Adelbert DeVillargennes joined the French Navy in 1807 as an apprentice and managed to climb to the post of Midshipman but transferred to the ranks of the Grande Armée. He fought as a lieutenant in Austria, although wounded he returned to active service in Spain where he was captured by the British. Interred in Britain as a prisoner of war he returned to fight at Napoleon's side in 1815 during the Waterloo campaign. Eventually he emigrated to America and rose to be Italian Vice-Consul. His short but pithy reminiscences are filled with anecdotes of the life of a campaigning subaltern in Napoleon's army.