Auguste de Marmont

Auguste Marmont was born at Châtillon-sur-Seine on 20 July 1774, into a family of minor Burgundian nobility. He entered the Artillery School of Châlons in 1792. It was at the siege of Toulon, in December 1793, that the decisive friendship of his life began. Marmont was an artillery lieutenant; Bonaparte commanded the artillery of the republican army. The young Burgundian impressed by his vigour, intelligence and absolute devotion. Bonaparte took him as an aide-de-camp, a gesture that amounted to a solemn commitment in the Napoleonic world.

The connection deepened in Italy (1796-1797), in Egypt (1798-1799). In each campaign, Marmont was beside Bonaparte — present at Montenotte, Millesimo, Lodi, Arcole. He learned war under a master, observed his methods, transcribed his orders, conveyed his wishes to generals. On 18 Brumaire, he was in Paris, one of the officers supporting the coup d'état. Loyalty was total, confidence mutual. It is said that Napoleon sometimes called him "my Auguste" — an affection rare from a man not given to tenderness.

The consecration came at Marengo, on 14 June 1800. The French army seemed defeated: Mélas had pushed the troops back eastward, Austrian victory seemed assured. Marmont commanded the reserve artillery. When Desaix came galloping back to attempt a desperate counter-attack, Marmont brought his guns forward at the double — a bold manoeuvre under enemy fire — opened fire at close range on the Austrian columns and, combined with Kellermann's cavalry charge and Desaix's attack (who found death in the assault), contributed to the spectacular reversal of the battle. Marengo, the founding victory of the Consulate, owed a decisive share to Marmont's artillery. He received command of Dalmatia in 1806, then the marshal's baton in 1809 and the title of Duke of Ragusa, named after the Adriatic city he had administered with talent.

In 1811, Marmont received command of the Army of Portugal — the French forces of north-west Spain, caught between Wellington, the Portuguese insurrection and the Castilian guerrillas. The mission was thankless: hold an immense territory with insufficient resources, supply lines constantly under attack, troops exhausted by four years of counter-insurgency. Marmont nevertheless conducted several skilful operations, manoeuvred cleverly against Wellington, held Badajoz and defended the Alentejo with what means he had.

On 22 July 1812, the two armies met face to face near Salamanca. Wellington, with about fifty thousand men, faced Marmont with forty thousand. The situation was complex: Marmont attempted to extend his left to cut the British off from their line of retreat towards Portugal. Wellington watched from a height, waiting for the mistake. He detected it at the precise moment when the French divisions stretched dangerously — a dangerous gap opened between two corps. He ordered a general attack. Almost simultaneously, a shell fragment tore away Marmont's left forearm. He collapsed, unconscious. His successor, General Bonnet, was wounded in turn a few minutes later. The chain of command broke at the critical moment. Wellington crashed through the French centre without mercy. The defeat was total: twelve thousand men lost in an hour.

The Battle of Salamanca was one of Wellington's greatest victories in Spain. It forced the French to temporarily evacuate Madrid and shifted European opinion in favour of the coalition. For Marmont, the wound was twofold: he lost use of his arm for several months and saw his reputation damaged. Critics accused him of having extended his flank recklessly, of having underestimated Wellington's capacity to riposte. He defended himself insistently in his Memoirs, attributing the fault to General Clausel's slowness in supporting the manoeuvre in time. This controversy was never truly resolved.

In 1814, France was invaded on all sides. Napoleon fought a series of brilliant battles in Champagne — Champaubert, Montmirail, Vauchamps — but the Coalition armies were too numerous. In March, Marmont commanded the 6th Corps, based around Paris, with the mission of holding the approaches to the capital. Napoleon, entrenched at Fontainebleau, tried to coordinate a last resistance. He sent his marshals orders to hold at all costs. But the marshals were exhausted — by years of war, by losses, by the growing conviction that the game was definitively lost.

In the night of 3 to 4 April 1814, Marmont took a decision that would brand him forever. After secret negotiations with Prince Schwarzenberg and Louis XVIII's emissaries, he transferred his corps — about twelve thousand men — to the Allied lines without informing either Napoleon or his fellow marshals. This surrender gave the Coalition a decisive position around Paris and deprived Napoleon of his last real reserve. When the Emperor learned the news at Fontainebleau, he remained silent for a long moment. He then spoke the words recorded by Caulaincourt: "Marmont is the only one who has betrayed me."

Abdication followed a few days later. The word "raguser" entered popular French speech — raguser meaning to betray, from the title of Duke of Ragusa. This popular etymology, even if it appears in no official dictionary, illustrates the impact of the act on collective memory. Marmont himself never fully assumed the nature of what he had done in his Memoirs: he spoke of "honourable capitulation," "military necessity," a choice dictated by the salvation of France. His contemporaries never forgave him. The term "raguser" would cross the nineteenth century like a scar in the language.

After Waterloo, Marmont remained in the service of the Bourbons. Peer of France, aide-de-camp to the king, he held honorary positions under Louis XVIII and then under Charles X, who granted him particular trust and appointed him Governor of Paris. In July 1830, when the Three Glorious Days revolution erupted, Marmont attempted to defend Charles X with the available troops. But barricades multiplied across Paris, soldiers fraternised with the insurgents, military order collapsed. Marmont finally gave the order to withdraw the troops, avoiding a needless bloodbath, then accompanied Charles X to Cherbourg. This gesture — protecting the king to the last — earned him no rehabilitation in public opinion.

Exile began. Marmont followed the royal family to Prague, then wandered between Vienna, England, Russia, Germany, Italy — seeking a royal pension, recognition that never truly came. He observed from afar the Napoleonic cult developing in France after the return of the Emperor's ashes to the Invalides (1840): this posthumous apotheosis only reinforced his image as a traitor. He wrote his Memoirs in eight volumes, published from 1856 to 1857, after his death. These memoirs are a long self-justification: the Portugal campaign, Salamanca, the 1814 capitulation — everything is presented in the best possible light, in a defensive prose that betrays the obsession of a man already judged by History.

He died in Venice on 22 March 1852, almost forgotten. He had asked to be buried in France, in the soil of Châtillon-sur-Seine where he was born. Under Napoleon III, his remains were repatriated and now rest in the cemetery of Châtillon-sur-Seine. On his tomb: Marshal of France, Duke of Ragusa. Not a word about the betrayal. Not a word about Salamanca. As if the epitaph itself chose the silence Marmont had always preferred to repentance. Historians since have been divided: some acknowledge that he acted in a militarily desperate situation; others point out that his secret negotiations had begun before defeat was irreversible. That doubt never left him.