#menneval

———

Note:

Baron de Menneval (1778-1850), the former secretary of Napoleon who had accompanied him in the retreat from Russia; author of a book of memories of the Empire.

Baron Fain (1778-1837), one of the secretaries of the Emperor, published historical memories of the Empire.

———

From Delacroix’s journal. Monday, 23 July 1849:

In the evening M. Menneval told me of the frightful conduct of the generals and marshals toward the Emperor, at Arcis-sur-Seine or sur-Aube. M. Fain, lodging in another house than that of the Emperor, and crossing a square in order to join his master, came on a group of generals, among them Marshal Ney, who were deliberating among themselves as to whether they should not mete out to their benefactor the fate of Romulus: to kill him and to bury him there seemed to them as good a means as any other of getting rid of him and of getting back to their hotel, where they could enjoy themselves; he was, so they said, the scourge of France, etc. The Emperor, to whom M. Fain related the affair with emotion that will be imagined, contented himself with saying that they were mad.

Marshal Ney’s greatest impropriety toward him occurred after the battle of the Moscova, when he complained that by sparing the guard, the Emperor had deprived him of the fruits of a more complete victory. Marshal Ney was the cruelest at Fontainebleau; he went to the point of threatening him with physical injury if he did not abdicate.

In the course of the Russian campaign, Berthier did not fear to tell him how terrible it was to see oneself endlessly dragged into new enterprises: “What good does it do,” said he, “to have wealth, houses, and lands, if one has to go to war eternally and compromise everything?”

To their reproaches, which often were odious, Napoleon’s only answer was patience; despite their ingratitude, he loved them as old comrades.

Before the last years, M. Menneval told me no one had dared to permit himself an observation when he gave an order. Confidence had partially abandoned him, but the sureness and firmness of his genius not at all, as the French campaign so well proved. If, at Waterloo, at the end of the battle, there had been at his disposal that reserve of the guard which he refused to engage at the Moscova, he would still have won the battle, despite the arrival of the Prussians.

I asked M. Menneval whether he had not been completely indisposed at the Moscova, according to generally accredited opinion. This is correct: he was sick, and attacked with a loss of voice, especially after the battle, so that it was impossible for him to give a spoken order.

He was obliged to scribble his orders on bits of paper. Notwithstanding, he was completely master of his ideas. But after the battle of Dresden, the sudden indisposition with which he was seized paralyzed all the operations, carried with it the defeat of Vandamme, etc.

During the Consulate, he was very sick with malignant mange. which he had contracted at the siege of Toulon. He would lean against his table, pressing his side with his hand during crises of violent suffering. His paleness and his thinness, at this period, are explained by this sickly condition. Corvisart got him rid of his disease, at least in appearance; but it is probable that the disease of which he died had its original cause in this cruel malady.