Pierre François Charles Augereau , duke of Castiglione
(Paris, 1757-La Houssaye, 1816)

His height, his manners, his words gave him the air of a bully, which he was far from being once he found himself loaded with honors and riches, which anyway he grabbed with both hands and all his actions. That is how the prisoner of St. Helena judged the marshal who checked the royal power on the eighteenth of fructidor, disapproved of the plot of the eighteenth of brumaire, and exposed his life on the fields of the emperor’s battles, denounced Napoleon as a tyrant in 1814.

Coming from a very humble background, at the age of seventeen Augereau entered the Prussian army, then the Neapolitan. He established himself as a master of fencing at Naples. At the revolution he returned to France. At first a simple soldier in the National Guard, five years later he was a division general in the army in Italy.

In April of 1796 he took the chateau of Ceva, his first exploit under the command of General Bonaparte. On May 10, 1796, he was made conspicuous by his bravery at Lodi, when he attacked in spite of the rain of Austrian grapeshot. On the third of August 1796, his intervention during the Battle of Castiglione reversed the outcome of the battle. On November 15 at Arcole he threw himself on the bridge at the head of his troops. Bonaparte bestowed on him his esteem and confidence in spite of the rumors of his rapacity. In September he sent him to Paris to check the power of the royalists. That was the coup d’etat of 18 fructidor. Augereau showed himself to be terribly efficient, executing to the letter all the commands of the Directorate. At that time he was named commandant of one of the corps of the Army of the Rhine.

Augereau, deputy from Haute Garonne in the Council of Five Hundred, was at first opposed to the coup d’etat of 18 brumaire. He was close to the Jacobins. He refuses an invitation to the banquet in honor of Bonaparte. Nonetheless, he rallied to the Consulate on the very morning of 18 brumaire, embracing Bonaparte and exclaiming, "How’s this! You wanted to do something for the fatherland and you did not call on Augereau!".

In spite of his criticism of the Concordat he was on the 1804 list of marshals and attended the anointing of the emperor. From September of 1805 to February of 1807 he commanded the VII Corps of the Great Army. At the Battle of Jena, October 14, 1806, he beat the Saxons and crushed the corps of Ruechel, which had come to the aid of the Prussian army.

Since he was sick at Eylau (8 February 1807) he had himself fastened to his horse at the beginning of the battle. When he should have attacked the Russian center his army corps was lost in a snowstorm. The enemy cannon decimated the French soldiers. Wounded in his arm, Augereau returned to France. On March 19, 1808, he received the title, Duke of Castiglione.

Later he served in Spain. His first victories at the head of the army in Catalonia were soon followed by defeats. The emperor sent Augereau to his estates but recalled him for the Russian campaign in 1812 and entrusted him with a reserve corps. The marshal was present at the French defeat in Leipzig, from October 16 to 19, 1813. His stubborn defense regained for him the emperor’s favor.

In 1814 the emperor entrusted to him the army corps stationed at Lyon. Augereau, who had orders to cut the lines of communication of Bohere’s army, compromised and refused to fight. He was now a person of distinction. On 16 April 1814, he published a proclamation in which he enjoined his soldiers to adopt the white cockard of the Bourbons and denounced Napoleon as a tyrant. The emperor erased his name from the list of marshals during the Hundred Days and called him a traitor to France when Augereau came to him to offer his services.

When Louis XVIII returned to the throne he discarded him too. Augereau retired to his estates, where he died a little later of a sickness in his chest, without leaving children.

At St. Helens Napoleon said of him, "He was incapable of controlling himself; he had little education, not much insight, little training, but he maintained order and discipline in his soldiers and was loved by them. He divided his columns well, placed his reserves well, fought fearlessly, but that lasted only for a day. Victor or vanquished he was most often discouraged in the evening, whether that came from the nature of his character or from his poor reckoning and lack of insight."