THE LIFE OF A GENERAL IN NAPOLEON’S LIGHT CAVALRY The Memoirs of Jean-Nicolas Curély

This volume presents the first English translation of the memoirs of Jean-Nicolas Curély. Born in 1774 to a labourer’s family, Curély rose through the ranks to become a general in Napoleon’s light cavalry. Although he did not participate in many of the most iconic set-piece battles of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, this absence reflects the very nature of light cavalry service—operating ahead of the main army, conducting reconnaissance, screening flanks, and executing raids. Even so, Curély took part in all of Napoleon’s major campaigns, including those culminating in Austerlitz, Heilsberg, Essling, Raab, Wagram, the Beresina, Wachau, Leipzig, Craonne, and Laon, and he served as aide-de-camp to several of the French army’s most prominent light cavalry commanders.
Curély’s memoirs provide an exceptional and detailed account of the daily life, duties, and dangers of the light cavalry as experienced by an officer who, despite humble origins and minimal formal education, achieved high command. His career progression was remarkable: a hussar at nineteen, second lieutenant at thirty-two, squadron commander at thirty-five, colonel at thirty-eight, and general at forty. Awarded the Légion d’Honneur in 1806 and wounded five times, he recounts in vivid detail the numerous operations in which he was engaged and the many narrow escapes he survived.
His narrative also highlights his efforts to safeguard the welfare of his men and horses, most notably during the retreat from Moscow, which he survived with a substantial portion of his command—including nearly all his officers—still capable of fighting. Spanning his enlistment in 1793 through Waterloo, the capitulation of Paris, and the dissolution of the army, these memoirs offer a valuable primary source for scholars and enthusiasts of the Napoleonic era.