Page 1046 - les-miserables

inhabitants of the town, or strangers, or any chance comers,
curious to see his tulips, rang at his little cottage, he opened
his door with a smile. He was the ‘brigand of the Loire.’
Any one who had, at the same time, read military mem-
oirs, biographies, the Moniteur, and the bulletins of the
grand army, would have been struck by a name which oc-
curs there with tolerable frequency, the name of Georges
Pontmercy. When very young, this Georges Pontmercy had
been a soldier in Saintonge’s regiment. The revolution broke
out. Saintonge’s regiment formed a part of the army of the
Rhine; for the old regiments of the monarchy preserved their
names of provinces even after the fall of the monarchy, and
were only divided into brigades in 1794. Pontmercy fought
at Spire, at Worms, at Neustadt, at Turkheim, at Alzey, at
Mayence, where he was one of the two hundred who formed
Houchard’s rearguard. It was the twelfth to hold its ground
against the corps of the Prince of Hesse, behind the old
rampart of Andernach, and only rejoined the main body
of the army when the enemy’s cannon had opened a breach
from the cord of the parapet to the foot of the glacis. He
was under Kleber at Marchiennes and at the battle of Mont-
Palissel, where a ball from a biscaien broke his arm. Then
he passed to the frontier of Italy, and was one of the thir-
ty grenadiers who defended the Col de Tende with Joubert.
Joubert was appointed its adjutant-general, and Pontmer-
cy sub-lieutenant. Pontmercy was by Berthier’s side in the
midst of the grape-shot of that day at Lodi which caused
Bonaparte to say: ‘Berthier has been cannoneer, cava-
lier, and grenadier.’ He beheld his old general, Joubert, fall

1046 Les Miserables