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Updated: June 6, 2025
It was then supposed that they would march upon Holland by the way of Bremen and Oldenburg. On the receipt of thus intelligence the Electorate of Hanover was evacuated by the French, and General Barbou, who had commanded there concentrated his forces in Hamelin. On the 2d of November 1805 the King of Sweden arrived at Stralsund.
Then I called upon M. Barbou, who was trembling like a leaf, and gathered the chief of the citizens about me, including M. le Curé, that we should consult together what we should do. I know no words that can describe our state in the strange circumstances we were now placed in. The women and the children were safe: that was much.
It will be well to have those excellent ladies in our front whatever happens; and you may communicate to them the unanimous decision about their chapel. You, Robert Lemaire, with an escort, will proceed to the campagne of M. Barbou, and put him in possession of the circumstances.
Do what I would, I could not deliver myself from a sense of something dreadful in the air which was neither malaria nor animalculæ, I took a promenade through the streets that evening, accompanied by M. Barbou, my adjoint, to make sure that all was safe; and the darkness was such that we almost lost our way, though we were both born in the town and had known every turning from our boyhood.
On the 23d of October 1805 I received official intelligence of the total destruction of the first Austrian army: General Barbou, who was in Hanover, also informed me of that event in the following terms: "The first Austrian army has ceased to exist." He alluded to the brilliant affair of Ulm. I immediately despatched twelve estafettes to different parts; among other places to Stralsund and Husum.
I felt drowsy myself, having been with the patrol the greater part of the night; but to yield to such weakness was, in my position, of course impossible. This, then, was our attitude during the last hours of suspense, which were perhaps the most trying of all. It goes without saying that I did not want M. Barbou, but it was the first errand I could think of.
All the divisions of the army of Andalusia, engaged or not in the battle of Baylen, were to be comprised in the capitulation. The conditions were about to be signed, the French troops were authorized to retreat on Madrid; the Barbou division alone commanded by General Dupont, was to be disarmed.
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