Tag: Cuirassier
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1813-14 letters from Cuirassier Brigadier Pilloy
The following letters are drawn from a voluminous register which also contains copies of the Emperor’s proclamations, accounts of our narrator’s travels and more or less unusual recipes. The author in question is Étienne-Nicolas Pilloy, born in Santeau, canton of Pithiviers (Loiret), a farmer by trade. Here are his service records: 13th Cuirassier Regiment. Entered…
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Correspondence from Charleroi conscripts under Napoleon (II) …
Letters from Pierre-Joseph Guilbert to his father Pierre-Joseph Guilbert was born in Jumet on 18 March 1781. He was the son of Charles and Marie Perony. A conscript of the Year IX (1800), he became a fusilier in the 5th Company of the 3rd Battalion of the 94th Line Infantry Regiment, 3rd Division of the…
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A doctor’s recounting of the battle of Ostrovno, July 1812 …
Raymond Faure (1786-1850), a doctor in I Cavalry Corps of the Grande Armée, provides the following account of this engagement in his memoirs: Our corps (I Corps) was the vanguard of the army, and we had been in sight of the enemy for two or three days; a few cannon shots had been exchanged. On…
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Correspondence of grognard Jean-Henry Rattier (IV) …
Bayonne, 15 March 1812. We arrived here the day before yesterday, and we are leaving tomorrow for Paris, where we will arrive on 16 April. I would have obtained permission to go to Ardèche, but I had to be in the capital by 15 April, which prevented me from obtaining it. I could only have…
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Cuirassier officer Jean de Gouttes and his 1813 correspondence …
These documents relate our cavalry officer’s thoughts and experiences during the 1813 Campaign. De Gouttes served in the 11th Cuirassier Regiment … Kemberg (near Wittenberg), 19 March 1813. I left Braunschweig (Brunswick), where the cavalry was being reorganised, on 25 February with a company which I was honoured to be given command of, to join…
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A selection of Peninsular War letters of the rank and file …
Stamp: (illegible number), FRENCH ARMY IN SPAIN. Mister Even, mayor of Beaufort, Department of Forests, Canton of Echternach, arrondissement of Bitbourg, via Paris. (Medina de) Rioseco, 24 August (1811). Dear father, Your long silence would certainly cause me to have doubts; only the filial love you have always fostered in me makes me think that…
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Cuirassier Jean de Gouttes’ correspondence on Ulm and Austerlitz …
La Ferté-sous-Jouarre (Seine-et-Marne), 16 Fructidor Year XIII (3 September 1805). You will no doubt be surprised to receive a letter from me dated from La Ferté; I confess that I did not expect to be leaving it so soon, even though I knew that we were due to depart from Versailles shortly. Mr. Salvaing may…
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A perspective from the French Imperial household on the battle of Bautzen, 1813 …
The following extract is drawn from the excellent recollections of treasurer Guillaume Peyrusse (1776-1860) … 20 May (1813). – The entire (Imperial) headquarters was on its feet very early. One staff officer succeeded another. The corps of the dukes of Reggio (Oudinot), Taranto (Macdonald), Ragusa (Marmont) and General Bertrand made their arrangements to cross the…
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Some remarks of a cuirassier officer, 1806-1807 …
Jean de Gouttes recounts his experiences of the Prussian and Polish surroundings and battlefields in his correspondence with his parents … Schwarzach, 17 August 1806. Although I cannot put much structure into the details I have provided about Bavaria, I will continue to give you some as they are of interest to you. The predominant…