Sergeant Guillemard

Robert Guillemard was one of those unusual people (a real life example of a character type now very popular in fiction) who found himself engaging with remarkable people during important historical events-not just once, but repeatedly!
As a young soldier he found himself in the top of a French battleship at Trafalgar as the Victory closed for action and it was him-he claims-who fired the fatal shot that killed Nelson. He was present at the murder of Villeneuve, the defeated French admiral, and in the company of Napoleon. He fought in Germany at Stralsund and at Wagram. He campaigned in the Peninsula, was, captured and escaped. After the siege of Tortosa and the award of the Legion of Honour he marched on the fateful campaign into Russia-fighting at Borodino and beyond.
There are a number of first-hand accounts of French soldiers of the Infantry during the Napoleonic Wars that have been reprinted with some regularity, but Robert Guillemard's with be an unfamiliar and new delight to many modern readers.