Because the Champagne Composite Brigade still belonged, in nature, to the National Guard system, its establishment, and the promotions and postings of its officers, could be handled with considerable latitude. (For example, when Lieutenant Napoleon returned to Corsica, he could be promoted at once to Lieutenant Colonel of the National Guard.) Accordingly, the Brigade’s specific affairs usually required only André’s decision; afterward, he would report to General Lafayette in Paris as a routine filing.
The Champagne Composite Brigade’s total strength was held at roughly 4,500 men (including chaplains and various medical and service staff who were non-combatants). Under it were three main combat arms: an infantry regiment, a cavalry regiment, and an artillery regiment. In addition, the gendarmerie regiment—responsible for discipline—would be used as the Brigade’s strategic reserve.
More specifically:
- Brigade Commander: by right and without contest, the great, glorious, and righteous Brigadier General André (National Guard rank). In addition, he concurrently served as Deputy Prosecutor of the Marne.
- Staff: Chief of Staff Colonel Berthier, and staff officers including Captain Davout, Lieutenant Suchet, and eight others.
- Infantry Regiment: about 1,300 officers and men. Commander Lieutenant Colonel Moncey; Major Augereau served as deputy commander and Major of the First Battalion. Captain Masséna, Lieutenant Villed, Lieutenant Dumas, Lieutenant Morand, Lieutenant Gudin, Lieutenant Friant (Davout’s brother-in-law), and others served as battalion and company commanders.
- Artillery Regiment: nine companies on paper (in effect, divisional-level fire support), with eight companies currently manned; about 900 men. The regiment fielded more than fifty guns of various calibres from 4-pounders to 12-pounders. Before the year’s end, it would form the ninth company, a heavy mortar company dedicated to siege work. The regimental commander remained Lieutenant Colonel Senarmont.
- Cavalry Regiment: about 800 men. Commander Lieutenant Colonel Hoche, Captain Nansouty, and the newly joined Captain Wade served as Hoche’s principal assistants, each commanding a cavalry squadron. In order to strengthen the cavalry’s striking power, one horse-artillery company under the artillery regiment—equipped with six 4-pound guns—would also take orders from Colonel Hoche.
- Gendarmerie Regiment: likewise about 800 men, equipped in the same manner as light cavalry, including horses. Beyond maintaining discipline within the Champagne Composite Brigade, it would also supervise National Guard units throughout the Deputy Prosecutor’s jurisdiction. If combat broke out, the gendarmerie regiment would also serve as the Commander’s strategic reserve. The commander remained Lieutenant Colonel Chassé, a man from the United Provinces; the newly arrived Major Brune served as deputy commander and concurrently commanded the Reims National Guard battalion.
In March of this year, the Military Intelligence Office was formally separated completely from the gendarmerie department. It remained under Captain Penduvas, who reported directly to André himself. As for the Office’s establishment and personnel, these were classified and would not be published internally for the time being. For reasons of secrecy and security, the Military Intelligence Office headquarters remained housed in the Reims gendarmerie building.
The seasoned Major Petiet likewise remained the Brigade’s quartermaster and supply officer, also responsible for headquarters transport, and concurrently managing engineer affairs; strength was about 400 men. The newly promoted Second Lieutenant Bertrand commanded the pontoon and bridging engineer company.
The Brigade’s chief medical officer and the field hospital director remained Major Percy, with Captain Larrey as his principal assistant. Beyond these two commanders, the field hospital included eight surgeons (interns included) and a nurses’ detachment composed of more than thirty women. The field hospital also handled day-to-day training and guidance for the four to five medical orderlies assigned to each company.
Within the field hospital—a non-combat institution—there was also a body of accompanying chaplains. They were not combatants: they wore no uniforms and carried no weapons. In ordinary times, they assisted the medical officer; they also participated in gendarmerie enforcement, and, at the supreme commander’s instruction, they would conduct a kind of political-ideological work among officers and men. Their guiding purpose was “For God and the Commander,” and their professional creed was “To bring God’s Gospel to soldiers, so that soldiers trust and obey the Commander without limit.” In late May, Father Marey—the de facto head of the church in the Reims region—appointed the priest Fischer, who had taken refuge from Paris, as the head of chaplains for the Champagne Composite Brigade.
According to the original plan, André would formally leave Reims at the end of August and would voluntarily relinquish the post of supreme commander of the Champagne Composite Brigade. Therefore, in this May reorganization, he promoted all regimental-level combat-unit commanders to Lieutenant Colonel, and, three months later, he would promote Moncey, Hoche, Senarmont, and Chassé one grade further. Once war broke out, these outstanding men would each be able to stand on their own. At the very least, on the northern front, they would not allow the Austrians or the Prussians to gain any advantage.
After October 1789, in Paris—whether among the Constitutionalist nobles or the left-wing deputies—there had been constant encouragement for local National Guard units to expand in number, in hopes of replacing the frontier regulars controlled by conservative nobles and maintaining the victories won since the Revolution.
In fact, the National Guard did add many local battalions, but the quality of officers and soldiers alike was astonishingly poor. In the eastern mountains in July 1790, a National Guard force of five battalions was thrown into chaos by fewer than fifty bandits. After half a year of repeated fumbling, more than 3,000 French troops could only watch as thirty-two bandits withdrew at leisure into the vast Alps.
There were many reasons. One major factor was that localities had no money to maintain elite troops and could only fill ranks by dragging in bodies. Fortunately, André’s own base was thick enough: the immense wealth he had scraped together in Bordeaux, Paris, and Reims could cover every expense of expanding the Brigade. If one also counted the shares from the smuggling routes, local fiscal subsidies from Reims, and certain appropriations from Paris and the Marne, that was sufficient to sustain the Brigade’s ordinary peacetime expenditure.
However, André also understood that these roughly 5,000 officers and men (including the Ardennes forest guerrillas) were already the maximum number the present fiscal conditions could bear. Over the next year, unless war broke out, the Champagne Composite Brigade could not expand further in manpower. Therefore, André’s demand of his officers was that soldiers must be held to NCO standards, and NCOs must be trained as officers. If war began, they must be able, within two to three weeks, to expand the Champagne Composite Brigade into two fully organized divisions, with no fewer than 30,000 combat troops in total.
André said:
“I can now guarantee to you, with responsibility, that war will break out within one year. This is certain beyond doubt. As for our enemies, without question, they will be the Prussians and the Austrians. Do not expect those frontier mercenary corps who are estranged from Paris to block the German coalition’s aggression, and do not expect all Frenchmen to stand on our side. You must remember this: besides me—André—besides the Champagne Composite Brigade, and besides your comrades-in-arms, there is no other man or army capable, on the soil of Reims, of resolutely defending France’s national interest!”
…
Beyond the above 4,500 registered personnel, André also held four armed forces under his command:
First, hidden along the fringe of the Ardennes forests, Major Macdonald secretly commanded an Ardennes guerrilla force of about 500, primarily cavalry, monitoring at close range the Ardennes National Guard and the German Corps under Marquis de Bouillé garrisoned around Metz or Montmédy.
Second, Major Brune’s Reims National Guard battalion, whose strength was maintained at around 700 to 800. At the start of the year, when Brune came to the Reims camp to serve after completing further study at the Paris military academy, André promised him that, before September, he would push for Brune to become the Marne National Guard’s Colonel commander. André’s requirement was explicit: if war required, Major Brune must ensure that within two weeks the total National Guard strength across the province could be mobilized to 15,000 men; the northern Ardennes province would be roughly the same.
Third, thousands of kilometres away, in the French colony of Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean, the Cap-Fran?ais National Guard under Colonel Saint-Cyr (colonial rank) had, in May of this year, expanded to 6,000 men; the target by September was 12,000—three times the total local colonial regulars.
Fourth, Major Allemand and his privateering fleet. With André’s support, Allemand now possessed seven armed privateers, including Le Renard, L’Auguste, Requin Noir, La Confiance, La Manche, Le Biscayen, and Le Gladiateur. Among them, Le Renard, L’Auguste, and Requin Noir were essentially small strategic warships and standard cruisers built in France.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
If one were to name André’s force that fought most frequently and gained the most, it would certainly be Allemand’s privateer fleet. From its inception, France’s national pirates pointed their spear at Russian merchantmen on the Atlantic. In ten months, this French privateer fleet captured thirty-five merchant ships flying the Russian flag, and also seized more than ten Danish ships along the way.
Recently, it made a major move: it took, by surprise, a Russian trading transit station within Norway, and the haul was rich. Beyond gold and silver, the most popular spoils were bear pelts from Eastern European forests. In the eyes of the noblewomen of Britain and France, an intact bear pelt was worth as much as gold and jewels.
André agreed to allow Allemand’s privateers, while operating in the Atlantic, to strike the Kingdom of Denmark–Norway as well, because it was Russia’s staunch ally in Western Europe—a loud-mouthed state that was extremely unfriendly to France during the Revolution. Denmark had declared war on France at the first opportunity, yet never actually fought.
In mid-April, in a victory report sent to André, Allemand mentioned that the fleet had intercepted goods valued at nearly five million livres; once everything was liquidated, it could remit more than eight hundred thousand livres. André was delighted. Among the forces under his hand, one spent money after another, but only the privateers both spent money and earned it. At the same time, André instructed Finance Director Bernard to use this sum to purchase more privateering vessels from metropolitan France or the Iberian Peninsula.
The heavy losses on the North Atlantic routes had enraged the leadership of Russia and Denmark. After fruitless dealings with France’s diplomatic apparatus, Russia’s Baltic Fleet prepared to combine with the Danish fleet and sail into the waters where their merchant shipping had been preyed upon, conducting broad searches and swearing to exterminate these damned French pirates.
By personnel quality and firepower alike, at no time should one ever expect privateers to fight a naval fleet head-on. To do so was virtually certain death. Not every commander was like Captain de Reck, possessing a “holy aura,” able to use a world-shaking hurricane to destroy the Spanish Armada and shatter the ambition to conquer England.
Therefore, after receiving dual warnings from the Swedish navy and the Military Intelligence Office, Allemand’s privateer fleet chose to shift south into the Bay of Biscay, avoiding the edge of the storm. With the tacit acquiescence of the Royal Navy, Allemand’s fleet passed through the English Channel without incident. After resting several weeks around quiet Bordeaux, the fleet continued south, rounded the Iberian Peninsula, passed the Strait of Gibraltar, and finally entered the Mediterranean.
This move was made at the request of the Bordeaux Wine Guild: Allemand and his men intended to settle accounts with the North African pirates entrenched in Libya. Over the past year, those vicious infidel pirates had not only seized multiple merchantmen of the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce; they had also murdered dozens of sailors who had laid down their arms, and driven the detained captains and others into Libyan deserts for forced labour. Meanwhile, the French Mediterranean Fleet stationed at Toulon acted as if nothing had happened, repeatedly refusing to provide normal escort assistance to Bordeaux shipping.
In response, André instructed Le Figaro in Paris to mock the Toulon fleet relentlessly, ridiculing that southern aristocratic fleet as a pack of eunuchs.
…
In later introductions, Chalons-en-Champagne—located in northeastern France—is described as the shared capital of both the Champagne–Ardenne region (including the Ardennes, Aube, Marne, and Haute-Marne) and the department of the Marne. Chalons has a history of 2,000 years, and is both a garden city and a jewel city.
But in 1791, Chalons-en-Champagne was only a town somewhat larger than other market towns: its area was merely one-third of Reims; its population somewhat larger, yet only one-fifth of Reims—barely above 10,000. In fact, even in the twenty-first century, Chalons-en-Champagne was still only a small city of around 50,000.
After returning to Reims, this was André’s third time coming to Chalons. The first was to complete the formal electoral procedure by which the Marne commune confirmed the Deputy Prosecutor; the second was the provincial administrative work report given once every two months (the April report was delivered by Basile, Mayor of Reims, in André’s place, because of Comte de Mirabeau’s grave illness and death). Now, André came again to the provincial commune’s assembly hall to register for election as a representative to the Legislative Assembly.
In fact, the registration form had already been filled out by his superior, Prosecutor Thuriot. All that remained was for the candidate André to sign in the presence of the notary, and the procedure would be complete. As for whether André would be successfully elected, there was no suspense at all.
Across the Marne’s nearly 300,000 inhabitants, the number of “active citizens” with the vote was about 45,000. Fewer than 20,000 actually participated, divided among several constituencies including Chalons, épernay, Reims, Aumont, and Suippes. Because the Reims area was densely populated, it was divided into Upper Reims and Lower Reims constituencies. Among these, under André’s rule as Deputy Prosecutor, épernay and the two Reims constituencies gave him an absolute advantage; the electors in the other three constituencies, because of their interest ties to the United Investment Company, could also contribute a certain number of votes.
According to the Intelligence Office’s secret investigation and reliable analysis, Deputy Prosecutor André could even surpass his mentor Prosecutor Thuriot in total votes and place within the top three, ensuring his election as a Marne representative to the Legislative Assembly. The reality was that, at the electors’ meeting in early May, the nine representatives to the Legislative Assembly had already been internally fixed. André and Thuriot were unquestionably on the list; everything afterward was merely legal procedure.
Compared with this, in 1789, in order to secure a representative seat in Arras leading to Paris, Robespierre had to swallow his pride and adopt a campaign tactic that seriously violated procedure. After learning he was unlikely to win, Robespierre instructed his siblings and several friends to mix into the electors’ venue and forcibly stuff slips of paper bearing Robespierre’s name into the hands of more than 200 electors, thereby obtaining the representative qualification to attend the Estates-General in Paris. (Note: this material is from Britain; its authenticity cannot be confirmed.)
“By the way—don’t rush off yet!” Thuriot called to André as he was hurrying to leave. He then told his assistant, “In two hours, there will be an assembly in the provincial hall attended by electors from across the province. I know you have been too busy lately—take the opportunity. Go up and deliver a speech. Treat it as the inaugural address of a Legislative Assembly representative to his voters.”
This was only proper. André did not hesitate and nodded at once. He then called over his attendant, Meldar, and instructed him to notify Say and the others that he would be unable to attend the afternoon tea and evening reception banquet with the United Investment Company leadership.
Meldar had shamelessly insisted on following André into the Marne. Ever since the rigorous Captain Javert became the boy’s stepfather, Meldar’s psychological shadow had grown larger and larger, to the point that he could not sleep day or night. Fortunately, André was not one to forget old ties. After obtaining the consent of Anna and Captain Javert, André arranged for Meldar—who had already graduated from the Lycée Saint-Louis—to study at the Reims University Faculty of Law, while also serving as André’s personal runner.
At five p.m., in the Marne assembly hall, André strode to the lectern amid warm applause from more than 200 electors. In his first two paragraphs, he gave an opening that was both proud and highly stirring.
He said:
“When I face you, what I must state is this: the holy Creator has bestowed upon André this free body and a face that reveres democracy. As everyone knows, I had the good fortune not to be born into the privileged classes, so that I did not become an ignorant wastrel, nor a local tyrant who oppresses the people, but rather a man who is useful to the people and meaningful.
“For twenty-six years, I have maintained my innate wisdom, and through a series of self-struggles, I have created my present social standing and financial wealth. In this process, whether in my conduct of life or in the profession I chose, I have proved again and again that I can combine calm reason with burning feeling, and artfully unite firmness of character with—…”
As a top student of the law faculty, a famous defence lawyer, the Paris prosecutor, and now the Deputy Prosecutor of the Marne, André could not open his mouth without invoking the law—this holy and solemn weapon.
He raised his bandaged arm dramatically, where a small stain of blood had seeped through, and explained to the crowd:
“I am certain that I was chosen by the 300,000 people of the Marne to support the French Constitution of 1791. Therefore, I must supervise the execution of the Kingdom of France’s present laws, even if I must sacrifice everything—life included—without hesitation. For I believe that the law endures forever; truth endures forever; justice endures forever!
“I swear that I will keep my oath;
I swear that I will be loyal to my duty;
I swear that I will give my full support to the constitution acknowledged by the people.
“For only by doing so can we defend equality, liberty, and the people, and cause the flower of fraternity to spread across the Marne—and across all France…”
When the applause below gradually subsided, André continued with feeling:
“I have already devoted my whole life to the people of the Marne. They no longer need to fear bandit attacks; those who betray the people can no longer escape punishment. If shameless plunderers persist in walking the old road, the people will soon command me to sweep them all from this world. For the people’s cause, I can go through fire and water, and even in death have no regret. My final blessing will also be given to the people—only the people deserve to receive it. The people’s wisdom has enabled them to cast off their lowly condition; their wisdom and fearless spirit will cause them to live forever!”
Another round of thunderous applause rose. Amid the rolling cries of “Long live André!” “Long live the Deputy Prosecutor!” “Long live Deputy André!” André descended from the lectern with a full smile. As he did, he noticed that among the hundred-odd listeners there were also a few dissenters. From start to finish, these men wore an arrogant expression of disdain, glaring coldly at André and refusing to applaud or cheer.
André gave a look to his intelligence adjutant, Second Lieutenant Peltier Lozère, who wore plain clothes. The latter nodded without expression and immediately turned, walking toward those anti-André dissenters.
(One additional note: the speech above is adapted in part from George Danton’s inaugural address at Paris City Hall in 1792. In my personal view, within the history of the Revolution, only Danton’s and Napoleon’s speeches were the most stirring and electrifying.)
“André, your speeches are always so moving. Worthy of Mirabeau the Second—ha ha ha!” Below the stage, Thuriot embraced his disciple and subordinate warmly, teasing him without stop, and invited him to dinner at his house that evening. André accepted happily, saying he would arrive punctually at the Prosecutor’s residence in two hours.