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Updated: September 2, 2025
An incident, otherwise not worthy of notice, seemed to confirm this intelligence; this was the arrival of a Russian officer with a flag of truce. He had so little to say, that it was evident from the first that he came only to observe. His manner was particularly displeasing to Davoust, who read in it something more than assurance.
Davoust was the last who had quitted the unfortunate marshal, and Mortier and the viceroy were inquiring of him what were his last words! At the first reports of the cannonade opened on the 15th on Napoleon, Ney was anxious immediately to evacuate Smolensk in the suite of the viceroy; Davoust refused, pleading the orders of the Emperor, and the obligation to destroy the ramparts of the town.
General Bertrand was directed to construct a bridge to form a communication between Hamburg and Haarburg by joining the islands of the Elbe to the Continent along a total distance of about two leagues. This bridge was to be built of wood, and Davoust seized upon all the timber-yards to supply materials for its construction. In the space of eighty-three days the bridge was finished.
If Davoust had restricted himself less closely to his duty as a soldier, if he had taken more on himself, with the 100,000 men he soon had under him, he might have saved France from much of her subsequent humiliation, or at least he might have preserved the lives of Ney and of the brave men whom the Bourbons afterwards butchered.
General Rapp, who was in command at Dantzic, had thought it his duty to inform Marshal Davoust of the alarming symptoms which he had discovered among the German populace: "If the French army suffers a single defeat, there will be one vast insurrection from the Rhine to the Niemen."
At these words Davoust, burning with a rage which he had great difficulty to repress, replied, that "he proposed a retreat through a fertile country, by an untouched, plentiful and well supplied route, villages still standing, and by the shortest road, that the enemy might not avail himself of it, to cut us off from the route from Mojaisk to Smolensk, recommended by Murat.
How many events had occurred since that time. The Emperor, seeing that nothing could longer delay the resumption of hostilities, had consequently divided the two hundred thousand men of his infantry into fourteen army corps, the command of which was given to Marshals Victor, Ney, Marmont, Augereau, Macdonald, Oudinot, Davoust, and Gouvion Saint-Cyr, Prince Poniatowski, and Generals Reynier, Rapp, Lauriston, Vandamme, and Bertrand.
The Russian General-in-Chief, Kutusoff, fell into the snare laid for him, and sent a large division of his army to turn the right of the French. The troops detached for this purpose met with unexpected resistance from Davoust, and were held in check at Raygern. Napoleon immediately seized the opportunity.
The First Consul, who was often extremely indiscreet, told Davoust my opinion of him, and his hostility against me ceased but with his life. The First Consul could not forget his cherished conquest in the East. It was constantly the object of his thoughts. He endeavoured to send reinforcements to his army from Brest and Toulon, but without success.
The Plenipotentiaries then signed the protocol of the conferences to which I have above alluded. As the reader will remember, it has already been alluded to earlier in the work: To MARSHAL DAVOUST. COMPIEGNE, 3d September 1811. I have received your letter concerning the cheating of Bourrienne at Hamburg. It will be important to throw light upon what he has done.
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