A soldier's apprenticeship has always been hard going. It was particularly so at the time of which I write. I had, therefore, some unhappy experiences to suffer. A thing I found unbearable was the requirement to share my bed with another Hussar. The regulations allotted only one bed for two soldiers. N.C.O.s alone were allowed to have a bed each. On the first night which I spent in the barracks, I had already gone to my bed when a tall, ungainly Hussar, who arrived an hour after the others, approached it, and seeing that it was occupied, he unhooked a lantern and stuck it under my nose to examine me more closely. Then he got undressed. As I watched him, I had no idea that he intended to get in beside me; but I was soon disillusioned, when he said to me roughly, "Shove over, conscript!" And got into the bed, taking up three-quarters of it, and began to snore loudly. I was unable to sleep a wink, largely because of the revolting odour arising from a large package which my comrade had placed under the bolster, to raise his head. I could not think what this could be, so to find out, I slid my hand gently toward this object and found it to be a leather apron impregnated with cobbler's wax, which shoemakers use to treat their thread. My amiable bed companion was one of the men employed by the regimental bootmaker. I was so disgusted that I got up, got dressed, and went to the stables where I bedded down on a heap of straw. The next day I told Pertelay of my misadventure, and he reported it to the sub-lieutenant commanding the platoon. He was a well-educated man named Leisteinschneider (in German, a stone-worker) who was later killed in action. He understood how painful it must be for me to have to sleep with a bootmaker, and he took it on himself to arrange for me to have a bed in the N.C.O's room, something which pleased me greatly.
Although the revolution had produced a great relaxation in the general turn-out of troops, the 1st Hussars had kept theirs exactly as it was when they were Bercheny's Hussars; so except for the physical differences imposed by nature, all troopers had to resemble one another in their appearance, and as the regiments of Hussars of that period had not only pig-tails, but long plaited tresses which hung from their temples and turned-up moustaches, it was the rule that everyone belonging to the regiment must have moustache, pig-tail and tresses. Now, as I had none of these things, my mentor took me to the regimental wig-maker where I bought a false pig-tail and tresses, which were attached to my own hair, already fairly long, as I had let it grow since my enlistment. These embellishments embarrassed me at first but I got used to them in a few days, and it pleased me to imagine that they gave me the appearance of a seasoned trooper. It was a different matter when it came to the moustache I had no more of a moustache than a girl, and as a hairless face would have spoiled the ranks of the squadron, Pertelay, as was the custom of Bercheny, took a pot of black wax, and with his thumb he gave me an enormous curling moustache, which covered my upper lip and reached almost to, my eyes. The shakos of the time did not have a vizor, so that, when I was on guard duty, or during an inspection, when one has to remain perfectly still, the Italian sun, shining hotly onto my face, sucked the moisture out of the wax of which my moustache was made, and, as it dried it pulled at my skin in a most disagreeable manner. However, I did not blink. I was a Hussar! A word that had for me an almost magical significance; besides which, having engaged in a military career, I understood very well that my first duty was to obey the regulations.
My father and part of his division were still in Nice, when we heard of the events of the 18th Brumaire, the overthrow of the Directorate and the establishment of the Consulate. My father had too much contempt for the Directorate to regret its downfall, but he feared that, intoxicated by power, General Bonaparte, after re-establishing order in France, would not restrict himself to the modest title of consul, and he predicted to us that in a short time he would aim to become king. My father was mistaken only in the title, four years later Napoleon made himself emperor.
Whatever his misgivings about the future, my father congratulated himself on not having been in Paris on the 18th Brumaire, and I believe that had he been there he might well have opposed the actions of General Bonaparte, but in the army, at the head of a division facing the enemy, he was content to adopt the passive obedience of the soldier. He even rejected proposals, which were made to him by a number of generals and colonels, to march on Paris at the head of their troops. "Who," he said to them, "will defend our frontiers if we abandon them? And what will become of France if, to the war against foreigners, we add the calamity of civil strife?" By these wise observations he calmed down the hot-heads; but he was, nonetheless, very disturbed by the coup which had just taken place: he adored his country and would have greatly preferred that it could have been saved without being submitted to the yoke of a dictator.
I have said that my father's principle reason for making me enlist as a lowly Hussar had been to rid me of the simple notions of a schoolboy, which had not been changed by my short acquaintance with the world of Paris. The result exceeded his expectations, for living amongst swaggering Hussars, and having as a mentor a sort of brigand who laughed at my innocence, I began to howl with the wolves, and for fear that I might be mocked for my timidity, I became a real devil. This, however, was not enough for me to be accepted into a sort of brotherhood, which under the name of the clique, had members in all the squadrons the 1st Hussars.
The clique was made up of all the biggest rogues, but, at the same time, some of the bravest men in the regiment. The members of the clique supported one another against all opposition, particularly in the face of the enemy. They called themselves the Jokers, and recognised one another by a notch cut into the metal of the first button on the right hand row of the pelisse and dolman. The officers were aware of the existence of the clique, but as its worst crimes were limited to the adroit theft of chickens or sheep, or some trick played on the local inhabitants, and as the Jokers were always at the forefront in any action, they turned a blind eye. I was young and feckless, and I longed desperately to belong to this raffish society, which I thought would raise my standing amongst my comrades; but it was in vain that I frequented the salle-d'armes to practice swordsmanship and the use of the pistol and carbine, and that I dug my elbows into anyone who got in my way: allowed my sabre to trail on the ground and tipped my shako over one ear, the members of the clique regarded me as a child and refused to admit me to their society. However, an unforeseen event led to my being accepted unanimously.
The army of Italy was at this time in Liguria and spread out on a front of more than sixty miles in length, the right of which was in the Gulf of Spezzia, beyond Genoa, and the left at Nice and Var, that is to say on the frontier of France. We had, therefore, the sea at our backs, and we faced Piedmont, which was occupied by the Austrian army, from which we were separated by that branch of the Apennines which runs from Var to Gavi: a bad position, in which the army ran the risk of being cut in two, which, in fact, happened some months later.
My father, having been ordered to concentrate his division at Savona, a small town, by the sea, ten leagues towards France from Genoa, set up his headquarters in the bishop's palace. The infantry was spread out among the market towns and villages of the neighbourhood to keep watch on the valleys from which emerged the roads which led to Piedmont. The 1st Hussars, who had come from Nice to Savona, were encamped on a plain known as the Madona. The outposts of the enemy were at Dego, four or five leagues from us, on the forward slopes of the Apennines, whose summits were covered in snow, whereas Savona and its surroundings enjoyed the mildest of climates.
Our encampment would have been delightful if the rations had been more plentiful; but there was at that time no main road from Nice to Genoa; the sea was covered by English warships, so the army had to live on what could be brought by detachments of mules along the Corniche, or by small boat-loads, which could slip unnoticed along the coast. These precarious supplies were scarcely enough to provide, from day to day, sufficient food to support the troops; but, happily, the country produced plenty of wine, which enabled them to bear their privations with more resignation.
One fine day I was walking along the beach with my mentor when we came on a "taverna," where there was a charming garden planted with orange and lemon trees, under which were tables at which sat soldiers of all kinds. He suggested that we went there, and although I had never overcome my distaste for wine, I agreed, simply to please him.