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Updated: May 7, 2025
The corpses of French soldiers, wherever found throughout the country, were mutilated by the furious Spaniards, and the wounded received no quarter. At the end of May, Murat was in Madrid as commander-in-chief, with Moncey as his lieutenant; he had thirty thousand troops. Junot was in Portugal with twenty-five thousand.
The shouts here were not what they ought to have been. Comparatively few cried "God bless him!" and I much fear the number who thought it was still less. The Duc de Berri, on horseback with Marshal Moncey on one side and Du Pont on the other, reviewed the troops, who passed in companies and troops before them.
The Prussians, who were posted over against the heights of Montmartre, did not come into action so early in the day. The French troops of the line were stationed everywhere in the front, and commanded by Marmont and Mortier. Those battalions of the National Guard, whose spirit could be trusted, and who were adequately armed, took their orders from Moncey, and formed a second line of defence.
General Savary, who that very evening had added to the fright of Marshal Moncey, by being astonished that any one could have the audacity to brave the Emperor, extended his arm over the shoulders of those who pressed around the colonel, and shaking his hand in the most cordial manner possible, "Delelee," cried he, "do not forget that I expect you to-morrow to breakfast."
A servant passes, pushing through the crowd a shabby wheel-chair. It has just brought old Moncey the Governor of the Invalids, the honest old man who defended Paris so stoutly in 1814. He has been very ill, and is worn down almost by infirmities: but in his illness he was perpetually asking, "Doctor, shall I live till the 15th? Give me till then, and I die contented."
The corps for watching the sea coasts, commanded by Marshal Moncey, followed in the same direction. Other detachments seized upon the fortresses of the frontiers. The orders were not long in arriving; 100,000 men of the grand army were effecting a backward movement, approaching France, and consequently Spain.
Be that as it may, the bureau of the National Guard was soon formed, and established in the residence which Marshal Moncey inhabited on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, near the square Beauveau; and one master of requests and two auditors of the council of state were attached to it.
Colonel Delelee was unanimously elected member of the deputation of Doubs, of which the mayor and prefect of Besancon were also members, and of which the respectable Marshal Moncey was president, and an opportunity was thus at last offered Colonel Delelee of procuring the removal of the long sentence which had weighed him down and kept his sword idle.
He was no hero to breathe defiance into a bewildered crowd, nor was he well seconded. Clarke, and Moncey, the commander of the 12,000 National Guards, had not armed one-half of that doubtful militia. Marmont and Mortier were at hand, and, with the garrison and National Guards, mustered some 42,000 men.
General Savary, who that very evening had added to the fright of Marshal Moncey, by being astonished that any one could have the audacity to brave the Emperor, extended his arm over the shoulders of those who pressed around the colonel, and shaking his hand in the most cordial manner possible, "Delelee," cried he, "do not forget that I expect you to-morrow to breakfast."
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