#Marcellin Marbot

[josefavomjaaga]

Marbot and his memoirs

It’s occurred to me that I have been rather harsh in my judgement of Marbot’s memoirs, so I thought I should give an explanation. For those who read French this article may be of interest: Ètudes critiques sur les sources narratives […] - Les mèmoires de Marbot. This attempt to figure out how much of Marbot’s memoirs is actually true (or rather, how little) dates back to 1902 already, i.e., mere ten years after the memoirs were published.

For those who don’t read French, some major lies in Marbot’s story:

He was not the one who brought the message that Masséna had given up Genoa to Napoleon, meaning that all the compliments Napoleon flatters Marbot with at this occasion are also an invention

As he was still in Genoa at the time, he also did not take part in the battle of Marengo.

He most likely was a total nobody at the time and not in contact with anybody higher up the ladder, as he had problems to see his provisional rank of sous-lieutenant confirmed after the campaign.

He was not at the battle of Austerlitz as he claims, he probably was not around the imperial headquarters at all during the important combats.

He was not present during a meeting of Prussian ambassador Haugwitz with Napoleon at Brünn, because such a meeting never happened.

He did not save any Russian officer from drowning in the lakes of Satschan because… well. This has been discussed to death over Ridley Scott’s movie. Thanks for providing that Brit with ammunition, Marcellin!

He was not sent to Berlin in August 1806 in order to bring to the Prussian king an ultimatum from Napoleon, such a letter does not even exist.

After he had been wounded at Eylau, he did not miss out on the decoration of the Légion d’Honneur due to a confusion with his brother Adolphe; Adolphe had been decorated before that battle.

After Eylau, he was sent back to Paris to take care of his wounds, and he stayed there for the rest of the campaign. So he was not transferred to the staff of Marshal Lannes, he did not take part in the battles of Heilsberg and Friedland and he was not present at the meeting between Napoleon and Alexander at Tilsit.

He did not bring the news of the Dos de Mayo uprising to Napoleon, as a matter of fact, he was not even in Spain before mid-June.

He also was not charged with taking the news of the victory at Tudela to Napoleon by Lannes, who at this occasion, according to Marbot, refused to give him an escort, he was not wounded in an ambush on the road during that trip and was not replaced by Lannes’ brother-in-law, who then received a promotion for having delived a dispatch "bathed in Marbot’s blood". It was even a different aide who took that dispatch to Napoleon.

Marbot in fact is the only of his aides whom Lannes does not mention by name in his reports to Napoleon, which makes you wonder if he was even there

And so on, and so on. Marbot is a brilliant writer, but he seems to have been one of the young, still rather insignificant officers in the shadow of the giants from the Revolutionary Wars, who had to wait their turn and who never got the chance to truly rise because the empire fell too soon. So, if we call Ida’s memoirs (in part) a self-insert fanfiction, the same is true for Marbot’s. And in his case, the lies even can be proven.

[apurpledust]

marbot cat for an art exchange w/ @hellowo66 *v* and of course a cameo from lannes 😏

[messenger-of-the-battlefield]

Bonjour, tout le monde!

I am Marcellin Marbot, captain in the Grande Armée and aide-de-camp to the magnificent Maréchal Lannes!

I am new to this internet, but I am sure I shall become proficient in it soon enough, even if it takes a while - that said, I welcome any correspondence, however, you must be aware that replies may take time, but they will always come!

{OOC: Hi! I'd wanted to dabble in the Napoleonic RP fun for a while but I finally saw a good opening and person to RP as, and impulsively made this! I'll typically keep OOC stuff to the tags in the future, and I'll try to word things in a less anachronistic manner, but they may still end up more modern. My main blog is @a-system-of-nerds - thanks for stopping by! - Austen}

[hoppityhopster23]

Marbot the Cat (and His Near Death Experience)

"I was a strong constitution, and never had an illness save the smallpox; but my life was nearly cut short by an accident which happened when I was three years old. By reason of my snub nose and round face my father called me ‘the kitten.’ That was quite inducement enough to set me imitating a kitten, and I used to delight in going about on all-fours mewing. Every day I used to go upstairs in this way to the second floor, to be with my father in his library, where he used to pass the hottest part of the day. When he heard his ‘kitten’ mew  he would open the door and give me a volume of Buffon, that I might look at the pictures while he was reading.  This I thought excellent fun;  but one day I was not received with the usual welcome.  My father, probably intent on more serious matters,  did not open to his ‘kitten.’  vainly I mewed more and more, in my most insinuating tones; the door remained closed.  Then I noticed, on a level with the floor, a hole, which in all the country-houses in the South of France is made at the bottom of the door to allow the cat to get into the rooms,  known as the ‘cat-hole.’ This was obviously my way,  and I gently slipped my head through. but my body would not follow, nor could I draw my head back: it was caught. Though I was beginning to be strangled, I had so completely identified myself with my part of kitten, that, instead of speaking to let my father know of my unpleasant situation, I mewed with all my might, Like a cat undergoing strangulation. It seems I did it so well that my father, thinking it  part of the joke, was seized with a fit of helpless laughter. Suddenly, however, the mewing grew faint; my face turned blue; I swooned away. I imagine my father's alarm when he perceived the truth. with some difficulty he lifted the door from its hinges, released me, and carried me, still unconscious, to my mother. She, thinking me dead, was seized with violent hysterics. When I came to, a doctor was in the act of bleeding me. The sight of my own blood, and the anxiety of the whole household crowding round my mother and myself, made so vivid an impression on my childish imagination that the whole affair has remained deeply graven on my  memory." - The memoirs of Baron de Marbot, Translated by Arthur John Butler, pages 3-4

[kaxenart]

@josefavomjaaga replied to your post “Granted, Lejeune is not nearly the worst offender...”:

If he has to go to prison, perhaps Marbot could be his cellmate...

​Somewhere in Memoir Crimes Prison

...the fact Marbot's paintings have like almost zero consistency between each other makes drawing him really difficult.

[au-pas-camarades]

small WIP of animatic/animation meme about warrior!Lannes and warrior!Marbot; not that hard so should be finished

[armagnac-army]

OOC: The Napoleonic Askblog/Roleplay Scene Directory

Here's an Out Of Character post listing the blogs I'm aware of in the Napoleonic RPF Roleplay Scene! It's OOC because Lannes would want to make sarcastic remarks with typos.

If you want (or don't want) your blog on this list, message me and whether you want a main/other blog associated with your name or whether you want to be anonymised! Also happy to include non-Frenchmen and Frev folks.

Doubles or multiple versions of people are welcome, this is a varied afterlife. We all have our different ideas for what this afterlife is like as well.

Feel free to reblog or link to this!

And now we have a OOC discord server to chat about all of this! Feel free to join if you'd like!

The Marshalate

@armagnac-army - Jean Lannes, Duke of Montebello - played by @cadmusfly

@murillo-enthusiast - Jean-de-Dieu Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, and ADCs - played by @cadmusfly

@le-brave-des-braves - Michel Ney, Prince of the Moskva, Duke of Elchingen, and ADCs - played by @neylo

@your-dandy-king - Joachim Murat, King of Naples - played by @phatburd

@chicksncash - André Masséna, Prince of Essling, Duke of Rivoli, and others - played by @chickenmadam also playing as his ADC, with appearances from Marshal Augereau, the Cuirassier Generals d'Hautpoul and Nansouty, and the Horse Grenadier General Lepic

@your-staff-wizard - Louis-Alexandre Berthier, Prince of Neuchâtel and Valangin, Prince of Wagram - played by @chickenmadam, as above

@perdicinae-observer - Louis-Nicolas Davout, Prince of Eckmühl, Duke of Auerstaedt - played by @mbenguin

@bow-and-talon - Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, Marquis of Gouvion-Saint-Cyr

@france-hater - Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, or Charles XIV John of Sweden, played by @deathzgf

@simple-giant-ed - Édouard Mortier, Duke of Treviso, played by @isa-ko

The Grande Armée

@general-junot - Jean-Andoche Junot, Duke of Abrantes - played by @promises-of-paradise

@askgeraudduroc - Géraud Duroc, Duke of Frioul, Grand-Marshal of the Palace - played by @sillybumblebeegirl, also with cameos from Marshal Bessières shared with your-dandy-king

@trauma-and-truffles - Baron Dominique-Jean Larrey, Surgeon to Napoleon and the Imperial Guard - played by @hoppityhopster23 who also plays his modern assistant

@generaldesaix - Louis Charles Antoine Desaix de Veygoux, most likely would have been a marshal if he lived - played by @usergreenpixel

@messenger-of-the-battlefield - Marcellin Marbot, aide-de-camp of maréchal Lannes - played by @a-system-of-nerds

@le-dieu-mars - Jean-Baptiste Kleber, General - played by @chickenmadam

@puddinglesablonniere, Charles-Étienne César Gudin de La Sablonnière, Gemeral of Davout's Corps

@francoislejeunes, Baron Louis-François Lejeune, ADC to Berthier, Artist and Engineer

The Bonaparte Family

@carolinemurat - Caroline Murat née Buonaparte, Queen of Naples - played by @usergreenpixel

@alexanderfanboy - Napoleon Bonaparte, The Big Cheese

@frencheaglet - Napoleon II, also known as Franz, Duke of Reichstadt, played by @usergreenpixel

@rosie-of-beauharnais - Rose Beauharnais, also known as Josephine Bonaparte, once Empress of the French

@le-fils - Eugène Beauharnais, Prince of the Empire, Bonaparte's stepson, played by @josefavomjaaga

@jbonapartes - Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, Prince of Montfort

Other Notable Personages

@askjackiedavid - Jacques Louis David, neoclassical painter - played by @sillybumblebeegirl

Not French

Russians

@the-blessed-emperor - Tsar Alexander I, the Blessed

@loyal-without-flattery - General Aleksey Andreevich Arakcheev, who runs His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery

@god-of-the-army - Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration, played by @deathzgf

British

@wellingthighs - Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, played by @deathzgf

@the1ronduke - Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

Original Characters and Friends

@the-adventures-of-lydia-brown - Lydia Brown, a jack of all trades and problem solver finding herself in this strange realm with all these dead Frenchmen

Hopster, @trauma-and-truffles's modern time travelling assistant

Madam DuQuay, ADC who takes no nonsense, helping out @chicksncash, @your-staff-wizard and @le-dieu-mars

[cadmusfly]

twice, a fallen blade

Summary: Twice did Marshal Lannes challenge another of his fellow marshals to a duel. The first was in the prelude to Austerlitz, when Marshal Soult had blundered in advising retreat to the Emperor. The second was in the early days of Aspern-Essling, as a recalcitrant Marshal Bessières took umbrage to Lannes’ orders.

Neither duel was consummated. But let us suppose, in two different imaginings, that they had been.

Let’s play a game of pretend.

Relationships: Jean Lannes/Jean-de-Dieu Soult, Jean Lannes/Jean-Baptiste Bessières

Minor Characters: Napoleon Bonaparte, Joachim Murat, André Masséna, Marcellin Marbot

Additional Tags: Hateshipping, Homoerotic Duelling, Metafictional Elements, Non-Chronological

Words: 5,170

Chapters: 1/1

Author's Notes: "Show Creator Style" is recommended but optional. I hope this is readable.

Thanks to @impetuous-impulse for very quick French sanity checking and telling me about a source for some stuff!

dance fucker dance man he never had a chance~

[trauma-and-truffles]

After the Cake Incident with Marshal Lannes, My assistant, Mlle. Hopster has been telling me to make a blog myself. I finally gave into her pestering.

I'll probably make a better introduction at a later date, as by then I'll have a better gist of Tumblr.

I am Baron Dominique-Jean Larrey, Surgeon to Emperor Napoleons Imperial Guard. Feel free to ask whatever you like.

-Larrey

( This blog is run by @hoppityhopster23) (Disclaimers: This blog does not provide professional medical Advice, nor am i a professional historian. I'm just well read about the history of medicine and enjoy reading about Larrey) ------------------

Tags: Responses from the the Baron - answers to any asks.

Conversations with the assistant - Conversations with my time traveler assistant. shes the one who convinced me to create this. shes also young, sometimes foolish, and likes to give people bad ideas.

Portraits of the Doctor - Images of me.

Comments from the Assistant - self explanatory

-------------------

Fellow Soldiers and marshals, etc (personal notes below):

Marshals Other Military Staff Royals Other

@armagnac-army - My Dear Friend Lannes, Marshal of France, Prince of Siewierz, and Duke of Montebello.

@murillo-enthusiast - Jean-de-Dieu Soult, Marshal of France and Duke of Dalmatia. (I'm pretty sure he just tolerates me.)

@le-brave-des-braves - Michel Ney, Marshal of France, Prince de la Moskowa, and Duke of Elchingen. (He's very helpful, And I am grateful.)

@your-dandy-king - Joachim Murat, Marshal of France and King of Naples.

@chicksncash - Andre Massena; Marshal of France,  Duke of Rivoli, and Prince of Essling.

@your-staff-wizard - Louis-Alexandre Berthier, Marshal of France, Prince of Neuchatel, Valangin and Wagram, and technically my boss.

@perdicinae-observer - Louis Nicolas Davout, Prince of Eckmühl, Duke of Auerstadt.

@bow-and-talon - Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, Marquis of Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, and a man I respect for giving the us Medical staff needed in life.

@general-junot -  Duke of Abrantes, and General of the French army.

@askgeraudduroc - Also My good friend, Grand Marshal of the palace, Duke of Frioul, and head of the Emperors household.

@generaldesaix - One of my closest Friends. Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time together in life. nut now we do.

@messenger-of-the-battlefield - Marcellin Marbot, an aide to an assortment of Marshals, and a man I met a few times in life.

@askjackiedavid - Jacques Louis David, neoclassical painter.

@carolinemurat - Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, and sister of the Emperor.

@alexanderfanboy - Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France.

@rosie-of-beauharnais - Josephine, the Empress of France.

@the-blessed-emperor - Alexander I, Tsar of Russia.

[murillo-enthusiast]

Lannes: HEY HAVE YOU SEEN MARBOT ANYWHERE <Really concerned! subervie made it back unscathed but missing marcellin>

Soult: No, I have not.

Lannes: KEEP ME UPDATED IF YOU DO OR IF YOU HEAR ANYTHGIN <Why is soult looking at me in that funny way??? do i have somethign on my face?>

Soult: There is nothing on your face.

Lannes: ...

Soult: ...

Lannes: What the fuck <WHAT THE FUCK>

[first-empire-fancy-boys]

....was Marcellin Marbot the babiest baby alive age 17-18 or was everyone around him just bullying him?

His youngest picture on wikipedia is from 1812 which does not help. I need 1799 Marbot.

That seems like some toxic masculinity.

Kind as my father was to me, I held him in such awe that that in his presence I was extremely shy. He fancied me even more so than I really was, and used to say that I ought to have been a girl, often calling me 'Miss Marcellin.'

I don't know enough about old-timey wine to guess how bad it could be.

We clinked our glasses, my friend emptied his. I set mine down without putting it to my lips, for I had never drunk unmixed wine, and I did not like the smell of this. I confessed as much to my mentor, who straightaway shouted in a stentorian voice, 'Waiter, lemonade for this lad– he never drinks wine.' Shouts of laughter rang through the whole room. I was much abashed, but I could not make up my mind to taste the wine, nor did I dare to ask for water, so I dined without drinking.

I am most likely going to draw the incident of the false moustache.

Although with the Revolution military costume had become slovenly, the 1st Hussars had always preserved theirs as correct as in the days when they were Bercheny. Save, therefore, for the physical dissimilarities imposed by nature, all the troopers were bound to get themselves up alike, and as the hussar regiments at that time wore not only a pig tail but also long 'love locks,' locks on the temples, and had their moustaches turned up, everyone belonging to the corps was expected to have moustaches, pigtails, and locks. As I had none of them, my mentor took me to the regimental barber, where I purchased a sham pigtail and locks. These were attached to my hair, which was already fairly long, for since my enlistment I had let it grow. I was embarrassed at first by this make-up, but in a few days I got used to it, and enjoyed it because I thought it gave me the air of an old hussar. With regard to moustaches the case was different. Of them I had no more than a girl, and as a beardless face would have spoilt the uniformity of the squadron, Pertelay, in conformity with the practice of the regiment, took a pot of blacking and with his thumb made two enormous hooks covering my upper lip and reaching almost to my eyes. At that time the shakoes had no peak, so it happened that during reviews or when I was doing vedette duty and was bound to remain perfectly motionless, the scorching rays of the Italian sun pouring down on to my face used to suck up the liquid part of the blacking with which my moustaches had been made, and the blacking as it dried drew my skin in a very unpleasant way. Still I did not so much as wink: I was a hussar; the word had a magical effect on me, and, besides, when I entered on a military career I thoroughly understood that my first duty was to conform to the regulations.

[histoireettralala]

"The Good Marshal"

Augereau's lines had fallen into pleasant places. He was wealthy, comfortably established, happily married, honored among men. Napoleon had made him a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, and would ennoble him in 1808 as Duke of Castiglione. The only shadow was Gabrielle's worsening health.

Good fortune noticeably mellowed Augereau. He loaned Marshal Bernadotte 200000 francs without interest as casually as Sergeant Augereau might have stood Sergeant "Pretty-Legs" Bernadotte a drink before the Revolution - "When a Marshal is fortunate enough to oblige a comrade, the pleasure of doing him a service is enough." There was no more looting. Marbot, Augereau's aide-de-camp during 1803-1807, wrote with obvious sincerity: "Of the five marshals under whom I served, [Augereau] was without a doubt the one who most alleviated the evils of war, who was the most considerate of civilians and treated his officers the best, living among them like a father in the midst of his children." To him, Augereau was the "good marshal".

John R. Elting, in David Chandler's Napoleon's Marshals

[messenger-of-the-battlefield]

FUCK MARRY GUILLOTINE

AUGEREAU MASSENA LANNES

Bonjour, Anonyme!

This question is very awkward, because I view Maréchal Augereau and, more especially, Maréchal Lannes as paternal figures in my life.

And, while I do not hold a particularly favourable view of Maréchal Masséna, I would not wish him to the guillotine.

However, that is the only answer I can give, so I would put Maréchal Masséna in that slot.

[hoppityhopster23]

Marbot Being Mr. Spoiled at a Ladies School

“Before long, however, my mother, not feeling sure that her position as sister to three émigrés was sufficiently balanced by that of wife to one of the country's defenders to ensure her against inconvenience, decided to leave home for a time. Like many others, as she has since told me, she was convinced that a few months would see the end of the disturbances. She determined to go to Rennes. One of her uncles, who had formerly served in the Penthièvre regiment of foot, had on leaving the service married the widow of a member of the parliament of that city.  With her my mother proposed to stay, taking me with her; but at the moment of starting I was attacked with painful boils, which made me too ill to travel so far. I was therefore left in charge of friend- mlle. Mongalvi,  the mistress of a small girls’ school at Turenne, where my mother had been one of the first pupils. ‘ a boy in a girls’ school?’ you say. Well, yes; but you must observe that I was a very quiet and obedient child, and only eight years old. The young ladies, who were mostly between sixteen and twenty, petted me to their hearts’ content; and my only regret was that my stay among them would, as I imagined, be but of short duration. As it turned out, I remained there for four years…..”

“…Long afterwards, when I read how ‘Vert-Vert’ lived among the Visitandines of Nevers, I said, ‘that is myself in the ladies' school at Turenne.’ Like the parrot, I was spoilt by mistresses and scholars as much as any child could be. I had only to wish in order to get; nothing was good enough for me. I became perfectly healthy; my complexion was clear and fresh; and the young ladies contended for the privilege of kissing me and tending me. When we played prisoner's base I was allowed always to catch, never to be caught; they read me stories, they sang to me. One reminiscence connected with this time is that when the news of the King's execution arrived Mlle. Mongalvi caused the whole school to kneel and say prayers for the repose of his soul. An indiscretion on the part of any one of them might have brought her into serious trouble. But the pupils were old enough to understand the state of affairs, and I perceived that the matter should not be talked about; so it was never known beyond the house.”

[kaxenart]

I am not sure if I am sorry or not that now Marbot in my head shall never be anything besides Meow Meow.

...probably not.

[au-pas-camarades]