Page 1047 - les-miserables

at Novi, at the moment when, with uplifted sabre, he was
shouting: ‘Forward!’ Having been embarked with his com-
pany in the exigencies of the campaign, on board a pinnace
which was proceeding from Genoa to some obscure port on
the coast, he fell into a wasps’-nest of seven or eight English
vessels. The Genoese commander wanted to throw his can-
non into the sea, to hide the soldiers between decks, and
to slip along in the dark as a merchant vessel. Pontmercy
had the colors hoisted to the peak, and sailed proudly past
under the guns of the British frigates. Twenty leagues fur-
ther on, his audacity having increased, he attacked with his
pinnace, and captured a large English transport which was
carrying troops to Sicily, and which was so loaded down
with men and horses that the vessel was sunk to the level
of the sea. In 1805 he was in that Malher division which
took Gunzberg from the Archduke Ferdinand. At Weltin-
gen he received into his arms, beneath a storm of bullets,
Colonel Maupetit, mortally wounded at the head of the 9th
Dragoons. He distinguished himself at Austerlitz in that ad-
mirable march in echelons effected under the enemy’s fire.
When the cavalry of the Imperial Russian Guard crushed
a battalion of the 4th of the line, Pontmercy was one of
those who took their revenge and overthrew the Guard. The
Emperor gave him the cross. Pontmercy saw Wurmser at
Mantua, Melas, and Alexandria, Mack at Ulm, made pris-
oners in succession. He formed a part of the eighth corps
of the grand army which Mortier commanded, and which
captured Hamburg. Then he was transferred to the 55th of
the line, which was the old regiment of Flanders. At Eylau

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