10 May: Antoine-Charles-Louis de Lasalle (1775-1809)

Lasalle's last charge, by Edouard Detaille.

Lasalle (Antoine-Charles-Louis, Count), born on 10 May 1775 in Metz, where his father served as a commissaire-ordonnateur des guerres, entered the Alsace regiment — then led by Prince Maximilien, the current King of Bavaria — with a commissioned rank. His birth privileges had opened the door to a military career; the Revolution opened him the door of glory. Renouncing the epaulettes that he had had no time to earn, he enlisted as a private in the 23^rd regiment of horse chasseurs, and he learnt obedience in order to be able to command. The young Lasalle soon fulfilled the hopes that sprang from such honourable beginnings. As a fourier in the Army of the North, he captured a cannon battery at the head of a small platoon. The commander-in-chief rewarded this feat with the offer of a commission; Lasalle did not believe he had done enough to deserve this promotion, thus he refused and went on to earn it. He was nineteen years old and already a veteran by the time he accepted the honour and responsibilities of a rank that he had already held eight years earlier. Several feats in the first Italian campaign drew his chiefs’ and the whole army’s eyes to him. Once, among other things, he attacked and routed 100 Austrian hussars with only 18 men. Carried away by his ardour, he found himself alone, surrounded by four enemy soldiers; he fought and wounded them, then he ran to the banks of the Bachiglione, swam to the other side and reunited with his detachment. At the battle of Rivoli, in a bout of boldness that would prove decisive, he took a plateau overlooking the plain and came back with his arms full of enemy flags. Rest on these flags, Lasalle, you have deserved them, said the commander-in-chief. Later, he entered Valrozone at the head of 16 guides, attacked an enemy squadron garrisoned there and chased them beyond the Tagliamento, forcing them to cross it again. The boundaries of this article are much too small to relate all of Lasalle’s feats of bravery during this campaign. He was then a squadron leader. However, we will note that his frankness and presence of mind were equal to his courage. He was briefly a prisoner in Wurmser’s hands; “How old is Bonaparte?” the Austrian asked. “As old as Scipio was when he defeated Hannibal”, the young Frenchman replied. After the Italian campaign, Lasalle went to Egypt along with this army of citizens marching under French flags to restore the Roman eagle at the foot of the Pyramids. “Soldiers, from atop these monuments, 40 centuries are watching you,” the victor of Italy exclaimed, and soon Egypt was conquered. These electric words set every heart aflame. The success of the battle of the Pyramids was crucial and remained long uncertain. Desaix and Reynier’s divisions, which made up the army’s right wing, took position between Giza and Embabeh. From the moment Murad-Bey spotted this move, he sent an elite corps to charge them; but a hail of shot and shell greeted them at 50 paces, forcing them to retreat hastily towards a village behind the division’s lines. In a skilful move, Lasalle had taken this village; he surprised the Mameluks with a fusillade that sealed their defeat and the French victory. Lasalle was made a colonel after this fight. At Salahyeh, the last village in Egypt before the Syrian border, Lasalle dropped his sabre as he charged with the 22^nd Chasseurs; but with remarkable skill and sangfroid, he managed to pick it back up and fought hand-to-hand with one of the most intrepid Mameluks. Salahyeh was the first battle that the French cavalry fought alone against the Mameluks, with no infantry support. At the fights of Souagy, in Upper Egypt, Soheidja and Rahtah, Lasalle, leading the vanguard of General Davout’s cavalry, performed brilliant charges and inflicted considerable losses on the enemy. At the battle of Samhoud, Lasalle was still at the vanguard. At Thebes, he charged the Mameluks and routed them after a long melee, where his sabre was broken to the hilt. Desaix’s and Bonaparte’s praise was the reward for his bravery: it is difficult to obtain greater tokens of military glory. At the fight of Thémé, Lasalle led a column made of the 22^nd Chasseurs, one battalion of the 88^th Line and one cannon. He sent his infantry to attack the Arabs entrenched in Thémé, drove them out from their position after a long resistance and cut them to pieces at the head of his cavalry, placed between the village and the Desert. Lasalle and his regiment kept following every move of General Davout’s cavalry corps; and he soon faced Murad-Bey, whom he drove back towards the Oases. Back in Cairo, the 22^nd Chasseurs was placed in Belbeis. Colonel Lasalle commanded a camp gathering infantry and cavalry. He was tasked with maintaining peace in the country, sending reconnaissance parties to Suez, then occupied by a French garrison and threatened by the enemy, and lastly, ensuring communications between Salahyeh and Cairo. Having left Egypt after General Desaix and the Turkish plenipotentiaries signed the convention of El-Arich, Lasalle came back to reap more glory in Italy. On 27 Nivôse Year IX, he had three horses killed under him and broke seven sabres in a melee. A brigade general after Austerlitz, he soon earned a reputation in higher commands that never stopped growing along with his military fortune. On 29 October 1806, at the head of two cavalry regiments, he attacked the fortified town of Stettin and captured it. A garrison of 6,000 men, 100 cannons and a considerable amount of supplies fell into his hands. Such feats, so close and yet so distant from us, would seem incredible if not for the defeated parties’ testimony. At the battle of Heilsberg, Lasalle fought with his usual intrepidity. Twelve Russian dragoons surrounded the Grand Duke of Berg and future King of Naples. Lasalle rode to save him, killed the officer leading the detachment and sent the eleven dragoons fleeing. He could hardly imagine that a few years later, this warrior who seemed invulnerable on the battlefield would die like a criminal by Calabrian fire. Anyway, when Lasalle found himself in an equally perilous situation a few hours later, the Grand Duke rode to free his saviour and said as they shook hands: General, we are even. An Imperial order of the day mentions Lasalle, who became a divisional general in this campaign, as being one of those who contributed the most to the capture of several generals, among them Prince Hohenlohe, Prince August of Prussia and Prince Schwerin, and of 16,000 infantrymen, 6 cavalry regiments, 45 flags and 64 cannons. Throughout this glorious campaign, Lasalle led the vanguard, and the intrepid divisions that followed him spared no effort in facing every danger and participating in every victory. Among a thousand feats that we could quote, there is this one: one morning, Lasalle fought the Prussians under the walls of Königsberg, drove them into the city, reached Friedland in the evening and distinguished himself, on the same day, on two battlefields more than 14 leagues apart. Lasalle’s brilliant career continued in Spain. Sent by the Duke of Istria to crush the uprisings of Leon and Asturias with 800 cavalrymen and 6,000 infantrymen, he attacked a Spanish army numbering 27,000 men in Torquemada, captured all of its artillery, and sent it fleeing in the mountains; but not content with merely winning, he could exploit his victories. Giving chase to the Spaniards, he reached them in Cabeson, between Valladolid and Palencia, winning another battle near this town, defended by a river and a numerous garrison. Valladolid and Palencia fell to him. Lasalle, now master of the country he had just conquered, proved to be as talented in administration as he was in war; and to earn the love of those he defeated was like a second triumph. Meanwhile, Cuesta and Blake gathered an army of 40,000 men; the Duke of Istria, with 12,000 Frenchmen, attacked them in Medina-del-Rio-Seco. The fight was bitter and uncertain; Lasalle charged at the head of the 10^th and 22^nd Chasseurs; the Spanish line broke, leaving 6,000 men on the battlefield, and the French were victorious. A few days after this fight, Lasalle, already decorated with numerous orders, received the Grand Cordon of the Legion of Honour. The army had to move backwards towards Victoria; Lasalle, commanding the rear-guard, held the enemy off with his well-advised and skilful manoeuvres. When Napoleon’s presence turned the tables, Lasalle forced his way into Burgos with his two regiments; an enemy division had found shelter there, and lost 17 flags and 12 cannons to Lasalle. At Villaviejo, 17 cannons and 4 flags were the spoils of another engagement. At Medellin, Lasalle, followed by the 4^th Cuirassiers, broke through the enemy ranks; it is mostly to him that France owes the honour of this memorable fight. Having been recalled to Germany at the time of the glorious campaign of 1809, he added new titles to his reputation every day. At the head of two divisions, he marched on Presburg, pushed his outposts as far as Altemburg, besieged Raab, and thanks to him, this key stronghold was soon in French hands. Lasalle, a cavalry officer, had proven able to lead a corps as soon as his rank put him in line for higher commands; at the siege of Rabb, he proved that he was not ignorant of Coehorn and Vauban’s art. We owe him the bridges and the breastworks that have so greatly contributed to the surrender of this place. Lasalle fought in Essling with his usual boldness and luck; Wagram was to be the last theatre of his feats. At barely thirty-four, his active years, with campaign years counting double, far exceeded his age; his reputation was made at a time many others only began to build theirs, and it seemed that his services would soon be rewarded with the same baton as Fabert’s, a distant relative of his; but a bullet to the forehead ended his brilliant career just as the battle of Wagram was being won. This news cast the whole army into deep mourning, and even the enemy honoured his memory; but Lasalle, whose whole life was a model of bravery and honour, is not as unlucky now as many of those who outlived him. He expired on the evening of a battle, amidst the triumphs of his homeland and on a field of victory. Lasalle had a citizen’s soul in addition to a soldier’s heart; he loved the emperor, but he idolised the homeland. A kind man as well as a brave one, he only had enemies on the battlefield and quickly won over even those who feared him. He was not made for life in society; he preferred private life, where he had the gift of always being amiable. Full of noble selflessness, he had no fortune beyond the endowments he had received from the emperor. A good father, a good husband, a good friend, he was no less mourned as a private man than as a famous person. The city of Metz is proud of having seen his birth; a street was given his name, and his portrait hangs in the audience room of the town hall. In that, he was luckier than the ex-Republican general who was fatally struck by a cannonball in Dresden, among the ranks of the enemies of France, and whose statue was refused by the city of Rennes in 1818. Lasalle had earned his soldiers’ love; he sustained their courage and shared their miseries. In the African desert, he would refuse his share of water and distribute it among his soldiers. The grievously wounded Colonel d’Estrées was being carried by Arabs through the desert; Lasalle, his close friend, did not want to leave him alone and escorted him. He walked away for a moment, looking for water. The Arabs, thinking that he was gone for good, started to bury the dying man. They ran away when Lasalle came back; but he chased them, brought them back one after the other, held them in check on his own, despite their number, and saved his friend. In an odd twist of the human heart, Lasalle and d’Estrées were inseparable and drew their swords ten times a day against each other; they could not love each other without fighting. Lasalle left behind three adopted sons, born from his wife’s first marriage with Léopold Berthier, and a lovely daughter, who has inherited one of the finest names consecrated by the annals of our national glory.

30 April: Jean-Marie Dorsenne (1773-1812)

Anonymous engraving depicting "le beau Dorsenne".

Dorsenne (General Count), born in Picardy [actually Ardres, which is in Pas-de-Calais], owed his military elevation to his sole merit, and before becoming a general, he went through every rank. He enlisted in 1791 in a volunteer battalion of Pas-de-Calais; in April 1792, he was present at the first encounters between the French and Austrian armies between Lille and Tournai, and he was wounded; he followed General Bonaparte to Egypt; he served in Desaix’s division as a commandant and was wounded a second time. In 1804, he was made the colonel of the 61^st Line, and in January 1805, Napoleon made him the major of the grenadiers of the Guard. His valour at the battle of Austerlitz was rewarded with the rank of brigade general. As the new commander of the Imperial Guard, he fought the Prussians and Russians in the 1806 and 1807 campaigns. In 1808, he served n the war against Austria. At the battles of Essling and Wagram and in the fights at Ratisbon, his bravery singled him out once more. His military talents earned him the rank of divisional general in 1811, and he was sent to Spain. One month after his arrival (August 1811), he led the army of the North against the Spaniards, routed them completely and settle his headquarters in Valladolid, after crossing Navarre and Biscay unimpeded. General Dorsenne never concealed his opinion on this dreadful war; his reports give a picture of his state of mind at the time. Exhausted by the violent pains that resulted from previous head trauma, he decided to withstand the pain and the hazards of trepanning; but this did not help him. His sufferings grew worse, and he came back to Paris, where he died on 24 July 1812.

I. Paris-Strasbourg

So. I think I need to take a break from Thiébault, especially now that I'm using his Mémoires as a bedtime story for my little brother (leaving out the sexual and racist content, of course, as well as the boring details of military manoeuvres). Instead, let's turn to his friend Charles-Louis Cadet de Gassicourt for a while... More specifically, since Gassicourt was very prolific, to his Voyage en Autriche, published in 1818 and chronicling his adventures throughout Europe in Spring 1809.

One of the most beautiful roads of France is the one leading to Strasbourg. One cannot fail to be surprised at the sight of the agricultural riches of the departments crossed by the Marne and the Meuse; from Meaux onwards, I did not see the simple dwellings or neglected fields that are common sights everywhere else. The pastures are admirable. The huge amount of manure collected by the farmers proves the generosity of this land, and ensures its fecundity; thus the people of Champagne and Lorraine are healthy and vigorous and rather well-dressed; but they do not have good races of horses, oxen and cows; the horses of Lorraine in particular often look like they are descended from the one of the Apocalypse, or from Don Quixote’s emaciated mount.

Until Saint-Dizier, the vines of Champagne all have very slender stocks, cut at six inches from the ground. From this city to Strasbourg, the vines’ appearance changes, the stocks are strong, rising in two V-shaped branches, or in one plant that snakes up to a height of about two feet. The shoots from the previous year fold in on themselves, and each vine looks like a hare trap. If M. Cadet Devaux [Gassicourt’s uncle, also a pharmacist] knows of this culture, spread all throughout Lorraine and Alsace, he can draw useful conclusions for his system of tree bowing.

From Epernay to Strasbourg, I was afflicted to see the many crosses recently planted out of superstition; every village, every vineyard, every field, every crossroads has a huge crucifix. Most of these small religious monuments are made of stone and carefully sculpted. Only one house-owner, in a suburb of Nancy, had replaced the Virgin put inside a niche in his door with a bust of Napoleon and this inscription: To Bonaparte, saviour of the Republic. Bonaparte and the Republic! This juxtaposition of words felt rather strange to me.

In the same city, good modern mottoes were inscribed upon the arc de triomphe that serves as the gate to Stanislas’ palace; but the old ones were not properly erased, so that one can distinctly make out the words Imperatori, liberty, pacifico principe, equality, victori; this gibberish recalls two very different times.

None of the prefects of the departments I crossed has enforced the decree on mendicancy. At each halt, at each climbing, one is tired by the constant buzzing of the many beggars, both able-bodied and disabled, who surround the carriages. The peristyles of churches are full of them. These wretches call the pettiest officer monseigneur or mon général; but the travellers really ought to be spared this nuisance, even if it means depriving the braves in uniform of a reliable source of flattery.

While the solid, elegant and picturesque architecture of most towns and villages of Champagne and Alsace are a nice sight, it is quite unpleasant to see that the people of these provinces still do not know how to properly cover their houses. Everywhere they use hollow tiles arranged in gutters, which is very heavy and inelegant. It seems that the wind often disrupts this arrangement; for the edges of these roofs are loaded with stones, at the risk of killing passer-bys, in order to keep them in position.

In Nancy, Lunéville, Phalsbourg and Saverne, the main streets are paved with rolled pebbles the size of a lemon. They use lime mortar for this paving, which is surprisingly solid and aesthetically pleasant, especially kind to light carriages, but very tiring for pedestrians.

There are many ponds in the forests of Lorraine. The main building material is a pink or red sand or gravel, and there are three different kinds of it. One of them is extremely fine and hard; it is used to make grindstones; the other is as tender as sandstone; the third one is schist-like and contains mica; it forms superposed layers, but retains much consistency. The three kinds served to build the Strasbourg cathedral, which is wonderfully well preserved.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Strasbourg

It is quite pleasant to meet educated chatterboxes, when one manages to make them chatter on an interesting subject and with the possibility of leaving at any time. I experienced this with M. Lenoir, our host, whose greatest pleasure in life is to tell strangers everything about the town he inhabits.

“Strasbourg has forty-seven to forty-eight thousand inhabitants, not counting the garrison,” he told me. “We mostly trade tobacco, gold wares and liquors. We also have a fine armoury. Strasbourg was Argentora in Roman times, destroyed by Attila and rebuilt by Clovis’ sons on the road between France and Germania. I point this out, Monsieur, because the name Strasbourg, made up of Stratz and Burg, means a city on the great path; this is why other towns bear this name. There is a Strasbourg in Pomerania, one in Prussia and one in Carinthia. Our first bishop was St. Arbogaste, in Dagobert’s times. In 1529, the people embraced Luther’s reformation, appointed a senate and drove out the priests and nuns who behaved badly; but in 1550, Erasme de Limburg, Charles Quint’s protégé, came back to the cathedral and brought the Holy Mass back to us after making compromises with the Lutherans. Upon the Emperor’s death, this prelate took fear and retired to Lower Alsace. Until 1681, there was a rather violent war between the two churches; in the end, the bishop took his throne back and was only forced down by the French Revolution.

“In Notre-Dame, you will see the debris of the famous clock”, M. Lenoir added, “which formerly indicated hours, minutes, months, days, feasts, vigils, eclipses, moon phases, Zodiac cycles and many other things. All of this is now broken. Thomas Corneille says this masterpiece is Copernicus’ work, but he is wrong: the clock was made in 1575 and Copernicus died in 1545.”

Even though Strasbourg is near a large river and is crossed by a smaller one, the only water they drink here comes from the well; it is quite pure¹.

In the civilian hospital, they keep hundred-year-old wine, and they have been preserving some wheat for the past hundred and thirty years, sometimes making bread out of it for curious visitors.

1The same phenomenon can be noted in Orleans and Cologne. Modern chemical knowledge has not yet uprooted the popular prejudice that the water of quick rivers is less healthy than that of wells and cisterns.

29 April: Jean-Baptiste Jourdan (1762-1833)

Jourdan as a lieutenant-colonel of the 2nd battalion of Haute-Vienne, portrait by Horace Vernet, now hanging in the 1792 room of the Château de Versailles

 

Jourdan (Jean-Baptiste), Marshal of France, born in Limoges on 29 Avril 1762, enlisted in the Auxerrois regiment in 1778 and fought in the American war. After the peace treaty, he came back to France. In 1790, he was the captain of the chasseurs of the Limoges National Guard; in 1791, he was appointed as commander of the 2^nd battalion of the volunteers of the Haute-Vienne, which he led to the Army of the North; he fought in Belgium under Dumouriez and distinguished himself in many occasions, especially around Namur, during the army’s retreat. On 27 May 1793, he was made a brigade general, and on 30 July of the same year, he became a divisional general. He led the battle corps at Honschoote and was wounded as he stormed the enemy positions at the head of his troops. Two days earlier, he had taken Hout-Kerke, Herzeele, Bambeke and Rexproede. On 26 September, he took over command of the army from Houchard. On 17 October, he won the battle of Wattignies, a fierce 48-hour fight, and forced Prince Coburg to lift the blockade of Maubeuge. The Committee of Public Safety then summoned Jourdan to Paris in order to confer with him about future operations. The Committee was inebriated with its successes and wanted to take the offensive. Jourdan retorted that the army was made up of fresh levies, most of whom had neither weapons nor uniforms, and that is was better to spend the winter in defensive positions, so as to be able to attack in Spring. His plans were adopted; however, his resistance was not forgotten, and as soon as the troops were ready to march, Pichegru came to replace him. The Committee of Public Safety had even issued a decree ordering General Jourdan’s destitution and arrest; but Representatives of the People sent to the army took his defence, and Barère suggested that the Committee merely send him into retirement. However, he was soon re-employed, and he obtained command of the Army of the Moselle. He opened the 1794 campaign with the battle of Arlon, where 16,000 Austrians were completely defeate. He then received orders to cross the Ardennes and to reunite with the right wing of the Army of the North in Charleroi, along with 40,000 men; he carried out this move successfully. The troops placed under Jourdan’s orders were henceforth known as the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse. This army crossed the Sambre, was victorious in Fleurus on 8 Messidor (26 June), at Ourthe and Aiwaille on 18 September, and on the Roër on 2 October. It defeated the enemy in a multitude of fights, reconquered Landrecies, Lequesnoy, Valenciennes and Condé, took Charleroi, Namur, Juliers and Maästricht and planted its flats along the Rhine, from Cleves to Coblenz. Thus, in a single campaign France conquered the plentiful land around the Rhine, which it retained for twenty years and lost only after the disasters of 1814. In 1795, Jourdan took possession of the fortress of Luxemburg, which surrendered to him. In September, he forced his way across the Rhine, through a corps of 20,000 Austrians, and captured Dusseldorf. Clairfayt’s army, gathering on the Lahn, did not dare take the chance of a battle, and withdrew beyond the Mein. Jourdan chased it and took position between Mayence and Hochst, which was crossed by the neutrality line agreed upon with Prussia. Pichegru, who had crossed the Rhine in Manheim, and who should have advanced with the main body of his army, as the government ordered, to cut Clairfayt’s retreat and join the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse, merely sent 10,000 men to Heidelberg; they were completely defeated a few days later. Secure in the immobility of Pichegru, who was in contact with the émigrés, Clairfayt pulled reinforcements from the Austrian army of the Upper Rhine, crossed the neutrality line above Frankfurt, and manoeuvred to trap the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse between the Lahn, the Mein and the Rhine. Such are the causes of General Jourdan’s retreat. The government wrote to him on that subject: “Yes, General, we are pleased to give you the justice you deserve; we approve the retreat you ordered, and we are convinced that it was indispensable. We praised you when you led the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse to victory; we congratulate you on having saved it from almost certain doom.” Soon afterwards, General Clairfayt broke through the lines of Mayence, and Jourdan marched to save the Army of Rhin-et-Moselle. After a short but brilliant campaign in Hundsruck, he agreed on an armistice, and the war only resumed on the next spring, by which point he crossed the Rhine again, forced General Wartensleben to retreat, took Frankfurt and Wurtzburg, and reached the outskirts of Ratisbon. But after an attack by Archduke Charles, who was backing off before Moreau and came to save Wartensleben with 40,000 men, he had to withdraw on the Rhine. In 1818, Jourdan published a book titled: Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la campagne de 1796, in which he demonstrates that his retreat was caused by the government’s misdirection of the two armies, and by Moreau’s decision to go for an easy victory on the Lech instead of chasing Archduke Charles. Having resigned from his command, Jourdan was appointed to the Council of the Five Hundred in March 1797 by the department of Haute-Vienne. He was elected president on 23 September and secretary on 21 January 1798. On 24 September of this year, he was re-elected to the presidency and resigned on 14 October, announcing that the Directory destined him to a military command. During his legislative term, he often took part in discussions, wrote various reports, proposed and obtained the vote of the law on conscription. The Directory—which had turned the whole of Europe against it with its exaggerated pretensions in Rastadt and its Italian and Swiss endeavours—not only neglected to levy armies capable of weathering the storm, it also engaged hostilities before all its offensive means were gathered on the points it wanted to attack; so that the Army of the Danube, led by General Jourdan, only numbered 38,000 men when it crossed the Rhine on the 1^st of March 1799 and entered Swabia. Jourdan soon found himself facing Archduke Charles, who had more than 65,000 men under his orders. The hostilities began on 20 March; on the next day, three French divisions sustained a stubborn fight in Ostrach, only giving ground after causing considerable losses for the enemy. Jourdan, being convinced that he would compromise his army if he persisted in fighting against such superior forces, decided to march closer to the Rhine, hoping to receive the relief he needed in order to resume the attack. He retreated in good order and the Archduke pursued him without energy. On the 24^th, seeing that the prince had badly disposed his troops around Stockach, he hoped that this situation would compensate for the gap in numbers between his adversary and him, and he decided to try his fate once again. Thus he attacked the Archduke on the next day, at Liebtingen, took 4,000 prisoners and two cannons, slept on the battlefield and spent the next day there. However, the advantage gained was not as great as Jourdan had hoped, and he kept retreating towards the Black Forest. on 10 April, he was replaced with Masséna. He was re-elected to the Council of the Five Hundred in May 1799. The government’s incompetence being the cause of the armies’ setbacks, Jourdan offered to proclaim a state of emergency, hoping to put through appropriate measures for pulling France out of her deplorable situation. But he failed. On 18 Brumaire, he did not rally to General Bonaparte’s banner, fearing that protecting the nation from anarchy would mean taking its liberty away. He was excluded from the Corps Législatif and temporarily condemned to detention in the department of Charente-Inférieure. On 24 July 1800, he was appointed minister extraordinary, then administrator of Piedmont. He eradicated brigands, restored financial order and enforced the rule of law in this country. In 1802, he was called on to sit at the Council of State. In January 1803, he was chosen as a candidate for the Senate by the electoral college of Haute-Vienne, then he was called upon to command the Army of Italy. On 19 May 1804, he was made a Marshal of the Empire and grand-cordon of the Legion of Honour. In June 1805, he received the cross of Saint-Hubert of Bavaria and led manoeuvres of the Castiglione camp during Napoleon’s crowning as King of Italy. Following his replacement by Masséna just as the war broke out, he complained bitterly to the Emperor, who replied the following: “My cousin, I received your letter of 5 Vendémiaire; my pain equals yours. It is impossible to be more satisfied than I was of your conduct, and to have a better opinion than mine on your talents. If I sent Masséna to Italy, it was due to my inner conviction that in such a hazardous war, so far removed from governmental relief, I needed a man with a more robust health than yours, and with thorough knowledge of the area. Things are moving so quickly around us that it took these exceptional circumstances to silence all personal considerations. The man I sent in Italy had to be the man who knows it best. From Genoa to the Adige, there is no position that Masséna does not know. If a move forwards is required, he is further advantaged, for he has equally thorough knowledge of these rustic lands of which even Vienna has no maps. My dear Marshal, I can imagine that you must be hurt; I know that I truly wrong you, but you must remain persuaded that it was against my will. In less urgent circumstances, you would have had the winter to familiarise yourself with the area, and my trust in your talents and experience would have reassured me. But you know the Rhine; it was there that you won your battles. The campaign has started today; but within 15 or 20 days, events will require new formations, and I will have an opportunity to send you to this theatre which you know best, where you will be able to use your competences to the fullest. I want your answer to tell me that you are satisfied with this explanation, and that you do not doubt my good feelings for you.” In 1806, Jourdan was sent to Naples as the governor of this town; and in 1808, he went over to Spain as major-general under King Joseph, whom he followed constantly as an advisor. As his vexations and disgust grew, he requested his recall, which he obtained late in 1809. On that subject, General Clarke, the Minister of War, wrote to him: “I presented the Emperor with your request to go back to France; if he grants it, I will keenly miss the frankness, exactitude and skill of your correspondence. I fear that in our dire circumstances, there is no one who can replace Your Excellency.” Jourdan was living with his family when the Emperor, readying himself to wage war on Russia, ordered him to go back to Spain and return to his previous position. The retreat from Madrid and the battle of Vittoria (21 June 1813) took place during this second period. Marshal Jourdan was often blamed for the defeat on that day; but he was not in command on that day, and his advice was often contradicted. Moreover, we know that in his frequent reports to the government, he had predicted the setbacks it was not in his power to prevent, and he had circumscribed their causes. After the battle of Vittoria, he came back to France and remained idle until the next year, where he was appointed governor of the 15^th military division. On 3 April 1814, from Rouen, he sent his adhesion to the provisional government. On 2 June, he was made a knight of St Louis. After the 20^th of March 1815, he retired to his country house. Napoleon summoned him to the Chamber of Peers and sent him to Besançon, as the governor of this fortress and the corresponding military division. He presided the court martial that was to try Marshal Ney and declared itself incompetent. In 1816, the King of Sardinia gave him his portrait, lined with diamonds, as a reminder of his administration of Piedmont in 1800. He was made the governor of the 7^th military division in 1817, and on the next year, the King summoned him to the Chamber of Peers.

[Jourdan was very briefly involved in the first government of the July Monarchy. I’ll let Benoît Yvert’s Dictionnaire des Ministres speak for me next: “One of the most illustrious swords that Louis-Philippe used from time to time to enhance the prestige of his newborn monarchy. Unfortunately, the victor of Fleurus had lost the sacred fire of his youth. Being ignorant of the habits and customs of the diplomatic corps, in poor health and legendarily ugly, he was hardly the right man for Louis-Philippe’s Foreign Ministry on the morrow of the revolution of 1830. On his request, Louis-Philippe made him the governor of the Invalides on 11 August 1830, and he held this position until his death.” He fell victim to the second cholera pandemic that also claimed Casimir Perier, Charles X and Gneisenau, among others.]

27 April: Jean Rapp (1772-1823)

 

General Rapp at the battle of Austerlitz (detail from the painting by Gérard)

Rapp (Count Jean), lieutenant-general, born in Alsace, on 26 April 1772^*, had a firm taste for military life, and he enlisted on 1 May 1788. He was noticed from the beginning of the Revolutionary wars for his bravery and intelligence; he became General Desaix’s aide-de-camp, and as such, he fought by his side in Germany and Egypt. He was near General Desaix when he was fatally wounded in Marengo, and he had to carry the dire news to General Bonaparte, who took him in his service. In 1802, he had to announce to the Swiss cantons that France would intervene in their civil war, and demanded that the Bernese insurgents lay down their arms. A few days later, he evacuated Fribourg, which had been taken during the armistice, forced the Schwyz Diet to clarify its positions and installed it as mediator. The Bernese Senate sent General Rapp a deputation to thank him for France’s intervention. In November, General Rapp went to Coire, summoned the town’s small council, and forced the municipality to disband. Back to Paris in 1803, he accompanied Bonaparte in his travels to Belgium, and left to visit the banks of the Elba and build redoubts there in order to fortify it. He later became a commandant of the Legion of Honour; in April 1805, he married Mlle Vanderberg, the daughter of a supplier, whom he divorced a few years later, and on the following month, the electoral college of the Haut-Rhin elected him as a candidate for the Senate. When hostilities resumed with Austria, he followed Emperor Napoleon to Germany, and gave proof of his eminent bravery at the battle of Austerlitz. With two squadrons of the chasseurs of the Guard, he routed the Russian Imperial Guard in a bold charge and captured Prince Repnin; his fine conduct was rewarded with the rank of divisional general on 24 December 1805. In 1806 and 1807, he led a dragoon corps and singled himself out in every fight of these campaigns, especially at Golymin, where he was wounded. On 2 June 1807, he replaced Marshal Lefebvre as the governor of Dantzig, which he remained for two years, to the inhabitants’ great satisfaction; they gave him a magnificent sword as a token of their esteem and gratitude when he left in August 1809. In the campaign of 1812, he led Daendels’ Dutch division and made miracles at its head; but nowhere was he more brave and talented than at Malo-Iaroslavetz, where he had a horse killed under him. After this disastrous campaign, he was ordered to shut himself into Dantzig, where he gathered 30,000 men of the garrison. All the means of defence, all of his genius and heroism were mobilised for this harsh siege that lasted a whole year; after struggling against famine and a cruel pandemic that killed two thirds of his garrison, General Rapp had made his name truly glorious. Finally yielding to the inhabitants’ prayers, he decided to capitulate. A convention was signed on 27 November 1813, saying that the fortress would surrender on the 1^st of January if no relief force had come by then; that the garrison would leave with full war honours; that it would retain artillery, rifles and all of its baggages. But the convention was flouted, the soldiers of the garrison were made prisoners and taken to Muscovy, while the general was sent to Kiev, in Ukraine. It was from there that he sent his adhesion to Napoleon’s fall and the Bourbons’ restoration on 4 June 1814. Upon returning to Paris on the following July, he received a distinguished welcome from the King and on the 23^rd of the same month, he was made a knight of Saint-Louis and grand-cordon of the Legion of Honour. After Napoleon’s landing in March 1815, General Rapp was put at the head of the I Corps to stop his march; but it was so quick that all resistance soon became futile. General Rapp himself swore allegiance to Napoleon, accepted command of the 5^th division, was made a Peer, a member of the Chamber of Representatives and also the commander-in-chief of the Army of the Rhine. His army, 10,000 men strong, included all the corps stationed in Alsace, as well as the national guards of the Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin led by General Molitor. This army, whose left rested upon the lines of Lanter and Weissemburg, stretched along the Rhine from Spire to Huningue, and its right tied into the Jura corps, under orders of General Lecourbe; all it could do was delay the march of a much stronger enemy, and it was forced to give up on its lines and withdraw under the cannons of Strasbourg. The second Restoration did not immediately terminate General Rapp’s functions; he remained in position until the month of September, at which point the army was disbanded. In 1816, he sought shelter from partisan clashes in Aargau and bought Wildenstein Castle. It was there that an Englishman gave him a beautiful horse. This Englishman had won 10,000 guineas by betting that Dantzig would hold on for a certain amount of time, and he thought he should express his gratitude to the man whose courage had made him richer. General Rapp came back to Paris in 1817 and the King received him in a private audience. The ordnance of 22 July 1818 put him at the disposal of the Ministry of War. He was made a Peer of France. Count Rapp died prematurely in 1823. The Memoirs he left behind make for a very interesting read.

*[The memorial plate on the house where he was born says 27 April, though. More proof that this was written in the pre-Wikipedia era!
Additional browsing shows that nobody can even agree on his years of birth and death. Great, and I thought Sébastiani was the only one.]

26 April: Anne Savary (1774-1833)

Why yes, it's another series! You can thank my bright idea of programming historical dates of birth into my phone's calendar.
This time, I crib from Jouy and Norvins' Biographie nouvelle des contemporains. The choice of these particular authors won't surprise you too much if you know about their family trees... specifically, who they married.
Anyway, since their dictionary was published in 1825 and a good number of these people were alive by then, I took the liberty of writing their eventual fate in brackets.

And now that we're done with the preambles, happy 241st birthday, Savary!

Sketch by Mathieu van Bree

Savary (Anne-Jean-Marie-René, Duke of Rovigo), lieutenant-general, grand-cordon of the Legion of Honour and of the Order of Fidelity of Baden, knight of the Iron Crown, etc., was born on 26 April 1774 in the village of Marc[q], in Champagne, from an honourable and locally famous family. His father, a former soldier, knight of Saint-Louis, had obtained the position of major of the Sedan fortress after his retirement. Young Savary showed the same penchant for a military career, enlisted as a second lieutenant in the Royal-Normandie cavalry regiment, in October 1790, and was called on to serve within the staff of the Army of the Rhine in 1794. At the crossing of this river, he was under General Moreau’s orders; even though he was only a captain, the commander-in-chief entrusted him with the command of a battalion that was to lead a diversion, allowing the rest of the army to cross the bridge of Kehl, in front of Strasbourg. At the battle of Friedberg, near Augsburg, he was given command of the infantry column right of the army, which outflanked the enemy’s left and contributed to the victory on that day. On the following year, Desaix put him at the head of the troops in his division that were to attempt the crossing of the Rhine once more, which they did, by force and during the day. His conduct on that day earned the young captain a promotion to lieutenant-colonel. He then accompanied General Desaix to Egypt as his aide-de-camp, leading the troops from this general’s division that landed in Malta and Alexandria; he returned to Egypt as a colonel and reunited with the Army of Italy along with Desaix, and he was by Desaix’s side when the mortal blow that struck him deprived France of one of her most distinguished generals. Colonel Savary immediately ran to tell General Bonaparte of these dire news, and the latter, who had already seen his bravery and military talents in Egypt, immediately took him in his service and made him one of his aides-de-camp. Moreover, Savary was soon given command of an elite legion of the gendarmerie, comprising the pick of every brigade, and specially destined to guard the First Consul. Soon afterwards, he was made a general, but he nonetheless continued to serve as the head of state’s aide-de-camp. As Emperor, Napoleon still trusted him entirely. In 1805, Savary was sent as an ambassador to the Russian Tsar, before and after the battle of Austerlitz. In 1806, he accompanied Napoleon to Prussia. After the battle of Iéna, General Savary received command of a flanking corps meant to prevent the scattered enemy corps from reuniting; it was then that he obtained General Urdoin’s surrender in a plain, despite the latter’s formidable artillery, and made him his prisoner. Being increasingly satisfied with General Savary’s zeal and competence, the Emperor sent him to command the corps that would besiege Hamelin and Wienbourg; both surrendered to him, and 13,000 more men were made prisoners. After this expedition, he joined the Emperor in Warsaw. In January 1807, while the French army was preparing to move, Napoleon sent General Savary to command the V Corps as a temporary replacement for Marshal Lannes, who was then gravely ill. His orders were to watch the movements of the Austrian troops in Galicia, to protect Warsaw, to maintain the Grand Army’s communications with this city, and finally to prevent the Russian corps, which formed the enemy’s left, from reuniting with this army’s centre, the target of the Emperor’s moves. The battle of Eylau was a blow to the hopes that were thus conceived; victory came at a high price, and the French army could only retain its positions for eight days after the victory, on account of the lack of supplies that forced it to withdraw behind the Passarge. During its march, it was overwhelmed by hordes of Cossacks. The Russian corps, facing the V Corps, received orders to march towards Warsaw and cut the French army’s lines of communications. General Savary marched to encounter the Russians, fought them in Ostrolinka, on 16 February 1807, defeated them completely and forced them to retreat. This earned him the grand-cordon of the Legion of Honour. In the following June, the Emperor replaced him at the head of the V Corps with Marshal Masséna, instead giving him an infantry brigade of the Imperial Guard, at whose head Savary fought in Heilsberg and in the famous battle of Friedland. The Emperor made him the Duke of Rovigo as a reward for his services in this campaign. He also gave him the government of Old Prussia, which was then under French occupation. After the signature of the peace treaty of Tilsitt, on 8 July 1807, the Duke of Rovigo was sent to the court of Tsar Alexander and remained in charge of French affairs in Russia for seven months. Over the course of this mission, he managed to restore all the friendly relationships between the two Empires that had been broken since 1804, and with all the new and intimate political ties then formed between France and Russia, the latter power declared war on Sweden and England. The Duke of Rovigo was recalled from St Petersburg in 1808 and replaced by the Duke of Vicenza; Napoleon sent him to Spain, after the Aranjuez revolution that had forced King Charles IV to abdicate. After the Spanish crown was ceded to the Emperor’s brother, the Duke of Rovigo obtained command of the French troops in the Peninsula; moreover, he presided the Spanish junta in Madrid until the new sovereign arrived. Then he joined Napoleon, whom he accompanied to the Erfurt congress, he went back to Spain with him and followed him all the same in the 1809 campaign against Austria. The Austrian army had started the hostilities with a foray into Bavaria, and upon reaching the Danube, Napoleon found the King and his court sheltered in Dillingen. He immediately marched on Donawerth through Ingolstadt in order to reach Marshal Davout’s corps, for a misinterpretation of his orders had led to him being left in Ratisbon. This corps was surrounded by danger now that the main Austrian army had forced the Bavarian army to withdraw behind Abensberg, thus leaving Ratisbon exposed. The Emperor tasked the Duke of Rovigo with trying to force his way to Marshal Davout at any cost, to inform him of his arrival and to give him orders to rejoin, all the while leaving enough forces in Ratisbon to defend the bridge on the Danube. Success in this risky mission seemed almost impossible, and it looked so unlikely than the one entrusted with it would avoid capture that Marshal Lefebvre, who commanded the Bavarians in Abensberg, was somewhat reluctant to open the gates for the Duke of Rovigo, instead showing him the Austrian sentinels posted on the road he would have to take, not even four hundred paces away from the town. Not to be discouraged by such obstacles, the Duke of Rovigo, fully aware of the importance of his mission, only asked for a detachment of a hundred chosen cavalrymen who were immediately taken from the regiment of the Bavarian Crown Prince. He left Abensberg, send half of his detachment to charge the Austrians in the way, and he took the rest through the woods bordering the Danube, crossing them without a sound and reaching Ratisbon after marching just next to the enemy lines. Marshal Davout had left the town on this very morning to march against the main enemy army, which had taken position between the Bavarians and him. After giving his orders to the commander of Ratisbon, the Duke of Rovigo made haste to join Marshal Davout, who was already facing the enemy, gave him the orders he bore and soon afterwards came back to Ratisbon and reported to the Emperor, who had been told that his aide-de-camp had been captured. After the battle of Eckmühl, during his march on Vienna, Napoleon learned in St Pölten that the Austrians had retained the bridge of Krems, on the Danube, in order to threaten his operating lines. He sent the Duke of Rovigo to destroy that bridge with an infantry regiment, a cuirassier regiment and an artillery battery; but from the second shot, the enemies themselves set fire to the bridge and withdrew. Savary spent the rest of the campaign by the side of the Emperor, who distinguished him in every occasion and honoured him with particular trust. On 3 June 1810, Napoleon gave him the Ministry of the Police, which he directed until March 1814. The Duke of Rovigo’s situation of favour had already made him many enemies. Now the partisans of the dispossessed minister (Fouché) came to add themselves to this number, and his successor was often the target of many a calumnious imputation. Yet of all the rigorous decrees that marked these times, none were quoted as being born from the Duke of Rovigo’s will, and several people, including some of the former privileged class, who had seriously compromised themselves with their imprudences, could thank him for his services to them. However actively he watched over Paris, along with the police prefect Pasquier, none of the many agents of these police forces managed to catch on General Mallet’s bold conspiracy. The plotters had not broken their secret, and there was not a single informer among them, which is quite unique in France. At seven in the morning, the Duke of Rovigo was arrested in his bed by Generals Lahorie and Guidal and taken to the prison of La Force, where he only spent a few hours. The plot failed and its heads were shot. In 1814, the Duke of Rovigo was part of the Council of Regency. After the Emperor’s abdication, he lived in retirement until this prince came back from Elba. Napoleon then made him a Peer of France and the first inspector of the gendarmerie. After the Hundred Days, in 1815, when Napoleon left Paris, the Duke of Rovigo left along with him in his carriage to guard him and embarked on the Bellerophon along with him, but they were separated when the Emperor was sent to Saint-Helena. With utter contempt for human rights, and without anything that could legitimate such mistreatment, the English took the Duke of Rovigo to Malta, where he remained imprisoned for seven months in Fort Lazareth. He finally managed to escape and found shelter in Smyrne, where he learned that a court martial in Paris had sentenced him to death in absentia. He left Smyrne and went to Austria, where he merely asked the French government for permission to go back to living peacefully in Smyrne; but his tranquillity was now compromised in that city, and he left once more, to England this time, arriving in June 1819. He left in December of the same year without having informed anyone of his plans, and after embarking in Dover, he landed in Ostende, where he boldly came to Paris demanding justice. Unanimously acquitted on 27 December 1819 by the first court martial of Paris, he then recovered his ranks and honours. Since then, the Duke of Rovigo has been retired. In 1824, he published a memorandum on the execution of the Duke of Enghien; this gave rise to many writings, none of which has yet managed to lift the thick veil that still covers the deepest causes of this deplorable event. Yet we have cause to believe that the day this veil is torn for good will soon come.

[In December 1831, Savary was sent to Algeria as commander-in-chief of the French troops sent there, and his brutal occupation set the tone for the 130 years to come. His Algerian career did not last long, though; by March 1833, he was too ill to serve any longer and was recalled to France. He died in June of the same year, presumably of larynx cancer.]

X. Poisson d'avril !

Arthur John Butler was kind enough to translate part of what Thiébault has to say about his pal Charles-Louis Cadet de Gassicourt (1769-1821), a possible son of Louis XV who's perhaps best known as Napoleon's pharmacist and the one who invented Lannes' awesome deathbed diatribe. Only he left out the best part.

Okay, only half of this actually has to do with an April Fool's joke, but the part about their law studies is worth reading too, I swear!

We studied law together; thanks to his perseverance in making me learn Justinian’s Institutes, stuffing my head full of Latin words and turning these odd scholarly sentences into familiar objects, I obtained my baccalaureate with some distinction, even though I was facing four extremely severe examiners, and, from noon to two o’clock, each of them interrogated me for a full thirty minutes. My father had sent fifty pounds of candles to the examiners; but they returned them, declaring that with my performance at the examination, I owed my diploma to no one but myself.

As for my thesis, I did not disclose the day I would defend it, for fear that my dear cousin the Abbé Gravier would debate with me over it; but it went quite well, in deep solitude and in a silence that was only broken by one or two formal arguments, which some old doctor made in a nasal voice, and I think he did not even listen to my answers. French law gave me much less trouble. At last, after two years, I left these schools, looking back at some scribbling on one of their walls: a tomb, with the caption:

Ci-gît le Droit. Ah ! qu’il est bien

Pour son repos et pour le mien !

[Here lies Law. Ah! What a good sign

For the sake of its rest and mine!]

Gassicourt, who then wanted to be a lawyer, found out about an old prosecutor, who hosted procedure classes; but he needed to have at least two students, and we decided to take the class together. This man had a clever method. We chose a grievance to present to the court, and the plaintiff wrote his reclamation. We appeared before a mock conciliatory court and we wrote the motives preventing each side from coming to an agreement. Then we started the procedure, and from the first sitting to the elaboration and execution of the final judgement, we each wrote all the documents relating to our side of the case. Thus we successively played the parts of prosecutors, bailiffs, notaries, lawyers and judges; we even imagined reluctant witnesses, missing files and every perfidious obstacle that can rise during a trial, ending up with huge piles of procedural documents. You can imagine how dry and off-putting all of this was, aside from the defence speeches that we liked to develop; but this was a very instructive method in all respects.

Among the vows we had made to each other in our passionate friendship, we had pledged to support each other, and if need be, to defend each other against the rest of the world; thus we signed all our letters with: Your friend and second. Until then, this sort of brotherhood in arms had only led to me being presented as a husband in a love affair, which by the way had excessively far-reaching consequences for Gassicourt, when, on 31 March 1788, as I came back from a dinner in the countryside, my father’s servant secretly told me that Gassicourt had come around nine o’clock, saying that he had a duel to fight on the next morning and that he was waiting for me at 5:30 sharp. I told the servant to wake me up at four; the fear of being forgotten kept me awake through the whole night; I left the house before five, and at a quarter past five, I was at the door of Gassicourt’s apartment with my sword in hand. I knocked; no one answered. I knocked again, without much success. I then went to his pharmacy; the assistant on duty opened; there I was in the shop, but this was not much of a progress. I did not dare ring M. Cadet’s bell, for fear of bothering him and committing an indiscretion; however, I did not want Gassicourt to miss the hour either. I ran up to the garrets where the servants slept; I woke up M. Cadet’s footman and asked him to open the door of Gassicourt’s apartment for me; inside, I found my friend in a deep sleep.

“What,” I exclaimed, shaking his arm, “are you still sleeping? It’s half past five!”

“Well, why wouldn’t want me to sleep at half past five?” he grumbled, only half-awake.

“What about your duel?”

“What duel?”

“The duel you have to fight this morning...”

“With who?”

“This I don’t know,” I replied, “besides, I shouldn’t be the one telling you all this, since you were the one who sent for me yesterday!”

He thought about it for a moment and said:

“My friend, today is the First of April, and you were fooled. Let’s be the first to laugh at this, and then we’ll spend the day together!”

Indeed, it was my mother who had come up with this prank; but in the end, she must not have laughed very much on that day, for I came home very late; I went to bed without speaking to anybody, and on the next day, I asserted that all of this was just a stale joke.

March 1815

I kept meaning to post this earlier, but you know, life got in the way and all that stuff. Oh well, it's still relevant, if I can say so.

So, you all know the story of how, roughly 200 years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte reconquered his throne without firing a single shot, rallying all those who were sent to stop him - or sending them running for the hills. But let's say we step out of the Emperor's Seven-league boots and look at other people's reactions...

I'm starting small, with Castellane, Lavallette, Marmont and Thiébault . But hey, that means more to come if I can remember that I've got this going! (some of these works already had an English translation, but what do I care, I've got to practice!)

Castellane’s journal

‘February. – I was shown the manuscript of the Memoirs of the Duke of Lauzun. They will probably be printed one day. It is an account of his military and amorous adventures in France, England, Poland and the United States; he also speaks of the Queen’s favours for him. They are not very well written. I stupidly told the Viscountess of L... that they were very entertaining. There are compromising passages about her. I had not noticed; she claimed that these Memoirs were horrendous. I was greatly confused when someone who left the salon at the same time as me enlightened me about my stupidity, I had persisted in it.

6 March. – Monsieur left Lyons; yesterday, a telegraphic dispatch told of Emperor Napoleon’s landing in Cannes, near Fréjus. The government only learnt of his expedition when he landed; it is unheard of. The Duke of Berry left tonight for Besançon. The Duke of Orleans received orders to go to Lyons; he had offered the King to remain by his side. They wrote to tell the Duke and the Duchess of Angoulême to leave Bordeaux.

Rumours say that Murat is marching on Turin.

7. – The Moniteur contains a proclamation from the King summoning the Chambers of the Peers and Deputies. An ordnance declares Napoleon Bonaparte a traitor for his armed landing in the Var, urges to capture him and have him tried by a military court, as well as those who try to help them or seek to spark a civil war by speaking against the government.

Some time before, the public cheered for the eagles of Roman soldiers in the opera La Vestale, performed in Nantes. The prefect, trying to prevent a new such scandal, ordered that in subsequent representations, the Roman soldiers would enter the stage without eagles. La Vestale was performed again; the public was upset at not seeing the eagles and caused such an uproar that the actors had to bring them back.

7. – Word spreads that Napoleon has entered Gap; General Marchand left Grenoble to encounter him.

The 87^th Line, led by Major d’Auge, refused to surrender Antibes to him.

8. – We received news of Monsieur’s arrival in Lyons.

9. – They say there are no more news and claim that the telegraph is broken.

10. – The telegraph announces the Emperor’s arrival in Bourgoin; a battalion of the 5^th Line, a company of sappers and one of miners, the first troops sent to meet him ahead of Grenoble, defected to his side. He had entered the city on the evening of the 6^th. The 5^th Line, led by Charles de Labédoyère, went ahead to join him. The 4^th Hussars did the same; all the troops on the Emperor’s route follow this example. Emperor Napoleon entered Lyons on 10 March. Monsieur and the Marshal of Tarentum abandoned the city on the same day.

The Chamber of Peers and of Deputies is to gather at seven in the evening.

11. – The Marshal Duke of Dalmatia, whom rumours falsely accuse of treason, resigned from the Ministry of War; General Clarke, Duke of Feltre, replacs him.

General Lefebvre-Desnouettes, along with his regiment, the Chasseurs de France (former chasseurs of the Imperial Guard) marched upon La Fère but could not enter the own. Last night, he sent an officer to the King, saying that he was deceived by false orders.

12. – The Duke of Orleans, Monsieur and Marshal Macdonald will arrive in the morning for the former, in the evening for the latter two, from Lyons where the troops abandoned them. Monsieur met a regiment that was marching towards Lyons wearing tricolour cockades; he wanted the men to shout: “Long live the King!” They replied: “We cannot do that: we are going to join the Emperor.” This regiment saluted Monsieur with full honours; they beat the drums and presented arms. They told Monsieur that they meant him no harm. When Marshal Macdonald’s troops went over to Napoleon’s side, he asked them why; this was their reply: “The Bourbons do not trust us. The proof is under our eyes: Monsieur has four aides-de-camp here, and not a single one is from our army.”

On the same day, in Lons-le-Saulnier, Marshal Ney made his troops wear the tricolour cockade and read them a proclamation urging them to join the Emperor; they were meaning to do that anyway. Upon leaving, Marshal Ney had told the King: “If I catch Napoleon, I will bring him back to you in an iron cage.” The courtiers were delighted by these fine words. After Marshal Ney left, the King and his attendants remained silence. Before dismissing them, Louis XVIII snickered and said: “What an odd little canary he wants to bring me.” Then he looked at his attendants and dismissed them. I heard this anecdote from the Duke of Mortemart, then a captain of the Hundred Swiss, who was present¹.

14. – Many ladies are leaving Paris; the Countess of Blacas is going to England; the Princess of Talleyrand, the Duchess of Orleans and her children are going to Brussels; Mme de Jaucourt, the Viscountess of Laval, the Duchess of Duras are getting ready. Around the King, there are people who do nothing but cry; among them are the Prince of Poix and M. de Blacas; the Prince of Wagram whines that “the Princess has gone to see her parents in Germany.” The only captains of the Guard with a correct conduct and some character are the Duke of Ragusa and the Duke of Mortemart.

The Chamber of Deputies refused to outlaw Bonaparte, saying that he should only be considered as an enemy general. The reason for this refusal is their fear of his arrival in Paris. The Chambers decided that the Legion of Honour should be paid for in the future, as under the previous government.

Lyons was illuminated on the evening Napoleon entered this city. He appointed a new prefect and left the mayor in place. The courier who arrived in Paris saw him reviewing his troops on the Lyons Square. Mâcon and most of Burgundy have taken up the tricolour cockade. Napoleon travels in his carriage; his soldiers go on mail carts.

16. – The King comes to pledge an oath to the Charter. He makes a fin speech; here is the most remarkable part: “I have reunited with my homeland, I reconciled her with the foreign powers that will remain loyal to the treaties that gave you peace. I worked for my people’s happiness; I received and I still receive the most touching proofs of their love. At almost sixty, is there a better way for me to end my career than dying for your sake?”

His Majesty spoke in a firm voice. He was interrupted by shouts of “Long live the King!” rising from the whole room. After this speech, Monsieur pledged an oath to the Charter.

17. – The Chambers are starting to show energy; they were very vigorous against the ministers. It was about time!’

Lavallette

[The Lallemand brothers and Lefebvre-Desnouettes were just arrested for trying to overthrow the Bourbons. Lavallette was in on their conspiracy, but he stayed out of it.]

‘While I did not fear for myself, I lamented the fate of so many brave men who would receive death as a punishment for their loyalty to the one they still regarded as their sovereign, when all of a sudden, another news, prodigious news, a true miracle, spread like wildfire. It was on Monday 7 March; I was crossing the Tuileries around nine in the morning, when I saw M. Paul Lagarde, a former commissaire-général in Italy, on the steps to the gate of Rivoli; I waved to him in passing, and I kept walking under the trees, towards the terrace at the edge of the water. I heard someone walking near me, and I was about to turn around, when I heard these whispered words:

“Do not make a move, do not look surprised, do not stop: the Emperor landed in Cannes on the first of March; the Count of Artois left to fight him last night.”

I cannot render the disorder that these words sowed into me; I was suffocated by emotion; I walked like a drunken man, repeating to myself: “Is this possible? Is it not a dream, or a cruel joke?” When I reached the terrace, I saw the Duke of Vicenza; we greeted each other, and I repeated the news I had just heard word for word, and with the exact same tone. But with his irascible and pessimistic character, he said:

“What an extravagance! What! He landed without troops! … he is lost. But it’s impossible! Although,” he added, “it is only too true that the Count of Artois left in a hurry last night.”

The Duke’s ill humour and inauspicious presentiments hurt me. I left to give in to the intoxication I felt without constraints. It was not at home that I first found someone with whom I could share them: my wife was frightened by this news, and saw bad omens in them. I ran to see the Duchess of Saint-Leu; I found her crying with joy and emotion. After that initial outburst, we started to measure the vast distance between Cannes and Paris. “What will the generals stationed along the way do? What about the authorities, the troops? Will the Count of Artois’ arrival tip the scales?” It seemed to us that nothing could resist the Emperor, and that once he reached Lyons, nothing would stand in his way. From then on, the Duchess shut her door. The royalists’ suspicions and the police’s eyes were all focused on her. Her house was hardly crowded in the past eleven months; a few generals, a few ladies and young people of the new court came to visit her often, but the Emperor was never brought up in the conversation; only a small circle of loyal partisans expressed worry about his life and his future.

We had a vague feeling that he would be back, that a life of miracles was not made to end on a rock between Italy and France; but how and through what means? Even with all of our collective imagination, we could not tell. With each passing day, we numbered the government’s real or supposed faults, and this mass of prejudices, of complaints, of violent or derisive writings in which the royalists’ ridiculousness and the inanity of their projects were exposed in such bitterly ironic terms grew every day; but the people merely laughed and shrugged; the soldiers obeyed, and the masses seemed content with remaining quiet. How could the Emperor face a government that appeared strong, and a people that seemed to have forgotten him? And here he was, suddenly landing in France, turning all heads, and his formidable name cast all those who governed and all those who hated him into fright and disarray. We were counting days, hours and minutes. Each morning, the papers published the grimmest rumours; sometimes he was caught, sometimes he was hiding in the mountains. We received no certain news. Our distress was constantly growing. I went out for walks in the suburbs; the people’s work and habits went on unchanged, and they displayed utter indifference everywhere I went. But the police, which was carefully watching the cafés and other places of popular gathering, was frightened by the energetic words and the terrible projects that circulated underground. They did not dare arrest anyone from among the lowest ranks of the people, for fear of triggering riots with potentially deadly consequences.

But I must admit it was not the same with the bourgeoisie, which includes the merchants, lawyers and businessmen. The position of the court inspired no interest; the jokes at its expense were often successful; but the all too recent memory of the enemy’s stay sparked much worry and a sort of stupefaction at the Emperor’s arrival. However, aside from a few young people who enlisted in Vincennes as Royalists, no one came to fight. The Count of Artois came back in despair, having lost his trust in the army; all the regiments he had met, all the troops he had gathered in Lyons had refused to obey him. Even the voice of Marshal Macdonald, whom the army loved and respected so much, remained unheard. Napoleon’s great name had intoxicated everyone. The countryside’s immense population had joined the troops; it would have taken only one word and one gesture for all noblemen and priests to be murdered. Fortunately, reasonable men took the reins of the movement and directed it towards Napoleon only. “Do not taint the Emperor’s cause”, they exclaimed from everywhere; “he does not want a single drop of blood spilt.”

Days passed, and the danger grew more imminent by the hour. M. D***, the prefect of police, was replaced with M. Bourrienne. The friends of the Emperor understood what they had to fear from this man. A former fellow student of Bonaparte at the military school and since then his former secretary, he was disgraced on account of his venality and had become a fervent Royalist upon the advent of the Restoration. It was clear that he had made his choice, because he knew each of the Emperor’s supports and their habits. I knew that this man was capable of anything; I was especially afraid for the Duchess of Saint-Leu and her two children, whom they had decided to take as hostages if their mother was forced to flee abroad. She managed to find asylum on time at the house of someone who was devoted to her, an old Creole from Martinique.

In order to avoid compromising any of my friends, I went to hide in the Duchess’ own hôtel, but in the servants’ quarters. It was on 14 March; I had no news of the provinces, but through the papers’ lies, I could see that the Emperor was making his way rapidly and that nothing could oppose him. The Duke of Berry had just been given command of a camp south of Paris. The officers who had begun with assertions of their devotion ended up becoming closer, more reserved. As for the soldiers, the wind seemed to whisper the Emperor’s name in their ears; any bird that flew above their heads was the Imperial eagle. The rigours of discipline, the officers’ exhortations, even their begging could barely contain them; and in the three days that preceded the Emperor’s arrival, woe to anyone in the ranks who insulted him or expressed a desire to attack him.’

Marmont

‘I had come back to Châtillon to stay with my mother, who died on 27 February, and I was intending to spend a few more days there, when a courier from Paris hastened my return to the capital. I was back on the evening of the 7^th of March. I found everyone in a state of great agitation and upheaval. The news that Antibes had refused to open its gates were already known; but it was also known that Napoleon had started to cross the mountains towards Dauphiné. In Paris, the Bourbons’ enemies were intoxicated with joy. Their partisans displayed a stupid sense of security, yet it could hardly come from the heat. Some of them were so blind that they rejoiced at seeing Bonaparte handing himself over, like a moth flying towards the flame, they said.

The King’s household was made up of twelve companies. Since this corps needed a single chief in order to look somewhat coherent, I was given this command. I shall not speak of Napoleon’s march and the brilliant way he escaped danger. Indeed, for him, the critical point was the effect of his encounter with the troops. The slightest resistance would spell doom for him, while the first defection would lead to many others. Everyone knows how he offered his bare chest to the first soldiers who refused to parley, and the result of this generous move. The decision to defend Grenoble, taken by General Marchand, was thrown off by the defection of La Bédoyère, who took his regiment with him to join Napoleon. From then on, the contagion spread quickly. Only a material obstacle, which would have necessarily stopped the Emperor, favoured a long-range engagement and prevented him from making direct contact with the troops, could halt his progress.

This bold endeavour, the way it was carried out, Napoleon’s superiority in assessing the opinion’s actual state of mind, all of this was reminiscent of his finest times and of the dazzling miracles of his youth. It was the last stroke of his genius, the last action worthy of his great renown.

Monsieur left for Lyons, along with the Duke of Orleans and the Marshal Duke of Tarentum. They hurried the arrival of the corps previously put into motion towards the border. The National Guard seemed to be in good spirits, and Napoleon was coming closer. Nothing seemed more urgent than to cut off the bridges of the Rhône and to bring all the boats back on the right bank. Then it would not have been impossible to fire a few cannon shots. Ten might have been enough to change the state of the matter. Measures were taken to blow up the bridge of La Guillotière; but M. de Farges, the mayor of Lyons, went to cry at Monsieur’s feet over the damage done to a city monument, and Monsieur, with his kindness that bordered on weakness, a trait often found among the Bourbons, stopped all the works. A dam was built. Napoleon’s soldiers crossed it, after parleying for a while with those tasked with its defence. Everyone shouted “Vive l’Empereur!” and Monsieur, the Duke of Orleans and Marshal Macdonald had no choice but to hurry their retreat.

Upon arriving in Paris, I had talked to the King about the gravity of these circumstances, and he seemed to appreciate it, although he had much faith in the troops’ loyalty; but his hopes grew more fleeting by the day. The events of Grenoble and Lyons seemed decisive, and I redoubled my insistence to push the King to make a decision at once about what to do when Napoleon would be near Paris, for his arrival was inevitable and close at hand.

I went to see the King every day. I tried to awaken his mind and provoke a resolution. I kept repeating: “Sire, courage is not about refusing to look at danger. With talent, one acknowledges it early. With courage and time, one can defeat it; but this time, an essential element, must be used wisely. Do you want to leave Paris when Napoleon approaches? If so, where will you go? You must decide it in advance, for you have to plan your route, and make sure that friendly hands will safeguard it. If you decide to remain in Paris, you must provide for your safety, and make the Tuileries defensible. It would be madness to decide this without having taken safety measures in your own palace, and believing that Bonaparte would be impressed by the throne’s majesty. He would stir up a popular insurrection to make you disappear without ostensibly using his authority. If you remain in Paris, and I think it is the best course, you must arrange the palace so that it would take a battery of heavy artillery to demolish it. As an artilleryman, I swear that it will take me only five days to put the Tuileries and the Louvre in a position to withstand a siege, provided that I am given full authority to use all of Paris’ resources to do so. The castle must have two months’ worth of supplies for three thousand men. The King’s household, while it is not trained for campaigns, will be perfect for this. It is made up of brave and devoted people, and everyone will compete for the honour of participating in this defence; with enough supplies, we will not have to surrender after eight days. The King must shut himself inside this sort of fortress, along with the majority of the government, his ministers and the Chambers, but he must be the only one present out of his whole family. Monsieur and his sons must leave Paris; not stealthily, but at noon, after making a proclamation, and they must all scatter in different directions. This proclamation will announce that they are going to look for defenders, or at least, avengers. What will Napoleon do then? Will he dare besiege the King in his palace? Will the world stand by indifferently as an old sovereign remains on his throne, having resolved to be buried under the rubble of his house? No, no doubt there would have been protests and revolts, even among Napoleon’s friends; and the women of Paris, who are so markedly Royalist, would have soon seduced those soldiers still loyal to Napoleon, now turned into the instruments of his severity. The scandal of such a struggle, so far removed from our mores, would prevent its success. Such a magnanimous resolve would have the most powerful effect on the troops. One must say this, to mankind’s shame: people gladly flock to the victors; a rising power that is expected to triumph promptly gathers everyone; but if the matter remains undecided for some time, many of those who had come running walk away almost at once. In that case, the King’s noble devotion to his duties as a sovereign will make everyone go back to fulfilling theirs, and perhaps Napoleon’s forces will scatter on their own. Then, look at the state of the opinion in three quarters of France, that is, in the whole of France. Aside from the eastern districts and a few discontents here and there, everyone is on your side. The masses of the West, of Normandy, of Picardy and Flanders are utterly devoted to you. Give them time to rise, and it will not take them more than two months to come to your rescue; but you must be prepared to wait for them until then. Lastly, think of Europe watching the august sight you will give her, and moving to save you. While I know that after the decrees of Lyons, my personal position would be greatly compromised if I were to fall into Napoleon’s hands, I demand the honour of locking myself in with you, either as a commander or as a soldier. You should note, Sire, that your person is not at risk. If your enemy had the whole royal family in his power, he might make them all perish in order to destroy those rights that oppose his; but what would he have to gain by killing you while Monsieur, your nephews and your cousins are still free? If you die, your rights and your titles will be passed down to another. Thus, because of the respect you must command, because it would be useless to kill you and because Napoleon is not a cruel and sanguinary man at heart, you are in no personal danger; but, Sire, you must decide yourself, for it will take some time to carry out the plans I just outlined. To remain in Paris without these precautions would be utterly careless and foolish.”

The King replied that he thanked me for these ideas and that he would think about them. I reiterated my proposals every day, but with the same results. He always responded with a vague and evasive reply, a wretched comedy which I could not believe. I sought to convert the poor Duke of Havré, a man with a great soul but little spirit, and one of the few truly good men of the King’s entourage. He tried to convince the King; but Louis XVIII was blunter with him than with me, and he answered with those words that the Duke of Havré repeated to me at once: “So you would want me to sit on a curule chair? I do not share that opinion and I am not in that mood.”’

Thiébault

‘It was on the 7^th of March 1815, at one and a half in the morning, that I signed the deed giving me ownership of the estate of Richelieu, and seven hours later, upon waking up, I heard that Napoleon had landed in Provence, something the King had known since the evening of the 4^th. One can imagine the upheaval caused by this news, and one of its most immediate effects was a drop in land values. So it was that this deal I had concluded turned out like all the others I undertook; it might have been a sound decision, and circumstances fouled it anyway; but aside from this financial mistake, Napoleon’s return worried me greatly, and I was not the only one. I was not a partisan of the Bourbons for sure, for I was too much of a Frenchman to have any respect for people who did not care for France; but although I lamented the Emperor’s fate, I no longer trusted him enough to rejoice at his return, and I was too uncertain about his successes to predict anything but new misfortunes for France. Even assuming he succeeded, how could I believe that this would result in anything but a man’s revenge, anything that could be profitable to our homeland? Finally, stepping down from this elevated viewpoint towards more personal considerations, I could expect no more advantages from it than I received in times of greatness and prosperity, that is, at times where favours and rewards were distributed so liberally. So while the Bourbons left me no regrets, Napoleon gave me no hope; being devoid of ambitious and vengeful thoughts, isolated in thoughts and feelings, I remained equally foreign to France’s delirious enthusiasm and to the court’s terror.

What to do? were the first words that echoed in the Tuileries. If there had been a way to erase the memory of the humiliations that had been so gratuitously inflicted on so many generals, of the way the Duke of Berry among others had insulted the troops, of the epaulettes he had torn with impunity, if everyone could have forgotten the swearing and the crude manners he took on to try and look like a soldier, then it should have started with this; but they could only lament this past and not erase it. Thus they sought ways to save the present, and about this, I remember an idea that I had an occasion to submit, and which could have put an end to Napoleon’s endeavour had it been carried out on time. It was on 8 March; I was at the house of the Countess of Vaulgrenant, and, like everywhere else, we talked about this attack of one man on a great kingdom, a stunning episode even in such an extraordinary life. All the while agreeing that Napoleon was doomed if he had to fire a single shot, we started to discuss the apprehensions coming from the King’s troops and the way they were forced to fight; on that topic, I said that to put any group of men in presence of Napoleon and the men he brought with him, to put them close enough that they could recognise faces, hear voices and most of all see Napoleon, was a sure way to make them defect, so the only way to avoid the consequences of an irresistible attraction was to start with firing cannons at a long range. Indeed, once the first drop of blood was actually or reportedly spilt, there would be others, and the mere fact of having fought would have destroyed the prestige of this triumphant returner, thus depriving him of his only chance. Although I did not present this plan as infallible, I defended it as being the only one that could potentially succeed, and those present were so struck by it that one of them left at once to tell the Duke of Berry about it, which made me regret I had spoken. I was soon reassured. His Highness was probably still counting upon the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, even though it never touched anything more than his heavy shoulders; moreover, we were already on 8 March, and it would have taken four or five more days to carry out any such orders; now, contact between the troops would occur in that time span, and it was obvious that the first ones’ conduct would irrevocably determine all the others’.

Whatever could have resulted of this idea, it remained unexploited, and in trying to find the right course, they sent the Duke of Bourbon to Britanny; but there were no more Condé and no more Vendée, and this prince’s part, his lineage’s last feat of arms, was merely to capitulate to a colonel of the gendarmerie and to use the passport granted by the latter, signed by a mere squadron leader named Candel, to go to Spain. I will not speak of the Duke and the Duchess of Angoulême who were in Bordeaux; she did everything that was possible, while he did all he could; but another measure, no less useless and utterly bizarre, was to send Monsieur in Lyons. It was the fourth time that, to his great misfortune, he was called on to play a military and historical role. (…)

While the Count of Artois went to Lyons in hopes to find the cheers that were about to turn towards Napoleon and fool him in turn, while the Duke of Bourbon was at the mercy of a colonel in Vendée, while the South witnessed the pointlessness of the efforts made by the Duke and the Duchess of Angoulême, while the Duke of Berry fumed at the thought of staying in Paris, they called upon Marshal Ney to fight Napoleon. But this marshal, so splendidly brave and determined when he marched against the enemy and so weak in political and State matters, after seeing this return as nothing but an act of complete insanity and the work of an insane man that needed to be brought back in a cage, he only added his weight to the cortège and committed a betrayal that stained his life, though that does not mean he should not be pitied or his judges should not be loathed.

Despite the Charter, this marriage contract between France and him, Louis XVIII treated France like a wife that he hated in spite of her virtues and titles, while the Emigration was like a mistress he adored in spite of her faults and crimes. So the contract had already suffered quite a lot of breaches, and in order to try and conceal his infidelities, Louis XVIII renewed his oath to the Charter at the Chamber of Deputies, an oath that the Count of Artois, the Duke of Berry, the Duke of Orleans and the Prince of Condé also pledged spontaneously, and, in that circumstance, the Count of Artois signalled himself with his theatrical vehemence as he exclaimed: “It is in the name of honour that we all pledge our loyalty to Your Majesty and to the Constitutional Charter which forever ensures France’s happiness.” But given what everyone knew about that character, his dramatic scene was ill-received. (…)

Events marched quickly forwards, at the pace of the giant who set them. He reached Grenoble with his weak escort, and La Bédoyère’s spontaneous move made him the master of this place, of all the troops stationed there, and of the whole Dauphiné; he went towards Lyons, which the inhabitants surrendered with inexpressible joy, where he found a new army and from where, regarding his colossal endeavour as over, he seized and exerted a sovereign’s power and wrote the infamous decrees dissolving the Chambers, summoning the Champ de Mai, etc. Acclaimed by the citizens as well as by the troops, he continued his triumphant march with small but constantly renewed escorts, and he was almost always his own vanguard while the troops followed behind like the brilliant dots that a meteor leaves in its wake.’

1This anecdote was written later by the Marshal, in the margins of his journal.