MARCH TO PARIS—HARRY SMITH QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL OF THE
RESERVE—HE BECOMES LIEUT.-COLONEL AND C.B.—THE 6TH DIVISION
MOVED FROM NEUILLY TO ST. GERMAIN—THE DUC DE BERRI AS A
SPORTSMAN—ON THE REDUCTION OF THE 6TH DIVISION HARRY SMITH
REJOINS HIS REGIMENT AS CAPTAIN—MARCH TO CAMBRAY—HE IS MADE
MAJOR DE PLACE OF THAT TOWN.
Our march to Paris was unaccompanied by anything to relate except that
I had a gallop round Mons and a good look on Malplaquet, but could
picture to myself no position, while I felt as a soldier standing on
the classic ground of the gallant achievements of my country and our
former army of heroes (for I regard Marlborough and Wellington as the
greatest men England or the world ever produced). But the latter days
of Wellington are as conspicuous for ability and energy as the days
of his youth. Poor Marlborough dwindled into imbecility, and became
a miser. To Wellington his country has ever been enthusiastically
grateful, while Marlborough, by ill-treatment, was driven into
voluntary banishment. Although I love Wellington with a fervour which
cannot be exceeded, I pray my God he may never outlive his mental
faculties, but leave this world and the country and cause he has so
eminently served while that world and country are still in admiration
and wonder. Alava, the Spanish General, so attached and devoted to
the Duke (by-the-bye, he was a Captain of a Spanish battleship or
frigate, I forget which), told me and Juana two years after the Battle
of Waterloo that the night after that eventful day, the Duke got back
to his quarters at Waterloo about nine or ten at night. The table was
laid for the usual number, while none appeared of the many of his staff
but Alava and Fremantle. The Duke said very little, ate hastily and
heartily, but every time the door opened he gave a searching look,
evidently in the hope of some of his valuable staff approaching. When
he had finished eating, he held up both hands in an imploring attitude
and said, “The hand of Almighty God has been upon me this day,” jumped
up, went to his couch, and was asleep in a moment. At this period he
was not aware of the extent of his wonderful victory.
When we approached the capital, we found the French army strongly
posted in a position near St. Denis and the previously shamefully
abandoned post of Mont Martre. From this position we expected to have
to drive them, but a day or two’s suspense relieved us. In a day or two
we went to see the _entrée_ of Louis into Paris—a humble spectacle
indeed compared to the magnitude of the struggle that brought it about.
Lieut.-General Sir Lowry Cole had now arrived to take the command
of the 6th Division, previously under Lambert. The 5th, 6th, and
Brunswickers composed the Reserve, about 17,000, Sir James Kempt, the
senior General, commanding; whose Quartermaster-General, Sir William
Gomm, gave all orders for marching, bivouac, etc. Now it became my
province to do so, and I never felt more proud than in having the
movement and arrangement of march of 17,000 soldiers.
Our army was in the environs of Paris, the 5th Division at Clichy,
the 6th at Neuilly, the Brunswickers near Clichy. The house I and my
wife occupied in the town of Neuilly we found was a sort of country
residence belonging to a nice old lady in Paris. There was a beautiful
and most productive garden, and an establishment of regular gardeners.
When I sent for the head man and desired him to take to his mistress
the vegetables he was accustomed to send her, and to obey her orders,
whatever they were, he was thunderstruck. I said, “If the garden is not
kept in real good order, then I will show you what an Englishman is.”
The poor old lady, hearing this, came out to thank us, and we often
dined with her in Paris. She lived in great style, and was of use to
my wife in showing her milliners, etc., for a refit _à la mode_ was
necessary.
Our life was now one of continued pleasure and excitement—nothing
but parties at night and races by day. At these I was steward. The
crowd of foreign officers being very unruly in riding in after the
race-horses, I put some proper fellows of soldiers at the distance-post
(who, having resisted many a charge of French cavalry, cared little for
an unarmed galloping man), with orders to run the rope across to stop
this disorder. My orders were obeyed, as I expected, and that gallant
hero, Marshal Blucher, not seeing the rope, rode his horse full speed
against it and fell, and in the crash the noble old fellow broke his
collar-bone, to my annoyance and distress.
While one day walking in my garden at Neuilly, my old friend Tom Fane,
who had come to Paris as one of the sight-seers, came full gallop up
to me and Juana, “Hurrah, Harry, the _Gazette_ has arrived! You are
Lieutenant-Colonel, and here is a case for you; it has some order in
it, I think. I found it at the Military Secretary’s office, and, being
to your address, brought it. Let me open it.” It was the Order of
Companion of the Bath, which pleased poor Tom more than it did me. Thus
again had I and Juana cause to be grateful to Almighty God, not only
for perfect safety, but for worldly distinction and promotion. It was
barely fourteen months since the Battle of Toulouse. I had crossed the
Atlantic to and from America four times; fought a gallant action, and
captured the metropolis of that world; brought home dispatches, and
received £500; was in communication with ministers, and honoured by a
long audience of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent; again went out;
again was under fire for three weeks, and in the sanguinary disaster at
New Orleans; was in the Battle of Waterloo, and had been promoted from
Captain to Lieut.-Colonel and Companion of the Bath; without a wound;
restored to my wife in health and contentment, and nothing to distress
or annoy me beyond the loss and wounds of so many gallant and dear
friends. Cold must that heart be which could not feel to its inmost
core God Almighty’s providence.
While in our cantonments around Paris we had frequent reviews with
Emperors, Kings, etc., as spectators, and nothing could exceed the
style and bearing of our army. The conduct, too, was exemplary. The
taking down of the horses from Venice, from the Place du Carrousel; the
execution of poor Ney, that hero of reality, not romance; the desire
of Blucher to destroy the bridge of Jena, which the Duke of Wellington
prevented; the escape of La Vallette, etc., kept us all in a state of
excitement, while the lions of Paris, then the _entrepôt_ of every
article of value in the arts, afforded daily occupation. Not a valuable
picture in Europe but was in the Place du Carrousel. It was my delight
to stand, often an hour at a time, looking at Paul Potter’s small
painting of the bull and the peasant behind the tree, and I have been
so fascinated I have expected the bull to charge.
[Illustration: LIEUT.-COLONEL HARRY SMITH.
_From a picture painted in Paris in 1815._ [_Opposite p. 294._]
In the autumn [1815] it became necessary to move the army into more
permanent quarters, and my Division, the 6th, was sent to St. Germain,
that magnificent and ancient resort of former kings. The woods were
in perfect order, and cut into beautiful _foci_ and avenues like radii
of circles, for hunting in the French style. The Duke de Berri had
hounds, and was passionately fond of the sport. The stag was turned
out, there were relays of hounds in couples, and huntsmen of various
denominations with large French horns, all in a _costume de chasse_,
with large cocked hats and a _couteau de chasse_ by their sides. The
carriages, full of ladies of the court and others, assembled in one
of the _foci_, or centres, from which the avenues radiated. When the
stag crossed into another part of the wood, the carriages galloped
to the “_focus_” of that part of the forest where the hunt was now
going on, and such a crash of horns as there was to denote that the
stag had changed his direction! The Duke went galloping up and down
the avenues, changing very frequently from one fat brute of a horse
to another. My wife and I, who went out every day and galloped after
the Duke, an ill-tempered fellow, up and down the avenues, were barely
able to keep our real good hunters warm. It was, however, capital fun,
although foreign to our ideas of hunting. I always fancied myself a
figure in a tapestry, hunting being a favourite subject for that kind
of delineation.
At the _mort_ (or death), or when the stag was at bay, there was always
a great row of horns and shouting, but _no dog-language_. On one
occasion the stag, a noble animal, was at bay, and fiercely contending
with the hounds. The Duke de Berri jumped off his horse and drew his
_couteau de chasse_, making great demonstration of going up to the
stag, while his courtiers were screeching, “Oh, monsieur, monsieur,
prenez garde, pour l’amour de Dieu.” He reminded me of the Irish hero,
“Hold me, Jim; you know my _temper_,” for the Duke had no real idea of
doing anything of the sort, although, when the poor noble animal had
been shot by some of the _piqueurs_, the Duke then ran in _valorously_
and dipped his _couteau_ in the beautiful animal’s chest. For this feat
a lot of us were determined to play the Duke a trick, and the next
hunting-day we contrived to break down the paling of the forest and
to induce the stag to bolt. We succeeded to our hearts’ content, and
away into the open went stag safe enough, the hounds in no wind after
him. The Duke and all his equipage were soon planted, and he was in a
furious passion. The _couteau de chasse_ was not required that day.
The most ridiculous thing is that they do not let the hounds “tear him
and eat him” while their blood is up. The stag is taken to the kennel
and skinned, and all the meat cut into small pieces and put again into
the hide, and the hounds then, in this cold-blooded way, rush at a
_mess_, instead of the whole pack, in a state of excitement, falling on
the hunted animal reeking with fatigue.
We were all amused one day at observing a man elegantly mounted on an
English horse in the full costume of the French _chasse_ (_couteau_,
etc.), when who should this be but our own dear Duke! He looked so neat
and smart, and we had such a laugh. He himself had a beautiful pack of
hounds and some boxed stags, which gave runs sometimes, but he was not
of the age for a sportsman.
About this time I and Will Havelock set on foot a pack of foxhounds.
We sent to England for hounds. The numbers of our pack being thirteen
couple, we sent to Brussels for [five couple more] from the Prince of
Orange’s establishment. This pack afterwards became a capital one.
On the conclusion of the treaty between the Allied Powers and
France, by which an Army of Occupation was designated to remain on
the northern boundary of France for three or five years, the large
armies (except their quota of the contingent) marched back to their
respective countries. Of the British Army four Divisions alone were to
remain. Mine was reduced, and being no longer on the staff, I joined
my regiment. Some of my old comrades said to Charlie Beckwith, who
had also joined, “Now, how will Harry Smith, after a career of such
extended authority, like to come back to the command of a Company?”
Charlie says (for he loved me), “In the execution of his duty and care
of his Company he will be an example to us all.”
My corps was moved again into the environs of Paris preparatory to
its march to the north. I was now visited by the deepest distress
and grief, for three days expecting the death of all I loved and
cherished—my dear wife. Nothing but vigour of mind and a good
constitution saved her. I had encountered many previous difficulties,
dangers, and disasters, but never aught like this. God in His continued
mercy spared her to me. Praised be His Name.
She was scarcely fit to move when we marched from Paris to Louvres [16
Jan. 1816] and an adjacent village. My Company went to Vernais. We were
again under Sir John Lambert, who had been moved from one Brigade to
another. My wife drove herself in my tilbury; I marched with my men. We
had a large cold château as a quarter, with a very civil landlord. I
had with me the hounds—eighteen couple. He put them up most kindly, and
appeared delighted—so much so that I had no delicacy in asking him to
get me a dead horse or to buy a dying brute for a few shillings. To my
astonishment, he regarded the request as a direct insult. It was all I
could do to make him understand I had no idea of offending. He was with
difficulty appeased, but I saw he never forgot the dead horse, any more
than the Antiquary’s nephew the “_phoca_ or seal.”
From hence we marched to Cambray, around which place and Valenciennes
the greater part of the army was to be cantoned. Three fortresses were
to be garrisoned by us. The Duke’s head-quarters were to be at Cambray.
One day Major Balvaird came to me. He was my commanding officer (I
being only a _Brevet_ Lieut. Colonel and _Captain_ under his command).
He was an excellent fellow, and as gallant a soldier as ever lived, a
bosom friend, and a Scotchman with a beautiful accent. “Weel, Harry,
mi mon, the deevil is in it. I have an order to send a Captain to the
depôt at Shorncliffe. You are the first for my duty, my lad. You canna
be more hurt at being ordered than I am to order you. So be prepared.
There is a just ane chance for you, but you must be prepared.” My
mortification was excessive, for with my habits, hounds, horses, and
wife, etc., the income I should get in England was not at all to my
desire. However, I said nothing to my wife, always hoping something
might turn up.
On the march one night my Company was in a wretched little village,
my quarters a miserable dirty little farmhouse. On any other occasion
I should have cared more than my wife herself, but she was still very
delicate, and I was awfully afraid of a relapse. It was February, and
the cold very severe. In watching her, I did not go to sleep until
just before it was time to jump up and march, when I had a curious
dream that the Duke of Wellington sent for me and said, “Smith, I have
two staff-appointments to give away, you shall have one,” and that as
I went out, poor Felton Hervey, the Military Secretary, said, “You
are a lucky fellow, Harry, for the one you are to have is the most
preferable by far.” I told my wife this dream, and said, “Mark my words
if it does not turn out to be true.”
On reaching our cantonment at Bourlon, a little beyond Cambray, I had
just put up my Company when General Lambert sent for me. “Smith,”
he says, “I am ordered to send a field officer to Cambray, who, in
conjunction with an officer of Engineers, is to take over Cambray, its
guns, stores, etc., from the French Commander and Engineers. It may
lead to something further. I therefore wish you to start at daylight;
the duty is important.” _His_ wish was _my_ law. Off I started. I had
scarcely completed the transfer when the General Orders were put into
my hand in which I saw I was appointed Major de Place, or Town-Major
of Cambray, and Charlie Beckwith Major de Place of Valenciennes,
each with the pay or allowance of Assistant Quartermaster-General,
to which department we were to report. Thus my dream was verified,
for, as Cambray was headquarters, and I had none of that horrid duty,
billeting on the inhabitants, which was attached to Valenciennes (the
headquarters A.Q.M.G. being desired to do it), I was given the better
place of the two, as Hervey said in my dream.