#augereau's good side

[josefavomjaaga]

Soult on several French officers

This is taken from the book »Life of General Sir William Napier«, Volume 1. Soult, while in England for the coronation of Queen Victoria, talk to British historian Napier, who wants to know his opinion on several French officers. As usual, Soult is not very forthcoming, his statements are rather brief. There are longer ones on Hoche, on Napoleon and on Joseph Bonaparte, however, that I might post separately if there’s interest. Or you can just look them up yourself under the above link (page 505, bottom, ff, »Generals of the Revolution«). For once, it’s all in English. So, here are Soult’s verdicts on:

MARCEAU. "Marceau was clever and good, and of great promise, but he had little experience before he fell."

This general I had to look up: He died from his wounds in Austrian captivity in 1796.

MOREAU. "No great things."

AUGEREAU. Ditto.

JUNOT. Ditto.

GOUVION ST. CYR. "A clever man and a good officer, but deficient in enterprise and vigour."

MACDONALD. "Too regular, too methodical; an excellent man, but not a great general.”

NEY. "No extent of capacity: but he was unfortunate; he is dead."

VICTOR. "An old woman, quite incapable."

There are some funny scenes with this marshal that Brun de Villeret describes in his Cahiers. Apparently, Brun needed to go calm down Victor on several occasions.

JOURDAN. "Not capable of leading large armies."

MASSENA. "Excellent in great danger; negligent and of no goodness out of danger. Knew war well."

That’s a little less praise for Masséna than in his memoirs. But Soult is all around bragging a lot in this conversation, though it’s hard to tell how much of it may have been jokingly. (Then again – Soult and joking? Probably not.)

MARMONT. "Understands the theory of war perfectly. History will tell what he did with his knowledge." (This was accompanied with a sardonic smile.)

And of course refers to Marmont’s alleged betrayal of Napoleon in 1814.

REGNIER. "An excellent officer." (I denied this, and gave Soult the history of his operations at Sabugal.) Soult replied that he was considered to be a great officer in France; but if what I said could not be controverted as to fact, he was not a great officer, his reputation was unmerited. (The facts were correctly stated, but Regnier was certainly disaffected to Napoleon at the time; his unskilful conduct might have been intentional.)

DESAIX. "Clever, indefatigable, always improving his mind, full of information about his profession, a great soldier, a noble character in all points of view; perhaps not amongst the greatest of generals by nature, but likely to become so by study and practice, when he was killed."

KLEBER. "Knew him perfectly; colossal in body, colossal in mind. He was the god of war; Mars in human shape. He knew more than Hoche, more than Desaix; he was a greater general, but he was idle, indolent, he would not work."

BERTHIER and CLARKE.

"Old women - Catins. The Emperor knew them and their talents; they were fit for tools, machines, good for writing down his orders and making arrangements according to rule; he employed them for nothing else. Bah! they were very poor. I could do their work as well or better than they could, but the Emperor was too wise to employ a man of my character at a desk; he knew I could control and tame wild men, and he employed me to do so."

You could do Berthier’s and Clarke’s job easily, huh? Well, I could name one battle of Waterloo that says otherwise, Monsieur! (So does Napier, btw.)

I think between Berthier and Soult all bridges were burnt. And it really may have been not only from Soult’s side. I can quite imagine how somebody like Berthier, “l’homme de Versailles”, coming from a noble background and placing great value on politeness and good manners, would react to Soult.

[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

[northernmariette]

A quick biographical sketch of Suchet

This is my eighth and last post regarding the Marshals listed in an article about Napoleon’s ability to spot talent. The article is taken from the September 2019 issue of Historia magazine, bearing on its front page’s the title “Napoleon, les secrets d’un chef de guerre”. After Berthier, Davout, Lannes, Masséna, Murat, Ney, and Soult, Suchet is the next Marshal on the alphabetized list of the eight highlighted Marshals:

Suchet, the inconspicuous one

Although he is not the most talked about Marshal, the duke of Albufera was never defeated, like Davout. From the victorious siege of Toulon (1793) onwards, he was involved in all the campaigns of the Napoleonic era. In 1808, he was sent to Aragon in Spain. After a brilliant victory over the British at Saragossa, he administered the province with masterful skill, as well as achieving a string of military successes in this difficult war - even in 1814, when the French Empire was crumbling. In 1815 he commanded the Army of the Alps and was victorious in Savoy. He became a Peer of France during the Second Restoration.  He died in 1823 at the age of 55.

I believe Suchet in fact did suffer one bad defeat in Spain shortly after his arrival there, but that was the only one. Part of his success in his administration of Aragon was his applying the little-respected principle, in the context of Napoleonic conquest, of actually paying the locals for the goods they supplied. Suchet was also careful not to offend local sensibilities; his wife even dressed in the Spanish fashions, somewhat different from what was worn elsewhere on the Continent.

I wonder why Napoleon did not have Suchet with him at Waterloo, as I wonder why Davout was not there either, and why Soult was not on the battlefield instead of acting as a third-rate Berthier. It is true that by 1815 the Marshals’ ranks were thinner: Bernadotte in Sweden and fighting with the Allies; Augereau and Masséna sick and in disgrace; Murat in all kinds of other troubles; Lannes, Berthier, Poniatowski, and Bessieres dead; Mortier incapacitated; Jourdan a spent force; Marmont and Victor on the Royalist side; Gouvion Saint-Cyr, Macdonald, and Oudinot unwilling to engage in further Napoleonic adventures.

To review, briefly, how the eight Marshals featured in the article died, only Soult’s death is similar to what is most familiar to us in the 21st century: in his eighties, from natural causes. Three others died of natural causes, but still only in their fifties: Davout,  Masséna, and Suchet. The rest died violently: two by firing squad in their forties (Murat and Ney), one at 61 by probable suicide (Berthier), and finally a single one on the battlefield at only 40 (Lannes). The marshalate might have provided prestige, honours and fortune, but many did not enjoy these advantages for very long.

[maggiec70]

Prince Bagration Makes a Cameo Appearance

Another excerpt from the longest-running histfic draft. This is for Tairin. I hope I did her prince justice, small though it may be.

Jean’s staff found a two-story house large enough for them all in a northern Viennese suburb. General Compans ordered the portly, red-faced owner and his large family to leave, slipping him a fistful of gold coins before he could protest. Mariana couldn’t tell how many coins constituted a fistful, but they produced an incredulous expression on the man’s face and then a deep bow that revealed his blindingly bald, pink pate. There must be a secret source of gold coins that only Compans and Thomières knew about, perhaps hidden away in a sturdy oak box labeled Bribes. She had seen these coins appear whenever Jean wanted to sleep somewhere other than a barn or outside on the ground for several days. She also knew only a very few marshals and generals bothered to compensate the people whose lives they disrupted or even thought to do so.

“Don’t wreck the place,” Compans ordered them after the Viennese family had bustled out the door, their personal belongings tied up in large, unwieldy bundles.

“Why would we?” she asked Joseph as two adjutants added more wood to a fire in the large stone hearth. She wondered how much food she might find in the kitchen cupboards and the spacious pantry leading from the kitchen. Indeed, the life expectancy of the well-fed hens she’d seen in the dooryard was measured in minutes.

“It was a pro forma reminder,” Joseph replied. “We’ve never been a horde of Vandals or Huns, and the marshal knows it.” He grinned at her and stretched so much that he almost slid out of his chair. “I can’t say the same about Prince Murat’s cavalry or anyone in Marshal Augereau’s VII Corps. Now there’s a collection of seasoned plunderers—as bad as one of the plagues of Egypt, but not, I think, as dedicated to looting as Marshal Masséna.”

Later that evening, with a cold November wind safely outside and warmth and food inside, she sipped her second cup of rich coffee laced with cream from the black and white cow standing up to her knees in hay in the barn. “After ages in Purgatory, I’ve been given my reward.”

“Savor your taste of Paradise, Gabriel, while you can. We’re leaving in a couple of days,” Jacques said, unhooking his cloak and shaking sleet from it.

“Why? The Austrians surrendered at Ulm almost four weeks ago, and we’re north of Vienna with no Austrians anywhere that I can see. There isn’t anyone to fight.”

Jacques poured coffee from a porcelain pot and backed up to the fire. “Don’t you read the dispatches, Gabriel?”

“Not often—they’re boring.”

“Well, you should. We hadn’t seen the Austrian army because it left Vienna right before we arrived. Now they’ve gone further north, with General Kutuzov’s Russians.”

“Who’s Kutuzov?” she asked, trying not to yawn in his face. She really should pay more attention to the dispatches and reports. If Jean ever asked her about the campaign's minutia, she had better know enough to answer. She’d seen what happened when an officer couldn’t tell Jean what he wanted to know and didn’t want to subject herself to the humiliation of a profanity-laced public rebuke.

“Some clever Russian general, older than God. He’s heading for Moravia, though, not Mother Russia.”

Mariana remembered Jacques’s words three days later. Ejected from the warm stone house before dawn, she bundled up in her heavy cloak and gloves and rode out of Vienna with the rest of V Corps. Now, close to midnight, she didn’t think Moravia was anywhere close or warmer than Russia. It was full dark when they rode into a tiny hamlet so small they would have missed it if the scouts and leading edges of Oudinot’s grenadiers hadn’t literally stumbled over it. Snow topped with a thin layer of rime covered the cottage roofs, garden walls, the rough pathway serving as a street, and stubble in the surrounding fields. The inhabitants had shuttered every window, but thin cracks of pale yellow light escaped from some of them.

“They’re more afraid of the Russians than they are of us,” Jean said in response to her question. Each word came out on a small puff of white, as her own had done. Soon it might be too cold to talk. “If you looked in those barns, you’d find nothing but old straw. There’s nothing of value in the cottages, either. If the villagers had enough warning, they would have hidden everything, and if not, the Russians have it all now.”

Mariana had never seen a hamlet this small before or so eerily deserted. The barrenness she saw in the faint snow light and that Jean had described made her shiver. This time the cold struck deep in her bones.

“We’ll be sleeping outside, gentlemen, on the other side of Hollabrünn and eating whatever we have with us. It will be a short night anyway—the enemy’s less than six miles ahead.” Jean spurred his horse forward over the little village track, and the rest followed, riding close enough to brush each other’s stirrups. Mariana wrapped the reins around one wrist and massaged her hands and fingers inside her gloves, afraid to take them off. The idea of trying to sleep on the frozen, iron-hard ground was dreadful. If the Russians were so close, and if Jean meant to attack them in the morning, she might as well sit up all night. If she didn’t freeze before dawn, then a brisk encounter with the enemy, even hand to hand, would warm her up nicely. “Aunt Lucrezia, you would be appalled,” she whispered through stiff lips cracked and bleeding from the cold.

Despite her plan to sit up all night, Mariana had just fallen asleep, curled into a tight ball, knees drawn up nearly beneath her chin, when Joseph shook her into befuddled wakefulness. “Get up, Gabriel,” he said, peeling her cloak away. We’re leaving now.”

She staggered to her feet, grabbed her cloak back from Joseph, and buttoned it up tight. “No breakfast?”

“No time for any. There’s a small Russian rear-guard ahead. We have to eliminate it before it reaches Kutuzov.”

Mariana didn’t mind not eating as much as she minded not having something hot to drink. However, the worst prospect was having to do the necessary at the edge of the forest to her left. She still thought it was manifestly unfair that lately, she nearly froze whenever she pissed, while her comrades did not. An inequality, however, that she was powerless to alter one whit.

Having concluded her business in the forest, she hurried to untie Odysseus from the picket line, tighten his girth, and climb into the saddle. She trotted off to join the aides, who waited in a nearly silent group, close together, their horses impatiently stamping the hard ground. Without a word, they swung around and fell in behind Jean and General Compans. She wanted to know how far away the Russian rear-guard was and how many Russians comprised a rear-guard, but she couldn’t make her lips move.

General Thomières saved her the trouble. “Excellency, how many troops does Bagration have ahead of us?”

While she wondered who Bagration was, Jean slowed his horse to respond to his senior aide. “Fewer than I have, even though I’m short two divisions and even shorter of supplies. Neither the weather nor the ground is good for much but a short skirmish.”

The air was so silent and frigid that Mariana heard the intonation beneath his words that often meant more than the words themselves. He sounded confident rather than cocky or foolhardy. A short skirmish, he’d said, and that was fine with her.

The encounter between Bagration’s rear-guard and V Corps’ grenadiers, reinforced at the last possible moment by a squadron of Murat’s heavy cavalry, was not a skirmish. Mariana thought it was more like a brawl in some wayside tavern, loud, fast, and disorganized. It ended before she’d had a chance to do anything and because Bagration told Prince Murat that he had just learned about a truce. The prince believed him, dismounted, told Jean to order his troops to cease fire, and went inside a slightly shell-shocked villa that had been some Moravian aristocrat’s summer home.

“A truce? What the fuck is he talking about? I had the damn Russians on their arses, and he rides in and orders me to stop!” Jean was livid, his expression as hard as granite. Mariana worried what he might do when he jumped from his horse, leaving the reins to trail in the snow, and stomped after Murat. Acting on instinct, aides, chief of staff, and a few senior adjutants closed around him like a protective wall and entered the villa together.

Intended for soft summer breezes, the villa struggled to combat the mid-November cold. Fires burned in hearths at either end of the reception chamber’s black and white tiled floor. Clear glass bottles filled with colorless liquid stood among scores of crystal glasses on heavily carved tables in the center of the room. Someone had shoved chairs and settees against the walls. Officers in uniforms Mariana had never seen before crowded around the tables, opening bottles, pouring liquid into glasses, and handing them around. She watched Prince Murat take a sip, then drain it and hold it out for someone to fill. She watched Jean barrel forward, his expression still thunderous, until a tall officer with the face of a young eagle and enough medals on his chest to blind half a dozen men stepped forward and intercepted him. Together they moved away from Murat and his entourage and stood by one of the double windows, heads bent close together, talking. Another officer approached them, two glasses on a silver tray, and quickly left when they took the glasses and continued their conversation. When Major Guéhéneuc tried to insinuate himself into the conversation, Jean turned on him like an enraged wasp. The major scuttled away, staring at the floor, his face scarlet. Mariana rocked back on her boot heels, a smirk spreading across her face.

As voices rose around her, followed by the rank odor of damp wool and unwashed males, Mariana felt the beginnings of a headache. To take her mind off it, she asked Thomières, “What are they talking about? And who is that Russian?”

He laughed, a soft sound but not derisive. She was glad since she rarely spoke to him at length. “I haven’t the slightest idea what they’re talking about, but that’s Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration the marshal’s talking to.” He laughed again, this time even softer as if he worried someone might overhear. “Talking now, fighting later. Fine looking general, though, don’t you think?”

“Indeed he is,” Mariana said. With his chiseled features and thick, dark hair, the tall, slender Russian looked a little like Jean. Big rooster and bantam rooster, she thought, and almost hooted with laughter. When she could trust herself to speak, she asked, “What’s in the bottles?”

“Vodka. Have you never tasted it?”

“I’ve never even heard of it.”

“Then allow me, lieutenant,” Thomières said and escorted her to the nearest table. Rummaging among the glasses, he found two relatively clean ones and filled them from one of the bottles. “Salut,” he said, threw back his head, and drank it down.

She sniffed at the clear liquid. It had no odor. Since Thomières was still standing, how dangerous could it be? She drank hers in a single gulp, and the alcohol burned all the way to her stomach, where it exploded. Tears flooded her eyes, she sneezed and then coughed. One cough led to several until Thomières pounded her on the back and filled her glass.

“Quick—drink this.”

She did and stopped coughing. This time the vodka felt smooth as silk, and she grinned at the senior aide. “You should have warned me.”

“And miss your reaction?” He filled her glass for the third time, but before she could drink it, four Russian officers joined them at the table, clutching their glasses filled to the brim and sloshing onto their dingy white gloves. Their faces were clean-shaven except for amazingly full side-whiskers, their cheeks brick red in the candlelight. Raising their glasses, they shouted in unison, “Za vashe zdorovye!” When they had downed every last drop, they tossed their glasses toward the fireplace. The sound of shattering crystal brought to a halt every conversation in the spacious room, and then other Russians began throwing their empty glasses to the floor.

“Why not?” Thomières said and threw his glass toward the hearth.

“Indeed!” Mariana replied and threw hers, too.

Whatever Jean and Bagration may have been discussing, or whatever Prince Murat may have believed about the alleged truce, or whatever the French and Russian officers thought about the prospect of imminent hostilities between them, everything disappeared beneath the sharp-edged sound of crystal shattering and the roars of toasts in French and Russian. Mariana linked arms with Thomières to keep from reeling and tried to get her tongue around the consonant-laden Russian words. Somehow, they sounded more satisfactory than light, polite French phrases and better suited to the vodka, of which she had become quite fond in no time at all.

Jean summoned aides and staff officers with a sharp whistle that penetrated the merriment and stalked out of the villa and into the icy, starlit night. The sudden cold jolted Mariana from her torpor, and the sharp air stung her eyes and nose. Her comrades showed similar symptoms of waking from a muddled sleep, and she wondered what might have happened had they stayed and emptied all those bottles.

[napoleondidthat]

Napoleon’s Coup d’etat; A Hot Mess

The following are excerpts from Napoleon, A Life by Adam Zamoyski. Napoleon’s heroic coup d’etat was in actuality a hot mess with comedy thrown in.

“Bonaparte took over one of the palace’s drawing rooms as his headquarters. Talleyrand had rented a house nearby in which he, Roederer, and others waited, ready to climb into a waiting carriage if things went wrong. Sieyes too had taken the precaution of parking his carriage in a discreet place nearby in case he had to make a quick getaway. It was said that some of the conspirators were carrying large sums in ready money for the same reason. Bonaparte himself seems to have had an attack of nerves shortly after his arrival and flew into a rage with an officer for no reason.

There was good reason to be nervous. As they waited for the chambers to be made ready, the deputies of the two assemblies, most of whom had been excluded from the previous day’s session, strolled about discussing the situation, joined by Parisians who had driven out to see what was going on. In the course of these discussions those hostile to any change grew firmer in their resistance, while supporters of the coup began to have second thoughts. Bonaparte had a total of about 6000 troops at hand, some sitting around their stacked weapons in the courtyard giving evil looks to the deputies, those hated ‘lawyers’ and ‘chatterboxes’, others deployed in the grounds and the surrounding streets.”

(Napoleon, A Life, Adam Zamoyski, pages 234-235)

“It was not until well after one o’clock that the Five Hundred were able to take their seats, in a flapping of scarlet Roman togas and plumed Polish caps. Lucien and his supporters were to persuade their assembly to nominate a commission to investigate the dangers threatening the Republic. But things got off to a bad start. Sensing what was afoot, the Jacobins among them began denouncing the incipient dictatorship, declaring that they would defend the constitution to the death. It was the kind of emotive language that swayed the majority in assemblies of the period, and a vot was carried to have every deputy renew their oath to it. That would take all day.

The Elders had already filed into the Gallery of Apollo in their blue togas, preceded by a band playing the Marseillaise. They were to take notice of the resignation of the three Directors, declare the government thereby dissolved, and appoint three consuls to prepare a new constitution. But the session had hardly opened when some of the deputies began questioning the legality of the previous day’s proceedings. One of the conspirators cleverly observed that the Elders could not debate anything until the Five Hundred had properly constituted themselves--which they had not, as they were still busy renewing their oaths.”

(Napoleon, A Life, Adam Zamoyski,  page 235)

“In the damp room, hardly warmed by a smoking fire, where Bonaparte, his brother Joseph, Sieyes, and the other leaders sat, ‘people looked at each other but did not speak’, according to one of those present. ‘It was if they did not dare to ask and feared to reply.’ People began making excuses and slipping away. Bonaparte tried to hide his nerves by giving unnecessary orders and moving troops about. Every so often Lavalette would come and report on what was going on in the chambers.

Outside, more and more people began to drift in from Paris. Jourdan and Augereau had also turned up, alert to the possibility of exploiting the situation for themselves....Just before four o’clock he (Bonaparte) announced that he wished to speak to the Elders and, followed bu a number of aides, entered their chamber. Their session had by then been suspended, but they gathered to hear what he had to say.

Bonaparte was not a good speaker, often having difficulty in finding the right words. He was flustered and did not have a specific case to put, only a series of slogans which had proved sufficient up until now. ‘Allow me to speak to you with the frankness of a soldier,’ he began. He had, he told them, been minding his own business in Paris when they had called on him to defend the Republic. He had flown to their aid, and now he was being denounced as a Caesar and a Cromwell, a dictator. He urged them to act quickly, as there was no government and liberty was in peril. He was there to carry out their will. ‘Let us save liberty, let us save equality!’ he pleaded. At that point he was interrupted by the shout, ‘And what about the constitution?’. After a stunned silence, Bonaparte pointed out that they themselves and the Directory they had named had violated the constitution on at least three occasions, which was not tactful, and did not lend conviction to his main theme, to which he returned, plaintively assuring them that he was only there to uphold their authority and did not nourish any personal ambitions, and exhorting them to emulate Brutus should he ever betray their trust. His friends tried to restrain him, but many of the member of the assembly had been angered, and not began asking awkward questions. He carried on, growing more and more aggressive in tone and grasping at any words and phrases that came to mind, conjuring up visions of ‘volcanoes’, of ‘silent conspiracies’, and at one point defiantly warning them: ‘Remember that I march accompanied by the god of victory and the god of war!’ He ranted on incoherently until Bourrienne dragged him away by his coat-tails.”

(Napoleon, A Life, Adam Zamoyski, pages 236-237)

“Hardly had he entered the orangery than shouts of ‘Down with the tyrant!’, ‘Down with the dictator!’, and ‘Outlaw!’ greeted him as the assembly rose to its feet in outrage at this military incursion. He was instantly assaulted by a multitude of deputies pressing in on him, shouting, shaking him by his lapels and pushing so hard that he momentarily lost consciousness. He was rescued by Murat, Lefebvre, and others, who kept the enraged deputies back with their fists, and by the grenadiers he had brought with him. The scuffle grew fierce, and a number of the members of the public in the spectators’ gallery fled through the windows. Bonaparte was eventually carried out, pale, struggling for breath, his head lolling to one side, barely conscious, pursued by cries of ‘Outlaw! Outlaw!’, which in the course of the Revolution had come to signify a condemnation to death.”

(Napoleon, A Life, Adam Zamoyski, page 237)

“Bonaparte had returned to his centre of operations. He seemed completely undone, making strange statements and at one point addressing Sieyes as ‘General’. He soon recovered himself, but for the rest of the day his words and actions remained disjointed and not entirely coherent.”

(Napoleon, A Life, Adam Zamoyski, page 238)

“Bonaparte came out of the palace followed by his suite and asked for his horse. The fiery beast lent by Bruix had been frightened by the shouting, with the result that when he mounted it began rearing and bucking. After some less than heroic tussles with it, he rode up to the bewildered grenadiers of the legislative guard, who failed to show much interest.....Riding up and down on his unruly mount he stuck a heroic pose, venting his fury at the way he had been treated by the Five Hundred, telling the troops that he had gone to them offering to save the Republic but had been attacked by these traitors, paid agents of Britain, who had brandished daggers and tried to murder him. His agitation had brought out a severe rash on his face, and while considering his next move he had scratched so hard that he had drawn blood, which now seemed to confirm the story of daggers raised against him--the rumor that he had been wounded flew through the ranks...”

(Napoleon, A Life, Adam Zamoyski, page 238)

[josefavomjaaga]

Marshals and Money

As the anecdote I found for Mortier's birthday will be money-related, I thought it might be interesting to talk a little about the marshals' finances in general. Mostly because I am often not entirely clear on the topic. It seems with some notable exceptions (Masséna, Marmont, Augereau?) they all tended to be in financial trouble at some point but that is as far as my knowledge goes. So, how did they, and their military subordinates, actually make a living, what income did they have, and what sources did it come from?

First of all, there was of course their soldiers' pay. From what I've seen, a marshal of France received 40.000 Franc annually. Just for comparison: a worker had an annual income of 400 to 600 Franc. 

In addition, at least on campaigns, soldiers were entitled to what in German is called »Tafelgeld«, i.e. a certain amount of money to reimburse them for the costs of food and accommodation. The officers could apparently set this amount themselves, which of course invited abuse during quartering in enemy territory (see below).

Added to that were dotations from the Legion of Honour, 5000 Franc for the »grand officiers«.

The marshals usually invested their money in real estate. Especially large estates with forests and leased farms were supposed to generate a regular income as well, which, however, probably fluctuated greatly depending on administrative talent and external circumstances. Income from stock market speculation, however, was not at all welcome under Napoleon. But some marshals invested in ships, especially corsairs. (Soult apparently co-owned a corsair ship which made good profits.)

Independently of this, Napoleon also liked to bestow lands on his marshals, certainly when he recruited them for his new aristocracy. These lands were always abroad, preferably in Italy, Poland and the Kingdom of Westphalia, and in theory quite profitable, especially if there were salt mines or other mineral resources. However, these territories differred greatly in how lukrative they were, and as they as a rule were outside France, they were hard to oversee by their masters, who were almost constantly at war. Local authorities also often lacked goodwill to do much for their owners, if they weren’t even outright hostile.

Lastly, there were direct one-time payments from Napoleon's extra budget, called »Domaine extraordinaire«, containing all kind of war spoils. This separate treasury in Napoleon's budget had been introduced in order to ensure that of the contributions and levies extorted by the officers from occupied cities and provinces on behalf of the Emperor during a campaign, at least the largest part really reached Napoleon. Dotations to the marshals from this chest also differed a lot.

Those are the official sources of income that I could think of. Is there more? 

And then of course there’s the semi-official and the outright illegal stuff. And that seems to have been much more profitable in many cases.

As already mentioned above, accomodation fees were an excellent possibility to gain a little on the side. Particularly if you pocketed the exorbitant fees (a mere général de brigade was already entitled to 1500 Franc per month in Stralsund in 1809 – and that was an upper limit set by military authorities in order to prevent abuse! Again, the average annual income of a worker was 600 F! It seems French generals were on a strict diet of gilded ostrich eggs.), yet still expected your hosts to feed you.

Originally, the easiest way to enrich oneself was through war contribution. One would extort a city or a region to raise a certain amount of money for supporting the army. And would pocket it. This was something Napoleon tried to contain through the installation of the »Domaine extraordinaire«, not necessarily out of pity for the defeated, but to ensure that the money actually reached the army.

Another interesting possibility to make money were shady business deals with army suppliers who were charged a share or commission. Or you simply seized supplies from the enemy, officially for your soldiers, only to sell the stuff to the army suppliers for your own profit.

The most obvious way to gain money: have somebody gift you with it. Luckily, in a conquered town that has to deal with your presence it isn’t too hard to make people understand how much more you would love them and how much more willing you would be to prevent abuse by your subordinates, if the locals only found a way to gain your friendship…

Lastly, outright corruption. The empire is vast, Napoleon is far – how much would you be willing to pay if I close my eyes regarding smuggled goods? Or leave some of those cannons that I am supposed to remove?

Of course, this is only about cash. Gifts in kind came on top.

Just as an example some expenses from Stettin in 1807 and 1808, for all kind of French military persons (taken from »Landbuch des Herzogthums Pommern«]:

Of the famous marshals of the Empire, the following have been in Stettin: first Lannes, then Victor, Mortier, Brune, Soult, Gouvion St. Cyr, Davoust [sic] [...] These distinguished and commanding gentlemen tended to become very precious to the city and with respect to them some strange expenditures are recorded in the accounts of the magistrate: Gifts of 50, 100, 1000 thalers, to General Lasalle 6000 thalers, to General Denzel 6000 thalers, to General Claparède 7000 thalers, clothes for the adjutant of the last-mentioned general, as a recompense for his services to the city: Overcoat, long trousers, hussar's coat with genuine gold trimming, boots etc, [...] 159 thalers 16 groschen, christmas present for the children of Marshal Soult 24 thalers 16 groschen, likewise for a mechanical landscape 70 thalers [? a kind of model making? Must have been the christmas present for daddy...]; not to mention the fire engines, travel barometers, silver-plated pipe bowls, carriages and horses and similar means of appeasement [...] Marshal Victor seems to have been a particular friend of gift horses. No less than 12 carriage horses and 5 riding horses, one of them for 1200 thalers, are invoiced for the same by and by, one with the note "taken by force".

[histoireettralala]

Epic anecdotes from the battle of Eylau: Captain Marbot, Lisette, and the Farewell of the 14th Ligne.

Eylau, February 8, 1807 - Captain Marbot, aide-de-camp to Marshal Augereau, recounts the end of the 14th line infantry regiment of which he was an eyewitness. The general's mount, a mare with an extremely difficult character to control, called Lisette, will paradoxically save her life during the perilous mission that will be entrusted to him ...

[...] she was the mare that I was riding at Eylau, at the moment when the remains of Marshal Augereau's army corps, crushed by a hail of grape-shot and cannon balls, were trying to meet near the large cemetery. You must remember that the 14th Ligne was alone on a mound that it was only to leave by order of the Emperor. The snow having ceased momentarily, we saw this intrepid regiment which, surrounded by the enemy, waved its eagle in the air to prove that it still held out and called for help. The Emperor, touched by the magnanimous devotion of these brave people, resolved to try to save them by ordering Marshal Augereau to send an officer to them in charge of telling them to leave the mound, to form a small square and to proceed towards us, while a brigade of cavalry marched to meet them to assist their efforts.

It was before the great charge made by Murat; it was almost impossible to carry out the Emperor's will, because a swarm of Cossacks separating us from the 14th Ligne, it became obvious that the officer we were going to send to this unfortunate regiment would be killed or taken before he could get to it.

It was customary in the Imperial Army for the aides-de-camp to line up a few paces from their general, and for the one in front to walk first, then come to the tail when he had fulfilled his mission, so that, each carrying an order in turn, the dangers were equally shared. A brave captain of the engineers, named Froissard, who, although not being an aide-de-camp, was attached to the marshal, was responsible for carrying the order to the 14th. M. Froissard set off at a gallop; we lost sight of him among the Cossacks, and we never saw him again or knew what had become of him. The Marshal seeing that the 14th Ligne did not move, sent an officer named David; he had the same fate as Froissard. It is probable that both of them, having been killed and despoiled, could not be recognized in the midst of the many corpses with which the ground was covered. For the third time, the marshal calls: "The officer to march!" It was my turn!

On seeing the son of his old friend approach, and I dare say it, his favorite aide-de-camp, the good marshal's face was moved, his eyes filled with tears, for he could not hide from himself that he was sending me to almost certain death; but it was necessary to obey the Emperor, I was a soldier, one of my comrades could not be made to march in my place, and I would not have suffered it: that would have been to dishonor me. So I rushed forward! But, while making the sacrifice of my life, I felt I had to take the necessary precautions to save it. I had noticed that the two officers who left before me had put the saber in their hands, which led me to believe that they had plans to defend themselves against the Cossacks who would attack them during the journey, a rash defense in my opinion, since it had forced them to stop to fight a multitude of enemies that had ended up overwhelming them. So I went about it differently, and leaving my saber in the scabbard, I considered myself a rider who, wanting to win a race prize, headed as quickly as possible and by the shortest line towards the indicated goal, without worry about what there is, neither to the right nor to the left, in its path. Now, my goal being the mound occupied by the 14th Ligne, I resolved to go there without paying attention to the Cossacks, whom I canceled by thought.

This system perfectly worked for me. Lisette, lighter than a swallow, and flying more than she ran, devoured space, crossing heaps of corpses of men and horses, ditches, broken carriages, as well as the poorly extinguished fires of the bivouacs.

Thousands of scattered Cossacks covered the plain. The first to see me acted like hunters on a hunt, when, seeing a hare, they announced its presence to each other by shouting: "To you! To you!" But none of these Cossacks tried to stop me, first of all because of the extreme speed of my race, and probably also because, being in very large numbers, each of them thought that I could not avoid his comrades placed further away. So that I escaped everyone and got to the 14th, without me or my excellent mare having received the slightest scratch.

I found the 14th formed in a square on the top of the hillock but as the slopes of the ground were very gentle, the enemy cavalry had been able to carry out several charges against the French regiment, which, having vigorously repulsed them, was surrounded by a circle of corpses of Russian horses and dragoons, forming a sort of rampart, which henceforth made the position almost inaccessible to the cavalry, for, despite the help of our infantry, I had great difficulty in passing over this bloody and dreadful entrenchment. I was finally in the square! Since the death of Colonel Savary, killed crossing the Ukra, the 14th was commanded by a battalion commander. When, in the middle of a hail of cannonballs, I transmitted to this soldier the order to leave his position to try to rejoin the army corps, he pointed out to me that the enemy artillery, firing for an hour on the 14th had caused him such losses that the handful of soldiers who remained to him would inevitably be exterminated if they went down to the plain, that he would not have time to prepare the execution of this movement, since a column of Russian infantry, marching on him, was only a hundred paces from us.

"I see no way to save the regiment" said the battalion commander, "Return to the Emperor, bid him the farewell of the 14th Ligne who faithfully carried out his orders, and carry him the eagle he had given us and which we can no longer defend, it would be too painful while dying to see it fall into the hands of the enemies ". The commander then gave me his eagle, which the soldiers, glorious remnants of this intrepid regiment, greeted for the last time with cries of "Long live the Emperor", they who were going to die for him. It was Tacitus' "Caesar, morituri te salutant" but this cry was here uttered by heroes.

The infantry eagles were very heavy, and their weight was increased by a large and strong shaft of oak wood, to the top of which it was fixed. The length of this pole embarrassed me a lot, and as this stick, devoid of its eagle, could not constitute a trophy for the enemies, I resolved, with the approval of the commander, to break it to take only the eagle, but when, from the top of my saddle, I was leaning my body forward to have more strength to manage to separate the eagle from the shaft, one of the many cannonballs the Russians threw at us went through the back horn of my hat hat a few inches from my head. The concussion was all the more terrible as my hat, being held in place by a strong leather strap fixed under the chin, offered more resistance to the blow. I was almost wrecked, but did not fall from my horse. Blood flowed through my nose, ears and even my eyes, however I still heard, I saw, I understood and retained all my intellectual faculties, although my limbs were paralyzed to the point that it was impossible for me to move just one finger.

However, the column of Russian infantry that we had just seen was approaching the mound; they were grenadiers, whose metal-trimmed caps looked like miters. These men, gorged with brandy, and in infinitely greater number, threw themselves with fury on the weak debris of the unfortunate 14th, whose soldiers had lived, for a few days, only on potatoes and melted snow; and that day, they had not had time to prepare this miserable meal. Nevertheless our brave French fought valiantly with their bayonets, and when the square had been broken, they grouped themselves into several platoons and supported this disproportionate fight for a long time.

During this dreadful melee, several of our people, so as not to be struck from behind, leaned against the sides of my mare, who, contrary to her habits, remained very impassive. If I could have stirred, I would have carried her forward to keep her away from this field of carnage; but it was absolutely impossible for me to squeeze my legs to make my mount understand my will. My position was all the more dreadful because, as I have said, I had retained the faculty of seeing and thinking ... Not only were there fights around me, which exposed me to bayonet blows, but a Russian officer, with a terrible face, made constant efforts to pierce me with his sword, and as the crowd of combatants prevented him from joining me, he gestured to the soldiers who surrounded him and who, taking me for the leader of the French, because I was alone on horseback, fired at me over the heads of their comrades, so that very many bullets whistled constantly in my ears. One of them would certainly have robbed me of what little life I had left, when a terrible incident took me away from this terrible melee.

Among the French who had leaned against the left flank of my mare, was a quartermaster whom I knew from having often seen him at the Marshal's, whose reports he copied. This man, attacked and wounded by several enemy grenadiers, fell under Lisette's belly and seized my leg to try to get up, when a Russian grenadier, whose drunkenness made his steps very uncertain, having wanted to finish him by piercing his chest, lost his balance, and the point of his misdirected bayonet strayed into my windblown coat. The Russian, seeing that I did not fall, left the quartermaster to strike me with endless blows at first useless, but one of which, finally reaching me, crossed my left arm, from which I felt with horrible pleasure hot blood flowing... The Russian grenadier, redoubling his fury, struck me again, when the force he put into it causing him to stumble, his bayonet sank into the thigh of my mare, which, returned by pain to her fierce instincts, rushed at the Russian and with a single mouthful tore his nose, lips, eyelids, and all the skin of his face with his teeth, and made him a "living skull" and all red ... It was horrible to see. Then throwing herself furiously into the midst of the fighters, Lisette, kicking and biting, knocks down anything she meets in her path. The enemy officer who had so often tried to strike me, having wanted to stop her by the bridle, she seized him by the stomach, and removing him with ease, she carried him out of the melee, at the bottom of the mound, where, after tearing out his entrails with teeth and crushing the body under her feet, she left him dying on the snow. Then resuming the path by which she had come, she headed at a triple gallop towards the cemetery of Eylau. Thanks to the hussar saddle in which I was sitting, I remained on my horse, but a new danger awaited me.

The snow had just started to fall again, and large flakes were obscuring the day when, arriving near Eylau, I found myself in front of a battalion of the old guard, who could not distinguish in the distance, took me for an enemy officer. leading a cavalry charge.

Immediately the whole battalion fired on me ... My coat and my saddle were riddled with bullets, but I was not wounded, nor was my mare, who, continuing her rapid course, crossed the three ranks of the battalion with the same ease for a snake to cross a hedge ...

But this last impulse having exhausted the forces of Lisette, who was losing a lot of blood because one of the large veins in her thigh had been cut, this poor animal suddenly sagged and fell to one side making me roll other.

Stretched out on the snow among heaps of dead and dying, unable to move in any way, I gradually and painlessly lost the feeling of myself. It seemed to me that I was gently rocked ... Finally, I fainted completely without being revived by the great thunder that Murat's ninety squadrons on a charge made as they passed near me and perhaps on me.

I think that my unconsciousness lasted four hours, and when I regained my senses, this is the horrible position I was in: I was completely naked, with only my hat and my right boot left. A train soldier, believing me to be dead, had stripped me as usual, and wishing to tear off the only boot I had left, was pulling me by one leg, leaning one of his feet on my stomach. The strong jolts that this man gave me having undoubtedly revived me, I managed to raise my upper body and to spit out blood clots which blocked my throat. The concussion produced by the wind from the cannonball had caused a bruise so extensive that my face, shoulders and chest were black, while the blood from my wound on my arm reddened the other parts of my body ... My hat and my hair was covered with bloody snow, I was rolling haggard eyes and must have been horrible to see. So the soldier of the train turned his head and walked away with my gear, without it being possible for me to say a single word to him, so great was my state of prostration. But I had recovered my mental faculties, and my thoughts turned to God and to my mother.

The sun, as it went down, threw a few faint rays through the clouds, I bade it farewell which I thought were the last ... If at least, I said to myself, someone had not stripped me, someone one of the many individuals who pass near me, noticing the golden braids with which my pelisse is covered, would recognize that I am a marshal's aide-de-camp and would perhaps have me transported to the ambulance but seeing me naked, I am confused with the many corpses with which I am surrounded; soon, indeed, there will no longer be any difference between them and me. I cannot call for help, and the approaching night will take away all hope of being rescued. The cold is increasing, will I be able to endure it until tomorrow, when already I can feel my bare limbs stiffening? So I expected to die, because if a miracle had saved me in the midst of the awful melee of the Russians and the 14th, could I hope that another miracle would pull me out of the horrible position I found myself in? ? This second miracle took place, and here's how ...

Marshal Augereau had a valet named Pierre Dannel, a very intelligent boy, very devoted, but a little argumentative. However, it had happened, during our stay at La Houssaye, that Dannel having answered badly to his master, the latter dismissed him. Dannel, sorry, begged me to intercede for him. I did so with so much zeal that I succeeded in making him return to favor with the Marshal. From that moment on, the valet de chambre had devoted a great deal of affection to me. This man, who had left all the crews in Landsberg, had left on his own on the day of the battle to bring his master provisions which he had placed in a very light van, passing everywhere and containing the objects the marshal used most often. This little van was driven by a soldier who had served in the company of the train to which the soldier who had just robbed me belonged. This one, with my gear, passed by the van parked next to the cemetery when, having recognized the postilion, his former comrade, he accosted him to show him the brilliant booty he had just collected from a dead man.

Now, you must know that during our stay in the cantonments of the Vistula, the marshal having sent Dannel to seek provisions in Warsaw, I had instructed him to remove from my pelisse the black astrakhan fur with which it was trimmed, to have it replaced by gray astrakhan, newly adopted by Prince Berthier's aides-de-camp, who set the trend in the army.

I was still the only officer of Marshal Augereau who had gray astrakhan. Dannel, present at the display that the soldier on the train was making, easily recognized my pelisse, which prompted him to look more closely at the other effects of the alleged dead man, among which he found my watch, marked with my father's number, who it had belonged to. The valet no longer doubted that I was killed, and while deploring my loss, he wanted to see me for the last time, and being led by the soldier on the train, he found me alive.

The joy of this brave man, to whom I certainly owed my life, was extreme.He hastened to send for my servant, some ordinances, and to have me transported to a barn, where he rubbed my body with rum, while they were looking for Doctor Raymond, who finally arrived, bandaged my wound in the arm, and declared that the expansion of the blood which it had produced would save me.

Soon I was surrounded by my brother and my comrades. Something was given to the soldier on the train who had taken my clothes, which he returned with great grace, but as they were soaked in water and blood, Marshal Augereau had me wrapped in his own gear.

The Emperor had authorized the marshal to go to Landsberg, but his wound preventing him from riding his horse, his aides-de-camp had obtained a sled on which was placed a cabriolet case. The Marshal, who could not bring himself to abandon me, had me tied secure alongside him, for I was too weak to sit still.

Before I was relieved from the battlefield, I had seen my poor Lisette near me. The cold, by coagulating the blood of her wound, had stopped its too great emission. The beast had recovered on its legs and was eating the straw which the soldiers had used for their bivouacs the night before. My servant, who was very fond of Lisette, having seen her when he was helping to transport me, returned to fetch her, and cutting into strips the shirt and the hood of a dead soldier, he used them to wrap the thigh of the poor mare, which he thus put in a condition to walk as far as Landsberg. The commander of the small garrison in this place having taken care to have lodgings prepared for the wounded, the staff was placed in a large and good inn, so that instead of spending the night without help, stretched out naked on the snow, I was lying on a good bed and surrounded by the care of my brother, my comrades and the good Doctor Raymond.

[..]

In our days, where one is so lavish on advancement and decorations, one would certainly grant a reward to an officer who would brave the dangers I ran by going to the 14th of the line but, under the Empire, we considered this trait of devotion as so natural that I was not given the cross, and that it did not even occur to me to ask for it.

Found here.

[from Mémoires du Général Marbot]

[histoireettralala]

“A part un étroit milieu sournoisement hostile, on n’était d’ailleurs pas très exigeant sur le chapitre du savoir-vivre. De la tenue certes, mais pas de raffinement exagéré. Une pointe de brusquerie militaire était même admise comme un signe de virilité et de distinction. L’Empereur allait beaucoup plus loin et frisait souvent la grossièreté, ce qui fournit à quelques spirituelles outragées l’occasion de le remettre en place comme un sous-lieutenant mal embouché. Chez les maréchaux, l’extérieur imposant, parfois magnifique, rachetait ce que le fond pouvait encore avoir de rude. Les compagnons de Napoléon étaient pour la plupart de beaux gaillards à qui la critique mondaine pardonnait beaucoup en faveur de leur prestance martiale. On cite parmi eux comme des exceptions Berthier, petit et mal bâti, avec une tête trop grosse et de vilaines mains sans ongles; ou Davout, prématurément chauve, avec un nez court surmonté de bésicles, qu’il était seul dans l’armée à porter publiquement, encore que bien d’autres eussent la vue basse. Augereau, Mortier, étaient, on le sait, de stature impressionnante. Bessières, très grand aussi quoique un peu voûté, montrait de belles dents et “soignait fort sa frisure”; il conserva jusqu’à sa mort les cheveux longs et poudrés, avec des “oreilles de chien” de chaque côté de la figure. Lannes, à peine plus petit, qu’on appelait sous le Consulat “le Roland de l’armée”, portait haut une tête expressive et cambrait sa taille svelte avec élégance. Oudinot, solide et rugueux, inspirant l’estime et l’affection, Murat, joli garçon à la chevelure bouclée, Ney, rouquin athlétique, eussent attiré et retenu l’attention même si leur réputation de modernes chevaliers avait été moins affirmée. On aimait à voir paraître dans un salon la figure “douce et agréable” de Suchet. Soult aussi avait grand air, avec ses traits mâles et sévères, encore qu’on ne lui trouvât pas le regard droit. Les plus vieux eux-mêmes gardaient un “air de guerre” qui les rendaient intéressants; ainsi, Pérignon exhibait fièrement une “admirable cicatrice qui partageait son crâne chauve” et dans laquelle une femme du monde voyait “toute une épopée”.”

Louis Chardigny, Les Maréchaux de Napoléon, Bibliothèque Napoléonienne, P. 156-157

“Apart from a narrow, underhandedly hostile social circle, people were not very demanding in terms of good manners. Manners, certainly, but no overemphasized refinement. A touch of military abruptness was even accepted as a sign of virility and distinction. The Emperor went much further and often bordered on rudeness, which gave a few outraged witty ladies the opportunity to put him back in place like a foulmouthed second lieutenant. Among the marshals, the imposing, sometimes magnificent appearance, made amends for how rough the content could still be. Napoleon's companions were for the most part strapping lads to whom society's critics forgave a lot on behalf of their martial bearing.  Among them, cited as exceptions are Berthier, small and not well built, with a too large head and ugly hands without nails; or Davout, prematurely bald, with a short nose surmounted by glasses, which he was alone in the army to wear in public, although many others were short-sighted. Augereau, Mortier, were, as we know, of impressive stature. Bessières, also very tall, although a little stooped, showed beautiful teeth and "took great care of his hair"; he kept long, powdered hair until his death, with "dog ears" on each side of the face. Lannes, barely smaller, who was called under the Consulate "the Roland of the army", held high his expressive head and elegantly arched his slender body. Oudinot, solid and rough, inspiring esteem and affection, Murat, a pretty boy with curly hair, Ney, an athletic redhead, would have attracted and retained attention even if their reputation as modern knights had been less assured. People liked to see Suchet's “gentle and pleasant” figure appear in a living room. Soult also looked great, with his stern, masculine features, although some found something shifty about his eyes. The older ones themselves kept an “air of war” which made them interesting; thus, Pérignon proudly displayed an “admirable scar which divided his bald head” and in which a woman of the world saw “an entire epic”. ”

[histoireettralala]

Part 26!

**

Davout- Hey, watch out for that bag of trash.

Berthier - Who, Bernadotte ? He’s all the way on the other side of the room.

Bernadotte - What have I ever done to you ?

**

Augereau * on the jail phone with Napoléon* Details are irrelevant. Come bail me out of jail.

**

Murat - What’s the signal if something goes wrong ?

Lannes - How about “oh shit” ?

Murat - That’s good.

**

Berthier * sarcastic* I wish I could change the rules for you.

Augereau - That’s okay.

Masséna - We’ll find a way around them.

**

Ney - There are easier ways of doing this, you know ?

Murat - Yeah, but none of them are quite as fun, are they ?

**