This pitiful recompense recalls one both glorious and well-earned which M. Larrey received from the Emperor during the campaign in Egypt. At the battle of Aboukir, General Fugieres was operated on by M. Larrey under the enemies' fire for a dangerous wound on the shoulder; and thinking himself about to die, offered his sword to General Bonaparte, saying to him, "General, perhaps one day you may envy my fate." The general-in-chief presented this sword to M. Larrey, after having engraved on it the name of M. Larrey and that of the battle. However, General Fugieres did not die; his life was saved by the skillful operation he had undergone, and for seventeen years he commanded the Invalids at Avignon.
CHAPTER XX.
It is not in the presence of the enemy that differences in the manner and bearing of soldiers can be remarked, for the requirements of the service completely engross both the ideas and time of officers, whatever their grade, and uniformity of occupation produces also a kind of uniformity of habit and character; but, in the monotonous life of the camp, differences due to nature and education reassert themselves. I noted this many times after the truces and treaties of peace which crowned the most glorious campaigns of the Emperor, and had occasion to renew my observations on this point during the long sojourn which we made at Schoenbrunn with the army. Military tone in the army is a most difficult thing to define, and differs according to rank, time of service, and kind of service; and there are no genuine soldiers except those who form part of the line, or who command it. In the soldiers' opinion, the Prince de Neuchatel and his brilliant staff, the grand marshal, Generals Bertrand, Bacler d'Albe, etc., were only men of the cabinet council, whose experience might be of some use in such deliberations, but to whom bravery was not indispensable.
The chief generals, such as Prince Eugene, Marshals Oudinot, Davoust, Bessieres, and his Majesty's aides-decamp, Rapp, Lebrun, Lauriston, Mouton, etc., were exceedingly affable, and every one was most politely received by them; their dignity never became haughtiness, nor their ease an excessive familiarity, though their manners were at all times slightly tinged by the austerity inseparable from the character of a warrior. This was not the idea held in the army in regard to a few of the ordnance and staff officers (aides-de-camp); for, while according them all the consideration due both to their education and their courage, they called them the jay-birds of the army; receiving favors which others deserved; obtaining cordons and promotions for carrying a few letters into camp, often without having even seen the enemy; insulting by their luxury the modest temperance of the braver officers; and more foppish in the midst of their battalions than in the boudoirs of their mistresses. The silver-gilt box of one of these gentlemen was a complete portable dressing-case, and contained, instead of cartridges, essence bottles, brushes, a mirror, a tongue-scraper, a shell-comb, and—I do not know that it lacked even a pot of rouge. It could not be said that they were not brave, for they would allow themselves to be killed for a glance; but they were very, rarely exposed to danger. Foreigners would be right in maintaining the assertion that the French soldier is frivolous, presumptuous, impertinent, and immoral, if they formed their judgment alone from these officers by courtesy, who, in place of study and faithful service, had often no other title to their rank than the merit of having emigrated.
The officers of the line, who had served in several campaigns and had gained their epaulettes on the field of battle, held a very different position in the army. Always grave, polite, and considerate, there was a kind of fraternity among them; and having known suffering and misery themselves, they were always ready to help others; and their conversation, though not distinguished by brilliant information, was often full of interest. In nearly every case boasting quitted them with their youth, and the bravest were always the most modest. Influenced by no imaginary points of honor, they estimated themselves at their real worth; and all fear of being suspected of cowardice was beneath them. With these brave soldiers, who often united to the greatest kindness of heart a mettle no less great, a flat contradiction or even a little hasty abuse from one of their brothers in arms was not obliged to be washed out in blood; and examples of the moderation which true courage alone has a right to show were not rare in the army. Those who cared least for money, and were most generous, were most exposed, the artillerymen and the hussars, for instance. At Wagram I saw a lieutenant pay a louis for a bottle of brandy, and immediately divide it among the soldiers of his company; and brave officers often formed such an attachment to their regiment, especially if it had distinguished itself, that they sometimes refused promotion rather than be separated from their children, as they called them. In them we behold the true model of the French soldier; and it is this kindness, mingled with the austerity of a warrior, this attachment of the chief to the soldier, which the latter is so capable of appreciating, and an impregnable honor, which serve to distinguish our soldiers from all others, and not, as foreigners think, presumption, braggadocio, and libertinage, which latter are ever the characteristics of the parasites of glory alone.
In the camp of Lobau on the evening before the battle of Wagram, the Emperor, as he was walking outside his tent, stopped a moment watching the grenadiers of his guard who were breakfasting. "Well, my children, what do you think of the wine?"—"It will not make us tipsy, Sire; there is our cellar," said a soldier pointing to the Danube. The Emperor, who had ordered a bottle of good wine to be distributed to each soldier, was surprised to see that they were so abstemious the evening before a battle. He inquired of the Prince de Neuchatel the cause of this; and upon investigation, it was learned that two storekeepers and an employee in the commissary department had sold forty thousand bottles of the wine which the Emperor had ordered to be distributed, and had replaced it with some of inferior quality. This wine had been seized by the Imperial Guard in a rich abbey, and was valued at thirty thousand florins. The culprits were arrested, tried, and condemned to death.
There was in the camp at Lobau a dog which I think all the army knew by the name of corps-de-garde. He was old, emaciated, and ugly; but his moral qualities caused his exterior defects to be quickly lost sight of. He was sometimes called the brave dog of the Empire; since he had received a bayonet stroke at Marengo, and had a paw broken by a gun at Austerlitz, being at that time attached to a regiment of dragoons. He had no master. He was in the habit of attaching himself to a corps, and continuing faithful so long as they fed him well and did not beat him. A kick or a blow with the flat of a sword would cause him to desert this regiment, and pass on to another. He was unusually intelligent; and whatever position of the corps in which he might be the was serving, he did not abandon it, or confound it with any other, and in the thickest of the fight was always near the banner he had chosen; and if in the camp he met a soldier from the regiment he had deserted, he would droop his ears, drop his tail between his legs, and scamper off quickly to rejoin his new brothers in arms. When his regiment was on the march he circled as a scout all around it, and gave warning by a bark if he found anything unusual, thus on more than one occasion saving his comrades from ambush.
Among the officers who perished at the battle of Wagram, or rather in a small engagement which took place after the battle had ended, one of those most regretted by the soldiers was General Oudet. He was one of the bravest generals of the army; but what brings his name especially to mind, among all those whom the army lost on that memorable day, is a note which I have preserved of a conversation I held several years after this battle with an excellent officer who was one of my sincerest friends.
In a conversation with Lieutenant-colonel B—— in 1812, he remarked, "I must tell you, my dear Constant, of a strange adventure which happened to me at Wagram. I did not tell you at the time, because I had promised to be silent; but since at the present time no one can be compromised by my indiscretion, and since those who then had most to fear if their singular ideas (for I can call them by no other name) had been revealed, would now be first to laugh at them, I can well inform you of the mysterious discovery I made at that period.