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The railing of the altar on the side of the esplanade was draped in black, and above this were the arms of the duke borne by two figures of Fame holding palms of victory; above was written: "Napoleon to the Memory of the Duke of Montebello, who died gloriously on the field of Essling, 22d. May, 1809."
He does not appear to have conceived this idea, and resumed with perseverance the work of the trenches. "I hope that Badajoz will have been taken in the course of January, and that the junction with the Prince of Essling will have taken place before the 20th of January," wrote the emperor, meanwhile. "If it is necessary, the Duke of Dalmatia can withdraw troops from the fourth corps.
"Come here, you idiot," continued the Emperor; "and the next time this happens, be sure you will pay for it." Saying this, he seized him by the ears and laughed heartily. On the 22d of May, ten days after the triumphant entry of the Emperor into the Austrian capital, the battle of Essling took place, a bloody combat lasting from four in the morning till six in the evening.
"Come here, you idiot," continued the Emperor; "and the next time this happens, be sure you will pay for it." Saying this, he seized him by the ears and laughed heartily. On the 22d of May, ten days after the triumphant entry of the Emperor into the Austrian capital, the battle of Essling took place, a bloody combat lasting from four in the morning till six in the evening.
That was the opinion at the time, and it was confirmed three years later when, the Austrians having burned the bridges, to secure a passage we were forced to fight the two battles of Essling and Wagram, which cost us more than thirty thousand men, whereas in 1805 Marshals Lannes and Murat took possession of the bridges without there being a single man wounded.
Another misfortune also resulted from the last war, and especially from the last peace: the inutility of the generous feeling which had illustrated the Austrian arms in the battles of Essling and Wagram, had cooled the national attachment to the sovereign, which had formerly been very strong.
Lannes had received orders, while protecting Essling, to march into the plain, and by a circular movement pierce the enemy's line and cut them in two. This operation was about to be accomplished, and the marshal sent an aide- de-camp to the emperor to ask him to have his rear protected by the guard on his leaving Essling unprotected, when frightful news was brought to Napoleon.
"Yes, Michaud, my father was a shopkeeper, an upholsterer; the countess doesn't know it. Oh! that I should ever well! after all, I have waltzed with queens and empresses. I'll tell her this very night," he cried, after a pause. "They also call you a coward," continued Michaud. "Ha!" "They ask how you managed to save yourself at Essling when nearly all your comrades perished."
This, however, I do know, that we have since kicked the French out of more formidable looking and stronger places; and, with all due deference be it spoken, I think that the Prince of Essling ought to have tried his luck against them, as he could only have been beaten by fighting, as he afterwards was without it!
When the retreat is made down the bank of a river, wooden houses may be thrown into the stream, also fire-ships and mills, a means the Austrians used in 1796 against Jourdan's army, near Neuwied on the Rhine, where they nearly compromised the army of the Sambre and the Meuse. The Archduke Charles did the same thing at Essling in 1809.
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