Louis Charles Antoine Desaix, Division General.
"... Desaix loved glory for itself, and despised everything else; Desaix dreamed not but war and glory; pleasures and riches were nothing to him; he devoted not a single thought to them.
This was a little man, of a somber air, a little more or less an inch taller than me, always dressed with negligence, and even sometimes broken, despises the pleasures and even the comforts of life.
Several times, when I was in Egypt, I gifted him a full campaign package; but immediately he lost it. Wrapped in his bonnet, Desaix would lay over a canyon, and sleep in it so perfectly, as if he were lying on feathers.
Malice had no appeal to him; upright and honest in all his ways, the Arabs called him the Righteous Sultan.
Nature had trained him to make him a great General. He possessed to a much higher degree the precious balance of character and value.
When everything seemed lost that afternoon in Marengo, Desaix appeared to the aid of the Army and its presence alone encouraged the men to give everything to the last breath and achieve victory.
When the battle culminated, Desaix fell down by Austrian bullets near San Giuliano, at the head of the Brigades, and his last words were to me.... Their loss was irreparable for France... ".
Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, Quotes de Santa Elena, 1819.
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