Memoirs of Sergeant Bourgogne, 1812-1813

Memoirs of Sergeant Bourgogne
1812-1813
Compiled from the Original MS. by Paul Cottin
ILLUSTRATED
New York
Doubleday & McClure Company
1899
Copyright 1899, by DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO.

SERGEANT BOURGOGNE. (From a portrait made in 1830.)
Adrien Jean Baptiste François Bourgogne was the son of a cloth-merchant of Condé-sur-Escaut (Nord). He reached his twentieth year on November 12th, 1805, a time when military glory was the one dream of youth. To make this dream real, his father procured his admission into a corps of the Vélites of the Guard, where a fixed income was a necessary qualification.
The Vélites were originally Roman soldiers lightly armed, for skirmishing with the enemy ( velitare ). In the year XII. when the Revolution was at an end, two corps of Vélites, consisting of 800 men each, were attached to the foot Grenadiers, and to the mounted Grenadiers of the Consul's Guard.