[The following is in regards to Napoleon’s campaign in East Prussia, specifically, the aftermath of the battle of Eylau.]
As night fell, Legrand’s division moved just beyond Eylau; Saint-Hilaire camped out in the open near Rothenen; Milhaud’s cavalry was at Zehsen; Grouchy was behind Eylau; Augereau was in a second line between Storchnest and Tenknitten, and the Imperial Guard slept on the elevated area where Bagration had started the day. As snow fell both armies huddled around bivouac fires. Because the supply wagons could not stay apace with the army on forced marches, a number of soldiers hadn’t had bread for three days, and some ate the flesh of dead horses from the battlefield. One soldier complained to Captain Blaze of the Imperial Guard that he had nothing to smoke by hay. In Marbot’s words, the French army had ‘for days been living on nothing but potatoes and melted snow’.
An hour before nightfall, Napoleon visited Eylau. ‘The streets were full of corpses,’ Captain François-Frédéric Billon recalled, ‘what a horrible spectacle. Tears welled in the Emperor’s eyes; nobody would have believed possible such an emotion from this great man of war, however I saw them myself, these tears… The Emperor was doing his best to prevent his horse stepping on human remains. Being unsuccessful… it’s then that I saw him crying.’
On a freezing night with snow falling after midnight, Napoleon slept in a chair in the ransacked post-house below the Ziegelhof without taking off his boots.
Source:
Roberts, Andrew. "Blockades." Napoleon: A Life. New York: Penguin, 2014. 442. Print.
Original Source Listed:
ed. Summerville, Exploits of Baron de Marbot p. 84.
Further Reading:
Claude Juste Alexandre Louis Legrand
Battle of Eylau / Battle of Preussisch-Eylau
Louis-Vincent-Joseph Le Blond, comte de Saint-Hilaire
Emmanuel de Grouchy, 2ème Marquis de Grouchy
Charles Pierre François Augereau, 1st Duc de Castiglione
Made me wonder if cannibalism of human corpses was common at all after battles. I'm assuming most marching armies had very little meat, so it would make sense...but would probably be horribly looked down upon, and probably deemed outright sinful.