Napoleonic Literature
The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot - Volume I
Chapter VII
WITH the good fortune which attended my military career, I avoided altogether the grade of corporal, passing at a leap from the ranks to the position of sergeant, which befell in this wise. To the left of my father's division was stationed that of General Séras, with its head-quarters at Finale. This division occupied that part of Liguria where the mountains are steepest, and consequently consisted of infantry only, there being no room for cavalry to move, save in very small detachments, in the few passes which here connect the Mediterranean coast with Piedmont. General Séras, having received orders from the commander-in-chief, General Championnnet, to push a reconnaissance into the valleys beyond Monte Santo Giacomo, wrote to my father begging him to lend him for this expedition a detachment of fifty hussars. My father naturally agreed, and appointed Lieutenant Lesteinschneider to command the detachment of which my section formed part. We started from La Madona to go to Finale; the only road along the coast then was a very bad one called La Corniche. The lieutenant happened to dislocate his foot in consequence of a fall from his horse, and the next in rank to him was Sergeant Canon, a fine young man, well educated, possessing plenty of ability, and still more assurance. On the following day General Séras led his force over Monte San Giacomo, where we bivouacked in the snow. We were pretty certain the next day, if we advanced, to come in contact with the enemy; but in what strength should we find them? The general had no notion; his orders were to reconnoitre the position of the Austrians in this part of the line, but on no account to engage if he found them in force. It had struck him that, in advancing his infantry division through a mountain country where a column often cannot be perceived until one comes face to face with it at the turn of a gorge, he might, against his will, be drawn into a serious action against superior forces and compelled to execute a dangerous retreat. He resolved, therefore, to march cautiously, and to send forward to two or three leagues' distance a detachment which might explore the country, and, above all, make some prisoners from whom he could hope to get better information than the peasants were either able or willing to give. But feeling also that an infantry detachment would be in an awkward position if he sent it too far away, and that, moreover, men on foot would not be able to bring the desired intelligence quickly enough, the task of discovery and exploration was assigned to the fifty hussars. As the country is very much broken, he handed a map to our sergeant, and gave him full instructions, both in writing and vivâ voce, in presence of the detachment. Two hours before daylight he sent us off, repeating that we must march, without fail, until we touched the enemy's out-posts, from which he was exceedingly anxious that we might be able to bring away some prisoners.

M. Canon's dispositions were perfect. He sent out a small advance-guard, covered his flank with scouts, and took, in short, all the precautions customary in guerilla warfare. Two leagues from camp we came to a large inn; our sergeant questioned the innkeeper, and was informed that a good hour further on we should find an Austrian corps, the strength of which he could not state. He knew, however, that the leading regiment was one of very ill-conditioned hussars, who had maltreated sundry of the inhabitants. With this information w continued our march, but we had hardly gone a few hundred paces when M. Canon began to writhe on his horse, saying that he was in horrible pain, and that he could not go any farther, but must hand over the command of the detachment to Sergeant Pertelay the elder, the next in seniority to himself. Pertelay, however, remarked that, being an Alsatian, he could not read French, and consequently would be unable to make any use of the map or understand the general's written instructions, so he would not take command. All the other sergeants, old Bercheny men, with no more tincture of letters than Pertelay, refused on similar grounds; the corporals the same. In vain did I offer, in order to induce them, to read the general's instructions, and to point out our route on the map to any sergeant who would take the command; they repeated their refusal, and, to my great surprise, all these veterans answered: 'Take command yourself; we will follow you and obey you implicitly.' All the detachment expressed the same desire, and as it was clear to me that if I declined we should not get any farther, that the honour of the regiment would suffer--for in some way or other the order of General Séras would have to be executed or his division might perhaps come into serious trouble--I accepted the command after having asked M. Canon whether he felt fit to resume it. On this he renewed his complaints, left us, and returned to the inn. I must admit that I believed him to be really indisposed; but the men of the detachment, who knew him better, indulged in some very insulting banter with regard to him.

I may, I think, say without boasting that nature has allotted to me a fair share of courage; I will even add that there was a time when I enjoyed being in danger, as my thirteen wounds and some distinguished services prove, I think, sufficiently. When, therefore, I took command of the fifty men who had come under my orders in such unusual circumstances, a mere trooper as I was and seventeen years old, I resolved to show my comrades that if I had not yet much experience or military talent, I at least possessed pluck. So I resolutely put myself at their head and marched on in what we knew was the direction of the enemy. We had been some time on the way, when our scouts perceived a peasant trying to hide himself; they quickly captured him and brought him in. I questioned him; it appeared that he from four or five leagues off, and averred that he had not met any Austrian troops. I was sure that he was lying through fear or through cunning, for we must be very near the enemy's cantonments. I remembered to have read in the Parfait Partisan, of which my father had given me a copy, that in order to get information from the inhabitants of a country which one is passing through in time of war one must sometimes frighten them; so I put on a big voice, and trying to give my youthful countenance a ferocious air, I cried: 'What, you scamp! You have just come through a country occupied by a strong Austrian army corps, and you pretend to have seen nothing? You're a spy. Here, shoot him on the spot!' I ordered four hussars to dismount, giving them a sign that they were to do the man no harm. The man, seeing himself in the hands of troopers who had just cocked their carbines, was in such a fright that he swore to tell me all he knew. He was the servant of a convent, and was charged with a letter to some relations of the prior; he had been ordered if he met the French not to tell them where the Austrians were, but since he was forced to confess he informed us that at a distance of a league from us several of the enemy's regiments were quartered in the villages, while there were a hundred Barco Hussars in a hamlet which we saw close at hand. When questioned as to the kind of guard which the hussars kept, the peasant replied that they had in advance of the houses a grand guard consisting of a dozen dismounted men posted in a garden surrounded by hedges, and that at the moment when he had come through the hamlet the rest of the hussars were getting ready to water their horses in a little pond at the further side of the houses.

Having got this information, I made my plans at once. I would avoid passing in front of the grand guard, who, being entrenched behind their hedges, were safe from a cavalry attack, while the fire of their carbines might kill some of my men and give warning of the approach of the French. I must therefore turn the hamlet, reach the watering-place, and fall upon the enemy unawares. But how was I to get round unperceived? I ordered the peasant to guide us, making a circuit, and promised to let him go as soon as we were at the other side of the hamlet. However, he was not willing to march, so I made one hussar take him by the collar while another held the muzzle of a pistol to his ear, and he had to do as told. He guided us very well; our movement was masked by high hedges. We turned the village successfully, and perceived at the edge of the little pond the Austrian squadron quietly watering their horses. All the troopers had their arms with them, as is customary with outposts, but the officers had neglected a very essential precaution, namely, to allow only a certain number of horses to be unbridled and to drink at once, and to send the sections into the water in succession, so that half may always be on the bank ready to repulse an enemy. Trusting in the distance of the French and the vigilance of the post placed in advance of the village, the enemy's commander had thought it unnecessary to take this precaution, which was fatal to him.

At five hundred paces from the little pond I let our guide go; he made off as fast as his legs would carry him; while I, sabre in hand, and forbidding my comrades to shout before they were engaged, dashed at full gallop on the enemy's hussars. They did not catch sight of us till the moment before we were at the edge of the pond. The banks were almost everywhere too steep for the horses to climb, the only practicable approach being at the spot where the villagers drew their water, where there was a pretty wide opening. But at this point more than a hundred troopers were massed, all having their bridles over their arm, and their carbines in the buckets--so perfectly at their ease that some were singing. Their surprise may be imagined when I first attacked them with a carbine-fire which killed several, wounded many, and knocked over a great number of horses. They were thrown into utter confusion, in spite of which the captain, rallying the men who were next to the bank, forced his way out, and opened upon us a fire which, though ill-sustained, wounded two men. They then charged us; but Pertelay having slain the captain with a sabre-cut, they were rolled back into the pond. Some in their efforts to escape fire reached the other bank; many lost their footing, and a good number of men and horses were drowned, while those of the Austrian troopers who got across from the other side of the pond, not being able to get their horses up the bank, abandoned them, and, clambering up by help of some trees fled in disorder across the fields. At the sound of fighting the grand guard hurried up. We met them with the sabre and put them to flight also. Meanwhile some thirty of the enemy were still in the pond; but fearing to urge their horses forward, when they saw that the only place where a landing could be effected was in our hands, they called out that they surrendered. I accepted, and as they came ashore made them lay down their arms. Most of the men and horses were wounded; but, wishing to take away a trophy of our victory, I chose seventeen troopers and the same number of horses who were not much injured, and placed them in the middle of my detachment. Then I left the other Barcos to themselves, and made off at a gallop, turning the village again. It was just as well that I did retreat promptly, for, as l had foreseen, the fugitives had given the alarm in the neighbouring cantonments, which had already been put on the alert by the musketry fire. All stood to their arms, and half an hour later there were more than 1,500 cavalry on the banks of the little pond, and several thousand infantry close behind. But our wounded were able to gallop, and by that time we were a couple of leagues away. We halted a moment on the top of a hill to dress wounds, and laughed a good deal to see in the distance several columns starting on our tracks. We knew quite well that they would not catch us, because, fearing a possible ambush, they were advancing very slowly and feeling their way; so that we were quite out of danger. I told Pertelay to take the two best mounted hussars and gallop forward to tell General Séras the result of our mission; then I dressed my detachment carefully, and with the prisoners in the middle, well guarded, I trotted easily along the road to the inn. It is impossible to describe the joy of my comrades and the congratulations which they addressed to me as we went along. It was all summed up in the words which to their mind expressed the height of eulogy: 'You thoroughly deserve to belong to the Bercheny Hussars, the first regiment in the world.'

What, meanwhile, had been passing at San Giacomo? After waiting for some hours, General Séras, impatient for news, perceived from the heights some smoke on the horizon; his aide-de-camp, laying his ear on a drum placed upon the ground, was able, by this common military artifice, to hear the sound of distant musketry. The general became uneasy, and, feeling sure that the cavalry detachment must be engaged with the enemy, took a regiment of infantry and went forward as far as the inn. There he saw a hussar's horse in the shed, hitched up to the rack; Sergeant Canon's, in fact. The innkeeper appeared, and from him the general learnt that the sergeant in command of the hussars had got no farther than the inn, where he had been for some hours in the dining-room. The general entered, and found M. Canon asleep by the fire, with a huge ham, two empty bottles, and a cup of coffee in front of him. The poor sergeant was roused from his slumbers, and tried once more to plead the excuse of sudden indisposition. But the accusing remains of the mighty meal he had just eaten destroyed all belief in his malady, and General Séras was pretty rough with him. His wrath was increased by the thought that a detachment of fifty cavalry, entrusted to the command of a common trooper, had probably been destroyed by the enemy. At that moment Pertelay and his two hussars galloped up announcing our triumph, and our immediate return with seventeen prisoners. As in spite of this happy result of our expedition the general continued to heap reproaches on Canon, Pertelay said with rough ardour, 'Do not scold him, general; he is such a coward that, if he had led us, we were bound to fail.' This way of putting the matter naturally did not improve poor M. Canon's already awkward position; the general put him under arrest, and degraded him on the spot; having his stripes torn off in presence of the regiment and the fifty hussars; then, turning to me, who had just come up, and not knowing my name, he said: 'You have performed admirably a duty which is usually entrusted only to officers. I am sorry that, as a general of division, I have not the power to appoint you sub-lieutenant; I will, however, ask your promotion to that rank of the commander-in-chief. Meanwhile, I make you sergeant.' He ordered his aide-de-camp to announce my promotion formally to the detachment. In order to do this, the aide-de-camp had to ask my name; and then General Séras learned for the first time that I was the son of his colleague General Marbot. I was very glad of this adventure, because it would prove to my father that favour had nothing to do with my promotion.


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