost in France, and I had already spent a lot
of money to get to Bayonne; but that was the price, and as there,
was no other way for me to join my new regiment, I had to accept.

We left in an enormous and ancient four-wheeled carriage, in
which three of the seats were occupied by a citizen of Cadiz, his
wife and daughter, while a Benedictine Prior from the university
of Salamanca completed the party.

Everything was new to me on this trip. Firstly, the harnessing,
which greatly surprised me. The team consisted of six splendid
mules, of which, to my astonishment, only the two on the shaft
had bridles and reins, the remaining four went freely, guided
only by the voices of the coachman and his "Zagal" who, agile as
a squirrel, sometimes went for more than a league on foot,
running beside his mules, which were at full trot, then, in a
blink of an eye he would climb up on to the seat beside his
master, only to get down and then up again; which he did twenty
times a day; going round the coach and the harness to make sure
that nothing was out of order, and while doing all this, singing
to encourage his mules, each one of which he called by name. He
never struck them, his voice alone being enough to urge on any
mule which was not pulling its weight.

These activities, and in particular the man's singing, I found
most entertaining. I also took a lively interest in what was said
in the coach, for, although I did not speak Spanish, what I knew
of Italian and Latin enabled me to understand much of what my
fellow passengers were saying, to whom I replied in French, which
they understood reasonably well. I did not smoke, but the five
Spaniards, even the two ladies and the monk, soon lit up their
cigars. We were all in good spirits. Don Raphael, the ladies, and
even the fat monk sang together.

Normally we left in the morning. We stopped from one o'clock to
three, to dine, rest the mules, and allow the heat of the day to
pass, during which time one slept; what the Spanish call the
siesta. Then we went on to our night stop. The meals were
sufficiently plentiful, but the Spanish cuisine seemed to me, at
first, to taste awful, however I got used to it; but I could
never have got used to the horrible beds which we were offered at
night in the pousadas or inns. They were really disgusting, and
Don Raphael, who had just spent a year in France was forced to
agree. To avoid this unpleasantness, on the first day of my
arrival in Spain, I asked if I could sleep on a bale of straw.
Sadly, I discovered that such a thing as a bale of straw was
unknown in Spain, because, instead of threshing the sheaves of
corn they have them trampled under foot by mules, which breaks
the straw into short bits, scarcely as long as a finger. But I
had the bright idea of filling a large cloth sack with this short
straw, which I placed in a barn and slept on covered by my cloak;
thus avoiding the vermin with which the beds and the rooms were
infested. In the morning I emptied the sack and put it in the
coach and each evening I refilled it so that I had a clean
palliasse. Don Raphael followed my example.

We crossed the provinces of Navarre, Biscay and Alava, country of
high mountains; then we crossed the Ebro and entered the immense
plains of Castile. We passed through Burgos and Valladolid, and
arrived, at last, after a journey lasting fifteen days, at
Salamanca.

There, not without regret I parted from my good travelling
companion, whom I was to meet once more in the same part of the
world, during the War of Independence. General Leclerc was at
Salamanca. He received me kindly, and even proposed that I should
stay with him as a supernumerary aide-de-camp, but my recent
experience had taught me that although the post of aide-de-camp
offers one more freedom and comfort than regimental duty, this is
only when one is on the establishment. As a supernumerary you are
landed with all the unpleasant jobs, and you have only a very
precarious position. I therefore turned down the favour which I
was offered and asked to go and join my regiment. It was a good
thing that I took this step, because, the following year, the
general, having been given the command of the expedition to Santa
Dominica, took with him, on his general staff, a lieutenant who
had accepted the post which I had turned down, and all these
officers and the general died of yellow fever.

I joined the 25th Chasseurs at Salamanca. The colonel was M.
Moreau, an old officer and a very fine fellow. He gave me a warm
welcome, as did my new comrades; and in a few days I was on the
best of terms with everybody. I was introduced to the town's
society, for at that time the presence of the French was highly
acceptable to the Spanish, and completely opposite to what it
became later. In 1801 we were their allies. We had come to fight
for them against the Portuguese and the English, so we were
treated as friends. The French officers were billeted with the
wealthiest inhabitants and there was competition to have them. We
were received everywhere. We were overwhelmed by invitations.
Being thus admitted into the family life of the Spaniards, we
learned more, in a short time, about their way of living than
officers who came to the peninsula during the War of Independence
could have learned in several years.

I was billeted in the home of a university professor, who had
given me a very nice room looking out onto the handsome Salamanca
square. My regimental duties were not very onerous and left me
plenty of leisure time, which I used to study the Spanish
language, which is, in my opinion, the most elegant and beautiful
in Europe. It was at Salamanca that I saw, for the first time,
the famous General Lasalle. He sold me a horse.

The fifteen thousand French troops sent to Spain with General
Leclerc formed the right wing of the Spanish Grand Army, which
was commanded by the "Prince de la Paix" and we were therefore
under his orders. This man (Emmanuel Godoy) was the queen's
favourite and was, in effect, the king. He came to revue us on
one occasion. He seemed to me to be very pleased with himself,
and although he was small and undistinguished looking, he was not
lacking in charm and ability.

Godoy started the army moving, and our regiment went to Toro and
then to Zamora. I was sorry to leave Salamanca at first, but we
were as well received in other towns, particularly in Zamora,
where I stayed in the house of a rich merchant who had a superb
garden, where a numerous society would gather in the evenings to
make music and pass part of the night in conversation amid groves
of pomegranates myrtles and lemon trees. It is difficult to
appreciate fully the beauties of nature if one has not
experienced the delicious nights of the southern countries.

We had, however, to tear ourselves away from the pleasant life
which we were leading to go and attack the Portuguese. We crossed
the border: there were a few small engagements which all went our
way: the French troops went to Viseu, while the Spanish came down
the Tagus and reached Alantejo: we expected to enter Lisbon soon,
as conquerors. But the Prince de la Paix, who had, without much
reflection, called the French troops into the peninsula, now,
also without much reflection, took fright at their presence, and
to get rid of them he concluded, without the knowledge of the
First Consul, a peace treaty with the Portuguese, which he
cunningly had ratified by the French ambassador, Lucien
Bonaparte. This greatly annoyed the First Consul, and caused,
from that day, a rift between the two brothers.

The French troops stayed for several months longer in Portugal,
until the beginning of 1802; then we returned to Spain and
successively to our previous charming stations of Zamora, Toro
and Salamanca, where we were always made welcome.

On this occasion I went through Spain on horseback with my
regiment, and had no longer any need to avoid the verminous beds
of the pousadas, since we were lodged each evening with the most
respectable citizens. A route march, when one makes it with one's
own regiment and in good weather, is not without a certain charm.
One has a constant change of scene, without being separated from
one's comrades; one sees the countryside in the greatest detail;
we talk as we travel, we dine together, sometimes well, sometimes
badly, and one is in a position to observe the customs of the
inhabitants.

One of our pleasures was to watch in the evenings the Spaniards,
shedding their usual lethargy, dance the fandango and the bolero
with a perfection of grace and agility, even in the villages.
The colonel offered them the use of his band, but they, quite
rightly, preferred the guitar, the castanets, and a woman's
voice; an accompaniment which gave the dance its national
characteristics.  These improvised dances, in the open air,
engaged in by the working class in the towns as well as in the
country, gave us so much pleasure, even as spectators, that we
were sorry to leave them.

After more than a month on the road, we recrossed the Bidassoa,
and although I had happy memories of my stay in Spain, it was
with pleasure that I saw France once more.

Chap. 16.

At this period, regiments were responsible for their own
remounts, and the colonel had been authorised to buy sixty horses
which he hoped to procure, bit by bit, in French Navarre, while
he was taking the regiment to Toulouse, where we were to form the
garrison. But, for my sins, we arrived at Bayonne on the day of
the town fair, and the place was full of horse-copers. The
colonel arranged a deal with one of them, who provided all the
horses the unit needed straight away. The dealer could not be
paid immediately because the funds provided by the ministry would
take a week to arrive. The colonel then ordered that an officer
should remain behind in Bayonne, to receive this money and pay
the supplier. I was picked for this wretched task, which landed
me later in a most disagreeable situation, though at the time I
saw only that I had been deprived of the pleasure of travelling
with my comrades. However, in spite of my feelings, I had to obey
orders.

To make it easier for me to rejoin the unit, the colonel decided
that my horse should go with the regiment, and that after I had
completed my mission, I should take the stage-coach to Toulouse.
I knew several former pupils from Soreze who lived in Bayonne and
who helped me to pass the time agreeably. The funds provided by
the ministry arrived and I paid them out and was now free from
all responsibility and ready to rejoin my regiment.

I had a cotton dolman, braided in the same material, and with
silver buttons. I had had this strange costume made when I was on
Bernadotte's staff, since it was the fashion there to wear this
uniform when travelling in hot weather. I decided to wear this
outfit on the journey to Toulouse, as I was not with my regiment,
so I packed my uniform in my trunk and took it to the
stage-coach, where I booked my seat and, unfortunately, paid in
advance.

The coach was due to leave at five in the morning, so I told the
porter at the hotel where I was staying to come and waken me at
four, and the rascal having promised to do so, I went to bed
without further ado. But he forgot; and when I opened my eyes,
the sun was shining into the room and it was after eight
o'clock...! What a disaster...! I was dumbfounded, and having
cursed and upbraided the negligent porter, I had to think what I
could do. The first difficulty was that the stage-coach ran only
every second day, but that was not the major problem, which was
that though the regiment had paid for my seat because I was on
duty, they were not obliged to pay twice, and I had been stupid
enough to pay for the whole journey in advance; so that if I took
a new seat it would be at my own expense. Now at this time
stage-coach fares were very costly, and I had very little money,
and also, what was I to do for forty-eight hours in Bayonne, when
all my belongings were on the coach...? I resolved to make the
journey on foot.

I left the town without delay, and set off bravely on the road to
Toulouse. I was lightly clad, and had nothing but my sabre, which
I carried on my shoulder, so I covered the first stage briskly
enough and spent the night at Peyrehorade.

The next day was a day of disaster. I intended to go as far as
Orthez, and had already made half the journey when I was
overtaken by one of these terrible storms which one has in the
Midi. Rain  mixed with hail fell in torrents, beating on my face;
the road, already bad, became a morass in which I had the
greatest difficulty in walking in boots with spurs; a chestnut
tree near to me was struck by lighting.... No matter, I walked on
with stoic resignation. But, behold....! In the midst of the
storm I saw coming toward me two mounted gendarmes. You can
easily imagine how I looked after paddling for two hours in the
mud, dressed in my cotton breeches and dolman. The gendarmes
belonged to the station at Peyrehorade, to which they were
returning, but it seemed that they had lunched very well at
Orthez, for they were somewhat drunk. The older of the two asked
me for my papers; I gave him my travel permit, on which I was
described as a sous-lieutenant of the 25th Chasseurs. "You! A
sous-lieutenant?" shouted the gendarme, "you're too young to be
an officer!"  But read the description," I said, "and you will
see that it says that I am not yet twenty years old. It is exact
in every point." "That may be," he replied, "but it is a forgery;
and the proof of that is that the Chasseur's uniform is green and
you are wearing a yellow dolman. You are an escaped conscript,
and I am arresting you." "All right," I said, "but when we get to
Orthez and I see your lieutenant, I can easily prove that I am an
officer and that this travel document is genuine."

I was not much worried by this arrest; but now the older gendarme
said that he did not intend to go to Orthez. He belonged to the
station at Peyrehorade, and I must follow him there. I said that
I would do nothing of the kind, and that he could require this
only if I had no papers, but as I had shown him my travel permit,
he had no right to make me go back, and that it was his duty,
according to the regulations, to accompany me to my destination,
which was Orthez.

The younger gendarme, who was less full of wine, said that I was
right. A lively dispute then broke out between the two of them.
They hurled insults at one another and in the middle of the
tempest which was all around us, they drew their sabres and
charged furiously together. I was afraid I might be injured in
this ridiculous combat, so I got into one of the huge ditches
which ran along each side of the road, and although I was in
water up to my waist, I climbed up onto the bordering field, from
where I watched the two warriors skirmishing to get the better of
one another.

Fortunately, the heavy, wet cloaks which they were wearing clung
round their arms, and the horses, frightened by the thunder,
would not go near each other, so that the riders could manage
only a few ill directed blows. Eventually the older gendarme's
horse fell, and he landed in the ditch. When he got out,covered
in mire, he found that his saddle was broken and that he would
have to continue his journey on foot; so he set out, after
telling his companion that he was now responsible for the
prisoner. Left alone with the more sensible of the two gendarmes,
I pointed out to him that if I had anything to hide, it would be
easy for me to make off into the country, as there was a large
ditch between us which his horse could not cross, but that I
would surrender myself to him since he had agreed not to make me
go back. So I continued on my way, escorted by the gendarme, who
was beginning to sober up. We had some conversation, and it
became apparent that the fact that I had surrendered, when it
would have been easy for me to run away, made him begin to think
that I might be what I said I was. He would have let me go had he
not been put in charge of me by his companion. He became more and
more accommodating, and said he would not take me all the way to
Orthez, but would consult the Mayor of Puyoo, which we were going
to pass through.

My arrival was that of a malefactor: all the villagers, who had
been driven back to the village by the storm, were at their doors
and windows to see the criminal in the charge of the gendarme;
however, the Mayor of Puyoo was a good, stout, sensible peasant,
whom we found in his barn, threshing corn. As soon as he had read
my travel permit, he said, gravely, to the gendarme, "Set this
young man at liberty at once. You have no right to arrest him. An
officer on a journey is designated by his documents, not by his
clothes." Could Solomon have produced a better judgement? The
good peasant did not stop at that, he wanted me to stay with him
until the storm had passed and he offered me food. Then, while we
were talking, he told me that he had once seen at Orthez a
general whose name was Marbot. I told him that this was my
father, and described him. Then the good man, whose name was
Bordenave became even more solicitous and wanted to dry my
clothes and offered me a bed for the night; but I thanked him and
went on my way to Orthez, where I arrived at nightfall,
completely worn out. The next day it was only with great
difficulty that I could put my boots on, partly because they were
wet and partly because my feet were swollen.

However I managed to drag myself as far as Pau, and being unable
to go any further, I stayed there all day. I could find no other
means of transport but the mail coach, and although the seats
were very expensive, I took one as far as Gimont, where I was
welcomed with open arms by M. Dorignac, a friend of my father,
with whom I had spent several months after I left Soreze. I
rested for a few days with his family, then I took a stage-coach
to Toulouse. I had spent four times the cost of the seat which I
had lost through the negligence of the hotel porter at Bayonne.

On my arrival at Toulouse I was going to look around for
somewhere to live, but the colonel told me that he had arranged a
place for me with one of his friends, an elderly doctor named M.
Merlhes, whose name I shall never forget, because this worthy man
and his numerous offspring were so good to me. During the two
weeks I stayed with them, I was treated as a member of the family
rather than as a boarder.

The regiment was up to strength and well mounted. We had many
exercises which I found very interesting; though I sometimes
found myself up before squadron commander Blancheville, an
excellent officer, an old soldier from whom I learned to work
with precision, and I owe much to him. Blancheville, before the
revolution, had been on the staff of the gendarmes of Luneville.
He was very well educated and took a great interest in young
officers whom he thought capable of learning, and compelled them
to study whether they liked it or not. As for the others, whom he
called the block-heads, he simply shrugged his shoulders when
they did not know their drill or made mistakes during exercises,
but he never punished them for it.  There were two or three
sous-lieutenants whom he had picked out, they were MM. Gavoille,
Dumonts and me. In our case he would not suffer an incorrectly
given order, and punished us for the slightest mistake. As he was
a very good fellow, when off duty we risked asking him why he
treated us so severely. "Do you think I am so stupid that I would
try to wash a black man white?" He replied, "Messers so and so
are too old and lacking in talent to make it worth my while to
try to improve them. As for you who have all that is required to
succeed, you need to study, and study you shall!" I have never
forgotten this reply, and I made use of it when I became a
colonel. In fact old Blancheville had drawn our horoscopes
accurately, Gavoille became a lieutenant-colonel, Dumonts a
brigadier-general and I a divisional general.

On my arrival at Toulouse, I had exchanged the horse which I had
bought in Spain for a delightful mount from Navarre. Now, it so
happened that the prefect had arranged a race meeting in
celebration of some fˆte or other, and Gavoille, who was a great
lover of racing, had persuaded me to enter my horse. One day,
when I was exercising my horse on a grass track, as he took a
tight curve at full speed, he collided with the projecting wall
of a garden and fell stone dead.  My companions thought I had
been killed or at least seriously injured, but by a miraculous
piece of good luck I was unhurt. When I had been picked up, and
saw my poor horse lying motionless, I was very upset, and went
back sadly to my billet, where I confronted the realisation that
I would have to buy another horse, and would have to ask my
mother for the money to do so, although I knew she was very
hard-up.

Comte Defermon, a minister of state and one of our trustees, was
opposed to the sale of those properties which still belonged to
us, because he foresaw that peace would increase the value of
land. He considered, rightly, that they should be retained and
creditors paid off gradually by rigid economy. This is one of the
greatest obligations we owe to the good M. Defermon, the most
sincere of my father's friends, and one for whose memory I have
the deepest respect.

When my request for money to buy a new horse was submitted to the
council of trustees, General Bernadotte, who was one of them,
burst out laughing, saying that it was a good try and that the
excuse was well chosen, and suggesting that my application was
what now-a-days would be called a "con", but, fortunately my
request was backed up by a letter from the colonel, and M.
Defermon stated that he did not believe me capable of trying to
obtain money by trickery. He was quite right in this, for
although I had an allowance of only 600 francs, my pay of just 95
francs a month and a lodging allowance of 12 francs, I never had
a penny of debt; something I have always regarded with horror.

I bought a new horse, which was not as good as the Navarrais, but
the general inspections, which had been reintroduced by the First
Consul, were approaching, and it was essential that I was quickly
remounted, the more so because we were to be inspected by General
Bourcier, who had the reputation of being a stern disciplinarian.

I was detailed to go with thirty men to form an escort for him.
He welcomed me warmly and spoke of my father, whom he had known
well, which, however, did not prevent him from putting me on a
charge the following day. The way in which this came about is
quite amusing.

One of our captains, named B***, was a very good-looking lad, and
would have been one of the most handsome men in the army if his
calves had been in harmony with the rest of his person; but his
legs were like stilts, which looked very odd in the tight
breeches, called Hungarians, which were then worn by the
Chasseurs. To get over this blemish, Captain B*** had acquired
pads made in the shape of calves, which completed his fine
appearance. You will see how these calves got me into trouble,
but they were not the only cause.

The regulations laid down that the tails of officer's horses
should be left flowing, as were the tails of the trooper's
horses.  Our colonel, M. Moreau, was always perfectly mounted,
but all his horses had their tails cut, and as he feared that
General Bourcier--a stickler for the rules--would take him to
task for setting a bad example to his officers, he had, for the
time of the inspection, had false tails fitted to his horses
which were so realistic that, unless one knew, one would think
them natural. This was all very fine. We went on manoeuvres, to
which General Bourcier had invited General Suchet, the inspector
of infantry, and General Gudin, the commander of the territorial
division, and was accompanied by a numerous and brilliant staff.

The exercises were very long. Almost all the movements, carried
out at the gallop, ended with several charges at top speed. I was
in command of a section in the centre of Captain B***'s squadron,
and it was next to the captain that the colonel took up his
position. They were therefore a couple of paces in front of me
when the generals came to congratulate Colonel Moreau on the fine
performance of his troops. But what did I then see?.... The
extreme rapidity of the movements had deranged the accessories
added to the turn-out of both the colonel and Captain B***; the
false tail of the colonel's horse had come adrift, the centre
part, made of a pad of tow, was hanging down nearly to the ground
and the hairs were spread over the horse's crupper in a sort of
peacock's tail. As for Captain B***'s calves, they had slipped
round to the front, and could be seen as large lumps on his
shins, which produced a somewhat bizarre effect, while the
captain sat up proudly on his horse, as if to say "Look at me!
See how handsome I am!"

One has little gravity at the age of twenty. Mine was unable to
resist the grotesque spectacle in front of me, and in spite of
the presence of no less than three generals, I was unable to stop
myself from bursting into laughter, however much I tried. The
inspecting general, not knowing the reason for my hilarity,
called me out of the ranks to reprimand me, but to reach him I
had to pass between the colonel and Captain B***, and my eyes
were once more directed to this cursed tail and the new calves
sported by the captain, and I again burst out laughing. I was
then put under open arrest. The generals must have thought I was
crazy, but as soon as they had gone, the officers of the regiment
gathered round the colonel and Captain B***, and soon realised
what had happened. They laughed as I had done, but in easier
circumstances.

In the evening, the commandant Blancheville attended a reception
given by Madame Gudin. General Bourcier, who was also there,
having brought up the subject of what he called my escapade, M.
Blancheville explained the reasons for my unseemly laughter, an
explanation which gave rise to much amusement. The laughter was
increased by the entry of Captain B***, who having adjusted his
false calves, had come to display himself in this brilliant
society, without suspecting that he was one of the reasons for
their hilarity. General Bourcier, appreciating that if he could
not help laughing at a description of the sight which had greeted
my eyes, it was natural enough that a young sous-lieutenant could
not contain himself when confronted with this ridiculous
spectacle, cancelled my arrest and sent someone to look for me.
My arrival rekindled the laughter, which was increased by the
sight of Captain B***, who alone was unaware of the cause, going
from person to person asking what it was all about, while
everyone gazed at his calves.

Chap. 17.

Let us now turn to more serious matters. The Treaty of Luneville
had been followed by the Peace of Amiens, which put an end to the
war between France and England. The First Consul decided to
profit from the tranquility of Europe and the freedom of the sea
to despatch a large body of troops to Dominica, which he wished
to recover from the control of the blacks led by
Toussaint-Louverture, a man who, without being in open revolt
against the French, nevertheless adopted an air of great
independence. General Leclerc was to be in command of this
expedition. This general was a capable officer who had fought
successfully in Egypt and Italy; but his principal distinction
was that he had married Pauline Bonaparte, the First Consul's
sister. Leclerc was the son of a miller from Pontoise, if one can
describe as a miller, a very rich mill owner who had a
considerable business.  The miller had given the best of
educations to his son and also to his daughter, who married
General Davout.

While General Leclerc was preparing for his departure, the First
Consul concentrated in Brittany those troops which he had
earmarked for the expedition, and these troops naturally came
under the command of the commander-in-chief of the area, which
was Bernadotte.

It is well known that there was always a great rivalry between
the troops of the Rhine army and those of the army of Italy. The
former were greatly attached to General Moreau, and did not care
for General Bonaparte, whose elevation to the head of government
they had witnessed with regret. For his part, the First Consul
had a great liking for the soldiers who had fought with him in
Italy and Egypt, and, although the breach with Moreau was not yet
openly declared, he considered that it would be in his interest
to remove to as far away as possible troops devoted to this
general. In consequence, the troops selected for the expedition
to Dominica were almost all taken from the army of the Rhine.
These men, however were perfectly happy to find themselves in
Brittany, under the command of Bernadotte, a former lieutenant of
Moreau's who had almost always served with them on the Rhine.

The expeditionary force was to comprise eventually some forty
thousand men. The army of the west proper consisted of a similar
number, so that Bernadotte, whose command extended to cover all
the departments between the mouth of the Gironde and that of the
Seine, had for a time under his orders an army of eighty thousand
men, of whom the majority were more attached to him than to the
head of the consular government.

If General Bernadotte had had more strength of character, the
First Consul would have regretted putting him in such a powerful
position; for I can say today, as an historical fact which will
harm no one, that Bernadotte plotted against the government of
which Bonaparte was the head. I shall give some details about
this conspiracy which were never known to the public, and perhaps
not even to General Bonaparte himself.

Generals Bernadotte and Moreau, jealous of the elevated position
of the First Consul, and dissatisfied with the small part he gave
them in public affairs, had resolved to overthrow him, and place
themselves at the head of the government in conjunction with a
civil administrator or an enlightened magistrate. To achieve this
aim, Bernadotte, who, it must be said, had a talent for making
himself liked by both officers and men, went about the provinces
of his command, reviewing troops and using every means to
increase their attachment to him. Enticements of all sorts,
money, promises of promotion, were employed among the junior
officers, while secretly he denigrated the government of the
First Consul to the seniors.  Having sown disaffection amongst
most of the regiments, it would not have been difficult to push
them into revolt; particularly those destined for the
expeditionary force, who regarded it as a sort of deportation.

Bernadotte had as chief of staff Brigadier-general Simon, a
competent but rather colourless officer. His rank put him in a
position to correspond daily with unit commanders, and he used it
to make his office the centre of the conspiracy. A battalion
commander named Foucart was at that time attached to General
Simon, who made him his principal agent. Foucart, using the
excuse of official duties, travelled from garrison to garrison
organising a secret league, which was joined by almost all the
colonels and a crowd of senior officers, who were turned against
the First Consul by accusations that he aspired to royalty;
something, it seems, that he had not yet considered.

It was agreed that the garrison of Rennes, composed of several
regiments, would begin the movement, which would spread like a
trail of gunpowder into all divisions of the army: and as it was
necessary that in this garrison there should be one unit which
would start things off and get the rest moving, the 82nd Line
regiment was brought to Rennes. This regiment was commanded by
Colonel Pinoteau, an energetic and capable man, very brave, but
something of a hothead, although he appeared outwardly
phlegmatic. He was a follower of Bernadotte and one of the most
enthusiastic of the conspirators. He promised to deliver his
regiment, where he was extremely popular.

Everything was ready for the explosion when Bernadotte, lacking
resolve and aiming, like a true Gascon, to have a catspaw to pull
his chestnuts from the fire, persuaded General Simon and the
other principal conspirators that it was essential that he should
be in Paris when the army of Brittany proclaimed the deposition
of the consul, so that he would be in a position to seize
immediately the reins of government, in association with General
Moreau, with whom he was going to confer about the matter. In
reality, Bernadotte wished not to be compromised if the attempt
failed, while maintaining himself in a position to take advantage
of any success, and General Simon and the other conspirators were
blind enough not to see through this ruse. The day of the armed
uprising was then agreed, but the man who should have led it,
because he had organised it, had cunningly absented himself.

Before Bernadotte left for Paris, a proclamation had been drawn
up, addressed to the people of France as well as to the army.
Several thousand copies of this were to be stuck up on the day of
the event. A bookseller in Rennes, introduced by General Simon
and by Foucart into the conspiracy, had undertaken to print this
proclamation himself. This ensured that the proclamation would be
ready for use in Brittany, but Bernadotte wanted to have a large
number of these posters in Paris, for it was important to spread
them throughout the capital and to send them to all the provinces
as soon as the army of the west had made its move against the
government, and as there was a risk of discovery if an approach
was made to a Paris printer, Bernadotte devised a method of
acquiring a large number of posters without compromising himself.
He told my brother Adolphe, who was his aide-de-camp, that he was
authorised to accompany him to Paris, and that he was to bring
his horse and his carriage in anticipation of a long stay. My
brother was delighted, and having packed his personal effects
into the lockers of the carriage, he instructed his servant to
bring the carriage, unhurriedly, to Paris while he went there by
stage-coach.

As soon as my brother had left, General Simon and Commandant
Foucart, delaying, under some pretext or other, the departure of
my brother's servant, opened the carriage lockers and took out
the personal possessions, which they replaced by packets of the
proclamation. Then, having closed everything up, they sent poor
Joseph on his way, without any suspicion of what he was carrying.

However, the First Consul's police had got wind of something
brewing in the army of Brittany, but without knowing exactly what
was going on or who was involved. The minister of police thought
it was his duty to inform the prefect of Rennes who was a M.
Mounier, and by the most extraordinary chance the prefect
received this despatch on the very day when the revolt was due to
break out, during a parade at Rennes, at mid-day. It was now
eleven-thirty!

The prefect, to whom the minister had given no positive
information, thought that in order to obtain some, he could do no
better,in the absence of the commanding general, than to consult
his chief of staff. He therefore asked General Simon to come to
his office, and showed him the ministerial despatch. General
Simon, believing that all had been discovered, then foolishly
lost his head.

He told the prefect that there was indeed a vast conspiracy in
the army, in which he had, unfortunately, played a part, of which
he now repented; and thereupon he disclosed all the plans of the
conspirators, and named the leaders; adding that in a few minutes
the troops gathered on the parade ground, at a signal from
General Pinoteau, were going to proclaim the overthrow of the
consular government!

You may imagine M. Mounier's astonishment, and the concern he
felt at being in the presence of a culpable general who, though
at first thrown into confusion, might recover himself and
recollect that he had eighty thousand men under his command, of
whom eight to ten thousand were at this moment gathered not far
from the prefecture.  The position in which M. Mounier found
himself was critical, but he extricated himself adroitly.

The general commanding the gendarmerie, Virion, had been ordered
by the government to put together at Rennes a body of unmounted
gendarmes, for the formation of which every regiment had supplied
some Grenadiers. These soldiers, having no unifying bonds,
escaped, in consequence, from the influence of the colonels of
the regiments, and recognised only the orders of their new
leaders, those of the gendarmerie who, in accordance with the
regulations, obeyed the instructions of the prefect. M. Mounier
now sent for General Virion, telling him to bring all the
gendarmes. Meanwhile, fearing that General Simon might change his
mind and leave him to go and place himself at the head of his
troops, he soothed him with honeyed words, assuring him that his
repentance and his confession would mitigate his offence in the
eyes of the First Consul, and persuaded him to hand over his
sword and go to the Tour Labat with the gendarmes who had at that
moment arrived in the courtyard. So now the prime mover in the
revolt was in prison.

While this was going on at the prefecture, the troops assembled
at the Place D'armes were awaiting the hour of the parade which
would also be that of the beginning of the revolt. All the
colonels were in the secret, and had promised their support
except the commander of the 79th, M. Goddard, who it was hoped
would follow the rest.

From what a slender thread hangs the destiny of empires!
Pinoteau, a strong and determined man, was due to give the signal
which his regiment, the 82nd, already drawn up in battle
formation on the square, was impatiently awaiting; but Pinoteau,
with Foucart, had been busy all morning arranging for the
despatch of proclamations, and in their preoccupation he had
forgotten to shave. Mid-day arrived. Colonel Pinoteau realising
that he was unshaven, hurried to put this right; but while he was
engaged in this operation, General Virion, escorted by a large
number of gendarmes, burst into the room, seized his sword and
declared him a prisoner. He was taken to the tower to join
General Simon. A few minutes later and Colonel Pinoteau would
have been at the head of ten thousand men, and would undoubtedly
have succeeded in starting the revolt. But taken thus by surprise
he could do nothing but surrender to force.

Having made this second arrest, Virion and the prefect sent an
aide-de-camp to the parade ground to tell Colonel Goddard of the
79th that they had a communication for him from the First Consul.
As soon as he arrived, they told him of the discovery of the
conspiracy and the arrest of General Simon and Colonel Pinoteau,
and persuaded him to unite with them in putting down the
rebellion. Having agreed to this, Colonel Goddard returned to the
parade ground without telling anyone what he had learned, and
taking his battalion to the Tour Labat, he joined the battalion
of gendarmes who were guarding it.  Also there were the prefect
and General Virion, who arranged for ammunition to be distributed
to the loyal troops. They then awaited events.

Meanwhile, the officers of the regiments which were assembled on
the parade ground, surprised at the sudden departure of the 79th,
and not understanding why General Pinoteau was late, sent to his
home, where they were told that he had been arrested and sent to
the tower. They were told at the same time of the arrest of
General Simon.

This put the cat among the pigeons. The officers of the various
units got together; Commandant Foucart proposed that they should
march immediately to free the two prisoners and carry on with the
movement. This suggestion was received with acclamation,
particularly from the 82nd, who worshipped Colonel Pinoteau. They
hurried to the Tour Labat, but found it surrounded by four
thousand gendarmes and the battalion of the 79th. The assailants
were undoubtedly the more numerous, but they had no ammunition
and if they had had any, many of them would have been reluctant
to fire on their comrades, simply to make a change in the members
of the government. General Virion and the Prefect addressed them
and urged them to return to their duty. The soldiers hesitated,
and seeing this, none of the officers dared to order a bayonet
attack, which was the only action which remained possible.
Gradually the regiments stood down, and returned one by one to
their barracks. Commandant Foucart, left alone, was taken to the
tower, along with the unfortunate printer.

On learning that the insurrection at Rennes had failed, all the
officers of the other regiments of the army of Brittany disavowed
it; but the First Consul was not taken in by their protestations,
he brought forward the date of their embarkation for Dominica and
the other islands of the Antilles, where nearly all of them died,
either in the fighting or of yellow fever.

As soon as he had heard the first confessions of General Simon
and before the situation was fully under control, M. Mounier had
sent a despatch rider to the government, and the First Consul now
considered whether he should have Bernadotte and Moreau arrested.
However, he suspended this measure for lack of any evidence, and
to get hold of some, he ordered the examination of any travellers
coming from Brittany.

While all this was going on, the good Joseph arrived at
Versailles in my brother's carriage, and much to his surprise,
found himself seized by the gendarmerie, and, in spite of his
protests, brought before the minister of police. On learning that
the carriage which this man was driving belonged to one of
Bernadotte's aides-de-camp, the minister, Fouche, had all the
lockers searched and found them full of proclamations, in which
Bernadotte and Moreau, after denouncing the First Consul in
violent terms announced his fall and their accession to power.

Bonaparte, furious with these two officers, demanded their
presence. Moreau told him that as he, Moreau,had no authority
over the army of the west, he would accept no responsibility for
the conduct of the regiments of which it was composed; and one
has to admit that this was a valid objection. It however worsened
the position of Bernadotte, who, as commander-in-chief of the
troops assembled in Brittany, was responsible for maintaining
good order and discipline amongst them; but not only had his army
engaged in conspiracy, but his chief-of-staff was a leader in the
enterprise.  The rebel proclamations bore Bernadotte's signature,
and more than one thousand copies of this document had just been
found in a carriage belonging to his aide-de-camp. The First
Consul thought that such evident proofs would flatten and
confound Bernadotte; but he was dealing with a true Gascon, as
devious as they come!

Bernadotte expressed surprise...indignation! He knew
nothing...absolutely nothing! General Simon was a villain and so
was Pinoteau! He defied anyone to produce the original
proclamation bearing his signature! Was it his fault if some
lunatic had arranged for his name to be printed at the foot of a
proclamation which he utterly and completely rejected. As for the
wicked originators of all these plots, he would be the first to
demand their punishment.

Bernadotte had indeed contrived to get everything directed by
General Simon, without giving him a single word in writing which
might compromise himself, and had left himself in a position in
which he could deny everything if, in the event of the plot
failing, General Simon should accuse him of being a participant.
The First Consul, though convinced of Bernadotte's guilt, had no
solid evidence to go on, and his council of ministers concluded
that it would not be feasible to bring charges against a general
who was so popular in the country and the army. Sadly, these sort
of considerations did not apply to my brother Adolphe. One fine
night they came to my mother's house to arrest him, and this at a
time when the poor woman was already overburdened with grief.

M. de Canrobert, her eldest brother, whom she had managed to have
taken off the list of emigres, was living peaceably with her when
he was picked out by a policeman as having been present at some
gathering whose aim was the restoration of the previous
government.  He was taken to the Temple Prison, where he was
detained for eleven months. My mother was taking every possible
step to prove his innocence and obtain his liberty when she was
struck by another terrible disaster.

My two younger brothers were pupils at the French Military
School. This establishment had a huge park and a fine country
house in the village of Vanves, not far from the banks of the
Seine; and in the summer the pupils went there to pass some of
their holidays, when those who had behaved well were allowed to
bathe in the river. Now it so happened that, because of some
student peccadillo, the headmaster had deprived the whole school
of the pleasure of swimming; however my brother Theodore loved
swimming, so he and some of his friends decided to go swimming
without the knowledge of their masters. While the pupils were
spread about the park playing, they went to an isolated spot
where they climbed over the wall and, on a very hot day, they ran
to the Seine, into which they jumped, bathed in perspiration.
They were scarcely in the water, however, when they heard the
college drum beating for dinner. Fearing that their escapade
would be discovered by their absence from the refectory, they
dressed hurriedly and rushed back by the way they had come, to
arrive, breathless, at the start of the meal. In such
circumstances, they should have eaten little or nothing, but
schoolboys are heedless, and they ate as much as usual, with the
result that they nearly all became ill. Theodore was particularly
affected, and was taken to my mother's house desperately ill with
pneumonia.

It was while she was going from the bedside of her mortally
afflicted son to her brother's prison, that they came to arrest
her first-born. An appalling situation for any mother. To make
matters worse, poor Theodore died. He was eighteen years old,
charming and handsome. I was desolated to hear of his death, for
I was very fond of him. These dreadful misfortunes which, one
after another, assailed my mother, impelled those who were my
father's true friends to exert themselves on her behalf. A
leading figure among them was M. Defermon, who worked almost
daily with the First Consul, and who rarely failed to intercede
for Adolphe and his widowed mother. Eventually, General Bonaparte
said to him one day, that although he had a low opinion of
Bernadotte's common sense, he did not believe that he was so
lacking in judgement that in conspiring against the government,
he would take into his confidence a twenty-one year old
lieutenant; and besides that, General Simon had stated that it
was he and Commandant Foucart who had put the proclamations in
young Marbot's carriage, so that, if he was to blame at all, it
was only to a very small extent. However, he, the First Consul,
was not willing to release the aide-de-camp until Bernadotte came
in person to ask him to do so.

When she heard of this decision taken by the First Consul, my
mother hastened to Bernadotte's house and begged him to take the
necessary step. He promised solemnly to do but the days and weeks
rolled past without him doing anything. Eventually, he said to my
mother, "What you are asKing of me will be extremely painful, but
no matter, I owe this to the memory of your husband, as well as
to the interest I have in your children. I shall go this very
evening to see the First Consul and I shall call at your house
after leaving the Tuileries. I am certain I shall be able to
announce the release of your son."

One can imagine with what impatience my mother waited during this
long day! Every coach she heard made her heart beat. But at last
it struck eleven o'clock and Bernadotte had not appeared. My
mother then went round to his house, and what do you suppose she
was told?....That General Bernadotte and his wife had left, to
take the waters at Plombieres, and would not be back for two
months! In spite of his promises, Bernadotte had left Paris
without seeing the First Consul. Devastated, my mother wrote to
General Bonaparte. M. Defermon, who undertook to deliver the
letter, was so indignant at the conduct of General Bernadotte
that he could not resist telling the First Consul how he had
behaved toward us. "That," said the First Consul, "is the sort of
thing I would expect!"

M. Defermon, Generals Mortier, Lefebvre and Murat then urged that
my brother should be freed; observing that if he had been unaware
of the conspiracy, it was unjust to keep him in prison, and even
if he had known something about it, he could not be expected to
carry tales about Bernadotte, whose aide-de-camp he was. This
reasoning impressed the First Consul, who set my brother at
liberty and sent him to Cherbourg, to join the 49th Line
regiment, as he did not wish him to continue as aide-de-camp to
Bernadotte.

Bonaparte, who had a very long memory, probably had engraved,
somewhere in his head, the words, "Marbot. Aide-de-camp of
Bernadotte. Conspiracy of Rennes." So my brother was never again
looked on with favour, and some time later he was sent to
Pondichery.

Adolphe had spent a month in prison; Commandant Foucart was there
for a year. He was cashiered and ordered to leave France. He took
refuge in Holland, where he lived miserably for thirty years on
earnings from French lessons, which he was reduced to giving, as
he had no personal fortune.

At last, in 1832, he thought to return to his native country, and
during the siege of Anvers I saw, one day, come into my room, a
sort of elderly schoolmaster, very threadbare; it was Foucart, I
recognised him. He told me that he did not have a brass farthing!
While I offered him some assistance, I could not help reflecting
on the bizarre workings of fate. Here was a man who in 1802 was
already a battalion commander, and whose courage and ability
would have certainly carried him to the rank of general, if
Colonel Pinoteau had not decided to shave at the moment when the
conspiracy of Rennes was due to come to a head. I took Foucart to
Marshal Gerard, who also remembered him, and together we
presented him to the Duc d'Orleans, who gave him a job in his
library, at a salary of 2400 francs. He lived there for fifteen
years.

As for General Simon and Colonel Pinoteau, they were imprisoned
in the Isle de Re for five or six years. Eventually, Bonaparte,
having become Emperor, set them free. Pinoteau had been
vegetating for some time in Rufec, his birthplace, when, in 1808,
the Emperor, who was on his way to Spain, having stopped there to
change horses, Pinoteau presented himself boldly before him and
requested to be re-engaged in military service. The Emperor, who
knew that he was an excellent officer, then placed him in command
of a regiment, which he led faultlessly throughout the wars in
Spain, so that after several campaigns, he was promoted to the
rank of brigadier-general.

General Simon also returned to military service. He was in
command of an infantry brigade in Massena's army when we invaded
Portugal. At the battle of Busaco, where Massena made the mistake
of mounting a frontal attack on the Duke of Wellington's army,
which was in position on the heights of a mountain with a very
difficult approach, Poor Simon, wishing, no doubt, to redeem
himself and to make up for the time he had lost towards
promotion, charged bravely at the head of his brigade, overcame
every obstacle, clambered up the rocks under a hail of bullets,
broke through the English line and was first into the enemy
entrenchments. But, there, a bullet fired at close range
shattered his jaw at the moment when the English second line
drove back our troops, who were thrown down into the valley with
considerable losses. The enemy found the unfortunate general
lying in the redout among the dead and dying. His face was hardly
recognisable as human. Wellington treated him with much respect,
and as soon as he could be moved, he sent him to England as a
prisoner of war. He was later permitted to return to France. But
his terrible injury barred him from any further service. The
Emperor gave him a pension, and one heard no more of him.

Chap. 18.

After the unhappy events which had just befallen her, my mother
longed to re-unite her three remaining sons around her. My
brother, having been ordered to join the expeditionary force
which was being sent to India under the command of General
Decaen, was given permission to spend two months with my mother;
Felix was at the Military School, and a piece of good fortune
brought me also to Paris.

The School of Cavalry was then at Versailles; every regiment sent
there an officer and a non-commissioned officer, who, after
completing their studies, returned to their unit to act as
instructors. Now it so happened that at the moment when I was
about to ask for permission to go to Paris, the lieutenant who
had been at the School had completed the course, and the colonel
proposed to send me to replace him. I accepted this with
pleasure, for not only would it allow me to see my mother again,
but it would ensure that for eighteen months I would be living
only a short distance from her.

My preparations were soon made. I sold my horse and taking the
stage-coach, I left the 25th Chasseurs, to which I was never to
return; although not being aware of this at the time, my
farewells to my comrades were lighthearted.

On my arrival in Paris, I found my mother greatly upset, not only
on account of the cruel loss which we had just suffered, but also
over the imminent departure of Adolphe for India, and the
detention of my uncle Canrobert, which continued indefinitely.

We spent a month together as a family, at the end of which my
elder brother had to report to Brest, where he was soon embarked
for Pondichery in the "Marengo." As for me, I went to settle in
at the School of Cavalry, whose barracks were in the great
stables of Versailles.

I was lodged on the first floor, in apartments which had once
been occupied by the Prince de Lambesc, the master of horse. I
had a very big bedroom and an immense "salon" which looked out
over the Avenue de Paris and the parade-ground. I was at first
astonished that the most recently arrived pupil should be so well
housed, but I soon learned that no one wanted this apartment
because its huge size made it glacially cold, and few of the
officer pupils could afford to keep a fire going. Happily I was
not entirely without means. I had a good stove put in, and with a
big screen, I made in this vast apartment a little room, which I
furnished modestly, since all we were issued with was a table, a
bed, and two chairs, which were quite out of place in the
enormous space of my quarters. So I made myself reasonably
comfortable until the return of spring, when the place seemed
quite charming.

Although we were called pupils, you should not suppose that we
were treated as students. We were allowed every freedom, too much
freedom in fact. We were commanded by an old colonel, M. Maurice,
whom we hardly ever saw, and who did not take part in anything.
On three days in the week we had civilian horsemanship, under the
celebrated equestrians Jardin and Coupe, and we went there when
it suited us. In the afternoon, an excellent veterinarian, M.
Valois, ran a course on the care of horses; but no one compelled
us to study with any diligence. The other three days were devoted
to military matters. In the morning, military horsemanship,
taught by the only two captains in the school, and in the
afternoon, drill, also taught by them. Once this parade was
finished, the captains disappeared and each student went his own
way.

You will appreciate that it took a keen desire to learn, to get
anywhere in a school so badly run; however most of the students
made progress because, being destined to become instructors in
their respective regiments, their self-respect made them fear not
being up to the task. So they worked reasonably hard, but not as
hard as one would as a schoolboy. As for behaviour, the staff
took no interest in it. As long as the students caused no trouble
in the establishment itself, they were allowed to do as they
pleased. They came and went at all hours. They were subject to no
role call. They ate in hotels, if it suited them, slept out, and
even went to Paris without asking permission. The
non-commissioned pupils had a little less liberty.  Two
moderately strict sergeants were in charge of them, who insisted
that they were back by ten o'clock at night.

Each of us wore the uniform of his regiment, so that a gathering
of the whole school presented an interesting sight, as when, on
the first day of every month, we paraded in full dress in order
to draw up the pay roll; then you could see the uniforms of all
the French cavalry regiments.

As all these officers belonged to different units, and were
thrown together only for the duration of the course, there could
not exist between them the close fellowship which is one of the
features of regimental life. We were too numerous (ninety) for
there to be a bond between all. There were coteries but no union.
I did not feel any need to socialise with my new comrades. I left
every Saturday for Paris, where I spent the next day and most of
Monday with my mother. There were at Versailles two old friends
of my mother, from Rennes; the Comtesses de Chateauville, a pair
of very respectable and well educated elderly ladies, who
entertained only a select society. I went two or three times a
week to spend an evening with them. The remaining evenings I
employed in reading, which I have always greatly enjoyed, for if
school sets a man on the road to education, he must get there by
himself through reading. How pleasant it was, in the midst of a
very harsh winter, to come back to my quarters after dinner, make
up a good fire and there, alone, ensconced behind my screen and
beside my little lamp, to read until eight or nine o'clock; then
to go to bed, in order to save wood, and continue reading to
midnight. In this way I re-read Tacitus and Xenophon and many of
the classical Greek and Roman authors; I revised the history of
Rome and of France, and the principle countries of Europe. My
time, shared between my mother, my work at the school, a little
good society and my beloved books, passed very agreeably.

I began the year 1803 at Versailles. Spring introduced some
changes into my way of life. Each of the officers at the school
was provided with a horse, so I devoted some of my evenings to
taking long rides in the magnificent woods which surround
Versailles, Marly, and Meudon.

During May, my mother was made very happy by the release of her
eldest brother from the Temple prison, and the return to France
of the other two, de l'Isle and de la Coste, who, having been
struck off the list of emigres came to Paris.

The eldest of my mother's brothers, M. de Canrobert was a very
pleasant, sensible man. He entered the service at a very young
age, as a sous-lieutenant in the infantry of Ponthievre, and,
under Lieutenant-general De Vaux, fought in all the campaigns of
the war in Corsica, in which he distinguished himself. After the
conquest of that country, he served out the twenty-four years
which earned him the Cross of St. Louis. He was a captain when he
married Mlle. Sanguinet and then retired to the Chateau of Laval
de Cere.

Having become the father of a son and a daughter, M. de Canrobert
was living happily in his manor when the revolution broke out in
1789. He was forced to emigrate to escape the scaffold, with
which he was threatened, all his possessions were confiscated and
sold, his wife was imprisoned with her two young children. My
mother obtained permission to visit her unhappy sister-in-law,
and found her in a cold, damp tower, stricken by a fever, which
carried off, that very day, her young daughter. By dint of
requests and supplications, my mother managed to obtain the
release of her sister-in-law; but she died a few days later from
the illness she had contracted in prison.  My mother then took
charge of the young boy, named Antoine. He was sent in turn to
college and then to the military school, where he was one of
their brightest pupils. Finally he became an infantry officer and
was killed, bravely, on the field of battle, at Waterloo. My
uncle was one of the first of the emigres who, under the
consulate, were given permission to return to France. He
recovered some part of his estate, and married again, this time
to one of the daughters of M. Niocel, an old friend of the
family.

M. Certain de l'Isle, the second of my mother's brothers, was one
of the most handsome men in France. At the time of the revolution
he was a lieutenant in the regiment of Ponthievre, in which were
also serving his elder brother and several of his uncles. He took
the same course as nearly all his comrades and emigrated in
company with his younger brother, Certain de la Coste, who was in
the King's bodyguard. After leaving France the two brothers
stayed always together. They retreated first to the country of
Baden, but their tranquility was soon disturbed: the French
armies crossed the Rhine, and as all emigres who fell into their
clutches were shot, by order of the Convention, the brothers were
forced to hide hurriedly in the interior of Germany. Lack of
money compelled them to travel on foot, which soon became too
much for poor La Coste. They had great difficulty in finding
lodgings, as everywhere was occupied by Austrian troops. La Coste
became ill. His brother supported him.  In this way they reached
a little town in Wurtemberg, where they found a bed in a low
class tavern. At daybreak they saw the Austrians leaving, and
they were told that the French were about to occupy the town. La
Coste, unable to move, urged de l'Isle to look to his own safety
and to leave him to the care of Providence; but de l'Isle
declared solemnly that he would not abandon his sick brother.

However two French volunteers arrived at the inn with a
requisition for lodgings. The inn-keeper took them to the room
occupied by my two uncles, whom he told that they would have to
leave. It has been said, quite rightly, that during the
Revolution, the honour of France took refuge in the army. The two
soldiers, seeing that La Coste was ill, told the landlord that
not only did they wish to keep him with them, but that they
wanted a large room which was on the first floor, where they
would establish themselves with my two uncles. In enemy country,
the victor being the master, the inn-keeper obeyed the two French
volunteers, who, during the two weeks in which their battalion
was billeted in the town, took great care of Messers La Coste and
de l'Isle, and even let them share in the good meals which their
host was obliged to provide in accordance with the usages of war;
and this comfortable regime, coupled with rest, restored to some
extent, the health of La Coste.

When they left, the volunteers, who belonged to a battalion from
the Gironde, wishing to give their new friends the means of
passing through the French columns without being arrested, took
from their uniforms the metal buttons which bore the name of
their battalion, and attached them to the civilian clothing worn
by my uncles, who could then pass themselves off as sutlers. With
this new form of passport, they went through all the French
cantonments without rousing any suspicion. They reached Prussia,
and settled down in the town of Hall, where De l'Isle was able to
give French lessons. They lived there peacefully until 1803, when
my mother managed to have them struck of the list of emigres, and
they returned to France after twelve years of exile.

Chap. 19.

Let us now return to Versailles. While I was on the course at the
school of cavalry, great events were under way in Europe. England
having broken the Treaty of Amiens, hostilities recommenced. The
First Consul resolved to take the initiative by leading an army
onto the soil of Great Britain, a daring and difficult
undertaking, but not impossible. To put it into operation,
Napoleon, who had just seized Hanover, the private property of
the English monarchy, stationed on the coasts of the North Sea
and the Channel, several army corps, and ordered the construction
and assembly, at Boulogne and neighbouring ports, of an immense
number of barges and flat-bottomed boats, on which he proposed to
embark his troops.

All the armed forces were set in motion for this war. I regretted
that I was not involved; and being destined to carry back to my
regiment the knowledge I had acquired at the school, I saw myself
condemned to spend several years in the depot with a whip in my
hand, making recruits trot round on elderly horses, while my
comrades were fighting at the head of troops which I had trained.
I did not find this prospect very pleasant, but how was it to be
changed? A regiment must always be fed with recruits, and it was
certain that my colonel, having sent me to the school of cavalry
to learn how to train these recruits, would not deprive himself
of the services which I could render in this respect, and would
keep me out of the fighting squadrons. One day, however, as I was
walking down the Avenue de Paris, with my drill manual in my
hand, I had a brilliant idea, which totally changed my destiny
and contributed greatly to my promotion to the rank which I now
occupy.

I had just learned that the First Consul, having fallen out with
the court of Lisbon, had ordered the formation, at Bayonne, of an
army corps destined to enter Portugal under the command of
General Augereau. I knew that General Augereau owed some of his
advancement to my father, under whose command he had served in
the camp at Toulouse and in the Pyrenees, and although what I had
experienced at Genoa after the death of my father had not given
me a high opinion of the gratitude of mankind, I resolved to
write to him and, having explained the predicament in which I
found myself, ask him to extricate me by taking me on as one of
his aides-de-camp.

Having written this letter, I sent it to my mother, to see if she
approved. She not only approved, but knowing that Augereau was in
Paris, she decided to take the letter to him herself. Augereau
received the widow of his old friend with the greatest
consideration; he immediately took his carriage and went to the
War Ministry, and that same evening he handed to my mother my
appointment as aide-de-camp. Thus a wish, which twenty-four hours
earlier had seemed a dream, became a reality.

The following day I hurried to Paris to thank the general. He
received me most kindly, and ordered me to join him at Bayonne,
to where he was now going. It was now October, I had completed
the first course at the school of cavalry and had little interest
in starting on the second; so I was happy to leave Versailles,
for I felt sure that I was starting on a new career, much more
advantageous than that of a regimental instructor. I was quite
right in thinking this, for nine years later I was a colonel,
while those I had left at the school had hardly reached the rank
of captain.

I reported promptly to Bayonne and took up my post as an
aide-de-camp to the commander-in-chief. He was installed a
quarter of a league from the town in the fine Chateau de Marac,
in which the Emperor lived some years later. I was made very
welcome by General Augereau and by my new comrades, his
aides-de-camp, nearly all of whom had served under my father.
This general staff, although it did not give to the army as many
general officers as that of Bernadotte, was nevertheless very
well made up. General Danzelot who was the chief-of-staff, was a
highly capable man who later became the governor of the Ionian
islands and then Martinique. His second in command was Colonel
Albert, who at his death was general aide-de-camp to the Duc
d'Orleans. The aides-de-camp were Colonel Sicard, who died at
Heilsberg, Major Brame, who retired to Lille after the Peace of
Tilsit, Major Massy, killed as a colonel at Moscow, Captain
Chevetel and Lieutenant Mainville, the first of whom retired to
his estate in Brittany and the second ended his career in
Bayonne. I was the sixth and youngest of the aides-de-camp.

Finally the staff was completed by Dr. Raymond, who helped me
greatly at Eylau, and Colonel Augereau, a half-brother of the
general; a very quiet man, who later became a lieutenant general.

Chap. 20.

The greater part of the generals who made a name for themselves
in the early wars of the revolution having sprung from the lower
ranks of society, it has been supposed, wrongly, that they had
received no education, and that they owed their success solely to
their fighting ability. Augereau, in particular, has been very
badly judged. He has been represented as boastful, hard, noisy
and nasty. This is an error, for although he had a stormy youth,
and fell into some political misconceptions, he was kind, polite
and affectionate, and I can assure you that of the five marshals
under whom I have served, it was he who did most to lessen the
evils of war, who was most considerate toward the local populace
and who treated his officers best, among whom he lived like a
father among his children. It is true that he had a most
irregular life, but before passing judgement you must consider
the conditions which existed at the time.

Pierre Augereau was born in Paris in 1757. His father had an
extensive business in the fruit trade and had acquired a large
fortune, which allowed him to give his children a good education.

His mother was born in Munich, and she had the good sense to
speak nothing but German to her son, who, as a result spoke it
perfectly; something he found most useful in his travels, and
also during the wars.

Augereau was good-looking, large and well built. He loved all
physical activities, at which he excelled. He was a good horseman
and a fine swordsman. When he was seventeen his mother died, and
one of her brothers who worked in the office of Monsieur (the
king's brother) arranged for him to join the Carabiniers, of whom
Monsieur was colonel in chief.

He spent several years at Saumur, where the Carabiniers were
usually garrisoned, and where his efficiency and good conduct
soon raised him to the rank of sergeant. Sadly, there was at this
time a craze for duels. The reputation which Augereau had as an
excellent swordsman compelled him to engage in several, for it
was a great point among duelists not to accept that anyone was
their superior; gentlemen, officers and soldiers fought for the
most futile of reasons. It so happened that when Augereau was on
leave in Paris, the celebrated fencing master Saint-George,
seeing him pass, said, in the presence of several swordsmen,
there is one of the finest blades in France. Upon this, a
sergeant of Dragoons named Belair, who claimed to be next to
Saint-George in ability, wrote to Augereau saying that he would
challenge him to fight unless he recognised the writer's
superiority. Augereau having replied that he would do nothing of
the sort, they met on the Champs-Elysees where Belair received a
penetrating sword-thrust. He subsequently recovered and having
left the service, he married and became the father of eight
children, for whom he was unable to provide. So in the first days
of the Empire it occurred to him to approach his old adversary,
now a marshal. This man, whom I knew, was something of an
original character; he presented himself before Augereau with a
little violin under his arm, and said that as he had nothing to
give his eight children for dinner, he would make them dance a
quadrille to cheer them up, unless the marshal could put him in
the way of providing a more substantial meal. Augereau recognised
Belair, invited him to a meal, gave him some money and a few days
later arranged for him to have a good job in the transport
department. He also placed two of his sons in school. Conduct
which requires no commentary.

Not all the duels which Augereau fought ended like this. As a
result of an absurd custom, there existed an inveterate hatred
between some units, the cause for which was buried in the past
and often hardly known, but which, handed down from age to age,
resulted in duels every time the units met. In this way the
Gendarmes of Luneville and the Carabiniers had been at war for
half a century, though they had not seen one another in this long
period of time. At last, at the beginning of the reign of Louis
XVI, they found themselves in the same camp at Compiegne;
whereupon, to show themselves no less brave than their
forefathers, the Carabiniers and the Gendarmes decided to fight,
and their determination was such that the officers thought it
wiser to look the other way. However, to avoid too much
bloodshed, it was agreed that there would be only one duel; each
unit would select a combatant who would represent them, and after
that there would be a truce. The Carabiniers chose their twelve
best swordsmen, among whom was Augereau, and it was agreed that
the defender of the regimental honour should be chosen by lot.
On that day fate was more blind than usual, for it selected a
sergeant by the name of Donnadieu, who had five children.
Augereau observed that the name of a father of a family should
not have been included in the draw, and asked if he might replace
his comrade.  Donnadieu declared that as his name had been chosen
he would go forward. Augereau insisted, and this battle of
generosity was ended only by the members of the meeting accepting
Augereau's proposal.  The name of the combatant chosen by the
Gendarmes would soon be known and after that it was merely a
matter of arranging for the two adversaries to meet, when a
simulated quarrel would serve as a motive for the encounter.

Augereau had a fearsome opponent, an excellent swordsman, a
professional duelist, who as a warm-up, awaiting the contest, had
killed two sergeants of the Guards, on the days previously.
Augereau, without allowing himself to be intimidated by the
reputation of this bravo, went to the cafe where he knew he was
to appear, and while awaiting him sat down at a table. The
Gendarme arrived, and when his opponent had been pointed out to
him, he pulled aside his coat-tails, and sat down insolently on
the table, his backside not a foot from Augereau's face. Augereau
was drinking a cup of very hot coffee at the time and he gently
eased back the opening, called the ventouse, which existed then
at the back of a cavalryman's leather breeches, and poured the
steaming liquid onto the the buttocks of the impudent Gendarme,
who turned round in a fury! The quarrel having now been engaged
upon, they went outside, followed by a crowd of Gendarmes and
Carabiniers. As they went along, the ferocious Gendarme, to mock
the man whom, he felt confident, would be his victim, asked
Augereau, in a bantering tone, whether he would prefer to be
buried in the town or in the country. "The country" replied
Augereau, "I have always liked the open air." "Fine," said the
gendarme, and, turning to his second, he said, "Put him with the
other two I killed yesterday and the day before." This was not
very encouraging, and anyone but Augereau might have been put
out, but determined to sell his life dearly, he defended himself
with such skill that his adversary lost his temper and made a
false move, which allowed Augereau, who had remained calm, to run
him through, saying that it was he who would be buried in the
country.

The camp being ended, the Carabiniers returned to Saumur, where
Augereau was peacefully continuing his military service when a
disastrous event precipitated him into a life of high adventure.

A young officer of exalted birth, but with a very nasty temper,
having found something to complain about concerning the grooming
of horses, rounded on Augereau, and in an access of rage offered
to strike him with his riding whip in front of the whole
squadron.  Augereau indignantly seized the officer's whip and
threw it away, whereupon the latter, in a fury, drew his sword
and confronted Augereau, saying, "Defend yourself!" Augereau
restricted himself at first merely to parrying, but having been
slightly wounded, he made a riposte and the officer fell dead.

The general, Comte de Malseigne, who commanded the Carabiniers in
the name of Monsieur, was soon told of this affair, and although
eye-witnesses agreed in saying that Augereau, provoked by the
most unjustifiable attack, had legitimately defended himself, the
general, who favoured Augereau, thought it would be wiser to get
him out of the way. To do this he called on a Carabinier named
Papon, a native of Geneva whose term of service was due to expire
in a few days, and invited him to give his travel permit to
Augereau, promising to give him another one later. Papon agreed
to this, and Augereau was always most grateful to him, for when
he arrived in Geneva, he learned that the court-martial, in spite
of the evidence of the witnesses, had condemned him to death for
raising his sword against an officer.

The Papon family had a business which exported a large number of
watches to the east. Augereau decided to go with a representative
whom they were sending there, and travelled with him to Greece,
to the Ionian islands, to Constantinople and the shores of the
Black Sea.

He was in the Crimea when a Russian colonel, guessing from his
bearing that he had been a soldier, offered him the rank of
sergeant.

Augereau accepted, and served for several years in the Russian
army, which the famous Souwaroff commanded in a war against the
Turks, and was wounded in the assault on Ismailoff.

When peace was made between the Porte and Russia, the regiment in
which Augereau was serving was ordered to go to Poland; but he
did not wish to stay any longer with the semi-barbarous Russians,
so he deserted and went to Prussia, where he served at first in
the regiment of Prince Henry, and then, on account of his height
and good looks, he was posted to the famous guards of Frederick
the Great. He was there for two years, and his captain had led
him to hope for promotion, when one day the king, who was
reviewing his guards stopped in front of him and said, "There is
a fine looking Grenadier!....Where does he come from?" "He is
French sire," came the reply. "Too bad," said Frederick, who had
come to detest the French as much as he had once liked them. "Too
bad. If he had been Swiss or German we could have made something
of him".

Augereau, from then on, was convinced he would get nowhere in
Prussia, since he had heard it from the lips of the king himself,
and so he resolved to leave the country. This was a very
difficult matter, because as soon as the desertion of a soldier
was signalised by the firing of a cannon, the population set off
in pursuit of him, in the hope of obtaining the promised reward,
and the deserter when captured was invariably shot.

In order to avoid this fate and to regain his liberty, Augereau,
who knew that a good one third of the guards, foreigners like
himself, had only one wish, and that was to get out of Prussia,
spoke with some sixty of the most daring, to whom he pointed out
that a single deserter had no chance of escape, since it required
only two or three men to arrest him, so that it was essential to
leave in a body with arms and ammunition for defence. This is
what they did, under the leadership of Augereau.

This determined group of men, attacked on their way by peasants,
and even a detachment of soldiers, lost several of their company,
but killed many of their adversaries, and in one night they
reached a small area of the country of Saxony which is not more
than ten leagues from Potsdam. Augereau went to Dresden, where he
gave lessons in dancing and fencing, until the birth of the first
Dauphin, the son of Louis XVI, an event which the government
celebrated by granting an amnesty to all deserters, which allowed
Augereau not only to return to Paris, but to rejoin the
Carabiniers, his sentence having been quashed, and General de
Malseigne having insisted that he was one of the finest N.C.O.s
in the corps.

In 1788, the King of Naples, feeling the need to put his army on
a good footing, requested the King of France to send him a number
of officers and N.C.O.s to act as instructors, whom he undertook
to promote to a rank above their present one on their arrival.
Augereau was included in this party and was promoted to
sous-lieutenant. He served there for several years, and had just
been promoted to lieutenant, when he fell in love with the
daughter of a Greek merchant. When her father refused his consent
to the union, the two lovers were married in secret, and
embarking on the first vessel they found about to leave, they
went to Lisbon, where they lived peacefully for some time.

It was now the end of 1792; the French Revolution was spreading
rapidly, and all the sovereign heads of Europe feared the
introduction of these new principles into their states, and were
suspicious of everything French. Augereau has often assured me
that during his stay in Portugal he never said or did anything
which could alarm the government, nevertheless, he was arrested
and incarcerated in the prison of the Inquisition.

He had been languishing there for several months, when Madame
Augereau, his wife, a woman of courage, saw come into the harbour
a ship flying the tricolour. She went on board to give the
captain a letter, informing the French government of the
arbitrary arrest of her husband. The captain, although not a
naval officer, went boldly to the Portuguese ministry and
demanded the release of his compatriot; failing which, he said
that he would declare war in the name of France. Whether the
Portuguese believed this, or whether they realised that they had
acted unjustly, they set Augereau free, and he and his wife went
back to Havre in the ship of the gallant captain.

On his arrival in Paris, Augereau was designated captain, and was
sent to the Vendee, where by his advice and example he saved the
army of the incompetent General Ronsin, which gained him the rank
of battalion commander. Sick of fighting his fellow Frenchmen,
Augereau asked to be posted to the Pyrenees, and was sent to the
camp at Toulouse commanded by my father, who, recognising his
ability, made him adjutant-general, (That is colonel of the
general staff), and showed him many marks of affection, something
which Augereau never forgot. Having become general, he
distinguished himself in the wars in Spain and Italy, and in
particular, at Castiglione.

On the eve of this battle, the French army, beset on all sides,
found itself in a most critical position, and the
commander-in-chief, Bonaparte, called a council of war; the only
one he ever consulted.  All the generals, even Massena, proposed
a retreat, but Augereau, having explained what, in his opinion,
could be done to get out of the situation, said, "Even if you all
go, I shall stay here and will attack the enemy, with my
division, at dawn." Bonaparte, impressed by the arguments which
Augereau had put forward, then said that he would stay with him.
After which there was no more talk of retreat, and the next day a
brilliant victory, due in large part to the courage and tactical
skill of Augereau, established, for a long time, the position of
the French army in Italy. Bonaparte was always mindful of this
day, and when, as Emperor, he created a new nobility, he named
Augereau Duc de Castiglione.

When General Hoche died, Augereau replaced him in the army of the
Rhine. After the establishment of the consulate, he was put in
charge of an army composed of French and Dutch troops which
fought the campaign of 1800 in Franconia, and won the battle of
Burg-Eberach.

When peace had been declared, he bought the estate and chateau of
La Houssaye. I may say, in regard to this purchase, that there
has been much exaggeration of the fortunes of some generals of
the army of Italy. Augereau, after having held for twenty years
the rank of commander-in-chief, or of marshal, and having enjoyed
for seven years a salary of two hundred thousand francs, and an
award of twenty-five thousand francs, due to his Legion of
Honour, left at his death an income of no more than forty-eight
thousand francs.

There was never a man more generous, unselfish and obliging. I
could give a number of examples, but will limit myself to two.
General Bonaparte, after his elevation to the consulate, created
a large unit of Guards, the infantry portion of which was placed
under the command of General Lannes. Lannes was a distinguished
soldier, but had no understanding of administration. Instead of
conforming to the tariff laid down for the purchase of clothing,
fabrics and other items, nothing was too good for him; so that
the suppliers of clothing and equipment to the guards, delighted
to be able to deal by mutual agreement with the manufacturers,
(in order to get back-handers,) and believing that their
malversations would be covered by the name of General Lannes, the
friend of the First Consul, made uniforms in such luxurious style
that when the accounts were drawn up, they exceeded by three
hundred thousand francs the sum allowed by the ministerial
regulations. The First Consul, who had resolved to restore order
to the finances, and to compel commanders not to go beyond the
permitted expenditure, decided to make an example. In spite of
his affection for Lannes, and his certainty that not a centime
had gone into his pocket, he held him responsible for the deficit
of three hundred thousand francs, and gave him no more than eight
days to pay this sum into the Guard's account, or face
court-martial.

This uncompromising ruling had an excellent effect in putting an
end to the extravagance which had got into unit accounting, but
General Lannes, although he had recently married the daughter of
a senator, had no hope of making this payment. When General
Augereau heard of the fix in which his friend found himself, he
went to his lawyer, drew out the sum required, and instructed his
secretary to pay it into the Guard's account, in the name of
General Lannes. When the First Consul heard of this, he warmly
approved of what Augereau had done, and to put Lannes in a
position to pay him back, he had him sent to Lisbon as
ambassador, a very lucrative post.

Here is another example of Augereau's generosity. He was not a
close friend of General Bernadotte, who had bought the estate of
Lagrange, for which he expected to pay with his wife's dowry; but
there was some delay in the transfer of this money, and his
creditors were pressing him, so he asked Augereau to lend him two
hundred thousand francs for five years. Augereau having agreed to
this, Madame Bernadotte took it on herself to ask what rate of
interest he would expect. He replied that although bankers and
businessmen required interest on money which they lent, when a
marshal was in the happy position of being able to help a
comrade, he should not expect any reward but the pleasure of
being of service. That is the man whom some have represented as
being hard and avaricious. At this moment, I shall say nothing
more about the life of Augereau, which will unroll itself in the
course of my story, which will show up his faults as well as his
fine qualities.

Chap. 21.

Let us now go back to Bayonne, where I had just joined Augereau's
staff. The winter, in this part of the country, is very mild;
which allowed us to train and exercise troops in preparation for
an attack on the Portuguese. However, the court of Lisbon having
conceded all that the French government required, we gave up the
idea of crossing the Pyrenees, and General Augereau was ordered
to go to Brest and take command of the 7th army corps, which was
earmarked for an invasion of Ireland.

General Augereau's first wife, the Greek, being in Pau, he wished
to visit her and take his leave of her, and he took with him
three aides-de-camp, of which I was one.

Normally, a commander-in-chief had a squadron of "Guides", a
detachment of which always escorted his carriage, as long as he
was in a part of the country occupied by troops under his
command.  Bayonne did not yet have any "Guides," so they were
replaced by a platoon of cavalry at each of the post-houses
between Bayonne and Pau. These came from the regiment which I had
just left, the 25th Chasseurs; so that from the carriage in which
I was taking my ease, beside the Commander in Chief, I could see
my former companions trotting beside the door. I did not take any
pride in this, but I must admit that when we came to Puyoo, where
you saw me arrive two years previously  on foot, bedraggled and
in the hands of the gendarmerie, I was weak enough to put on an
air, and to make myself known to the worthy mayor, Bordenave,
whom I presented to the commander-in-chief to whom I had told the
story of what had happened to me in this commune in 1801; and as
the brigade of gendarmes from Pyrehorade had joined the escort to
Pau, I was able to recognise the two who had arrested me.  The
old mayor was sufficiently malicious to inform them that the
officer whom they saw in the commander-in-chief's fine carriage
was the same traveller whom they had taken for a deserter,
although his papers were in order, and the good fellow was, at
the same time, very proud of the judgement he had given on this
occasion.

After a stay of twenty-four hours at Pau, we returned to Bayonne,
from where the general despatched me and Mainville to Brest, in
order to prepare his headquarters. We took seats in the
mail-coach as far as Bordeaux; but there, owing to the lack of
public transport, we were forced to take to the hacks of the
posting houses, which of all means of travelling, is surely the
most uncomfortable. It rained.  The roads were appalling. The
nights pitch dark; but in spite of this, we had to press on at
the gallop, as our mission was urgent.  Although I have never
been a very good horseman, the fact that I was accustomed to
riding, and a year spent in the riding school at Versailles, gave
me enough assurance and stamina to drive on the dreadful screws
which we were forced to mount. I got well enough through this
apprenticeship in the trade of courier, in which, you will see
later, I had to perfect myself; but it was not so with Mainville,
so we took two days and two nights to reach Nantes, where he
arrived bruised and worn out and incapable of continuing to ride
at speed. However we could not leave the commander-in-chief
without lodgings when he arrived at Brest, so it was agreed that
I would go on ahead, and that Mainville would follow later by
coach.

On my arrival, I rented the town house of M. Pasquier, the
banker, brother of the Pasquier who had been chancellor and
president of the house of peers. Mainville and several of my
comrades came to join me a few days later, and helped to make the
necessary arrangements for the commander-in-chief to maintain the
sort of state expected of him.

We began the year 1804 at Brest. The 7th Corps was made up of two
divisions of infantry and a brigade of cavalry; as these troops
were not encamped but were billeted in the neighbouring communes,
all the generals and their staffs stayed in Brest, where the
anchorages and the harbour were packed with vessels of all sorts.
The admirals and senior officers of the fleet were also in the
town, and other officers came there every day, so that Brest
afforded a most animated spectacle. Admiral Truguet and the
commander-in-chief held a number of brilliant receptions, scenes
that have often been the prelude to war.

In February General Augereau left for Paris, to where the First
Consul had summoned him to discuss with him the plan for the
invasion of Ireland. I went with him.

On our arrival in Paris, we found a very tense political
situation. The Bourbons, who had hoped that in taking the reins
of government, Bonaparte would support them, and would be
prepared to play the part that General Monk had once played in
England, when they discovered that he had no intention of
restoring them to the throne, resolved to overthrow him. To this
end they concocted a conspiracy which had as its leaders three
well known men, although of very different character. These were
General Pichegru, General Moreau and Georges Cadoudal.

Pichegru had taught Bonaparte mathematics at the college of
Brienne, but he had left there to join the army. The revolution
found him a sergeant in the artillery. His talent and courage
raised him rapidly to the rank of general. It was he who achieved
the conquest of Holland, in the middle of winter, but ambition
was his downfall. He allowed himself to be seduced by agents of
the Prince de Conde, and entered into correspondence with the
Prince, who promised him great rewards and the title of
"Constable" if he would use the influence which he had with the
troops to establish Louis XVIII on the throne of his forefathers.

Chance, that great arbiter of human destiny, decreed that
following a battle in which French troops, commanded by Moreau,
had defeated the division of the Austrian General Kinglin, the
latter's supply wagon was captured, which contained letters from
Pichegru to the Prince de Conde. It was taken to Moreau, who was
a friend of Pichegru, to whom he owed some of his promotion, and
who concealed his discovery as long as Pichegru retained his
influence; but Pichegru having become a representative of the
people in the house of elders, where he continued to favour the
Bourbons, was arrested with several of his colleagues. Whereupon
Moreau hurriedly sent to the directorate the documents which
incriminated Pichegru, and led to his deportation to the wilds of
Guyana.

Pichegru contrived to escape from Guyana to America, from whence
he went to England; where having no longer any need for secrecy,
he put himself openly in the pay of Louis XVIII and aimed at the
overthrow of the consular government. However, he could not
pretend that, deprived of his rank, banished and absent from
France for more than six years, he could any longer wield as much
influence over the army as General Moreau, the victor of
Hohenlinden, and on this account, very popular with the troops,
of whom he was the inspector-general. Pichegru, then, out of
devotion to the Bourbon cause, agreed to forget the reasons he
had for disliking Moreau, and to unite with him for the triumph
of the policy to which he was committed. Moreau, who was born in
Brittany, was studying law at Rennes when the revolution of 1789
broke out. The students, young and turbulent, elected him as
their leader, and when they formed a battalion of volunteers,
they named Moreau as their commander. Having made his debut in
the profession of arms as a senior officer, he proved himself
both courageous and competent, and was rapidly promoted to
general and army commander. He won several battles, and
conducted, in the face of Prince Charles of Austria, a justly
celebrated retreat. But though a good soldier, Moreau lacked
civic courage. We have seen him refuse to put himself at the head
of the government, while Bonaparte was absent in Egypt, however,
though he had helped the latter on the 18th Brumaire, he became
envious of his power when he saw him raised to the position of
First Consul, to the extent that he sought by all means to
supplant him; driven on, it is said, by the jealousy felt by his
wife and mother-in-law towards Josephine. Given this situation,
it would not be difficult to persuade Moreau to conspire with
Pichegru to overthrow the government.

A Breton, named Lajolais, an agent of Louis XVIII, and a friend
of Moreau, became the intermediary between him and Pichegru; he
travelled frequently between London and Paris, and it soon became
evident to him that Moreau, while agreeing to the overthrow of
Bonaparte, intended to keep power for himself, and not to hand it
to the Bourbons. It was then thought that a meeting between him
and Pichegru might lead him to change his mind, so Pichegru was
landed on the coast of France from an English vessel at a spot
near Trepot, and went to Paris, to where Georges Cadoudal had
preceded him, along with M. de Riviere, the two Polignacs, and
other royalists.

Georges Cadoudal was the youngest son of a miller from Morbihan;
but as there was a bizarre custom, in that part of lower
Brittany, whereby the last-born of a family inherited all the
estate, Georges, whose father was comfortably off, had been given
a certain amount of education. He was a short man, with wide
shoulders and the heart of a tiger, whose audacity and courage
had raised him to the high command of all the groups of "Chouans"
in Brittany.

Since the pacification of Brittany he had lived in London; but
his fanatical devotion to the house of Bourbon did not allow him
any repose as long as the First Consul was at the head of the
government. He formed a plan to kill him. Not by a clandestine
assassination, but in broad daylight, by attacking him on the
road to Saint-Cloud with a party of thirty or forty mounted
"Chouans" well armed and wearing the uniform of the consular
guard. This plan had the more chance of success, since, at this
time, Bonaparte's escort was usually no more than four
cavalrymen.

A meeting was arranged between Pichegru and Moreau; it took place
at night, near the Church of La Madeleine, which was then being
built. Moreau agreed to the deposition, and even the death of the
First Consul, but he refused to consider the restoration of the
Bourbons.

Bonaparte's secret police having warned him that there was
underground plotting going on in Paris, he ordered the arrest of
a number of former "Chouans" who were in the city. One of these
gave some information which seriously compromised General Moreau,
whose arrest was then agreed upon by the council of ministers.

This arrest initially created a very bad impression amongst the
general public, because Cadoudal and Pichegru not having been
arrested, no one believed they were in France, and it was said
that Bonaparte had invented the conspiracy in order to get rid of
Moreau. The government then had the strongest reasons to prove
that Cadoudal and Pichegru were in Paris, and that they had met
Moreau. All the barriers were closed for several days, and the
most drastic punishment was decreed for anyone sheltering the
conspirators. From that moment it became very difficult for them
to find any place of safety, and soon Pichegru, M. de Riviere and
the Polignacs fell into the hands of the police. These arrests
began to convince the public of the reality of the conspiracy,
and the capture of Georges Cadoudal dispelled any remaining
doubts.

Cadoudal having stated in his interrogation that he had come with
the intention of killing the First Consul, and that the
conspiracy was backed by a prince of the royal family, the police
started an investigation to discover the location of all the
princes of the house of Bourbon. They found that the Prince
D'Enghien, the grandson of the great Conde, had been living for
some time at Ettenheim, a little town situated some leagues from
the Rhine, in the country of Baden. It has never been proved that
the Duc D'Enghien was involved in the conspiracy, but he
certainly had, on several occasions, been imprudent enough to
enter French territory. However that may be, the First Consul
sent, secretly, and by night, a detachment of troops led by
General Ordener, to the town of Ettenhiem, where they seized the
Duc D'Enghien. He was taken immediately to Vincennes, where he
was tried, condemned, and shot before the public was aware of his
arrest.

This execution was greeted with general disapproval. It was held
that had the prince been captured on French territory, he could
have been tried under a law which in this case carried the death
penalty, but that to go and seize him beyond the frontiers, in a
foreign land, was a gross infringement of human rights.

It appeared, however, that the First Consul had not intended the
execution of the prince, and had wished only to frighten the
royalists who were conspiring against him; but that General
Savary, the head of the gendarmerie, who had gone to Vincennes,
took custody of the prince after sentence had been pronounced and
in an excess of zeal, had him shot, in order, he said, to save
the First Consul the trouble of ordering his death, or of sparing
the life of so dangerous an enemy. Savary has since denied that
he expressed such sentiments, but I have been assured by people
who heard him that he did. Bonaparte is known to have blamed
Savary for his hastiness, but the deed having been done, he had
to accept the consequences.

General Pichegru, ashamed to be associated with assassins, and
that the conqueror of Holland should stand in the dock with
criminals, hanged himself in prison by his cravat. It has been
claimed that he was strangled by Mamelukes of the Guard, but this
is a fabrication. Bonaparte had no incentive to commit such a
crime.  It was more in his interest to have Pichegru disgraced
before a public tribunal than to have him killed in secret.

Georges Cadoudal, condemned to death, along with several
accomplices, was executed. The brothers Polignac, and M. de
Riviere, who received the same sentence, had it commuted to life
imprisonment. They were locked up in Vincennes, but after several
years they obtained permission to live on parole in a nursing
home. However, in 1814, on the approach of the allies, they left
and went to join the Comte d'Artois in Franche-comte; then in
1815 they were most savage in their pursuit of the Bonapartists.

As for General Moreau, he was sentenced to two years detention.
The First Consul pardoned him on condition that he went to the
United States. He lived there in obscurity until 1813, when he
went to Europe to range himself among the enemies of his country,
and died fighting against the French; thus confirming all the
accusations which were made against him at the time of Pichegru's
conspiracy.

The French nation, weary of revolutions, and recognising the
extent to which Bonaparte was needed for the maintenance of good
order, chose to forget what was odious in the affair of the Duc
d'Enghien, and raised Bonaparte to the throne, by declaring him
Emperor on May 25th, 1804.

Almost all nations recognised the new sovereign of France. To
mark the occasion, eighteen generals, selected from the most
notable, were elevated to the dignity of Marshals of the Empire.

Chap. 22.

After the trial of Moreau, we returned to Brest, from where we
shortly came back to Paris, as the marshal had to assist in the
distribution of the decoration of the Legion d'Honneur, an award
which the Emperor had recently instituted for the recognition of
all sorts of meritorious actions. In this connection I recall an
anecdote which was widely circulated at the time. In order to
bestow the award on all these soldiers who had distinguished
themselves in the Republican armies, the Emperor took into
consideration all those who had been given Armes d'Honneur, and
he selected a great number of these for the Legion d'Honneur,
although several of them had returned to civilian life. M. de
Narbonne, a returned emigre, was living quietly in Paris in the
Rue de Miromesnil, in the house next to my mother's, when, on the
day that the medals were distributed, he discovered that his
footman, a former soldier in Egypt, had just been decorated.
Being about to dine, he sent for the footman and said to him, "It
is not right that a recipient of the Legion d'Honneur should hand
round plates; and it would be even less right that you should put
aside your decoration to serve at table. Sit down with me and we
shall dine together, and tomorrow you shall go to my country
estate where you shall be a game-keeper. An occupation which is
not incompatible with wearing your decoration."

When the Emperor was told of this display of good taste, he sent
for M. de Narbonne, whom he had wanted to meet for a long time,
having heard so much about his wit and intelligence, and was so
pleased with him that he made him an aide-de-camp.

After distributing the crosses in Paris, the Emperor went, for
the same purpose, to the camp at Boulogne, where the troops were
drawn up in a semi-circle facing the sea. The ceremony was
imposing. The Emperor appeared for the first time on a throne,
surrounded by his marshals. The enthusiasm was indescribable! The
English fleet who could see what was going on, sent several light
vessels in an attempt to disrupt the event by a cannonade, but
our coastal batteries briskly returned their fire.

There was a story current at the time which related that, after
the ceremony was over, the Emperor was returning to Boulogne
followed by his marshals and an immense retinue, when he stopped
in the shelter of one of these batteries, and calling to Marmont,
who had served in the artillery, said "Let us see if we can
remember our old trade and land a bomb on that English brig." And
dismissing the corporal who was in charge of the weapon, the
Emperor aimed and fired at the vessel. The bomb brushed the
vessel's sails and fell into the sea. Marmont tried but with no
better fortune. The Emperor then recalled the corporal to his
post and the latter took aim and fired with such effect that he
landed a bomb on the brig, which promptly sank, to the great
delight of the onlookers, whereupon Napoleon pinned a medal to
the soldier's uniform. How much truth there is in this tale, I do
not know. I shared in the favours being distributed on that day.
I had been a sous-lieutenant for five and a half years, and had
been through several campaigns. The Emperor, at the request of
Augereau promoted me to lieutenant; but for a moment I thought he
was going to refuse me this rank, for remembering that a Marbot
had figured in the conspiracy of Rennes, he frowned when the
marshal spoke up for me and, looking closely at me he said "Is it
you who...?" "No sire, it is not me who!..." I replied. "Ah!" he
said, "you are the one who was at Genoa and Marengo. I appoint
you lieutenant."

The Emperor also granted me a place at the military school of
Fontainebleau for my younger brother, Felix, and from that day on
he no longer confused me with my elder brother for whom he always
had antipathy, though Adolphe had done nothing to deserve it.

As the troops of 7th Corps were not concentrated in an
encampment, Marshal Augereau's presence in Brest was of very
little use; so he was given permission to spend the rest of the
summer and the autumn at his fine estate of La Houssaye, near
Tournan, in Brie. I even suspect that the Emperor preferred to
have him there rather than in the depths of Brittany at the head
of a large army. However, any doubts which the Emperor may have
had about Augereau's loyalty were without foundation, and arose
from the underground plots of a General S....

S.... was a brigadier-general serving in 7th Corps. A capable
officer, but over-ambitious. He was regarded as untrustworthy by
his fellow generals, who did not associate with him. Angered by
this rejection, and bent on revenge, he sent to the Emperor a
letter in which he denounced all the generals, as well as the
marshal, as conspiring against the empire. Napoleon, to his
credit, did not employ any secret means to ascertain the truth:
he simply passed the general's letter on to Marshal Augereau. The
marshal felt sure that nothing serious was going on in his army;
however as he knew that several generals and colonels had engaged
in some thoughtless talk, he resolved to put an end to this sort
of thing. As he did not wish to jeopardize the career of those
officers to whom he intended to deliver a rebuke, he thought it
would be best if his words were carried by an aide-de-camp, and
he chose to take me into his confidence for this important
mission.

I left La Housaye in August, in very hot weather, and rode at
full speed the one hundred and sixty leagues between the chateau
and the town of Brest, and as many again on the way back. I
stayed no more than twenty-four hours in the town, so I arrived
back completely worn out, for I think that there is no more
exhausting job than riding rapidly on horseback from post-house
to post-house. I had found things a good deal more serious than
the marshal had thought; there was, in fact a considerable
ferment in the army, but the message I had brought calmed down
the generals, almost all of whom were devoted to the marshal.

I was beginning to recover from my exertions when the marshal
said to me one morning, that the generals wanted to denounce
S....  as a spy. He added that it was absolutely essential that
he sent one of his aides-de-camp, and he wanted to know if I felt
able to make the journey again. He said he would not order me to
go, but would leave it to me to decide whether I could do it or
not. If it had been merely a matter of reward or even promotion,
I think I would have refused the task, but it was a question of
obliging my father's friend, who had welcomed me with so much
kindness, so I said that I would be ready to go in an hour's
time. I was worried that I might not be able to complete the
journey, because of the extremely tiring nature of this form of
travel; I rested for no more than two hours out of the
twenty-four, when I flung myself down on a heap of straw in the
post-house stables. It was fearfully hot weather, but I managed
to reach Brest and return without accident, and had the
satisfaction of being able to tell the marshal that the generals
would limit themselves to expressing their mistrust of S....

General S... being now discredited, deserted and went to England,
and is said to have wandered over Europe for twenty years before
dying in poverty.

After my second return from Brest, the marshal rewarded me by
putting me in direct contact with the Emperor. He sent me to
Fontainebleau to meet Napoleon and conduct him to La Houssaye,
where he was to spend a day in the company of several of his
marshals. It was while walking with them and discussing his
plans, and the manner in which he intended to uphold his dignity
and theirs, that he presented each of them with a sum of money
sufficient for them to purchase a mansion in Paris. Marshal
Augereau bought that of Rochechouart, in the Rue
Grenelle-St-Germain, which is today occupied by the ministry of
information. The mansion was superb, but the marshal preferred to
stay at La Houssaye, where he kept up a great state; for over and
above his aides-de-camp, each of whom had his own apartments, the
number of invited guests was always considerable.  One enjoyed
complete liberty; the marshal allowed his guests to do as they
pleased, provided that no noise reached the wing of the chateau
occupied by his wife.

This excellent woman, who had become a chronic invalid, lived
very quietly, and appeared only rarely at the table or in the
salon, but when she did, far from constraining our high spirits,
she took pleasure in encouraging them.

She had with her two extraordinary lady companions. The first of
these always wore men's clothing, and was known by the name of
Sans-gene. She was the daughter of one of the leaders who, in
1793, defended Lyon against the forces of the convention. She
escaped, with her father, both of them disguised as soldiers, and
took refuge in the ranks of the 9th Dragoon regiment; where they
assumed nommes de guerre and took part in campaigning.

Mlle. Sans-Gene, who combined with her masculine attire and
appearance, a most manly courage, received several wounds, one of
them at Castiglione, where her regiment was part of Augereau's
division. General Bonaparte, who had often witnessed the prowess
of this remarkable woman, when he became First Consul, gave her a
pension and a position beside his wife; but life at court did not
suit Mlle. San-Gene. She left Mme. Bonaparte, who by mutual
consent handed her over to Mme. Augereau to whom she became
secretary and reader. The second lady companion of Mme. Augereau
was the widow of the sculptor Adam, and in spite of her eighty
years was the life and soul of the chateau.

Noisy parties and practical jokes were the order of the day at
this period of time, particularly at La Houssaye, whose
proprietor was not happy unless he could see his guests and the
younger members of his staff gay and animated. The marshal came
back to Paris in November; the time for the coronation was
drawing near and already the Pope, who had come for the ceremony,
was at the Tuileries. A crowd of magistrates and deputations from
various departments had collected in the capital, where also were
all the colonels of the army, with detachments from their
regiments, to whom the Emperor distributed, on the Champ de Mars,
the eagles, which became so celebrated. Paris, resplendent,
displayed a luxury hitherto unknown.  The court of the new
Emperor became the most brilliant in the world; everywhere were
fˆtes, balls, and joyous assemblies.

The coronation took place on the 2nd December. I accompanied the
marshal at this ceremony, which I shall not describe, since the
details are so well known. Some days later the marshals held a
ball in honour of the Emperor and Empress. There were eighteen
marshals, and Marshal Duroc, although he was only Prefect of the
Palace, joined with them, which made nineteen subscribers, each
one of whom paid up 25,000 francs for the expenses of the event,
which therefore cost 475000 francs. The ball took place in the
great ballroom of the Opera, where never before had something so
magnificent been seen.  General Samson of the engineers was the
organiser; the aides-de-camp acted as stewards, to welcome the
guests and to distribute tickets. Everyone in Paris wanted one,
so the aides were overwhelmed by letters and requests. I never
had so many friends! Everything went off perfectly, and the
Emperor appeared very pleased. So we ended the year 1804 in the
midst of celebrations, and entered the year 1805, which was to be
a year of many important events.

In order that his army could participate in the general
jollifications, Marshal Augereau went to Brest, in spite of the
rigours of winter, and gave a number of magnificent balls, at
which he entertained a succession of officers, and even a good
number of soldiers. At the beginning of spring, he returned to La
Houssaye to await the moment for the invasion of England.

This expedition, which was regarded as chimerical, was, however,
on the point of realisation. The presence of an English squadron
of about fifteen ships, cruising endlessly in the Channel, made
it impossible to transport a French army to England in boats and
barges which would have sunk on the least contact with a larger
vessel; but the Emperor could dispose of sixty ships of the line,
either French or foreign, dispersed in the harbours of Brest,
Lorient, Rochefort, Le Ferrol, and Cadiz; it was a matter of
concentrating them, unexpectedly, in the Channel, and crushing,
by a greatly superior force, the little English squadron, to
become masters of the passage, if only for three days.

To achieve this, the Emperor ordered Admiral Villeneuve, the
commander-in-chief of all these forces, to gather together, from
the French and Spanish ports whatever ships were available, and
head, not for Boulogne, but for Martinique, to where it was
certain the English fleet would follow him. While the English
were making their way to the Antilles, Villeneuve was to quit the
islands, and returning round the north of Scotland, was to enter
the eastern end of the channel with sixty ships, which would
easily overcome the fifteen which the English maintained before
Boulogne, and so put Napoleon in command of the crossing; while
the English, on their arrival at the Antilles, would search
around for Admiral Villeneuve's fleet, and thus waste valuable
time.

A part of this fine plan was now put into action. Villeneuve
left, with not sixty, but some thirty ships. He reached
Martinique. The English, led astray, hurried to the Antilles,
which Admiral Villeneuve had left, but the French admiral,
instead of returning via Scotland, made for Cadiz in order to
pick up the Spanish fleet, as if thirty ships were not enough to
overcome or chase away the fifteen English vessels!

That, however, is not all. Having arrived at Cadiz, Villeneuve
spent a great deal of time repairing his ships; time during which
the enemy fleet also returned to Europe, and established a
patrolling force off Cadiz. In the end, the coming of the equinox
gales having made sailing from this port difficult, Villeneuve
found himself blockaded; so the ingenious plans of the Emperor
came to nothing, and he, realising that the English would not be
taken in a second time, gave up the idea of invading Britain, or
at least postponed it indefinitely, and turned his attention to
the continent.

Before I recount the principal events of this long war, and the
part which I played in it, I must describe a terrible misfortune
which befell the family.

My brother, Felix, who was at the military school of
Fontainebleau, was a little short-sighted; he had, therefore,
hesitated before taking up a military career; nevertheless, once
embarked on it, he worked with such enthusiasm that he soon
became a sergeant-major, a position difficult to maintain in a
school. The pupils, an unruly lot, were in the habit of burying
in the earth of the fortifications which they were digging, the
implements which had been issued to them for the work. General
Bellavene, the head of the school, a very strict man, ordered
that the implements should be issued to the sergeant-majors, who
would then be accountable for them.

One day, my brother, having seen a pupil bury a pick, rebuked
him. The pupil replied very rudely and added that in a few days
they would be leaving school, and being then the equal of his
sergeant-major, he would demand satisfaction for the reprimand.
My brother replied indignantly that there was no need to wait so
long.

Lacking swords, they used compasses fixed to wooden batons:
Jacqueminot, who later became a lieutenant-general, was my
brother's second. My brother's poor eyesight put him at a
disadvantage, but he succeeded in wounding his opponent, though
he received in return a wound which penetrated his right arm. His
companions dressed it secretly.

By an unhappy coincidence, the Emperor had come to Fontainebleau,
and had decided to conduct manoeuvres for several hours, under a
blazing sun. My poor brother, compelled to run without rest, his
arm dragged down by the weight of his heavy musket, was overcome
by the heat and his wound re-opened! He should have fallen out on
the pretext of an indisposition, but he was in front of the
Emperor who, at the end of the session, would distribute the
commissions of sous-lieutenant, so eagerly desired. Felix made
superhuman efforts to resist, but at last his strength failed him
and he collapsed and was carried away in a most serious
condition.

General Bellavene sent an unfeeling message to my mother, saying
that if she wished to see her son, she must come immediately, for
he was dying. My mother was so distressed by this news, that she
was unable to make the journey. I posted there as quickly as I
could, but on my arrival I was told that my brother was dead.
Marshal Augereau did all that he could for us, in these unhappy
circumstances, and the Emperor sent the marshal of the palace,
Duroc, to convey his condolences to my mother.

All too soon another source of sadness would come to afflict her;
I would be forced to leave her, as war was about to break out on
the continent.

At a time when it might have been thought that the Emperor had
the greatest need to be at peace with the continental powers, in
order to execute his design for the invasion of England, he
issued a decree whereby he annexed the state of Genoa to France.
This was greatly to the advantage of the English, who profited
from this decision to frighten all the peoples of the continent,
to whom they represented Napoleon as aspiring to become the
master of the whole of Europe.  Austria and Russia declared war
on us, Prussia, more circumspect, made preparations, but as yet,
said nothing.

The Emperor had no doubt foreseen these reactions, and a wish to
see hostilities break out perhaps underlay his seizure of Genoa;
for, despairing of ever seeing Villeneuve in control of the
channel, he wanted a continental war to deflect the ridicule to
which his proposed invasion, threatened for three years, but
never put into action, might have exposed him by displaying his
impotence in the face of England. The new coalition extricated
him nicely from an awkward situation.

Three years under arms had had an excellent effect on our
soldiers. France had never had an army so well trained, so well
organised, so keen for action, nor a leader in control of so much
power and such moral and material resources, who was so skillful
in their employment. So Napoleon accepted the outbreak of war
with pleasure, so confident was he of conquering his enemies, and
of making use of their defeat to strengthen his position on the
throne; for he knew the enthusiasm which the prospect of military
triumph always stirred up in the martial French spirit.

Chap. 23.

The great army which the Emperor was about to set in motion
against Austria, now had its back to that Empire, since the
forces deployed on the coasts of the North Sea, the Channel and
the Atlantic were facing England. On the right wing the 1st
Corps, commanded by Bernadotte, occupied Hanover; the 2nd, under
the orders of Marmont, was in Holland; the 3rd under Davout was
in Bruges; the 4th, 5th and 6th commanded by Soult, Lannes and
Ney, were encamped at Boulogne and in the surrounding district,
while finally the 7th commanded by Augereau was in Brest, and
formed the extreme left.

To break up this long cordon of troops and form them into a large
body which could march toward Austria, it was necessary to effect
an immense turn round from front to back. Each army had to make
an about turn, in order to face Germany, and form columns, to
march there by the shortest route. Thus the right wing became the
left, and the left the right.

Obviously, to go from Hanover or Holland to the Danube, the 1st
and 2nd Corps had a much shorter distance to travel than those
who came from Boulogne, and they in turn were nearer than
Augereau's corps, which, in order to go from Brest to the
frontiers of Switzerland on the upper Rhine, had to cross the
whole of France, a journey of some three hundred leagues. The
troops were on the road for two months, marching in several
columns; Marshal Augereau was the last to leave Brest, but he
then went on ahead, and stopped first at Rennes and then
successively at Alon‡on, Melun, Troyes and Langres, at which
stops he inspected the various regiments, whose morale was raised
by his presence. The weather was superb: I spent the two months
travelling endlessly in an open carriage, from one column to
another, carrying the marshal's orders to the generals, and was
able to stop twice at Paris to see my mother. Our equipment had
gone on in advance. I had a mediocre servant, but three excellent
horses.

While the Grande Armee was wending its way towards the Rhine and
the Danube, the French troops stationed in northern Italy, under
the command of Massena, concentrated in the Milan area in order
to attack the Austrians in the region of Venezia.

To transmit his orders to Massena, the Emperor was obliged to
send his aides-de-camp through Switzerland, which remained
neutral. Now it so happened that while Marshal Augereau was at
Langres, an officer who was carrying Napoleon's despatches was
thrown out of his carriage and broke his collar-bone. He was
taken to Marshal Augereau whom he told that he was unable to
continue his mission.  The marshal, knowing how important it was
that the Emperor's despatches should arrive in Italy without
delay, entrusted me with the task of delivering them, and also of
going through Huningue, where I was to pass on his order to have
a bridge built over the Rhine at this spot. I was delighted to
have this mission, as it meant that I would have an interesting
journey and would be sure of rejoining 7th Corps before they were
in action against the Austrians.

It did not take me long to reach Huningue and Basle; I went from
there to Berne and on to Rapperschwill, where I left my carriage:
then, on horseback and not without some danger, I crossed the
Splugen pass, at that time almost impracticable. I entered Italy
at Chiavenna, and joined Marshal Massena near Verona. I went off
again without any delay, for Massena was as impatient to see me
go with his replies to the Emperor as I was to rejoin Marshal
Augereau before there was any fighting. However my return journey
was not as rapid as my journey out, because a very heavy fall of
snow had covered not only the mountains but also the valleys of
Switzerland; it had begun to freeze hard, and horses slipped and
fell at every step. It was only by offering 600 francs that I was
able to find two guides who were prepared to cross the Splugen
with me. It took us more than twelve hours to make the crossing,
walking through snow sometimes up to our knees. The guides were
on the point of refusing to go any further, saying that it was
too dangerous, but I was young and venturesome, and I knew the
importance of the despatches which the Emperor was awaiting.

I told my guides that even if they turned back, I would go on
without them. Every profession has its code of honour; that of
the guides consists principally in never abandoning the traveller
committed to their care. Mine then went forward, and after some
truly extraordinary exertions, we arrived at the large inn
situated at the foot of the Splugen as night was falling. We
would have undoubtedly died if we had been trapped on the
mountain, for the path, which was barely discernable, was edged
by precipices which the snow prevented us from seeing clearly. I
was exhausted, but a sleep restored my strength, so I left at
daybreak to reach Rapperschwill, where there were carriages and
passable roads.

The worst of the journey was over; so, in spite of the snow and
bitter cold, I reached Basle and then Heningue, where the 7th
Corps was stationed, on the 19th October. The next day we began
to cross the Rhine over a bridge of boats built for that purpose;
for although there was, less than half a league away in the town
of Basle, a stone bridge, the Emperor had ordered Marshal
Augereau to respect the neutrality of Switzerland, a neutrality
which they themselves broke, nine years later, by handing the
bridge to the enemies of France in 1814.

Here I was then, involved once more in a war. It was now 1805, a
year which for me heralded a long series of battles which lasted
continuously for ten years, for it did not end until ten years
later at Waterloo. However numerous the wars of the Empire might
be, nearly all French soldiers enjoyed one or even several years
of respite, either because they were in a garrison in France, or
they were stationed in Italy or Germany when we were at war with
Spain; but, as you will see, this did not happen to me; I was
continually sent from north to south, and south to north,
everywhere where there was fighting. I did not spend a single one
of these ten years without coming under fire and without shedding
my blood in some foreign country.

I do not intend to give, here, a detailed account of the campaign
of 1805. I shall limit myself to recalling the principal events.

The Russians, who were marching to the aid of Austria, were still
far away, when Field-marshal Mack, at the head of eighty thousand
men, advanced, unwisely, into Bavaria, where he was defeated by
Napoleon, who forced him to retreat to the fortress of Ulm, where
he surrendered with the greater part of his army, of which only
two corps escaped the disaster.

One of these, commanded by Prince Ferdinand, managed to reach
Bohemia; the other, commanded by the elderly Field-marshal
Jellachich, escaped into the Vorarlberg near Lake Constance,
where, flanked by neutral Switzerland, it guarded the narrow
passes of the Black Forest. It was these troops which Marshal
Augereau was about to attack.

After crossing the Rhine at Huningue, 7th Corps found itself in
the country of Baden, whose sovereign, along with those of
Bavaria and Wurtemberg, had just concluded an alliance with
Napoleon; so we were received as friends by the population of
Brisgau. Field-marshal Jellachich had not dared to oppose the
French in such open country, but awaited us beyond Freiburg, at
the entrance to the Black Forest, the passage through which he
expected us to effect only at the cost of much bloodshed. Above
all, he hoped to stop us at the Val d'Enfer, a very long and
narrow pass, dominated on both sides by sheer cliffs, and easy to
defend. But the men of 7th Corps had now heard of the successes
achieved by their comrades at Ulm and in Bavaria, and anxious to
emulate them, they advanced through the Black Forest with such
elan that they crossed through it in three days, in spite of the
natural obstacles, the enemy resistance and the difficulty in
finding food in this dreadful wilderness. The army finally broke
out into fertile country and made camp around Donauschingen, a
very pleasant town where there is the magnificent chateau of the
ancient line of the princes of Furstenburg.

The marshal and his aides-de-camp were billeted in the chateau,
in the courtyard of which is the source of the Danube; this great
river demonstrates its power at the moment of its birth, for at
the spot where it issues from the earth it already bears a boat.

The draught-horses for the guns and the supply wagons had been
greatly fatigued by the passage through the rough and mountainous
passes of the Black Forest, which a coating of frost had made
even more difficult. It was therefore necessary to give them
several days of rest; during which period the Austrian cavalry
came from time to time to probe our outposts, which were
positioned two leagues from the town; but this amounted to no
more than some ineffectual fire which kept us on our toes, gave
us some exercise in skirmishing, and allowed us to learn to
recognise the various uniforms of the enemy.  I saw, for the
first time, the Uhlans of Prince Charles, Rosenberg's Dragoons
and Blankenstein's Hussars.

The horses having recovered their strength, the army continued
its march, and for several weeks we had a series of engagements
which left us masters of Engen and Stockach.

Although I was very much involved in these various actions, I had
only one accident, which, however, might have been serious. The
ground was covered by snow, particularly round Stockach, where
the enemy defended their position fiercely. The marshal ordered
me to go and reconnoitre a spot to which he wanted to direct a
column; I left at the gallop; the ground looked to me to be quite
level, the snow, driven by the wind having hidden all the
hollows, but suddenly my horse and I fell into a deep gully, up
to our necks in snow. I was trying to get out, when two enemy
Hussars appeared at the edge and fired their muskets at me.
Fortunately, the snow in which my horse and I were floundering
about prevented them from taking an accurate aim, and I came to
no harm; but they were about to fire once more when some
Chasseurs, which Marshal Augereau had sent to my aid, forced them
to depart hurriedly. With some help I was able to get out of the
ravine, but we had a great deal of difficulty in extricating my
horse. As we were both unhurt, my comrades had a laugh at the
strange appearance I presented after my bath of snow.

After we had gained control of the Vorarlberg, we captured
Bregen,and drove Jellachich's Austrian corps to Lake Constance
and the Tyrol. The enemy now sought the protection of the
fortress of Feldkirch and its celebrated gorge, behind which they
could defend themselves with advantage. We expected to have to
fight a murderous battle to take this position when, to our
astonishment, the Austrians offered to capitulate, an offer which
Marshal Augereau was quick to accept.

During the meeting between the two marshals, the Austrian
officers, humiliated by the reverse which their arms had just
suffered, took malicious pleasure in giving us some very bad news
which had been concealed up till this day, but which the Russians
and Austrians had learned of from English sources. The
Franco-Spanish fleet had been defeated by Lord Nelson on October
20th not far from Cadiz, at Cape Trafalgar. Villeneuve, our
infelicitous admiral, who had failed to carry out the precise
orders of Napoleon at a time when the appearance of a combined
fleet in the Channel could have secured a safe passage for the
troops assembled at Boulogne, learning that he was about to be
replaced by Admiral Rosily, passed suddenly from an excess of
circumspection to an excess of audacity. He left Cadiz and
engaged in a battle which, had it turned out in our favour, would
have been virtually useless, since the French army, instead of
being at Boulogne to take advantage of such a success to embark
for England, was two hundred leagues from the coast, fighting in
Germany.

After a most desperate struggle, the fleets of France and Spain
had been defeated by that of England, whose admiral, the famous
Nelson, had been killed; taking to his grave a reputation as the
finest seaman of the epoch. On our side we lost Rear-admiral
Magon, a very fine officer. One of our vessels blew up;
seventeen, as many French as Spanish, were captured. A severe
storm which arose toward the end of the battle, lasted all night
and the days following, and was on the verge of overwhelming both
victors and vanquished, so that the English, concerned for their
own safety, were forced to abandon nearly all the ships which
they had captured from us; which were mostly taken back to Cadiz
by the remains of their brave but unfortunate crews, though some
were wrecked on the rock-bound coast.

It was during this battle that my excellent friend France
d'Houdetot received a wound to his thigh which has left him with
a limp. D'Houdetot, scarcely out of childhood was a naval cadet,
and attached to the staff of Admiral Magon, a friend of my
father. After the death of the admiral, the ship "The Algesiras,"
in which he served, was captured after a bloody encounter, and
the English placed on board a prize crew of sixty men. But the
storm separated the ship from the English fleet, and the prize
crew realised that it was very unlikely that they could reach
England, so they agreed to allow the French seamen to take the
ship into Cadiz, with the stipulation that they would not be held
as prisoners of war. The French flag was hoisted to identify the
ship and the badly damaged vessel managed to reach Cadiz, though
not without great difficulty. The ship which bore Admiral
Villeneuve was captured and the unlucky admiral was taken to
England, where he remained a prisoner for three years.  Having
been released on exchange, he decided to go to Paris, but,
detained at Rennes, he committed suicide.

When Field-marshal Jellachich felt obliged to capitulate before
the 7th French army corps, this decision seemed the more
surprising since, even if defeated by us, he had the option of
retiring into the Tyrol which was behind him, and whose
inhabitants have for many centuries been greatly attached to the
house of Austria. The thick snow which covered the country no
doubt made movement difficult, but the difficulties presented
would have been much greater for us, enemies of Austria, than for
the troops of Jellachich, withdrawing through an Austrian
province. However, if the old and hide-bound Field-marshal could
not bring himself to campaign in winter, in the high mountains,
his attitude was not shared by the officers under his command;
for many of them condemned his pusillanimity, and spoke of
rebelling against his authority. The most ardent of his opponents
was General the Prince de Rohan, a French officer in the service
of Austria, a bold and competent soldier. Marshal Augereau,
fearing that Jellachich might take the advice offered by the
Prince and retreat into the Tyrol where pursuit would be almost
impossible, hastened to grant him all the conditions which he
requested.

The terms of the capitulation were that the Austrian troops
should lay down their arms, hand over their flags, standards,
cannons and horses, but should not themselves be taken to France,
and could withdraw to Bohemia after swearing not to bear arms
against France for one year.

When he announced the capitulation in one of his army bulletins,
the Emperor seemed a little disappointed that the Austrian
soldiers had not been made prisoners of war; but he changed his
mind when he realised that Marshal Augereau had no means of
retaining them, as escape was so easy. In fact, during the night
preceding the day when the Austrians were to lay down their arms,
a revolt broke out in several brigades against Field-marshal
Jellachich. The Prince de Rohan, refusing to accept the
capitulation, left with his infantry division, and joined by some
regiments from other divisions, he fled into the mountains, which
he crossed, despite the rigours of the season: then by an
audacious march, he bypassed the cantonments of Marshal Ney's
troops, who occupied the towns of the Tyrol, and arriving between
Verona and Venice, he fell on the rear of the French army of
Italy, while this force, commanded by Massena was following on
the tail of Prince Charles, who was retiring towards Friuli. The
arrival of the Prince de Rohan in Venetian territory, when
Massena was already in the far distance, could have had the most
grave consequences; but fortunately a French army, coming from
Naples, under the command of General Saint-Cyr, defeated the
Prince and took him prisoner. He had, at least, submitted only to
force, and was right in saying that if Jellachich had been there
with all his troops, the Austrians might have defeated Saint-Cyr
and opened a route for themselves back into Austria.

When a force capitulates, it is customary for the victor to send
to each division a staff officer to take charge, as it were, and
to conduct it on the day and at the hour appointed to the place
where it is to lay down its arms. Those of my comrades who were
sent to the Prince de Rohan were left behind by him in the camp
which he quitted, for he carried out his retreat from an area
behind the fortress of Feldkirch, and in a direction away from
the French camp, so that he had little fear of being stopped; but
the Austrian cavalry were not in a similar situation. They were
in bivouac on a small area of open ground in front of Feldkirch,
and opposite and a short distance from our outposts. I had been
detailed to go to the Austrian cavalry and lead them to the
agreed rendezvous; this brigade did not have a general, but was
commanded by a colonel of Blankenstein's Hussars, an elderly
Hungarian, brave and crafty, whose name, I regret, I cannot
remember, for I think highly of him although he played me a most
disagreeable trick.

On my arrival at the camp, the colonel had offered me the
hospitality of his hut for the night, and we had agreed to set
off at daybreak, to reach the spot indicated on the shore of Lake
Constance, between the town of Bregenz and Lindau, at a distance
of about three leagues. I was most astonished when, at about
midnight, I heard the officers mounting their horses. I hurried
out of the hut and saw that the squadrons were formed up and
ready to move. I asked the reason for this hasty departure, and
the old colonel replied, with cool deceit, that Field-marshal
Jellachich feared that some jeering directed at the Austrian
soldiers by the French, whose camp one would have to pass if one
took the shortest route to the beach at Lindau, might lead to
fighting between the troops of the two nations. Jellachich, in
consultation with Marshal Augereau, had ordered the Austrian
troops to make a long detour to the right so that they would
avoid our camp and the town of Breganz, and would not come into
contact with our soldiers. He added that as the route was very
long and the road bad, the two commanders had advanced the time
of departure by some hours; he was surprised that I had not been
informed of this, but suggested that the written instructions had
been held up at the advance posts, owing to some
misunderstanding; he carried this deception so far as to send an
officer to look for this despatch, wherever it might be. The
explanation given by the colonel of the Blankensteins sounded so
convincing that I did not say anything, although my instinct told
me that this was a little irregular; but, alone in the midst of
three thousand enemy cavalry, what could I do? It was better to
appear confident than to seem to doubt the good faith of the
Austrian brigade. As I was unaware of the flight of the Prince de
Rohan's division, it did not enter my head that the commander of
the cavalry intended to evade the capitulation. I rode alongside
him, at the head of the column. The Austrian had made his
arrangements for the avoidance of the French camps--whose fires
could be seen--so well that we did not pass near any of them. But
what the old colonel had not anticipated, and was unable to
avoid, was an encounter with a flying patrol, which the French
cavalry usually sent out into the countryside at night, some
distance from an encampment: for suddenly there was a challenge,
and we found ourselves in the presence of a large column of
French cavalry, which was clearly visible in the moonlight. The
Hungarian colonel, without seeming the least worried, said to me
"This is work for you, as an aide-de-camp; kindly come with me
and explain the situation to the commander of this French unit."
We went forward. I gave the pass-word, and found myself in the
presence of the 7th mounted Chasseurs, who, knowing that the
Austrian troops were expected for the laying down of arms, and
recognising me as one of Marshal Augereau's aides, made no
difficulty about the passage of the brigade which I was
conducting. The French commander, whose troops had their sabres
drawn, even took the trouble to have them sheathed, as witness to
the good-will existing between the two columns, which went on
their way for some distance, side by side. I closely questioned
the officer in charge of the Chasseurs about the change in the
time at which the Austrians were to move; but he knew nothing at
all about it, something which did not raise any suspicion in my
mind, for I knew that an order of this kind would not be
distributed by the staff down to regimental level. So I continued
to ride with the colonel for the rest of the night, finding,
however that the detour we were making was very long, and the
going very bad.

At last, at daybreak, the old colonel, seeing a patch of level
ground, said to me, in a conversational tone of voice, that
although he would soon be obliged to hand over the horses of the
three regiments to the French, he wished to care for the poor
animals up to the last, and to deliver them in good condition; In
consequence he had ordered that they should be given a feed of
oats. The brigade halted, formed up and dismounted; and when the
horses had been tethered, the colonel, who alone remained on
horseback, gathered in a circle around him the officers and men
of the three regiments, and in a ringing voice which made the old
warrior seem quite superb, he announced that the Prince de
Rohan's division, preferring honour to a shameful safety, had
refused to subscribe to the disgraceful capitulation whereby
Field-marshal Jellachich had promised to hand over to the French,
the flags and the arms of the Austrian troops, and had fled into
the Tyrol; where he too would have led the brigade were it not
for the fact that he feared that in that barren mountain country,
there would not be enough fodder for so many horses. But now they
had open country in front of them and having, by a ruse of which
he was proud, gained a lead of six leagues over the French
troops, he invited all those who had truly Austrian hearts to
follow him across Germany to Moravia, where they could rejoin the
army of their August sovereign, Francis II. Blankenstein's
Hussars responded to this speech by their colonel with a
resounding cheer of approval; but Rosenberg's Dragoons and the
Uhlans of Prince Charles maintained a gloomy silence. As for me,
although I did not yet know enough German to follow the colonel's
words exactly, what I did understand, together with the tone of
the orator and the position in which he found himself, allowed me
to guess what was afoot, and I can promise you that I felt very
crestfallen at having, although unwittingly, furthered the plans
of this diabolical Hungarian.

A fearful tumult now arose in the immense circle by which I was
surrounded, and I was able to appreciate the inconvenience
stemming from the heterogeneous amalgamation of different peoples
which makes up the Austrian Empire, and in consequence, the
Austrian army. All the Hussars were Hungarian; the Blankensteins
therefore approved the proposal made by a leader of their own
nationality, but the Dragoons were German and the Uhlans were
Polish; the Hungarian could make no nationalistic appeal to them,
who, in this difficult situation listened only to their own
officers; these officers declared that they thought themselves
bound by the capitulation which Field-marshal Jellachich had
signed and did not wish, by their departure, to worsen his
position or that of their comrades who were already the hands of
the French, who would be within their rights to send them all
back to France as prisoners of war, if a part of the Austrian
forces violated the agreement. To this the colonel replied that
when the Commander-in-Chief of an army looses his head, fails in
his duty and delivers his troops to the enemy, his juniors have
no need to consult anything but their courage and their devotion
to their country. Then the colonel, brandishing his sabre in one
hand, while with the other he seized the regimental standard,
cried out, "Go then Dragoons! Go! Go! Yield to the French your
dishonoured standards, and the arms which the Emperor gave us for
his defence. As for us, the bold Hussars, we are off to rejoin
our sovereign, to whom we can once more show with honour our
unstained colours, and the swords of fearless soldiers!" Then,
drawing close to me, and casting a look of disdain on the Uhlans
and Dragoons, he added, "I am sure that if this young Frenchman
found himself in our position and had to choose between your
conduct and mine, he would take the more courageous course; for
the French love honour and reputation as much as their country."
Having said this, the old Hungarian sheathed his sabre, dug in
his spurs, and leading his regiment at the gallop, he careered
into the distance, where he soon disappeared. There was some
truth in both the arguments which I had heard, but that of the
old Hungarian seemed the more valid because it was in conformity
with the interests of his country; I then secretly approved of
his behaviour, but I could not, of course advise the Dragoons and
Uhlans to follow his example; that would have been to step out of
my role and fail in my duty. I maintained a strict neutrality in
this discussion, and when the Hussars had left, I asked the
colonels of the other two regiments to follow me, and we took the
road for Lindau.

On the beach beside the lake, we found Marshals Augereau and
Jellachich, as well as the French forces and the Austrian
infantry regiments which had not followed the Prince de Rohan. On
learning from me that the Blankenstein Hussars, having refused to
recognise the capitulation, were heading for Moravia both
marshals flew into a rage: Marshal Augereau because he feared
that these Hussars might cause havoc in the rear of the French
army, since the route which they would follow would take them
through areas where the Emperor, in the course of his march on
Vienna, had left many dressing stations full of wounded;
artillery parks, etc. But the Hungarian colonel did not think it
was part of his duty to advertise his presence by any surprise
attack, as he was only too anxious to get out of a country
bristling with French arms. By avoiding all our positions, moving
always on minor roads, hiding by day in the woods and marching
rapidly at night, he managed to reach the frontier of Moravia
without trouble, and joined an Austrian army corps which occupied
the area. As for the troops who remained with Field-marshal
Jellachich, having laid down their arms, surrendered their flags
and standards and handed over their horses, they became prisoners
on parole for one year, and made off in dismal silence for the
interior of Germany, to make their way sadly to Bohemia. I
remembered, when I saw them, the valiant words of the old
colonel, and I think I saw on the faces of many of these Uhlans
and Dragoons a regret that they had not followed the old warrior,
and an unhappiness when they compared the heroic position of the
Blankensteins with their own humiliation.

Among the trophies which Jellachich's corps was forced to hand
over were seventeen flags and two standards, which Marshal
Augereau, as was usual, hastened to send to the Emperor, in the
care of two aides-de-camp. Major Massy and I were detailed for
this task, and we left the same evening in a fine carriage with,
in front of us, a wagon containing the flags and standards, in
the charge of an N.C.O.  We headed for Vienna via Kempten,
Brauneau, Munich, Lenz and Saint-Poelten. Some leagues before
this last town, following the banks of the Danube, we admired the
superb Abbey of M”lk, one of the richest in the world. It was
here, four years later that I ran the greatest danger, and earned
the praise of the Emperor, for having performed before his eyes
the finest feat of arms of my military career; as you will see
when we come to the campaign of 1809.

Chap. 24

In September 1805, the seven corps which made up the Grande Armee
were on the march from their positions on the coast to the banks
of the Danube. They were already in the countries of Baden and
Wurtemberg when, on the 1st October, Napoleon, in person, crossed
the Rhine at Strasburg. A part of the large force which the
Russians were sending to the aid of Austria had at that moment
arrived in Moravia, and the cabinet at Vienna should, with
prudence, have waited until this powerful reinforcement had
joined the Austrian army; but, carried away by an enthusiasm
which they did not usually display, and which was inspired by
Field-marshal Mack, it had despatched him, at the head of eighty
thousand men, to attack Bavaria; the possession of which had been
coveted by Austria for several centuries, and which French policy
had always protected from invasion. The Elector of Bavaria,
forced to abandon his state, took refuge with his family and his
troops in Wurtzburg, from where he begged Napoleon for
assistance. Napoleon entered into an alliance with him and with
the rulers of Baden and Wurtzburg.

The Austrian army, under Mack, had already occupied Ulm, when
Napoleon, having crossed the Danube at Donauwerth seized Augsburg
and Munich. The French were now in the rear of Mack's force and
had cut his communication with the Russians, who having reached
Vienna, were advancing towards him by forced marches. The
Field-marshal realised then, but too late, the error he had made
in allowing himself to be encircled by French troops. He tried to
break out, but was defeated successively in the battles of
Wertingen, Gunzberg, and Elchingen, where Marshal Ney won fame.
Under increasing pressure, Mack was forced to shut himself up in
Ulm with all his army, less the corps of the Archduke Ferdinand
and Jellachich who escaped, the former into Bohemia, and the
latter to the region round Lake Constance. Ulm was then besieged
by the Emperor. It was a place which, though not heavily
fortified, could nevertheless have held out for a long time
thanks to its position and its large garrison, and so given the
Russians time to come to its relief. But Field-marshal Mack,
passing from exalted over-confidence to a profound
disheartenment, surrendered to Napoleon, who had now, in three
weeks, scattered, captured, or destroyed eighty thousand
Austrians and freed Bavaria, where he reinstalled the Elector. We
shall see, in 1813, this favour repaid by the most odious
treachery.

Being now the master of Bavaria, and rid of the presence of
Mack's army, the Emperor increased the pace of his advance, down
the right bank of the Danube towards Vienna. He captured Passau
and then Linz, where he learned that 50,000 Russians, commanded
by General Koutousoff, reinforced by 40,000 Austrians, whom
General Kienmayer had collected, had crossed the Danube at Vienna
and had taken up a position between M”lk and St. Poelten. He was
told at the same time that the Austrian army commanded by Prince
Charles had been defeated by Massena in the Venetian district and
was retreating via the Friuli in the direction of Vienna; and
lastly that the Archduke Jean was occupying the Tyrol with
several divisions. Those two princes were therefore threatening
the right of the French army, while it had the Russians in front
of it. To protect himself against a flank attack, the Emperor,
who already had Marshal Augereau's corps in the region of
Bregenz, sent Marshal Ney to attack Innsbruk and the Tyrol, and
moved Marmont's corps to Loeben, in order to block Prince
Charles' route from Italy. Having taken these wise precautions to
protect his right flank, Napoleon, before advancing to meet the
Russians, whose advance-guard had already clashed with ours at
Amstetten, near to Steyer, wished to protect his left flank from
any attack from those Austrians who had taken refuge in Bohemia,
under the command of Archduke Ferdinand. To effect this he gave
Marshal Mortier the infantry divisions of Generals Dupont and
Gazan, and ordered him to cross the Danube by the bridges at
Passau and Linz, and then proceed down the left bank of the
river, while the bulk of the army went down the right. However,
in order not to leave Marshal Mortier too isolated, Napoleon
conceived the idea of gathering together on the Danube a great
number of boats, which had been captured on the tributaries of
the river, and forming a flotilla which, manned by men from the
guard, could move down the river, keeping level with Mortier and
making a link between the troops on both banks.

You may think it a little presumptuous of me to criticise one of
the operations of a great captain, but I cannot refrain from
commenting that the sending of Mortier to the left bank was a
move which had not been sufficiently considered, and was an error
which could have had very serious consequences. The Danube,
Europe's largest river, is, after Passau, so wide in winter that
from one bank one cannot discern a man standing on the other; it
is also very deep and very fast-flowing, and it therefore
provided a guarantee of perfect safety for the left flank of the
French army as it marched down the right bank. Furthermore, any
attack could be made only by the Archduke Ferdinand, coming from
Bohemia; but he, very pleased to have escaped from the French
before Ulm, had only a few troops, and they were mostly cavalry.
Even if he had wished to do so, he had not the means to mount an
attack which involved crossing an obstacle such as the Danube,
into which he might be driven back. Whereas, by detaching two of
his divisions and allowing them to be isolated across this
immense river, Napoleon exposed them to the risk of being
captured or exterminated. A disaster which might have been
foreseen and which very nearly came about.

Field-marshal Koutousoff, had been awaiting the French with
confidence, in a strong position at St. Poelten, because he
believed that they were being pursued by the army of Mack; but
when he heard of the surrender of this army at Ulm, he no longer
felt himself strong enough to face Napoleon alone, and being
unwilling to risk his troops to save the city of Vienna, he
decided to put the barrier of the Danube between himself and the
victor, so he crossed the river by the bridge at Krems, which he
burned behind him.

He had scarcely arrived on the left bank with all his army, when
he ran into the scouts of the Gazan division, which was
proceeding from Dirnstein to Krems, with Marshal Mortier at its
head.  Koutousoff, having discovered the presence of a French
corps isolated on the left bank, resolved to crush it, and to
achieve this aim he attacked it head to head on the narrow road
which ran along the river bank, while seizing control of the
escarpments which overlook the Danube. He sent light troops to
occupy Dirnstein to cut off the retreat of the Gazan division.
The position of the division was made even more critical by the
fact that the flotilla of boats had dropped back and there were
only two little boats available, which made it impossible to
bring reinforcements from the other bank.

Attacked in front and in the rear and on one of their flanks by
enemies six times their number; shut in between the rocky
escarpment occupied by the Russians and the depths of the Danube,
the French soldiers, crowded on the narrow roadway, did not
despair. The gallant Marshal Mortier set them an example, for,
when it was suggested that he should take one of the boats and go
over to the right bank, where he would be with the Grande Armee,
and avoid giving the Russians the glory of capturing a marshal,
he replied that he would die with his men, or escape over the
dead bodies of the Russians!

A savage bayonet fight ensued: five thousand French were up
against thirty thousand Russians: night came to add to the
horrors of the combat: Gazan's division, massed in column,
managed to regain Dirnstein at a moment when Dupont's division,
which had remained behind opposite M”lk, alerted by the sound of
gunfire, was running to their aid. Eventually the battlefield
remained in French hands.

In this hand to hand fighting, where the bayonet was almost the
only weapon used, our men, more adroit and agile than the giant
Russians, had a great advantage; so the enemy losses amounted to
some four thousand five hundred men, while ours were three
thousand only.  But had our divisions not been made up of
seasoned soldiers, Mortier's corps would probably have been
destroyed. The Emperor was well aware of this, and hastened to
recall it to the right bank.  What seems to me to be proof that
he realised the mistake he had made in sending this corps across
the river, is the fact that, although he generously rewarded the
brave regiments which had fought at Dirnstein, the official
bulletins scarcely mention this sanguinary affair, and it is as
if one wished to conceal the results of this operation because
one could find no military justification for it.

What further confirms me in the opinion which I have taken the
liberty of expressing, is that in the campaign of 1809, the
Emperor, when he found himself in a similar situation, did not
send any troops across the river, but, keeping all his force
together, he went with it to Vienna.

But let us return to the mission with which Major Massy and I
were charged.

When we arrived in Vienna, Napoleon and the bulk of the army had
already left the city, which they had seized without a shot being
fired. The crossing of the Danube which it was necessary to
effect in order to pursue the Russians and the Austrians who were
retreating into Moravia, had not been disputed, thanks to a
perhaps culpable deception which was carried out by Marshals
Lannes and Murat. This incident, which had such a profound effect
on this well-known campaign, deserves recounting.

The city of Vienna is situated on the right bank of the Danube: a
small branch of that immense river passes through the city, but
the main stream is half a league away; there the Danube contains
a large number of islands which are connected by a long series of
wooden bridges, terminated by one which, spanning the main arm of
the river, reaches the left bank at a place named Spitz. The road
to Moravia runs along this series of bridges. When the Austrians
are opposing the crossing of a river, they have a very bad habit
of leaving the bridges intact up to the very last moment, to give
them a means of mounting a counter-attack against the enemy, who
almost always does not allow them time to do so and takes from
them the bridges which they have neglected to burn. This is what
the French did during the campaign in Italy in 1796 at the
memorable affairs of Lodi and Arcoli. But these examples had not
served to correct the Austrians, for on leaving Vienna, which is
not suited to defence, they retired to the other side of the
Danube without destroying a single one of the bridges spanning
this vast watercourse, and limited themselves to placing
inflammable material on the platform of the main bridge, in order
to set it alight when the French appeared.  They had also
established on the left bank, at the end of the bridge at Spitz,
a powerful battery of artillery, as well as a division of six
thousand men under the command of Prince D'Auersperg, a brave but
not very intelligent officer. Now I must tell you that some days
before the entry of the French into Vienna, the Emperor had
received the Austrian general, Comte de Guilay, who came as an
envoy to make peace overtures, which came to nothing. But hardly
had the Emperor settled in the palace of Schoenbrunn, when
General Guilay again appeared and spent more than an hour
tˆte-a-tˆte with Napoleon. From this a rumour arose that an
armistice had been arranged, a rumour which spread amongst the
French regiments which were entering Vienna and the Austrians who
were leaving to cross the Danube.

Murat and Lannes, whom the Emperor had ordered to secure the
crossing of the Danube, placed Oudinot's Grenadiers behind a
bushy plantation and went forward, accompanied only by some
German-speaking officers. The enemy outposts withdrew, firing as
they went. The French officers called out that there was an
armistice, and continuing their progress, they crossed all the
small bridges, without being held up. When they arrived at the
main bridge, they renewed their assertion to the commander at
Spitz, who did not dare to fire on two marshals, almost alone,
who claimed that hostilities were suspended. However, before
allowing them to go any further, he wanted to go and ask General
Auersperg for orders, and while he did so, he left the post in
charge of a sergeant. Lannes and Murat persuaded the sergeant
that under the terms of the cease-fire, the bridge should be
handed over to them, and that he should go with his men to join
his officer on the left bank. The poor sergeant hesitated, he was
edged back gently while the conversation continued, and by a slow
but steady advance they reached, eventually, the end of the main
bridge.

At this point an Austrian officer endeavored to set light to the
incendiary material, but the torch was snatched from his hand,
and he was told that he would be in serious trouble if he did any
such thing. Next, the column of Oudinot's Grenadiers appeared and
began to cross the bridge.... The Austrian gunners prepared to
open fire, but the French marshals ran to the commander of the
artillery and assured him that an armistice was in force, then,
seating themselves on the guns, they requested the gunners to go
and inform General Auersperg of their presence. General Auersperg
eventually arrived and was about to order the gunners to open
fire, although by now they and the Austrian troops were
surrounded by the French Grenadiers, when the two marshals
managed to convince him that there was a cease-fire, a principal
condition of which was that the French should occupy the bridge.
The unhappy general, fearing to compromise himself by the useless
shedding of blood, lost his head to the point of leading away all
the troops which he had been given to defend the bridges.

Without this error on the part of General Auersperg, the passage
of the Danube could only have been carried out with great
difficulty, and might even have been impossible; in which case
Napoleon would have been unable to pursue the Russians and
Austrians into Moravia, and would have failed in his campaign.
That was the opinion at the time, and it was confirmed three
years later when, the Austrians having burned the bridges, to
secure a passage we were forced to fight the two battles of
Essling and Wagram, which cost us more than thirty thousand men,
whereas in 1805 Marshals Lannes and Murat took possession of the
bridges without there being a single man wounded.

Was the stratagem they employed admissible? I have my doubts. I
know that in war one eases one's conscience, and that any means
may be employed to ensure victory and reduce loss of life, but in
spite of these weighty considerations, I do not think that one
can approve of the method used to seize the bridge at Spitz, and
for my part I would not care to do the same in similar
circumstances.

To conclude this episode, the credulity of General Auersperg was
very severely punished. A court-martial condemned him to be
cashiered, dragged through the streets of Vienna on a hurdle and
finally put to death at the hands of the public executioner...! A
similar sentence was passed on Field-marshal Mack, to punish him
for his conduct at Ulm. But in both cases the death sentence was
commuted to life imprisonment. They served ten years and were
then released, but deprived of their position, expelled from the
ranks of the nobility and rejected by their families, they died,
both of them, shortly after they had been set at liberty.

The stratagem employed by Marshals Lannes and Murat having
secured the crossing of the Danube, the Emperor Napoleon directed
his army in pursuit of the Russians and the Austrians. Thus began
the second phase of the campaign.

Chap. 25.

The Russian marshal Koutousoff was heading via Hollabrunn for
Brno in Moravia, in order to join the second army which was led
by the Emperor Alexander in person; but on approaching
Hollabrunn, he was alarmed to discover that the troops of Lannes
and Murat were already occupying the town and cutting off his
means of retreat. To get out of this fix, the aged marshal,
making use, in his turn, of trickery, sent General Prince
Bagration as an envoy to Marshal Murat, whom he assured that an
aide-de-camp of the Emperor was on his way to Napoleon in order
to conclude an armistice, and that, without doubt, peace would
shortly follow.

Prince Bagration was a very amiable man, he knew exactly how to
flatter Murat, so that he in turn was deceived into accepting an
armistice, in spite of the observations of Lannes, who wished to
fight but had to obey Murat, who was his superior officer.

The truce lasted for thirty-six hours; and while Murat was
inhaling the incense which the crafty Russian lavished on him,
Koutousoff's army made a detour and concealing its movement
behind a screen of low hills, escaped from danger, and went on to
take up, beyond Hollabrunn, a strong position which opened the
road to Moravia and assured his retreat and his junction with the
second Russian army which was encamped between Znaim and Brno.
Napoleon was still in the palace of Schoenbrunn, and was
furiously angry when he heard that Murat had allowed himself to
be bamboozled by Prince Bagration, and had accepted an armistice
without his orders, and he commanded him to attack Koutousoff
immediately.

Now the situation of the Russians had changed greatly to their
advantage, so they repelled the French most vigorously. The town
of Hollabrunn, taken and re-taken several times, set on fire by
the mortars, filled with the dead and dying, remained finally in
French possession. The Russians retired in the direction of Brno;
our troops followed them and took possession of this town without
a fight, although it was fortified and dominated by the
well-known citadel of Spielberg.

The Russian armies and the remains of the Austrian troops were
united in Moravia; the Emperor Napoleon, in order to deliver the
final blow, arrived in Brno, the capital of the province.

My comrade Massy and I followed after him, but we moved slowly
and with much difficulty, firstly because the post-horses were on
their last legs, and then because of the great quantity of
troops, guns, ammunition wagons, baggage, etc. with which the
roads were obstructed. We were obliged to stop for twenty-four
hours at Hollabrunn, while we waited for a passage to be cleared
through the streets, destroyed by fire and littered with planks
and beams and the debris of furniture, still alight. This
unfortunate town had been so completely burned that we were
unable to find a single house to provide shelter!

During our enforced stay, we were confronted and distressed by
the most horrible and shocking spectacle. The wounded, mainly
Russians, had taken refuge during the fighting in the houses
which were soon set ablaze. All who could walk fled at the
approach of this new danger, but the crippled and gravely injured
were burned alive in the ruins! Many had attempted to escape the
fire by crawling along the ground, but the flames had followed
them into the streets,where one could see a multitude of these
wretched victims half consumed by fire, some of them still
breathing! The bodies of the men and horses killed in the battle
had also been roasted, so that for several leagues around the
town there was a sickening stench of burning flesh! ... There are
countrysides and towns which because of their situation are
destined to serve as battlefields, and Hollabrun is one of them,
because it offers an excellent military position; thus it was
that the damage done by the fire of 1805 had scarcely been
repaired, when I saw the place again, four years later, once more
on fire and littered with the half-roasted bodies of the dead and
dying; as you will see from my description of the campaign of
1809.

Major Massy and I left this pestilential spot as soon as we
could, and went on to Znaim, where, four years later I was to be
wounded; and at last we reached the Emperor at Brunn (Brno), on
November 22nd, ten days before the Battle of Austerlitz.

The day after our arrival, we completed our mission and handed
over the flags with the ceremony laid down by the Emperor for
solemn occasions of this kind; for he missed no opportunity of
displaying to the troops anything which could raise their morale
and enthusiasm.

The procedure was as follows:--Half an hour before the daily
parade,--which took place at eleven o'clock outside whatever
residence was serving as the Emperor's palace,--General Duroc,
the Grand Marshal, sent to our billet a company of Grenadiers of
the Guard, with bandsmen and drummers. The town of Brunn was full
of French troops, and the soldiers, as we passed, celebrated with
much cheering the victory of their comrades of 7th Corps. All the
guard-posts accorded us military honours, and on our entry to the
courtyard of the Emperor's quarters, the units formed up for the
parade beat a salute, presented arms, and cried repeatedly "Vive
L'Empereur!"

The aide-de-camp on duty came to receive us and to present us to
Napoleon, to whom we were introduced, accompanied always by the
N.C.O.s carrying the Austrian flags. The Emperor examined these
various trophies, and after dismissing the N.C.O.s. he questioned
us closely about the various actions which had been fought by
Marshal Augereau and on all we had seen or learned on our long
journey through a countryside which had been the theatre of war.
Then he told us to await his instructions, and to join the
imperial suite.  The Grand Marshal Duroc took charge of the
flags, for which he gave us a receipt in the regular manner,
informed us that horses would be placed at our disposal and
invited us, for the duration of our stay, to the table over which
he presided.

The French army was now massed around and before Brunn. The
Russian advance-guard occupied Austerlitz, while the bulk of
their army was positioned round the town of Olmutz, where were
also the Emperor Alexander of Russia and the Emperor of Austria.
A battle seemed inevitable, but both sides being well aware that
the outcome would have an immense bearing on the destiny of
Europe, each hesitated to make a decisive move. Napoleon, usually
so swift to act, waited for eleven days at Brunn before launching
a major attack. It is, however, true that every day of waiting
increased his forces by the arrival of great numbers of soldiers
who had lagged behind because of illness or fatigue, and who
having now recovered, hastened to rejoin their units. I recall
that, in these circumstances, I told a white lie which could have
ruined my military career.

Napoleon usually treated his officers with kindness, but there
was one point on which he was perhaps too strict, for he held
colonels responsible for keeping their units up to full strength,
something it is very difficult to do during a campaign. It was in
this matter that the Emperor was most often deceived, for the
corps commanders were so afraid of displeasing him that they
risked being committed to facing an enemy force disproportionate
to their own numbers, rather than admit that sickness, fatigue
and the need to forage for food had caused many soldiers to drop
out. So Napoleon, in spite of his authority, never knew the exact
number of combatants available to him on the day of battle.

Now it so happened that the Emperor, in the course of one of the
endless trips he made to visit the various corps of the army, saw
the mounted Chasseurs of his guard, who were moving to a
different position. He was particularly fond of this regiment, of
which his "guides" from Italy and Egypt formed the nucleus. The
Emperor, whose experienced eye could estimate very exactly the
strength of a column, noticing that their numbers were much
reduced, took out of his pocket a little notebook, and, calling
for General Morland, the commander of the mounted Chasseurs, he
said to him in a stern voice, "Your regiment is down in my notes
as having 1200 men, and although you have not been in action, you
have no more than 800; what has happened to the others?" General
Morland was a fine, brave fighting soldier, but he did not have a
ready tongue, and being quite nonplussed, he said in his
Franco-Alsatian dialect that he was short of only a small number
of men. The Emperor maintained that he was about four hundred
short, and to get to the truth of the matter he wanted to have an
immediate count; but knowing that General Morland was very much
liked by the officers of the imperial staff, he feared a
cover-up, and thought he would be more likely to discover the
truth by choosing an officer who did not belong to his entourage
nor to the Chasseurs; so, seeing me, he ordered me to count the
Chasseurs and to deliver to him personally a record of their
numbers; having said which, he made off at the gallop. I began my
task, which was made more easy because the troopers were riding
past four abreast at walking pace.

Poor General Morland, who knew how close Napoleon's estimate was
to the reality, was in a state of great agitation, for he foresaw
that my report would call down on his head a severe reprimand. He
hardly knew me, and did not dare to suggest that I might
compromise myself to get him out of trouble. He was then sitting
silently on his horse beside me, when, fortunately for him, his
adjutant came to join him. This officer, named Fournier, had
started his military career as an assistant surgeon, then, having
become a surgeon-major, he felt that he had more of a vocation
for the sabre than for the lancet, and had asked for and obtained
permission to join the ranks of the combatant officers, and
Morland, with whom he had served previously, arranged for him to
join the Guard.

I had known Captain Fournier very well when he was still
surgeon-major, and I was very much obliged to him, for not only
had he dressed my father's wound when it was inflicted, but he
had gone, like him, to Genoa, where, as long as my father lived,
he had come several times a day to care for him: if the doctors
charged with the duty of fighting the typhus epidemic had been as
assiduous and zealous as Fournier, my father, perhaps, would not
have died. I had often thought this, so I gave the warmest of
welcomes to Fournier, whom I did not at first recognise in the
pelisse of a captain of Chasseurs.

General Morland, seeing the pleasure we had in meeting one
another, thought he might profit from our mutual friendship to
persuade me not to reveal to the Emperor by how many men he was
short. He took his adjutant aside and conferred with him for a
time; then Fournier came, and in the name of our former
friendship, he begged me to extricate General Morland from a most
unpleasant situation by concealing from the Emperor the extent to
which the regiment was under strength. I refused firmly and
continued to count. The Emperor's estimate was very close, for
there were only a few over eight hundred Chasseurs present, four
hundred were missing.

I was about to leave to make my report, when General Morland and
Captain Fournier renewed their pleas pointing out that the
greater part of the men who had dropped behind for various
reasons would rejoin them very shortly, and that it was not
likely that Napoleon would engage in battle before the arrival of
the divisions of Friant and Gudin, who were still at the gates of
Vienna, thirty-six leagues from us and would take several days to
reach us. In the interval more laggards would rejoin the unit.
They added that the Emperor would be too busy to check my report.
I could not pretend to myself that I was not being asked to
deceive the Emperor, which was very wrong, but I felt also that I
was under a great obligation to Captain Fournier for the truly
tender care he had given to my dying father, I allowed myself
therefore to be swayed and promised to conceal a large part of
the truth.

I was scarcely alone when I realised the enormity of my error,
but it was too late; the essential object now was to get out of
the situation with the least harm possible. With this aim in
view, I kept out of the way of the Emperor as long as he was on
horseback, in case he went back to the bivouac of the Chasseurs,
where their shortage of numbers striking him anew would give the
lie to my report. I craftily did not return to the imperial
quarters until night was approaching and Napoleon, having
dismounted had gone to his apartment. Brought before him in order
to make my report, I found him lying at full length on an immense
map which was spread on the floor. As soon as he saw me, he
called out "Well now! Marbot, how many Chasseurs are there in my
guard? Are there twelve hundred as Morland claims?" "No sire" I
replied."I counted only eleven hundred and twenty, that is a
shortfall of eighty." "I was sure that there was a lot missing."
said the Emperor, in a tone of voice which made it plain that he
had expected a much larger deficit; and to be sure if there were
no more than eighty men missing from a regiment of twelve hundred
which had just come five hundred leagues in winter, sleeping
almost every night in bivouac, that was a very small loss.  So
when, on going to dinner, the Emperor passed through the room
where the senior officers of the guard were gathered, all he said
to Morland was, "Now you see...you are short of eighty troopers;
that is almost a squadron. With eighty of these men one could
stop a Russian regiment! You must take care to see that men do
not drop behind." Then, passing to the commander of the foot
guards, whose numbers were also much reduced, Napoleon gave him a
sharp reprimand. Morland, who thought himself lucky to have got
away with no more than a few observations, came over to me, as
soon as the Emperor was seated at table, and thanked me warmly.
He told me that some thirty troopers had just arrived, and that a
courier from Vienna had met more than a hundred between Znaim and
Brunn, and many more this side of Hollabrunn, which meant that
within forty-eight hours the regiment would have made up most of
its deficiency. I wished for this as fervently as he did, for I
was well aware of the difficult spot I had landed myself in out
of my consideration for Fournier. I could not sleep that night
for fear of the justifiable wrath of the Emperor, if he found out
that I had lied to him.

I was even more dismayed the next day when Napoleon, in the
course of his usual visit to his troops, started off in the
direction of the Chasseur's bivouac, for a simple question put to
an officer could expose everything; but just when I thought that
I was done for, I heard the sound of the band of the Russian
force, camped on the high ground of the Pratzen half a league
from our position. I urged my horse forward towards the head of
the numerous staff by whom the Emperor was accompanied, and
getting as close to him as possible, I said in a loud voice, "I
am sure there is something going on in the Russian camp, their
band is playing a march".... The Emperor, who heard my remark,
suddenly left the path which led to the Chasseur's bivouac, and
headed towards Pratzen to see what was happening in the enemy
advance-guard. He stayed a long time watching, and as night was
approaching, he went back to Brunn without visiting the
Chasseurs. For several days I was in a mortal panic, although I
learned of the arrival of successive detachments of men, but at
last the coming battle and the many preoccupations of the Emperor
drove from his mind the idea of making the check which I so much
feared.  But I had learned my lesson; so when I became a colonel
and was asked by the Emperor how many men were present in the
squadrons of my regiment, I always gave the exact number.

Chap. 26.

If Napoleon was often deceived, he also used deception himself to
further his projects, as can be shown by the tale of this
diplomatic-military comedy, in which I played a part.

In order to understand this affair, which will give you the key
to the intrigues which, the following year, gave rise to the war
between Napoleon and the King of Prussia, we have to go back two
months to the time when the French troops, having left the coast,
were proceeding by rapid marches to the Danube. The shortest
route which the first corps, commanded by Bernadotte, could take
to reach Hanover, on the upper Danube, lay through Anspach. This
little country belonged to Prussia, but as it was quite a long
way from there, from which it was separated by a number of minor
principalities, it had always been regarded in previous wars as
being neutral territory, through which either party could pass,
provided that they paid for any goods they required and refrained
from any hostile action.

Things having been established on this footing, Austrian and
French armies had often passed through the Margravate of Anspach,
since the time of the Directory, without informing Prussia and
without the latter raising any objection. Napoleon then, taking
advantage of this convention, ordered Bernadotte to go through
Anspach, which he did. However, the Queen of Prussia and her
court, who detested Napoleon, on hearing of this, raised an
outcry, claiming that Prussian territory had been violated, and
took advantage of this event to rouse the nation and call loudly
for war. The King of Prussia and his minister, Count Haugwitz,
alone resisted the general clamour for action. This was in
October 1805, when hostilities were about to break out between
France and Austria, and the Russian armies were on their way to
reinforce the latter. The queen and the young Prince Louis, the
king's nephew, in an attempt to persuade the king to make common
cause with the Austrians and Russians, arranged for the Emperor
Alexander to come to Berlin, in the hope that his presence would
influence Frederick-William.

Alexander arrived in the capital of Prussia on the 25th October.
He was greeted with enthusiasm by the queen, Prince Louis and the
supporters of war against France. The king, besieged on all
sides, allowed himself to be persuaded, but only on the
condition--advised by the old Prince of Brunswick, and Count
Haugwitz--that his army should not be committed to a campaign
until the outcome of the conflict between the French and the
Austrians on the Danube had been determined. This partial
adherence to their cause pleased neither Alexander nor the queen,
but for the time being they could obtain nothing more explicit. A
melodramatic scene was played out at Potsdam, where the Emperor
of Russia and the King of Prussia, having descended, by the light
of torches, into the sepulchral vaults of the palace, swore, in
the presence of the court, eternal friendship, on the tomb of
Frederick the Great; (an oath which did not prevent Alexander
from incorporating into the Russian Empire, eighteen months
later, one of the Prussian provinces, which Napoleon awarded him
under the treaty of Tilsit, and this in the presence of his
friend Frederick-William.) The Russian Emperor now went back to
Moravia, to place himself at the head of his army, for Napoleon
was advancing rapidly towards Vienna, which he shortly occupied.

When he heard of the King of Prussia's reluctance and the compact
made at Potsdam, Napoleon, in order to deal with the Russians
before the Prussians had made up their minds, installed himself
for the encounter with the former in Brunn, where we now were.

It is said, quite rightly, that ambassadors are privileged spies.

The King of Prussia, who heard daily of fresh victories won by
Napoleon, was anxious to find out what the true position was
between the warring parties; so he decided to send Count
Haugwitz, his minister, to the French headquarters, with
instructions to assess the situation. Now it was necessary to
find an excuse for doing this, so he entrusted Count Haugwitz
with a reply to a letter which Napoleon had sent to him,
complaining about the agreement concluded between the Prussians
and the Russians at Potsdam. Count Haugwitz arrived at Brunn some
days before the Battle of Austerlitz, and would dearly have liked
to stay there until he knew the result of the major engagement
which was in prospect, in order to advise his sovereign to do
nothing if we were victorious, or to attack us if we should be
defeated. You do not have to be a soldier to see from a map what
damage a Prussian army, coming from Breslau in Silesia, could do
by going through Bohemia to fall on our rear around Regansberg.

As Napoleon knew that Count Haugwitz sent a courier every evening
to Berlin, he decided that it would be by this means that he
would inform the Prussians of the defeat of Field-marshal
Jellachich's army corps, news of which had not yet reached them.
This is how it was done.

Marshal of the Palace Duroc, after telling us what we were to do,
had all the Austrian flags which we had brought from Bregenz
secretly replaced in the lodgings which Massy and I occupied;
then, some hours later, when the Emperor was in conversation with
Count Haugwitz in his study, we re-enacted the ceremony of the
handover of the flags in exactly the same way as it had been done
on the first occasion. The Emperor hearing the band playing in
the courtyard, feigned astonishment, and went to the windows
followed by the ambassador.  Seeing the flags carried by the
N.C.O.s. he called for the duty aide-de-camp and asked him what
was going on. The aide-de-camp having told him that we were two
of Marshal Augereau's aides who had come to hand over to him the
flags of Jellachich's Austrian corps captured at Bregenz, we were
led inside; there Napoleon, without blinking an eyelid, and as if
he had never seen us before, took the letter from Augereau,which
had been re-sealed, and read it, although he had been aware of
its contents for four days. Then he questioned us, making us go
into the smallest details. Duroc had warned us to speak out
loudly, as the ambassador was a little hard of hearing, this
advice was of no use to Major Massy, who was the leader of the
mission, since he was suffering from a cold and had almost
completely lost his voice, so it was I who replied to the
Emperor, and taking a lead from him, I painted in the most vivid
colours the defeat of the Austrians, their despondency, and the
enthusiasm of the French.  Then, presenting the trophies one
after the other, I named the Austrian regiments to which they had
once belonged. I laid particular stress on two of them, because I
knew that their capture would have a powerful effect on the
ambassador, "Here," I said "is the flag of the infantry regiment
of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, and there is the standard
of the Uhlans, commanded by the Archduke Charles, his brother."
Napoleon's eyes twinkled, and he seemed to say, "Well done young
man!" At last he dismissed us, and as we left we heard him say to
the ambassador, "You see, monsieur le Comte, my armies are
everywhere triumphant.... The Austrian army is no more, and soon
the same fate will befall the Russians." Count Haugwitz seemed
deeply impressed, and Duroc said to us, after we had left the
room, "The count will write tonight to Berlin, to tell his
government of the destruction of Jellachich's force, which will
put a damper on the war party, and give the king new reasons for
holding off. Which is what the Emperor very much wants."

This comedy having been played out, The Emperor, to be rid of a
dangerous onlooker who could give an account of the disposition
of his forces, suggested to Count Haugwitz that it was not very
safe for him to remain between two armies which were about to
come to blows, and persuaded him to go to Vienna to M. Tallyrand,
his minister for foreign affairs, which he did that same evening.

The following day the Emperor said nothing to us about the scene
which had been enacted the previous evening, but wishing, no
doubt, to give some sign of his satisfaction with the manner in
which we had played our parts, he asked Major Massy, kindly,
about the progress of his cold, and he pinched my ear, which with
him was a sort of caress.

Now the denouement of the great drama was approaching and both
sides were preparing for the coming struggle. Nearly all military
authors so overload their narrative with details that they
confuse the mind of the reader, to the extent that, in most of
the published works on the wars of the Empire which I have read,
I have been unable to understand the description of several of
the battles in which I myself have taken part, and the various
phases of which I know. I think that to preserve clarity in the
description of an action, one needs to limit oneself to
indicating the respective positions of the two armies, prior to
the engagement, and to recounting only the principal and decisive
events in the combat.  This is what I shall attempt to do.


The coming battle is known as the Battle of Austerlitz, although
it took place some distance from the village of that name: the
reason for this is that, on the eve of the battle, the Emperors
of Austria and Russia had slept in the Chateau of Austerlitz, out
of which Napoleon drove them.

You will see on the map that a stream, the Goldbach, which rises
on the far side of the road to Olmutz, flows into a pool called
Menitz. This stream, which runs in a little valley with quite
steep banks, separated the two armies. The right of the
Austro-Russian forces lay on a wooded escarpment, situated behind
the post-house of Posoritz, on the far side of the Olmutz road;
their centre occupied Pratzen and the vast plateau of that name,
and their left was near the meres of Satschan and the
neighbouring marshes. The Emperor placed his left flank on a
little hill, very difficult of access, which our men who had been
in Egypt called the Santon (a holy man's grave) because it was
surmounted by a small chapel, the roof of which had the
appearance of a minaret. The French centre was near the pool of
Kobolnitz, and the right was at Telnitz. The Emperor had put very
few troops there in order to tempt the Russians into the marshy
ground, where he had prepared their defeat by concealing in
Gross-Raigern, on the road to Vienna, the corps of Marshal
Davout.

On the 1st December, the eve of the battle, Napoleon left Brunn
in the morning and spent all day examining the positions; in the
evening he set up his headquarters behind the French centre, at a
spot from where could be seen the camps of both armies and the
area which would form their battlefield the next day. There was
no building in the vicinity but a dilapidated barn, and it was
there that were placed the Emperor's tables and maps, while he
himself took up a position by a huge fire, surrounded by his
numerous staff and his guards. Happily there was no snow,
although it was very cold. I bedded down on the ground and fell
into a deep sleep; but soon we had to remount our horses to
accompany the Emperor, who was about to visit his troops. There
was no moon, and the obscurity of the night was increased by a
thick mist which made progress difficult. The troopers of the
Emperor's escort had the idea of lighting torches made of
pinewood and straw which were most useful. The soldiers, seeing
the approach of a group of mounted men thus illuminated, could
easily distinguish the imperial staff, and in an instant, as if
by magic, one saw all our camp lit up by torches carried by the
men who greeted the Emperor with cheer, made all the louder
because the next day would be the anniversary of his coronation,
a coincidence which seemed to them to be a good augury. The enemy
must have been greatly astonished when, from the height of the
neighbouring slope, they saw in the middle of the night, the
light of sixty thousand torches and heard the repeated cheers of
"Vive l'Empereur!" mingled with the sound of the regimental
bands. All was gaiety, light and movement in our camp, while, on
the Austro-Russian side, all was dark and silent.

The next day, the 2nd December, the cannons were heard at
daybreak. We have seen that the Emperor had deployed few troops
on his right wing; a bait which he dangled before the enemy, who
would see the apparent possibility of taking Telnitz easily, and
then crossing the Goldbach and going on to Gross-Raigern in order
to control the road from Brunn to Vienna and so cut off our line
of retreat. The Austro-Russians fell headlong into the trap, and,
thinning out the rest of their line, they clumsily piled up a
considerable force in the lower part of Telnitz, and in the
narrow, marshy defiles around the meres of Satschan and Menitz.
They thought, for some unknown reason, that Napoleon was
considering withdrawing, without facing a battle, so to hasten
this move they decided to attack us at the Santon on our left and
at our centre before Puntowitz, so that, being defeated at these
two points, and forced to retreat, we would find the road to
Vienna cut by the Russian troops. But on our left Marshal Lannes
not only repelled all the enemy attacks on the Santon, but drove
them back across the Olmutz road as far as Blasiowitz, where the
more level ground allowed Murat's cavalry to make several very
effective charges, which compelled the Russians to retire
hurriedly to the village of Austerlitz.

While our left was achieving this brilliant success, the centre,
consisting of the troops of Marshals Soult and Bernadotte, who
had been placed by the Emperor in the valley of the Goldbach
where they were hidden by a thick mist, advanced towards the
slope on which stood the village of Pratzen. It was at this
moment that the bright "Sunshine of Austerlitz" appeared, the
memory of which Napoleon was pleased so frequently to recall.
Marshal Soult took not only the village of Pratzen but also the
great plateau of that name, which is the high point of the
surrounding country, and, in consequence, the key to the
battlefield. Here took place, before the eyes of the Emperor, a
very sharp engagement in which the Russians were defeated; but a
battalion of the 4th Line regiment, commanded by Prince Joseph,
Napoleon's brother, went too far in pursuit of the enemy and was
charged and over-run by the horse-guards and Cuirassiers of the
Grand-duke Constantin, the brother of Alexander, who captured
their Eagle. A force of Russian cavalry advanced rapidly to
support the momentary success of the horse-guards; but Napoleon
sent against them the Mamelukes, the light cavalry and the
mounted Grenadiers of his guard, led by Marshal Bessieres and
General Rapp, and a most sanguinary melee ensued. The Russian
squadrons were overcome and driven back beyond the village of
Austerlitz with great losses. Our cavalry captured many standards
and prisoners, among whom was Prince Repnin, the commander of the
horse-guards. This regiment, made up of the most glittering youth
of the Russian nobility, suffered many casualties. The boastful
threats which they had made concerning the French were known to
our men, who in reply said that they would give the ladies of St.
Petersburg something to cry about.

The painter Gerard, in his picture of the Battle of Austerlitz,
has taken as his subject the moment when General Rapp, leaving
the battle, wounded and covered in his own and the enemies'
blood, is presenting to the Emperor the flags which have been
captured as well as Prince Repnin, his prisoner. I was present at
this memorable scene, which the painter has reproduced with
remarkable exactness.  All the heads are portraits, even that of
the brave trooper, who without complaining, though shot through
the body, fell dead at the feet of the Emperor as he presented
the standard which he had just captured. Napoleon, to honour the
memory of this brave Chasseur, ordered the painter to include him
in his composition. One can see also in this picture a Mameluke,
who carries in one hand an enemy flag, and with the other holds
the bridle of his wounded horse. This man, named Mustapha, known
in the guards for his courage and ferocity, had set off, during
the charge, in pursuit of the Grand-duke Constantin, who was only
able to get rid of him by firing a pistol shot which mortally
wounded his horse. Mustapha, grieved at having only a standard to
offer the Emperor, said in his broken French, when he presented
it, "Ah! If me catch Prince Constantin, me cut off head and bring
to Emperor!" Napoleon replied indignantly,  "You be quiet! You
wicked savage!"

Let us now finish the story of the battle. While Marshals Lannes,
Soult and Murat attacked the centre and right of the
Austro-Russians and drove them back beyond the village of
Austerlitz, the enemy left, having fallen into the trap which the
Emperor had prepared for them, attacked the village of Telnitz
and took possession of it, then, crossing the Goldbach, they
prepared to occupy the road to Vienna; but they had greatly
underestimated the skill of Napoleon in thinking that he would
neglect to defend his route of retreat in case of misfortune.
Marshal Davout's divisions were concealed in Gross-Regairn and
from that point he fell on the Russians as soon as he saw that
their massed troops were held up in the defiles between the meres
of Telnitz, Menitz and the rivulet.

The Emperor, whom we left on the plateau of Pratzen, free of the
right and centre of the enemy, who were retreating in disorder
beyond Austerlitz, came down from the heights of Pratzen and
hurried with Marshal Soult's corps and all his guard, infantry,
cavalry and artillery, towards Telnitz; where he attacked in the
rear the enemy columns which Marshal Davout was attacking in
front. From this moment, the cumbersome masses of the
Austro-Russians, crammed together on the narrow pathways which
ran alongside the Goldbach, finding themselves between two fires,
fell into indescribable confusion. The ranks broke down and each
man sought his own safety in flight. Some rushed into the marshes
around the meres, but our infantry followed them; others tried to
escape down the road which runs between the two meres, but our
cavalry charged them with fearful slaughter; the largest body of
men, principally Russians, tried to get across the frozen meres,
and already a great number were on the ice of Lake Satschan when
Napoleon ordered his gunners to fire on them. The ice broke in
many places with a loud cracking sound and we saw a host of
Russians with their horses wagons and guns slide slowly into the
depths. The surface of the lake was covered with men and horses
struggling amid the ice and water. A few were saved, helped by
poles and ropes which our men held out to them from the bank, but
many were drowned.

The number of combatants at the Emperor's disposal in this battle
was sixty-eight thousand men. The Austro-Russians had ninety-two
thousand. Our losses in killed and wounded were about eight
thousand, the enemy stated that their losses in killed wounded
and drowned amounted to fourteen thousand. We took eighteen
thousand prisoners and captured one hundred and fifty cannons, as
well as a great number of flags, standards, etc.

After giving orders to pursue the enemy in all directions, the
Emperor went to his new headquarters in the post-house at
Posoritz, on the Olmutz road. He was highly delighted as you may
imagine, although he several times expressed regret that the only
Eagle we had lost was that of the fourth line regiment, of which
his brother, Prince Joseph, was colonel. The fact that this had
been captured by the regiment of the Grand-duke Constantin, the
Emperor of Russia's brother, made the loss even more annoying.

Napoleon soon had a great consolation; Prince Jean of
Lichtenstein came, on behalf of the Emperor of Austria, to
request a meeting, and Napoleon, realising that this would lead
to peace and remove the fear of having the Prussians attack the
French rear before he had rid himself of his present enemies,
readily agreed to the proposal.

Of all the units of the Imperial Guard, the regiment of Mounted
Chasseurs was the one which suffered the most casualties in the
great charge made on the Pratzen plateau against the Russian
Guard. My poor friend Fournier was killed, as was General
Morland. It is said that Napoleon intended to have the body of
General Morland interred in a mausoleum which he meant to have
built in the centre of the Esplanade des Invalides, and that it
was preserved in a cask of rum for that reason. But the mausoleum
was never built, and it is alleged that the general's body was
still in a room in the school of medicine when Napoleon lost his
Empire in 1814.

I was not wounded at Austerlitz, although I was often exposed to
danger, notably during the melee with the Russian cavalry on the
Pratzen plateau. The Emperor had sent me to take some orders to
General Rapp, whom I found it very difficult to reach amid the
appalling confusion of the embattled soldiery. My horse was
crushed up against that of a Russian horse-guard and our sabres
were about to clash when we were separated by other combatants; I
came away with a large bruise. However, the next day I ran into a
more serious danger, one that one does not expect to meet on the
field of battle.

On the morning of the 3rd of December, the day after the battle,
the Emperor mounted his horse and went round all the places where
action had taken place on the previous day. Having arrived at the
mere of Satschan, Napoleon dismounted and was chatting round a
fire with a number of marshals, when we saw, some hundred paces
from the bank, a large slab of ice on which lay a poor Russian
sergeant, who was unable to help himself because of a bullet
wound in his thigh.  Seeing the large group on the bank, the
soldier raised his voice and pleaded for help, saying that when
the fighting was over we were all brother soldiers. When his
interpreter translated this, Napoleon was touched and ordered
General Bertrand to do what he could to rescue the wretched
Russian.

Several men of the escort, and even two staff officers, attempted
to reach the Russian using two tree trunks which they pushed into
the water, but they ended up by falling in with all their clothes
on, and having difficulty in getting out. It then occurred to me
to say that they should have entered the water naked, so that
their movements would not be hampered, and they would not have to
wear wet clothing. This observation was repeated to the Emperor,
who said that I was right, and that the others had shown zeal
without forethought. I have no wish to make myself out to be
better than I am; I can assure you that, having just taken part
in a battle where I had seen thousands of dead and dying, my
emotions were blunted, I did not feel sufficiently philanthropic
to risk pneumonia by struggling amongst the ice floes to save the
life of an enemy soldier, however much I deplored his unhappy
lot; but the Emperor's remark stung me into action, it seemed to
me ridiculous that I should offer advice which I was not prepared
to put into action. I jumped off my horse, stripped off my
clothes and leapt into the lake.

I had been very active during the day, and was warm; the water
felt bitterly cold, but I was young and vigourous, a very good
swimmer, and encouraged by the presence of the Emperor, I was
making towards the Russian, when my example and probably the
praise I received from the Emperor, persuaded a lieutenant of
artillery named Roumestain to come after me.

While he was undressing, I pushed on, but I had more difficulty
than I had foreseen in forcing my way through the thin layer of
new ice which was forming on the water, the sharp edges of which
inflicted many scrapes and scratches. The officer who followed me
was able to make use of the sort of path which I had made, and
when he reached me, he volunteered to take the lead, to give me
some relief. We eventually reached the large block of ice on
which the Russian lay, but it was only with the greatest
difficulty that we managed to push it near enough to the shore
for the man to be rescued. We were both so cold and exhausted
that we had to be lifted out of the water, and we were hardly
able to stand. My good comrade Massy, who had watched me with
much anxiety during this swim, had had the forethought to warm
his horse's blanket before the fire, which he wrapped round me as
soon as I was out of the water. After I had dried myself and
dressed, I wanted to lie beside the fire, but Doctor Larrey was
against this and told me to walk around, something I was unable
to do without the aid of two troopers. The Emperor came to
congratulate the two of us on the courage with which we had
undertaken the rescue of the wounded Russian, and calling for his
Mameluke, Roustan, whose horse was always loaded with provisions,
he poured out for us a tot of rum each, and asked us, laughing,
how we had enjoyed the bath.

As for the Russian sergeant, after his wound had been dressed by
Doctor Larrey, Napoleon gave him several gold coins. He was
wrapped in warm coverings and put in one of the houses of Telnitz
which was acting as a dressing station; the next day he was taken
to the hospital at Brunn. The poor lad blessed the Emperor as
well as Roumestain and me, and wanted to kiss our hands. He was a
Lithuanian, that is to say, born in a former province of Poland,
which is now part of Russia. As soon as he had recovered, he
announced that he wished now to serve no one but Napoleon. He was
sent back to France with our own wounded and subsequently joined
the Polish legion. In the end he became a sergeant in the lancers
of the guard, and each time I met him, he gave me a warm
greeting.

The ice-cold bath which I had taken and the almost superhuman
efforts I had made to rescue the Russian could have cost me dear
had I been less young and strongly built; for Lieutenant
Roumestain, who did not possess the latter of these two
advantages to the same extent, was taken that same evening with a
severe chest infection.  He had to be taken to the hospital at
Brunn, where he spent several months between life and death. He
never recovered completely, and his poor health forced him to
resign from the service some years later.

As for me, although I felt very weak, I mounted my horse when the
Emperor left to go to the chateau of Austerlitz, where his
headquarters had been set up. Napoleon never went anywhere except
at the gallop; in my bruised state this pace was hardly suitable,
however I followed on, since night was approaching, and I feared
to be left behind, and anyway, if I had ridden at a walk, I would
have been overcome by the cold.

When I arrived at the courtyard of the chateau of Austerlitz, I
had to be helped off my horse. A violent shivering took me, my
teeth chattered and I felt very ill. Colonel Dahlmann, a major in
the Mounted Chasseurs, who had just been promoted to replace
Colonel Morland, remembering, no doubt, the service I had
rendered to the latter, took, me into one of the chateau's barns,
where he had established himself with his officers. There, after
giving me some hot tea, his medical officer massaged me with warm
oil, I was wrapped in several blankets and put into an enormous
pile of hay with only my face exposed. A gentle warmth crept
slowly back into my benumbed limbs; I slept very soundly and
thanks to these ministrations and my twenty-three years, I awoke
the next day fully recovered and able to mount my horse and to
observe a spectacle of great interest.

Chap. 27.

The defeat suffered by the Russians had thrown their army into
such confusion that all those who had escaped from the disaster
of Austerlitz, hastened to Galicia to get out of reach of the
victor.  The rout was complete: the French took a great number of
prisoners, and found the roads covered with cannons and abandoned
baggage. The Emperor of Russia, who had believed he was marching
to certain victory, withdrew, stricken with grief, and authorised
his ally, Francis II to treat with Napoleon. In the evening
following the battle, the Austrian Emperor, in order to save his
country from total ruin, had sent a request for an interview to
the French Emperor, and when Napoleon had agreed to this, he went
to the village of Nasiedlowitz. The meeting took place on the 4th
of December, near the Poleny mill, between the lines of the
French and the Austrian outposts. I was at this memorable
conference.

Napoleon left the chateau of Austerlitz early in the morning,
accompanied by his large staff. He arrived first at the
rendezvous, dismounted and strolled around until he saw the
Emperor of Austria arrive. He went over to him and embraced him
warmly.... A spectacle which might well inspire some
philosophical reflection! A German Emperor coming to humble
himself and solicit peace from a little Corsican gentleman,
recently a second lieutenant of artillery, whose talents, good
fortune and the courage of the French armies had raised to the
pinnacle of power and made arbiter of the destiny of Europe.

Napoleon did not abuse the position in which the Austrian Emperor
found himself; he was attentive and extremely polite, as far as
could be judged from the distance which was respectfully
maintained by the two general staffs. An armistice was arranged
between the two sovereigns which stipulated that both parties
should send plenipotentiaries to Brunn in order to negotiate a
peace treaty between France and Austria. The two Emperors
embraced once more on parting; the Germans returned to
Nasiedlowitz, and Napoleon returned to spend the night at
Austerlitz. He spent two days there, during which time he gave
Major Massy and me our final audience, and charged us to tell
Marshal Augereau all that we had seen; he gave us at the same
time some despatches for the court of Bavaria, which had returned
to Munich, and informed us that Marshal Augereau had left Bregenz
and that we would find him at Ulm. We went back to Vienna and
continued our journey, travelling day and night in spite of the
heavy falls of snow.

I shall not go into any details of the political changes which
resulted from the Battle of Austerlitz and the Peace of Presburg.

The Emperor went to Vienna and from there to Munich, where he had
to assist at the marriage of his step-son, Eugene de Beauharnais
to the daughter of the King of Bavaria. It seems that the
despatches which we carried to this court were concerning this
marriage; for we could not have had a better reception. However,
we stayed only a few hours in Munich and went on to Ulm, where we
found Marshal Augereau and 7th Corps, and where we stayed for a
fortnight.

In order to move 7th Corps gradually nearer to the electorate of
Hesse, a close ally of Prussia, Napoleon ordered it to move to
Heidelburg, where we arrived about the end of December and saw
the beginning of the year 1806. After a short stay in this town,
7th Corps went to Darmstadt, the capital of the landgrave of
Hesse-Darmstadt, a prince much attached to the King of Prussia by
family ties as well as politics. Although this prince had, on
accepting Hanover, concluded a treaty of alliance with Napoleon,
he had done so with reluctance, and was suspicious of the
approach of the French army.

Marshal Augereau, before taking his troops into the country of
Darmstadt, considered it his duty to inform the landgrave, by
letter, of his intentions, and he chose me to effect its
delivery. The journey was one of only fifteen leagues; I made it
in a night; but on my arrival at Darmstadt I found that the
landgrave, to whom it had been suggested that the French intended
to make him a prisoner, had left his residence and retired to
another part of his state from where he could easily take refuge
in Prussia. This created a difficulty for me, however, having
heard that his wife was still in the palace, I asked to be
presented to her.

The princess, whose person greatly resembled the portraits of the
Empress Catherine of Russia, had, like her, a masculine
character, great capability, and all the qualities necessary to
control a vast empire. She also governed her husband as she did
her states; she was a masterful woman, and when she saw the
letter in my hands, addressed to the landgrave, she took it
without further ado, as if it had been addressed her. She then
told me quite frankly, that it had been on her advice that her
husband had left on the approach of the French, but that she
would arrange for him to come back if the marshal would give her
an assurance that he did not have any orders to make an attempt
on the liberty of the prince. I understood that the arrest and
death of the Duc d'Enghien had frightened all those princes who
thought that Napoleon might have some reason to complain about
their alliances. I protested, as much as I could, the innocence
of the French government's intentions, and offered to go back to
Heidelburg and ask Marshal Augereau for the assurances which she
required, an offer which she accepted.

I left, and returned the next day with a letter from the marshal,
couched in such conciliatory terms that the landgravine, after
saying that she relied on the honour of a French marshal, went
immediately to Giessen, where the landgrave was, and brought him
back to Darmstadt, where they both received Marshal Augereau most
graciously, when he came to set up his headquarters in the town.
The marshal was so grateful for the confidence which they had
placed in him that several months later, when the Emperor
gathered up all the little European states and reduced their
number to thirty-two, out of which he formed the confederation of
the Rhine, he not only contrived to preserve the landgravate but
gained for the landgrave the title of Grand-Duke and an
enlargement of his state which increased the population from
scarcely five hundred thousand to over one million. Some months
later, the new Grand-Duke allied his army to ours to combat the
Russians, and requested that they should serve in Marshal
Augereau's corps. The prince owed not only his preservation but
his elevation to his wife's courage.

Although I was still very young, I thought that Napoleon had made
a mistake in reducing the number of the little German
principalities.

The fact is that in previous wars against France, the eight
hundred princes of the Germanic region had been unable to act in
unison; there were some who provided no more than a company,
others only a platoon, and some just one soldier; so that a
combination of all these different contingents made up an army
wholly lacking cohesion, which broke up at the first reverse. But
when Napoleon had reduced the number of the principalities to
thirty-two, centralisation began to appear in the German forces.
Those rulers who remained, with states increased in size, formed
a small well-organised army. This result was what the Emperor had
intended, in the expectation of using for his own ends all the
military resources of the country; something which he was in fact
able to do as long as we were successful. But on the first
setback, the thirty-two sovereigns, by agreement among
themselves, united in opposition to France, and their coalition
with the Russians overthrew the Emperor Napoleon, who was thus
punished for not following the ancient policies of the kings of
France.

We spent part of the winter at Darmstadt, where there were fˆtes,
balls and galas. The grand-duke's troops were commanded by a
competent general named De Stoch. He had a son of my age, a
charming young man with whom I struck up a close friendship, and
to whom I shall refer again.

We were only some ten leagues from Frankfurt-on-main. This town,
still free, and immensely rich as a result of its commerce, had
been for a long time a hot-bed of all the plots contrived against
France, and the place of origin of all the false stories about us
which circulated in Germany. So that, the day after Austerlitz,
and while the news was spreading that there had been an
engagement, the result of which was not yet known, the
inhabitants of Frankfurt were sure that the Russians had won, and
several papers indulged their hatred to the point of saying that
the disaster which had overtaken our army was so great that not a
single Frenchman had survived!... The Emperor, to whom all this
was reported, appeared to take no notice until, seeing the
likelihood of a break with Prussia, he gradually moved his armies
to the frontiers of that kingdom. Then, to punish the
impertinence of the Frankfurters, he ordered Marshal Augereau to
leave Darmstadt without warning, and to establish himself with
his army corps in Frankfurt and its surroundings.

The Emperor decreed that the city, on the entry of our troops,
should give, as a welcome, a louis d'or to each soldier, two to
the corporals, three to the sergeants, ten to second lieutenants
and so on! The inhabitants were also to lodge and feed the
soldiers and pay messing expenses of six hundred francs daily for
the marshal, four hundred for a divisional general, three hundred
for a brigadier-general and two hundred for the colonels. The
senate was instructed to pay every month, one million francs into
the treasury in Paris. The authorities of Frankfurt, appalled by
these exorbitant demands, hurried to the French envoy; but he
replied "You claimed that not a single Frenchman escaped from the
arms of the Russians; the Emperor Napoleon wishes to put you in a
position to count the number making up a single corps of his
army. There are six more of the same size, and the guard to
follow." This reply plunged the inhabitants into consternation,
for however great their wealth, they would be ruined if this
state of affairs continued for any length of time. But Marshal
Augereau made an appeal for clemency on behalf of the citizens,
and he was told he could act as he thought best; so he took it on
himself to station in the town only his general staff and one
battalion. The remaining troops were spread around other
neighbouring principalities. The Frankfurters were greatly
relieved by this, and to show their gratitude to Marshal Augereau
they treated him to a great number of fˆtes. I was billeted with
a rich merchant named M. Chamot. I spent nearly eight months
there, during which time he and his family looked after me very
well.

Chap. 28.

While we were in Frankfurt, a very distressing event affecting an
officer of 7th Corps, landed me with a double mission, the first
part of which was very unpleasant and the second most agreeable,
indeed brilliantly so.

As a result of a brain fever, Lieutenant N... of the 7th
Chasseurs became completely childish. Marshal Augereau detailed
me to take him to Paris, first to Marshal Murat, who had an
interest in the matter, and then, if I was asked to do so, to the
Quercy. As I had not seen my mother since leaving for the
campaign of Austerlitz, and I knew that she was not far from St.
Cere, in the Chateau de Bras, which my father had bought shortly
before his death, I welcomed with pleasure a mission which would
allow me not only to be of service to Marshal Murat but also to
go and spend several days with my mother. Marshal Augereau lent
me a fine carriage and I set off on the road to Paris. But the
heat and insomnia so excited my poor companion that he went from
a state of idiocy to one of mania and nearly killed me with a
blow from a coach spanner. I have never made a more disagreeable
journey. I arrived at last in Paris, and I took Lieutenant N...
to Murat, who was staying for the summer at the Chateau de
Neuilly. The marshal asked me to take the lieutenant to Quercy. I
agreed to do so, in the hope of being able to see my mother
again, but I pointed out that I could not leave for twenty-four
hours, because Marshal Augereau had given me some despatches for
the Emperor, whom I was going to meet at Rambouillet, to where I
reported officially the same day.

I do not know what was in the despatches which I was carrying,
but they made the Emperor very thoughtful. He sent for M. de
Tallyrand and left with him for Paris to where he ordered me to
follow him and present myself to Marshal Duroc that evening.

I waited for a long time in one of the salons of the Tuileries,
until Marshal Duroc, coming out of the Emperor's study, the door
of which was left half open, called for an orderly officer to get
ready set off on a long mission. But Napoleon called out, "Duroc,
that will not be necessary; we have Marbot here, who is going to
rejoin Augereau; he can push on to Berlin. Frankfurt is half way
there." So Marshal Duroc told me to prepare to go to Berlin with
the Emperor's despatches. This was disappointing as it meant that
I had to give up all hope of seeing my mother; but I had to
resign myself.  I hurried to Neuilly to tell Murat what had
happened and as I believed that my new mission was very urgent, I
returned to the Tuileries; but Marshal Duroc dismissed me until
the next day. I was there at dawn: I was dismissed until evening;
then the evening of the next day, and so on for more than a week.
However, I remained patient, because each time I presented
myself, Marshal Duroc kept me for only a minute, which allowed me
time to get around Paris. I had been given quite a large sum of
money for the purpose of buying myself new uniform, so as to
appear well turned out before the king of Prussia, into whose
hands I was personally to deliver a letter from the Emperor. You
will understand that Napoleon neglected no detail when it came to
enhancing the standing of the French army in the eyes of
foreigners.

I left at last, after taking the despatches from the Emperor, who
advised me that I should make sure that I carefully examined the
Prussian troops, their bearing, their arms, their horses, etc. M.
de Tallyrand gave me a packet for M. Laforest, the French
ambassador in Berlin, to whose embassy I was to go. On my arrival
at Maintz, which at that time was still part of French territory,
I was told that Marshal Augereau was at Wiesbaden. I reported to
him there and greatly surprised him by telling him that I was
going to Berlin on the Emperor's orders. He congratulated me and
told me to continue my journey. I travelled night and day, in
superb July weather, and arrived in Berlin somewhat weary. At
this period the Prussian roads were not yet metalled, one went
almost always at walking pace over loose soil into which the
coaches sank deeply, raising clouds of unbearable dust.

I was given a warm welcome by M. Laforest, at whose embassy I
stayed. I was presented to the king and queen, and also to the
princes and princesses. When the king received the letter from
Napoleon, he seemed much affected. He was a fine figure of a man,
with a benevolent expression, but lacking that animation which
suggests a decisive character. The queen was really very pretty;
she had only one blemish, she always wore a large scarf, in
order, it was said, to conceal an ulcerated swelling on her neck.
For the rest, she was graceful and her expression, calm and
spiritual, was evidence of a firm personality.

I was very well received, and since the reply which I was to take
back to the Emperor seemed so difficult to draft that it took
more than a month, the queen was pleased to invite me to the
balls and fˆtes which she gave during my stay.

Of all the members of the royal family, the one who treated me in
the most friendly manner, or so it seemed, was Prince Louis, the
king's nephew.

I had been warned that he hated the French, and in particular,
their Emperor, but as he was passionately interested in military
matters, he questioned me endlessly about the siege of Genoa, the
battles of Marengo and Austerlitz and also about the organisation
of our army. Prince Louis was a most handsome man, and in respect
of spirit, ability and character, the only one of the royal
family who bore any resemblance to Frederick the Great. I made
the acquaintance of several members of the court, mainly with the
officers whom I followed daily to parades and manoeuvres. I spent
my time in Berlin very pleasantly. The ambassador showed me much
attention; but in the end I discovered that he wanted me to play,
in a delicate affair, a role for which I was unsuited, so I
became very reserved.

Now, let us examine the position of Prussia vis-…-vis France. The
despatches which I had brought concerned this matter, as I later
found out.

In accepting from Napoleon the gift of the electorate of Hanover,
the patrimony of the English royal family, the cabinet in Berlin
had alienated not only the anti-French party but almost all of
the Prussian nation. Germanic pride was wounded by the victories
won by the French over the Austrians, and Prussia feared that its
commerce would be ruined by the war which had just been declared
against it by the cabinet in London. The queen and Prince Louis
made use of these turbulent emotions to persuade the king to make
war on France by allying himself with Russia who, though
abandoned by Austria, still hoped to take revenge for its defeat
at Austerlitz.  The Emperor of Russia was further encouraged in
his plans by a Pole, his favourite aide-de-camp, Prince
Czartoryski.

The anti-French party, which was growing daily, was not yet able
to persuade the king to break with Napoleon; but aware that it
was supported by Russia, this party redoubled its efforts, and
profited adroitly from the mistakes made by Napoleon in placing
his brother Louis on the throne of Holland, and nominating
himself as protector of the confederacy of the Rhine: acts which
were represented to the Prussian king as being steps on the path
to the re-establishment of the empire of Charlemagne. Napoleon,
it was said, wanted finally to reduce all the sovereigns of
Germany to the status of vassals.

These assertions, though greatly exaggerated, had had a
considerable influence on the king's thinking. His conduct toward
France became from this time, more and more equivocal, and it was
this that decided Napoleon to write to him personally, without
going through the usual diplomatic channels, to ask "Are you for
me or against me?" This was the tenor of the letter which I had
given the king. His councillors who wished to gain time for the
completion of their re-armament, delayed the reply, which was the
reason for my long stay in Berlin.

At last, in August, there was a general explosion of ill-feeling
towards France, and one saw the queen, Prince Louis, the
nobility, the army and the general populace, noisily demanding
war. The king allowed himself to become involved but, although
determined to end the peace he still hoped to avoid hostilities,
and it seems that in his reply to the Emperor he undertook to
disarm if the latter would take back to France all the troops he
had in Germany, which Napoleon was unwilling to do until Prussia
had disarmed. So we were in a vicious circle which could be
broken only by a war.

Before I left Berlin, I witnessed the frenzy to which hatred of
Napoleon raised this normally placid people. The officers whom I
knew no longer dared to speak to me or even to greet me. Several
French people were insulted by the populace, and finally soldiers
of the Royal Guard came boastfully to sharpen their sabres on the
stone steps of the French embassy. I left hurriedly for Paris,
taking with me much information on what was going on in Prussia.
Passing through Frankfurt, I found Marshal Augereau very sad at
having heard of the death of his wife, a good, excellent woman
whose loss he felt deeply, and who was mourned by all the general
staff, for she had been very kind to us.

On my arrival in Paris, I delivered to the Emperor the
hand-written reply from the King of Prussia. After reading it, he
questioned me on what I had seen in Berlin. When I told him that
the soldiers of the guard had come to sharpen their sabres on the
steps of the French embassy, he clapped his hand firmly on the
hilt of his sword, exclaiming indignantly, "The insolent
braggarts will soon learn that our arms are in good order!"

My mission now being over, I returned to Marshal Augereau, and
spent all of September in Frankfurt where, while preparing
ourselves for war, we entertained ourselves as best we could, for
we thought that as nothing could be more uncertain than the life
of a soldier, one should enjoy it as much as is possible.

Chap. 29.

While the different corps of the French army were approaching the
banks of the Main, the Emperor arrived at Wurtzburg and crossed
the Rhine with his Guard. The Prussians, for their part, were on
the march, and going through Saxony, they compelled the elector
to join forces with them. This enforced, and therefore unstable,
alliance was the only one which the King of Prussia had in
Germany. He was, it is true, expecting the arrival of the
Russians, but their army was still in Poland behind the Niemen,
more than one hundred and fifty leagues from the country where
the destiny of Prussia was to be decided.

It is hard to believe the incompetence displayed, for seven
years, by our enemies' governments. We saw, in 1805, the
Austrians attack us on the Danube, and be defeated in isolation
at Ulm, instead of waiting for Russia to join them and for
Prussia to declare war on Napoleon. Now, in 1806, those same
Prussians who, a year before, could have prevented the defeat of
the Austro-Russians by joining them, not only declared war on us
when we were at peace with Vienna, but repeated the mistake of
attacking us without waiting for the Russians! Finally, in 1809,
the Austrians renewed the war against Napoleon on their own, at a
time when we were at peace with both Prussia and Russia! This
lack of co-operation ensured a French victory. Sadly it was not
so in 1813, when we were crushed by a coalition of our enemies.

In 1806 the King of Prussia was even more mistaken in taking to
the field against Napoleon in the absence of the Russians, in
that his troops, although well trained, were in no condition to
be pitted against ours, because their composition and
organisation were so bad.

In effect, at this time, Prussian captains were the owners of
their company or squadron: men, horses, arms and clothing all
belonged to them and the whole unit was hired out to the
government for a fixed fee. Obviously, since all losses fell to
their account, the captains had a great interest in sparing their
companies, not only on the march but on the field of battle. As
the number of men they were obliged to have was fixed and there
was no conscription, they enrolled for money, first any Prussians
who came forward, and then all the vagabonds of Europe, whom
their recruiters enlisted in neighbouring states. But this was
not enough, and the Prussian recruiters pressed many men into
service, who having become soldiers against their will, were
compelled to serve until they were too old to bear arms; then
they were given a permit to beg, for Prussia could not afford to
provide a home for old soldiers or a retirement pension. For the
duration of their service these men had to be mixed with true
Prussians, who had to constitute at least half of each company to
prevent mutiny.

To maintain an army composed of such heterogeneous parts required
an iron discipline; so the least fault was punished by beating. A
large number of N.C.O.s, all of them Prussian, carried canes
which they made use of frequently, and according to the current
expression there was a cane for every seven men. The penalty for
desertion by a foreign soldier was inevitably death. You can
imagine the frightful position of these foreigners, who having
enlisted in a moment of drunkenness, or been taken by force,
found themselves far from their native land, under a glacial sky,
condemned to be Prussian soldiers, that is slaves, for the rest
of their lives! And what a life it was! Given scarcely enough to
eat. Sleeping on straw. Thinly clad. Without greatcoats, even in
the coldest winter, and paid a sum insufficient for their needs;
they did not wait to beg until they had been given a permit on
their discharge, for when they were not under the eyes of their
superiors, they held out their hands, and there were several
occasions both at Potsdam and Berlin when Grenadiers, even those
at the palace gate, begged me for alms!

The Prussian-born officers were, in general, educated men, who
performed their duties very well; but half of the officers, born
outside the kingdom, were poor gentlemen from almost every
country in Europe who had joined the army only to have a living,
and lacking patriotism, were in no way devoted to Prussia, which
the majority abandoned when there was any adversity. Finally, as
promotion was only by length of service, the great majority of
senior Prussian officers were old and infirm, and in no state to
support the fatigues of war. It was an army thus composed and
commanded which was to confront the victors of Italy, Egypt,
Germany and Austerlitz. This was folly. But the cabinet in
Berlin, recalling the victories which Frederick the Great had won
with mercenary troops, hoped things would be the same. They
forgot that times had changed.

On the 6th of October Marshal Augereau and 7th Corps left
Frankfurt to head, with the rest of the Grande Armee, for the
frontiers of Saxony, already occupied by the Prussians. The
autumn was superb; it froze a little during the night, but by day
there was brilliant sunshine. My little troupe was well
organised; I had a good batman, Francois Woirland, a former
soldier in the black legion, a real rascal and a great scrounger,
but these are the best servants on a campaign, for with one of
them one lacks for nothing. I had three excellent horses, good
weapons, a little money and good health; so I stepped out gaily
to face whatever the future might bring.

We went first to Aschaffenburg and from there to Wurtzburg, where
we caught up with the Emperor, who ordered a march-past by the
troops of 7th Corps, who were in good heart. Napoleon who kept a
dossier about all the regiments, and who skillfully used to
employ extracts from it to flatter the self-esteem of each unit,
said when he saw the 44th line regiment, "Of all the units of the
army you are the one with the most long service chevrons, so your
three battalions I count as six!"...an announcement which was
greeted by cheers. To the 7th, composed mostly of men from the
lower Languedoc and the Pyrenees, the Emperor said, "There are
the best marchers in the army, one never sees anyone fall behind,
particularly when there is a battle to be fought." Then he added,
laughingly, "But, to do you justice, I must say that you are the
most brawling, thieving unit in the army!" "It's true! It's
true!" replied the soldiers, each of whom had a duck, a chicken
or a goose in his knapsack, an abuse which had to be tolerated,
because, as I have told you, Napoleon's armies, once in the
field, rarely received any rations, and had to live off the
country as well as they could. This system had without doubt many
defects, but it had one huge benefit, that of allowing us to move
forward without being held up by convoys and supply lines, which
gave us a great advantage over an enemy whose movements were
subordinated to the cook-house, or the arrival of bread, and to
the progress of herds of cattle, etc...etc.

From Wurtzburg, 7th Corps went to Coburg, where the marshal was
lodged in the prince's palace. All his family had fled on our
approach, except the celebrated Austrian Field-marshal, the
Prince of Coburg. This old warrior, although he had fought for
many years against the French, had enough confidence in the
French character to await their coming, a confidence which was
not misplaced, for Marshal Augereau sent him a guard of honour,
returned promptly a visit he had received, and ordered that he
was to be treated with the utmost respect.

We were not very far from the Prussians, whose king was at
Erfurt. The queen was with him and rode up and down the ranks of
the army on horseback, endeavouring to excite their ardour by her
presence.  Napoleon did not think that this was behaviour
befitting a princess, and his bulletins made some wounding
comments on the subject. The French and Prussian advance-guards
met eventually, at Schleitz: where there took place, in view of
the Emperor, a minor action in which the enemy were defeated; it
was for them an ill-omened beginning.

That same day, Prince Louis, with a body of ten thousand men,
found himself stationed in Saalfeld. This town is on the bank of
the River Saale, in the middle of a plain which we could reach
only by crossing some steep mountains. While Marshals Lannes' and
Augereau's corps were moving toward Saalfeld through these
mountains, Prince Louis, who had decided to await the French,
should have occupied positions in this difficult country, full of
narrow passes, where a few men could hold up a much greater
number, but he failed to do this, probably because he was
convinced that the Prussian soldiers were infinitely better than
the French. He carried this scorn for all precautions so far as
to place part of his force in front of a marshy stream, which
would make their retreat very difficult in the event of a
reverse. Old General Muller, a Swiss in the service of Prussia,
whom the king had attached to his nephew as a steadying
influence, made some observations which the prince took very
badly, adding that there was no need to take precautions to beat
the French, all that was needed was to fall on them the moment
they appeared.

They appeared in the morning on the 10th; Marshal Lannes' corps
leading and Marshal Augereau's behind him. This last did not
arrive in time to take part in the action where, as it happened,
their presence was not needed, for Marshal Lannes' troops were
more than sufficient.

While waiting for his corps to emerge onto the plain, Marshal
Augereau, accompanied by his staff, went up onto a little hill
which overlooked the open country, from where we could follow all
stages of the action.

Prince Louis could still have retreated to join the Prussian
corps which occupied Jena; but having been the leading instigator
of the war he perhaps felt he should not do so without a fight.
He was most cruelly punished for his temerity. Marshal Lannes,
making use of the heights, at the foot of which Prince Louis had
imprudently deployed his troops, first raked them with grape-shot
from his artillery, and when this had demoralised them, he
advanced several masses of infantry, which descending rapidly
from the high ground, swept like a torrent onto the Prussian
battalions and instantly overwhelmed them! Prince Louis, aghast,
and probably aware of his mistake, hoped to repair it by putting
himself at the head of his cavalry and impetuously attacking the
9th and 10th Hussars. He had at first some success, but our
Hussars having made a new and furious charge, drove the Prussians
back into the marshes, while their infantry fled in disorder.

In the middle of the melee, Prince Louis found himself engaged
with a sous-officier of the 10th Hussars named Guindet, who
summoned him to surrender; the prince replied with a slash of his
sword which cut the sous-officier's face, who thereupon ran the
prince through and killed him.

After the fight and the complete rout of the enemy, the prince's
body having been recognised, Marshal Lannes had it carried with
honour to the chateau of Saalfeld, where it was handed to the
princely family of that name, who were allied to the royal house
of Prussia, and in whose residence the prince had spent the
previous day and evening, looking forward to the coming of the
French, and even, it is said, giving a ball for the local ladies.
Now he was returned to them, vanquished and dead!... The next
morning I saw the prince's body, laid out on a marble table, all
traces of blood had been cleaned away, he was naked to the waist,
still wearing his leather britches and his boots. He seemed to be
asleep. He was a truly fine looking man, and I could not help
indulging in some sad reflections on the uncertainty of human
affairs, when I saw the remains of this young man, born on the
steps of a throne, and, but lately, so loved, so courted and so
powerful!

The news of the prince's death spread consternation in the enemy
army, and also throughout Prussia, where he was highly popular.

7th Corps spent the day of the 11th at Saalfeld. On the 12th we
went to Neustadt, and on the 13th to Kehla, where we encountered
some remains of the Prussian troops defeated at Saalfeld. When
Marshal Augereau attacked them, they put up little resistance and
laid down their arms. Amongst those captured was the regiment of
Prince Henry in which Augereau had once served as a soldier, and
since, unless one was of high birth, it was very difficult to
become a senior officer in the Prussian army, and as sergeants
never became second lieutenants, his former company still had the
same captain and the same sergeant-major. Placed by a quirk of
fate in the presence of his one-time soldier, now a marshal, the
Prussian captain, who remembered Augereau perfectly well, acted
as a man of discretion and spoke always to the marshal as if he
had never seen him before. Augereau invited him to dinner and
seated him next to himself, then, learning that the officer's
baggage had been seized, he lent him all the money he needed and
gave him letters of introduction to take to France. What must
have passed through the captain's mind! But nothing can describe
the astonishment of the old Prussian sergeant-major at seeing his
former soldier covered with decorations, surrounded by a numerous
staff and in command of an army corps! All of which seemed like a
dream! The marshal was more expansive toward this man than he had
been toward the captain. Addressing the sergeant by name, he
shook him by the hand, and arranged for him to be given
twenty-five louis for himself and two for every soldier who had
been in the ranks with him and was still there. We thought this
behaviour was in the best of taste.

The marshal had expected to sleep at Kehla, which is only three
leagues from Jena; but just as night was falling 7th Corps was
ordered to go immediately to this last town which the Emperor had
just entered, at the head of his guard and the troops of Marshal
Lannes, without striking a blow.

The Prussians had abandoned Jena in silence, but some candles,
forgotten in the stables, had probably started the fire, the
spreading flames of which were consuming part of the unfortunate
town when Marshal Augereau's corps entered it at about midnight.
It was a sorry spectacle to see the inhabitants, women and old
people, half naked, carrying their children and seeking to escape
by flight from the scene of destruction, while our soldiers, kept
in their ranks by discipline and the nearness of the enemy,
remained unmoved, their arms at the ready, regarding the fire as
a small matter in comparison to the dangers they would soon have
to face.

The part of the town through which our troops arrived was not
affected by the fire and so they could move around freely, and
while they were gathering in the squares and main streets, the
marshal set up his headquarters in a nice looking mansion. I was
about to enter, on returning from delivering an order, when I
heard loud shrieks coming from a nearby house, the door of which
was open. I hurried there and guided by the cries I found my way
to a well-appointed apartment where I saw two charming girls, of
about eighteen to twenty years of age, dressed only in their
chemises, struggling against the advances of four or five
soldiers from Hesse-Darmstadt, belonging to the regiments which
the landgrave had attached to the French troops of 7th Corps.
Although these men, who were drunk, understood not a word of
French, and I spoke little German, my appearance and my threats
took them aback, and being used to beatings from their own
officers, they made no retaliation to the kicks and cuffs which
in my indignation I distributed freely in driving them
downstairs. In this I was perhaps a little imprudent, for in the
middle of the night, in a town in utter confusion there was a
risk that they might turn on me and even kill me; but they ran
away, and I put a platoon of the marshal's escort in one of the
lower rooms.

I went up to the apartment where the two young girls had
hurriedly dressed themselves, and was rewarded by their warmest
expressions of gratitude. They were the daughters of a university
professor, who had gone with his wife and the domestic staff to
the aid of one of their sisters, who had recently given birth in
that part of the town where the fire was raging, and they had
been alone when the Hessian soldiers arrived. One of these young
ladies said to me with great emotion, "You are going into battle
at a time when you have just saved our honour. God will reward
you, you may be sure that no harm will come to you." The father
and the mother, who came back at this moment with the new mother
and her child were at first much surprised to find me there; but
when they learned the reason for my presence they too showered me
with blessings. I tore myself away from the thanks of this
grateful family to rejoin Marshal Augereau, who was reposing in
the nearby mansion, awaiting the Emperor's orders.

Chap. 30.

The town of Jena is dominated by a height called the
Landgrafenberg, at the foot of which runs the Saale River. The
approaches to Jena are very precipitous, and at that time there
was only one road, which ran to Wiemar via Muhlthal, a long and
difficult pass, the outlet of which was covered by a small wood
and guarded by Saxon troops, allies of the Prussians; a part of
whose army was drawn up in line behind them at the distance of a
cannon shot.

The Emperor, having only this one route by which he could reach
his enemies, expected to suffer heavy losses in a frontal attack,
for there seemed to be no way in which they could be outflanked.
But Napoleon's lucky star once more came to his aid, in an
unexpected way, which I do not believe has been related by any
historian, although I can vouch for the truth of it happening.

We have seen that the King of Prussia compelled the elector of
Saxony to join forces with him. The people of Saxony saw
themselves, with regret, drawn into a war which could procure
them no advantage in the future, and which for the present
brought desolation to the countryside, which was the theatre for
the hostilities. The Prussians were therefore detested in Saxony;
and Jena, a Saxon town, shared in this detestation.

A priest who belonged to the town, angered at the fire which was
consuming it, and regarding the Prussians as enemies of his king
and fatherland, believed he could give Napoleon the means of
clearing them out of the country, by showing him a little pathway
by which a body of infantrymen might climb the steep slopes of
the Landgrafenberg. He led there a platoon of light infantry and
some officers of the general staff. The Prussians, who thought
this pathway impracticable, had not bothered to guard it, but
Napoleon thought differently. As a result of the report given him
by his officers, he went up himself, guided by the Saxon cure,
and accompanied by Marshal Lannes; he saw that, between the
heights of the path and the plain occupied by the enemy, there
was a small stony plateau, and he decided to concentrate there a
body of troops who would sally from it, as if from a citadel, to
attack the Prussians.

The undertaking would have been of unsurmountable difficulty for
anyone but a Napoleon in command of French soldiers; but he
ordered the tools used by the pioneers to be taken from the
wagons of the engineers and the artillery and distributed to the
infantry battalions, who worked in rotation for one hour each at
widening and levelling the pathway, and when they had finished
their task, each battalion formed up in silence on the
Landgrafenberg, while another took its place. The work was
carried on by the light of torches, whose flames were confused in
the eyes of the enemy with the fires in Jena.

The nights are very long at this time of year, so that we were
able to make the path accessible not only for foot-soldiers but
also for the wagons of the artillery, with the result that,
before daybreak, the corps of Marshals Lannes and Soult, the
first division of Augereau's, as well as the foot guards, were
massed on the Landgrafenberg. Never has the term massed been used
with more exactitude, for the chest of each man was almost
touching the back of the man in front of him; but the troops were
so well disciplined that, in spite of the darkness and the
crowding together of more than forty thousand men, there was not
the least disorder; and although the enemy were occupying
villages less than half a cannon shot away, they heard nothing.

On the morning of October 14th, a thick mist covered the
countryside, which favoured our movements; Augereau's second
division, making a diversionary attack, advanced from Jena via
Muhlthal on the road to Weimar. As the enemy believed that this
was the only way by which we could come from Jena, they had
placed a considerable force there; but while they prepared to
conduct a vigourous defence of this pass, Napoleon, bringing down
from the Landgrafenberg the troops which he had accumulated there
during the night, drew them up in battle order on the plain. A
light breeze having dispersed the mist, which was followed by
brilliant sunshine, the Prussians were stupefied to see the lines
of the French army deployed opposite them and advancing to engage
them in battle. They could not understand how we had got there
when they thought we were down in the valley of Jena, with no
other means of reaching them but the road to Wiemar, which they
were guarding so thoroughly.

The battle began immediately and the first lines of the Prussians
and Saxons, commanded by Prince Hohenlohe, were forced to
retreat.  They advanced their reserves, but we received a
powerful reinforcement. Marshal Ney's corps and Murat's cavalry
which had been held up in the pass, burst out into the plain and
took part in the action. However a Prussian army corps commanded
by General Ruchel stopped our columns for a time; but charged by
French cavalry it was almost entirely wiped out and General
Ruchel was killed.

Marshal Augereau's 1st division, coming down from the
Landgrafenberg, joined with the 2nd, arriving from Muhlthal, and
with the troops of Marshals Lannes and Soult, they proceeded down
the road to Wiemar, capturing enemy positions as they went.

The Prussian infantry, whose poor composition I have already
described, fought very badly, and the cavalry not much better.
One saw them on several occasions advance, with loud shouts,
towards our battalions; but, intimidated by their calm bearing,
they never dared charge home; at a distance of fifty paces from
our line they shamefully turned about, amid a hail of bullets and
the jeers of our men.

The Saxons fought with courage; they resisted Marshal Augereau's
corps for a long time, and it was not until after the retreat of
the Prussian troops that, having formed themselves into two large
squares, they began to withdraw while continuing to fire. Marshal
Augereau admired the courage of the Saxons, and to prevent
further loss of life, he had just sent an envoy to persuade them
to surrender, since they had no longer any hope of relief, when
Prince Murat arrived with his cavalry and mounted an attack with
his Cuirassiers and dragoons, who charging impetuously the Saxon
squares, overwhelmed them and forced them to lay down their arms.
The next day, however, the Emperor set them at liberty and
restored them to their sovereign, with whom he hastened to make
peace.

All the Prussian troops who had fought before Jena, retreated in
a complete rout along the road to Weimar, at whose gates the
fugitives, their baggage and artillery had piled up, when
suddenly the squadrons of the French cavalry appeared! At the
sight of them, panic spread through the crowd of Prussians, who
fled in utter disorder, leaving us with a great number of
prisoners, flags, guns and baggage.

The town of Weimar, called by some the new Athens, was inhabited
at this period by a great number of scholars, artists and
distinguished authors, who had gathered there under the patronage
of the ruling duke, an enlightened protector of the arts and
sciences.  The noise of guns, the passage of the fugitives and
the entry of the victors caused a great stir in this peaceful and
studious population; but Marshals Lannes and Soult maintained a
firm discipline, and apart from having to provide food for the
soldiers, the town suffered no outrage. The Prince of Weimar
served in the Prussian army, nevertheless his palace, where the
princess, his wife, was living, was respected and none of the
marshals took up residence there.

Marshal Augereau's headquarters were established at the town
gates, in the house of the prince's head gardener. All the
inhabitants of the house having taken flight, the general staff
found nothing to eat, and had to sup on some pineapples and plums
from the hot-houses. This was a very light diet for people who,
without food for twenty-four hours, had spent the preceding night
on foot and all day fighting! But we were the victors, and that
magical word enabled us to support all our privations.

The Emperor went back to sleep at Jena, where he learned of a
success no less great than that which he had just achieved
himself.  The battle of Jena was a double battle, if one may use
the expression, for neither the French nor the Prussian armies
were united at Jena, they were each divided into two parts and
fought two different battles: so that while the Emperor, at the
head of the corps of Augereau, Lannes, Soult and Ney, his guard
and the cavalry of Murat, was defeating the corps of Prince
Hohenlohe and General Ruchel. The King of Prussia, at the head of
his main army, commanded by the celebrated Prince of Brunswick,
Marshals Mollendorf and Kalkreuth had left Weimar, and on their
way to Naumburg had settled for the night at the village of
Auerstadt, not far from the French corps of Davout and
Bernadotte, who were in the villages around Naumburg. In order to
rejoin the Emperor, who was at Apolda, in the plain beyond Jena,
Davout and Bernadotte had to cross the Saale before Naumburg and
traverse the narrow hilly pass of Kosen.  Although Davout thought
that the King of Prussia with the main body of his army was
facing the Emperor, and not so close to him at Auerstadt, this
vigilant warrior secured, during the night, the Kosen pass and
its steep slopes which the King of Prussia and his marshals had
neglected to occupy, thus making the same mistake as Prince
Hohenlohe made at Jena in failing to guard the Landgrafenberg.
The combined forces of Bernadotte and Davout did not amount to
more than forty-four thousand men, while the King of Prussia had
eighty thousand at Auerstadt.

From daybreak on the 14th, the two French marshals realised that
they had to face much superior numbers; it was their duty then to
act in unison. Davout, aware of this necessity, volunteered to
put himself under the command of Bernadotte, but the latter
jibbed at the idea of a shared victory, and unwilling to
subordinate his personal interests to the welfare of his country,
he decided to act on his own; and on the pretext that the Emperor
had ordered him to be at Dornburg on the 13th, he decided to make
his way there on the 14th, although Napoleon had written to him
during the night to say that, if he was still in Naumburg, he
should stay there and support Davout.  Not finding the situation
to his liking, Bernadotte left Davout to defend himself as best
he could and, going down the Saale, he settled himself at
Dornburg where, although he came across no enemies, he could see
from the elevated position which he occupied, the desperate
battle being fought by the gallant Davout some two leagues away.
Meanwhile he ordered his men to set up their bivouacs and to
start preparing a meal. His generals complained to him in vain at
this culpable inaction; Bernadotte would not budge, so that
Marshal Davout, with no more than twenty-five thousand men,
comprising the divisions of Friant, Morland and Gudin, faced
almost eighty thousand Prussians animated by the presence of
their king.

The French, after emerging from the narrow pass of Kosen, formed
up near the village of Hassenhausen; it was here that the real
battle took place, because the Emperor was mistaken when he
thought that he had before him at Jena the king and the bulk of
the Prussian army.  The action fought by Davout's men was one of
the most terrible in our annals. His divisions, having
successfully resisted all the attacks of the enemy infantry,
formed into squares and repelled numerous cavalry charges, and
not content with this, they advanced with such resolution that
the Prussians fell back at every point leaving the ground strewn
with dead and wounded. The Prince of Brunswick and General
Schmettau were killed, Marshal Mollendorf was seriously wounded
and taken prisoner.

The King of Prussia and his troops at first carried out their
retreat towards Weimar in reasonably good order, hoping to rally
there behind the forces of Prince Hohenlohe and General Ruchel,
whom they supposed to have been victorious, while the latter,
having been defeated by Napoleon, were for their part, on their
way to seek support from the troops led by the king. Those two
enormous masses of soldiers, beaten and demoralised, met on the
road to Erfurt; it needed only the appearance of some French
regiments to throw them into utter confusion. The rout was total,
and was a just punishment for the bragging of the Prussian
officers. The results of this victory were incalculable, and made
us masters of almost all Prussia.

The Emperor showed his great satisfaction with Marshal Davout and
with the divisions of Morand, Friant and Gudin by an order of the
day, which was read out to all companies and even in the
ambulances carrying the wounded. The following year Napoleon
created Davout Duke of Auerstadt, although he had fought less
there than in the village of Hassenhausen; but the King of
Prussia had had his headquarters at Auerstadt, and the Prussians
had given this name to the battle which the French called the
battle of Jena.

The army expected to see Bernadotte severely punished, but he got
away with a sharp reprimand; Napoleon was afraid of upsetting his
brother Joseph, whose sister-in-law, Mlle. Clary, Bernadotte had
just married. We shall see later how Bernadotte's behaviour
during the battle of Auerstadt served, in a way, as a first step
towards mounting the throne of Sweden.

I was not wounded at Jena, but I was tricked in a way that still
rankles after forty years. At a time when Augereau's corps was
attacking the Saxons, the marshal sent me to carry a message to
General Durosnel, who commanded a brigade of Chasseurs, ordering
him to charge the enemy cavalry. It was my job to guide the
brigade along a route which I had already reconnoitred. I hurried
away and put myself at the head of our Chasseurs, who threw
themselves on the Saxon squadrons. The Saxons put up a stiff
resistance and there was a general melee, but eventually our
adversaries were forced to retreat with losses. Towards the end
of the fighting, I found myself facing an officer of Hussars,
wearing the white uniform of Prince Albert of Saxony's regiment.
I held the point of my sabre against him and called on him to
surrender, which he did, handing me his sword. As the fighting
was over, I generously gave it back to him, as was the usual
practice among officers in these circumstances, and I added that
although his horse, under the conventions of war, belonged to me,
I did not wish to deprive him of it. He gave me many thanks for
this kind treatment and followed me as I returned to the marshal,
very pleased with myself for bringing back a prisoner. But when
we were about five hundred paces from the Chasseurs, this
confounded Saxon officer, who was on my left, drew his sabre,
wounded my horse on the shoulder and was about to strike me if I
had not thrown myself on him. Although I had no sabre in my hand,
our bodies were so close that he did not have room to swing his
sabre at me, so he grabbed my epaulet, and pulled me off balance,
my saddle slipped under my horse's belly and there I was with one
leg in the air and my head hanging down, while the Saxon made off
at full speed to rejoin the remains of the enemy army. I was
furious, partly at the position I was in, and partly at the
ingratitude with which this foreigner had repaid my courtesy. So
when the Saxon army had been made prisoners, I went to look for
my Hussar officer, to teach him a lesson, but he had disappeared.

I have said that the Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, our new ally, had
joined his troops to the Emperor's. This brigade had uniforms
exactly like those of the Prussians, so several of their soldiers
were killed or wounded mistakenly during the action. The young
Lieutenant De Stoch, my friend, was on the point of meeting the
same fate, and had already been seized by our Hussars, when,
having seen me, he called out to me and I had him released.

The Emperor rewarded most generously the priest of Jena, and the
elector of Saxony, having become king as a result of the
victories of his ally Napoleon, rewarded him also; so that he
lived very comfortably until 1814 when he took refuge in France
to escape from the vengeance of the Prussians. They, however, had
him taken up and shut away in a fortress where he spent two or
three years.  Eventually, the King of Saxony having interceded on
his behalf with Louis XVIII, the latter reclaimed the priest on
the grounds that he had been arrested without proper authority,
and the Prussians having released him, he came to live in Paris.
After the victory at Jena, the Emperor ordered a general pursuit
of our enemies, and our columns took an enormous number of
prisoners.

The King of Prussia had great difficulty in reaching Magdeburg
and getting from there to Berlin, and it was said that the queen
nearly fell into the hands of the scouts of our advance-guard.

It would take too long to detail all the disasters which befell
the Prussian army; it is enough to say that of those troops who
marched to attack the French, not a battalion escaped; they were
all captured before the end of the month. The fortresses of
Torgau, Erfurt and Wittemburg opened their gates to the victors
who, having crossed the Elbe at several points--Augereau's corps
crossing near Dessau--headed for Berlin.

Napoleon stopped at Potsdam, where he visited the tomb of
Frederick the Great; then he went to Berlin where, contrary to
his usual practice, he wished to make a triumphal entry. Marshal
Davout's corps headed the procession; an honour to which it was
entitled as it had done more fighting than the others. Then came
Augereau's corps and then the guard.

Chap. 31.

On my return to Berlin which, when I had left it not long ago,
had been so brilliant, I could not help having some sad
reflections.  The populace, then so self-confident, was now
gloomy, downcast, and much afflicted, for the Prussians are very
patriotic: they felt humiliated by the defeat of their army and
the occupation of their country by the French; besides which
almost every family had to mourn a relative or friend killed or
captured in battle. I had every sympathy with their feelings; but
I must confess that I experienced quite a different sentiment
when I saw, entering Berlin as prisoners of war, walking sadly,
dismounted and disarmed, the regiment of the so-called Noble
Gendarmes; those same arrogant young officers who had so
insolently come to sharpen their sabres on the steps of the
French embassy!....Nothing could depict their shame and abasement
at finding themselves defeated by those same Frenchmen whom they
had boasted they would put to flight by their mere presence. They
had asked that they might go round Berlin without entering it, to
avoid the painful experience of filing as prisoners through the
town where they were so well known and where the inhabitants had
witnessed their bragging; but this is precisely why the Emperor
ordered them to pass between two lines of French soldiers, who
directed them down the road in which stood the French embassy.
The inhabitants of Berlin did not disapprove of this little act
of revenge, since they greatly disliked the Noble Gendarmes whom
they accused of having pushed the king into the war.

Marshal Augereau was billeted outside the town, in the chateau of
Bellevue, which belonged to Prince Ferdinand, the only one of
Frederick the Great's brothers who was still living. This
venerable old man, the father of Prince Louis who was recently
killed at Saalefeld, was afflicted by grief made even more bitter
by the fact that, against the opinion of all the court and also
that of the son whom he mourned, he had strongly opposed the war,
and had predicted the misfortunes which it would bring upon
Prussia. Marshal Augereau thought it his duty to visit the
prince, who had withdrawn to a dwelling in the town. He was
received most politely; the unhappy father told the marshal that
he had learned that his young son, Prince Auguste, the only one
left to him, was at the town gate in a column of prisoners, and
that he longed to embrace him before he was sent off to France.
Since Prince Ferdinand's great age prevented him from going to
look for his son, the marshal, sure that Napoleon would not
object, told me to mount my horse right away, to go and find
Prince Auguste, and to bring him back. Which I did.

The arrival of the young prince gave rise to the most moving
scene. His elderly parents could not stop embracing this son, who
recalled to them the loss of the other. To console them as much
as lay within his power, the good marshal went to the Emperor's
quarters and came back with authority for the young prince to
remain, on parole, in the bosom of his family. A favour for which
Prince Ferdinand was infinitely grateful.

The victory at Jena had had the most profound effect.  Complete
demoralisation had gripped not only the troops in the field, but
the garrisons of the fortresses. Magdeburg surrendered without
making any attempt at resistance; Spandau did the same; Stettin
opened its gates to a division of cavalry, and the governor of
Custrin sent boats across the Oder to fetch the French troops;
who without this help would not have been able to take the place
without several months of siege. Every day one heard of the
surrender of some unit of the army or the capitulation of some
fortress. The faulty organisation of the Prussian army became
more evident than ever; the foreigners, in particular those who
had been enlisted against their will, took the occasion to
recover their liberty, and deserted in droves, or stayed behind
to give themselves up to the French.

To the conquest of the Prussians, Napoleon added the confiscation
of the states of the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, whose duplicity had
earned him this punishment. This prince, who had been requested
some time before the war to declare himself a supporter of either
France or Prussia, lulled both parties with promises, with the
intention of coming down on the side of the victor. An avaricious
sovereign, the Elector had amassed a great fortune by selling his
own people to the English, who used them to fight against the
Americans in the War of Independence, in which many of them
perished. Careless of his people's welfare, he had offered to
join his troops to the French force on condition that the Emperor
would cede to him the French American states. So no one was very
sorry for the Elector, whose precipitous departure occasioned an
event which is still not generally known.

Compelled to leave Hesse in a hurry, to take refuge in England,
the Elector, who was regarded as one of the richest people in
Europe, was unable to take with him all his wealth. So he sent
for a Jew from Frankfurt by the name of Rothschild, a small-time
banker and not well known, but respected for the scrupulous
devotion with which he practised his religion: and it was this
that decided the Elector to confide to his care some fifteen
million in specie. The interest earned on this money was to
belong to the banker, who was obliged to return only the capital.

When the palace of Cassel was occupied by our troops, agents of
the French treasury seized a considerable quantity of valuables,
mainly pictures, but did not find any money. It seemed
impossible, however, that the Elector, in his hurried flight, had
been able to take with him all his immense fortune. Now, as
according to what are called the laws of war, the monies found in
an enemy country belong to the victor, one wished to find out
what had become of the treasure of Cassel. Information gathered
on the subject disclosed that, before his departure, the Elector
had spent a whole day with the Jew Rothschild. An imperial
commission went to the latter's house, where his account books
and his strong-boxes were minutely examined; but in vain, for no
trace could be found of a deposit made by the Elector. Threats
and intimidation produced no result, so the commission, convinced
that no material interest would persuade a man so religious to
perjure himself, wished to put him on oath. This he refused to
accept. His arrest was considered but the Emperor was opposed to
this act of violence because he thought it would be useless.
Resort was then had to less honourable methods; it was proposed
to the banker that he might retain half of the treasure if he
would deliver the other half to the French administration; they
would then give him a receipt for the full amount, accompanied by
an order of seizure, proving that he had given way only to force
and was thus shielded from any claim for restitution; but the
upright Jew rejected this suggestion, and, tired of the struggle,
they left him alone.

So the fifteen million remained in the hands of Rothschild from
1806 to the fall of the empire in 1814. Then, when the Elector
had returned to his state, the Frankfurt banker handed over to
him the exact sum which he had deposited. You may imagine how
much interest might be earned by the sum of fifteen millions left
in the hands of a Jewish Frankfurt banker for a period of eight
years! It is from this time that dates the opulence of the House
of the Brothers Rothschild, who owe to the probity of their
founder the high financial standing which they enjoy today.

The Emperor, who was staying in the palace in Berlin, every day
passed in revue the troops who arrived in succession in the town,
to march from there to the Oder in pursuit of the enemy. It was
while he was in Berlin that he performed a well known act of
magnanimity in pardoning, for the Princess of Hatzfeld, her
husband, who had used his position as burgomaster of Berlin to
give the Prussian generals information about the movement of
French troops; an act of espionage punishable by death. The
generosity displayed by the Emperor on this occasion had a very
good effect on the feelings of the Prussians.

During our stay in Berlin, I was pleasantly surprised by the
arrival of my brother Adolphe, who, on learning of the fresh
outbreak of hostilities on the continent of Europe had asked for
and obtained from General Decaen, who commanded the French troops
in India, permission to return to France, where he joined the
Grande Armee. He was offered a position by General Lefebvre, but,
mistakenly, in my opinion, he chose to serve as a supernumerary
on the staff of Marshal Augereau, of which I was a member, a move
which did neither of us any good.

I had also in Berlin another unexpected encounter. I was walking
one evening with some friends along the Boulevard de Tilleuls,
when I saw coming towards me a group of sous-officiers of the 1st
Hussars. One of them broke away and ran to fall on my neck.  It
was my former tutor, the elder Pertelay who, with tears of joy
cried "Te voil…, mon petit!" The officers with whom I was, were
at first astonished to see a sergeant-major so familiar with an
officer; but their surprise vanished when I told them of my
former relations with this old soldier, who, putting his arm
round me, said to his companions, "It is I who made him what you
now see before you!" And the good fellow was really convinced
that I owed my present position to his teaching. So at dinner,
which I stood him the next day, he overwhelmed me with
inconsequential advice, which he believed to be very sensible and
just the thing to perfect my military education.  We shall meet
this type of old Hussar again in Spain.

Napoleon, who was still in Berlin, was told of the surrender of
the Prince Hohenlohe who, with sixteen thousand men, had laid
down his arms at Prenzlow before the troops of Marshal Lannes and
the cavalry of Murat. There was no other enemy corps in the field
except that of General Blucher. This general, hard pressed by the
divisions of Marshals Soult and Bernadotte, violated the
neutrality of Lubeck, where he sought refuge; but the French
pursued him, and Blucher, one of the most ardent supporters of
the war against Napoleon, was forced to give himself up as a
prisoner together with the sixteen thousand men under his
command.

I must here tell you something remarkable, which shows how
greatly chance influences the affairs of men and empires. We have
seen Marshal Bernadotte failing in his duty and standing aside at
Jena when Marshal Davout was fighting, not far from him, against
infinitely superior forces. Well! This disgraceful conduct served
to place him on the throne of Sweden. This is how it came about.

After the battle of Jena, the Emperor, although furious with
Bernadotte, ordered him to pursue the enemy because the corps
which he commanded, not having fired a shot, was in better shape
for battle than those who had suffered losses. Bernadotte then
set out on the track of the Prussians whom he defeated first at
Halle and then at Lubeck, with the help of Marshal Soult. Now as
chance would have it, at the very hour when the French were
attacking Lubeck, some ships carrying a division of infantry
which King Gustave IV of Sweden had sent to the aid of the
Prussians entered the harbour. The Swedish troops had scarcely
disembarked when, attacked by the French and abandoned by the
Prussians, they were obliged to surrender to Bernadotte.
Bernadotte, I can assure you, had, when he wished, the most
engaging manner and very much wanted to appear before foreigners
as a "Gentleman." To this end, he treated the Swedish officers in
the most benevolent manner. After according them an honourable
capitulation, he returned to them their horses and their baggage,
saw to their needs and invited to his quarters the
commander-in-chief, Count Moerner, as well as the generals and
senior officers; he loaded them with kindnesses and courtesies to
such an extent that, on their return to their country, they
spread everywhere praise for the magnanimity of Marshal
Bernadotte.

Some years later a revolution broke out in Sweden; King Gustave,
whom a mental disorder had rendered unfit to rule, was removed
from the throne and replaced by his aged uncle, the Duke of
Sudermanie.  As this new monarch had no children, the States
Assembly, in order to designate a successor, chose the Prince of
Holstein-Augustenburg, who took the title of Prince Royal. But he
did not long enjoy this dignity, for he died in 1811 after a
short illness, which was put down to poison. The states gathered
once more to elect a new heir to the throne. They were hesitating
between several German princes who put themselves forward as
candidates when Count Moerner, one of the most influential
members of the states, and the former commander of the Swedish
division captured at Lubeck in 1806 by the French, proposed
General Bernadotte, whose generous conduct he recalled. He
praised also Bernadotte's military talents, and observed that the
marshal was allied, through his wife, to Napoleon, whose support
could be most useful to Sweden. A crowd of officers who had also
been captured at Lubeck, joined their voices to that of General
Moerner, and Bernadotte was elected almost unanimously as
successor to the King of Sweden, and mounted the throne a few
years later.

We shall see, further on, how Bernadotte, carried to the steps of
a foreign throne by the fame which he had acquired at the head of
French troops, displayed a lack of gratitude towards his native
country. But now let us return to Prussia.

In one month the main forces of this kingdom, formerly in such a
flourishing condition, had been destroyed by Napoleon, whose
armies occupied the capital and the greater part of the
provinces, and had already reached the Vistula, that great
barrier between northern and central Europe. Marshal Augereau's
corps remained for a fortnight in Berlin to reinforce the Guard
during the long stay which the Emperor made in the town, and left
about the middle of November, heading first for the Oder, which
we crossed at Kostrzyn, and then on to the Vistula whose bank we
reached at Bromburg (?Bydgoszcz). We were now in Poland, the
poorest and nastiest country in Europe...! After the Oder, no
more made roads: we marched on loose gravel or appalling mud.
Most of the land was uncultivated and the few inhabitants we came
across were dirty to a degree which defies the imagination. The
weather which had been magnificent during October and the first
part of November became frightful. We no longer saw the sun, it
rained or snowed continually; food became short; no more wine,
almost never any beer, and what there was atrociously bad; muddy
water, no bread, and billets we had to share with cattle and
pigs. The soldiers used to say, "How dare the Poles call this a
country?"

The Emperor himself was disillusioned, for having come intending
to rebuild Poland, he had hoped that the whole population of this
vast country would rise as one man at the approach of the French
army. But nobody budged...! In a vain attempt to rouse some
Polish enthusiasm, the Emperor had invited the famous General
Kosciusko, the leader of the last insurrection, to come and join
him, but Kosciusko stayed peacefully in Switzerland, to where he
had retired, and to the reproaches which were addressed to him,
he replied that he knew the heedless and unstable character of
his compatriots too well to hope that they would ever free
themselves, even with French help. Unable to attract Kosciusko,
the Emperor tried to make use of his renown by addressing to the
Poles a proclamation in the name of this old warrior. Not one of
them took up arms, although our troops occupied several provinces
and even the capital. The Poles were not willing to rebel until
Napoleon had declared the re-establishment of Poland, and he was
not willing to do this until they had risen against their
oppressors, which they did not do.

While 7th Corps was in Bromburg, Duroc, the grand marshal of the
palace, arrived in the middle of the night at Marshal Augereau's
headquarters. I was sent for and told to prepare myself to
accompany Marshal Duroc, who was going as an envoy to the King of
Prussia at Graudentz, and who needed an officer to replace his
aide-de-camp, whom he had just sent to Posnan with despatches for
the Emperor. I had been chosen because it was remembered that the
previous August I had been on a mission to the Prussian court and
that I knew almost all the officers and the court usages.

I was soon ready. The marshal of the palace took me in his
carriage and we went down the left bank of the Vistula, occupied
by French troops, to cross the river by ferry opposite Graudentz.
We took lodgings in the town and then presented ourselves at the
citadel, where all the royal family of Prussia had taken refuge
after loosing four fifths of their state. The Vistula separated
the two armies. The king seemed calm and resigned; the queen,
whom I had seen not long ago looking so lovely, was greatly
changed and seemed overcome by grief. She could not conceal from
herself the fact that having urged the king to declare war, she
was the principal cause of the misfortunes of her country, whose
citizens raised their voices against her. The Emperor could not
have sent a more acceptable envoy to the king than Marshal Duroc,
who had held the post of ambassador in Berlin, and was well known
to both the king and queen who appreciated his pleasant
personality. I was too small a personage to be of any account;
however the king and queen recognised me and greeted me with a
few polite words.

I found the Prussian officers attached to the court had greatly
modified the arrogant attitude they had displayed in August.
Their recent defeat had changed their opinion of the French army;
nevertheless I did not wish to take advantage of this and I
carefully avoided mentioning Jena and our other victories. The
affairs which Marshal Duroc had to discuss with the King of
Prussia related to a letter which this monarch had sent to
Napoleon, requesting a peace.  The meeting lasted for two days
which I occupied in reading, and walking on the gloomy parade
ground of the fortress. I did not wish to go up onto the
ramparts, although one enjoys from there an admirable view of the
Vistula, for fear that I might be suspected of examining the
defence works and armaments.

In the battles which had taken place from Jena to the Vistula,
the Prussians had taken about a hundred of our men prisoner, whom
they employed on the earthworks of the fortress in which they
were confined. Marshal Duroc had charged me with the task of
distributing some aid to these poor devils, who were doubly
unhappy in that they could see from the height of the fortress
the French troops from whom they were separated only by the
Vistula. This proximity, and the comparison of their position
with that of their comrades, free and happy on the left bank, led
a French prisoner, one of the elite cavalrymen of the 3rd
Dragoons by the name of Harpin, to attempt to escape. This was no
easy matter, for one had first to get out of the fortress and
then to cross the Vistula; but what cannot be achieved by a
determined man? Harpin, who was employed by the master carpenter
to pile timber, had made, secretly, a little raft; he had taken a
long rope and, at night, had lowered the raft to the foot of the
rampart, and had then descended himself by the same means. He had
already put his raft in the water and was preparing to embark
when he was surprised by a patrol, taken back to the fort and
confined to a dungeon. The next day the Prussian commandant, in
accordance with the common custom of the Prussian army, condemned
Harpin to fifty strokes of the cane. It was useless for Harpin to
claim that as a Frenchman he should not be subject to Prussian
regulations, his status as a prisoner made this complaint void.
He had already been taken to the wooden frame to which he was to
be attached, and two soldiers were preparing to administer the
flogging when, having gone to fetch a book from Marshal Duroc's
coach, which was standing in the parade ground, I saw Harpin
struggling with some Prussians who were trying to tie him up.

Indignant at the sight of a French soldier about to be subjected
to a flogging, I ran towards him, my sabre in my hand, and
threatened to kill the first man to strike a blow! ... Marshal
Duroc's coach was guarded by one of Napoleon's couriers, known in
every post house in Europe as "Moustache." This man, of herculean
strength and the courage to face anything, had accompanied the
Emperor on twenty fields of battle. When he saw me in the middle
of the Prussians he hurried to me, and on my instructions, he
fetched four loaded pistols which were in the coach. We untied
Harpin; I armed him with two of the pistols and put him in the
coach, where I placed "Moustache" next to him. I then told the
commandant that as this coach belonged to the Emperor, whose arms
it bore, it was a sacred place of safety for the French Dragoon,
entry to which was forbidden to all Prussians under penalty of a
bullet in the head, and I told Harpin and "Moustache" to fire on
anyone who attempted to get into the coach. The commandant,
seeing me so determined, abandoned his prisoner for the moment to
go and get orders from his superiors. Then, leaving Harpin and
"Moustache" in the coach with pistols in their hands, I went to
the king's quarters and begged one of the aides-de-camp to go and
tell Marshal Duroc that I needed to speak to him about a matter
which could not wait. Duroc came out and I told him what had
happened.

When he heard that they wanted to flog a French soldier, he
shared my indignation. He returned to the king to whom he
protested warmly, adding that if the sentence were to be carried
out, the Emperor by way of reprisal would flog not only the
soldiers but also the Prussian officers who were his prisoners.
The king was a humane man; he ordered that the dragoon Harpin
should be released, and to please Napoleon, from whom he was at
that moment asking peace, he offered to Marshal Duroc to release
to him all the prisoners if he would undertake to send back a
similar number of Prussians. Duroc having accepted this offer, I
went with one of the aides-de-camp to announce the news to the
prisoners, who were overjoyed. We embarked them straight away and
an hour later they were across the Vistula and amongst their
brothers in arms.

Marshal Duroc and I left Graudentz the next night; he approved of
my conduct and told me later that he had given an account of it
to the Emperor, who also approved, and who warned the Prussians
that if they flogged French soldiers he would have all Prussian
officers who fell into his hands, shot!

I rejoined 7th Corps at Bromburg, and we went up the left bank of
the Vistula towards Warsaw. Marshal Augereau's headquarters were
established at Mallochiche. The Emperor arrived at Warsaw on the
19th December, and prepared to cross the Vistula. 7th Corps then
went down the left bank once more to Utrata, where for the first
time on this campaign we saw the Russian outposts on the opposite
bank.

Chap. 32

The River Vistula is fast-flowing and very wide; one expected,
because of this that the Emperor would halt his winter operations
there and, protected by the river, would put his troops into
winter quarters until the spring. This however was not to be.
Marshal Davout's and Marshal Lannes' corps crossed the river at
Warsaw, Marshal Augereau and his men crossed at Utrate, from
where we went on to the banks of the Ukra, a tributary of the Bug
and the Vistula.  The entire French army having crossed this last
river, found itself face to face with the Russians, against whom
the Emperor ordered an attack on the 24th December. A thaw and
rain made movement extremely difficult on the clay soil, for
there are no metalled roads in this country.

I shall not describe all the actions which were fought that day
to force a passage across the Bug; I shall restrict myself to
saying that Marshal Augereau, given the task of securing the
crossing of the Ukra, ordered General Desjardins to attack with
his division, Kolozomb, and General Heudelet to attack Sochocyzn.
The marshal directed the attack on Kolozomb in person. The
Russians, after burning the bridge which had existed at this
spot, had raised earthworks on the opposite bank which they
defended with cannons and numerous infantry; but they had
neglected to destroy a store of planks and beams which was on the
right bank, at which we had arrived. Our sappers made use of this
material to construct a temporary bridge in spite of a lively
fire which killed several men of the 14th Line regiment, which
was at the head of our columns.

The planks of the bridge were not yet fastened and were wobbling
under the feet of our infantrymen, when the colonel of the 14th,
M. Savary, brother of the Emperor's aide-de-camp, risked crossing
on horseback, in order to put himself at the head of his men; but
he had scarcely reached the bank when a Cossack, arriving at the
gallop, plunged a lance into his heart and disappeared into the
woods! This was the fifth colonel of the 14th who had been killed
by the enemy! You will see later the fatal destiny which always
accompanied this unfortunate regiment. The passage of the Ukra
was secured, the guns captured and the Russians put to flight.
Desjardins' division occupied Sochoczyn, where the enemy had
repulsed the attack by Heudelet's division, a repulse which was
of no consequence, as it was necessary only to secure one
crossing. General Heudelet however, out of misplaced pride, had
ordered the attack to be renewed and was once more driven off
with the loss of some thirty men killed or wounded, among them a
highly thought of engineer officer. I have always disapproved of
the contempt for men's lives which sometimes leads generals to
sacrifice them to their desire to see their names in the
bulletins.

On the 25th of December, the day following the crossing of the
Ukra, the Emperor, pushing the Russians before him, headed for
Golymin, having with him the Guard, Murat's cavalry and the corps
of Davout and Augereau, the last of whom led the column. Marshal
Lannes went off in the direction of Pultusk. There were on this
day some minor encounters with the enemy who were retreating with
all speed.  We slept in bivouac amongst the trees.

On the 26th, 7th Corps set out once more in pursuit of the
Russians. We were at a time of year when the days are at their
shortest, and in this part of Poland at the end of December, it
starts to get dark about two-thirty in the afternoon. It was made
more gloomy as we approached Golymin by a fall of snow mixed with
rain. We had not seen the enemy since morning when, on our
arrival at the village of Kuskowo, very close to Golymin, our
scouts, who had seen in the obscurity a large body of troops
which a marsh prevented them from approaching, came to warn
Marshal Augereau, who ordered Colonel Albert to go and
reconnoitre, escorted by twenty-five mounted Chasseurs, whom he
placed under my command.

The mission was difficult for we were in the middle of a huge,
bare plain where one could easily become lost. The ground,
already muddy, was intersected by areas of bog which the poor
light prevented us from seeing clearly; so we advanced with
caution, and found ourselves within twenty-five paces of a line
of troops. We thought at first that this must be Davout's corps,
which we knew was in the neighbourhood, but as no one answered
our challenge, we had no doubt that these were enemy troops.
However, to make quite sure, Colonel Albert ordered me to send
one of my best-mounted troopers up to the line which we could
distinguish in the murk: for this task I picked a bemedalled
corporal named Schmit, a man of proven courage. He, having gone
alone to within ten paces of a regiment whose headgear he
recognised as Russian, fired a shot from his carbine into the
middle of it and came back smartly.

To account for the silence which the Russians had maintained up
till then, I must tell you that this unit had become separated
from the main body of the army, which it was trying to rejoin,
and had lost its way in the vast plains, which it knew to be
occupied by French troops who were heading for Golymin. The
Russian generals, in the hope that they might pass close to us in
the obscurity without being recognised, had forbidden their men
to speak, and in the event of an attack, even the wounded were to
make no outcry. This was an order which only Russian troops would
have obeyed so punctiliously that when Colonel Albert, to warn
Marshal Augereau that we were in the presence of the enemy,
ordered the twenty-five troopers to fire, not a cry nor a word
was heard, and no one fired back!

We then saw, in spite of the poor light, a body of about a
hundred horsemen who were advancing silently to cut off our
retreat. We should have made off at the gallop to rejoin our
columns, but some of our troopers having become stuck in the mud,
we were forced to proceed less rapidly, although pursued by the
Russians, who fortunately had the same trouble as we did. A fire
which had broken out in a nearby farm lit up the ground and the
Russians began to gallop, which compelled us to do likewise. A
new danger arose in that we had left from General Desjardins'
division and were returning to General Heudelet's, who had not
seen us leave and opened fire on us; so that we were being driven
from behind by the Russians, while a hail of bullets in front
wounded several of our men and some horses.  It was no use
shouting "We are French. Don't shoot!" The firing continued, and
one cannot blame the officers who took us for the advance guard
of a Russian column who were using French, which is widely
understood among foreigners, in order to deceive them in the
darkness which had now fallen. We were having a bad time, when it
occurred to me to call out by name to the generals, colonels and
battalion commanders of Heudelet's division, names which they
would know could not be known to the enemy. This was a success
and we were at last received into the French line.

The Russian generals, seeing that they were discovered and
wishing to continue their retreat, took a measure of which I
heartily approve, and one which in similar circumstances the
French have never attempted to imitate. The Russians pointed all
their guns at us, and having led away all the horses, they opened
a violent fire to keep us at a distance. During this time they
marched off their columns, and when the ammunition was finished,
the gunners withdrew and left the guns to us. Was not this better
than losing many men in an effort to save the guns, which would
have been continually bogged down and slowed the retreat?

The fierce Russian cannonade became increasingly harmful when it
started several fires in the villages, the spreading light of
which enabled the Russian gunners to pick out the masses of our
troops; in particular the dragoons and Cuirassiers led by Prince
Murat, whose white cloaks made them a target. These units
suffered more losses than the others, and one of our generals of
the Dragoons was cut in two by a cannon-ball. Marshal Augereau,
after taking Kuskowa, entered Golymin, which Marshal Davout was
attacking from the other side. This town was being traversed at
the time by the Russian columns, who, knowing that Marshal Lannes
was marching to cut off their retreat by taking Pultusk, three
leagues from there, were trying to reach that spot before he did
at no matter what cost. So although our soldiers were firing on
them at close range, they did not reply. To do so they would have
had to stop, and minutes were too precious.

Each division and each regiment marched through our fusillade
without a word and without slowing their pace for a moment...!
The streets of Golymin were full of wounded and dying men, yet
one did not hear a sound. It was forbidden! We might have been
shooting at shadows, and it was only when our soldiers attacked
with the bayonet that they convinced themselves that they were
dealing with men. We took thousands of prisoners, while the
remainder marched into the distance.

The marshals deliberated as to whether they should pursue the
enemy, but the weather was so horrible and the night so dark once
one left the neighbourhood of the fires, the men so soaked and
exhausted, that it was decided that they should rest until the
next day.

Golymin being crowded with dead, wounded, and discarded baggage,
Marshals Murat and Augereau, together with some generals and
their staffs, looking for somewhere to shelter from the glacial
rain, established themselves in a huge stable which was near the
town. There, those who could, lay on the dung heap in an attempt
to get warm and to sleep, for we had been on horseback in the
most frightful weather for twenty four hours or more. The
marshals and all the colonels and brass-hats were naturally in
the depths of the stable where it was warmer; as for me, a humble
lieutenant, who came in last, I had to bed down near the doorway,
where I was more or less sheltered from the rain, but exposed to
the freezing wind, since the doorway had no door. The position
was most uncomfortable and added to this I was dying of hunger,
not having eaten since the previous evening. But my lucky star
came once more to my aid. While the well sheltered senior
officers were sleeping in the warm part of the stable, and the
cold was preventing us lieutenants near the doorway from doing
the same, one of Prince Murat's servants arrived. I told him, in
a low voice that his master was asleep; upon this he gave me a
basket containing a roast goose, some bread and some wine, to
give to the prince when he woke, and asked me to tell him that
the mules with the provisions were expected to arrive in an
hour's time.  Having said which, he went off to await them.

Loaded with these provisions, I held council in undertones with
Bro, Mainville, and Stoch, who, as badly placed as I, were
shivering with cold and just as hungry. The conclusion reached in
this deliberation was that as Prince Murat was asleep and as his
provisions were due to arrive shortly, he would be able to have a
meal when he woke; while we would be set on horseback and sent
off in all directions without anyone asking if we had eaten or
not; so without straining our consciences too much, we decided to
demolish the contents of the basket, which we did with great
rapidity. I don't know if this was pardonable, but what I do know
is that I have had few meals which I enjoyed more.

While the troops who had been engaged at Golymin were resting,
Napoleon, with all his Guard was wandering about on the plain,
because, alerted by the sound of gunfire, the Emperor had
hurriedly left the chateau where he was installed some two
leagues from Golymin, with the intention of joining us by
marching as the crow flies in the direction of the fires. But the
ground was so soaked, the plain so intersected by bogs and the
weather so awful, that it took him all night to make those two
leagues, and he did not arrive on the field of battle until the
fighting was long over.

On the same day as the fight at Golymin, Marshal Lannes, with no
more than twenty thousand men, attacked at Pultusk some forty
thousand Russians who were retreating, and inflicted immense
losses on them without being able to stop them, so great was
their superiority in numbers.

For the Emperor to have been able to pursue the Russians it would
have required a frost to harden the ground which, on the
contrary, was now so soft and sodden that one sank in at every
step, and several men, notably the batman of an officer in 7th
Corps, were drowned with their horses in the mud. It had now
become impossible to move the artillery and to venture further
into this unknown territory; besides which the troops lacked food
and even boots, and they were extremely tired. These
considerations decided Napoleon to place the whole army in
cantonment in front of the Vistula, from the outskirts of Warsaw
to the gates of Danzig. The soldiers, billeted in the villages,
were at last sheltered from the weather, received some rations
and were able to repair their equipment.

The Emperor returned to Warsaw to prepare for a new campaign.
The divisions of Augereau's corps were spread in the villages
around Plock, if one can give that name to a confused heap of
lowly shacks, inhabited by unwashed Jews; but almost all the
so-called towns in Poland are built like this and have similar
inhabitants. The landowners, great and small, live in the country
where they employ their peasants to cultivate their estates.

The marshal was lodged in Christka, a sort of chateau built of
wood, as was customary in the country. He found in this manor
some reasonable accommodation, while the aides-de-camp settled
wherever they could in the rooms and barns. As for me, by
ferreting around I found in the gardener's quarters a fairly good
room with a fireplace; I settled in there with two friends, and
leaving to the gardener and his family their very unsavoury beds,
we made some out of planks and straw, on which we were very
comfortable.

Chap. 33.

We celebrated at Christka the new year of 1807, which was very
nearly the last year of my life. It, however, began very
pleasantly for me, since the Emperor, who had not shown any
favour to Augereau's staff during the Austerlitz campaign, fully
repaired this oversight by heaping us with rewards. Colonel
Albert was promoted to brigadier-general, Major Massy to
lieutenant-colonel of the 44th Line regiment; several
aides-de-camp were decorated; and finally the lieutenants, Bro,
Mainville, and I, were made captains. This promotion gave me more
than usual pleasure, since I had done nothing remarkable to earn
it, and I was only twenty-four years old. Marshal Augereau, when
he gave us our brevets of captain, said to Mainville, Bro, and
me, "Let's see which of you three is the first to become a
colonel."  It was in fact I, who six years later commanded a
regiment, while my comrades were still only captains: it is also
true that in this period I had been wounded six times!

Once we had taken up winter quarters the enemy did the same,
opposite to us but a considerable distance away. The Emperor
expected that they would let us pass the winter in peace;
however, our rest lasted only for a month; this sufficed but was
not really enough.

The Russians, seeing the ground covered by snow and hardened by a
very sharp frost, thought that this frigid weather would give the
men from the north a great advantage over those from the south,
unaccustomed to the severe cold. They resolved therefore to
attack us, and in order to do this they moved, screened by the
immense forest which lay between us, the greater part of the
troops who faced us before Warsaw, down to the lower Vistula,
opposite the cantonments of Bernadotte and Ney, whom they hoped
to surprise and overrun by weight of numbers before the Emperor
with the other army corps could come to their aid. But Bernadotte
and Ney put up a stiff resistance, and the Emperor had sufficient
time to mount an attack with a considerable force on the enemy
rear who, seeing themselves at risk of being cut off from their
operational base, retreated towards Konigsberg (Kaliningrad). We
had therefore, on the 1st of February, to quit our billets where
we were reasonably comfortable, and restarting the war, to go and
sleep in the snow.

At the head of the central column, commanded by the Emperor in
person, was Prince Murat's cavalry, then came Marshal Soult's
corps, supported by that of Augereau, finally came the Imperial
Guard.  Marshal Davout's corps marched on the right flank of this
huge column, and Marshal Ney's on the left. Such an agglomeration
of troops heading for the same place soon strips the countryside
of whatever food supplies are available, so we suffered much from
hunger; only the Guard had wagons which carried food for
distribution, the other corps lived on whatever they could find,
that is to say they lacked practically everything.

I am not going to give any details of the actions which preceded
the battle of Eylau, because Augereau's corps, which was in the
second line, took no part in these various contacts, of which the
most important occurred at Mohrungen, Bergfried, Guttstadt, and
Valtersdorf. But at last, before the little town of Landsberg,
the Russians, who had been chased for a week with a sword at
their backs, decided to halt and make a stand. To do this, they
placed eight elite battalions in an advantageous position, their
right bounded by a village by the name of Hoff, their left by a
thick wood, and their centre protected by a very steep-sided
ravine, which could be crossed only by a narrow bridge. Eight
cannons were placed in front of this line.

When the Emperor arrived opposite this position, he did not think
it necessary to wait for the infantry of Marshal Soult, which was
still several leagues behind, and attacked the Russians with some
regiments of light cavalry who, dashing bravely over the bridge,
crossed the ravine; but, assailed by gunfire and grapeshot, our
squadrons were driven back in disorder into the gulch, from which
they emerged with much difficulty. The Emperor, seeing the light
cavalry repulsed, replaced them by a division of Dragoons, whose
attack, received in the same manner as before, had a similar
outcome. The Emperor then ordered the advance of General
D'Hautpoul's terrible Cuirassiers, who crossed the bridge under a
hail of grapeshot and fell on the Russian line with such ferocity
that they literally flattened it. There then ensued the most
frightful butchery; the Cuirassiers, enraged at the losses
suffered by their comrades of the Hussars and Dragoons, almost
entirely exterminated the eight Russian battalions, All were
either killed or captured! The battlefield was a scene of horror.
Never has a cavalry charge had such a devastating result. The
Emperor demonstrated his satisfaction with the Cuirassiers by
embracing their general before the whole division. General
D'Hautpoul exclaimed, "To show myself worthy of this honour, I
shall dedicate my life to your majesty." He kept his word, for
the next day he was killed on the battlefield of Eylau. What an
epoch! And what men!

The enemy army which, from a plateau beyond Landsberg, had
witnessed the destruction of its rearguard, retired promptly
towards Eylau, and we took possession of Landsberg. On the 7th
February the Russian commander-in-chief, Benningsen, having
decided to give battle, concentrated his army around Eylau,
mainly in positions between us and the town. Murat's cavalry and
Soult's infantry took these positions after fierce fighting, for
the Russians held tenaciously to Ziegelhof, which dominates
Eylau, as they wanted to make it the centre point of their line
for the battle on the following day; but they were forced to
retreat from the town. Night seemed to have put an end to this
fighting, the prelude to the coming general action, when a
fusillade of shots rang out in the streets of Eylau.

I know that military authors who have written about this
campaign, claim that Napoleon ordered an attack because he did
not want the town to remain in Russian hands; but I am sure that
they are mistaken, and for the following reason:--

When the head of Marshal Augereau's column, coming down the road
from Landsberg, drew near to Ziegelhof, the marshal climbed onto
the plateau where the Emperor was already stationed, and I
actually heard Napoleon say to Augereau, "It has been suggested
to me that we should take Eylau this evening; but, apart from the
fact that I don't like fighting at night, I do not wish to push
my centre too far forward before the arrival of Davout on my
right flank and Ney on my left. So I am going to wait for them
until tomorrow on this plateau which, furbished with artillery,
will provide a fine position for our infantry; then, when Davout
and Ney are in the line, we shall march, together, against the
enemy." Having said this, the Emperor ordered his bivouac to be
set up at the foot of the Ziegelhof, and his guard to encamp
around it.

But while Napoleon was explaining his plans to Marshal Augereau,
who greatly approved of his prudence, the staff of the imperial
palace, coming from Landsberg with their baggage and servants,
arrived at our outposts, which were at the gates of Eylau,
without anyone telling them to stop at Ziegelhof. These
employees, used to seeing the imperial quarters very well
guarded, and not having been warned that they were almost on top
of the Russians, were interested only in selecting a good lodging
for their master, and they set themselves up in the post-house,
where they unpacked their equipment, stabled their horses, and
began to cook. In the midst of these preparations they were
attacked by a Russian patrol and would have been captured had it
not been for the intervention of the guard which always
accompanied the Emperor's baggage. At the sound of this outbreak
of firing, the troops who were in position at the gates of the
town ran to the rescue of Napoleon's equipment, which was already
being pillaged by the Russian soldiers. The Russian generals,
thinking that the French were attempting to seize Eylau, sent
reinforcements to their side, and so a sanguinary battle was
fought in the streets of the town, which ended up in our hands.

Although this attack had not been ordered by the Emperor, he saw
no reason not to profit by it, and he set himself up in the Eylau
post-house. The Guard and Soult's troops occupied the town which
was surrounded by Murat's cavalry. Augereau's troops were
positioned in Zehen, a little hamlet in which we hoped to find
some provisions, but the Russians had taken everything with them
as they withdrew, so that our unhappy regiment, which had
received no rations for eight days, had to make do with some
potatoes and water. The equipment of the staff having been left
at Landsberg, our supper was not as good as that of the soldiers,
for we had no potatoes. Eventually, on the morning of the 8th,
when we were about to mount our horses, one of the marshal's
servants brought him some bread, and he, always generous, shared
it out amongst his aides-de-camp. After this frugal meal, which
for several of us was to be our last, the corps moved to the post
to which it had been assigned by the Emperor.

In accordance with the plan which I explained when I started
these memoirs, I shall not weary you with too detailed a
description of the various phases of this terrible battle of
Eylau, but will limit myself to the principal events.

On the morning of the 8th, the position of the two armies was as
follows. The Russians had their left at Serpallen, their centre
in front of Auklapen and their right at Schmoditten. They were
awaiting the arrival of eight thousand Prussians, who were
expected to go to Althoff where they would form the extreme right
wing. The enemy's front line was protected by five hundred
artillery pieces, of which a third at least were of large
calibre. The French situation was much less favourable, since
their two wings had not yet arrived. The Emperor had, at the
start of the action, only a part of the force with which he had
expected to do battle. Marshal Soult's corps was placed on the
right and left of Eylau, the Guard in the town itself, and
Augereau's corps between Eylau and Rothenen, opposite Serpellen.
The enemy formed almost a semicircle about us, and the two armies
occupied a terrain in which there were numerous ponds covered by
snow, which neither side could see.

Neither Marshal Davout, who should have been on our right,
towards Molwitten, nor Marshal Ney, who should have been on our
left around Althoff, had yet appeared, when at daybreak, about
eight in the morning, the Russians began the attack by a violent
cannonade to which our gunners, though fewer in numbers, replied.
Though fewer, they had the advantage, however of being much
better trained than the Russians, and also of directing their
fire at masses of men who had no cover, while the Russian
cannon-balls mainly hit the walls of Eylau and Rothenen. Soon a
strong enemy column advanced with the intention of capturing the
town; it was vigourously repelled by the Guard and Marshal
Soult's troops. At this moment, the Emperor heard, with much
pleasure, that from the top of the church tower could be seen
Davout's men arriving via Molwitten and marching towards
Serpallen, from where they expelled the Russians and drove them
back to Klein-Sausgarten.

The Russian commander, Benningsen, seeing his left beaten and his
rear menaced by the audacious Davout, resolved to crush him, and
directed the greater part of his force against him. It was then
that Napoleon, with the object of preventing this movement by
creating a diversion against the enemy centre, ordered Augereau
to attack, although he foresaw the difficulties of this
operation.

There are on the field of battle, circumstances when one must
sacrifice some troops in order to preserve the great majority and
ensure victory. General Corbineau, the Emperor's aide-de-camp,
was killed by a cannon shot near to us while bringing to Marshal
Augereau the order to advance. The marshal passed between Eylau
and Rothenen and led his two divisions boldly against the enemy
centre, and already the 14th Line regiment who made up our
advance guard had seized the position which the Emperor had
ordered to be taken and held at all costs, when the guns which
formed a semi-circle about Augereau hurled out a storm of ball
and grape-shot of hitherto unprecedented ferocity. In an instant,
our two divisions were pulverised under this rain of iron!
General Desjardins was killed and General Heudelet gravely
wounded; however, they stood firm until the corps having been
almost entirely destroyed, the remnants were compelled to retire
to the cemetery of Eylau, with the exception of the 14th, who
almost entirely surrounded by the enemy, remained on the little
hill which they had occupied. The situation was made even worse
by a gale of wind which blew a heavy snowfall into our faces, and
reduced visibility to about fifteen paces, so that several French
batteries opened fire on us, as well as the Russians. Marshal
Augereau was wounded by a bullet.

The devotion of 7th Corps, however, produced a good result, for,
relieved by our attack, Marshal Davout was able not only to
maintain his position, but to take Klein-Sausgarten and even push
his advance-guard as far as Kuschitten, in the enemy's rear.
Then, in an attempt to deliver a knock-out blow, Napoleon
despatched, between Eylau and Rothenen, the squadrons commanded
by Murat. This terrifying mass fell on the Russian centre,
overwhelming them, cutting them down with their sabres and
throwing them into the greatest confusion. The valiant General
D'Hautpoul was killed at the head of his Cuirassiers, as was
General Dahlmann, who had succeeded General Morland in the
command of the Chasseurs of the Guard. The success of our cavalry
allowed us to carry the day. Eight thousand Prussians, escaped
from pursuit by Marshal Ney, and arriving at Althoff, tried to
mount a new attack by advancing, one does not quite know why, on
Kuschitten instead of Eylau, but Davout drove them off, and the
arrival of Ney's corps at Schmoditten towards the end of the day,
made Benningsen fear that his line of communication would be cut,
and so he ordered a retreat in the direction of Konigsberg,
leaving the French masters of the horrible battlefield covered
with dead and dying. Since the invention of gunpowder one has not
seen such a terrible effect, for in relation to the numbers
engaged at Eylau, in comparison to all the battles, ancient or
modern, the proportion of losses was highest. The Russians had
twenty-five thousand casualties, and although the figure for
French losses has been given as ten thousand, it is my belief
that it was at least twenty thousand. A total of forty-five
thousand men, of whom more than half died!

Augereau's corps was almost entirely destroyed. Out of fifteen
thousand combatants under arms at the beginning of the action,
there remained by evening only three thousand, under the command
of Lieutenant colonel Massy: the marshal, all the generals and
all the colonels had been either killed or wounded.

It is difficult to understand why Benningsen, knowing that Davout
and Ney had not yet arrived, did not take advantage of their
absence to attack Eylau at daybreak with the numerous troops of
the centre of his army, instead of using precious time in
bombarding us; for his superior strength would certainly have
made him master of the town before the arrival of Davout, and the
Emperor would then have regretted having moved so far forward
instead of consolidating his position on the plateau of Ziegelhof
and awaiting the arrival of his flank forces, as he had intended
the evening before.

The day after the battle the Emperor followed the Russians to the
gates of Konigsberg; but that town was fortified and it was
thought unwise to attack it with troops weakened by a sanguinary
battle, and what is more, almost all the Russian army was in
Konigsberg and the surrounding country.

Napoleon spent several days at Eylau, partly to collect the
wounded and partly to reorganise his forces. The survivors of
Augereau's corps were spread amongst other units and the marshal
was given leave to return to France for the treatment of his
wound. The Emperor, seeing that the bulk of the Russian army was
now at a distance, put his troops into billets in the towns and
villages in front of the lower Vistula. There was no interesting
event during the rest of the winter, except the taking of Danzig
by our troops.  Hostilities in the open country would not begin
again until the month of june, as we shall see later.

Chap. 34.

I did not want to interrupt the story of the battle of Eylau to
tell you what happened to me in this terrible conflict; a sad
tale, to understand which we must go back to the autumn of 1805
when the officers of the Grande Armee were equipping themselves
in preparation for the Battle of Austerlitz. I had two good
horses and was looking for a third of a better quality, a
charger. This was something difficult to find, for although
horses were infinitely cheaper than they are today, they were
still expensive, and I did not have much money; but I had a piece
of very good luck.

I ran into a German scholar, named M. d'Aister, whom I had known
when he was teaching at Soreze; he was now tutor to the children
of a rich Swiss banker, M. Scherer, who lived in Paris and was an
associate of M. Finguerlin, who was a very wealthy man who kept
up great state, and had a stable of many horses, amongst which
was a charming mare called Lisette, an excellent animal from
Mecklemberg, good-looking, swift as a stag, and so well schooled
that a child could ride her.  But this mare had a dreadful and
fortunately rare vice: she bit like a bulldog, and attacked
furiously anyone who displeased her, which decided M. Finguerlin
to sell her. She was bought by Mme. de Lauriston, whose husband,
an aide-de-camp to the Emperor, had written to her to ask her to
buy him a charger.

M. Finguerlin, when he sold the mare, had omitted to mention her
behaviour, and on the evening of her purchase, a groom, whom she
had torn open, was found lying at her feet. Mme. de Lauriston was
justly alarmed and demanded cancellation of the sale. Not only
was this done, but the police, in order to prevent another such
accident, required that a notice be fixed to Lisette's loose-box
informing any potential buyer of her ferocity, and that any sale
would be null and void unless the buyer declared in writing that
he was aware of this notice.

As you may imagine, with such a recommendation, the mare was very
difficult to sell; M. d'Aister told me that her owner was
prepared to let her go for whatever was offered. I offered a
thousand francs and M. Finguerlin handed Lisette over to me,
although she had cost five thousand. For several months she gave
me a great deal of trouble; it took four or five men to saddle
her, and she could not be bridled without being blindfolded and
having all four legs tied; but once on her back one found her a
matchless ride.

However, since during the time I had owned her she had bitten
several people, including me, I was thinking of getting rid of
her, when, having taken into my service a man called Francis
Woirland, who was scared of nothing, he, before approaching
Lisette, about whose bad character I had warned him, armed
himself with a very hot leg of roast mutton, and when she
attempted to bite him, he offered this to her, which she seized
in her teeth; but having burned her mouth and her tongue, the
mare gave a cry and dropped the gigot, and from that moment she
submitted herself to Woirland, whom she no longer dared to bite.
I tried the same trick and achieved the same result. Lisette, as
docile as a dog, allowed herself to be handled by myself and my
servant; she even became a little more tractable with the grooms
whom she saw every day, but woe betide any stranger passing too
close to her. I could give many examples of her ferocity, but I
shall limit myself to one.

While Marshal Augereau was staying at the chateau of Bellevue,
near Berlin, the servants, having noticed that while they were at
diner, someone was coming to steal the sacks of oats from the
stable, asked Woirland to leave Lisette loose near the door. The
thief arrived, slipped into the stable and was already carrying
off one of the sacks when the mare grabbed him by the neck,
dragged him into the yard and broke two of his ribs by trampling
on him. People came running to the cries of the terrified thief,
whom Lisette was unwilling to abandon until my servant and I
persuaded her, for in her rage she would have savaged anyone
else. The wickedness of this animal had got worse since the
officer of the Saxon Hussars had treacherously stabbed her in the
shoulder on the battlefield of Jena.

It was this mare that I was riding at the time when the remains
of Marshal Augereau's corps, shattered by a hail of cannon and
grape shot, were attempting to re-form in the area of the
cemetery. You will recall that the 14th Line regiment had stayed
alone on the little hill, which it might leave only if ordered to
do so by the Emperor. The snow having stopped for a moment, one
could see this gallant regiment almost completely surrounded by
the enemy, waving its Eagle aloft to show that it still stood
fast and needed help. The Emperor, touched by the devotion to
duty of these brave men, decided to attempt their rescue; he told
Marshal Augereau to send an officer with orders to them to quit
the hillock, form a small square and withdraw towards us; while a
brigade of cavalry would go to meet them and second their
efforts.

This was before the great charge made by Murat and his cavalry,
and it was almost impossible to carry out the Emperor's command
because a swarm of Cossacks separated us from the 14th. It was
clear that any officer sent towards the unfortunate regiment
would be killed or captured before he got there. Nevertheless, an
order is an order; and the marshal had to obey.

It was the custom, in the imperial army, for the aides to line up
a few paces from their general, and the one in front went off
first; when he had completed his mission, he joined the back of
the queue, so that as each took his turn to carry orders, the
dangers were shared equally. A brave captain of engineers, named
Froissart, who, although not an aide-de-camp, was attached to the
marshal's staff, was nearest to him and was sent off to carry the
order to the 14th.  He left at the gallop; we lost sight of him
in the midst of the Cossacks and never saw him again, nor did we
know what became of him.

The marshal, seeing that the 14th did not budge, sent another
officer, named David. He suffered the same fate as Froissart, and
we heard no more of him. It is likely that they were both killed,
and having been stripped of their clothing their bodies were not
recognisable among the many dead who covered the ground. For the
third time the marshal called out "An officer to take orders
"!...It was my turn.

When he saw before him the son of his old friend, and, I think I
may dare to say, his favourite aide-de-camp, the good marshal's
face fell and his eyes filled with tears, for he could not
disguise from himself that he was sending me to an almost certain
death; but the Emperor's order had to be obeyed; I was a soldier;
no one else could take my place, I would not have allowed
something so dishonourable.  So I took off! Now, while prepared
to sacrifice my life, I thought it my duty to take every
precaution which might save it. I had noticed that the two
officers who had gone before me had left with drawn sabres, which
made me think that they intended to defend themselves against the
Cossacks who would attack them during the ride. This intention
was in my opinion ill-advised, for they would have been forced to
stop and fight a multitude of enemies who, in the end, had
overwhelmed them. I adopted a different approach, and leaving my
sabre in its scabbard, I thought of myself as a rider who, to win
the prize in a race, goes as fast as possible by the shortest
route towards the winning post without taking any notice of what
is to right or left of him during his passage. Now, my winning
post being the hillock occupied by the 14th, I resolved to get
there without paying any attention to the Cossacks, whom I
blotted out of my thoughts.

This system worked perfectly. Lisette, light as a swallow, and
flying rather than galloping, rushed through space, leaping over
the piled up bodies of men and horses, over ditches and the
broken mountings of guns, as well as the half-extinguished
bivouac fires. Thousands of Cossacks were scattered about the
plain. The first ones to see me behaved like hunters who, having
raised a hare, mark its presence by shouts of "Yours! Yours!" But
none of them tried to stop me, firstly because I was going so
fast, and also perhaps because each one thought I would be caught
by his comrades who were further on. In this way I escaped from
them all and arrived at the 14th without either I or my excellent
mare having suffered a scratch.

I found the 14th formed in a square on top of the hillock; but
the slope of the ground was so gentle that the enemy cavalry had
been able to carry out a number of charges, which had been
vigourously repelled, so that they were surrounded by heap of the
dead bodies of horses and Russian Dragoons, which formed a sort
of rampart, and now made the position almost inaccessible to
cavalry; for even with the aid of our infantrymen, I had great
difficulty in getting over this bloody and frightful defence
work, but at last I was inside the square.

Since the death of Colonel Savary, killed during the crossing of
the Ukra, the 14th had been commanded by a battalion commander;
when I gave this officer the order which I carried, for him to
leave his position and try to rejoin the army corps, he replied
that the enemy artillery which had been firing at them for an
hour had occasioned such heavy losses that the handful of
soldiers which he had left would inevitably be exterminated if
they went down onto the level ground; and anyway there was no
time to prepare for the execution of this movement, since a
Russian column, coming to attack, was now close to us. "I can see
no way of saving the regiment," said the battalion commander. "Go
back to the Emperor and say good-bye to him from the 14th; and
take back the Eagle which we can no longer defend."

The Eagles of the infantry were very heavy, and their weight was
increased by the long thick pole of oak on which they were
mounted.  I was bending forward and attempting to detach the
Eagle from its pole, when one of the many bullets which the
Russians were firing at us went through the back part of my hat,
very close to my head. The shock was made worse by the fact that
the hat was held on by a strong leather strap which went under my
chin, and so offered more resistance to the blow. I was partially
stunned by this, and found myself unable to move.

However the column of Russian infantry was now climbing the
hillock; they were Grenadiers, whose headgear, garnished with
metal, looked like mitres. These men, full of liquor, flung
themselves on the feeble remnants of the 14th, who defended
themselves bravely with their bayonets, and even when the square
was broken, formed themselves into little groups and continued
for a long time the unequal struggle. In my confused state, I was
unable to react in any way; I was attacked by a drunken Russian
soldier, who thrust his bayonet into my left arm, and then,
aiming another blow at me, lost his balance and missing his mark,
he slashed Lisette's haunch.

The pain of this injury aroused her ferocious instincts, she
grabbed the soldier with her teeth and tore away the greater part
of his face,then, kicking and biting, she forced her way through
the melee and taking the path by which we had come, she went off
at the gallop in the direction of the Eylau cemetery while,
thanks to the Hussar's saddle in which I was seated, I remained
on her back.

As we approached Eylau a new danger arose. The snow had started
to fall again and in the poor visibility a battalion of the Guard
took me for a Russian and opened fire on me, but although my
cloak and my saddle were hit, both I and my mare were untouched.
Lisette, continuing to gallop, went through the three lines of
infantry like a grass-snake through a hedge, but this last burst
of speed drained her resources, she was losing a lot of blood
because one of the big veins in her haunch had been cut, she
collapsed suddenly and fell, throwing me to the ground, where I
was rendered unconscious.

I must have remained in this state for about four hours, and I
was not aroused by the great charge of Murat's ninety squadrons
of cavalry, which went past me and perhaps over me. When I came
to, this is the dreadful position in which I found myself. I was
completely naked except for my hat and my right boot. A soldier
of the transport section, believing me to be dead, had despoiled
me, as was customary, and in an attempt to remove my boot, was
dragging at my leg, with one foot on my stomach. I was able to
raise the upper part of my body and to spit out some clots of
blood, my face, shoulders and chest were badly bruised, and blood
from my wounded arm reddened the rest of my body. I gazed around
with haggard eyes, and must have been a horrible spectacle. The
transport driver made off with my possessions before I could
summon my wits and address a word to him. I was too dazed and
weak to move, and unable to call for help. The cold was
increasing and I had little hope of surviving without some form
of miracle, and something like a miracle took place.

Marshal Augereau had a valet de chambre, named Pierre Dannel, a
very intelligent boy, loyal, but inclined to be cheeky; and it so
happened that while we were at Houssaye, Dannel, having spoken
back to his master, had been given his notice. Desolated, Dannel
begged me to intercede for him, which I did with so much zeal
that he was reinstated in the marshal's good graces; since when
the valet had been devoted to me. Dannel had taken it on himself
to come from Landsberg, on the day of the battle, to bring some
victuals to his master, which he had put in a very light wagon,
able to go anywhere, and containing all the things that the
marshal used most frequently.  This little wagon was driven by a
soldier who had served in the same transport unit as the man who
had stripped me. This fellow, carrying my effects, was passing
the wagon which was standing at the Eylau cemetery when,
recognising his old friend, he went up to him to show him the
lovely booty he had taken from a dead man.

Now, while we were in cantonments by the Vistula, the marshal
having told Dannel to go to Warsaw to get some provisions, I
asked him to take my pelisse and have the black astrakhan with
which it was trimmed, removed and replaced by grey; a style newly
adopted by the aides-de-camp of Prince Berthier, who set the
fashion in the army. I was still the only one of Marshal
Augereau's officers who had grey astrakhan.

Dannel, who was present when the transport driver displayed his
booty, easily recognised my pelisse, which made him look more
closely at the other belongings of the alleged dead man, amongst
which he saw my watch, marked with my father's initials, for it
had been his. The valet de chambre had no doubt that I had been
killed, but mourning my death, he wished to see me for the last
time, and having been led there by the transport driver, he found
me alive!

This good fellow, to whom I owe my life, was overjoyed. He
hurried to fetch my own servant and some orderlies, who carried
me into a barn where they rubbed me down with rum, while they
sent for Dr. Raymond. When he at last arrived, he dressed the
wound in my arm and declared that the blood which I had lost
would save me.

Soon I was surrounded by my comrades including my brother. A
reward was given to the transport rider who had taken my clothes,
which he handed over with good grace; but as they were soaked
with blood and water, Marshal Augereau had me wrapped up in
clothes of his own.

The Emperor had given permission for Augereau to return to
Landsberg, but his wound made it impossible for him to ride a
horse; so his aides-de-camp got hold of a sledge on which they
mounted the body of a carriage. The marshal, who had decided not
to abandon me, had me strapped in beside him, for I was too weak
to sit upright.

Before I was picked up from the battlefield, I had seen my poor
Lisette near to me. Her wound had stopped bleeding and she was
back on her feet, eating some straw which had been used by
soldiers in their bivouacs, the previous night. My servant, who
was very fond of Lisette, returned to look for her; he cut strips
of clothing from a dead soldier and dressed the wound on her
haunch, and got her fit enough to walk to Landsberg.

The commandant of the little garrison of the town, had had the
good sense to prepare quarters for the wounded. The officers of
the staff were put into a large and comfortable inn, so that
instead of spending the night lying naked in the snow, I was
tucked into a good bed and being looked after by my brother, my
companions and the worthy Dr. Raymond. The doctor had to cut the
boot which the soldier had tried to pull off, and even so, he had
difficulty in getting it off because my foot had swollen so much.
You will see, later that this could have cost me my leg, and
perhaps even my life.

We stayed in Landsberg for thirty-six hours. The rest and the
care given me restored my ability to move, and when, on the
second day after the battle, Marshal Augereau set off for Warsaw,
I was able, though still very weak, to travel on the sledge. The
journey took eight days, because we moved only in short stages; I
was recovering my strength little by little, but I was aware of
an icy cold in my right foot.

On our arrival at Warsaw, I was put in a large house which had
been reserved for the marshal, which suited me very well, as I
was unable to get out of bed. The wound of my arm was healing,
the bruising of my upper body was dispersing, and my skin was
resuming its normal colour, however the doctor did not know why I
could not get up, and hearing me complain about my leg, he
decided to have a look at it, and what do you suppose he found?
My foot had become gangrenous! An accident which had occurred
many years ago was the cause of this. While I was at Soreze, my
right foot had been pierced by the foil of a fencing opponent,
which had lost its button. It seems that this injury had made my
foot more sensitive to cold, and while I was lying on the snow it
had become frostbitten, and not having been treated in time,
gangrene had set in at the site of the old fencing injury, the
area was covered by a scar the size of a five franc piece. The
doctor looked with alarm at my foot, then, taking a bistoury, and
having me held down by four servants, he picked off the scab and
dug into my foot to remove the dead flesh, just as one would cut
out the rotten part of an apple.

I suffered greatly, at first without complaining, though it was a
different matter when the bistoury, having reached live tissue,
exposed the muscles and bones, which one could see. The doctor
then stood on a chair and having soaked a sponge in warm
sweetened wine, he allowed it to fall, drop by drop into the hole
he had made in my foot. The pain was intolerable! Nevertheless I
had to endure for a week this fearful torture, but my leg was
saved.

Today, when one is so prodigal with decorations and promotions,
an officer who ran the risks which I had run in reaching the 14th
regiment, would certainly be rewarded; but under the Empire this
sort of devotion to duty was regarded as so normal that I was
given no medal, and never thought of asking for one.

A long rest having been judged necessary for the cure of Marshal
Augereau's wound, the Emperor instructed him to go to France for
treatment, and brought Marshal Massena from Italy; to whom my
brother, Bro and several of my friends were appointed. Marshal
Augereau took me with him, along with his secretary and Dr.
Raymond.  I had to be lifted in and out of the carriage, but
otherwise I felt my health improve the further we got away from
those frozen wastes to a more friendly climate. My mare spent the
winter in the stables of M. de Launay, the administrator of army
forage supplies.

The marshal went by way of Rawa to Silesia. As long as we were in
dreadful Poland, where there are no metalled roads, it took
twelve and sometimes sixteen horses to drag the coach out of the
bogs and swamps through which we travelled. We went always at
walking pace and it was not until we reached Germany that we
found ourselves in a civilised country with proper roads. We
stopped at Dresden, and spent ten or twelve days at
Frankfurt-on-Main, from where we had marched the previous October
to attack Prussia.

We finally reached Paris about the 15th of March. I could walk
with much difficulty, and had my arm in a sling, and I still felt
the effects of what I had been through, but the pleasure of
seeing my mother once more, and the care she devoted to me,
combined with the gentle influence of the returning spring,
effected my cure.

Chap. 35.

I spent the end of March, all of April, and the first week of May
in Paris. It was during this time that I got to know the
Desbrieres, a family of which my marriage was soon to make me a
member. I had recovered my health, and I realised that I could
not stay any longer in Paris. Marshal Augereau sent me to Marshal
Lannes who took me willingly onto his staff.

The Emperor, in order to keep an eye on any moves which the enemy
might be tempted to make during the winter, had settled himself
in the middle of the cantonments of his troops, first at Osterode
and then at the chateau of Finkenstein, from where, while
planning a new campaign, he governed France and directed his
ministers, who, every week, sent him their reports. The
portfolios holding the various documents furnished by each
ministry were collected every Wednesday by M. Denniee the elder,
under-secretary of state for war, who sent them off on Thursdays
in the charge of a junior official whose duty it was to deliver
them into the hands of the Emperor. But this system worked very
badly because most of these officials had never been out of
France. They did not know a word of German, nor did they
understand the currency or the regulations regarding posting in
foreign countries, so they did not know how to manage matters
once they had crossed the Rhine. In addition, these gentlemen,
being unused to fatigue, soon found themselves overcome by that
of a journey of more than three hundred leagues, which lasted
continuously for ten days and ten nights. One of them was so
incompetent as to allow his despatches to be stolen. Napoleon was
so angry at this mishap that he sent a courier to Paris to tell
M. Denniee not to give the portfolios in future to officials
except those who knew Germany, and who, being able to support
fatigue and privation, could carry out their duties more
efficiently.

M. Denniee was having great difficulty in finding anyone to fill
the post, when I turned up with a letter ordering me to report to
Marshal Lannes. Delighted to have found someone to take the next
lot of despatches, he warned me to be ready to leave on the
coming Thursday, and gave me five thousand francs for expenses
and the purchase of a carriage, which suited me very well, as I
did not have much money to get me back to the army in the depths
of Poland.

We left Paris about the 10th of May. Both my servant and I were
armed, and if one of us left the coach the other remained on
guard.  We knew enough German to keep the postilions up to the
mark, and as I was in uniform, they obeyed me with more alacrity
than they would a civilian official. So that instead of taking
the usual nine and a half or ten days over the journey, we made
it in eight and a half.

The Emperor was delighted to have his despatches twenty-four
hours earlier than expected, and after praising the keenness
which had led me to ask to return to duty in spite of my recent
wounds, he added that as I had been so efficient a courier, I
could leave for Paris that same night to take back some other
portfolios; a task which would not prevent me from taking part in
the campaign, which could not restart before the beginning of
june.

Although I had spent nothing like the five thousand francs which
M. Denniee had given me, the marshal of the palace gave me the
same sum to return to Paris, which I did as quickly as possible.
I stayed no more than twenty-four hours in the capital, and left
once more for Poland; the minister again gave me five thousand
francs for this third journey; it was far more than was
necessary, but that was how Napoleon wanted it. It is true that
these trips were very tiring and very boring, even though the
weather was fine. I was on the road day and night for nearly a
month in the sole company of my servant.

I reported to the Emperor at Finkenstein, and was afraid that I
might have to continue as postman until fighting broke out, when
fortunately some replacements were found and the Emperor
authorised me to go to Marshal Lannes, to whom I reported at
Marienberg on the 25th May. He had with him Colonel Sicard,
Augereau's aide-de-camp, who had been kind enough to take charge
of my horses. It was with much pleasure that I saw once more my
mare Lisette, who was fit enough for more service.

The fortress of Danzig, besieged by the French during the winter,
had fallen into their hands. The return of the good weather soon
saw campaigning recommence. The Russians attacked our cantonments
on the 5th of June, and were sharply repulsed at every point. On
the 10th there was a fierce encounter at Heilsberg which some
historians describe as a battle. The enemy were once more
defeated. I shall not go into any detail about this affair, since
Marshal Lannes' corps took very little part in it, not having
arrived until nightfall. We did, however, come under some heavy
fire and Colonel Sicard was mortally wounded. He had already been
wounded at Eylau, and although scarcely recovered from his
injuries, had returned to take part in the renewed fighting.
Before he died, the good colonel requested me to say his farewell
to Marshal Augereau, and gave me a letter for his wife. I was
very much upset by this painful scene.

The army now being in pursuit of the Russians, we passed through
Eylau. The fields which we had left three months previously
covered with snow and dead bodies, were now overspread by a
delightful carpet of green, bedecked with flowers. What a
contrast! How many soldiers lay beneath those verdant meadows? I
went and sat at the place where I had fallen and been despoiled,
and where I also would have died, had not a truly providential
combination of circumstances come to my aid. Marshal Lannes
wanted to see the hillock which the 14th had so valiantly
defended. I took him there. Since the time of the battle, the
enemy had been in occupation of the place; however, we found,
still intact, the monument which all the corps of the French army
had erected to the memory of their dead comrades of the 14th,
thirty-six of whose officers had been buried in the same grave.
This respect for the dead reflected honour on the Russians. I
remained for a few moments on the spot where I had been hit by
the bullet and wounded by the bayonet, and thought of the brave
men who lay in the dust, and whose fate I had so nearly shared.

The Russians, having been defeated on the 10th of June at
Heilsberg, retreated hastily and got a day ahead of the French
who, by the evening of the 13th, were concentrated beyond Eylau,
on the left bank of the Alle. The Russians occupied Bartenstein
on the right bank of this river, which the two armies now
descended on opposite sides.

Benningsen, whose stores of food and ammunition were in
Konigsberg, where the Prussian corps was stationed, wanted to
reach this town before the arrival of the French, but to do so he
had to cross over onto the left bank of the Alle, where there
were the French troops. The Russian commander hoped to reach
Friedland sufficiently far ahead of the French to be able to
cross the river before they could oppose him. The same reasons
which made Benningsen wish to hold on to Konigsberg, made
Napoleon wish to capture it. He had for several days constantly
manoeuvred to out-flank the Russian left, and keep them away from
the place, in the direction of which he had sent Murat, Soult and
Davout to oppose the Russians if they arrived before us.

The Emperor, however, did not stick to this scheme, and
foreseeing that the Russians would attempt to cross the Alle at
Friedland, he aimed to occupy the town before they did, and on
the night of the 13th-14th June, he despatched towards it the
corps of Marshal Lannes and Mortier, and three divisions of
cavalry. The rest of the army was to follow.

Marshal Lannes, who was in the van, with the Oudinot Grenadiers
and a brigade of cavalry, having arrived at Posthenen, a league
from Friedland, sent the 9th Hussars to reconnoitre the latter
town. They were repulsed with losses, and daybreak revealed a
large part of the Russian army massed on the opposite bank of the
Alle on the high ground between Allenau and Friedland. They had
begun to cross the old town bridge, beside which they had
constructed two new ones.

The aim of the two armies was very easily understood. The
Russians wanted to cross the Alle to get to Konigsberg, and the
French wanted to stop them and drive them back across the river,
which had very steep banks. The only crossing point was at
Friedland. The Russians had difficulty in deploying from
Friedland onto the open ground of the left bank, owing to the
fact that the way out of the town was much restricted by a large
lake, and by a stream called the Mill Stream, which ran in a very
steep-sided ravine. To protect their crossing, the Russians had
placed two strong batteries of guns on the right bank, which
could cover the town and part of the land between Posthenen and
Heinrichsdorf.

The Emperor was still at Eylau: the various corps marching
towards Friedland were still several leagues away, when Marshal
Lannes, having marched all night, arrived before the town. The
marshal would have liked to attack the enemy immediately; but
already they had thirty thousand men drawn up on the level ground
before Friedland, and their lines, the right of which was
opposite Heinrichsdorf, the centre at the mill stream, and the
left at the village of Sortlack, were being endlessly reinforced;
while Marshal Lannes had no more than ten thousand men; however,
he deployed them skillfully in the village of Posthenen and the
woods of Sortlack, from where he threatened the Russian's left
flank, while with two divisions of cavalry he tried to stop their
advance toward Heinrichsdorf, which lay on the route from
Friedland to Konigsberg. There was a brisk exchange of fire
before Mortier's corps arrived. Mortier, to dispute with the
Russians the road to Konigsberg, while waiting for fresh
reinforcements, occupied Heinrichsdorf and the area between this
village and Posthenen. However, it was not possible that Lannes
and Mortier with twenty-five thousand men could resist the
seventy thousand Russians who would soon face them. The situation
was becoming highly critical. Marshal Lannes sent a succession of
officers to warn the Emperor to hasten the arrival of the army
corps which he knew were coming up behind him. Mounted on my
swift Lisette, I was the first to go. I met the Emperor as he was
leaving Eylau; he was beaming with pleasure! He called me to his
side, and as we galloped along, I had to explain to him what had
happened before I left the battle. When I had finished my
recital, the Emperor said to me, smiling, "Have you a good
memory?" "Passable, Sir," I replied.  "Well what anniversary is
this, the 14th of June?" "Marengo" I said "Yes! Yes! The
anniversary of Marengo," said the Emperor, "and I shall beat the
Russians as I beat the Austrians!"

Napoleon was so convinced about this, that as he went along the
columns, where the men greeted him with many cheers, he said to
them repeatedly "Today is a lucky day, it is the anniversary of
Marengo!"

Chap. 36.

It was after eleven o'clock when Napoleon arrived on the
battlefield, where several corps had already come to join Lannes
and Mortier. The remainder, including the Guard, were arriving
one by one. Napoleon readjusted the line: Ney was on the right,
positioned in the wood at Sortlack; Lannes and Mortier formed the
centre, between Posthenen and Heinrichsdorf; the left stretched
out beyond this last village. The heat was overpowering. The
Emperor gave the troops an hour's rest, after which, at the
signal of a volley by twenty-five guns, a general attack would
begin.

Marshal Ney's corps had the most difficult task, for they were to
come out of their hiding place in the woods of Sortlack, fight
their way into Friedland, which was filled with the main forces
and reserves of the enemy, seize the bridges and thus cut off the
Russian's way of retreat.

It is difficult to understand why Benningsen had placed his
forces in front of the narrow exit from Friedland, and with their
backs to the Alle with its steep banks, in the presence of the
French who commanded the open country. The explanation given
later by the Russian general was that having been a day ahead of
Napoleon, he did not believe that the French troops could cover
in twelve hours a distance which had taken his men twenty-four
hours, and he had thought that Lannes' corps was an isolated
advance-guard of the French army, which he could easily crush.
When this illusion had been dissipated, it was too late to bring
his army back to the other bank because the narrow defile at
Friedland would have caused certain disaster, so he preferred to
stand and fight.

At about one in the afternoon, the twenty-five guns at Posthenen,
given the order by the Emperor, fired a volley, and battle was
joined all along the line. At first our left and our centre moved
very slowly to give the right, commanded by Ney, time to capture
the town. The marshal, emerging from Sortlack wood, took the
village of that name and advanced rapidly towards Friedland,
sweeping aside everything in his path; but as they moved forward
from the wood and the village of Sortlack to the first houses of
Friedland, Ney's troops were exposed to the fire of the Russian
batteries which, positioned behind the town on the heights of the
opposite bank, caused them severe losses. This fire was made more
dangerous by the fact that the gunners, separated from us by the
river, could aim their guns in safety, knowing that our infantry
could not attack them. This serious problem could have led to the
failure of the attack on Friedland, but Napoleon overcame it by
sending General Senarmont with fifty guns, which he placed on the
left bank of the Alle, and subjected the Russian batteries to
such heavy fire that they were soon silenced. As soon as the
enemy fire had ceased, Marshal Ney resumed his advance, driving
the Russians back into Friedland, and mingled in confusion with
them, entered the streets of the unfortunate town, where the
mortar bombs had started a huge fire.

A savage bayonet fight ensued in which the Russians, crammed
together and scarcely able to move, suffered enormous losses! ...
At last, in spite of their courage, they were compelled to
retreat in disorder and seek refuge by crossing the bridges to
the other bank; but General Senarmont had moved his guns into a
position from which he could fire on the bridges, which he soon
broke, after killing many of the Russians who were attempting to
escape across them. All those who remained in Friedland were
either killed, captured or drowned while trying to cross the
river.

Up until this point, Napoleon had, so to speak, made his left and
his centre mark time; he now moved them rapidly forward. General
Gortschakoff, who commanded the centre and right wing of the
enemy, attempted, bravely, to recapture the town, (which would
have been of no use, because the bridges were down, although he
did not know that). He charged at the head of his men into the
burning Friedland; but driven out by Ney, who was occupying the
town, and forced back into the open, he found himself confronting
our centre, who drove him back to the Alle at Kloschenen. The
Russians defended themselves heroically and refused to surrender
although completely surrounded. Many of them were killed by our
bayonets, the remainder rolled down the steep banks into the
river, where a large number were drowned.

The extreme right of the enemy was composed mostly of cavalry who
tried during the battle to capture or outflank the village of
Heinrichsdorf; but driven off by our troops, they went back to
the banks of the Alle, under the command of General Lambert, who,
seeing that Friedland was in the hands of the French and that the
Russian left and centre were defeated, gathered all he could of
the regiments of the right wing and made off from the battlefield
down the side of the Alle. Nightfall prevented the French from
following, so his was the only body of Russian troops to escape
the disaster.

Our victory was one of the most complete; we captured all the
Russian guns; we did not take a many prisoners during the action,
but a great many of the enemy were killed or wounded, amounting
to more than twenty-six thousand; our losses were no more than
three thousand dead and four or five thousand wounded. Of all the
battles fought by the Emperor, this was the only one in which the
number of his troops exceeded that of the enemy. The French
strength was eighty thousand and the Russian's only seventy-five
thousand. The remnants of the Russian army marched in disorder
all night, and retired behind the River Pregal, having destroyed
the bridges.

Marshals Soult, Davout and Murat had not been involved in the
battle of Friedland, but their presence induced the Russians to
abandon Konigsberg, which town our troops entered. We found there
an immense store of all kinds of material.

I did not suffer any injury during the battle, though I ran into
a number of dangers. You saw how I left Posthenen in the morning,
on Marshal Lannes' orders, to go as quickly as possible to warm
the Emperor that the Russians were crossing the Alle, and that a
battle appeared imminent. Napoleon was at Eylau; I had therefore
to make a journy of about six leagues to reach him, which would
have presented no difficulty to my excellent mare if the road had
been clear, but as it was congested by the troops of various
units hurrying to the aid of Marshal Lannes at Friedland, there
was no way in which I could gallop along it. I therefore went
across country, which meant that Lisette, having had to jump
hedges, fences and ditches, was already very tired when I met the
Emperor, who was just leaving Eylau. However, I had, without a
moment of rest, to return with him to Friedland, and although
this time the troops moved to one side to let us pass, my poor
mare, having galloped over twelve leagues altogether, six of them
being across country, and in very hot weather, was utterly
exhausted by the time I had rejoined Marshal Lannes on the
battlefield. I realised that Lisette could not continue to carry
me during the action, so, taking advantage of the rest which
Napoleon allowed the troops, I set out to look for my servant, in
order to change horses; but in the middle of such a large
collection of troops there was not much hope of finding him. It
was, in fact, impossible, and I went back to the staff still
mounted on the weary Lisette.

Marshal Lannes and my comrades, who saw my problem, had advised
me to dismount and allow my mare a few hour's rest, when I caught
sight of a Hussar leading a horse which he had captured from the
enemy. I took it over, and gave Lisette to one of the troopers of
the marshal's escort, so that he could take her back behind the
lines, let her have some food and hand her over to my servant,
when he could find him. I then got astride my new mount, took my
place among the aides-de-camp, and when it came to my turn, I
went off.

I was, at first, very pleased with my fresh horse, until the time
came when, Marshal Ney having gone into Friedland, Marshal Lannes
sent me to warn him of an enemy movement. I had barely entered
the town when this devil of a horse, which had behaved so well in
the open country, finding itself in a little square, where all
the houses were on fire and the street covered with burning
planks and furniture, in the midst of which a number of bodies
were being roasted, was so frightened by the sight of the flames
and the smell of burning flesh that it would go neither forward
nor back, and, digging in its heels, it remained motionless,
snorting loudly, and no amount of spurring would persuade it to
move. Now the Russians, having gained a momentary advantage,
pushed our men back to the point where I was, and from the height
of a church and some neighbouring houses, they were raining down
bullets, while two guns which they carried with them fired
grape-shot at the soldiers among whom I was.

Many men were killed around me, which recalled to my mind the
position in which I had found myself at Eylau in the middle of
the 14th. As I was not anxious to be wounded again and in any
case, in staying where I was I was not carrying out my mission, I
simply dismounted, and abandoning my infernal mount, I slipped
through the houses to contact Marshal Ney at another spot, which
was pointed out by some officers.

I was with him for some fifteen minutes; there were some bullets
flying around, but nothing like so many as there had been at the
place where I had left my mount. The Russians were eventually
driven back at bayonet point and forced to retreat toward the
bridges, whereupon Marshal Ney sent me to take the good news to
Marshal Lannes. To get out of the town, I took the same route as
I had taken to get in, and went through the little square where I
had left my horse. It had been the scene of a fierce encounter
which had left many dead and dying, among whom I saw my stubborn
horse, its back broken by a cannon-ball, and its body riddled by
bullets!.... From there I made for the outskirts in something of
a hurry because the burning houses were collapsing on all sides
and I was afraid of being buried beneath the debris. At last I
got out of the town and reached the edge of the lake.

The heat of the day, added to that of the fire which was raging
in the streets through which I had passed, had bathed me in
sweat, and I was dropping with fatigue and hunger, for I had
spent a night on horseback to come from Eylau to Friedland, I had
galloped back to Eylau and returned to Friedland once more, and
had not eaten since the previous evening. I was not looking
forward, therefore, to crossing, under a blazing sun, the large
area covered with high standing corn which separated me from
Marshal Lannes. But once again I had a stroke of luck. General
Grouchy's division of dragoons had been engaged not far away in a
sharp encounter in which, although victorious, they had lost a
number of men, and the colonels had, as was usual, collected the
horses of the men who had been killed and put them in the hands
of a detachment which would lead them away. I saw this body of
men, of which every trooper was leading four or five horses and
was taking them to the lake to drink.

I spoke to the officer in charge who, encumbered by all these led
horses, was only too glad to let me have one, which I promised to
return to his regiment in the evening. He picked out for me an
excellent beast, which had been the mount of a sous-officier
killed during the charge; astride of this horse, I returned
rapidly to Posthenen.

I had hardly left the edge of the lake when it became the theatre
of the most savage encounter, which was due to the desperate
attempt made by Gortschakoff to reopen a way of retreat by
capturing the road to Friedland which was held by Marshal Ney.
Caught between the marshal's troops and those of our centre, who
were now advancing, Gortschakoff's Russians defended themselves
bravely amongst the houses bordering the lake; so that if I had
stayed there, where I had thought of resting for a while, I would
have landed in the middle of this fierce outbreak of fighting. I
rejoined Marshal Lannes at the moment when he was moving towards
the lake to attack the rear of the Russian troops whom Ney was
driving away from the front of the town, and I was able to give
him some useful information about the terrain on which we were
fighting.

If the French army did not take many prisoners during the battle
of Friedland, it was a different matter the next day and the days
following; for the Russians, pursued with a bayonet at their
backs, thrown into complete disorder and utterly exhausted, were
abandoning their ranks and lying down in the fields, where we
captured a great number. We also collected a large quantity of
artillery. All those members of Benningsen's army who escaped
hurried back across the Nieman, behind which was the Russian
emperor who, perhaps recalling the danger to which he had been
exposed at Austerlitz, had judged it unwise to assist in person
at the battle of Friedland; and two days after our victory he
hastened to ask Napoleon for an armistice, to which Napoleon
agreed.

Three days after the battle the French army reached the town of
Tilsit and the river Nieman, which at this point is only a few
leagues from the frontiers of the Russian empire.

The rear of a victorious army presents a most dismal spectacle.
The path of their advance is strewn with the dead, dying, and
wounded, while the survivors, soon forgetting those comrades who
have fallen in the fighting, rejoice in their success and go
forward cheerfully to new adventures. Our men were delighted to
see the Nieman, whose opposite bank was occupied by the remains
of that Russian army which they had defeated in so many
engagements; and where, in contrast to their own lighthearted
songs, there reigned a mournful silence. Napoleon established
himself at Tilsit, and his troops encamped around the town. The
Nieman separated the two armies; the French occupied the left
bank and the Russians the right.

The Emperor Alexander having requested a meeting with Napoleon,
this took place on the 25th of June, in a pavilion on a raft
anchored in the middle of the river, in sight of the two armies
which lined the banks. It was a most imposing spectacle. The two
emperors arrived, each from his own side, accompanied by only
five of the principal officers of their armies. Marshal Lannes,
who flattered himself that he should accompany the Emperor, saw
himself displaced by Marshal Bessieres, an intimate friend of
Prince Murat; and he never forgave the marshals for depriving him
of what he considered his right.

So Marshal Lannes stayed with us on the quay at Tilsit, from
where we saw the two emperors embrace on meeting, which
occasioned much cheering from both camps. The next day, the 26th,
in the course of a second interview which took place once more in
the pavilion on the Nieman, the Russian emperor presented to
Napoleon his unfortunate friend, the King of Prussia. This prince
whom the fortunes of war had stripped of a vast kingdom, leaving
him only the small town of Memel and some miserable villages,
maintained a bearing worthy of a descendant of Frederick the
Great: Napoleon greeted him politely but coolly, for he
considered that he had reason to complain of his conduct, and he
planned to confiscate the greater part of his states.

To facilitate the meetings of the two Emperors, the town of
Tilsit was declared neutral, and Napoleon handed over half of it
to the Russian emperor, who set himself up there with his Guard.
The two sovereigns spent some twenty days together, during which
time they decided the fate of Europe. During these proceedings,
the King of Prussia was relegated to the right bank, and had no
quarters in Tilsit, which he visited but rarely. One day Napoleon
went to call on the Queen of Prussia, who was said to be greatly
distressed. He invited her to dine with him on the following day.
She accepted the invitation, no doubt with little pleasure, but
realising that at a time when peace was being sought it was
necessary to take every measure to soften the heart of the
victor.

Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia thoroughly detested one
another: she had grossly insulted him in several proclamations,
and he had returned the complement in his bulletins. Their
meeting, however, did not display their mutual hatred; Napoleon
was respectful and attentive, the queen gracious in her attempts
to captivate her former enemy; attempts made all the more
determinedly as she was not unaware that the peace treaty
created--under the name of the kingdom of Westphalia--a new
state, whose territory was to be provided by the electorate of
Hesse, and by Prussia itself.

The Queen was resigned to the loss of several provinces, but she
could not accept the loss of the fortified city of Magdeberg,
possession of which was needed for the security of Prussia. For
his part, Napoleon, who planned to nominate his brother Jerome as
King of Westphalia, intended to add Magdeberg to this new state.
It appears that, during the meal, the Queen deployed her not
inconsiderable charms, and when Napoleon, to change the
conversation, praised a superb rose which the Queen was wearing,
she said to him, "Would your majesty not accept this rose in
return for Magdeberg?" A more chivalrous person might have
accepted, but Napoleon was too much of a realist to be won over
by a pretty proposition. One may be sure that he restricted
himself to admiring the beauty of the rose and also of the hand
which proffered it, but he did not take the flower, which brought
tears to the Queen's eyes. The conqueror, however, did not seem
to notice. He kept Magdeberg and politely conducted the Queen to
the boat which was to carry her to the opposite bank.

During our stay at Tilsit, Napoleon held a review of his Guard
and the army in the presence of Alexander, who was impressed by
the martial air and bearing of these troops. The Russian Emperor,
in his turn, put on display some fine battalions of his Guard,
but he did not dare to parade his line regiments, whose numbers
had been so greatly reduced at Heilsberg and Friedland. As for
the King of Prussia, of whose regiments there remained only the
broken debris, he did not exhibit them at all.

Napoleon drew up, with Russia and Prussia, a peace treaty in
which the principal articles related to the creation of the
kingdom of Westphalia for the benefit of Jerome Bonaparte. The
elector of Saxony, now an ally and friend of France, was elevated
to the dignity of king, and was awarded, in addition, the Grand
Duchy of Warsaw, composed of a vast province of the former
Poland, which was recovered from the Russians. I shall not go
into the less important articles of the treaty, which resulted in
the re-establishment of peace between the great powers of
continental Europe.

In elevating his brother to the throne of Westphalia, Napoleon
added to the mistakes he had already made in awarding the kingdom
of Naples to Joseph and that of Holland, Louis. The people of
these countries felt humiliated at being ruled by foreigners who
had not themselves done anything of importance and who were, in
fact, nonentities, who had no merit except that of being
Napoleon's brothers. The dislike and distrust which these new
kings attracted contributed largely to the Emperor's downfall.
The conduct of the King of Westphalia in particular made very
many enemies for Napoleon.

Having concluded the treaty, the two Emperors parted with mutual
assurances of friendship, which at the time seemed sincere.

Chap. 37.

The French army was spread out into the various provinces of
Germany and Poland under the command of five marshals, in whose
number Lannes had asked not to be included, since his ill-health
required his return to France. If I had been his permanent
aide-de-camp, I would have had to return with him, but I had an
even better reason for going, and that was to rejoin Marshal
Augereau, to whose staff I had not ceased to belong, my
attachment to Marshal Lannes being only temporary. I made ready
to return to Paris: I sold, as well as possible, my two horses,
and I sent Lisette to the registrar-general, M. de Launey, who,
having taken a liking to her, had asked me to let him have her
when I had no further use for her.  Her injuries and hard work
had calmed her down, and I lent her to him for an indefinite
period; he mounted his wife on her, and kept her for seven or
eight years until she died a natural death.

During the twenty days which the Emperor had spent at Tilsit, he
had despatched a great many officers, some to Paris, some to
other parts of the empire, so that there were hardly any left
available for duty. Napoleon did not want to take officers from
their regiments, so he ordered a list to be made of all those who
had joined the campaign voluntarily and those who did not belong
to any army corps nor to the staff of any of the five marshals
who were in command. I was included in this list, and felt sure
that the Emperor, for whom I had already carried despatches,
would choose me in preference to officers whom he did not know;
and indeed, the Emperor sent for me on the 9th of July, and
having given me some voluminous portfolios and some despatches
for the King of Saxony, ordered me to go to Dresden and await him
there. The Emperor intended to leave Tilsit that same day, but
was going on a long detour to visit Konigsberg, Marienwerder, and
Silesia, so that I would be several days ahead of him.

I crossed Prussia once more, and saw again several of our
battlefields; I went through Berlin and arrived at Dresden two
days before the Emperor. The court of Saxony was aware that a
peace had been agreed, and that it raised the elector to the rank
of king, and awarded him the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, but they did
not yet know that the Emperor was to pass through Dresden on his
way to Paris; it was I who gave this information to the new king.

You may imagine the result of this! ...Immediately the court, the
town, and the army were thrown into a turmoil to organise a grand
reception for the great Emperor who, after having so generously
restored to liberty the Saxon troops captured at Jena, had loaded
their sovereign with honours! I was received with enthusiasm; I
was lodged in the chateau in a fine apartment, where I was
magnificently cared for, and the king's aides-de-camp showed me
round all the interesting sights of the palace and the town.
Eventually the Emperor arrived, and in accordance with the
protocol, which I already knew, I hurried to hand over the
portfolios to M. Meneval, and to ask for the Emperor's further
orders. These I found agreeable, for I was instructed to carry
some fresh portfolios to Paris, and the Emperor gave me a letter
which I was to deliver personally to the Empress Josephine. The
marshal of the palace, M. Duroc, gave me eight thousand francs to
cover the expense of the journey from Tilsit to Dresden and from
Dresden to Paris. I took to the road in high spirits: I had just
taken part in three fine campaigns, during which I had been
promoted to captain, and had been noticed by the Emperor; we were
about to enjoy the delights of peace, which would allow me to
spend a long time with my mother; I was fully recovered; I had
never had so much money; everything conspired to make me happy,
and I was very happy.

I arrived at Frankfurt-on-main, where a lieutenant colonel of the
Imperial Guard named M. de L... was in command. The Emperor had
given me a letter for this officer, from whom he wanted, I think,
some confidential information, for M. de L... was in touch with
M. Savary, who ran the secret police. This colonel invited me to
dine with him, after which he conducted me back to my coach; but
as I got in I noticed a fair sized package which was not part of
my despatches. I was about to call for my batman to get an
explanation for this, when Colonel de L... stopped me, and told
me, in an undertone, that the package contained some dresses in
Berlin knitwear and other materials banned in France, and was
destined for the Empress Josephine, who would be much obliged to
me for bringing them to her! I recalled only too well the cruel
anxieties I had suffered as a result of the false report which I
had been persuaded to give the Emperor regarding the numerical
strength of the "Chasseurs a Cheval" at Austerlitz, to consent to
be engaged once more in some underhand business: so I flatly
refused. To be sure I would have liked to please the Empress, but
I was aware of the inflexible severity with which Napoleon
treated those found guilty of smuggling, and after facing so many
dangers, and shedding so much of my blood in battle, I had no
wish to sacrifice whatever merit I had gained in the eyes of the
Emperor by transgressing his laws in order to draw a smile of
thanks from the Empress. To overcome my objections Colonel de
L... pointed out that the package had several wrappings, of which
the outermost, addressed to the minister for war, bore the seal
of the 7th Light Infantry and the designation "Record of
accounts." He was sure that the customs would not dare open such
a package, the outer covering of which I could remove when I
reached Paris and deliver the stuff to the Empress without being
compromised; but in spite of all this fine reasoning, I
absolutely refused to take part in this transaction and ordered
the postilion to set off. When we arrived at the post-house, half
way between Frankfurt and Mainz, I took my batman to task for
having taken into the coach this extra package; he replied that
during dinner time, M. de L... himself had put these packages
into the coach: he had supposed that they contained more
despatches, and had not thought that he could refuse to accept
them from the hands of the commanding officer in person. "Did you
say packages?" I cried, "were there then several? He took away
only one." And now, rummaging amongst the Emperor's portfolios, I
found a second package of contraband which the colonel had put
into my trunk without my knowledge. I was taken aback by this
trickery and was tempted to throw the dresses onto the highway.
However I did not dare, and I continued my journey, determined
that if the contraband was seized I would explain how it had been
put into my coach, and by whom the stamp of the 7th Light
Infantry had been put on the wrapping; for I had no wish to face
the anger of Napoleon; but as this defence would have compromised
the Empress,I decided that I would use it only as a last resort,
and that I would make every effort to avoid my coach being
examined. A stroke of luck and a little subterfuge got me out of
this dilemma.

I arrived, very worried, at the bridge over the Rhine at Mainz,
which separates Germany from France, and my anxiety was increased
by the sight of the great collection of customs officers and
soldiers in unifor, who were waiting round this frontier. When my
carriage was stopped, in the usual manner, two men arrived
simultaneously at the door; one was a customs officer, to carry
out a search, and the other was an aide-de-camp to Marshal
Kellerman, who was in command of the station, and who wanted to
know if the Emperor was on his way. This is my chance! I thought
to myself, and pretending not to notice the customs officer, I
replied to the aide-de-camp, "The Emperor is coming behind me."
This was no lie, he was indeed following me, but at an interval
of two days...which I did not think it necessary to add.

My words were heard by all around me and threw them into a state
of frenzied activity. The aide-de-camp went off across the bridge
at the gallop, at risk of tumbling into the Rhine in his haste to
warn Marshal Kellerman. The guard took up their arms. The customs
men and their superiors tried to arrange themselves in the most
military manner possible in order to look good in front of the
Emperor and, as my carriage got in their way, they told the
postilion to clear off....So there I was! Freed from their
clutches!

I went on to the posting-house and quickly changed horses; but
while this was being done, a violent storm broke over Mainz and
the rain began to fall in torrents. It was five o'clock in the
afternoon, dinner time; but on the news of the approaching
arrival of the Emperor, the general alarm was beaten throughout
the town; on which signal the marshal, generals, prefect, mayor,
civil and military authorities, all threw down their napkins, and
hastily donning their best clothes, they went in the pouring rain
through the streams of water running in the streets to take up
their posts; while I, who was the cause of all this commotion,
was laughing my head off as I made off at full speed drawn by
three good post-horses.

In view of the fact that the Empress was willing to disobey her
august spouse by wearing clothes made of prohibited material, and
that a colonel was willing to slip contraband into my coach
without my knowledge, the trick which I had played seemed to me
to be excusable. In any case, since it was June, the soaking
which I had caused these Mainz officials to undergo would do no
harm except to their clothes. When I was far from Mainz, I could
still hear the sound of drums, and I learned afterwards that they
had stayed up all night. The Emperor arrived two days later, but
as he had had an accident to his coach, the good citizens of
Mainz blamed that for the delay of which their fine clothes were
the victims. I was heading swiftly and happily towards Paris,
when a most disagreeable accident interrupted my progress, and
turned my happiness to annoyance. You will understand that when a
sovereign travels, it would be impossible to supply a change of
horses for the numerous carriages which precede and follow him,
if the staging posts were not reinforced by horses, known as "de
tournee", brought from posts established on other routes. Now, as
I was leaving Dombasle, a little town this side of Verdun, a
confounded postilion "de tournee" who had arrived the night
before, not having noticed a steep hill which one encounters
after leaving the staging post, lost control of his horses during
the descent and overturned my carriage, breaking the springs and
the bodywork. To make matters worse, it was a Sunday and all the
population had gone to a fete in a neighbouring village, so that
I could not find a workman. Those that I found the next day were
so unskillful that I had to spend two mortal days in this
miserable place.

I was about to set out again when an outrider having announced
the arrival of the Emperor, I took the liberty of stopping his
coach to tell him of the accident which I had suffered. He
laughed, took back the letter for the Empress which he had given
me, and went on his way. I followed him to St. Cloud, from where,
after giving the portfolios to the cabinet secretary, I went to
my mother's home in Paris.

I took up once more my position as aide-de-camp to Marshal
Augereau, a very easy task, as it consisted of going every month
to spend one or two weeks at La Houssaye, where daily life was
always so amusing. Thus rolled by the end of the summer and the
autumn; during which time the Emperor's policies were leading
towards fresh events and storms whose terrible commotions would
nearly swallow me up; me, a very small personage, who, in his
carefree youth, thought of nothing but enjoying life, after
having seen death at such close quarters.

It has been rightly said that the Emperor was never so great and
powerful as in 1807, when, after defeating the Austrians, the
Russians and the Prussians, he had concluded a peace so
favourable to France and to himself. But scarcely had Napoleon
ended his war against the northern powers, when his evil genius
drove him to undertake one even more terrible, in the south of
Europe, in the Iberian peninsula.

End of Volume 1, The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot.
Translated by Oliver C. Colt







The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot. Translated by
Oliver C. Colt

Contents of Volume 2.

Chap. 1. My marriage. Farewell to Massena.

Chap. 2. Biography of Massena.

Chap. 3. 1812. Appointed to 23rd Chasseurs. The intrigues of
Count Czernicheff.

Chap. 4. War becomes inevitable. Warnings given to Napoleon. The
Imperial court at Dresden. Faulty composition of army.

Chap. 5. Review by the Emperor. The army at the Nieman. Notes on
historians of the 1812 campaign. Bernadotte's attitude. The
Poles.

Chap. 6. Crossing of Nieman. Entry into Wilna. I meet the enemy.
The 23rd at Wilkomir. Problems in Lithuania. The advance.

Chap. 7. The Russian army split. Bagration escapes from Jerome.
Fruitless attack on Dvinaberg. I defeat two of Wittgenstein's
units. We leave the Grande Armee. Composition of 2nd Corps.

Chap. 8. Jakobovo and Kliastitsoui. I am wounded.

Chap. 9. The marsh at Sebej. Retreat. The ford at Sivotschina.
Death of Koulnieff. A last farewell.

Chap. 10. Fresh withdrawal by Oudinot. Marches and
countermarches. Retreat to Polotsk. General St. Cyr. Oudinot is
wounded. St. Cyr takes over.

Chap. 11. Surprise attack on the enemy. Various incidents. We
settle in Polotsk.

Chap. 12. The advance of the Grande Armee. Capture of Smolensk.
The battle for Moscow.

Chap. 13. Bad news from Spain. Rostopschine. The fire of Moscow.
Revival of the Russian army. Koutousoff's treachery.

Chap. 14. Decision to retreat. Napoleon forced to change route. I
become a Colonel. Bravery of Ney as rearguard.

Chap. 15. Situation of 2nd Corps. Bavarian demoralisation.
Mission to Count Lubenski.

Chap. 16. The Austrians defect. The defence of Polotsk.
Wittgenstein captured but escapes. The Bavarians leave us. We
join Marshal Victor.

Chap. 17. Oudinet returns and separates from Victor. Grave
situation of the army. Loss and recapture of Borisoff. The bridge
over the Beresina burnt. We collect much booty from Borisoff.

Chap. 18. Corbineau rejoins 2nd Corps. The enemy are deceived.

Chap. 19. Loss of Partouneaux's division. The catastrophe at the
Beresina. 2nd Corps forms the rearguard. I am wounded again.

Chap. 20.Intense cold. Thieving in the army. Arrival at Wilna.
Using sledges. Arrival at Kovno. Crossing the Vistula.

Chap. 21. Causes of our disaster.

Chap. 22. Worrying general situation. Incompetent administration.
Question the retention of fortresses. The state of France. I go
to the depot at Mons.

Chap. 23. New hostilities on the Elbe. Battles of Lutzen and
Bautzen. An armistice. I rejoin the regiment. The state of the
army. Napoleon should negotiate.

Chap. 24. The armistice broken. Treachery of Jomeni. A painful
check.

Chap. 25. The battle of Dresden. Vandamme at Kulm.

Chap. 26. Oudinot and Macdonald both suffer defeat. The plateau
of Jau‰r. We recross the Katzbach.

Chap. 27. Forces concentrate at Dresden. The Baskirs.

Chap. 28. The battle of Leipzig.

Chap. 29. Vain attempt at armistice. Battle of 18th October.
Bernadotte fights against us. Indecisive result of fighting.

Chap. 30. A critical situation. Lack of preparation for a
retreat. The allies enter Leipzig. Premature destruction of the
bridge over the Elster.

Chap. 31. I gather the remnants of our army at the Elster. The
retreat to the Saale. Erfurt. The army reached Hanau.

Chap. 32. The battle of Hanau. The retreat continues.

Chap. 33. The last events of 1813. Dresden surrendered. Disasters
in Spain. The situation in Italy and the Tyrol.

Chap. 34. I am nominated commandant of the department of
Jemmapes. A difficult position. Our troops are recalled to Paris.

Chap. 35. Napoleon's last stand. Resistance becomes impossible.
Inadequate measures taken to defend Paris. Belated return of the
Emperor to the capital. Paris should have been held. Underhand
plotting against Napoleon.



Volume 2.

Chap. 1.

My brother and the rest of Massena's aides-de-camp made haste to
leave Spain and come to join us in Paris, where I remained all
summer and the following autumn. I went each month to spend some
days at the Chateau de Bonneuil, the home of M. and Mme.
Desbrieres. During my absence the Desbrieres had been most
friendly towards my mother, and on my return the affection I had
felt for a long time for their daughter was increased, and I was
shortly permitted to ask for her hand in marriage. The marriage
was agreed, and I even had, for a time, the hope of being
promoted to colonel before this important ceremony took place.

It was the accepted thing for the Emperor to sign the marriage
contract of any of the colonels in the army, but he only very
rarely accorded this favour to officers of lower rank, and they
were required to inform the minister for war of the reasons which
led them to ask for this distinction. I based my request on what
the Emperor had said to me when I saw him on the eve of the
battle of Marengo.  He had said to me, speaking of my father who
had died during the siege of Genoa, "If you behave yourself and
follow in his footsteps, I, myself, will be your father." I added
that since that day I had been wounded eight times, and was
conscious that I had always done my duty.

The minister, Clarke, a very stern character, who almost always
rejected requests of this sort, agreed that mine merited
consideration, and promised me that he would submit it to his
majesty. He kept his word, for a few days later I was ordered to
report to the Emperor at the chateau of Compiegne, and to bring
with me the notary who held the contract of marriage; this was
the good M. Mailand, with whom I set off in a post carriage.

When we arrived, the Emperor had gone hunting: not that he much
enjoyed the sport, but he thought that he should copy the former
kings of France. The signing was therefore put off until the next
day, which greatly upset M. Mailand who was awaited in Paris. But
what could one do?

On the following day we were presented to the Emperor, whom we
found in the apartment where, twenty years later, I have so often
served as aide-de-camp to princes of the House of Orleans. My
contract was signed in the salon where later was signed that of
the King of Belgium with Princess Louise, the daughter of King
Louis-Phillipe of France.

During these short interviews, Napoleon was always very affable.
He addressed some questions to the notary, asked me if my fiancee
was pretty, what was her dowry, etc. etc. On dismissing me he
said that he would like to see me in a good position, and that he
would soon reward me for my good services. For a moment I saw
myself as a colonel, and this hope was reinforced when, on
leaving the Imperial presence, I was accosted by General Mouton,
Comte de Lobau, who assured me confidentially that the Emperor
had put my name on a list of officers to whom he wished to give
the command of a regiment. My pleasure on hearing this was
increased by my knowledge that the Comte de Lobau, an
aide-de-camp to Napoleon, was responsible under the minister for
war, for military promotions. I returned to Paris full of joy and
hope! I was married on the 14th November following.

I was happy in the bosom of my family, and expected every day my
brevet as colonel, when I was told by the minister for war that I
was to be posted as Major to the 1st regiment of Mounted
Chasseurs, then in garrison in the depths of Germany. I was much
downcast at this news, for it seemed to me most hurtful that I
should be sent once more to serve as a simple squadron commander,
a rank in which I had been wounded three times and had campaigned
from Wagram to Portugal.  I could not understand why I was being
treated like this, after what the Emperor and the Comte de Lobau
had said to me. It was the latter who gave me the key to this
puzzle.

Massena, on his entry into Portugal, had fourteen aides-de-camp,
of whom six were senior officers. Two of these, MM. Pelet and
Casabianca, were made colonels during the campaign; they were
senior to me and had amply fulfilled their duties. Their
promotion seemed to make mine the more certain since I now became
the most senior squadron commander on the staff. The man in the
fifth place was M. Barain, who was a captain when I joined the
staff. M. Barain had lost a hand at Wagram, and was promoted to
major, which was fair; however, the Emperor in advancing him to
this rank had designated him for work in the arsenals, work which
can easily be done with an arm missing. Massena had expected that
M. Barain would remove himself, but the latter insisted on going
with him to Portugal, although he could not carry out any mission
in such difficult country. No one thought therefore that he would
get any further promotion.

It so happened, however, that M. Barain was a nephew of M.
Francois de Nantes, the director of legal codification, who had
found numerous positions for members of Massena's family. M.
Francois de Nantes demanded in return that his nephew, Barain,
should be recommended for the rank of colonel. The marshal,
forced to choose between me and Barain, chose Barain. I learned
from the Comte de Lobau that the Emperor was reluctant to sign,
but that he eventually yielded to the insistence of the worthy
director who had come to add weight personally to the only
request he had yet made on the behalf of his family. So Barain
was promoted to colonel.

I have perhaps dwelt a little overmuch on this regrettable
affair, but to assess my disappointment it is necessary to think
back to the period in question and recall the important position
occupied by battalion commanders in the imperial army, which
resulted in several instances of colonels who refused promotion
to general and asked only to be left in command of their
regiments.

Massena sent me the following letter, the only reward for three
campaigns fought and three wounds recieved under his command.

Paris. 24th November. 1811

My dear Marbot, I send you the service order which I have
received on your behalf. I asked for promotion for you, as you
are aware, and I am doubly disappointed that you did not obtain
this and that I am also to lose you. I have been very satisfied
with your services; a satisfaction which you are entitled to
feel, regardless of any rewards which this may bring. Your record
will always do you credit in the eyes of those under whose orders
you may find yourself. Please believe, my dear Marbot, in my
appreciation, my regrets and my sincere good wishes for you.

Massena.

I had not expected to meet Massena again, but his wife wrote to
me saying that she wished to meet my wife, and inviting us both
to dinner. I had always had the highest regard for the conduct of
Madame Massena, particularly at Antibes, her home territory,
where I met her for the first time, on my return from Genoa. So I
accepted the invitation. Massena came up to me and once more
expressed his regrets, and suggested that he might ask for my
nomination as an officer of the Legion of Honour. I replied that
as he had been unable to do anything for me when I was on his
staff, and wounded before his eyes, I would not like to expose
him to any further embarrassment, and that I would now seek
advancement by my own efforts; then I lost myself in the crowd of
guests.

This was my last contact with Massena, though I continued to
visit his wife and his son, both of them my firm friends.

Chap. 2.

I shall now give you some details of Massena's career. Andre
Massena was born on the 6th of May 1758 at La Turbie, a village
in the little state of Monaco. His paternal grandfather was a
respected tanner who had three sons: Jules, the father of the
marshal, Augustin and Marcel. The first two of these went to
Nice, where they set up a soap-works. Marcel went to France where
he enlisted in the Royal-Italian regiment. When Jules died,
leaving very little money and five children, three of them,
amongst whom was the young Andre, were taken in charge by their
uncle Augustin, who having taught them no more than to read and
write, employed them in soap-making.

Andre, who was active and adventurous, could not adjust to the
monotonous and laborious work of the factory, and at the age of
thirteen he abandoned his uncle's home and embarked, secretly, as
a cabin-boy, in a merchant ship; accompanied by one of his
cousins named Bavastro, who became, during the wars of the
empire, the most celebrated corsaire of the Mediterranean. As for
Andre, having spent two years at sea and even made a voyage to
America, he rebelled against the hard life and harsh treatment
which were the lot of the seaman, and enlisted as a private
soldier in the Royal-Italian regiment, under the auspices of his
uncle Marcel, who had reached the rank of sergeant-major, and was
soon to be commissioned. This Marcel Massena, whom I met in 1800,
when he was commandant of the fortress at Antibes, was a serious
and capable man, highly thought of by his Colonel, M. Chauvet
d'Arlon. To help his nephew, he had him taught to speak and write
reasonable French, and, in spite of some escapades, had him
promoted to the rank of warrant-officer. He even held out some
hope of a commission in the mounted constabulary, but Andre,
tired of waiting, left at the end of his engagement.

Having gone back to civilian life, without any money, Andre
joined forces once more once more with his cousin Bavastro, and
taking advantage of the close proximity of the frontiers of
France, Piedmont, the State of Genoa, and the sea, they embarked
on smuggling on a grand scale, not only along the coast but
across the mountains, the various passes through which he got to
know extremely well; knowledge which he later found most useful
when he was in command of troops in this part of the country.
Hardened by the rough trade of smuggling, and compelled always to
keep one jump ahead of the customs officers, Massena acquired,
without being aware of it, an understanding of the principles of
warfare, as well as the vigilance and activity without which one
cannot become a good officer. Having by this means got together
some capital, he married a French woman, Mlle. Lamarre, the
daughter of an Antibes surgeon, and settled in this town, where
he had built up a small business in olive oil and dried Provencal
fruit, when the Revolution of 1789 broke out.

Influenced by his taste for arms, Massena left his wife and his
shop and enrolled in the 1st battalion of volunteers from Var.
His practical and theoretical knowledge of military matters
earned him the rank of captain, and shortly after, that of major.
Fighting soon broke out, and the courage and skill displayed by
Massena elevated him rapidly to the ranks of colonel and
brigadier-general. He was put in command of a camp called "the
camp of a thousand pitchforks," in part of which was the 4th
artillery company, commanded by Captain Napoleon Bonaparte, under
whose orders he would serve later in Italy. Entrusted with the
command of a column at the siege of Toulon, he distinguished
himself by the capture of the forts Lartigues and
Sainte-Catherine, which led to his promotion to divisional
general.  After the town had fallen, he joined his troops to the
army of Italy where he was prominent in all the engagements which
took place in the area between the shores of the Mediterranean
and Piedmont; country which he knew so well. Intelligent,
ceaselessly active, and of boundless courage, Massena, after some
years of success, had already a high reputation, when a grave
mistake nearly brought his career to an end.

At the beginning of the campaign of 1796, General Bonaparte had
just become commander-in-chief of the army, which placed Massena,
once his senior in rank, under his command. Massena, who always
led the advance-guard, having defeated near Cairo (Cairo in
Piedmont, not Cairo in Egypt. Ed.) an Austrian unit, learned that
the enemy officers had planned a celebratory dinner in the inn of
a nearby village which they had been forced to abandon. He
conceived the notion, together with some brother officers, of
taking advantage of this windfall, and left his division camped
on the top of a fairly high mountain.

However the Austrians recovered their nerve, and charging back,
they fell on the French camp at daybreak. Our soldiers, although
taken by surprise, defended themselves bravely, but with no
general in control, they were driven back to the edge of the
plateau where they had spent the night, and, attacked by greatly
superior forces, looked certain to suffer a major defeat when
Massena, having with his sabre cut his way through the Austrian
scouts, ran up a path which he knew of old and appeared in front
of his troops who, in their indignation, received him with
well-deserved cat-calls. The general, without taking too much
notice, resumed command and proceeded to march his division to
rejoin the main body of the army.  It was then seen that a
battalion placed the night before on an isolated hillock could
not come down by any practicable route without coming under
enfilading fire from the enemy. Massena scrambled quickly up the
hillside on his hands and knees and went alone to the battalion
where he addressed the men and assured them that he would get
then out of this fix if they would follow his example. Ordering
them to sheathe their bayonets, he sat on the snow at the edge of
slope, and pushing himself by his hands, he slid to the bottom of
the valley....All our soldiers, in fits of laughter, did the
same, and in no time the whole battalion was gathered together,
out of the range of the baffled Austrians. This method of
descent, used by the peasants and mountain guides of Switzerland,
had surely never before been used by a battalion of troops of the
line. I have been assured by generals who were in Massena's
division at the time that this incident actually occurred, and,
nine years later, I was at the chateau of La Houssaye, when
Marshal Augereau entertained the Emperor and all the marshals and
I heard them joking with Massena about the new method of retreat
which he had used on this occasion.

It seems that on the day that Massena was making use of this odd
expedient, which he had often used in the days when he was a
smuggler, Bonaparte, realising that he was very young to be
appointed commander-in-chief, and feeling on that account that he
should come down hard on any officer who failed in his duty,
ordered Massena to be brought before a court-martial and accused
of abandoning his post, which could result in a sentence of death
or at the least cashiering!... But at the moment when the general
was about to be arrested there began the famous battle of
Montenotte, in which Massena's and Augereau's divisions took two
thousand prisoners, four flags and five artillery pieces, and
completely routed the Austrian army. After this triumph, to which
Massena had largely contributed, there could not be any question
of putting him on trial. His misdeeds were forgotten, and he was
able to continue his splendid career.

Massena distinguished himself at Lodi, Milan, Verona, and Arcoli,
in fact everywhere that he was in action, and in particular at
the battle of Rivoli. When the preliminaries of a peace had been
signed at Leoben, Massena who had contributed so much to our
victories, was entrusted with the task of taking the draft treaty
to the government. Paris welcomed him with the most lively
expressions of admiration, wherever he went people crowded round
him to gaze on the features of this famous warrior. But this
triumph was soon eclipsed by his exaggerated love of money, which
was always his principal weakness.

General Duphot, the French ambassador in Rome, had been
assassinated in that city. A part of the army of Italy, under the
command of Berthier was ordered to go and exact vengeance; but
Berthier was recalled by Bonaparte who wanted to take him to
Egypt, and his place as commander of the army in Rome was taken
by Massena. Soon after the arrival of this general, who was
already accused of procuring a great deal of money during the
Italian campaigns of the previous year, the army complained that
it was in a state of destitution, without clothing and almost
without bread, while the administration, drawing millions from
the Papal states, lived in luxury and abundance. The army turned
against him and sent a deputation of one hundred officers to
demand from Massena an account for the expenditure of this money.
Whether he was unable to account for it or whether he refused to
do so as a matter of discipline Massena would not give any
explanation, and as the troops persisted in their demand, he was
forced to leave Rome and give up his command.

As soon as he had returned to France, he put out a memorandum
justifying his conduct, which was badly received by the public
and by his colleagues to whom he had addressed it. What upset him
most was that General Bonaparte left for Egypt without replying
to a letter which he had written to him concerning the matter.

However, a new coalition of Russia, Austria, and England having
declared war on France, hostilities recommenced. In such
circumstances, Massena, although he had not cleared himself from
the accusations brought against him, could not remain in
obscurity; so the Directory, in order to make use of his military
talents, hurriedly gave him command of the French army whose duty
it was to defend Switzerland. Massena at first did very well; but
having rashly attacked the dangerous defile of Feldkirch, in the
Vorarlberg, he was driven off with losses by the Austrians.

This was a time when our army of the Rhine, commanded by Jourdan,
had just been defeated at Stockach by Prince Charles of Austria,
and the forces which we had in Italy, defeated at Novi by the
Russians under Souvarow, had lost their commander-in-chief,
Joubert, killed on the field of battle. The Austrians, ready to
cross the Rhine, threatened Alsace and Lorraine; Italy was in the
hands of the Russians, whom Souvarow was leading into Switzerland
through the Saint-Gothard pass. France, on the point of being
invaded over both its frontiers, at the Rhine and at the Alps,
pinned all its hopes on Massena, and was not disappointed in her
expectations.

As you already know, the Directory, impatient for action,
threatened Massena with dismissal unless he engaged the enemy;
but he was determined not to do so until circumstances gave him a
superiority, however brief, over his opponent. At last this
moment arrived. The maladroit General Korsakoff, a former
favourite of Catherine II, had unwisely pushed on towards Zurich
at the head of 50,000 Russians and Bavarians to await his
commander-in-chief, Souvarow, who was on his way from Italy with
55,000 men. Before the arrival of Souvarow, Massena pounced like
a lion on Korsakoff, surprising him in his camp at Zurich and
driving him back to the Rhine after inflicting tremendous losses!
Then, turning on Souvarow, whom the heroic resistance of General
Molitor had held up for three days in the Saint-Gothard, he
defeated him as he had defeated his lieutenant, Korsakoff.

As a result of these various engagements 30,000 of the enemy were
killed or taken prisoner, fifteen flags and sixty guns were
captured, the independence of Switzerland was secured, and France
was delivered from an imminent invasion. This was Massena's
finest (and cleanest) hour.

I have already told how Massena took charge of the disorganised
army of Italy, which, after the death of General Championnet, had
been briefly commanded by my father, and described his conduct of
the defence of Genoa, which gave Napoleon the time to collect a
force together, cross the Alps, and fight the battle of Marengo.

After this victory the First Consul, on his return to France,
thought he could not commit the command of the army of Italy to a
more illustrious officer than Massena; but in a few months there
were complaints similar to those made by the army in Rome. The
dissatisfaction was widespread, new taxes were levied and
frequent requisitions made on a variety of pretexts, and yet the
troops were unpaid! The First Consul, when he learned of this
state of affairs, immediately and without explanation withdrew
the command of the army from Massena, who returned to private
life, where he showed his annoyance by refusing to vote in favour
of Napoleon's life-consulship. He also did not present himself at
the new court.

When Bonaparte mounted the imperial throne and rewarded the
generals who had done most for the country, he included Massena
in the first list of marshals, awarded him the grand cordon of
the Legion of Honour, and created him head of the fourteenth
cohort of the order, which he had just established. These
dignities and the enormous emoluments which were attached to them
overcame the resistance put up by Massena since he was deprived
of the command of the army of Italy. He voted for the empire,
went to the Tuileries and assisted at the coronation ceremony.

When a third coalition menaced France, in 1805, the Emperor gave
Messena the task of defending, with forty thousand men, the
northern part of Ital, against the attacks of the Archduke
Charles of Austria, who had eighty thousand. This was a difficult
operation; but not only did Massena hold Lombardy, but he pushed
the enemy back beyond the Tagliamento, and by forcing Prince
Charles to turn and face him at frequent intervals, he so delayed
the Austrian general's progress that he was unable to arrive in
time to save Vienna, nor to join the Russian army which Napoleon
defeated at Austerlitz. Napoleon, however, did not seem to
appreciate the services rendered by Massena on this campaign; he
reproached him for not having acted with his usual vigour, which
did not prevent him, after the treaty of Presberg, from
instructing him to go and conquer the kingdom of Naples, on whose
throne he wished to place his brother, Prince Joseph.

Within a month the French occupied the whole of the country
except the fortified town of Gaete, which Massena took after a
siege. But while he was directing the attack against this town,
he suffered a loss which rendered him inconsolable. An enormous
sum, which Massena claimed belonged to him, was confiscated by
the Emperor!

Napoleon, who believed that the best way of forcing the English
to ask for peace was to ruin their trade, to prevent their goods
from entering the continent, ordered them to be seized and burned
in all the countries under his control, that is to say more than
half of Europe. But the desire for money is very powerful and
business men are very crafty. A fool-proof system of smuggling
had been devised.  English merchants who were in the scheme, sent
off a ship or ships full of merchandise which allowed themselves
to be captured by one of our corsairs, who would then take it to
one of the ports occupied by our troops, from Swedish Pomerania
to the end of the kingdom of Naples. This first act having been
carried out, it remained to get the goods ashore without
confiscation, this had already been arranged. The immensely long
coastline presented by the conquered countries could not be
watched in its entirety by customs officers, so this function was
carried out by soldiers under the command of the generals who
were in charge of the kingdom or province occupied by our troops.
So it required only an authorisation from one of them to permit
the goods to be landed, after which the traders negotiated with
the "protector." This was called a "licence."

The origin of this new form of commerce goes back to the days
when Bernadotte was occupying Hamburg and a part of Denmark. He
made a considerable amount of money in this way, and when he
wanted to reward someone, he would give the person a licence,
which could then be sold to a merchant. This practice spread,
little by little, to all the coasts of Germany, Spain and mainly
to Italy. It even got as far as the Emperor's court, where ladies
and chamberlains were given licences by ministers. Napoleon was
not told of this, but he knew, or suspected, that it went on.
Nevertheless, in order not to interfere too drastically with the
usages of the conquered countries, he tolerated this abuse
outside France as long as it was carried on clandestinely, but if
he discovered that someone had made immoderate profits from the
illicit trade, he made them cough up. For example, when the
Emperor heard that M. Michaux, the administrative head of
Bernadotte's army, had lost, in one evening, 300,000 francs, in a
Paris gaming house, he directed an aide-de-camp to write to him
saying that the Invalides was in need of money, and that he was
ordered to pay 300,000 francs into their account; which Michaux,
who had made so much money from licences, hastened to do.

As you may imagine, Massena was not the last to engage in the
business of selling licences. Together with General Solignac, his
chief of staff, he flooded all the ports of Naples with them.
When the Emperor was informed that Massena had deposited the sum
of three million with a banker at Leghorn, who had taken at the
same time 600,000 from General Solignac, he had a request sent to
Massena for a loan of one million, and one for 200,000 francs
from his chief of staff. Just one third of their illegal gains,
which was not fleecing them too greatly. However, at the sight of
this demand, Massena, bellowing as if he were being
disembowelled, replied to Napoleon that as the poorest of the
marshals, with a numerous family and crippling debts, he
profoundly regretted that he could not send him anything! And
general replied in similar terms.

They were congratulating themselves on having evaded these
requests when, during the siege of Gaeta, the son of the Leghorn
banker arrived to say that a French treasury inspector, escorted
by a commissioner of police and a number of gendarmes, had
arrived at his father's establishment and had demanded to see the
accounts in which were recorded the deposits made by the marshal
and general Solignac, stating that these sums belonged to the
army, and had been entrusted to the two officers concerned, and
that the Emperor demanded their immediate return, either in cash
or negotiable bonds, and the cancellation of the receipts given
to Massena and Solignac.  A legal endorsement was given to this
seizure which the banker, having nothing to lose, did not oppose.

It is impossible to describe Massena's fury on finding that he
had been deprived of his fortune. It made him quite ill, but he
did not dare to make any complaint when the Emperor, who was then
in Poland, sent for him.

After the peace of Tilsit, the title of Duke of Rivoli and an
award of 300,000 francs of income were a recompense for his
services, but did not console him for what had been taken from
him at Leghorn, for, in spite of his usual caution, he was heard
to say on a number of occasions "I think it cruel that, while I
was fighting in his interest, he had the gall to take the small
savings I had banked at Leghorn!"

The invasion of Spain having sparked off a new war with Austria,
the Emperor, threatened by these considerable forces, hurried
back from the peninsula to go to Germany, to where he had already
sent Massena. I have already described the part played by the
marshal in the campaign of 1809. As a reward for his conduct at
Essling and Wagram, the Emperor created him Prince of Essling and
gave him an additional income of 500,000 francs, which was added
to his previous award of 300,000 francs and his salary of 200,000
as marshal and army commander. The new prince had no more than
that.

The campaigns of 1810 and 1811 in Spain and Portugal were
Massena's last. They were not very happy; his morale had gone
down and the two campaigns, instead of adding to his fame,
lowered his reputation. The "Enfant cheri de la victoire," as he
had been named, suffered reverses where he could and should have
been successful.

Massena was thin and bony, and of less than average height. His
Italian features were full of expression. The bad sides to his
character were hypocrisy, spite, harshness, and avarice. He had
plenty of natural intelligence but his adventurous youth and the
lowly position of his family had not encouraged him to study; he
was totally lacking in what one calls education. In the heyday of
his career he had a keen eye and a decisive mind and was not
dismayed by a reverse. As he aged his caution began to verge on
timidity, so anxious was he not to besmirch the reputation he had
acquired. He hated reading, so he had no idea of what had been
written on the principles of warfare, he acted intuitively, and
Napoleon summed him up accurately when he said the Massena
arrived on the battlefield without knowing what he was going to
do, his actions were determined by circumstances.

It has been wrongly said that Massena was a stranger to flattery,
and spoke his mind fearlessly even to the Emperor. Beneath his
rough exterior Massena was a shrewd courtier. When in the course
of a pheasant shoot, Napoleon had the misfortune to pepper
Massena, injuring one of his eyes, Massena laid the blame on
Berthier, although only Napoleon had fired a shot. Everyone
understood perfectly the discretion of the courtier, and Massena
was overwhelmed by attentions from the Emperor.

Although very miserly, the victor of Zurich would have given half
his fortune to have been born in the France of the "Ancien
Regime" rather than on the left bank of the Var. Nothing
displeased him more than the Italian termination to his name, of
which he transformed the "a" to "e" in his signature. However the
public did not adopt this change, and Massena he remained in
spite of his efforts. The campaign in Portugal had so much
weakened Massena physically and mentally, that he was obliged to
seek rest and recuperation in the gentle climate of Nice, where
he stayed for the whole of 1812; but Napoleon, returning from the
disastrous invasion of Russia, and scouring Europe for further
resources, thought that the name of Massena could still be of
service, particularly in Provence. So he appointed him governor
of the 8th military division.

When, in 1814, enemy forces invaded France, Massena, who, in any
case, had few troops at his disposal, did nothing to arrest their
progress, and on the 15th April he surrendered to the Duc
d'Angoulˆme, who created him a Commander of Saint Louis, but
would not elevate him to the peerage, on the pretext that he had
been born abroad, and had never become a naturalised French
citizen! ... As if the victories of Rivoli, Zurich, the defence
of Genoa, and a series of other successful actions on the behalf
of France were not worth as much as naturalisation papers, given
often to scheming foreigners for cash. The treatment given to
Massena in these circumstances had a very adverse effect on
sentiment in the public and the army, and was an additional
source of the disenchantment of the nation with the government of
Louis XVIII, which led to the return of the Emperor.

Napoleon disembarked near to Cannes on 1st March 1815 and set off
immediately for Paris at the head of about a thousand Grenadiers
of his Guard. The unexpectedness and swiftness of this invasion
threw Massena into confusion. Nevertheless, he tried to stem the
torrent by calling together some line regiments and activating
the national guard of Marseilles and district; but having learned
that the Duc d'Angoulˆme had surrendered and left the country, he
sent his son to inform Louis XVIII that he could no longer rely
on his support, and rallying to the imperial government, he
hoisted the tricolour throughout the area and locked up the
prefect of Var, who still wanted to resist. By this conduct
Massena alienated both the Royalists and the Bonapartists; so
when the Emperor hurriedly summoned him to Paris, he greeted him
very coolly.

When, soon afterwards, Napoleon made the great mistake of
abdicating for the second time, following the battle of Waterloo,
the Chamber of Representatives seized power and formed a
provisional government whose first act was to invest Massena with
the command of the national guard of Paris. It was hoped that,
although his infirmities prevented him playing any active role,
his name would inspire the populace to support the army in the
defence of the capital, but when a council of war was assembled,
Massena gave it as his opinion that Paris could not be defended!
As a consequence an armistice was agreed with the enemy generals
and the French army withdrew across the Loire, where it was
disbanded.

Once the allies were masters of France, Louis XVIII, to punish
Massena for having abandoned his cause after March 20th, included
him among the judges who were to try Marshal Ney, hoping that out
of enmity he would condemn his former colleague and so besmirch
his good name; but Massena recused himself on the grounds that
there had been disagreements between him and Marshal Ney in
Portugal, and when this measure failed he joined with those
judges who wanted Ney brought before the House of Peers. They had
hoped to save him, but it would have been better if they had had
the political courage to try him and acquit him....They did not
dare! Ney was condemned and shot, but his blood did not pacify
the Royalists, they became more implacable and soon pursued
Massena himself.

The citizens of Marseilles, on whose behalf Massena had used his
influence to obtain the freedom of their port, now denounced him
to the Chamber of Deputies on the grounds of peculation. There
was no evidence to support this charge, as Massena had never
exacted any money in Provence, and the chamber, although known
for its hatred of the leading figures of the empire, rejected the
petition out of hand.

Massena, having escaped from the wave of reaction which was now
sweeping the country, abandoned the stage on which he had played
so brilliant a part, and retired to his chateau of Rueil, which
had once belonged to Cardinal Richelieu, to end his splendid
career in solitude and disgrace. He died on the 4th April 1817,
at the age of fifty-nine.

At his death, the government had not sent the baton which is by
custom placed on the bier of a marshal, so his son-in-law,
General Reille, claimed this insignia from the minister for war,
a fervent Royalist. When he received no reply to this reasonable
request, in an act of courage, rare at the time, he let it be
known to the court that if a baton did not arrive in time for his
father-in-law's funeral, he would place ostentatiously on his
coffin, the baton awarded to him by the Emperor. The government
then decided that they would supply a baton after all.

I have touched on some of the blemishes which mar his career, but
Massena more than compensated for them by the remarkable and
heroic services he rendered to France. He will be remembered as
one of the great captains of an era which produced so many.

Chap. 3.

At the beginning of 1812, I was in Paris, with my young wife and
our families. But the happiness which I enjoyed was lessened by
the thought of my imminent departure. I was due to join the 1st
Chasseurs … Cheval as a squadron commander with the rank of
Major. The chagrin which I felt at not having been promoted to
Colonel, which I thought I deserved, was somewhat relieved when,
having gone to the Tuileries to pay my new year respects, the
Emperor sent an aide-de-camp to command my presence in his
private quarters, where I found General Mouton, Comte de Lobau,
who had always been on my side.

Napoleon appeared and told me in the most friendly manner that he
had intended to give me a regiment, but that there were certain
reasons which had led him to nominate Major Barain. He said that
having promoted three of Massena's aides to Colonel he could not
accord any more promotions to one general staff, but that he had
not forgotten me and although he could not give me the nominal
command, he would put me in the position of being, in effect, a
regimental commander. "The commanding officer of the 23rd Mounted
Chasseurs, M. de La Nougarede, has become so afflicted by gout
that he can hardly mount a horse", the Emperor said, "but he is
an excellent officer who has fought several campaigns with me,
and I have a high regard for him. He has begged me to let him try
to go once more on campaign and I do not wish to remove him from
his regiment. However, I hear that this fine unit is going down
hill in his hands so I am sending you as "Coadjutor" to M. de La
Nougarede. You will be working for yourself, for if the Colonel
recovers his health I shall promote him to general, and if not I
shall transfer him to the gendarmes. In either case he will leave
his regiment and you will become their colonel; so I repeat you
will be working for your own benefit." This promise gave me
renewed hope, and I was making ready to leave when the minister
for war extended my leave until the end of March, which I found
very acceptable.

The 23rd Chasseurs were stationed in Swedish Pomerania, so I had
an enormous distance to travel, and as I wished to arrive before
the expiration of my leave, I left Paris on the 15th of March,
parting with much regret from my dear wife. I had bought a good
barouche, in which, at the request of Marshal Mortier, I gave a
seat to his nephew, Lieutenant Durbach, who belonged to the
regiment which I was about to join. As my former servant,
Woirland, had asked if he might stay in Spain, where he hoped to
make his fortune running a canteen, I had replaced him, on my
leaving Salamanca, by a Pole named Lorentz Schilkowski. This man,
at one time an Austrian Uhlan, was not lacking intelligence, but,
like all Poles he was a drunkard, and unlike the soldiers of that
nation, he was as timid as a hare. Lorentz, however, as well as
his native language, spoke passable French and fluent German and
Russian, and for this reason he was most valuable to me in my
travelling and campaigning in the north. I was nearing the
Rhenish provinces, when on leaving Kaiserslauten at night, the
postilion tipped my barouche into a pothole, where it was
damaged. No one was hurt, but both M. Durbach and I agreed that
this was a bad omen for soldiers who were about to face the
enemy. However, after spending a day waiting for repairs to be
made, we were able to get under way once more. Unfortunately the
accident had so weakened the springs and the wheels that they
broke six times during our journey, which delayed us
considerably, and on occasions forced us to walk for several
leagues in the snow. We arrived at last at the shores of the
Baltic sea, where the 23rd Chasseurs were in garrison at
Stralsund and Greifswald.

I found Colonel de La Nougarede to be an excellent officer,
well-informed and capable, but so prematurely aged by gout that
he was hardly able to sit on a horse, and went everywhere in a
carriage, a most unsuitable method of transport for the commander
of a regiment of light cavalry! He gave me an enthusiastic
welcome, and after explaining the reasons which, in the interest
of his career, made him stay with the regiment, he showed me a
letter in which the Comte de Lobau informed him of the motives
which had led the Emperor to attach me to him. M. de La
Nougarede, far from being offended, saw this as another kindness
on the part of the Emperor, and looked forward to being promoted
to general or heading the gendarmerie. He counted, with my help,
on completing at least part of the campaign, and on the
realisation of his hopes at the first imperial revue. To make it
clear that I shared the command, which was not in keeping with my
rank as Major, he called together all the officers, in front of
whom he provisionally delegated all his powers to me, until such
time as he recovered his health, and instructed them to obey my
orders without referring to him, since his illness often made it
impossible for him to follow the regiment sufficiently closely to
command it in person. An order of the day was issued along these
lines, and from that day forward, except for the rank,I was
virtually the commander of the regiment, and the regiment soon
got into the habit of looking on me as their real leader.

Since that time, I have commanded several cavalry regiments,
either as colonel or general. And I was for a long time inspector
of this branch of the service; I can say with certainty that if I
have seen units as good as the 23rd Chasseurs, I have never seen
one better. It was not that the unit contained any outstanding
personalities, such as I have seen sometimes in other regiments,
but if there was not in the 23rd any one of remarkable talents,
there was no one who did not maintain a high standard in carrying
out his duties. There were no peaks, but there were no troughs;
everyone kept in step. The officers were intelligent, well
trained and well behaved. They lived together as true
brothers-in-arms. The same applied to the N.C.O.s. And the
troopers followed this good example.  They were almost all old
soldiers, veterans of Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram, a fine
body of men who came mostly from Normandy, Alsace, Lorraine and
Franche-comte, provinces known for their martial spirit and their
love of horses. The build and strength of these men was noticed
by General Bourcier, who was in charge of remounts, and he
supplied the regiment with horses which were bigger and more
lively than the usual issue. A period of several years spent in
the fertile land of Germany, had left both men and horses in
splendid condition, and the regiment, when I took over, consisted
of a thousand officers and men, well disciplined, calm and quiet
in the face of the enemy.

I did not yet have a horse, so I went to Stralsund in the isle of
Rugen, where they have excellent horses, and I bought several; I
got some others from Rostock and ended with a stable of seven
good beasts, which was not too many, as war with Russia appeared
imminent. I had already forecast this during the summer of 1811,
when I saw the great number of old soldiers whom the Emperor was
taking from the regiments in the peninsula to reinforce his Old
Guard. I had been confirmed in this opinion during my stay in
Paris. There were, at first, some distant rumours of a rupture,
which vanished quickly amid the entertainments and festivities of
winter, but soon returned with increased insistence; and became
almost certainties as a result of a serious event, the echoes of
which reverberated throughout Europe.

The Emperor Alexander had had, since boyhood, a companion who was
a young Russian nobleman, named Czernicheff, of whom he was very
fond, and whom, when he came to the throne, he took as
aide-de-camp.

In 1809, when Alexander, who was then an ally of Napoleon, was
pretending, without actually doing so, to make war against
Austria, whose country Napoleon had invaded, there arrived in
Vienna Colonel the Comte de Czernicheff, on the ostensible
mission to cement good relations between Napoleon and Alexander,
but in reality to inform his sovereign of our success or failure,
so that he could continue or break off his alliance with France
according to circumstances.

Alexander's favourite received the friendliest of welcomes from
Napoleon, whose side he never left during the parades and
manoeuvres which preceded the battle of Essling, but when this
bloody affair appeared to be in the balance, and a hail of
bullets descended on the imperial general staff, M. de
Czernicheff turned tail rapidly, and crossing the bridges over
the Danube, he sought the safety of the palace of Schoenbrunn;
and the day after the battle he took to the road for Petersburg,
to announce, no doubt, the failure of our enterprise. Napoleon
thought this behaviour most unbecoming, and made some jeering
comments on the "bravery" of the Russian colonel.  Nevertheless,
after peace had been made with Austria, M. de Czernicheff came
very often to Paris, where he spent part of the years 1810 and
1811. Handsome, courteous, likeable, highly deceitful and
exquisitely polite, his title of aide-de-camp to the Russian
emperor gave him entry not only to the court but also to the
salons of high society, where he never discussed politics, and
appeared to be interested only in the pursuit of women, where he
was said to have considerable success. But toward the end of
1811, when new rumours of war began to circulate, the Paris
police were informed that while appearing to be solely interested
in pleasure, the Russian colonel was mixed up in some dubious
political schemes, and he was put under close surveillance, when
it was discovered that he had frequent meetings with M. X..., an
employee of the ministry for war who had special responsibility
for the situation reports concerning all the personel and
material of the army, which were given to Napoleon every ten
days. Not only had M. de Czernicheff been seen walking after
midnight in the most secluded part of the Champs-Elysees with
this man, but he had been observed, plainly dressed, slipping
into the place where M. X... lived and spending several hours
there.

The intimacy of someone so highly placed with a poor devil of
clerk in the ministry for war being clear evidence that the
former had seduced the latter to betray state secrets, the
Emperor, highly indignant, ordered the arrest of M.Czernicheff,
but Czernicheff, warned, it is said, by a woman, fled from Paris,
and reached a nearby "relais" from where, taking unfrequented
roads, he managed to reach the frontier, avoiding Maintz and
Cologne to where the telegraph had transmitted the order for his
seizure. As for the wretched clerk, he was apprehended at the
moment when he was counting out the 300,000 francs which he had
received for his act of treason. Compelled by the evidence to
admit to his crime, he stated that another employee had also
given information to the Russian, this man too was arrested, and
the two of them were tried, convicted and shot. They died cursing
Czernicheff, who they claimed had come to their attics to tempt
them with a heap of gold which he increased whenever they
hesitated. The Emperor had published in all the French newspapers
a virulent denunciation of M. de Czernicheff, with some wounding
observations which, although indirect, pointed to the emperor of
Russia himself, for they recalled that the assassins of his
father, Paul I, had not been punished by Alexander.

After these events, it was no longer possible to doubt that war
was imminent, and although it had not been declared, both sides
were openly preparing for it. The conduct of M. de Czernicheff
was, in general, loudly denounced, but it had its secret
supporters among the diplomatic community, who recalled that
although Napoleon justly punished French citizens who sold their
country's secrets to its enemies, he was not above corrupting
foreign nationals who could give him useful information,
particularly of a military nature.

Marshal Lannes told me,that in Vienna,in 1809, when hostilities
were about to break out between France and Austria, whose armies
were to be commanded by the Archduke Charles, this prince was
warned anonymously that a Major-general for whom he had a high
regard and whom he was about to take on to his staff, had been
bought by the French ambassador, General Andreossi, with whom he
had frequent night-time meetings in a lonely house in the vast
suburb of Leopoldstadt, the number of which was disclosed. Prince
Charles thought so highly of this officer that he dismissed as an
infamous calumny the anonymous accusation, and took no measures
to determine the truth. The French ambassador had already asked
for his passport and was due to leave Vienna in forty-eight hours
time, when a second anonymous note informed the archduke that his
assistant chief-of-staff, after working alone in his office,
which contained the order of battle for the army, was going to
have, on the following night, a last meeting with General
Andreossi. The archduke, who wished to clear his mind of any
suspicions which he might have, in spite of himself, about an
officer of whom he was fond, decided that he would prove beyond
doubt that he was innocent. So, dressed very simply and
accompanied by only one aide-de-camp, he waited, after midnight,
in the darkest part of the lane where the house in question was
situated. After a short time the prince and his aide saw, with
sadness, a man who in spite of his disguise was easily recognised
as the assistant chief-of-staff, for whom, after an agreed
signal, the door was opened. Soon he was followed by General
Andreossi, who was admitted in the same way. The meeting lasted
for some hours, during which the archduke, no longer able to
doubt the treachery of his assistant chief-of-staff, waited
patiently outside the house, and when the door opened for General
Andreossi and the Austrian general, who, came out together, they
found themselves face to face with Prince Charles, who said
aloud, "Good evening, Mr.Ambassador", and refraining from
speaking to the assistant chief-of-staff, he shone the light from
a lantern in his face.

The ambassador hurried away without saying a word, and as for the
assistant chief-of-staff, seeing that he was caught in the act
and knowing the fate which awaited him, he went to his house and
blew his brains out with a pistol shot. This tragic event was
hushed up by the Austrian government and not many people knew
about it; it was announced that the assistant chief-of-staff had
died of apoplexy.  The French ambassador was said to have paid
him two million.

While Napoleon was complaining bitterly about the means by which
Colonel Czernicheff obtained information about our armies,
General Lauriston, our ambassador in Petersburg, bought not only
the most detailed information about the disposition of the
Russian forces, but also the copper plates on which were engraved
the immense map of the Muscovite empire. In spite of the great
difficulties presented by the transport of this heavy mass of
metal, the betrayal was so well organised and so lavishly paid
for that these plates, stolen from the Russian archives, were
taken from St. Petersburg to France without their disappearance
being discovered by the police or the Russian customs. When the
plates arrived in Paris the minister for war, when all the
writing had been changed from Russian characters into French, had
this fine map printed, and Napoleon ordered a copy to be sent to
all the generals and commanders of light cavalry regiments. It
was in this latter rank that I received one, which I contrived,
with much difficulty to save during the retreat, for it forms a
very big roll.  Few people brought theirs back, but I still have
mine.

Chap. 4.

The principal reason which led the Emperor to declare war on
Russia was his desire to see the implementation of the treaty of
Tilsit, whereby the Emperor Alexander agreed to close all the
ports of his country to English traders, an undertaking which had
never been properly carried out. Napoleon thought, rightly, that
he could ruin the English, a manufacturing and trading nation, by
preventing their commerce with the European continent; but the
execution of this gigantic project offered so much difficulty,
that it was only in France that the restrictions were enforced,
and there the use of licences, to which I have referred above,
made an enormous breach in the regulations. As for Italy, Germany
and the Adriatic provinces, although the continental system was
established by imperial decree, it was only implemented in
theory, partly because of the extent of the coastline, and partly
because of connivance and lack of surveillance by those
responsible for the administration of these vast areas. So the
Russian Emperor replied to the demands made by France by pointing
to the state of affairs which was almost universal in Europe. The
true cause, however, of the refusal of Alexander to accede to the
demands of Napoleon, was that he feared that he would be
assassinated in the same manner as his father, the Emperor Paul,
who was accused firstly of having sullied the nation's reputation
by allying himself to France and secondly of having destroyed
Russian trade by declaring war on Britain. Alexander was aware
that he had already given offence by the deference and
friendliness which he had shown towards Napoleon at Tilsit and
Erfurt, and he was anxious not to arouse more anger by cutting
off all trade with England, the sole outlet whereby the Russian
nobility could dispose of the products of their vast estates, and
acquire a monetary income. The death of the Emperor Paul clearly
showed the danger faced by Alexander, if he followed his father's
example. An additional cause of fear was the fact that he was
surrounded by the same officers who had surrounded his father,
amongst whom was his chief-of-staff, Benningsen.

Napoleon did not take sufficiently into consideration these
difficulties, when he threatened Alexander with war, unless he
fell in with his wishes; although, when he learned of the losses
and reverses suffered in Spain and Portugal, he seemed hesitant
to engage in a conflict the outcome of which he deemed uncertain.

According to General Bertrand, Napoleon, on St. Helena said
repeatedly that his only intention, to begin with, was to
frighten Alexander into carrying out the terms of the treaty: "We
were," he said, "like two opponents of equal ability, who are
well able to fight, but being reluctant to do so, menace each
other by threats and sabre-rattling, edging slowly forward, each
hoping that his adversary will retreat rather than do battle."
But the Emperor's comparison was not exact, for one of these
swordsmen had behind him a bottomless pit, ready to engulf him at
the first backward step, so that having to choose between an
ignominious death and a combat in which he might be successful he
had to choose the latter. This was the situation in which
Alexander found himself, a situation made worse by the influence
exerted by the Englishman Wilson on General Benningsen and the
officers of his staff. The Emperor Napoleon was still hesitant
and seemed anxious to consult the sage opinions of Caulincourt,
his former ambassador at St. Petersburg and those of a group of
French officers who had lived for some time in Russia.

Among the latter was Lieutenant-colonel de Ponthon, who had been
among a number of engineer officers who, after the Treaty of
Tilsit had been posted, at the request of Alexander, to Russia,
where they had spent several years. De Ponthon was a highly
competent, but withal a very modest officer, he was attached to
the topographic service, and did not think it was his place to
offer his advice unasked, on the problems which would face an
army at war in the Russian empire; but when he was questioned by
the Emperor he felt it was his duty to tell the whole truth to
the head of state, even at risk of displeasing him, so he
described all the obstacles which would face this enterprise. The
principal ones were the apathy and lack of co-operation between
the Lithuanian states, subject for many years to Russia; the
fanatical resistance to be expected from the people of Moscow;
the scarcity of food and forage; the almost uninhabited areas
which would have to be crossed; roads impassable for artillery
after several hours of rain; but above all he stressed the rigour
of the winter and the physical impossibility of conducting a war
once the snow had begun to fall, which might be as early as the
first days of October. Finally, at risk of giving offence and
jeopardising his career, he begged Napoleon, for the sake of
France and his own reputation, not to undertake this dangerous
expedition, the calamitous outcome of which he now predicted.
Having listened quietly to M. de Ponthon, the Emperor dismissed
him without making any comment. For some days he appeared
withdrawn and contemplative, and the rumour spread that the
undertaking was off, but then M. Maret, duc de Bassano, persuaded
him to go back to his original intention, and assured him that
Marshal Davout would be happy to move his large army of Germany
to the banks of the Nieman, on the frontier of the Russian
empire, in order to galvanise Alexander into action.

From this time on, although M. de Ponthon was in constant
attendance as a member of the cabinet, the Emperor did not
address a word to him during the advance from the Nieman to
Moscow, and when, during the retreat, Napoleon was forced to
admit to himself that the predictions of this admirable officer
had been only too accurate, he avoided catching his eye.
Nevertheless, he promoted him to the rank of colonel.

To return to the preparations which Napoleon was making to force
the Russians, by hook or by crook, to comply with his wishes:
from the month of April, the French troops stationed in Germany,
as well as those of various princes of the Germanic confederation
allied to France, were put into motion, and their march towards
Poland was delayed only by the difficulty of finding forage for
their numerous horses; the grass, and even the corn, being
scarcely out of the ground at this time in these northern
countries. However, the Emperor left Paris on the 9th of May, and
accompanied by the Empress, went to Dresden, where, awaiting him,
were his father-in-law the Emperor of Austria, and almost all the
German princes; attracted there, in some cases by the hope of
having their domains extended, and in others by the fear of
displeasing the arbiter of their destiny. The only absentee was
the King of Prussia, who, not being included in the confederation
of the Rhine, was not invited to this reunion and dared not turn
up without the permission of Napoleon. He humbly requested this,
and when it was obtained he hurried to Dresden to pay court to
the all-powerful conqueror of Europe.

The protestations of fidelity and devotion which were lavished on
Napoleon misled him into making a most serious error in the
organisation of the contingents which were to make up the great
army destined for the war against Russia. Instead of weakening
the governments of Austria and Prussia, his former enemies, by
demanding from them the greater part of their available troops,
which, prudence would suggest should be placed in the van, not
only to spare French lives, but to allow a watch to be kept on
these new and undependable allies, Napoleon required no more than
30,000 men from each of these powers, and placed them on the two
wings of his force. The Austrians under Prince Schwartzenberg on
the right in Volhynie, and the Prussians, to whom he appointed as
commander the French Marshal Macdonald, on the left, near the
mouth of the Nieman. The centre was composed of French troops and
those members of the German federation whose loyalty had been
proved at Jena and Wagram.

There were discerning observers who were dismayed to see the
wings of the army made up of foreigners, who, in the event of a
reverse, could form two hostile armies in our rear, while the
centre was embroiled in the heart of Russia. Not only that,
Austria who had an army of 200,000, placed only 30,000 at the
disposal of Napoleon, and had 170,000 left with which to attack
us in the event of failure, while Prussia, though less powerful,
still had 60,000 men in reserve.

One is astonished that the Emperor was so little concerned about
what he was leaving behind him; but his confidence was so great
that when the King of Prussia requested him to allow his eldest
son to join in the campaign as an imperial aide-de-camp, Napoleon
turned him down, although the young prince would have been a
valuable hostage to ensure the fidelity of his father.

While there was a succession of entertainments at Dresden,
Napoleon's troops were wending their way through northern
Germany.  Already the army of Italy, having crossed the mountains
of the Tyrol, was heading for Warsaw. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd Corps
commanded by Davout, Oudinot and Ney, were passing through
Prussia on their march to the Vistula. The states comprising the
confederation of the Rhine had supplied their contingents, as had
Austria and Prussia; it was noticeable, however that although the
Austrian generals were happy to unite their flags with ours, the
junior officers and the soldiers were reluctant to attack Russia,
while the situation was reversed in the Prussian army, where the
generals and Colonels felt humiliated by being compelled to serve
under the command of their conqueror, while officers of lower
rank and the soldiers, were pleased to have the opportunity of
fighting alongside the French, and hoped to show that if they
were defeated at Jena, it was not through any lack of courage on
their part, but due to poor leadership by their superiors.

Napoleon had not only taken into the "Grande Armee" the troops of
Austria and Prussia, but he had lowered the morale of the French
forces by intermingling them with foreign contingents, so that
the various Corps commanded by his marshals contained bodies of
men from every part of Europe, Italians, Poles, Spaniards,
Portuguese, Germans and Croatians. This admixture of races with
different languages, cultures and interests, worked very poorly,
and often hindered the efforts of the French troops. It was one
of the principal causes of the reversals which we suffered.

Chap. 5.

Having left Dresden on the 29th of May, the Emperor made his way
towards Poland via Danzig and the old Prussia, through which his
troops were passing, whom he reviewed whenever he encountered
them.

The army was now organised so that the 23rd mounted Chasseurs
were brigaded with the 24th. This brigade was commanded by
General Castex and formed part of the 2nd Army Corps, commanded
by Marshal Oudinet.  I had known General Castex for a long time,
an excellent officer, who treated me very well throughout the
campaign. Marshal Oudinet had seen me at the siege of Genoa when
I was with my father and also in Austria when I was aide-de-camp
to Marshal Lannes, and was well disposed towards me.

On the 20th June, 2nd Corps was given the order to stop at
Insterberg in order to be reviewed by the Emperor. These military
ceremonies were awaited with impatience by those people who hoped
to benefit from the awards distributed on the occasion by
Napoleon. I was among this number. I felt sure that I would be
promoted to the command of the regiment of which I was the acting
commander, for apart from the promises given me by the Emperor,
General Castex and Marshal Oudinet had told me that they intended
to propose me officially, and that Colonel Nougarede was to be
placed, as general, in command of one of the huge remount depots,
which would have to be set up in the rear of the army; but the
bad luck which had, a few months earlier delayed my promotion to
major, also held up my promotion to colonel.

At these reviews, the commanders of regiments were subjected to a
rigourous cross-examination by the Emperor, particularly on the
eve of a campaign; for apart from the usual questions about their
strength in men and horses, their arms etc., he would suddenly
ask a number which were unforeseen and not always easy to answer.
For example: "How many men from such and such a department have
you received in the last two years? How many of your carbines
come from Tulle and how many from Charleville? How many of your
horses are from Normandy, from Brittany, from Germany? What is
the average age of your men, your officers, your horses? How many
men in this company have long-service chevrons? etc...etc."

These questions, which were always posed in an abrupt and
demanding manner, and accompanied by a piercing look,
disconcerted many colonels; but woe to him who hesitated to
reply, he went into Napoleon's bad books. I was so well briefed
that I was able to reply to all his questions, and, after
complementing me on the fine turnout of the regiment, it looked
as if the Emperor was going to promote me to colonel and M. de La
Nougarede to general, when the latter, who with his limbs wrapped
in flannel, had been hoisted onto horseback to follow from afar
the movements of his regiment, which I commanded, hearing himself
called for, came to Napoleon and unwisely angered him by making a
request on behalf of an officer, a member of his family who was
wholly undeserving. This roused a storm of which I suffered the
consequences. The Emperor flew into a rage and ordered the
Gendarmerie to clear the officer in question out of the army, and
leaving M. de La Nougarede in dismay, he went off at the gallop.
So M. de La Nougarede was not made a general.

Marshal Oudinot followed the Emperor to find out what was to
happen to the 23rd, and was told "Major Marbot will continue to
command them." Before reaching the rank of colonel I was destined
to suffer yet another serious wound.

In fairness to M. de La Nougarede, I have to say that he
expressed the liveliest remorse at having been the involuntary
cause of the delay in my advancement. I was sorry for the
difficult position in which this worthy man found himself, for he
felt that he had forfeited the Emperor's confidence, and owing to
his disability he had little hope of restoring himself by his
conduct in the battles which were about to take place.

I was comforted by the fact that the Emperor, on the day of the
review, had awarded all the promotions and the decorations which
I had requested for the officers and other ranks of the 23rd, and
as the gratitude for these favours is always directed to the
commanding officer who has obtained them, the influence which I
was beginning to have in the regiment was greatly increased and
went some way to calm my regrets at not having been awarded
substantive rank for the position which I occupied.

At about this time, I received a letter from Marshal Massena and
another from his wife, the first recommending a M. Renique, and
the second her son, Prosper. I was touched by this double
approach and I responded by accepting the two captains into my
regiment. However, Madame Massena did not carry out her
intention, and Prosper Massena did not go to Russia. In any case
he would not have been able to stand the harsh climate.

The army was soon to reach the frontier of the Russian empire,
and see once more the river Nieman, where we had stopped in 1807.
The Emperor positioned his troops on the left bank of this river
as follows: on the extreme right was the Austrian Corps of Prince
Schwartzenberg, on the border of Galicia near Drogitchin. On
Schwartzenberg's left was King Jerome with two considerable army
corps, between Bialystok and Grodno. Next to them was Prince
Eugene de Beauharnais, with 80,000 men, at Prenn. The Emperor was
in the centre, facing Kovno, with 220,000 men commanded by Murat,
Oudinot, Ney, Lefebvre and Bessieres. The Guard formed part of
this immense body of troops. Finally, at Tilsit, Marshal
Macdonald with 35,000 Prussians formed the left wing. Across the
Nieman was the Russian army of about 400,000 men, commanded by
the Emperor Alexander , or rather by Benningsen, his
chief-of-staff. This force was divided into three parts,
commanded by Generals Bagration, Barclay de Tolly and
Wittgenstein.

Four historians have written about the campaign of 1812. The
first of these was Labaume, a topographer, that is to say,
belonging to a Corps which although part of the armed forces
never engaged in combat, and followed the army only to make maps.
Labaume had never commanded troops and knew nothing of the
practical side of war, so his judgements are almost always
ill-founded, and do an injustice to the French army. However the
work having appeared shortly after the peace of 1814 and the
re-establishment of Louis XVIII, partisan spirit and the desire
for information about the terrible events of the Russian campaign
gave it so much credence that no one tried to refute it, and the
public came to accept its contents as the veritable truth.

The second book to be published was written by Colonel
Boutourlin, an aide-de-camp to the Emperor Alexander. This,
although expressing the Russian point of view, contained some
worthwhile observations, and if there are some inaccuracies, it
is because he did not have access to certain documents, for he is
impartial and has done all he could to discover the truth. The
work is generally esteemed as that of an honest man.

Labaume's book had already been forgotten when in 1825, following
Napoleon's death, General de Segur published a third story of the
Russian campaign. The contents of this book distressed more than
one survivor of the campaign, and even the Russians stigmatised
it as a war novel. In spite of this, M. de Segur enjoyed a great
success, partly because of the purity and elegance of his style
and partly because of the welcome the book was given by the court
and the ultra-royalist party. The former officers of the imperial
army, finding themselves under attack, appointed General Gourgaud
to reply. He did so effectively, but with so much acerbity that
it gave rise to a duel between him and M. de Segur, in which M.
de Segur was wounded. One has to agree that if the latter was
less than charitable towards Napoleon and his army, General
Gourgaud accorded the Emperor too much praise and refused to
recognise any of his faults.

I have no intention of writing another history of the campaign of
1812, but I think I should relate the principal events, since
they form an essential part of my life and times and several of
them have a bearing on what happened to me; but in this brief
resume I shall try to avoid the extremes embraced by Segur and
Gourgaud. I shall neither denigrate nor flatter, I shall be
truthful.

At a time when the two powerful European empires were about to
come to blows, England, a natural ally of Russia, had a duty to
make every effort to help her to repel the invasion projected by
Napoleon. By disbursing money to the Turkish ministers, the
English cabinet was able to arrange a peace between the Sultan
and Russia, which allowed the latter to recall the army which was
on the frontier of Turkey, an army which played a highly
important role in the war. The English had also contrived a peace
between the Emperor Alexander and Sweden, an ally of France, on
whose goodwill Napoleon counted, the more so because Bernadotte
had just been nominated as the heir apparent, and governed the
country for the King, his adoptive father.

I have already explained how, through a bizarre sequence of
events, Bernadotte was raised to the rank of heir presumptive to
the crown of Sweden. The new Swedish prince, after announcing
that he would always remain French at heart, allowed himself to
be seduced or intimidated by the English, who could have easily
overthrown him. He sacrificed the true interests of his adoptive
country by submitting to the domination of England and allying
himself with Russia in an interview with the Emperor Alexander.
This meeting took place in Abo, a little town in Finland. The
Russians had recently seized this province and they promised to
compensate Sweden by the gift of Norway, which they intended to
take from Denmark, which was a faithful ally of France. So
Bernadotte, far from relying on our army to restore to him his
provinces, accepted these Russian encroachments by ranging
himself with her allies.

If Bernadotte had been willing to support us, the geographical
position of Sweden could have been of great assistance to our
common cause. The new prince did not, however, openly state his
position, as he wanted to see who was going to be the victor, and
he did not declare himself until the following year. Deprived of
the aid of Turkey and Sweden, on whom he had relied to keep the
Russian army occupied, Napoleon's only possible allies in the
north were the Poles, but these turbulent people, whose
forefathers had been unable to agree when they were an
independent state, offered neither moral nor physical support.

In fact, Lithuania and the other provinces which formed more than
a third of the former Poland, having been in Russian hands for
almost forty years, had mostly forgotten their ancient
constitution and had for a long time thought of themselves as
Russian. The nobility sent their sons to join the army of the
Czar, to whom they were too much attached by long custom to
permit any hope that they would join the French. The same
considerations applied to other Poles who in various divisions of
their country had found themselves under the rule of Austria or
Prussia. They were willing to march against Russia, but it was
under the flags and under the command of their new sovereigns.
They had neither love nor enthusiasm for the Emperor Napoleon,
and feared to see their country devastated by war. The grand
duchy of Warsaw, ceded in 1807 to the King of Saxony under the
Treaty of Tilsit, was the only province of the ancient Poland
which retained a spark of national spirit and was somewhat
attached to France, but what was the use of this little state to
the Grande Armee of Napoleon?

Napoleon, however, full of confidence in his army and in his own
ability, decided to cross the Nieman, and so on the 23rd of June,
accompanied by General Haxo and dressed in the uniform of a
Polish soldier of his guard, he rode along its bank, and that
same evening at ten o'clock, set in motion the crossing of the
river by the pontoon bridges, the most important of which had
been laid across the river opposite the little Russian town of
Kovno, which our troops occupied without encountering any
resistance.

Chap. 6.

At sunrise on the 24th we witnessed a most impressive spectacle.
On the highest part of the left bank were the Emperor's tents.
Around them, on the slopes of the hills and in the valleys,
glittered the arms of a great concourse of men and horses. This
mass, consisting of 250,000 soldiers split into three huge
columns, streamed in perfect order towards the three bridges
which had been thrown across the river, over which the different
corps crossed to the right bank in a prearranged manner. On this
same day the Nieman was crossed by our troops at other points,
near Grodno, Pilony and Tilsit. I have seen a situation report,
covered by notes written in Napoleon's hand, which gives the
official strength of the force which crossed the Nieman as
325,000 men, of whom 155,400 were French and 170,000 allies,
accompanied by 940 guns.

The regiment which I commanded formed part of 2nd Corps,
commanded by Marshal Oudinot, which having crossed the bridge at
Kovno headed immediately for Ianovo. The heat was overpowering.
This, close to nightfall, led to a tremendous storm, and
torrential rain, which drenched the roads and the countryside for
more than fifty leagues around. Happily the army did not see this
as a bad omen, as the soldiers considered violent thunderstorms
were something to be expected in summer. The Russians too, every
bit as superstitious as some of the French, had an unpropitious
omen, for during the night of 23rd-24th of June the Emperor
Alexander escaped with his life when, at a ball in Wilna, the
floor of a room collapsed under the chair on which he was
sitting, at the very hour when the first French boat, carrying a
detachment of Napoleon's troops, reached the right bank of the
Nieman and Russian soil. Be that as it may, the storm had made
the air much cooler and the horses in bivouac suffered from this
and also from eating wet grass and lying on muddy ground. So that
the army lost several thousand from acute colic.

Beyond Kovnow there runs a little river called the Vilia, the
bridge over which had been cut by the Russians. The storm had so
swollen this tributary of the Nieman that Oudinot's scouts were
held up. The Emperor arrived at the same moment as I did at the
head of my regiment. He ordered the Polish lancers to see if the
river was fordable, and in this process, one man was drowned; I
took his name, it was Tzcinski. I mention this because the losses
suffered by the Polish lancers in the crossing of the Vilia have
been grossly exaggerated.

The Russians, however, retreated without waiting for the French
army, which shortly occupied Wilna, the capital of Lithuania. It
was near here that there took place a cavalry encounter in which
Octave de Segur, who had been with me on Massena's staff, was
captured by the Russians while leading a squadron of the 8th
Hussars which he commanded, he was the elder brother of General
the Comte de Segur. On the same day that the Emperor entered
Wilna, Marshal Oudinot's troops came up against Wittgenstein's
Russians at Wilkomir, where the first serious engagement of the
campaign took place. I had not previously served under Oudinot,
and this debut confirmed the high opinion I had of his courage,
without convincing me of his intelligence.

One of the greatest faults of the French at war is to go, without
reason, from the most meticulous caution to limitless confidence.

Now, since the Russians had allowed us to cross the Nieman,
invade Lithuania and occupy Wilna without opposition, it had
become the done thing, amongst certain officers to say that the
enemy would always retreat and would never stand and fight.
Oudinot's staff and the marshal himself frequently stated this,
and treated as fairy tales the information given by the peasants
that there was a large body of Russian troops positioned in front
of the little town of Wilkomir.  This incredulity nearly resulted
in disaster, as you will see.

The light cavalry, being the eyes of the army, while on the march
is always in front and on the flanks. My regiment, then, was less
than a league ahead of the infantry, when, having gone a little
way beyond Wilkomir without seeing any sign of the enemy, we were
confronted by a forest of huge pine trees, through which the
mounted men could move with ease but whose branches obscured the
distant view. Fearing an ambush, I sent a single squadron,
commanded by a very capable captain, to investigate. In about 15
minutes he came back and reported that he had seen an enemy army.
I went to the edge of the forest from where I could see, at about
a cannon shot from Wilkomir, behind a stream, a hill on which
drawn up in battle order were 25 to 30 thousand Russian infantry,
with cavalry and artillery.

You may be surprised that these troops did not have in front of
them any outposts or pickets or scouts, but that is how the
Russians operate when they are determined to defend a strong
position. They allow the enemy to approach without any warning of
the resistance they are about to meet, and it is only when the
main body of their opponents comes within range that they open a
ferocious fire with musketry and cannon, which can shatter the
columns of their adversaries. It is a method which has often
produced good results for the Russians; so General Wittgenstein
had prepared this welcome for us.

The situation seemed to me to be so serious that to keep my
regiment out of sight, I ordered them to go back into the forest
while I myself hurried to warn Marshal Oudinot of the danger
which lay ahead.

I found him in some open country, where having dismounted and
halted his troops, he was peacefully eating his lunch in the
midst of his staff. I expected that my report would shake him out
of this false security, but he treated it with an air of
disbelief, and clapping me on the shoulder he called out "Let's
go! Marbot here has discovered thirty thousand men for us to
thump." General Lorencez, the marshal's son-in-law and his
chief-of-staff was the only one to take me seriously; he had once
been aide-de-camp to Augereau and he had known me for a long
time. He came to my defence saying that when the commander of a
unit says "I have seen" he should be believed, and that to take
no notice of information brought by an officer of the light
cavalry was to court disaster. These observations made by his
chief-of-staff caused the marshal to think, and he had started to
question me about the enemy presence, which he still seemed to
doubt, when a staff-captain by the name of Duplessis arrived, all
out of breath, and announced that he had searched the whole area
and had even been into the forest, and had seen not a single
Russian. At this the marshal and his staff began laughing at my
fears, which greatly upset me. Nevertheless, I kept my mouth
shut, certain that before very long, the truth would become
apparent.

Luncheon being over, the march got under way once more and I
returned to my regiment, which formed the advance-guard. I led
them through the trees as I had done previously, for I could see
what was going to happen the moment we emerged opposite the enemy
positions.  In spite of what I had told him, the marshal decided
to go down a wide, dead straight road which ran through the
forest; but he had scarcely reached the edge of the trees when
the enemy, seeing the large group formed by his staff, opened a
running fire from their cannons, which placed opposite the road
could fire directly along it and threw into disorder the gilded
squadron, recently so full of themselves. Fortunately no one was
hit by this fire, but the marshal's horse was killed, as was that
of M. Duplessis and a number of others. I had been amply avenged,
and I must confess, to my shame, that I had difficulty in hiding
my satisfaction at seeing those who had scoffed at my report and
treated as fantasy what I had said about the enemy presence,
taking to their heels under a hail of shot and scrambling over
ditches as best they could to seek shelter behind the great pine
trees! The worthy General Lorencez, whom I had warned to stay in
the forest, laughed heartily at this scene. In fairness to
Oudinot, I must say that once remounted, he came and apologised
for for his behaviour at luncheon, and asked me to brief him on
the Russian positions, and point out a route through the forest
which the infantry might take without being too much exposed to
the enemy's guns.

Several officers of the 23rd who, like me, had been through the
woodland in the morning, were detailed to guide the infantry
divisions. Nevertheless, on their emerging from the trees they
were subjected to a terrible cannonade, which could have been
avoided if, having been warned of the Russian presence, there had
been an attempt to turn one of their flanks, instead of making a
frontal approach.  As it was, we were now committed, once we
emerged from the wood, to attacking the most heavily defended
point and taking the bull by the horns.

However, our gallant soldiers engaged the enemy with such
determination that they drove them from all their positions, and
after two hours of fighting they began to retreat. This operation
was not without danger, for, to carry it out, they had to go
through the town and cross the bridge over a very steep-sided
stream. This manoeuvre, always difficult to execute under fire,
started off in an orderly fashion, but our light artillery,
having taken up a position on a height which overlooked the town,
soon, by means of its gunfire, produced disorder among the enemy
columns, which broke ranks and rushed to the bridge. Once they
had crossed the stream, instead of regrouping they fled
helter-skelter over the open ground of the opposite bank, where
the retreat soon became a rout! Only one regiment, that of Toula,
stood its ground on the town side of the bridge. Marshal Oudinot
very much wanted to force a passage across the bridge, to
complete his victory by pursuing the fugitives on the other side
of the stream; but our infantry had hardly reached the suburbs;
it would take them at least 15 minutes to reach the bridge, and
time was precious.

My regiment, which had made a successful charge at the entrance
to the town, had re-formed on the promenade, a short distance
from the stream. The marshal sent word to me to bring them at the
gallop and we had hardly arrived before he ordered me to charge
the enemy battalions which were covering the bridge, then to
cross the bridge and pursue the fugitives on the open ground of
the opposite side.  Experienced soldiers know how difficult it is
for cavalry to overcome infantry, who are determined to defend
themselves in the streets of a town. I was well aware of the
dangers of the task which I had been given, but it had to be
done, and without hesitation. I knew also that it is by his
conduct in his first action that a commanding officer gains a
good or a bad reputation amongst his men. My regiment was
composed of battle-hardened troopers: I raised them to the gallop
and, with me at their head, we fell on the Russian Grenadiers,
who stood firm behind their bayonets. They were, however,
overwhelmed by our first impetuous charge, and once their ranks
had been penetrated, my terrible chasseurs using the points of
their sabres inflicted a frightful slaughter. The enemy retreated
to the causeway of the bridge, where we followed them so closely
that, on reaching the other side, they were unable to re-form,
and our men got amongst them, killing all whom they could reach.
When the Russian colonel was killed, his regiment, without
leadership, lost heart, and seeing that the French skirmishers
had now reached the bridge, they surrendered. I lost seven men
killed and some twenty wounded, but captured a flag and two
thousand prisoners. After this action, we advanced onto the open
ground where we took a great number of fugitives, several guns
and many horses.

Marshal Oudinot had watched this action from a vantage point in
the town, and he came to congratulate the regiment, for which he
henceforth had a particular regard, which it well merited. I was
proud to be in command of such men and when the marshal told me
that he intended to recommend me for promotion to colonel, I was
afraid that the Emperor would go back on his original plan, and
post me to the first regiment which became vacant. How strange
are the twists of fortune! The successful action at Wilkomir,
where the 23rd earned such a fine reputation, nearly led on a
later occasion to its destruction, because the courage which it
had displayed at the time resulted in its being chosen to carry
out a mission which was virtually impossible, which I shall
describe shortly. Let us now return to Wilna, where the Emperor
was beginning to meet with some of the difficulties which were to
wreck his whole gigantic undertaking.

The first of these concerned the re-organisation of Lithuania,
which we had just conquered. This had to be carried out in away
which would please not only those provinces which were still
occupied by Russia, but also those of the duchies of Posen and
Galicia, which ancient treaties had incorporated into Prussia and
Austria, Napoleon's allies, whom, for the time being, it was
important not to offend.

The most committed of the noblemen who ruled the various parts of
Poland proposed to Napoleon that they would raise all the
provinces and place at his disposal more than 300,000 men on the
day that he announced officially that all the partitions to which
the country had been subjected were annulled, and that the
kingdom of Poland was reconstituted. The Emperor, although he was
aware of the benefits he would gain from such an armed uprising,
could not conceal from himself the fact that its first result
would be to involve him in war with Austria and Prussia, which,
rather than see themselves deprived of these huge and flourishing
provinces, would join their arms to those of Russia. Above all,
he doubted the constancy of the Poles, who, after dragging him
into war with the three most powerful of the northern nations,
might perhaps fail to deliver their promised support. The Emperor
therefore replied to these propositions that he would not
recognise the kingdom of Poland until the inhabitants of these
huge areas had shown themselves worthy of independence by rising
against their oppressors. This now created a vicious circle,
Napoleon would not recognise the kingdom of Poland until the
Poles took action, and the Poles would not take any action until
he did.  An indication that Napoleon, in going to war with
Russia, had no intention other than to enforce the continental
blockade is the fact that he had not brought to the Nieman any
arms or uniforms for the men which the Poles might have supplied.

Be that as it may, some influential noblemen, in an attempt to
force Napoleon's hand, set up a National Diet in Warsaw, which
was attended by a small number of deputies. The first act of this
assembly was to proclaim the Reconstitution and Independence of
the Ancient Kingdom of Poland. The echo of this patriotic
declaration rang throughout all the provinces, whether Russian,
Prussian or Austrian, and for several days it was believed that
there would be an uprising which would probably favour Napoleon,
but this unthinking exaltation did not last long among the Poles,
of whom only a few hundred came to join us. The cooling off was
so rapid that the town of Wilna and its surroundings could
provide no more than twenty men to form a guard of honour for the
Emperor. If the Poles had displayed at this time a hundredth part
of the energy and enthusiasm which they displayed during the
insurrection of 1830-1831, they might have recovered their
independence and their liberty, but, far from coming to the aid
of the French troops, they denied them all necessities, and
during this campaign our soldiers often had to take by force the
food and forage which the inhabitants, and above all the nobles,
hid from us but handed over to the Russians, their persecutors.
This partiality in favour of our enemies enraged our men and gave
rise to some unpleasant scenes which M. de Segur has stigmatised
as disgraceful pillage! It is however impossible to prevent the
weary and wretched soldiers who have received no issue of rations
from commandeering the bread and the livestock which they need
for their survival.

The need to maintain order in the provinces occupied by the army
led the Emperor, in spite of everything, to appoint prefects and
sub-prefects who were chosen from the most enlightened Poles, but
their administration was illusory and no help to the French army.

The main reason for the apathy of the Lithuanian Poles was the
self-interested attachment of the nobility to the Russian
government, which upheld their rights over their peasantry, to
whom they feared the French might award their freedom, for all
those Polish noblemen who talked unceasingly about freedom kept
their peasants in the most brutish serfdom.

Although the concentration of French troops on their frontiers
should have warned the Russians that hostilities were about to
commence, they were nonetheless taken by surprise by the crossing
of the Nieman, which they nowhere opposed. Their army began a
retreat towards the Duna (Dvina) on the left bank of which they
had prepared, at Drissa, an immense entrenched camp. From all
parts the different French Corps followed the Russian columns.
Prince Murat was in command of the cavalry of the advance-guard,
and every evening he caught up with the Russian rear-guard; but
after some skirmishing they made off during the night by forced
marches, without it being possible to bring them to a decisive
action.

Chap. 7.

During the first days of our invasion of Russia, the enemy had
made the very serious mistake of allowing Napoleon to split their
forces, so that the greater part of their army, led by the
Emperor Alexander and Marshal Barclay, had been driven back to
the Duna, while the remainder, commanded by Bagration, was on the
upper Nieman around Mir, eighty leagues from the main body. Cut
off in this way, Bagration tried to join the Emperor Alexander by
going through Minsk; but Napoleon had entrusted the protection of
Minsk to Marshal Davout, who vigourously repelled the Russians
and drove them back to Bobruisk, which he knew was supposed to be
guarded by Jerome Bonaparte, at the head of two corps, amounting
to 60,000 men.  Bagration was about to be forced to surrender
when he was saved by the foolishness of Jerome, who had not
accepted the advice which Davout had given him, and failing to
recognise the superior wisdom of the experienced and successful
marshal, had decided to go his own way, whereupon he manoeuvred
his troops so ineptly that Bagration was able to escape from this
first danger. Davout, however, followed him with his usual
tenacity, and caught up with him on the road to Mohilew, where,
although he had no more than 12,000 men, he attacked the 36,000
Russians and defeated them, though admittedly the Russians were
surprised on an area of very broken ground which prevented them
from making the best use of their superior numbers. Bagration was
compelled to cross the Borysthenia much lower down at
Novoi-Bychow, and being now out of reach of Davout he was able to
rejoin the main Russian army at Smolensk.

During the marches and countermarches which Bagration undertook
in his efforts to evade Davout, he surprised the brigade of
French cavalry comannded by General Bordesoulle, and captured
from him the whole of the 3rd Regiment of Chasseurs, whose
colonel was my friend Saint-Mars.

The elimination of Bagration's force would have been of
tremendous benefit to Napoleon, so his fury with King Jerome was
unbounded! He ordered him to quit the army immediately and return
to Westphalia, a rigourous but necessary measur, which had the
effect of greatly damaging King Jerome's reputation in the army.
However, one has to ask if he was entirely to blame? His major
mistake was to think that his dignity as a sovereign should not
permit him to accept the advice of a simple marshal, but Napoleon
knew perfectly well that the young prince had never in his life
commanded so much as a single battalion, nor taken part in the
most minor skirmish, and yet he confided to his care an army of
60,000 men, and this at a somewhat critical juncture. General
Junot, who replaced Jerome, was, before long, also guilty of a
serious blunder.

It was around this time that the Russian emperor sent one of his
ministers, Count Balachoff,to parley with Napoleon, who was still
in Wilna. The purpose of this discussion has never been entirely
clear; there were those who believed it was to arrange an
armistice, but they were quickly disabused by the departure of
the Count, and it appeared later that the English, who had a
tremendous influence in the Russian court and the army, had taken
umbrage at this mission, and fearing that Alexander might be
considering coming to terms with Napoleon, they had loudly
insisted that he should leave the army and return to St.
Petersburg. Alexander accepted this proposal, but ensured that
his brother, Constantine came with him. Left to themselves, and
egged on by the Englishman Wilson, the Russian generals sought to
wage war with a ferocity which might shake the French morale, so
they ordered their troops to lay waste the country behind them as
they withdrew, by burning all the houses and everything else
which they could not carry away.

While Napoleon, from the central point of Wilna, was directing
the various units of his army, the columns led by Murat, Ney,
Montbrun, Nansouty and Oudinot had, on the 15th of July, reached
the river Dvina. Oudinot, who had probably misunderstood the
Emperor's orders, took the unusual step of going down the left
bank of the river, while Wittgenstein and his men were going up
the river on the other side.  He arrived opposite Dvinaburg, an
old walled town whose fortifications were in bad repair, where he
hoped to capture the bridge and, having crossed to the other
bank, to attack Wittgenstein from the rear. Wittgenstein,
however, on leaving Dvinaburg, had left behind a strong garrison
with numerous pieces of artillery. My regiment as usual
constituted the advance-guard, which on this day was led by
Marshal Oudinot himself.

The town of Dvinaburg is on the right bank of the river. We
arrived on the left bank, where there is a considerable
fortification which protects the bridge which links it to the
town, from which it is separated by the river, which is very wide
at this point. A quarter of a league from the fortifications,
which Marshal Oudinot claimed were not equipped with cannon, I
came on a Russian battalion whose left flank was protected by the
river, and whose front was covered by the planks and hutments of
an abandoned camp.  In such a position the enemy was very
difficult for cavalry to attack; however the Marshal ordered me
to attack them. After I had left it to individual officers to
make their way through the gaps between the huts, I ordered the
charge, but the regiment had hardly gone a few paces amid a
shower of bullets from the Russian infantry when the artillery,
whose existence the Marshal had denied, thundered from the
battlements, to which we were so close that the canisters of
grape-shot were going over our heads before they had time to
burst. A stray ball from one of them went through a fisherman's
hut and broke the leg of the trumpeter who was sounding the
charge by my side!...I lost several men there.

Marshal Oudinot, who had made a serious mistake in attacking a
position which was protected by cannon, hoped to flush out the
Russian infantry by sending in a Portuguese battalion which was
ahead of our infantry; but these foreigners, former prisoners of
war, who had been enlisted somewhat unwillingly into the French
army, made little headway and we remained exposed. Seeing that
Oudinot bore the enemy fire with courage but without giving any
orders, I thought that if this state of affairs continued for a
few minutes more, my regiment was going to wiped out, so I told
my men to spread out and attack the enemy infantry in open order,
with the double aim of driving them out of their position and
preventing the gunners from firing for fear of hitting their own
men, who were intermingled with ours. Cut down by my troopers,
the defenders of the camp fled towards the bridgehead, but the
garrison of this outpost was composed of recent recruits, who,
fearing that we would follow the fugitives into the
fortifications, hurriedly closed the gates; which compelled them
to make for the pontoon bridge in an attempt to reach the other
bank and the shelter of the town of Dvinaburg itself.

The bridge had no guard-rail, the pontoons wobbled, the river was
deep and wide, and I could see the armed garrison on the other
side trying to close the gates! It seemed to me to be folly to
advance any further. Thinking that the regiment had done enough,
I had halted them when the Marshal arrived, shouting "Forward the
twenty-third! Do as you did at Wilkomir! Cross the bridge! Force
the gates! Seize the town!" General Lorencez tried, in vain, to
persuade him that the difficulties were too great, and that a
regiment of cavalry could not attack a fortress, however badly
defended, if to get there they had to cross, two abreast, a
third-rate pontoon bridge; but the Marshal persisted, "They will
be able to take advantage of the disorder and fears of the
enemy," he said, and repeated his order to me to attack the town.
I obeyed; but I was scarcely on the first span of the bridge, at
the head of the leading section of my men, when the garrison,
having managed to close the gates which led to the river, mounted
the ramparts, from where they opened fire on us. The slender line
which we presented offered a poor target for these inadequately
trained men, so that their musket and cannon fire caused us fewer
casualties than I had feared, but on hearing the fortress firing
on us, the defenders of the bridgehead recovered their nerve and
joined in the fray. Oudinot, seeing the 23rd caught between two
fires, at the start of an unstable bridge across which it was
impossible to advance, conveyed to me the order to retreat. The
large gap which I had left between each section allowed them to
turn round without too much confusion, however, two men and their
horses fell into the river and were drowned. In order to regain
the left bank we had to pass once more under the ramparts of the
bridgehead, when we were exposed to a rolling fire which,
fortunately, was aimed by unskilled militia, for if we had been
up against trained marksmen, the regiment could have been wholly
destroyed.

This unsuccessful action, so imprudently undertaken, cost me
thirty men killed and many wounded, and it was to be hoped that
the Marshal would be content with this fruitless effort,
especially in view of the fact that the Emperor had not ordered
him to take Dvinaburg; but, as soon as the infantry had arrived,
he made a new assault on the bridgehead, which had now been
reinforced by a company of Grenadiers, who, at the sound of
firing had hurried from nearby billets, so that our troops were
once more repelled with much greater losses than those suffered
by the 23rd. When the Emperor heard of this abortive attack, he
placed the blame squarely on Marshal Oudinot.

At this time, my regiment was brigaded with the 24th Chasseurs,
and General Castex, who commanded this brigade, had instituted an
admirable routine in our method of operation. Each of the two
regiments took it in turn to form, for twenty-four hours, the
advance-guard if we were approaching the enemy, or the rear-guard
if we were retreating, and to provide all the sentries, pickets
and so on, while the other regiment marched peacefully along,
recovering from the fatigues of the day before and preparing for
those of the morrow, which did not prevent it from going to the
aid of the unit on duty if they came in contact with the enemy.
This system, which was not in the regulations, had the great
advantage of never separating the men from their officers or
their comrades, or placing them under the orders of unknown
commanders and mingling them with troopers of another regiment.
Moreover, during the night, half of the brigade slept, while the
other half watched over them. However, since no system is without
its shortcomings, it could so happen, by chance, that it was the
same regiment which was more often on duty when a serious
engagement occurred, as happened to the 23rd at Wilkomir and
Dvinaburg. It was the sort of luck which we had throughout the
campaign, but we never complained; we came out of all these
events well and were often envied by the 24th, who had fewer
occasions on which to distinguish themselves.

While Oudinot was making his assault on Dvinaburg, the corps
commanded by Ney, as well as the immense body of cavalry
commanded by Murat, were proceeding up the left bank of the Dvina
towards Polotsk, while Wittgenstein's Russian army followed the
same route on the right bank. Being separated from the enemy by
the river, our troops grew careless, and pitched their bivouacs
in the French manner, much too close to its bank. Wittgenstein
had noticed this and he allowed the bulk of the French force to
draw ahead. The last unit in the line of march was Sebastiani's
division, which had as its rear-guard the brigade commanded by
General Saint-Genies, who had served as an officer in the army of
Egypt, and who, although courageous, was not very bright. When he
had reached a some way beyond the little town of Drouia, General
Saint-Genies, on the orders of Sebastiani, put his troops into
bivouac some two hundred paces from the river, which was believed
to be uncrossable without boats. Wittgenstein, however, knew of a
ford, and during the night he made use of it to send across the
river a division of cavalry, which fell on the French troops and
captured almost the entire brigade, including General
Saint-Genies.  This forced Sebastiani to hurry upstream with the
rest of his division to make contact with the Corps commanded by
Montbrun. After this swift raid, Wittgenstein recalled his troops
and continued his march up the Dvina. The affair did Sebastiani's
reputation a great deal of harm and drew down on his head the
reproaches of the Emperor.

Shortly after this regrettable incident, Oudinot having been
ordered to leave Dvinaburg and go up the river to rejoin Ney and
Montbrun, his army Corps took the same route as they had done,
and passed the town of Drouia. The Marshal intended to encamp his
force some three leagues further on, but he feared that the enemy
might use the ford to send across large parties of men to harass
the great convoy which trailed behind him, so he decided that
while he made off into the distance, with the main body of the
troops, he would leave behind a regiment of General Castex's
brigade, in the position which had been occupied by General
Saint-Genies, to watch the ford. As my regiment was on duty,
there fell to it the dangerous task of remaining behind at
Drouia, on their own, until the following morning. I knew that
the greater part of Wittgenstein's force had gone up the river,
but I could see that he had left behind, not far from the ford,
two strong regiments of cavalry, a force more than sufficient to
overcome me.

However much I might have wished to carry out the order to set up
my bivouac on the spot used two days previously by Saint-Genies,
this was impossible, for the ground was littered with more than
two hundred bodies in a state of putrefaction, and to this major
reason was linked another not less important. What I had seen and
what I had learned about war had convinced me that the best means
of defending a river against an enemy whose aim is not to
establish himself on the bank which one occupies, is to keep the
main body of one's troops well back from the river edge; firstly
to have timely warning of the enemy's approach, and secondly,
because, as it his intention to make a sudden raid and then
retire smartly, he dare not go too far from the spot where he can
cross back to the other side.  So I settled the regiment half a
league from the Dvina, on some slightly undulating ground. I left
only some two-man sentinels on the bank, because, when it is
purely a matter of observation, two men can see as much as a
large picket. Several lines of troopers were placed one after the
other between these sentinels and our bivouac, where, like a
spider at the bottom of its web, I could be rapidly informed by
these threads about what was going on in the area which it was my
duty to guard. I had forbidden all fires and even the lighting of
pipes, and had ordered complete silence.

The nights are extremely short in Russia in the month of July,
but this one seemed very long to me, so afraid was I that I might
be attacked during the hours of darkness by a force superior in
strength to my own. Half of the men were in the saddle, the
remainder were allowing their horses to graze but were ready to
mount if given the signal. All seemed quiet on the opposite bank,
when my Polish servant, who spoke Russian fluently, came to tell
me that he had heard one old Jewish woman who lived in a nearby
house say to another, "The lantern has been lit in the clock
tower at Morki. The attack is going to begin." I had the two
women brought to me, and questioned by Lorentz. They said that,
as they were afraid of their village becoming a battleground for
the two enemies, they had been alarmed to see the lamp lit in the
bell tower of the church at Morki, which, the night before last,
had been the signal for the Russian troops to cross the ford and
attack the French camp.

Although I was prepared for any eventuality, this was a piece of
very useful information. At once the regiment was on horse,
sabres in their hands. The sentinels by the river and the string
of horsemen stretched across the plain passed from man to man, in
low voices, the orders to come back. Two of the boldest
sous-officiers, Prud'homme and Graft, went with Lieutenant Bertin
to see what the enemy was doing. He came back shortly to say that
a large column of Russian cavalry was crossing the ford, and that
already there were some squadrons on our side of the river; but
seemingly taken aback at not finding us camped at the same place
as Saint-Genies, they had halted, fearing, no doubt to go too far
from their only means of retreat; then, having decided to go on,
they were now approaching at a walk, and were not far off.

I immediately set fire to a huge haystack and to several barns
which stood on some high ground, and by the light of the flames I
could easily distinguish the enemy column, consisting of Grodno
Hussars. I had with me about a thousand brave men, and with a cry
of "Vive L'Emperor!" we charged at the gallop towards the
Russians who, taken by surprise by this fierce and unexpected
attack, turned tail and rushed in disorder to the ford. There
they came face to face with a regiment of dragoons who, being
part of their brigade, had followed them and were just emerging
from the river. This resulted in the most fearful confusion which
enabled our men to kill many of the enemy and take many horses.
The Russians tried to recross the ford in a mob to escape from
the fire which my men aimed at them from the bank and a number of
them were drowned. Our surprise attack had so startled the enemy
who had thought to find us asleep, that they put up no
resistance, and I was able to return to our bivouac without
having to regret the death or wounding of any of our number. The
break of day disclosed the field of battle covered by some
hundreds of dead or wounded Russians. I left the wounded in the
care of the inhabitants of the village near which we had spent
the night, and took to the road to rejoin Marshal Oudinot, with
whom I caught up that same evening. The Marshal gave me a hearty
welcome and complemented the regiment on their conduct.

2nd Corps continued its march up the left bank of the Dvina and
in three days arrived opposite Polotsk. There we learned that the
Emperor had at last left Wilna, where he had spent twenty days,
and was heading for Vitepsk, a town of some size, which he
intended to make his new centre of operations.

On quitting Wilna, the Emperor had left the Duc de Bassano as
governor of the province of Lithuania, and General Hogendorp as
military commander. Neither of these two officials was suited to
organising the rear echelons of an army. The Duc de Bassano, a
former diplomat and private secretary, knew nothing about
administration, while the Dutchman Hogendorp, who spoke little
French, and had no idea of our military regulations and customs,
was not likely to have much success with those French who passed
through Wilna or with the local nobility. So the resources
available in Lithuania were of no help to our troops.

The town of Polotsk is situated on the right bank of the Dvina.
Its houses are built of wood and it is dominated by a very large
and splendid college, at that time occupied by the Jesuits,
almost all of whom were French. It is surrounded by an earthwork
fortification, having at one time undergone a siege during the
war waged by Charles XII against Peter the Great. The corps
commanded by Ney, Murat and Montbrun, in order to get from Drissa
to Witepsk, had built a pontoon bridge across the Dvina opposite
Polotsk, which they left for Oudinot's corps, which was going to
take the road for St. Petersburg. It was from here that 2nd Corps
took a different direction to that of the Grande Armee, which we
did not see again until the following winter, at the crossing of
the Beresina.

It would require several volumes to describe the manoeuvres and
the battles of that part of the army which followed the Emperor
to Moscow. I shall therefore limit myself to describing the
salient events as they occur.

On the 25th of July, there took place near to Ostrovno an
advance-guard action, in which our infantry were successful, but
where several regiments of cavalry were too hastily engaged by
Murat. The 16th Chasseurs was amongst this number, and my
brother, who commanded a squadron, was captured. He was taken far
beyond Moscow to Sataroff, on the Volga, where he joined Colonel
Saint-Mars and Octave de Segur. They helped each other to bear
the boredom of captivity, to which my brother was already
accustomed, as he had spent several years in the prisons and
hulks of Spain. The fortunes of war treated us both differently;
Adolphe was captured three times but never wounded, while I was
often wounded but never captured.

While the Emperor, now in control of Wilna, tried in vain to
manoeuvre the Russian army into a decisive battle, Oudinot's
corps, having crossed the Dvina at Polotsk, established itself in
front of this town, facing the numerous troops of General
Wittgenstein, who formed the enemy right wing. Before I describe
the events which took place on the banks of the Dvina, I should,
perhaps, acquaint you with the composition of 2nd Corps.

Marshal Oudinot, who commanded the Corps, had under his orders no
more than 44,000 men, divided into three divisions of infantry,
commanded by Generals Legrand, Verdier and Merle. There were two
brigades of light cavalry. The first, composed of the 23rd and
the 24th regiments of Chasseurs, was commanded by General Castex,
an excellent officer on all counts. The second was formed of the
7th and 20th Chasseurs and the 8th Polish Lancers, commanded by
General Corbineau, a brave but dull-witted officer. These
brigades were not combined into a single division, but were
employed wherever the Marshal thought necessary.

The 24th Chasseurs, with which my regiment was brigaded, was a
first class unit which would have done very well if there had
been a bond of sympathy between the men and their commander.
Unfortunately Colonel A... was very hard on his subordinates who,
for their part, disliked him. This state of affairs led General
Castex to travel and camp with the 23rd, and to unite his field
kitchen with mine, even though he had once served in the 24th.
Colonel A..., big, skillful and always perfectly mounted, showed
up well in engagements featuring the "arme blanche", but was
thought not to be so keen on those in which fire-arms and
artillery were involved. In spite of this, the Emperor recognised
in him qualities which made him undoubtedly the best light
cavalry officer in our European armies. No one had a better eye
for country. Before he set out, he could predict where there
would be obstacles not shown on the map, and where streams, roads
and even paths would lead to, and deduce from enemy movements
forecasts which were almost always correct. In all the aspects of
war, great or small, he was remarkably adept. The Emperor had
often used him for reconnaissance in the past and had recommended
him to Marshal Oudinot, who frequently called him into
consultation; with the result that many of the laborious and
dangerous jobs fell to my regiment.

Chap. 8.

Hardly had the various army corps which had preceded us into
Polotsk left to join the Emperor at Witepsk, when Oudinot,
collecting his troops into a single immense column on the road to
St. Petersburg, marched to attack Wittgenstein's army, which we
believed was positioned ten leagues from us, between two little
towns named Sebej and Newel. At the end of the day we made our
bivouac on the banks of the Drissa. This tributary of the Dvina
is no more than a rivulet at the coaching inn of Siwotschina,
where it is crossed by the main road to St. Petersburg; and
where, as there is no bridge, the Russian government has instead
cut back the steep banks between which the stream runs to make a
gently sloping approach, and has paved its bed to the same width
as the road, thus creating a passable ford. To the right and left
of the ford, however, troops and vehicles cannot cross, because
of the steepness of the banks. I mention this because three days
later this spot was the scene of a brisk engagement.

The next day, the 30th, my regiment being on duty, I took my
place at the head of the advance-guard and, followed by the whole
army corps, I crossed the ford through the Drissa. The heat was
most oppressive, and in the dust-covered corn fields at the side
of the road one could see two large areas where the grain had
been flattened and crushed, as if a roller had been dragged over
it, indicating the passage of a large column of infantry.
Suddenly, near the coaching inn of Kliastitsoui, these signs
disappeared from the main road, and could be seen to the left on
a wide side-road which led to Jacoubovo. It was evident that the
enemy had turned off the road to Sebej at this point and was
preparing to attack our left flank. This seemed to me to be a
serious matter, so I halted our troops and sent a message to warn
my general. The Marshal, however, who usually kept in view of the
advance-guard, had seen that I had halted. He came along at the
gallop and in spite of the opinions of Generals Castex and
Lorencez, he ordered me to continue up the main road. I had
scarcely gone a league when I saw coming towards me a calische
drawn by two post-horses....I stopped it and I saw a Russian
officer who, overcome by the heat, was lying full-length on its
floor. This young man, the son of the nobleman who owned the
coaching inn of Kliastitsoui which I had just passed, was one of
Wittgenstein's aides-de-camp, and was returning from St.
Petersburg with the reply to some despatches which the general
had sent to the government. You may imagine his surprise when,
startled out of his sleep, he found himself surrounded by our
bearded chasseurs, and saw not far away the numerous columns of
French soldiers. He could not understand why he had not
encountered Wittgenstein's army, or at least some of his scouts,
between Sebej and the spot where we were; but his astonishment
confirmed the opinion held by General Castex and me that
Wittgenstein, to lay a trap for Oudinot, had suddenly quitted the
road to St. Petersburg to attack the left flank and the rear of
the French force. In fact, it was not long before we heard the
sound of artillery and gun-fire.

Marshal Oudinot, although taken by surprise by this unexpected
attack, extricated himself quite well from the tight spot in
which he had landed himself. Ordering his columns to left face,
he presented a line to the attacker, who was repulsed so
vigourously that he did not care to renew the attack that day,
and retired to Jakoubovo.  Wittgenstein's cavalry had, however,
enjoyed a considerable success, for they had captured, in the
French rear, some thousand men and some of our equipment; amongst
other things, all our mobile forges. This was a serious loss,
which was felt badly by the cavalry of 2nd Corps throughout the
whole of the campaign. After this engagement, Oudinot's troops
having taken up their position, Castex was ordered to return to
Kliastitsoui, to guard the point at which the road branched,
where we were joined by General Maison's infantry. The Russian
officer held prisoner in the house belonging to his father did us
the honours with good grace.

In expectation of a major battle on the following day, the
commanders of both armies had made their dispositions, and, at
daybreak, the Russians attacked the inn at Kliastitsoui, which
constituted the French right wing. Although in these
circumstances both our regiments would be in action, the regiment
on duty would be in the first rank, and it was the turn of the
24th Chasseurs. To avoid any possibility of hesitation, General
Castex placed himself at the head of the regiment, and falling
rapidly on the Russians, he overran them and took 400 prisoners
without suffering many casualties. He was in the forefront of the
attack, and his horse was killed by a bayonet thrust. In the
resultant fall his foot had been trodden on, and he was unable
for several days to lead the brigade.  His place was taken by
Colonel A....

The Russian battalions which the 24th had just defeated were
immediately replaced by others which, emerging from Jacoubovo,
marched rapidly towards us. The Marshal ordered A... to attack
them, and we were told to advance, which we did without delay.
Having arrived at the front line, we arranged ourselves in battle
order and advanced toward the Russians, who awaited us
resolutely. As soon as we were within range, I ordered the
charge...! It was carried out with the greatest vigour, for my
troopers, as well as displaying their usual courage, were aware
that their comrades of the 24th were watching their every move.
The Russians made what I consider to be the fatal mistake of
discharging all their weapons at once by firing a volley, which,
badly aimed, killed only a few men and horses: continuous fire
would have been much more devastating. They then needed to
reload, but we did not give them time; our excellent horses,
galloping at full speed, hit them with such force that many of
them were knocked to the ground. A good number got to their feet
and attempted to defend themselves with their bayonets against
the sabres of our Chasseurs, but after suffering a great many
casualties they fell back, then broke ranks, and a good number
were killed or captured as they fled towards a cavalry regiment
which had come to their aid. This was the Grodno Hussars.

I have noticed that when a unit has defeated another, it always
maintains its superiority. I saw here a further proof of this,
for the Chasseurs of the 23rd hurled themselves on the Grodno
Hussars, as if they were easy prey, having previously beaten them
soundly in a night battle at Drouia, and the Hussars, having
recognised their enemy, took to their heels. This regiment,
during the rest of the campaign, invariably faced the 23rd, who
always retained their ascendancy. While these events were taking
place on our right wing, the infantry on the left and in the
centre had attacked the Russians who, defeated everywhere, had
abandoned the field of battle and at nightfall they went to take
up a position about a league away. Our army took possession of
the area which it occupied, between Jakoubovo and the road
junction at Kliastitsoui. There was much celebration that night
in the brigade bivouacs, on account of our victory. My regiment
had captured the flag of the Tamboff infantry, and the 24th had
also taken that of the Russian unit which they had overcome; but
their satisfaction was diminished by the knowledge that two of
their squadron commanders had been wounded, both of whom,
however, made a rapid recovery and served throughout the rest of
the campaign.

When a unit endeavours to outflank an enemy, it risks being
itself outflanked. This is what happened to Wittgenstein, for on
the night of the 29th, having left the St. Petersburg road to
attack the left and rear of the French army, he had compromised
his line of communication, which Oudinot could have cut
completely if he taken full advantage of the victory achieved on
the 30th. The Russian situation was made worse by the fact that
while facing a victorious army which barred its line of retreat,
it learned that Marshal Macdonald, having crossed the Dvina and
taken the fort of Dvinaberg, was advancing on the Russian rear.
To get out of this difficulty, Wittgenstein had, during the night
after the battle, made a cross-country detour which took his army
back on to the St. Petersburg road at a point beyond the inn at
Kliastitsoui.  Since, however, he was afraid that the French
troops who were in that area might fall on his force during this
flank move, he decided to prevent them from doing so by himself
attacking them with superior strength, while the bulk of his army
regained the route to St.  Petersburg and reopened his
communications with Sebej.

The next day, the 31st of July, my regiment came on duty at dawn,
when it could be seen that part of the army which we had defeated
the day before had avoided our right wing and was in full flight
towards Sebej, while the remainder were about to attack us at
Kliastitsoui. All of Marshal Oudinot's troops were immediately
stood to, but while the generals were arranging them in battle
order, a strong column of Russian Grenadiers attacked our allies,
the Portuguese, and reduced them to complete disorder; they then
turned on the large and solid coaching inn, an important point
which they were about to take, when Marshal Oudinot, always in
the forefront of any action, hurried to my regiment, which was
already at the outposts, and ordered me to try to stop or at
least slow down the enemy advance until the arrival of our
infantry which was approaching rapidly. I took my regiment off at
the gallop, and ordering the trumpeter to sound the charge, I
struck the right of the enemy line obliquely, which greatly
hindered the ability of their infantry and Grenadiers to fire on
us, and they were about to be cut down, for they were already in
disorder, when either spontaneously or under the orders of their
officers, they made an about turn and ran for a large ditch which
they had left behind them. They all scrambled into it and from
its cover they directed a continuous fire at us.  Immediately I
had six or seven men killed and some twenty wounded, and was hit
by a stray ball in the left shoulder. My troopers had their blood
up, but they could not attack men whom it was physically
impossible to reach. At this moment General Maison arrived with
his infantry and having ordered me to withdraw behind his
columns, he attacked the ditch from both ends and all its
defenders were either killed or made prisoner.

As for me, with a painful wound, I was taken back to the inn and
removed, with difficulty, from my horse. The good Dr. Parot, the
regimental surgeon, came to dress my injury, but he had scarcely
started this when he was forced to break off. There was a new
Russian assault and a hail of ball fell about us, so that we had
to remove ourselves out of range of the fire. The doctor found
that my injury was serious and could have been fatal if the thick
braiding of my epaulet, through which the ball had passed, had
not deflected it and lessened its force. The blow had been
sufficiently heavy to knock me back almost onto my horse's
crupper, so that the officers and troopers who were following me
thought I had been killed, and I would have fallen if my
orderlies had not supported me. The dressing was very painful,
for the ball was embedded in the bone at the point where the
upper arm joins the collar-bone. To get it out the wound had to
be enlarged and you can still see the big scar.

I can promise you that if I had been already a colonel, I would
have joined the many wounded who were being sent back to Polotsk,
and after crossing the Dvina I would have sought some Lithuanian
town where I might be cared for; but I was only a squadron
commander and at any time the Emperor could arrive at Witepsk and
hold a revue, at which he would award nothing except to those who
were present, bearing arms. This custom which at first may seem
cruel, was based nevertheless on the interest of the service, for
it encouraged the wounded not to remain in hospital any longer
than was necessary, and to rejoin their units as soon as they
were fit enough to do so. In view of the above, my success in
action against the enemy, my recent wound received in combat, and
my devotion to the regiment, all compelled me not to go away; so
I stayed in spite of the severe pain which I was suffering, and
having put my arm in a sling as well as I could, and had myself
hoisted onto horseback, I rejoined my regiment.

Chap. 9.

Since I had been wounded, things had changed considerably; our
troops had defeated those of Wittgenstein and taken a great
number of prisoners, but the Russians had reached the St.
Petersburg road and were continuing their retreat to Sebej.

To get to this town from the inn at Kliastitsoui, one must cross
the enormous marsh of Khodanui, in the middle of which the main
road is raised on an embankment made of huge pine trees laid one
next to another. On each side of this causeway is a ditch, or
rather a wide and deep canal, and there is no other route except
by making an exceedingly long detour. The embankment is almost a
league long, but of considerable width, so that, it being
impossible to put flank guards in the marsh, the Russians marched
in dense columns along this artificial road, beyond which our
maps showed open country. Marshal Oudinot, aiming at further
victory, had decided to follow them, and for this reason he had
already despatched on the road to the marsh General Verdier's
infantry, which was to be followed first by Castex's brigade of
cavalry, then the whole army corps. My regiment had not yet
joined the line when I returned to it.

When, in spite of my injury, I took up my place at their head, I
received a general acclamation from both officers and men, which
showed the affection and esteem in which these brave people held
me; I was deeply touched by this, and even more so by the welcome
I received from Major Fontaine. This officer, although both
courageous and competent, was so unambitious that he had remained
a captain for eighteen years, having refused promotion three
times, which he had finally accepted only on a direct order from
the Emperor.

So I once more took command of the 23rd, and began to cross the
marsh behind General Verdier's division, at which the rear unit
of the enemy column fired only a few long range shots while they
were still on the causeway. When, however, our infantry reached
the open country, they saw the Russian army deployed in battle
formation, and were treated to a devastating barrage of artillery
fire.  Nevertheless, in spite of their losses the French
battalions continued to advance. Soon they were all off the
embankment and it was the turn of my regiment, at the head of the
brigade, to reach the open ground. Colonel A..., who was the
temporary brigade commander, was not there to give me orders so I
thought it right to remove my regiment from this dangerous spot
and I led them off at the gallop as soon as the infantry gave me
room; however I had seven or eight men killed and a greater
number wounded. The 24th, who followed me, also suffered many
casualties. The same happened to General Legrand's infantry
division; but as soon as they were formed up on the plain,
Marshal Oudinot attacked the enemy lines, and they directed their
artillery fire at several different points so that the exit from
the marsh would have become less perilous for the remainder of
the army, if Wittgenstein had not at that moment attacked with
all his force the units which we had in the open. His superiority
in numbers compelled us to give ground and we were driven back
towards the causeway of the Khodanui. Fortunately the track was
very wide, which allowed us to proceed by platoons. As soon as we
left the plain, the cavalry became more of a hindrance than a
help. The marshal put us in front of the retreat; we were
followed by Verdier's division, whose general had been very
seriously wounded, and General Legrand's division made the
rear-guard. The last brigade of this division, commanded by
General Albert, had to fight a very sharp action while its last
battalions were getting onto the causeway, but once they were
formed into columns General Albert put eight artillery pieces at
the tail end which kept up a continuous fire during the retreat,
so it was the turn of the enemy to suffer heavy casualties. By
contrast, the Russian artillery rarely discharged a shot because
the guns had to be turned round to fire at us and then turned
back to continue the pursuit, a lengthy and difficult operation
on the causeway, so that they did us little damage.

The day was ending when the French troops, having crossed the
marsh, repassed Kliastitsoui and found themselves once more on
the banks of the Drissa, at the ford of Sivotschina which they
had crossed in the morning to follow the Russians who had been
defeated at Kliastitsoui. The Russians had their revenge for
having caused us seven or eight hundred casualties on the plain
beyond the marsh; they now had a sword at our backs. To put an
end to the fighting and allow the army some rest, Marshal Oudinot
led it across the ford to set up camp at Bieloe.

Night was falling when the outposts which had been left to watch
the Drissa, reported that the enemy were crossing the river. The
Marshal went there at once, and could see that eight Russian
battalions with a battery of fourteen guns were setting up their
bivouac on our side of the river, while the remainder of the army
stayed on the other side, preparing no doubt to cross over and
attack us on the morrow. This advance party was commanded by
General Koulnieff, an enterprising officer but one who, like most
of the Russian officers of the period, drank to excess. It would
seem that on this evening he had drunk more than usual, for it is
otherwise difficult to explain why he made the grave error of
coming, with no more than eight battalions to set up camp a short
distance from an army of forty thousand men, and that in a most
unfavourable position; for he had, some two hundred paces behind
him, the Drissa, which could not be crossed except by the ford;
not because of the depth of the water but because it ran between
very steep banks fifteen to twenty feet high. Koulnieff had
therefore no other line of retreat but the ford. Could it be that
he hoped that his eight battalions and fourteen canons would be
able, if defeated, to withdraw smartly across this one passage,
in the face of an attack which might be launched at any moment by
the French army from nearby Bieloe? The answer must be no, but
general Koulnieff was in no state to consider the matter when he
put his camp on the left bank of the river. It is perhaps
surprising that Wittgenstein should have entrusted the command of
his advance guard to Koulnieff, of whose intemperate habits he
must have been aware.

While the head of the Russian column approached, rashly, to
within such a short distance of us, a great confusion reigned,
not among the troops, but among their leaders. Marshal Oudinot,
although the bravest of men, lacked consistency, and passed
rapidly from a plan of attack to one of a withdrawal. The losses
which he had suffered towards the end of the day on the other
side of the great marsh had thrown him into a state of
perplexity, and he could not think how he was to carry out the
Emperor's orders, which were to push Wittgenstein back at least
as far as Sebej and Newel. He was therefore delighted to receive,
during the night, a despatch informing him of the imminent
arrival of a Bavarian corps, commanded by General Saint-Cyr,
which the Emperor was placing under his orders; but instead of
awaiting this powerful reinforcement in his present sound
position, Oudinot, advised by the general of artillery, Dulauloy,
wished to make contact with the Bavarians by withdrawing his army
as far as Polotsk. This inexplicable notion was warmly opposed by
the group of generals summoned by the Marshal. General Legrand
said that although our success of the morning had been
counter-balanced by the losses of the evening, the army was still
in good heart and ready to advance, and that to retreat to
Polotsk would damage their morale and present them to the
Bavarians as a defeated force coming to seek refuge amongst them;
an idea which would arouse indignation in all French bosoms. This
vigourous speech by Legrand was acclaimed by all the generals and
the Marshal then gave up the project of a retreat.

There remained the question of what to do the next day. General
Legrand, with the authority of his seniority, long service and
experience in warfare, proposed that they should take advantage
of the serious error made by Koulnieff by attacking the
advance-guard so imprudently placed without support on the bank
which we occupied, and drive them back into the Drissa which they
had behind them. This advice having been accepted by the Marshal
and all the group, the execution of it was confided to General
Legrand.

Oudinot's army was encamped in a forest of huge, widely spaced
pines, beyond which there was a very extensive clearing. The
boundaries of the wood took the form of a bow, the two ends of
which reached the Drissa, which formed as it were the bow-string.
The Russians had set up their bivouac very close to the river,
opposite the ford. Their frontage was protected by fourteen
artillery pieces.

General Legrand wanted to take the enemy by surprise, so he
ordered General Albert to send a regiment of infantry to each of
the ends of the wood from where they could attack the camp from
the flank as soon as they heard the approach of the cavalry, who,
emerging from the woods in the centre of the bow would go
bald-headed for the Russian battalions and drive them into the
ravine. The task given to the cavalry was plainly the most
dangerous, for not only had they to make a frontal attack on an
enemy armed with 6000 muskets but would also be exposed to the
fire of fourteen artillery pieces before they could reach their
objective. It was, however, hoped that by a surprise attack, the
Russians might be caught asleep, and put up little resistance.

You have seen that my regiment having come on duty on the morning
of the 31st July at Kliastitsoui, had continued to serve for the
whole of that day, and should, according to the regulations, have
been relieved by the 24th at 1 A.M. on the 1st August, and it was
this regiment whose duty it was to carry out the attack, while
mine remained in reserve; there being only enough space in the
clearing between the woods and the stream for one regiment of
cavalry.  However, Colonel A... went to Oudinot and suggested to
him that there was a danger that while we were preparing to
attack the troops in front of us, General Wittgenstein might send
a strong column to our right which could cross the Drissa at
another ford which probably existed some three leagues upstream
from where we were, and gaining our rear could capture our
wounded and our equipment; and that it would be a good idea to
send a regiment of cavalry to keep an eye on this ford. The
Marshal fell in with this suggestion and Colonel A..., whose
regiment had just come on duty, quickly ordered his men into the
saddle and led them off on this expedition which he had thought
up, leaving to the 23rd the dangers of the battle which was about
to take place.

My regiment received with calm the news of the perilous mission
which had been thrust upon them and welcomed the appearance of
the Marshal and General Legrand when they came to supervise the
preparations for this important attack which we were about to
carry out.

At this time all the French regiments, with the exception of the
Cuirassiers, had a company of Grenadiers, known as the elite
company, whose customary position was on the right of the line, a
position which they held in the 23rd. General Legrand observed to
the Marshal that, as the enemy had placed their artillery in
front of their centre, it was there that most danger would lie,
and in order to avoid any hesitation which might compromise the
whole operation, it would be advisable to attack this point with
the elite company, which was composed of the most seasoned
soldiers mounted on the best horses. It was in vain that I
assured the Marshal that the regiment was in all respects as
solid in one part as in another, he ordered me to put the elite
company in the centre, which I then did. I next gathered the
officers together and explained to them in low tones what we were
to do, and warned them that, the better to surprise the enemy, I
would give no preparatory commands and would simply order the
charge when we were within close range of the enemy guns. Once
everything had been arranged, the regiment left its bivouac, in
complete silence, at the first faint light of dawn, and made its
way without difficulty through the wood, the great trees of which
were widely spaced, and arrived at the level clearing in which
was the Russian encampment. I alone in the regiment had no sabre
in my hand, for having only one hand which I could use, I needed
that to hold the reins of my horse. You will understand that this
was a very unpleasant situation for a cavalry officer about to
engage the enemy.

However, I had chosen to go with my regiment and so I placed
myself in front of the elite company, having beside me their
gallant captain, M. Courteau, one of the finest of officers and
one whom I valued most highly.

All was quiet in the Russian camp, towards which we advanced
slowly and in silence, and my hopes of achieving a total surprise
were increased by the fact that General Koulnieff not having
brought any cavalry across the ford, we saw no mounted outposts,
and could distinguish, by the feeble light of their fires, only a
few infantry sentries, posted so close to the camp that between
their warning and our sudden arrival the Russians would have
little chance to prepare themselves for defence. Suddenly,
however, two prowling and suspicious Cossack peasants appeared on
horseback, some thirty paces from our line, and after regarding
it for a moment they fled towards the camp, where it was obvious
that they intended to give warning of our presence. This
mischance was very unfortunate, because had it not been for that,
we would certainly have reached the Russians without losing a
man; however since we were now discovered and were in any case
nearing the spot where I had decided to increase the speed of our
advance, I urged my horse into a gallop; the regiment did the
same, and shortly I gave the order to sound the charge.

At this signal my gallant troopers and I launched ourselves at
the enemy, upon whom we fell like a thunderbolt. The two Cossacks
had, however, raised the alarm. The gunners, sleeping beside
their guns, grabbed their slow matches, and fourteen canons
belched grapeshot at the regiment. Thirty-seven men, of whom
nineteen belonged to the elite company, were killed outright. The
brave Captain Courteau was amongst them, as was Lieutenant
Lallouette. The Russian gunners were attempting to reload their
guns when they were cut down by our men.  We had few wounded,
almost all the injuries having been fatal. We had some forty
horses killed, mine was maimed by a heavy bullet but was able to
carry me to the Russian camp where the soldiers, rudely awakened
from their sleep, were rushing to take up their arms, but were
being sabred by our troopers, whom I had ordered to get between
them and the rows of muskets, so that few were able to reach one
and fire at us. Then, alerted by the sound of gunfire, General
Albert's two regiments of infantry ran from the wood to attack
the two sides of the camp, bayoneting all who resisted. The
Russians, in disorder, were unable to withstand this triple
attack. Many of them, who having arrived at night had not been
able to see the height of the river banks, tried to escape by
this route and falling fifteen or twenty feet onto the rocks were
injured and in many cases killed.

General Koulnieff, hardly awake, joined a group of two thousand
men of whom about one third had muskets, and following
mechanically this disorganised crowd, he arrived at the ford, but
I had given orders that this important spot should be occupied by
five or six hundred horsemen, amongst whom were the elite company
who, enraged at the loss of their captain, massacred most of the
Russians. General Koulnieff, who had already been drinking,
attacked Sergeant Legendre, who, thrusting his sabre into the
Russian's neck, laid him dead at his feet. M. de. Segur, in his
story of the campaign of 1812, has General Koulnieff making a
dying speech worthy of Homer. I was within a few feet of Sergeant
Legendre when he drove his sabre into Koulnieff's throat, and I
can certify that the General fell without uttering a word. The
victory achieved by General Albert's infantry and the 23rd was
complete. The enemy had at least 2000 men killed or wounded and
we took around 4000 prisoners. The remainder perished by falling
on the sharp rocks of the river. Some of the most agile Russians
managed to rejoin Wittgenstein, who, when he heard of the
sanguinary defeat of his advance-guard, began a retreat toward
Sebej.

Marshal Oudinot, encouraged by the resounding success which he
had just gained, decided to pursue the Russians, and took his
army, as on the previous day, back across the Drissa to the right
bank; but in order to give General Albert's infantry brigade and
the 23rd Chasseurs an opportunity to recover from the effects of
the fighting, he left them to keep watch on the field of battle
at Sivotschina. I took advantage of this period of rest to carry
out a ceremony rarely seen in war. This was to pay my last
respects to those of our brave comrades who had lost their lives.
They were laid, arranged by rank, in a large pit, with Captain
Courteau and his lieutenant at their head. Then the fourteen
canons, so gallantly captured by the 23rd, were placed before
this military tomb.

Having completed this act of piety, I wished to dress my wound of
the previous day, which was causing me a great deal of pain, and
to do this I went to sit apart under a huge pine tree. There I
saw a young battalion commander, who with his back against the
trunk and held up by two Grenadiers, was painfully closing a
little package on which a name was traced in his blood. This
officer, who belonged to Albert's brigade, had suffered, during
the attack on the Russian camp, an appalling bayonet wound which
had slit open his abdomen from which the intestines were
protruding, pierced in several places.  Although some dressing
had been applied the blood still flowed and the wound was mortal.
The doomed man, who was well aware of this, had wished, before he
died, to take leave of a lady whom he loved but did not know to
whom he might entrust this precious message, when chance brought
me there. We knew each other only by sight, but nonetheless,
urged by the approach of death, he asked me, in a voice now
faint, to do him two favours, then motioning the Grenadiers to
one side he gave me the package, and saying, with tears in his
eyes, "It is a portrait," he made me promise to deliver it
secretly, with my own hands, if I was fortunate enough to return
one day to Paris. "In any case," he added "there is no hurry, for
it would be better if this was received long after I am gone." I
promised to carry out this sad task, which I was unable to do
until two years later in 1814. The second request which he made I
was able to carry out within some two hours. He was distressed to
think that his body would be devoured by the wolves which
abounded in the country and asked to be put beside the captain
and the troopers of the 23rd, whose burial he had seen. This I
promised, and when he died not long after our unhappy meeting, I
carried out this last wish.

Chap. 10.

Deeply moved by this unhappy event,I was meditating with much
sadness, when I was awakened from my reveries by the distant
sound of a sustained cannonade. The two armies were once more in
action.  Marshal Oudinot, after passing the inn at Kliastitsoui,
where I had been wounded the day before, had contacted the
Russian rear-guard at the beginning of the marsh, the exit from
which had been so disastrous for us on the previous day. He was
determined to drive the enemy back, but they were not prepared to
pass through this dangerous defile, and mounted a
counter-offensive against the French troops who, after suffering
considerable losses, retreated, followed by the Russians. One
might have thought that Oudinot and Wittgenstein were playing a
game of prisoner's base, advancing and retreating by turn. The
news of this fresh retreat by Oudinot was given to us on the
battlefield of Sivotschina by an aide-de-camp, who brought to
General Albert the order to take his brigade, together with the
23rd Chasseurs, two leagues to the rear, in the direction of
Polotsk.

When it came to leaving, I was unwilling to part with the
fourteen artillery pieces captured that morning by my regiment,
and as the horses which pulled them had also fallen into our
hands, they were harnessed up and we took the guns to our next
bivouac, and on the night following to Polotsk, where it was not
long before they played an effective part in the defence of that
town.

Oudinot withdrew that same day to the ford at Sivotschina, which
he had crossed in the morning in pursuit of Wittgenstein who,
bearing in mind the disaster which had overwhelmed his
advance-guard at this place on the occasion, did not risk sending
any isolated unit across to the bank which we occupied. So the
two armies, separated by the Drissa, settled themselves for the
night.

On the following day, the 2nd August, Oudinot having joined his
units at Polotsk, hostilities ceased for a few days, as both
sides were in need of a rest. We were rejoined by the good
General Castex and also by the 24th Chasseurs, who were very
angry with their Colonel for leading them away when it was their
turn to attack the Russian camp. On their trip up the Drissa they
had seen no sign of the enemy nor had they found any trace of the
supposed ford.

After several days rest Wittgenstein led part of his troops
towards the lower Dvina, from where Macdonald was threatening his
right. When Marshal Oudinot followed the Russian army in that
direction it turned to face him, and for a week or ten days there
was a series of marches and countermarches, and several minor
engagements which it would be too long and wearisome to describe,
and which resulted only in the useless killing of men and the
demonstration of the indecision of both commanders.

The most serious engagement during this short period took place
on the 13th August near the magnificent monastery of Valensoui,
built on the bank of the Svolna. This little river, which has
very muddy banks, separated the French and the Russians, and it
was obvious that whichever general attempted to force a crossing
on such unfavourable terrain would come to grief. Neither Oudinot
nor Wittgenstein had any intention of crossing the Svolna at this
point; but instead of going to look for some other place where
they could meet in combat, they took up positions on either side
of this watercourse, as it were in mutual despite. Soon there was
from both banks a lively cannonade which was totally useless as
the troops on neither side could attack their adversaries and was
no credit to either party.

However Wittgenstein, to protect the lives of his men, had
restricted himself to posting some battalions of unmounted
Chasseurs among the willows and reeds which bordered the stream,
and had kept the bulk of his force out of the range of the French
guns, whose brisk fire hit only some of his sharpshooters, while
Oudinot, who had insisted, in spite of the sensible advice of
several generals, on bringing his first line up to the Svolna
suffered losses which he could have and should have avoided. The
Russian artillery is nowhere as good as ours, but they used
pieces called licornes, which had a range exceeding that of the
French guns of the period, and it was these licornes which did
the most damage among our troops.

Marshal Oudinot, in his belief that the enemy were going to cross
the river, not only kept a division of infantry in position to
repel them, but supported them with General Castex's cavalry, an
unnecessary precaution, since a crossing of even a small river
takes more time than is needed for the defenders to hurry into a
position to oppose it. Nonetheless my regiment was exposed for
twenty-four hours to the Russian fire, which killed or wounded
several of my men.

During this confrontation in which the troops remained stationary
for a long period, there arrived the aide-de-camp whom Oudinet
had sent to Witepsk to report to the Emperor the result of the
battles at Kliastitsoui and at Sivotschina. Napoleon, who wanted
to make it clear to the troops that he did not blame them for the
lack of success in our operations, loaded 2nd Corps with rewards
in the way of decorations and promotions, and then, turning to
the cavalry, he awarded four Crosses of the Legion of Honour to
each of the cavalry regiments. In the despatch announcing this
news, Major-general the Prince Berthier added that in order to
show his satisfaction with the conduct of the 23rd Chasseurs at
Wilkomir, at the bridge of Dvinaburg, in the night battle at
Drouia, at Kliastitsoui, and above all in the attack on the
Russian camp at Sivotschina, the Emperor was awarding them, in
addition to the four decorations given to the other regiments,
fourteen decorations, one for each of the guns captured by them
from Koulnieff's advance-guard, so that I had now eighteen
crosses to distribute among my brave soldiers. The aide-de-camp
had not brought the awards themselves, but the Major-general had
added to his letter the request that the regimental commanders
should draw up a list of recipients and forward it to him.

I assembled all the captains, and after taking their advice, I
drew up my list, and presented it to Marshal Oudinot, asking at
the same time if I might be allowed to announce the awards
immediately to my regiment: "What, here, under fire?" "Yes,
marshal, under fire. That enhances their value."

General Lorencez, who as chief of staff had written the report of
the various actions, in which he had highly praised the 23rd,
agreed with my suggestion and so the Marshal consented. The
decorations would not arrive until later, but I had my servant
look in my baggage for a piece of ribbon which I had in my
portmanteau, and when it was found, and after it had been cut
into eighteen pieces, I announced to the regiment the awards
which the Emperor had presented, and calling out of the ranks
each of the recipients in turn, I gave them a piece of the red
ribbon, then so keenly wished for and so proudly worn, and which
has since then been so diminished in value, almost prostituted,
by handing it out indiscriminately to all and sundry.

This ceremony, conducted in the field and under fire, had a great
effect, and the enthusiasm of the regiment was at its height when
I announced the name of Sergeant Prud'homme, reputed justly to be
the most intrepid and unassuming of the warriors of the 23rd.
This brave survivor of many a fierce encounter, accepted with
modesty his piece of ribbon, to the sound of loud acclamation
from all the squadrons.  A moment of well earned triumph. I shall
never forget this moving scene which took place, as you know,
within range of the enemy guns.

Sadly, there is no rose without its thorn. Two of the men who
were included in my list had just been severely wounded. Sergeant
Legendre, who had killed General Koulnieff, had an arm carried
away, and Corporal Griffon had a leg smashed. The injured limbs
were being amputated when I went to the dressing station to give
them their decorations. At the sight of the ribbons they forgot
for a moment their pain, but unhappily, Sergeant Legendre did not
long survive his injury, though Griffon recovered and was sent
back to France, where I saw him some years later in Les
Invalides.

The 24th Chasseurs, who received only four decorations as opposed
to the eighteen awarded to the 23rd, conceded that this was fair,
but nevertheless they regretted that they had been deprived of
the honour of taking the fourteen Russian guns at Sivotschina,
even at the cost of suffering such casualties as ours, "We are
soldiers" they said, "and must take our chances for better or
worse." They blamed their colonel for providing them with what
they called this let-down. Here was an army whose men actually
clamoured for action.

You will doubtless wonder what I got out of all this, and the
answer is nothing. The Emperor, before he removed Colonel de La
Nougarede from the command of the regiment and either made him a
general or head of a legion of gendarmes, wanted to know if his
health would permit him to carry out the duties of either of
these two ranks. As a consequence Marshal Oudinot was ordered to
bring Colonel de La Nougarede before a medical board, whose
conclusion was that he would never be able to mount a horse. In
view of this, the Marshal authorised the Colonel's return to
France, where he was given the command of a minor fortress. The
unfortunate Colonel, before leaving Polotsk, where his
infirmities had forced him to remain, wrote me a very touching
letter in which he took his leave of the 23rd, and although he
had never led the regiment into action, an event which increases
the men's regard for their commander, his departure was
justifiably regretted.

The regiment now being without a colonel, the Marshal expected to
receive at any moment the order for my promotion to that rank,
and quite frankly so did I. The Emperor had however moved away,
and had left Witepsk to take Smolensk and from there to march on
Moscow, and the work of his cabinet had been slowed by their
preoccupation with military operations to such an extent that I
was not gazetted Colonel until three months later.

Let us now return to the banks of the Svolna, which the French
left hurriedly after depositing some of their wounded in the
monastery of Valensoui. Amongst those whom we lost was M.
Casabianca, Colonel of the 11th light infantry regiment, who had
served with me as aide-de-camp to Massena. He was a very fine
officer whose promotion had been rapid; but his career was ended
by a head injury received when he was visiting some of his men on
the bank of the Svolna. He was dying when I saw him on a
stretcher carried by some sappers. He recognised me and shaking
my hand he observed that he was sorry to see our army corps so
poorly managed. The poor fellow died that evening.

His last words were only too well founded, for our leader seemed
to proceed without method or plan. After a success, he pursued
Wittgenstein regardless of any obstacles and spoke of nothing
less than driving him back as far as St. Petersburg, but at the
least check he retreated swiftly and started seeing enemies
everywhere. It was in this last state that he took his troops
back to Polotsk, although they were displeased being at being
made to fall back before the Russians whom they had recently
defeated in almost every encounter.

On the 15th of August, the Emperor's birthday, 2nd Corps arrived
dejectedly at Polotsk, where we met with 6th Corps, formed of the
two fine Bavarian divisions of General Wrede, which had a French
general, Gouvion Saint-Cyr in overall command. The Emperor had
sent this reinforcement of 8 to 10,000 men to Marshal Oudinot,
who would have received it with more pleasure if he had not been
afraid of the man in command.

Saint-Cyr was one of the most competent soldiers in Europe. A
contemporary and rival of Moreau, Hoche, Kleber and Desaix, he
had successfully commanded one wing of the French army of the
Rhine at a time when Oudinot was scarcely a colonel or a brigade
commander. I do not know anyone who could command troops in the
field better than Saint-Cyr.

The son of a small landowner in Toul, he had studied to be a
civil engineer, but he gave this up to become an actor in Paris,
where he created the well-known role of "Robert,the Brigand
Chief." In the City Theatre, where he was when the revolution of
'89 broke out, Saint-Cyr joined a volunteer battalion, where he
showed great courage and military talent, and soon became a
divisional general and gained a number of victories. He was a
tall man but looked more like a schoolmaster than a soldier, due
in part perhaps to the habit adopted by the generals of the army
of the Rhine of wearing neither uniform nor epaulets, but only a
plain blue greatcoat.

One could not imagine anyone more self-controlled; the greatest
dangers, setbacks, successes, or defeats, failed to rouse him to
any show of emotion. He maintained an icy calm in all situations.
It is obvious how useful such a temperament coupled with a taste
for study and meditation, might be to a general officer, but
Saint-Cyr had also some serious faults. Jealous of his comrades,
he had been known to hold his troops back while, close to him,
other divisions were decimated in a desperate struggle. He would
then advance and profiting from the exhaustion of the enemy he
would overcome them, and thus appear to have won the victory
single-handed. Secondly, if Saint-Cyr was one of the best
officers in the employment of troops in the field, he was without
doubt the one who took the least interest in their welfare. He
never inquired if the men had food, clothing or footwear, or if
their arms were in proper repair. He never held an inspection,
nor visited the hospitals, nor even asked if there were any! In
his opinion it was the duty of the colonels to see to all that.
In short he wanted to be presented on the field of battle with
regiments in fighting order, without troubling himself to see
that they were kept in that condition. This sort of behaviour had
not done Saint-Cyr any good. Wherever he served, the soldiers,
although acknowledging his military talents, regarded him without
affection.  His fellow officers dreaded working with him and the
various governments which had taken power in France had employed
him only out of necessity. The Emperor did the same, but he so
much disliked Saint-Cyr that when he created the rank of marshal
he left his name off the list of promotions, even though he had
seen more service and shown more skill than most of those to whom
Napoleon awarded the baton. Such was the man whom the Emperor had
just placed under Oudinet's orders, to the great regret of the
latter, who feared that he would be shown up by comparison with
Saint-Cyr's superior talents.

On the 16th of August, the day on which my eldest son Alfred was
born, the Russian army of some sixty thousand men attacked
Oudinot, who, including the Bavarian unit led by Saint-Cyr, had
fifty two thousand men under his command. In any other
circumstances an engagement between one hundred and twelve
thousand men would have been called a battle; but in 1812 the
when the total number of combatants amounted to some six or seven
hundred thousand, a fight involving one hundred thousand men was
no more than an action, and it is this description which is given
to the struggle at Polotsk between the Russian troops and those
of Marshal Oudinot.

The town of Polotsk, built on the right bank of the Dvina, is
surrounded by old earthen ramparts. Before the main frontage of
the town the fields are divided by a large number of little
ditches between which vegetables are grown. Although these
obstacles are not impassable for artillery and cavalry, they
hinder their movement.  These gardens extend for less than half a
league in front of the town, but on their left, on the bank of
the Divna, there is a large area of level ground. It is here that
the Russian general should have attacked Polotsk, for it would
have given him command of the frail and only pontoon bridge,
which was our communication with the left bank from which we drew
our ammunition and food supply. But Wittgenstein chose to make a
frontal attack and directed his main force towards the gardens
from where he hoped to scale the ramparts which, to tell the
truth, were no more than easily climbed embankments, whose
height, however, allowed them to dominate the ground in front of
them. The attack was pressed home vigourously, but our infantry
put up a stout defence among the gardens, while from the height
of the ramparts the guns, among which were the fourteen captured
by the 23rd at Sivotschina, ravaged the enemy ranks. The Russians
fell back in disorder to reform themselves on the plain.
Oudinot, instead of staying sensibly where he was, went after
them and was in turn driven off with casualties. The greater part
of the day was spent in this way, the Russians returning
repeatedly to the attack, only to be driven back beyond the
gardens by the French.

During these blood-stained comings and goings, what was General
Saint-Cyr doing? He was following Oudinot about in silence, and
when asked for his opinion he merely bowed and said "Monseigneur
le Marachal...!" as if meaning since you have been made marshal,
you must know more than me, a simple general. So you can sort
this out for yourself.

Wittgenstein, having lost a great many men and despairing of
gaining victory by continued attacks in the area of the gardens,
ended up where he should have begun, by marching his troops
towards the meadows which bordered the Dvina. Up until this time
Oudinot had kept his twelve pounders and all his cavalry at this
spot, as if they had nothing to do with the fighting; but the
artillery general, Dulauloy, anxious about his guns, suggested to
the Marshal that he should send not only the large calibre guns
but also all the cavalry over to the left bank, on the pretext
that they got in the way of the infantry. When Oudinot asked
Saint-Cyr what he thought, instead of offering the sound advice
that the artillery and the cavalry should stay where they were,
on ground which allowed them to manoeuvre with ease and support
the infantry, he only repeated his endless "Monseigneur le
Marachal...". In the end, Oudinot, in spite of the opinion of
General Lorencez, his chief-of-staff, ordered the artillery and
the cavalry to withdraw to the other side of the river. This
ill-advised movement, which looked like the prelude to a retreat
and the total abandonment of Polotsk and the right bank, greatly
displeased the troops who were involved, and lowered the morale
of the infantry whose job it was to defend that part of the town
which faced the open ground. The spirits of the Russians were, on
the contrary, raised when they saw ten regiments of cavalry and
several batteries of guns leaving the field of battle. In an
effort to create confusion in this huge mass as it departed they
brought forward and fired their licornes, the hollow ammunition
of which acts first as a cannon-ball and then explodes like a
mortar bomb. The regiments next to mine had several men killed or
wounded. I was lucky enough to have none of my men hit though I
lost some horses.  My own horse was hit in the head and as it
fell I went down with it and my injured shoulder struck hard on
the ground, which was very painful. If the Russian gun had been
elevated a bit more, it would have been I who was hit, fair and
square, and my son would have been an orphan a few hours after
first seeing the light of day.

The enemy now resumed their attack, and when, after crossing the
bridge, we looked back to see what was happening on the bank
which we had just left, we saw a disturbing spectacle. The
French, Bavarian and Croatian infantry were fighting bravely and
holding their own, but the Portuguese legion and the two Swiss
regiments fled before the Russians, and did not stop until,
having been driven into the river, they were in the water up to
their knees. Then, forced to face the enemy or drown, they at
last struck back, and by a constant barrage of fire they
compelled the Russians to draw back a little. The commander of
the French artillery, who had just crossed the Dvina with the
cavalry, skillfully made use of the opportunity to be useful, by
bringing his guns to the river bank and directing a heavy fire
across the stream at the enemy battalions drawn up on the
opposite bank.

This powerful intervention having stopped Wittgenstein's men at
this point, while the French, Bavarians and Croats drove them
back elsewhere, the fighting eased up and an hour before the end
of the day had degenerated into random firing. The Marshal,
however could not escape the fact that he would have to continue
fighting the next day; and so, preoccupied by a situation the
outcome of which he could not predict, and ruffled by the
obstinate silence of Saint-Cyr, he was walking his horse slowly,
followed by only one aide-de-camp, among musketeers of his
infantry, when enemy marksmen, seeing a rider with a plumed hat,
took aim and put a ball through his arm.

The Marshal at once informed Saint-Cyr of the injury and handing
to him the command of the army left him to sort matters out. He
himself left the field, crossed the bridge, stopped for a few
moments at the cavalry bivouac and quitting the army went to
Lithuania in our rear, to have his wound cared for. We did not
see him again for two months.

Chap. 11.

Saint-Cyr took up with a firm and skillful hand the reins of
command, and in a few hours completely changed the look of
things.  Such is the influence of a man who is competent and who
inspires confidence. Marshal Oudinot had left the army in a
perilous state: part of his force driven back to the edge of the
river, and the rest scattered amongst the gardens where they were
firing at random; an inadequate lay-out of guns on the ramparts;
the streets of the town cluttered with wagons, baggage, sutlers
and wounded, all in complete confusion, while the troops had no
means of retreat, should they be overcome, other than the pontoon
bridge across the Dvina, a bridge which was very narrow and in
such a bad state that the water was six inches over the planking
of its platform. Finally, night was approaching and it was feared
that the shooting would lead to a general action which might be
disastrous in view of the disorder which ruled amongst the
regiments of different nationalities.

General Saint-Cyr's first act was to order the withdrawal of
those infantrymen who were in action, in the certainty that the
tired enemy would do the same, as soon as they were no longer
under attack.

The result was that soon the firing ceased on both sides. The
troops were able to re-form and to have some rest, and further
fighting was postponed until the next day. In order to put
himself in a more favourable position, Saint-Cyr used the night
to make preparations for the repulse of the enemy and to ensure a
line of retreat, should it be necessary. With this aim, he
gathered together all the corps commanders and after making clear
to them the dangers of the situation, one of the more serious of
which was the obstruction of the streets of the town and the
approaches to the bridge, he ordered that the colonels,
accompanied by several officers and with patrols, should go
through the streets, sending those men of their regiments who
were fit to their bivouac area, and all the wounded, sick, led
horses, sutlers and carts to the other side of the bridge.
General Saint-Cyr added that he would visit the town at daybreak
and would suspend from duty any corps commander who had not
carried out his instructions promptly! No excuse would be
accepted! There was a rush to obey. The sick and wounded were
carried to the left bank as well as everything which was not
actually required for combat. That is to say all the impedimenta
of the army. In this way the streets and the bridge were soon
completely clear. The bridge was strengthened and the cavalry and
guns brought back to the right bank and located in a suburb
furthest from the enemy; and then, to improve his means of
retreat, the prudent general had a second bridge made out of
empty barrels and planks, which was for the sole use of the
infantry. All these preparations having been completed before
daylight, the army awaited its enemies with confidence. The
latter, however, did not stir from their encampment, set up on
the open ground at the edge of the vast forest which surrounds
Polotsk on the side opposite to the river.

General Saint-Cyr, who had expected to be attacked in the early
morning, attributed the tranquillity which reigned in the Russian
camp to the tremendous losses they had suffered the previous day.

This may have been part of the reason, but the main cause of
Wittgenstein's inactivity was that he expected the arrival,
during the coming night, of a strong division of infantry and
several squadrons of cavalry from St. Petersburg, and he had
delayed his attack until he had received this powerful
reinforcement so that he might the more easily defeat us on the
day following.

Although the Polish nobles, the great landowners of the property
round Polotsk, did not dare to support us openly, they did so in
secret, and had no difficulty in providing us with spies. General
Saint-Cyr, uneasy at what was going on in the Russian camp,
arranged with one of these noblemen to have him send there one of
his more enlightened vassals. The landowner sent to the Russian
camp several cartloads of forage, and put amongst his carters his
bailiff, dressed as a peasant. This man, who was highly
intelligent, learned by chatting to Wittgenstein's soldiers that
they were expecting a large body of troops, and even witnessed
the arrival of some Cossacks and some cavalry, and was told that
several battalions would arrive at the camp around midnight.
Having gathered this information, the bailiff passed it to his
master, who hurried to warn the commander of the French forces.

When he heard this news, Saint-Cyr determined to strike at
Wittgenstein before the arrival of the expected reinforcements.
But as he did not want to be involved in a long drawn-out affair,
he warned his generals and corps commanders that he would not
attack until six in the evening, so that, as night would put an
end to the fighting, the Russians would be unable to exploit
their success if things went their way. It is true that if we
were victorious we would be unable to pursue the enemy in the
dark, but Saint-Cyr had no intention of doing this, and for the
moment wanted only to teach the Russians a lesson which would
drive them away from Polotsk. As the French general aimed at
taking the Russians by surprise, he ordered absolute calm to be
maintained in the town and above all in the lines of outposts.

The day seemed very long. Everyone, even the General, in spite of
his sang-froid, constantly looked at his watch. Having observed
that, on the previous day, the absence of the French cavalry had
allowed the Russians to drive our left wing almost into the
Dvina, General Saint-Cyr, shortly before the attack, moved all
his squadrons, in silence, into a position behind some big shops,
on the other side of which lay the meadowland. It was on this
level ground that the cavalry could manoeuvre to fall on the
enemy right and give cover to the left wing of our infantry, of
which the first two divisions were to attack the Russian camp
while the third supported the cavalry and the remaining two
formed the reserve and protected the town. All was ready when, at
last, it was six o'clock, and the signal for the attack was given
by the firing of a cannon, followed by a volley from all the
French artillery, which landed numerous projectiles on the enemy
outposts and on the camp itself. At once our two first infantry
divisions, led by the 23rd Light, fell on the Russian regiments
positioned in the gardens, killing or capturing all whom they
encountered and chasing the rest back to the camp, where they
took many prisoners and captured several guns. This surprise
attack, although carried out in broad daylight, was so successful
that General Wittgenstein was dining peacefully in a little
country house near his camp when he was warned that French
skirmishers were in the court-yard. He jumped out of a window
and, mounting a Cossack horse which happened to be there, he
galloped away to join his troops. Our skirmishers took some fine
horses, documents, baggage wagons and wines belonging to the
General, also the silverware and some of the dinner laid on the
table. An immense quantity of booty was seized in the camp by
other units.

At the sound of this wholly unforeseen attack by the French,
panic spread amongst our enemies, the majority of whom took to
their heels without even picking up their weapons. The disorder
was complete; no one was giving orders, even though the approach
of our infantry was heralded by a fusillade of shots and the
sound of the drums beating the charge. The scene seemed set for a
resounding victory by the French troops, at whose head marched
Saint-Cyr with his customary calm. However, in war an unexpected,
and often unimportant, event can change a situation.

A large number of the enemy soldiers had reached in their flight
the rear area of the camp, where was encamped the squadron of
horse-guards which had arrived a few hours previously. This elite
unit was made up of young men selected from the best of the
nobility, and was led by a major of proven courage, whose elan,
it was said, was increased by generous draughts of liquor. When
he saw what was happening, this officer leapt on his horse and,
followed by some hundred and twenty cuirassed riders, he rushed
towards the French, whom he soon encountered. The first of our
battalions which he attacked belonged to the 26th Light. They put
up a vigourous resistance. The cavalry were repelled with
casualties, and were rallying to prepare for a second charge when
their Major, impatient at the time taken for the scattered
horsemen to regain their ranks, abandoned the unsuccessful attack
on the French battalion, and ordering his men to follow he led
them at the gallop in open order through the camp, which was full
of infantry, Portuguese, Swiss and even Bavarians, our allies,
some of whom, dispersed by the victory itself, were trying to
regroup while others were collecting the booty left by the
Russians.

The cavalrymen killed or wounded many of these soldiers and threw
the crowd into disarray. A disorderly withdrawal began which
degenerated into a mass panic. Now in a situation like this,
soldiers can mistake for the enemy their own troops who are
running to join them, so that, in a cloud of dust, it seems that
they are being attacked by a large force, when in most cases it
is only a handful of men. This is what happened here; the
horse-guards, scattered widely over the plain and pressing on
without a backward look, seemed to the fugitives to be a massive
force of cavalry, and so the confusion grew until it enveloped
the Swiss battalion in the middle of which General Saint-Cyr had
taken refuge. He was so much jostled by the mob that his horse
fell into a ditch.

The General, who was clad in a simple blue greatcoat, without any
badges of rank, lay motionless on the ground as the cavalry drew
near, and they thinking he was either dead or only a humble
civilian employee, passed by and continued their pursuit of the
fugitives. One does not know how matters would have ended had not
the gallant and quick-witted General Berckheim, at the head of
the 4th Cuirassiers, charged down upon the Russian cavalry, who
in spite of bravely defending themselves, were almost all killed
or made prisoner. Their valiant Major was among the dead. The
charge carried out by this handful of men could have had a
dramatic result if it had been followed up, and this fine feat of
arms goes to show once more that it is unexpected attacks by
cavalry that have the best chance of success.

General Saint-Cyr, having been picked up by our Cuirassiers,
ordered all the infantry divisions to advance immediately and
attack the Russians before they could recover from their
confusion. In this they were successful and the enemy were
decisively beaten, losing many men and a number of guns.

While this infantry battle was taking place before Polotsk,
another action was under way on their left, in the open plain
which bordered the Dvina. As soon as the cannon shot gave the
signal to engage, our cavalry regiments, led by Castex's brigade,
advanced rapidly towards the enemy who, for their part, advanced
towards us.

A major encounter seemed imminent, and the good General Castex
said that although in spite of my recent injury, I had been able
to command the regiment during the fighting round Sivotschina and
Svolna, where it had been solely a matter of facing the fire of
the infantry and the guns, it would not be the same today when in
action against cavalry. During a charge I would be unable to
defend myself since, with my one arm, I could not hold my horse's
bridle and at the same time use my sabre. He therefore urged me
to remain behind on this occasion, with the reserve division of
infantry. I did not think that I should accept this well-meaning
advice, and I expressed so vehemently my wish not to be removed
from the regiment that the General gave way, but he arranged for
me to have behind me six of the best cavalrymen, led by Sergeant
Prud'homme, while at my side were four warrant officers, a
trumpeter and my orderly Fousse, one of the finest soldiers in
the regiment. Surrounded in this way, and placed in front of the
centre of a squadron, I was sufficiently protected; besides, in
an emergency, I would have dropped the reins to wield my sabre,
which hung by its sword-knot from my right wrist.

The meadow was large enough to hold two regiments in battle
order, so the 23rd and the 24th advanced in line. General
Corbineau's brigade, consisting of three regiments was in the
second line and the Cuirassiers followed, in reserve. The 24th,
which was on my left, faced a body of Russian dragoons, while I
was opposed to the Cossacks of the Guard, recognisable by the red
colour of their jackets and the fine quality of their horses
which, although they had arrived only a few hours ago, did not
appear in the least tired. We moved forward at the gallop, and
when we were at a suitable distance from the enemy, General
Castex ordered the charge and his whole brigade fell in one line
on the Russians. By the violence of this attack, the 24th
overwhelmed the dragoons who opposed them, but my regiment
experienced more resistance from the Cossacks, a chosen band of
men of superior stature and each armed with a 14 foot lance which
he well knew how to use. Some of my Chasseurs were killed and
many wounded, but once my gallant troopers had broken through
this line bristling with steel, they had the advantage, for the
long lances are ineffective against cavalry when those carrying
them are disorganised and closely engaged by adversaries who are
armed with sabres which they can use with ease, while the lancers
have great difficulty in presenting the point of their weapons.
Thus the Cossacks were forced to turn their backs, whereupon my
men slaughtered many of them and captured a large number of
splendid horses.

We were about to follow up this success when our attention was
drawn to a great tumult on our right, where we saw the plain
covered with fugitives, for this was the moment when the Russian
Chevalier-Gardes made their desperate attack. General Castex,
thinking it would be unwise to advance any further when our
centre appeared to be retreating in disorder, called for the
rally to be sounded and the brigade came to a halt.

We had,however, scarcely re-formed our ranks when the Cossacks,
emboldened by what was going on in the centre and burning to
avenge their previous defeat, charged back on the attack and
hurled themselves furiously on my squadrons, while the Grodno
Hussars attacked the 24th. The Russians, driven back at every
point by Castex's brigade, brought up successively their second
and third line, whereupon General Corbineau came to our
assistance with the 7th and 20th Chasseurs and the 8th Lancers,
and there ensued a great cavalry battle, the outcome of which
hung in the balance. Both our own and the Russian Cuirassiers
were advancing to join in when Wittgenstein, seeing his infantry
beaten and hard pressed by ours, sent word to his cavalry to
retire. They, however, were too hotly engaged for this command to
be easily executed. In the event, Generals Castex and Corbineau,
knowing that they would be supported by the Cuirassiers who were
close behind them, committed in turn both their brigades against
the Russians who were thrown into the greatest disorder and
suffered heavy casualties.

On arriving at the other side of the wood where our victorious
infantry and cavalry divisions were regrouping, General
Saint-Cyr, seeing that night was approaching, called off the
pursuit, and the troops returned to their bivouacs at Polotsk,
which they had quitted a few hours earlier. During the fighting
my wound had given me much pain, particularly when I had to
gallop my horse. My inability to defend myself often put me in a
difficult situation in which I might not have survived had I not
been surrounded by a group of stalwarts who never let me out of
their sight.

On one occasion, amongst others, I was pushed by the mob of
combatants into a group of Cossacks, where to save myself I had
to let go of the bridle and take up my sabre. I had, however, no
need to use it, for seeing their commanding officer in danger,
all ranks of my escort furiously attacked the Cossacks who were
now surrounding me, laid several of them in the dust and put the
rest to flight. My orderly Fousse, the finest of Chasseurs,
killed three of them and Warrant Officer Joly two. So I came back
safe and sound from this action, in which I had been determined
to take part in order to encourage the regiment, and to show them
afresh that as long as I could mount a horse it would be my
honour to lead them when danger threatened. Both the officers and
men of the regiment appreciated this, and the affection with
which I was already regarded by them was increased, as you will
see later, when I speak of the misfortunes of the great retreat.

Combat between cavalry units is infinitely less murderous than
that involving the infantry, also the Russians are as a rule
maladroit in the handling of their weapons, and their incompetent
leaders do not always know how to employ their cavalry to best
advantage. So that although my regiment was fighting the Cossacks
of the Guard, considered one of the finest units in the Russian
army, we did not suffer a great many casualties. I had eight or
nine men killed and some thirty wounded; but amongst those last
was Major Fontaine. This very fine officer was in the thick of
the fighting when his horse was killed; his feet were entangled
in the stirrups and he was trying to free himself with the help
of some Chasseurs who had gone to help him when a Cossack
officer, bursting through the group at the gallop, leaned
dexterously from his saddle and dealt Fontaine a terrible sabre
slash which blinded his left eye, damaged the other and split
open his nose. However, as the Russian officer, proud of this
exploit, was leaving the scene, one of our Chasseurs shot him in
the back at six paces, so avenging his squadron commander. As
soon as possible M. Fontaine's injury was dressed and he was
taken to Polotsk to the Jesuit monastery, where I visited him
that same evening. I admired the resignation with which this
courageous soldier bore the pain and disability of becoming
almost completely blind, since which time he has not been able to
continue in active service. This was a great loss for the 23rd,
in which he had been since its creation, liked and respected by
all; I was much moved by his misfortune.

I was now the only senior officer in the regiment and I had to
see to all the requirements of the service, which was a major
task.

You may think that I have gone into too much detail about the
various actions in which 2nd Corps was involved, but as I have
said, I enjoy recalling the great conflicts in which I have taken
part, and speak of these times with pleasure, for it then seems
to me that I am once more in the field, surrounded by my brave
companions, almost all of whom have now, alas, quitted this life.

To return to the present campaign: anyone but Saint-Cyr, after
such a hard-fought action would have reviewed his troops to
congratulate them on their success and enquire into their needs.
Scarcely, however, had the last shot been fired, when Saint-Cyr
shut himself up in the Jesuit monastery and spent all his days
and part of the night playing his violin...a ruling passion from
which only marching to attack the enemy could distract him.
Generals Lorencez and Wrede, given the task of deploying the
troops, sent two divisions of infantry and the Cuirassiers to the
left bank of the Dvina. The third French division and the
Bavarians stayed in Polotsk, where they were employed to build
the fortifications of a vast entrenched camp, before acting as a
support to the troops which from this important point were
covering the left and rear of the "Grande Armee" on its march to
Smolensk and on to Moscow. The light cavalry brigades of Castex
and Corbineau were positioned two leagues in front of this camp,
on the left bank of the Polota, a little river which joins the
Dvina at Polotsk. My regiment went into bivouac near a village
called Louchonski. The colonel of the 24th set up his a quarter
of a league to the rear, covered by the 23rd. We stayed there for
two months, during the first of which we did not go very far.
When he heard of the victory won at Polotsk by Saint-Cyr, the
Emperor sent him the baton of Imperial Marshal. Instead of using
the occasion to visit his troops, the new Marshal retired into
even deeper seclusion, if that were possible. No one could
approach the head of the army, which earned him the nick-name
amongst the soldiers of the "Owl." More than this, although the
huge monastery had more than a hundred rooms which would have
been most useful for the wounded, he lived there alone, and
considered it a great concession that he allowed senior officers
who were wounded to be received in the outhouses.  They were
allowed to remain there for forty-eight hours, after which their
comrades had to take them to the town. The cellars and granaries
of the monastery were bursting with provisions amassed by the
Jesuits; wine, beer oil, flour, etc., all were there in
abundance; but the Marshal had taken charge of the keys of the
store-rooms and nothing came from them, even for the hospitals.
It was with the greatest difficulty that I obtained two bottles
of wine for the injured Fontaine. The extraordinary thing was
that the Marshal used hardly any of these provisions for himself,
for he was a man of extreme sobriety, but also highly eccentric.
The army complained loudly about his behaviour,and those same
provisions which he refused to distribute to his troops were, two
months later, consumed by flames and the Russians, when the
French were forced to abandon the burning monastery and town.

Chap. 12.

While all this was going on at Polotsk and on the banks of the
Drissa, the Emperor remained at Witepsk, from where he exercised
overall control of the operations of the numerous units of the
army.  There are those who have reproached Napoleon with wasting
too much time, first at Wilna, where he stayed for nineteen days,
and then at Witepsk where he stayed for seventeen. They claim
that these thirty-six days could have been better employed,
particularly in a country where the summer is very short, and the
rigours of winter begin to be felt about the end of September.
This claim has some justice up to a point, but it should be
remembered, firstly that the Emperor hoped that the Russians
would request some compromise, and in the second place that it
was necessary to concentrate once more all the units which had
been scattered in the pursuit of Bagration. In addition, it was
essential to give some rest to the troops, who as well as their
regular marches had to scour the countryside each evening, far
from their bivouacs, in a search for food; because the Russians
having burned all the stores as they retreated, it was impossible
to make any daily distribution of rations. There was, however,
for a long time a happy exception to this state of affairs, in
the case of Davout's Corps. Davout was as good an administrator
as he was a fighting soldier, and well before the crossing of the
Nieman he had organised an immense convoy of little carts which
followed his army. These carts carried biscuits, salted meat and
vegetables and were drawn by oxen, a number of which could be
slaughtered daily to provide food. This arrangement contributed
greatly to keeping his men from straying from their ranks.

The Emperor left Witepsk on the 13th August, and moving further
and further away from 2nd and 6th Corps, which he left at Polotsk
under the command of Saint-Cyr, he went to Krasnoe, where a part
of the Grande Armee faced the enemy. It was hoped that there
would be a battle, but all that took place was a minor action
against the Russian rear-guard, which was defeated and promptly
withdrew. On the 15th of August, his birthday, the Emperor
reviewed his troops, who welcomed him with enthusiasm. On the
16th the army reached Smolensk, a fortified town which the
Russians call the holy of holies because they consider it to be
the key to Moscow and the palladium of their empire. Ancient
prophecies foretold disaster to Russia the day Smolensk was
taken. This superstition, carefully nurtured by the government,
dates from the time when Smolensk,  situated on the Dnieper, was
the furthest Muscovite frontier, from where they issued to make
enormous conquests.

Murat and Ney, who were the first two to arrive before Smolensk,
both thought, for some unknown reason, that the Russians had
abandoned the place. The reports given to the Emperor having
convinced him that this was the case, he ordered that the
advance-guard should be sent into the town. The impatient Ney was
waiting only for this command. He advanced toward the town gate
escorted by a small body of Hussars, but suddenly a regiment of
Cossacks, hidden by a fold in the ground covered by scrub, fell
on our riders, drew them off, and surrounded Marshal Ney, who was
so hard pressed that a pistol shot fired at point blank range
tore the collar of his coat. Fortunately the Domanget brigade
hurried to the spot and freed the Marshal. The arrival of General
Razout's infantry enabled Ney to get close enough to the town to
convince himself that the Russians intended to defend it.

Seeing the ramparts armed with a great number of cannon, the
artillery general, Eble, a highly competent officer, advised the
Emperor to by-pass the place by sending the Polish Corps
commanded by Prince Poniatowski to cross the Dnieper two leagues
further upstream; but Napoleon, accepting the advice of Ney, who
assured him that Smolensk would be easily captured, gave the
order to attack. Three army Corps, those of Davout, Ney and
Poniatowski, launched an assault on the town from different
directions. A murderous fire was poured down on them from the
ramparts, and one even more deadly came from the batteries which
the Russians had established on the opposite bank of the river. A
most bloody struggle ensued; bullets, grape-shot and bombs
decimated our troops, without the artillery being able to breach
the walls. At last, as night was approaching, the enemy, who had
bravely disputed every foot of ground, were driven back into the
town itself, which they now prepared to abandon. Before they did
so, however, they set all of it on fire. The Emperor thus saw an
end to his hopes of capturing a town which was rightly supposed
to be full of supplies. It was not until dawn the next day that
the French entered the place, the streets of which were strewn
with the dead bodies of Russians and smoking debris. The taking
of Smolensk had cost us 12,000 men killed or wounded, an enormous
loss which could have been avoided by crossing the Dnieper
upstream, as had been proposed by General Eble; for, seeing
himself at risk of being cut off, General Barclay de Tolly, the
enemy commander, would have evacuated the place and retired
towards Moscow.

The Russians, after burning the bridge, halted for a short time
on the heights of the right bank and then resumed their retreat
on the road to Moscow. Marshal Ney followed them with his army
corps reinforced by Gudin's division, which was detached from
Davout's corps.

Not far from Smolensk, Marshal Ney caught up with the Russians as
they passed, with all their baggage, through a narrow defile. A
major engagement took place which could have been disasterous for
the enemy if General Junot, who commanded 8th Corps, and who had
been slow in crossing the Dnieper, two leagues above Smolensk,
and who had then halted for forty-eight hours, had hastened to
the sound of Ney's guns, which were no more than a league away.
Although informed of the situation by Ney, Junot did not budge.
He was then ordered in the name of the Emperor to come to the
assistance of Ney, but still he did not move.

Ney, facing greatly superior numbers, having engaged successively
all the troops of his Corps, ordered Gudin's division to take
some strong positions held by the Russians. This order was
executed with the greatest alacrity, but in the first wave the
brave general fell mortally wounded. However, retaining his usual
calm, and wishing to assure the success of the troops which he
had so often led to victory, he appointed General Gerard to take
over the command, although he was the most junior brigade
commander in the division.

Gerard, at the head of the division attacked the enemy, and by
ten in the evening, after losing 1800 men and killing some six
thousand, he was master of the field of battle, from which the
Russians made a hasty departure.

The next day the Emperor came to visit the troops who had fought
so bravely; he rewarded them generously and promoted Gerard to
the rank of divisional general. Gudin died a few hours later.

If Junot had taken part in the action, he could have trapped the
Russians in a narrow defile when, caught between two fires, they
would have been forced to surrender, and thus brought the war to
an end. One regretted the departure of King Jerome, whom Junot
had replaced, for although a mediocre general, he would probably
have gone to help Ney, and we expected to see Junot severely
punished; but he was one of Napoleon's earliest adherents and had
supported him in all his campaigns, from the siege of Toulon in
'93 to the present.  The Emperor was fond of him and he forgave
him. This was a pity, for it was becoming necessary to make an
example.

When the Russian people heard of the fall of Smolensk, there was
a general outcry against Barclay de Tolly. He was a German; the
nation accused him of not putting enough effort into the war, and
for the defence of ancient Muscovy they demanded a Muscovite
general. Compelled to give way, Alexander handed the command of
all the Russian armies to General Koutousoff, an elderly man of
little ability, renowned only for his defeat at Austerlitz, but
having the great merit, in the circumstances, of being an out and
out Russian, which gave him a considerable influence in the eyes
of the troops and the populace at large.

The French advance-guard, driving the enemy before it, had
already passed Dorogobouje when, on the 24th of August, the
Emperor decided to leave Smolensk. The heat was stifling; we
marched on loose sand; there was insufficient food for such a
large body of men and horses, for the Russians left nothing
behind them but burning farms and villages. When the army entered
Vyazma, this pretty town was in flames, and it was the same at
Gzhatzk. The nearer we got to Moscow the fewer resources the
countryside had to offer. Several men died and many horses. A few
days later, the intolerable heat was succeeded by a cold rain
which lasted until the 4th of September; autumn was approaching.
The army was no more than six leagues from Mojaisk, the last town
we had to take before reaching Moscow, when it was noticed that
the strength of the enemy rear-guard had been considerably
increased; an indication that a major battle was at last in
prospect.

On the 5th, our advance-guard was briefly held up by a large
Russian column, well entrenched on a small hill, garnished with a
dozen guns. The 57th line regiment, which in the Italian campaign
the Emperor had named the "Terrible", worthily upheld its
reputation in capturing the redout and the enemy guns. We were
already on the terrain upon which, forty-eight hours later, would
be fought the battle which the Russians call Borodino and the
French Moscow.

On the 6th, the Emperor announced in an order of the day that
there would be a battle on the day following. The army welcomed
this announcement with pleasure in the hope that it would mean an
end to their privations, for there had been no supply of rations
for a month, and everyone had lived from hand to mouth. On both
sides the evening was employed in taking up positions of
readiness.

On the Russian side, Bagration, commanding 62,000 men was on the
left wing; in the centre was the Hetman Platov with his Cossacks
and 30,000 infantry in reserve; the right was made up of 70,000
men under the command of Barclay de Tolly, who was now the second
in command, while the elderly General Koutousoff was the overall
commander of all these troops, amounting to 162,000 men. The
Emperor Napoleon had no more than 140,000, who were disposed as
follows: Prince Eugene commanded the left wing, Marshal Davout
the right, Marshal Ney the centre, King Murat the cavalry, while
the Imperial Guard was in reserve.

The battle took place on the 7th of September; the weather was
overcast and a cold wind raised clouds of dust. The Emperor, who
was suffering from severe migraine, went down into a sort of
ravine, where he spent the greater part of the day walking on
foot. From this spot he could see only part of the battlefield,
and to see its entirety he had to climb a nearby hillock, which
he did only twice during the action. The Emperor has been blamed
for his lack of activity, but it should be borne in mind that in
the central position which he occupied with his reserves, he was
able to receive frequent reports of events occurring at all
points of the line, whereas if he had been on one wing or the
other, the aides-de-camp, hurrying with urgent information over
such broken ground, might not have been able to see him or known
where to look for him. And it must not be forgotten that the
Emperor was ill and a strong and glacial wind prevented him from
remaining on horseback.

I took no part in the battle of Moscow, so I shall refrain from
going into any detail about the various manoeuvres carried out
during this memorable action. I shall say only that after almost
unheard of efforts the French succeeded in overcoming the most
obstinate resistance of the Russians, and that the battle was one
of the most bloody fought during the century. The two armies
suffered casualties to a total of 50,000 dead or wounded. The
French had 49 generals killed or wounded and 20,000 men put out
of action. The Russian losses were a third greater. General
Bagration, the best of their officers was killed, and by a
bizarre turn of fate he happened to be the owner of the land on
which the battle was fought. Twelve thousand horses were left on
the field. The French took few prisoners, an indication of the
courage and determination of the Russian resistance.

During the action there were several interesting episodes. When
the Russian left had been twice driven back by the supreme
efforts of Murat, Davout and Ney and had yet rallied for the
third time and returned to the charge, Murat asked General
Belliard to beg the Emperor to send part of his guard to secure a
victory, failing which it would be necessary to fight another
battle to beat the Russians.  Napoleon was inclined to comply
with this request, but Marshal Bessieres, commandant of the Guard
said to him "I shall permit myself to remind your majesty that
you are at this moment some seven hundred leagues from France."
Whether it was this observation or whether the Emperor thought
that the battle had not reached the stage when he should commit
his reserve, he refused the request. Two other demands of this
kind met the same fate.

There was another remarkable incident which occurred in this
battle so full of gallant deeds. The enemy front was covered by
some high ground on which were redouts and redans and in
particular, a crenelated fort armed with 80 guns. The French,
after considerable losses, had gained control of these field
works but had not been able to retain the fort, and to regain it
would be a very difficult task even for infantry. General
Montbrun, who commanded the 2nd Cavalry Corps, had noticed, with
the help of his field-glass, that the gate of the fort was not
closed and that platoons of Russian soldiers were going through
it. He also noticed that if one went round the side of the high
ground, one could avoid the ramparts, ravines and rocks and lead
a cavalry unit to the gate up a gentle slope, suited to horses.
General Montbrun proposed to get into the fort with his cavalry
from the rear, while the infantry attacked the front. This
hazardous operation having been approved by Murat and the
Emperor, Montbrun was entrusted with its execution; but while the
intrepid general was finalising his plan, he was killed by a
cannon-ball. This was a great loss for the army, but it did not
put an end to the project he had conceived, and the Emperor sent
General Coulincourt to replace him.

One now saw something unheard of in the annals of war: a huge
fort defended by numerous guns and several battalions of infantry
attacked and taken by a column of cavalry. Coulincourt pressing
ahead with a division of Cuirassiers, headed by their 5th
regiment commanded by Colonel Christophe, broke through all those
defending the approach to the fort, reached the gate, entered the
interior and fell dead with a bullet through his head. Colonel
Christophe and his troopers avenged their general by putting part
of the garrison to the sword. The fort remained in their hands,
which helped to assure a French victory.

Today, when the thirst for promotion has become insatiable, one
would be astonished if, after such a feat, a colonel was not
promoted; but during the Empire ambition was more modest.
Christophe did not become a general until some years later, and
never showed any discontent with this delay.

The Poles, usually so courageous, particularly those from the
Grand Duchy of Warsaw commanded by Prince Poniatovski, fought so
badly that the Emperor sent his major general to upbraid them. In
this battle of Moscow, General Rapp was wounded for the
twenty-first time.

Although the Russians had been defeated and forced to leave the
field of battle, their generalissimo, Koutousoff, had the
impudence to write to the Emperor Alexander, claiming that he had
just won a great victory over the French. This falsehood, which
arrived in St. Petersburg on Alexander's birthday, gave rise to
much rejoicing. A Te Deum was sung and Koutousoff was promoted to
field-marshal. However it was not long before the truth was known
and the joy turned to grief; but Koutousoff was now a
field-marshal, which was what he wanted. Anyone but the timid
Alexander would have severely punished the new field-marshal for
this outrageous lie; but Koutousoff was needed, and so he
remained head of the army.

Chap. 13.

The Russians, retreating towards Moscow, were contacted on the
morning of the eighth, when there was a sharp cavalry engagement
in which General Belliard was wounded. Napoleon spent three days
at Mojaisk, partly to draw up the orders necessary in the
circumstances and partly to reply to the back-log of despatches.
One of these, which had arrived on the eve of the battle, had
affected him greatly and had contributed to making him ill, for
it announced that the so-called army of Portugal, commanded by
Marshal Marmont, had suffered a severe defeat at Arpiles, near
Salamanca, in Spain.

Marmont was one of Napoleon's mistakes. He had been one of
Napoleon's companions at the college of Brienne and later in the
artillery, and Napoleon took an interest in him. Misled by some
success achieved by Marmont at school, the Emperor had a belief
in the Marshal's military talents which his performance in the
field never justified. In 1811, Marmont had replaced Massena as
commander of the army of Portugal, proclaiming that he would
defeat Wellington, but the contrary proved to be the case.
Marmont, defeated, wounded, with his army in disarray and obliged
to abandon several provinces, would have suffered even worse
reverses if General Clausel had not come to his aid.

When he learned of this disaster, the Emperor must have reflected
deeply on the present operation, for while he was about to enter
Moscow at the head of his largest army, a thousand leagues away
another army had just been defeated. By invading Russia was he
about to lose Spain? Major Fabvier, who brought this despatch,
volunteered to join in the battle for Moscow and was wounded in
the assault on the great redout. It was a long way to come to be
hit by a bullet.

On the 12th of September Napoleon left Mojaisk, and on the 15th
he entered Moscow. This enormous city was deserted. General
Rostopschine, its governor, had forced all the inhabitants to
leave.  This Rostopschine, whom some have described as a hero,
was a barbarian, who would shrink from nothing to achieve his
aims. He had allowed the populace to strangle a number of foreign
merchants, mainly the French, who were living in Moscow, on the
sole grounds that they were suspected of hoping for the arrival
of Napoleon's troops. Some days before the battle of Moscow, the
Cossacks having captured about a hundred sick Frenchmen,
Koutousoff sent them by a roundabout road to the governor of
Moscow, who, regardless of their condition, left them for
forty-eight hours without food and then paraded them triumphantly
through the streets, where a number of these unfortunates
collapsed and died of starvation. As this was happening,
policemen read to the populace a proclamation by Rostopschine in
which, to encourage them to take up arms, he declared that all
the French were in a similar feeble state and would be easily
overcome. When this disgusting performance was over, the majority
of the soldiers still alive were killed by the mob, without
Rostopschine doing anything to protect them.

The defeated Russian troops had only passed through Moscow, and
had gone to re-group some thirty leagues from there, around
Kalouga.  Murat followed them with all his cavalry and several
infantry corps.  The Imperial Guard stayed in the town and
Napoleon took up residence in the Kremlin, the ancient fortified
palace of the Czars.  Everything seemed peaceful, when, during
the night 15th-16th September, some French and German merchants
who had escaped the governor's attentions came to warn Napoleon's
staff that the city was to be set on fire. This information was
confirmed by a Russian policeman, who refused to carry out the
orders of his superiors: he stated that before leaving Moscow,
Rostopschine had thrown open all the prisons and released the
prisoners and convicts, to whom he had given torches said to have
been supplied by the British, and that these persons were lying
hidden in the abandoned houses waiting for the signal. When the
Emperor heard of this he instituted the strictest precautionary
measures. Patrols went about the streets and killed a number of
those caught setting fires alight, but it was too late; fire
broke out in various parts of the city and spread rapidly owing
to the fact that Rostopschine had taken away all the
fire-fighting equipment. It was not long before the whole of
Moscow was ablaze. The Emperor left the Kremlin and went to the
chateau of Peterskoe. He did not return until three days later,
when the fire was beginning to subside for lack of fuel. I shall
not go into any details about the fire itself, as there are
several eye-witness accounts, but later I shall examine the
consequences of this catastrophic conflagration.

Napoleon, who did not understand the position in which Alexander
found himself, hoped always for some accommodation and
eventually, tired of waiting, he decided to write to him
personally. In the meantime the Russian army was being
reorganised in the area of Kalouga, from where agents were sent
to direct stray soldiers back to their units. It was estimated
that there were about 15,000 of them concealed in the suburbs and
able to wander about our bivouacs without being challenged. They
sat round the fires with our men and ate with them, yet no one
thought of making them prisoners. This was a great mistake, for
they gradually returned to the Russian army, while our strength
diminished daily owing to sickness and the increasing cold. We
lost an enormous number of horses, which was thought due to the
extraordinary efforts demanded by Murat from the cavalry, of
which he was the commander. Murat, recalling the brilliant
successes obtained against the Prussians in 1806 and 1807 by
pursuing them closely, thought that the cavalry should be equal
to any demands and should march twelve to fifteen leagues a day
without worrying about the fatigue of the horses, the essential
being to reach the enemy with at least some of the columns.
However the climate, the shortage of rations and fodder, the long
duration of the campaign and above all the tenacious resistance
of the Russians had greatly changed the situation, so that by the
time we reached Moscow, half our cavalrymen had no horses, and
Murat managed to finish off the rest at Kalouga. Prince Murat was
proud of his tall stature and his bravery; and being always
decked out in strange but brilliant uniforms, he had attracted
the notice of the enemy, with whom he was pleased to parley, even
exchanging gifts with the Cossack officers.  Koutousoff took
advantage of these meetings to encourage in the French the false
hopes of a peace, hopes which Murat passed on to the Emperor. One
day, however, this enemy who claimed to be so weakened, arose,
slipped into our cantonments and captured some supplies, a
squadron of dragoons and a battalion of troops. After this
Napoleon forbade, under pain of death, any communication with the
Russians which he had not authorised.

The Emperor never entirely lost hope of concluding a peace, on
the 4th of October he sent General Lauriston, his aide-de-camp,
to General Koutousoff's headquarters. The cunning Russian showed
General Lauriston a letter which he had addressed to the Emperor
Alexander, urging him to agree to the French proposals, seeing
that, as he alleged, the Russian army was in no state to continue
the war. The officer carrying this despatch had hardly left for
St. Petersburg, armed with a pass from Lauriston which would
preserve him from attack by any of our men who were in the area
between the two armies, when Koutousoff sent off a second
aide-de-camp to his Emperor. This officer, having no French
laissez-passer, was stopped by one of our patrols, taken prisoner
and his despatches sent to Napoleon. The contents were the exact
opposite to what had been shown to Lauriston. After imploring his
sovereign not to treat with the French, he informed him that
Admiral Tchitchakoff's army, freed from its duties on the
frontier by the peace with Turkey, was moving towards Minsk in
order to cut the French line of retreat. He also told Alexander
of the discussions he had conducted freely with Murat, with the
aim of encouraging the false sense of security entertained by the
French in remaining in Moscow so late in the year.

When he saw this letter, Napoleon, realising that he had been
tricked, fell into a furious rage, and is said to have
contemplated marching on St. Petersburg; but beyond the
diminished strength of the army and the rigours of the winter,
which militated against such an undertaking, there were pressing
reasons for the Emperor to get closer to Germany, in order to
watch over that country and to see what was going on in France,
where there had been a conspiracy whose leaders had been, for one
day, in control of the capital. A fanatic, General Malet, had
tossed a spark into Paris which could have started a fire, which,
had he not encountered a man as far-seeing and energetic as
Adjutant-major Laborde, might have put an end to the imperial
government.

This was not heartening, and one can imagine the anxiety of
Napoleon when he learned of the danger which had threatened his
family and his government.

Chap. 14.

In Moscow, Napoleon's position grew worse daily. The cold was
already bitter and only the French-born soldiers maintained their
morale, but they composed no more than half the force which
Napoleon had led into Russia. The remainder was made up of
Germans, Swiss, Croats, Lombards, Romanians, Piedmontais,
Spaniards, and Portuguese.  All these foreigners, who stayed
loyal as long as the army was successful, now began to complain
and, led astray by the leaflets in various languages which the
Russians spread widely through our camps, they deserted in droves
to the enemy, who promised to repatriate them.

Added to this, the two wings of the Grande Armee, which consisted
entirely of Austrians and Prussians, were now no longer in line
with the centre as they had been at the beginning of the
campaign, but were in our rear, ready to bar our way on the first
command of their sovereigns, ancient and irreconcilable enemies
of France. The position was critical, and although it would
greatly hurt Napoleon's pride to display to the whole world that
he had failed in his objective of imposing a peace on Alexander,
the word "retreat" was at last uttered. But neither the Emperor
nor the marshals nor anyone else thought of abandoning Russia and
recrossing the Nieman; the idea was to go into winter quarters in
the least unpleasant of the Polish provinces.

The evacuation of Moscow was agreed on in principle, but before
taking this step, Napoleon, in a last endeavour to obtain a
settlement, sent an emissary to Marshal Koutousoff, who did not
make any response.

During these delays our army was melting away, day by day, and in
blind overconfidence our outposts remained at risk in the
province of Kalouga in untactical positions, when suddenly a
wholly unforeseen event occurred which opened the eyes of the
most incredulous and destroyed any illusions which the Emperor
still had of achieving peace.

General Sebastiani, whom we saw allowing himself to be surprised
at Drouia, had replaced General Montbrun as commander of the 2nd
Cavalry Corps and, although close to the enemy, he spent his days
in his slippers, reading Italian poetry and carrying out no
reconnaissance. Taking advantage of this negligence, Koutousoff
attacked Sebastiani on the 18th of October, surrounded him and
overwhelmed him by numbers, forcing him to abandon part of his
artillery. Sebastiani's three divisions of cavalry, separated
from the rest of Murat's troops, were able to rejoin them only
after fighting their way through several enemy battalions who
stood in their way. In the course of this savage combat,
Sebastiani displayed his valour, for he was a brave man, if a
noticeably mediocre general, something which will be demonstrated
anew when we come to the campaign of 1813.

At the same time as he surprised Sebastiani, Koutousoff ordered
an attack on Murat's lines, in which the Prince was slightly
wounded.  Having learned of this unsatisfactory affair, and on
the same day been told of the arrival in the enemy camp of a
reinforcement of ten thousand cavalry from the Russian army in
Wallachia (The Russian border with the Turks, in southern
Romania. Ed.) which the Austrians, our allies, had allowed to
pass, the Emperor gave the order for the departure to begin on
the following day.

In the morning of the 19th of October, the Emperor left Moscow,
which he had entered on the 15th of September. His Majesty, the
old guard and the bulk of the army took the road to Kalouga;
Marshal Mortier and two divisions of the Young Guard remained
behind for twenty-four hours to complete the destruction of the
city and blow up the Kremlin, after which they brought up the
rear of the march.

The army trailed behind it more than forty thousand carriages,
which caused an obstruction whenever the road narrowed. When this
was remarked on to the Emperor, he replied that each of these
coaches could carry two wounded men and food for several, and
that their number would gradually diminish. The employment of
this philanthropic system could, I think, be objected to, on the
grounds that the need to speed the march of a retreating army
seems to me to outweigh all other considerations.

During the French occupation of Moscow, Murat and the cavalry
corps had been stationed in part of the fertile province of
Kalouga, but without seizing the town of that name. The Emperor
wished to avoid passing through the area of the battle of Moscow
(Borodino) and down the road to Mojaisk, which had been stripped
of resources by the army on its approach to Moscow; and for this
reason he took the road to Kalouga, from where he counted on
getting to Smolensk through fertile and, as it were, unspoiled
country. But at the end of several day's march, the army, which
after joining with Murat's force amounted, still, to more than
100,000 men, found itself confronting the Russian army which
occupied the little town of Malo-Iaroslawetz.  The enemy was in
an exceedingly strong position; nevertheless the Emperor sent
into the attack Prince Eugene, at the head of the Italian Corps
and the French divisions of Morand and Gerard. Nothing could
stand in the way of these men and they took the town after a long
and murderous fight which cost us 4000 killed or wounded. Among
the dead was General Delzons, a very fine officer.

The next day, the 24th of October, the Emperor, surprised at the
degree of resistance he had encountered, and knowing that the
whole Russian army barred his way, halted the march and spent
three days considering what course he should follow.

On one occasion, during a reconnaissance of the enemy line, the
Emperor nearly fell into their hands. There was a very thick fog,
and suddenly shouts of "Hourra! Hourra!" were heard. It was a
group of Cossacks who were emerging from a wood bordering the
road, which they had been going through not twenty paces from the
Emperor, knocking down and spearing anyone that they came across:
but General Rapp rushed forward with the two squadrons of
Chasseurs and mounted Grenadiers which went everywhere with the
Emperor who, wielding their sabres, put the enemies to flight. It
was during this encounter that M. Le Couteulx, my former
companion on the staff of Marshal Lannes, and now an aide-de-camp
to Prince Berthier, having armed himself with the lance belonging
to a Cossack whom he had killed, was unwise enough to come back
brandishing this weapon, and, furthermore, dressed in a pelisse
and a fur hat, which concealed the French uniform. A mounted
Grenadier of the Guard mistook him for a Cossack officer, and
seeing him heading towards the Emperor, went after him and
slashed him across the body with his heavy sabre. In spite of
this serious wound, M. Le Couteulx, placed in one of the
Emperor's carriages, survived the cold and the exhaustion of the
retreat, and managed to reach France.

The reconnaissance carried out by the Emperor had convinced him
that it would be impossible to continue his march towards Kalouga
without fighting a sanguinary battle against the large force
commanded by Koutousoff. He decided, therefore, to reach Smolensk
by taking the road leading through Mojaisk. The army then left
the fertile countryside to take once more the now devastated
route along which, marking their passage with fires and dead
bodies, they had travelled in September. This movement by the
Emperor left him, after ten weary days, no more than twelve
leagues from Moscow, and caused the troops to feel increasing
anxiety about the future. The weather turned much worse; Marshal
Mortier rejoined the Emperor after having blown up the Kremlin.

The army saw once more Mojaisk and the battlefield of Borodino.
The ground, furrowed by cannon-balls, was covered with the debris
of helmets, cuirasses, wheels, weapons, fragments of uniform and
thirty thousand bodies, partly eaten by wolves. The Emperor and
the troops passed by quickly, casting a sad look at this immense
graveyard.

After they had reached Vyazma the snow began to fall and a bitter
wind to blow, which slowed their progress. Many of the vehicles
were abandoned, and some thousands of men and horses perished of
cold by the roadside. The flesh of the horses provided some
nourishment for the men and also for the officers. The command of
the rearguard passed successively from Davout to Prince Eugene
and finally to Marshal Ney, who kept this unpleasant job for the
rest of the campaign.

Smolensk was reached on the 1st of November. The Emperor had
arranged for a great quantity of food clothing and footwear to be
collected there, but those in charge of these supplies did not
realise the state of disorganisation into which the army had
fallen, and insisted on the paperwork and formalities of a normal
distribution. This delay so exasperated the men, who were dying
of cold and hunger, that they broke into the stores and took,
forcibly, whatever they could. With the result that some had too
much, some enough and some nothing.

As long as the troops had maintained a proper order of march, the
mixture of nationalities had given rise to no more than minor
inconveniences, but once fatigue and privation had broken the
ranks, discipline was lost. There was no way in which it could be
maintained in a vast body of isolated individuals, lacking every
necessity, walking on their own, without understanding why; for
in this disorderly mass there ruled a veritable babel of tongues.
A few regiments, mainly those in the Guard, held together. Almost
all the troopers of the cavalry, having lost their horses, were
formed into infantry battalions, and those of their officers who
still were mounted were made into special squadrons, commanded by
Generals Latour-Mauberg, Grouchy and Sebastiani, who acted as
ordinary captains, while brigade commanders and colonels filled
the post of sergeant and corporal. This resort alone, shows to
what extremity the army was reduced.

In this critical position, the Emperor had counted on a strong
division of troops of all arms, which General Baraguey d'Hilliers
was supposed to bring to Smolensk; but, as we neared the town, we
heard the General had laid down his arms before a Russian column,
with the provision that he alone would not be made prisoner and
would be allowed to rejoin the French army in order to explain
his actions.  The Emperor, however, refused to see Baraguey
d'Hilliers and ordered him to return to France and to consider
himself under arrest until he was brought before a court-martial.
Baraguey d'Hilliers avoided court-martial by dying in Berlin, it
was said, of despair.

This General was another of Napoleon's mistakes. He had been
impressed by him at the time of the encampments at Boulogne when
he had promised that he could train dragoons to serve either as
cavalry or infantry. However, when this system was tried out in
1805, during the Austrian campaign, the Dragoons, now on foot and
commanded by Baraguey d'Hilliers in person, were defeated at
Wertingen before the eyes of the Emperor, and when placed once
more on horseback, they once more suffered the same fate. It was
several years before the unit recovered from the effects of this
experiment. The originator of the system, having fallen from
favour and hoping to re-establish himself by asking to come to
Russia, had completed his downfall by capitulating without a
struggle, and violating a decree stating that a commander forced
to surrender should accompany his men into captivity, and
forbidding him from negotiating terms favourable only to himself.

After spending several days at Smolensk to allow stragglers to
catch up with him, the Emperor went to Krasnoe, from where he
despatched an officer to 2nd Corps, which was still by the Dvina
and was now his only hope of safety.

The regiments of this corps, although they had not suffered the
hardship and privation of those who had gone to Moscow, had
however been more often in action against the enemy. Napoleon,
wishing to reward them by appointments to vacant positions, had
brought to him for his approval a number of proposals for
promotions, several of which related to me. One of these
recommended me for the rank only of lieutenant-colonel and it was
this that was put before the Emperor for his signature. I have it
from General Grundler who, having been detailed to carry the
despatch, found himself in the Emperor's office during the
signing, that the Emperor scratched out with his own hand the
words Lieutenant-colonel and wrote in the word Colonel, saying "I
am paying off an old debt." So, on the 15th of November, I at
last became Colonel of the 23rd Chasseurs, although I did not
know it until some time later.

The painful retreat was resumed. The enemy, whose strength
increased continually, cut off from the rest of the army the
Corps of Prince Eugene, Davout and Ney. The first two managed to
fight their way through to join the Emperor, who was very
distressed at the absence of Ney, of whom he had had no news for
several days.

On the 19th of November Napoleon reached Orscha. It was now a
month since he had left Moscow and there was still a hundred and
twenty leagues to cover before reaching the Nieman. The cold was
intense.

While the Emperor worried unhappily about the fate of his
rear-guard and the gallant Marshal Ney, the latter was engaged in
one of the finest feats of arms recorded in history. Leaving
Smolensk on the morning of the 17th, after blowing up the
ramparts, the Marshal had hardly begun his march when he was
assailed by a myriad of the enemy, who attacked both flanks and
the front and rear of his column.

Driving them off continually, Ney marched, surrounded by them for
three days, to halt eventually before the dangerous pass of the
Krasnoe ravine, beyond which could be seen a great mass of
Russian troops and an array of guns which opened a lively and
sustained fire.

Without being cast down by this unforeseen obstacle the Marshal
took the bold decision to force a passage, and ordered the 48th
of line, commanded by Colonel Pelet, to attack with the bayonet.
At Ney's command, the French soldiers, although tired, hungry and
numb with cold, rushed the Russian batteries and captured them.
They were regained by the enemy and captured once more by our men
but in the end they had to yield to the superiority in numbers.
The 48th, shattered by grape-shot, was largely destroyed. Of the
six hundred and fifty men who entered the ravine only about a
hundred emerged.  Colonel Pelet, gravely wounded was among them.

Night fell, and for the rearguard, all hope of rejoining the
Emperor and the rest of the army seemed to be lost; but Ney had
confidence in his men, and above all in himself. He ordered lines
of fires to be lit, in order to keep the enemy in their camp, in
the expectation of a renewed attack the next day, but he had
decided to put the Dnieper between himself and the Russians and
to entrust his fate and that of his troops to the strength of the
ice covering the river. It was while he was trying to decide
which was the shortest route to the river that a Russian colonel
from Krasnoe arrived as an envoy, and demanded that Ney should
surrender. Ney was indignant, and as the officer was carrying no
written instructions, he replied that he did not regard him as an
envoy but as a spy who would be executed if he did not guide them
to the nearest spot on the bank of the Dnieper. The Russian
Colonel was forced to obey.

Ney immediately gave the order to quit the camp in silence,
leaving behind the guns, wagons, baggage and those wounded unable
to march with him; and helped by the darkness, he reached, after
four hours, the banks of the Dnieper. The river was frozen over,
but the ice was not everywhere thick enough to bear the weight of
a number of men, so the Marshal sent his troops across one by
one. Once over the river, the troops thought they had reached
safety, but dawn revealed an encampment of Cossacks. This was
commanded by Hetman Platov who, as was his custom, had spent the
evening drinking and was still asleep.

Discipline is so rigid in the Russian army that no one dared wake
him nor take up arms without his orders, so the remains of Ney's
Corps were able to pass within a league of the camp without being
attacked. The Cossacks did not appear until the next day.

Under constant attack, the Marshal marched for three days along
the winding bank of the Dnieper, which would lead him to Orscha,
and on the 20th he at last saw this town where he hoped to find
the Emperor and the army. He was, however, still separated from
Orscha by a large area of open ground in which were many enemy
troops, while the Cossacks were preparing to attack him from the
rear. Taking up a good defensive position, he sent of a
succession of officers to find out if the French were still in
Orscha, failing which resistance would no longer be possible. One
of these officers reached Orscha where the general headquarters
still was. The Emperor was delighted to hear of the return of
Marshal Ney, and to rescue him from his dangerous position he
sent Prince Eugene and Marshal Mortier who drove off the enemy
and brought back Ney and what remained of his unit.

The next day the Emperor continued the retreat. He was joined by
troops under the command of Marshal Victor who had recently
arrived from Germany, and he made contact with 2nd Corps, where
Saint-Cyr had just returned the command to Marshal Oudinot.

Chap. 15.

As it is important to understand the events which led to the
reunion of 2nd Corps with the army from which it had been
separated since the start of the campaign, I must describe
briefly what happened after the month of August, when, having
defeated the Russians at Polotsk, Saint-Cyr set up near there an
immense entrenched camp protected by a part of his force, the
remainder of which he spread out on both banks of the Dvina. The
light cavalry provided cover for these cantonments and so, as I
have already said, Castex's brigade, to which my regiment
belonged, was stationed at Louchonski, on a little river named
the Polota, from where we could keep an eye on the main roads
leading from Sebej and Newel.

Wittgenstein's army, after its defeat, had retired beyond those
towns, so that there was between the French and the Russians a
space of more than twenty-five leagues of no-man's-land, into
which both sides sent reconnaissance parties of cavalry, giving
rise to unimportant skirmishes. For the rest, as the area round
Polotsk was well supplied with forage and standing crops of
grain, and as it seemed plain that we were in for a long stay,
the French soldiers started to reap and thresh the corn, and
grind it in the small hand-mills which are to be found in every
peasant dwelling.

This process seemed to me to be too slow, so we repaired, with
much difficulty, two water-mills, which stood by the Polota near
Louchonski, and from that time on, a supply of bread for my
regiment was assured. As for meat, the neighbouring woods were
full of abandoned cattle; but as it was necessary to track them
down every day, I had the idea of doing what I had seen done in
Portugal, and that was to form a regimental herd. In a short time
I had rounded up 7 or 8 hundred beasts which I put in the charge
of some unmounted Chasseurs, to whom I gave local ponies, too
small for military use.  This herd, which I increased by frequent
searches, lasted for several months and allowed me to make
regular distributions of meat to the regiment, which maintained
the men's health and earned me their gratitude for the care I
took of them. I extended my care to the horses, for which we made
big shelters, thatched with straw, and placed behind the men's
huts, so that our bivouac was almost as comfortable as a regular
camp in peacetime. The other unit commanders did the same sort of
thing, but none of them had a regimental herd: their men lived
from day to day.

While the French, Swiss, Croat, and Portuguese regiments worked
unceasingly to improve their conditions, the Bavarians alone made
no effort to escape from want and sickness. It was in vain that
General the Comte de Wrede tried to rouse them by pointing out
how the French soldiers were building huts, reaping and threshing
grain, milling it into flour, making ovens and baking bread, the
wretched Bavarians, totally demoralised since they no longer were
issued with regular rations, admired the work done by our men
without attempting to imitate them. So they were dying like flies
and there would have been none left if Marshal Saint-Cyr, shaking
off for a moment his habitual indifference, had not persuaded the
colonels of the other divisions to provide a daily supply of
bread for the Bavarians. The light cavalry, stationed out in the
country and near the woods, sent them some cattle.

However, these Germans, so feeble when it came to work, were
brave enough in action against the enemy, but the moment the
danger was over they relapsed into complete apathy. Nostalgia or
home-sickness took them; they dragged themselves to Polotsk, and
entering the hospitals established by their commanders, they
asked for somewhere to die, and laying themselves on the straw,
they never rose again.  A great many died in this way and General
de Wrede had to take into his wagon the flags of a number of
regiments who had not sufficient men to defend them. And yet it
was only September, the cold weather had not begun and on the
contrary it was very mild. The other troops were in good heart
and awaited cheerfully the outcome of events.

The men of my regiment were noted everywhere for their good
health, which I attribute firstly to the quantity of bread and
meat which I was able to give them and secondly to the liquor
which I was able to obtain by an arrangement with the Jesuits of
Polotsk. These good Fathers, all of them French, had a big farm
at Louchonski, where there was a distillery for making grain
spirit, but on the approach of war all the workers had fled back
to the monastery, taking with them the stills and utensils, so
that production had stopped, thus depriving the monastery of part
of its revenue. The arrival of so many soldiers in the region had
made alcoholic drinks so scarce and expensive that the owners of
the canteens were undertaking a journey of several days to Wilna
to obtain supplies. It occurred to me that I might be able to
reach an agreement with the Jesuits whereby I would protect their
distillery and have my men reap and thresh the necessary grain,
in return for which my regiment would receive a daily share of
the resulting product. My proposition was accepted by the monks,
who benefitted greatly by being able to sell alcohol in the
camps, while I had the advantage of being able to distribute a
daily ration to my men who, since crossing the Nieman, had drunk
nothing but water.

At first glance these details may seem pointless, but I am happy
to recall them because the care I took of my men saved many of
their lives and maintained the strength of the 23rd far above
that of the other cavalry regiments in the Corps, which earned me
a token of his satisfaction from the Emperor which I shall refer
to later.

Among the measures which I took are two which protected the lives
of many of my troopers. The first of these was to insist that
from the 15th of September they should each equip themselves with
a sheepskin coat, many of which were to be found in abandoned
peasant dwellings. Soldiers are like great children, for whom one
must care sometimes against their will. Mine complained that
these heavy pelisses were useless and overburdened their horses,
but come October they were happy to put them on under their
capes, and when it grew really cold they thanked me for having
made them keep them.

The second step which I took was to send to the rear all those
troopers who were without a mount, either because of enemy fire
or because their horse had died for some other reason. A standing
order required that these men should be sent to Lepel, in
Lithuania, to await horses which were to be sent from Warsaw. I
was preparing to do this when I learned that Lepel was crammed
with dismounted troopers, who were short of all supplies and had
nothing to do because not a single remount had arrived there, so
I took it on myself to send my dismounted men directly to Warsaw
under the command of Captain Poitevin, who had been wounded. I
knew that this was in breach of the regulations, but in a huge
army, so far from its base and under such abnormal conditions, it
was not possible for the general staff to attend to all the needs
of the troops. Occasions therefore arose when a unit commander
had to use his own judgement. Thus, General Castex, who could not
give me official authorisation and having told me that he would
close his eyes to what I was doing, I continued in this manner
for as long as it was possible, so that in the end I had sent 250
men to Warsaw. After the campaign I found them once more on the
Vistula, all in new uniforms, well-equipped and well-mounted and
a welcome reinforcement for the regiment. The dismounted men from
other regiments, amounting to some 9000, who had been sent to
Lepel, caught unaware by the great retreat from Moscow, were
almost all taken prisoner or died of cold on the roads. Yet it
would have been so easy to have sent them during the summer and
autumn to the remount depot at Warsaw, where there were plenty of
horses but a shortage of riders.

I remained for a whole month resting at Louchonski, which helped
to heal the wound I had received at Jakoubowo. We were very
comfortable in our camp from the material point of view, but very
worried about the events at Moscow, and it was only on rare
occasions that we had news from France. At last I had a letter in
which my dearest Angelique told me she had given birth to a boy.
My joy at this was mixed with sadness, for I was a long way from
my family, and although I could not foresee all the dangers to
which I would soon be exposed, I could not pretend that there
were not many obstacles to be overcome before our reunion.

About the middle of September, Marshal Saint-Cyr sent me on a
rather delicate mission. It had two objectives: first to find out
what the enemy were up to in the region round Newel and then to
return via Lake Ozerichtchi in order to get in touch with Count
Lubenski, one of the few Poles who were willing to do anything to
shake off the Russian yoke. The Emperor who, although unwilling
to proclaim the re-establishment of the former Poland, wanted to
organise the areas already conquered into departments, had
received many refusals from the noblemen to whom he had proposed
to confide the administration; but having been assured of Count
Lubenski's patriotism, His Majesty had nominated him Prefect of
Witepsk. As this nobleman lived in an isolated spot outside the
area under French control, it was difficult to inform him of his
nomination and to ensure his safe arrival. Napoleon had therefore
ordered that a body of light cavalry should be sent to the Count.

Detailed to undertake this mission, with three hundred men of my
regiment, I picked the boldest and best-mounted men and having
provided them with bread, cooked meat and vodka, as well as other
necessities, I left the camp on the 14th of September, taking
with me Lorentz to act as interpreter.

The life of a partisan is perilous and very tiring. One avoids
the main roads and hides by day in the forest without daring to
make a fire. One takes from a hamlet food and fodder to be eaten
several leagues away to confuse enemy spies; one marches all
night, sometimes arriving at different point from that intended
and one is constantly on the look-out. Such was the life I led
when I found myself with no more than three hundred men, in a
huge area which I did not know, out of touch with the French army
and approaching that of the Russians, a numerous detachment of
whom I might encounter at any time. It was a difficult situation,
but I had confidence in myself and in the men who followed me, so
I went forward resolutely, skirting by two or three leagues the
road which runs from Polotsk to Newel.

Nothing much of interest happened to us. It is sufficient to say
that thanks to the information given to us by the peasants, who
hated the Russians, we made a tour round Newel, avoiding all the
enemy positions, and after eight days, or rather eight nights, of
marching we came to the shore of Lake Ozerichtchi, where there is
the magnificent chateau which at that time belonged to Count
Lubenski. I shall never forget the scene which greeted us on our
arrival before this ancient and vast manor. It was a splendid
autumn evening. The family of the Count had gathered to celebrate
his birthday and to rejoice in the capture of Moscow by Napoleon,
when some servants ran to announce that the chateau was
surrounded by soldiers on horseback, who had posted sentries and
guards and were now entering the courtyards. It was thought that
these were the Russian police who had come to arrest the Count,
and he, a man of great courage, was waiting calmly to be taken to
the prison of St. Petersburg, when his son, who out of curiosity
had opened a window, came to say that the troopers were speaking
French.

On hearing this, the Count and his family followed by a crowd of
servants rushed out of the chateau and gathered on an immense
peristyle. When I mounted the steps, he advanced towards me with
arms outstretched to embrace me, and declaimed in theatrical
tones a most fulsome welcome. Not only did the Count embrace me,
but his wife and daughters did the same, then the almoner, the
tutors and governesses came to kiss my hand, and the domestic
staff touched my knee with their lips. I was greatly astonished
at these various honours, and accepted them with all the gravity
I could muster. I had thought the whole performance was over
when, at a word from the Count, they all knelt down and commenced
to pray.

When we re-entered the chateau, I handed the Count his
appointment as Prefect of Witepsk, adorned with the signature of
the French Emperor, and asked him if he accepted it. "Yes!" he
cried "and I am ready to go with you." The Countess was equally
enthusiastic, and it was agreed that the Count with his eldest
son and two servants would leave with me. I gave them an hour to
get ready, which time was employed in giving my men a good
supper, which they had to eat on horseback because of my fear of
a surprise attack. Having said our farewells, we left to go and
sleep in a forest four leagues from there, where we stayed hidden
all the next day. At night we continued our march, but to put off
our trail any of the enemy who might have been warned of our
presence in the area, I took a different route to that by which I
had come, and going by paths and at times across country, after
five days I reached Polotsk. It was as well that I had taken a
different route, because I learned later from some merchants who
lived in Newel that the Russians had sent a regiment of Dragoons
and 600 Cossacks to wait for me at the source of the Drissa, near
a village I had passed on my way in.

After reporting to Marshal Saint-Cyr and presenting to him Count
Lubenski, I went back to the camp at Louchonski, where I rejoined
General Castex and the rest of my unit. My expedition had lasted
for thirteen days, during which time we had suffered fatigue and
privation; but I was bringing my men back in good shape. We had
not been obliged to fight since any small bands of the enemy we
did encounter fled when they saw us.

The journey which Count Lubenski had taken with us had allowed me
to assess his character. He was a well educated man, capable and
patriotic, but one whose enthusiasm was inclined to cloud his
judgement when it came to considering how best to re-build
Poland. Nevertheless, if all his compatriots had shown his
vigour, and had taken up arms on the arrival of the French,
Poland might have regained its freedom in 1812; but, with few
exceptions, they remained profoundly apathetic.

After leaving Polotsk, the Count went to take up his post as
prefect. He did not keep the position for long, for a month had
hardly passed before the French army, having left Moscow passed
through Witepsk on its retreat. Compelled by this disaster to
abandon his prefecture and to shelter from the vengeance of the
Russians, he took refuge in Galicia, in Austrian Poland, where he
had large landholdings. He lived there peacefully until 1830 when
he returned to Russian Poland to take up arms against the Czar. I
do not know what happened to him after this uprising, but I have
been told by some of his countrymen that he went back to Galicia.
He was a good patriot and a fine man.

A few days after our return to Louchonski, I was greatly
surprised by the arrival of a detachment of thirty troopers
belonging to my regiment. They had come from Mons and had, in
consequence, travelled through Belgium, the Rhenish provinces,
all of Germany and part of Prussia and Poland, and had come more
than 400 leagues under the command of a simple N.C.O. However not
a man had fallen out and not a horse was injured. That shows the
sort of stuff of which the troopers of the 23rd were made.

Chap. 16.

On about the 12th of October, 2nd Corps, which since the 18th of
August had been living in peace and plenty in and around Polotsk,
had to prepare itself to run once more the dangers of war. We
learned that Admiral Tchitchakoff, commander-in-chief of the
Russian army in Walachia, having made peace with the Turks
through the intervention of the English, was heading for Moghilew
with the intention of getting in the rear of Napoleon who, still
nursing the hope of concluding a treaty with Alexander, had not
yet left Moscow.  One might be astonished that Prince
Schwartzenberg, who with thirty thousand Austrians, our allies,
was supposed to be watching over the Russian forces in Walachia,
had allowed them to pass, but that is what happened. Not only had
the Austrians failed to block the road taken by the Russians,
which they could have done, but instead of following behind them,
they had stayed comfortably in their cantonments.

Napoleon had trusted too much in the good faith of the generals
and ministers of his father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria, in
giving them the responsibility of covering the right flank of the
Grande Armee. Whatever excuses are offered, there can be, in my
opinion, no escaping the fact that this was flagrant treachery on
their part, and history will condemn them for it.

While on our right the Austrians were allowing passage to the
Russian troops coming from Turkey, the Prussians, who had so
unwisely been placed on our left wing, were preparing to do a
deal with the enemy, and that almost openly, without concealment
from Marshal Macdonald, whom the Emperor had put at their head to
ensure their fidelity. As soon as these foreigners learned that
the occupation of Moscow had not led to a peace, they foresaw the
disasters which would befall the French army, and all their
enmity towards us was rekindled. They did not break out in open
revolt, but Marshal Macdonald's orders were obeyed with
reluctance, and the Prussians encamped near Riga could at any
moment join Wittgenstein's Russians to crush 2nd Corps camped
round Polotsk.

Plainly, Marshal Saint-Cyr's position was becoming difficult. He,
however, did not seem perturbed, and as impassive as ever, he
issued calmly and clearly the orders for an obstinate defence.
All the infantry was concentrated in the town and the entrenched
camp. Several bridges were added to those already uniting the two
banks of the Dvina. The sick and the non-combatants were sent to
Old Polotsk and Ekimania, fortified posts on the left bank. The
Marshal did not consider he had enough troops to dispute the open
ground with Wittgenstein, who had received powerful
reinforcements from St. Petersburg, so he did not keep more than
five squadrons with him, of which he took one from each regiment
of light cavalry. The rest went over to the other bank.

On the 16th of October the enemy scouts appeared before Polotsk,
the aspect of which had greatly changed, partly because of the
huge, newly established, entrenched camp and partly because of
the numerous fortifications which covered the open country. The
biggest and strongest of these was a redoubt called the Bavarian.
The unhappy remnant of General de Wrede's force asked if they
might defend this redoubt, which they did with much courage.

The fighting began on the 17th and went on all day without
Marshal Saint-Cyr being forced out of his position. This angered
General Wittgenstein, who attributed the hold-up to his officers
not having distinguished between the stronger and weaker of our
defence works, and wishing to inspect them himself, he boldly
approached them.  This devotion to duty nearly cost him his life,
for Major Curely, one of the finest officers in the army, having
spotted the General, dashed forward leading a squadron of the
20th Chasseurs, who sabred some of the escort while he, forcing
his way to General Wittgenstein, put the point of his sword to
his throat and forced him to surrender.

Having effected the capture of the enemy commander, Major Curely
should have retired swiftly, between two redoubts, and taken his
prisoner into the entrenched camp; but the Major was too keen,
and seeing that the General's escort was about to attempt his
rescue, he thought it would be more creditable if he could keep
his prisoner in spite of all their efforts. Wittgenstein then
found himself in the middle of a group fighting for the
possession of his person. In the course of the struggle Curely's
horse was killed, several of our Chasseurs dismounted in order to
pick up their leader, and, in the confusion this created,
Wittgenstein made off at the gallop, calling for his men to
follow.

When this event became generally known throughout the army, it
gave rise to much debate. Some maintained that Major Curely
should have killed Wittgenstein as soon as his escort returned to
fight for his rescue, others thought that having accepted his
surrender, Curely was not entitled to do so. Others again,
thought that, having once surrendered, Wittgenstein should not
have tried to escape. Whatever the rights or wrongs of these
arguments may be, when Curely was presented to the Emperor during
the crossing of the Beresina, where General Wittgenstein caused
us many losses, Napoleon said to him, "This would probably not
have happened if you had used your right to kill Wittgenstein at
Polotsk, when the Russians were trying to take him from you." In
spite of this reproach, merited or not, Curely became a colonel
shortly after, and a general in 1814.

To return now to Polotsk where the enemy, repelled on the 17th,
returned to the attack on the 18th, in so much greater numbers
that, after suffering very heavy losses, Wittgenstein's men
captured the entrenched camp. Saint-Cyr, at the head of Legrand's
and Maison's divisions, drove them out at bayonet point. Seven
times the Russians returned to the attack, and seven times the
French and the Croats drove them off, to remain finally in
control of all their positions.

Although now wounded, Saint-Cyr continued to direct his troops.
His efforts were crowned with success, for the enemy left the
field and retired into the nearby forest. 50,000 Russians had
been defeated by 15,000 of our men. There was rejoicing in the
French camp, but on the morning of the 19th we heard that General
Steinghel with 14,000 Russians had just crossed the Dvina above
Disna and was moving up the left bank to get behind Polotsk,
seize the bridges and trap Saint-Cyr's force between his own and
Wittgenstein's. And indeed it was not long before Steinghel's
advance-guard appeared, heading for Ekimania, where there were
the division of Cuirassiers and the regiments of Light Cavalry
from each of which the Marshal had retained only one squadron at
Polotsk.

At once we were all on horseback and we drove off the enemy, who
would in the end have gained the upper hand, for they were being
strongly reinforced, while we had no infantry support until
Saint-Cyr sent us three regiments taken from the divisions who
were protecting Polotsk. However, at this point Steinghel, who
had only to make a little effort to reach the bridges, stopped
short, while on the other side of the river, Wittgenstein did the
same. It seemed that the two Russian generals, after combining to
draw up an excellent plan of attack, were unwilling to put it
into operation, each one leaving it to the other to overcome the
French.

The French position was now highly critical, for on the right
bank they were pressed back by an army three time their strength
towards a town built entirely of wood and a sizeable river, with
no means of retreat except the bridges which were threatened by
Steinghel's troops on the left bank.

All the generals urged Saint-Cyr to order the evacuation of
Polotsk, but he wanted to wait for nightfall, because he felt
sure that the 50,000 Russians who faced him were waiting only for
his first backward move to throw themselves on his weakened army
and create a state of disorder in the ranks. So he stayed where
he was, and took advantage of the extraordinary inactivity of the
enemy generals to wait for the onset of the dark, which was
hastened, luckily, by a thick fog which prevented the three
armies from seeing one another. The Marshal seized this
favourable opportunity to effect his withdrawal.

The large number of guns and some cavalry squadrons who had
remained on the right bank, had already crossed the bridges in
silence, and the infantry were about to follow, their movement
invisible to the enemy, when the men of Legrand's division,
unwilling to leave their huts for the benefit of the Russians,
set them on fire. The two other divisions, believing that this
was an agreed signal, did the same and in an instant the whole
line was aflame.  This great conflagration having alerted the
Russians to our retreat, all their guns opened up; their mortars
set fire to the suburbs and the town itself, toward which their
columns charged. However, the French, mainly Maison's division,
disputed every foot of ground, for the fires lit the place as if
it were day.

Polotsk was burned to the ground. The losses on both sides were
considerable. Nevertheless our retreat was carried out in an
orderly fashion: we took with us those of our wounded whom it was
possible to carry; the rest, together with a great many Russians,
perished in the flames.

It seemed that there was a complete lack of co-operation between
the leaders of the two enemy armies, for during this night of
fighting Steinghel stayed peacefully in his camp, and made no
more effort to support Wittgenstein than the latter had made to
support him on the previous day. It was only when Saint-Cyr,
after evacuating the place, had put himself beyond the reach of
Wittgenstein by burning the bridges, that Steinghel, on the
morning of the 20th, deployed his troops to attack us. But the
French force was now united on the left bank, and Saint-Cyr
mounted an assault against Steinghel, who was overcome with the
loss of more than 2000 men killed or captured.

In the course of these fierce engagements, over four days and a
night, the Russians had six generals and 10,000 men killed or
wounded, while the losses of the French and their allies did not
amount to more than 5,000, a huge difference which can be
attributed to the superior firepower of our troops, particularly
the artillery.  The advantage which we had in respect of numbers
was in part compensated for by the fact that the wounds which
Marshal Saint-Cyr had suffered would deprive the army of a leader
in whom it had entire confidence. It was necessary to replace
him. The Comte de Wrede claimed that his position as commander in
chief of the Bavarian Corps entitled him to command the French
divisional generals, but they refused to obey a foreigner. So
Saint-Cyr, although in much pain, agreed to remain in control of
the two army corps, and ordered a retreat towards Oula, in order
to reach Smoliany and thus protect on one side the road from
Orscha to Borisoff by which the Emperor was returning from
Moscow.

This retreat was so well organised that Wittgenstein and
Steinghel, who, after repairing the bridges across the Dvina,
were following our trail with 50,000 men, did not dare to attack
us, although we had no more than 12,000 combatants; and they
advanced only fifteen leagues in eight days. As for the Comte de
Wrede, his injured pride led him to refuse to accept
instructions, so he marched off on his own, with the thousand
Bavarians which he had left and a brigade of French cavalry which
he had acquired by subterfuge, having told General Corbineau that
he had received orders to this effect, which was not the case.
His presumption was soon punished: he was attacked and defeated
by a Russian division. He then retired without authorisation to
Wilna, from where he reached the Nieman. The Corbineau brigade
refused to go with him and returned to join the French army, for
whom its return was a piece of good fortune, as you will see when
we come to the crossing of the Beresena.

Ordered by the Emperor, Marshal Victor, Duc de Bellune, at the
head of the 9th Army Corps consisting of 25,000 men, half of whom
came from the Confederation of the Rhine, hurried from Smolensk
to join Saint-Cyr for the purpose of driving Wittgenstein back
across the Dvina. This project would have certainly been carried
out if Saint-Cyr had been in overall command; but Victor was the
more senior of the two marshals and Saint-Cyr was unwilling to
serve under his orders, so the evening before their union which
took place at Smoliany on the 31st of October, he declared that
he could no longer continue the campaign and handing over the
command to General Legrand, he set off to return to France. The
departure of Saint-Cyr was regretted by the troops who, although
they disliked him personally, gave him credit for his courage and
his outstanding military talent. Saint-Cyr could have been a
first class army commander if he had been less egoistic and if he
had taken the trouble to gain the affection of officers and men
by caring for their welfare. No man, however, is perfect.

Marshal Victor had no sooner gathered 9th and 2nd Corps under his
command than chance offered him the opportunity of achieving a
major victory. Wittgenstein, who was unaware of this union,
relying on his superiority in numbers, had decided to attack us
at a place where his line of retreat would be through some narrow
defiles. It would only have required a combined effort from the
two corps to destroy him, for our troops were now as numerous as
his, were inspired by a better spirit and were keen for action;
but Victor, doubtful perhaps of success on terrain which he was
seeing for the first time, retreated during the night, and having
reached Sienno he put the two units into cantonment in the
district. The Russians also withdrew leaving only some Cossacks
to keep an eye on us. This state of affairs which lasted for the
first fortnight of November did the troops much good, for they
lived well, as the country offered many resources.

One day, Marshal Victor having been told that there was a
considerable enemy force in the area of a certain village,
ordered General Castex to send one of his units to reconnoitre
the place. It was for me to go. We left at dusk and reached the
village without any difficulty. It was situated in a hollow, in
the middle of a huge dried marshland and was entirely peaceful,
the inhabitants whom I interrogated with the aid of Lorentz said
that they had not seen a Russian soldier in the past month, so I
prepared to return to my base. However our return was not as
trouble-free as our journey there had been.

Although there was no mist, the night was extremely dark and I
was afraid of leading the regiment astray on the many embankments
of the marsh, which I had to cross once more; so I took as a
guide one of the villagers who seemed to me to be the least
stupid. My column had been going along in good order for half an
hour, when suddenly I saw camp fires on the slopes overlooking
the marsh. I halted the column and sent two sous-officiers to
have a look. They reported that there was a large force barring
our advance and another in our rear. I could now see fires
between me and the village which I had just left and it appeared
that I had landed, without knowing it, in the middle of an army
corps which was making ready to bivouac for the night.  The
number of fires grew, and I estimated that there was a force of
about 50,000 men present and I was in the middle of it, with 700
troopers. The odds were too great, and there seemed only one
thing to do, and that was to gallop along the main embankment, on
which we were, and taking the enemy by surprise, cut a path for
ourselves with our sabres. Once free from the light of the fires,
the darkness would prevent the enemy from following us. I made
sure that all my troops knew what I proposed to do, and I have to
admit that I was very uneasy, for the enemy infantry could take
up their arms at the first cry of warning, and cause us many
casualties.

I was in this state of anxiety when the peasant who was our guide
burst into loud laughter, seconded by Lorentz. I asked them what
they were about, but they did not know enough French to explain
fully. Eventually, however, we understood that these were not
camp fires but marsh fires, or will-of-the-wisp; something none
of us had ever seen before; and so, relieved of one of the
nastiest frights I have ever had, I returned to my camp.

Chap. 17.

After several days I was given a new mission, in which we would
face not marsh fires but the muskets of the Russian dragoons. It
happened that General Castex had gone to visit Marshal Victor,
and the 24th was out on patrol, so that my regiment was alone in
the camp when there arrived two peasants, one of whom I
recognised as Captain Bourgoing, Oudinot's aide-de-camp.

The Marshal, who had gone to Wilna after he had been wounded at
Polotsk on the 18th of August, having heard that Saint-Cyr had
been wounded in his turn on the 18th of October, and had left the
army, decided to rejoin 2nd Corps and take up its command.

Oudinot knew that his troops were somewhere in the region of
Sienno and was heading for that town when, on arriving at Rasna,
he was warned by a Polish priest that a body of Russian dragoons
and some Cossacks was roaming the area. The Marshal knew that
there was a French cavalry unit at Zapole, so he wrote to the
commander of this unit to request a strong escort, and sent the
letter by Captain Bourgoing, who for additional safety disguised
himself as a peasant.  It was as well that he did so, for he had
scarcely covered a league when he encountered a large detachment
of enemy cavalry, who, thinking that he was a local inhabitant,
took no notice of him. Soon after this, Captain Bourgoing heard
the sound of gunfire, and increased his pace towards Zapole.

As soon as I heard of the serious position in which the Marshal
found himself, I left with my regiment at the trot to bring him
help. It was a good thing that we arrived when we did, for
although the Marshal, joined by his aides-de-camp and some dozen
French soldiers, was barricaded in a stone house, he was on the
point of being captured by the dragoons when we arrived. When
they saw us, the enemy mounted their horses and fled. My troopers
went after them and managed to kill about twenty of them and take
some prisoners; I had two men wounded. The marshal, glad to have
escaped from the Russians, expressed his thanks, and I escorted
him back to the French cantonments where he was out of danger.

At this period in time, it seemed that none of the marshals was
prepared to recognise the right of seniority amongst themselves,
for not one of them was willing to serve under the orders of his
comrade, no matter how serious the situation. So as soon as
Oudinot took command of the 2nd Corps, Victor, rather than
remaining under his authority to join in combating Wittgenstein,
took himself off with his 25,000 men to Kokhanov. Marshal
Oudinot, left on his own, marched his men for several days round
various parts of the province before setting up his headquarters
at Tschereia, with his advance-guard at Loucoulm. It was here,
during a minor action involving Castex's brigade that I received
my promotion to colonel.  If you recall that I had suffered, in
the rank of major, a wound at Znaim in Moravia, two at Miranda de
Corvo in Portugal, one at Jakoubowo, that I had fought in four
campaigns in the same rank and that finally I had been in command
of a regiment since the French entry into Russia, you may think
that I had earned my new epaulets. I was grateful to the Emperor
when I learned that he intended to keep me with the 23rd
Chasseurs, for whom I had great affection, and where I was liked
and valued. In fact this decision was welcomed by all ranks, and
the troops whom I had so often led into battle came, both
officers and men, to tell me of their satisfaction at my
remaining their commander. The good General Castex, who had
always treated me as a brother, welcomed me in front of the
regiment, and even the Colonel of the 24th, with whom I had few
dealings, came to congratulate me with all his officers, whose
respect I had acquired.

However, the situation of the French army grew worse by the day.
General Schwartzenberg, the Austrian commander-in-chief whom
Napoleon had placed on the right wing of his army, had, by an act
of low treachery, allowed the troops belonging to Admiral
Tchitchakoff to pass, and they had seized control of Minsk, from
where they threatened our rear. The Emperor must now have much
regretted that he had given the command of Lithuania to the
Dutchman Hogendorf, his aide-de-camp, who, having never been in
action, did not know what to do to save Minsk, where he could
have easily have combined the 30,000 men of the Durette, Loison,
and Dombrowski divisions which had been placed at his disposal.
The fall of Minsk, although a serious matter, was one to which
the Emperor attached little importance, for he relied on crossing
the Beresina at Borisoff, where there was a bridge protected by a
fort, in good condition and manned by a Polish regiment. The
Emperor was so confident about this that, in order to speed the
march of his army he burned all his bridging equipment at Orscha.
This was a disastrous mistake, for these pontoons would have
assured us a quick crossing of the Beresina which, in the event,
we had to effect at the cost of so much blood.

Despite his confidence in relation to the crossing, Napoleon,
when he heard of the Russian occupation of Minsk, ordered Oudinot
to proceed by forced marches to Borisoff. But we arrived there
too late, because General Bronikovski, who was in command of the
fort, seeing himself surrounded by a numerous enemy, thought it
would be a praiseworthy act to save his garrison. So instead of
putting up a determined resistance, which would have given
Oudinot the time to come to his help, he abandoned the fort,
crossed the bridge to the left bank with all his men, and set out
for Orscha to join Oudinot's corps, which he met on the road. The
Marshal gave him a very rough reception and ordered him to return
with us to Borisoff.

Not only were the town, the bridge across the Beresina, and the
fort which dominates it in the hands of Tchitchakoff, but the
Admiral, carried away by this success and anxious to challenge
the French, had marched from the town with the bulk of his army,
the vanguard of which, consisting of a strong cavalry division,
was led by General Lambert, the most competent of his
lieutenants.

As the country was open, Oudinot put ahead of his infantry the
division of Cuirassiers, and ahead of them Castex's brigade of
light cavalry.

It was about three leagues from Borisoff that the Russian
advance-guard, going in the opposite direction to us, came up
against our Cuirassiers, who having done little fighting during
the campaign, had asked to be in the front line. At the sight of
this fine regiment, still strong in numbers and well-mounted,
with their cuirasses gleaming in the sunlight, the Russian
cavalry pulled up short; then, gathering their courage, they
moved forward again, at which point our Cuirassiers, in a furious
charge, overran them, killing or capturing about a thousand.
Tchitchakoff, who had been assured that Napoleon's army was no
more than a disorganised mass of men without arms, had not
expected this display of vitality, and he beat a hurried retreat
towards Berisoff.

It is well known that after putting in a charge, the big horses
of the heavy cavalry, and above all those of the Cuirassiers,
cannot continue to gallop for very long. So it was the 23rd and
the 24th Chasseurs who took up the pursuit of the enemy, while
the Cuirassiers followed in the second line, at a slower pace.

Tchitchakoff had not only made a mistake in attacking Oudinot but
he had also brought with him all the baggage of his army, which
filled more than fifteen hundred vehicles, so that the rapid
retreat of the Russians caused such confusion that the two
regiments of Castex's brigade often found themselves hindered by
the carts which had been abandoned by the enemy. This confusion
became even worse when we entered the town, where the streets
were cluttered with baggage and draught horses, through which
obstructions Russian soldiers, who had thrown away their arms,
wove their way as they sought to rejoin their units. We managed
to reach the centre of the town, but only after losing precious
time, which allowed the Russians to cross the river.

Our orders were to reach the bridge and try to cross it at the
same time as the fleeing Russians; but to do this one had to know
where the bridge was, and none of us knew the town. My troopers
brought me a Jew whom I questioned in German, but he either did
not know, or pretended not to know the language, and I could get
no information from him. I would have given a great deal to have
had with me my Polish servant, Lorentz, to act as interpreter,
but the coward had remained behind as soon as there was any
fighting. So we had to comb the town until we eventually came to
the Beresina. The river was not yet sufficiently frozen to permit
one to cross on the ice, so it was necessary to use the bridge,
but to take the bridge would require infantry, and our infantry
was still three leagues from Borisoff. To take their place,
Marshal Oudinot, who had arrived on the scene, ordered General
Castex to dismount three quarters of the troopers of the two
regiments, who armed with muskets could attack the bridge on
foot. We left the horses in the nearby streets guarded by one or
two men, and headed for the river behind General Castex, who on
this perilous enterprise wished to be at the head of his brigade.

The defeat suffered by the advance-guard had produced
consternation in Tchitchakoff's army, the utmost disorder ruled
on the side of the river which it occupied, where we could see a
mass of fugitives disappearing into the distance; so although it
had at first seemed to me that it would be extremely difficult
for dismounted troopers, without bayonets, to force a passage
over the bridge, and keep possession of it, I began to hope for a
successful outcome, for the opposition was no more than a few
musket shots. I therefore ordered that as soon as the first
platoon reached the right bank it should occupy houses adjoining
the bridge so that being in control of both ends we could defend
it until the arrival of our infantry. Suddenly, however, the
cannons of the fort thundered into action, covering the bridge
with a hail of grape-shot, which forced our little group to fall
back. A body of Russian sappers used this breathing space to set
fire to the bridge, but as their presence prevented the gunners
from firing, we took the opportunity to attack them, killing or
throwing into the river the greater part of them.  Our Chasseurs
had already extinguished the fire when they were charged by a
battalion of Russian Grenadiers, and driven at bayonet point off
the bridge, which was soon set alight in many places and became a
huge bonfire whose intense heat made both sides move away.

The French had now to give up hope of crossing the Beresina at
this point, and their line of retreat was cut!...This was for us
a fatal calamity, and contributed largely to changing the face of
Europe, by shaking the Emperor on his throne.

Marshal Oudinot, once he saw that it was impossible to force a
passage over the river at Borisoff, considered that it would be
dangerous to have the town choked by the rest of his troops, so
he ordered them to halt and set up camp while they were still
some distance away. Castex's brigade stayed on its own in
Borisoff and was forbidden to communicate with the other units,
from which it was hoped to conceal for as long as possible the
disastrous news of the burning of the bridge, which they did not
hear about until forty-eight hours later.

Under the conventions of war, the enemy's baggage belongs to the
captors. General Castex therefore authorised the troopers of my
regiment and those of the 24th to help themselves to the booty
contained in the 1500 wagons and carts abandoned by the Russians
in their flight to the other side of the bridge. The quantity of
goods was immense, but as it was a hundred times more than the
brigade could carry, I called together all the men of my regiment
and told them that as we were to make a long retreat, during
which I would probably be unable to make the distributions of
rations which I had done during all the campaign, I would advise
them to provide themselves mainly with foodstuff, and think also
about protection from the cold, I reminded them that an
overloaded horse will not last for long, and that they should not
weigh theirs down with articles of no use in war. "What is more,"
I told them, "I shall hold an inspection, and anything which is
not food, clothing, or footwear will be rejected without
exception." General Castex, to avoid all argument, had planted
markers, which divided the mass of vehicles into two parts, so
that each regiment had its own area.

Oudinot's forces surrounded the town on three sides, the fourth
was bounded by the Beresina, and there were a number of
observation posts, so that our soldiers could examine the
contents of the Russian carts in safety. It appeared that the
officers of Tchitchakoff's army treated themselves well, for
there was a profusion of hams, pastries, sausages, dried fish,
smoked meat and wines of all sorts, plus an immense quantity of
ships' biscuits, rice, cheese, etc. Our men also took furs and
strong footwear, which saved the lives of many of them. The
Russian drivers had fled without taking their horses, almost all
of which were of good quality. We took the best to replace those
of which the troopers complained, and officers used some as
pack-horses to carry the foodstuff which they had acquired.

The brigade spent another day in Borisoff, and as in spite of the
precautions which had been taken, the news of the destruction of
the bridge had spread throughout 2nd Corps, Marshal Oudinot, in
order to allow all his troops to take advantage of the goods
contained in the enemy vehicles, arranged that successive
detachments from all the regiments might enter the town, to take
their share of the plunder.  Notwithstanding the quantity of
goods of all kinds taken by Oudinot's men, there remained enough
for the numerous stragglers returning from Moscow on the
following day.

The supreme command ,and indeed all officers who were able to
appreciate the situation, were extremely worried. We had before
us the Beresina, on the opposite bank of which were gathered
Tchitchakoff's forces, our flanks were threatened by
Wittgenstein,  Koutousoff was on our tail, and except for the
debris of the Guard and Oudinot's and Victors' corps, reduced now
to a few thousand combatants, the rest of the Grande Armee,
recently so splendid, was composed of sick men and soldiers
without weapons, whom starvation had deprived of their former
energy. Everything conspired against us; for although, owing to a
drop in the temperature, Ney had been able, a few days
previously, to escape across the frozen Nieman, we found the
Beresina unfrozen, despite the bitter cold, and we had no
pontoons with which to make a bridge.

On the 25th of November, the Emperor entered Borisoff, where
Marshal Oudinot awaited him with the 6000 men he had left.
Napoleon, and the officers of his staff were astonished at the
good order and discipline which obtained in 2nd Corps, whose
bearing contrasted so markedly with that of the wretched groups
of men whom they were leading back from Moscow. Our troops were
certainly not so smart as they would have been in barracks, but
every man had his weapons and was quite prepared to use them. The
Emperor was so impressed by their turn-out that he summoned all
the colonels and told them to inform their regiments of his
satisfaction with the way they had conducted themselves in the
many savage actions which had been fought in the province of
Polotsk.

Chap. 18.

You will recall that when the Bavarian General Comte de Wrede
made his unauthorised departure from 2nd Corps, he took with him
Corbineau's cavalry brigade, after assuring General Corbineau
that he had orders to do so, which was not true. Well, this piece
of trickery resulted in the saving of the Emperor and the remains
of his Grande Armee.

General Corbineau, dragged unwillingly away from 2nd Corps, of
which he was a part, had followed General Wrede as far as
Gloubokoye, but there he had declared that he would go no further
unless the Bavarian general showed him the order, which he
claimed to have, instructing him to keep Corbineau with him.
General Wrede was unable to do this, so Corbineau left him and
headed for Dokshitsy and the headwater of the Beresina, then,
going down the right bank of the river, he intended to reach
Borisoff, cross the bridge and take the road to Orscha to look
for Oudinot's Corps, which he thought was in the region of Bobr.

The Emperor, who had available the services of several thousand
Poles belonging to the Duchy of Warsaw, has been blamed for not
attaching, from the beginning of the campaign, some of them to
every general or even every colonel to act as interpreters, for
this would have avoided many mistakes. This was proved during the
dangerous journey of several days which the Corbineau brigade had
to undertake through unknown country, the language of whose
inhabitants none of the Frenchmen could understand, for it so
happened that among the three regiments which the General
commanded was the 8th Polish Lancers, whose officers extracted
from the local people all the necessary information. This was a
tremendous help to Corbineau.

When he was about half a day's journey from Borisoff, some
peasants told the Polish Lancers that Tchitchakoff's troops were
occupying the town, information which dashed his hopes of
crossing the Beresina; however these same peasants having
persuaded him to turn round, led him to the village of Studianka,
not far from Weselovo, four leagues above Borisoff, where there
is a ford. The three regiments crossed the ford without loss and
the General, going across country and avoiding some of
Wittgenstein's troops who were moving towards Borisoff,
eventually rejoined Oudinot on the 23rd of November at a place
called Natscha.

This daring march undertaken by Corbineau was much to his credit,
but more than that, it was a stroke of remarkable good fortune
for the army, for the Emperor, realising the impossibility of
re-building the bridge at Borisoff in the near future, resolved,
after discussing the matter with Corbineau, to cross the Beresina
at Studianka.  Tchitchakoff, who had been told of the crossing at
this point effected by Corbineau's brigade, had placed a strong
division and many guns opposite Studianka, so Napoleon, to
deceive him, employed a stratagem, which although very old, is
almost always successful. He pretended that he was not interested
in Studianka and that he intended to use one of two other fords
which were below Borisoff, the most practicable of which was at
the village of Oukolada. To this end he sent ostentatiously to
the spot one of the still armed battalions, followed by a horde
of stragglers, which the enemy might take for a full-strength
division of infantry. At the tail of this column were numerous
wagons, a few guns and the division of Cuirassiers. Having
arrived at Oukolada these troops placed the guns in position, and
did all they could to look as if they were about to build a
bridge.

Told of these preparations, Tchitchakoff had no doubt that it was
Napoleon's intention to cross the river at this point so as to
reach the road to Minsk, which ran nearby. He therefore hurriedly
sent down the right bank, to face Oukoloda, the entire garrison
of Borisoff.  Not only that, for some extraordinary reason, the
Russian general, who had sufficient troops to protect both the
upper and lower parts of the river, removed all of those which he
had placed previously in a position to oppose a crossing at
Studianka and sent them too down to Oukoloda. He had now
abandoned the place where the Emperor intended to build a bridge,
and had concentrated his force, uselessly, six leagues
downstream.

In addition to the error of massing all his army below Borisoff,
Tchitchakoff made a mistake which a sergeant would not have made,
and one for which his government never forgave him. The town of
Zembin, which is opposite to the ford at Studianka, is built on a
vast marsh, through which runs the road to Wilna. The road goes
over twenty-two wooden bridges which the Russian general could
have easily reduced to cinders before leaving the district, as
they were surrounded by many stacks of dry reeds. If Tchitchakoff
had done this, the French army would have been left without hope.
It would have served it nothing to have crossed the river, for it
would have been halted by the deep marshland surrounding Zembin;
but the Russian general left the bridges intact, and foolishly
went down the Beresina with all his men, leaving only about fifty
Cossacks to keep an eye on the ford.

While the Russians, taken in by Napoleon's subterfuge, were
deserting the real point of attack, Napoleon gave his orders.
Oudinot and his army Corps were to go by night to Studianka, and
there arrange for the building of two bridges, before crossing to
the right bank and occupying the area between the town of Zembin
and the river. Marshal Victor, leaving Natscha, was to form the
rear-guard. He was to drive before him all the stragglers, and
was to try to hold Borisoff for a few hours before going to
Studianka and crossing the bridges. Those were the Emperor's
orders, the execution of which in detail was frustrated by
events.

On the evening of the 25th, Corbineau's brigade, whose commander
knew the area well, proceeded up the left bank of the Beresina
towards Studianka, followed by Castex's brigade and several
battalions of light infantry; after which came the bulk of 2nd
Corps.

We were sorry to leave Borisoff where we had spent two happy
days.

We had perhaps a presentiment of the bad times which were to
come.

At daybreak on the 26th of November we arrived at Studianka,
where there were no signs of any preparation for defence on the
opposite bank, so that, had the Emperor not burned the bridging
equipment a few days previously at Orscha, the army could have
crossed immediately. The river, which some have described as
huge, is more or less as wide as the Rue Royale in Paris where it
passes the Ministry of Marine. As for its depth, it is enough to
say that the three regiments of Corbineau's brigade had forded it
seventy-two hours previously without accident, and did so again
on the day of which I write. Their horses never lost their
footing and had to swim only at two or three places. At this time
the crossing presented only a few minor inconveniences to the
cavalry, the artillery and the carts, one of which was that the
riders and carters were wet up to their knees, which was not
insupportable because, regrettably the cold was not sufficiently
severe to freeze the river, which would have been better for us.
The second inconvenience which arose from the lack of frost was
that the marshy ground which bordered the opposite bank of the
river was so muddy that the saddle-horses had difficulty in
crossing it and the carts could sink in to their axles.

Esprit de corps is certainly very praiseworthy, but it should be
moderated or forgotten in difficult circumstances. This did not
happen at the Beresina, where the commanders of the artillery and
the engineers both demanded sole responsibility for building the
bridges, and as neither would give way, nothing was being done.
When the Emperor arrived on the 26th, he ended this quarrel by
ordering that two bridges should be built, one by the artillery
and one by the engineers. Immediately beams and battens were
seized from the hovels of the village and the sappers and the
gunners got to work. Those gallant men showed a devotion to duty
which has not been sufficiently recognised. They went naked into
the freezing water and worked for six or seven hours at a
stretch, although there was not a drop of "eau de vie" to offer
them, and they would be sleeping in a field covered by snow.
Almost all of them died later, when the severe frosts came.

While the bridges were being built and while my regiment and all
the troops of 2nd Corps were waiting on the left bank for the
order to cross the river, the Emperor, walking rapidly, went from
regiment to regiment, speaking to the men and officers. He was
accompanied by Murat. This brave and dashing officer who had so
distinguished himself as the victorious French were advancing on
Moscow, the proud Murat had been, so to speak, eclipsed since we
had left that city and during the retreat he had taken part in
none of the fighting. One saw him following the Emperor in
silence, as if he had nothing to do with what was going on in the
army. He seemed to shed some of his torpor at the Beresina at the
sight of the only troops who were still in good order, and who
constituted the last hope of safety.

As Murat was very fond of the cavalry, and as of the many
squadrons which had crossed the Nieman there remained none except
those in Oudinot's corps, he urged the Emperor's footsteps in
their direction.

Napoleon was delighted with the state of these units and of my
regiment in particular, for it was now stronger than several of
the brigades. I had more than 500 men on horseback, whereas the
other colonels in the corps had scarcely 200, so I received some
flattering comments from the Emperor, a great share of which was
due to my officers and men.

It was at this time that I had the good fortune to be joined by
Jean Dupont, my brother's servant, a man of exemplary loyalty,
devotion and courage. Left on his own after the capture of my
brother early in the campaign, he had followed the 16th Chasseurs
to Moscow and taken part in the retreat, while caring for my
brother Adolphe's three horses, of which he had refused to sell a
single one in spite of many offers. He reached me after five
months of hunger and hardship, still carrying all my brother's
effects, though he told me, with tears in his eyes, that having
worn out his shoes and been reduced to walking barefoot in the
snow, he had dared to take a pair of boots belonging to his
master. I kept this admirable man in my service, and he was a
great help to me when, some time later, I was wounded once more,
in the midst of the most horrible days of the great retreat.

To return to the crossing of the Beresina. Not only did our
horses cross the river without difficulty, but our "cantiniers"
or sutlers, drove their carts across. This made me think that it
might be possible, if one unharnessed some of the many carts
which followed the army, to fix them in the river in a line, one
after the other, to make a sort of causeway for the infantrymen,
something which would greatly ease the flow of the mass of
stragglers who the next day would be crowding round the entries
to the bridges. This seemed to me to be such a good idea, that
although I was wet to the waist, I recrossed the ford to offer it
to the generals of the Imperial staff.

They accepted my suggestion, but made no attempt to pass it on to
the Emperor. Eventually, General Lauristan, one of his
aides-de-camp, said to me, "I suggest that you yourself undertake
the building of this footbridge, the usefulness of which you have
so well explained." I replied to this wholly unacceptable
proposition that I had at my disposal neither sappers nor
infantrymen, nor tools, nor stakes, nor rope, and that in any
case I could not leave my regiment, which being on the right
bank, could be attacked at any time. I had offered him an idea
which I thought was a good one, I could do no more and would now
go back to my normal duties. Having said this I went back into
the water and returned to the 23rd.

When the sappers and the gunners had finally completed the
trestle bridges, they were crossed by the infantry and the
artillery of Oudinot's corps, who, having reached the right bank,
went to set up their bivouacs in a large wood, where the cavalry
were ordered to join them. We could from there watch the main
road from Minsk, down which Admiral Tchitchakoff had led his
troops to the lower Beresina, and up which he would have to come
to reach us, once he heard that we had crossed the river at
Studianka.

On the evening of the 27th, the Emperor crossed the bridge with
his guard and went to settle at a hamlet named Zawniski, where
the cavalry were ordered to join him. The enemy had not appeared.

There has been much discussion about the disasters which occurred
at the Beresina; but what no one has yet said is that the greater
part of them could have been avoided if the general staff had
paid more attention to their duty and had made use of the night
27th-28th to send over the bridge not only the baggage, but the
thousands of stragglers who would be obstructing the passage the
next day. It so happened that, after seeing my regiment well
settled in their bivouac, I noticed the absence of the pack
horse, which, as it carried the strong-box and the accounts of
the regiment, could not be risked in the ford. I expected that
its leader and the troopers of its escort had waited until the
bridges were ready, but they had been so for some hours and yet
these men had not arrived. Being somewhat worried about them, and
the precious burden committed to their charge, I thought I would
go in person and expedite their crossing, for I imagined that the
bridges would be crowded. I hurried to the river where, to my
great surprise, I found the bridges completely deserted. There
was no one crossing them, although, by the bright moonlight, I
could see not a hundred paces away, more than 50,000 stragglers
or men cut off from their regiments, whom we called "rotisseurs."
These men, seated calmly before huge fires, were grilling pieces
of horseflesh, little thinking that they were beside a river, the
passage of which would, the next day, cost many of them their
lives, whereas at present they could cross it unhindered, in a
few minutes, and prepare their supper on the other side.
Furthermore, not one officer of the imperial household, not an
aide-de-camp of the army general staff, or that of a marshal was
there to warn these unfortunate men and to drive them, if need
be, to the bridges.

It was in this disorganised camp that I saw for the first time
the soldiers returning from Moscow. It was a most distressing
spectacle. All ranks were mixed together, no weapons, no military
bearing! Soldiers, officers and even generals, clad only in rags
and having on their feet strips of leather or cloth roughly bound
together with string. An immense throng in which were thrown
together thousands of men of different nationalities gabbling all
the languages of the European continent without any mutual
understanding.

However, if one had used one of the regiments from Oudinot's
corps or the Guard, which were still in good order, it would have
been easy to herd this mass of men across the bridges, for, as I
was returning to Zawniski, having with me only a few orderlies, I
was able by persuasion and a bit of force to make several
thousand of these wretched men cross to the right bank; but I had
other duties to perform, and had to return to the regiment.

When I was passing by the general staff, and that of Marshal
Oudinot, I reported the deserted state of the bridges and pointed
out how easy it would be to bring the unarmed men across while
there was no enemy opposition; all I got were evasive answers,
each one claiming that it was a colleague's responsibility to see
to such an operation.

On returning to the regimental bivouac, I was pleasantly
surprised to see the corporal and the eight troopers who during
the campaign had been in charge of our herd of cattle. These good
fellows were desolate that the crowd of "rotisseurs" had set on
their cattle, butchered and eaten them before their eyes without
their being able to stop them. It was some consolation to the
regiment that each trooper had taken from Borisoff enough food to
last for twenty-five days.

My adjutant, M. Verdier, thought it his duty to go across the
bridge to try to find the guardians of our accounts, but he got
swallowed up in the crowd and was unable to get back. He was
taken prisoner during the struggle on the next day , and I did
not see him again for two years.

Chap. 19.

We now come to the most terrible event in the disastrous Russian
campaign... to the crossing of the Beresina; which took place
mainly on the 28th of November.

At dawn on this ill-fated day, the position of the two
belligerents was as follows. On the left bank, Marshal Victor,
having evacuated Borisoff during the night, had arrived at
Studianka with 9th Corps, driving in front of him a mass of
stragglers. He had left, to form his rear-guard, the infantry
division of General Partouneaux, who had been told not to leave
the town until two hours after him, and who should, in
consequence, have sent out a small detachment of men, who could
follow the main body and leave guides to signpost the route. He
should also have sent an aide-de-camp to Studianka to reconnoitre
the road and return to the division: but Partouneaux neglected
all these precautions and simply marched off at the prescribed
time. He came to a fork in the road, and he did not know which
way to go. He must have been aware, since he had come from
Borisoff, that the Beresina was on his left, and he should have
concluded that to reach Studianka, at the side of this
watercourse, it was the road on the left which he should take...
but he did not do so, and following blindly some light infantry
which had been ahead of him, he took the right hand road and
landed in the middle of a large force of Wittgenstein's Russian
troops.

Soon Partouneaux's division, completely surrounded, was forced,
after a brave defence, to surrender. Meanwhile a simple battalion
commander who was in charge of the divisional rear-guard, had the
good sense to take the road to the left, by means of which he
joined Marshal Victor at Studianka. The Marshal was greatly
surprised to see the arrival of this battalion instead of the
division of which it was the rear-guard, but his astonishment
turned to dismay when he was attacked by Wittgenstein's Russians,
whom he thought had been intercepted by Partouneaux. He could not
then doubt that the General and all his regiments had been
defeated and taken prisoner.

Fresh misfortunes awaited him, for the Russian General
Koutousoff, who had been following Partouneaux from Borisoff with
a strong body of troops, once he heard of his defeat, speeded up
his march and came to join Wittgenstein in his attack on Marshal
Victor. The Marshal, whose army corps had been reduced to 10,000
men, put up a stout resistance. His troops, even the Germans who
were included among them, fought heroically though they were
attacked by two armies, had their backs to the Beresina, and had
their movements hampered by the swarm of carts driven by
undisciplined stragglers who were endeavouring, in a mob, to
reach the river. Regardless of these circumstances they held off
Koutousoff and Wittgenstein for the whole day.

While this confusion and fighting were going on at Studianka, the
enemy, who aimed to gain control of both ends of the bridges,
attacked Oudinet's Corps, which was in position before Zawniski,
on the right bank. Some thirty thousand Russians, shouting
loudly, advanced towards 2nd Corps, which was by now reduced to
no more than eight thousand combatants. However, our men had not
yet been in contact with those returning from Moscow, and had no
idea of the disorder which ruled amongst them, so that their
morale was excellent and Tchitchakoff was driven back before the
very eyes of the Emperor, who arrived at that moment with a
reserve of 3000 infantry and 1000 cavalry from the old and the
Young Guard. The Russians renewed their attack, and overran the
Poles of the Legion of the Vistula. Marshal Oudinot was seriously
wounded, and Napoleon sent Ney to replace him.  General Condras,
one of our best infantry officers, was killed. The gallant
General Legrand received a dangerous wound.

The action took place in a wood of enormous pine trees. The enemy
artillery could not, therefore, see our troops clearly, so that,
although they kept up a vigourous bombardment, their cannon-balls
did not hit us, but going over our heads, they broke off
branches, some as thick as a man's body, which in their fall
killed or injured a good number of our men and horses. As the
trees were widely spaced, mounted men could move through them,
although with some difficulty, despite which, Marshal Ney, on the
approach of a strong Russian column, launched a charge against it
with what remained of our division of Cuirassiers. This charge,
carried out under such unusual conditions, was nevertheless one
of the most brilliant which I have seen. Colonel Dubois, at the
head of the 7th Cuirassiers, split the enemy column in two and
took 2000 prisoners. The Russians, thrown into disarray, were
pursued by the Light Cavalry and driven back to the village of
Stakovo with great loss.

I was re-forming the ranks of my regiment, which had taken part
in this engagement, when M. Alfred de Noailles, with whom I was
friendly, arrived. He was returning from carrying an order from
Prince Berthier, whose aide-de-camp he was; but instead of going
back to the Marshal, he said as he left me, that he was going as
far as the first houses of Stakovo to see what the enemy was
doing. This curiosity proved fatal, for as he approached the
village, he was surrounded by a group of Cossacks who, having
knocked him off his horse, dragged him away by his collar while
raining blows on him. I immediately sent a squadron to his aid,
but this effort at rescue did not succeed, because a volley of
fire from the houses prevented the troopers from getting into the
village. Since that day nothing has been heard of M. de Noailles.
It is likely that his superb furs and his uniform covered in gold
braid having roused the cupidity of the Cossacks, he was murdered
by these barbarians. M. de Noailles' family, knowing that I was
the last person to speak to him, asked me for news about his
disappearance, but I could tell them no more than what I have
described. Alfred de Noailles was an excellent officer and a good
friend.

This digression has diverted me from Tchitchakoff, who, after his
defeat by Ney, did not dare to attack us again nor to leave the
village of Stakovo for the rest of the day.

Having described briefly the position of the armies on the two
banks of the Beresina, I shall tell you, in a few words what
happened at the river itself during the fighting. The mass of
unattached men who had had two nights and two days in which to
cross the bridges, and who had, apathetically, failed to do so
because they were not compelled, when Wittgenstein's cannon-balls
began to fall among them, rushed in a body to get across. This
huge multitude of men, horses, and carts piled up at the entrance
to the bridges, trying to force their way on to them.... Many of
those who missed the entrance were pushed by the crowd into the
Beresina where most of them were drowned.

To add to the disaster, one of the bridges broke under the weight
of the guns and the heavy ammunition wagons which followed them!
Everyone then headed for the second bridge, where the crowd was
so thick that strong men were unable to withstand the pressure
and a large number were stifled to death. When they saw that it
was impossible to cross the overcrowded bridges, many of the cart
drivers urged their horses into the river, but this method of
crossing, which would have been very successful if it had been
carried out in an orderly manner on the two preceding days,
failed in the great majority of instances, because driving their
carts in a tumultuous mob, they crashed into one another and
turned over! Some, however reached the opposite side, but as no
one had prepared an exit by smoothing the slope of the river
bank, which the general staff should have seen to, few vehicles
could climb out, and many more people perished there.

During the night of 28th 29th November, the Russian cannons added
to these scenes of horror by bombarding the wretched men who were
trying to cross the river, and finally at about nine in the
evening there was a crowning disaster, when Marshal Victor began
his withdrawal, and when his divisions, in battle order, arrived
at the bridge, which they could cross only by dispersing the
crowds which blocked their way! ...We should perhaps draw a veil
over these dreadful events.

At dawn on the 29th, all the vehicles remaining on the left bank
were set on fire, and when finally General Eble saw the Russians
nearing the bridge, he set that on fire also! Several thousand
unfortunates left at Studianka fell into the hands of
Wittgenstein.

So ended the most terrible episode of the Russian campaign, an
episode which would have been a great deal less terrible if we
had made proper use of the time which the Russians allowed us
after we had reached the Beresina. The army lost in this crossing
20 to 25,000 men.

Once this major obstacle had been crossed, the disorganised mass
of men who had escaped from the disaster was still huge. They
were directed to go along the road to Zembin. The Emperor and the
Guard followed. Then came the remains of several regiments, and
finally 2nd Corps, for whom Castex's brigade formed the last
rear-guard.

I have already explained that the Zembin road, the only way left
open for us, goes through an immense marsh by means of a great
number of bridges which Tchitchakoff neglected to burn when he
occupied this position a few days previously. We did not make the
same mistake, for after the army had passed, the 24th Chasseurs
and my regiment easily set them on fire by means of the stacks of
dry reeds heaped up in the neighbourhood.

By ordering the burning of the bridges, the Emperor had hoped to
rid himself for a long time of pursuit by the Russians, but fate
was against us. The cold which at this time of year could have
frozen the waters of the Beresina to give us a pathway across,
had left the river running; but we had scarcely crossed over when
there was sharp frost which froze it to the point where it would
bear the weight of a cannon... and as it did the same to the
marsh of Zembin, the burning of the bridges was of no value to
us. The three Russian armies which we had left behind, could now
pursue us without meeting any obstacle; but fortunately the
pursuit was not very energetic, and Marshal Ney, who commanded
the rear-guard and who had gathered together all the troops still
capable of fighting, made frequent sallies against the enemy if
they dared to approach too near.

Since Marshal Oudinot and General Legrand had been wounded,
General Maison commanded 2nd Corps, which being, in spite of many
losses, now numerically the strongest in the army, was always
given the task of holding off the Russians. We kept them at a
distance during the 30th of November and the 1st of December; but
on the 2nd of December they pressed us so hard, in considerable
numbers, that a serious engagement took place in which I received
a wound, made even more dangerous because the temperature on that
day registered 25 degrees of frost. I should perhaps limit myself
to telling you that I was injured by a lance without going into
further details, for they are so unpleasant that I still do not
like to remember them. However, I said I would tell the story of
my life, and so this is what happened at Plechtchenitsoui.

It so happened that a Dutch banker named Van Berchem, with whom I
had been a close friend at the college of Soreze, had sent to me,
at the start of the campaign, his only son, who having become
French by the incorporation of his country into the Empire, had
enlisted in the 23rd, although he was barely sixteen years
old!... He was a fine and intelligent young man, and I made him
my secretary, so that he went everywhere fifteen paces behind me
with my orderlies. That is where he was on the day in question,
when 2nd Corps, for whom my regiment was acting as rear-guard
while crossing a vast open plain, saw coming towards them a mass
of Russian cavalry, who quickly surrounded them and attacked them
on all sides. General Maison deployed his troops with such skill
that our squares repelled all the charges made by the enemy
regular cavalry.

The Russians then sent in a swarm of Cossacks, who came
impudently to attack with their lances the French officers who
stood before their troops. Seeing this, Marshal Ney ordered
General Maison to chase them off, using what remained of the
division of Cuirassiers and also Corbineau's and Castex's
brigades. My regiment, which was still numerically strong, was
confronted by a tribe of Cossacks from the Black Sea, wearing
tall astrakhan hats, and much better clad and mounted than the
usual run of Cossacks. We engaged them, but as it is not their
custom to stand and fight in line, they turned round and made off
at the gallop; but not knowing the locality, they headed for an
obstacle which is very unusual in these enormous plains, and that
is a large, deep gully, which owing to the perfect flatness of
the surrounding country could not be distinguished from any
distance.  This pulled them up short, and seeing that they could
not get across with their horses, they bunched together and
turned to present to us their lances.

The ground, covered by frost, was very slippery, and our
over-tired horses could not gallop without falling. There was,
therefore, no question of a charge, and my line advanced at a
trot towards the massed enemy, who remained motionless. Our
sabres could touch their lances, but as they are thirteen or
fourteen feet long, we could not reach our foes, who could not
retreat for fear of falling into the gulch, and could not advance
without encountering our swords. We were thus face to face,
regarding one another when, in less time than it takes to tell,
this is what happened.

Anxious to get to grips with the enemy, I shouted to my troops to
grab some of the lances with their left hands and pushing them to
one sided, get into the middle of this crowd of men, where our
short weapons would give us an enormous advantage over their long
spears.  To encourage them to obey, I wanted to set an example,
so dodging several lances, I managed to reach the front rank of
the enemy!... My warrant officers and my orderlies followed me,
and soon the whole regiment. There then ensued a general mˆlee;
but at the moment when it started, an old white-bearded Cossack,
who was in the rear rank and separated from me by some of his
comrades, lent forward and thrusting his lance skillfully between
the horses he drove the sharp steel into my right knee, which it
pierced, passing through beneath the kneecap.

Enraged by the pain of this injury, I was pushing my way towards
the man to take my revenge, when I was confronted by two handsome
youths of about eighteen to twenty, wearing a brilliant costume,
covered with rich embroidery, who were the sons of the chieftain
of this clan. They were accompanied by an elderly man who was
some sort of tutor, but who was unarmed. The younger of his two
pupils did not draw his sword, but elder did and attacked me
furiously!... I found him so immature and lacking strength that I
did no more than disarm him, and taking his arm pushed him behind
me, telling Van Berchem to look after him. I had hardly done this
when a double explosion rang in my ears and the collar of my cape
was torn by a ball. I turned round quickly, to see the young
Cossack officer holding a pair of double-barrelled pistols with
which he had treacherously tried to shoot me in the back and had
blown out the brains of the unfortunate Van Berchem!

In a transport of rage I hurled myself at this rash stripling,
who was already aiming his second pistol at me. Seeing death in
my face, he seemed momentarily paralysed. He cried out some words
in French. But I killed him.

Blood calls for blood! The sight of young Van Berchem lying dead
at my feet, the act I had just carried out, the excitement of
battle and the pain of my wound, combined to induce a sort of
frenzy. I rushed at the younger of the Cossack officers and
grabbing him by the throat I had already raised my sabre when his
elderly mentor, to protect his charge, laid the length of his
body on my horses neck in a manner which prevented me from
striking a blow and called out, "Mercy! In the name of your
mother, have mercy! He has done nothing!"

On hearing this appeal, in spite of the scenes around me, I
seemed to see the white hand I knew so well, laid on the young
man's breast and to hear my mother's gentle voice saying,"Be
merciful!" I lowered my sabre and sent the youth and his guardian
to the rear.

I was so disturbed by what had happened that I would have been
unable to give any further orders to the regiment if the fighting
had continued for any length of time, but it was soon finished.
Many of the Cossacks had been killed and the remainder,
abandoning their horses, slid into the depths of the ravine,
where a number died in the huge snow-drift which the wind had
created.

In the evening following this affair, I questioned my prisoner
and his guardian. I learned that the two youngsters were the sons
of a powerful chieftain, who, having lost a leg at Austerlitz,
hated the French so much that being unable to fight them himself,
he had sent his two sons to do so. I thought it likely that, as a
prisoner, the cold and misery would be fatal to the one survivor.
I took pity on him and set both him and his venerable mentor at
liberty. On taking his leave of me the latter said, "When she
thinks of her eldest son, the mother of my two pupils will curse
you, but when she sees the return of her youngest she will bless
you, and the mother in whose name you spared him."

The vigour with which the Russian troops had been repulsed in
this last contact having cooled their ardour, we did not see them
again for two days, which allowed us to reach Molodechno; but if
the enemy allowed us a momentary truce the cold increased its
attack. The temperature fell to 27 degrees of frost. Men and
horses were falling at every stride, frequently not to rise
again. Notwithstanding, I remained with the debris of my
regiment, in the midst of which I made my nightly bivouac in the
snow. There was nowhere I could go to be better off. My gallant
officers and men regarded their commanding officer as a living
flag. They endeavoured to preserve me and offered me all the care
which our appalling situation permitted. The wound to my knee
prevented me from sitting astride my horse, and I had to rest my
leg on my horse's neck to keep it straight, which made me get
even colder. I was in great pain but there was nothing that could
be done.

The road was lined with the dead and dying, our march was slow
and silent. What remained of the guard formed a little square, in
which travelled the Emperor's carriage, in which was also King
Murat.

On the fifth of December, after dictating his twenty-ninth
bulletin, which created stupefaction throughout all of France,
the Emperor left the army at Smorgoni to return to Paris. He was
nearly captured at Ochmiana by some Cossacks. The Emperor's
departure greatly affected the morale of the troops. Some blamed
him and accused him of abandoning them. Others approved, saying
that it was the only way to preserve France from civil war, and
invasion by our so-called allies, the majority of whom were
waiting only for a favourable opportunity to turn against us, but
who would not dare to make a move if they heard that Napoleon had
returned to France, and was organising fresh military forces.

Chap. 20.

On his departure, the Emperor handed the command of the remains
of the army to Murat, who in the circumstances proved unequal to
the task, which it must be admitted was extremely difficult. The
cold paralysed the mental and physical activity of everyone; all
organisation had broken down. Marshal Victor refused to relieve
2nd Corps, who had formed the rear-guard since the Beresina, and
Marshal Ney had, unwillingly, to keep it there. Each morning a
multitude of dead were left in the bivouac where we had spent the
night. I congratulated myself on having, in September, made my
men equip themselves with sheepskin coats, a precaution which
saved the lives of many of them. The same applied to the supplies
of food which we had taken from Borisoff, for without these it
would have been necessary to dispute with the starving hordes
over the dead bodies of horses.

I may mention here that M. de Segur claims that there were
instances of cannibalism. I have to say that there were so many
dead horses lying along the route that there was no need for
anyone to resort to this. What is more, it would be a great
mistake to think that the countryside was completely bare: there
was shortage in localities close to the road, which had been
stripped by the army on its march to Moscow, but the army had
passed in a torrent, without spreading out to the sides. Since
then the harvest had been gathered and the country had recovered
somewhat, so that it was only necessary to go for one or two
leagues from the road to find plenty. It is true, however, that
only a well-organised detachment could do this without being
picked off by the parties of Cossacks which prowled around us.

I arranged, with some other colonels, the formation of foraging
parties, who came back not only with bread and a few cattle, but
with sledges loaded with salted meat, flour and oatmeal taken
from villages which had not been abandoned by the peasantry. This
proves that if the Duc de Bassano and General Hogendorp, to whom
the Emperor had confided, in June, the administration of
Lithuania, had done their job properly, during the long period
which they spent at Wilna, they could have created large storage
depots, but they were interested only in supplying the town,
without bothering about the troops.

On the 6th of December, the cold increased and the temperature
fell to nearly minus thirty; so that this day was even more
deadly than its predecessors, particularly for troops who had not
been conditioned gradually to the climate. Amongst this number
was the Gratien division, consisting of 12,000 conscripts, who
left Wilna on the 4th to come in front of us. The sudden
transition from warm barracks to a bivouac in twenty-nine and a
half degrees of frost, within forty-eight hours was fatal to
nearly all of them. The rigour of the season had an even more
terrible effect on the 200 Neapolitan cavalrymen who formed King
Murat's bodyguard. They also came to join us after a long stay in
Wilna, but they all died on the first night which they spent on
the snow.

The remnants of the Germans, Italians, Spaniards, Croats and
other foreigners whom we had led into Russia, saved their lives
by means which the French found repugnant: they deserted, went to
villages adjoining the road and awaited, in the warmth of their
houses, the arrival of the enemy. This often took some time for,
surprisingly, the Russian soldiers, used to spending the winter
in draught-free houses, warmed by continuously burning stoves,
are more susceptible to the cold than the inhabitants of other
parts of Europe, and their army suffered heavy losses; which
explains the slowness of the pursuit.

We did not understand why Koutousoff and his generals did no more
than follow us with a weak advance-guard, instead of attacking
our flanks and going to the head of our column to cut off all
means of retreat. But they were unable to carry out this
manoeuvre which would have finished us because their soldiers
suffered as much from the cold as we did, many of them dying as a
result. The cold was so intense that one could see a sort of
steam coming from one's eyes and ears, which froze on contact
with the air and fell like grains of millet onto one's chest, and
one had to stop frequently to rid the horses of huge icicles
which were formed by their breath freezing on the bits of their
bridles.

There were, however, thousands of Cossacks, attracted by the hope
of plunder, who braved the seasonal bad weather and hung around
our columns, even attacking places where they saw baggage, though
a few shots would drive them off. Eventually, in order to harass
us without running any danger, for we had been forced to abandon
our artillery, they mounted light cannons on sledges, and used
them to fire on our men, until they saw an armed detachment
advancing towards them, when they took to their heels. These
sneak attacks did little real damage, but they became very
unpleasant because of their constant repetition. Many of the sick
and wounded were taken and despoiled by these raiders, some of
whom had acquired an immense amount of booty, and the greed for
enrichment attracted new enemies, who came from the ranks of our
allies: these were the Poles. Marshal de Saxe, the son of one of
their kings, said rightly that the Poles were the biggest thieves
in the world, and would rob even their own parents, so, not
surprisingly, those in our ranks showed little respect for the
property of their allies. On the march or in bivouac, they stole
anything they saw; but as no one trusted them, petty thieving
became more difficult, so they decided to operate on a grand
scale. They organised themselves into bands, and at night they
would don peasant headgear and slip out of the bivouac to meet at
an agreed spot, then they would return to the camp shouting the
Cossack war-cry of "Hourra! Hourra!" which so frightened men
whose morale had been broken, that many of them fled abandoning
their possessions and food. The false Cossacks, after stealing
all they could would return to the camp before daylight and
become once more Poles, ready to become Cossacks again on the
next night.

When this form of brigandage was disclosed, several generals and
colonels decided to put a stop to it. General Maison kept such a
close watch in the lines of 2nd Corps, that one fine night our
guards surprised a group of about fifty Poles at the moment when
they were about to play their role of Cossacks. Seeing that they
were surrounded these bandits had the impudence to claim that
they were just having a joke, but as this was not the time nor
place for laughter, General Maison had them all shot out of hand.
It was some time before we saw robbers of this kind again, but
they reappeared later.

On the 9th of December, we arrived at Wilna, where there were
some stores; but as the Duc de Bassano and General Hogendorp had
left for the Nieman, there was no one to give orders, so that
there, as at Smolensk, the officials demanded proper receipts for
the issue of food and clothing, which was virtually impossible
because of the disorganization of almost all the regiments. We
lost some precious time in this way. General Maison broke into
several stores and his men took some supplies, but the remainder
was taken the next day by the Russians. Soldiers from other corps
wandered round the town in the hope of being taken in by the
inhabitants, but the people who six months previously had
welcomed the French with open arms, closed their doors to us when
they saw us in distress. Only the Jews would accommodate those
who could pay for temporary shelter.

Admitted neither to the stores nor to private houses, the
majority of famished men headed for the hospitals where, although
there was not enough food for all of them, they were at least
sheltered from the piercing cold. This respite was enough to
decide 20,000 sick and wounded, among whom were two hundred
officers and eight generals, to go no further. They had reached
the end of their physical and mental resources.

Lieutenant Hernoux, one of the most vigourous and brave officers
in my regiment, was so overcome by what he had been through that
he lay down on the snow, refusing to move, until he died. Several
soldiers, of all ranks, blew their brains out, to escape from
their suffering.

During the night 9th-10th December, in thirty degrees of frost,
some Cossacks came and began shooting at the gates of Wilna. Many
people thought this was the entire army of Koutousoff, and in a
panic they fled from the town. I regret to say that King Murat
was among them. He left without giving any orders, but Marshal
Ney stayed and organised the retreat as best he could. We quitted
Wilna on the morning of the 10th, leaving behind not only a great
number of men, but also an artillery park and a part of the
army's funds.

We had scarcely left the town when the infamous Jews turned on
the men whom they had taken into their houses, stripped them of
their clothes and threw them out, naked into the snow. Some
officers of the Russian advance-guard, which was entering the
town, were so indignant at this behaviour that they killed a
number of them.

In the midst of this chaos, Marshal Ney had urged onto the road
to Kowno all those whom he could stir into movement, but he had
gone no more than a league when he came to the hill of Ponari.
This small slope which in other circumstances the army would have
hardly noticed, now became a most serious obstacle because the
ice with which it was covered made it so slippery that the
draught-horses were unable to drag up it the carts and wagons, so
that what remained of the army's money would have fallen into the
hands of the Cossacks had not Marshal Ney ordered that the wagons
should be opened and the soldiers allowed to empty the
strong-boxes. This sensible measure gave rise later to assertions
that the men had robbed the Imperial treasury.

Several days before our arrival at Wilna, the intense cold having
killed many of our horses and made the rest unfit to ride, my
troopers all went on foot. I would have very much liked to join
them but my injury prevented this, so I took to a sledge to which
was harnessed one of my horses. This new method of transport gave
me the idea that I might by this means save the sick men, of whom
I had a considerable number. There is no dwelling in Russia so
poor that it does not have a sledge, and it was not long before I
had a hundred or so, each one drawn by a troop horse, carrying
two sick men. This method of travel seemed to General Castex to
be so convenient that he authorised me to put all my men on
sledges. The commander of the 24th did the same and so the
remains of the brigade became a sledge-borne unit.

You may think that in doing this we deprived ourselves of any
means of defence, but you would be wrong, for we were much more
mobile with the sleds, which could go anywhere, and whose shafts
held up the horses, than we would have been in the saddle of
animals which fell down all the time.

As the road was covered with abandoned muskets, each of our
Chasseurs took two of them and an ample provision of cartridges,
so that if any Cossacks dared to approach, they were met by a
volume of fire which quickly drove them off. Our troopers could
also fight on foot if need be. In the evening we formed a big
square with our sledges, in the middle of which we lit our fires.
Marshal Ney and General Maison often came to spend the night
here, where they were secure, since the only enemies present were
the Cossacks. This was undoubtedly the first time anyone had seen
a rear-guard mounted on sledges; but it was a success in the
prevailing conditions.

We continued to cover the retreat until, on the 13th of December,
we saw the Nieman once more, and Kowno (Kaunas), the last town in
Russia. It was at this spot that, five months earlier, we had
entered the empire of the Czars. How greatly had our
circumstances changed since then!... What appalling losses had we
suffered!

On entering Kowno with the rear-guard, Marshal Ney found that the
only garrison was a small battalion of Germans some 400 strong,
whom he joined to the troops which he still had in order to
defend the town for as long as possible, to give the sick and
wounded the opportunity to cross into Prussia. When he heard that
Ney had arrived, King Murat left for Gumbinnen.

On the 14th, Platov's Cossacks, followed by two battalions of
Russian infantry, mounted on sledges together with several guns,
appeared at Kovno which they attacked at a number of points. But
Marshal Ney, helped by General Gerard, held them off until
nightfall, when he took us across the frozen Nieman, and was the
last to leave Russian territory.

We were now in Prussia, an allied country!... Marshal Ney, worn
out and ill, and regarding the campaign as finished, left us and
went to Gumbinnen, where there was a gathering of all the
marshals. From that moment the army had no overall commander, and
each regiment made its own way into Prussia. The Russians, who
were at war with this country, would have been entitled to follow
us there, but satisfied with having re-conquered their territory,
and not sure whether they should present themselves to the
Prussians as friends or enemies, they decided to await
instructions from their government, and halted at the Nieman. We
took advantage of their hesitation to head for the towns of old
Prussia.

The Germans are usually humane; many of them had relatives or
friends in the regiments which had gone with us to Moscow. We
were received well enough, and I can promise you that having
slept for five months in the open, I was delighted to find myself
in a warm room and a comfortable bed; but this sudden transition
from a glacial bivouac to long-forgotten repose made me seriously
ill. Nearly all the army were affected in this way: a number of
them died, including Generals Eble and Lariboisiere, the
artillery commanders.

In spite of the adequate reception given to us, the Prussians
remembered their defeat at Jena, and the way in which Napoleon
had treated them in 1807 when he seized part of their kingdom.
Secretly they hated us and would have disarmed and captured us at
the first signal from their King. Already General York, who led
the numerous Prussian units which the Emperor had so unwisely
placed on the left wing of the Grande Armee, and who were
stationed between Tilsit and Riga, had made a pact with the
Russians and had sent back Marshal Macdonald, whom, from some
remnant of conscience, he did not dare to arrest.

The Prussians of all classes approved of General York's
treachery, and as the provinces through which the sick and
disarmed French soldiers were then passing were full of Prussian
troops, it is probable that the inhabitants would have sought to
take hold of them had it not been that they feared for their
King, who was in Berlin, in the midst of a French army commanded
by Marshal Augereau. This fear and the repudiation by the King
(the most honest man in his kingdom) of General York, who was
tried for treason and condemned to death, prevented a general
uprising against the French. We profited from this to reach the
Vistula and leave the country.

My regiment crossed the river near the fortress of Graudenz at
the same place at which we had crossed on our way to Russia. But
this time the crossing was much more dangerous because the thaw
had already begun some leagues upstream and the ice was covered
by about a foot of water and one could hear frightening crackings
which heralded a general break-up. Added to which, it was in the
middle of a dark night that I was given the order to cross the
river immediately, for the General had just been informed that
the King of Prussia had left Berlin and taken refuge in Silesia,
in the midst of a considerable armed force, and that the populace
was becoming restless and it was feared that they would rise
against us as soon as the thaw prevented us from crossing the
river. We had to get across at all costs, but this was a very
dangerous operation, for the Vistula is quite wide at Graudenz,
and there were many gaps in the ice which it was difficult to see
by the light of the fires lit on both banks.

As there was no possibility of crossing with our sledges, we
abandoned them. We led the horses and, preceded by some men armed
with poles to indicate the crevasses, we commenced the perilous
journey. We had icy water half-way up our legs, which was not
good for the sick and injured, but the physical discomfort was
nothing compared to the anxiety produced by the cracking of the
ice, which threatened, at any moment, to sink beneath our feet.
The servant of one of my officers fell into a crevasse and did
not reappear. We eventually reached the other side where we spent
the night warming ourselves in some fishermen's huts, and the
next day we witnessed a total thaw of the Vistula, which, had we
delayed our crossing for a few hours, would have made us
prisoners.

From the spot where we had crossed the Vistula, we made our way
to the little town of Sweld, where my regiment had been in
cantonment before the war, and it was there that I greeted the
year 1813. The year which had ended was certainly the hardest of
my life.

Chap. 21.

Let us now cast an eye rapidly over the reasons for the failure
of the Russian campaign.

Undoubtedly the principal one of these was Napoleon's error in
believing that he could make war in the north of Europe, before
ending that which had been going on for a long time in Spain,
where his armies were suffering serious reverses, at a time when
he was preparing to invade Russian territory. The soldiers of
French nationality, being thus spread from north to south, were
in insufficient numbers everywhere. Napoleon thought he could
supplement them by joining to their battalions those of his
allies, but this was to dilute a good wine with muddy water. The
quality of the French divisions was lowered, the allied troops
were never better than mediocre, and it was they, who, during the
retreat, sowed disorder in the Grande Armee.

A no less fatal cause of our defeat was the inadequacy, or indeed
the total lack of organisation in the occupied countries. Instead
of doing as we had done during the campaigns of Austerlitz, Jena
and Friedland, and leaving behind the advancing army small bodies
of troops which, stretching back in echelon, could keep in
regular touch with one another to ensure tranquillity in our
rear, to expedite the forwarding of munitions and individual
soldiers and the departure of convoys of wounded, we unwisely
pushed all our available forces towards Moscow, so that between
that city and the Nieman, if one excepts Wilna and Smolensk,
there was not one garrison, nor storage depot, nor hospital. Two
hundred leagues of countryside were left to roving bands of
Cossacks. The result of this was that men who had recovered from
illness were unable to rejoin their units, and as there was no
system of evacuation, we had to keep all the wounded from the
battle for Moscow in the monastery of Kolotskoi for more than two
months. They were still there at the time of the retreat and were
nearly all taken prisoner, while those who felt able to follow
the army died of exhaustion and cold on the roads. Finally, the
retreating troops had no supply of stored food in a country which
produces vast amounts of grain.

This lack of small garrisons in our rear was the reason why of
the more than 100,000 prisoners taken by the French during the
campaign, not a single one left Russia, because there was no way
in which they could be passed back from hand to hand. All these
prisoners escaped with ease and made their way back to the
Russian army, which thus recovered some of its losses, while ours
increased from day to day.

The absence of interpreters also contributed to our disasters,
more than you might think. How, for example can one obtain
information about an unknown country, if one cannot exchange a
single word with the inhabitants? When, on the bank of the
Beresina, General Partouneaux mistook the road, and instead of
taking that leading to Studianka, took the one leading to General
Wittgenstein's position, he had with him a peasant from Borisoff,
who, not knowing a word of French, tried to indicate by signs
that the encampment was Russian, but, as he was not understood,
through lack of an interpreter we lost a fine division of 7 or
8000 men.

In very similar circumstances, during October, the 3rd Lancers,
taken by surprise, in spite of the advice of their guide, whom
they did not understand, lost two hundred men. Now the Emperor
had in his army some bodies of Polish cavalry, nearly all of
whose officers and most of their N.C.O.s. spoke fluent Russian;
but they were left in their regiments whereas some should have
been taken from each unit and attached to generals and colonels,
where they would have been extremely useful. I consider the
provision of interpreters an important but often neglected
element in military operations.

I have already commented on the major mistake that was made in
forming the two wings of the army from the Prussian and Austrian
contingents. The Emperor must have greatly regretted this,
firstly on learning that the Austrians had given passage to the
Russian army of Tchitchakoff, who then cut our line of retreat on
the banks of the Beresina, and secondly when told of the
treachery of General York, the head of the Prussian Corps. His
regret must have increased further during and after the retreat,
for if he had formed the two wings from French troops and had
taken to Moscow the Austrians and Prussians, the two latter,
having suffered their share of the hardships and the casualties
would have been as much enfeebled as all the other corps, while
Napoleon would have kept intact the French troops he had left on
the two wings. I would go even further and say that to weaken
Prussia and Austria Napoleon should have required from them
contingents triple or quadruple the size of those which they
contributed. It has been said, with hindsight, that neither of
the two states would have complied with such a demand, but I
disagree; the King of Prussia who had come to Dresden to beg the
Emperor to accept his son as an aide-de-camp would not have dared
to refuse, while Austria, in the hope of recovering some of the
rich provinces which Napoleon had snatched from her, would have
done everything to satisfy him. The overconfidence which Napoleon
had, in 1812, in the fidelity of those two states was his
undoing.

It is often claimed that the fire of Moscow, for which praise is
given to the courage and resolve of the Russian government and
General Rostopschine, was the principal cause of the failure of
the 1812 campaign. This assertion seems to me to be contestable.
To begin with the destruction of Moscow was not so complete that
there did not remain enough houses, palaces, churches and
barracks to accommodate the entire army, and there is evidence of
this in a report which I have seen in the hands of my friend
General Gourgaud, who was then principal aide-de-camp to the
Emperor. It was not therefore lack of shelter which forced the
French to quit Moscow.  Many people think that it was the fear of
food shortage, but this is also erroneous, for reports made to
the Emperor by M. le Comte Daru, the quartermaster-general of the
army, show that even after the fire there was in the city an
immense quantity of provisions, which would have supplied the
army for six months, so it was not the prospect of starvation
which decided the Emperor to retreat. These facts would appear to
indicate that the Russian government had failed to achieve its
aim, if this was indeed the aim it was pursuing; but in reality,
its aim was quite different.

The court wished, in fact, to deliver a mortal blow to the
ancient aristocracy of the Boyars by destroying the city which
was the centre for their continual opposition. The Russian
government, although entirely despotic, has to pay much attention
to the great nobles, whose displeasure has cost several emperors
their lives. The richest and most powerful of these noblemen made
Moscow the backdrop for their intrigues, so the government, more
and more alarmed at the growth of the city, saw in the French
invasion an opportunity for its destruction. General
Rostopschine, who was one of the authors of this plan, was
entrusted with its execution, the blame for which he later laid
on the French. But the aristocracy was not taken in: it accused
the government so loudly and manifested so much discontent at the
useless burning of its palaces that the Emperor Alexander, to
avoid a personal catastrophe, was obliged not only to permit the
rebuilding of the city, but to banish Rostopschine who, in spite
of his protestations of patriotism, died in Paris, hated by the
Russian nobility.

Whatever the motives may have been for the fire of Moscow, I
think that its preservation would have been more harmful than
useful to the French, for in order to control a city inhabited by
some 300,000 citizens always ready to revolt, it would have been
necessary to take from the army, and place as a garrison in
Moscow, 50,000 men, who, when the time came to retreat, would
have been assailed by the inhabitants, whereas the fire having
driven out almost all the populace, a few patrols were enough to
ensure tranquillity.

The only influence which Moscow had on the events of 1812 was due
to the fact that Napoleon was unable to understand that Alexander
could not sue for peace without being assassinated by his
subjects, and believed that to leave the city without a treaty
would be to admit that he was not able to hold on to it. The
French Emperor insisted, therefore, on staying as long as
possible in Moscow, where he wasted more than a month waiting in
vain for a proposal of peace. This delay was fatal for it allowed
the winter to become established before the French army could go
into cantonments in Poland. Even if Moscow had been preserved
intact it would not have made any difference; the disaster arose
because the retreat was not prepared in advance and was carried
out at the wrong time. It was not difficult to forecast that it
would be very cold in Russia during the winter!... But, I repeat,
the hope of a peace misled Napoleon and was the sole cause of his
long stay in Moscow.

The losses suffered by the Grande Armee were enormous, but they
have been exaggerated. I have already said that I have seen a
situation report, covered with notes in Napoleon's hand, which
gives the figure of those who crossed the Nieman as 325,000, of
whom 155,000 were French. Reports issued in February 1813 gave
the number of French who returned across the Nieman as 60,000,
added to this figure can be that of 30,000 prisoners returned by
the Russians after the peace of 1814. Giving a total loss of
French lives of 65,000.

The loss inflicted on my regiment was, in proportion, much
smaller.  At the beginning of the campaign we had 1018 men in the
ranks and we received 30 reinforcements at Polotsk, so that I
took into Russia 1048 troopers. Of this number I had 109 killed,
77 taken prisoner, 65 injured and 104 missing. This amounted to a
loss of 355 men, so that after the return of the men whom I had
sent to Warsaw, the regiment, which from the bank of the Vistula
had been sent beyond the Elbe to the principality of Dessau, had
in the saddle 693 men, all of whom had fought in the Russian
campaign.

When he saw this figure, the Emperor, who from Paris was
supervising the reorganising of his army, thought it was a
mistake, and sent the report back to me with an order to produce
a corrected version. When I returned the same figure once more,
he ordered General Sebastiani to go and inspect my regiment and
give him a nominal roll of the men present. This operation having
removed all doubt, and confirmed my report, I received a few days
later a letter from the Major-general couched in the most
flattering terms and addressed to all officers and N.C.O.s and
particularly to me, in which Prince Berthier stated that he had
been directed by the Emperor to express his Majesty's
satisfaction at the care we had taken of our men's lives, and his
praise for the conduct of all our officers and N.C.O.s.

After having had this letter read out before all the squadrons, I
had intended to keep it as a precious memento for my family, but
on further consideration, I decided that it would not be right to
deprive the regiment of a document in which was expressed the
Emperor's satisfaction with all its members, so I sent it to be
included in the regimental archive. I have frequently repented of
this, for scarcely a year had passed before the government of
Louis XVIII was substituted for that of the Emperor, and the 23rd
Chasseurs was combined with the 3rd. The archives of the two
regiments were collected together, badly cared for, and after the
total disbanding of the army in 1815, they disappeared into the
yawning gulf of the war office. I tried in vain, after the
revolution of 1830, to recover this letter, which was so
flattering to my old regiment and to me, but it could not be
found.

Chap. 22.

The year 1813 began very badly for France. The remains of our
army, returning from Russia, had scarcely crossed the Vistula and
started to reorganise,when the treachery of General York and the
troops under his command forced us to retire beyond the Elbe, and
shortly to abandon Berlin and all of Prussia, which rose against
us, helped by the units which Napoleon had imprudently left
there. The Russians speeded up their march as much as possible,
and came to join the Prussians, whose King now declared war on
the French Emperor.

Napoleon had in northern Germany no more than two divisions,
commanded, it is true, by Augereau, but consisting mainly of
conscripts. As for those French troops who had fought in Russia,
once they were well fed and no longer slept on the snow, they
recovered their strength, and could have been used oppose the
enemy; but our cavalry were almost all without horses, very few
infantrymen had kept their weapons, we had no artillery, the
majority of the soldiers had no footwear, and their uniform was
in rags. The government had employed part of the year 1812 in
making equipment of all sorts, but owing to the negligence of the
war department, then in the hands of M. Lacuee, Comte de Cessac,
no regiment received the clothing allotted to it. The conduct of
the administration in these circumstances deserves some comment.

When a regimental depot had got together, at great expense, the
numerous items required by its active battalions or squadrons,
the administration arranged with forwarding agents the transport
of the supplies as far as Mainz, which was then part of the
Empire. These goods were in no danger while crossing France to
the bank of the Rhine; however, M. de Cessac ordered a detachment
of troops to escort them as far as Mainz. There they were handed
over to foreign agents, who were supposed to forward them to
Magdeberg, Berlin, and the Vistula, without any French
supervision. This undertaking was carried out with so much bad
faith and delay that the packages containing the supplies of
clothing and footwear took six to eight months to go from Mainz
to the Vistula, a distance they should have covered in forty
days.

This had been no more than a serious inconvenience when the
French armies were in peaceful occupation of Germany and Poland,
but it became a calamity after the Russian campaign. More than
two hundred barges laden with supplies for our regiments were
ice-bound in the Bromberg canal, near Nackel, when we passed this
point in January 1813, but as there was, in this immense convoy,
no French agent, and as the Prussian bargees already considered
us as enemies, no one told us that these vessels were loaded with
goods. The next day the Prussians took possession of this huge
quantity of clothing and footwear and used it to equip several of
the regiments they sent against us. Although the result of this
was that the increasing cold killed a large number of French
soldiers, there are those who boast of our efficient
administration!

The lack of order in the French army's line of march as it went
through Prussia was due principally to the ineptitude of Murat,
who had assumed command after the departure of the Emperor, and
later to the feebleness of Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, the
Vice-Roi of Italy.

When the time came for us to re-cross the Elbe and enter the
territory of the Confederation of the Rhine, the Emperor, before
removing his troops from Poland and Prussia, wanted to facilitate
a return to the offensive by leaving strong garrisons in the
fortresses which could assure the crossing of the Vistula, the
Oder and the Elbe, such as Thorn, Stettin, Magdeberg, Danzig,
Dresden, etc.

This major decision on the part of the Emperor may be looked at
in two ways. So it has been praised by some knowledgeable
military observers and condemned by others.

The first party say that the need to provide a place of rest and
safety for the numerous sick and wounded, which the army brought
back from Russia, compelled the Emperor to occupy these
fortresses, which, in addition, could store a massive amount of
military equipment and foodstuffs. They add that these fortresses
hindered enemy movements and by investing them, the enemy reduced
the number of troops which could be actively employed against us;
and finally that if the reinforcements which Napoleon was
bringing from France and Germany enabled him to win a battle, the
possession of the forts would help to ensure a new conquest of
Prussia, which would bring us to the banks of the Vistula and
force the Russians to return to their country.

In reply to this it is claimed that Napoleon weakened his army by
breaking it up into so many scattered units who could not give
each other mutual assistance; that it was not necessary to
compromise the security of France in order to save a some
thousands of sick and wounded, very few of whom would return to
active service, and of whom nearly all died in the hospitals. It
was also said that the regiments of Italians, Poles, and Germans
from the Confederation of the Rhine, which the Emperor mingled
with the garrisons in order to lessen the requirement of French
units, would not be much use; and in fact almost all the foreign
troops fought very badly and ended up by going over to the enemy.
Finally it was claimed that the occupation of the forts gave very
little trouble to the Russian and Prussian armies, which, after
blockading them with an observation force, could continue their
march towards France. Which is what actually happened.

I find myself in agreement with latter of these two opinions,
because it is evident that the forts could be of use to us only
if we overcame the Russian and Prussian armies, which was a
reason for concentrating our disposable manpower rather than
dispersing it.

It might be said that as the enemy would no longer have to
blockade the forts, they would thus have an increase in their
manpower to match ours. But this is not so, for the enemy would
have to leave strong garrisons in the forts which we abandoned,
while we could make use of the men which were at present
immobilised. I may add that the defence of these useless forts
deprived the army in the field of the services of a number of
experienced generals, among others, Marshal Davout, who alone was
worth several divisions. I accept that during a campaign one must
leave behind several brigades to guard places on which the safety
of a country depends, such as Metz, Lille, and Strasbourg, in the
case of France, but the forts situated on the Vistula, the Oder,
and the Elbe, two or three hundred leagues from France, were of
only conditional importance, that is to say dependent on the
success of our army in the field. When this did not come about,
over eighty thousand men whom the Emperor had left in those
garrisons in 1812 were obliged to surrender.

The position of France in the first months of 1813 was extremely
critical, for in the south our armies in Spain had suffered some
very serious reverses due to the weakening of their strength by
the continual withdrawal of regiments, while the English
ceaselessly sent reinforcements to Wellington, who had fought a
brilliant campaign during 1812, and had captured Cuidad-Rodrigo,
Badajoz, and the fort of Salamanca, had won the battle of
Arapiles, occupied Madrid and now threatened the Pyrenees.

In the north, the numerous battle-hardened soldiers whom Napoleon
had led into Russia had nearly all died in action or of cold and
starvation. The still-intact Prussian army had just joined the
Russians, and the Austrians were on the point of following their
example. Finally, the sovereigns, and more importantly, the
people of the Germanic Confederation, stirred up by the English,
were wavering in their allegiance to France. The Prussian Baron
Stein, an able and enterprising man, took this opportunity to
publish a number of pamphlets in which he appealed to all Germans
to shake off the yoke of Napoleon and regain their liberty. This
appeal was readily received, as the passage, the accommodation,
and the maintenance of the French troops who had occupied Germany
since 1806 had occasioned great expense, to which was added the
confiscation of English merchandise, as a result of Napoleon's
continental blockade. The Confederation of the Rhine would have
defected if the rulers of the various states of which it was
composed had decided to listen to the wishes of their subjects;
but none of them dared budge, so ingrained was their habit of
obedience to the French Emperor, and so great their fear of
seeing him arrive at any moment, to head the considerable forces
which he was organising with such speed and building up
constantly in Germany.

The greater part of the French nation still had the greatest
confidence in Napoleon. Those who were well-informed blamed him,
no doubt, for having the previous year led his army to Moscow,
and in particular for having awaited the winter there, but the
mass of the people, who were used to considering the Emperor as
infallible and had no notion of the events of this campaign nor
of the losses suffered by our men, saw only the glory which the
occupation of Moscow reflected on our arms, and were more than
willing to give the Emperor the means to heap victories round his
eagles. Every department and every town gave patriotic gifts of
horses, though the numerous levies of conscripts and money soon
cooled this enthusiasm. Nevertheless, the nation complied with
reasonably good grace, and battalions and squadrons seemed to
rise out of the ground, as if by some enchantment. It was
remarkable that after all the levies of conscripts which had been
made over the last twenty years, we had never recruited a finer
body of men. There were several explanations for this.

To begin with, each of the eight hundred departments which then
existed had, for several years, maintained a company of so-called
departmental infantry, a sort of praetorian guard for the
Prefects, who made a point of selecting men of a high physical
standard for this duty. These men never left the principal towns
of the department, where they were very well housed, fed, and
clad, and as they had very few duties to perform, they were able
to build up their physical strength, for most of them led this
life for six or seven years, during which time they were
exercised regularly in the handling of arms, and in marches and
manoeuvres. They lacked only the "baptism of fire" to become
complete soldiers. These companies, depending on the importance
of the department, were of 150 to 250 men. The Emperor sent them
all to the army, where they were absorbed into the line
regiments.

In the second place there was called into service a great number
of conscripts from previous years, who had by protection,
cunning, or temporary illness obtained deferment, that is to say
permission to remain at home until further orders. These older
men were nearly all strong and vigourous.

These measures were legal; but what was not was the call-up of
those who had already taken part in the ballot for conscription
and whose names had not been drawn. These people, to whom this
lottery had given the legal right to remain civilians, were
nevertheless compelled to take up arms if they were less than
thirty years old.  This levy produced a large number of men fit
to support the hardships of war. There was some objection raised
to this measure, mainly in the Midi and the Vendee, but the
greater part of the contingent fell into line, so great was the
habit of obedience. This meekness on the part of the populace
enticed the government into practices even more illegal and more
dangerous withal, in that they struck at the upper class; for
after forcibly enlisting men who had been exempted by lot, the
same measure was applied to those who had quite legally paid for
a replacement, and they were forced into the army, although some
families had been financially strained and even ruined in an
attempt to save their sons, for at that time replacements cost
from 12 to 20,000 francs, which had to be paid in cash. There
were even young men who had been replaced two or three times, but
who were still forced to go, and it was not unknown for one to
find himself serving in the same company as the man he had paid
to be his substitute! This injustice was the result of advice
given by Clarke, the Minister for War and Savary, the Minister of
Police, who persuaded the Emperor that to prevent any disturbance
during the war, it was necessary to remove the sons of
influential families from the country and put them in the army,
to serve, in some respects, as hostages!... To reduce somewhat
the odium felt by the upper class towards this imposition, the
Emperor created, under the name of "Guards of Honour," four
regiments of light cavalry, specially reserved for young
gentlemen of good family. These units, which were given a
brilliant Hussar's uniform, were commanded by general officers.

To these more or less legal levies, the Emperor added the men
produced by an early conscription and a number of battalions
formed from the seamen, sailors, and gunners of the navy, all
trained men, used to handling arms and bored with the monotonous
life in port, keen to join their comrades in the army. There were
more than thirty thousand of these seamen, and it did not take
long for them to become first class infantry soldiers. Finally
the Emperor, obliged to use every means to rebuild his army, of
which the greater part had perished in the frozen wastes of
Russia, further weakened his forces in Spain by taking not only
several thousands of men to make up his guard, but several
brigades and entire divisions composed of old soldiers,
accustomed to hardship and danger.

For their part, the Russians, and particularly the Prussians,
were preparing for war. The indefatigable Baron de Stein
travelled the provinces, preaching a crusade against the French,
and organising his "Tugenbond" whose members swore to take up
arms for the liberation of Germany. This society, which stirred
up so many enemies against us, operated openly in Prussia, which
was already at war with the Emperor, and insinuated itself into
the states and armies of the Confederation of the Rhine, despite
the opposition of some sovereigns and with the tacit permission
of others, to such an extent that almost the whole of Germany
was, in secret, our enemy, and the contingents which were joined
to our military forces were prepared to betray us at the first
opportunity, as events would shortly show. These events would not
have taken so long to come about if the German's natural laxity
and sloth had not prevented them from acting sooner than they
did, for the debris of the French army which crossed the Elbe in
1812 stayed peacefully in cantonment on the left bank of the
river for the first four months of 1813, without being attacked
by the Russians and Prussians who were stationed on the opposite
bank, and who did not feel themselves strong enough to do so,
although Prussia had mobilised its landwehr, made up of all fit
men, and Bernadotte, forgetting that he was born a Frenchman, had
declared war on us, and had joined his Swedish troops to those
belonging to the enemies of his native country.

During the period which we spent on the left bank of the Elbe,
although the army received continual reinforcements, there was
still very little in the way of cavalry except for some
regiments, one of which was mine, so we had been allotted as
cantonments several communes and the two little towns of Brenha
and Landsberg, in pleasant country near Magdeberg. While we were
there I had a great disappointment. The Emperor wished to speed
the organisation of the new levies and thought that for this
purpose the temporary presence of unit commanders at their
regimental depots would be useful. So he decided that all
colonels should return to France except those who had a certain
number of men in their unit, the number fixed for the cavalry was
four hundred, and I had more than six hundred mounted men!... I
was therefore forced to stay behind, when I so much longed to
embrace my wife and the child which she had given me during my
absence.

To the disappointment which I felt was added another vexation,
the good General Castex, whom I had held in such high regard
during the Russian campaign, was to leave us and join the mounted
Grenadiers of the Guard. His brigade, and that of General
Corbineau, who had been given the position of aide-de-camp to the
Emperor, were both put in charge of General Exelmans. General
Wathiez was to replace Castex, and General Maurin to replace
Corbineau. These three generals had, however, gone to France
after the Russian campaign and I was the only colonel left, so
General Sebastiani, to whose corps the new division was to be
attached, ordered me to take over the command, which added a
great deal of work to my regimental duties, for I had to make
frequent visits, in appalling weather, to the cantonments of the
other three regiments. The wound to my knee, although it had
healed, was still painful and I did not know if I would be able
to remain on duty until the end of the winter, when after a month
General Wathiez returned to take up the command of the division.

A few days later, without my having asked, I was ordered to go to
France to organise the large number of recruits and horses which
had been sent to my regimental depot. The depot was in the
department of Jemmapes, at Mons in Belgium, which was then part
of the Empire. I left immediately and travelled quickly. I
realised that as I was authorised to go to France on duty, it
would not be acceptable for me to request even the shortest
period of leave to go to Paris, so I welcomed the offer made by
Mme. Desbrieres, my mother-in-law, to bring my wife and my son to
Mons. After a year of separation, during which I had experienced
so many dangers, it was with the greatest pleasure that I once
more saw my wife, and held in my arms our little Alfred, now
eight months old. This was one of the happiest days of my life!
The joy which I felt on holding my little son was increased by
the recollection that he very nearly became an orphan on the day
of his birth.

I spent the end of April and the months of May and June at the
depot, where I was extremely busy. Many recruits had been sent to
the 23rd, men of good physique and from a warrior race, for they
mostly came from the neighbourhood of Mons, the former province
of Hainault, from where the Austrians used to draw their finest
cavalrymen, at the time when they possessed the low countries.
These are people who love and care well for horses, but as the
horses which come from this district are a little too heavy for
Chasseurs, I obtained permission to buy some in the Ardennes,
from where we obtained a fair selection.

I found at the depot some good officers and N.C.O.s, several of
whom had been in Russia and had gone to the depot to recover from
injuries or illness, and the ministry sent me some young officers
from the school of cavalry at Saint-Cyr. From this material I
made up various squadrons, which, although not perfect, could
mingle without difficulty with the old cavalrymen from Russia
whom I had left on the banks of the Elbe, and throughout whom
they would be spread on their arrival. As soon as a squadron was
ready it was sent off to join the army.

Chap. 23.

While I was busily engaged in rebuilding my regiment, as were
many other colonels, mainly from the cavalry, who were in France
for the same reason, hostilities broke out on the Elbe, which had
been crossed by the allies.

The Emperor left Paris, and on the 25th of April he was at
Naumbourg, in Saxony, at the head of 170,000 men, of whom only a
third were French, a detachment of troops which had been sent to
Germany having not yet arrived. The other two thirds of his army
was formed of units from the Confederation of the Rhine, the
majority of which were very reluctant to fight on his behalf.
General Wittgenstein, who had gained some celebrity following our
disaster at the Beresina, although the weather did us far more
harm than his manoeuvres, was in overall command of the Russian
and German troops, a combined force of 300,000 men, which faced
Napoleon's army on the 28th of April, in the region of Leipzig.

On the 1st of May there was a sharp engagement at Poserna, in an
area where Gustavus Adolphus had died, during which Marshal
Bessieres was killed by a cannon-ball. The Emperor regretted his
death more than did the army, which had not forgotten that it was
the advice given to Napoleon by the Marshal in the evening of the
battle for Moscow which had deterred him from achieving victory
by committing his guards to the action, which had he done, it
would have changed the outcome and led to the complete
destruction of the Russian force.

The day after Bessieres' death, while Napoleon was continuing his
march towards Leipzig, he was attacked unexpectedly on the flank,
by the Russo-Prussians, who had crossed the river Elster during
the night. In this battle, which was given the name of the Battle
of Lutzen, there was some fierce fighting, in which the troops
newly arrived from France showed the greatest courage, the marine
regiments being particularly notable. The enemy, soundly beaten,
withdrew towards the Elbe, but the French, having almost no
cavalry, were able to take few prisoners and their victory was
incomplete.  Nevertheless it produced a great moral effect in
Europe, and above all in France, for it showed that our troops
had retained their fighting qualities, and that only the frosts
of Russia had overcome them in 1812.

The Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia, after being
present at Lutzen and witnessing the defeat of their armies, had
gone to Dresden, from where they had to withdraw on the approach
of the victorious Napoleon, who took possession of the town on
the 8th of May, where he was shortly joined by his ally, the King
of Saxony. After a brief stay in Dresden, the French crossed the
Elbe and pursued the Prusso-Russians, whose rear-guard they
caught up with and defeated at Bischofswerda.

The Emperor Alexander, dissatisfied with Wittgenstein, assumed
personal command of the allied armies, but having been defeated
in his turn by Napoleon at Wurtchen, it seems likely that he
recognised his lack of ability in this field, for he soon
relinquished the position.

The Russo-Prussians having come to a halt and dug in at Bautzen,
the French emperor ordered Ney to outflank their position, which
resulted in a victory on the 21st of May, which lack of cavalry
once more rendered incomplete though the enemy lost 18,000 men
and fled in disorder.

On the 22nd, the French, in pursuit of the Russians, made contact
with their rear-guard at the pass of Reichenbach. What little
cavalry Napoleon had was commanded by General Latour-Maubourg, a
most distinguished soldier, who led it with such elan that the
enemy were overwhelmed and abandoned the field after heavy
losses. Those suffered by the French, though fewer, were most
painful. The cavalry general, Bruyere, a fine officer, had both
his legs carried away and died of this dreadful injury; but the
saddest event of the day was the result of a cannon-ball which,
after killing General Kirgener (brother-in-law of Marshal
Lannes), mortally wounded Marshal Duroc, the grand marshal of the
palace, a man liked by everyone, and Napoleon's oldest and best
friend. Marshal Duroc survived for a few hours following his
injury, and the Emperor who was at his side showed every sign of
the deepest grief. Those who witnessed this melancholy scene,
noted that the Emperor, who was forced to leave his friend by the
demands of duty, parted from him in tears, having given him a
rendez-vous in "A better world!"

The French army now pressed on into Silesia, whose capital,
Breslau (Wroclaw) it occupied on the 1st of June. The allies, and
in particular the Prussians, much alarmed, realised that in spite
of their boasts, they were unable, without help, to stop the
French, and wanted to gain a respite in the hope that the
Austrians would end their hesitation and join forces with them.
They sent out envoys, given the task of soliciting an armistice
which, subject to the mediation of Austria, would lead, they
said, to a peace treaty.  Napoleon thought that he should agree
to this armistice, and so it was signed on the 4th of June, to
last until the 10th of August.

While Napoleon was going from success to success, Marshal Oudinot
was defeated at Luckau, and lost 1100 men. The Emperor hoped that
during the armistice the numerous reinforcements from France
which he was awaiting, particularly the cavalry which had been
sorely missed, would make their appearance, and would take part
in a new campaign if that became unavoidable. There were,
however, several generals who regretted that the Emperor had not
followed up his victory. They argued that if the armistice
permitted us to build up our reserves, it did the same for the
Russo-Prussians, who hoped that they would be joined by the
Austrians, as well as by the Swedes, who were marching to their
aid. The former were not yet ready, but they would have more than
two months to organise and put into motion their numerous troops.

When at Mons I heard of the victories of Lutzen and Bautzen, I
was sorry not to have been there, but my regrets were diminished
when I found that my regiment had not been involved; it was, in
fact, before Magdeburg on the road to Berlin. M. Lacour, a former
aide-de-camp to General Castex, had been posted as squadron
commander to the 23rd, about the end of 1812, and he took command
of the regiment in my absence. He was a brave man, who had
acquired some education by reading, which gave him pretentions
which were out of place in a military milieu; in addition to
which his lack of experience as a commanding officer, resulted in
the regiment suffering losses which should have been avoided, and
of which I shall speak later. While I was at the depot, I gained
as second squadron commander M. Pozac, a very fine officer in all
respects who had been awarded a "sabre of honour" for his conduct
at the battle of Marengo.

Towards the end of June, all the colonels who had been sent to
France to organise the new forces, having completed this task,
were ordered to return to their posts with the army, although
hostilities would be suspended for some time. I was therefore
forced to leave my family, with whom I had passed so many happy
days, but duty called and I had to obey.

I once more took the road to Germany, and went first to Dresden,
to where the Emperor had summoned all the colonels in order to
question them about the composition of the detachments they had
sent to the army. There I learned something which annoyed me
greatly! At the depot I had organised four superb squadrons of
150 men each. The two first of which (happily the smartest and
best) had joined the regiment; the third had been taken, by
Imperial decision, and sent to Hamburg to be incorporated in the
28th Chasseurs, one of the weakest regiments in the army. This
was a lawful order, and I accepted it without complaint: but it
was not the same when I was told that the 4th squadron which I
had sent from Mons, having been noticed as it passed through
Cassel, by Jerome, the King of Westphalia, this prince had found
it so desirable that he had, on his own authority, enrolled it in
his Guard! I knew that the Emperor, very irritated that his
brother had taken it upon himself to make off with some Imperial
troops, had ordered him to send them on their way immediately,
and I had hopes that I would receive them; but King Jerome got
hold of some of the Emperor's aides, who represented to his
Majesty that as the King of Westphalia's Guard was composed
entirely of Germans, who were not by any means to be relied upon,
it was right that he should have a French squadron on whose
loyalty he could count; in the second place the King had, at much
expense, equipped the squadron with the brilliant uniform of
Hussars of his Guard; and finally, that even without this
squadron, the 23rd would still be the strongest regiment in the
French cavalry. Whatever the reason, my squadron remained in the
Westphalian guard, in spite of my loud protests. I could not get
over this loss, and found it supremely unjust that I should be
deprived of the fruits of my trouble and labour.

I rejoined my regiment not far from the Oder in the region of
Zagan, where it was in cantonment in the little town of
Freistadt, as was Exelman's division, of which it was a part.

During our stay in this area, a curious incident occurred. A
trooper by the name of Tantz, the only bad character in the
regiment, having got thoroughly drunk, threatened an officer who
had ordered him to be put in the police cell. Put before a
court-martial he was found guilty, condemned to death and the
sentence confirmed. Now when the guard, commanded by
Warrant-officer Boivin, went to fetch Tantz to take him to the
place where he was to be shot, they found him in the cell
completely naked, on the pretext that it was too hot.

The warrant-officer, a brave fellow, but one whose brains did not
match his courage, instead of making him dress, told him to wrap
himself in a cloak. However, having arrived on the draw-bridge
across the large moat which surrounded the chateau, Tantz threw
the cloak in the faces of the guard, leapt into the moat which he
swam across, and having reached the other side made off to join
the enemy on the opposite bank of the Oder. We never heard
anything more of him!...  I broke the warrant-officer for being
so careless, but he soon regained his rank, by an act of bravery
which I shall describe shortly.

The squadrons which I had recently added to the regiment, brought
its strength up to 993 men, of whom almost 700 had fought in the
Russian campaign. The newly arrived soldiers were a well-built
body of men who had nearly all come from the departmental legion
of Jemmapes, which made it easier to train them as cavalrymen; I
incorporated the newcomers in the older squadrons. Both sides
were preparing for the coming struggle but our opponents had made
good use of their time, and had presented us with a powerful
adversary by persuading the Austrians to take up arms against us.

The Emperor Napoleon, whom numerous victories had accustomed to
taking little account of his enemies, believed himself to be once
more invincible, when he saw himself in Germany at the head of
300,000 men, but he did not examine sufficiently closely the
composition of the forces with which he was about to oppose the
whole of Europe, united against him.

The French army had received an intake of fine quality recruits,
and had never looked better; but with the exception of some
regiments, the majority of these new soldiers had never been in
action, and the disasters of the Russian campaign had generated
an uneasy feeling in the corps, the effects of which were still
felt.  Our superb army was better suited to being put on show to
obtain terms, than to being engaged, at this moment, in combat.
Nearly all the generals and colonels, who saw the regiments at
close quarters, were of the opinion that they needed some years
of peace. If one were to pass from the French army to an
examination of those of her allies, one would see nothing but
apathy, ill-will and the wish for an opportunity to betray
France! Everything should have led Napoleon to treat with his
enemies, and to do this he should have first settled with his
father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria, by giving back to him
Dalmatia, Istria, the Tyrol, and some of the other provinces
which he had seized in 1805 and 1809. Some concessions of this
sort offered to Prussia would have quietened the allies who, it
seems, were willing to return to Napoleon the colonies which had
been taken from France and to guarantee his occupation of all the
provinces this side of the Rhine and the Alps, and also upper
Italy; but in return he would have to give up Spain, Poland,
Naples, and Westphalia. These terms were acceptable; but at a
conference with the diplomats sent to discuss them, Napoleon was
rude to M. Metternich, the principal member of the delegation,
and sent them away without any concessions. It is said that as he
saw them leave the palace of Dresden, he remarked "We'll give
them a sound thrashing!" The Emperor seemed to forget that the
enemy armies were almost three times the size of his own forces.
He had, in fact, no more than 320,000 men in Germany, while the
allies could put in the line almost 800,000 fighting men.

The Emperor's birthday was on the 15th of August, but he ordered
that it should be celebrated in advance, because the armistice
ended on the 10th. The rejoicings of Saint-Napoleon's day then
took place in the cantonments. This was the last time that the
French army celebrated the birthday of its Emperor! There was not
much enthusiasm, for even the least perceptive of officers was
aware that we were on the brink of a catastrophe, and the worries
of the commanders affected the morale of their subalterns.
However each one prepared to do his duty, though with little hope
of success, in view of the great inferiority in numbers of our
army as opposed to the innumerable troops of the enemy. Already,
among our allies of the Confederation of the Rhine, the Saxon
General Thielmann had deserted with his brigade to join the
Prussians, after trying to hand over to them the fortress of
Torgau. Among our troops there was much uneasiness and lack of
confidence.

It was at this time that one heard of the return to Europe of
General Moreau who, condemned to banishment after the conspiracy
of Pichegru and Cadoudal, had retired to America. The hatred
which Moreau had for Napoleon made him forget the duty he owed to
his country. He soiled his reputation by ranging himself with the
enemies of France; however, it was not long before he paid the
price of this infamous conduct.

Now an immense semi-circle was formed around the French army. A
body of 40,000 Russians was in Mecklemberg; Bernadotte, the
Prince Royal of Sweden, occupied Berlin and the surrounding
district with an army of 120,000 men, composed of Swedes,
Russians, and Prussians. Two great Russian and Prussian armies,
220,000 men strong, of whom 35,000 were cavalry, were in Silesia
between Schweidnitz and the Oder; 40,000 Austrians were stationed
at Lintz, and the main Austrian army of about 140,000 men was
concentrated in Prague; finally, a short distance behind this
front line of 560,000 combatants, an enormous body of reserves
was ready to march.

The distribution of his troops made by Napoleon was as follows:
70,000 men were concentrated around Dahmen in Prussia, to oppose
Bernadotte; Marshal Ney with 100,000 occupied part of Silesia. A
corps of 70,000 was in the region of Zittau. Marshal Saint-Cyr
with 16,000 men occupied the camp at Pirna and gave cover to
Dresden.  Finally the Imperial Guard, 20 to 25,000 strong was
spread round this capital, ready to go wherever was necessary.
Including the troops left in the garrisons of the forts, the
troops at Napoleon's disposal were infinitely fewer than those of
the enemy. This enumeration did not include the forces left in
Spain and Italy.

Chap. 24.

The French Emperor had divided his army into 14 Corps, called
infantry, although they each contained at least a brigade of
light cavalry. The commanding generals were as follows:--

1 Corps. Gen. Vandamme.

2 Corps. Marshal Victor.

3 Corps. Marshal Ney.

4 Corps. Gen. Bertrand.

5 Corps. Gen. Lauriston.

6 Corps. Marshal Marmont.

7 Corps. Gen. Reynier.

8 Corps. Prince Poniatowski.

9 Corps. Marshal Augereau.

10 Corps. (confined in Danzig) Gen. Rapp.

11 Corps. Marshal Macdonald.

12 Corps. Marshal Oudinot.

13 Corps. Marshal Davout.

14 Corps. Marshal Saint-Cyr.

Finally came the Guard, under the direct orders of the Emperor.

The cavalry was divided into 5 Corps, commanded by 1. Gen.
Latour-Mauberg, 2. Gen. Sebastiani, 3. Gen. Arrighi, 4. Gen.
Kellermann. 5. Gen. Milhau. The cavalry of the Guard was
commanded by general Nansouty.

The army, as a whole, approved of some of these appointments but
disapproved of others. They disliked such important posts being
given to Oudinot, who had made more than one mistake during the
Russian campaign, to Marmont, whose rashness had lost the battle
of Arpiles, to Sebastiani, who did not seem equal to the task,
and finally it was regretted that for a campaign which was to
decide the destiny of France, the Emperor had seen fit to try out
the strategic talents of Lauriston and Bertrand. The first was a
good artillery officer, and the second an excellent engineer, but
neither had directed troops in the field, and so lacked the
experience needed to command an army Corps.

Napoleon, recalling that when he was named as commander-in-chief
of the army of Italy, he had hitherto commanded only some
battalions, which had not prevented him from successfully filling
the post, probably believed that Lauriston and Bertrand could do
the same thing. But men of such universal talent as Napoleon are
rare, and he could not hope that his new corps commanders could
follow his example. It is thus that the personal affection which
he felt for these generals led him to commit once more the error
which he had previously made in giving command of an army to the
artilleryman Marmont.

The history of past wars shows quite clearly that to be
commander-in-chief, theoretical knowledge will not suffice, and
with a very, very few exceptions, it is necessary to have served
in an infantry or cavalry unit and to have commanded one in the
rank of colonel, to be competent to direct masses of men in the
field. This is a basic training which very few men can acquire as
generals or as commanders of an army. Louis XIV never confided
the command of troops in the open country to Marshal de Vauban,
who was, however, one of the most able men of his century, and
one presumes that if he had been offered the post, Vauban would
have turned it down in order to concentrate on his own specialty,
which was the attack and defence of fortresses. Marmont and
Bertrand, lacked this modesty, and the affection which Napoleon
had for them prevented him from listening to any observations on
the subject.

King Murat, who had gone to Naples after the Russian campaign,
rejoined the Emperor at Dresden. The coalition, that is to say
the Austrians, Russians, and Prussians, opened the campaign with
an act of bad faith, unworthy of civilised nations. Although
under the terms of the previous convention, hostilities should
not have begun until the 16th of August, they attacked our
outposts on the 14th, and put the greater part of their forces in
motion after the defection of Jomini.

Until this time, only the two Saxon generals, Thielmann and
Langueneau, had, shamefully, changed sides, but no general
wearing French uniform had sullied it in such a manner. It was a
Swiss, General Jomini, who was the first to do so. Jomini was a
simple clerk, on a salary of 1200 francs, in the ministerial
offices of the Republic of Helvetia, when, in 1800, General Ney
was sent to Berne by the First Consul to discuss with the Swiss
government the defence of their state, which was then our ally.
The duties of the clerk Jomini, which involved dealing with
confidential government documents, put him in contact with
General Ney, who was thus in a position to appreciate his
outstanding ability, and, yielding to his urgent requests, he
arranged for him to admitted as lieutenant, and shortly captain,
in the Swiss regiment which was being formed to serve with the
French army. General Ney took an increasing interest in his
protege. He had him enrolled as a French officer, took him as an
aide-de-camp and gave him the means to publish works which he had
written on the art of war, works which, although over-valued, are
not without some merit.

Thanks to protection of this kind, Jomini advanced rapidly to the
rank of colonel and brigadier-general, and at the resumption of
hostilities in 1813 was chief-of-staff to Marshal Ney. Seduced,
however, by the extravagant promises made by the Russians, he
deserted, in possession of much information about Napoleon's
plans of campaign. It was fear that, on hearing of this
defection, Napoleon would change these plans that induced the
allies to commence hostilities two days before the date agreed
for the ending of the armistice. To the surprise of everyone, the
Emperor Alexander  rewarded the treacherous Jomini by taking him
as an aide-de-camp, which is said to have outraged the delicate
susceptibilities of the Austrian Emperor.

The information which Jomini was able to give the allies was a
serious blow to Napoleon, for several of his corps were attacked
in the course of moving into position and had to give up a number
of important points for lack of time to prepare their defence.
However, the Emperor, whose plan it was to move into Bohemia,
finding that his opponents were forewarned and on their guard
against this, resolved to attack the Prussian army in Silesia,
and re-engage in the offensive those troops which had been
compelled to retreat before Blucher. In consequence Napoleon
arrived at L”wenberg on the 20th of August, where he attacked a
considerable force of the allies consisting of Prussians,
Austrians, and Russians. Various actions took place on the 21st,
22nd, and 23r, in the areas of Goldberg, Graditzberg, and
Bunzlau. The enemy lost 7000 men killed or taken prisoner, and
retired behind the Katzbach.

During one of the numerous engagements which took place during
these three days, Wathiez's brigade, which was pursuing the
enemy, was held up by a wide and swift-flowing stream, a
tributary of the Bobr. There was no way of crossing except by two
wooden bridges about a quarter of a mile apart, which were
covered by Russian artillery fire. The 24th Chasseurs, who had
passed into the command of the gallant Colonel Schneit, having
received the order to attack the left hand bridge, advanced to
the assault with their usual courage, but it was a different
matter when it came to the 11th (Dutch) Hussars, recently
incorporated into the brigade. Ordered to take the right hand
bridge, their Colonel M. Liegeard, the only Frenchman in the
unit, called in vain on his troops to follow him, they were so
overcome by fear that not one of them moved. As my regiment,
which was in the second line, was being subjected to as much fire
as the 11th Hussars, I hastened to the side of their colonel to
give him some help in urging his men to attack the enemy
artillery, which was the only way of stopping the cannonade, but
when I saw that I would have no success, and that the cowardice
of the Hollanders would result in many casualties in my regiment,
I led my troops to the front of them and was about to move into
the attack when I saw the bridge on the left collapse under the
first section of men from the 24th, throwing them into the river
where several men and horses were drowned. The Russians, during
their withdrawal, had prepared this trap by sawing so cunningly
through the main timbers supporting the bridge that, unless one
were warned, it was impossible to see what had been done.

The sight of this disaster made me fear that the same treatment
had been given to the bridge towards which I was leading my men,
so I called a halt in order to arrange an inspection. This was a
dangerous undertaking, for not only was the bridge within range
of the enemy guns, but it was also within range of the muskets of
an infantry battalion. I was about to call for a volunteer for
this perilous task, when warrant-officer Boivin, whom I had
recently demoted for negligently allowing the Chasseur condemned
to death to escape, got off his horse and coming to me said,
rather than risking the life of one of his comrades, would I
please permit him to carry out the mission, in order to redeem
his mistake. Pleased with this courageous declaration, I said,
"Go then, and you will recover your epaulets at the end of the
bridge!"

Boivin went forward and, ignoring cannon-balls and bullets, he
examined the superstructure of the bridge and its supports and
returned to assure me that it was in order and that the regiment
could cross. I thereupon re-instated him in his rank. He
remounted his horse and placing himself at the head of the
squadron which was about to cross the bridge he led the way
towards the Russians, who did not wait for us to attack, but
withdrew smartly. The month following, when the Emperor reviewed
the regiment and awarded several promotions, I had Boivin made a
sous-lieutenant.

Our new brigade commander, General Wathiez, was able during the
these various actions to win the affection and regard of the
troops. As for the divisional commander, General Exelmans, we
knew only his reputation in army circles which was that of a man
of outstanding bravery; but he was also regarded as being
somewhat unreliable. We had proof of this in an event which
occurred at the re-commencement of hostilities.

At a time when the division was carrying out a withdrawal, to
which my regiment was giving cover, General Exelmans, on the
pretext that he was about to lay a trap for the Prussian advance
guard, ordered me to place at his disposal my elite company and
25 of my best marksmen, whom he put under the command of Major
Lacour; then he put these 150 men in a meadow surrounded by
woodland, and after telling them not to move without his
permission, he went off and completely forgot them!... The enemy
arrived, and seeing the detachment abandoned in this manner, they
halted, fearing that it had been put there to lure them into an
ambush. To reassure themselves, they sent some individual men to
slip into the wood, on the right and left, and when they heard no
sound of gunfire, they gradually built up the number until they
had completely surrounded our troopers. It was in vain that
several officers pointed out to Major Lacour that this movement
was going to cut off his retreat; Lacour, brave but lacking
initiative, stuck rigidly to the order he had been given, without
considering that General Exelmans might have forgotten him and
that it might be as well to send someone to remind him, and at
least to reconnoitre the terrain over which he might be able to
retreat. He had been ordered to stay there, and he would stay
there even if his men were killed or taken prisoner!

While Major Lacour was carrying out his instructions in the
manner of a simple sergeant rather than that of a senior officer,
the division marched into the distance! General Walthiez and I,
when we saw that the detachment did not return, and not knowing
how to contact General Exelmans, who was galloping across
country, had serious misgivings. I then asked permission from
General Walthiez to return to Major Lacour, and on receiving it I
left at the gallop with a squadron and arrived just in time to
see a most distressing sight, particularly for a commanding
officer who cared for his soldiers.

The enemy, having infiltrated both flanks and even the rear of
our detachment, had mounted a frontal attack by a greatly
superior force, so that some 700 to 800 Prussian lancers
surrounded our 150 men, whose only way of retreat was over a
wretched footbridge of wooden planks which joined the two steep
banks of a nearby mill-stream. Our horsemen could cross here only
one by one so that there was congestion, and the elite company
lost several men. A number of riders then noticed a large
farmyard which they thought might lead to the mill-stream, and in
the hope of finding a bridge they entered it, followed by the
rest of the detachment. The stream did, in fact, run past the
farmyard, but it there formed the mill-pool, the banks of which
were lined by slippery flagstones, making access extremely
difficult for horses. This gave the enemy a great advantage, and
in an attempt to capture all the French who had entered this huge
yard, they closed the gates.

It was at this critical moment that I appeared on the other side
of the stream with the squadron which I had hurriedly brought
with me. I ordered them to dismount, and while one man held four
horses, the rest, armed with their carbines, ran to the
footbridge, which was guarded by a squadron of Prussians. The
Prussians being on horseback and having only a few pistols as
firearms, were unable to reply to the sustained fire from the
carbines of our Chasseurs, and were forced to remove themselves
to a distance of several hundred paces, leaving behind some forty
dead and wounded.

The troops who had been shut in the farmyard wanted to take
advantage of this momentary respite to force the main gate and
make a rush for it on horseback; but I called to them not to
attempt it, because to join me they would have had to cross the
footbridge, which they could do only one by one, and at this
point they would offer a target to the Prussians who would
undoubtedly charge and destroy them. The river banks were
garnished by many trees, amongst which an infantrymen can easily
withstand the attacks of cavalry, so I placed the dismounted men
along the riverside, and once they were in communication with the
mill's yard, I passed a message to the men there to dismount
also, take their carbines, and while a hundred of them held off
the enemy by their fire, the remainder could slip behind this
protective screen and pass the horses from hand to hand over the
footbridge.

While this manoeuvre, covered by the fire from a cordon of 180
dismounted Chasseurs, was proceeding in an orderly fashion, the
Prussian lancers, furious that their prey was about to escape,
tried to disorganise our retreat by a vigourous attack, but their
horses, caught up in the willow branches, amid the numerous holes
and pools of water, could scarcely move at a walk over the muddy
ground, and could never reach our foot-soldiers, whose well-aimed
fire, directed at close range, inflicted on them heavy losses.

The Prussian major who led this charge, forcing his way boldly
into the centre of our line, killed with a pistol shot to the
head, Lieutenant Bachelet, one of my good regimental officers. I
greatly regretted his loss, which was, however, promptly revenged
by the Chasseurs of his section, for the Prussian major, hit by
several bullets, fell dead beside him.

The death of their leader, the numerous casualties they had
suffered, and above all the impossibility of getting at us
determined the enemy to give up the enterprise and they withdrew.
I was able to pick up the wounded and make my retreat without
being followed. My regiment lost in this deplorable affair an
officer and nine troopers killed, and thirteen who were made
prisoner, among whom was Lieutenant Marechal. The loss of these
twenty-three members of the regiment I found all the more
distressing because it served no useful purpose, and fell wholly
on the finest soldiers in the unit, most of whom had been
earmarked for decoration or promotion. I have never forgotten
this undeserved setback! It resulted in our taking a poor view of
General Exelmans, who got away with a reprimand from General
Sebastiani and from the Emperor, who was influenced by his
friendship with Murat. Old General Saint-Germain, a former
commander, and almost the creator, of the 23rd Chasseurs, for
whom he had retained much affection, having stated loudly that
Exelmans deserved exemplary punishment, the two generals fell out
and would have come to blows if the Emperor had not personally
intervened. Major Lacour, whose incapacity had been largely
responsible for this catastrophe, I no longer regarded with any
confidence.

Chap. 25.

After the 21st, 22nd and 23rd of August, days on which we had
defeated Field-marshal Blucher's corps, and forced him to retire
behind the Katzbach, the Emperor gave orders for the follow-up on
the next day. However, on hearing that the combined army of the
allies, some 200,000 strong, commanded by Prince Schwartzenberg,
had just emerged, on the 22nd, from the mountains of Bohemia and
was heading for Saxony, Napoleon, taking his Guard, as well as
the cavalry of Latour-Maubourg and several divisions of infantry,
hastened by forced marches to Dresden, where Marshal Saint-Cyr
had shut himself in with the troops he had hurriedly withdrawn
from the camp at Pirna On leaving Silesia, the Emperor told
Marshal Ney to follow him, and left Marshal Macdonald in charge
of the large force which he left on the Bobr, that is to say the
3rd, 5th and 11th Infantry Corps and the 2nd Cavalry, with a
powerful element of artillery, making a total of 75,000 men. The
control of such a great body of combatants was too much for
Marshal Macdonald, as subsequent events will show.

You must have noticed that the larger the number of troops
involved, the less detail I give of their movements: firstly
because this could require an enormous work, which I might not be
able to complete, and secondly because it could make the reading
of these memoirs too wearisome. I shall therefore be even more
concise in my description of events in the War of 1813, in which
600,000 to 700,000 men took part, than I have been in describing
previous campaigns.

On the 25th of August, the allies having surrounded the town of
Dresden, whose fortifications were not proof against a major
attack, the position of Saint-Cyr became critical for he had no
more than 17,000 French troops to resist the immense numbers of
the enemy. The latter, badly served by their spies, were unaware
of the approaching arrival of Napoleon, and full of confidence in
their superior numbers, they delayed the attack until the
following day. This confidence was increased when they were
strengthened by two Westphalian regiments who had deserted from
King Jerome to join the Austrians.

The worried Marshal Saint-Cyr expected to be attacked on the
morning of the 26th; but he was reassured as to the outcome of
the struggle by the presence of the Emperor, who had arrived that
very day at an early hour, at the head of the Guard and a
numerous body of all arms. Soon after his arrival, the enemy, who
still thought that they faced only Saint-Cyr's Corps, assaulted
the town in force and captured several redoubts. The Russians and
the Prussians, who now controlled the suburbs of Pirna, were
attempting to break down the Freyberg gate when, on the Emperor's
orders, it swung open to allow the emergence of a column of
infantry of the Imperial Guard, the leading brigade of which was
commanded by General Cambronne!... It was as if the head of
Medusa had appeared!... The enemy recoiled horrified, their guns
were captured at the double and the gunners killed on their
mountings! Simultaneous sorties were made from all the gates of
Dresden with the same results, and the allies, abandoning the
redoubts they had taken, fled into the surrounding country where
they were pursued by the cavalry to the foot of the hills. On
this first day the enemy had 5000 men put out of action, and we
took 3000 prisoners. The French had 2500 killed or wounded,
amongst the latter there being five generals.

The next day it was the French army which took the initiative,
although they had 87,000 fewer men than their adversaries. The
action was at first fierce and sanguinary; but the rain which
fell in torrents on the heavy soil soon covered the battle-field
with pools of muddy water through which our troops moved with
much difficulty on their advance towards the enemy. Nevertheless,
advance they did, and the Young Guard had already driven back the
enemy left, when Napoleon, having observed that Prince
Schwartzenberg, the allies' commander-in-chief, had not given
sufficient support to his left wing, overwhelmed it with an
attack by Marshal Victor's infantry and Latour-Maubourg's
cavalry.

King Murat, who was in command of this part of the line, was
highly successful. He forced his way through the pass of Cotta
and outflanking Klenau's corps, he separated it from the Austrian
army and attacked it, sabre in hand, at the head of his
carabiniers and Cuirassiers. Klenau was unable to withstand this
fearsome charge, almost all his battalions were compelled to
surrender, and two other divisions of infantry suffered the same
fate.

While Murat was defeating the enemy left, their right wing was
routed by the Young Guard, so that after some three hours,
victory was assured and the allies beat a retreat towards
Bohemia.

As a result of this second day of heavy fighting, the enemy left
on the field of battle 18 flags, 26 cannons and 40,000 men, of
whom 20,000 were prisoners. The main losses were suffered by the
Austrian infantry, who had two generals killed, three wounded and
two taken prisoner.

It may be remarked that at this epoch percussion caps were
virtually unknown, and the infantry of all nations still used
flint-lock muskets, which it was almost impossible to fire once
the priming powder became wet. Now, as it had rained without
ceasing for the whole day, this contributed largely to the defeat
of the enemy infantry by our cavalry, and gave rise to an
extraordinary incident.

A division of Cuirassiers, commanded by General Bordesoulle,
found itself facing a strong Austrian infantry division formed
into a square. Bordesoulle called on the enemy general to
surrender, which he refused to do. Bordesoulle then pointed out
to the Austrian that not one of his men's guns was capable of
being fired, to which he replied that his men could defend
themselves successfully with their bayonets, as the cavalry,
whose horses were in mud up to their hocks, would be unable to
charge them down. "Then I will blast your square with my
artillery!" "But you don't have any guns, they are stuck in the
mud." "If I show you my cannons, which are behind my first
regiment, will you then surrender?" "I would have no alternative,
for I would have no means of defence."

The French general then advanced, to within thirty paces of the
enemy, a battery of six guns, the gunners with their slow-matches
in their hands, prepared to fire on the square. At this sight the
Austrian general and his division laid down their arms.

The rain having prevented the infantry of both armies from using
their muskets and greatly slowed the movements of the cavalry, it
was the artillery which, in spite of the difficulty of
manoeuvering on the rain sodden ground, played a decisive role:
in particular the French artillery, whose teams of horses
Napoleon had doubled up, using animals from the headquarters
wagons, which remained safely in Dresden; so that our guns did
great damage, and it was one of their cannon-balls which struck
Moreau.

It had been rumoured for some time that the former illustrious
French general had returned to Europe and had joined the ranks of
his country's enemies. Few people believed this, but it was
confirmed in the evening following the battle of Dresden in a
bizarre manner. Our advance-guard was in pursuit of the routed
enemy when one of our Hussars saw, on entering the village of
Notnitz, a magnificent Great Dane, which seemed to be searching
in distress for its owner.

He took hold of the dog, and read on its collar the words "I
belong to General Moreau." He was then told by the cure of the
village that that General Moreau had undergone a double
amputation in his house. A French cannon-ball had landed in the
middle of the Russian general staff, it had struck one of the
General's legs, and going through his horse had then struck the
other. This had happened at the moment when the Austrian army had
been defeated, and to prevent Moreau falling into French hands,
the Emperor Alexander had arranged for him to be carried by some
Grenadiers until, the pursuit having slackened, it was possible
to dress his wounds and amputate both legs. The Saxon cure who
had witnessed this cruel operation, said that Moreau, who was
well aware that his life was in danger, had repeatedly cursed the
fate that had left him mortally wounded by a French missile,
amongst the enemies of his country. He died on the 1st of
September, and the Russians took away his body.

No one in the French army regretted the death of Moreau, when it
was known that he had taken arms against his country. A Russian
envoy came to claim the dog on behalf of Colonel Rapatel,
Moreau's aide-de-camp, who had stayed with him; it was returned
but without the collar, which was given to the King of Saxony and
is now on display in Dresden.

As Prince Schwartzenberg, the commander of the enemy troops
defeated at Dresden, had given Teplice as the rallying point for
the remains of his defeated armies, the Austrians retreated
through the valley of Dippoldiswalde, the Russians and the
Prussians on the Telnitz road, and the remnants of Klenau's corps
via Freiberg.  Napoleon accompanied the French columns which were
pursuing the vanquished as far as Pirna, but just before he
arrived in that town, he was taken by a sudden indisposition, due
perhaps to the fact that he had spent five days constantly on
horseback, exposed to incessant rain.

It is one of the misfortunes of princes that there are always to
be found in their entourage people who, to demonstrate their
attachment, claim to be alarmed at the slightest indisposition
and exaggerate the precautions which should be taken, which is
what happened on this occasion. The master-of-horse,
Caulaincourt, advised the Emperor to return to Dresden, and the
other great officers dared not give the much more sensible advice
to continue to Pirna, which was no more than a league distant.
The young Guard was already there and the Emperor would have been
able to have the rest which he required while remaining in a
position to guide the movements of the troops in pursuit of the
enemy, which he could not do from Dresden which was much further
from the center of operations.

Napoleon then left to Marshals Mortier and Saint-Cyr the task of
supporting General Vandamme, commander of 1st Corps, who,
detached from the Grande Armee for three days, had defeated a
Russian corps and now threatened the enemy rear, had cut the road
from Dresden to Prague and occupied Peterswalde, from where he
dominated the Kulm basin and the town of Teplice, a most
important point through which the allies had to make their
retreat. However the return of the Emperor to Dresden nullified
these successes and led to a disastrous reverse which contributed
greatly to the fall of the Empire.

General Vandamme was fine and courageous officer who, already
well-known from the earliest wars of the revolution, had been
almost continually in command of various Corps during those of
the empire; so that it was surprising that he had not yet been
awarded the baton of a marshal; withheld, perhaps, because of his
brusque and abrupt manner. His detractors said after his defeat
that his desire to obtain this coveted honour had driven him,
with no more than 20,000 men, to stand rashly in the path of
200,000 of the enemy, with the aim of barring their passage; but
the truth is that having been informed by the Emperor's chief of
staff that he would be supported by the armies of Marshals
Saint-Cyr and Mortier, and been given a direct order to capture
Teplice and so seal off the enemy's line of retreat, General
Vandamme had perforce to obey.

Under the impression that he would be supported he descended
boldly, on the 29th of August, towards Kulm from where, pushing
enemy troops before him, he sought to reach Teplice; it is a
certainty that if Mortier and Saint-Cyr had carried out the
orders which they had been given, the Russian, Austrian, and
Prussian forces  stuck on the appalling roads, cut off from
Bohemia and finding themselves attacked in front and in the rear,
would have laid down their arms. Vandamme would have then been
eulogised by the same people who have since blamed him.

However that may be, Vandamme arrived at Teplice on the morning
of the 30th of August to be confronted by the division of
Ostermann, one of the best of the Russian generals. Vandamme went
confidently into the attack, as he saw, coming down from the
heights of Peterwalde, and taking the route which he had taken
the day previously, a body of troops which he took to be the
armies of Mortier and Saint-Cyr, whose help the Emperor had
promised him. But instead of friends, these newcomers were two
large Prussian divisions commanded by General Kleist, and which,
on the advice of Jomini, had passed between the corps of Mortier
and Saint-Cyr without these two marshals taking any notice, such
was the reluctance of Saint-Cyr to got to the aid of one of his
colleagues. A reluctance which, on this occasion, spread to
General Mortier. Neither of them budged and this at a time when
their co-operation joined to the gallant efforts of Vandamme
would have led to the total defeat of the enemy, whose columns of
infantry, cavalry, artillery, and baggage were piled up in
disorder in the narrow passes of the high mountains which lie
between Silesia and Bohemia.

In place of the help he was expecting, General Vandamme saw
appear the two divisions of General Kleist, which instantly
attacked him.  Vandamme, continuing to fight the Russians of
Ostermann in front of Teplice, turned round his rear-guard to
face Kleist, whom he attacked furiously, but although the enemy
was weakening, the huge reinforcements which they recieved,
bringing their strength to around 100,000 men as opposed to
Vandamme's remaining 15,000, made him think, in spite of his
courage and tenacity, that he should retire towards the corps of
Mortier and Saint-Cyr, whom he believed to be close at hand in
accordance with what Prince Berthier had written to him on the
Emperor's instructions.

On their arrival at the pass of Telnitz, the French found it
occupied by General Kleist's divisions, who completely blocked
their passage; but nevertheless, our battalions, preceded by the
cavalry of General Corbineau who, in spite of the rough,
mountainous terrain, had insisted on remaining the advance-guard,
fell on the Prussians with such ferocity that they overcame them
and broke through the pass after taking all the enemy guns, from
which they took away only the horses because of the bad state of
the roads.

Any soldier will be aware that such a success could be won only
at the cost of many casualties, and after this savage engagement
the strength of 1st Corps was greatly reduced. However, Vandamme,
completely surrounded by forces ten times more numerous than his
own, refused to surrender and placing himself at the head of two
battalions of the 85th, the only ones left to him, he hurled
himself into the midst of the enemy in a fight to the death. But
his horse having been killed, a group of Russians seized him and
made him prisoner. It is said that he was brought before the
Emperor Alexander  and his brother, the Grand Duke Constantin,
and was rash enough to exchange insults with them. He was then
taken to Wintka, on the frontier of Siberia, and did not see his
country again until after the peace of 1814.

The battle of Kulm cost 1st Corps 2000 men killed and 8000 made
prisoner, amongst whom was their commanding general. The 10,000
who were left managed to fight their way through the enemy lines
to join Saint-Cyr and Mortier. Those two generals had gravely
failed in their duty by not pursuing the beaten enemy and instead
stopping, Saint-Cyr at Reinhards-Grimme and Mortier at Pirna,
from where they could hear the noise of the battle being fought
by Vandamme.

It is surprising that, from nearby Dresden, Napoleon did not send
one of his aides-de-camp to make certain that Saint-Cyr and
Mortier had gone to the aid of Vandamme, as he had ordered. The
two marshals, having failed to carry out their orders, should
have been court-martialled, but the French army, overwhelmed by
the enormous number of enemies which Napoleon had raised against
it, had reached such a point of exhaustion that had Napoleon
wished to punish all those who failed in their duty, he would
have had to dispense with the services of almost all his
marshals. He therefore did no more than reprimand Saint-Cyr and
Mortier.

He had an increasing need to conceal his disasters, for it was
not only at Kulm that his troops had suffered a reverse, but at
all points of the immense line which they occupied.

(Subsequent historical research has made it quite clear that as
Napoleon was in control of the operations the two marshals were
entirely correct in waiting to receive his instructions, as they
did not know to where he intended them to go. As for the order to
support Vandamme with two divisions, it did not arrive until the
30th, that is to say at a time when the catastrophe had already
occurred, and no blame can be attributed to the marshals.)

Chap. 26.

It has been rightly said that in the last campaigns of the
Empire, battles were rarely fought with any skill unless Napoleon
himself was in command. It is regrettable that this great captain
was not fully aware of this, and placed too much confidence in
his lieutenants, of whom several were not up to the tasks which
they presumed to undertake, as will be seen from some examples.
Instead of ordering his corps commanders, when they were acting
on their own initiative, to remain as much as possible on the
defensive until he could come with a powerful reserve to crush
the force facing them, the Emperor allowed them too much
latitude, and, as each one was jealous of his own reputation and
wanted to have his personal Battle of Austerlitz, they often
went, ill-advisedly, on the offensive and were defeated as a
result.

This is what happened to Marshal Oudinot, to whom Napoleon had
given a considerable army made up of the Corps of Bertrand and
Reynier, in order to keep a watch on the numerous Prussian and
Swedish troops stationed near Berlin under the command of
Bernadotte, who had now become the Prince of Sweden. Marshal
Oudinot was not as strong as his opponent and should have
temporised, but the habit of advancing, the sight of the steeples
of Berlin, and the fear of not living up to the confidence
Napoleon reposed in him, led him to push forward Bertrand's
corps, which was repulsed, a setback which did not prevent
Oudinot from persisting in his aim of taking Berlin.  However, he
lost a major battle at Gross-Beeren and was forced to retire via
Wittemberg, having suffered heavy losses.

A few days later, Marshal Macdonald, whom Napoleon had left on
the Katzbach at the head of several army corps, thought that he
also would take advantage of the liberty given him by the absence
of the Emperor to attempt to win a battle, which would compensate
for the bloody defeat which he had endured on the Trebia during
the Italian campaign of 1799; but once more he was defeated!

Macdonald, although personally very brave, was constantly
unfortunate in battle, not that he lacked ability but because,
like the generals of the Austrian army, and in particular the
famous Marshal Mack, he was too rigid and blinkered in his
strategic movements. Before the battle he drew up a plan of
action which was almost always sound, but which he should have
modified according to circumstances; this, however, his stolid
temperament did not permit.  He was like a chess player who, when
he plays against himself, can make all the right moves, but does
not know what to do when a real opponent makes moves which he had
not foreseen. So, on the 26th of August, the day on which the
Emperor was winning a resounding victory at Dresden, Macdonald
lost the battle of Katzbach.

The French army, 75,000 strong, of which my regiment was a part,
was drawn up between Liegnitz and Goldberg, on the left bank of
the little river named the Katzbach,(Kaczawa) which separated
them from several Prussian Corps commanded by Field-marshal
Blucher. The area which we occupied was dotted with small wooded
hills, which, although practicable for cavalry, made movement
difficult, but, by the same token, offered much advantage to the
infantry. Now, as the main body of Macdonald's troops consisted
of this arm, and he had only 6000 cavalry of Sebastiani's Corps,
and as the enemy had 15 to 20,000 horse on the immense plateau of
Jau‰r,(Jawor) where the ground is almost everywhere level, it was
plainly Macdonald's duty to await the Prussians in the position
which he occupied. In addition to this, the Katzbach does not
have a steep approach on the left bank, where we were, but on the
other side it does, so that to reach the plateau of Jau‰r one has
to climb a high hill covered with rocks and affording only a
steep and stony road.

The Katzbach, which runs at the foot of this hill has no bridges
except at the few villages and only some narrow fords, which
become unpassable on the least rise in the water-level. This
river covered the French army front, which was greatly in our
favour; but Marshal Macdonald wanted to attack the Prussians, and
he abandoned this highly advantageous position and put the
Katzbach at his back by ordering his troops to cross it at
several points. Sebastiani's cavalry, of which Exelmans'
division, which included my regiment, formed a part, were
instructed to cross the river by the ford at Chemochowitz.

The weather, which was already threatening in the morning, should
have warned the Marshal to put off the attack to another day, or
at least to act rapidly. He did neither, and wasted precious time
in giving detailed orders so that it was not until two in the
afternoon that his columns began to move, and no sooner had they
done so than they were overtaken by a tremendous storm which
swelled the Katzbach and made the ford so difficult that General
Saint-Germain's Cuirassiers were unable to cross.

Having arrived on the other bank, we climbed, by a narrow gully,
a very steep slope which the rain had made so slippery that the
horses were falling at every step. We had to dismount and did not
get back into the saddle until we had reached the great plateau
which dominates the valley of the Katzbach. There we found
several divisions of our infantry, which the generals had wisely
placed near the clumps of trees which are scattered over this
plain; for, as I have said, the enemy were far stronger than us
in cavalry, and had a further advantage in that the rain had made
it impossible for the infantrymen to fire their weapons.

When we had arrived on this vast open space, we were astonished
to see no signs of the enemy! The complete silence that reigned
there seemed to me to conceal some kind of a trap, for we were
certain that on the previous night Marshal Blucher was in this
position with more than 100,000 men. It was, in my view,
necessary to reconnoitre the countryside thoroughly before going
any further. General Sebastiani thought differently; so, as soon
as Rousel d'Urbal's division was formed up, he despatched them
into the distance, with not only their own guns but those
belonging to Exelmans' division, which we had dragged onto the
plateau with so much difficulty.

As soon as Exelmans, who had been separated from his troops,
rejoined us, as we emerged from the gully, and saw that
Sebastiani had made off with his guns, he hurried after him to
reclaim them, leaving his division without orders. The two
brigades of which it was composed were some five hundred paces
from one another, facing the same way and formed into columns by
regiment. My regiment was at the head of Wathiez's brigade and
had behind it the 24th Chasseurs.  The 11th Hussars were in the
rear.

The plateau of Jau‰r is so huge that although the Roussel d'Urbal
division, which had gone ahead, was made up of seven regiments of
cavalry, we could scarcely see them on the horizon. A thousand
paces to the right of the column of which I was a part, was one
of the clumps of trees which dot the plain. If my regiment had
been on its own I would certainly have had this wood searched by
a platoon; but as Exelmans, who was very jealous of his
authority, had established it as a rule that no one was to leave
the ranks without his order, I had not dared to take the usual
precautions, and for the same reason the general commanding the
brigade had felt obliged to do the same. This passive obedience
was nearly fatal.

I was at the head of my regiment which, as I have said, was
leading the column, when I suddenly heard a great outcry behind
me; this arose from an unforeseen attack by a numerous body of
Prussian lancers who, emerging unexpectedly from the wood,
charged the 24th Chasseurs and the 11th Hussars, whom they took
on the flank and threw into the greatest disorder. The enemy
charge being on the oblique, had first struck the tail of the
column, then the centre, and was now threatening the head. My
regiment was about to be hit on the right flank. The situation
was critical, for the enemy was advancing rapidly; however,
confident in the courage and skill of all ranks of my cavalrymen,
I ordered them to form line facing right at the full gallop.

This movement, so dangerous in the presence of the enemy, was
carried out with such speed and accuracy that in the blink of an
eye the regiment was in line facing the Prussians who, as they
approached us obliquely, exposed a flank, which our squadrons
took advantage of to get among their ranks where they effected
great carnage.

When they saw the success obtained by my regiment, the 24th
recovered from the surprise attack which had at first
disorganised them, and rallying smartly, they repelled the part
of the enemy line which faced them. As for the 11th Hussars,
composed entirely of Hollanders whom the Emperor had believed he
could turn into Frenchmen by a simple decree, their commander
found it impossible to lead them into a charge. But we were able
to do without the assistance of these useless soldiers, for the
23rd and the 24th were enough to rout the three Prussian
regiments which had attacked us.

While our Chasseurs were pursuing them, an elderly enemy colonel
who had been unhorsed, recognising my rank by my epaulets, and
fearing that he might be killed by one of my men, came to take
refuge beside me where, in spite of the excitement of the action,
no one would dare to strike him while he was under my protection.
Although he was on foot, in the clinging mud, he followed for a
quarter of an hour the hurried movements of my horse, supporting
himself by a hand on my knee and repeating all the time "You are
my guardian angel!" I was truly sorry for the old fellow, for
although he was dropping with fatigue he was unwilling to leave
me, so when I saw one of my men leading a captured horse, I had
him lend it to the Prussian colonel, whom I sent to the rear in
the charge of a trusted Sous-officier.  You will see that this
enemy officer was not slow in showing his gratitude.

The plateau of Jau‰r now became the theatre for a desperate
struggle. From each of the woods there emerged a horde of
Prussians, so that the plain was soon covered by them. My
regiment, whose pursuit of their opponents I had been unable to
slow down, found itself before long facing a brigade of enemy
infantry, whose muskets  put out of action by the rain, could not
fire a shot at us. I tried to break the Prussian square, but our
horses, bogged down in the mud to their hocks, could move only at
a slow walk, and without the weight of a charge it is almost
impossible for cavalry to penetrate the close-packed ranks of
infantry who, calm and well-led, present a hedge of bayonets. We
could go close enough to the enemy to speak with them and strike
their muskets with the blades of our sabres, but we could never
break through their lines, something which we could have done
easily if General Sebastiani had not sent our brigade artillery
elsewhere.

Our situation and that of the enemy infantry was really rather
ridiculous for we were eye to eye without being able to inflict
the least harm, our sabres being too short to reach the enemy,
whose muskets could not be fired. We remained in this state for a
considerable time, until General Maurin, the commander of a
neighbouring brigade, sent the 6th Regiment of Lancers to help
us.  Their long weapons, outreaching the bayonets of the
Prussians killed many of them and allowed not only the Lancers
but also the Chasseurs of the 23rd and 24th to get into the enemy
square, where they did great carnage. During the fighting, one
could hear the sonorous voice of Colonel Perquit shouting in a
very pronounced Alsatian accent "Bointez, Lanciers! Bointez!"

The victory which we had won on this part of the vast battlefield
was snatched from us by the unexpected arrival of more than
20,000 of Prussian cavalry who, after overwhelming the Roussel
d'Urbal division, which had been so unwisely sent alone more than
a league ahead of us, now came to attack us with infinitely
greater numbers.

The approach of this enormous body of enemy troops was signalled
by the arrival of General Exelmans who, as I have said, had
briefly left his division to go almost unaccompanied to claim
back from General Sebastiani his battery of artillery, which that
General had so inappropriately despatched to join that of Roussel
d'Urbal.  Having been unable to find General Sebastiani, he
arrived close to the leading division only to witness the capture
of Roussel d'Urbal's guns and also his own, and to find himself
involved in the utter rout of his colleague's squadrons. We had a
warning of some disaster in the sight of our General, his
appearance altered by the fact that he had lost his hat and even
his belt! We hastened to recall our soldiers, who were busy
sabring the enemy infantry which we had just broken into, but
while we were engaged in forming them up in good order we were
completely overrun by the many Prussian squadrons who were
pursuing the debris of d'Urbal's division.

Instantly, Sebastiani's cavalry division, consisting at the most
of 5 to 6000 men was confronted by 20,000 enemy horsemen who, as
well as outnumbering us, had the advantage of being almost all of
them Uhlans, that is to say armed with lances, while we had only
a few such squadrons! So in spite of the stiff resistance which
we put up, the groups which we formed were broken up by the
Prussians, who drove us steadily back to the edge of the plain
and to the verge of the steep descent into the gorge, at the
bottom of which ran the river Katzbach.

We were met here by two divisions of French infantry, together
with which we hoped to make a stand; but the muskets of our men
were so wet that they would not fire, and they had no other means
of defence but a battery of six guns and their bayonets, with
which they momentarily arrested the Prussian cavalry; but the
Prussian generals having brought up some twenty cannons, the
French guns were instantly disabled and their battalions crushed!
Then, cheering loudly, the twenty thousand enemy cavalry advanced
on our troops and drove them in confusion towards the Katzbach.

This river, which we had crossed in the morning with so much
difficulty although it was not very deep, had been transformed
into a raging torrent by the pouring rain which had continued
ceaslessly throughout the whole day. The water, surging between
the two banks, covered almost entirely the parapet of the bridge
at Chemochowitz and made it impossible to discover if the ford at
that point was still passable. However it was by those two points
we had crossed in the morning, and it was to them that we went.
The ford proved impassable for the infantry and a number were
drowned there, but the great majority were saved by the bridge.

I gathered together my regiment, as much as was possible, and
having been formed into tight-packed half-platoons which could
give each other mutual support, they entered the water in
reasonably good order and gained the other bank with the loss of
only two men. All the other cavalry units took the same route,
for in spite of the confusion inseparable from such a retreat,
the troopers realised that the bridge had to be left for the
infantry. I must confess that the descent of the slope was one of
the most critical moments in my life... The very steep hillside
was slippery under our horses' feet, and they stumbled at every
pace over numerous outcrops of rock; in addition the constant
hail of grape-shot which was hurled from the enemy guns made our
position highly precarious. I came out of this without any
personal accident, thanks to the courage, determination, and
skill of my excellent Turkish horse, which by walking along the
edge of precipices like a cat on a roof, saved my life, not only
on this occasion but on several others. I shall mention this
admirable creature later.

The French infantry and cavalry who had been driven down from the
Jau‰r plateau thought themselves safe from their enemies once
they had crossed the river, but the Prussians had sent a strong
column to a bridge upstream of that at Chemochowitz, where they
had crossed the Katzbach, so that having arrived on the bank
which we had quitted in the morning, we were astonished to be
attacked by squadrons of Uhlans. However, in spite of the
surprise, several regiments, among which Marshal Macdonald in his
report mentioned mine, unhesitatingly attacked the enemy...
Nonetheless, I do not know what would have happened without the
arrival of the division of General Saint-Germain. He had remained
on the left bank of the river in the morning, and having in
consequence taken no part in the fighting, found himself in full
readiness to come to our aid. This division composed of two
regiments of carabiniers, a brigade of Cuirassiers, and with six
twelve pounders, fell furiously on the enemy and drove back into
the river all those who had crossed with the aim of cutting off
our retreat, and as there is nothing so terrible as troops who,
having suffered a setback, resume the offensive, the troopers of
Exelmanns' and d'Urbal's divisions slaughtered all whom they
could reach.

This counter-attack did us much good, for it halted the enemy
who, for that day, did not dare to follow us across the Katzbach.

However, the French army suffered an immense disaster, for
Marshal Macdonald having crossed the river by all the bridges and
fords which there were between Liegnitz and Goldberg, that is to
say on a line of more than five leagues, and now finding nearly
all these crossing points cut off by flooding, the French army
was extended in a long cordon with the Prussians at their back
and facing an almost uncrossable river, and so the frightful
scenes which I had witnessed on the Jau‰r plateau were reproduced
at all points of the field of battle. Everywhere the rain
prevented our infantry from firing and aided the attacks of the
Prussian cavalry, four times more numerous than ours; everywhere
retreat was made highly perilous by the difficulty of crossing
the flooded Katzbach. Most of the men who tried to swim across
were drowned, Brigadier-general Sibuet being among their number;
we were able to save only a few pieces of artillery.

Chap. 27.

After the unhappy affair at the Katzbach, Marshal Macdonald, in
an attempt to re-unite his troops, indicated as rallying points
the towns of Bunzlau, Lauban, and Gorlitz. A pitch-dark night,
rutted roads, and continuous torrential rain made movement slow
and very difficult; and many soldiers, particularly those of our
allies, went astray or lagged behind.

Napoleon's army lost at the battle of the Katzbach 13,000 men
killed or drowned, 20,000 prisoners, and 50 cannons. A veritable
calamity! Marshal Macdonald, whose faulty tactics had led to this
irreparable catastrophe, although he forfeited the confidence of
the army, was able to retain his personal esteem by the frankness
and loyalty with which he admitted to his mistakes; for the day
following the disaster he called together all the generals and
colonels, and after engaging us to do all we could to maintain
order, he said that every officer and man had done his duty, and
there was only one person who was responsible for the loss of the
battle, and that was himself; because, in view of the rain, he
should not have left a well-broken terrain to go and attack, in a
vast open space, an enemy who squadrons greatly outnumbered our
own, nor, during a rain-storm, have put a river at his back. This
contrite admission disarmed the critics, and everyone buckled to
in order to help save the army, which retreated towards the Elbe
via Bautzen.

Fate now seemed to be against us; for a few days after Marshal
Oudinot had lost the battle of Gross-Beeren, Macdonald that of
the Katzbach, and Vandamme that of Kulm, the French forces
suffered another major reverse. Marshal Ney, who had succeeded
Oudinot in command of the troops who were destined to march on
Berlin, not having a sufficiently powerful force to accomplish
this difficult task, was defeated at Jutterbach (Juterbog) by the
turncoat Bernadotte, and compelled to quit the right bank of the
Elbe.

The Emperor came back to Dresden with his Guard. The various
units under the command of Macdonald took up positions not far
from that town, while Marshal Ney, having pushed back the Swedes
to the right bank, concentrated his troops on the left bank at
Dassau and Wittemberg. For almost a fortnight, between the end of
September and the beginning of October, the French army remained
almost motionless around Dresden. My regiment was in bivouac
close to Veissig on the heights of Pilnitz, which were occupied
by a division of infantry supported by the cavalry of Sebastiani
and Exelmans.

Although there was no official armistice, the weariness of both
sides led to a de facto suspension of hostilities, from which
both parties profited to prepare for new and more terrible
conflicts.

While we were in camp at Pilnitz, I received a letter from the
colonel of Prussian cavalry to whom I had lent a horse after he
had been captured and injured by the men of my regiment at the
start of the battle of the Katzbach. This senior officer, named
M. de Blankensee, who had been freed by his own troops when
things turned against us, was nonetheless grateful for what I had
done, and to prove it he sent me ten Chasseurs and a lieutenant
belonging to my regiment who had been left wounded on the
battlefield and taken prisoner. M. de Blankensee had seen that
their wounds were dressed, and after caring for them for a
fortnight he had obtained permission to have them led to the
French outposts, with a thousand thanks to me, for having, as he
assured me, saved his life. I believe he was right, but I was
still touched by this expression of thanks from one of the
leaders of our opponents.

During the time we were in this camp there took place a strange
event which was witnessed by all the regiments. A corporal of the
4th Chasseurs, while drunk, had shown disrespect to an officer,
and a Lancer of the 6th whose horse had bitten him and would not
let go had struck it in the belly with some scissors which led to
its death.  Certainly the two men deserved to be punished, but
only by proper disciplinary procedures. General Exelmans
condemned them both to death on his own authority, and having
ordered that the division should mount their horses, he drew them
up in a huge square, one side of which was left open, where two
graves were dug, to the side of which the two convicted men were
led.

I had been away all night and returned to the camp in time to see
these lugubrious preparations. I had no doubt that the prisoners
had been tried and condemned, but I soon learned that this was
not the case, and drawing near to a group formed by General
Exelmans, the two brigadiers and all the regimental commanders, I
heard M. Devence, Colonel of the 4th Chasseurs, and Colonel
Perquit of the 6th Lancers beg General Exelmans to pardon the two
culprits. General Exelmans refused to do so.

I have never been able to see an act which I consider unjust
without expressing my indignation. It was perhaps wrong of me,
but I addressed Colonels Devence and Perquit saying that it was
an affront to their dignity that men of their regiments should be
paraded through the camp as criminals when they had not had a
proper trial, and I added, "The Emperor has given no one the
power of life or death, and has reserved for himself the right to
grant pardon."

General Exelmans was sufficiently influenced by the effect
produced by my outburst to announce that he would pardon the
Chasseur of the 4th, but that the Lancer would be shot; that is
to say he would pardon the soldier who had been disrespectful to
his officer, but condemn to execution the one who had killed a
horse.

In order to carry out this execution each regiment was asked to
provide two N.C.O.s., but as they did not carry muskets, they
would have to use those belonging to other soldiers. When this
order reached me, I did not reply to my regimental
sergeant-major, who took my meaning; so that no one from the 23rd
presented himself to take part in the execution. General Exelmans
noticed this but said nothing! Eventually a shot rang out, and
all those present muttered with indignation! Exelmans ordered
that, as was usual, the troops would be marched past the corpse.
The march began. My regiment was second in the column and I was
in some doubt whether I should make it march past the unlucky
victim of Exelmans' severity when a great burst of laughter was
heard from the 24th Chasseurs, who were in front of me and had
already arrived at the scene of the execution. I sent a warrant
officer to find out the cause of this unseemly mirth in the
presence of the dead, and I soon discovered that the dead man was
in remarkably good health!

The truth was that all that had happened was a theatrical
performance staged to scare any soldiers who were tempted to
indiscipline; a performance which included shooting a man with
blanks; and to keep the operation secret from the rank and file,
our chief had formed the firing squad of sous-officiers, to whom
he had issued the blank cartridges. However, to complete the
illusion it was necessary for the troops to view the body, and
Exelmans had told the Lancer who was to play the part to throw
himself on his face at the sound of the shots and pretend to be
dead, then to leave the army the next night, dressed as a peasant
and with a sum of money which he had been given for the purpose;
but the soldier who was a sharp-witted Gascon, had understood
perfectly well that General Exelmans was exceeding his authority,
and had no more right to have him shot without trial than he had
to dismiss him from the army without a proper discharge, and so
he remained standing when the shots were fired and refused to
leave the camp without a pass which would guarantee him from
arrest by the gendarmerie.

When I learned that it was this discussion between the General
and the dead man which had produced the shouts of laughter from
the 24th Chasseurs at the head of the column, I thought it better
that my regiment did not take part in this comedy which seemed to
me to be as much contrary to discipline as the misdemeanors it
was supposed to punish or prevent. I therefore turned my
squadrons about, and setting off at the trot I left this
unhelpful scene and, returning to the camp, I ordered them to
dismount. My example having been followed by all the brigadiers
and regimental commanders of the division, Exelmans was left
alone with the "dead man", who set off calmly down the road to
the bivouac where he tucked into a meal with his comrades, amid
much more laughter.

During our stay on the plateau of Pilnitz, the enemy, and above
all the Russians, received many reinforcements, the main one, led
by General Benningsen was of not less than 60,000 men, and was
composed of the corps of Doctoroff and Tolsto‹ and the reserve of
Prince Labanoff. This reserve came from beyond Moscow and
included in its ranks a large number of Tartars and Baskirs,
armed only with bows and arrows.

I have never understood with what aim the Russian government
brought from so far and at such great expense these masses of
irregular cavalry, who having neither sabres nor lances nor any
kind of firearm, were unable to stand up against trained
soldiers, and served only to strip the countryside and starve the
regular forces, which alone were capable of resisting a European
enemy. Our soldiers were not in the least alarmed at the sight of
these semi-barbarous Asiatics, whom they nicknamed cupids,
because of their bows and arrows.

Nevertheless, these newcomers, who did not yet know the French,
had been so indoctrinated by their leaders, almost as ignorant as
themselves, that they expected to see us take flight at their
approach; and so they could not wait to attack us. From the very
day of their arrival in sight of our troops they launched
themselves in swarms against them, but having been everywhere
repulsed by gunfire, the Baskirs left a great number of dead on
the ground.

These losses, far from calming their frenzy, seemed to excite
them still more, for without any order and in all directions,
they buzzed around us like a swarm of wasps, flying all over the
place and being very hard to catch, but when our cavalry did
catch them they effected a fearful massacre, our lances and
sabres being immensely superior to their bows and arrows. All the
same, as the attacks by these barbarians were incessant and the
Russians supported them with detachments of Hussars to profit
from the confusion which the Baskirs could create at various
points on the line, the Emperor ordered the generals to be doubly
watchful, and to make frequent visits to our advance posts.

Now both sides were preparing to renew hostilities which, as I
have already said, had not been suspended by any agreement, but
simply de facto. All was completely peaceful in my camp, and I
had as usual taken off my coat and was preparing to shave in the
open air before a little mirror nailed to a tree, when I was
given a slap on the shoulder. As I was in the middle of my
regiment, I turned round sharply to see who had used this
familiarity with his commanding officer... I found myself facing
the Emperor, who, wishing to examine some neighbouring positions
without arousing the enemy, had arrived with only one
aide-de-camp. As he was not accompanied by a detachment of his
Guard, he was followed by squadrons chosen in equal numbers from
all the regiments in the division, and having, on his orders,
taken command of this escort, I spent the entire day at his side,
and have nothing but praise for his kindliness.

When we were preparing to return to Pilnitz, we saw a horde of
Baskirs hurrying towards us, with all the speed of their little
Tarter horses. The Emperor, who had never before seen troops of
this sort, stopped on a hillock and asked for the capture of some
prisoners. To this end, I ordered two squadrons of my regiment to
hide behind a clump of trees, while the remainder continued their
march. This well-known ruse would not have deceived Cossacks, but
it succeeded perfectly with the Baskirs, who have not the
slightest notion of tactics. They passed close to the wood
without sending anyone to inspect it, and were continuing to
follow the column when they were unexpectedly attacked by our
squadrons who, falling on them suddenly, killed a great number
and took some thirty prisoners.

I had these brought to the Emperor, who, after examining them
expressed his surprise at the spectacle of these wretched
horsemen who were sent, with no other arms than bows and arrows,
to fight European soldiers armed with sabres, lances, guns, and
pistols!... These Tarter Baskirs had Chinese features and wore
extravagant costumes. When we got back to the camp, my Chasseurs
amused themselves by giving wine to the Baskirs who, delighted
with this novel reception, got drunk and expressed their joy by
such extraordinary grimaces and capers that all the watchers,
including Napoleon, were in fits of laughter.

On the 28th of September, after reviewing our army corps, the
Emperor treated me with quite exceptional benevolence, for
although he very rarely gave more than one reward at a time, he
created me an officer of the Legion of Honour, a Baron, and
awarded me a grant of money!... He loaded favours on the
regiment, saying that it was the only one of Sebastiani's corps
which had maintained good order at the Katzbach, had captured
some enemy guns and had driven off the Prussians whenever they
met them.

The 23rd Chasseurs owed this distinction to the high praise of
its conduct received by the Emperor from Marshal Macdonald, who,
after the debacle at the Katzbach, had sought refuge in the ranks
of my regiment and had taken part in the fierce charges it made
to drive the enemies back across the river.

After the review, when the troops were on the road to their camp,
General Exelmans came to the front of the regiment and loudly
complemented them for the recognition given by the Emperor to
their courage. Then, turning to me, he embarked on a veritable,
and exaggerated, eulogy of their colonel.

The French army now was concentrated in the area of Leipzig. All
the enemy forces also proceeded to the town, around which their
great number allowed them to form a huge circle, which contracted
every day, and whose aim was obviously to hem in the French
troops and cut off all means of retreat.

On the 14th of October there was a sharp encounter between the
Austro-Russian advance-guard and our own; but after an indecisive
result, both sides returned to their previous positions, and the
action ended with one of the most ridiculous features of war, a
cannonade which went on until nightfall, with no result but the
loss of many men's lives.

The Emperor, after leaving at Dresden a garrison of 25,000 men
commanded by Marshal Saint-Cyr, came to Leipzig, where he arrived
on the morning of the 15th.

Chap. 28.

The exact details of the battle of Leipzig will never be known,
partly because of the extent and complexity of the area over
which fighting continued for several days, and partly because of
the immense number of troops of different nations which took part
in this memorable encounter. It is principally the documents
relating to the French army which are missing, because several
commanders of army corps and divisions, and some members of the
general staff, having been killed or left in enemy hands, most of
their reports have never been finished, and those which have
been, reflect the inevitable haste and disorder surrounding their
compilation. At Leipzig I was the colonel of a regiment, a part
of a division whose movements I was bound to follow, so it was
not possible for me to know what was happening elsewhere, in the
manner which it had been in previous campaigns, when as an
aide-de-camp to various marshals, I was able to acquire a general
view of operations as I carried orders to different parts of the
battlefield. I must therefore, more than ever, limit my
description to what is absolutely necessary for an understanding
of the main events of the battle of Leipzig, the outcome of which
had such a profound influence on the destinies of the Emperor, of
France and of Europe.

The iron circle within which the allies were preparing to enclose
the French army, had not yet completely surrounded Leipzig, when
the King of Wurtemburg, a man of violence but honourable, thought
it his duty to warn Napoleon that the whole of Germany, incited
by the English, was about to rise against him, and that he had
barely sufficient time to retire with the French troops behind
the Main, before all of the German Confederation abandoned him to
join his enemies. He added that he himself, King of Wurtemburg,
could not avoid doing likewise, as he was forced to accede to the
demands of his subjects, who clamoured for him to go with the
torrent of German public opinion and, breaking with Napoleon,
range himself with the enemies of France.

The Emperor, shaken by this advice from the most able and most
faithful of his allies, is said to have considered retiring
towards the mountains of Thuringia and Hesse, to get behind the
river Saale and there wait for the allies to attack him, where
they would be at a disadvantage on the difficult terrain, heavily
wooded and full of narrow passes.

This plan could have saved Napoleon; but it had to be executed
quickly, before the enemy armies were completely united and near
enough to attack us during the retreat. However, when it came to
deciding to abandon a part of his conquests, the Emperor could
not make up his mind; he was most unwilling to have it thought
that he considered himself defeated because he sought refuge
behind these inaccessible mountains. The over-boldness of this
great captain was our undoing; he did not stop to consider that
his army, weakened by numerous losses, contained in its ranks
many foreigners who were waiting only for a favourable
opportunity to betray him, and that it was liable to be
overwhelmed by superior forces in the great open plains of
Leipzig. He would have been wiser to lead it to the mountains of
Thuringia and Hesse, which offered good defensive positions, and
so nullify some of the numerical advantage of the royal
coalition. In addition, the approach of winter and the need to
feed their many troops would have soon compelled the enemies to
separate, while the French army, its front and its flanks
protected by the extreme difficulty of mounting an attack in a
country bristling with natural obstacles, would have had behind
it the fertile valleys of the Main, the Rhine, and the Necker.

Such a position would at least have given us some time and
perhaps tired the allies to the point of desiring a peace; but
the confidence which Napoleon had in himself and in the valour of
his troops overcame these considerations, and he elected to await
his enemies on the plains of Leipzig.

This fatal decision had hardly been taken, when a second letter
from the King of Wurtemburg informed the Emperor that the King of
Bavaria, having suddenly changed sides, had made a pact with the
allies, and that the two armies, the Austrian and the Bavarian,
in cantonment on the banks of the Inn, had joined into a single
unit under the command of General de Wrede and were marching to
the Rhine; and finally that, to his regret, he was compelled by
force to join his army to theirs. In consequence, the Emperor
could expect that soon 100,000 men would surround Mainz, and
threaten the frontier of France.

At this unexpected news, Napoleon thought he should return to the
project of retiring behind the Saale and the mountains of
Thuringia; but it was too late, for already the main forces of
the allies were in contact with the French army, and too close
for it to be possible to carry out a retreat without being
attacked in the course of this difficult operation. So the
Emperor decided to stand and fight!...  It was a disastrous
decision, for the effective strength of the French troops and
their allies amounted to no more than 157,000 men, of whom only
29,000 were cavalry, while Prince Schwartzenberg, the enemy
generalissimo, disposed of a force of 350,000, of whom 54,000
were cavalry!...

This huge army consisted of Russians, Austrians, Prussians, and
Swedes, whom the former French Marshal Bernadotte was leading
against his fellow countrymen and one-time brothers in arms. The
total number of those engaged amounted to 507,000 without
counting the troops left in fortresses.

The town of Leipzig is one of the most commercial and richest in
Germany. It stands in the middle of a great plain which extends
from the Elbe to the Harz mountains, to Thuringia, and to
Bohemia. Its situation has made it almost always the principal
theatre for the wars which have bloodied Germany. A little river
named the Elster, which is so small and shallow that one could
call it a stream, runs from south to north through water-meadows
in a slight valley as far as Leipzig. This water-course divides
into a great number of branches which are a real obstacle to the
usual operations of war, and require a multiplicity of bridges
for communication between the villages which edge the valley.

The Pleisse, another river of the same sort but even smaller than
the Elster, runs about a league and a half from the latter, which
it joins under the walls of Leipzig.

To the north of the town is a small stream called the Partha
which winds through a narrow valley and has at every pace fords
or little bridges across it.

Leipzig, being at the confluence of these three streams and
almost surrounded to the north and west by their multiple
branches, is the key to the terrain through which they run. The
town, which is not very large, was at this period surrounded by
an old wall in which were four large gates and three small ones.
The road to Lutzen via Lindenau and Markranstadt was the only one
by which the French army could communicate freely with its rear.

It is in the area of ground between the Pleisse and the Partha
that the heaviest fighting took place. There, a noticeable
feature is a small isolated hillock called the Kelmberg, known
also as the Swedish redoubt, because in the thirty years war,
Gustavus Adolphus built some fortifications at this spot, which
dominates the surrounding countryside.

The battle of Leipzig began on the 16th of October 1813 and
lasted three days; but the fighting on the 17th was infinitely
more savage than that on the 16th and 18th.

Without wishing to go into the details of this memorable
encounter, I think I should indicate the principal positions
occupied by the French army, which will give a general idea of
those of the enemy, since each of our army corps had facing it
one and sometimes two of the enemy.

King Murat was in control of our right wing, the extremity of
which was bounded by the Pleisse near the villages of Connewitz,
D”litz, and Mark-Kleeberg which were occupied by Prince
Poniatowski and his Poles. Next to him and behind the market-town
of Wachau was the corps of Marshal Victor. Marshal Augereau
occupied D”sen.

These various corps of infantry were flanked and supported by
several masses of Marshals Kellermann's and Michaud's cavalry.

The centre, under the direct command of the Emperor, was at
Liebert-Wolkwitz. It was made up of the infantry corps of General
Lauriston and Marshal Macdonald, having with them the cavalry of
Latour-Maubourg and Sebastiani. My regiment, which was part of
this last general's corps, was positioned facing the hillock of
Kelmberg, or the Swedish redoubt.

The left wing, commanded by Marshal Ney, comprised the infantry
Corps of Marshal Marmont, and of Generals Souham and Reynier,
supported by the cavalry of the Duc de Padoue. They occupied
Taucha.

A body of 15,000 men under the command of General Bertrand was
sent from Leipzig to guard the crossings of the Elster and the
road to Lutzen.

At Probstheyda, behind our centre, was the reserve commanded by
Marshal Oudinot and consisting of the young and the Old Guard,
and Nansouty's cavalry.

The venerable King of Saxony, who had been unwilling to desert
his friend the Emperor of France, remained in the town of Leipzig
with his guard and several French regiments who were there to
maintain order.


During the night of 15th-16th, Marshal Macdonald's troops were
moved to concentrate in Liebert-Wolkwitz, leaving the area of the
Kelmberg: but as there was no wish to abandon this position to
the enemy before dawn, I was told to keep it under surveillance
until first light. This was an operation of some delicacy, since
I had to advance with my regiment to the foot of the hillock,
while the French army retired for half a league in the opposite
direction. I ran the risk of being surrounded and perhaps
captured with all my men by the enemy advance-guard, whose scouts
would not fail to climb to the top of the hillock as soon as the
dawn light allowed them to see what was going on in the vast
plains below them, which were occupied by the French army.

The weather was superb and, although it was night, one could see
reasonably well by the light of the stars; but as in these
circumstances it is much easier to see what is overhead than to
see what is below one's feet, I brought my squadrons as close as
possible to the hillock so that its shadow would conceal the
riders, and after ordering silence and immobility, I awaited
events.

The event which fortune had in store was one which could have
changed the future of France and the Emperor and made my name for
ever celebrated!

Half an hour before first light, three riders, coming from the
direction of the enemy, climbed, at walking pace, the hillock of
Kelmberg, from where they could not see us, although we could see
clearly their silhouettes and hear their conversation. They were
speaking in French, the one being Russian and the other two
Prussians. The first, who seemed to have some authority over his
companions, ordered one of them to go and inform their majesties
that there were no Frenchmen at this spot, and they could climb
up, for in a few minutes it would be possible to see the whole of
the plain; but they should do this right away, in case the French
sent sharp-shooters to the area.

The officer to whom these words were addressed observed that the
escort was still a long way off. "What does it matter?" was the
reply, "There is no one here but us." At these words my troops
and I redoubled our attention, and soon we saw on the top of the
hillock some twenty enemy officers, of whom one dismounted.

Although on setting up an ambush, I had no expectation of making
any great capture, I had, however warned my officers that if we
saw anyone on the Swedish redoubt, at a signal from me two
squadrons would go round it, one to left and one to right, in
order to encircle any enemy who had risked coming so close to our
army. I had high hopes, when the over-keenness of one of my
troopers ruined my plan.  This man having accidently dropped his
sabre, immediately took his carbine, and fearing that he would be
late when I gave the order to attack, he fired into the middle of
the group, killing a Prussian major.

You may imagine how, in an instant, all the enemy officers, who
had no other guard but a few orderlies, seeing themselves on the
point of being surrounded, made off at the gallop. We dared not
follow them too far for fear of falling ourselves into the hands
of the approaching escorts. We did manage to capture two
officers, from whom we could get no information; but I learned
later from my friend, Baron de Stoch, who was a colonel in the
guard of the Grand Duke of Darmstadt, that the Emperor Alexander
of Russia and the King of Prussia had been among the group of
officers who almost fell into French hands, an event which would
have changed the destiny of Europe. However, fate having decided
otherwise, there was nothing left for me to do but to withdraw
smartly with my regiment to the French lines.

On the 16th of October at eight o'clock in the morning, the
allied batteries gave the signal for the attack. A lively
cannonade was directed at our lines and the allied army marched
towards us from every point. The fighting commenced on our right,
where the Poles, driven back by the Prussians, abandoned the
village of Mark-Kleeberg.

At our centre the Russians and the Austrians attacked Wachau and
Liebert-Wolkwitz six times and were repeatedly repulsed with
great losses. The Emperor regretting, no doubt, that he had
abandoned that morning the Swedish redoubt which the enemy had
occupied and from where their gunners rained down grape-shot,
ordered its recapture, which was promptly carried out by the 22nd
Light Infantry aided by my regiment.

Having obtained this first success, the Emperor, not being able
to outflank the enemy wings because their superior numbers
allowed them to present too long a front, decided to keep them
occupied while he attempted to break through their centre. To
this end, he sent Marshal Mortier to Wachau with two divisions of
infantry, and Marshal Oudinot with the Young Guard. General
Drout, with sixty cannons aided the attack, which was successful.

For his part, Marshal Victor overcame and routed the Russian
Corps commanded by Prince Eugene of Wurtemberg; but after
suffering considerable losses, the Prince was able to rally his
Corps at Gossa.

At this moment General Lauriston and Marshal Macdonald debouched
from Liebert-Wolkwitz and the enemy was overthrown. The French
then took possession of the wood of Grosspossnau. General Maison
was wounded in the taking of this important point.

It was in vain that the numerous Austrian cavalry commanded by
General Klenau and aided by a host of Cossacks tried to restore
the situation, they were defeated by General Sebastian's cavalry
corps.  This was a very fierce encounter; my regiment took part;
I lost several men and my senior Major was wounded in the chest
by a lance, having failed to protect himself by carrying his
rolled cape.

Prince Schwartzenberg, seeing his line badly shaken, advanced his
reserves to support it, which decided the Emperor to order a
massive cavalry charge which involved the two corps of Kellermann
and Latour-Maubourg as well as the Dragoons of the Guard.
Kellermann overcame a division of Russian Cuirassiers, but taken
on the flank by another division he had to fall back to the
heights of Wachau after taking several enemy flags.

King Murat then advanced the French infantry and the fighting was
renewed. The Russian Corps of the Prince of Wurtemberg was once
more overwhelmed and lost twenty-six guns. This treatment
resulted in the enemy centre yielding and it was about to give
way when the Emperor of Russia, who had witnessed the disaster,
rapidly advanced the numerous cavalry of his guard which,
encountering the squadrons of Latour-Maubourg in the state of
confusion which always follows an all-out charge, repelled them
in their turn and took back twenty-four of the guns which they
had just captured. It was during this charge that General
Latour-Maubourg had his leg carried away by a cannon-ball.

So far neither side had secured a marked advantage and Napoleon,
to achieve a victory, had just launched against the enemy centre
the reserve consisting of the infantry and cavalry of the Old
Guard and a corps of fresh troops newly arrived from Leipzig,
when a regiment of enemy cavalry which had either deliberately or
accidently got behind French lines created some alarm amongst the
moving troops, who halted and formed a square so as not to be
taken by surprise, and before it was possible to find out the
cause of this alert, night had everywhere suspended military
operations.

There had been other events on our extreme right. For the whole
day General Merfeld had tried fruitlessly to secure a passage
across the Pleisse, defended by Poniatowski's Corps and his
Poles; however, towards the end of the day, he managed to take
the village of D”litz, which compromised our right wing; but the
infantry Chasseurs of the Old Guard, having come from the reserve
at the Pas de Charge chased the Austrians back across the river
and took some hundreds of prisoners, among whom was General
Merfeld, who found himself for the third time, in French hands.

Although the Poles had allowed the capture of D”litz, the
Emperor, to boost their morale, thought he should give the baton
of a marshal of France to their leader, Prince Poniatowski, who
did not enjoy the honour of bearing it for very long.

On the other side of the river Elster, the Austrian General
Giulay had taken the village of Lindenau after seven hours of
fierce fighting. When the Emperor was told of this serious event,
which compromised the way of retreat for the major part of his
troops, he ordered an attack by General Bertrand, who re-took the
position by a vigourous bayonet charge.

On our left, the impatience of Ney nearly led to a major
catastrophe. The Marshal, who commanded the left wing which had
been placed in position by the Emperor, seeing that by ten
o'clock in the morning no enemy troops had appeared, sent, on his
own authority, one of his army corps, commanded by General
Souham, to Wachau, where there seemed to be an active engagement;
but while this ill-considered movement was being carried out, the
Prussian Marshal Blucher, who had been delayed, arrived with the
Silesian army and captured the village of M”ckern. Then Ney,
deprived of a part of his force, and having at his disposal only
Marmont's division, was compelled to withdraw to the walls of
Leipzig and do no more than defend the suburb of Halle.

The French lost many men in this engagement, which also had a
very disturbing effect on those of our soldiers who were in
positions in front of or to one side of Leipzig, for they heard
the sound of cannon and small-arms fire coming from behind them.
However, at about eight in the evening, the fighting ceased in
all parts and the night was peaceful.

Chap. 29.

This first day led to no decisive victory; but the French had the
advantage, since with very much smaller numbers, they had not
only held their own against the coalition, but had driven them
off some of the ground they had occupied the day before.

The troops on both sides were preparing to renew the fighting on
the following morning; but contrary to their expectations, the
17th passed without any hostile movement on the part of either
side. The coalition was awaiting the arrival of the Russian
Polish army, and the troops which were being brought by the
Prince Royal of Sweden, Bernadotte, which would greatly increase
their strength.

For his part, Napoleon, now regretting his rejection of the peace
offers which had been made to him two months previously during
the armistice, hoped to have some result from a peace mission
which he had sent the previous evening to the allied sovereigns
through the Austrian General Comte de Merfeld, who had recently
been taken prisoner.

Here could be seen a strange sequence of events. It was the Comte
de Merfeld who sixteen years previously had come to ask General
Bonaparte, then the commander of the army in Italy, for the
armistice of Leoben. It was he who had brought back to Vienna the
peace treaty concluded between the Austrian government and the
directory, represented by General Bonaparte. It was he who had
carried to the French emperor, on the night following the Battle
of Austerlitz, the proposal for an armistice made by the Austrian
Emperor; now, as a remarkable turn of fate had brought General
Merfeld once more into the Emperor's presence at a moment when he
in his turn was in need of an armistice and peace, he had high
hopes that this intermediary would return with the result he
desired. However things had gone too far for the allied
sovereigns to treat with Napoleon, from whom such a plea denoted
the weakness of his position. So, although unable to conquer us
on the 16th, they hoped to overcome us by a renewed effort with
their superior numbers, and relied heavily on the defection of
the German units which were still with us, and whose leaders, all
members of the secret society, the Tugenbund, took advantage of
the lull in hostilities of the 17th to agree on the manner in
which they would execute their treacherous designs. The Comte de
Merfeld's mission did not even receive a reply.

On the morning of the 18th, the coalition began its attack. The
2nd Cavalry Corps, of which my regiment was a part, was placed as
it had been on the 16th, between Liebert-Wolkwitz and the
Kelmberg. The fighting, which broke out everywhere was fiercest
towards our centre at the village of Probstheyda which was
attacked simultaneously by a Russian and a Prussian Corps, who
were driven off with tremendous losses. The Russians vigourously
attacked Holzhausen, which Macdonald defended successfully.

About eleven o'clock, a cannonade was heard from behind Leipzig,
in the direction of Lindenau, and we learned that at this point
our troops had broken through the ring within which the enemy
believed they could contain the French army, and that General
Bertrand's corps was marching towards Weissenfeld in the
direction of the Rhine, without the enemy being able to stop him.
The Emperor then ordered to evacuation of the equipment to
Lutzen.

Meanwhile, the Leipzig plateau around Connewitz and L”ssnig was
the scene of a massive engagement; the earth shook with the noise
of a thousand cannon, and the enemy tried to force a passage
across the Pleisse. They were driven back, although the Poles
managed to ruin some of the bayonet charges made by our infantry.
Then the 1st French Cavalry Corps, seeing the Austrian and
Prussian squadrons going to the aid of their allies, emerged from
behind the village of Probstheyda and hurled themselves at the
enemy, whom they overwhelmed and drove back to their reserves
which were led by Prince Constantine of Russia. Defeated again at
this spot the allies built up an immense force in order to
capture Probstheyda, but this formidable mass had such a hot
reception from some divisions of our infantry and the infantry
Chasseurs of the Old Guard that they promptly withdrew.  We lost
there Generals Vial and Rochambeau. The latter had just been made
a Marshal of France by the Emperor.

Bernadotte had not yet attacked the French and seemed, it was
said, to waver; but at last urged on or even threatened by the
Prussian Marshal Blucher, he decided to cross the Partha above
the village of Mockau, at the head of his troops and a Russian
corps which had been placed under his command. When a brigade of
Saxon Hussars and Lancers which was positioned at this point saw
approaching the Cossacks who preceded Bernadotte, they marched
towards them as if to give battle; but then, turning round
suddenly and forgetting about their aged King, our ally who was
in the midst of Napoleon's troops, the infamous Saxons aimed
their muskets and cannons at the French!

This force led by Bernadotte, following the left bank of the
Partha, headed for Sellerhausen which was defended by Reynier.
Reynier, whose corps was almost entirely made up of German
contingents, having seen the desertion of the Saxon cavalry,
distrusted their infantry, which he had placed next to the
cavalry of Durette in order to restrain them; but Marshal Ney,
with misplaced confidence, ordered him to deploy the Saxons and
send them to assist a French regiment which was defending the
village of Paunsdorf. The Saxons had gone only a little distance
from the French, when seeing the Prussian ensigns in the fields
of Paunsdorf they ran towards them at top speed, led by the
shameless General Russel, their commander.  Some French officers
could not believe such treachery, and thought that the Saxons
were going to attack the Prussians; so that General Gressot,
Reynier's chief-of-staff rushed towards them to moderate what he
thought was an excess of zeal, only to find himself confronted by
enemies! This defection of an entire army corps produced a
frightening gap in the French centre, and had the additional
effect of raising the allied morale. The Wurtemberg cavalry
promptly followed the example of the Saxons.

Not only did Bernadotte welcome the perfidious Saxons into his
ranks, but he used their artillery to bolster up his own, which
the former Marshal of France now aimed at Frenchmen.

The Saxons had scarcely entered the enemy ranks when they
celebrated their treachery by firing at us a hail of projectiles,
many of which were directed to my regiment, for I lost some
thirty men, among whom was Captain Bertain, an excellent officer
who had his head taken off by a cannon-ball.

So now it was Bernadotte, a man for whom French blood had
procured a throne, who was attempting to deliver to us the coup
de grace.

Amid this general disloyalty, the King of Wurtemberg presented an
honourable exception, for as I have said, he had informed
Napoleon that circumstances forced him to renounce his
friendship; but even after he had taken this final step, he
ordered his troops not to attack the French without giving them
ten days warning, and although he was now an enemy of France, he
dismissed from his army the general and several officers who had
handed over their troops to the Russians at the battle of
Leipzig, and withdrew all their decorations from the turncoat
regiments.

Probstheyda, however, continued to be the theatre of a most
murderous struggle. The Old Guard, deployed behind the village,
held itself in readiness to hasten to the aid of its defenders.
Bulow's Prussian corps having attempted to push forward, was
heavily defeated; but we lost in the action General Delmas, a
distinguished soldier and a man of high principles who, having
been involved with Napoleon since the creation of the Empire, had
spent ten years in retirement, but asked to be returned to active
service when he saw his country in danger.

Facing a terrible cannonade, and continual attacks, the French
line remained steadfastly in position. Towards our left, Marshal
Macdonald and General Sebastiani were holding the ground between
Probstheyda and St”tteritz, in spite of numerous attacks by
Klenau's Austrians and the Russians of Doctoroff, when they were
assailed by a charge of more than 20,000 Cossacks and Baskirs,
the efforts of the latter being directed mainly at Sebastiani's
cavalry.

With much shouting, these barbarians rapidly surrounded our
squadrons, against which they launched thousands of arrows, which
did very little damage because the Baskirs, being entirely
irregulars, do not know how to form up in ranks and they go about
in a mob like a flock of sheep, with the result that the riders
cannot shoot horizontally without wounding or killing their
comrades who are in front of them, but shoot their arrows into
the air to describe an arc which will allow them to descend on
the enemy. But as this system does not permit any accurate aim,
nine-tenths of the arrows miss their target, and those that do
arrive have used up in their ascent the impulse given to them by
the bow, and fall only under their own weight, which is very
small, so that they do not as a rule inflict any serious
injuries. In fact, the Baskirs, having no other arms, are
undoubtedly the world's least dangerous troops.

However, since they attacked us in swarms, and the more one
killed of these wasps, the more seemed to arrive, the huge number
of arrows which they discharged into the air of necessity caused
a few dangerous wounds. Thus, one of my finest N.C.O.s. by the
name of Meslin had his body pierced by an arrow which entered his
chest and emerged at his back. The brave fellow, taking two
hands, broke the arrow and pulled out the remaining part, but
this did not save him, for he died a few moments later. This is
the only example which I can remember of death being caused by a
Baskir arrow, but I had several men and horses hit, and was
myself wounded by this ridiculous weapon.

I had my sabre in my hand, and I was giving orders to an officer,
when, on raising my arm to indicate the point to which he was to
go, I felt my sabre encounter a strange resistance and was aware
of a slight pain in my right thigh, in which was embedded for
about an inch, a four-foot arrow which in the heat of battle I
had not felt. I had it extracted by Dr. Parot and put in one of
the boxes in the regimental ambulance, intending to keep it as a
memento; but unfortunately it got lost.

You will understand that for such a minor injury I was not going
to leave the regiment, particularly at such a critical time...
The reinforcements brought by Bernadotte and Blucher were
determinedly attacking the village of Sch”nfeld, not far from
where the Partha enters Leipzig. Generals Lagrange and
Friederichs, who were defending this important point, repelled
seven assaults and seven times drove the allies out of houses
they had captured. General Friederichs was killed during this
action; he was a fine officer who among his other qualities, was
the most handsome man in the French army.

Nevertheless, it looked as if the allies might take Sch”nfeld
until Marshal Ney went to the aid of the village, which remained
in French hands. Marshal Ney received a blow on his shoulder
which forced him to leave the field of battle.

By nightfall the troops of both sides were, in most parts of the
line, in the same positions which they had occupied at the
beginning of the battle. In the evening my troopers and those of
all the divisions of Sebastiani's cavalry tethered their horses
to the same pickets which they had used for the three preceding
days, and almost all the battalions occupied the same bivouacs.
So this battle which our enemies have celebrated as a great
success, was in fact indecisive, since being greatly inferior in
numbers, having almost all the nations of Europe against us and
harbouring a crowd of traitors in our ranks, we had not yielded
an inch of ground. The English general, Sir Robert Wilson, who
was in Leipzig in the role of British representative and whose
testimony cannot be suspected of partiality, said of this battle:

"In spite of the defection of the Saxon army in the middle of the
battle, in spite of the courage and perseverance of the allied
troops, it proved impossible to take from the French any of the
villages which they regarded as essential to their position.
Night ended the fighting, leaving the French, and in particular
the defenders of Probstheyda, in the well-earned position of
having inspired in their enemies a generous measure of
respect..."

After sunset, when it was beginning to grow dark, I was ordered
to put a stop, at the front of my regiment, to the useless
exchange of fire which usually goes on after a serious
engagement. There is some difficulty in separating men on both
sides who have been fighting each other, the more so because, to
prevent the enemy from knowing what is going on, and making use
of it to fall unexpectedly on our advance-posts, one cannot use
drums or trumpets to instruct the infantrymen to cease fire and
to form up to rejoin their regiments; but a warning is given to
platoon commanders, in quiet tones, and they then send
sous-officiers to look silently for the small, scattered groups.
As the enemy were doing the same, the firing gradually grew less
and soon stopped entirely.

To make sure that no sentinel was forgotten and that this little
withdrawal to bivouac was carried out in good order, it was my
custom to have it supervised by an officer. The one who was on
duty on this evening was a Captain Joly, a brave and well-trained
officer but inclined to be obstinate. He had given evidence of
this trait some months before the battle when, given the job of
distributing some officer's remounts which had been presented on
the Emperor's instructions to those who had taken part in the
Russian campaign, M. Joly, ignoring my advice and that of his
friends, had selected for himself a magnificent light grey, which
neither I nor my friends would have because of its striking
colour, and which I had at first reserved for the trumpeters. So
on the evening of the battle of Leipzig, while M. Joly, in
carrying out his duty, was riding at a walk behind the lines of
infantry, his horse stood out so clearly in spite of the failing
light, that it was picked on by the enemy and both horse and
rider were seriously wounded. The captain had a musket ball
through his body and died during the night in a house in the
suburb of Halle, to where, on the previous evening, I had sent
Major Pozac.

Although the latter's wound was not dangerous, he was grieved to
think that the French army would probably leave and he would
become a prisoner of the enemy, who would deprive him of the
sabre of honour which he had been awarded by the First Consul
after the battle of Marengo when he was still only a
sous-officier; but I calmed his anxieties by taking charge of the
precious sabre which, given into the care of one of the
regimental surgeons, was handed back to Pozac when he returned to
France.

Chap. 30.

The calm of the night having replaced in the fields of Leipzig
the terrible battles which they had just witnessed, the leaders
of both sides could examine their positions.

That of the Emperor Napoleon was the least favourable: if one
could blame this great man for not retreating behind the Saale
eight days before the battle, when he could have still avoided
risking the safety of his army, which was threatened by
infinitely more numerous forces, there is now even more reason to
disapprove of his judgement when, at Leipzig, one sees him
completely surrounded on the field of battle by his enemies. I
use the word "completely" because, on the 18th, at eleven in the
morning, Lichtenstein's Austrian corps seized the village of
Kleinzschocher, on the left bank of the Elster, and for a time
the route from Leipzig to Weissenfels, the only way of escape for
the French, was cut and Napoleon's army entirely encircled.

It is true that this situation did not last for more than half an
hour, but would Napoleon not have been wiser to avoid all the
consequences which might have arisen from such an event by taking
shelter behind the mountains of Thuringia and the river Saale
before all the enemy forces could combine to surround him?

We now come to a very critical situation!... The French had held
on to their positions for the three days of the battle, but this
success had been achieved only at the expense of much blood, for
in killed and wounded we had 40,000 casualties! It is true that
the enemy had suffered 60,000, a figure greatly to their
disadvantage, which was attributable to the persistence with
which they attacked our entrenched positions. As, however, they
had many more men than we did, having lost 40,000 we were
proportionately much more weakened than they were.

In addition to this, the French artillery had fired during the
three days 220,000 rounds, of which 95,000 were fired on the
18th, and there were no more than 16,000 rounds left in the
reserves, that is to say enough to continue in action for only
two hours. This shortage of ammunition, which should have been
foreseen before we engaged a powerful enemy so far from our
frontiers, prevented Napoleon from renewing the battle, which he
might possibly have won, and forced him to order a retreat.

This was a movement which it was very difficult to carry out,
because of the nature of the terrain which we occupied, which was
full of water-meadows and streams and traversed by three rivers
which created many narrow defiles which would have to be
negotiated under the eyes and within close range of the enemy,
who might easily throw our ranks into disorder during this
perilous march.

There was only one means of assuring our retreat, and that was
the construction of a large number of pathways and footbridges
across the meadows, ditches, and small streams, together with
larger bridges across the Partha, the Pleisse, and principally,
over the Elster, which was joined by these various tributaries at
the gates and even within the town of Leipzig. Now, nothing could
have been easier than the creation of these indispensable means
of passage, for the town and suburbs of Leipzig, barely a
musket-shot away, offered a ready source of planks and beams,
girders, nails, and rope etc. The whole army believed that
numerous crossing places had been made since their arrival before
Leipzig, and that these had been increased on the 16th and above
all on the 17th, when the whole day had passed without any
fighting. Well!... for a number of deplorable reasons and by
unbelievable negligence, nothing whatsoever had been done!... and
among those official documents which we possess relating to this
famous battle, one can find nothing, absolutely nothing, which
would show that any measures had been taken to facilitate, in
case of a retreat, the movement of the many columns which were in
action beyond the obstructions formed by the rivers and the
streets of Leipzig and its suburbs. None of the officers who
escaped from the disaster, nor any of the authors who have
written about it, have been able to show that any of the senior
staff of the army took steps to establish new crossing points or
to ensure free use of those which existed. Only General Pelet,
who is a great admirer of Napoleon and who, for this reason, is
sometimes given to exaggeration, writing fifteen years after the
battle, states that M. Odier, the deputy quartermaster of the
Imperial Guard, told him several times that he was present when
one morning (he does say on what day) the Emperor ordered a
general on his staff to look into the construction of bridges and
made him specially responsible for the task. General Pelet does
not disclose the name of the general to whom the Emperor gave
this order, although it would be most important to know it.

M. Fain, Napoleon's secretary, says in his memoirs "The Emperor
ordered the construction in the neighbouring marshes of new
pathways which would ease the passage of this long defile."

I do not know how much credit history will give to the accuracy
of these assertions; but even supposing them to be true, there
are those who think that the head of the French army should have
done more than give an order to a general staff officer, who
perhaps did not have at his disposal sappers or the necessary
material, and that he should have given the responsibility for
creating new crossing points to several officers, at least one
from every regiment in each army corps, for it is plain that no
one was doing anything. Here now is the truth of the matter,
which is known to very few people.

The Emperor had for head of his general staff, Marshal Prince
Berthier, who had never left him since the Italian campaign of
1796.  He was capable, precise, and loyal but having often
suffered the effects of the imperial temper, he had developed
such a fear of Napoleon's outbursts that he had decided never to
take the initiative on any matter, never to ask any questions,
and simply to carry out those orders he received in writing. This
system, which maintained good relations between the Major-general
and his chief, was harmful to the interests of the army; for no
matter how great the Emperor's energy and ability, it was
impossible for him to see everything and undertake everything;
and so if he overlooked something of importance nothing was done.

It seems that this is what happened at Leipzig, where, when
almost all the marshals and generals had on several occasions,
and particularly on the last two days, pointed out to Berthier
how necessary it was to provide adequate ways out, in the event
of a retreat, his invariable reply had been "The Emperor has not
ordered it." No materials were supplied, and so not a plank nor
beam had been placed across a rivulet when, during the night of
18th-19th the Emperor ordered a retreat to Weissenfels and the
river Saale.

The allies had suffered such heavy losses that they felt it
impossible to renew the struggle. They did not dare to attack us
afresh, and were on the point of retiring themselves when they
noticed the heavy equipment of the army heading for Weissenfels
via Lindenau, and realised that Napoleon was preparing to
retreat.  Whereupon they took steps to place themselves in a
position to profit from any opportunities which this movement
might present to them.

The most unhappy moment of a retreat, particularly for a unit
commander, is that when he has to leave behind those wounded whom
he is compelled to abandon to the mercy of the enemy, who
frequently does not have any, and robs and murders those who are
too badly injured to follow their comrades. However, since the
worst of all things is to be left lying on the ground, I took
advantage of the night to have my men pick up all the wounded
from my regiment, whom I put in two adjoining houses, firstly to
shield them from the drunken fury of the enemy, who would occupy
the suburb, and secondly to allow them to help one another and
keep up their spirits. An assistant surgeon, M. Bordenave,
offered to remain with them. I accepted his offer, and after the
peace I recommended this estimable doctor, whose care saved the
lives of many men, for the award of the Legion of Honour.

The troops now began their march away from the battlefield where
they had shown so much courage and shed so much blood! The
Emperor left his bivouac at eight in the evening and went to the
town, where he stayed at an inn named the "Prussian Arms" in the
horse market, and after giving some orders he went to visit the
aged King of Saxony, whom he found preparing to follow him.

This King, a devoted friend, expected that to punish his
unshakable adherence to the French Emperor, the allied sovereigns
would seize his kingdom, but what grieved him more was the
thought that his army had been dishonoured by deserting to the
enemy.  Napoleon was unable to comfort the good old man, and it
was with difficulty that he persuaded him to remain in Leipzig,
in the heart of his state, and send an envoy to the confederates
to ask for terms.

When this emissary had left, the Emperor said adieu to the old
King, the Queen and the Princess their daughter, a model of
virtue who had followed her father even to face the guns of the
enemy. The separation was made more unhappy when it was learned
that the allies would make no promises about the fate reserved
for the Saxon monarch, who would thus be at their mercy. He ruled
over some fine provinces, an invitation to his enemies to be
implacable.

About eight in the evening the retreat began, with the corps of
Marshals Victor and Augereau, the ambulances, a part of the
artillery, the cavalry, and the Imperial Guard. While these
troops filed through the suburb of Lindenau, Marshals Ney,
Marmont and General Reynier guarded the suburbs of Halle and
Rosenthal. The Corps of Lauriston, Macdonald and Poniatowski
entered the town in succession and took up positions at the
barriers which pierced the walls, all was thus arranged for a
stubborn resistance by the rear-guard to allow the army to
retreat in good order. Nevertheless, Napoleon wished to spare
Leipzig the horrors which always result from fighting in the
streets, and so he permitted the magistrates to address a request
to the allied sovereigns asking them to allow, by an armistice of
a few hours, the peaceful evacuation of the town.  This proposal
was rejected and the allies, hoping that the rear-guard might be
thrown into a confusion by which they could profit, did not
hesitate to expose to the risk of total destruction one of the
finest towns in Germany.

Several French generals then suggested, indignantly, to Napoleon
that he could assure the retreat of his army by massing it in the
centre of the town and then setting fire to all the suburbs
except that of Lindenau, by which our troops could leave while
the fire held up the enemy.

In my opinion, the allies' refusal to consent to an arrangement
which would allow the retreat to be carried on without fighting,
gave us the right to employ all possible means of defence, and
fire being the most effective in such a situation, we should have
used it; but Napoleon could not bring himself to do so, and this
excessive magnanimity cost him his throne, for the fighting which
I am about to describe resulted in the loss of almost as many men
as the three days of battle in which we had just been involved,
and worse even than that, it disorganised the army which would
otherwise have arrived in France still a potent force. The stiff
resistance which for three months the weak remnants put up
against the allies is evidence enough of what we might have done
if all the French fighting men who had survived the great battle
had crossed the Rhine in good order with their weapons. France
would probably have repelled the invaders.

That, however is not what happened, for while Napoleon, with what
I regard as misplaced generosity, refused to burn an enemy town
in order to ensure the unopposed retreat of part of his army, the
infamous Bernadotte, dissatisfied with the ardour displayed by
the allies in destroying his fellow Frenchmen, launched all the
troops under his command against the suburb of Taucha, captured
it and from there reached the avenues of the town.

Encouraged by this example, Marshal Blucher and his Prussians,
the Austrians, and the Russians did the same and attacked from
all sides the tail end of the French, who were retreating towards
the bridge at Lindenau. Finally, for good measure, a lively
fusillade broke out near this bridge, the only way for our troops
to cross the Elster.  This fusillade came from the battalions of
the Saxon guard who had been left in the town with their King,
and who, regretting not to have deserted with the other regiments
of their army, wanted to show their German patriotism by
attacking from behind the French who were passing the chateau
where their monarch was in residence!... It was in vain that the
venerable prince appeared on the balcony, amidst the firing,
crying out "Kill me, you cowards! Kill your King, so that I may
not witness your dishonour!" The wretches continued to slaughter
the French, while the King, going back to his apartments, took
the flag of his Guard and threw it in the fire.

A parting stab in the back was given to our troops by a battalion
of men from Baden who, being notorious cowards, had been left in
the town during the battle to split logs for the fires of the
bakery. These worthless Badeners, sheltered by the walls of the
big bakery, fired from its windows on our soldiers, of whom they
killed a great many.

The French fought back bravely from house to house and although
the whole of the allied force was massed in the town filling the
avenues and main streets, our troops disputed every foot of
ground as they retired towards the big bridge across the Elster
at Lindenau.

The Emperor had difficulty in getting out of the town and
reaching the outskirts through which the army was marching. He
stopped and dismounted at the last of the smaller bridges, known
as the mill bridge and it was then that he ordered the big bridge
to be mined.  He sent orders to Marshals Ney, Macdonald, and
Poniatowski to hold the town for a further twenty-four hours, or
at least until nightfall, to allow the artillery park, the
equipment, and the rear-guard time to go through the suburb and
across the bridges. But the Emperor had scarcely remounted his
horse and gone a thousand paces down the road towards Lutzen when
suddenly there was a massive explosion!...

The big bridge across the Elster had been blown up! Macdonald,
Lauriston, Reynier, and Poniatowski, with their troops as well as
200 artillery pieces, were still on the streets of Leipzig and
all means of retreat were now cut off. It was a total
disaster!...

To explain this catastrophe, it was said later that some Prussian
and Swedish infantrymen, for whom the Badeners had opened the
Halle gate, had gradually worked their way to the region of the
bridge where, having joined some of the Saxon guard, they had
occupied some houses from which they started to fire on the
French columns. The sapper charged with the responsibility of
detonating the mine was deceived by this fire into thinking that
the enemy had arrived, and that the time had come for him to
carry out his mission, and so he put a light to the fuse. Others
blamed a colonel of the engineers named Montfort, who at the
sight of some enemy infantrymen had taken it on himself to order
the detonation of the explosives. This last version was adopted
by the Emperor, and M. de Monfort was put on a charge and made a
scapegoat for the fatal event, but it later became clear that he
had nothing to do with it. However this may be, the army laid the
blame once more on the Major-general, Prince Berthier, and it was
justly claimed that he should have put the protection of the
bridge in the hands of an entire brigade, whose general should
have been made personally responsible for giving the order to
blow it up, when he thought the moment had come to do so. Prince
Berthier defended himself with his usual response "The Emperor
had not ordered it!..."

After the destruction of the bridge, some of the French whose
retreat was thus cut off, jumped into the Elster in the hope of
swimming across. Several of them succeeded in doing so, Marshal
Macdonald being among them; but the greater number, including
among others Prince Poniatowski, were drowned, because after
crossing the river they were unable to climb the muddy bank,
which was lined by enemy soldiers.

Those of our soldiers who were trapped in the town and its
suburbs aimed only to sell their lives as dearly as possible.
They barricaded themselves behind the houses and fought all day
and part of the night, but when their ammunition was exhausted
they were forced to retire into their improvised defences where
they were nearly all slaughtered! The carnage did not end until
two o'clock in the morning!...

The number of those massacred in the houses is given as 13,000,
while 25,000 were taken prisoner. The enemy collected 250
cannons.

After describing in general the events which followed the battle
of Leipzig, I shall now describe some of those which related
particularly to my regiment and Sebastiani's cavalry corps to
which it belonged. Seeing that we had for three consecutive days
repelled the enemy attacks and maintained our positions on the
field of battle, the men were greatly surprised and disgusted
when, in the evening of the 18th, we learned that because of
shortage of ammunition we were about to retreat. We hoped that at
least(and that appeared to be the Emperor's intention) we would
go no further than across the river Saale to the proximity of the
fortress of Erfurt, where we could renew our stocks of ammunition
and recommence hostilities. So we mounted our horses at eight in
the evening on the 18th of October, and abandoned the battlefield
on which we had fought for three days and where we left the
bodies of so many of our gallant comrades.

We had hardly left our bivouac when we ran into some of the
difficulties arising from the failure of the general staff to
make any arrangements for the withdrawal of such a large body of
troops.  At every minute the columns, particularly the artillery
and cavalry, were held up by the need to cross wide ditches,
bogs, and streams over which it would have been easy to put small
bridges! Wheels and horses sank into the mud and, the night being
very dark, there was congestion everywhere; our progress was
therefore extremely slow, even when we were in the open country,
and often completely arrested in the streets of the suburbs and
the town. My regiment which was at the front of the column formed
by Excelmans' division, which led this wearisome march, did not
reach the bridge at Lindenau until four in the morning on the
19th. When we had crossed over, we were far from foreseeing the
appalling catastrophe which would occur in a few hours.

Day broke; the fine, wide road was covered by troops of all arms,
which showed that the army would still be of considerable
strength on arriving at the Saale. The Emperor passed... but as
he galloped along the side of the marching column, he did not
hear the cheers which usually greeted his presence!... The army
was displeased with the little effort which had been made to
secure its retreat since leaving the battlefield. What would the
troops have said if they had known of the inadequate arrangements
made at the Elster, which they had just crossed, but where so
many of their comrades would lose their lives?

It was during a halt at Markranstadt, a little town some three
leagues from Leipzig, that we heard the explosion of the mine
which destroyed the bridge; but instead of being alarmed, we
rejoiced, for we all believed that the fuse would not have been
lit until after the passage of all our columns, and in order,
then, to prevent that of the enemy.


During the few hours of rest which we had at Markranstadt,
without being aware of the catastrophe which had occurred at the
river, I was able to review our squadrons in detail and find out
what losses we had suffered during the three days of conflict. I
was dismayed! For they came to 149 men, of whom 60 were killed,
among whom were two captains, three lieutenant and eleven
N.C.O.s. A very large fraction of the 700 men with which the
regiment had arrived on the battlefield on the morning of October
the 16th. Nearly all the wounded had been hit by cannon-balls or
grape-shot which, sadly, gave them little hope of recovery. My
losses might have been doubled if I had not, during the battle,
taken precautions to shield my regiment from cannon fire, as much
as possible. This requires some explanation.

There are circumstances where the most humane of generals finds
himself in the painful position of having to expose his troops
openly to enemy fire; but it often happens that certain
commanders deploy their men uselessly in front of enemy
batteries, and take no steps to avoid casualties, although
sometimes this is very easy, particularly for cavalry, who
because of the rapidity of their movements can go swiftly to the
point where they are required and take up the desired formation.
It is when large masses of cavalry are involved on extensive
battlefields that these measures of preservation are most
required, and where, however, they are least employed.

At Leipzig, on the 16th of October, Sebastiani, commanding the
2nd Cavalry Corps, having placed his three divisions between the
villages of Wachau and Liebert-Wolkwitz, and indicated to each
divisional general roughly the position he should occupy, Exelman
found himself placed on undulating ground intersected, as a
result, by small ridges and hollows. The Corps formed a line of
considerable length.  The enemy cavalry, being a long way from
us, could not take us by surprise. I took advantage of the
hollows in the ground where our brigade was positioned to conceal
my regiment which, though formed up and ready for action, saw the
greater part of the day pass without losing a single man, for the
cannon-balls went over their heads while neighbouring corps
suffered considerable casualties.

I was congratulating myself on having done this when General
Exelmans, on the pretext that everyone should be equally exposed
to danger, ordered me, in spite of the representations of my
brigade commander, to take the regiment a hundred paces forward.
I obeyed, but in a short time I had a captain, M. Bertin, killed
and some twenty men put out of action. I then had recourse to a
different tactic: this was to send some troopers, well spaced
out, to subject the enemy gunners to carbine fire. The enemy then
advanced some infantrymen to counter this, and the two groups
being involved in a fire-fight between the lines, the artillery
could not use their guns for fear of hitting their own men. It is
true that our gunners were in the same boat, but the cessation of
gunfire in a minor corner of the battlefield was to our benefit,
since the enemy had many more guns than we did. In addition to
this, our infantry and that of the enemy being in action at the
village of Liebert-Wolkwitz, the cavalry of both sides had to
await the outcome of this savage fighting; it served no useful
purpose for them to demolish one another by cannon fire, rather
than leave the fighting to the infantrymen, who were for the most
part only frightening the birds. My example was followed by all
the regimental commanders of the other brigades, and the cannons
opposite them too ceased fire, sparing the lives of many men. A
greater number would have been spared if General Exelmans had not
come and ordered the withdrawal of the men on foot, which was the
signal for a hail of cannon-balls hurled at our squadrons.
Fortunately the day was almost over.

It was now the evening of the 16th. All the colonels of cavalry
belonging to 2nd Corps had found this method of sparing their men
so effective that by common accord we all used it in the battle
of the 18th. When the enemy started firing their cannons, we sent
out our foot-soldiers, and as they would have captured the guns
if they were not defended, the enemy had to send infantrymen to
defend them, and so the guns were silenced on both sides. The
commanders of the enemy cavalry which faced us, having probably
realised what we were up to, started doing the same, so that on
the third day the guns attached to the cavalry of both parties
were much less used. This did not prevent vigourous cavalry
engagements, but at least they were directed to the taking or
holding of positions, in which we did not spare ourselves, but
the cannonades aimed at stationary targets, which too often
replace cavalry to cavalry actions, do nothing but kill good men
for no useful purpose. This was something which Exelmans did not
grasp, but as he was on the move all the time from one wing to
the other, as soon as he had left a regiment the colonel sent out
his foot-soldiers and the guns were silent.

All the cavalry generals, including Sebastiani, were so much
persuaded of the advantages of this method, that eventually
Exelmans was ordered not to irritate the enemy gunners by firing
our guns at them, when the cavalry was only standing-to, and had
neither an attack nor a defence to undertake. Two years later I
used the same tactics at Waterloo against the English guns, and I
lost far fewer men than I would have done otherwise: but now let
us return to Markranstadt.

Chap. 31.

It was while the Emperor and the divisions which had come out of
Leipzig were halted at this spot, that we heard the dreadful news
of the destruction of the bridge at Lindenau, which deprived the
army of almost all its artillery and half of its men, who were
taken prisoner; and which delivered some thousands of our wounded
comrades to the assaults and knives of the brutish enemy, full of
liquor and encouraged to massacre by their unscrupulous officers!
There was widespread grief! Each regretted the loss of a
relative, a friend, some comrade in arms! The Emperor seemed
appalled!... However, he ordered Sebastiani's cavalry to retrace
their steps to the bridge, in order to gather and protect any
stragglers who had been able to cross the river at some point,
after the explosion.

In order to speed this help, my regiment and the 24th, who were
the best mounted in the corps, were told to go ahead of the
column and leave at a rapid trot. As General Wathiez was
indisposed, and I was the next in seniority, I had to take
command of the brigade.

When we had reached half way to Leipzig, we heard much gunfire,
and as we approached the avenues we could hear the despairing
cries of the unfortunate French, who having no means of retreat
and no cartridges for their firearms, were unable to defend
themselves and were hunted from street to street, and house to
house, and, overwhelmed by numbers, were disgracefully butchered
by the enemy, mainly the Prussians, the Badeners, and the Saxon
guards.

It would be impossible for me to express the fury felt then by
the two regiments which I commanded. All longed for vengeance and
regretted that this was denied them, since the Elster, with its
broken bridge, separated us from the assassins and their victims.
Our anger was increased when we came across about 2000 Frenchmen,
most of them without clothes and nearly all wounded, who had
escaped death only by jumping into the river and swimming across
in the face of the shots being fired at them from the opposite
bank. Marshal Macdonald was among them; he owed his life to his
physical strength and his ability as a swimmer. The Marshal was
completely naked and his horse had been drowned, so I quickly
found some clothes for him and lent him the spare horse which
always came with me, which allowed him to go immediately to
rejoin the Emperor at Markranstadt, and to give him an account of
the disaster of which he had been a witness, and in which one of
the principal episodes had been the death of Prince Poniatowski,
who had perished in the waters of the Elster.

The remainder of the French who had managed to cross the river
had been obliged to discard their arms in order to swim, and had
no means of defence. They ran across the fields to avoid falling
into the hands of four or five hundred Prussians, Saxons, and
Badeners, who, not satisfied with the blood-bath of the massacres
in the town, had made a footbridge of beams and planks across the
remaining arches of the bridge, and had come to kill any of our
unfortunate soldiers whom they could find on the road to
Markranstadt.

As soon as I caught sight of this group of assassins, I
instructed Colonel Schneit of the 24th to combine with my
regiment to form a vast semi-circle round them, and then sounded
the charge!... The result was horrifying! The bandits, taken by
surprise, put up very little resistance and there ensued a
massacre, for no quarter was given!...

I was so enraged at these wretches, that before the charge
started I had promised myself that I would run my sabre through
any of them I could catch; however, when I found myself in their
midst and saw that they were drunk and leaderless except for two
Saxon officers who were fear-stricken at our vengeful approach, I
realised that this was not a fight but an execution, and that it
would not be a good thing for me to take part in it. I feared
that I might find pleasure in killing some of these scoundrels,
so I put my sabre back in its scabbard and left to our soldiers
the business of exterminating these assassins, two-thirds of whom
were laid dead.

The remainder, including two officers and several Saxon guards,
fled towards the debris of the bridge, hoping to recross the
footbridge; but as they could cross only one by one and our
Chasseurs were hard on their heels, they entered a large nearby
inn and began to shoot at my men, helped by some Prussians and
Badeners on the opposite bank.

As it seemed likely that the noise of firing would attract larger
forces to the bank from where, without crossing the river, they
could destroy my regiment by small-arms and cannon fire, I
decided to bring matters to a conclusion, and ordered the
majority of the Chasseurs to dismount and taking their carbines
and plenty of ammunition to attack the rear of the inn and set on
fire the stables and the hay loft.  The assassins, shut in the
inn, seeing that they were about to be caught in the flames,
tried to make a sortie; but as soon as they appeared in the
doorway our Chasseurs shot them with their carbines.

It was in vain that they sent one of the Saxon officers to me to
intercede; I was pitiless, and refused to treat as soldiers
surrendering after an honourable defence, these monsters who had
murdered our comrades who were prisoners of war. So the four to
five hundred Prussians, Badeners, and Saxons who had crossed the
footbridge were all killed! I sent this information to General
Sebastiani, who halted, midway, the other brigades of the Light
Cavalry.

The fire which we had lit in the forage store of the inn soon
spread to the neighbouring houses. A major part of the village of
Lindenau, which lines both sides of the road, was burned, which
would delay the repair of the bridge and the passage of enemy
troops, bent on pursuing and harrying the retreating French army.

The mission being completed, I led the brigade back to
Markranstadt, together with the 2000 Frenc, who had escaped from
the calamity at the bridge. Among them were several officers of
all ranks; The Emperor questioned them on what they knew about
the blowing up of the bridge, and about the massacre of the
French prisoners of war. It seems likely that this sorry tale
made the Emperor regret that he had not taken the advice given
him in the morning, to bar the enemy advance by setting fire to
the suburbs, and even, if need be, the town of Leipzig itself,
most of whose inhabitants had fled during the three day's battle.

In the course of this return to the bridge of Lindenau, the
brigade which I was commanding suffered only three casualties,
one of which was a member of my regiment; but it was one of my
finest sous-officiers. He had been awarded the Legion of Honour
and was named Foucher. A bullet wound, received at the inn, had
gone through both thighs, leaving four holes; but in spite of
this serious injury the brave Foucher made the retreat on
horseback, refused to enter the hospital at Erfurt, which we
passed a few days later and remained with the regiment until we
reached France. It is true that his friends and all the men in
his platoon took great care of him, but he thoroughly deserved
it.

As I left Leipzig, I was concerned about the fate of the wounded
from my regiment, whom I had left behind, including Major Pozac;
but luckily the distant suburb in which I had put them was not
visited by the Prussians.

You have seen that during the last day of the great battle, an
Austrian Corps tried to cut off our retreat by capturing
Lindenau, through which passes the main road leading to
Weissenfels and Erfurt, and how, on the Emperor's orders, they
had been driven off by General Bertrand, who, after re-opening
this route, had made his way to Weissenfels, where we rejoined
him.

After the losses occasioned by the destruction of the bridge at
Lindenau, it was impossible to think of stopping what remained of
the army at the Saale, so Napoleon crossed the river.

A fortnight before the battle, this water-course had offered him
an impregnable position, which he had spurned to risk a general
engagement in open country, putting behind him three rivers and a
large town, which presented obstructions at every step!... The
great captain had relied too much on his "star" and on the
incapacity of the enemy generals.

In the event, they made such serious mistakes that in spite of an
immense superiority in numbers, they were not only unable, during
a battle lasting three days, to take from us a single one of the
villages we were defending, but I have heard the King of Belgium,
who was then serving with the Russian army, say to the Duc
d'Orleans that on two occasions the allies were in such confusion
that the order for a retreat was given: but then the situation
changed and it our army which had to submit to the fortune of
war.

After crossing the Saale, Napoleon thanked and dismissed those
officers and soldiers of the Confederation of the Rhine, who
either from some sense of honour or from lack of opportunity were
still in our ranks. He even carried magnanimity so far as to
allow them to retain their arms, although he was entitled to
treat them as prisoners of war, since their sovereigns had joined
the forces of our enemies. The French army continued its retreat
to Erfurt, without anything happening but an encounter at Kosen,
where a single French division defeated an Austrian army corps,
and took prisoner its commanding general the Comte de Giulay.

Led on always by the hope of a fighting return to Germany, and by
the help which he would receive in such a case from the
fortresses which he was now forced to leave behind him, Napoleon
put a numerous garrison into Erfurt. He had left in Dresden
25,000 men, under the command of Saint-Cyr; at Hamburg 30,000
under Davout, and many strongholds on the Oder and the Elbe,
manned in accordance with their importance; these garrisons made
up a loss in manpower to add to that due to the forts of Danzig
and the Vistula.

I shall not repeat what I have already said about the
disadvantages of deploying too many of one's troops to man forts
which one is forced to leave behind. I shall merely point out
that Napoleon left in the forts of Germany 80,000 men, not one of
whom returned to France until after the fall of the empire, which
they might perhaps have prevented, had they been defending our
frontiers.

The arsenal at Erfurt was able to make good the loss of our
artillery. The Emperor, who up till now had borne his reverses
with stoical resignation, was however upset by the departure of
his brother-in-law, the King Murat, who, with the excuse that he
was going to defend his kingdom of Naples, abandoned Napoleon, to
whom he owed everything!... Murat, at one time so brilliant in
war, had done nothing much during this campaign of 1813. It is
certain that, although he was in our ranks, he was carrying on a
correspondence with M. de Metternich, the prime minister of
Austria, who, dangling before his eyes the example of Bernadotte,
guaranteed, in the name of the allied sovereigns, the protection
of his kingdom if he would join Napoleon's enemies. Murat left
the French army at Erfurt and had scarcely arrived in Naples when
he began preparations for war against us.

It was also at Erfurt that the Emperor learned of the audacious
scheme of the Bavarians, his former allies, who, after deserting
his cause, and joining with an Austrian Corps and several groups
of Cossacks had set off under the command of General the Comte de
Wrede, whose ambition it was not only to stop the French army,
but to make it captive, along with its Emperor.

General de Wrede marching parallel to us but at two days distance
had already reached Wartzbourg with 60,000 men. He detached
10,000 to Frankfort and with the remaining 50,000 he went to the
little fort of Hanau in order to bar the passage of the French.
General de Wrede, who had fought on our side in Russia, thought
that he would find the French army in the deplorable state to
which cold and hunger had reduced those retreating from Moscow by
the time they reached the Beresina, but we soon showed him that
in spite of our misfortunes, we still had soldiers in good heart,
and quite capable of defeating Austro-Bavarians.

General de Wrede, who did not know that the troops which we had
fought at Leipzig, though following, were a long way behind us,
had become very bold and believed he could trap us between two
fires. It was not possible for him to do so; though, as several
enemy corps were trying to mount an attack on our right by going
through the mountains of Franconia, while the Bavarians stood in
front of us, the situation could have become serious.

Napoleon rose to the challenge and marched briskly towards Hanau,
whose approaches are protected by thick forests and notably by
the well-known pass of Gelnhausen, through which runs the river
Kinzig.  This river, whose banks are very steep, runs between two
mountains which are separated by a narrow gap which allows the
passage of the river, beside which has been made a fine main
road, cut into the rock, and running from Fulde to
Frankfort-on-main via Hanau.

Sebastiani's cavalry corps which had been the advance-guard from
Weissenfels to Fulde, where one enters the mountains, should have
been replaced by infantry at this point. I have never understood
for what reason this well known principle of warfare was not
followed in these grave circumstances; but to our astonishment,
Exelmans' cavalry division continued to march in front of the
army, led by my regiment and the 24th Chasseurs. I was in command
of the brigade. We learned from the peasants that the
Austro-Bavarian army already occupied Hanau, and that a strong
division was facing the French, to dispute the passage of the
defile.


My position, as commander of the advance-guard, was now very
difficult; for how could I, without a single infantryman and with
cavalry packed between two high mountains and an uncrossable
torrent, fight troops on foot whose scouts, climbing up the
rocks, would shoot us at close range? I sent at once to warn the
divisional general, but Exelmans could not be found. However I
had been ordered to advance and I could not stop the divisions
which were following me, so I continued my march until at a bend
in the valley my scouts told me that they were in sight of a
detachment of enemy Hussars.

The Austro-Bavarians had made the same mistake as our leaders;
for if the latter had sent cavalry to attack a long and narrow
pass where no more the ten or twelve horsemen could ride abreast,
our enemies had sent cavalry to defend a position where a hundred
sharpshooters could hold up ten regiments of cavalry! I was
highly delighted to see that the enemy had no infantry, and as I
knew from experience that when two opposing columns meet at a
narrow spot, victory always goes to the one which, hurling itself
at the head of the enemy, drives it back into the troops behind
it, I launched at the gallop my elite company, of which only the
leading platoon could engage the enemy; but they did so with such
elan that the head of the Austrian column was overwhelmed and the
rest thrown into such complete confusion that my troopers had
only to take aim. We continued the pursuit for more than an hour.
The enemy regiment in front of us was that of General Ott. I had
never seen such well turned out Hussars. they had come from
Vienna, where they had been fitted with completely new uniforms,
Their outfit, although a little theatrical, looked very handsome:
the pelisse and dolman in white and the trousers and the shako in
lilac; all clean bright and shining. One might have thought they
were going to a ball, or to play in a comedy! This brilliant
appearance contrasted somewhat with the more modest toilette of
our Chasseurs, many of whom were still dressed in the worn
clothing in which they had bivouacked for eighteen months, in
Russia, Poland, and Germany, and whose distinguishing colours had
been dimmed by the smoke of cannon and the dust of battlefields.
However, under those threadbare garments were brave hearts and
sturdy limbs. So the white pelisses of Ott's Hussars became
horribly bloodstained, and this pretty regiment lost in killed
and wounded more than 200 men, without one of our Chasseurs
having the smallest sabre cut, the enemy having always fled
without ever turning to fight. Our Chasseurs took a large number
of excellent horses and gold-braided pelisses.

Up until then everything had gone well, but as I galloped after
the victors who pursued the vanquished, I was a bit worried about
the end of this strange encounter, for the diminishing height of
the mountains which bordered the Kinzig indicated that we were
nearing the end of the valley, and it was likely that we would
find ourselves in a small plain, full of infantry whose volleys
and cannon fire would make us pay dearly for our success: but
happily there was no such thing, and as we emerged from the pass
we saw not a single infantryman, but only some cavalry, part of
which comprised the main body of that section of Ott's regiment
of Hussars, which we had so roughly manhandled and who in their
panic continued their headlong flight, taking with them some
fifteen squadrons, who retired to Hanau.

General Sebastiani then deployed his three divisions of cavalry
which were soon supported by the infantry of Marshals Macdonald
and Victor, and several batteries. Then the Emperor with part of
his guard, appeared and the rest of the French army followed.

It was now the evening of the 29th of October; we established our
bivouacs in a nearby wood; we were only a league from Hanau and
the Austro-Bavarian army.

Chap. 32.

Here now are the reasons why Exelmans dropped behind when we were
going through the pass. Before we entered the valley, the scouts
had brought to him two Austrian soldiers who, absent from their
unit, were scrounging and drinking in an isolated village.
Exelmans was having them questioned in German by one of his
aides, when he was surprised to hear them reply in fluent French.
One of these men, half-drunk, and thinking it would do him good,
announced that they were Parisians. As soon as he uttered these
words, the general, furious that Frenchmen should take up arms
against their fellow countrymen, ordered them to be immediately
shot. The poor lad who had boasted of being French was about to
be put to death, when his companion, sobered by this fearful
spectacle, protested that neither of them had ever set foot in
France, but having been born in Vienna to parents who, although
they came from Paris, were naturalised Austrians, they were
regarded as Austrian subjects and had been forced to join the
regiment assigned to them. To prove this he showed his army
record which confirmed the fact. Exelmans, yielding to the advice
of his aides-de-camp, agreed to spare the innocent man.

At this stage, hearing the sound of firing, the General wished to
reach the head of the column which I was commanding; but on his
arrival at the mouth of the pass, he found it impossible to get
through and take a place in the ranks because of the speed with
which the two regiments were galloping after the enemy. After
trying many times he was so jostled that he fell with his horse
into the Kinzig and nearly drowned.

The Emperor, who was preparing for battle, took advantage of the
night to reduce the amount of wheeled transport by sending all
the baggage off to the right, in the direction of Coblentz,
escorted by some battalions of infantry and the cavalry of
Lefebvre-Denouettes and Milhau. This was a great relief to the
army.

On the morning of the 30th, the Emperor had at his disposal only
the infantry Corps of Macdonald and Victor, amounting to 5000
men, supported by Sebastiani's cavalry division.

In the direction from which we were coming, a large forest,
through which the road runs, covers the approach to Hanau. The
tall trees of this forest allow movement without much difficulty.
The town of Hanau is built on the other side of the river Kinzig.

General de Wrede, although not lacking in military skill, had,
however, made the serious mistake of placing his army where it
had the river at its back, which deprived it of the support which
it could have received from the fortifications of Hanau, with
which the Bavarian general could not communicate except by the
bridge of Lamboy, which was his only road of retreat. It is true
that the position he occupied barred the way to Frankfort and to
France, and he felt certain that he could prevent us from forcing
a passage.

On the 30th of October at dawn, the battle began, like a great
hunting party. Some grape-shot and some small-arms fire from our
infantry, together with a charge in open order by Sebastiani's
cavalry, scattered the first line of the enemy, somewhat
unskillfully placed at the extreme edge of the wood; but as one
penetrated a little further, our squadrons could not operate
except in the few clearings which they came across, only the
Light Infantry followed in the steps of the Bavarians, whom they
pursued from tree to tree to the end of the forest. At that point
they had to stop, faced by an enemy line of forty thousand men,
whose front was covered by eighty guns!

If the Emperor had had with him all the troops which he brought
from Leipzig, a vigorous attack would have made him master of the
Lamboy bridge, and General de Wrede would have paid dearly for
his temerity, but Marshals Mortier and Marmont, and General
Bertrand, as well as the artillery, were held up by various
passes, mainly that of Gelnhausen, and had not yet arrived.
Napoleon had no more than ten thousand troops. The enemy should
have taken advantage of this to attack us in force, but they did
not dare, and this hesitation gave time for the artillery of the
Imperial Guard to arrive.

As soon as General Drouet, their commander, had fifteen pieces in
the field, he began firing, and his line grew in size until he
had fifty cannons, which he advanced, firing continuously,
although he still had very few troops behind him to give support;
however it was not possible for the enemy to see through the
thick smoke from the guns, that the gunners had little to back
them up. Eventually the infantry Chasseurs of the Imperial Old
Guard appeared, just as a gust of wind blew away the smoke.

At the sight of their busbies, the Bavarian infantry recoiled in
fear. General de Wrede, wishing to stop this disorder at all
costs, ordered all his cavalry, Austrian, Bavarian, and Russian,
to charge our artillery, and in an instant our battery was
surrounded by a swarm of horsemen!... But at the voice of their
commander, General Drouet, who, sword in hand, set them an
example in resistance, the French gunners, taking their muskets,
remained calmly behind their guns, from where they fired
point-blank at the enemy. Nevertheless, the great number of the
latter would have eventually triumphed, had not, on the Emperor's
order, all Sebastiani's cavalry, along with all that of the
Imperial Guard, mounted Grenadiers, Dragoons, Chasseurs,
Mamelukes, Lancers, and Guards of Honour, hurled themselves
furiously on the enemy cavalry, killing a great number and
dispersing the rest.

Then, falling on the Bavarian infantry squares, they broke them
and inflicted tremendous losses, at which stage the Bavarian
army, put to rout, fled to the bridge over the Kinzig and to the
town of Hanau.

General de Wrede was a brave man, so, before admitting himself
beaten by forces half as numerous as his, he resolved to make
another effort, and gathering all the troops remaining to him, he
made a surprise attack on us. Suddenly a fusillade broke out and
the forest rang once more to the sound of artillery; cannon-balls
whistled through the trees, from which great branches fell with a
crash... The eye sought in vain to pierce the depths of the wood;
one could hardly see the flash of the guns, which lit, at
intervals, the shade cast by the foliage of the huge beeches,
beneath whose canopy we fought.

Hearing the noise made by this attack, the Emperor sent, from his
position, the infantry Grenadiers of his Old Guard, led by
General Friant who soon overcame this last effort of the enemy,
who now hastily left the field of battle to re-group under the
protection of the fort of Hanau, which they abandoned during the
night, leaving behind a great number of wounded. The French
occupied the fort.

We were no more than two short leagues from Frankfort, a
considerable town, with a stone bridge across the Main. The
French army would need to go along the bank of this river to
reach Mainz and the frontier of France, which was a day's march
from Frankfort; so Napoleon detached Sebastiani's corps and a
division of infantry to go and occupy Frankfort, and to take over
and destroy the bridge. The Emperor and the bulk of the army
bivouacked in the forest.

The main road from Hanau to Frankfort runs along the right bank
of the river Maine. General Albert, a friend of mine, who
commanded the infantry which accompanied us, had been married,
some years previously, at Offenbach, a charming little town built
on the left bank exactly opposite the spot where, after emerging
from the woods of Hanau, we rested our horses, on the immense and
beautiful plain of Frankfort.

Finding himself so close to his wife and their children, General
Albert was unable to resist the temptation to have news of them,
and to reassure them of his well-being after the dangers he had
encountered at the battles of Leipzig and Hanau. To do this he
exposed himself to more risk, perhaps, than he had run during
either of these sanguinary affairs, for, advancing on horseback
and in uniform, to the edge of the river, he hailed, in spite of
our warnings, a boatman who knew him; but while he was chatting
with this man, a Bavarian officer ran up with a picket of
infantry, who aiming their weapons, prepared to shoot at the
French general. However, a large body of citizens and boatmen
crowded in front of the soldiers and prevented them from firing,
for General Albert was very well liked in Offenbach.

As I looked at this town, to where I had come while fighting for
my country, I did not dream that one day it would be my refuge
from the proscription of a French government, and that I would
spend three years there in exile!...

After leaving the forest of Hanau to go on his way to Frankfort,
the Emperor had hardly gone two leagues when he learned that
fighting had broken out once more behind him. This was because
the Bavarian general, who, following his defeat the day before,
had expected to be chased, with the Emperor at his heels, had
taken reassurance from seeing the French army more concerned to
reach the Rhine than to pursue him, and had launched a brisk
attack on our rear-guard.  However Macdonald, Marmont, and
Bertrand, who with their troops had occupied Hanau during the
night, having allowed the Bavarians to attack them on that side
of the Kinzig, received them with their bayonets, overwhelmed and
massacred them! General de Wrede was seriously injured, and his
son-in-law, Prince d'Oettingen was killed.

The command of the enemy army then devolved onto the Austrian
General Fresnel, who ordered a retreat, and the French army
continued on its way peacefully towards the Rhine. We recrossed
the river on the 2nd and 3rd of November 1813, after a campaign
which included brilliant victories and disasterous defeats, the
main cause of which, as I have said, was the mistake made by
Napoleon when, instead of making peace in June, following the
victories of Lutzen and Bautzen, he quarreled with Austria, which
involved the Confederation of the Rhine, that is to say all of
Germany, so that he soon had the whole of Europe ranged against
him.

After we had returned to France, the Emperor spent only six days
at Mainz, and then went to Paris, preceded by twenty-six flags
taken from our enemies. The army disapproved of this rapid
departure on the part of Napoleon. It was accepted that there
were important political reasons which called him to Paris, but
it was thought that he should have divided his time between his
capital and the need to re-organise his army, and that he should
have gone from one to the other to encourage the activity of
each, for he should have learned by experience that in his
absence little or nothing was done.

The last cannon shots which I heard in 1813 were fired at the
battle of Hanau, where I nearly spent the last day of my life. My
regiment carried out five charges, two on infantry squares, one
on artillery, and two on Bavarian cavalry; but the greatest
danger I ran was when an ammunition wagon, loaded with mortar
bombs, caught fire and exploded close to me. I have told how, on
the Emperor's order, all the cavalry were in action at a
particularly difficult moment.  Now, in these circumstances, it
is not good enough for a unit commander to send his troops
blindly forward, a thing I have seen done on several occasions,
but he must pay the closest attention to the ground over which
his squadrons are about to pass, in case he sends them into bogs
and marshes.

I was therefore, a few paces ahead, followed by my regimental
staff and with my trumpeter at my side, who, at a given command,
would signal to the various squadrons the obstacles which they
would find in their way. Although the trees were widely spaced,
the passage through the forest was difficult for the cavalry
because the ground was littered with dead and wounded men and
horses, arms, cannons and ammunition wagons, abandoned by the
Bavarians; and you can understand that in these conditions when
one is galloping through shot and shell to reach the enemy one
cannot always take much care of oneself, and I relied greatly on
the intelligence and suppleness of my excellent and brave Turkish
horse, Azolan! The little group which followed me had been much
reduced by a blast of grape-shot which had wounded several of my
orderlies and I had beside me only the trumpeter, a charming and
good young man, when I heard from all along the line, cries of
"Look out, Colonel!" And I saw ten paces away a Bavarian
ammunition wagon which one of our shells had set on fire.

A huge tree which had been knocked down by cannon-balls barred my
way forward, and to go round it would have taken too long.  I
shouted to the trumpeter to duck, and crouching on my horse's
neck, I urged him to jump the tree. Azolan leapt a long way, but
not far enough to clear all the leafy branches in which his legs
became entangled. The wagon was now in flames and the powder
about to catch! I thought I was done for... when my horse, as if
he realised our common danger, started bounding four or five feet
into the air, getting always further from the wagon, and as soon
as he was clear of the branches he galloped off with such speed
that he really seemed to be "Ventre … terre".

I was shaken when the explosion occurred, but it seemed I was out
of range of the bursting shells for neither I nor my horse were
touched.

Sadly it was not so for my poor young trumpeter, for when we
resumed our march after the explosion we saw his body, mutilated
by the shell fragments, and his horse also cut to pieces.

My brave Azolan had already saved my life at the Katzbach. I now
owed him my life for the second time. I made much of him, and as
if to show his pleasure he whinnied at the top of his voice. It
is at times like these that one has to believe that some animals
are more intelligent than is generally thought.

I greatly regretted the death of my trumpeter, who by his courage
and his behaviour had made himself liked by all the regiment. He
was the son of a teacher at the college in Toulouse, and had had
a good education. He delighted in producing Latin quotations, and
an hour before his death, the poor lad, having noticed that
almost all the trees in the forest of Hanau were beeches, whose
branches stretched out to make a sort of roof, had thought it a
suitable occasion to declaim one of Virgil's eclogues, beginning:

"Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi..."

which greatly amused Marshal Macdonald who happened to be passing
and who exclaimed, "There's a jolly lad whose memory isn't upset
by his surroundings; I'll bet it's the first time anyone has
recited Virgil to the sound of enemy cannon fire!"

"Those who live by the sword, perish by the sword" says the
scripture, and if this is not applicable to every soldier, it was
to a great many under the Empire. For example, M. Guindet, who
killed Prince Louis of Prussia in the fighting at Saalefeld, was
himself killed at the battle of Hanau. It was no doubt the fear
of meeting a similar fate which led the Russian General
Czernicheff to run away from danger.

You may remember that in the first months of 1812, this officer,
then a colonel, an aide-de-camp and favourite of the Emperor
Alexander, came to Paris where he abused his position to corrupt
two poor employees in the Ministry of War, who were executed for
having sold to him situation reports on the French army, and that
the Russian Colonel only escaped the penalty of the law by
secretly fleeing the country. On his return to Russia, M. de
Czernicheff, although he was a courtier rather than a soldier,
was given the rank of general officer and the command of a
division of 3000 Cossacks, the only Russian troops who appeared
at Hanau, where their leader played a role which made him a
laughing stock among the Austrians and Bavarians who were present
at this engagement.

Czernicheff, as he marched towards us, spoke loudly of victory,
believing that he had to face only soldiers who were sick and
disorganised; but he changed his tune when he saw himself in the
presence of the hardy and vigorous troops returning from Leipzig.

General de Wrede had great difficulty in persuading him to enter
the line, and as soon as he heard the fearsome cannonade of our
artillery, he and his 3000 Cossacks trotted bravely off the
field, to the cat-calls of the Austro-Bavarian troops, who
witnessed this shameful conduct. When General de Wrede went
personally to make some scathing observations, M. de Czernicheff
replied that his regiment's horses needed feeding and that he was
taking them for this purpose to nearby villages. This excuse was
regarded as so ridiculous that for some time afterwards the walls
of German villages were decorated by caricatures of M. de
Czernicheff feeding his horses with bunches of laurels gathered
in the forest of Hanau.

Once across the Rhine, the soldiers who made up the remains of
the French army expected to see an end to their hardships as soon
as they set foot on the soil of their motherland; but they were
much mistaken, for the government, and the Emperor himself, had
so much counted on success, and had so little foreseen that we
might leave Germany, that nothing had been made ready at the
frontier to receive and re-organise the troops. So, from the very
day of our arrival at Mainz, the men and the horses would have
gone short of food if we had not spread them out and lodged them
with the inhabitants of nearby villages and hamlets. But they,
since the first wars of the revolution, had lost the habit of
feeding soldiers, and complained vociferously, and it is true
that the expense was too great for the communes.

As it was necessary to guard, or at least to watch over the
immensely long frontier formed by the Rhine from Basle to
Holland, we settled, as best we could, the numerous sick and
wounded in the hospitals of Mainz. All fit men rejoined the core
of their regiments, and the various units of the army, which for
the most part consisted only of a small cadre, were spread along
the river. My regiment, together with what was left of
Sebastiani's cavalry corps, went down the Rhine by short marches;
but although the weather was perfect and the countryside
charming, we were all deeply unhappy, for one could foresee that
France was going to lose possession of this fine land, and that
her misfortunes would not stop there.

My regiment spent some time in Cleves, next a fortnight in the
little town of Urdingen, and then went on to Nimeguen. During
this sad journey we were painfully affected by the sight of the
inhabitants on the opposite bank, the Germans and the Dutch,
tearing down the French flag from their steeples and replacing it
with the flags of their former sovereigns. In spite of these
gloomy reflections, all the colonels tried to re-organise the few
troops which remained to them, but what could one do without
clothing, equipment or replacement of arms?...

The need to provide food for the army compelled the Emperor to
keep it dispersed, whereas to re-organise it would require the
creation of large centres of concentration. We were therefore in
a vicious circle. However, the allies, who should have crossed
the Rhine a few days after us, to prevent our re-organisation,
felt themselves still so weakened as a result of the hard blows
we had delivered during the last campaign, that they needed time
to recover.

They left us in peace for the months of November and December,
the greater part of which I spent on the bank of the Rhine, in
the ghost of the army corps commanded by Marshal Macdonald.

I was eventually ordered, as were the other cavalry colonels, to
take all my dismounted men to my regimental depot for the task of
building up new squadrons. The depot of the 23rd was still at
Mons, in Belgium, and that is where I went. It was there that I
saw the end of the year 1813, so filled with great events and in
which I had had encountered many dangers and undergone so many
trials.

Before I end my chronicle of the year, I ought to summarise
briefly the final events of the campaign of 1813.

Chap. 33.

The German fortresses in which the retreating French had left
garrisons were soon surrounded and in some cases besieged. Almost
all surrendered. Four only were still holding out at the end of
1813.

The first of these was Hamburg, commanded by the intrepid Marshal
Davout, who held on to this important fort until after the
abdication of the Emperor, when the French government recalled
the garrison to France; the second was Magdeburg, where General
Le Marois, an aide-de-camp to the Emperor, also held out until
the end of the war; the third was Wittemburg, defended by the
elderly General Lapoype, and which was taken by assault on the
12th of the following January; and finally Erfurt, which had to
capitulate for lack of food.

All the other fortresses beyond the Rhine, which the Emperor had
wanted to keep, the most important of which were Dresden, Danzig,
Stettin, Zamosk, Torgau and Modlin, were already in the hands of
the enemy.

The circumstances surrounding the taking over of the first two of
these fortresses do not reflect much honour on the allies. After
the battle of Leipzig, Napoleon withdrew with the remains of his
army, leaving at Dresden a corps of 25000 men commanded by
Marshal Saint-Cyr, who tried by force of arms to cut a passage
through the enemies who blocked his way. He drove them back
several times, but eventually overcome by stronger forces and
short of food, he was compelled to accept the honourable
capitulation which was offered to him. This stipulated that the
garrison would keep its arms, would not be made prisoners of war
and would march back to France in day-long stages.

The Marshal wanted his troops to move as a corps and to bivouac
all together at the same place, which would allow them to defend
themselves in case of treachery; but the enemy generals pointed
out that owing to the exhaustion of the countryside, it would be
impossible to provide at any one place twenty-five thousand
rations, and the French marshal had to accept this. He then
agreed that his force should be divided into several small
columns of 2 or 3000 men who would travel one or even two days
apart.

For the first few days all went well, but as soon as the last
French column had left Dresden, having handed over the fort and
the munitions of war, the foreign generals announced that they
did not have the authority to sign the capitulation without the
agreement of their generalissimo, Prince Schwartzenberg, and as
he did not approve, the agreement was null and void. They offered
to allow our troops to return to Dresden in exactly the same
state as they had been previously, that is to say with only
enough food for a few days, a shortage which they had concealed
from the enemy for as long as they occupied the place, and which,
as it was now known to them, made the offer worthless.

Our troops were indignant at this odious lack of good faith, but
what action could be taken by isolated detachments of 2 or 3000
men, whom the enemy had taken the precaution of surrounding by
battalions of their own, before they could hear of the breakdown
of the capitulation? Any resistance was impossible and our men
were forced to lay down their arms.

To the treachery practised on the field of battle, was now added
that of the breaking of agreements of capitulation. This did not
prevent the Germans from celebrating a victory, for they regarded
any measures, however despicable, as justified in order to defeat
Napoleon. This new morality was put into operation at Danzig.

General Rapp had defended this place for a long time, but having
run out of food, he was compelled to surrender on condition that
the garrison would be allowed to return to France. However, in
spite of a treaty signed by the Prince of Wurtemberg, the
commander of the army which conducted the siege, the conditions
were violated and the garrison of 16000 men were sent as
prisoners to Russia where most of them died.

One of the most remarkable stories of this siege concerns a
Captain de Chambure, who asked for and obtained permission to
form an independent company, chosen from hand-picked volunteers.
They engaged on the most daring ventures, going out at night and
surprising enemy posts, getting into their entrenchments, into
their camps, destroying their siege-works under the nose of their
batteries, spiking their guns and going far into the country to
capture or pillage their convoys. Chambure, having gone out one
night with his men, surprised a Russian cantonment, set fire to
an ammunition dump, destroyed several stores and killed or
wounded one hundred and fifty men, for the loss of three of his
own; and returned to the fort in triumph.

Now, however, let us return to examine the position of the French
armies in December 1813.

Spain, the principal cause of all the catastrophes which marked
the end of Napoleon's reign, had been stripped, in the course of
the year, of all its best troops, which the Emperor had sent to
reinforce the army in Germany. However, the effective strength of
those who remained in the Iberian peninsula amounted to more than
100,000 men.  A number which, although inadequate, would have
contained the enemy if Napoleon had left the command to Marshal
Soult. But as he most earnestly wished to make of his brother
Joseph a general who could defend the kingdom which he had given
him, it was to this prince, an estimable man, but no soldier,
that the Emperor entrusted the command of the armies of Spain. He
gave him, it is true, as chief of staff and military advisor,
Marshal Jourdan; but the Marshal was prematurely aged and had not
been involved in active warfare since the first campaigns of the
revolution; he was so worn out, both mentally and physically,
that he inspired no confidence in the troops. So, in spite of the
talents displayed by the generals who served under the orders of
King Joseph, the Anglo-Portuguese army commanded by Lord
Wellington and helped by Spanish guerrillas, caused us
irreparable losses.

The French, under pressure at every point, had already been
compelled to abandon Madrid, the two Castiles, and to recross the
Ebro, to concentrate their main forces round the town of
Vittoria.  Attacked in this position by three times their number,
they lost a battle; a loss which was made all the more disastrous
by the fact that King Joseph and Marshal Jourdan had made no
arrangements for the carrying out of a retreat, so that it became
chaotic. The King's suite, the artillery parks, the many coaches
of a crowd of Spaniards, who having taken sides with Joseph,
sought to escape the vengence of their compatriots, the wagons of
the treasury, of the military administration, etc., etc., all
found themselves piled up in confusion, so that the roads were
obstructed and the regiments had great difficulty in moving.
However they did not lose their formation, and in spite of
vigorous attacks by the enemy, the greater part of the army
managed to reach Salvatierra and the road to Pamplona, by which
the retreat was made.

The battle of Vittoria demonstrated the talent and courage of
General Clausel, who rallied the army and gave it some direction.
It was, however, an unhappy day. The French lost 6000 men killed,
wounded or taken prisoner, and left in the hands of the enemy a
large part of their artillery and almost all their baggage.

Despite this set-back, the troops, whose morale was excellent,
could have remained in Navarre, with the aid of the fortress of
Pamplona and the Pyrenees mountains, but King Joseph ordered the
continuation of the retreat and the crossing of the Bidassoa,
where our rear-guard, commanded by General Foy, was ordered to
blow up the bridge. So, from the end of June, we abandoned that
part of the Spanish frontier; nevertheless, Marshal Suchet still
held out in Aragon (The region of Zaragossa. Ed.), and Catalonia,
and in the kingdom of Valencia; but the results of the battle of
Vittoria had so much weakened us that when Wellington sent
reinforcements to central Spain, Suchet found it necessary to
leave the town and the kingdom.

These events were taking place at a time when Napoleon was still
triumphant in Germany. As soon as he was told of the state of
affairs across the Pyrenees, he hastily revoked the powers which
he had given to King Joseph and Marshal Jourden, and appointed
Marshal Soult commander of all the armies in Spain.

Soult, after re-organising the divisions, made a great effort to
help the French garrison left in Pamplona, but in vain; they were
forced to capitulate and Marshal Soult had to take his troops
back across the Bidassoa. The fortress of San-Sebastian, governed
by General Rey, held out for a long time; but was eventually
taken by assault by the Anglo-Portuguese, who, ignoring the laws
of humanity, robbed, raped and massacred the unfortunate
inhabitants of this Spanish town, although they were their
allies! The English officers made no attempt to stop these
atrocities, which went on for three days, to the shame of
Wellington, his generals, and the English.

Marshal Soult defended the Pyrenees foot by foot, and beat
Wellington on several occasions; but the greater numbers at the
latter's disposal allowed him unceasingly to take the offensive,
so that he was able eventually to cross our frontier and set up
his headquarters in Saint-Jean de Luz, the first town in France,
which had never previously been lost, even during the defeats
suffered by Francis I, or the disastrous wars of the end of the
reign of Louis XIV.

It was evident that after the defection of the German troops at
Leipzig, Marshal Soult could not hope to keep in the army of the
Pyrenees several thousand soldiers from across the Rhine. They
all went over to the enemy in a single night, thus augmenting
Wellington's strength.

However, Marshal Soult, after concentrating several divisions
below the ramparts of Bayonne, once more attacked the
Anglo-Portuguese. On the 9th of December, at Saint-Pierre de
Rube, there was a battle which lasted for five days, and was one
of the bloodiest of the war, for it cost the enemy 16,000 lives
and the French 10,000, but we were able to remain in position
around Bayonne.

Before these events in the Pyrenees, Marshal Suchet, having
learned of the reverses suffered by Napoleon in Germany, realised
that it would be impossible for him to remain in the middle of
Spain, and prepared to return to France. To do this he withdrew
to Tarragon, where after taking the garrison into his army he
blew up the ramparts. The retreat, although harried by the
Spanish, was carried out in good order, and by the end of
December 1813, Suchet and the troops under his command were
established in Gerona.

To complete this examination of the position of the French armies
at the end of 1813, one needs to recall that in the spring of
that year, the Emperor, who distrusted Austria, had built up in
the Tyrol and in his kingdom of Italy, a large army, the command
of which he had given to his step-son Eugene de Beauharnais, the
viceroy of the country. This prince was a good man, very gentle
and greatly devoted to the Emperor, but although much more of a
soldier than King Joseph of Spain, he lacked many of the
qualities required to lead an army.  The Emperor's affection for
Eugene led him astray in this matter.

It was on the 24th of August, the day when the armistice between
Napoleon and the allies was due to expire, that the Austrians
abandoned their neutrality and declared themselves our enemies.
The Italian troops continued to serve with us, but the Dalmatians
(Croats) left us to join the Austrians. Prince Eugene had under
his command a number of excellent lieutenants, but the fighting
was never very strenuous because the commanders on both sides
realised that the events in Germany would determine the outcome
of the campaign. There were however, a number of actions, with
various results. In the end the larger forces of the Austrians,
who were shortly joined by an English contingent which
disembarked in Tuscany forced the viceroy to lead the
Franco-Italian army beyond the Adige.

In November came news of the defection of Murat, the King of
Naples. The Emperor, to whom he owed everything, could not at
first believe it. It was, however, only too true. Murat had
joined forces with the Austrians, against whom he had fought for
so long, and his troops already occupied Bologna. Such is the
volatility of the Italians that everywhere they welcomed with
acclamation the Austro-Neapolitans, whom they had previously
detested, and whom they would soon hate even more. By December,
the vice-roi's army of only 43,000 men, occupied Verona and its
surroundings.

The Emperor, seeing the whole of Europe combined against him,
could not fail to realise that the first condition which a peace
would demand of him would be the re-installment of the Bourbons
on the throne of Spain. He decided therefore to do of his own
volition what he would be forced to do later: he set free King
Ferdinand, who had been detained at Valancay, and ordered
Suchet's army to retire behind the Pyrenees.

Thus, at the end of 1813, we had lost all of Germany, all of
Spain, the greater part of Italy, and Wellington's army, which
had crossed the Bidassoa and the western Pyrenees, was encamped
on French soil and threatening Bayonne, Navarre, and Bordeaux.

Chap. 34.

I began the year 1814 at Mons. Where I did not undergo such
physical dangers as I had done in previous years, but where I
suffered much more mentally.

As I had left, at Nimeguen, all the troopers of my regiment who
still had horses, I had none at Mons, where the depot was
situated, except dismounted men, for whom I was trying to get
horses from the Ardennes, when events prevented this.

On the 1st of January, the enemies, after hesitating for three
months before invading France, crossed the Rhine at several
points, the two most important of these being firstly at Kaub, a
market town situated between Bingen and Coblentz, where a rocky
gorge greatly reduces the width of the river, and then at Basle
where the Swiss handed over the stone bridge, in violation of
their neutrality, a neutrality which they maintain or abandon
according to their interests.

It is estimated that some five to six hundred thousand allied
soldiers entered a France exhausted by twenty-five years of war,
half of whose troops were prisoners in foreign lands, and many of
whose provinces were ready to defect on the first suitable
occasion, amongst which was that containing the department of
Jemmapes, of which Mons was the principal town.

This huge area of rich country which had been annexed to France,
firstly "de facto" by the war of 1792, and then by right after
the treaty of Amiens, had been so accustomed to this union that
after the disasters of the Russian campaign, it had shown great
enthusiasm and made considerable sacrifices to help the Emperor
to put his troops back on a sound footing. Men, horses,
equipment, clothing... it had complied with all demands without a
murmur! But the losses we had suffered in Germany had discouraged
the Belgians, and I found the attitude of the populace had
completely changed. They loudly regretted the paternal government
of the house of Austria, under which they had lived for so long,
and were most anxious to separate themselves from France, whose
continual wars were ruining their trade and industry. In a word,
Belgium awaited only a favourable moment to revolt, an event
which would be the more serious for us because, by its
geographical situation, the province was in the rear of the
weakened army corps which we still had on the Rhine. The Emperor
sent some troops to Brussels, whom he placed under the command of
General Maisons, a capable and very determined man. Maisons,
having, visited several departments, recognised that Jemmapes,
and particularly the town of Mons, was the most disaffected.
There was there, open discussion of the possibility of taking up
arms against the weak French garrison, something which its
commander general "O"... could not have prevented, for the old
general, stricken by gout, and lacking in energy, who had been
born in Belgium, seemed afraid to earn the dislike of his
compatriots.  General Maisons suspended him from duty and gave me
the command of the department of Jemmapes.

My job was made more difficult because, after the inhabitants of
Liege, those who live in Borinage are the boldest and most
turbulent in all Belgium, and to control them I had only a small
unit of 400 conscripts, a few gendarmes and 200 unmounted
cavalrymen from my regiment, among whom there were some fifty men
who were born in the area and who, in case of trouble, would join
the insurgents. I could rely entirely only on the other 150
Chasseurs, who born in France, and having been in action with me,
would have followed me anywhere.

There were some good officers; those in the infantry, and in
particular the battalion commander, were very willing to back me
up.

I could not, however, disguise the fact that if it came to blows,
the two sides were not equally matched. From the hotel where I
stayed I saw every day 3 or 4,000 peasants and workmen from the
town, armed with big sticks who gathered in the main square to
listen to speeches from former Austrian officers, all of them
wealthy nobles, who had quitted the service on the union of
Belgium with France, and now spoke out against the Empire which
had loaded them with taxes, taken their children to send them to
the wars, etc.,etc. These speeches were listened to with all the
more attention, in that they were delivered by great landed
proprietors, and addressed to their tenants and employees, over
whom they wielded much influence.

Add to this that each day brought news of the advance of our
enemies, who were approaching Brussels, driving before them the
debris of Marshal Macdonald's Corps. All the French employees
left the department to take refuge in Valenciennes and Cambrai.
Finally the mayor of Mons, M. Duval of Beaulieu, an honourable
man, thought it his duty to warn me that neither my feeble
garrison nor myself were safe in the midst of an excited and
numerous population, and that I would be wise to leave the town,
a move which would not be opposed since my regiment and I had
always lived at peace with the inhabitants.

I was aware that this proposition came from a committee composed
of former Austrian officers, which had instructed the mayor to
put it to me, in the hope that I would be intimidated. I resolved
then to show my teeth, I said to M. Duval that I would be most
grateful if he would summon the town council and the leading
citizens, and that I would then give my reply to the proposals
which he had brought me.

Half an hour later, all the garrison were armed, and when the
municipal council accompanied by the wealthiest citizens had
assembled in the square, I mounted on horseback, in order to be
heard by all, and after I had told the mayor that before talking
with him and his council, I had an important order to give to my
troops, I told my men about the suggestion which had been made
that we should abandon, without a struggle, the town which had
been put in our care.

They were most indignant, and said so loudly! I added that I
could not conceal the fact that the ramparts were broken down at
several points, and a lack of artillery would make defence
difficult against regular troops, though if need be we would do
our best; but that if it was the inhabitants of the town and the
countryside who rose against us, we would not confine ourselves
to defence, we would attack with all the means at our disposal,
for we would be dealing with revolutionaries. As a consequence I
was ordering my men to take over the church tower, from where,
after a delay of half an hour and three rolls on the drums they
would fire on the occupants of the square, while patrols would
clear the streets by shooting, mainly at those who had left their
work in the country to come and do us harm.  I added that if it
came to fighting, I would order, as the best means of defence,
the setting on fire of the town, in order to keep the inhabitants
busy, and I would shoot at them continually to prevent its
extinction.

This speech may seem a little drastic, but consider the critical
position in which I found myself; with no more than 700 men, few
of whom had seen action, no expectation of reinforcements, and
surrounded by a multitude which increased in size by the moment,
for the officer in charge of the detachment sent to the church
tower told me that the roads leading to the town were full of
miners from the pits of Jemmapes, heading for the town of Mons.
My little troupe and I were at risk of being wiped out if I had
not taken decisive action. My address had produced a marked
effect among the rich noblemen, the promoters of this
disturbance, and also among the townspeople, who began to
disperse, but as the peasants did not budge, I brought up two
ammunition wagons to issue a hundred cartridges to each soldier,
and when they had loaded their weapons, I ordered the three rolls
on the drums, the prelude to the fusillade.

At this frightening sound, the huge crowd which filled the square
began to run in tumult to the neighbouring streets, where each
one rushed to find shelter, and a few moments later the leaders
of the Austrian party, with the mayor at their head, came to
clutch at my hand and beg me to spare the town. I agreed on the
condition that they would send immediately to tell the miners and
workmen to go back to their homes. They hastened to comply, and
the elegant young men who were the best mounted, jumped on their
fine horses and went out through all the city gates to meet the
mob which they sent back to their villages without any
opposition.

This passive obedience confirmed me in my opinion that the
disturbance had powerful backers, and that my garrison and I
would have been held prisoner, had I not frightened the leaders
by threatening to use all means, even fire, rather than hand over
to rioters the town confided to my charge.

The Belgians are very fond of music, and it so happened that
there was a concert to be given that evening, to which I and my
officers had been invited, as was M. de Laussat, the prefect of
the department.

We agreed that we should go there as usual, which was the right
decision, for we were received with cordiality, at least on the
surface. While talking to the nobles, who had been behind the
disturbance, we put it to them that it was not for the populace
to decide by rebellion the fate of Belgium, but rather for the
contending armies; and it would be folly on their part to incite
the workmen and peasants to shed their blood, in order to hasten
by a few days a solution which would presently become evident.

An elderly Austrian general, who had retired to Mons, his
birthplace, then said to his compatriots that they had been wrong
to plot the seizure of the garrison, for that would have resulted
in much damage to the town, as no soldiers would lay down their
arms without a fight. They all agreed that this assessment was
correct, and from that day forward the garrison and the townsfolk
lived peacefully together as in the past. The people of Mons even
gave us a few days later a striking demonstration of their
support.

As the allied armies advanced, a crowd of partisans, mainly
Prussians, disguised themselves as Cossacks, and driven by the
desire for plunder they grabbed anything which had belonged to
the French administration, and had no hesitation in seizing the
goods of even non-military French citizens.

A large band of these imitation Cossacks, having crossed the
Rhine and spread out on the left bank, had reached as far as the
gates of Brussels, and had pillaged the imperial chateau of
Tervueren, from where they took all the horses of the stud farm
which the Emperor had installed there; then, splitting into
smaller groups, these marauders infested Belgium. Some of them
came to the department of Jemmapes, where they tried to stir up
the populace, but when they did not succeed in doing so, they put
this down to the fact that Mons, the principal town of the
region, had not supported them because of the terror inspired by
the colonel in command of the garrison. Whereupon they decided to
capture or kill me, but in order not to awaken my suspicions by
employing too great a number of men for this exploit, they
limited the number to three hundred. It appeared that the leader
of these partisans had been well briefed, for, knowing that I had
too few men to guard the old gates and ancient, partly
demolished, ramparts, he took his men, during a dark night, to
the rampart, where the major part of them dismounted and made
their way silently through the streets to the main square and the
Hotel de la Poste, where I had at first stayed. However, since I
had heard of the crossing of the Rhine by the enemy, I had gone
every evening to the barracks, where I spent the night surrounded
by my troops. It was as well that I had done so, for the German
Cossacks surrounded the hotel and rifled through all the rooms.
Then, furious at not finding any French officers, they set on the
inn-keeper, whom they robbed and maltreated, and whose wine they
drank until both officers and soldiers were drunk.

A Belgian, a former corporal in my regiment, named Courtois, for
whom I had obtained a decoration as one of my bravest soldiers,
arrived at this moment at the hotel. This man, born at
Saint-Ghislain near Mons, had lost a leg in Russia the previous
year, and happily I had been able to save him by securing means
for him to return to France. He was so grateful for this that
during my stay in Mons in the winter of 1814, he came often to
visit me, and on those occasions he dressed in the uniform of the
23rd Chasseurs which he had once so honourably worn. Now, it so
happened that on the night in question, Curtois, while returning
to the house of one of his relatives where he had been staying,
saw the enemy detachment heading in the direction of the hotel,
and although the gallant corporal knew that I did not sleep
there, he wanted to be sure that his colonel was in no danger, so
he went to the hotel, taking with him his relative.

At the sight of the French uniform and the Legion of Honour, the
Prussians shamefully grabbed the crippled man and tried to snatch
the cross of the Legion from him. When he resisted, the Prussian
Cossacks killed him and dragged his body into the street before
continuing their drinking.

Mons was so large in comparison to my small garrison, that I had
taken refuge in the barracks, and having arranged my defences for
the night at this spot, I had forbidden my men to go near the
main square, although I had been told that the enemy were there,
because I did not know their strength and feared that the local
populace would combine with them. But when the townspeople heard
of the murder of Courtois, their fellow countryman and one
regarded with affection by all, they resolved to be revenged, and
forgetting their complaints against the French, they sent a
deputation, comprising the brother of the dead man and some of
the leading citizens, to ask me to put myself at their head in
order to drive away these "Cossacks."

I was well aware that the pillage and excess at the Hotel de La
Poste inspired in every bourgeois fear for his family and his
house, which motivated them to expel the Cossacks as much as the
death of Curtois, and that they would have acted very differently
if, instead of robbers and assassins, it had been regular troops
who had entered the town; nonetheless I thought it my duty to
take advantage of the good-will of those inhabitants who were
prepared to take up arms to help us. I then took part of my troop
and set off for the square, while the remainder, in charge of the
battalion commander, who knew the town well, I sent to lie in
wait at the breach in the wall through which the Prussian
Cossacks had entered.

At the first shots fired by our people at these rogues, there was
a great tumult in the hotel and the square! Those who were not
killed took to their heels, but many got lost in the streets and
were finished off one by one. As for those who reached the place
where they had left their horses tied up to trees in the
promenade, they ran into the battalion commander, who greeted
them with a withering fusillade! At daylight we counted in the
town and in the old breach more than 200 dead, while we had not
lost a single man because our adversaries, fuddled by wine and
strong liquor, had offered no defence. Those of them who escaped
into the country were caught and killed by the peasantry, who
were enraged at the death of the unfortunate Curtois, who was
something of a local celebrity, and who, given the name of "Jambe
de bois", had become as dear to them as General Daumesnil,
another "Jambe de bois," was to the working class of Paris.

I do not cite this fighting in Mons as something to be
particularly proud of, for with the national guard, I had twelve
or thirteen hundred men compared to the three hundred of the
Prussians. But I thought it worth recording this bizarre
encounter to demonstrate the volatility of the masses, which is
shown by the fact that all the peasants and coal miners of
Borinage, who a month previously had come in a mass to
exterminate or at least disarm the few Frenchmen remaining in
Mons, had come to join us to oppose the Prussians because they
had killed one of their compatriots. I greatly regretted the
death of the brave Courtois, who had fallen victim to his regard
for me.

The most important trophy from our victory was the three hundred
horses which the enemy abandoned. They nearly all came from the
region of Berg and were of very good quality, so I took them into
my regiment, for which this unexpected provision of remounts was
extremely welcome.

I passed a further month at Mons, whose inhabitants treated us
perfectly well despite the approach of the enemy armies. However
their continued advance meant that the French were forced not
only to abandon Brussels but the whole of Belgium, and recross
the frontiers into their motherland. I was ordered to take my
regimental depot to Cambrai where, with the horses which I had
taken from the Prussian Cossacks, I was able to remount 300 good
troopers who had returned from Leipzig, and make two fine
squadrons, which commanded by Major Sigaldi, were sent to the
army which the Emperor was assembling in Champagne. There they
upheld the honour of the 23rd chasseuers, particularly at the
battle of Champaubert, where the gallant Captain Duplessis, an
outstanding officer, was killed.

I have always favoured the lance, a lethal weapon in the hands of
a good cavalryman. I asked for and obtained permission to
distribute to my squadrons some lances which artillery officers
had been unable to carry away when they left the forts on the
Rhine. They were so much appreciated that several other cavalry
units followed my example, and were glad to have done so.

The regimental depots were obliged to cross to the left bank of
the Seine to avoid falling into the hands of the enemy; mine went
to Nogent-le-Roi, an arrondissment of Dreux. We had a fair number
of troopers but almost no horses. The government was making great
efforts to collect some at Versailles, where it had created a
central cavalry depot commanded by General Preval.

The General, like his predecessor General Bourcier, knew much
more about remounts and organisation than he did about war, in
which he had rarely been involved. He did his utmost to fulfil
the difficult task which the Emperor had given him; but as he
could not, however, improvise horses or equipment, and as he
would not send out detachments until they were fully organised,
departures were not very frequent. I grumbled, but no colonel
could return to his unit without the permission of the Emperor,
who, to conserve his resources, had forbidden the employment of
more officers in any unit than was justified by the number of men
they had to command.  It was therefore useless for me to beg
General Preval to let me go to Champagne. He fixed my departure
for the end of March, at which time I would lead to the army a
draft composed of mounted men from my own depot and several
others.

Until this time I was authorised to live in Paris with my family,
for M. Caseneuve, my second-in-command, could take care of the
200 men who were still at Nogent-le-Roi, which I could reach, if
necessary, in a few hours. So I went to Paris, where I spent the
greater part of March, which, although I was with those I loved
most, was one of the most miserable months of my life. The
imperial government, to which I was attached, and which I had for
so long defended at the cost of my blood, was everywhere
crumbling. The armies of the enemy, spreading from Lyon, occupied
a large part of France, and it was easy to see that they would
soon arrive at the capital.

Chap. 35.

The Emperor's greatest antagonists are forced to admit that he
excelled himself in the winter campaign which he conducted in the
first three months of 1814. No previous general had ever shown
such talent, or achieved so much with such feeble resources. With
a few thousand men, most of whom were inexperienced conscripts,
one saw him face the armies of Europe, turning up everywhere with
these troops, which he led from one point to another with
marvellous rapidity.

Taking advantage of all the resources of the country in order to
defend it, he hurried from the Austrians to the Russians, and
from the Russians to the Prussians, going from Blucher to
Schwarzenberg and from him to Sacken, sometimes beaten by them,
but much more often the victor. He hoped, for a time, that he
might drive the foreigners, disheartened by frequent defeats,
from French soil and back across the Rhine. All that was required
was a new effort by the nation; but there was general
war-weariness, and there was in all parts, and particularly in
Paris, plotting against the Empire.

There are those who have expressed surprise that France did not
rise in mass, as in 1792, to repel the invader, or did not follow
the Spanish in forming, in each province, a centre of national
defence.

The reason is that the enthusiasm which had improvised the armies
of 1792 had been exhausted by twenty-five years of war, and the
Emperor's over-use of conscription, so that in most of the
departments there remained only old men and children. As for the
example of Spain, it is not applicable to France, where too much
influence has been allowed to Paris, so that nothing can be done
unless Paris leads the way, whereas in Spain each Province was a
little government and was able to create its own army, even when
Madrid was occupied by the French. It was centralisation which
led to the loss of France.

It is no part of the task which I have set myself, to relate the
great feats performed by the French army during the campaign of
1814, to do so I would have to write volumes, and I do not feel
inclined to dwell on the misfortunes of my country. I shall
content myself by saying that after disputing, foot by foot, the
territory between the Marne, the Aube, the Saone, and the Seine,
the Emperor conceived a daring plan which, if it had succeeded,
would have saved France.  This was to go, with his troops, by way
of Saint-Dizier and Vitry towards Alsace and Lorraine, which, by
threatening the rear of the enemies, would make them fear being
cut off from their depots and finding themselves without any
route of retreat. This would decide them to withdraw to the
frontier while they still had the opportunity.

However, to ensure the success of this splendid strategic
movement, it required the fulfilment of two conditions which
failed him; these were: the loyalty of the high officers of
state, and some means of preventing the enemy from seizing Paris,
if they ignored the movement of the Emperor towards their rear
and launched an attack on the city.

Sadly, loyalty to the Emperor was so much diminished in the
Senate and the legislative body, that there were leading members
of these assemblies, such as Tallyrand, the Duc de Dalberg,
Laisne and others, who through secret emissaries informed the
allied sovereigns of the dissatisfaction among the upper-class
Parisians with Napoleon, and invited them to come and attack the
capital.

As for defences, it must be admitted that Napoleon had not given
this sufficient thought, and they were limited to the erection of
a spiked palisade at the gates on the right bank, without the
provision of any positions for guns. As the garrison, formed by a
very small number of troops of the line, of invalids, veterans,
and students from the polytechnic, was insufficient to even
attempt resistance, the Emperor, when he left the capital in
January to go and head the troops assembled in Champagne,
confided to the National Guard the defence of Paris, where he
left the Empress and his son. He had called together at the
Tuileries the officers of this bourgeois militia, who had
responded with numerous vows and bellicose undertakings to the
rousing speech which he addressed to them. The Emperor named the
Empress as Regent and appointed as overall commander his brother
Joseph, the ex-King of Spain, the pleasantest but most
unsoldierlike of men.

Napoleon, under the illusion that he had thus provided for the
safety of the capital, thought that he could leave it for some
days to its own devices, while he went with those troops which
still remained to him to carry out the project of getting behind
the enemy. He left for Lorraine about the end of March, but he
had been on his way for only a few days, when he learned that the
allies, instead of following him as he had hoped, had headed for
Paris, driving before then the weak debris of Mortier's and
Marmont's corps who, positioned on the heights of Montmartre,
attempted to defend the city without any help from the National
Guard except an occasional infantryman.

This alarming news opened Napoleon's eyes; he turned his troops
to march towards Paris, for where he set out immediately.

On the 30th of March, the Emperor, riding post and with no
escort, had just passed Moret when a brisk cannonade was heard;
he held on to the hope of arriving before the allies entered the
capital, where his presence would certainly have had a remarkable
effect on the population, who were demanding arms. (There were
one hundred thousand muskets and several million cartridges in
the barracks of the Champ de Mars, but General Clarke, the
Minister for War, would not allow their distribution.)

On his arrival at Fromenteau, only five leagues from Paris, the
Emperor could no longer hear gunfire and he realised that the
city was in the hands of the allies, which was confirmed at
Villejuif.  Marmont had, in fact, signed a capitulation which
delivered the capital to the enemy.

As danger approached, the Empress and her son, the King of Rome,
had gone to Blois, where they were shortly joined by King Joseph,
who abandoned the command which the Emperor had given him. The
troops of the line left by the Fontainebleau gate, a route by
which the Emperor was expected to arrive.

It is not possible to describe the agitation which seized the
city whose inhabitants, divided by so many different interests,
had been surprised by an invasion which few of them had
foreseen... As for me, who had expected it, and who had seen at
close quarters the horrors of war, I was most anxiously thinking
of a way to ensure the safety of my wife and our young child,
when the elderly Marshal Serurier offered a shelter for all my
family at Les Invalides, of which he was the governor. I was
comforted by the thought that as everywhere the homes for old
soldiers had always been respected by the French, the enemy would
act in the same way towards ours. I therefore took my family to
the Invalides and left Paris, before the entry of the allies, to
report to General Preval at Versailles. I was given command of a
small column made up of available cavalrymen from my own regiment
and from the 9th and 12th Chasseurs.

Even if the allies had not marched on Paris, this column was due
to be assembled at Rambouillet, and it is to there that I went. I
found there my horses and my equipment, and I took command of the
squadrons which had been allotted to me. The road was full of the
carriages of those who were flying from the capital. I was not
surprised by that; but I was unable to understand where the great
number of troops of all arms came from, which one saw arriving
from all directions in detachments, which if they had been
combined would have formed a corps of sufficient size to hold up
the enemy at Montmartre, and allow time for the army which was
hurrying from Champagne and Brie to arrive and save Paris. The
Emperor, misled by his Minister for War, had given no
instructions regarding the matter, and was probably unaware that
he still had so great a capacity for defence at his disposal, a
description of which follows, taken from Ministry of War
documents.

There were at Vincennes, the military school of the Champ de
Mars, and the central artillery depot, some four hundred cannons
with ammunition and 50,000 muskets. As for men, there were the
troops brought by Marshals Marmont and Mortier, which together
with troops gathered from other sources including 20,000 workmen,
nearly all of them old soldiers, who had volunteered to help
defend the city, amounted to some 80,000.

It would have been possible for Joseph and Clarke to assemble
this force in a few hours and to defend the city until the
arrival of the Emperor and the army which was following him.

Joseph and Clarke had forty-eight hours warning of the enemy
approach, but did nothing, and as a final act of incompetence, at
the moment when the enemy troops were attacking Romainville, they
sent 4000 men of the Imperial Guard to Blois, to reinforce the
escort of the Empress, which was already quite big enough.

When the Emperor learned that Paris had capitulated and that the
two small corps of Marmont and Mortier had left, and were
retiring towards him, he sent them orders to take up positions at
Essonnes, seven leagues from Paris and mid-way between that city
and Fontainebleau. He went himself to this last town, where were
arriving the heads of the columns coming from Saint-Dizier, an
indication that he intended to march on Paris as soon as his army
was gathered together.

The enemy generals have later stated that if they had been
attacked by the Emperor, they would not have risked a battle,
with the Seine behind them and also the great city of Paris, with
its million inhabitants, which might rise in revolt at any moment
during the fighting and barricade the streets and the bridges,
thus cutting off their line of retreat. So they had decided to
draw back and camp on the heights of Belleville, Charonne,
Montmartre, and the slopes of Chaumont, which dominate the right
bank of the Seine and the route to Germany, when new events in
Paris kept them in the city.

M. de Tallyrand, a former bishop now married, who had always
appeared to be devoted to the Emperor, by whom he had been loaded
with riches and made prince of Benevento, Grand Chamberlain,
etc., etc., felt his pride injured when he was no longer
Napoleon's confidant, and the minister directing his policy. So,
after the disasters of the Russian campaign, he had put himself
at the head of an underground conspiracy, which included all the
malcontents from every party, but mainly the Faubourg
Saint-Germain, that is to say the high aristocracy, who, after
appearing at first submissive and even serving Napoleon in the
time of his prosperity, had become his enemy, and without openly
compromising themselves, attacked, by all means, the head of
government.

These people, guided by Tallyrand, the most cunning and scheming
of them all, had been waiting for an occasion to overthrow
Napoleon.  They realised that they would never have a more
favourable opportunity than that offered by the occupation of the
country by a million and a half enemies, and the presence in
Paris of all the crowned heads of Europe, most of whom had been
grossly humiliated by Napoleon at one time or another. Napoleon,
however, though greatly weakened, was not yet entirely beaten,
for, apart from the army which he had with him, and with which he
had performed prodigies, there was Suchet's army, between the
Pyrenees and the Haute-Garonne, there were troops commanded by
Marshal Soult, there were two fine divisions at Lyon, and
finally, the army in Italy was still formidable, so that in spite
of the occupation of Bordeaux by the English, Napoleon might
still assemble considerable forces and prolong the war
indefinitely, by raising a population, exasperated by the
exactions of the enemy.

Tallyrand, for his part, realised that if they gave the Emperor
time to bring to Paris the troops who were with him, he might
beat the allies in the streets of the capital, or withdraw to
some loyal provinces, where he might continue the war, until the
allies were exhausted and ready to make peace. In the view of
Tallyrand and his friends, it was therefore necessary to change
the government. Here there arose a great difficulty, for they
wanted to restore the Bourbons to the throne, in the person of
Louis XVIII, while other parts of the country wanted to retain
Napoleon, or at most to install his son.

The same difference of opinion existed amongst the allied
sovereigns. The kings of England and Prussia were on the side of
the Bourbons, while the emperor of Russia, who had never liked
them, and who feared that the antipathy felt by the French nation
towards these princes and the emigres would lead to a fresh
revolution, was inclined to favour Napoleon's son.

To cut short these discussions, and decide the question by making
the first move, the astute Tallyrand, in an attempt to force the
hand of the foreign sovereigns, arranged for a group of about
twenty young men from the Faubourg Saint-Germain to appear on
horseback in Louis XV square, decked with white cockades, and led
by Vicomte Talon, my former comrade in arms, from whom I have
these details. They went towards the mansion in the rue
Saint-Florentin occupied by the Emperor Alexander, shouting at
the top of their voices "Long live King Louis XVIII! Long live
the Bourbons! Down with the tyrant!"

The effect produced on the curious gathering of onlookers by
these cries, was at first one of astonishment, which was quickly
succeeded by threats and menaces from the crowd, which shook even
the boldest of the cavalcade. This first royalist demonstration
having been unsuccessful, they repeated the performance at
various points on the boulevards. At some places they were booed,
at others applauded. As the entry procession of the allied
sovereigns approached, and as the Parisians need a slogan to
animate them, the one produced by Vicomte Talon and his friends
rang in the ears of the Emperor Alexander  throughout the whole
day, which permitted Tallyrand to say to that monarch in the
evening, "Your Majesty can judge for himself with what unanimity
the nation desires the restoration of the Bourbons!"

From that moment, although his supporters greatly outnumbered
those of Louis XVIII, as the events of the following year would
show, Napoleon's cause was lost.

End of Volume 2, The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot.
Translated by Oliver C. Colt