Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 7, 2025
This brave officer, who was only twenty-eight years of age, had been eight years in the service; he had received the cross of the Legion of Honor at the Champ de Mai, as a reward for the services which be had performed at Talavera de la Reina, Sierra Morena, Saragossa, Montmiraill, Champaubert, and Montéreau; he was present, also, at the too deplorable day of Waterloo; he was then ensign-bearer of his regiment.
When the Emperor arrived at Chalons-sur-Marne the Prussian army was advancing by the road of Lorraine. He drove it back beyond St. Dizier. Meanwhile the Grand Austro-Russian army passed the Seine and the Yonne at Montereau, and even sent forward a corps which advanced as far as Fontainebleau.
Six hours after the receipt of the order here referred to Macdonald received a second order directing him to put his troops in motion, and he learned the Emperor's intention of marching on Paris with all his remaining force. On receiving the Emperor's second order Macdonald left his corps at Montereau and repaired in haste to Fontainebleau.
The French Dauphin assassinates the Duke of Burgundy, the most powerful of the French nobles, at Montereau. The successor of the murdered duke becomes the active ally of the English. The Treaty of Troyes is concluded between Henry V. of England and Charles VI. of France, and Philip, duke of Burgundy.
But these assertions found little credence, and one of the two knights who were singled out by the dauphin to accompany him on to the bridge of Montereau, Sire de Barbazan, who had been a friend of the Duke of Orleans and of the Count of Armagnac, said vehemently to the authors of the plot, "You have destroyed our master's honor and heritage, and I would rather have died than be present at this day's work, even though I had not been there to no purpose."
The events of the 18th strengthened his resolve. He then attacked the Crown Prince of Würtemberg on the north side of the Seine, opposite Montereau, overthrew him by the weight of the artillery of the Guard, whereupon a brilliant charge of Pajol's horsemen wrested the bridge from the South Germans and restored to the Emperor the much-needed crossing over the river.
Your sister, my dear Jean-Jacques, would have borne in silence the penalties of paternal injustice, but you will pardon a mother for reminding you that you have two nephews; one of whom carried the Emperor's orders at the battle of Montereau and served in the Guard at Waterloo, and is now in prison for his devotion to Napoleon; the other, from his thirteenth year, has been impelled by natural gifts to enter a difficult though glorious career.
On September 15, we heard of some petty skirmishes between Uhlans and Francs-tireurs in the vicinity of Montereau and Melun; on the morrow the enemy captured a train at Senlis, and fired on another near Chantilly, fortunately without wounding any of the passengers; whilst on the same day his presence was signalled at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, only ten miles south of Paris.
"Burgundy slew Orleans, indeed; but he came in his turn to the Bridge of Montereau." "You take me for Monsieur?" the unknown asked. And it was plain that he smiled under his mask. Biron's face altered. "I take you," he answered sharply, "for him whose sign you sent me." "The wisest are sometimes astray," the other answered with a low laugh. And he took off his mask.
The enemy, however, soon discovered that the Emperor and his chief force were no longer in that quarter, and while he was beating Alsusieff, Sacken, and Blucher had made good the passage of the Seine, at three different points, at Nogent, at Bray, and still further down, at Montereau, driving the discomfited guardians of these important places before them.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking