Flashman's Escape (35 page)

For more information on Colquhoun Grant his biography
The First Respectable Spy
by Jock Haswell is recommended. It is, however, written in a rather hero-worshiping style, which clashes heavily with the opinion of Grant held by Flashman.

Doctor Curtis

Patrick Curtis appears in other novels on the Peninsular War, notably the Sharpe series, because he was a real and important source of information for Wellington. He was born in Ireland in 1740 and served as a parish priest until his late thirties, when he started to travel through Europe. When Flashman met him he was seventy-eight and a professor of astronomy and natural history at the University of Salamanca. He was known in Salamanca as Don Patrico Cortes and he had established a network of agents which extended across occupied Spain. The French had arrested him as a spy in 1811 but he had managed to convince them of his innocence. As Flashman describes, he was also questioned over his visits to Grant, but again was released. His cover was blown when the British captured Salamanca. Wellington was keen to meet him and it became known that he was a British agent. When the French subsequently recaptured the city, he was forced to flee.

He returned to Ireland after the war and initially lived quietly on a pension awarded for his services in the peninsula. Then, in 1819, he was offered the archbishopric of Armagh and titular primacy of all Ireland. He continued in that role until he died in 1832 aged ninety-two. During that time he did much to secure the Catholic Emancipation Act, which was passed by the British parliament in 1829.

General Souham

Grant’s biography confirms that he did start his journey back to Paris from Bayonne by posing as an American officer and sharing a carriage with the French general Souham. Other sources also confirm that the general was returning to Paris at this time, having been granted three months’ leave. It is likely that this leave was later curtailed as in June Marshal Marmont was wounded at the battle of Salamanca and Souham was recommended to replace him.

Souham had started his career as a private in the royal French army for eight years before the French revolution offered opportunities for advancement. Souham quickly demonstrated sound judgement and leadership, and by 1793 he was a general of a division during the Flanders campaign. When his commander fell ill he assumed command of a French army that went on to beat a larger British and Austrian army at the battle of Tourcoing or Turcoine. He took part in various other campaigns before being wounded at the battle of Vich, when his army overwhelmed a Spanish force twice its size.

Returning to Spain to take over from Marmont in the late summer of 1812, he found the British at Burgos and in Madrid, threatening to complete the conquest of the country. Skilful manoeuvring of his forces to the north and Marshal Soult’s to the south threatened to cut off the British army from its supply routes and safe havens in Portugal. As a result Wellington was forced to withdraw his army some two hundred miles to the Portuguese border, roughly where he had started the campaign at the beginning of that year.

He is a largely forgotten, but very capable commander. After Napoleon’s abdication he returned to the royalist cause, which rewarded him with various honours. He retired in 1832 and died at Versailles in 1837 two days before his seventy-seventh birthday.

Agustina de Aragon

Agustina will be familiar to readers of
Flashman in the Peninsula
as she also appeared in that book. She first found fame when she fired a cannon during the siege of Zaragoza. The shot was fired at a critical moment during an attack by the French and resulted in the Spanish saving the city from their assault. The city was later captured and Agustina was taken prisoner with her young son, who died in captivity.

Agustina escaped from the French and was used by the independent Spanish government to promote resistance to the French. They widely publicised her achievement and she had various portraits painted, including one by Francisco Goya. Later she joined the partisans and fought with them for the rest of the war. Some accounts of her life state that later in the conflict Agustina left the guerrillas and went on to become the only female officer to serve with the British army in the artillery during the Peninsular War, achieving the rank of captain at the battle of Vitoria.
However, Nick Lipscombe, author of 
Wellington’s Guns
 and a leading authority on the Peninsular War, advises that she definitely did not command a gun in the British army.
After the war she married a doctor and settled down to a quiet life living in Zaragoza. She died aged seventy-one.

The Hugo Family

For more information on the parents of Victor Hugo and their activities during this period the excellent biography on Victor Hugo by Graham Robb is recommended.

General Leopold Hugo met his future wife, Sophie Trebuchet, when he was sent to put down a royalist uprising in Brittany. While Victor Hugo himself sometimes described their encounter in romantic terms, implying that his mother was a royalist and their love overcame political differences, this is not correct. His mother was from one of the few committed republican families in Brittany. Her grandfather worked with the notorious revolutionary Jean-Baptiste Carrier who drowned prisoners in the Loire when the guillotine could not execute them fast enough. Her aunt Louise was Carrier’s mistress and one of Sophie’s closest friends.

From his revolutionary beginnings, General Leopold Hugo became a committed Bonapartist and army officer. Having had three sons, he and his wife grew apart, partly due to her refusal to follow him to his various postings. He ruthlessly put down partisan activity in Spain and, being no admirer of the Church, did nail the severed heads of executed partisans over church doorways. His family visited him in Spain in 1811 and would have been aware of the fear and hatred that the French presence in the country generated. As an indication of how committed a Bonapartist General Hugo was, he held the town of Thionville in France, close to Luxembourg border, for his emperor after Bonaparte’s return from exile on Elba. He only surrendered this final outpost of imperial France on 13 November 1815, some five months after the battle of Waterloo.

Sophie Trebuchet, as she preferred to be called when Flashman knew her, did live in a house in Feuillantines off the Rue Saint Jacques in Paris. She was forty in 1812 and her youngest son, Victor, was ten. There was an old chapel at the bottom of the garden where she had harboured her lover, General Victor Lahorie (young Victor’s godfather), for several years. Lahorie was almost certainly involved in the planning of the Malet conspiracy as he was one of the key conspirators that General Malet first released. Sophie was likely to have been involved in the plot too, taking messages between the two generals. Her husband also complained that she was spending large amounts of unexplained money at this time. But while the other conspirators were rounded up and shot, she escaped punishment. She claimed to the restored royalist government in 1815 that she owed her survival to information she knew that guaranteed the protection of the minister of police, Savary.

Whether Flashman’s explanation of the noise Grant made with Clothilde played any part in inspiring Victor Hugo’s classic
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
will never be known. It has, however, been pointed out that the cathedral in the book, with its multitude of spires and turrets, bears little resemblance to the clean lines of Notre Dame. Commentators have suggested that Victor Hugo might have had Burgos cathedral in mind when he wrote the book. Ironically his father demolished three of the pinnacles and a famous stained-glass window in the cathedral when blowing up the fort and part of the town prior to a withdrawal.

The Malet Conspiracy

The attempt to establish the second French republic occurred largely as described by Flashman. Despite being a known opponent of the regime which he had tried to overthrow in the past, Malet was released from prison on condition that he lived in Doctor Dubuisson’s rest home. The forged documents to facilitate the plot were kept in a box under General Malet’s bed. In spite of this low level of security, the plot was initially successful. Malet, with a couple of accomplices, managed to convince the commander of the Paris garrison that Napoleon was dead and that a new republic had been declared. Then soldiers were sent with release notices for other conspirators including General Lahorie, who went on to arrest the minister of police and replaced him in his office for much of that day.

Clarke, the minister of war, led the efforts to supress the plot and arrest those responsible. While he certainly took advantage of the plot to attack some of his enemies, we only have Flashman’s account that he was a prime instigator of the conspiracy. By the end of the day most of the conspirators were under lock and key and others, including the commander of the Paris garrison, were also under arrest due to their complicity in the plot. A brief trial was held before the conspirators were promptly executed, possibly to deter Napoleon from conducting a more thorough inquiry into how the plot was developed. During the trial Malet claimed full responsibility and insisted that no one else was involved. The verdict for the conspirators seemed to have been decided before the trial; most of the defendants were refused access to legal counsel and twelve were sentenced to death.

As Flashman describes, Malet conducted his own firing squad but was completely missed by the first volley. He was obliged to order his executioners to reload and fire again. According to contemporary accounts he used his last breath to shout
“Vive la liberté!”

Henri Clarke, minister of war and duke of Feltre

Clarke, born of Irish parents, was a shrewd political operator who survived various governmental changes in France. His father was an army officer and initially Henri followed in his footsteps. Commissioned first in the royal army, following the revolution Clarke continued to serve in the cavalry and despite Flashman’s opinion he did see some action. However, he soon spent more time involved with politics and was an early supporter of Bonaparte, from the time when Napoleon was just the commander of an army in Italy. He was made minister of war in 1807 and held that position until Napoleon’s abdication in 1814.

He sought favour with the new Bourbon government, and when Napoleon returned from Elba, Clarke abandoned his old boss and threw in his lot with the king. His reward was to be reinstated as minister of war, a role he held until 1817, and later a marshal of France. He earned the enmity of many of his former comrades by pursuing the purges that the Bourbon government instituted against other Bonapartist officers.

Thank you for reading this book and I hoped you enjoyed it. If so I would be grateful for any positive reviews on websites that you use to choose books. As there is no major publisher promoting this book, any recommendations to friends and family that you think would enjoy it would also be appreciated.

There is now a Thomas Flashman Books Facebook page to keep you updated on future books in the series. It also includes portraits, pictures and further information on characters and events featured in the books.

Copyright © Robert Brightwell 2014

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