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.