United States or Kosovo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The colonel left immediately at a gallop, though he had eaten nothing as yet that day. The next evening at eleven o'clock, Colonel Gourgaud returned to the Emperor, after performing all the requirements of his mission. Meanwhile the allied army had descended into the plain of Dresden, and had already made some attacks upon the advance posts.
Lord Bathurst told me that Gourgaud had negotiated with the French Government to the last moment of his leaving London, and that he had been told so by the French Ambassador. Lord B. refused to see him, because he understood he talked disrespectfully of Napoleon. October 14. I read prayers to the company of yesterday, and we took a drive round by Drygrange Bridge.
General Gourgaud was obliged to return to the 'Bellerophon', not having been suffered to go on shore to deliver the letter from Bonaparte to the Prince Regent with which he had been entrusted. The ship which bore the modern Alexander soon became a natural object of attraction to the whole neighbourhood, and was constantly surrounded by crowds of boats.
In the "Journal inedit" of Baron Gourgaud when speaking of an interview with the Queen of Prussia after the battle of Iena he expresses himself in the following terms: "She received me in tragic fashion like Chimene: Justice! Sire, Justice! Magdeburg! Thus she continued in a way most embarrassing to me. Finally, to make her change her style, I requested her to take a seat.
He is also said to have sent word to the Emperor that "he was occupying Quatre Bras by an advanced guard, and that his main body was close behind." If he deceived his chief by any such report, he deserves the severest censure; but the words quoted above were written later at St. Helena by General Gourgaud, when Ney had come to figure as the scapegoat of the campaign.
In spite of this, M. de Ségur enjoyed a great success, partly because of the purity and elegance of his style and partly because of the welcome the book was given by the court and the ultra-royalist party. The former officers of the imperial army, finding themselves under attack, appointed General Gourgaud to reply.
Louis Philippe grasped the situation, and formed an expedition with his son Prince Joinville as chief, who was accompanied by Baron Las Cases, member of the Chamber of Deputies; General Count Bertrand; M. l'Abbé Conquereau, almoner to the expedition; four former servants of Napoleon viz., Saint Denis and Noverraz, valets-de-chambre; Pierron, officer of the kitchen; and Archambaud, butler Marchand, one of the executors, and the quarrelsome and disloyal General Gourgaud, of whom we may have something more to say further on.
The impressionable young Gourgaud, the thought-wrinkled Las Cases, the bright pleasure-loving Montholons, the gloomy Grand Marshal, Bertrand, and his mercurial consort, over whose face there often passed "a gleam of distraction" these were not fashioned for a life of adversity. Thence came the long spells of ennui, broken by flashes of temper, that marked the voyage and the sojourn at St. Helena.
To the Grand-Marshal was confided the general superintendence; to M. de Montholon the domestic details; Las Cases was to take care of the furniture and property, and General Gourgaud to have the management of the stables. These arrangements, however, produced discontent among Napoleon's attendants.
He at once had an interview with the Emperor, who, according to General Gourgaud, gave the Marshal verbal orders to take command of the corps of Reille and D'Erlon, to push on northwards, take up a position at Quatre Bras, and throw out advanced posts beyond on the Brussels and Namur roads; but it seems unlikely that the Emperor would have given one of the most venturesome of his Marshals an absolute order to push on so far in advance, unless the French right wing had driven the Prussians back beyond the Sombref position.
Word Of The Day