To break up this long cordon, and mass the troops for the march into Austria, involved a reversal of the front on a vast scale. Every army corps, therefore, had to face about, so as to bring its front towards Germany, and march thither by the nearest road. The right wing became the left, and vice versá. It will be seen that to reach the Danube from Hanover or from Holland, the first and second divisions had a much shorter march to make than those which were at Boulogne; while these again were much nearer than Augereau's corps, which, in order to reach the Swiss frontiers from Brest, had to traverse the whole breadth of France, a distance of three hundred leagues. Travelling in several columns, the army took two months to cover the distance. Augereau, starting the last from Brest, passed them, and halting first at Rennes, then at Alençon, Melun, Troyes, and Langres, he inspected the various regiments, and roused their ardour by his presence. It was magnificent weather. I passed the two months in a post-chaise, going incessantly from one column to another with orders from the marshal. Twice I was able to stop at Paris and see my mother. Our studs had preceded us; I had three excellent horses, and a servant of moderate quality.

While the Grand Army marched on the Rhine and the Danube, the French troops who were quartered in Upper Italy under the command of Masséna assembled in the province of Milan in order to attack the Austrians on Venetian territory. To transmit orders to Masséna the Emperor was obliged to send his aides-de-camp through Switzerland, which was neutral ground. Now it happened that while Augereau was at Langres an orderly officer bearing despatches from Napoleon was overturned in his carriage and broke his collar-bone. He had himself carried to the marshal's quarters, and declared to him that he could not possibly accomplish his mission. The marshal, knowing how important it was that the Emperor's despatches should reach Italy without loss of time, ordered me to carry them forward by way of Hüningen, whither I had also to take his orders with regard to throwing a bridge across the Rhine. This duty pleased me much, for it would give me a fine journey, with the certainty of rejoining the 7th corps before it could come in contact with the Austrians. I quickly reached Hüningen and Basle, thence came to Berne and Rapperschwyl, where I left my carriage; then on horseback I crossed the Splügen, which was then almost impracticable, and not without danger. I entered Italy by Chiavenna, and joined Masséna near Verona. But it was only there and back, for Masséna was in as great a hurry to see me start back with his reply to the Emperor as I was myself to rejoin Augereau so as not to miss any affairs in which his division might be engaged. I did not, however, return as quickly as I had come, for a heavy snowfall had recently covered not the mountains only, but also the valleys. It was freezing hard, horses fell at every step, and I had to pay 600 frs. for two guides across the Splügen. The passage took us more than twelve hours, walking knee-deep in the snow. The guides even were on the point of refusing to go any further, asserting that there was imminent danger; but I was young and daring, and well aware of the importance of the despatches which the Emperor was awaiting. I declared, therefore, to my two guides that if they turned back I should go on without them. Every profession has its point of honour--that of guides consists chiefly in never abandoning the traveller entrusted to them; so mine went forward, and, after really extraordinary efforts, we reached the great inn at the foot of the Splügen just at nightfall. If we had been benighted in the mountain we must inevitably have perished, for the path was barely marked, and was bounded by precipices which the snow would have hindered us from seeing. I was thoroughly done up, but a night's rest restored my energy. I started at daybreak and reached Rapperschwyl, where I found a carriage, and a road to drive on. The most difficult part of the journey was over; in spite of the snow and severe cold I got to Basle and then to Hüningen, where the seventh corps was assembled, on October 19. Next morning we began to pass the Rhine on a bridge of boats constructed for that purpose, for, although a short half-league lower down there was a stone bridge in the city of Basle, the Emperor had ordered Marshal Augereau to respect Swiss neutrality. Nine years later the Swiss themselves violated neutrality when they opened this bridge in 1814 to the enemies of France.

There then I was once again on campaign. It was 1805, a year which saw the opening of a long period of warfare for me, not to end till Waterloo, ten years later. Numerous as were the wars of the Empire, nearly all French military men enjoyed one or more years of rest, either because they were doing garrison duty in France, or because they were in Italy or Germany at a time when we had no war save in Spain; but, as you will see, this was not my case. Constantly sent from north to south, and from south to north, wherever there was fighting going on, I did not pass one of these ten years without coming under fire, or without shedding my blood on the soil of some part of Europe.

I do not intend to relate in detail the campaign of 1805; I will confine myself to recording some of the principal events. The Russians, who were marching to the support of Austria, were still far off when Field-Marshal Mack, having imprudently entered Bavaria at the head of 80,000 men was beaten by Napoleon, outmanœuvred, compelled to take refuge in the fortress of Ulm, and with the greater part of his army, of which only two corps escaped, to lay down his arms. Of these divisions, one, under the command of the Archduke Ferdinand, succeeded in reaching Bohemia; the other, under the old Field-Marshal Jellachich, threw itself into the Vorarlberg towards the Lake of Constance, resting with one flank on Swiss neutral territory, and watching the passes of the Black Forest. 1It was against this latter force that Augereau was to act.

After crossing the Rhine at Hüningen, the 7th corps was in Baden, the sovereign of which, like those of Bavaria and Würtemberg, had just concluded an alliance with Napoleon. We were thus received well by the population of Breisgau. Field-Marshal Jellachich had not ventured to try conclusions with the French in a country where the communications are so easy, but was awaiting us on the other side of Freiburg, at the entrance to the Black Forest, reckoning on making us pay a heavy price in bloodshed as the cost of the passage. His chief hope was to stop us in the Höllenthal, a long and narrow gorge, commanded on all sides by steep rocks easy to defend; but the troops, jealous of the brilliant success won by their comrades at Ulm, and eager to show their valour also, dashed hotly into the Black Forest, and crossed it in three days, in spite of the difficulties of the ground, the resistance of the enemy, and the scarcity of provisions in that dreadful desert. Finally the army emerged into a fertile country, and encamped about the pleasant town of Donaueschingen. Marshal Augereau and his aides-de-camp were quartered in the magnificent chateau belonging to the ancient princely house of Furstenberg, in the grounds of which is the source of the Danube. The mighty river shows its power from its birth, for it is navigable for small boats at its issue from the ground. The artillery teams and our carriages had experienced great labour in the rocky defiles of the Black Forest, rendered still more difficult by the icy state of the ground. We had, therefore, to give the horses several days' rest, during which the Austrian cavalry came from time to time to feel our outposts, which were two leagues in advance of the town. Nothing came of it, however, but a little sharpshooting, which amused us, practised us in skirmishing, and gave us an opportunity of learning the various uniforms of the enemy. There I saw for the first time the Archduke Charles's Uhlans, the Rosenberg Dragoons, and the Blankenstein Hussars. When our teams were sufficiently rested, the army continued its march, and during several weeks we had continual engagements, which left us in possession of Engen and Stockach.

Although I was often much exposed in these different affairs, I only had one accident; but that might have been pretty serious. The ground, especially in the neighbourhood of Stockach, was covered with snow; the enemy was defending the position furiously. The marshal ordered me to go and reconnoitre in the direction in which he wished to send a column. The ground appeared to me very level, because the wind driving the snow had filled all the ditches, and I galloped off. But suddenly my horse and I went into a deep ravine, up to our necks in the snow; I was trying to extricate myself when two of the enemy's hussars appeared at the edge and fired their carbines at me. Happily the snow in which my horse and I were floundering interfered with the aim of the Austrian troopers, and I was not hurt; but they were about to fire again, when a detachment of chasseurs sent by the marshal to my assistance drew near, and compelled them to make off promptly. With a little help I got out of the gully, but it took some trouble to pull out my horse, which, however, was also unwounded; and my comrades were able to laugh at the strange figure which I made on emerging from my bath of snow.

After having conquered the whole Vorarlberg, we took possession of Bregenz, and rolled back Jellachich's force upon the Lake of Constance and upon Tyrol. The enemy was covered by the fortress and the celebrated defile of Feldkirch, behind which he might have resisted us with advantage. We were expecting a murderous fight to carry this strong position, when, to our great astonishment, the Austrians expressed a desire to capitulate, which Marshal Augereau accepted with alacrity.

During the interview which the two marshals held on this occasion, the Austrian officers, who were humiliated by the recent reverses to their arms, gave themselves the malicious pleasure of imparting to us a very unwelcome piece of news, which had hitherto been concealed from us, but which the Russians and Austrians had learnt by way of England. The French and Spanish fleets had been beaten by Lord Nelson on October 20, 2not far from Cadiz, off Cape Trafalgar. Our ill-starred Admiral Villeneuve, whom no positive order of Napoleon could determine to throw of his inactivity at a time when the sudden appearance of the fleets of France and Spain in the Channel might have secured the passage to England of the armies collected at Boulogne-- Villeneuve, I say, on learning that he was about to be superseded by Admiral Rosily, passed in a moment from excessive circumspection to the extreme of audacity. He issued from Cadiz and delivered battle. Had this action turned out in our favour it would have been almost useless, since the French army, instead of being at Boulogne to profit by his success and cross to England, was fighting in the centre of Germany, more than two hundred leagues from the coast. After a most obstinate combat, the fleets of Spain and France were beaten by that of England, whose admiral, the celebrated Nelson, was slain, bearing to his grave the reputation of the first seaman of the age. On our side we lost Rear-Admiral Magon, a most meritorious officer; one of our vessels blew up, seventeen French and Spanish were taken. A terrible storm arose towards the end of the battle, and lasted all that night and the following day. It very nearly made an end of both conquerors and conquered; the English, having their own safety to consider, were obliged to abandon nearly all their prizes, the greater part of which were brought into Cadiz by the remainder of their brave and unfortunate crews; others went to pieces on the rocks and were lost.

It was in this battle that my excellent friend General D'Houdetot received a severe wound in the thigh, from which he has limped ever since. At that time little more than a child, he was a naval cadet attached to the staff of my father's friend, Rear-Admiral Magon. After the death of that brave officer, 3his vessel, the 'Algésiras,' was captured after a sanguinary fight, and the English placed on board a prize crew of sixty men. But the 'Algésiras' having been separated by the storm from the enemy's fleet, the French officers and seamen who had survived the fight declared to the officers of the English crew that they would have in their turn to surrender, or prepare to recommence the struggle in the midst of the horrors of the night and the storm. 4The English, not being disposed to fight, capitulated on condition of not being retained as prisoners, and the French, though threatened with shipwreck, joyfully replaced their flag on the stump of the mast. After having been twenty times on the point of foundering, owing to the damaged state of the ship, they succeeded at last in reaching Cadiz Bay. Villeneuve's vessel was captured, and that unlucky admiral was taken to England, where he remained three years as prisoner of war. Having been exchanged, he decided to go to Paris, but was arrested at Rennes, and blew his brains out. 5

When Field-Marshal Jellachich decided to capitulate to the 7th corps of the French army, his decision was the more astonishing to us that, although we had beaten him, his retreat was still open into Tyrol, a country whose inhabitants have been for many ages very loyal to the house of Austria. No doubt the approaches to Tyrol were rendered difficult by the great quantity of snow; but the difficulty would have been still greater for us as the enemy, than it would have been for his troops to retire into a friendly province. Yet if the methodical old field-marshal could not make up his mind to carry on a war in winter among the mountains, it was not so with the officers under his command, many of whom blamed his pusillanilaity and talked of disregarding his authority. Among the most ardent in opposition to him was General the Prince of Rohan, a French officer in the service of Austria, a man of great courage and ability. Marshal Augereau, fearing lest Jellachich, persuaded by Rohan's advice, should succeed in throwing himself into Tyrol and escaping us, made haste to grant to the commander of the enemy all the conditions that he demanded. The capitulation, therefore, arranged that the Austrian troops should lay down their arms, and deliver up their flags, guns, and horses, but should not be taken into France, and should be allowed to retire to Bohemia after swearing not to serve against France for a year. When announcing this capitulation in a bulletin, the Emperor at first evinced a little dissatisfaction that the Austrian troops had not been required to go as prisoners into France; but when he knew that, on account of the ease with which they could have escaped, Augereau had no means of compelling them to this, he reconsidered his opinion. As a matter of fact, during the night preceding the day on which they were to lay down their arms, a revolt against Jellachich broke out in several of the Austrian brigades. The Prince of Rohan, refusing to agree to the capitulation, went off with his division of infantry, joined by several regiments from the other divisions, threw himself into the mountains, and crossed them, in spite of the severity of the weather. Then by a bold march passing through the middle of the cantonments of the troops of Marshal Ney, who were occupying the Tyrolese towns, he went near to fall upon the rear of the Army of Italy between Verona and Venice, as it was, under Massena's command, closely pursuing the Archduke Charles, who was retiring on Friuli. The arrival of the Prince of Rohan in the Venetian territory when Masséna was already at some distance from it might have had very grave consequences; but, fortunately, a French army under the command of General Saint-Cyr coming up from Naples beat the prince and compelled him to surrender. At any rate, he only yielded to force, and was entitled to say that if Field-Marshal Jellachich had come with all his troops, the Austrians would very likely have managed to overcome Saint-Cyr and open a way for themselves.

When a force capitulates, it is customary for the conqueror to send to each division a staff officer to take possession of it, as it were, and bring it at the appointed time to the place where it is to lay down its arms. That one of my comrades who was sent to the Prince of Rohan was left by him in the abandoned camp, since the prince, being able to carry out his retreat in rear of the fortress of Feldkirch, and in a direction opposite to the French camp, had no fear of being stopped on his march. The cavalry, however, was in a different position, for it was bivouacked in a little plain in front of Feldkirch, facing our outposts at no great distance. I had been ordered by Augereau to take my place with the Austrian cavalry, in order to bring it to the appointed place of assembling. This brigade, consisting of three strong regiments, was not under any general, but was commanded by the colonel of the Blankenstein Hussars, a brave and very crafty old Hungarian. I regret that I was not able to catch his name, for I have a great regard for him, although he contrived to bamboozle me in a very unpleasant fashion.

When I arrived in his camp the colonel had offered me hospitality for the night in the hut where he was lodging, and we agreed to start at daybreak in order to reach the place appointed on the shore of the Lake of Constance between the towns of Bregenz and Lindau. As we had at most three leagues to cover, I was much surprised to hear the officers mounting about midnight. I rushed out, and saw that the squadrons were forming and that they were getting ready to start. The colonels of the uhlans and of the Rosenberg Dragoons, who were under the orders of the colonel of hussars, but had not been informed of his plans, came to ask the motive of this premature departure. I did the same. Thereupon the old colonel answered us, with calm hypocrisy, that Field-Marshal Jellachich, fearing that the French might taunt the Austrian soldiers as they passed their camp, which lay on the direct road to the shore by Lindau, and thus produce quarrels between the troops, had, with Marshal Augereau's consent, ordered the Austrian troops to make a long detour to the right, and thus, by turning the French camp and the town of Bregenz, avoid a meeting with our soldiers. He added that, as the way was much longer and the roads difficult, the leaders of the two armies had put forward the hour of departure by several hours. He was surprised that I had not been informed of it, but probably the letter which had been addressed to me on the subject had been by some misunderstanding stopped at the outposts. He even went so far as to order an officer to go and inquire for this despatch along the whole line. The motives alleged by the colonel of the Blankenstein appeared to his two comrades so natural that they made no remark upon it. Nor did I, although I had an instinctive feeling that the whole thing was a little shady; but what could I do, alone in the middle of the enemy's three thousand cavalry? It seemed better to show confidence than to appear to doubt the good faith of the Austrian brigade. As, moreover, I knew nothing about the flight of the Prince of Rohan's division, I admit it never occurred to me that the cavalry commander was trying to withdraw his force from the capitulation. I marched with him, therefore, at the head of the column. The Austrian commander, who knew the country intimately, had made his arrangements so well for keeping away from the French pickets, the position of which, moreover, was shown by their fires, that we did not pass near any of them; but what the old colonel did not expect, or could not avoid, was a meeting with the flying patrols of cavalry, which are usually sent out at night to a certain distance from a camp. All of a sudden we heard, 'Who goes there?' and found ourselves in the presence of a strong column of French, clearly visible in the moonlight. Then the old Hungarian colonel, not in the least put out, remarked to me: 'This is your business, Mr. Aide-de-camp; kindly come with me and explain the matter to the commander of this French regiment.' We went forward, I gave the password, and found I had to do with the 7th Mounted Chasseurs, who, recognising me as one of Marshal Augereau's aides-de-camp, knowing too that the Austrian troops were expected for the surrender of their arms, made no difficulty about allowing the brigade which I was guiding to pass. The French commander, whose troop had drawn swords, was even polite enough to give the order to sheathe them as a sign of the good understanding which ought to prevail between the two columns, which continued their march, peaceably rubbing shoulders with each other. I did question the officer of chasseurs with regard to the change in the hour at which the arms were to be surrendered; but he had heard nothing of it. This, however, aroused no suspicion in my mind, as I knew that an order of this kind was not one of those which are communicated to the regiments beforehand from head-quarters. So I continued to march all the rest of the night with the enemy's column, finding that the detour which we had to make was certainly very long, and that the roads were very bad. Finally, as the day dawned, the old colonel perceiving a bit of level ground said to me in a bantering tone that although he was obliged before long to hand over the horses of his three regiments to the French, he wished at least to deliver them in a good condition and to take care of the poor animals up to the last moment, and with this view he was going to order a feed of corn to be give them.

The brigade halted, formed, dismounted, and as soon as the horses were picketed, the colonel, who alone had remained mounted, assembled the officers and troopers of the three regiments in a circle round him. There, in an inspired tone which rendered this old warrior really magnificent, he announced to them that the Prince of Rohan's division, preferring honour to safety with disgrace, had refused to agree to the shameful capitulation under which Field-Marshal Jellachich had promised to give up to the French the standards and arms of the Austrian troops, and had thrown itself into Tyrol. He would have brought his cavalry division thither also had he not feared that forage for so large a number of horses would not be obtainable in the mountains. However, the plain was before them, by an artifice on which he congratulated himself they had got six leagues' start of the French troops, and all those who had a true Austrian heart might follow him across Germany into Moravia, where he intended to rejoin the troops of their august Emperor, Francis II.

The Blankenstein Hussars replied to their colonel's allocution by a loud hurrah of approbation, but the Rosenberg Dragoons and the Archduke Charles's Uhlans kept a gloomy silence. As for myself, although I did not as yet know German enough to follow the colonel's harangue accurately, the words which I had caught, as well as the speaker's tone and the place in which he was, had made me guess what was on hand, and I admit that I felt very sheepish at having, although unwittingly, made myself the accomplice of this devil of a Hungarian. Meantime a frightful uproar arose in the immense circle which surrounded me, and I had a good opportunity of judging of the inconvenience which results from the heterogeneous mixture of the different races composing the monarchy, and consequently the army, of Austria. All the hussars are Hungarians; the Blankenstein, therefore, approved the proposal made by their colonel and fellow countryman. But the dragoons were German, and the uhlans Polish, and for this reason the Hungarian had not the same influence over these two regiments, who, in this dilemma, listened only to their own officers. These declared that, considering themselves bound by the capitulation which the field-marshal had signed, they did not wish by their departure to put him and those of their comrades who were already in the hands of the French into a worse position; since, if any part of the Austrian troops violated the terms, the rest were liable to be taken as prisoners to France. To this the colonel of hussars replied that when the commander-in-chief of an army has lost his head, and failed in his duty so far as to deliver his troops to the enemy, it is the duty of his subordinates to consult only their own courage and patriotism. Then, waving his sword in one hand, and seizing the regimental colours with the other, he cried, 'Go dragoons, go, and hand over to the French your disgraced colours, and the arms which our Emperor gave you to defend them. As for us brave hussars, we are going to rejoin our august sovereign. We shall be able to show him a flag without stain, and swords borne by valiant soldiers.' Then, coming up to me, and casting a scornful look at the uhlans and dragoons, he added, 'I am quite sure that if this young Frenchman were in our place, and compelled to choose between your course and mine, he would take the courageous side. The French love glory no less than their country, and in matters of honour know what they are about.' With these words the old Hungarian chief set spurs to his horse, and taking his regiment off at a gallop swept away, and soon was out of sight.

There was a measure of truth in both the arguments which I had just heard; but I was more convinced by that of the hussar colonel, because it seemed to me best to suit the interests of his country. I inwardly approved his conduct, therefore; but I could not very well advise the dragoons and the uhlans to follow his example, without exceeding my functions and neglecting my duty. So I maintained a strict neutrality in the discussion, and when the hussars had departed, I proposed to the other two colonels that they should follow me, and we took the road to Lindau. On the shore of the lake we found the Marshals Jellachich and Augereau, as well as the French army and the two Austrian regiments of infantry which had not followed the Prince of Rohan. On learning from me that the Blankenstein hussars had declined to recognise the capitulation, and had gone off towards Moravia, both marshals were exceedingly angry. Augereau's wrath arose chiefly from the fear lest the Hussars should raise the country in rear of the French army, for the road which they would take lay through the districts in which the Emperor, in marching on Vienna, had left huge masses of his wounded, parks of artillery, and so on. But the colonel thought it better not to notify his presence by attempting any surprise, being in a hurry to get away from the regions lying within the radius of the French army. Therefore, avoiding our outposts, following always byroads, hiding in the forests by day, and marching with all speed by night, he managed to reach the frontier of Moravia without hindrance, and rejoined the Austrian army, which occupied that country.

The troops which surrendered, after giving into our hands their arms, colours, and horses, departed in gloomy silence, as prisoners for one year on parole, in the direction of Bohemia. I remembered as I saw them go the noble harangue of the old Hungarian colonel, and thought I traced in the faces of many of the uhlans and dragoons signs of regret that they had not followed the old warrior, and grief at comparing the honourable position of the Blankenstein with their own humiliation.

Among the trophies given up to us by Jellachich's army were seventeen colours and two standards. According to custom Augereau sent these at once to the Emperor by the hands of two aides-de-camp, and entrusted the duty of taking them to Major Massy and me. We started in a good carriage, preceded by a post-wagon in which were the colours under guard of a sergeant. We went to Vienna by Kempten, Munich, Linz, and Saint-Polten, passing the superb abbey of Mölk on the Danube, one of the richest in the world, a little before reaching the last-named place. Four years later I performed on this spot the most brilliant feat of my military career, under the eyes of the Emperor, and was commended for it by him, as you will hear when we reach the narrative of the campaign of 1809. But I will not anticipate.