The Archduke Charles had also received reinforcements, and was encamped with his increased forces a little distance from the banks of the Danube. He seemed anxious to alarm us by threatening to cross the river to Neuburg above Vienna, and to Presburg below that town, where he had had a very strong bridge head constructed.

General Pajol, commanding our light cavalry, being thus threatened by this feigned passage of the river at Neuburg, I was sent to him on May 27 with orders to reconnoitre the state of the enemy’s works and advise our General on the best measures of defence to adopt. The Austrians, I found, had made very extensive entrenchments on the left bank, but they were all of a purely defensive character. I climbed on to the Leopoldsberg, from which I got a good view of the works, of which I made a plan. I was in full sight of the enemy, who poured a regular volley of shot upon me; but I relied on the clumsiness of the marksmen, and was able to complete my sketch. I had also to pass in review and report on the state of the newly arrived troops in the same district, and the enemy cannonaded us for ever so long without hitting a single man. On the evening of that very day the monks of the Closterneuburg Abbey entertained me at a banquet as sumptuous as any that could have been given in a big city in time of peace. The orchestra of the convent, accompanied by the music of a fine organ, was supplemented by the band of our Regiment, and it seemed to me a truly wonderful experience to pass in a few minutes from the tumult of war to the pleasures of the table and the enjoyment of the finest music.

Our time was now chiefly occupied in military works outside the gates of Vienna, such as the reconstruction of the bridges and the reorganisation of the army. Being so near the town, where many of the richest families still remained, we were able to avail ourselves of the generous hospitality of the inhabitants, and the arduous toil imposed upon us by the war was relieved by many a pleasant recreation. I was able, for instance, to indulge in doing a little painting at the house of the venerable Casanova, the painter of battle scenes, who had long been well known in Paris, and had now retired to Vienna, where he was engaged in painting incidents of the wars of the Austrians with the Turks. I went, too, sometimes to the clever engraver, Mansfeld, who lent me his burins; and to the residences of the Princesses of Staremberg, Czartoriska, Trautmansdorf, Bathiany, &c., who got all the members of the staff who were able to draw or to write poetry to contribute something to their albums.

The construction of the bridges was confided to General Bertrand, General Rogniat, of the engineers, General Lariboisière, of the artillery, and the pontonniers and marines of the Guard. The same site was chosen as before, but the bridges were wider and constructed in a much more scientific manner. For the passage of the infantry strong pile bridges were constructed, capable of withstanding the force of the river freshets; stockades were firmly planted at distances of about 300 feet in the bed of the stream, so as to protect the bridges from the shock of floating bodies, whilst bridges of larger boats provided crossings, well protected from every kind of accident, for the use of the cavalry and the passage of all the material of war. These parallel bridges thus rendered traffic to and fro between the banks as easy as in the streets of a town.¹ Fortifications were erected on the islands of the Danube, the most zealous activity reigned in every department of the various works, and it was easy to see that it would not be long before the Emperor was ready to advance upon the army of the Archduke, and attack the enemy on the very same battle field as before.

¹ This second spanning of the Danube before the battle of Wagram was one of the grandest engineering feats of any campaign. – Trans.

Meanwhile the Austrians seemed to be still uncertain what to do next, and had evidently arrived at no plan for a grand attack. They appeared to have some idea of threatening our rear in the direction of Hungary, and made great preparations for crossing the Danube opposite Presburg. Marshal Davout was ordered to oppose their passage, and I was sent to him to urge him to compel any Austrians who crossed to return to the left bank.

Nothing could be more picturesque or quaint than the appearance of the fine town of Presburg perched on the hills, looking down on the river and the islands with which its course is dotted. These islands had been clothed with thick forests of lofty trees, but the last floods had torn up thousands of venerable giants, many of which lay prone or were being carried along by the current. Only the saplings, too weak to resist, which had bent to the storm, remained growing; but though they had risen again now the tempest was past, they had as yet but little foliage. The trunks lying about, stripped of their foliage and their bark by the water or by the floating objects which had been dashed against them, made the islands look like great timber yards, full of wood waiting to be sawn. The Austrians had made use of the trunks thus encumbering the ground, as if they had been an abattis of impenetrable wood, to fortify the approaches to the entrenchments of the bridge head they had constructed on the largest of the islands opposite the big bridge. At first sight it seemed as if it would be very difficult to dislodge them from this position. I wanted to give the Emperor an idea of the state of things, so I climbed to a lofty spot, and I was making a plan of the fortifications, which I meant to let the Marshal have also, to help him to decide on the order of his attack, when, defying every obstacle in the way, he ordered the charge to be made (June 7). Springing from tree to tree, our grenadiers succeeded in less than half an hour in climbing up to the entrenchments, which they assaulted simultaneously at five or six different points, killing all who attempted to defend them. The entrenchments were then occupied by our men, the Austrians’ bridge was burnt, and one colonel with thirty men were taken prisoners. The plan I had hastily made merely served to illustrate my account to the Emperor of the boldness of the successful enterprise. I did not leave till I had also made a sketch of the works the Marshal had had constructed opposite the bridge head, so as to blockade it. My notes on this occasion contain also a memorandum of the terrible fusillade and cannonade to which we were exposed not only when this coup de main took place, but throughout the whole of the day.

It was but sixteen days since our retreat from Essling, and the bad news had already spread all over Germany, completely changing the attitude towards us of those interested in the overthrow of Napoleon. The political horizon became everywhere overclouded, and distressing tidings reached us at Ebersdorff. Prussia hastened to renew the preparations for war which had been suspended when at the news of our victories at Eckmühl the Tyrol again revolted, and the Bavarians had been compelled to abandon Innspruck. Austria endeavoured to spread the insurrection, whilst England pressed on her own armaments, aided Austria with subsidies, and landed troops in Italy opposite Naples, threatening Rome. King Murat was even obliged to carry off the Pope on July 6, and in France fresh revolutionary plots were formed against Napoleon.

Without quitting Vienna, however, the Emperor was clever enough to frustrate all the efforts made against him at a distance, and the skill and energy with which he pushed on the preparations for his next attack confirmed the confidence of his troops in him, a confidence which even all that had occurred at Essling had failed to shake.

Marshal Davout’s corps, opposite Presburg, protected us from any attempts the Archduke John might make to pass from the left to the right bank of the Danube, whilst the army of Italy covered us at a distance from any attack which might threaten us from the direction of Hungary.

The work on our bridges was pushed on with extraordinary rapidity. The huge chain which had been forged by the Turks for barring the passage of the Danube, and had for two centuries hung as a trophy of victory over the Ottoman power from the roof of the arsenal of Vienna, was taken to Ebersdorff and fastened across the river to strengthen the stockades raised in advance of the bridges to protect them from being set on fire or injured by floating objects.

Lobau, with the islands near it, full as they were of troops and encampments, forges, rope factories, repairing sheds for mending the boats &c., resembled the big arsenals of the chief French ports just before the starting of some maritime expedition. The month of June was spent in completing these extensive works, and during it I was able to snatch a few hours for my favourite pursuit of painting. In one of my recent excursions in the service of the army I had witnessed one of the too frequent acts of pillage which it had been my business to endeavour to repress, but it had struck me as tragi-comic rather than horrible, for at thirty one laughs at everything, and with no idea of doing anything more than enabling my fellow officers to share my amusement I had made a sketch of the scene. I only relate the insignificant little episode of this drawing of mine to illustrate how much at heart the Emperor had the honour of France on every occasion, however trivial.

To maintain discipline and repress pillage had always been one of the duties of the leaders of the army, but during a war so many fortuitous circumstances make it necessary for soldiers to forage for their provisions that a general is often obliged to be blind to their excesses. Often enough indeed such generals as Mansfeld and De Broglie, with others as severe as they, who had mercilessly hanged men for stealing a cabbage or a chicken from the peasants in an enemy’s country, have soon afterwards lost battles through the disaffection of their troops. When by the Concordat concluded by the First Consul in 1801 he re-established the Church in France, Napoleon had taken a great step towards the restitution of public morality, and he was very severe on any tampering with it. During the disorders of the Revolution he had been very indignant at seeing the mob decked out in priestly vestments, and at the desecration of the sacred ornaments of the Church in profane orgies. Young soldiers like myself had been accustomed to seeing misguided men behave in this manner, and were in the habit of laughing at them. I was no wiser than my comrades; I did not realise that to deserve respect one must honour that which others revere, and I thoughtlessly made a water-colour sketch of the scene I am about to describe.

On the day when our army was approaching Ebersdorff, our soldiers with the excellent appetites travelling gives had gone some distance from the camp to get provisions. In the midst of the confusion into which the unexpected visit of our troops threw the village, a cottage took fire and the flames spread to the neighbouring houses. The first thought of our young soldiers was to rescue the villagers, but in throwing out the objects they were anxious to save they came upon the provisions &c. which had been hidden from us by their owners, and which had attracted so many unwelcome visitors. Loaves of bread, lumps of lard and vegetables, were now piled up out of the reach of the fire, mixed helter-skelter with the clothes, household linen, furniture, kitchen utensils, jars of wine, and casks of beer of the luckless peasants. The fire was scarcely extinguished before our thirsty soldiers fell upon the liquor and drank more than was good for them. Then, having quickly taken their fill, and seeing that nothing but trouble would come of further delay, they started to go back to the camp laden with provisions, which in their very unstable condition they found much too heavy to carry.

The road to the camp was soon strewn with the débris of the booty, each man throwing away what he could not take with him, till the track was marked with a long uneven line of scattered fruits, ducks, saucepans, hams, linen, fat geese, clothes, and even books, for some of our soldiers were educated men, who cultivated literature when their brains were not muddled with wine. In their reckless gaiety, many of the high-spirited young fellows had decked themselves out in women’s clothes, putting the petticoats on over their uniforms, and the blackened faces of the grenadiers, with their huge moustaches, presented a most comic appearance beneath the caps and above the bodices and short skirts of the peasants as they capered, shouted, and roared with laughter, whilst near them stood the owners of the stolen property, weeping in angry bitterness. One soldier, mounted on a donkey which had belonged to some peasant, and wearing a saucepan as a helmet, was dragging back to camp a lamb, a sack of vegetables, the curé’s spit with his joint of meat on it, and a doll; another, his clothes all in disorder, had made a luckless villager don his helmet and breastplate, and drive in front of him the pig fattened for the use of the family, whilst he himself, with the peasant’s cap on his head and so tipsy he could hardly keep himself steady, was trying to console the weeping daughter of his victim, who would not leave her old father in the hands of the intoxicated troopers. What shocked the Emperor most, when, thinking to please him, some one showed him this sketch of mine, was the fact that in the midst of the scene of fire and pillage with the grotesque medley of dancing and weeping figures such as is only seen in times of war, some of the soldiers were amusing themselves with sacred objects taken from the burning sacristy. One was wildly brandishing in the air a barber’s wooden block with the curé’s tonsured and powdered wig upon it; another, reeling with intoxication, had put on a stole embroidered with silver, with other sacerdotal ornaments, in which he was preaching wisdom and sobriety to his comrades. The Emperor was annoyed at this profanation of religion, and, angry with the author of the sketch for seeing anything comic in such a scene, he sent a message to nie to the effect that I had better employ my brushes in the perpetuation of beauty and of noble actions. ‘Lejeune,’ he said, has distinguished himself by many deeds of brilliant courage; it would be more worthy of his talent if he were to represent them.’

On June 14 the army of Italy had gained a great victory over the Austrians near Raab, and, in ordering his aide-de-camp General Lauriston to go and besiege that town, the Emperor also gave instructions that I was to be sent first to reconnoitre the position, to press on the siege, and then to push a reconnaissance as far as possible in the direction of Comorn and Pesth, the latter being the chief town Hungary. Raab capitulated on the evening of the 22nd, and at daybreak on the 23rd I was already ten miles away from it on the heights opposite Comorn.

I had taken from our outposts of the army of Italy General Montbrun’s light cavalry division, which the Viceroy had placed at my disposition to échelon along the road I had to take, so as to insure me everywhere a point of support to meet every contingency which might arise. I came in sight of the town on a beautiful morning; the bayonets of the defenders and the new brass cannon mounted on the ramparts of the suburb on the right bank of the Danube gleaming in the sunshine.

Having placed my troops in a position from which they could observe my movements and come to my aid if necessary, I started to reconnoitre the place in broad daylight, an operation always difficult and requiring great audacity. The venture was of the most absorbing interest to me, and all the young officers who were to be left behind out of dander were eager to accompany me. The discussion with them was really touching, but it behoved me to go alone, so as to attract less attention, and I was obliged to be content with choosing the fleetest of their horses, on which I could skim along like a swallow and brave the firing on the glacis of the town as I examined its enceinte and fortifications. By a lucky chance the sentinels and the troops in the town, still absorbed in thinking of their last defeat, and never dreaming that the French could be so near, mistook my party for a corps of Austrians who had escaped after the battle of Raab, and at first paid little attention to the officer scudding along the crests of the covered ways as he examined the shape and condition of the walls and ditches.

Profiting by this lull in the enemy’s vigilance and the extraordinary swiftness of my steed, I pushed on for several leagues along the road to Pesth, from which I was not more than some ten miles distant. I saw no troops whatever, so riding back I halted on a plateau commanding a view of the greater part of Comorn, of which I made a plan. I had to hurry over the last lines, however, for some horsemen had meanwhile been sent out from the town to reconnoitre my party, and the news they took back led to my work as an engineer being cut short by a sharp cannonade, draughtsman and plan being covered with dust as the balls ploughed up the ground. I thanked General Montbrun’s division and the officers who had accompanied me for their help, and remounting my posthhorse I set out for Raab, arriving there on the 24th. I was present at the parade which took place in that town when the Viceroy allowed the imprisoned garrison to march past him with their arms, their flags, and all the honours of war. I also accompanied Prince Eugène on a reconnaissance of the interior of the town and of its fortifications. The next day, the 25th, I went to Schönbrunn, fifty leagues from Comorn, where I gave an account to the Emperor of the happy way in which I had turned to account the few days of my absence, during which I had not had one night’s rest. Apparently insignificant as this trip was, I treasure up the memory of it more than of any other because it enabled me to boast that I was the only Frenchman who had the honour of penetrating, arms in hand, to the very heart of Hungary. Thousands of Frenchmen, it is true, reached Pesth, but it was as prisoners. It was this feat which in 1810 won for me the distinction of the Order of St. Leopold of Hungary, of which the Emperor of Austria made me a knight.

I was scarcely back at Vienna before I had to help at the works for the passage of the Danube. Everything was progressing rapidly; the various corps of the army were approaching ebersdorff, and the Emperor was concentrating all his great resources. The Archduke Charles, still unable to make up his mind what it would be best to do, seems to have hoped that some such occurrence as that of Essling would draw us again into this net, and with his army considerably increased he awaited us in the same positions as those he had occupied a month before, which he had now covered with redoubts and entrenchments.

The news received by the Emperor from his armies at a distance was most satisfactory, and calculated to encourage him in his ulterior schemes. In Spain and Portugal, Marshals Soult and Ney with General Suchet had beaten our enemies a few days before at Lugo, Oviedo, Gallegos, and Belchite. In Dalmatia, Marshal Macdonald had entered Layback, General Marmont had won a victory at Gospich on the 21st, and taken possession of Fiume on May 28; the victory of Raab had followed on June 14; that town had been taken on the 22nd; on the 26th General Broussier had entered Grätz, and on June 30 Marshal Davout defeated the troops of the Archduke Ferdinand outside Presburg.

Amongst all these battles and victories there was one action so remarkable and so brilliant that I feel impelled to describe it here from the accounts of eyewitnesses. During the taking of Grätz by General Broussier, and when the struggle was at it fiercest, Colonel Gambin, of the 84th Regiment, was ordered with two of his battalions to attack the suburb of Saint-Leopold, where he made from four to five hundred prisoners. This vigorous assault led General Giulay on the enemy’s side to imagine that he had to deal with a whole army, and he hurried to the aid of the suburb with considerable forces. Gambin did not hesitate to attack them, and he took from them the cemetery of the Graben suburb, but was in his turn invested by the Austrian battalions, and found it impossible to rejoin the main body of the French. He accepted the situation, spent the whole night in fortifying the cemetery and the adjoining houses, and, his ammunition being exhausted, he actually kept at bay some 10,000 assailants with the bayonet alone, even making several sorties to carry off the cartouches on the dead bodies with which his attacks had strewn the ground near the cemetery. General Giulay now directed the fire of all his guns and of five fresh battalions on this handful of brave men, who had already for nearly nineteen hours withstood a whole army. General Broussier was at last able to send Colonel Nagle, of the 92nd, with two battalions to the aid of the 84th. The enemy vainly endeavoured to prevent the two regiments from meeting. Colonel Nagle overthrew every obstacle, got into the cemetery, and after embracing each other the two officers with their united forces flung themselves upon the Austrians, took 500 of them prisoners, with two flags, and carried the suburb to Graben by assault, finding no less than 1,200 Austrian corpses in the streets. When the Emperor heard of this feat of arms he was anxious to confer the greatest distinction he could on the 84th Regiment, and ordered that its banner should henceforth bear in letters of gold the proud inscription, ‘One against ten.’ It was with men such as these we were now to march on Wagram.

Every day, except when Napoleon himself visited the island of Lobau, a young officer named De Sainte-Croix came from Marshal Masséna to give the Emperor an account of all that was going on there. The brilliant and intelligent young fellow often climbed the loftiest trees to watch from a distance the preparations going on on the plain for rendering impregnable the approaches by which the Archduke expected the French army to attempt to advance. The Emperor took great delight in hearing about all these details, and ordered the erection of entrenchments and batteries in the same direction, so as to confirm the Austrians in their error. He even made us take from the enemy an island occupied by them, the possession of which really would have been necessary to us if we had meditated an attack on the old battle field of Essling. It was on July 2 that Major Pelet, aide-de-camp to Marshal Masséna, was ordered to take this position. At the head of 600 skirmishers he went to the island in boats in broad daylight, killed or took prisoners all its defenders, and then raised an entrenchment to protect his own men from the artillery fire at once directed on them by the Archduke. A number of Croats were sent to dislodge our troops, but they were driven back, and whilst the fire from some twenty pieces of cannon was concentrated upon the newly taken island our pontonniers succeeded, beneath a hail of shot, in establishing a bridge in the rear of our skirmishers, so as to insure to them the arrival of succours, or, if need were, a way of retreat.

Our preparations were now complete. The island of Lobau was well fortified; the double stockades and the pile bridges were well consolidated; all the boats destined for the rapid construction on emergency of seven or eight bridges over the narrow arm of the Danube separating the island of Lobau from the left bank were hidden upstream, where they could easily be put together in a moment and flung across the narrow space. In a word, everything was just as the Emperor wished it to be. Most of those wounded at Essling had resumed their places in the ranks, and were amongst the most eager to secure a victory after their previous defeat. The Emperor then ordered the combined forces waiting some twenty leagues off, to join him, and in thirty hours his whole grand army of 200,000 men had assembled with admirable precision within sight of the ramparts of Vienna. Nothing could be more solemn or more deeply interesting than this gathering of forces before a great battle; and in the case of that of Wagram, the hour, the scene, the circumstances of the time, all combined to make it one of the most remarkable, whether of ancient or modern tunes. Many and most striking were the vicissitudes to be witnessed in its course by the numerous spectators, for during two long days victory vacillated between the two armies before it was finally assured to the French flag.

In the afternoon of July 3, the Emperor, having issued his orders with the greatest foresight, took up his head quarters beneath the tents on the island of Lobau, so as to be within sight of the final preparations, the aim of which was to put the enemy on the wrong scent, and to draw their attention with their chief forces upon the old point of passage opposite Essling, where the Emperor meant to make a false attack only. This would lead the Archduke really to expose his left wing, whilst protecting it in the direction of our right on the side of the castle of Enzersdorff, which the Austrians had fortified like a citadel. Everything succeeded according to the Emperor’s wishes, and a circumstance which at first sight appeared disastrous for us, in the end seconded our enterprise at the point above indicated. The elements, so cruel to us six weeks before, now came to our aid and fought on our side.

It had been intensely hot all day on July 4, and never, perhaps, was the air more fully charged with electricity. On either side the troops waited in vigilant suspense, resting under arms, and oppressed with the weight of the stagnant atmosphere. The sun set behind heavy masses of cloud torn by occasional flashes of lightning, followed by the distant rumbling of thunder, prophetic of that of the battle to come. So far the storm only threatened our adversaries, but it slowly gathered about us, wrapping us in an obscurity so dense that it seemed to us better suited to slumber than to war. Each one was doing his best to protect himself from the rain, which was beginning to fall, when at about ten o’clock in the evening the Emperor had the order to attack silently communicated to us. Our pontonniers and the marines of the Guard immediately loosened the boats and put them together across the little arm of the Danube, without being either seen or heard by the enemy’s sentinels.

Captain Baste, of the navy, commanding the marines of the Guard, with five gunboats, threw 1,500 skirmishers on to the left bank, who had orders to advance with the bayonet without firing a shot, so as to escape notice in the darkness. The wind drove our boats in the right direction, and the noise it made in the branches of the trees prevented the enemy from hearing us. Flashes of lightning and claps of thunder rapidly succeeded each other, the clouds were rent asunder, and a downpour of rain of extraordinary violence baffled the vigilance of the sentinels, and when they at last gave the alarm we had gained a footing on their ground, and 3,000 men led by Sainte-Croix were arriving in columns behind our advanced guard. The bridges had been so well prepared beforehand that one of them, consisting of twenty-five boats tied together, was by means of a very simple evolution flung in less than five minutes across the water, in the form of a quarter of a circle, the two end boats being fastened one to either bank. The sullen roar of the enemy’s cannon and the flashes of fire from their guns now began to mingle with the thunder and lightning from the sky. A flash suddenly revealed to me when I least suspected it that I was standing side by side with the Emperor, whose profile with the little cap and the grey cloak stood out distinctly for a moment. It was really like a scene of apotheosis, for thousands of balls of the largest calibre were raining upon us. It is thirty-seven years now since that awful day, and yet the grand scene still rises vividly before me.

Our batteries replied to those of the Austrians, and it was under a terrible fire of bombs, shells, round shot, and grape, which crossed each other above our heads, that we made our way over the bridges below Enzersdorff, which we left behind us on our left. Neither the darkness nor the storm, which continued to rage with fury, nor the deluge of rain, which drenched us to the skin, checked the advance of our columns for a moment, and long before daybreak the whole army had arrived on the plain, Marshal Masséna being on the left, General Oudinot in the centre, and Marshal Davout on the right, whilst the corps of Marshal Bernadotte, the Viceroy, General Marmont, and the Guard formed the second line and the reserve.

A bright and glorious summer’s day succeeded the awful night of storm, and when the sun rose on July 5 the enemy had the painful surprise of finding that instead of arriving opposite to the batteries which were to work their destruction, the French forces were drawn up in battle order on the extreme left.

The Emperor had thus turned and avoided all the entrenched corps, and rendered the elaborate and costly works of defence absolutely useless. This compelled the Archduke to alter all his plans, to leave his fortified positions, and, losing all his advantages, to come out to fight half a league from his redoubts. The French, on the other hand, joyfully recognising the skill with which the Emperor had managed to evade the terrible obstacles prepared to check their advance, augured the very best results, and marched on with renewed confidence to the victory of which they now felt assured. The stronghold of Enzersdorff was bombarded so vigorously that it was soon unable further to defend itself, and was completely destroyed, being literally reduced to ashes. Colonel Sainte-Croix had orders to take possession of it, and he took prisoners the battalions defending the crenelated walls. General Oudinot, leading the French centre, came upon the well-fortified castle of Saxengang, defended by 900 Austrians, whom he forced to capitulate, taking from them twelve pieces of cannon. These two feats of arms were achieved before nine o’clock in the morning, on the right of the ground where the fighting was to go on for the rest of the day.

Whilst the advanced corps of the Austrians were drawing back to change front and prepare to receive battle, the Emperor was advancing across the plain, protected on the left by the Danube, his line of battle being perpendicular with that river. The two armies thus soon faced each other, and the battle began immediately after the troops had deployed. On our left, Marshal Masséna marched along the Danube upon Essling, leaving Oudinot on his right; Bernadotte made for Rasdorff, and Marshal Davout on our extreme right for Neusiedel, the light cavalry covering the whole of the right of our army, and the other corps marching in serried ranks behind that first line. The artillery parks and reserves had completed the transit of the bridges, and towards noon the Emperor had all he needed at hand concentrated in a small space.

About two o’clock we saw the Austrian army taking up a position on the heights beyond the Russbach stream, and preparing to contest its passage. Thus far the resistance on the Austrian side had been feeble, and it was only with the Bernadotte corps that the struggle had been at all severe, the enemy having for a moment hoped to beat the Saxons, whose cavalry had received several vigorous charges, each time, however, repulsed with great courage.

Marshal Davout had orders to outflank the enemy on our right in the direction of Neusiedel. General Oudinot took possession of Groshoffen. The fire of both armies now came into brisk play all along the line, and between five and six o’clock the battle became general. The struggle lasted for several hours, and after terrible carnage Wagram and Baumersdorff were taken by the French. The Archduke Charles then carne up with fresh troops, and, rallying the fugitives, he assumed the offensive. At the same moment the Saxons under Marshal Bernadotte penetrated into Wagram on the opposite side to that by which General Oudinot had entered it, and in the darkness, intensified by the smoke from the firing, these two parties of Frenchmen mistook each other for enemies, and inflicted great losses on their own comrades. Thanks to this cruel mistake, the Austrians were able to retake Wagram and Baumersdorff, where they passed the night.

The battle raged till ten o’clock in the evening, and never was I in a more terrible fusillade. It seemed simply impossible for any one to escape; but Major-General Prince Berthier and his officers remained in the thick of the fight for two whole hours. Prince Berthier and two of my fellow staff officers had their horses killed under them.

The Emperor and his staff spent the night at Rasdorff, and our outposts occupied a curve of more than three leagues in extent between our extreme right and left. Nothing decisive had as yet occurred, and we expected that the next day the Emperor would strike a great blow at whatever point of the enemy’s line he thought best.

At two o’clock in the morning of the 6th, Prince Berthier ordered me to go all along the line of our vedettes, beyond Aderklaa to our extreme right, and to penetrate as far as possible into the Austrian lines to ascertain whether preparations were being made for attacking us or for retreat. I obeyed these instructions, and having passed Aderklaa, occupied by our troops, I managed, screened by the tall wheat with which the plain was covered, to reach the enemy’s lines without being seen. Complete repose reigned everywhere, and I had reached the heights of Neusiedel, almost in the centre of the Austrian encampments, when I saw their troops noiselessly resuming their arms, and advancing slowly in battle order towards the French army. Day would soon break, and I must avail myself of the twilight to escape the vedettes and take the news to the Emperor of the approaching attack. The danger of my position was extreme, and in order to cross the stream of Russbach I had to make a wide détour, so that it was nearly five o’clock before I got back to head quarters. A hot fusillade was already being exchanged with our centre, and our troops were so vigorously attacked that they abandoned Aderklaa, and drew back on Rasdorff. The Austrian corps under General Bellegarde dashed upon us with an audacity which nothing could withstand, and our ranks suffered greatly under the terrible cannonade. It is really no exaggeration to say that I saw balls rush through the air and ricochet from the ground much as hail rebounds in violent storms. In this part of the battle field we lost a good deal of ground with many men, and I felt very anxious as to the result of the day.

On our right the Prince von Rosemberg endeavoured to drive back the French under Marshal Davout occupying Groshoffen and Glinzendorf. This attack, at first extremely vigorous, gradually slackened, for the Prince had relied on the support of the Archduke John, who was to have joined him from Presburg, but he never came up at all that day. Marshal Davout, noting the irresolution of the enemy, redoubled his resistance, overthrew the Austrians and drove them back to the heights of Neusiedel.

It will thus be seen that a fierce cannonade was going on all along the semicircle formed by our line. Though on our right Marshal Davout was gaining a dearly bought success, the enemy was continuing to advance on our centre, riddling us with projectiles, whilst on our left the Austrians were rapidly gaining ground, and approaching our bridges, of which they were endeavouring to get possession. It was in this direction that the struggle, which lasted to the very end of the battle, was fiercest, and the idea appears to have occurred to the Emperor that he might reap an advantage from this very circumstance by in his turn wheeling Marshal Davout’s corps upon the extreme left of the Austrians so as to turn them, and, cutting them off from the reinforcements they expected from Hungary, drive them back upon Bohemia.

The Italian, Bavarian, and Saxon contingents were engaged between our centre and our left in endeavouring to repulse the vigorous assaults of the Kollovrath corps, which had joined forces with those under Bellegarde and Klenau. The Carra-Saint-Cyr division, which had tried to retake Aderklaa, had been beaten and driven back. The Saxons had endeavoured to support the French, but they had been compelled to retreat in the greatest disorder, and had only been able to reform their ranks behind the Legrand and Molitor divisions, which checked the enemy’s pursuit.

The Emperor’s head quarters were at Rasdorff, which occupied about the centre of our operations, and it seemed to us there as if Klenau had already reached our rear, and was threatening our bridges, which he seemed likely to take, as he had driven General Boudet back upon them. The Emperor, however, showed no uneasiness about Klenau’s movements, but allowed him to lose time and ground by thus withdrawing from the principal point of the battle field, he himself meanwhile giving his whole attention to what was going on at the centre, where the corps under Kollovrath and Bellegarde seemed ready to surround us.

The Emperor had kept in reserve close at hand the Macdonald corps, the heavy cavalry, his Guard, and nearly 300 pieces of cannon, but the balls of the enemy were already beginning to fall amongst these troops. Marshal Bessières, one of the group immediately surrounding the Emperor, was wounded by a ball, which killed his horse; several distinguished officers were carried off by a fire which we were eager to silence, and the enemy’s cavalry, gallantly led by the Prince von Lichtenstein, charged us furiously. We were all anxious and intensely annoyed at being compelled to remain inactive.

The very moment when the Archduke seemed confident of success, and those under him, in the intoxication of victory, neglected the necessary precautions in case of defeat, when we were beginning to lose heart, whilst our pressing danger made us wild to take part in the struggle, was also the moment for which the Emperor had waited to surprise the enemy by an unexpected attack. He seized the opportunity by ordering General Lauriston to advance at a trot with sixty pieces of artillery, the Guard commanded by General Davout, and forty guns of position led by Aboville to within pistol-shot range of the centre of the Austrian line, and there to pour upon the enemy such a terrible fire of grape shot as should make a great gap in their ranks. The corps under Macdonald and Oudinot, the cavalry of the Guard, and the heavy cavalry were sent to cover this movement, to dash into the gap and mow down all the troops which might otherwise rally and return to the attack on us. This bold manœuvre was executed with extraordinary promptitude and precision. The huge column of 200 teams, dragging the cannon and ammunition wagons, deployed in less than five minutes over a space of some 2,200 yards. At the same moment the showers of balls which had been raining upon us ceased to worry us, we resumed the offensive, put the enemy’s artillery to flight, cut down their cavalry, and pushed on without opposition over ground strewn with the dead. The terrible fire from 100 cannon in a restricted space set light to the standing corn, and the conflagration spread all over the plain. The village of Aderklaa, which the Austrians to hold, became a prey to the flames, which rose to an immense height, and our cavalry, deploying in the midst of the enemy’s squadrons, spread the ravages of the fire and carried off many prisoners.

At the same time General Macdonald and General Reille, with the infantry of the Guard, advanced in columns at the double, overthrowing all before them and retaking Wagram at the same time as Marshal Davout outflanked the enemy’s left, threatening to turn them and cut off their retreat.

At this critical moment of the battle I received orders to go to the road to Hungary and reconnoitre what was going on beyond the Archduke John’s position; and it was still broad daylight when I got back at eight o’clock in the evening, having seen nothing of any kind to cause anxiety. Suddenly, however, I saw some of our foragers returning to the camp stripped almost naked, and all but out of breath with running, shouting as they came, ‘Sauve qui peut!’

I at once tried to ascertain what had terrified them, but I could see nothing, and those I questioned were as much in the dark as I was. Braving the cavalry of the enemy, which could rapidly scour across the vast plain, I made all possible haste back to camp, where I found every place in a state of confusion. The terrified men were upsetting the saucepans on the fires; mules and horses were being hastily laden anyhow; tents were being overturned, drums and trumpets were sounding on every side. The cavalry mounted, the infantry formed in squares, and everybody eagerly inquired of every one else, ‘What is it? What is it?’ I galloped at full speed to the Emperor’s tent, found him as much taken by surprise as any one, and as I drew up he was just flinging himself on to his horse, half dressed, without his cap, and with slippers instead of boots on his feet; for when he was told of the alarm he was being rubbed with a rheumatic brush by his Mameluke servant Roustan. I approached him and. told him that though it was still quite light and I could see a long distance off, I had noticed absolutely nothing alarming. Charles de Périgord, one of the Staff officers, now came running up, exclaiming, ‘Sire, it is really nothing, only a few cowards who ––––’ ‘What do you call nothing?’ answered the Emperor. ‘I tell you there is no such thing as a small matter in time of war; nothing compromises an army so much as a careless security. Go and find out what it really is, and come back and give me a more sensible report.’ Then, having sent some other officers to reconnoitre, the Emperor completed his toilette and awaited their return.

Meanwhile the greatest confusion prevailed in the rear of our army, for those waiting with the carriages, provisions, and all the paraphernalia of war, hearing the noise, began to run away in disorder. For a moment there seemed to be a regular rout, and if it had continued we might well have been anxious. It was just at the entrance to the bridges that the panic was greatest amongst the non-combatants. Many even of those who had the Danube between them and the enemy fled, abandoning their carriages and baggage, which had been overturned in the strange scuffle, and did not consider themselves safe till they were behind the ramparts of Vienna.

Our messengers returned at last to assure us that the enemy were nowhere to be seen, and order was restored before the cause of the alarm was discovered. Later however, it was ascertained that some fifty Austrian horsemen, whose retreat to the main body of their army had been intercepted in trying to join that at Presburg, had cut their way through a little village where our unarmed foragers had been collecting straw. The blows they received when they were least expecting them inspired them with such terror that they communicated it to every one else, and as they ran away shouting at the top of their voices the alarm spread with incredible rapidity.

An army less lucky than ours generally was marches with far less confidence than we did, and I cannot help thinking that we should have been wiser to take precautions to guard against these blind panics, which a skilful enemy could turn to such great advantage.

The panic led to several very comic scenes, the one I am about to relate amongst others. Meal time being near, a superior officer of the Guard had climbed into the baggage wagon of his battalion to get out some delicacies of diet for distribution to his fellow officers, but the cry of ‘Sauve qui peut!’ which the officer himself was too busy to notice, made the driver run to his horses, which had not been unharnessed, spring into the saddle and start off at a gallop. The shock threw the officer down, the cover of the wagon shut upon him, stifling his shouts, and there he had to remain, half-suffocated amongst the bottles and provisions, till a league further on the vehicle was brought to a standstill in the block at the entrance to the bridge, and the driver opened his prison and set him free. Absent when his corps resumed their arms, he was supposed to be dead; and his account of his misadventure, when he had been engaged in fetching something to add to the cheer of his battalion, was greeted with shouts of laughter from his comrades.

All the corps under the Archduke continued to retreat, and the next day the Emperor took up his quarters at Volkersdorff, a few leagues beyond Wagram. Here he created princes, counts, barons, and knights, and gave increases of pay. I shared in the rewards, for it was then that I received my title of Baron.

Before resuming his pursuit of the enemy, the Emperor gave orders that all the wounded should be seen to. The Austrians were as well cared for as our own men, and the inhabitants of Vienna turned out in crowds to seek the sufferers and carry them off the field of battle. Count Daru, chief commissary of the army, and Baron Larrey, chief surgeon, superintended with generous zeal the attendance on the wounded, but their numbers were so great that in spite of every effort many who were hidden amongst the corn were not found until after five days of terrible sufferings beneath the burning sun of July. Some were dreadfully burnt by the fire which had consumed much of the crops during the battle; others, too weak to drag themselves away from the decomposing bodies of the men killed beside them, were consumed by a wasting fever and had had nothing to assuage their thirst but their own tears of despair, which fell upon their dry parched lips, and the sweat which poured from their brows. Others, I shudder to relate, drank the water they passed themselves to relieve their horrible thirst. They cried aloud for help, and those who sought them also shouted, but the closely growing crops covering the wide-stretching plain, trampled down and broken though they were, stifled the sound of their feeble voices, and the charitable persons anxious to bring help to the dying had in many cases the greatest difficulty in finding them. It was heartrending work for us who had to go the day after the battle to the aid of the unfortunate creatures. As at Marengo, I came upon several Austrian officers lying on the plain who had had parts of their bodies carried away by balls, and who, though they still retained all their mental faculties, could not hope to survive. They entreated me to cut short their suffering by a pistol shot, and I, who would have killed them if I had met them sword in hand the day before, had not the courage to render them this cruel service. I would have begged Larrey to give them a draught which should lull them into the painless sleep of eternity, had I not known that it is wrong to doubt the power of God, who is able to restore even those whose lives seem hopelessly doomed. It never does to despair, as is proved by a thousand happy examples, for Larrey, who was often accused of cruelty, and who would not have used the knife so often if there had been time to await the result of milder but less certainly efficacious measures, did indeed save some whose cases seemed most hopeless.

The victory of Wagram, which once more plunged Austria into mourning and consolidated the power of the Emperor, did not secure peace, and we had to make yet further efforts to win it. The Austrian forces, though in retreat, were still very numerous, and the insurrection in the Tyrol was assuming a serious character, which might be turned to account by our enemies.

The Emperor having heard that the principal forces of the Archduke were returning by way of Znaim on Moravia, determined to follow them.

The French daily gained marked advantages over the Austrians, who, hotly pressed by the corps under Marmont, Oudinot, and Marshal Masséna, tried to make a stand at Znaim, which the Archduke was strongly fortifying and had covered by his artillery, and which was originally so strongly situated at the junction of the rivers Taya and Lischen as to be considered impregnable.

Marshal Masséna was the first to be engaged at Znaim, and his position was critical enough during the whole of the 10th whilst the other French corps were still a long way off.

The fighting was resumed on the 11th. At first a storm accompanied by heavy rain damped the ardour of the combatants, and restored to the Austrians certain advantages of the ground by inundating the field of battle. Our cavalry, however, at last succeeded in crossing the Taya at several different points in spite of the rain of the day before, and the Legrand division followed it. The Masséna and Marmont corps in their turn crossed the river under the eye of the Emperor, who had just come up with his Guard, his cavalry, and the infantry under Davout and Oudinot. The Archduke Charles, finding himself attacked on every side, now recognised that, in spite of the success he had just achieved at several points, it would be impossible for him to maintain the fine position he had taken up at Znaim, and without further hesitation he ordered the retreat.

His army retired in good order, whilst the fusillade was kept up as hotly as ever.

In the midst of the scattered firing all along the line – some hundred different little combats were going on – the cry was heard, ‘Cease firing! Cease firing! Here comes the bearer of a flag of truce to sue for peace.’

It was very difficult to transmit this order to cease firing, for both sides were eager to continue the struggle and many of the French and Austrian officers who were sent with the news of the demand for peace were themselves wounded.

The Emperor’s tents were quickly pitched on the plateau opposite to and overlooking Znaim, the camp was established around then, and the last rays of the setting sun lit up a scene of unrivalled beauty. At the base of the wooded hills flowed the pretty river, and beyond stretched a smiling landscape dotted with gardens, just now rendered animated by the numerous soldiers, some of whom were eagerly climbing the cherry trees and devouring the fruit, which I believe they would have been just as ready to pick if the firing had still been going on, though this pause in hostilities in such a delightful neighbourhood was a regular fête for them.

The Archduke Charles, seeing that nothing but a treaty of peace could now save the Austrian monarchy, had decided to demand an armistice for negotiations. The Emperor, no less desirous to conclude peace, received the Prince von Lichtenstein, who had been chosen as envoy, with every possible distinction.

July 12 was spent in the going to and fro of couriers between the two camps, to arrange the conditions of the armistice which was to precede the treaty of peace, and as soon as the preliminaries were signed, the Emperor entered Znaim. He admired its site and its surroundings so much that he asked me to make a sketch of the whole scene, with a view to the exhibition later of a panorama of the grand battle field, such as that of the interview between the Emperors at Tilsit with the crowds who witnessed it, to which every one was then flocking in Paris.

On June 12 the Emperor ordered his troops to occupy the cantonments abandoned by the Austrians, in accordance with the articles of the armistice.

Before starting for Vienna on June 13, the Emperor, unwilling to leave the army without some public expression of his gratitude to God for all the brilliant successes his arms had achieved, addressed a circular to the bishops from his camp at Znaim, telling them to have a public thanksgiving in all the churches.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said the Emperor, ‘although He was of the seed of David, tells us that His kingdom is not of this world, and He ordered Christians to render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s. I,’ he added, ‘am the inheritor of the power of Cæsar. I shall persevere in the grand work I have undertaken, and of which I have now all but achieved the completion, that of restoring religion and public worship; I shall maintain the independence of thrones and nations, I shall wean the church from things temporal and perishable, whilst leaving to her the care of our eternal interests, of the affairs of the soul with the direction of consciences, and her ministers, thus set apart to her service shall be compassed about with the reverence which we alone are able to secure to them. Such is our will.’

One must know what war means to be able to appreciate the joy of returning to a peaceful roof, beneath which one can give oneself up to repose without dreading the sound of the trumpet calling one to horse. It was with this sense of relief that we all returned to Schönbrunn, and were able for a whole day to wander about its fine conservatories and gardens, and to visit our friends in Vienna. The next day we made a pilgrimage to Ebersdorff, recalling many a touching memory of the bridges, islands, and battle fields of Essling and Wagram. It is impossible to describe the immense interest, fraught alike with pain and pride, with which I gazed once more on the ashes of the twenty villages burnt down in the plains during those terrible days, and the still recent traces of the grand evolutions which had ploughed up the ground in every direction, death claiming the while so many victims. The freshly disturbed soil everywhere marked the sites of the graves of our brothers, our friends, and our enemies. The whole landscape was wrapped in a melancholy silence, the ground was strewn with rags which had once been uniforms, and with broken armour, whilst the only moving figures were those of a few soldiers here and there engaged in picking up muskets, swords, breastplates and balls, with a view to earning the reward promised by the Emperor for every weapon brought into camp. There were no other crops to be gathered in, and the cultivators of the fields only visited them now to mourn over their losses. There was but one consolation for us – the princes of the land had themselves brought this desolation upon their people, which they might easily have spared them. Not a curse was muttered against us by the good-natured Germans, and we on our side respected their natural grief.

I was often sent by the Emperor to the hospitals to give comforting messages from him to the wounded, to ask if he could do anything for their families, and to see that nothing was lacking which could hasten their recovery. Of course I appreciated the confidence shown in me by choosing me for these visits of inspection, but I should have greatly preferred the perilous honour of going to take a redoubt by assault in the open air to having to make the round of the wards in the magnificent hospitals of Vienna, crowded with the wounded, hundreds of whom were daily carried off by typhus fever. The effects of this fever on its victims were like those of the cholera, for they quickly became delirious, and so disfigured as to be unrecognisable. I saw several in the convulsions of tetanus fall out of bed and roll about naked on the floor, suffering the most horrible tortures. It is appalling to think how many perished in this way.

Percy and Larrey set an example of great courage to their young fellow surgeons compelled to spend whole days in the polluted atmosphere, and the survivors were not at all intimidated by the death of those of their comrades who succumbed. I never left the hospitals without admiring their steadfastness and thanking God for guiding me to choosing a profession less sad than theirs, and above all for saving me from having to invoke their aid on my own behalf.

I was now commissioned to go to the Tyrol to insist on its evacuation by any Austrian troops which might still remain there, and to take over the fort of Saxemburg, which was to be given up to us. Nothing could have been more delightful to an artist than to be ordered to cross the beautiful mountains and valleys of the Tyrol in the most beautiful season of the year. I very soon secured an equipage to my mind, and I had reached Mürrschlag, situated on the lofty pass separating Austria from Styria, when I noticed that a great stone was gathering. It was but noon, yet it soon became as dark as at midnight, and the rumbling of the tempest echoed through the mountains, whilst in the obscurity the forests assumed a hue of the deepest gloom as the wind bent their branches to the earth and stripped them of their foliage. A heavy downpour of rain deluged me in my open carriage; but drenched to the skin as I was, I enjoyed watching the magic effects of nature in this angry mood, though I must confess that I felt a little nervous amongst these wild districts when the fury of the blast drove my horses and carriage in the direction of the precipices with which they are intersected. This brilliant display of superhuman grandeur was, however, perhaps specially got up for my benefit with a view to impressing me with the beauty of nature, even when wrapped for a moment in the sombre colours of a tempest.

The storm did not last long, and the sun came out again. The rain drops reflected its beams like diamonds. The valley was bathed in light, and, warmed by the flood of rays, was converted for the nonce into a celestial land, from which ethereal vapours rose on every side. The scene filled me with a kind of ecstasy, and my soul seemed to take to itself wings and float away into space with the clouds of mist. I wondered how any one, free to do as he likes and with plenty of money, could help loving to travel, for it is only those who do who can see Nature under her best aspects, and enjoy the vivid impressions they produce. When I think of the lovely valleys of the Tyrol, and recall the effect they had upon me, I felt sure that the gate of heaven is at the brink of the waterfalls of the Mürr at Klagenfurth, at Villach or at Spital on the Drave, and I have not the slightest doubt that Homer, Virgil, and Dante, when they described the entrance to hell or to the Elysian fields, were thinking of the spots on earth which had seemed to them most luxuriantly beautiful or most savagely forbidding.

The sturdy inhabitants of the Tyrol, whose passionate indignation at their separation from Austria and incorporation with Würtemberg and Bavaria in 1805 was ever on the increase, waged war upon us from their mountain fastnesses with indomitable courage and skill, harassing us the more as they attacked us in the rear, and the insurrection even seemed likely to spread to the route by which our reinforcements were expected from France. The Kings of Würtemberg and Bavaria, the greater portion of whose troops were with us in Austria, were for a time very uneasy about the revolt in the Tyrol, where the news of our luckless defeat at Essling had been greeted with the greatest enthusiasm, no one supposing that we should be able to recover from it. The people indeed were so much emboldened by it, that a general rising took place throughout the whole of the Tyrolean Alps, the Austrian General Buol and the Marquis de Chateler doing all in their power in the name of the Emperor of Austria to foment discontent and spread the insurrection. Many able men, such as Andreas Hofer, Hartel, Arco, Speckbacher, Schmidt, Adel, and others, with the Capuchin monk Haspinger, placed themselves at the head of the insurgent peasants, giving their orders in the name of God and the Holy Virgin, and fighting with extraordinary courage. Several French detachments were taken prisoners on their way across the Tyrol. Innsbruck was retaken, the Bavarians were repulsed, and the enthusiasm of the Tyroleans over these few isolated successes, achieved during the months of June and July, rose to its highest pitch.

The Emperor, who was always generous to the French émigrés, had had the Marquis de Chateler’s sequestrated estates in France restored to him but two years before, and he was very indignant to find that this man, forgetting all the claims of gratitude, was one of the most eager in stirring up enemies against him. He therefore now sent to De Chateler a message to the effect that the decree of the Republic condemning to death any émigré who should bear arms against his country would be put in force in his case. The Marquis was at first greatly dismayed, but he soon recovered courage, and redoubled his efforts, showing the most bitter animus against us. It was in the midst of the success his efforts had won for the Austrians and the insurgents, that the news reached them of the armistice of Znaim, and they received orders to conform to its conditions. But the Tyrolese had already begun to look upon themselves as the saviours of the Austrian monarchy, and they could not bring themselves to relax their efforts. The Austrians alone, and that most reluctantly, agreed to retire and relinquish the country to us. Such was the state of things in the districts for which I was bound, where a contingent made up of French and Russians was under the command of General Rusca.

On July 30 I left Klagenfurth, the picturesque situation of which I greatly admired, and I found General Rusca at Villach. We went together as far as Spital, and there he gave me several of his officers with the men under them to go and take over the fortress of Saxemburg, where I arrived at daybreak on August 1. The Austrians were fully prepared for our reception, and the meeting was far more friendly than I had expected it to be. I passed the day in examining the state of the ramparts, magazines, &c. I did not notice anything very remarkable about this fort, and though it is situated at the top of a mountain I think I could have taken it quite easily if it had not been given up to me, for it is closely overlooked by several quite accessible heights from which it could be at once disabled by our modern projectiles. I drew a plan and made several sketches of the position, which I sent the next day to Prince Berthier with an account of my mission, not forgetting to acquaint him with the bad disposition towards us of the people of the country, who might have incited the Austrian soldiery to maltreat us. The latter, however, though they greatly outnumbered us, behaved with far greater loyalty than was agreeable to the Tyrolese. With but a few hundred Italian soldiers, I was in the midst of eight or ten thousand Austrians, who, under the leadership of General Schmidt, now evacuated the Tyrol and withdrew to Hungary. The grave courtesy of generals, officers, and men was really remarkable under the melancholy circumstances in which they found themselves. The gallant fellows wanted peace as badly as we did, and if their columns had been made up of Frenchmen I could not have been better or more fraternally treated.

In the rear of the troops, however, the attitude of the people was very menacing, and the heights were covered with peasants, who watched with regret the departure of their protectors. I thought it prudent therefore to hasten to rejoin General Rusca, who was now advancing upon Lientz. the chief place in the Pusterthal.

We passed the 4th and 5th of August with General Rusca and the Italian Generals Souqui and Arrezi, and during these two days a terrible storm raged around us, completely covering our camp and the neighbouring districts with snow. We wanted to push on towards Brixen, but we heard that the Austrian General Buol was escorting several hundred French prisoners to us, and that the Tyrolese threatened to kill them all if we advanced further into the valley. To avoid rendering it impossible for the Austrian General to protect them by approaching nearer, we awaited them at Lientz, enduring agonies of suspense as to their fate till they were safely amongst us, expecting every moment to have the pain of hearing that some of them had been murdered. During the 6th some of the inhabitants of Lientz and the neighbouring villages went to their houses and brought out their arms, which they gave up to us. This apparent submission was, however, as we shall see, only intended to lull our jealous vigilance.

On the same day – Sunday, August 6 – General Rusca placed his division, all in full dress, in order of battle, on the heights to receive the troops under General Buol, who had just passed our outposts and were to halt for the evening on the plain below our position, where we had already marked out their encampment. General Buol handed over to us the two hundred prisoners he had brought with him, and as soon as his eight or ten thousand men had taken their places in the meadow below, General Rusca sent me to invite their leader and sixty of his officers to come and share the dinner we were having prepared. He also sent wine and bread to the Austrian soldiers, which were accepted; but the more important affair still to be settled was not arranged quite so easily. One of the conditions of the armistice was that no artillery should be taken out of the Tyrol by the Austrians, and when I asked General Buol to have the twelve pieces of cannon he had brought with him taken to our camp, he found it very difficult to obey the orders he had received on the subject, and his staff did all they could to induce him to refuse. I insisted, however, and the irritation against me became intense when I ordered four pretty little pieces of cannon of small calibre, ornamented with very fine sculptured designs, to be placed with the regular war artillery. A colonel with a very ugly face and absolutely no nose at all advanced upon me with flashing eyes and said to me in French, in a very gruff and arrogant tone, ‘Those cannon belong to me, and they won’t be taken away whilst I draw breath!’ Then, placing his hand on his sword with a threatening gesture, ‘If you want them, come and take them.’

Without moving, I answered with a smile: ‘The treaty in question says cannon, without specifying their calibre. Later, if you like, I will give these gentlemen the entertainment of watching a single combat between you and me, if they think that will amuse them; but before I do anything else I have got to fulfil my mission.  When I have the honour of knowing your name, I can ask the Emperor to give you back your cannon.’ ‘I am the Prince of Linange,’ was the reply, ‘and I shall take away my cannon.’ The dispute became hotter and hotter; the group closed in round me and my comrades, whilst other officers joined it, and presently one of them, who spoke French very well, and to whom all the others gave place, although he wore nothing to indicate his rank, came up and began doing all he could to increase the irritation against me. In spite of the uproar I managed to preserve my presence of mind, turning a deaf ear to all offensive epithets which I could not otherwise have passed over, but my position was momentarily becoming more critical.

General Rusca, who from his position on the heights saw with anxiety the excitement in the camp below, where the soldiers were arming and preparing to attack us, now sent an Italian officer to me to find out what it was all about. That gentleman, being on horseback, was able to see me as I looked down from my steed on to the angry group of officers surrounding me, and recognising the danger I was in he waited but to meet my eyes and thus telegraph encouragement to me before he galloped off again. The authority of General Buol was already being set at defiance, and the new-comer, who was evidently a Frenchman, kept urging the Prince of Linange to insult me further. I realised that if I lost my temper my life would be the forfeit, and I was still calm when I caught the name of the man who had made my position so dangerous. It was General the Marquis de Chateler, and directly it fell upon my ears, I of course remembered what the Emperor had told me about him. Rallying the courage which was perhaps beginning to fail me, I looked fixedly at the Prince and the Marquis, and said, ‘The taking away of your cannon is not the most painful part of my mission, but to deliver over to a court-martial any émigrés I may happen to meet with, especially the Marquis de Chateler, whom I will feign not to know, that his life may be saved.’ These words produced far more effect than I expected, for both officers remained mute and apparently confounded. At their sudden change of expression, the rest, who did not understand French well, waited to have my words translated to them, and there was a moment of hesitation, but what really brought me safely out of the affair was that the Italian officer, Seroni by name, had lost no time, and we now saw a cloud of dust approaching, raised by eight pieces of cannon being driven up at a gallop, the gunners with matches lighted. In some four seconds they were drawn up, pointed and ready to pour forth grape shot, protected by our division, which was also on the alert to attack at a signal from me. This prompt arrival of artillery, with our energetic action generally, did more than all my arguments; the crowd dispersed, the pretty little cannon were given up with the rest of the artillery, and when they were amongst our ranks, I repeated to the officers my invitation to dinner. They made no reply; the Marquis de Chateler was the first to withdraw, and the Prince remained to the last, watching me with his repulsive eyes. I thanked him, however, for the honour he had been willing to do me in measuring swords with me in the presence of the two armies, and placed myself at his disposal if he still cared for a meeting with me. H e took no notice of what I said, and I retired. I heard the same evening that the Prince of Linange was an émigré from Alsace, and was surnamed the Monster because of his ugliness, perhaps also on account of his character, for he was alike the cleverest and most troublesome bully in the Austrian army. Order was completely restored, but when the dinner hour arrived not one of our invited guests appeared, so sixty French officers took their places, and we merrily drank the health of the sulky fellows.

We spent the 7th at Lientz in gleaning information as to what was going on in the villages near, and learnt that the insurgents were gathering in large numbers it certain points preparatory to attacking us in the town and in our camp. I at once took all possible measures for the defence, had barricades erected at the weakest points, and on the side of the camp caused ladders to be fixed on either side of the walls, so as to facilitate our communication with the outlying troops, and ordered the removal of various blocks of rock encumbering the ford of the Drave between the camp and the gate of the town. General Busca also took necessary precautions, and we awaited the enemy.

A little before daybreak ou August 8 the peasants swept down from the mountains and attacked us on every side at once. They thought to surprise us, and were, in their turn, greatly disconcerted at meeting with such unexpected resistance. The hordes flung themselves upon us with the greatest fury, but in such disorder that their losses were very pinch greater than ours. One of the attacking columns penetrated into the quarter of the town where I happened to be, and for a moment I was in a very awkward position, but I soon saw half a battalion of our men climbing down the ladders referred to above, and, falling on the rear of my assailants, the French troops had soon destroyed them all, not one being left alive. I shall never forget the horror with which I saw so many white or fair-haired heads fall beneath our blows in the mêlée, for it was patriotism alone which had inspired their owners to attack us, and I hated to be compelled to order no quarter to be given to those who would have assassinated us. ‘Kill the devil lest he should kill you,’ says the proverb; and the enraged peasants, as they dashed upon us, rolled over, and fell at our feet, continued to strike at us even when mortally wounded. I lost ten of my Italians, and had a good many more wounded at this one point.

The next day I climbed up to the ruins of a strong old castle on the heights above the town, and remained sitting amongst them for some time. Just at the entrance to these ruins rose a gigantic lime tree, some thirty feet in circumference, its huge roots deeply embedded in the crevices of the rock; sole survivor, it seemed to me, of its contemporaries of two hundred years ago. Seated beneath the shade of this veteran of the valley, I had a splendid view of the surrounding country. On my way back to the town, I heard that the insurgents, relying on their thorough knowledge of the country, were preparing to surprise and murder us all in the night. We therefore kept watch till the morning, but nobody came.

General Rusca, anxious to show his gratitude for my co-operation, made me a present of a very fine horse and overwhelmed me with attentions. The General, noted for his combined culture and courage, was an Italian by birth, having been born at Nice, where he began life as a doctor. When the Revolution broke out in France in 1791-92, he hurried to take part in it with extraordinary enthusiasm, and his audacity soon led to his rising to the rank of general in the French army. He prided himself on being able to keep a more vigilant watch than any other man of his time, and as a matter of fact he did not go to bed once during the fortnight I was with him. Still I must admit that when he did not keep himself awake by repeating the passages he knew by heart in Homer, Horace, Virgil, and other authors, he would often fall asleep at table or even when engaged in conversation. He told me that one day when he was in the department of Var, the Austrian General Scharf sent an envoy to him to summon him to evacuate the district which the Austrians, invited by the inhabitants, had just occupied. ‘We were in my garden,’ said the General, ‘near a flower bed full of tulips, many of which were in seed. This made me think I would imitate the conduct of a certain King of Rome, and with my riding-whip I cut off the heads of the flowers, saying to the officer, “If what you tell me is true, that is how I should treat the inhabitants, and that,” I added, as I trod down the stalks which had remained standing, “is what I should do to the enemy!” This pantomime quite dumbfounded the Austrian, and put an end to the interview.’ I already knew what a terrorist General Rusca was, and I quite believed his story; but I contented myself with silently thinking, ‘Se non è vero, è ben trovato.’