A ROYALIST SOLDIER OF THE FIRST EMPIRE.* EVERYTHING which helps
even in a slight degree to make us better acquainted with that wonderful military machinery by means of which the great Napoleon brought Europe under his feet is always sure of a welcome reception. It is a sufficient re- commendation, then, of Colonel de Gonneville's Recollections, that their author served in the armies of France from the date of the Emperor's coronation until after the revolution that placed Louis Philippe on the throne, and that his book is de- voted exclusively to a narrative of his military experiences. The book is interesting because it is evidently the production * Recollections of Colonel de Gonnerille. Edited from the French by Charlotte IL Yonge. 2 vols. London: Hurst and Blacken.
of a man who has striven to be impartial, and the translation is well done. But the work labours under one great disad- vantage, which detracts much from its value. It was not composed until many years after the events it relates. It wants, therefore, the freshness, and if we may say so without being mis- understood, the authenticity of a contemporary journal. Works such as the history of the Franco-German war by the German head-quarters staff, or even such as General Sherman's on the American civil war, gain by delay. Their authors were thereby enabled to compare the reports of friend and foe. But a narrative of personal experience from the point of view of a subaltern officer loses much of its trustworthiness, and consequently of its value, when the officer sits down to its composition at the close of a long life, and after a quarter of a century of retirement. Old age is proverbially a laudator temporis acti, and such a writer inevitably looks back upon the scenes and the comrades of his early manhood through a mellowed light of softened recollection. Memory itself, too, has grown dim, and almost inevitably has become confused by the throng of histories, narratives, reports, and legends. We miss, consequently, from these two volumes the minute details which a contemporary chronicler would certainly have supplied, and which constitute the charm of works of this nature. And yet more, we miss the fault-finding which has given such an extraordinary value to some recent memoirs of soldiers of the Napoleonic hosts, and done more to make us acquainted with the causes of the terrible break-down of the Grande Armee than all the elaborate histories that have been written. In these Recollections there are many things, no doubt, which enable us to see the fatal defects of the Imperial armies, when our attention has already been directed to them, but these points are not placed in relief. Lastly, we find too often a gasconading tendency which excites suspicion. Still, the work will be found full of interest of various kinds, not the least, perhaps, as helping to throw light on the feelings of the Royalist and aristocratic officers whom the Emperor loved to attract to his standards. And it will not fail to excite once more that ever-recurring astonishment which awaits upon the contemplation of Napoleon's career.
Aymar Oliver le Harivel de Gonneville was a member of one of the oldest families of Normandy. Baron Amcomt, in a bio- graphical preface, informs us that the noble house of Percy was an off-shoot of the stock. His father was the King's Lieutenant at Caen when the Revolution broke out, and one of the earliest recollections of the future Imperialist officer was the flight of his mother, with himself and a younger brother, alone and on foot, through the darkness of the night, from a maddened mob that was attacking the house of her husband. The husband emigrated, and entered the army of Conde. But he was ultimately pardoned by Napoleon, and returned to Normandy. The wife, with her two children, in the meantime took shelter in a fisherman's hut on the banks of the Seine. The hut was situate in a very lonely spot, not likely to attract notice, and for that reason was sometimes used as a place of meeting by the chiefs of the Royalist army of Nor- mandy. On one of these occasions General Bruslart expressed regret at being unable to forward important despatches to the department of the Aisne. Young De Gonneville, then eleven years old, offered to carry them, but the General naturally de- clined the offer. "Then," says Baron Amcourt, "the mother took her son by the hand, led him to the Royalist chief, and said these simple words, in an agitated voice, Take him. I give him to you for the King's service." The boy executed his mission with suc- cess, and was frequently afterwards employed in similar dangerous expeditions. At length, however, Royalist hopes died out, the First Consul offered pardon to the Emigres, and exerted him- self to attract the young nobles into his service. Young de Gonneville, with the consent of his father, at twenty-one years of age entered the 20th Regiment of Mounted Chasseura as a private soldier. He brought introductions to several officers of influence, none of whom, however, happened to be at St. Briene when he joined, and he was sent to share the bed of an uneducated comrade in a room where sixty men slept. But though he had to share the duties, the rations, and the apartments of the rank and file, he was not treated as a common soldier. "When I was on duty as the General's orderly," he tells us, 4 Madame de Vaufreland sent me an armchair and some books." In six months, too, he was made a corporal ; a month later, a serjeant ; and in another fortnight he was given a commission, at the request and in the regiment of Colonel d'Avanay, a relation, then commanding the 6th Cuirassiers in Italy. The career of the young officer thus opened brightly, and the Emperor's well-known desire to attach the nobility to him seemed to promise speedy
promotion. Moreover, war with Austria was resumed almost im- mediately, yet, when Napoleon abdicated, De Gonneville was only a captain. The great operations against Austria, crowned by the capitulation of Ulm, were carried on in Germany, and De Gonne- ville in Italy consequently had little opportunity to distinguish himself. But the year following occurred the campaign of Jena. He was unfortunate enough, however, to be taken prisoner in a foraging expedition, and saw little of that famous campaign. He was treated with the greatest consideration by the Prussians, and through the good offices of a namesake of the great strategist who has avenged the disaster of Jena and capture of Berlin, he was early exchanged, and proceeded with the army into Poland. The Recollections confirm what is already known of the cordial welcome given by the Poles to the French, the utter demoralisa- tion of the Prussians, and the courage, but want of enterprise, displayed by the Russians. They also tell some characteristic anecdotes of several French Generals, especially of the foppery and gallantry of Murat, who on one occasion ordered a charge of cavalry almost as wild and deadly as the charge of the Six Hundred at Balaclava.
De Gonneville returned a captain to France, and while sta- tioned at Ruffen, near Poitiers, witnessed an incident which is too characteristic of Napoleon's system to be passed over in silence. The Emperor passed through the town, but merely stopped to change horses. "An infantry colonel, in the uniform of a former period, drew near the carriage-door, for the Emperor had not dismounted, and in an agitated voice begged to be allowed the honour of going to Spain, to share the honours and dangers of the army. The Emperor answered, And if I give you employment, will you be wrong-headed again ?' The poor colonel lost his head in a moment, being quite embarrassed by the query, and he stammered out, 'Sire, I will do everything that is in my power to serve as agreeably as possible." Colonel de Gonneville explains that the petitioner had been turned out of the army, because he had written the word "No" on the voting-lists opened for the accept- ance of the Empire by the French nation. It is satisfactory to find that the poor man's promise was accepted ; he was sent to Spain, and three years later he became a General of division. Another anecdote of the Emperor is still more deserving of reproduction, as it shows his extraordinary knowledge of the French character, and his coolness in danger. The anecdote, it will be remembered, is told by one who, though then serving the Emperor faithfully, was a partisan of the Bourbons. "While we were climbing the Guadarama with such difficulty, we were on the flank of the infantry division commanded by General Lapisse, and a few steps in rear of the Emperor, who was marching on foot, like ourselves ; for no precaution had been taken in shoeing, and the horses fell every moment. The soldiers of Lapisse's division gave loud expression to the most sinis- ter designs against the Emperor's person, stirring up each other to fire a shot at him, and bandying accusations of cowardice for not doing it. He heard it all as plainly as we did, and seemed as if he did not care a bit for it ; but when he reached the highest point of the ridge, where a colossal lion marks the boundary of the two Castiles, he stopped, sent for General Lapisse, and told him to proceed to the right to the mountain's foot, and go and take up his quarters with his division in ten villages he would find there, and which would afford him supplies." The next day Colonel de Gonneville writes :—"At a short distance from the spot where I had left the Emperor, there was an infantry division, that must have been at least eight thousand strong, posted on the right of the road, in column, by regiments. I turned sharply at the unanimous acclamations with which this body saluted the Emperor on his appearance at the point they occupied ; enthusiasm was at its height. It was Lapisse's division. In the villages where they spent the night they had found food and wine,—and this was the explanation of this sudden change, as the Emperor doubtless had foreseen." Captain de Gonneville spent some years in Spain on General d'Avenay's staff, was then sent to Italy, where the General was killed, and finally was ordered to Hamburg, when the Russian disaster occurred. At Hamburg he was charged, as senior captain, to form into some kind of shape a regiment of Cuirassiers made up of drafts of raw recruits from four several regiments. Marshal Davoust, it will be re- collected, shut himself up in the town, and was besieged by by a Russian force more than twice as numerous. The following extract will serve to show the kind of materials with which the marvellous campaign of 1814 had in many cases to be conducted. One hundred and twenty horses had been furnished Captain de Gonneville, and he was ordered to march against the Russians in twenty-four hours :—" In the morning the bridles were put on the horses, and they were brought out one by one, each with the man who was to ride it. He was hoisted up with a good deal of difficulty, as his cuirass was most embarrassing to him. At last, after an immense number of adventures, the squadron was drawn up ready to start. We were quartered in the suburb of St. George, and on our way out we had to pass before the guards of the advanced fortifications, and they had to salute us. I unfortunately thought of giving the order to draw swords, thinking that my men would do this much better at the halt than on the march. The blades issued from the scabbards fairly well together, but their glitter and the noise that they made frightened the horses so much that they started off like a flight of pigeons, jumping about in all directions, and getting rid of their riders, most of whom threw themselves on the ground when they might have held on longer." Fortunately for their commander, the squadron was recalled, and was not again employed upon service until it had acquired some cohesion and discipline.
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