From that ruined city in Spain he had hastened to Germany, and had been again the right hand of the great captain who so well knew his worth. Better courtiers there were than Lannes, gallants who better graced a ballroom, flatterers who could better please the ear. But who of all the brave men of France could walk the battle-field with surer, steadier step than he?
Who at heart was more loyal to the chief—who so ready to forsake ease and comfort and go forth at the call of the chief into rain or snow, heat or cold, exhausting march or desperate battle? In all the long record of French heroism, who had done deeds more lionlike than Lannes?
Who was first over the bridge at Lodi, outstripping Napoleon and all, and slaying six Austrians with his own hand? Who led the vanguard across the frozen Alps and held the rout at Marengo till Desaix could come? Who, in this last campaign, had rallied the grenadiers beneath the blazing walls of Ratisbonne, seized a scaling ladder, when the bravest held back, and had rushed toward the battlements under a withering fire, shouting to his halting men, “I’ll show you that I’ve not forgotten I was once a grenadier!” Who but Lannes had electrified these troops by his fearless example, and had carried them over the walls?
At Essling he had been in the thick of the fight, holding his ground with old-time grip. The slaughter had been immense, and the sight of the mangled body of General Pouzet, shot down at his side, had affected him painfully. Sick of the hideous spectacle, he had gone a little to one side, and had seated himself on the embankment of a trench.
A quarter of an hour later, four soldiers, laboriously carrying in a cloak a dead officer whose face could not be seen, stopped in front of Lannes. The cloak fell open, and he recognized Pouzet. “Oh!” he cried, “is this terrible sight going to pursue me everywhere?” Getting up, he went and sat down at the edge of another ditch, his hand over his eyes, and his legs crossed. As he sat there a three-pounder shot struck him just where his legs crossed. The knee-pan of one was smashed, and the back sinews of the other torn. General Marbot ran to him; he tried to rise, but could not. He was borne back to the bridge, and one of his limbs amputated. Hardly was the operation over when Napoleon came up. “The interview,” says Marbot, from whose Memoirs this account is literally taken, “was most touching. The Emperor, kneeling beside the stretcher, wept as he embraced the marshal, whose blood soon stained the Emperor’s white kerseymere waistcoat.”
“You will live, my friend, you will live!” cried the Emperor, pressing the hand of Lannes. “I trust I may, if I can still be of service to France and to your Majesty.”
The weather was terribly hot, and fever set in with Lannes; on May 30th he died. In spite of the cares and dangers of his position, Napoleon had found time to visit the wounded man every day. A few moments after daybreak on the 30th, the Emperor came as usual, when Marbot met him and told him of the sad event. The amputated limb had mortified, and the stench was so strong that Marbot warned Napoleon against going in. Pushing Marbot aside, the Emperor advanced to the dead body, embraced it, wept over it, remained more than an hour, and only left when Berthier reminded him that officers were waiting for orders.
“What a loss for France and for me!” Well may Napoleon have grieved and wept: here was a gap in his line that could never be filled. Said the Emperor at St. Helena, “I found him a pygmy; I lost him a giant.”
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The bridges connecting the island of Lobau with the bank of the Danube upon which the army had been fighting were not broken: hence the troops could be led back to the island. Once there, the position could be fortified and held, until the Vienna arm of the river could be rebridged.