Davoust, Duke of Auerstadt, Prince of Eckmuhl, whose name should be
properly spelt Davout, was one of the principal personages at the end of
the Cent Jours. Strict and severe, having his corps always in good
order, and displaying more character than most of the military men under
Napoleon, one is apt to believe that the conqueror at Auerstadt bade fair
to be the most prominent of all the Marshals. In 1814 he had returned
from defending Hamburg to find himself under a cloud of accusations, and
the Bourbons ungenerously and unwisely left him undefended for acts which
they must have known were part of his duty as governor of a besieged
place. At the time he was attacked as if his first duty was not to hold
the place for France, but to organise a system of outdoor relief for the
neighbouring population, and to surrender as soon as he had exhausted the
money in the Government chest and the provisions in the Government
stores. Sore and discontented, practically proscribed, still Davoust
would not join in the too hasty enterprise of the brothers Lallemand, who
wished him to lead the military rising on the approach of Napoleon; but
he was with the Emperor on the day after his arrival in Paris.

Davoust might have expected high command in the army, but, to his
annoyance, Napoleon fixed on him as War Minister. For several years the
War Minister had been little more than a clerk, and neither had nor was
expected to have much influence with the army. Napoleon now wanted a man
of tried devotion, and of stern enough character to overawe the capital
and the restless spirits in the army. Much against his will Davoust was
therefore forced to content himself with the organisation of the forces
being hastily raised, but he chafed in his position; and it is
characteristic of him that Napoleon was eventually forced to send him the
most formal orders before the surly Minister would carry out the
Emperor's unlucky intention of giving a command to Bourmont, whom Davoust
strongly and rightly suspected of treachery. When Napoleon left the