Recollections of a cadet, marching off to Spain …

Officer Bernard Hippolyte Maignal (born in 1789) on his service during the Peninsular War …

November 1808.

My departure from the Military School of Fontainebleau. – ‘Raise your heads, raise your heads, stand still! Immobility is the most beautiful part of the exercise!’ Brave Kuhman, General Bellavenne must not have been far away. He arrived, inspected us and ordered us to form square. He was holding a list in his hand and began to read it out loud. My heart was beating out of my chest. Would I be one of the lucky ones who were to depart for Spain tomorrow? When I heard my name, I almost shouted: ‘Long live the Emperor!’ It seems that I had moved, for I met the fiery gaze of the brave Kuhman: this epithet of bravery was given to him by a man who knew his business, Napoleon himself.

Excellent Kuhman, I will no longer witness tears escaping from your eyes and your face getting blackened by gunpowder, at the sight of a well-executed manoeuvre or a precise conversion. I will no longer curse the drum, that beats the diane at five o’clock every day, to all the devils. Farewell, heroes of Greece and Rome, Vauban, Malte-Brun and Guibert; I owe you sound moments of sleep. I almost forgot to mention you, endearing regulation of 1791. I will no longer eat ‘pâté de giberne’, a delicious dish, which a well-trained baker’s apprentice prepared in the desired size, and, smuggled in the middle of the forest of Fontainebleau, deftly slipped into the leather box intended for the cartridges.

What do you want: my mess tin, and my three pounds of bread for every other day which didn’t suffice for me? Oh, my musket! The most rusty and decrepit one in the school! We must part ways. I am a second lieutenant, and I consider myself to be of some importance [now]. I did not do anything, nor learn anything during my stay at the School. However, I’ve acquired the spirit of the profession. Tomorrow, the sentries will bring me weapons, and I will salute in a grave and indifferent manner. Then I will join my regiment, the 32nd, in Spain.

What a wonderful start! I will peacefully learn the art of war there. If the Spaniards are taciturn and not very talkative, the women, it is said, are lively and dazzling; they have a thorough knowledge of the ‘gallant vocabulary’, and do not make you languish too long. I shall spend the winter comfortably in the Midi, and in the spring, after having avenged the ambush [that took place] at Bailén, Napoleon will take us to one of the capitals of Europe. I do not know whether we are heading to Vienna or Moscow.

December 1808 – January & February 1809.

My entry into Spain and my arrival in Madrid. – A captain of the School was assigned to lead us to the Emperor’s headquarters. We were travelling ‘by post’, so they said; the fact is that we were crammed by the dozen into carts lined with a few bales of straw, and that, marching at a walk, from morning until evening, we covered two stages a day. We passed the Loire at Saumur, great wine, and the Garonne at Bordeaux, pretty girls! We then crossed the uncultivated moors between Bordeaux and Bayonne. We saw far and wide shepherds, dressed in black sheep skins, mounted on stilts six or seven feet high, and leaning on a long pole, motionless in the same place, without ever losing sight of their flocks, which grazed around them on the heather.

A few leagues beyond Bayonne, we reached the Bidasoa, the stream which borders France in the Pyrenees. As soon as I had set foot on Spanish territory, I noticed a change, perceptible in the appearance of the country and in the customs of the locals. The narrow, winding streets of the towns, the barred windows, the doors of the houses always tightly shut, the stern, reserved air of the inhabitants of all classes, the distrust they showed us, all this made me feel sad.

At Vitoria, the commander of the place advised us to wait for the departure of a detachment before heading for Burgos. The Post Director of I Corps had been massacred the day before on the road for having been only a few minutes ahead of his escort. ‘Massacred by whom’, I thought to myself. I dared not to ask, for fear of appearing ignorant; had I been alone I would have departed (already).

We left Vitoria the next day, with an ammunition convoy, under the escort of 75 men of the 16th Léger commanded by a captain. We formed a platoon of officers.

The second lieutenant of the detachment, belonging to the 16th Regiment, was a friend of mine, Cailliez, who had left Fontainebleau in 1807; he escaped Bailén. He had the Cross and was twenty-one years old! My enthusiasm and my confidence amused him greatly, and he predicted that I would enjoy great success. Had it not been for his red ribbon, I would have provoked him. I spoke to him of battles, singular combats, gallant appointments, excursions into a rich and picturesque country, visits to churches adorned with magnificent paintings, of gold and silver saints. He answered me:

‘In Spain, there are no great battlefields on which one falls with honour. But everywhere one encounters the dagger of an assassin or the treachery of some hidden enemy, who we often regarded as trustworthy. On the one hand, you will find the ardent love of independence, political exaltation, religious fanaticism and wounded national pride. A nation raised en masse, animated and supported by money and England’s finest battalions. On the other, there are the victorious soldiers of all the armies of united Europe. In spite of prodigies of valour and devotion, we are constantly struggling to get by, harassed, destroyed in detail, and we have men, elderly, women and children against us in this damned country. I will give you a copy of their catechism to read; you will discover what awaits us.’

‘As they flee, each inhabitant must destroy all resources of food that they cannot take with them. Woe to the soldiers who are forced to leave the ranks due to hunger! Woe to all those whom serious illness or wounds prevent them from following their regiment! They are mercilessly massacred, and their death is most often only a horrible mutilation, a long and dreadful agony. The ploughmen hold in one hand their tool, and in the other an ever-ready weapon, which they bury at the approach of the French if they do not consider themselves strong enough to join together and fight them. Occasionally, they also praise our soldiers and try to get them drunk. They then summon the partisans, and during the night they show them the houses where our soldiers have imprudently scattered to. If you want to enjoy a long life’, he added, ‘leave Spain, for there is neither wine nor women!’

The monks had definitely influenced the poor lad. He was preaching abstinence to me, who dreamed only of dealing out blows and receiving women. What a sorrowful disposition, I thought. He must have slept badly, and he must be furious at being assigned to the escort service. As for me, I’m marching into battle, for Napoleon …

Source : Lieutenant Gustave Piéron, Histoire d’un régiment : la 32e demi-brigade (1775-1890), A. Le Vasseur, Paris, 1890, pp. 171-175.

To be continued …