The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, November 1883: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
History
The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, November 1883: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
After Friedland he received with the title of count a grant of £40,000,
and he began to distribute money at such a rate among his poor
relations, that the emperor remonstrated with him. “You keep the lead
for yourself, and you give the gold away,” said His Majesty in allusion
to two bullets which remained in the marshal’s body.
Macdonald comes next among the marshals for nobility of character. He
was of Irish extraction, born at Sancerre in 1765, and served under
Louis XVI. in Dillon’s Irish Regiment. Macdonald won his colonelcy at
Jemmapes. In 1804, however, all his prospects were suddenly marred
through his generous espousal of Moreau’s cause. Moreau had been
banished on an ill-proven charge of conspiracy; and Macdonald thought,
like most honest men, that he had been very badly treated.
But by saying aloud what most honest men were afraid even to whisper,
Macdonald incurred the Corsican’s vindictive hatred, and during
five years he was kept in disgrace, being deprived of his command,
and debarred from active service. He thus missed the campaigns
of Austerlitz and Jéna, and this was a bitter chagrin to him. He
retired to a small country-house near Brunoy, and one of his favorite
occupations was gardening. He was much interested in the projects
for manufacturing sugar out of beetroot, which were to render France
independent of West India sugar—a matter of great consequence after
the destruction of France’s naval power at Trafalgar: and he had an
intelligent gardener who helped him in his not very successful efforts
to raise fine beetroots. This man turned out to be a police-spy.
Napoleon in his jealousy of Moreau and hatred of all who sympathized
with the latter, had thought it good to have Macdonald watched, and
he appears to have suspected at one time that the hero of Otricoli
contemplated taking service in the English army. There were other
marshals besides Macdonald who had reasons to complain of Napoleon;
Victor’s hatred of him was very lively, and arose out of a practical
joke. Victor was the vainest of men; he had entered Louis XVI.’s
service at fifteen as a drummer, but when he became an officer under
the Republic he was weak enough to be ashamed of his humble origin
and assumed his Christian name of Victor as a surname instead of his
patronymic of Perrin. He might have pleaded, to be sure, that Victor
was a name of happy augury to a soldier, but he does not appear to
have behaved well toward his Perrin connections. He was a little man
with a waist like a pumpkin, and a round, rosy, jolly face, which had
caused him to be nicknamed _Beau Soleil_. A temperate fondness for red
wine added occasionally to the luster of his complexion. He was not a
general of the first order, but brave and faithful in carrying out his
master’s plans; he had an honorable share in the victory of Friedland,
and after this battle was promoted to the marshalate and to a dukedom.
Now Victor would have liked to be made Duke of Marengo; but Napoleon’s
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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