abandon all hope ye who enter here

5. Went behind enemy lines to engage in ~relations~ with an Italian noblewoman who then gave him information about the enemy, escaped back to his own side, told Napoleon and was promoted on the spot.

6. Battle of Rivoli: Captures 5 standards! Forces a battalion to surrender with only 26 guys on horses! Napoleon tells him "go lie down on the flags, it is well-deserved"! Absolute menace!

7. Continues being an icon in Egypt! Drops his sword in the middle of a battle and just casually gets off his horse, picks it up, gets back on and continues fighting like nothing ever happened! Broke his sword and both of his pistols to save Davout!

8. Capture of Stettin: Icon! Turns up to Stettin with like 500 dudes on horses completely unequipped to lay siege to anything more than a hayloft, demands the surrender of the fortress (which has a garrison of between 5000-6000 men, no one can really make up their minds), they say no, he goes "yeah well I have all of Lannes' corps right over there with 30,000 men" while NOT HAVING THAT AT ALL, and they just surrender?? And then they figure it out and try to fight back and Lasalle is just like too late bitches you just got BAMBOOZLED

9. HE FUCKING RODE A HORSE INTO A BALLROOM: In short, returning home, at nightfall, from some errand or expedition, he saw the hotel of Madame Cesarini completely lit up, and learned that this lady, a widow, still young, very beautiful, and holding the first rank in Perugia, was giving a ball. An extravagant idea seized him; unable to resist it, he had his squadron halted and, covered in dust, without dismounting, entered the vestibule; at the risk of breaking his neck a hundred times, he climbed the beautiful stone staircase leading to the first floor, pranced over the marble slabs of the landings, over the parquet floors of the salons, which he covered with scratches; he arrived at a gallop in the ballroom and, to the terror of all the dancers, launched himself into the middle of the country dance.

m. Soon master of the space as of the rest, he orders the orchestra to continue playing and makes his horse finish the country dance he has begun; then, after having served himself punch, having made his horse swallow lemonades and cakes, after having made him look out the window to show himself to his hussars, after having forced him to greet the mistress of the house and the whole company, he leaves without having dismounted, and, despite all that can be observed and shouted, he descends as he climbed this staircase of stone and marble, and rejoins his hussars who idolized him and receive him with acclaim. 10. When Colonel Colbert of the 7th Hussars was wounded while covering a retreat in 1807, Lasalle becomes The Funny Guy: A little sheepish, the colonel of the 7th Hussars, goes to the ambulance where he is forced to lie on his stomach to be bandaged. This is the position in which Lasalle found him, who, having learned of the matter, came to console his friend!… […] Lasalle's real exclamation, which can be explained, moreover, by the minor nature of the injuries, was this: "Damn pig! It's not at your age that you show your ass to everyone!"

11. Wrote a song for a Polish guard regiment under his command in 1808: Les Français étaient en Pologne, L’Espagne voit des Polonais… L’Europe verra sans vergogne, Régner Français et Polonais. Quelle nation est assez forte, Pour résister à leur effort ? Polonais, Français font en sorte, De mettre tout le monde à mort.

12. Sabotaged Salamanca's sewage system because he thought it would be funny. 13. Drank all the foreign wine in Salamanca. Because why not.

14. While in Salamanca, forced his generals (he was a colonel) to actually have fun and do stuff: Every two or three days, he would have the general-in-chief [Leclerc] hunt; every day, he would play music with me for two or three hours; which one day, at dinner with General Leclerc, allowed him to say: I have a singular destiny in your army, my general. I have given you a taste for hunting; I have given General Thiébault a taste for music; all that remains is for me to instill in General Monnet a taste for wit.

15. At the general review of the cavalry in 1807, and this requires no further comment: It was this same General Lasalle who gave a very funny reply to the Emperor when His Majesty reviewed the entire cavalry on July 5. The Emperor, in this review, had been very generous with promotions and decorations. The general, however, did not seem satisfied. "What is the matter with you?" the Emperor said to him, "you do not seem pleased." "I am pleased with your kindness, Sire; but I am not yet satisfied: I hoped that Your Majesty would have set his eyes on me to command the first regiment in the world: in a word, I hoped to replace General Dahlmann, colonel of your guides." The Emperor replied: "When General Lasalle no longer swears and no longer smokes, not only will I put him at the head of a cavalry regiment of my guard, but I will make him one of my chamberlains." "General Lasalle bowed and said to the Emperor: "Sire, since I have all the qualities of a sailor, I ask Your Majesty for command of a frigate." "No, no; that would not be my choice," the Emperor replied, laughing. "You will command the twenty cavalry regiments in the absence of Prince Murat." Yeah he did just crack a joke to fucking Napoleon.

16. His officers were welcome to dine with him with the below method: General Lasalle, who commanded our division, had his headquarters in Elbing [in Poland]. This general, who loves food as much as battle, had devised a comical way of extending dinner invitations to the officers of his division who were traveling from the cantonments to Elbing. The general's valet, an hour before dinner, would attach a stick to the balcony on which he would place an unfurled napkin: this napkin would remain on the balcony until all twenty of the place settings the general had at his table were occupied. The officers of his division, as long as they saw the ensign flying, could go up to pay their visit to the general; they were sure to be invited to dinner by him, but if the napkin was no longer flying, there was no point in going up for dinner. The table was full.

17. When he was going to marry his wife, Napoleon gave him money. Where did it go? Well: He [Napoleon] spoiled him to a truly incredible extent, laughing at all his pranks and never letting him pay his debts. Lasalle was about to marry the divorced lady I mentioned above, and Napoleon had given him two hundred thousand francs from his coffers. Eight days later, he met him at the Tuileries and asked him: “When will the wedding be?” “It will take place, Sire, when I have enough to buy the basket and the furniture.” “What! But I gave you two hundred thousand francs last week… What did you do with them?” “I used half of it to pay my debts, and I lost the rest gambling.” Such an admission would have ruined the career of any other general; it made the Emperor smile, who, confining himself to pulling Lasalle’s mustache rather sharply, ordered Marshal Duroc to give him another two hundred thousand francs.

18. Stole a man's mistress, was challenged to a duel by him, except this turned out to be a terrible idea: So the only salvation for this captain was the generosity of his adversary; it was not in doubt, but there was no doubt either that he would use it for some follies; in fact, having immediately judged the disproportion of forces, he abstained from any attack and limited himself to parrying, but he tried to do it with such vigor that the poor engineer's wrist was broken; and in the moments when the unfortunate man was recovering from such severe fatigue, my La Salle would circle around him, amidst a thousand jokes, antics, and grimaces, playing with death as with love; he would strike him with a blow from the flat of his sabre on the backside and burst out laughing. This maneuver was repeated ten times, and, despite the rage of this unfortunate officer, he ended up exhausted. When it was obvious that he could take no more, La Salle, putting an end to the fight, said to him: "If you had known me better, you would have attached less importance to the fact that injured you and, if I had known you better, I would have refrained from joining your forces. Accept this declaration and let us end this too unequal combat, but which has only better revealed to what extent you are men of honor."

19. Friends with Fournier-Sarloveze, the inspiration for Joseph Conrad's The Duel.

20. Wrote in a letter to his wife: "My heart belongs to you, my blood to the Emperor, my life to honour".

21. When asked at a dinner if he will pass through Paris on the way to his next campaign, he replied: "Yes; it's the shortest way: I'll arrive at five o'clock in the morning; I'll order a pair of boots, I'll have a child with my wife, and I'll leave."

22. At the same dinner, absolutely refuses an escort offered to him, and when told he should preserve his life for its usefulness to the war: General Lasalle. — I have lived long enough now. Why do we want to live? To earn honor, to make our way, our fortune. Well! I am thirty-three years old; I am a divisional general (approaching me, in a low and serious voice): Do you know that the Emperor gave me, last year, 50,000 livres a year? It's immense! ll. Me. — The Emperor will not stop there, and your career is not over. But to enjoy all this, you must avoid unnecessary dangers and inglorious dangers; for, after all, why do you want to earn honor, make your way, your fortune? It is to enjoy them, without, however, neglecting opportunities to increase these advantages as much as possible. General Lasalle. — No, not at all; one enjoys acquiring all that; one enjoys making war. Making war is already a great enough pleasure: one is in the noise, in the smoke, in the movement; and then, when one has made a name for oneself, well! one has enjoyed the pleasure of making it. When one has made one's fortune, one is sure that one's wife and children will want for nothing: all that is enough. As for me, I could die tomorrow. mm. Unbothered king.

23. Speaking of the escort: General Thiébault. —Don't talk to us about that pleasure, we who are condemned to stay here. But you only need an escort for four leagues; there are some scoundrels around here. I will command four dragoons. General Lasalle. — I don't want to. It would be too much of a trick. It would slow down my progress. They would all want to give me the rest of the way. I would stay on the way. General Thiébault. — I want you to have four dragoons; they are well mounted; they will follow you easily. General Lasalle. — I don't want it. General Thiébault. — They'll be at the car when you leave. General Lasalle. — I will charge them.

24. Demanded a lot of his men but took care of them - secured supplies of greatcoats, candles and other supplies during winter to ensure they remained fit.

25. He's REAL, and yet he's STILL this fucking iconic.

26. Remember how he was denied a command in the Guard cavalry? yeah well later on in Spain he turns up and takes a regiment of them to charge with anyways to come save the day.