(1) Some Distinguished Prisoners of War
When the roll of the 46th Regiment (or, as it was, the 46th demi-brigade), of the French Army is called, the name of La Tour d’Auvergne brings forward the sergeant-major of the Grenadier Company, who salutes and replies: ‘Dead upon the field of honour!’
This unique homage to Théophile de La Tour d’Auvergne—who won the distinguishing title of ‘First Grenadier of the Republican Armies’ in an age and an army crowded with brave men, quite as much, so says history, by his modesty as by his bravery in action—was continued for some time after his death in 1800, was discontinued, was revived in 1887, and has been paid ever since.
In 1795, after the taking of San Sebastian by the French, he applied for leave of absence on account of his health, and started by sea for his native Brittany, but the ship in which he sailed was captured by British cruisers. He was brought to England and sent to Bodmin on parole. Here he insisted upon wearing his Republican cockade, a silly, unnecessary act of bravado which so annoyed some English soldiers that they mobbed him, and, as he showed a disposition to resent the attack, matters would have gone hard with him but for timely rescue. (I reproduce a picture of one of these attacks from his biography by Montorgueil, not on account of its merit, but of its absurdity. La Tour d’Auvergne, it will be noted, uses his sword toasting-fork wise. Not even the most distinguished of parole prisoners was ever allowed to wear his sword, although some were not required to give them up according to rule.) This inspired the following letter from him to the Agent at Bodmin:
La Tour d’Auvergne defending his Cockade at Bodmin
‘1st October, 1795.
‘Sir,
‘I address myself to you as the Agent entrusted by your Government with the immediate care of the French prisoners at Bodmin, to acquaint you with the outrage just perpetrated upon me by some soldiers of the garrison in this town, who, on their return from drill, attacked me with their arms, and proceeded to violent extremes with the object of depriving me of my cockade, a distinctive part of my military uniform. I have always worn it during my detention in England, just as your officers, prisoners in my country, have always worn theirs without being interfered with. It is impossible, Sir, that such behaviour towards an officer of the French Republic should have been encouraged by your Government, or that it should countenance any outrage upon peaceable prisoners who are here under your protection. Under these circumstances, Sir, I beg you without delay to get to the root of the insult to which I have been subjected, so that I may be able to adapt my conduct in future accordingly. Into whatever extremity I may find myself reduced by my determination not to remove my distinctive badge, I shall never regard as a misfortune the ills and interferences of which the source will have been so honourable to me.’
The reply of the Agent was probably much the same as the Transport Office made in 1804 to a letter from the Agent at Leek, in Staffordshire, to whom a French midshipman had complained of similar interference.
‘We think the French midshipman very imprudent in wearing his Cockade, as it could answer no good purpose, and might expose him to evils greater than he has already experienced from the rage of the populace, and you are to inform him if he persists he must not expect protection from the consequences.’
In 1797 the inhabitants of Bishop’s Waltham complained of the constant wearing by the prisoners there of Republican cockades, and the reply was exactly as above.