A SOLDIER OF THE EMPIRE.*

COIGNET'S "Narrative," dealing as it does with the most stirring and eventful period of the century, and being written

with the realism of a Defoe and the gaiety of a troubadour, is highly entertaining and makes most excellent reading. He survived so many dangers and met with so many adventures that the critical and the sceptical may be excused for doubt- ing whether he ever flourished elsewhere than in a romancer's brain. Yet of the main facts there can be no question. The editor vouches for Coignet's objective existence, his auto- graph manuscript is extant, and the appendix contains an officially verified statement of his services, from which it appears that he went through sixteen campaigns, served in Spain, Portugal, Prussia, Poland, Russia, Germany, Saxony, and Belgium, and that his first battle was Montebello, his last Waterloo. A soldier with a record so rare may be pardoned for occasionally drawing the long-bow and sounding his own trumpet ; and his most wonderful stories are less wonderful than the bare truth, that he campaigned all over the Continent for fifteen years without being seriously wounded or sick. save once, when he was poisoned by an enemy.

Moreover, in such memoirs as Coignet's we do not expect to find the precision of history. Yet we find something equally valuable. They show us to the life what like of men were the veterans of the Old Guard, with what care they were selected, with what thoroughness disciplined, and with what devotion they fought for the master who, despite his fine phrases, regarded them as mere counters in the great game of war. Coignet was too unsophisticated to invent, and even in his exaggerations there is verisimilitude, for he was a typical vieux moustache, imbued with the characteristic virtues and failings of the class to which he belonged. And he was probably quite as veracious and no more vainglorious than Marbot, Thiebault, and other Generals of the First Empire with whose reminiscences we have lately been favoured. To these Coignet's are complementary ; they describe the career of an unlettered soldier, who, though able to'tell a story, knew not how to give a detailed account of the operations of an army, and served thirteen years as private and under-officer before he received a commission. He gives us, too, what we do not get from his superiors in rank,—incidents of the bivouac, the battlefield, and the march, the feelings and exploits of the men who did the actual fighting and bore the heat and the burden of the day. It is a picturesque narrative, full of ad- venture and excitement, told with unflagging spirit, and often with much unconscious humour.

In early life Coignet was by turn shepherd, waggoner, and stable-boy. In 1799, when he had turned twenty-three, he became an involuntary soldier. After refusing an offer from

• The Narrative of Captain Coignet, Soldier of the Empire, 1776-1850. Edited from the Original Manuscript by Loridan Larehey, and translated from the French by Mrs. M. Carey. London : Chatto and Windus. his master to procure him a substitute, from which it is to be presumed that he had a liking, as he had certainly an apti- tude, for the career of arms, he was put into a grenadier company and sent to Fontainebleau to be drilled. On Decadi (vice Sunday, abolished) the men went to church and chanted " La Victoire," after which the officers flourished their sabres, and the men cried " Viva la Republique !" Every evening they gathered round the liberty-tree and sang "Les Aristo- crates 6, la lanterne." All of which Coignet found " very entertaining." But by this time the revolutionary madness was past; though aristocrats were denounced, nobody was hanged, and when Bonaparte returned from Egypt and became ruler of France he provided sterner work for the conscripts than chanting in churches and serenading trees. Coignet's battalion was incorporated in the 96th half- brigade of the Line, " composed of old and expe- rienced officers, who were very strict," with whom he marched through France to Switzerland, crossed the St. Bernard, and made the campaign of Marengo. At Monte- bello as he loaded his musket he made the sign of the cross with his cartridge. This "brought him luck," and was followed by feats that render Coignet worthy to rank with Charlemagne's Paladins and Dumas's Three Musketeers. No sooner did the enemy open fire than he charged a cannon single-handed, fell on the gunners, and bayoneted all five of them. Whereupon his Captain embraced him. Shortly afterwards he shot a Hungarian who was taking aim at the Captain, and was rewarded with a second embrace. Then they both hastened to the help of the sergeant, who was sur- rounded by three grenadiers, of whom Coignet slew two and the Captain one. To kill eight foemen in one day with his awn hand is not a bad start for a young soldier, and we learn without surprise that at the close of the day he was pre- sented to the First Consul, who pinched his ear, and inquired how long he had been in the service, ordered General Berthier to put him down for a " gun of honour," and pro- mised that Coignet should "one day be one of his Guards," a promise which was made good four years later, when he became a grenadier of the Guard and received the cross of the Legion of Honour from the First Consul's own hand. His description of the ceremony, which took place in the dome of the Invalides, has some highly characteristic touches. The Consul's horse was covered with gold, his saddle with diamonds, his stirrups were of solid gold. When Coignet "descended from the throne" he was embraced by his Colonel and his Captain, while a crowd pressed eagerly round him to see his cross, the first bestowed on a private, and " some beautiful women who could get near enough to me to touch my cross asked permission to embrace me,"—a permission which no doubt the hero graciously granted. Other honours were in store for him. The sentry at the barracks presented arms to him, and ex- plained that he had been ordered to present arms to all who were decorated with the cross of the Legion; and his Lieutenant invited him to spend the evening at the Cafe Borel in the Palais Royal, where they had coffee, and "punch flowed freely." But it is satisfactory to know that they returned to the barracks quite sober. "How delightful that evening bad been to me! I had never known anything like it before " exclaims Coignet, who was as naïf as he was vain and brave.

Shortly afterwards he got leave of absence and made a visit to his native village. On his way thither a brigadier of gendarmes asked for his passport. " Look at my cross and my uniform ; they are my passport," answered Coignet proudly, on which the gendarme was " completely dumbfounded." The next morning he went to Mass and sat next to the Mayor, and at the close of the service " everybody came to the side of the choir to see the fine soldier and his decorations." Coignet gives a lively and more or less accurate account of the cam- paign of Austerlitz, but his exaggerations are too palpable to deceive. Nobody, for instance, would take au pied de in lettre the statement that the men were required to march eighteen or twenty leagues a day, and that on one occasion the grenadiers of the Guard, being in a hurry, took strides a fathom long, passing two soldiers of the line at each step.

After Austerlitz came Jena, and after Jena that terrible Polish campaign in which the army suffered so much that old soldiers blew out their brains in despair. The peasants buried their belongings and deserted their villages. " They are a

people destitute of human feeling ; they are willing that men should starve at their doors," observes Coignet indignantly ; so different from the Germans, "who are always resigned, and never desert their homes." In July, 1807, he was made

corporal, on condition that he should learn to read and write. The difficulties he encountered in this formidable task make one of the most amusing episodes of the book, yet he protests that after two months' practice he wrote very well, a boast, however, which is not quite justified by the specimen of Coignet's autograph manuscript given in the appendix.

Shortly before the battle of Essling he was made sergeant, and he gives a vivid description of his experiences in that memorable action, as witness the following extract :-

" There were no gunners left to work our two pieces. General Dorsenne had them replaced by twelve grenadiers, and bestowed the cross on them. But all these brave fellows perished beside their guns. No more horses, no more artillerymen, no more shells. The carriages were broken tc pieces, and the limbers scattered over the ground like logs of wood. It was impossible to make any more use of them ; a shell burst and fell near our good General, covering him with dirt, but he rose up like the good soldier he was, saying, Your General is not hurt. You may depend on him : he will know how to die at his post.' He

had no horse any more. Two had been killed under him The awful thunder continued. A cannon-ball cut down a file of soldiers next to me. Something struck me on the arm, and I dropped my gun. I thought my arm was struck off. I had no feeling in it. I looked, and saw a bit of flesh sticking to my wrist. I thought I had broken my arm, but I had not ; it was a piece of the flesh of one of my brave comrades, which had dashed against me with such violence that it adhered to my arm. The Lieutenant came up to me, took hold of my arm, shook it. and the piece of flesh fell off. I saw the cloth of my coat. He shook my arm and said to me, It is only stunned.' Imagine my joy when I found I could move my fingers ! The Commander said to me, Leave your gun, take your sabre.'—' I have none ; the cannon- ball cut off the hilt.' I took my gun in my left hand."

Coignet's account of the campaign of 1812 and the retreat from Moscow is one of the most realistic we have read, probably because he tells us only what he saw, with the direct- ness and simplicity which make his story so effective. While they were on the march twenty-four non-commissioned officers were selected for promotion and paraded before the Emperor.

Among them was Coignet, who, however, as he had informed his Major, preferred being a sergeant in the Guard to becoming a Lieutenant in the Line. " What, you don't wish to go into the Line," said the Emperor. " Well, I will appoint you to my minor staff."

" How glad I was to remain near the Emperor 1 I did not suspect that I was leaving paradise for hell; but I learnt it in time," is Coignet's suggestive comment on his promotion.

After the passage of the Beresina, Napoleon sent him with

bogus despatches, got up to mislead the enemy, in circum- stances which rendered his capture by the Cossacks almost certain. The despatches were captured, but Coignet contrived to escape with a whole skin and returned to headquarters, greatly to the Emperor's surprise. This incident (which has been utilised by Mr. Conan Doyle in his Exploits of Brigadier Gerard)

does not, however, seem to have abated Coignet's devotion to the Emperor, whom, after his first abdication, he wanted to follow to Elba and did follow to Waterloo, where his active military life ended, for in October, 1815, he was " retired to his home, and having only a pension of some seventy francs a month, married a wife with a small fortune, bought a bit of land, and set up a shop." It is pleasant to know that the

business prospered, and the wife made him happy, and that the old soldier lived to a good old age. He wrote and dictated his " Narrative " when he was past seventy. We are indebted to him for a stirring story, " stranger than fiction," and he deserves our admiration as well for the bravery which he showed on the battlefield as for the courage and cheerfulness with which he always met adverse fortune, whether in peace or war.