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Updated: May 1, 2025
From Seligenstadt we went to Schweinheim, and on the twenty-fourth of March, 1813, joined the division at Aschaffenbourg, where Marshal Ney passed us in review. The captain of the company was named Florentin; the lieutenant, Bretonville; the commandant of the battalion, Gémeau; the captain, Vidal; the colonel, Zapfel; the general of brigade, Ladoucette; and the general of division, Souham.
They were enraged by the musket-shots from the houses; they broke down the doors, and then we could hear the struggles, the falls, curses in French and German, the orders of Lieutenant Bretonville opposite, and the Prussian officers commanding their men to go and bring straw to fire the houses. Fortunately the harvest was not yet secured, or we should all have been burned.
Zébédé, Lieutenant Bretonville, and Captain Florentin had disappeared, and Sergeant Rabot was in command. He was a little old fellow, thin and deformed, but as tough as steel; he squinted and seemed to have had red hair when young. Now, as I speak of him, I seem to hear him say quietly to us, "The battle is won! by file right! forward, march!"
Zébédé commanded our post, Lieutenant Bretonville occupied the house opposite with another squad, and Captain Florentin went somewhere else. The street was filled with troops quite up to the two corners near the brook.
At two or three hundred paces from the bridge, the idea of rushing forward and throwing myself into the midst of the crowd, entered my mind; but Captain Vidal, Lieutenant Bretonville, and other old officers said: "Shoot down the first man that leaves the ranks!" It was horrible to be so near safety, and yet unable to escape. This was between eleven and twelve o'clock.
We arrived at this place after passing through innumerable little streets, so narrow that we could scarcely see the stars between the chimneys. Captain Florentin, and the two lieutenants, Clavel and Bretonville, were awaiting us. After roll-call our sergeants led us by detachments to the rooms above the Chasseurs. They were great halls with little windows, and between the windows were the beds.
Between two and three in the morning Zébédé came and shook me. "Up!" said he, "come!" Buche had stretched himself beside me also, and we rose at once. It was our turn to relieve the guard. It was still dark, but there was a line of light along the horizon at the edge of the grain fields. Thirty paces farther on, Lieutenant Bretonville was waiting for us, surrounded by the picket.
Lieutenant Bretonville, waving his sabre, cried, "Forward!" while, to the right, the firing still continued. We soon arrived at a clearing, where lay five or six trunks of felled trees, and a little lake full of high grass, but not a tree standing, that might serve us for a cover. Nevertheless, five or six of our men advanced boldly, when the sergeant called out: "Halt!
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