Officer's Prey (The Napoleonic Murders)

by Armand Cabasson

  He marched off to find Marshal Ney, one of the bravest men of all time, and when the marshal asked him in surprise the reason for his visit, the colonel replied: ‘Marshal, if Colonel Barguelot has decided to go for a walk in a forest, not even fifty thousand Russians can make him change his mind.’

  EPILOGUE

  OF the four hundred thousand men of the Grande Armée who took part in this campaign, three hundred thousand perished or were taken prisoner. This disaster marked the beginning of the decline of Napoleon’s reign. The Russians also lost more than three hundred thousand combatants (half of them because of the winter) but were able to recover from such a catastrophe.

  Margont survived. He had great difficulty convincing Prince Eugène that Colonel Pirgnon was the man he had been looking for. The deranged Pole accused of Élisa Lasquenet’s murder was freed. A few days later, Margont was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, cheerfully leap-frogging the rank of major, for ‘his heroic action in the fighting at the Berezina’. He did not have time to go to Warsaw because the Emperor was already reorganising his forces in the knowledge that Prussia and a large part of Germany were going to take advantage of his weakened state to rise up against him.

  Colonel Barguelot, who had proved himself a coward at the Moskva but a hero at the Berezina, was not relieved of his command and regained the confidence of his regiment.

  Colonel Delarse also survived. Ironically, he attended a Mass held in memory of several deceased officers, some of whom had refused to put him in charge of a regiment because they thought his days were numbered. He was at last made a brigadier-general.

  Saber was awarded the Légion d’Honneur for his action at the Berezina. The survivors of the 35th called him ‘honorary colonel of the 35th of the Line’. This rank was no more than a mark of affection but it enabled Saber to proclaim to all and sundry that, as he had always said he would, he had ended the campaign as a colonel.

  Lefine, Piquebois and Fanselin also escaped death on Russian soil.

  No one had time to rest because in April 1813 the Saxony campaign began.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The detective plot of this novel (characters and situations) is purely imaginary.

  The 9th Infantry Regiment of the Line was in fact commanded by Colonel de Vautré; the 35th Infantry Regiment of the Line by Colonel Penant; and the 3rd Italian Infantry Regiment of the Line by Colonel Lévie. General Huard had only one aide-de-camp, Captain Cogniard.

  Any similarity between the fictional characters of this novel and people who really existed is entirely accidental.

  APPENDIX 1

  Composition of the French Army at the beginning of the

  Russian Campaign

  Emperor Napoleon I

  Prince Murat is Lieutenant-General

  Emperor’s Household

  General Staff of the Grande Armée

  General Administration of the Grande Armée

  Imperial Guard (30,000 men)

  I Corps (Marshal Davout) (70,000)

  II Corps (Marshal Oudinot) (40,000)

  III Corps (Marshal Ney) (35,000)

  IV Corps (Prince Eugène) (45,000)

  V Corps (General Poniatowski) (35,000)

  VI Corps (General Gouvion-Saint-Cyr) (23,000)

  VII Corps (General Reynier) (18,000)

  VIII Corps (King Jérôme Bonaparte) (16,000)

  X Corps (Marshal Macdonald) (30,000)

  Prussian Corps (von Grawert) (17,000)

  Austrian Corps (Prince Swartzenberg) (30,000)

  I Reserve Cavalry Corps (General Nansouty) (12,000)

  II Reserve Cavalry Corps (General Montbrun) (11,000)

  III Reserve Cavalry Corps (General Grouchy) (7,000)

  IV Reserve Cavalry Corps (General de La Tour Maubourg) (6,000)

  Grand Artillery and Engineering Park

  IX Corps (Marshal Victor) (25,000) and XI Corps (Marshal Augereau) (45,000) were held in reserve in Germany and would not become involved until the end of the campaign.

  In total about 400,000 soldiers and 1,200 cannon directly took part in the campaign.

  (The numbers given are intended for guidance only and vary considerably according to sources but the overall figure of 400,000 men is accepted almost unanimously by historians.)

  APPENDIX 2

  Detailed Composition of IV Corps

  (or Prince Eugène’s Army) (45,000 men)

  Prince Eugène de Beauharnais

  General Staff

  13th Division (General Delzons)

  1st Brigade (General Huard)

  8th Light Regiment

  84th Regiment of the Line

  1st Croat Regiment

  2nd Brigade (General Roussel)

  92nd Regiment of the Line

  106th Regiment of the Line

  Artillery

  Engineers

  14th Division (General Broussier)

  1st Brigade (General de Sivray)

  9th Regiment of the Line

  18th Light Regiment

  2nd Brigade (General Alméras)

  Joseph Napoleon Spanish Regiment

  35th Regiment of the Line

  3rd Brigade (General Pastol)

  53rd Regiment of the Line

  Artillery

  Engineers

  15th Division (or Italian Division) (General Pino)

  1st Brigade (General Fontana)

  1st Light Regiment

  2nd Regiment of the Line

  2nd Brigade (General de Vaudoncourt)

  Dalmatian Regiment

  3rd Light Regiment

  3rd Brigade (General Dembrowski)

  3rd Regiment of the Line

  Artillery

  Engineers

  Light Cavalry Division (General d’Ornano)

  12th Brigade (General Ferrière)

  9th Regiment of Mounted Chasseurs

  19th Regiment of Mounted Chasseurs

  13th Brigade (General Villata)

  2nd Regiment of Italian Mounted Chasseurs

  3rd Regiment of Italian Mounted Chasseurs

  Italian Royal Guard

  Guards of Honour

  Royal Velites

  Regiment of Grenadiers

  Regiment of Conscripts

  Dragoons of the Guard

  Queen’s Dragoons

  Foot Artillery

  Artillery Reserve

  Engineers

  At the beginning of the campaign IV Corps was isolated and would meet up with the bulk of the army only after a few weeks.

  APPENDIX 3

  Composition of the Russian Armies at the beginning of the Russian Campaign

  First Army (Army of the West)

  General Prince Barclay de Tolly

  (150,000)

  Second Army (Army of the South)

  General Prince Bagration

  (65,000)

  Reserve Army (Army of Galicia)

  General Tormasov

  (40,000)

  Army of the Danube

  Admiral Chichagov

  (55,000)

  Army of Finland

  General Steingell

  (15,000)

  Garrison of the City of Riga

  (10,000)

  In total about 400,000 if the soldiers in the garrisons and depots, and Cossack irregulars are included.

  Further books in the Quentin Margont series

  WOLF HUNT

  Armand Cabasson

  In 1809, the forces of Napoleon’s Grande Armée are in Austria. For young Lieutenant Lukas Relmyer, it is hard to return to the place where he and fellow orphan, Franz were kidnapped four years earlier. Franz was brutally murdered and Lukas has vowed to avenge his death.

  When the body of another orphan is found on the battlefield, Captain Quentin Margont and Lukas join forces to track down the wolf who is prowling once more in the forests of Aspern…

  Gallic Books

  978–1–906040–83–3

  MEMORY OF FLAMES

  Armand Cabasson
>
  March 1814. Napoleon’s army is outnumbered and struggling to defend France against invasion by the European allies ranged against it. Paris itself is threatened.

  When the colonel in charge of the security of Paris is found murdered at home, his face burnt and a fleur-de-lys pinned to his chest, it is clear that Napoleon’s authority is being challenged by royalist plotters.

  Who better to call in to uncover the plot than committed republican, Lieutenant Colonel Quentin Margont? Risking his own life, he must infiltrate the secret royalist society, the Swords of the King. But will he be able to, and why do Talleyrand’s parting words as he sets off on the mission, ‘Good luck, Lieutenant Colonel Margont,’ have the ring of an epitaph?

  Gallic Books

  Paperback April 2009 £7.99

  978–1–906040–84–0

  About the Author

  Armand Cabasson

  Armand Cabasson was born in 1970. He is a psychiatrist working in the North of France. The Officer’s Prey is the first in the Quentin Margont series of thrillers set in the Napoleonic Wars, published in France in 2002 as Les Proies de l’officier, which received the 2003 Gendarmerie Nationale Thriller Prize. The second in the series, Chasse au loup, was awarded the 2005 Fiction Prize by the Napoleonic Foundation. Armand Cabasson is a member of the Souvenir Napoléonien and has used his extensive research to create a vivid portrait of the Napoleonic campaigns.

  Michael Glencross

  Michael Glencross lives and works in France as a translator. His most recent translations include The Dream by Émile Zola, Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne and The Châtelet Apprentice by Jean-François Parot.

  Copyright

  First published in 2007

  by Gallic Books, Worlds End Studios, 134 Lots Road, London,

  SW10 ORJ

  This ebook edition first published in 2011

  All rights reserved

  ©Armand Cabasson, 2007

  The right of Armand Cabasson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

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