Note 35 — SECTION XXX: CHAPTER II

This account of the charge of the cuirassiers comes from the Mémoires of Colonel de Gonneville, who commanded their leading squadron. There is a curious point to be settled here. Marshal Suchet says (Mémoires, ii. p. 185) that he rode in person to the head of the regiment, and harangued it shortly on Margalef and other ancient glories, before bidding it charge. While speaking he was struck by a spent ball on the shoulder. But de Gonneville (who had read Suchet’s book, as he quotes it in other places) says distinctly (p. 208 of his Souvenirs militaires) that he received no orders, and charged on his own responsibility. ‘N’ayant là d’ordre à recevoir de personne, mais comprenant la nécessité d’arrêter cette masse de cavalerie qui arrivait à nous, &c. ... je donnai le signal.’ Was Suchet romancing about his little speech? Or was de Gonneville, who wrote his Mémoires forty years later, oblivious? Either hypothesis is difficult.