[3] About 14° below zero, Fahrenheit.
[4] 'As the Emperor is no longer in France,' he said himself in a note in his Memoirs, 'I shall throw up my commission.'
[5] Bourgogne married at Condé on August 31st, 1814, Thérèse Fortunée Demarez. After her death, in 1822, he married Philippine Godart, a native of Tournai.
[6] 'In 1830,' he said in the note already quoted 'I shall return to the service when the tricolor reappears.'
[7] Our sergeant had three brothers and a sister, of whom he was the eldest: François, Professor of Mathematics at the College of Condé; Firmin, died young; Florence, married to a brewer; Louis Florent, Doctor of Medicine of the Faculty of Paris, died in 1870. Marie Françoise Monnier, their mother, was born at Condé in 1764.
[8] We found M. de Vatimesnil's letters in the military portfolio of Bourgogne, in the War Archives.
[9] We give here a list, copied from the Memoirs, of the important battles in which Bourgogne took part: Jena, Pultusk, Eylau, Eilsberg, Friedland, Essling, Wagram, Sorno-Sierra, Benévent, Smolensk, La Moskowa, Krasnoë, La Bérézina, Lutzen, and Bautzen. 'I may add,' he said, 'more than twenty small encounters and other skirmishes.'
[10] Bourgogne's Memoirs appeared for the first time in extenso in our Nouvelle Revue Rétrospective, which for the last fourteen years has been devoted to the publication of documents on our national history.
CONTENTS
| [PREFACE] | [vi] | |
| [CHAPTER I.] | ||
| FROM ALMEIDA TO MOSCOW | [1] | |
| [CHAPTER II.] | ||
| THE FIRE AT MOSCOW | [14] | |
| [CHAPTER III.] | ||
| THE RETREAT—REVIEW OF MY KNAPSACK—THE EMPERORIN DANGER—FROM MOJAISK TO SLAWKOWO | [55] | |
| [CHAPTER IV.] | ||
| DOROGOBOUI—VERMIN—A CANTINIÈRE—HUNGER | [65] | |
| [CHAPTER V._] | ||
| A DISASTER—A FAMILY DRAMA—MARSHAL MORTIER—TWENTY-SEVENDEGREES OF FROST—WE REACHSMOLENSK—A DEN OF THIEVES | [74] | |
| [CHAPTER VI.] | ||
| A DISTURBED NIGHT—I FIND MY FRIENDS AGAIN—WELEAVE SMOLENSK—A NECESSARY CORRECTION—THEBATTLE OF KRASNOË—MELLÉ THE DRAGOON | [93] | |
| [CHAPTER VII.] | ||
| THE RETREAT GOES ON—I TAKE A WIFE—DISCOURAGEMENT—ILOSE SIGHT OF MY COMRADES—DRAMATICSCENE—MEETING WITH PICART | [122] | |
| [CHAPTER VIII.] | ||
| I TRAVEL WITH PICART—THE COSSACKS—PICART ISWOUNDED—A CONVOY OF FRENCH PRISONERS—AHALT IN A FOREST—POLISH HOSPITALITY—AN ATTACKOF INSANITY—WE REJOIN THE ARMY—THE EMPERORAND THE SACRED BATTALION—THE CROSSING OF THEBÉRÉZINA | [145] | |
| [CHAPTER IX.] | ||
| FROM THE BÉRÉZINA TO WILNA—THE JEWS_ | [207] | |
| [CHAPTER X.] | ||
| FROM WILNA TO KOWNO—THE REGIMENTAL DOG—MARSHALNEY—THE TREASURY OF THE ARMY—IAM POISONED—THE THIEVES' DRIPPING—THE OLDGRENADIER, FALOPPA—GENERAL ROGUET—FROMKOWNO TO ELBING—TWO CANTINIÈRES—THE ADVENTURESOF A SERGEANT—I FIND PICART AGAIN—THESLEDGE AND THE JEWS—A SHREW—EYLAU—ARRIVALAT ELBING | [229] | |
| [CHAPTER XI.] | ||
| OUR STAY AT ELBING—MADAME GENTIL—AN UNCLE'SHEIR—JANUARY 1ST, 1813—PICART AND THEPRUSSIANS—FATHER ELLIOT—MY WITNESSES | [329] | |