Saw Napoleon Weep

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 176, 15 October 1927, Page 10

Saw Napoleon Weep

BLACK DAYS OF THE DEBACLE

Girl They Couldn’t Leave Behind

THERE is living in France to-day a woman who saw Napoleon 111. weep when his Empire crumbled before the armies of Prussia. In an interview in the “Sunday News” she tells the story of the black days of the debacle. She was a vivandiere and also was with the Foreign Legion in the Mexican campaign.

AH, monsieur, life is a strange adventure indeed. Here I am, at the age of 85, with a sewing basket full of war medals to give me joy and seven pet cats to take care of. Now the French Government has just given me the Medaille Militaire, which is another joy. I shall pin it on with a few of the others. Yes, I will tell you my storj*. But I must not leave my post too long. This job as doorkeeper of an orphan asylum requires a good deal of attention, you see, and I must do my duty. I get ten shillings a month, but that has nothing to do with duty. Soldiers don’t work for pay, do they? I cannot put very much aside for a rainy day, helas, but times in France are hard and most good jobs go to younger people. Still, I am happy. I have my cats, my warm stove in winter, some good friends among the little orphans, and my memories. Ah, yes, my memories! They go back over a long stretch of time. Always with the soldier boys, everywhere with them, in battle and in peace, urging them on, giving them courage, feeding them and tending them. Such is the lot of the vivandiere, monsieur. The cantiniere that was, I should have said, for to-day there are Red Cross societies, Salvation Armies and everything nice and modern to make the boys happy and comfortable. Still, I believe the old style was the best. NAPOLEON 111/S TEARS What times we had! I shall never forget the Bavarians and our brave Turcos at Weissenburg in 1870. What a firece lot they were, the Bavarians, and how we had to make a run for it, I can still see Napoleon 111. sitting on a milestone near me and sobbing over the defeat of our armies. Poor Emperor! “Why did we not prepare?” he repeated over and over again as the tears were running down into his waxed moustache. Those things stand out in one’s memory, you see. I left the city of Strasburg with my father and mother in 1845 to live with them at the barracks of Reuilly. Father was then corporal-bootmaker in the 7th Infantry. I was 17 when I married Francois Tuvache, the most handsome trumpeter that ever lived. My, how he loved me. Well, I became cantinere of the 7tli on the day of our marriage, and followed the regiment to Italy in 1861 to protect Pope Pius IX. on his entry to Rome. He had been in exile two years you know. My baby was born shortly afterwards, and the Pope gave it his blessing. A COMPANY MASSACRED Then my regiment was ordered to Mexico. That was joy, and everybody loved my baby. I couldn’t leave him behind, cduld I? The boys were all picked men, well tried in every branch of the service. We were part of the expeditionary coriis under General Lorencez. At the battle of Camerone I saw a whole company of the Foreign Legion massacred by the Mexicans. ‘ Only seven escaped. I followed 60 volunteers to the assault of Serra Dorego under Sub-Lieut. Dietrich, and we won through. The little keg of brandy I carried strung over my shoulder never came handier than on that terrible day. Dietrich later became a general. In 1866 I was noticed by the Emperor Maximilian after a particularly hot light against the guerillas. I was wearing my best red trousers, my pretty skirt just above the knees, my black waistcoat, and a coquettish felt campaign cap slightly tilted on my left ear. I was sitting astride my donkey and holding my small cask of “spiritual support” in front of me. “Ah,” said the Emperor, stopping a moment, “here is the little mademoiselle who pokes her pretty nose into all the places where the bullets are flying.” With that he pinched my cheek and went on. He did not know I was the wife of the handsomest trumpeter in the army. So I forgave him for calling me mademoiselle. AN AWFUL DEBACLE A month later we returned to France and were quartered at Perpignan, then at Tulle, Limoges, and other cities, until the Franco-Prussian war broke out.

My regiment went forward at once. It was my Francois, of course, who sounded the calls at Spicheren Hoehen, near Forbach, and such heroism I never saw as on that memorable day. Half of the regiment fell, and the rest would have fought on to the last man if orders to retreat had not come from headquarters. Then it was an awful debacle. Colonel de Saint-lilie was killed right beside me and four hundred of our comrades were dead. Everybody fled. All ran like mad, throwing away their empty rifles and everything else that might impede their movements. Everybody was crying “treason.” We fled towards Metz, where we stayed throughout the bombardment. At Gravelotte and Mars-la-Tour on August 28 we were beaten by the army of the German Kronprinz, and finally the whole French army had to surrender. It was after Sedan. Napoleon was on the road of poplars near Vionville waiting for Prince Bismarck, to whom he was to submit his sword. My regiment, the Second Infantry (for the Seventh had since been annihilated) was resting in the trenches running beside the road. That is where I heard the Emperor weep. We went to Burg, in Saxony, as prisoners of war, and remained there five months. In 1871 my husband and I returned to France and were incorporated in the new Seventh at Tulle. Through all my wars I never got as much as a scratch. Certainly I always happened to be in the thickest of it, but that was not my fault. Once, I remember, I found myself in a field about 500 yards from the banks of the Moselle. The field was littered with dead and wounded. Dozens of men, French and German, were moaning for water. And my cask had been shot through. And the shrapnel was still sweeping the field. PETTICOAT WATER CARRIER So what did I do for water? Iran to the river with a German helmet and filled it, but the water leaked from it before I had made 50 paces. Then I had an inspiration. I took off my petticoat, soaked it in the Moselle, and ran back with it to my wounded lads. I wrung it out over their parched lips as I would a towel, letting the water drip into their poor twitching mouths and then running back for more. At least ten times I ran forth and back, up and down the hill, answering the prayer of a dying dragoon or the imploring look of a German. Brave soldiers, that they were, fighting men wearing clothes of different colours, but brothers, after all, monsieur, if it weren’t for these damned wars all the time. “VACCINATED AGAINST BULLETS” It is funny that I should not have been hurt. The boys said I was vaccinated against bullets. Commanders pinned medals on me and said I was a brave little person. Ma foi, I let them think what they wanted. When the big war came I wanted to start out with them again, hut they had no use for me. I was past seventy, anyway, and they seemed to think my age was against, me. As if age had anything to do with soldiering, the poor blockheads. Enfin, I am now in this orphan asylum of Troyes, in the province of Aube. It is called the Orphelinat de Saint-Martin-es-Aires, and I am the concierge. I pull the string that opens the latch in the door, day or night, and I have a basketful of medals besides my cats.