The protagonist of these recollections is Louis Jacques Romand. He was born in Vauconcourt, part of the arrondissement of Gray, Haute-Saône Department, on 12 October 1790. He saw action in the campaign in Austria of 1809 as a fusilier chasseur of the Guard (1st Regiment). Romand then was assigned to a expeditionary battalion and travelled to the Seychelles, Isle de France (Mauritius),… witnessing naval combat. Upon his return and a short stay with his family in 1812, he was transferred, with his rank as sergeant-major, to the 100th Line Infantry Regiment. On 26 May 1813, he was made an adjutant non-commissioned officer. Romand penned down his memoirs in 1819. Here follow extracts of his military life in 1813:
A fortnight after our arrival in Brest, we received an order from the Minister of the Navy, by which all officers and soldiers who had contributed to the formation of the 1st Expeditionary Battalion were to return to their respective regiments. No mention was made of the non-commissioned officers, and we remained at ease, awaiting our future fate.
After a two-month rest, the non-commissioned officers of the Renommée and Néréide [names of the ships that were part of the naval expedition] were assigned to the 70th Line Regiment, based in Brest. Those serving on the Clorinde were transferred to a Dutch battalion, which was also stationed in the same town. We disliked this corps, which we were unable to accustom ourselves to, as we could not speak the Dutch language. That is why, at the request of all my comrades, I petitioned the Minister of War to relieve us and incorporate us into a French regiment. We had no time to receive a reply, as five or six days later we left with the Dutch battalion for some unknown destination. In any case, we had to pass through Paris.
It was early March 1812. It was a long journey, but not as arduous as the one I made when I first left Paris. I was strong then; I was approaching and even exceeding my twenty-first year. I could hardly feel the weight of my bag, which had weighed me down and exhausted me three years earlier.
While the battalion is on its way, I will describe how I spent my time in Brest during a six-month sojourn. My first concern on arriving there was to inform my relatives, who had thought I was dead, of my fortunate return to France. Shortly afterwards I received word from them that they were in good health, although they had suffered a number of setbacks during my absence, in which I played every possible part.
At about the same time I wrote to my old uncle in Paris; however, a month later, instead of receiving news from him, I received a letter from the secretary of Marshal Count Sérurier, governor of the Invalides, informing me that my uncle, after a prolonged illness, had paid the inevitable tribute that we all owe to nature. I expressed my sincere regrets in memory of this relative to whom I had become attached during my stay in Paris.
When the remnants of our battalion were completely disbanded, I was employed (although I belonged to another corps) in the offices of the quartermaster who had remained to perform his accounting. This estimable man, whom I shall always remember with everlasting gratitude, showed me great affection throughout our last campaign. During my stay in Brest, Mr. Blanc continued to show me the same kindness and was also willing to honour me with all his confidence. He often told me that he did not regard me as his subordinate, but rather as his best friend.
I spent my spare time practising fencing. The theatre, which I attended regularly during the six months I spent in Brest, was my most pleasant recreation. Finally I left this town, and it was with great sorrow that I parted from Mr. Blanc, to whom I had become attached, not only through the great affection I had for him, but also through a most sincere friendship.
But I will now return to our Dutchmen, whom I left on the road from Brest to Paris. Nothing remarkable happened to us during our journey. However, as we crossed Lower Brittany for the second time, I became more and more convinced of the uncleanliness of the inhabitants of this countryside, which I have already described to the reader. To shorten my account, I shall proceed immediately with our little party to Versailles, where we stayed for six days.
At the request of all my companions in misfortune, I went to meet the general in command of the town, to ask him to get us out of the cursed battalion where we had been consigned, by whatever order I had no clue. He received me kindly and told me that in a few days’ time we were to be inspected by the Emperor, where he would be, and that he himself would tell His Majesty of the justified request I had made to him. Indeed, in due course, we left Versailles and travelled to St Cloud, in the park of the château, to await Napoleon, who soon appeared amidst the loudest cheers. He passed through our ranks on foot, speaking from time to time to the officers of his retinue and those of our regiment. When he was finished, the general fulfilled the promise he had made to me and we distinctly heard the Emperor reply: ‘Yes, I will take care of these young men over there’.
He then ordered us to spend the night in Paris. We immediately set off for the capital after carrying out several manoeuvres in front of His Majesty. When we arrived at the Champs Elysées, an aide-de-camp arrived at breakneck speed to order us not to enter and to lodge at Les Vertus, a village a league and a half away between Paris and St Denis. Three days later, following the promise which Napoleon had expressed, we received with the greatest pleasure the order to leave immediately (although it was ten o’clock in the evening) for Paris to be posted to a regiment whose depot was located in this city. It was after midnight when we went to knock on the door of the barracks where the unit was billeted. They came to open the door, after keeping us waiting for a long time; and as it was late, all they had to offer us to spend the rest of the night were straw mattresses. I slept perfectly well there and I found that such a bed of repose sometimes has its price, especially when you have been lying on the ground enduring the rigours of the weather and the season.
Three weeks after our arrival in Paris, during which time we did not perform the slightest service, the Minister of War gave orders for us to be incorporated into various corps of the line. I was appointed with four of my sergeants to the 100th Regiment at the depot in Metz and we arrived there on 21 May 1812.
Two months later I applied for, and was fortunate enough to obtain, permission to spend a few days with my family, who very much shared my desire to see them again. Crossing the Vosges, I went to find my elder brother, who was then employed in a trading company a short distance from Epinal. I embraced him with that genuine pleasure, that sweet satisfaction that is known only to those who love each other sincerely. For his part, he also expressed the warmest friendship that has always prevailed in our family.
I spent two days with him. I asked him to accompany me to P… where our parents had already been waiting for me for a long time, as I had told them. He agreed very willingly and the next day we travelled by diligence to Epinal.
During the journey, which was short, we agreed that we would enter P…. by night in order to surprise my parents in a way that I am sure would please them. My brother’s intention, as well as mine, was to pass myself off as a stranger to them. I admit that my role was rather difficult to fulfil, but I was counting on my three and a half years of absence, which would make it impossible for anyone to recognise me, at least for a few moments.
With this scheme well thought out, we arrived at P… at nine o’clock in the evening. My brother was the first to enter the house, making me stay in the corridor where I waited until he told me to appear; and after embracing my mother and my sisters, whom he had not seen for several months, he said to them: ‘On my way here, I met a soldier from the regiment in which my brother is serving, and as he seemed to me to be quite a good fellow, and moreover he told me that he knew him very well, I asked him to come and sleep here.’ – ‘Where is he, where is he’, was the sudden reply. – ‘Here he is.’ And at once I appeared, lowering the visor of my shako which covered almost my entire face. I respectfully greeted my mother and my sisters, who, deceived by my military attire and the beard that was beginning to cover part of my cheeks, did not recognise me. I rejoiced inwardly at their confusion, which did not last long, for a few words I uttered gave me away, for instantly they all cried out with the greatest joy: ‘It’s him, it’s you!’ Then, no longer able to contain myself, I suddenly shared their joy by leaping alternately around each other’s necks. Tears of joy flowed from every eye, and this fortunate moment was one of the happiest of my life.
I spent almost a month in the bosom of my family, enjoying the pure pleasures I constantly relished there. But alas, this short period of happiness was soon over! The fatal moment when I had to leave to rejoin my regiment arrived, to the chagrin of the whole family. We had to separate. I therefore left for Metz where I arrived at the end of August 1812, satisfied to have visited and very grieved to have parted with such good relatives.
I will not mention the trivial circumstances surrounding my stay in Metz. I will limit myself by mentioning that, after a year, I was appointed adjutant non-commissioned officer. I mention this here to inform the reader, who might be interested in the details that concern me, that I then parted with my haversack, musket and cartridge box, in fact all the heavy paraphernalia of a soldier, to replace it with epaulettes and a sword which I found incomparably lighter. This favour was granted to me on 26 May 1813. I remember that date very well, because the joy I felt was beyond all expression and consequently was not to be erased from my memory.
A fortnight after I was invested with this new rank, three battalions of which I was a member and which had just been organised, received orders from the Minister of War to leave for Austria, which, it was said, had declared war on us.
On 9 June 1813 we set off for Germany a second time, crossing the Rhine at Mainz. In this city we were distributed the camp equipment and war munitions which it was assumed we would need during our campaign. Some said that Napoleon would come to terms with his father-in-law Francis II and that the other Allied powers would not dare to continue the war against us; others, (and I was of the same opinion) said on the contrary that the Emperor of Austria would turn his weapons against his son-in-law and that we would settle the matter with cannon fire. Whatever the case, when we left Mainz, our soldiers had their cartridge boxes filled with powder and shot.
We had been designated by Marshal Kellerman, who had passed us in review in this town, to join the Bavarian corps of observation under the orders of Marshal Augereau, whose headquarters were located at Frankfurt am Main. We halted for eight days in the latter city, which is one of the most charming I have seen in the course of my travels. We stayed successively in Würzburg, Bamberg and Barenth, the principal towns in Franconia. We passed Napoleon’s inspection in the latter place on 3 August 1818 [sic, 1813], after which His Majesty awarded seventeen decorations to the most senior members of the regiment. From there we continued on our way to Dresden, capital of Saxony, where the army’s main headquarters had been established since the armistice between the French army and the Russian and Prussian coalition forces.
Passing through Freyberg, a small town in Saxony where silver mines were being exploited, the Bavarian corps of observation was disbanded and almost all the troops that comprised it contributed to the formation of the XIV Army Corps, of which Marshal Gouvion St Cyr, now Minister of War, assumed command.
Under the orders of this general, we were housed in villages five or six leagues from the city of Dresden, where we were very comfortable and above all very much at peace while awaiting the resumption of hostilities, which, according to the treaty, was to take place immediately after 15 August, Napoleon’s day of celebration.
On the 16th we received orders to camp near the village of Geishubel, which was situated in a deep valley seven leagues from Dresden. We stayed there until ten o’clock in the morning on the 22nd, when a corps of 30,000 Austrians, our ‘loyal allies’, unexpectedly attacked us on the ‘fatherly orders’ of Francis II. At that moment our soldiers had started to eat their soup. We did not hesitate to spill it on the ground and move camp quickly. Suddenly we formed up in battle array and held our ground against the enemy for half an hour. We numbered no more than 4,000 men in our army corps, but we were led by General Bonnet, an officer of great courage and rare intrepidity. Nevertheless, we were forced to yield to the enemy’s numbers, and we retreated in the greatest order, inflicting considerable losses on the enemy. We withdrew during the night just outside the walls of Dresden. In this attack we had to regret some brave officers of our regiment who were killed at the outset of the action. Others were severely wounded. In the end, our losses were estimated at about a hundred men, both killed and wounded.
On the 23rd, 24th and 25th, the combined army, i.e. the Russians, Austrians and Prussians who had followed our movement, fought constantly with our troops forming the right and left wings of the army whose centre was situated at Dresden. As a result, we took no part in the fighting, our regiment having been largely hidden behind the palisades surrounding the town on the Pirna side, which was four leagues away.
On the 26th, the battalion to which I belonged was tasked with defending a garden belonging to the King of Saxony, in the middle of which stood a superb castle. This point became very important to support in order to prevent the enemy from penetrating the town. At eight o’clock in the morning, the battle commenced and soon spread across the entire line. Hidden behind the walls surrounding the garden that had been entrusted to us, we allowed the enemy (the Russian Imperial Guard) to approach at close range, advancing en masse and in disorder to assault us. Then we opened up a dreadful fire that instilled terror and death into their ranks. Seized by a sudden fright, they withdrew precipitately, leaving the battlefield covered with dead and wounded. They nevertheless returned to the charge with exceptional audacity, and had it not been for the sudden arrival of Napoleon, followed by his entire [Imperial] Guard, we would not have been able to resist such superior forces any longer and would have been obliged to seek our salvation by retreating. However, the presence of the Emperor, always accompanied by victory in his wake, suddenly changed the course of the battle, which had been pursued by both sides with equal ardour, and the enemy was repulsed. Sensing that their strength was far superior to ours, they withdrew only a short distance. The next day, the 27th, the enemy held its position due to heavy rain, which began in the morning and did not end until the night of the 28th.
One cannot imagine what we had to suffer during that memorable day. We had departed from our garden at dawn to join our two battalions, which we had left behind the palisades. Shortly afterwards we moved together to take our position in the army in battle array facing the enemy who had withdrawn to the heights of Rocknitz, a village not far from Dresden. We remained constantly at our assigned post without changing position.
The pouring rain had made it impossible for our infantry to fire, as their muskets were riddled with rust. On the other hand, the enemy artillery and ours did not suffer the same fate. They spewed terror and death, so much so that we witnessed how one of the enemy’s cannonballs struck seven men from the company of voltigeurs. Continuing its terrible destruction, it went on to kill four men from a regiment that stood in battle array behind us.
If the guns made us suffer, hunger and cold tormented us no less. Devoured by the former and numbed by the latter, we all sincerely wished that one of these cannonballs would put an end to our troubles. At last in the evening the fire ceased; however, we found ourselves in such discomfort (halfway in the mud) that we were hardly in a better situation. In this appalling predicament, we spent the most dreadful night amongst the dead and dying. This scene of horror was illuminated by several neighbouring villages, all up in flames, whose unfortunate inhabitants, in order to escape death, had taken refuge in the cellars, the only places where they could shelter from the destructive cannonballs and the flames that were devouring their homes.
The day after this disastrous night, it ceased raining to make way for fine weather, although the cannon fire resumed with renewed ardour. Early in the morning the 4th Battalion, of which I was a member, was sent as an advance guard to attack the village of Rocknitz. When we arrived near the place, the enemy fired a hail of bullets at us, putting many of us out of action. This terrible fire imposed itself on us and suddenly halted us; however, supported by a few battalions that arrived, we continued to march on the enemy, who did not hold the position for long and fled to join the main body of the army, which had withdrawn during the night, thus abandoning the audacious plan to enter Dresden. We remained the victors and a considerable number of prisoners, flags, guns and caissons, not to mention the dead, were the trophies of this day.
During this long and bloody battle, and in particular on the 27th, I beheld, as did the entire army whom I am calling as witnesses, I saw, I repeat, the Emperor Napoleon, which some wretches wanted to pass off as a coward, constantly exposing himself to enemy fire, braving death by displaying extraordinary courage and the greatest talents, which contributed so much to securing victory. In addition, he was exposed to the rain like his soldiers, wearing nothing but a frock coat and a grey greatcoat with his hat hanging down over his shoulders. Such, however, was the harrowing yet glorious plight of the greatest of monarchs.
On the 28th, after having the enemy clear the village they were occupying, we pursued them all day to the borders of Bohemia. At night we bivouacked out in the countryside, having for our supper only a few potatoes found by our soldiers.
Source : Mémoires de ma vie militaire (1809-1815) – L’extraordinaire odyssée d’un franc-comtois dans la tourmente des guerres napoléoniennes – Manuscrit inédit de 1819, Besançon, 1981, pp. 53-62.
Other accounts to read :
> Letters of an artillery officer, 1813 …
> Captain Sibelet’s 1813 experiences …
> Soldiers and officer letters of the 1813 campaign …
Jonas De Neef's Napoleon Chronicles 