The Letters and Campaign Notes of Squadron Commander de Nadaillac (1807-1814)

Sigismond du Pouget, Marquis of Nadaillac, was born in La Ferrière, near Tours, on 7 January 1787. His father, an officer in the Royal-Champagne Cavalry Regiment, emigrated and passed away in England in 1794. His mother sent her son and daughter back to France to their grandmother, who had not left France and who brought the children up until their mother's return, sometime in 1800, when she remarried the Baron d'Escars. In 1806, the future General du Pouget de Nadaillac voluntarily joined the emperor Napoleon's gendarmes d'ordonnance, at that time treated like the Imperial Guard. Appointed officer of dragoons, he became aide-de-camp to General de Latour-Maubourg, whom he followed to Spain and then Russia, as far as Moscow. Promoted to squadron commander in the 5th Regiment of Hussars, our officer led his squadron during the 1813 Campaign, remaining stranded with his men at Wesel until Napoleon's abdication in 1814. Here we present the letters and campaign notes of Squadron Commander de Nadaillac as compiled by his grandson in 1911. They reveal the life of a young cavalry officer serving for the grandeur of his country, whose noble origins and support in no way prevented him from experiencing the tribulations and perils of the profession of arms.