'Ennemy Women' on Helion blog
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By David Clammer, author of Ladies, Wives and Women: British Army Wives in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1793-1815
Ladies, Wives and Women, as the subtitle indicates, is about the British army wives who accompanied their husbands' regiments during the Napoleonic Wars. In the course of my research into the primary sources – the letters, diaries and memoirs of the eyewitnesses to these events – I came across a number of references to the women attached in one capacity or another to the French armies. Some of these were wives, although this appears to have been in the case of officers rather than the other ranks. Others were mistresses or lovers, but most seem to have simply been camp followers of various nationalities. I began to keep notes about these ladies under the shorthand heading of ‘enemy women', which, if somewhat inaccurate, at least ensured that they did not get into the wrong slot in the filing cabinet.
There were of course the vivandières, the women who accompanied the French armies in the capacity of sutlers, selling a variety of small luxuries and comforts to the troops, and who had no counterpart in the British army. Few of the British eyewitness accounts mention them, perhaps because their presence was recognized as being officially sanctioned and hardly worth a comment. One who did, however, was Sir Richard Henegan of the Field Train, who noticed their presence during the fighting in the Pyrenees, but whose observation was far from complimentary, describing them as ‘that most unfeminine of the female gender yclep'd vivandière'.[1]
The presence of other women in the ranks of the French regiments became apparent quite early on in the war in Spain and Portugal. During Sir John Moore's campaign, a sharp and successful cavalry action took place at Sahagún on 21 December 1808. As was usual, the dead were quickly stripped by the local peasantry, their naked bodies left in the gathering snow. Sir Robert Ker Porter was a civilian artist who had managed to attach himself to Moore's army, and he took a walk to examine the battlefield. He described what he found in a letter to a friend. ‘I was surprised to discover a female amongst the groupe; how she became thus situated it is not easy to guess, unless we may suppose that she was some love-impelled damsel, and followed her soldier to the field; or, being enamoured like many an Amazon of war for its own sake, she became an appendage of the camp: and here, by some accidental shot, was deprived at once of life and her military ardour'.[2]
This unfortunate girl had presumably been in the ranks of the French cavalry and wearing uniform, and had not been recognized by the British troopers who cut her down. Other eyewitness accounts mention French troops accompanied by women either dressed in male costume or actual uniform. This would certainly have made riding astride easier, and was perhaps a security measure. Captain Kincaid of the 95th saw just such a woman on 19 March 1811, shortly after the army had crossed the Mondego river and he recorded the fact in a typically sardonic manner. ‘We, this day, captured the aide-de-camp of General Loison, together with his wife who was dressed in a splendid hussar uniform. He was a Portuguese, and a traitor, and looked very like a man who would be hanged. She was a Spaniard, and very handsome, and looked very like a woman who would be married again.' [3] She was not the only woman Kincaid came across in the course of the fighting. Later in the war, there was a sharp encounter battle at San Milan on 18 June 1813. ‘Their general's aide-de-camp, amongst others, was mortally wounded; and a lady, on a white horse, who probably was his wife, remained beside him, until we came very near. She appeared to be in great distress; but, though we called to her to remain, and not to be alarmed, yet she galloped off as soon as a decided step became necessary.' [4] The Frenchman died shortly afterwards, and the lady on the white horse was not seen again.
Captain MacCarthy of the 50th came across something similar at the storming of Fort Napoleon at Almarez on 19 May 1812. ‘In the Fort was a French artillery officer's wife; she was dressed in a kind of male attire, (as a personal security it was supposed,) but which was her equestrian costume, a travelling cap, pelisse, and Turkish trowsers, adapted for her mode of riding on horseback, (like a man,) to whom the British officers instantly gave protection.' They could not, however, prevent the looting which was in full swing, and the lady lost all her baggage before order could be restored. Some of her wardrobe was recovered, ‘and she quitted the Fort in grief, leaning on the arms of her husband and Captain Stapleton, 50th regiment.' [5] Someone found her a horse, and she rode off with her husband who was presumably now a prisoner of war.
Some of the most senior French generals also appear to have had a penchant for female company. When the French under the command of Marshal Massena arrived before Wellington's army positioned along the ridge of Busaco, in September 1810, Ney urged Massena to attack at once. According to historian Michael Glover, however, Massena was otherwise engaged: ‘The prince was travelling with a Mme Henriette Leberton, and, according to one account, Ney's ADC had to shout his message through the bedroom door. Certainly he had to wait two hours before Massena would see him'. [6] The attack was postponed until the next day.
Mme Leberton was not the only lady present with Massena's army at that time. Lieutenant Colonel Leach, as he later became, who was present at Busaco with the 95th, later recalled that the French general Simon, who commanded a brigade in the 3rd Division of the French army, was captured ‘and a flag of truce came in, bringing General Simon's baggage, and with it a pretty little Spanish woman, part of his establishment'. And he added, ‘The fair one was in tears, and appeared much agitated',[7] as well she might have been. Leach was not the only eyewitness to this incident. Captain William Stothert of the 3rd Foot Guards noted some extra details. Simon, he wrote, was wounded and captured along with his aide-de camp. ‘A short time afterwards a young Spanish lady, whom the General had carried off from Madrid, and his baggage, were sent to the British head-quarters with a flag of truce'. [8] What became of these ladies captured with their husbands or lovers we are unfortunately not told. The wife of the officer taken prisoner at the storming of Fort Napoleon at Almarez, who was presumably French, may well have gone into captivity with the husband, but it seems unlikely that a Spanish woman who had been ‘carried off' as Stothert put it, would have had that degree of loyalty.
An officer who had a rather unexpected encounter with a lady in the French ranks was Captain Thomas Dyneley of E Troop, Royal Horse Artillery. Dyneley was captured during the action at Majalahonda on 11 August 1812, and endured an exhausting forced march with his captors. On the 15th, he was accosted by General Chassé, who demanded to know ‘Are you the Englishman?' On agreeing that he was, Dyneley was told ‘I marry one English lady … She wishes to speak to you'. He climbed off the baggage waggon on which he was riding, and was presented to the lady, and there followed a conversation as bizarre as it was unexpected.
‘Have I the pleasure to address a countryman of my own? ‘
‘Yes, you have certainly. ‘
‘From what part of England are you? ‘
‘London. ‘
‘Oh dear London, I should be the most miserable creature in the world if I did not feel certain I should die there. I am so very partial to everything that is English – look here. ‘
She pulled out a Twining's tea-canister, which, as Dyneley said in a letter to his family (he later escaped) ‘certainly did cut me up a good deal'. [9] She did however give him some bread and meat, while continuing to talk. She was from Kent – as was Dyneley – and claimed to be the daughter of Admiral Drake. She had married General Chassé in Holland, where he had been forced into service by Bonaparte, which was how she came to be in Spain and on the wrong side. A strange encounter indeed.
All of these women were individual wives or mistresses, but the French forces also acquired numbers of camp followers. So had the British army, but Napoleon's men appear to have operated on a somewhat grander scale, as became apparent towards the end of the war in the Peninsula, in the chaotic aftermath of the battle of Vitoria which took place on 21 June 1813. It was the sheer number of women attached to the French army which it impressed itself on a number of the British eyewitnesses. John Aitchison, an ensign in the 3rd Foot Guards, in a letter to his father, stated that ‘The [French] generals, about 500 of their ladies, the military chest (with much treasure) and the whole baggage of the army fell into our hands …'[10] This may have been an underestimate. When Captain Bowles of the Coldstream Guards sat down to write to Lord Malmsbury on 28 June, he had this to say: ‘Nearly the whole of the female establishment of the French army was captured, which rather overstocked us with that article. Upwards of 3,000 Mademoiselles of various descriptions were left behind by the beaten army in Vittoria'.[11]
Several of the British officers who wrote accounts of the war mentioned the presence of the Countess Gazan, wife of the commander of the French Armée du Midi. Thomas Browne described how she screamed for help as he passed, and how he recommended that she get back into her carriage, but that when he had gone, she got out and managed to lose her child in the chaos.[12] Francis Larpent, the army's Judge-Advocate, also encountered the Countess: ‘In the midst of this, a lady in great distress, well dressed and elegant, with her carriage in the ditch, and she herself standing by, appealed to me, and, asking if I could speak French, said she was the Countess de Gazan, wife of the French General, and said that she wished to get back to the town, and, if possible, save her horses, mules and carriage'. [13] Larpent, with the assistance of two hussars, was happy to oblige. The lost child was discovered a week later, having been found amidst the wreckage by a British soldier.
Some of the French camp followers were dressed in hussar-style uniforms, but according to August Schaumann, one of the Deputy Assistant Commissary-Generals in the allied army, they got short shrift: ‘The unmarried ladies belonging to the French army, most of whom were young and good-looking Spanish women, dressed in fancy hussar uniforms and mounted on pretty ponies, or else conveyed in carriages, were first robbed of their mounts, their carriages and jewels, and then most ungallantly allowed to go'. They were however quick to change their allegiance. ‘But as all they wanted was protection and a new lover, both of which they soon obtained, they were to be had for the asking'.[14]
Schaumann's view of the situation was corroborated by Captain Thomas Browne of the Adjutant General's staff: ‘A friend of mine, Captn. During of the Adjt. Genl. Department seeing what he thought a smart young French Officer riding off, galloped after him, to stay his flight, when on getting alongside, it proved to be a beautiful Catalonian girl, who had been Mistress of a French Colonel, for two years – She implored our Captain's mercy who sent her to his baggage – She changed Masters with admirable & cheerful composure, & remained attached to the Captns. Suite, until the entry of the British Army into France the following year'. This, recorded Browne, was by no means an unusual situation, and it was not long after the battle before ‘Spanish guitars were gaily sounding in the English Camp, & Spanish girls singing extempore praises of the immortal Wellington, with the same zeal & energy, as had no doubt so lately called forth similar strains, in honour of the great Napoleon – oh! Human nature what a Weathercock thou art!'[15]
Finally, there are the words of Wellington himself. Years later, in 1839, in conversation with Lord Stanhope, he recalled the aftermath of the Vitoria with some amusement: ‘The baggage and encumbrances of the French army were immense at Vittoria. A great many ladies too! One of their prisoners said to me after the battle, Le fait est, Monseigneur, que vous avez une armée, mais nous sommes un bordel ambulant [The fact is, my lord, you have an army, but we are a walking brothel]'.[16]
David Clammer
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paints the Dogman from the Flintloque starter set.
