The Court of the Empress JosephineImbert de Saint-Amand
History
The Court of the Empress Josephine
Imbert de Saint-Amand
Josephine, Empress, consort of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1763-1814
The capitulation of Ulm was arranged by Napoleon with Prince Lichtenstein,
Major-General of the Austrian army. A heavy rain fell without cessation,
and the prisoners were amazed to see the Emperor, who had not taken off
his boots for a week, wet through, covered with mud, and more tired than
the humblest drummer. When some one spoke of it, he said to Prince
Lichtenstein: "Your Emperor wanted to remind me that I was a soldier. I
hope he will acknowledge that the throne and the Imperial purple have not
made me forget my old trade." October 21, the day after the capitulation,
Napoleon wrote to Josephine: "I am very well, my dear. I leave at once for
Augsburg. I have made an army of thirty-three thousand men surrender. I
have taken from sixty to seventy thousand prisoners, more than ninety
flags, and more than two hundred cannon. In the military annals there is
no such defeat. Keep well. I am a little worried. For three days the
weather has been pleasant. The first column of prisoners starts for France
to-day. Each column contains six thousand men." Never had war been fought
with such art. An army of eighty-five thousand men had been destroyed
almost without firing a gun; its adversaries had lost only three thousand
men. After this great victory Napoleon's soldiers said, "The Emperor beat
the enemy with our legs, not with our bayonets."
These chronicles of war have a sad side even when they commemorate the
most brilliant victories. Even while he counts the trophies the historian
cannot avoid melancholy reflections. What capitulations awaited France
sixty-five years after this capitulation of Ulm! But in this intoxication
of victory, people have eyes only for their success. Were they reasonable,
they would then reflect on the calamities of war. Hortense, who was as
kind as her mother, Josephine, had this wisdom and pity. She said, "When I
read these accounts I am surprised to find myself ready to weep even when
I am happy at the victories." At the time Madame de Remusat wrote to her
husband: "Poor creatures that we are, how restless we are on this
sandhill, and too often only to hasten our end! A good subject for the
philosopher is this glory, with which we adorn our eagerness in killing
one another." The triumphal music should not drown the sobs and cries of
the mothers; we should think of the dead and wounded. But nations are like
individuals: they never reflect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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