A cavalry officer who isn’t dead by 30 is a coward.
– Napoleonic cavalry general Antoine-Charles-Louis, Comte de Lasalle (1775-1809)

I. Ney

Marshal Ney swears (like a loyal trooper,
pardon my French) to serve the British.
Napoleon, tending to fat now, is bundled
off to Elba on a Royal Navy frigate.

But Ney goes back on his word
when his former boss makes like Houdini
and takes up the sword again.
Under white flag with three bees:
upstart island dynasty channeling Charlemagne.

Ney can’t help it, been through a lot.
Male bonding in the retreat from Moscow:
cold and typhus subverting esprit du corps.
Men eating horses and on occasion each other,
frostbite making meals of fingers and toes,
ears, noses, genitals. Beyond epic.
Half a million men didn’t make it back.
Of the ones who did, it was Ney
who quipped: their balls must
have been attached by iron wire.

Ney had his reasons for his volte-face:
Napoleon’s charisma, rapport with his men,
his boyish joy in soldierly banter
while barreling toward the next battle.
Ney re-defects after promising the Bourbons
to bring Napoleon back in an iron cage.

At Waterloo Napoleon’s not at his best
but gives the Allies a scare.
But for Blucher coming to the rescue,
the “near-run thing” – in the wry
Iron Duke’s understated manner –
might have gone the other way.

For going back on his oath,
Ney earns Wellington’s ire,
is sentenced to death for treason.
Ever the soldier, proud, defiant,
retains his air of command to the end.
Unarmed against the wall, it is Ney
who insists on yelling, “Fire!”

II. Hippolyte Charles

It demands a certain courage
to charge cannon at the head of your men.
Quite another to cuckold the First Consul
while he’s overrunning Italy.

Napoleon confronts Josephine.
She promises to be loyal. Knowing
he’s beat, Hippolyte gracefully retreats.
Decides to live long and make money.

III. Lannes

Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.
– Duke of Wellington, following the Battle of Waterloo

You’d think wives would be faithful
to stylish nineteenth-century generals
with the power to choose their own uniforms –
some with Mamluk-inspired crimson pants –
while they’re away fighting for titles and medals,
sabering off their enemies’ hands
or coolly jumping on a second horse
when their first gets shot from under them.
But a surprising number of wives strayed.
Maybe bravery’s not always romantic.
Marshal Lannes was not exempt.
Bounced back, remarried, fathered five
between campaigns. Fought across Europe.
Wore his wounds like decorations.
After a score of battles it’s hard to believe
the gods haven’t blessed you, divinely
deflecting musket balls and shrapnel
past your bright body’s core, a favourite son.

It’s only at Aspern-Essling, weary with grief,
he sits down in a ditch in a lull in the action
– legs crossed, hand over eyes – to mourn
the death of his friend Pouzet.
Prostrate like this, Lannes gets hit
when an errant cannonball slips through
his force field of luck – luck is strategic
in Napoleon’s soft grey eyes – and ricochets
through both knees. Dismisses it as nothing
much. Asks only for a hand up. After
the double amputation, gangrene sets in
like poor morale on a brutal retreat.
Napoleon visits twice a day and Lannes
lingers for nine, tells jokes to keep
the Emperor’s depression at bay.
The night Lannes succumbs, Napoleon
can’t eat. Sits at his table, struck mute,
tears sliding off his classical cheeks,
like charging soldiers who can’t be called back,
and landing, landing bitterly in his soup.