Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 - Patrick Fraser Tytler (good books to read in english txt) 📗

may, in fact, be said to have little of the feelings which are truly military. The officers have not the strong feeling of humanity, and the high and just sense of honour, not merely as members of the army, but as individuals; the soldiers have not the habit of implicit obedience and attachment to their peculiar duties; and the whole have not the lively sense of responsibility to their country, and dependence on their sovereign, which are probably essential to the existence of an army which shall not be dangerous, even to the state that maintains it. The French army submitted implicitly to Napoleon, because he was their general; but we should doubt if they ever considered themselves, even under his dominion, as the servants of France. They appear, at present, at least, to think themselves an independent body, who have a right to act according to their own judgment, and are accountable to nobody for their actions. In this idea of their own importance they were, of course, encouraged by Napoleon, who, on his return from Elba, spoke of the injuries done by the Bourbons to the army and people, and assigned the former the most honourable place in his Champ de Mai. And it will appear by no means surprising, that they should have acquired these sentiments, when we consider the importance which has been attached to their exploits by their countrymen, the encouragement to which they have been accustomed, the preference to all other classes of men which was shewn them by the late government, and the nature of the services in which they have been engaged, and for which they have been rewarded; circumstances fitted to assimilate them, in reality as well as appearance, rather to an immense band of freebooters, having no principle but union among themselves, and submission to their chiefs, than to an established and responsible standing army.

This observation applies to the feelings and principles of the soldiers taken as a body, not to their individual habits; for, excepting in the case of the detachment of the imperial guard, quartered at Fontainbleau, we never understood that the French soldiers in time of peace, at least among their own countrymen, were accused of outrage or rapine.

There is considerable variety in the personal appearance of the French soldiers. The infantry are generally little men, much inferior to the Russians and Prussians in size and weight; but as they are almost all young, they appear equally well fitted for bearing fatigues, and they have an activity in their gait and demeanour, which accords well with their general character. In travelling through the country, we could almost always tell a French soldier from one of the allies at a distance, by the spring of his step. They have another excellent quality, that of being easily fed. Nothing appeared to excite more astonishment or indignation in France, than the quantity of food consumed by the allied troops. We found at Paris, that the Russian convalescents, occupying the hospitals which had formerly been appropriated to French troops, actually eat three times the rations which the French had been allowed. Frenchmen of the middling and higher ranks appear to have generally very keen appetites, and often surprise Englishmen by the magnitude and variety of their meals; but the peasantry and lower orders are accustomed to much poorer fare than the corresponding classes, at least in the southern part of our island, and the ordinary diet of the French soldiers is inferior to that of the English. In garrison, they are never allowed animal food, at least when in their own country; and the better living to which they are accustomed in foreign countries, and on active service, is a stronger recommendation of war to these volatile and unreflecting spirits, than it might at first be thought.

The French cavalry are almost universally fine men, much superior to the infantry in appearance. The horses of the chasseurs à cheval, and hussars, are small, but active and hardy; and even those of the cuirassiers have not the weight or beauty of the English heavy dragoons, though we have understood that they bear the fatigues and privations, incident to long campaigns, much better.

The imperial guard was composed, like the Russian guard, of picked men, who had already served a certain length of time, and the pay being higher than of the regiments of the line, and great pains being uniformly taken to preserve them as much as possible, from the hardships and dangers to which the other troops were exposed, and to reserve them for great emergencies, it was at once an honour and a reward to belong to them. We saw a review of the elite of the imperial guard on the 8th of May 1814, in presence of the King of France; the regiments of cavalry, of which a great number passed, were very weak in numbers, but the men were uncommonly fine, and the horses strong and active. The finest regiment of infantry of the old guard, with some pieces of cannon, did not defile before the King, but passed out of the Cour de Carousel by a back way, on account, as we understood, of its having shewn strong symptoms of disgust on the entrance of the King into Paris. That regiment, as well as all the rest of the infantry of the old guard, then called the Grenadiers Français, whom we had ever occasion to see, was composed of the finest men, not merely in point of strength, but of activity and apparent intelligence. The few pieces of artillery of the guard that we saw were in very bad condition, and their equipment particularly mean; but this branch of the service had not then had time to repair the losses it had sustained in the campaign.

The cavalry of the guard appeared to have been the most fashionable service under Napoleon. There were cuirassiers, heavy and light dragoons, chasseurs, hussars, grenadiers à cheval, and lancers of the guard, all of whom had different and splendid uniforms, and presented an uncommonly varied and magnificent appearance when reviewed together. Their magnificence and variety was evidently intended to gratify the taste of the French people for splendid shows, and to attract young men of fortune and expensive habits.

The imperial guard had much more of the air and manner, as well as dress, of regular soldiers, than any other part of the French army; indeed it is impossible to conceive a more martial or imposing figure than that of one of the old grenadiers, (commonly called the vieux moustaches,) in his striking and appropriate costume, armed with his musket and sword, the cross of the legion of honour on his breast, his rough and weather-beaten countenance bearing the impression of the sun of Italy and the snows of Russia, while his keen and restless eye shows, more expressively than words, that he is still "ready, aye ready, for the field."

We thought we could discern in the countenances of the troops of different nations, whom we saw reviewed about this time, the traces of the difference of national character. The general expression of the Russians, we thought, was that of stern obstinate determination; of the Prussians, warm enthusiastic gallantry; of the French, fierce and indignant impetuosity. This may have been fancy, but all who have seen the troops of these different nations, will allow a very striking difference of expression of countenance, as well as of features.

No measure was omitted by Napoleon to secure, the services, in the army, of all who could be of any use in it. The organization of the garde d'honneur was intended to include as large a number as possible of the young men, whose circumstances had enabled them to avoid the conscription. No act of the Imperial Government seemed to have given more general offence in France than the formation of this corps, the number of which was stated to have amounted at one time to 10,000. They were, in the first instance, invited to volunteer, under the assurance that they were to be employed as a guard for Maria Louisa, and under no circumstances to be sent across the Rhine. A maximum and minimum number were fixed for each arrondissement, some number between which was to be made up by voluntary enrolments; but when any deficiency was discovered, as for example in Holland, where the young men were very little disposed to voluntary service in the French army, a balloting immediately took place, and a number greater than the maximum was compelled to come forward. Exemption from this service was impossible; immense sums were offered and refused. They were all mounted, armed, and clothed at their own expense; those who did not chuse to march, were sent off under an escort of gens-d'armes; and all were conducted to the fortresses on the Rhine, were they were regularly drilled. Some of them were induced to volunteer for extended service, by a promise, that after serving one campaign, they should be made officers; and in the course of the campaign of 1813, all of them were brought up to join the army; and these young men, taken only a few weeks before from their families, where many of them had been accustomed to every luxury and indulgence, were compelled to go through all the duties and fatigues of common hussars. Some regiments of them, which were very early brought into action, having misconducted themselves, were immediately disbanded; their horses, arms, and uniforms, were taken from them for the use of the other troops, and they were dismissed, to find the best of their way to their homes. Those who remained were distributed among the different corps of cavalry, and suffered very severely in the campaign in France. We spoke to some of them at Paris, who said they had bivouacked, at one period of the campaign, on snow, fourteen nights successively, and described to us the action at Rheims, one of the last that was fought, where half of their regiment were left on the field. These men complained loudly of the treacherous conduct of Napoleon to them and their brethren of the same corps; yet they expressed their willingness to undergo all their sufferings again, if they could thereby transfer the date of the peace to the other side of the Rhine.

The effect of this measure on the middling and higher ranks was not more oppressive than that of the conscription on the lower ranks, and even on persons in tolerably good circumstances; for we have heard of £.400 Sterling, being twice paid to rescue an individual, whom a third conscription had at length torn from his family. The impression produced in France, however, by either of these measures, cannot be judged of from a comparison with the feelings so often manifested in this country, under circumstances of less aggravated affliction. The same careless, unthinking, constitutional cheerfulness, which is so commendable in those Frenchmen whose sufferings are all personal, displays itself in a darker point of view, when they are called on to sympathise with the sufferings of their friends. It is a disposition, allied indeed to magnanimity on the one hand, but to selfishness on the other. The sufferings of the French on such an occasion as the loss of a near relation, may be acute; but they are of very short duration. In Paris, mourning is at present hardly ever worn. At the time when we were there, although a bloody campaign had only recently been concluded, we did not see above five or six persons in mourning, and even these were not certainly French. We understood it to be a principle all over France, never to wear mourning for a son; but whether this was adopted in compliance with the wishes of Napoleon, as was stated by some, or was general before his time, as others maintained, we were not sufficiently informed.

It may be a question, whether the real, as well as professed motive