THE MARSHALS.

Northland Age, Volume IV, Issue 42, 22 June 1908, Page 8

THE MARSHALS.

HOW THEY FOUGHT FOR !| HAFOLEGN. ,i Probably no men who over bore arms faced greater or more frequently recurring, personal perils than the cfiildren of the French Republic, who, by the will of their old comrade Napoleon Bonaparte, were transformed into bulwark? of his Empire as Marshals of France. Whatever was the variety of their merit as scientific soldiers, whatever may have been their individual failings, unscrupulousness, jealousies, or rapacity, there has never been any question that they were fighting men to the backbone. If their master loaded them with wealth and honours, it was because he knew that they were above and beyond all other men in at least one priceless characteristic, which, in its most consummate form, is certainly a gift bestowed upon few. A story is told of Marshal Lefebvre, Duke of Dantzic, which illustrates his own consciousness of the qualities that had made him what he was. He was vexbd at the tone of envy and unkindness with which a companion of his childhood, who met him in his prosperity, spoke of his riches, titles and luxury, and said in reply, “Well, now you shall have it all, but at the price which I have paid for it. We will go into the garden, and I will fire a musket at you sixty times, and then, if. you are not killed, everything shall be yours." Indeed the trial which Lefebvre proposed to his friend was not in the least exaggeration of the circumstances which every Marshal had passed through in his early days when he was a subaltern and was bringing himself to notice ; circumstances, too, which might well again present themselves to him in any campaign, even after he had attained the highest rank.

At Eylau, Augereau escaped death by a marvellous turn of fortune, for his corps, though it held its ground, was' reduced from 15,000 to 3/000, all his staff were either killed or wounded, and he himself, wounded more than once, had his uniform rent with bullets. At Zurich Massen a was in the hottest part of the fight, keeping his hand upon the pulse, of the battle where it throbbed with greatest emphasis. Everyone knows of Marshal Ney's heroic conduct during the retreat from Moscow, how he took a musket in his hand and fought as the last man in the rearguard, saving, as was acknowledged, 40,000 lives.

At Ratisbon, after the first and second attacks on the fortifications had failed with scathing loss, and to attempt the task again seemed to involve such certain destruction to the stormors that the men would not undertake it, Marshal Lannes cried,

“Come, I am going to show you that I was a grenadier before I became a Marshal, and that I am one still," seized a scaling ladder and began to carry it to the breach, thereby stirring up a wave of enthusiasm which at once carried the French columns forward tq a great success.

Murat was ever the first, even after he became King of Naples, in th't brilliant charges that he conducted, and it is told how he had tfie superlative audacity to ride along far in front of his squadron and to wave back the threatening clouds of Russian cavalry, awing them into retirement by the astounding influence of his magnificent personality and dauntless mien. At Lutzen, Bautzen, Dresden, on the terrible field of Leipzig, in the marvellous campaign of 1814, it might almost be said that it was the Marshals who fought, and that the rank' and file seconded their efforts, rather than that the men fought under the direction of these chiefs. If the Marshals had been absent, nqt all Napoleon’s genius, not all the valour of soldiers fighting desperately againslt armed Europe, could have so long maintained the mighty efforts. And so to the bitter end—the abdication at Fontainebleau—where was •finally dissolved “the goodlieslt fellowship of famous knights whereof the world holds record." Their monarch, indeed, returned, but only a few of the Paladins could be again gathered together to his standard, and on the fatal field of Waterloo how were the services of the absent ones missed ! As Napoleon said, "Si mon pauvre Berthier avalt ete ici ;" if Murat had led the gallant squadrons which were expended in ill-conceived charges ; if Oudinot had commanded the stately grenadiers; if Macdonald's tactical ability and stern determination had been available ;if .—“Cornhill Magazinp."