one of the Italian regiments then serving in Spain. The king reproached
him slightly with wishing to leave him; but, on his urging his request,
and pleading a desire to improve himself in his profession, he appointed
him colonel of the 8th of the line, formed out of the remnants of three
regiments, food for powder, furnished to Napoleon by Naples. At the end
of 1810, Pépé took his departure, passed through France, and reached
Saragossa. There he met his brother Florestano, on his way back to
Naples, where he received, on the recommendation of Marshal Suchet, and
by the express desire of Buonaparte, the rank of major-general for his
good services in the Peninsula. The career of this distinguished officer
is highly interesting. At the siege of Andria, in 1799, he was shot
through the breast whilst scaling the walls at the head of his company
of grenadiers. Without being mortal, the wound was extremely severe, and
the surgeon who attended him, and who was esteemed the most skilful in
Naples, cut his chest completely open, in order the better to treat it.
An India-rubber tube was inserted in the centre of the gash to receive
the oozing blood. So terrible was the operation, that the surgeon wished
him to be held down by four strong men. To this Florestano refused to
submit, and bore the anguish without a movement or a murmur. He was then
told that the greatest care and regularity of living were essential to
his existence. His answer was, "that he preferred a month's life of
freedom to an age of solicitude about living;" and with this ghastly
gaping wound he lived, in spite of the predictions of his leech, through
fifteen campaigns. In command of a brigade of cavalry, he took share in
the Russian expedition, and, on the night of the 6th December 1812, it
fell to him to escort Napoleon from Osmiana to Wilna. Out of two
regiments, not more than thirty or forty men arrived. The emperor's
postilion was frozen to death, and had to be replaced by an Italian
officer, who volunteered his services. The two colonels of the brigade
had their extremities frozen, and Florestano Pépé shared the same fate,