As soon as Ney gave the word, we both
fired: I felt a whiz past my left ear, and putting up my hand there,
found a large piece of my whiskers gone; whereas at the same moment, and
shrieking a horrible malediction, my adversary reeled and fell.
"Mon Dieu, il est mort!" cried Ney.
"Pas de tout," said Beauharnais. "Ecoute; il jure toujours."
And such, indeed, was the fact: the supposed dead man lay on the ground
cursing most frightfully. We went up to him: he was blind with the
loss of blood, and my ball had carried off the bridge of his nose. He
recovered; but he was always called the Prince of Ponterotto in the
French army, afterwards. The surgeon in attendance having taken charge
of this unfortunate warrior, we rode off to the review where Ney and
Eugene were on duty at the head of their respective divisions; and
where, by the way, Cambaceres, as the French say, "se faisait desirer."
It was arranged that Cambaceres' division of six battalions and
nine-and-twenty squadrons should execute a ricochet movement, supported
by artillery in the intervals, and converging by different epaulements
on the light infantry, that formed, as usual, the centre of the line.
It was by this famous manoeuvre that at Arcola, at Montenotte, at
Friedland, and subsequently at Mazagran, Suwaroff, Prince Charles, and
General Castanos were defeated with such victorious slaughter: but it
is a movement which, I need not tell every military man, requires the
greatest delicacy of execution, and which, if it fails, plunges an army
into confusion.
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