"An Army of Bachelors-Napoleonic Veterans from Blaze..." Topic

…to Balzac

"After many long years of service in the armies of Napoleon, a battleweary captain in the French imperial cavalry dismounted his horse and proposed to his regimental bugler. Following the defeat at Waterloo, the collapse of the Empire, and the hardships of the Restoration, this gallant officer made what one witness called a "singular proposition" to his bugler buddy: "My friend … I am going to retire to the countryside; I possess a small house, several acres of land, and my pension; with all that, I hope to live in comfort. If you want to accompany me, we will plant our cabbages and we will eat them together."1 Content as Voltaire's Candide and Cunégonde to retire to the country and make their garden grow, these two soldiers agree to live out their veteran lives together. Echoing Olivier's call for Roland to blow his horn in (the medieval military epic) the Song of Roland, this Napoleonic captain asks his bugler to herald their retired days together with the same devotion as during their years on campaign: "You will do the same service at home in the countryside as you did with the regiment. You will sound reveille, roll-call, inspection, drill, and review" (318). Promising his comrade that "I will sound everything you want" (318), the delighted old bugler accepts the captain's proposal and agrees to sound out the remaining days of his life with those of his beloved friend.

Documented in the memoirs of Captain Elzéar Blaze, this proposal between a captain and his bugler exemplifies a widespread phenomenon that grew out of the tradition of Napoleonic friendship established during the Empire: the shared retirement of many Napoleonic veterans during the Restoration and July Monarchy. Faced with a double retraite (retreat and retirement), veteran comrades like this captain and his bugler often stayed together, relying on friendships formed during the Napoleonic Wars to navigate the political disfavor and material hardships of post-1815 France. In the context of this captain's proposal, the near-homonyms campagne (campaign), campagne (countryside), and compagne (companion) represent the terms by which Napoleonic friendship helped many men to survive the transition from their years as active-duty soldiers to those as postwar veterans. In the move from campaign retreat to countryside retirement, numerous Napoleonic soldiers—like this bugler and his captain—continued to rely on their military companions and to live in homosocial pairs.

Published in his non-fiction memoirs, Captain Blaze's account of the captain and the bugler may nonetheless be a kind of military fiction2 At the end of the memoir, Blaze explains: "As for me, dear reader … I will admit to you that I resemble this worthy captain a bit. I have no bugler under my command, which I quite often regret; but as compensation, the cabbages that I plant grow in Chenièvres-sur-Marne" (320). While it is possible that Blaze was a witness to the proposal of a captain and a bugler in his regiment, this passage implies a more personal and melancholy alternative. Admitting that he resembles the sympathetic captain and regrets the absent bugler, Blaze suggests that this story of cabbages and companionship is for him an unfulfilled fantasy, a dream of veteran camaraderie, a vision of enduring Napoleonic friendship. Although they may be a fictional pair, Blaze's captain and bugler represent many Napoleonic veterans who—both in fiction and in non-fiction accounts—survived the humiliations of the Restoration with each other's help, and lived out their retirement in each other's company…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Charming, in the nicest way.

Glad you like it my friend.

Amicalement
Armand

"Blaze suggests that this story of cabbages and companionship is for him an unfulfilled fantasy, a dream of veteran camaraderie, a vision of enduring Napoleonic friendship."

Blaze was a much down to earth character who spiced his memoires with camp fire stories – to sell them better, as to his affection to Napoleonic friendship, he deserted the French army in 1814.