"Virginie Ghesquière – also spelled Chesquière, Chesquières, or Gesquière – first came to public attention in an article in the October 31, 1812 edition of the French newspaper Journal de l'Empire. Under the dateline "Anvers [Antwerp], October 27," readers were told:
There is much talk of the courage and devotion of a young lady who replaced her brother, a conscript of 1806, and returned from the army covered with honorable wounds. This is true, and the details deserve to be known. (1)
According to the article, Virginie Ghesquière was born in Deulémont, a town in north-eastern France near Lille. Seeing that her twin brother, who had been called to serve in the army, could not bear the strain of war and wanted to continue his studies, Virginie obtained permission from her parents to go in his place. Disguised as her brother, she entered the 27th Infantry Regiment of the Line, in which she served for six years. She was promoted to the rank of sergeant at the Battle of Wagram for having saved the life of her captain, who had fallen into the Danube river.
At another engagement on May 2 (the year was unspecified) near Lisbon, where the Duke of Abrantès was in command, her colonel was surrounded by the enemy. Virginie asked for six men of good will to join her in going to his aid. Despite a shot she had received in the left arm, she saved the colonel and took two enemy officers as prisoners. She sustained, on that occasion, a wound from a bayonet thrust on her left side. Virginie was transferred to the hospital of Almeida, and from there to that of Burgos, where she was treated without her sex being discovered. However, another illness betrayed her. At the time the article was written, she had just passed through the city of Courtrai on the way to her regimental depot. There she would receive the reward due to her valor and be decorated, by the colonel whom she had saved, "with the honorable mark due to the brave."…"
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Armand
looks at a fast-assembly naval kit for the Age of Sail.