Tag: France
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The experiences of Dragoon Auguste de Maupas in Spain and Portugal, 1808-1812 (II)
Valladolid, 5 December 1809. – I only have time to send you an embrace and inform you that I am in good health. We have arrived at Valladolid, where we will stay with General Kellerman until further notice. We engaged in a number of affairs which I am sure you will be able to find…
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The experiences of Dragoon Auguste de Maupas in Spain and Portugal, 1808-1812 (I)
Born on 5 September 1786 in Laon, Aisne, into a noble family originally from Berry, Auguste-Marie was the son of Jérôme Clément Agard, the Marquis of Maupas, and Marie-Madeleine de La Fons d’Happencourt. He married Geneviève-Stéphanie-Félicité-Cécile de Martiny on 2 January 1821. Maupas entered the École Militaire of Fontainebleau on 17 February 1805, and was…
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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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Captain Puffeney’s recollections of the 1806-1807 Campaigns …
The son of humble farmers from the Franche-Comté region, Captain Pierre-François Puffeney was born in Les Planches, near Arbois, on 5 December 1772. He was not yet twenty when he enlisted as a volunteer in the 2nd Battalion of the Jura, to fly, as it was then called, to the defence of the Fatherland. A…
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Three Letters from J. J. Delvau, Soldier of the Imperial Guard … (1812)
IMPERIAL GUARDGrenadiers Tirailleurs6th Regiment – 1st Battalion4th Company At Courbevoie, 24 March 1812. My dear father and mother, brothers and sisters, I want you to know that we are leaving for Magdeburg in Germany to join the regiment, which arrived there not long ago. However I do not think we will pass by your side.…
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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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Dedicated to the Imperial Cause – Letters of the Dandalle Family (IV) …
Cantonment in Germany – 1810-1811 In February 1810, the regiment left Upper Austria and arrived at Magdeburg on 1 March. It did not return to France, but remained in Germany to ensure public order and to be ready to intervene if necessary to the south against Austria, to the north to enforce the Continental Blockade,…
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Correspondence from Charleroi conscripts under Napoleon (I) …
Introduction by Pierre-Jean Niebes, archivist at the Belgian State Archives of Mons Many of the prominent figures of the Napoleonic period have written their memoirs, both civilian and military, and these have been published in numerous editions since the 19th century. The testimonies of ordinary soldiers shed a different light, perhaps more concise but just…
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A dragoon under Marshal Murat – Letters of the 1806-1807 Campaigns (I)
In the spring of 1806, Amédée Le Nourry, captain-adjutant-major in the 16th Dragoon Regiment, was posted on the banks of the Inn, near Passau, alongside Marshal Soult’s army corps. Adjutant-major Le Nourry was an excellent officer with a keen understanding of his profession. Born on 8 July 1777 in Craconville near Evreux, he volunteered for…