This mishap, which hindered us from winning a brilliant victory, came about as follows. An Austrian officer, posted on look-out duty with some companies of Jägers in the islands above Aspern, had embarked in a small boat and gone out to the middle of the river to get a distant view of our troops crossing the bridges. Thus he witnessed the first breach caused by the floating trees, and the idea struck him that the same accident might be repeated as fast as we repaired the damages. So he had a number of beams and some fire-boats launched down the stream, destroying some of our pontoons. But seeing that the engineers quickly replaced them, the officer caused a large floating mill to be set on fire and towed out into mid-stream. Borne down upon our principal bridge, it broke away a large part of it. Perceiving instantly that all hope of restoring the passage, and enabling Davout to reach the field of battle was abandoned for that day; the Emperor ordered Lannes to withdraw his troops by degrees to their former position, between Aspern and Essling so that, resting on those villages, they might hold their ground against the enemy. The movement was being carried out in perfect order, when the Archduke, who had at first been puzzled by our retreat, heard that the bridge was broken, and saw a chance of driving the French army into the Danube. With this view he sent his cavalry against the most advanced of our divisions, that of Saint-Hilaire. Our battalions repulsed the charge, and the enemy then opened upon them with a heavy artillery fire. Just then I was bearing an order from Lannes to General Saint-Hilaire. Hardly had I reached him when a storm of grape struck his staff, killing several officers and smashing the general's leg. He died under amputation. I was myself struck in the thigh by a grape-shot, which tore out a piece of flesh as large as an egg, but the wound was not dangerous, and I was able to return and report to the marshal. I found him with the Emperor, who, seeing me covered with blood, remarked, 'Your turn comes round pretty often!' Both he and the marshal felt the loss of General Saint-Hilaire keenly.

Seeing the division attacked at all points, the marshal went to take command of it. He withdrew it slowly, often facing towards the enemy, until our right rested on Essling, which was still held by Boudet's division. Though my wound was not yet dressed, I thought I ought to go with the marshal. In the course of the retreat, my friend de Viry had his shoulder smashed by a bullet, and I had some difficulty in getting him brought to the entrenchments.

The position was very critical. Compelled to act on the defensive, the Emperor posted his army in an arc, having the Danube for its chord, our right resting on the river in rear of Essling, our left in rear of Aspern. Under pain of being driven into the river we had to keep up the flight for the rest of the day; it was now 9 A.M., and not till nightfall should we be able to retire to the island of Lobau by the weak bridge over the small branch. The Archduke, recognising the weakness of our position, repeatedly attacked the two villages and the centre, but, fortunately for us, did not think of forcing our weakest point, between Essling and the Danube, by which a strong column pushed vigorously forward might have reached the tête de pont and destroyed us. All along our lines the slaughter was terrible, but absolutely necessary to save the honour of France and the portion of the army which had crossed the Danube.

To check the energy of the enemy's attacks, Marshal Lannes frequently resumed the offensive against their centre, and forced it back, but they soon returned with reinforcements. On one of these occasions, Labédoyère got a grapeshot in his foot, and Watteville a dislocated shoulder, his horse being killed under him by a cannon-ball. Thus of all the staff Sub-lieutenant Le Couteulx and I remained, and I could not leave the marshal alone with that young officer, who, though brave enough, had no experience. Wishing to retain me, he said, 'Go, and get dressed; if you can then sit your horse, come back to me.' I went to the first field-hospital; the crowd of wounded was enormous, and lint had run short. A doctor put into my wound some of the coarse tow which is used as wadding for cannon, and the rough fibres gave me a good deal of pain. Under other circumstances I should have gone to the rear, but now every man had to display all his energy, and I went back to the marshal. I found him very anxious, having just heard that the Austrians had taken half of Aspern from Masséna. That village was taken and re-taken many times. Essling was being vigorously attacked at that very instant, and bravely defended by Boudet's division. So fierce were both sides that they were fighting in the midst of the burning houses, and barricading themselves with the hacked corpses which blocked the streets. Five times the Hungarian grenadiers were driven back, but their sixth attack succeeded. They got possession of the village, all but the great granary, into which General Boudet withdrew, as into a citadel.

While this fighting was going on, the marshal sent me several times into Essling. The danger was considerable, but in the excitement I even forgot the pain of my wound.

At length, perceiving that, repeating his fault of the day before, he was wasting his forces against our two bastions Essling and Aspern, and neglecting our centre, where a well-sustained attack with his reserve would bring him to our bridge and secure the destruction of the French army, the Archduke launched large masses of cavalry, supported by heavy columns of infantry, on this point. Marshal Lannes, not surprised by this display of force, gave orders that the Austrians should be allowed to approach within gun-shot range and received them with such a furious fire of musketry and grape that they halted, nor could the stimulating presence of the Archduke induce them to come a single pace nearer. They could perceive behind our line the bearskin caps of the Old Guard, which was advancing in a stately column, with shouldered arms.

Cleverly profiting by the enemy's hesitation, Marshal Lannes caused Bessières to charge them at the head of two divisions of cavalry. Part of the Austrian battalions and squadrons were overthrown, and the Archduke, finding his attack on our centre unsuccessful, thought to profit at least by the advantage which the capture of Essling offered. At that moment, however, the Emperor ordered his aide-de-camp, General Mouton, to retake the village. Hurling himself upon the Hungarian grenadiers, he drove them out, and remained master of Essling, a feat which covered himself and the Young Guard with glory, and earned him later on the title of Count of Lobau.

These successes on our part having slackened the enemy's ardour, the Archduke, whose losses were enormous, abandoned the hope of forcing our position, and for the rest of the day only kept up an ineffectual combat. This terrible thirty hours' battle was drawing to its end. It was high time, for our ammunition was nearly exhausted. Had it not been for the activity with which Davout kept sending it over in small boats from the right bank, it would have failed utterly. As, however, the boats came few and far between, the Emperor bade us economise, and our fire became mere sharpshooting practice, the enemy at the same time reducing his.

While the two armies were mutually watching each other but not moving, and the commanders in groups in rear of the battalions were discussing the events of the day, Marshal Lannes, weary with riding, had dismounted, and was walking about with Major-General Pouzet. Just then a spent ball struck the general on the head, laying him dead at the marshal's feet. He had been formerly a sergeant in the Champagne Regiment, and at the beginning of the Revolution was at the camp of Le Miral when my father commanded there. At the same time the battalion of volunteers from the Gers, in which Lannes was sub-lieutenant, formed part of the division. The sergeants of the old line regiments having the task of instructing the volunteers, that of Gers fell to the share of Pouzet. Quickly perceiving the young sub-lieutenant's talents, he did not confine himself to teaching him the manual exercise, but gave him such instruction in manœuvres that he became an excellent tactician. Attributing his first promotion to Pouzet's instruction, Lannes was much attached to him, and in proportion as he got on himself he used his interest to advance his friend. His grief, then, at seeing him fall dead was very great.

At that moment we were a little in advance of the tile-works, to the left, near Essling. In his emotion, wishing to get away from the corpse, the marshal went a hundred paces in the direction of Enzersdorf, and seated himself, deep in thought, on the further side of a ditch, from which he could watch the troops. A quarter of an hour later, four soldiers laboriously carrying in a cloak a dead officer whose face could not be seen stopped to rest in front of the marshal. The cloak fell open, and Lannes recognised Pouzet. 'Oh!' he cried, 'is this terrible sight going to follow 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, plunged in gloomy meditation, a small three-pound shot, fired from a gun at Enzersdorf, ricochetted, and struck him just where his legs crossed. The knee-pan of one was smashed, and the back sinews of the other torn. Instantly I rushed towards the marshal, who said, 'I am wounded; it's nothing much; give me your hand to help me up.' He tried to rise, but could not. The infantry regiments in front of us sent some men at once to carry the marshal to an ambulance, but, having neither stretcher nor cloak, we had to take him in our arms, an attitude which caused him horrible pain. Then a sergeant, seeing in the distance the soldiers who were carrying General Pouzet's body, ran and asked them for the cloak in which he was wrapped. We were about to lay the marshal on it, so as to carry him with less pain; but he recognised the cloak, and said to me, 'This is my poor friend's; it is covered with his blood; I will not use it. Drag me along rather how you can.' Not far off I saw a clump of trees; I sent M. le Couteulx and some grenadiers there, and they presently returned with a stretcher covered with boughs. We carried the marshal to the tête de port, where the chief surgeons proceeded to dress his wound, first holding a private consultation, in which they could not agree as to what should be done. Dr. Larrey was in favour of amputating the leg of which the knee-pan was broken; another, whose name I forget, wanted to cut off both; while Dr. Yvan, from whom I heard these details, was against any amputation. This surgeon, who had long known the marshal, asserted that his firmness of character gave some chance of a cure, while an operation performed in such hot weather would inevitably bring him to the grave. Larrey was the senior surgeon of the army, and his opinion prevailed. One of the marshal's legs was amputated. He bore the operation with great courage; it was hardly over when the Emperor came up. The interview was most touching. The Emperor, kneeling beside the stretcher, wept as he embraced the marshal, whose blood soon stained his white kerseymere waistcoast.

Some evil-disposed persons have written that Marshal Lannes addressed the Emperor reproachfully, and implored him to make war no longer; but as I was at that moment supporting the marshal's shoulders and heard everything that he said, I can assert that this was not the case. 1On the contrary, the marshal felt the proofs of the Emperor's concern very deeply, and when the latter was obliged to go away to give the orders required for the safety of the army, and said, 'You will live, my friend, you will live,' the marshal replied, pressing his hand, 'I trust I may, if I can still be of use to France and to your Majesty.'

In spite of his cruel sufferings the marshal did not forget the position of his troops, but every moment asked for news of them. He learnt with pleasure that as the enemy did not venture to pursue they were profiting by nightfall to return to the island of Lobau. His anxiety extended to his aides-de-camp who had been wounded near him; he asked how they were going on, and when he knew that I had been dressed with coarse tow, he asked Dr. Larrey to examine my wound. I should have liked to carry the marshal to Ebersdorf, on the right bank, but the broken bridge prevented this, and we did not dare to put him on board of a frail boat. He was therefore compelled to pass the night on the island, where, for want of a mattress, I borrowed a dozen cavalry cloaks to make him a bed. We were short of everything and had not even good water to give the marshal, who was parched with thirst. We offered him Danube water, but the flood had made this so muddy that he could not drink it, and said, resignedly, 'We are like sailors who die of thirst with water all round them.' My desire to soothe his sufferings led me to devise a new kind of filter. One of the marshal's valets, who had remained on the island, had with him a small portmanteau containing linen. I took one of the marshal's shirts of fine material; we tied all the openings with string except one, and, plunging into the Danube the kind of bag thus made, we drew it out full, and then hung it over a large can, so that the water filtering through the linen was cleared of nearly all the earthy particles. The poor marshal, who had followed my operations with eager eyes, was at last able to get a draught, which, if not perfect, was at least fresh and clear, and was very grateful for my invention. The care which I was bestowing on my illustrious patient could not avert my fears for the fate which might befall him if the Austrians were to cross the small arm of the river and attack us on the island. What could I then do for him? I thought for a moment that my fears were going to be realised, for a battery near Enzersdorf sent several shots at us; but the fire did not last long.

In the Archduke's position two courses were open to him: either to make a fierce attack upon the French divisions which remained on the field of battle, or, if this seemed too bold a move, he might without risk to his troops place his artillery on the bank of the small arm from Enzersdorf to Aspern, and by bombarding the island annihilate the 40,000 French who were crowded on it. Happily for us, the enemy's commander-in-chief took neither of these courses; and Masséna, to whom Napoleon had entrusted the command of so much of the army as was still on the left bank, was able during the night to evacuate the villages of Aspern and Essling unmolested, and bring his wounded, all his troops, and all his artillery over to the island. The bridge across the small arm was taken up, and by daybreak on the 23rd all our regiments who had been engaged were safe on the island; nor during the forty-five days which Masséna's occupation of it lasted did the enemy fire another shot in that direction.

A boat of some size was sent by the Emperor on the 23rd to bring Marshal Lannes to the right bank. I put him and our wounded comrades into it and, when we reached Ebersdorf, sent the latter to Vienna in the charge of M. le Couteulx, remaining myself alone with the marshal. He was taken to one of the best houses in Ebersdorf, and I sent for all his people to come and join him there.

Meanwhile our troops massed on the island of Lobau, short of food and ammunition, reduced to live on horseflesh, and cut off from the right bank by the great breadth of the river, were in a most critical position. It was feared that the Archduke's inaction was feigned, and it was expected that at any moment he might ascend the Danube to a point, above Vienna, and, crossing the river, attack us in rear by the right bank, at the same time raising the capital against us. In that case, Marshal Davout's corps, which was guarding Vienna and Ebersdorf, would certainly have made a stout resistance. But could it have beaten the whole of the enemy's army? And, meanwhile, what would have become of the troops shut up on the island?

The Emperor profited cleverly by the time which the Austrians left him, and never was his prodigious activity better employed. Aided by the indefatigable Davout and his divisions, he did on the 23rd alone more than another general could have got done in a week. A well-organised service of boats brought provisions and ammunition to the island; the wounded were all got away to Vienna; hospitals were established; materials in great quantity collected to repair the bridges, build fresh ones, and protect them by a stockade; a hundred guns of the largest calibre, captured in Vienna, were taken to Ebersdorf. By the 24th, communication with the island was re-established, and the Emperor marched Lannes' division, the guard, and all the cavalry on to the right bank, leaving only Masséna's corps to fortify the island, and put in battery the big guns which had been brought up. This point being secured, the Emperor ordered Bernadotte's army corps, and the various divisions of the Germanic Confederation to come on to Vienna, which would enable him to repulse the Archduke in the event of his venturing across the river to attack us. A few days later we received a powerful reinforcement. A French army under Eugene Beauharnais, coming from Italy, took up its position on our right. I have not yet mentioned this army. At the beginning of the campaign it had experienced a check at Sacile; but a renewed attack on the part of the French resulted in the defeat of the enemy, who were driven across the Alps. The Archduke John had been thrown back across the Danube into Hungary, which opened the communications between the Viceroy and the Grand Army, of which his troops henceforward formed the right wing, posted opposite Pressburg.