The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-04-18

Reggie, and yield good evidence in
support of the preceding suggestion.
When the editor sees fit to explain
events, to pronounce opinions, to thrust
the duchess aside and summarize in
her stead. the chapters become, de-
spite M. Stiegler's evident interest in
and admiration for the marshal and
his brilliant wife. simply list of bat
ties, too many and indistinct to make
an IMPRESSION on the reader, and a
catalogue of the hero's wounds and
tr1umphs. too impersonal for human
interest. When the duchess is allowed
to tell the story Of her husbands and
her own life the events are full of
personal interest, the figures stand out
human and familiar. the period is
changed from history to life
Like many another book, however,
the excess Of interest gathers rather
around the writer than her hero. 1t is
through no fault of the marechale that
her hero husband remains of secondary
Importance in the readers eyes to her
own earnest, devoted unconscious
hgure. The marshal represents to her
all grace, all heroism, all success, and
the honors and triumphs of her own
career seem to her but the reflection
Of his great glory.
The first forty years of Marshal
Oudinots life, up to the meeting with
his second wife, are naturally the
province Of the editor, and in a very
simple and direct, way he covers this
period Of great moment. when from
private soldier, the son Of a respectable
brewer, Nicolas Charles Oudinot adj
Vanced, by marvellous deeds of Valor,
to marshalship OF France with the
battle-earned title of Due de Reggie.
It is here that the memoirs pass into
the worthy hands Of Eugene de Coucy,
q e fYIt 20 III a ~
ing girl of sixteen, who goes with her sis
ter to congratulate Nine. Oudinot on
the honors heaped upon the marshal 8
head and hers, honors soon to descend
to the unwilling Eugene.
One year after the first Nine Oudi-
not's death and when the bride was
twenty years Of age, Eugene de Coucy
became the Duchesse de Reggie. OF no.
bic family and traditions she had yet
spent youth of hardships. AS child
of two and half years, she had been
imprisoned during the Revolution with
her family, and naturally the sympa-
thies Of her household were royalistic
to the end. Her husband was a soldier
of the emperor, however, and his poll
tics became hers.
During the first year of her married
life Napoleon's ambition carried the
"Grande Armee' into the heart of Rus
STA. Marshal OudinOt, never careful Of
his personal safety and always unfor-
tGnate under fire, was hardly gone
when word returned to his young wire
that he was severely wounded. Unde-
tered by the terrible journey, she
reached him at wilma, only to take
part with the freezing, furnishing army
in that memorable retreat. Seen
through a Womans, eyes, woman
travelling with a husband wounded al
most unto death, the terrors of that
mad retreat are more terrible; the
mounted riders, falling frozen; the road
way up the icy mountain paved with
dead mer; the vast black circles Of the
regiments drawn on the white snow
round the pOwerless camp fire, me-
tiOnleSS, but living at nightfall, mo-
tiOnless, but dead at daybreak; starv1-
ton, agony and heart sickness in the
marshaPs carriage; starvation, agony
and heartsickness in the faltering ranks
without. The Duchesse de Reg
gio. whose style is usually so unGe-
monstrative and self-contained, here
lets her memory paint a picture so i'm
pressiVe that the reader seeks a refuge
in vain from its horrors. After the re-
turn from Russia events follow each
other with binding rapidity. Napoleon
abdicate, the BOurbOns are restored !;
Napoleon returns and Waterloo IS
fought; the Bourbons come again. AL
though for twenty years a soldier I'M
der Napoleon, Oudinot relieved from
his allegiance by the first abdication,
Joined himself to Louis XVIII. and was
one of the very few of the emperor-s
old officers who remained true to the
king, and therefore inactive at the
time of Waterloo HOnors were natur-
ally in store for him on the return