The Memoirs of Baron Lejeune, Aide-de-Camp to Marshals Berthier, Davout and Oudinot. Vol. I by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908692139
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Wagram Press
Published: 2010-12-03T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

THE WAR IN AUSTRIA IN 1809—BATTLES OF ABENSBERG, LANDSHUT, AND ECKMÜHL-RATISBON-EBERSBERG

I WAS impatient to carry the news of the taking of Saragossa to Napoleon, so I started on the very night of the capitulation (February 21) at full speed for Bayonne, where I had left my carriage. Fearing to be hindered by the escort I ought to have taken with me, I braved the danger of crossing, accompanied by one postillion only, a country where guerrilla bands were waging war to the death with the French. Those who were taken by our soldiers with arms in their hands were hung immediately from the olive trees bordering the roads. In one of the narrow lanes I had to go through, a mutilated corpse, hanging from a branch, swaying about like a flag in the wind, barred my passage ; and as it touched me and I was about to push it aside, I had the curiosity to examine it. The body was dried up, but the features were not disfigured, and I saw that it was the corpse of a white-haired peasant with a grey beard, still wearing all his clothes. I was greatly surprised to find that it weighed no more than a pasteboard figure would have done.

I arrived without mishap at the Tuileries on February 27, where I was received by the Emperor. I found him sitting at a small table, with a pretty child of three years old on his knee. They were very happily eating their breakfast out of one plate. The Emperor congratulated me on there being no trace of the wound which he had been told had disfigured me, and listened with great interest to every detail of the siege and surrender of Saragossa. He asked about the health of the Marshal and the state of the army, and expressed a regret which did him honour at the loss of his aide-de-camp, Lacoste. He even instructed me to convey a message of sympathy from him to the widow, and to tell her that he should continue to her the annuity of fifty thousand francs he had given to her husband.

During our conversation the Emperor fondled the child on his knee a good deal. It was the eldest son of his brother Louis, King of Holland, who had married Marie Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of the Empress Josephine. The marked tenderness shown for this little nephew, who was a graceful taking boy, led us to think that Napoleon intended him to inherit the throne he had founded; at least there was a rumour to that effect in Paris at this time. After his frugal repast the Emperor, as was his custom, took some coffee without sugar, and the child stretched out his pretty little hands to seize the cup and drink some coffee too, but he pushed it away with a wry face when he found how bitter the contents were. The Emperor said to him, laughing, “Ah, your education is not complete yet; you don't know how to disguise your feelings.

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