Part 38 (1/2)

My position, as couard, was now very difficult; for how could I, without a single infantryh ht troops on foot whose scouts, clie? I sent at once to warn the divisional general, but Exelmans could not be found However I had been ordered to advance and I could not stop the divisions which were following me, so I continued my march until at a bend in the valley ht of a detachment of enemy Hussars

The Austro-Bavarians had made the same mistake as our leaders; for if the latter had sent cavalry to attack a long and narrow pass, where no more the ten or twelve horsemen could ride abreast, our enemies had sent cavalry to defend a position where a hundred sharpshooters could hold up ten regihted to see that the enemy had no infantry, and as I knew fro coluoes to the one which, hurling itself at the head of the enemy, drives it back into the troops behind it, I launched at the gallop age the enemy; but they did so with such elan that the head of the Austrian column was overwhelmed and the rest thrown into such complete confusion that my troopers had only to take aim

We continued the pursuit for iment in front of us was that of General Ott I had never seen such well turned out Hussars they had come from Vienna, where they had been fitted with coh a little theatrical, looked very handsome: the pelisse and dolman in white and the trousers and the shako in lilac; all clean bright and shi+ning Oneto a ball, or to play in a musical comedy

This brilliant appearance contrasted someith the more modest toilette of our Chasseurs,in which they had bivouacked for eighteen uishi+ng colours had been dimmed by the smoke of cannon and the dust of battlefields However, under those threadbare garments were brave hearts and sturdy limbs So the white pelisses of Ott's Hussars becaiment lost in killed and woundedthe s always fled without ever turning to fight Our Chasseurs took a large nuold-braided pelisses

Up until then everything had gone well, but as I galloped after the victors who pursued the vanquished, I was a bit worried about the end of this strange encounter, for the diht of theindicated that ere nearing the end of the valley, and it was likely that ould find ourselves in a small plain, full of infantry whose volleys and cannon fire would make us pay dearly for our success: but happily there was no such thing, and as we ele infantryman, but only some cavalry, part of which coihlyflight, taking with them some fifteen squadrons, who retired to Hanau

General Sebastiani then deployed his three divisions of cavalry which were soon supported by the infantry of Marshals Macdonald and Victor and several batteries Then the Euard, appeared and the rest of the French ar of the 29th of October; we established our bivouacs in a nearby wood; ere only a league from Hanau and the Austro-Bavarian army

Chap 32

Here now are the reasons why Exelh the pass Before we entered the valley, the scouts had brought to him two Austrian soldiers absentees fro in an isolated village

Exel them questioned in German by one of his aides, when he was surprised to hear them reply in fluent French One of these ood, announced that they were Parisians As soon as he uttered these words, the general, furious that Frenchainst their fellow countrymen, ordered them to be i French was about to be put to death, when his companion, sobered by this fearful spectacle, protested that neither of the been born in Vienna to parents who, although they caarded as Austrian subjects and had been forced to join the regined to them To prove this he showed his ar to the advice of his aides-de-cae, hearing the sound of firing, the General wished to reach the head of the colu; but on his arrival at the h and take a place in the ranks because of the speed hich the two regi many times he was so jostled that he fell with his horse into the Kinzig and nearly drowned

The Ee of the night to reduce the ae off to the right, in the direction of Coblentz, escorted by some battalions of infantry and the cavalry of Lefebvre-Denouettes and Milhau This was a great relief to the ar of the 30th, the Emperor had at his disposal only the infantry Corps of Macdonald and Victor, a to 5000 men, supported by Sebastiani's cavalry division

In the direction froh which the road runs, covers the approach to Hanau The tall trees of this forest allow movement without much difficulty The town of Hanau is built on the other side of the river Kinzig

General de Wrede, although not lacking in military skill, had, however,his army where it had the river at its back, which deprived it of the support which it could have received from the fortifications of Hanau, hich he could not coe of Lamboy, which was his only road of retreat It is true that the position he occupied barred the way to Frankfort and to France, and he felt certain that he could prevent us froe

On the 30th of October at dawn the battle began, like a great hunting party Soether with a charge in open order by Sebastiani's cavalry, scattered the first line of the enee of the wood; but as one penetrated a little further, our squadrons could not operate except in the few clearings which they caht Infantry followed in the steps of the Bavarians, whom they pursued from tree to tree to the end of the forest At that point they had to stop, faced by an enehty guns

If the Eht froorous attack would have e, and General de Wrede would have paid dearly for his temerity, but Marshals Mortier and Marmont and General Bertrand, as well as the artillery, were held up by various passes, mainly that of Gelnhausen, and had not yet arrived Napoleon had no more than ten thousand troops The enee of this to attack us in force, but they did not dare, and this hesitation gave time for the artillery of the Imperial Guard to arrive

As soon as General Drouet, their co, and his line grew in size until he had fifty cannons, which he advanced, firing continuously, although he still had very few troops behind hiive support; however it was not possible for the eneunners had little to back them up Eventually the infantry Chasseurs of the Iust of wind bleay the sht of their busbies, the Bavarian infantry recoiled in fear General de Wrede in an effort to stop this disorder at all costs, ordered all his cavalry, Austrian, Bavarian and Russian, to charge our artillery, and in an instant our battery was surrounded by a swarm of horsemen but at the voice of their commander, General Drouet, who, sword in hand, set the their uns, from where they fired point-blank at the enereat number of the latter would have eventually triumphed, had not, on the E with all that of the Ioons , Chasseurs, Mamelukes, Lancers and Guards of Honour, hurled thereat nu on the Bavarian infantry squares, they broke thee the Bavarian ar and to the town of Hanau

General de Wrede was a bravehimself beaten by forces half as nuathering all the troops re to him, he made a surprise attack on us Suddenly a fusillade broke out and the forest rang once more to the sound of artillery; cannon-balls whistled through the trees, froht in vain to pierce the depths of the wood; one could hardly see the flash of the guns, which lit, at intervals, the shade cast by the foliage of the huge beeches, beneath whose canopy we fought

Hearing the noise made by this attack, the Emperor sent from his position the infantry Grenadiers of his Old Guard, led by General Friant who soon overcame this last effort of the eneroup under the protection of the fort of Hanau, which they abandoned during the night, leaving behind a great number of wounded The French occupied the fort

We were no ues froe across the Main The French ar the bank of this river to reach Mainz and the frontier of France, which was a day's march from Frankfort; so Napoleon detached Sebastiani's corps and a division of infantry to go and occupy Frankfort, and to take over and destroy the bridge The Emperor and the bulk of the army bivouacked in the forest

The ht bank of the river Maine General Albert, a friend of mine, who commanded the infantry which accompanied us, had beenlittle town, built on the left bank exactly opposite the spot where, after e from the woods of Hanau, we rested our horses on the i himself so close to his wife and their children, General Albert was unable to resist the temptation to have news of theers he had encountered at the battles of Leipzig and Hanau To do this he exposed hi either of these sanguinary affairs, for advancing on horseback and in unifors, he hailed a boat with this man, a Bavarian officer ran up with a picket of infantry who, aieneral However, a large body of citizens and boatmen crowded in front of the soldiers and prevented the, for General Albert was very well liked in Offenbach

As I looked at this town, to where I had co for e froovernment, and that I would spend three years there in exile

After leaving the forest of Hanau to go on his way to Frankfort, the Ehting had broken out once eneral who, following his defeat the day before, had expected to be chased, with the E the French army more concerned to reach the Rhine than to pursue hiuard