Change of Quarters. Change of Diet. Suttlers. Our new Quarter. A
long-going Horse gone. New Clothing. Adam's lineal Descendants.
St. Palais. Action at Tarbes. Faubourg of Toulouse. The green
Man. Passage of the Garonne. Battle of Toulouse. Peace. Castle
Sarrazin. A tender Point.
Towards the end of the month, some divisions of the French army having
left Bayonne, and ascended the right bank of the Adour, it produced a
corresponding movement on our side, by which our division then
occupied Ustaritz, and some neighbouring villages; a change of
quarters we had no reason to rejoice in.
At Arcangues, notwithstanding the influence of our messmate, "the
Seigneur du Village," our table had, latterly, exhibited gradual
symptoms of decay. But _here_, our voracious predecessors had not
only swallowed the calf, but the cow, and, literally, left us nothing;
so that, from an occasional turkey, or a pork-pie, we were now, all at
once, reduced to our daily ration of a withered pound of beef. A great
many necessaries of life could certainly be procured from St. Jean de
Luz, but the prices there were absolutely suicidical. The suttlers'
shops were too small to hold both their goods and their consciences;
so that, every pin's worth they sold cost us a dollar; and as every
dollar cost us seven shillings, they were, of course, not so plenty as
bad dinners. I have often regretted that the enemy never got an
opportunity of having the run of their shops for a few minutes, that
they might have been, in some measure, punished for their sins, even
in this world.
The house that held our table, too, was but a wretched apology for the
one we had left. A bitter wind continued to blow; and as the granary
of a room which we occupied, on the first floor, had no fire-place, we
immediately proceeded to provide it with one, and continued filling
it up with such a load of bricks and mortar that the first floor was
on the point of becoming the ground one; and, having only a choice of
evils, on such an emergency, we, as usual, adopted that which appeared
to us to be the least, cutting down the only two fruit-trees in the
garden to prop it up with. We were rather on doubtful terms with the
landlord before, but this put us all square--no terms at all.
Our animals, too, were in a woful plight, for want of forage. We were
obliged to send our baggage ones, every week, for their rations of
corn, three days' march, through oceans of mud, which ought, properly,
to have been navigated with boats. The whole cavalcade always moved
under the charge of an officer, and many were the anxious looks that
we took with our spy-glasses, from a hill overlooking the road, on the
days of their expected return, each endeavouring to descry his own.
Mine came back to me twice; but "the pitcher that goes often to the
well" was verified in his third trip, for--he perished in a muddy
grave.
His death, however, was not so unexpected as it might have been, for,
although I cannot literally say that he had been dying by inches,
seeing that he had walked all the way from the frontiers of Portugal,
yet he had, nevertheless, been doing it on the grand scale--by miles.
I only fell in with him the day before the commencement of the
campaign, and, after reconnoitring him with my usual judgement, and
seeing that he was in possession of the regulated quantity of eyes,
legs, and mouth, and concluding that they were all calculated to
perform their different functions, I took him, as a man does his wife,
for better and for worse; and it was not until the end of the first
day's march that I found he had a broken jaw-bone, and could not eat,
and I had, therefore, been obliged to support him all along on spoon
diet; he was a capital horse, only for that!
It has already been written, in another man's book, that we always
require just a little more than we have got to make us perfectly
happy; and, as we had given this neighbourhood a fair trial, and _that
little_ was not to be found in it, we were very glad when, towards the
end of February, we were permitted to look for it a little further on.
We broke up from quarters on the 21st, leaving Sir John Hope, with the
left wing of the army, in the investment of Bayonne, Lord Wellington
followed Soult with the remainder.
The new clothing for the different regiments of the army had, in the
mean time, been gradually arriving at St. Jean de Luz; and, as the
commissariat transport was required for other purposes, not to mention
that a man's new coat always looks better on his own back than it does
on a mule's, the different regiments marched there for it in
succession. It did not come to our turn until we had taken a stride to
the front, as far as La Bastide; our retrograde movement, therefore,
obliged us to bid adieu to our division for some time.
On our arrival at St. Jean de Luz, we found our new clothing, and some
new friends in the family of our old friend, Arcangues, which was one
of the most respectable in the district, and who showed us a great
deal of kindness. As it happened to be the commencement of Lent, the
young ladies were, at first, doubtful as to the propriety of joining
us in any of the gaieties; but, after a short consultation, they
arranged it with their consciences, and joined in the waltz right
merrily. Mademoiselle was really an exceedingly nice girl, and the
most lively companion in arms (in a waltz) that I ever met.
Our clothing detained us there two days; on the third, we proceeded to
rejoin the division.
The pride of ancestry is very tenaciously upheld among the Basques,
who are the mountaineers of that district. I had a fancy that most of
them grew wild, like their trees, without either fathers or mothers,
and was, therefore, much amused, one day, to hear a fellow, with a Tam
O'Shanter's bonnet, and a pair of bare legs, tracing his descent from
the first man, and maintaining that he spoke the same language too.
He might have added, if further proof were wanting, that he, also,
wore the same kind of shoes and stockings.
On the 27th February, 1814, we marched, all day, to the tune of a
cannonade; it was the battle of Orthes; and, on our arrival, in the
evening, at the little town of St. Palais, we were very much annoyed
to find the seventy-ninth regiment stationed there, who handed us a
general order, desiring that the last-arrived regiment should relieve
the preceding one in charge of the place. This was the more vexatious,
knowing that there was no other regiment behind to relieve us. It was
a nice little town, and we were treated, by the inhabitants, like
friends and allies, experiencing much kindness and hospitality from
them; but a rifleman, in the rear, is like a fish out of the water; he
feels that he is not in his place. Seeing no other mode of obtaining a
release, we, at length, began detaining the different detachments who
were proceeding to join their regiments, with a view of forming a
battalion of them; but, by the time that we had collected a
sufficient number for that purpose, we received an order, from
head-quarters, to join the army; when, after a few days' forced
marches, we had, at length, the happiness of overtaking our division a
short distance beyond the town of Aire. The battle of Orthes was the
only affair of consequence that had taken place during our absence.
We remained stationary, near Aire, until the middle of March, when the
army was again put in motion.
On the morning of the 19th, while we were marching along the road,
near the town of Tarbes, we saw what appeared to be a small piquet of
the enemy, on the top of a hill to our left, looking down upon us,
when a company of our second battalion was immediately sent to
dislodge them. The enemy, however, increased in number, in proportion
to those sent against them, until not only the whole of the second,
but our own, and the third battalion were eventually brought into
action; and still we had more than double our number opposed to us;
but we, nevertheless, drove them from the field with great slaughter,
after a desperate struggle of a few minutes, in which we had eleven
officers killed and wounded. As this fight was purely a rifle one, and
took place within sight of the whole army, I may be justified in
giving the following quotation from the author of "Twelve Years'
Military Adventure," who was a spectator, and who, in allusion to this
affair, says, "Our rifles were immediately sent to dislodge the French
from the hills on our left, and our battalion was ordered to support
them. Nothing could exceed the manner in which the ninety-fifth set
about the business.... Certainly I never saw such skirmishers as the
ninety-fifth, now the rifle brigade. They could do the work much
better and with infinitely less loss than any other of our best light
troops. They possessed an individual boldness, a mutual understanding,
and a quickness of eye, in taking advantage of the ground, which,
taken altogether, I never saw equalled. They were, in fact, as much
superior to the French _voltigeurs_, as the latter were to our
skirmishers in general. As our regiment was often employed in
supporting them, I think I am fairly qualified to speak of their
merits."
We followed the enemy until dark, when, after having taken up our
ground and lit our fires, they rather maliciously opened a cannonade
upon us; but, as few of their shots took effect, we did not put
ourselves to the inconvenience of moving, and they soon desisted.
We continued in pursuit daily, until we finally arrived on the banks
of the Garonne, opposite Toulouse. The day after our arrival an
attempt was made, by our engineers, to throw a bridge across the
river, above the town; and we had assembled one morning, to be in
readiness to pass over, but they were obliged to abandon it for want
of the necessary number of pontoons, and we returned again to
quarters.
We were stationed, for several days, in the suburb of St. Ciprien,
where we found ourselves exceedingly comfortable. It consisted chiefly
of the citizens' country houses, and an abundance of the public tea
and fruit accommodations, with which every large city is surrounded,
for the temptation of Sunday parties; and, as the inhabitants had all
fled hurriedly into town, leaving their cellars, generally speaking,
well stocked with a tolerable kind of wine, we made ourselves at home.
It was finally determined that the passage of the river should be
tried below the town, and, preparatory thereto, we took ground to our
left, and got lodged in the chateau of a rich old West-India-man. He
was a tall ramrod of a fellow, upwards of six feet high, withered to a
cinder, and had a pair of green eyes, which looked as if they belonged
to somebody else, who was looking through his eye-holes; but, despite
his imperfections, he had got a young wife, and she was nursing a
young child. The "Green Man" (as we christened him) was not, however,
so bad as he looked; and we found our billet such a good one, that
when we were called away to fight, after a few days' residence with
him, I question, if left to our choice, whether we would not have
rather remained where we were!
A bridge having, at length, been established, about a league below the
town, two British divisions passed over; but the enemy, by floating
timber and other things down the stream, succeeded in carrying one or
two of the pontoons from their moorings, which prevented any more from
crossing either that day or the succeeding one. It was expected that
the French would have taken advantage of this circumstance, to attack
the two divisions on the other side; but they thought it more prudent
to wait the attack in their own strong hold, and in doing so I believe
they acted wisely, for these two divisions had both flanks secured by
the river, their position was not too extended for their numbers, and
they had a clear space in their front, which was flanked by artillery
from the commanding ground on our side of the river; so that,
altogether, they would have been found ugly customers to any body who
chose to meddle with them.
The bridge was re-established on the night of the 9th, and, at
daylight next morning, we bade adieu to the _Green Man_, inviting him
to come and see us in Toulouse in the evening. He laughed at the idea,
telling us that we should be lucky fellows if ever we got in; and, at
all events, he said, that he would bet a _dejeune a la forchette_ for
a dozen, that we did not enter it in three days from that time. I took
the bet, and won, but the old rogue never came to pay me.
We crossed the river, and advanced sufficiently near to the enemy's
position to be just out of the reach of their fire, where we waited
until dispositions were made for the attack, which took place as
follows:--
Sir Rowland Hill, who remained on the left bank of the Garonne, made a
show of attacking the bridge and suburb of the town on that side.
On our side of the river the Spanish army, which had never hitherto
taken an active part in any of our general actions, now claimed the
post of honour, and advanced to storm the strongest part of the
heights. Our division was ordered to support them in the low grounds,
and, at the same time, to threaten a point of the canal; and Picton,
who was on our right, was ordered to make a false attack on the canal.
These were all that were visible to us. The remaining divisions of the
army were in continuation to the left.
The Spaniards, anxious to monopolize all the glory, I rather think,
moved on to the attack a little too soon, and before the British
divisions on their left were in readiness to co-operate; however, be
that as it may, they were soon in a blaze of fire, and began walking
through it, at first, with a great show of gallantry and
determination; but their courage was not altogether screwed up to the
sticking point, and the nearer they came to the critical pass, the
less prepared they seemed to meet it, until they all finally faced to
the right-about, and came back upon us as fast as their heels could
carry them, pursued by the enemy.
We instantly advanced to their relief, and concluded that they would
have rallied behind us; but they had no idea of doing any thing of the
kind; for, when with _Cuesta_ and some of the other Spanish generals,
they had been accustomed, under such circumstances, to run a hundred
miles at a time; so that, passing through the intervals of our
division, they went clear off to the rear, and we never saw them more.
The moment the French found us interpose between them and the
Spaniards they retired within their works.
The only remark that Lord Wellington was said to have made on their
conduct, after waiting to see whether they would stand after they got
out of the reach of the enemy's shot, was, "well, d---- me, if ever I
saw ten thousand men run a race before!" However, notwithstanding
their disaster, many of their officers certainly evinced great
bravery, and on their account it is to be regretted that the attack
was made so soon, for they would otherwise have carried their point
with little loss, either of life or credit, as the British divisions
on the left soon after stormed and carried all the other works, and
obliged those who had been opposed to the Spaniards to evacuate theirs
without firing another shot.
When the enemy were driven from the heights, they retired within the
town, and the canal then became their line of defence, which they
maintained the whole of the next day; but in the course of the
following night they left the town altogether, and we took possession
of it on the morning of the 12th.
The inhabitants of Toulouse hoisted the white flag, and declared for
the Bourbons the moment that the French army had left it; and, in the
course of the same day, Colonel Cooke arrived from Paris, with the
extraordinary news of Napoleon's abdication. Soult has been accused of
having been in possession of that fact prior to the battle of
Toulouse; but, to disprove such an assertion, it can only be necessary
to think, for a moment, whether he would not have made it public the
day after the battle, while he yet held possession of the town, as it
would not only have enabled him to keep it, but, to those who knew no
better, it might have given him a shadow of claim to the victory, if
he chose to avail himself of it; and I have known a victory claimed by
a French marshal on more slender grounds. In place of knowing it then,
he did not even believe it now; and we were absolutely obliged to
follow him a day's march beyond Toulouse before he agreed to an
armistice.
The news of the peace, at this period, certainly sounded as strangely
in our ears as it did in those of the French marshal, for it was a
change that we never had contemplated. We had been born in war, reared
in war, and war was our trade; and what soldiers had to do in peace,
was a problem yet to be solved among us.
After remaining a few days at Toulouse, we were sent into quarters, in
the town of Castel-Sarazin, along with our old companions in arms,
the fifty-second, to wait the necessary arrangements for our final
removal from France.
Castel-Sarazin is a respectable little town, on the right bank of the
Garonne; and its inhabitants received us so kindly, that every officer
found in his quarter a family home. We there, too, found both the time
and the opportunity of exercising one of the agreeable professions to
which we had long been strangers, that of making love to the pretty
little girls with which the place abounded; when, after a three
months' residence among them, the fatal order arrived for our march to
Bordeaux, for embarkation, the buckets full of salt tears that were
shed by men who had almost forgotten the way to weep was quite
ridiculous. I have never yet, however, clearly made out whether people
are most in love when they are laughing or when they are crying. Our
greatest love writers certainly give the preference to the latter.
_Scott_ thinks that "love is loveliest when it's bathed in tears;" and
_Moore_ tells his mistress to "give smiles to those who love her
less, but to keep her tears for him;" but what pleasure he can take in
seeing her in affliction, I cannot make out; nor, for the soul of me,
can I see why a face full of smiles should not be every bit as
valuable as one of tears, seeing that it is so much more pleasant to
look at.
I have rather wandered, in search of an apology for my own countenance
not having gone into mourning on that melancholy occasion; for, to
tell the truth, (and if I had a visage sensible to such an impression,
I should blush while I tell it,) I was as much in love as any body, up
nearly to the last moment, when I fell out of it, as it were, by a
miracle; but, probably, a history of love's last look may be
considered as my justification. The day before our departure, in
returning from a ride, I overtook my love and her sister, strolling by
the river's side, and, instantly dismounting, I joined in their walk.
My horse was following, at the length of his bridle-reins, and, while
I was engaged in conversation with the sister, the other dropped
behind, and, when I looked round, I found her mounted _astride_ on my
horse! and with such a pair of legs, too! It was rather too good; and
"Richard was himself again."
Although released, under the foregoing circumstances, from individual
attachment, that of a general nature continued strong as ever; and,
without an exception on either side, I do believe, that we parted with
mutual regret, and with the most unbounded love and good feeling
towards each other. We exchanged substantial proofs of it while
together; we continued to do so after we had parted; nor were we
forgotten when we were _no more_! It having appeared, in some of the
newspapers, a year afterwards, that every one of our officers had been
killed at Waterloo, that the regiment had been brought out of the
action by a volunteer, and the report having come to the knowledge of
our Castel-Sarazin friends, they drew up a letter, which they sent to
our commanding officer, signed by every person of respectability in
the place, lamenting our fate, expressing a hope that the report
might have been exaggerated, and entreating to be informed as to the
particular fate of each individual officer, whom they mentioned by
name. They were kind good-hearted souls, and may God bless them!