Chateaubriand's memoirs, IX, 15

London, April to September 1822.

The rumour spread that we were at last going into action; the Prince of Waldeck would attempt an assault, while we, having crossed the river, would create a diversion by a feint against the place from the French side.

Five Breton companies, mine included, the company of Picardy and Navarre officers, and the volunteer regiment, composed of young peasants from Lorraine, and deserters from several regiments, were detailed for the task. We were to be supported by the Royal-Allemand, the squadrons of musketeers, and the various corps of dragoons covering our left: my brother was in this cavalry grouping with the Baron de Montboissier, who had married a daughter of Monsieur Malesherbes, sister to Madame Rosanbo, and therefore aunt to my sister-in-law. We escorted three companies of Austrian artillery with heavy guns and a battery of three mortars.

We began at six in the evening; at ten, we crossed the Moselle above Thionville, on copper-bottomed pontoons:

amoena fluenta

Subterlabentis tacito rumore Mosellae (Ausonius)

the lovely waters

Of the Moselle, slipping by with quiet murmur.

At dawn, we were drawn up in battle order on the left bank, with the heavy cavalry echelons on both flanks, the light cavalry in front. Our next manoeuvre was to form column and commence marching.

About nine, we heard a volley of fire on our left. A carabineer officer rode up at full tilt, to tell us that a detachment of Kellermann’s army was about to engage us, and that a few skirmishes had already taken place. The officer’s horse had been hit in the forehead by a bullet; it reared, with foam streaming from its mouth, and blood from its nostrils: the carabineer, sitting sword in hand on his wounded horse, was superb. The corps from Metz was manoeuvring to take us in the flank; they had field guns whose fire fell among the volunteer regiment. I heard the exclamations of recruits struck by the cannon balls; these last cries of lively youths snatched from life filled me with profound pity: I thought of their poor mothers.

Drums beat the charge, and we rushed in disorder at the enemy. We approached so closely that the smoke did not hinder us from seeing that terrible expression on a man’s face when he is prepared to shed your blood. The patriots had not yet acquired that aplomb granted by lengthy exposure to combat and victory: their actions were inexperienced and awkward; fifty grenadiers of the Old Guard would have sliced through the heart of our heterogeneous mass of undisciplined nobles, young and old: ten to twelve hundred infantrymen were rattled by a few shots from the Austrian heavy artillery; they retreated; our cavalry pursued them for half a dozen miles.

A deaf and dumb German girl, called Libbe or Libba, had become attached to my cousin Armand and had followed him. I found her sitting on the grass which was staining her dress with blood: her elbows were propped on her raised knees; one hand in her tangled blonde hair supported her head. She wept as she gazed at three or four of the dead, fresh deaf-mutes, lying around her. She could not hear the claps of thunder whose effects she saw, as she could not hear the sighs that escaped her lips when she looked at Armand; she had never heard the voice of the man she loved, and would not hear the first cry of the child she carried in her womb; if the grave contained only silence, she would not notice she had entered it.

Moreover, the fields of carnage are everywhere; at Père Lachaise cemetery, in Paris, twenty-seven thousand tombs, two hundred and thirty thousand bodies, will tell you of the war Death wages day and night at your door.

After quite a long halt, we resumed our march, and arrived at nightfall under the walls of Thionville.

The drums were silent; orders were given in a low voice. In order to repel any sortie, the cavalry slipped along the roads and hedgerows to the gate we were to cannonade. The Austrian artillery, protected by our infantry, took up a position, fifty yards or so from the outworks, behind a hurriedly made breastwork of gabions. At one in the morning, on the 6th of September, a rocket launched from the Prince of Waldeck’s camp, on the far side of the town, gave the signal. The Prince began a brisk fire to which the town responded vigorously. We fired simultaneously.

The besieged, not realising we had troops on this side and not having foreseen this attack, left the southern ramparts exposed; we had no time to waste: the garrison armed a twin battery which pierced our breastworks and dismounted two of our guns. The sky was in fire; we were enveloped in torrents of smoke. I behaved like a young Alexander: worn out with fatigue, I fell sound asleep practically beneath the wheels of the gun-carriage I was guarding. A shell, bursting six inches from the ground, sent a splinter into my right thigh. Woken by the blow, but feeling no pain, I only detected my wound by the blood. I tied a handkerchief round my thigh. In the affair on the plain, two bullets had struck my haversack during a wheeling manoeuvre. Atala, like a devoted daughter, had placed herself between the enemy’s lead and her father: she would still have to withstand the Abbé Morellet’s fire.

At four in the morning, the Prince of Waldeck’s fire ceased; we thought the town had surrendered; but the gates were not opened, and we had to consider retreating. We retired to our previous position, after an exhausting three day march.

The Prince of Waldeck had reached the edge of the ditches, and had attempted to cross, hoping to force surrender due to the simultaneous attacks: some divisions were thought still to be in the town, and we flattered ourselves with the hope that the Royalists there would deliver up the keys to the Princes. The Austrians, having opened fire while fully exposed, lost a considerable number of men; the Prince of Waldeck had an arm shattered. While a few drops of blood were being shed beneath the walls of Thionville, blood flowed in torrents in the Paris prisons: my wife and sisters were in greater danger than I.