se flatter ainsi de vainere des peuples assez laaches pour se reunir centre un seul et encore pour la cause des rois!  Enfin, je ne sais si je me trompe, mais cette guerre de brigands, de paysans, sur laquelle on a jete tant de ridicule, que l’on dedaignait, que l’on affectait de regarder comme meprisable, m’a toujours paru, pour la republique, la grande partie, et il me semble a present qu’avec nos autres ennemis, nous ne ferrons plus que peloter.

Adieu, brave montagnard, adieu!  Actuellement que cette execrable guerre est terminee, que les manes de nos freres sont satisfaits, je vais guerir.  J’ai obtenu de tes confreres un conge qui finira au moment ou la guerre recommencera.

    LE GENERAL DE BRIGADE BEAUPUY.

  I think I can recognize in this letter some traits of Beaupuy’s
  character as pointed out by Wordsworth, not excepting the
  half-suppressed criticism: 

      ’... somewhat vain he was,
    Or seemed so, yet it was not vanity,
    But fondness, and a kind of radiant joy
    Diffused around him ...’

  Passing over numerous military incidents, on the 26th of June 1796
  Beaupuy received seven or eight sabre-cuts at Jorich-Wildstadt.  But on
  the 8th of July he was already back at his post.

  He again greatly distinguished himself on the 1st of September 1796 at
  Greisenfeld and Langenbruck, where the victory of the French was owing
  to a timely attack made by Desaix and himself.

He was one of the generals under Moreau when the latter achieved his well-known retreat through the Black Forest, begun on the 15th of September 1796, and during which many battles were fought.  In one of the actions on the banks of the Elz, Beaupuy was killed by a cannon-ball, while opposing General Latour on the heights of Malterdingen.  His soldiers, who loved him passionately, fought desperately to avenge his death (Oct. 19, 1796).

  One of Beaupuy’s colleagues, General Duhem, in his account of the
  battle to the Government, thus expressed himself on General Beaupuy: 

“Ecrivains patriotes, orateurs chaleureux, je vous propose un noble sujet, l’eloge du General Beaupuy, de Beaupuy, le Nestor et l’Achille de notre armee.  Vous n’avez pas de recherches a faire; interrogez le premier soldat de l’armee du Rhin-et-Moselle, ses larmes exciteront les votres.  Ecrivez alors ce que est vous en dira, et vous peindrez le Bayard de la Republique Francaise.”

Such bombastic style was then common, but what we have seen of Beaupuy in this sketch shows that he had through his career united Nestor’s prudence [B] with Achilles’ bodily courage and Bayard’s chivalric spirit,—­to use the language of the time.

  General Moreau had Beaupuy’s remains transported to Brisach, where a
  monument was erected to his memory in 1802, after the peace of
  Luneville.