the main body of the army when the enemy's cannon had opened
a breach from the cord of the parapet to the foot of the glacis. He was
under Kleber at Marchiennes and at the battle of Mont-Palissel, where
a ball from a biscaien broke his arm. Then he passed to the frontier
of Italy, and was one of the thirty grenadiers who defended the Col
de Tende with Joubert. Joubert was appointed its adjutant-general, and
Pontmercy sub-lieutenant. Pontmercy was by Berthier's side in the midst
of the grape-shot of that day at Lodi which caused Bonaparte to say:
"Berthier has been cannoneer, cavalier, and grenadier." He beheld his
old general, Joubert, fall at Novi, at the moment when, with uplifted
sabre, he was shouting: "Forward!" Having been embarked with his
company in the exigencies of the campaign, on board a pinnace which was
proceeding from Genoa to some obscure port on the coast, he fell into
a wasps'-nest of seven or eight English vessels. The Genoese commander
wanted to throw his cannon into the sea, to hide the soldiers between
decks, and to slip along in the dark as a merchant vessel. Pontmercy had
the colors hoisted to the peak, and sailed proudly past under the guns
of the British frigates. Twenty leagues further on, his audacity having
increased, he attacked with his pinnace, and captured a large English
transport which was carrying troops to Sicily, and which was so loaded
down with men and horses that the vessel was sunk to the level of the
sea. In 1805 he was in that Malher division which took Gunzberg from the
Archduke Ferdinand. At Weltingen he received into his arms, beneath a
storm of bullets, Colonel Maupetit, mortally wounded at the head of the
9th Dragoons. He distinguished himself at Austerlitz in that admirable
march in echelons effected under the enemy's fire. When the cavalry of
the Imperial Russian Guard crushed a battalion of the 4th of the line,
Pontmercy was one of those who took their revenge and overthrew the
Guard. The Emperor gave him the cross. Pontmercy saw Wurmser at Mantua,
Melas, and Alexandria, Mack at Ulm, made prisoners in succession.
He formed a part of the eighth corps of the grand army which Mortier
commanded, and which captured Hamburg. Then he was transferred to the
55th of the line, which was the old regiment of Flanders. At Eylau
he was in the cemetery where, for the space of two hours, the heroic
Captain Louis Hugo, the uncle of the author of this book, sustained
alone with his compan