All my troopers who were still mounted having remained at Nimeguen, I found at the depot only men in want of horses. These I was trying to supply from the Ardennes, when the course of events interfered. On January 1, after nearly three months' hesitation, the enemy crossed the Rhine at several points. The two most important were Caub, between Bingen and Coblentz, close to the Lurlei; and Basle, where the Swiss violated their neutrality by throwing open the bridge. They have a way of insisting on or renouncing their neutrality according to their interests of the moment.

The number of the invading troops was reckoned at 500,000 to 600,000. France was exhausted by twenty-five years of war; more than half her soldiers were prisoners in foreign lands, and many of her provinces were ready to break away on the first opportunity; among them, that to which Mons, the capital of the department of Jemmapes, belonged. This broad and rich country, annexed at first to France de facto by the war of 1792, and then de jure by the Treaty of Amiens, had grown so accustomed to the union that it had distinguished itself after the Russian disaster by the zeal which it displayed in helping the Emperor to restore his army to its former footing, and the willingness with which it complied with all kinds of requisitions. But our losses in Germany had taken heart out of the Belgians, and I found the spirit of the population changed. There was regret for the old paternal government of Austria, and a keen desire for separation from France, and the perpetual wars which were ruining commerce and industry. In short, Belgium was only awaiting the opportunity to revolt; and owing to her position in rear of the weak army corps which we had on the Rhine, nothing could have been more dangerous for us. The Emperor accordingly sent troops to Brussels under General Maison, a man of ability and solid character.

After visiting various departments he found that that of Jemmapes, and especially the town of Mons, was deeply disaffected. People talked openly of taking men against the weak garrisons; nor could the commandant, General O——, gouty, old, and indolent, as a native of Belgium, besides, afraid of compromising himself in the eyes of his countrymen, have done anything to hinder it. General Maison relieved him of his functions, and appointed me commandant of the department of Jemmapes. It was a difficult duty; for next to the men of Liege, those of Mons and its district are the boldest and most turbulent in all Belgium; while to keep them in check I had only a battalion of 400 recruits, some gendarmes, and 200 dismounted troopers of my own regiment, fifty of whom were natives of those parts. All I could really count on, therefore, were the remaining 150 chasseurs, who, being French by birth, and having all fought under me, would have followed me anywhere. The officers were good; and those of the infantry, especially the major, were perfectly willing to back me up. Yet I could not but see that if we came to blows the odds would be great. From my hotel I could see every day 3,000 or 4,000 peasants and artisans, armed with big sticks, assembling in the square and listening to the talk of certain retired Austrian officers. These men, all wealthy and of good family, had left the service when Belgium was joined to France, and now preached against the Empire, which had loaded them with taxes, carried their children off to the wars, and so forth. This talk found all the readier listeners for being addressed by great landowners to their tenants and persons whom they employed, and over whom they had great influence.

Every day, too, brought news of the enemy's advance from Brussels, driving before them the remnants of Macdonald's corps. All French officials left the department to take refuge at Valenciennes and Cambrai. Finally, the mayor of Mons, M. Duval de Beaulieu, felt bound in honour to warn me that I and my small garrison were no longer safe amid the excited populace, and that I had better evacuate the town. No hindrance would be offered, as the regiment had lived on perfectly good terms with the inhabitants. This proposal came, I was aware, from a committee of ex-Austrian officers, and they had sent it through the mayor in the hope of intimidating me. Therefore I determined to show my teeth, and begged M. Duval to summon a meeting of the town council and notables, when I would reply to the proposal he had made. Half an hour later my garrison was under arms; and as soon as the town council, accompanied by the wealthier inhabitants, appeared in the square, I mounted my horse so that all could hear, and, having told the mayor that before talking to him and the council I had an important order to give my troops, I imparted to them the proposal which had been made that we should leave without a fight the town which had been given into our keeping. They were indignant, and said so plainly. I added that no doubt the ramparts were broken down in many places and had no guns, so that it would be difficult to defend them against regular troops; but that if, contrary to the law of nations, the civil population of the town and district rose against us, we need not confine ourselves to the defensive, but should treat them as rebels, and have the right to attack them by every means in our power. I therefore ordered my men to take possession of the belfry, and thence, after half-an-hour's delay and three summons by beat of drum, to fire on the crowd in the square; while patrols were to clear the streets, shooting down especially the country people, who had left their work to make trouble for us. Lastly, I ordered that, fighting once begun, the town was to be set on fire to occupy the inhabitants, and that in order to prevent the flames from being extinguished the men were to keep firing on the burning quarters.

This speech will seem to you pretty brutal; but think of my critical position. With only 700 men, few of whom had seen any fighting, I was surrounded by a multitude which increased every moment, and the officer in command on the tower told me that all the roads leading to the town were covered with dense masses of colliers from the mines of Jemmapes, making their way to Mons. If I did not act with energy my little band was in danger of being crushed. The nobles who had promoted the rising, and the inhabitants of the town, felt the force of my discourse, and began to withdraw; but the peasants did not stir; so I ordered up two wagons of ammunition and distributed a hundred cartridges to each soldier. Then I gave the order to load, and bade the drums beat the three rolls which were to precede a volley. At the dreaded signal the crowd fled in disorder into the nearest streets, and in a few moments the leaders of the Austrian party, with the mayor at their head, came to shake me by the hand and implore me to spare the town. I agreed on condition that they would instantly order the colliers and workmen to return home. They accepted eagerly; and the young men of fashion who had the best horses galloped out at every gate, met the crowds, and sent them back without any demur to their villages. This ready obedience confirmed my belief that the movement had powerful leaders, and that I and my garrison would soon have been prisoners had I not frightened the promoters by threatening to use all means, even arson, rather than give in to insurgents.

The Belgians are great musicians. That evening there was to be an amateur concert, to which my officers and I, as well as the prefect of the department, were invited. We settled to go as if nothing had happened, and we did rightly; for, so far as appearances went, we were perfectly well received. As we chatted with the leaders of the movement we pointed out to them that the fate of Belgium was to be decided not by the population in rebellion, but by the belligerent armies, and that it would be madness in them to excite labourers and peasants to fight and shed blood in order to hasten by a few days a decision for which they should wait.

An old retired Austrian general, a native of Mons, then told his fellow-townsmen that they had done very wrong in plotting the capture of the garrison. It would have brought calamity on the town, since soldiers may never surrender without a fight. All admitted the justice of this, and from that day garrison and inhabitants lived on the same good terms as before. A few days later the people of Mons gave us a striking proof of their loyalty, under the following circumstances. As the allied army advanced a crowd of vagabonds, chiefly Prussians, got themselves up like Cossacks, and, urged by the lust of plunder, fell upon everything which had been official property during the French occupation, seizing even without scruple the property of individuals not belonging to the army. A strong band of these pretended Cossacks made their way even to the gates of Brussels and looted the chateau of Tervueren, carrying off all the horses of the stud which the Emperor had formed there. Then, breaking up into detachments, they went marauding all over Belgium. Coming into the department of Jemmapes; they tried to bring about a rising, and when this did not succeed they thought it was owing to the fact that Mons was deterred from pronouncing for them by the fear which the colonel commanding there had inspired among the people. They determined, therefore, to carry me off or kill me; but in order not to arouse my suspicions by employing too many men on that service, they sent only three hundred. The leader of these partisans must have had good information, for, knowing that I had too few people to guard properly the old gates and half-demolished ramparts, he brought his horsemen close to the town on a dark night, and the greater part of them, dismounting, made their way in silence through the streets in the direction of the Hôtel de la Poste, where I had at first lodged. But since hearing that the enemy had crossed the Rhine I had taken to going every evening to the barracks and passing the night with my troops. It was lucky I did, for the German Cossacks surrounded the hotel, rummaged all the rooms, and in their rage at finding no French officers fell out with the landlord. They ill-treated him, plundered him, and got drunk, men and officers alike, on his best wine.

A Belgian named Courtois, formerly corporal in my regiment, for whom, as one of my best soldiers, I had obtained the Legion of Honour, entered the hotel at that moment. He had lost a leg in Russia in the previous year, and I had been fortunate enough to save his life by procuring for him the means of returning to France. For this he was so grateful that while I was at Mons in the winter of 1814 he often came to see me, on those occasions putting on the uniform of the 23rd Chasseurs, which he had so honourably worn. Now it happened that on the night in question, Courtois, being on his way back to the house of a relation with whom he was staying, saw the enemy's detachment making for the Hôtel de la Poste. Although the brave corporal knew that I no longer stopped there, he wished to make sure that his colonel was not in any danger, and boldly walked into the hotel, taking his relation with him. At the sight of the French uniform and the decoration the Prussians were infamous enough to assault the poor maimed man, and try to tear the cross from his breast. The old soldier tried to defend his decoration; the Prussian Cossacks killed him, dragged his body into the street, and continued their orgies.

In proportion to my weak garrison, Mons was so large that I had fortified myself in the barrack and concentrated my right defence on that point, forbidding my soldiers to go in the direction of the great square. I had been informed that the enemy were there, but I did not know their strength, and feared that the inhabitants might unite with them. But as soon as these latter heard of the murder of their compatriot Courtois, a man esteemed by all the neighbourhood, they resolved to avenge him and, forgetting for the moment their grudge against the French, they deputed the brother of Courtois and some of the most prominent and bravest among themselves to ask me to put myself at their head and drive out the Cossacks. No doubt the excesses which these people had committed in the hotel made every citizen fear for his own family and house, and had quite as much as the death of Courtois to do with their desire to turn the Cossacks out. They would, no doubt, have acted very differently if regular troops had entered the town instead of marauders and assassins. Nevertheless, I thought it my duty to profit by the goodwill of the inhabitants, and, taking part of my force, I went towards the square. Meanwhile the infantry major, who knew the town well, went, by my orders, with the remainder, and formed an ambuscade near the breach by which the Prussian Cossacks had got into the place.

At the first shots which our people fired on the scamps the hotel and the square were in a tumult. Those of the enemy who were not killed on the spot made off as fast as their legs would carry them, but a good many lost their way in the streets, and were polished off in detail. As for those who got as far as the spot where they had left their horses fastened to the trees on the promenade, they found the major there, and were received by a volley at close quarters. When day came, we counted, in the town or on the breach, more than 200 of the enemy dead, while we had not lost a single man, for our adversaries were too stupefied by wine and strong drink to be able to defend themselves. Such of them as survived the surprise slipped along the ruins of the old ramparts and made off into the country. There they were all captured or killed by the peasants, who were furious at hearing of the death of poor Courtois. He was regarded as the glory of the neighbourhood; the people called him wooden-leg, and he was as dear to them as another wooden-leg, General Daumesnil, was to the people of the Paris suburbs.

I do not quote the combat at Mons as anything to be vain about, for with the National Guards I had 1,200 or 1,400 men, while the Prussian Cossacks were not much more than 300; but I thought I would relate this curious engagement to show how fickle is the spirit of the masses. All the peasants and colliers, who a month before had come in a crowd to exterminate, or at least disarm, the handful of French left in Mons, had now taken sides with them against the Prussians because the Prussians had killed one of their countrymen. I was very sorry, too, for the brave Courtois, who had fallen a victim to his attachment for me. The most important trophy of our victory was the three hundred and odd horses which the enemy had left in our hands. They came nearly all from the district of Berg, and were very good, so I embodied them in my regiment, for which this unexpected re-mount came very conveniently.

I passed another month at Mons in perfect friendship with the inhabitants, but the advance of the enemy's armies became so serious that the French had to leave not only Brussels, but all Belgium, and re-enter the frontiers of France proper. I was ordered to bring the depot of my regiment to Cambrai, where, with the horses which we had taken from the Prussian Cossacks, I was able to replace in the ranks three hundred good troopers returned from Leipzig, and thus to form two fine squadrons, which, under Major Sigaldi, were shortly sent to the army which the Emperor had assembled in Champagne. They attracted notice there, and sustained the credit of the 23rd Chasseurs, particularly at the battle of Champaubert, where Captain Duplessis was killed.

I have always had a great predilection for the lance, a terrible weapon in the hands of a good horseman. I therefore obtained permission to distribute to my squadrons the lances which the artillery officers could not bring away when they evacuated the Rhine fortresses. So well were they appreciated that several other cavalry regiments also asked for them, and were glad to have got them.

The regimental depots being obliged to move to the left bank of the Seine to avoid falling into hands of the enemy, mine went to Nogent-le-Roi. We had a good number of troopers, but scarcely any horses. The Government was making great efforts to collect some at Versailles, where a central cavalry depot had been created under the command of General Préval. Like his predecessor, General Bourcier, he understood the details of organization much better than war, of which he had seen very little. He discharged his difficult duty very well; but as he could not improvise horses or equipments, and was particular about not sending out any but well-organised detachments, they went off very slowly. I groaned over this, but no colonel could join the army without an order from the Emperor, and, to economize his resources he had forbidden any more officers to be sent to the war than were proportionate to the number of men that they had to command. In vain, therefore, did I beg General Préval to let me go to Champagne; he fixed my departure for the end of March, at which date I was to join the army with a so-called 'marching' regiment, composed of mounted men from my depot and some others. Till then I was allowed to reside at Paris with my family; for my lieutenant-colonel, M. Caseneuve, could command and organize the 200 men who were still at Nogent-le-Roi, and I could always inspect them in a few hours. In Paris therefore I passed most of the month of March, one of the saddest times of my life, although I was with those who were dearest to me. But the Imperial Government to which I was attached, and which I had so long defended at the cost of my blood, was crumbling on all sides. From Lyons the enemy's armies occupied a great part of France, and it was easy to see that they would soon reach the capital.