Two portraits of our hero are given here. One is the facsimile of a drawing by Alphonse Chigot; it is Bourgogne in profile, dressed in ordinary clothes, at the time of his leaving the service; the frontispiece, an earlier lithograph, shows him at the age of forty-five, with the stern official air and hard glance of an Adjutant-in-charge, a living personification of command. What we know, however, of his natural kindness shows us the truth of the poet's precept:
'Garde-toi, tant que tu vivra,
De juger les gens sur la mine!'
Let us add that in his youth he was called a handsome soldier; his height and military carriage were impressive.[9] We have made no alteration in the text other than to correct mistakes of spelling and the suppression of unnecessary words. Less scruple was shown in a paper—now out of print (L'Écho de la Frontière)—which in 1857 published a part of the Memoirs of Bourgogne, and corrected them so effectually that all the original flavor had vanished.
The collection of L'Écho de la Frontière is very rare. The only copy I know of is in the library at Valenciennes. The Bourgogne paper was torn away from it, and we have only found two copies, one at the National Library, the other in the library of M. le Baron Olivier de Watteville. These contain only part of the text published by the paper, and do not go further than p. 176 of the present volume. L'Écho de la Frontière takes the reader to p. 286. We have therefore treated these Memoirs as having the value of an unpublished work up to their publication in 1896 in our Nouvelle Revue Rétrospective.[10]
We must acknowledge with gratitude our indebtedness to M. Maurice Henault, keeper of the records at Valenciennes, for having communicated to us the original manuscript, now preserved in the town library. He did far more, by copying with his own hand the 616 pages in folio of the manuscript, thus guaranteeing the accuracy of the copy.
We also express our thanks to M. Auguste Molinier, whose original idea it was to offer the publication of the manuscript to the Nouvelle Revue Rétrospective, and to M. Ed. Martel, who made inquiries as to the Bourgogne family at Valenciennes and Condé. We must also mention our hero's nephews, M. le Docteur Bourgogne and M. Amadée Bourgogne, M. Loriaux—his former landlord—and M. Paul Marmottau, who have given us valuable assistance in our work.
Paul Cottin.
December 13th, 1896.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] He was wounded in the neck and leg; the ball entered the right thigh, and could never be extracted. Towards the end of his life it had worked down to about twelve inches above the foot.
[2] Note here passage in Book 282 in French copy.