The Memoirs of General Baron de Marbot

by baron de Jean-Baptiste-Antoine-Marcelin Marbot

In one of these actions I had the opportunity of seeing Brigadier-general Macard, a soldier of fortune whom the revolutionary upheavals had carried almost straight from the rank of trumpet-major to that of general! He was a good example of a type of officer created by luck and their personal courage who, although displaying much bravery before the enemy, were nevertheless incapable of occupying effectively a senior position because of their lack of education.

This extraordinary character, a veritable colossus, was well known for one peculiarity. When about to lead his troops in a charge against the enemy, it was his custom to shout "Let's go! I'll put on my animal dress." Then he took off his uniform, his jacket and shirt and retained only his plumed hat, his leather breeches and his big boots! Thus, naked to the waist, he displayed a torso almost as hairy as that of a bear, which gave him a very strange appearance indeed. Once in his animal dress, as he called it, General Macard, sabre in hand, hurled himself at the enemy horsemen, swearing like a pagan; but it so happened that he rarely reached any of them, for at the unexpected and terrible sight of this kind of giant, half naked and covered in hair rushing toward them uttering the most fearsome yells the enemy often fled in all directions, not knowing if they had to deal with a man or some extraordinary wild beast.

General Macord was entirely ignorant, which sometimes amused the more educated officers under his command. One day one of them came to ask permission to go into a neighbouring town to order a pair of boots. "Parbleu!" said the general, "This has come at just the right time; since you are going to the bootmaker, sit down and take the measurements of my boots and order a new pair for me." The officer, much surprised, said that he could not take the measurements as he had no idea how to do this, having never been a boot-maker. "What!" exclaimed the general loudly, "I see you sometimes spend whole days sketching and drawing lines opposite the mountains and when I ask what you are doing, you say you are measuring the mountains. How is it that you can measure objects which are more than a league away, and yet you cannot measure a pair of boots which are under your nose? Come on, take the measurements quickly and no more nonsense." The officer assured him that this was impossible. The general insisted; swore; got angry; and it was only with great difficulty that other officers, attracted by the noise, were able to put an end to this ridiculous scene. The general could never understand how a man who could measure mountains could not measure a pair of men's boots.

You should not think, as a result of this anecdote, that all the general officers in the army of Italy were like the good general Macord. Far from that, they contained in their number many men distinguished by their education and manners; but at this time there were still some senior officers who were completely out of place in the higher ranks of the army. They were being weeded out little by little.

The 1st Hussars took part in all the battles fought at this time in Piedmont, and suffered many losses in encounters with the Austrian heavy cavalry. After some marching and countermarching, and a series of almost daily minor engagements, General Championet, having concentrated the centre and left of his army between Coni and Mondovi, attacked, at the end of December, several divisions of the enemy army.

The encounter took place on a plain dotted with small hills and clumps of trees. The 1st Hussars, attached to General Beaumont's brigade, were positioned on the extreme right of the French army. As the number of officers and men who make up a squadron is laid down in the regulations, our regiment, having suffered casualties in the previous affairs, instead of putting four squadrons into the line could put only three; but having done this, there were some thirty men left over, of which five were sergeants. I was one of this number, as were both the Pertelays. We were formed into two sections and Pertelay the younger was put in command. General Beaumont merely instructed him to scout on the right flank of the army, and act as the situation seemed to require. We then left the regiment and went to explore the countryside.

In the meanwhile, a fierce battle commenced between the two armies, and an hour later, when we were returning to our own lines without having spotted anything on the flank, young Pertelay saw, opposite us, and consequently on the extreme left of the enemy line, a battery of eight guns whose fire was raking the French ranks. Very unwisely, this Austrian battery, in order to have a better field of fire, had advanced onto a small hillock some seven or eight hundred paces in front of the infantry division to which it belonged. The commander of this artillery believed that he was quite safe because the position he occupied dominated the whole French line, and he thought that if any troops set out to attack him, he would see them and would have time to regain the safety of the Austrian lines. He had not considered that a little clump of trees, close to where he was, could conceal a party of French troops, and had thought no more about it. But young Pertelay resolved to lead his men there, and from there to fall upon the Austrian battery.

Pertelay, knowing that on the battlefield no one takes much notice of a single horseman, explained his plan to us, which was for us to go individually, making a detour by a sunken road, to arrive one by one behind the wood on the left of the enemy battery, and from there to make a sudden assault on it, without the fear of cannon-balls, because we would be approaching from the side. We would capture the guns and take them to the French lines. The first part of this plan was executed without the Austrian gunners noticing; we reached the back of the little wood, where we re-formed the sections. Pertelay put himself at our head. We went through the wood, and sabre in hand, threw ourselves on the enemy battery at the moment when it was directing a murderous fire on our troops. We sabred some of the gunners, but the rest hid under their ammunition wagons, where our sabres could not reach them. As instructed by Pertelay, we did not kill or wound the men on the limbers, but forced them at sword point to make their horses pull the guns toward the French lines. This order was obeyed in respect of six guns whose riders had remained on horseback, but the riders for the two other guns had dismounted, and although some of the Hussars took the horses by the bridle, they refused to move.

The enemy infantry were running to the aid of their battery; minutes seemed like hours to us; so young Pertelay, satisfied to have captured six guns, ordered us to leave the others and to head, with our booty, at the gallop, for the French lines.

This was a prudent measure, but it proved fatal to our leader, for hardly had we begun our retreat, when the gunners and their officers emerged from their hiding places under the wagons, loaded the two guns which we had not taken with grape-shot and discharged a hail of bullets into our backs.