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The attempt to outflank us on the right we had perfectly retorted on the left; where Lannes's division, overlapping the line, pressed them on two sides, and drove them back, still fighting, into the plain, which, with a lake, separated the allied armies from the village of Austerlitz. And here took place the most dreadful occurrence of the day.
But at three in the morning of June fourteenth the head of Lannes's column appeared before Friedland, and the Russian commander, supposing he had to do with a single division, turned, and crossing to the left bank of the Alle, passed through Friedland in order to meet his enemy in the open.
They were four troops of Lannes's artillery, which, by a mistake similar to my own, had left the highroad and entered one of the field-tracks, which thus led them astray; and here they were, jammed up in a narrow gorge, unable to get back or forward.
He who has looked upon thousands of dying men, and who has had thousands of men slaughtered, "sobs," after Wagram and after Bautzen, at the couch of a dying comrade. "I saw him," says his valet, "weep while eating his breakfast, after coming from Marshal Lannes's bedside; big tears rolled down his cheeks and fell on his plate."
Two days before, eight hundred French soldiers had crossed into the island of Lobau to drive out the Austrian scouts; on the nineteenth Napoleon arrived, and the necessary fortifications were constructed; on the twentieth the passage began, and Masséna, with Lannes's light cavalry, was sent out to reconnoiter. Smekal: Die Schlacht bei Aspern und Essling. Strobl: Aspern und Wagram.
You will never forget this part of your training. When Marshal Lannes's grenadiers had been repulsed in an assault upon the walls of a fortified city, and hesitated to renew the attack, Lannes seized a scaling ladder and, rushing forward, cried: "Before I was a marshal I was a grenadier, and I have not forgotten my training."
The Spaniards fled before Lannes's attack on the twenty-third, but Ney with his cavalry remained inexplicably stationary, and did not cut off their retreat. They were therefore able to reassemble at Siguenza, while Palafox withdrew to Saragossa.
He was less philosophical on the occasion of Marshal Lannes's death, when I saw him, while at breakfast, weeping such large tears that they rolled over his cheeks, and fell into his plate. He mourned deeply for Desaix, Poniatowski, and Bessieres, but most of all for Lannes, and next to him Duroc. During the whole of the battle of the Moskwa the Emperor had attacks resembling stone in the bladder.
He was less philosophical on the occasion of Marshal Lannes's death, when I saw him, while at breakfast, weeping such large tears that they rolled over his cheeks, and fell into his plate. He mourned deeply for Desaix, Poniatowski, and Bessieres, but most of all for Lannes, and next to him Duroc. During the whole of the battle of the Moskwa the Emperor had attacks resembling stone in the bladder.
The powder and shot, packed into boxes of fir-wood, formed the lading of all the mules that could be collected over a wide range of the Alpine country. These preparations had been made during the week that elapsed between Buonaparte's arrival at Geneva and the commencement of Lannes's march.
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