Part 11 (2/2)

We broke up from quarters on the 21st, leaving Sir John Hope, with the left wing of the army, in the investment of Bayonne, Lord Wellington followed Soult with the remainder.

The new clothing for the different regiments of the army had, in the mean time, been gradually arriving at St. Jean de Luz; and, as the commissariat transport was required for other purposes, not to mention that a man's new coat always looks better on his own back than it does on a mule's, the different regiments marched there for it in succession. It did not come to our turn until we had taken a stride to the front, as far as La Bastide; our retrograde movement, therefore, obliged us to bid adieu to our division for some time.

On our arrival at St. Jean de Luz, we found our new clothing, and some new friends in the family of our old friend, Arcangues, which was one of the most respectable in the district, and who showed us a great deal of kindness. As it happened to be the commencement of Lent, the young ladies were, at first, doubtful as to the propriety of joining us in any of the gaieties; but, after a short consultation, they arranged it with their consciences, and joined in the waltz right merrily. Mademoiselle was really an exceedingly nice girl, and the most lively companion in arms (in a waltz) that I ever met.

Our clothing detained us there two days; on the third, we proceeded to rejoin the division.

The pride of ancestry is very tenaciously upheld among the Basques, who are the mountaineers of that district. I had a fancy that most of them grew wild, like their trees, without either fathers or mothers, and was, therefore, much amused, one day, to hear a fellow, with a Tam O'Shanter's bonnet, and a pair of bare legs, tracing his descent from the first man, and maintaining that he spoke the same language too.

He might have added, if further proof were wanting, that he, also, wore the same kind of shoes and stockings.

On the 27th February, 1814, we marched, all day, to the tune of a cannonade; it was the battle of Orthes; and, on our arrival, in the evening, at the little town of St. Palais, we were very much annoyed to find the seventy-ninth regiment stationed there, who handed us a general order, desiring that the last-arrived regiment should relieve the preceding one in charge of the place. This was the more vexatious, knowing that there was no other regiment behind to relieve us. It was a nice little town, and we were treated, by the inhabitants, like friends and allies, experiencing much kindness and hospitality from them; but a rifleman, in the rear, is like a fish out of the water; he feels that he is not in his place. Seeing no other mode of obtaining a release, we, at length, began detaining the different detachments who were proceeding to join their regiments, with a view of forming a battalion of them; but, by the time that we had collected a sufficient number for that purpose, we received an order, from head-quarters, to join the army; when, after a few days' forced marches, we had, at length, the happiness of overtaking our division a short distance beyond the town of Aire. The battle of Orthes was the only affair of consequence that had taken place during our absence.

We remained stationary, near Aire, until the middle of March, when the army was again put in motion.

On the morning of the 19th, while we were marching along the road, near the town of Tarbes, we saw what appeared to be a small piquet of the enemy, on the top of a hill to our left, looking down upon us, when a company of our second battalion was immediately sent to dislodge them. The enemy, however, increased in number, in proportion to those sent against them, until not only the whole of the second, but our own, and the third battalion were eventually brought into action; and still we had more than double our number opposed to us; but we, nevertheless, drove them from the field with great slaughter, after a desperate struggle of a few minutes, in which we had eleven officers killed and wounded. As this fight was purely a rifle one, and took place within sight of the whole army, I may be justified in giving the following quotation from the author of ”Twelve Years'

Military Adventure,” who was a spectator, and who, in allusion to this affair, says, ”Our rifles were immediately sent to dislodge the French from the hills on our left, and our battalion was ordered to support them. Nothing could exceed the manner in which the ninety-fifth set about the business.... Certainly I never saw such skirmishers as the ninety-fifth, now the rifle brigade. They could do the work much better and with infinitely less loss than any other of our best light troops. They possessed an individual boldness, a mutual understanding, and a quickness of eye, in taking advantage of the ground, which, taken altogether, I never saw equalled. They were, in fact, as much superior to the French _voltigeurs_, as the latter were to our skirmishers in general. As our regiment was often employed in supporting them, I think I am fairly qualified to speak of their merits.”

We followed the enemy until dark, when, after having taken up our ground and lit our fires, they rather maliciously opened a cannonade upon us; but, as few of their shots took effect, we did not put ourselves to the inconvenience of moving, and they soon desisted.

We continued in pursuit daily, until we finally arrived on the banks of the Garonne, opposite Toulouse. The day after our arrival an attempt was made, by our engineers, to throw a bridge across the river, above the town; and we had a.s.sembled one morning, to be in readiness to pa.s.s over, but they were obliged to abandon it for want of the necessary number of pontoons, and we returned again to quarters.

We were stationed, for several days, in the suburb of St. Ciprien, where we found ourselves exceedingly comfortable. It consisted chiefly of the citizens' country houses, and an abundance of the public tea and fruit accommodations, with which every large city is surrounded, for the temptation of Sunday parties; and, as the inhabitants had all fled hurriedly into town, leaving their cellars, generally speaking, well stocked with a tolerable kind of wine, we made ourselves at home.

It was finally determined that the pa.s.sage of the river should be tried below the town, and, preparatory thereto, we took ground to our left, and got lodged in the chateau of a rich old West-India-man. He was a tall ramrod of a fellow, upwards of six feet high, withered to a cinder, and had a pair of green eyes, which looked as if they belonged to somebody else, who was looking through his eye-holes; but, despite his imperfections, he had got a young wife, and she was nursing a young child. The ”Green Man” (as we christened him) was not, however, so bad as he looked; and we found our billet such a good one, that when we were called away to fight, after a few days' residence with him, I question, if left to our choice, whether we would not have rather remained where we were!

A bridge having, at length, been established, about a league below the town, two British divisions pa.s.sed over; but the enemy, by floating timber and other things down the stream, succeeded in carrying one or two of the pontoons from their moorings, which prevented any more from crossing either that day or the succeeding one. It was expected that the French would have taken advantage of this circ.u.mstance, to attack the two divisions on the other side; but they thought it more prudent to wait the attack in their own strong hold, and in doing so I believe they acted wisely, for these two divisions had both flanks secured by the river, their position was not too extended for their numbers, and they had a clear s.p.a.ce in their front, which was flanked by artillery from the commanding ground on our side of the river; so that, altogether, they would have been found ugly customers to any body who chose to meddle with them.

The bridge was re-established on the night of the 9th, and, at daylight next morning, we bade adieu to the _Green Man_, inviting him to come and see us in Toulouse in the evening. He laughed at the idea, telling us that we should be lucky fellows if ever we got in; and, at all events, he said, that he would bet a _dejeune a la forchette_ for a dozen, that we did not enter it in three days from that time. I took the bet, and won, but the old rogue never came to pay me.

We crossed the river, and advanced sufficiently near to the enemy's position to be just out of the reach of their fire, where we waited until dispositions were made for the attack, which took place as follows:--

Sir Rowland Hill, who remained on the left bank of the Garonne, made a show of attacking the bridge and suburb of the town on that side.

On our side of the river the Spanish army, which had never hitherto taken an active part in any of our general actions, now claimed the post of honour, and advanced to storm the strongest part of the heights. Our division was ordered to support them in the low grounds, and, at the same time, to threaten a point of the ca.n.a.l; and Picton, who was on our right, was ordered to make a false attack on the ca.n.a.l.

These were all that were visible to us. The remaining divisions of the army were in continuation to the left.

The Spaniards, anxious to monopolize all the glory, I rather think, moved on to the attack a little too soon, and before the British divisions on their left were in readiness to co-operate; however, be that as it may, they were soon in a blaze of fire, and began walking through it, at first, with a great show of gallantry and determination; but their courage was not altogether screwed up to the sticking point, and the nearer they came to the critical pa.s.s, the less prepared they seemed to meet it, until they all finally faced to the right-about, and came back upon us as fast as their heels could carry them, pursued by the enemy.

We instantly advanced to their relief, and concluded that they would have rallied behind us; but they had no idea of doing any thing of the kind; for, when with _Cuesta_ and some of the other Spanish generals, they had been accustomed, under such circ.u.mstances, to run a hundred miles at a time; so that, pa.s.sing through the intervals of our division, they went clear off to the rear, and we never saw them more.

The moment the French found us interpose between them and the Spaniards they retired within their works.

The only remark that Lord Wellington was said to have made on their conduct, after waiting to see whether they would stand after they got out of the reach of the enemy's shot, was, ”well, d---- me, if ever I saw ten thousand men run a race before!” However, notwithstanding their disaster, many of their officers certainly evinced great bravery, and on their account it is to be regretted that the attack was made so soon, for they would otherwise have carried their point with little loss, either of life or credit, as the British divisions on the left soon after stormed and carried all the other works, and obliged those who had been opposed to the Spaniards to evacuate theirs without firing another shot.

When the enemy were driven from the heights, they retired within the town, and the ca.n.a.l then became their line of defence, which they maintained the whole of the next day; but in the course of the following night they left the town altogether, and we took possession of it on the morning of the 12th.

The inhabitants of Toulouse hoisted the white flag, and declared for the Bourbons the moment that the French army had left it; and, in the course of the same day, Colonel Cooke arrived from Paris, with the extraordinary news of Napoleon's abdication. Soult has been accused of having been in possession of that fact prior to the battle of Toulouse; but, to disprove such an a.s.sertion, it can only be necessary to think, for a moment, whether he would not have made it public the day after the battle, while he yet held possession of the town, as it would not only have enabled him to keep it, but, to those who knew no better, it might have given him a shadow of claim to the victory, if he chose to avail himself of it; and I have known a victory claimed by a French marshal on more slender grounds. In place of knowing it then, he did not even believe it now; and we were absolutely obliged to follow him a day's march beyond Toulouse before he agreed to an armistice.

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