New Hampshire Statesman And State Journal

Bonaparte's Generals at the South. A. B. Meek, Esq. in an able address before the University of Albany, mentions the interesting fact, that after the battle of Waterloo, and the fall of Napoleon, several of his distinguished Generals and companions came to America and received from Congress, on the 3d of March, 1817, a grant of land in Alabama, the conditions of the grant being, that the emigrants should cultivate the vine upon one acre in each quarter section, and the olive upon another; and at the end of fourteen years should pay the General Government two dollars an acre for a fee simple title to the land. Among the grantees was Marshal Grouchy, the hero of Linden, and the present Minister of War for France; Gen. Lefevre, Desnouettes, Duke of Dantzic, and a Marshal and Peer of France, who has distinguished himself in all the great battles of Napoleon; Gen. Count Clausel, Gen. Count Real, and two Generals, Aimeand, and Generals Vandamme, Lakanal, Penniers, and Garnier de Saintes, with a number of subordinate officers.

They settled upon the Tombigbee river, in what is now Marengo county, the name which they gave to their colony, in honor of the celebrated battle of Marengo.

Do you know said a citizen to a gentleman traveling through that section in 1819, which is between Arcola (another celebrated battle name) and Eagleville "do you know, sir, who is that fine looking man, who just ferried you across the creek?" "No, who is he?" was the reply. "That, sir," said the citizen, "is the officer who commanded Napoleon's advance guard when he returned from Elba."

Great as is this contrast, "says Mr. Meek, it was perhaps greater with the female part of the colonists. Here, dwelling in cabins, and engaged in humble attention to the spinning wheel and the loom, or handling the weeding hoe and axe, in their little gardens, were matrons and maidens, who had been born to proud titles and high estates, and who moved as stars of particular adoration, amid the fashion and refinement and imperial dismay of the Court of Versailles. And yet—to their honor be it stated—notwithstanding the rustic and ill proportioned circumstances around them, they did not appear to be dispirited or miserable. Nothing of "angels ruined," was visible, in their condition.—They were contented—smiling—happy. Truly it must have been amusing, as the writer remarks, to have seen these celebrated soldiers drilled and mustered by a militia company officer, as they were at times required to be by the laws under which they lived.

But their unquiet spirits, nursed in the storms of battle, and the convulsions of states, could not brook the peaceful pursuits of agriculture; and one by one, they left, some for the armies of the South American Republics, some for their native country, until in 1833, hardly a vestige of the colony remained, and as Mr. Meek says, "A stranger would now look in vain amongst the black lands and the broad cotton fields of Marengo, for the simple patches upon which the Duke of Dantzic, or Count Clausel, attempted to cultivate the vine."