Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 2.djvu/80

 '254 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS the command of the army of Italy was beyond Kellermann's abilities ; and again separating the army of the Alps from it, they placed Kellermann at the head of the latter as a reserve, and intrusted the army of Italy to General Scherer, and some- time afterward to Napoleon. After the conquest of Milan, the Directory, either jealous of Napoleon or elated by success, decided to divide his army, and to place 20,000 men under Kellermann to cover the siege of Mantua, and to direct the rest under Napo- leon upon Rome. Napoleon immediately resigned his command, and wrote to the Directory : " I will not serve with a man who considers himself the best general in Europe ; it is better to have one bad general than two good ones." The Directory, in alarm, abandoned their design ; Kellermann was left at Cham- b^ry, and Napoleon was allowed to follow his own plans. In 1797, Kellermann was made inspector-general of the cavalry of the army of England and of that of Holland ; and in 1 799, he took his place in the Senate, and was elected president on August i, 1801. In 1804, he was created a Mar- shal of the Empire, and in the following year, received the grand eagle of the Legion of Honor. In 1803, he commanded the third corps of the army of reserve on the Rhine ; and, in 1 806, was placed at the head of the whole of that army ; to which authority the command of the army of reserve in Spain was added in 1808 ; and in the same year, in honor of the great victory of his more vigorous days, he was created Duke of Valmy. In 1809, he commanded the army of reserve on the Rhine, the army of ob- servation of the Elbe, the fifth, twenty-fifth, and twenty-sixth military divisions, and the army of reserve of the North. In 18 12, he was charged with the duty of organizing the cohorts of the national guard in the first military division ; he afterward commanded the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth divisions. In 18 13, he was at first provisional commander of the corps of observation on the Rhine, and then received the command of the second, third, and fourth military divi- sions. After the battle of Leipsic, he performed a valuable service in recon- ducting to France a body of about six thousand soldiers, who had been wounded in the affairs about Dresden. Upon the restoration of Louis XVIII., Marshal Kellermann received the command of the third and fourth divisions, and took no part in the events of the "hundred days." Upon the second restoration, he was placed at the head of the fifth division, received the grand cross of the order of St. Louis, and was made a peer of France. He died at Paris, on September 13, 1820, aged eighty-five years. He left a son, the celebrated general who made the decisive charge at Marengo, and dis- tinguished himself in Spain and at Waterloo, and who died on June 2, 1835 ; and a daughter, married to General de Lery.