MEMOIRS OF BARON LEJEUNE.*
IT is hardly too much to say that these Memoirs excel in vividness and picturesqueness of detail any of the memoirs of the Napoleonic period. Other autobiographies of the same kind and period may be more historically important, and even more thrilling and curious, but none give a better and clearer picture of the scenes of war. The reason is simple. Baron Lejeune was a painter of no inconsiderable power. Hence, when he saw a battle or a siege, a charge or a retreat, he saw it as a picture and with a painter's eye. Again and again we find him noticing striking details which a mere soldier would not have seen, or else would have passed over as unimportant. His book is, indeed, a series of terrible and splendid pictures in words strung together by a very pleasant and candid narrative of personal adventures. There is not much politics in the book and comparatively little strategy, nor do we get much character-drawing. Napoleon, for example, seems in Lejeune's narrative a comparatively tame figure. These omissions, however, will be easily forgiven by the reader, for he can supply them from other works. What he does find in Baron Lejeune's work and what is not to be
obtained elsewhere, is a living presentment of the face of war. Baron Lejenne served a good deal of his time in Spain, and his Spanish descriptions are specially strong. His account of the second siege of Saragossa will be sure to live, so full is it of striking detail. Splendid is the picture of the old Spanish priest, clad in his robes and upholding a crucifix, walking alone almost up to the French lines, and exhorting them to desist from their attack on the city. Equally striking is that of the Carmelite monk who, stained with blood and sword in hand, ran to and fro among the Spaniards and inspired them with the fury of battle. More horrible is the story of the fight on the roofs of one of the convents, when the gutters ran with blood, and spouted forth a red stream from the mouths of the stone gar- goyles upon the combatants below. The fight in this convent raged so fiercely that even the chapel was the scene of a
desperate struggle. It had been partly wrecked by an explosion :- " The struggle in the beautiful but sombre Gothic building was a truly remarkable sight. Through the broken stained-glass windows, with their subdued colouring, a ray of light shot here and there, touching with a celestial glory some group of furious combatants, or the clouds of bluish smoke from the burning powder which was almost suffocating us. Rising up from amidst the gloom and clearly outlined against the east window, was the high altar of brown marble, approached by eight steps and sur- mounted by a splendid canopy, originally upheld by eight Corinthian columns, and adorned with numerous angels wearing crowns on their heads. Several of the columns had been broken in the explosion, and some were now standing, whilst others lay on the ground, producing an irregularity of effect which might have been taken for the result of a happy inspiration on the part of their artist. In the nave, which was some 150 or 160 yards long, all was wrapt in gloom from the choir to the breach near the great doorway, and it was here, amidst coffins, bones, and broken marbles, that the hottest struggle took place. From one of the old broken coffins protruded the livid shrivelled features and part of the body of a bishop still wrapped in his sacerdotal robes. His dried and bony arms seemed to be pointing at us ; his dark eyes set in their deep sockets, and his mouth with its terrible expression, combined to give him the appearance of some such phantom as that of Samuel called from the grave by Saul, and we seemed to hear him cry, Saul ! Saul ! why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up ? ' The terrible confusion, the carnage going on amongst the bones of the long since dead, with the mitred spectre swaying to and fro beneath our feet, combined to make up a picture which to our astonished eyes appeared the very acme of desolation."
But Baron Lejeune was not always dipping his pen in the hues of earthquake and eclipse. He by no means misses the lighter side of war. Here is a most humorous picture of his first sight of the English on a campaign. Then as now the elaborateness of the Englishman abroad attracted the notice of all Frenchmen. Baron Lejenne was taken prisoner by a band of guerillas and handed over to the English :—
" The English Governor of Olivet:Ka, commanding the Portuguese forces there, received us and gave us rooms in his own residence.
• Memoirs of Baron Lojeuno. Translated from the Original French by Mrs. Arthur Bell. With an Introduction by General Maurice. 2 vole. London : Longman, Green, and Om It was now May 1, and the sun was very hot. It amused me to see the English officers riding about in uniform holding parasols above their heads. The fact that they use parasols and umbrellas, though it is not the fashion to do so in the French army, does not prevent them from being very brave soldiers in battle; but for all that, I must say that I was surprised and amused when I looked out of my window to see several groups of officers, on their way back to their quarters, followed by a very picturesque though unusual suite. First came the captain in his scarlet uniform, mounted on a very fine horse, and carrying a big open parasol ; then came his wife, in a pretty costume, with a very small straw bat, seated on a mule, holding up an umbrella and caressing a little black and tan King Charles spaniel on her knee, whilst she led by a blue ribbon a tame goat, which was to supply her night and morning with cream for her cup of tea. Beside Madame walked an Irish nurse, carrying slung across her shoulders a bassinet made of green silk, in which reposed an infant, the hope of the family. Behind Madame's mule stalked a huge grenadier, the faithful servant of the captain, with his musket over his shoulder, urging on with a stick the long-eared steed of his mistress. Behind him again came a donkey laden with the voluminous baggage of the family, surmounted by a tea-kettle and a cage full of canaries, whilst a jockey or groom in livery brought up the rear, mounted on a sturdy English horse, with its hide gleaming like polished steel. This groom held a huge posting-whip in one hand, the cracking of the lash of which made the donkey mend its pace, and at the same time kept order amongst the four or five spaniels and greyhounds which served as scouts to the captain during the march of his small cavalcade. The sketch from nature I made of this party was later the subject of one of the best of the little compositions which I inscribed with the two words, Utile deice" Lejeune's account of his captivity in, and escape from, Eng- land is most romantic. He was interned at Ashby. While there a man came to him one day, and said :—" ' The Duke of Rovigo, Minister of Police in France, authorised by the Emperor, has sent me to propose to you that you should let me arrange for you to get out of England and back to France."
The proposal he proceeded to make sounded most tempting, but it would mean a very great risk, and Lejeune mistrusted the messenger. Ultimately, however, the offer was accepted, and Lejeune escaped. This ubiquitousness of Fouche's secret agents would make a capital piece of detail for a melodrama. So, indeed, would the actual escape. Lejeune very nearly fell into the hands of a Folkestone scoundrel who made it his trade to take the money of French prisoners, put them on board his boat, and when they were half-way across the Channel throw them overboard.
The last part of the second volume of these fascinating Memoirs deals with the Russian campaign. Its horrors, however, seem to have depressed the narrator so much that we get very little that is striking or picturesque. The sense of misery and horror is impressive, but the vividness seems to have gone out of the writing. We will, however, end our notice of these profoundly interesting volumes by giving Lejeune's account of the appearance of the Grand Army before it crossed the Niemen at the very beginning of the war. The writer saw the spectacle he describes from the heights above the Niemen :—
" Here the most extraordinary and magnificent spectacle awaited us, and one which could not but have an intoxicating effect on a conqueror by giving to him an exaggerated idea of the extent of his moral and material power. It is said that our army was 500,000 strong, and it was made up of nearly every nation of Europe. Many reigning princes, including the Kings of Naples and Westphalia, were at the head of their troops. King Murat in full-dress uniform rode with his cavalry. All the handsomest men of the day, in their most gorgeous martial costumes, mounted on the finest horses to be obtained in Europe, all alike richly caparisoned, were gathered about the central group of which we formed part. The sunbeams gleamed upon the bronze cannon ready to belch forth an all-destroying fire, and glinted back from the brass breastplates and scarlet-crested helmets of the gallant carabineers, and from the gilded, silvered, and bur- nished steel helmets, breastplates, weapons, and decorations of the soldiers and officers. The glittering bayonets of the masses of battalions covering the plain resembled from a distance the quivering scintillations in the sunshine of the waters of some lake or river when ruffled by a passing breeze. The crash of thousands of trumpets and drums mingled with the enthusiastic shouts of the vast multitude as the Emperor came in sight, and the spectacle of all this devotion on the part of the vast assembly of disciplined troops, which extended as far as the eye could reach on either side, the weapons shining like stars, impressed us all with a sense of the invincibility of a force of elements so mixed, united in obedience to a single chief. Our confidence in that chief became yet more assured than ever ; not one amongst us had the slightest doubt of his success in this fresh enterprise, and when we looked round upon all the forces his mighty will had gathered together our hearts beat high with joy and with exultant pride."
That is a fine piece of military painting of the old-fashioned kind.
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