Page:Kickerbocker Feb 1833 vol 1 no 2.djvu/6

cularly at Ocana, where the Dutch troops covered themselves with glory, he was conspicuous; and when finally the broken remnants of the many gallant armies, which the insatiate ambition of Napoleon had poured into Spain, to be sacrificed piece-meal to the great revenge of a wronged and outraged nation, were fast retreating under the auspices of Marshal Soult, before the better fortune and better cause of a combined English and Spanish force, led by the Duke of Wellington, the valor and the daring of General Chassé were signally displayed at Col de Maja, a pass in the Pyrenees. In this pass the corps d'armée commanded by Count d'Erlon, hemmed in and pressed by superior numbers, was relieved by the bayonets of the Dutch division led on by General Chassé, and extricated from its difficulties. The military eye of Soult could not fail to perceive the merit of such a commander, and at his suggestion, the decoration of the Legion of Honor was the reward conferred by Napoleon, of so brilliant an action. He was created, by special decree, Baron of the Empire. When the tide of war had changed, and the great Captain who had entered as a conqueror the capital of almost every continental power, was, in January, 1814, driven back upon his own, and in the presence of combined Europe was fighting for crown and life within sight of the towers of Notre Dame, and the triumphant arches of the Carousel, he testified his confidence in General Chassé, by ordering him in that extremity to join him at once with his troops, in the vicinity of Paris. On the 27th February, with the remains of only four regiments, he attacked at Bar sur Aube, a corps of 6,000 Prussians, supported by a battery of six pieces, and after an obstinate and hotly contested action, in the course of which he was thrice charged by cavalry, and in which he himself was wounded, overthrew them. But the star of the conqueror had set, and the allied sovereigns entered Paris, with the profession of hostility only to the chief, and not to the people of France. With Napoleon fell the vast empire, which his arm alone could hold together, or wield in unity; and General Chassé, released from the banner under which he had so long and gloriously served, returned to his native country. Here the House of Orange had been reestablished with the full consent of the nation, and to its head the present king of the Netherlands, this soldier of many fields presented himself, and was welcomed by him with the confidence and distinction, to which his well earned laurels entitled him. He was received into the army of the Netherlands, with the rank of lieutenant-general, on the 21st April, 1814.