Pierre Cambronne - The Hundred Days and Waterloo

The Hundred Days and Waterloo

He became Major of the Imperial Guard in 1814, and accompanied Napoléon into exile to the island of Elba, where he was a military commander. He then returned with Napoléon to France on 1 March 1815 for the Hundred Days, capturing the fortress of Sisteron (5 March), and was made a Count by Napoléon when they arrived at Paris.

After the Battle of Waterloo, commanding the last of the Old Guard, he was summoned to surrender by General Colville. A journalist named Rougement reported Cambronne's reply as "La garde meurt et ne se rend pas !" ("The Guard dies and does not surrender!"). These words became famous and were put on a Cambronne statue in Nantes after his death.

However, Cambronne always denied that he had made the "The Guard dies ..." statement. His reply, according to other sources, was the much more direct "Merde!" ("Shit!", figuratively, "Go to hell"), which he also denied having said. This version of the reply became famous in its own right, becoming known as le mot de Cambronne ("the word of Cambronne") and referred to as such in Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables and Edmond Rostand's play L'Aiglon. Later his name would come to be used directly as a polite euphemism ("What a load of old Cambronne!") and was sometimes even as a verb, "cambronniser".

In a series of letters to The Times it was claimed that British Colonel Hugh Halkett, commanding the 3rd Hanoverian Brigade, had already captured Cambronne before any reply (whatever it was) was made. It is known for certain that Cambronne, seriously wounded, was taken prisoner by the British.

Complicating matters is that the "The Guard dies ..." statement has also been ascribed to General Claude-Etienne Michel. A trial was held between the two families, leaving the attribution undecided.