Count de Styur. 469 



experience of battles lost and won but by the performance of civil 

 functions which custom adorned with the gay dress of the military 

 order. He was created an adjutant du palais in 1802 : and in 1806 

 he became a marshal des logis, the functions of which unwarlike 

 office he exercised in the campaign of 1812. On his return in 181:* 

 he was appointed to the office of gouverneur des pages, and in the fol- 

 lowing year was ^charged with the organisation of a regiment of 

 guards. This corps, however, can scarcely be said to have entered 

 active service : but still their commanding officer had the opportunity, 

 which he eagerly embraced, of being able to offer their attachment 

 to Prince Talleyrand and Marshal Marmont, who were then medi- 

 tating not the defence of France against its enemies, but the surrender 

 of it to the allied armies and the Bourbons. The following report 

 from the Moniteur of April llth, 1814, contains this consistent poli- 

 tician's act of devotion to the Bourbons. 



" J'offre aujourdhui mes seize cents gardes et moi au successeur, 

 ** au descendant des rois de mes peres. Je lui jure fidelite au nom 

 " de mes officiers, de tous mes gardes, et en mon nom qui repond de 

 ** mes sentiments." 



" PHILIPPE DE SEGUR." 



He no doubt forgot at the time his trifling obligations to Napoleon 

 on the score of 24,000 francs freely given to him, and of the scarcely 

 less profitable posts which he owed to the Emperor's favour. 



With respect to Philippe de Segur, as the author of the Russian 

 campaign, we cannot admit his military qualities to be such as to 

 fit him for being the writer of a work of this kind. His situation 

 did not furnish him with the necessary information ; and if he had 

 consulted authorities more capable than himself, he would so have 

 altered his work as to allow us little room for criticism. Those, be- 

 sides, who are well acquainted with contemporary history will recog- 

 nise in his writings a leaning to Russia rather than to France, a 

 prejudice riot altogether unaccountable, when we recollect that his 

 niece married the son of the celebrated Rostopchin. But we are 

 surprised that M. de Segur could have had the audacity to dedicate 

 his Philo-Russian production so falsely called a history to the 

 veterans who preferred death by cold and starvation to the alterna- 

 tive of surrendering themselves to the mercy of the Czar, to men 

 who would indignantly refuse all fellowship with the man whose sole 

 apparent object was to blacken the character of Napoleon. 



Two circumstances especially contributed to the success of the 

 work, the time at which it appeared and the style in which it is 

 written. It was written at a time, when the abuse of Bonaparte was 

 a sure road to court-favour and in a style distinguished for its pre- 

 ference of rhetorical embellishments to the sobriety of truth. Still it 

 would be an act of injustice to deny that many passages throughout 

 the work are worthy of the actors in this great and disastrous drama. 



Our readers must not accuse us of presumption, if we endeavour 

 to point out some parts of M. de Segur' s work, in which his par- 



