Marshal Ney in Galicia
In 1902, an author named comte de la Bédoyère (I do not know if and how related to the la Bédoyère executed in 1815) wrote a book about Marshal Michel Ney, mostly about his trial and execution. But the appendix also contains several other documents, among them excerpts from the memoirs of a certain general Béchet, Ney's aide-de-camp. The part I translated is about the first months of 1809, Ney's time in Galicia, after Napoleon in January 1809 had quit Spain for France and had left the task of conquering Portugal to his subordinates.
Marshal Soult was put in charge of this operation, in which he was to be assisted by Marshal Ney. The Marshal had sent me to Marshal Soult to discuss with him the positions which the troops of our corps would occupy as his troops moved towards Portugal. I found him near the place of Ferrol, which had not yet been surrendered (it was surrendered the next day). He didn't receive me too well, not because he resented me or even knew me, but because he wasn't on very good terms with my patron. I thought I would starve to death in that unfortunate town of Ferrol, where I had great difficulty in getting a bite to eat, as Marshal Soult had not invited me to dine with his officers.
Bad Soult! Don't kill the messenger (or in this case, don't let him starve) just because it's a messenger from Ney...
I'm unsure what the two marshals had agreed upon with regards to the placement of Ney's troops, who, as Béchet says himself, had the task to support and thus to stay in contact with Soult's corps in Portugal. However, given the two marshals were "not on very good terms" with each other, Ney probably followed a primal instinct and tried to get as much distance between himself and Soult as possible, in going north to La Coruna, while Soult went south into Portugal. Communications soon were interrupted not only with Soult's expedition corps but also with Madrid. But it seems Ney & C. did not mind too much:
Our stay in this town was not without its pleasures. Sometimes we played whist at the marshal's house at one napoleon a card. One evening I lost twenty cards, I didn't have such a large sum with me and I asked the Marshal to give me credit; he sometimes demanded them back from me in jest, I replied in the same tone, and I ended up not paying him. The Marshal, who had only rare relations with King Joseph because the roads were interrupted by the guerillas, was regarded by the Spaniards as the viceroy of the province and had all the powers.
To which I have two remarks: 1) Some people were accused of wanting to make themselves king whenever they found themselves in a similar position. Just saying. And 2) Ney and his aides were not alone in regarding the interruption of communication by guerillas as a given, and to pay little attention to it. Joseph and Jourdan in Madrid, too, waited for an explicit order from an exasperated Napoleon before sending Kellermann to reopen communications with Ney in Galicia (with Soult in Portugal there was no contact at all).
And now comes a rather ... interesting story about what "viceroy" Ney was up to in this new domain of his:
He had the idea of visiting all the women's convents, and there were many, and of telling the nuns and novices that all those who had entered them against their will could leave if they wished. It was playing the role of the tempter, but such was the spirit of the time, and we thought we were doing a meritorious work by acting in this way.
I'm sure you did, you little prick...
In a convent where the nuns had the reputation of being very fanatical, a young novice, with a charming face, threw herself crying at the feet of the Marshal and addressed him in Spanish in a speech that we still only barely understood. Our hearts went out to her, and already more than one gallant knight was offering her his services, ...
Uh-huh...
... but our interpreter told us that, on the contrary, she announced to the Marshal that the Virgin had appeared to her that night, and warned her that that very day she would obtain the dispensation of age necessary to make her vows, and that she had no doubt that the Marshal was the envoy from heaven who had come to grant her the grace she was seeking. The Marshal replied that it did not depend on him, but that he would write to the court. So much for our tender feelings. In fact, I seem to recall that only one of these ladies took advantage of the freedom offered to her; she left the convent to marry an officer who took her back to France with him.
Must have been quite a blow to the self-esteem of all those "gallant knights" trying to free poor enslaved women, for utterly unselfish reasons, of course.