‘Paris: February 17, 1813.

‘My Lord, – The Emperor’s goodness conferred on me, against my own desire, the honour of being chief of the staff to Marshal Davout, Prince of Eckmühl. I begged again and again to be replaced, and at Smolensk the Emperor gave his consent, naming General Charpentier as my successor, but he would not take up his post, and I continued to perform the duties without the pay of Chief of the Staff.

‘His Majesty is not ignorant of the dangers to which I have been exposed during the last eighteen months. In Spain my horse was killed under me, having been struck by more than thirty balls, whilst I was taken prisoner stripped naked, and, without exaggeration, all but shot, all but hanged, and finally taken to England, whence I escaped miraculously from the hands of smugglers, who had intended to murder me, so that I was able to join the Russian campaign, in which I endured the torments of famine, was poisoned and frozen, and, for the second time in less than twenty months, completely ruined by the loss of all my baggage and horses.

‘Finding myself without employment in the Grand Army, I left the Prince of Eckmühl at Kovno, and returned to Paris to collect the means for rejoining the army. I have achieved what I came for, and now have the honour of placing myself at the disposal of your Excellency, ready to continue to serve the Emperor and France with the same zeal as I have already done for twenty-five years. I have the honour to be, &c.’

The Duke of Feltre submitted my letter to the Emperor, but his Majesty was not in the least touched by the exceptional position in which I was placed. He merely observed, ‘He owns his fault; he shall pay for the others;’ and when on February 19 I presented myself to pay my respects to the Duke, I was told he could not receive me. Returning home, I found the letter he had just written to me, which contained the very unexpected words: ‘General, the Emperor orders you to give yourself up as a prisoner at the Abbaye.’ There could be no reply to so gracious an order! and the same day my good friend Colonel Bontemps went to see me placed under lock and key in a room where many men of much higher military rank than myself had been confined. My faithful friend even remained with me for the sixteen days my captivity lasted. Many ladies also called to see me, but I was very much mortified at the position in which I had been placed, and declined to allow any of them to stoop to enter my prison. In denying myself the pleasure of seeing them, I hoped to deprive the Emperor of some of the éclat he evidently hoped to gain by shutting me up, for if I had admitted them behind my bars, I should have been much talked of, many carriages would have driven up to the entrance to the Abbaye, and my name would have been in all the papers, which was just what I wanted to avoid.

On the sixteenth day I received orders to join the army in Germany. I at once bought a good travelling carriage, and on March 11 I quitted Paris once more. By the evening of the 19th I was at a little place called Hombourg, beyond Metz, where my cramped quarters contrasted greatly with those I was in on the same day the year before in a Moorish palace of Cordova, Andalusia, which was decorated in a fairylike manner in honour of the birthday of King Joseph.

I arrived at Mayence on March 21, and there I found General Compans, whom I had not seen since we parted at Krasnoe. He was just the same as ever, as calm and smiling as he had been on the battle field. His costume alone was different. The thick furs needed as a protection against the bitter cold of the Russian winter were discarded, he no longer carried his arm in a sling, and his happy expression was not now the result of self-control in the midst of dangers, but the outcome of genuine contentment, for his pretty young wife had come to join him with her parents M. and Mme. Lecoq, who were old friends of mine. They all pressed me to stay as long as I could with them, and when I left them it was only to go to Frankfort, where I was received by Marshal Mortier with equally touching proofs of his faithful friendship for me, which dated from the beginning of the campaign on the Rhine.

Napoleon had but quite recently raised Von Wrede to the rank of a Marshal of the Empire, and made him a Prince of Bavaria, his native land, which had just been converted into an independent kingdom.¹ The defection of that General with his troops had made a great gap in our ranks, and Von Wrede hoped by turning against us his 20,000 Bavarians to cut off our retreat to France. Providence, however, did not permit him to succeed.

¹ Lejeune seems to have got wrong about Von Wrede. He was made a Count of the Empire by Napoleon after the battle of Wagram, but his defection at the close of the Russian campaign prevented his gaining the rank of Marshal. It was not until he had won several victories over the French, that he was made a Bavarian Field Marshal and Prince by the enemies of Napoleon. – Trans.

But we must not anticipate by referring in advance to the events which were now rapidly to succeed each other. It will not do to speak too soon of the brilliant battle of Hanau, when the united Bavarian and Austrian troops under Von Wrede were defeated by our brave fellows, who, few though they were, surpassed themselves, and not only kept open the way back to their country, which Von Wrede endeavoured to close to them, but put to the blush their old comrades in arms, who must indeed have felt ashamed of having deserted the ranks of the noble allies with whom they had been for so long on such cordial terms.

My one desire now was to find out where I could get the horses and harness I needed for a new campaign, and I was hunting about, when I saw some one I thought I knew advancing towards me on a very fine steed. It was Captain de Vaux, and, roused to envy at seeing him so well mounted, I accosted him with the words, ‘You are lucky to have been able to get such a good horse.’ He drew rein for me to see its points. It was a young iron-grey animal, with a long white waving silky mane, falling over a swanlike neck, as glossy as satin. The thick hair partly hid the brilliant dark eyes and the wide-open nostrils, the edges of which were of a deep red colour. Whilst De Vaux was chatting to me about his travels, and showing off his horse, the beautiful creature was champing the bit, flecking us with foam, and raising clouds of dust as it fretted against the delay. The Captain told me, to my relief, that he had just bought his steed from the Prince of Sondershausen, whose palace was about four leagues off, adding, ‘In his stables you will find 200 horses reared on his estates, and he will sell you as many as you like.’ This news, of course, delighted me, and I ordered my postilion to take me to Sondershausen as quickly as possible. We soon reached it, and found it to be a pretty little town almost surrounded by woods.

I knew that I must go first to the Grand Equerry, a certain wealthy Jew, named Von Schleidnitz, whose house and office were on the chief square opposite the Palace. Having first inquired who I was, he received me with the most courtly politeness, and as soon as he knew the object of my visit, he said, ‘I will go and ascertain the wishes of his Highness, who is now hunting about two miles off.’ He had his horse saddled at once, and an hour later he came to the hotel at which I had put up, with a favourable reply. The Prince had given orders that the court stables should be shown to me by the equerries in gala attire, and the contents of those stables placed at my disposal. He added a gracious invitation to me to come to the Palace that evening to see the grand opera of ‘Tamerlane,’ with music by Winter. A palace! Court stables! Equerries in gala attire! The grand opera of ‘Tamerlane’ in the midst of the forest! This must be a Versailles in miniature. I felt as if I had fallen from the clouds, and arranged to go to the stables to see the wonderful horses at the time named by the Grand Equerry, who was good enough to come and fetch me. We soon arrived at the Palace, where the little garrison was under arms. The Prince, I found, had to furnish thirty men to the Confederation of the Rhine. A drum was beaten as a salute on our arrival, and this was also the signal of our approach to the equerries in charge of the court stables.

A vast sanded court surrounded by fine buildings still separated us from the manorial residence of the Prince. We entered on the right the principal corridor of the stables, which presented a most charming and striking coup d’œil. More than 100 young fellows of about eighteen or twenty were standing motionless, drawn up in long lines on the right and left at the entrance to the stalls, whip in hand, and wearing green jackets relieved, in English fashion, with a few silver ornaments, tight-fitting white leather breeches, riding boots, and jockey caps. Here and there stood a man in more richly decorated garments, who was apparently in command of the others. The silence was only interrupted by the noise made by the horses as they munched the hay which they pulled from the racks made of oak or polished walnut, the dark colour of which contrasted well with the white marble of the mangers. The corridor was full of the delicious scent of the hay. The horses, which were almost at liberty in their big stalls, appeared very happy, and quite indifferent to our praises of their graceful beauty, their colour, &c. They all seemed very gentle, and to expect us to caress them. I found that each horse had its own saddle, bridle, and harness, and that if I liked the Prince would sell them with the horse chosen. I was very glad to hear this, which would save me a lot of trouble, so I asked to have twenty horses, the age of which had been told me, led out for me to look at more closely. Twenty of the young equerries then left their ranks, and either leading the horses, or vaulting lightly on their backs, put them through their paces for my benefit. I chose twelve out of the twenty, six of a good and six of a moderate height. Then, my voice almost trembling with eagerness, I asked the Grand Equerry to speak to the Prince about the price. The thought of owning all these beautiful creatures filled me with delight, but I was dreadfully afraid that a sum beyond my means would be asked, for I well remembered the experience of one of my friends, who bought some horses from the Prince of Plesse, who had a very fine stud in Holstein, and was celebrated for his skill in breeding the finest races of horses. He did not want to make money, but he did want to cover the expenses involved in the keeping up of such an establishment as his. He never, therefore, allowed a horse bearing his brand to pass out of his hands under a sum considerably over 100 louis, and every animal bred by him was certainly well worth that on account of its beauty and noble qualities. At every sale, therefore, the word ‘hundred’ was understood, and when a stranger asked the price of some steed to which he had a fancy, and the reply was twenty, fifty, or eighty louis as the case might be, he was often overjoyed at the idea of getting a fine animal for such a moderate sum; but when he offered his eighty louis he was asked for the other hundred for the brand on the horse chosen, and, surprised at the demand, he would often break off the bargain. In my case, however, the Prince of Sondershausen, fearing probably the chances of war, asked no more than fifty louis for each big horse, and forty for each small one. He was very moderate too in the prices he put on the saddles and harness, and I soon found myself the happy owner of twelve fine horses, which seemed to me more beautiful than ever now they belonged to me. Good strong horses mean everything to a general officer – courage, speed, life itself – and I was full of thankfulness. I gladly emptied my purse into the hands of Von Scheidnitz, who lent me some trusty fellows to take the horses to Magdeburg. I excused myself from waiting to pay my respects to the Prince, or to listen to the opera of ‘Tamerlane,’ and set off again in my carriage in the evening.

I had scarcely gone a league through the pretty avenues of trees leading from the Prince’s residence, when I heard a carriage drawn by eight horses gaining rapidly on us. My postilion had only just time to say to me, as he respectfully uncovered, ‘The Princess Regent!’ before the vehicle dashed past us. I followed his example, and saluted. A few minutes later two carriages, each with six horses, followed the first. ‘The ladies of the Court!’ cried the postilion, and we both saluted again with the same respect as for the Princess herself.

Whilst I was halting for a moment at Halberstadt, I saw my charming little troop of horses pass in good condition, and felt a fresh glow of pleasure in their possession. I reached Magdeburg on March 29, and alighted at the residence of my friend General Haxo, who with General Rogniat had orders to put that stronghold into a good state of defence, as a base of operations in the approaching campaign. Prince Eugène, Viceroy of Italy, was also there, having collected the remnants of his army on the banks of the Elbe. Every day fresh reinforcements arrived from France, and all the troops of the new army, already of considerable strength, were eager to avenge the disasters of the Russian campaign. Marshal Davout, who was still pursued by Wittgenstein, had passed from the right to the left bank of the Elbe at Dresden. On March 29 he had blown up two piers of the big bridge and retired on Leipzig. It was, however, important to bar the approach of the enemy along the many open roads on the frontiers of Germany, so the Prince of Eckmühl with the reinforcements he had received went down the left bank of the Elbe, and took up a position beyond Magdeburg on the lower river on the left of the Viceroy’s corps.

The Emperor joined the army again on April 17, just at the time of the arrival of the reinforcements from Italy, and on May ¹ our army took up its position at Œtch on the road to Lützen, a little to the south of the battle field where the great struggle of November 6, 1632, took place, in which Gustavus Adolphus lost his life. The French now came into collision with the enemy for the first time in the new campaign,1 and in the shock of a brisk cannonade Marshal Bessières was killed by a ball. The Emperor and his Guard slept that night at Weissenfels.

¹ Lejeune scarcely makes it clear that Napoleon had now to deal with the united Prussian and Russian army, a very considerable portion of the former of which had been on his own side during the last campaign. – Trans.

On May 2 took place the second great battle of Lützen. The Russian and Prussian forces advancing on to the plain were vigorously attacked by the Emperor, who won a great victory over them, and drove them back upon the Elbe.¹

¹ Owing to the fact that the French had very few cavalry, they were not able to follow up this victory by pursuing and taking prisoners. – Trans.

On the evening of this great battle occurred one of those exciting episodes so frequent in war, in which General Compans behaved with a noble devotion, recalling that of the Chevalier d’Assas.

The General had achieved great successes during the day with the sturdy marines of the Guard forming the greater part of his fine division, and when night fell our men, finding themselves isolated in the midst of a vast plain, closed up in squares to guard against sudden attacks from the enemy’s cavalry.

By ten o’clock all was quiet but for an occasional cannon-shot fired just to keep us anxious and to show us that the enemy had not yet completely withdrawn.

We felt that this silence might mean the preparation of some surprise, and General Compans left the square of his division to creep along the plain and listen to what was going on in the distance. After an hour of silence, he fancied he detected the tramp of cavalry. He listened still more intently, and clearly made out the peculiar rumbling sound produced by horses approaching in numbers with muffled tread. The sound came nearer and nearer, leaving the General in no doubt as to the fact that a sudden cavalry charge was about to be made, and he set off in all haste to regain his division. But the sound of trotting was soon changed to that of galloping, and long before he could regain the ranks of his own men, Compans could hear the orders given by the enemy’s officers. Running as fast as he could, though he had no longer any hope of escape for himself, the French General shouted at the top of his voice, ‘Compans’ division! Compans’ division! To arms! to arms! Prepare to meet a cavalry charge!’ Then, commending himself to God, he flung himself down on his face in a rut beside a number of dead, whose fate he expected soon to share.

His troops, recognising the voice of their chief, stood to arms, and with crossed bayonets awaited the shock. The General heard the clash of the steel, and awaited the event in agonised suspense. With the speed of lightning, but with no other sound than that of the tramp of the horses, which shook the ground on which Compans lay, the whole charge swept over him, to dash upon the compact body of the marines, who received it with a murderous fire at close quarters. The horses, terrified at finding themselves suddenly in the midst of the flashing and crashing of the fire from thousands of muskets, reared and whirled round. The whole body of cavalry was thrown into disorder, and instead of carrying all before it, as the leader of the charge had expected, it galloped off as rapidly as it had come.

Truly terrible was the position of General Compans during the few moments occupied by this attack and defence. He might have been hit by our balls, he might have been trampled under foot by the enemy’s cavalry; but Providence, recognising, perhaps, that his devotion deserved a reward, turned aside our fire, and intensified for the nonce that instinct natural to horses to avoid stepping
on to anything likely to give way under their feet. General Compans was not even wounded, but trembling with emotion, and covered with earth and dust, he rejoined his division, who received him with shouts of joy at seeing him come back safe and sound after an experience so terrible and extraordinary. The rest of the night passed over quietly; the enemy had discovered that we were on our guard, and we were all able to get a little rest.

The Emperor passed the night after the battle of Lützen at Eisfeld. A brisk, well-sustained cannonade went on for the whole of the next two days, during which we pursued the enemy, and on May 4 Napoleon slept in the château which had been occupied the night before by the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia. It was here that he appointed me General-in-Chief of the Staff of the 12th corps commanded by Marshal Oudinot.

I started that same evening (May 4), marching all night by way of Weissenfels and Naumburg, to join the Marshal. Having come up with him, I now followed the 12th corps on its way to pass the night at Zeist. On the 6th and 7th we halted at Altenbourg; on the 8th, having passed through Kennitz, a pretty town of Saxony, we halted at Sederau, and marched thence by way of Zensperg, Freiburg, and Hetzeldorf, to the camp two leagues from Dresden, where we halted on the evening of the 10th, and remained for five days.

On May 16 my new corps left Dresden, and on the 20th General Belin, of the engineers, and I went to throw some bridges over the Spree by which to reach the enemy on the next day. Whilst we were at work on the 21st, the Russians and Prussians were advancing in the direction of Bautzen to cross the Spree and cut off our retreat. It was of the utmost importance to us to check this offensive movement, and our bridges over the Spree being fortunately finished, the 12th corps crossed the river on them at once, a brigade of 3,000 or 4,000 Neapolitans leading the way, deploying immediately in picturesque fashion on the heights beyond the right bank.

Just as the Italians had gained the heights, a gun was fired by the enemy, and I distinctly saw one ball whiz through the air more than 100 feet above their heads. Not a man was touched, but the whole brigade, taken by surprise, fell on their knees. We were marching behind them, and the sight of all these plumed grenadiers overcome with fear of a single ball made us laugh so loudly that they got up in a great hurry, and marching upon the enemy flung themselves furiously upon the advanced guard, doing it a good deal of mischief.

My corps was ordered to take up a position with the left wing resting on Bautzen, and the right on a very lofty plateau which was covered with entrenchments not visible from below, and surmounting the wooded hills sloping down from it towards the Spree.

The Pactod division was ordered to scale these heights, take the entrenchments, and establish themselves amongst them so as to check the enemy should they attempt to go down to the Spree by way of the hills to destroy our bridges and cut off our retreat.

The Lorencez division supporting the Pactod was posted in the plain behind a little wood and the plateau just mentioned.

The Emperor with his staff and Guard were at Bautzen.

Marshal Macdonald, commanding the 11th corps, supported our left, whilst the rest of the army stretched away on the left of Macdonald’s corps, the corps under Marshal Ney, which formed the extreme left of the French army, taking up a position at right angles with our line of battle.

Such was the position occupied by the French and the disposition of their forces in the great battle of Bautzen between them and the combined Russian, Austrian, and Prussian forces.

I shall content myself with mentioning what fell under my own observation as attached to the 12th corps, the operations of which I was instructed to press on and to report.

Fire was opened on our right by the Pactod division, which drove back a considerable column of Prussians upon their entrenchments, erected on an elevated point to harass our march to the Spree.

The Pactod division maintained the struggle on the plateau with admirable courage and perseverance for no less than thirty-two hours under a continuous hail of cannon-balls, grapeshot, and bullets, whilst all along the line for several leagues an equally terrible conflict was going on.

The Russians, However, succeeded in gaining ground a little; their artillery dashed up at a gallop to take a position on a height dominating the plain occupied by us, and looking down upon us at their feet they poured forth such volleys of balls and grapeshot that the ranks of the Lorencez division were mown down by them. For an hour we were all in a very painful position, and Marshal Oudinot was compelled to send a message to Marshal Macdonald on his left asking for reinforcements. The Marshal at once sent the Gérard division, which came up to the support of General Lorencez just as that officer had his thigh shattered by a ball, whilst his troops were suffering cruelly. Almost at the same moment my horse was struck in the belly and horribly wounded. The poor creature in its agony flung me several feet in the air, and I fell heavily into a deep rut in the ground.

As soon as I recovered from the giddiness caused by this fall, I dragged myself to a stream to bathe my face, which had been a good deal bruised and cut. The cold fresh water fully revived my senses and strength, and I returned to seek my people, who gave me another horse. I then went to Marshal Oudinot, who did not at first recognise me, I was so much disfigured.

I soon left the Marshal again to go with his aide-de-camp, the brave Colonel de Cramayel, to rally the remnant of the Lorencez division and join it to that under Raglovitch, the united forces being ordered to go to the right to the support of Pictod, who had lost his position and nearly all his men.

After a few terrible moments of suspense, which seemed like hours, we suddenly had the joy of hearing a brisk cannonade in the distance behind the enemy, which led us to hope that we were about to be extricated from our critical position.

We were right; the firing came from Marshal Ney, who had flung himself with his usual vigour upon the Russian reserves. The Emperor, I heard later, had looked at his watch a hundred times before he gave the signal for this onslaught, so anxious was he that it should be delivered at exactly the right moment to ensure success.

We began to breathe once more, for the enemy drew back before us, gave up the attempt to drive us beyond the Spree, and the battle of Bautzen was won.¹

¹ As with that of Lützen, the battle of Bautzen had no good results for the French, as they were unable to follow it up by pursuit of the enemy. – Trans.

We remained two days in the position we had so dearly bought, and then the 12th corps received orders to march on Velau.

We arrived at Hojersverda on May 26, and drove the Prussians out of it.

Marching through the little town of Hojersverda, surmounted as it was by lofty walls, was rather a difficult matter, but Marshal Oudinot knew that there was a wide meadow beyond in which he could deploy his troops, and he therefore pushed through and drew up in battle order face to face with the Prussians, by whom we had been pursued, and who had already taken up a position on the heights beyond.

The Marshal, who thought his position better than it really was, did not trouble to protect the narrow entrance to the town behind him, and, thinking that he had a good opportunity for successfully attacking Tauenzin’s corps, he did not hesitate to advance.

The enemy, however, advantageously posted on slopes from which they could watch every movement of ours, placed a considerable force of artillery in position, and poured a murderous fire upon us, which mowed down our ranks, and soon compelled Marshal Oudinot himself to take refuge in one of the many squares into which he hastily formed his troops, and in which the grapeshot was working terrible havoc.

Most fortunately the Marshal had left behind at the entrance to the town, with two battalions, a brigade of Hessian cavalry, commanded by General Wolff (a Frenchman), and the whole of our artillery.

My officers kept on bringing me more and more disastrous news from the Marshal, and I asked General Wolff if he was disposed to support me vigorously with his cavalry. On his replying in the affirmative I ordered the commander of the artillery to follow me with eight twelve-pounders, the two battalions of infantry in their turn to follow and protect the artillery, whilst General Wolff was to cover our movement, and advance as far as the outlying forces of the Prussians. I urged the greatest care in pointing the artillery, and almost before the enemy had noticed our arrival eight or ten of their guns were put hors de combat, whilst their lines were greatly broken. This vigorous and unexpected attack from us only lasted a few moments before Bulow’s columns were put to rout, and Marshal Oudinot was rescued, though he had already had many men killed and no fewer than 400 wounded. We spent the day after this disagreeable affair at Hojersverda.

The 12th corps left Hojersverda on May 31, to continue its march on Velau, and it was a few leagues from that town that I had an opportunity of giving the Marshal the chance of taking a grand revenge for his sufferings outside Hojersverda.

He had halted at the village of Protha, and his three divisions were marching in advance of him. I was going round the outposts of the advanced guard when I discovered that General Bulow, in his turn, was marching in columns half a league in advance of our divisions, also on the way to Velau, and that his flank was exposed to us in a very unfortunate manner for him.

Our three generals noted this fact at the same moment that I did, and were impatient to profit by it, so I galloped back to ask Marshal Oudinot to give the order for the attack to be made.

The Marshal, always brave enough where he himself was concerned, hesitated now to give the word, and, anxious to be sure things were as we represented them, he climbed into a belfry to see for himself. He soon shouted down to me, ‘Yes, you are right; go and order the three divisions to attack!’

I galloped back, but everything had changed in the short interval of my absence. The enemy had got out of the awkward position they were in, our three generals were convinced that the moment had gone by, and that to act now would be as useless as dividing water with a sword.

We therefore continued our march on Velau, where the enemy had taken up their position, and from which we only dislodged them with difficulty. During the struggle the extensive suburb at the base of the hill caught fire, and we fought for a long time in the thickest and blackest smoke I ever saw.

Towards the end of this affair the infantry were obliged to form in squares against constant charges from the Russian cavalry, many of whom were brought down by us, but we lost several guns, and in the end both sides drew back without any very definite result.

On June 9, General Guilleminot with a French division joined us at Herzberg, bringing us the news of the armistice just concluded.

On the 10th this fine division took up its quarters in the château of Annaburg, which had been converted into a military college.

We made our troops camp, and did all we could to provide them with healthy amusements during the pause in hostilities. We organised sack races and merry-go-rounds beneath a carefully balanced tun full of water, the contents of which would deluge clumsy competitors.

Our cares were not, however, all for the men; we looked after ourselves too, and had many a pleasant water picnic or fishing expedition on the picturesque Elster, in which some of the people of the country, including various charming ladies, took part.

Thus slipped by the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th of June. The Staff were all quartered in the fine manor house of Lubbenau, belonging to the Countess of Schoenberg, who did the honours of her house most gracefully, and we had some delightful open-air fêtes, dancing on lawns or in arbours bright with flowers, with noble and bourgeois dames.

During the spring of 1813 public feeling in Germany was so bitter against the domination of the French, that a secret association was formed, to which nearly all the young fellows in the universities belonged.

The name given to this association by its members was Tugendbund, or the League of Virtue. The handsome young husband of the Countess of Schoenberg who entertained us so kindly was one of the most ardent partisans of the Tugendbund, and whilst we were enjoying the society of his family in his beautiful home of Lubbenau, he was making every preparation to wage war to the knife with us as soon as the armistice ended. Owning a large fortune, he had just levied a regiment of hussars numbering 1,500 men and horses.

To leave no doubt as to the spirit animating his troop, he made his men wear black uniforms, whilst their shakos were surmounted by black plumes and decorated with a badge representing a death’s head with its long teeth resting on two crossed bones. Every member of the regiment had to swear never to surrender and to make no prisoners.

We danced on gaily enough, however, at the residence of the Countess whilst the Count, inspired, like all the rest of his countrymen, by the terrible ballad just written by Goethe,¹ the young poet whose verses were then rousing up all the patriotic ardour of the Germans, was preparing a dance of death for us on the resumption of hostilities.

¹ It would seem that Goethe is a misprint here for Körner, as it was the latter’s Schwertlied and other fiery patriotic songs which so roused the Germans. Goethe, on the other hand, was too cosmopolitan to be patriotic, and his ode to Napoleon was quite the reverse. – Trans.

On June 19 we went to visit the battle field of Lukau, where so much blood had been shed on the 4th, and almost every day we made some excursion up or down the Spree duck shooting, or we went in large parties for long rides, held reviews of our troops, &c.

In the review of June 29, Pactod’s division, in spite of its terrible suffering at Bautzen, figured in brilliant force; the Guilleminot division, still undecimated, presented a most imposing appearance; whilst General Raglovitch’s Bavarian division came on to the ground in the very finest condition, evidently well prepared to take the field again.

On August 12 all was ready for the resumption of hostilities, and on the 16th we were all awaiting the reopening of the war.

On August 17 the enemy everywhere anticipated us by attacking our outposts and driving them back.

On the 18th our position was changed by the unexpected arrival of a considerable reinforcement, for the Emperor placed under Marshal Oudinot’s orders the Reynier corps, consisting of two French divisions and the King of Saxony’s corps, collectively called the 7th corps. To these troops Napoleon also added the 4th corps, commanded by General Bertrand, consisting of two French divisions and the King of Würtemberg’s contingent.

To these two corps, the 4th and the 7th, were attached two cavalry corps under the orders of some French generals and the Duke of Padua, the whole, with my corps, the 12th, forming, as stated in a letter from Major-General Prince Berthier, an army of no less than 80,000 men with Marshal Oudinot as commander-in-chief.

After verifying the numbers of the troops as they arrived, however, it was found that there were really not more than 60,000 combatants bearing arms.

The Emperor now ordered Marshal Oudinot to march on Berlin and take possession of it, the same letter mentioning the various dispositions of the movement Napoleon himself would make.

On August 17, then, the first day of the resumption of hostilities, our army began its march, and we soon came in contact with the Russian corps under Bülow and Tauenzien, who offered a stubborn resistance to our advance, but were driven back on the third day beyond the Spree, across which we at once flung some bridges, so as to pursue them in the direction of Potsdam and Berlin. Our army continued its march ignorant of what was before it, and it was only from the prisoners brought in by our scouts that we learnt that the enemy had taken up a position between Spandau and Berlin, so as to bar our approach to the capital.

The 12th and 7th corps crossed the Spree in the presence of the enemy, who at first defended the passage but feebly. The 12th corps had crossed easily enough about two o’clock in the afternoon, and driven the Prussians defending the heights beyond to a considerable distance from the river; but Marshal Oudinot, before venturing to pursue Bülow, wanted to wait for news of the two corps manœuvring on his right.

A little before nightfall an officer came from General Reynier, bringing very bad tidings. The General, who had been advancing, as arranged, in the direction of Klistov and Grossbeeren with the Saxons as advanced guard and the French divisions in reserve, had come upon a corps of the enemy. The Saxons had been easily beaten and driven back in disorder upon the reserves, which fortunately had remained unbroken.

This repulse, of course, destroyed the unity of the concerted movement which had been so successfully begun by our left, and an idea occurred to me which I hoped might put things right again all along the line. It was not yet night, and I proposed that the 12th corps should halt and prepare their soup for supper, whilst I should go and ascertain the exact condition of General Reynier’s corps. That done, I would at once find General Bertrand and see if his troops were in good heart after their achievements of the day. If they were ready to take the offensive, I would tell him to give there the order to prepare for an attack at daybreak on the front and flanks of the enemy, who would probably be rather off guard after the success of the evening before.

I felt pretty sure that such a surprise would put the enemy to rout, especially as it might catch them asleep, resting on the laurels they had won.

Marshal Oudinot was very unwilling to listen to my advice, and retarded my departure on one pretext or another, so that it was not until quite late that I started, bearing his orders for the attack to the 7th and 4th corps.

I was accompanied only by a very few horsemen, whom I had obtained with difficulty from the Duke of Padua, commanding our cavalry, and for whom he made me wait a very long time. I arrived about midnight at Grossbeeren, near to which General Reynier was hard at work restoring order amongst the Saxons, who had been repulsed that evening. I told him of my scheme for the attack by the three corps, and of the dispositions that the Duke of Reggio (Marshal Oudinot) had instructed me to arrange in concert with him and the General in command of our right, with a view to the making of this attack at daybreak. General Reynier fell in most cordially with the project, hazardous though it doubtless appeared to him when I first broached it. He assured me that his Saxons, though they had been repulsed, had lost very few men, and that they were in good heart now they had recovered breath. He had placed them behind the two French divisions, which were sure to fling themselves upon the enemy with extraordinary vigour. He therefore placed no obstacles in the way of the Marshal’s project, and said he felt sure of success if only the 12th and 4th corps on his right and left marched simultaneously and co-operated cordially with him.

Delighted with the good spirits in which I found General Reynier, and with the fresh proofs he gave me of his continued devotion to the cause of the Emperor, I hurried on to Suthen to take the good news to General Bertrand, whose co-operation it was absolutely essential to secure.

As soon as I reached General Bertrand, I told him of the plan of attack for the morning, and also said that the Emperor’s dispositions for our march on Berlin were more skilfully combined than any operation he had ever conceived. His orders were that General Gérard from Magdeburg and Marshal Davout from Hamburg were to march with the corps under them upon Berlin, so as to arrive on the west of that city at the same time as the three corps of the Duke of Reggio appeared on the east. The orders, which I had myself written down in cipher, had been received, I knew, for the fact had already been notified to me. The moment of departure was mentioned to each general, with the approximative time required for marching the dozen leagues between us and Berlin, and overcoming the obstacles which were sure to be thrown in our way. Rarely indeed had a great enterprise been more carefully and skilfully organised, and the only things which seemed in the least likely to jeopardise our success were the courage of the enemy and the difficult nature of the ground to be traversed.¹ I felt how great would be the disgrace to our army if a slight check and the loss of a couple of hundred of our allied troops should lead to a retreat all along our line. That this would come about was, however, inevitable if our right wing failed to co-operate with our centre, or our centre with our left, and so on. But nothing I could urge could convince General Bertrand, though I advanced at least a thousand good reasons for his taking the course I wished.

¹ In his account of the abortive march on Berlin, Lejeune ignores many very important facts, notably that a vast number of the French troops had never been in action before, that the memory of the disasters of the Russian campaign were still fresh, and above all that the various allies were only watching for an opportunity of deserting. – Trans.

It was with immense regret that I returned to General Reynier to tell him of this refusal. He was so full of fearless devotion to the Emperor’s interests that he was terribly disappointed when I said, as I took my leave of him, ‘As our right wing will not take part in the suggested attack, I think the risk would be too great with only the 12th and 7th corps; so if you agree with me, I will tell Marshal Oudinot that I think it will be better to abandon the idea of our enterprise.’ General Reynier realised sadly enough what a brilliant chance we were losing, but he made no effort to detain me, and let me go back to Marshal Oudinot with the bad news. Whilst waiting for my return, the Duke had been consumed with anxiety for the result of the operation which he supposed would take place. It was late when I got back from my fruitless efforts to arrange for the simultaneous advance of the three corps, for it was a very dark night, and not easy to find the way through the woods.

We passed the rest of the night in a state of painful agitation, and at daybreak the next morning the Marshal realised with infinite regret that there was nothing for it but to order a retreat all along his line. An hour later we sadly recrossed the Spree, and the enemy lost no time in following us. The fine French army, which ought and so easily might have marched triumphantly into Berlin, was now compelled to retreat without having been beaten on Damm and Wittenberg.

Marshal Oudinot left Suthen on August 24, and reached Gakow the same day, where he halted for the night. On the 25th, the 12th, 7th, and 4th corps came into line in good order at Riersdorff and Speremberg, though they were pursued and fusilladed all day long by the enemy.

On the 27th, whilst forty leagues behind us Napoleon was winning the great battle of Dresden, our three corps reunited at Riersdorff. Perno and Verben once more assumed the offensive, and marched on Insterburg, a town of considerable size, easily driving out the enemy and taking possession of it.

The 28th was passed near Insterburg in renewing our stock of provisions and trying to find out something about the movements of the enemy. Unfortunately we were quite ignorant of the very navies of the generals opposed to us, of the number of their troops, or the positions they occupied. There is no doubt that the Emperor provided ample means for organising an efficient system of espionage and paying for secret service of various kinds, but the avarice of many of those in command of the French forces led them to appropriate the money to their own use, when they ought to have expended it lavishly in obtaining information about the enemy. We really did not know whether we were about to fight Russians, Prussians, or Austrians. In spite of my patriotism, in spite of my keen sense of what loyalty to the Emperor demanded of me, I found it extremely difficult to secure at any price an intelligent peasant or two to risk venturing into the enemy’s lines to collect information for us. We therefore had to manœuvre altogether in the dark during the following days, though we did manage to gather that a general engagement was approaching, and the Duke of Reggio gave orders for all the non-combatants, carriages, and other impedimenta of our three corps to be withdrawn to Wittenberg, and there shut up out of the way of the fighting.

On the evening of the same day, the 28th, the 4th corps was ordered to march towards the left of the enemy’s forces, which at once prepared to attack us.

On the 29th Marshal Oudinot placed his forces as follows: the 12th corps at Eckmandorff, the 4th in the rear of that village, and the 7th with Wittenberg as a support. He had scarcely made these dispositions when he was vigorously attacked. Our three fine cavalry divisions, finding themselves within range of the firing, dashed upon the enemy, driving them back as far as Mazanne, and protecting the reconnaissance. A Polish officer had orders to push from that point to Warbeck, where he found a body of Russian troops encamped.

On August 30 our three corps were reunited at Mazanne, and a very strong force was sent out to reconnoitre the enemy’s position. Our troops were surrounded throughout the march by Cossacks, who gradually withdrew before them. They were, however, compelled to return without ascertaining anything, and were hotly pursued by such a strong body of artillery and cavalry that we concluded considerable forces were coming up to attack us. Our artillery was hastily placed in line, and we opened a brisk cannonade, which compelled the enemy to retire.

On the evening of the 30th, the 12th corps slept at Mazanne, the 7th at Feldheim, and the 4th at Tiessintz. September 1 and 2 were quietly passed by the three corps at Kropstadt in making reconnaissances and preparing for the coming struggle.

On September 3 our united forces established themselves at Teutchel, near Wittenberg, and whilst the troops were taking up their position the 4th corps was vigorously attacked by the enemy, who were, however, repulsed all along their line.

It was during the manœuvres of September 3 that Marshal Ney, whose approach had been notified to us the evening before, arrived with two or three officers. Finding the troops under arms when he came up, Marshal Ney at once rode along the front, took over the command, and ordered the advance to begin.¹

¹ Lejeune does not make it clear that Ney hastened to Oudinot, not to supersede him, for his command of the three corps was only temporary, but because the treachery of Jomini, chief of Ney’s staff, had revealed the whole of the Emperor’s plan of campaign to the Russians, and immediate action was the only chance of success. – Trans.

Ney had received at the same time as Oudinot the plan of campaign the Emperor intended to follow, and the exact part in it his corps was to take. General Jomini, chief of the staff to Ney, and a distinguished writer, not caring for the active share which would fall to him in the bloody struggle about to ensue, sought safety in taking the plan of campaign, which had been placed in his hands as in mine, to the Emperor of Russia. Jomini disappeared suddenly, and the details the traitor ¹ supplied to the Russians enabled them to circumvent all the skilful combinations arranged by Napoleon, whose difficulties now became immense, though he was still as undaunted as ever.

¹ Alexander made Jomini his own aide-de-camp. – Trans.

But to return to Marshal Ney. In his haste to execute the orders of the Emperor, he ordered the 4th and 7th corps to advance and attack, but did not give the same order to the 12th, which was marching in line with the other two. Marshal Oudinot was left in command of this 12th corps, and I remained with him as chief of his staff. The other two corps came up with the enemy, and a hot struggle at once began. The 12th corps meanwhile, restless and indignant at not having received the same orders as the others, listened attentively to try and find out if the right of the army were engaged. The wind blowing strongly from the west carried away the noise of the cannonade, and we could hear nothing. The appearance of a few Cossacks opposite our front, however, led us to suppose that the army to which they belonged was not far off, and we at once marched in the direction of Dennewitz.

We had scarcely issued from the wood which covered our front, before we found ourselves face to face with the combined Russian, Prussian, and Swedish forces, which were deploying a formidable body of artillery as they advanced upon us. A strong wind blew clouds of blinding dust in our faces, and balls and grapeshot mowed down our ranks, throwing us into such great disorder that it was only with considerable difficulty that we managed to form our infantry divisions into squares so as to retire before the numerous cavalry galloping up to surround us.

Meanwhile General Reynier with the 7th corps had flung himself into the village of Dennewitz, which the enemy was endeavouring to retake. The Guilleminot division performed prodigies of valour, but was unable to hold the village. On the right and at the same level the Würtembergers, commanded by General Bertrand, were fighting on the plain under great disadvantages and losing many men, and Marshal Ney, finding himself in a very critical position with no forces in reserve, was compelled, as we had been, to retire after displaying the most heroic courage.

In our retreat, Marshal Oudinot and his staff had to take refuge in the infantry squares, upon which the enemy was pouring a murderous fire.

Thus hotly pursued, we reached the edge of a vast morass or sheet of water called the Schwartz Elster, of the depth of which we were totally ignorant. A few minutes before, the horse I was riding had received seven balls in the neck and one in the leg, which made him limp. Nevertheless, I did not hesitate to make him go into the black mud of the marsh to test the depth of the water and see if it would be possible for our infantry to ford it and get by a short cut to Torgau, before which they were to take up a position.

On this occasion I had a striking proof of the fact that a man who shows the courage of a hero one day may be a coward ever after. General Fournier-Sarlovèze, commanding one of our divisions of cavalry, was a noted duellist and bully, the terror of all peaceable men, but to-day he was in a state of trembling nervousness, and to the disgust alike of his subordinate officers and of our infantry, who depended on his support, he led the 6,000 cavalry under him so badly that on September 6 they did no good service whatever.

Though pursued by the Russians, the army retired in fairly good order on Damm, Wittenberg, and Torgau.

On September 8 the news of the disaster which had befallen the left wing of his army in Saxony, every position it had held having been lost, reached the Emperor, and he sent for me to give him an account of how it had come about. I left Torgau in haste, and travelled all night through a terrible storm, arriving at Dresden wet through at five o’clock in the morning on September 9. Without halting I pushed on thence to Dona, where I was assured I should find the Emperor, and I came up to him just as he was receiving the news of the defeat of Vandamme’s corps.¹

¹ This defeat of Vandamme’s corps at Teplitz, after great successes, was the result of the fact that Mortier and Saint-Cyr did not support him as arranged, and that the enemy, instructed by Jomini, were aware of all his movements. For a good account of the whole of this campaign see the Marbot Memoirs, vol ii. chap. xxxv. &c. – Trans.

I therefore returned to Damm by way of Meissen, Wurschen, and Eulemburg, arriving at two o’clock in the morning at Mürzen, where I learnt that my corps had been ceaselessly pursued by the enemy during my absence. Every day attacks had been made by the French on the Prussian corps under Bülow and Tauenzin, but without effecting any change in our position.

Several days more were occupied in a continued struggle, many men being lost on both sides without any definite results for either army.

Marshal Ney had meanwhile been recalled by the Emperor, who ordered him to break up the united corps he had recently been commanding, and to resume the direction of the 3rd corps, with which he was to co-operate on the same line as Marshal Oudinot had done.

On the breaking up of the 4th, 7th, and 12th corps, the Duke of Reggio (Marshal Oudinot) was reinstated in the command of the grenadiers of the Imperial Guard, and the 12th corps was incorporated with the 7th and 4th under Generals Reynier and Bertrand.

I now became attached to the 7th corps, and commanded a brigade of 6,000 men belonging to the Guilleminot division. This brigade was made up of five regiments of infantry, namely the 52nd and 64th French, the 111th Piedmontese, the 7th Croatian, and the 3rd Illyrian. Each regiment had a good French Colonel, and the one at the head of the Illyrians was a very witty Breton named De Trommelin, a French émigré, who had formerly been aide-de-camp to Sir William Sidney Smith when that admiral was aiding Sir Ralph Abercrombie in the war with the French in Egypt.

After the breaking up and rearranging of the various corps, we left the banks of the Elbe to march towards Dessau and Leipzig, leaving our baggage at Torgau and Wittenberg. A Piedmontese adjutant of the 111th Regiment came and begged me to let him use my carriage because he was ill,and he promised to look after it and my horses as if they were his own.

I saw no reason not to trust him, and gave my consent. Unfortunately he kept his word much better than I expected. We had scarcely left Torgau and Wittenberg when those towns were blockaded by the enemy. The people in the invested cities soon began to suffer from famine; two of my horses were killed and eaten, whilst my Piedmontese friend sold the rest, hired some posthorses and with them made his way in my carriage, and of course at my expense, to Turin, whence he had the impudence to write and tell me that he had had to sell all my belongings so as to be able to live in comfort himself. I answered him in a very polite letter, in which I hid a skilfully laid trap for him.

I told him in this letter that I was the more concerned for the loss of my carriage because I had hidden a sum of 20,000 francs in gold in certain secret recesses of it. As I expected, and heard afterwards, the thief at once had the carriage smashed up, finding nothing, but completing my revenge.

For more than a month after we left the Elbe, the days and often also the nights were passed in marching and countermarching, and in bloody skirmishes with the Prussians and Russians, an account of which would alone make up a deeply interesting volume, but it would weary the reader if I were to attempt to add a description of them to these brief Memoirs. I was no longer an aide-de-camp in a position to judge of the manœuvres we were going through as a whole, for I saw nothing but what took place close to my own brigade, and all I could do was to make notes day by day on the number of men each day’s fighting cost me. All my regiments, though of such mixed nationalities, behaved admirably, and the 4th and 7th corps especially distinguished themselves on October 3, when the drove the Russians back in the greatest disorder on the Elbe near Dessau. On that one day alone I lost 360 of my brave fellows.

Well seasoned by all our hard experiences, we came up at last with the rest of the French army, concentrating near Leipzig, on the eve of the awful days of October 18 and 19, during which raged the terrible battle named after that town. Although on the 18th my regiments were engaged, and I lost many men in the suburbs of Leipzig, I do not feel equal to describing the grand tragedy in which Napoleon’s courage and genius were alike displayed in the very highest degree, and in which he put forth all his strength, turning every resource at his command to account.

The battle, which lasted two days, ended between two and three o’clock on October 19, when quiet was restored upon the blood-stained field. The enemy endeavoured, however, to intercept the troops under Lefebvre-Desnouettes, whom the Emperor had ordered to march on Weimar to cover our retreat, and on Erfurth to get a fresh supply of ammunition, ours being exhausted.

The division to which I belonged was sent to the Saale to prevent the Austrians from taking possession of the Koesen bridge, where they hoped to cut off our retreat on Frankfort and Mainz. The banks of the Saale are very steep, but I managed to place my brigade in ambush behind some inequalities of the ground, and I kept the Austrians at bay opposite the bridge for twenty-four hours. I had such a well-established and protected position on the plateau above the river, that there was no fear of the enemy’s balls reaching me, so I was able to give my officers a good meal, of which we all stood sorely in need. The Austrians, massed in great numbers on the opposite bank, did not gain an inch of ground, but fired over our heads from below, the balls only falling amongst us after describing a regular parabola. Our light repast was therefore eaten beneath a hail of steel and lead which did us but little harm, though it worked great havoc amongst our plates and glasses. The ground all about us was riddled with little holes like a stable sieve, but this did not damp our spirits in the least.

Just as it began to get dark, I received orders to march towards Hanau and take up a position between it and the banks of the Saale. I afterwards left this position to cover the pass of Guelhausen and the Hanau woods.¹ One battalion on October 30 I stationed in the village of Saalmünster on fey left, and bivouacked with the rest of my troops on a dry healthy spot a few paces off.

¹ There is something very pathetic in the way Lejeune evades speaking of the battle of Leipzig as a defeat, and his subsequent movements as part of a disastrous retreat. Similar reticence on the part of all the officers engaged on the French side, and the fact that immense numbers of commanders and staff officers fell, make it almost impossible to get at the truth respecting this ‘Battle of the Nations’ which broke the power of Napoleon and delivered Europe from his yoke. – Trans.

During the night the Austrians crossed the Saale, and at daybreak our camp was roused by the approach of their skirmishers.

I must explain here that I had as aide-de-camp a young officer in whom Marshal Oudinot was deeply interested. He had begged me to receive him, and do all I could for him. He came to me absolutely penniless, but with all the pretensions of a scion of a noble family. I welcomed him kindly, filled his purse, bought two good horses for him with saddles, harness, &c., and sent them to him as a gift.

I expected, of course, to get a little active help in return, and to find him zealous in my service. Not a bit of it. I suppose he found his sense of gratitude oppressed him, for he disappeared without taking leave of me. I heard afterwards that he was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Valmy.

There was no officer at hand to fill his place when we were thus surprised by the Austrians, so I went myself to reconnoitre the position the Austrians had just taken up round our bivouac.

Separated from my troops, I galloped about amongst the enemy’s skirmishers, and soon saw that I ran great danger of being shot down or taken, so I hastened back to camp to order the brigade to take up arms and join the principal corps of our division.

What was my astonishment when I got to where we had bivouacked to find it wholly deserted, and to be compelled to ride a long way in the track of my own men before I came up with them!

It turned out that whilst I was amongst the skirmishers General Guilleminot had received orders to march towards Hanau, and had sent a message to my brigade instructing it to follow his movement. This order had not reached the battalion I had stationed in Saalmünster, which had for the moment been forgotten, and I had the greatest difficulty in saving it, for the village was already surrounded. I was intensely annoyed at this incident, and bitterly reproached General Guilleminot, who had been a great friend of mine for many years.

On October 31 we reached the Hanau woods, twenty-four hours after the great battle which had taken place there, in which Napoleon defeated the allied Austrians and Russians under Von Wrede, and the brilliant details of which are related by many French historians.

The Bavarian corps had not yet abandoned the hope of cutting off our retreat on Frankfort and Mainz, and Marshal Marmont was left in the Hanau woods to protect us and circumvent the efforts of the enemy. Having heard that a strong force of Bavarians occupied the streets of the suburbs of Frankfort, he flung a number of shells amongst them, setting fire to the houses.

On the same day, October 31, the Guilleminot division took the place of that under Marshal Marmont, which was ordered to retire on Mainz, whilst my brigade took up its position in the woods on the banks of the Kinzig to defend its passage. I had scarcely reached the river, when a brisk cannonade from the Bavarian camp broke many of the trees above our heads. The branches and pieces of shells rained down upon us, revealing that the enemy was about to make a fresh attempt to cross, and very soon a considerable body of Bavarians on rafts and in small boats came in sight on the little stream.

My troops were well in ambush, and their courage was heightened by their eager desire for vengeance on the treacherous Bohemians, so lately our allies. Two thousand of them managed with infinite difficulty to gain our bank, where the dead silence which reigned evidently intimidated them. All of a sudden, as they hesitated to advance, our regiments flung themselves upon them, overthrew them, and drove them, covered with wounds, back into the river, where they were nearly all drowned, though some few got off on the rafts and in canoes.

I thought the struggle was over, and had a canteen opened, inviting several colonels to come and share its contents with me; but just as we were emptying our first flask a burning shell fell at the feet of Colonel Limousin, of the 52nd Regiment. I called out to him to draw off his grenadiers, for I should have been deeply grieved if one of them had been wounded. All the brave fellows, however, absolutely refused to move out of danger, and though I was some fifty paces away I was struck by a fragment of the shell, which cut through the double felt of my hat like a razor, and tore open my forehead. I fell like an inert mass amongst my comrades, who hastened to help me up. The wound was severe, but with their aid I managed to walk to the ambulance, some hundred paces in the rear, and have it dressed.

As we went along an officer in the French uniform approached me, tore up a white handkerchief he held in his hand, and made a bandage of it for me. Deeply touched at this kind thought, I begged him to tell me his name, and he replied, ‘I am Louis of Lichtenstein.’

The doctors made a very deep crucial incision about my wound, an operation in which I lost a great deal of blood, and I was so much weakened that I was unable to return to my post. I therefore sent a message to Colonel Robillard, of the 111th Regiment, asking him to take command of my brigade during my absence. I then went to Mainz, where I arrived the same evening, and remained several days. Colonel Limousin, who had been severely wounded by the same shell as I had been, was presently brought to my lodgings. His injuries were more dangerous than mine, but I am glad to say that I had the pleasure of meeting him several years later in good health, though he limped a little, in his native town of Angoulême, where he was held in high esteem by all his fellow-citizens.

Very soon after the arrival of Colonel Limousin, General Montelégier and several of his brave colonels of cavalry were brought in, so that we soon formed quite a staff of crippled officers.

I had scarcely left for Mainz when our brigade, joined to the Guilleminot division, went to garrison the fort and defend the entrance to the Cassel Bridge at the mouth of the Main opposite Mainz.

Typhoid fever raged severely in the hospitals and the town, making terrible ravages amongst the many sick and wounded brought from Leipzig, Hanau, and Frankfort.

Some of my young servants took the fever, and sometimes I had the grief of seeing them come into my room in their delirium wearing nothing but their night shirts, and looking like mere ghosts of their former selves as they seemed to appeal to me to deliver them from the malady tormenting them.

Such was my condition and such were my surroundings during the closing scenes of the overthrow of the great French Empire, when the power of Napoleon beyond the Rhine was destroyed.

Once more I lost my horses and carriages, and after all my terrible experiences I returned to Paris much poorer than I left it and very weary of war.

It was long since I had got any satisfaction out of the glory of war, or received any reward for my zealous service, or for the many sacrifices I had made in the cause of the Emperor. My chiefs had again and again applied to him for recognition of what I had done, but nothing came of their efforts on my behalf, and I felt the neglect keenly.

But I was still young, my energies were by no means exhausted, and I was glad to have a chance at last of freely indulging my passion for painting everything I admired. Love of nature and of reproducing nature now became a religion with me. I gave myself up entirely to painting as soon as I got back to Paris, and my one ambition was to distinguish myself in that deeply interesting and most fascinating branch of art. Thanks to this occupation, I was happily enjoying the tranquil time which succeeded my adventurous career, when the events of 1814 took us all by surprise in the very heart of France, for Paris itself was besieged. All was changed, and an altogether new state of affairs inaugurated.

Here end the Memoirs of General Lejeune, and but little is known of the remainder of his life beyond the fact that he lived in great retirement for another fifteen years, and just before his death confided the publication of the present volumes to his son. He made various notes also on the events of the First and Second Restorations, but death cut short his career before he was able to weave these notes into a consecutive narrative, though there is little doubt that a book from his pen on that deeply interesting period would have been as remarkable for faithfulness of detail and delicacy of insight as are the Memoirs now reprinted after the lapse of so many years.