Note 36 — Chapter XI · THAT TERRIBLE MIDNIGHT AT THE INVALIDES

General Dupont, an officer of the highest promise and with an exceptionally brilliant record, Ney’s right-hand man, and chief divisional leader on many battlefields, a special favourite also with Napoleon (“a man I loved and was rearing up to be a marshal,” were Napoleon’s words of him), while on the expedition which was to win him the bâton, at the head of 25,000 men, let himself be surrounded and cut off; trapped among the gorges of the Sierra Morena by a horde of peasants backed up by Spanish regulars; and then, in spite of a final chance that offered for him to force his way through, surrendered to the enemy. He had committed “une chose sans exculpe; une lacheté insultante,” declared Napoleon in savage fury on hearing of the surrender. Those who had had part in it, declared the Emperor, should “die on the scaffold”—“ils porteront sur l’échaffaud la peine de ce grand crime national!” He had Brigadier Legendre, Dupont’s Chief of the Staff, who had been released on parole, brought before him at Valladolid, and heaped on the wretched, broken man the bitterest reproaches and revilings; beside himself in his wrath. Not a word in reply, in explanation, would he listen to. Before the Imperial Guard on parade, and the assembled Imperial Staff, Napoleon finally gripped the general by the wrist and shook it passionately. An onlooker, another officer, describes the scene: “A nervous contraction of the muscles seemed to seize the Emperor. ‘What, General!’ he ejaculated, his voice quivering with fury. ‘Why did not your hand wither when it signed that infamous capitulation!’” Legendre was cashiered: Dupont (who had been ill and was wounded during the battle) was cashiered, degraded from the Legion of Honour, and kept under police surveillance as long as the Empire lasted.

What became of the other two Eagles, those of the “Garde de Paris” and of the Second Battalion of the 5th Light Infantry, and the fourteen Reserve Battalion flags that were taken at Bailen is unknown. They are not in Spain, although one trophy indirectly associated with the disaster is now at Madrid, the admiral’s flag of Admiral Rosily, who was at Cadiz with the French squadron which Dupont was marching to rescue. It is kept as a trophy in the Museo Naval of Madrid. Rosily had charge of the five French ships of the line which escaped into Cadiz after Trafalgar. When Spain rose against Napoleon, they were placed in danger from the garrison of Cadiz; being at the same time unable to put to sea because a British fleet blockaded the port. Dupont’s army was specially sent to bring away the 4,000 soldiers and sailors on board, who were then to abandon the ships. Just before Dupont reached Bailen, the Spaniards attacked Rosily, bombarding his ships with heavy cannon, and mortars and a gunboat flotilla, and he had to surrender, his admiral’s flag being carried off by the Spaniards, ultimately to find its way to its present resting-place.