2. Chapter 2

An army marches on its stomach.

That quote had been attributed to both Frederick the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte. Jacques didn't know which one had really said it or even if either of them had said it, but what he did know was that it was true. An army with food could march fifteen miles a day for months; an army without food could barely manage five and would have a rising list of casualties each day.

In Russia, food had been scarce. Jacques wasn't one of the Emperor's favorites, he was just a simple fusilier. When supplies became limited and men began starving, he wasn't afforded the luxury of being too important to be allowed to starve. Jacques had done what he needed to do. He was a survivor.

He still remembered the taste of horse meat and mongrel dog.

Jacques didn't like to eat horse. He certainly didn't like to eat dog. He hoped he would never have to do either ever again. It was for that reason that Jacques had volunteered to help requisition supplies.

Three dozen men walked toward a small village just a few miles away from where the main army was encamped. Jacques was the only volunteer. The others had been ordered to get off their lazy asses and do something productive for the army. Even the corporal leading them hadn't volunteered. It seemed that the only thing people wanted to do in this paradise of a world was sit around and soak in the sun.

Jacques didn't blame them. Russia had been cold and miserable. Here was warm and beautiful. But Jacques wanted to make sure he was getting fed and what better way than to get the food himself.

They walked to within shouting distance of the village, and Jacques could already see a crowd of people coming out to ogle them. His white and blue uniform was ripped, covered in dirt, and stained with blood, but when compared to the villagers he suddenly felt like the resplendently dressed Marshal Murat.

"Alright, lads. Nice and easy now; let's not shoot anyone that doesn't need shooting," Corporal Bonnot ordered.

Jacques checked to see his musket was properly primed and loaded. He didn't want to have to use it, but in Russia he'd learned that even a serf with a rusted pitchfork could kill a man.

One of the other men, Tomas, licked his lips at the sight of the village. "Think they got beef sausage?" he wondered. "Been a long while since I had beef sausage."

"Don't see no cows," said another man, Davy.

"How about bread then? They've got to have bread. A nice freshly baked loaf just waiting for us to take."

Jacques's stomach growled at the thought of fresh bread.

"Shut up about bread and sausages!" Corporal Bonnot snapped. "Just get as many provisions as you can and be done with it."

Jacques watched the villagers gawk at them. The closer they got, the better he could see their faces. At least they were human. Jacques had to keep reminding himself he wasn't in the same world he'd been born in. The village they approached could have fit right into the French countryside with only minor changes. He would have expected something to be different. Anything.

He tried to examine their faces. There was fear, no one liked it when an army came to steal away their hard work for little if any pay, but also curiosity. The soldiers in this world fought with spears and swords, not muskets and bayonets. He and his fellow Frenchmen were something new for these people and-

"Duclos!"

Jacques's head snapped to attention at the sound of his name. Corporal Bonnot stared at him expectantly.

"Yes, corporal?"

"Stop drooling at the villagers. If I find you trying to take one to bed, I swear by God I'll have you digging latrines for the rest of your miserable life."

"Yes, corporal."

Bonnot rolled his eyes. "Been too long for some of you fools."

Jacques bit back a retort and kept walking. That hadn't been what he was thinking, but it didn't matter to soldiers. Rumor would spread and soon enough everyone in his company would hear of his supposed desperation for the local girls.

A man approached the group of soldiers. He was short and bald and had a welcoming smile on his face as if he expected that to save his village from being looted.

He came right up to Corporal Bonnot and said, "Savara haru uguru!"

Bonnot stared at the man for a few heartbeats before turning to the other soldiers. "Anyone understand the fuck he just said to me?"

"Some kind of greeting?" Jacques offered.

"Maybe he wants you to kiss him," Davy jeered.

Tomas giggled like a child. "Must be real desperate if he wants to kiss the corporal."

The corporal gave Tomas a glare that would have made even the staunchest grenadier melt before shaking his head. Bonnot would get nowhere with his fellow soldiers, so he turned to face the bald man.

"We want food," he stated bluntly.

The bald man looked at him, confused.

"Food," he tried again. "F-O-O-D!"

All he got in return was another confused look.

Jacques rubbed his face with one hand and leaned on his musket with the other. The other villagers were watching the exchange with bated breath. They seemed to share the bald man's confusion.

Bonnot gestured to his mouth then to his belly. "Food. For eating."

The bald man suddenly nodded excitedly and ran back to the other villagers. He emerged a few minutes later with a bucket full of water and offered it eagerly to Bonnot.

"Kuqua!" he offered with a wide smile.

Bonnot looked back to the other soldiers. "These fucking people. At least the serfs in Russia knew what we wanted. Even if some of them tried to kill us."

The corporal turned to face the bald man. He opened his mouth to speak then immediately shut it. Bonnot looked from the bald man to the other villagers, and Jacques could see he was done negotiating.

He spat on the ground then took his musket and slammed its stock into the bald man's stomach. Bonnet spat again, this time on the bald man as he keeled over and dropped to the ground.

"Take whatever you can find, and don't take no for an answer."

There was a scream from the villagers as the French soldiers ran to seize whatever they could. The villagers fled to their homes, and the Frenchmen followed. Jacques headed to a small house with a straw roof at the far end of the village.

He got to the door and found it was locked, so he broke the poorly made thing off its hinges with a solid kick. A woman inside yelled in terror while a man raised his hands with fear evident on his face.

Jacques leveled his musket at the man. He barked "Food!" and nodded at the bags of grain he could see piled up against the far wall.

The man seemed to understand. He babbled something in his language that sounded like some kind of reassurance before grabbing as many bags as he could. Jacques gestured for the man to follow, and the two exited the house.

Corporal Bonnet had stolen one of the villagers' wooden carts and was directing all the food be placed in it. Jacques grunted at the man with the grain bags before pointing to the cart. The man understood and placed the bags in the cart.

"Again!" Jacques barked. The man seemed to understand and went back to his home to get more bags.

With that settled, Jacques moved on to another house. This one didn't seem to have a lock, and Jacques entered expecting easy pickings. Instead, he found a woman with a butcher's cleaver growling like a feral dog.

"Barbara sugos!" she screamed.

Jacques barely managed to stumble out the door and avoid her frantic swing.

He leveled his musket at her when she followed him out the door. She didn't seem to understand a single trigger pull could drop her dead instantly and continued after him. He had to jump backwards to avoid another swing.

Jacques considered shooting her but found he couldn't will himself to kill a desperate woman only defending her home. Even if that woman was trying to kill him.

The woman's third swing was only inches away from opening a gash in his head. He couldn't bring himself to shoot her, but Jacques had no problems with using his musket as a club. He smashed the stock into her face and she fell to the ground.

Jacques didn't want another close call, so he unsheathed his bayonet and fixed it onto the top of his musket. The woman tried to get up, but he shouted, "Halt!" and brought the bayonet up to her throat. She may not have understood what a musket could do, but she definitely understood what a sharp piece of metal could.

Her cleaver dropped from her fingers, and she raised her hands in surrender. There was a moment where Jacques felt irritated at the fact she had just tried to kill him yet expected no harm to come to herself. That moment soon passed. He kept his eye on her as he walked around her and entered the house.

Jacques found out why the woman had tried to kill him when he saw that the house doubled as a butcher's shop. A fortune's worth of meat products all ripe for the picking. The woman glared at him from the ground when he began piling as much as he could into his arms.

He winked at her as he left.

Jacques had a massive grin on his face as he walked out the village. It was a good haul. If Jacques had to guess, they'd taken enough food to feed the entire army for at least a few days. Other teams of foragers would probably see similar success and be able to provide for the army for at least a few weeks.

Jacques, however, had been the most successful. Other men found grain stores, but Jacques found the butcher's shop. Meat was a delicacy in the army, so he had instantly become a hero when he brought back armfuls of sausages and slabs of meat.

"I told you they'd have sausage," Tomas said with a mouthful of food. "Delicious."

Davy snorted as he nibbled away at a sausage. "It's not beef. Tastes weird."

"It's good. Maybe pork?"

"Not pork."

"Chicken?"

"They don't make sausage out of chicken."

"Sure they do. I've had it."

Davy rolled his eyes. "They only make sausage from pig and cow."

"But I've had-"

"Shut it!" Corporal Bonnot growled. Davy and Tomas had the good sense to look sheepish at the reprimand.

The rest of the trip back to their encampment was spent in silence.

When they returned, Corporal Bonnot immediately took his leave and left the rest of the men to unload their cart of stolen supplies to the quartermaster. The men grumbled at the corporal's aversion to work.

The soldiers heaved sacks of grains and slabs of meat into the camp's makeshift storehouse. It wasn't really a storehouse, really more a large tent that was being used to store provisions. There were several of them around the camp with some housing ammunition and others housing food. Jacques always made a point to avoid the ones housing ammunition. A tiny spark could cause an explosion he didn't want to be anywhere near.

As Jacques dumped two sacks of grain into the storehouse, a quartermaster carefully noted down each item. He carried a massive ledger in one arm and a pen in the other. He had spectacles and looked a bit too plump for having just retreated from Russia. Jacques supposed that quartermasters never truly went hungry; they were in charge of the food after all.

He was about to grab two more sacks when Jacques spotted someone approach out of the corner of his eye. He turned to face them.

"Duclos!" a man with a vicious grin full of blackened teeth rumbled. Sergeant Levett.

Jacques stood at attention. "Yes, sergeant?"

"Captain wants to see you," he growled.

Jacques swallowed a curse. Officers asking to see enlisted men was never a good thing. What had he done this time? Did the captain hear about him falling asleep on sentry duty? No that had only happened once and only for a few minutes. Maybe his little fight with the woman at the butcher shop? He didn't think that would be a problem.

"Now…" Levett started, clearly enjoying the distress on Jacques's face. "You may be wondering why he wants to see you."

"Yes, sergeant." Jacques hesitated. "Do you know-"

"I suspect I had something to do with it," he interrupted. "See, the captain is going to tell you that I recommended you for your excellent record, your stirling bravery, and your exceptional skill. You might think that I harbored a soft spot for you. That good old Sergeant Levett was such a bad fellow after all. You may even think I thought you to be a comrade."

"Sergeant?"

Sergeant Levett grinned with his blackened teeth again. "I want you to know that all of that is bullshit. You're not brave nor skilled. The captain asked me to recommend men with good records for a special assignment. I've been around long enough to know what that means. You're going to be put on some sort of idiotic plan that's going to get you and whoever else is with you killed. I figured if it had to be someone in this company, it ought to be someone like you."

Jacques blinked. He knew the sergeant didn't like him, the sergeant didn't like anyone, but to be picked out was an eyeopener. He wondered why for half a second before he realized. Right. The girl. In Moscow.

"You know, I figured assigning you to go foraging would give you some humility. Wipe that smile you always have off your face. But no, you volunteered to go before I could order you. He spat onto the ground. "You think you're better than the rest of us."

"Yes, sergeant." Jacques figured the best way to get away from Levett was to simply agree with what he said.

"You should have died in Russia."

"Yes, sergeant."

"I hope you know that when you're lying out there dying from whatever insane plan the officers have cooked up it's because of your own arrogance."

"Understood, sergeant."

Levett coughed. "Alright, go and see the captain. Enjoy your last days alive. Dismissed!"

Jacques nodded and trudged away from Levett.

His head felt dizzy. On one hand, he was away from the sergeant. Ever since Moscow, Levett had done his best to torment Jacques. He was always on latrine duty, always the one with extra sentry shifts, always the one to have to drive off Cossack scouts. Jacques was sure he'd been working harder than any other man in the army because of Levett.

Damn that girl.

On the other hand, he was now walking towards his death. Officers never called a suicide mission a suicide mission. It was always a 'special assignment' or something like that. Whatever the captain wanted Jacques for, it wasn't good.

There was a sentry posted at the captain's tent. He told Jacques to wait.

Jacques tried to get a glimpse at what was happening inside the tent. He could hear soft voices, but couldn't make out what was being said. Something about a lieutenant maybe? His attempts to listen in were pointless when the corporal who'd been speaking with the captain was dismissed and the sentry nodded for Jacques to go in.

Captain Toussaint wore an irritated expression. He had stacks of papers on his tiny camp desk and a single sheet he was holding in his hands, probably his orders. Jacques itched to know the contents on that paper. It was probably how he was going to die.

"Private Jacques Duclos reporting for duty, sir!" He stood at attention.

Captain Toussaint looked at him and put down the paper. "At ease, soldier."

Jacques eased up and looked expectantly at the captain. His instincts screamed for him to run and hide, but his brain had to remind him that was not an option at this moment.

There was an awkward silence, and Jacques felt that perhaps he should say something, but he restrained himself from doing so. Finally, the captain fumbled with a bag on his desk and threw Jacques two golden patches in the shape of straight stripes.

"Get someone to sew them on your sleeves," he ordered.

It took a few seconds for Jacques to fully understand what he'd just been given. The stripes were meant to be sewn on the sleeves of sergeants to display their rank. These were what sergeants wore. Jacques wasn't a sergeant; he was a private.

There was a very long silence. Jacques's mind tried to comprehend why he'd just been given the stripes.

"This is a mistake," he suddenly blurted before hastily adding, "sir."

"I'm afraid not, Sergeant Duclos. Though I do wish it was."

Jacques blinked. "Sir, I must respectfully refuse. I'm not-"

"This is not an offer," the captain snapped. "It's an order, so take the stripes and prepare to report to your new company. We don't have any of the other kit for a sergeant out here, so you'll have to make do with just the stripes."

"Sir, I can't become a sergeant. I'm not even a corporal."

"I just made a corporal into a lieutenant, so yes you damn well can," he snapped. Captain Touissant took a long breath. "I could have you punished for refusing orders, but then I'd just need to find a new sergeant, so give me a moment to explain." He grabbed the paper he'd been examining when Jacques had walked in. "Marshal Ney gave orders yesterday for the reorganization of all the stragglers into three regiments of fusiliers regardless of their previous positions. Problem is that not a single one of those stragglers is an officer and there are only a handful of sergeants and corporals." The captain coughed and glanced at the opening to his tent where a lieutenant was waiting for them to finish. "Marshal Ney wants at least one sergeant, one lieutenant, and one captain per new company, and they all have to be from the already formed men because he doesn't trust the stragglers to do anything other than follow orders. That means I was told to transfer a sergeant, a lieutenant, and a new captain without stripping my own understrength company bare, and that requires field promotions."

Jacques blinked and played with the sergeant's stripes in his hands. His stomach felt like it was doing backflips.

"So," he continued while making a vague gesture with his hand, "I asked for capable men and you were recommended to me by Sergeant Levett."

"Sir, I don't know how to be a sergeant," Jacques protested.

Captain Touissant shrugged. "It's not hard or else the numbskulls I've got as sergeants wouldn't be able to do it. You'll learn on the job. We all do."

"Sir, I still must protest that-"

"Your objections have been noted, sergeant. Now go get someone to sew those stripes on and report tomorrow morning to receive your new company."

"Yes, sir," Jacques replied numbly.

"You're dismissed, sergeant."

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, one last thing," Touissant's voice caught him just as he was about to leave. "Tell the man waiting outside to come in as you go." Touissant chuckled to himself, "He's going to be your captain."

Jacques nodded and exited the tent. His stomach was still churning, and his head became dizzy again. Sergeant? He wasn't fit to be a sergeant. Sergeants were tough and mean; men who could make other men fall in line. Jacques wasn't that.

He gulped as he looked at the man waiting patiently outside the tent. The man wore the insignia of a lieutenant.

"The captain's ready-" Jacques cleared his throat. "The captain's ready for you, captain."

The newly promoted captain stared at Jacques with bewilderment for a moment before scrunching up his face and marching into the tent. Jacques could only assume a nearly identical situation to what he had just gone through was about to play out.

He walked away and stared at the stripes in his hands. The sense of dread he'd felt ever since he walked into that tent was beginning to fade. It was replaced with nervousness? Excitement? Eagerness? He didn't know exactly what. Here we go then.

Sergeant Jacques Duclos was assigned to the Ninth Company Third Battalion of the newly formed 134th Line Regiment. His first objective as a sergeant was to actually find where his company had been positioned in the massive encampment that housed Marshal Ney's Third Corps.

This wasn't an easy task. The newly formed regiments were in a freshly built section of the encampment, but considering that there were over seven thousand men in the new regiments, it wasn't a big help. Jacques had found where the 134th was relatively quickly, but tracking down his battalion and company was far more difficult. He tried asking a lieutenant where to go, but it turned out that the lieutenant was also searching for his new company, so he couldn't help.

It took an hour of searching before Jacques had found where the Ninth Company of Third Battalion was encamped.

He walked through the rows of tents and immediately felt like a fraud. Men stared at him and the newly sewn stripes on his sleeves. Some stood at attention which didn't help Jacques's feeling that he was just a pretender.

Jacques was eventually approached by two corporals who both stood at attention. They stood in silence before him for almost half a minute before Jacques realized he was supposed to do the talking.

"Er… At ease, corporals."

"Yes, sergeant!" the one to the left of Jacques replied. For a man who had been through Russia, he looked stunningly young. His face was completely smooth, and if Jacques had to guess he had to be seventeen or so. He looked to be in good spirits, something rare for those who'd just come from Russia, especially so for a straggler.

"I'm Jacques Duclos-" he began but then immediately reconsidered. There was probably a proper way to introduce himself to his subordinates, but Jacques didn't know it so he did his best to improvise. "I'm Sergeant Jacques Duclos and I am this company's new sergeant." Jacques suddenly considered that he might not be in the right place and glanced around nervously. "This is the Ninth Company, Third Battalion, correct?

"Yes, sergeant. It is, sergeant," the young one replied. Jacques had an irrational suspicion that the man had never actually been to Russia. He was far too cheery.

"And you are?"

The boy, Jacques decided that he was too young to be a man in spite of only being a few years younger than himself, stood at attention again. "Corporal Mathieu Vidal, at your service sergeant!"

Jacques committed the name to memory before turning to Vidal's much more silent compatriot. "And you?"

"Corporal Jean Astier," he replied. Astier was what Jacques expected from a corporal who'd retreated through Russia. He looked tired and there was a bit of scruff on his face that he hadn't shaved off.

"Where are the other corporals?" Jacques suddenly asked. A company was supposed to have eight corporals in total.

Astier coughed. "We're the only ones, sergeant."

"Are there any other sergeants coming?" Vidal asked.

"No," Jacques responded with a grimace. There were also supposed to be four sergeants and a sergeant major in each company, but Captain Touissant had informed him he would be the only sergeant. He needed to know just how understrength this company was. "How many men do we have?"

"Eighty," Astier grimly informed him. A full strength company was supposed to have one hundred forty men.

"Eighty…" Jacques mused. "Well, I suppose that's why we don't have more corporals or sergeants."

"How about our lieutenants?" Vidal asked. "We're supposed to have two lieutenants, right sergeant?"

Jacques shook his head. "We've only got one. I haven't met him yet; have either of you?"

Both corporals shook their heads before Astier asked, "What about our captain? Have you met him, sergeant?"

Jacques thought back to the lieutenant he'd told to enter Captain Touissant's tent and the bewilderment on his face when Jacques had called him a captain. "Only briefly. I can't say anything about him yet. Don't even know his name."

Astier considered the information. Vidal, however, didn't seem concerned. "I had some of the men prepare a tent for you. Four tents actually, for all the sergeants, but since we've only got you I'll have the extra taken down."

Jacques felt his stomach do a flip when Vidal mentioned him being the only sergeant.

"I can take you to your tent if you'd like."

Jacques took a deep breath. "That would be excellent, thank you."

Marshal Ney sat in his command tent listening to General Messier report on the status of the new straggler regiments. He had given Messier command of the stragglers because Messier was excellent at drilling men, and the straggler regiments would require a lot of drilling to reinstate the discipline they had lost while in Russia. Come to think of it, the entire army could do with more discipline, but that was a much larger problem that would take much longer to solve.

"How many officers did you say you had to promote again?" Ney asked.

"Forty-three, sir," Messier replied. We also had to strip most companies of their second-lieutenants in order to fill out all three of the new regiments."

"And some of these new officers were promoted from the rank of corporal?" he asked in astonishment.

Messier nodded. "Yes, sir. We didn't want to strip the formed regiments of their experienced sergeants, so we promoted the corporals. The sergeants wouldn't do any better as lieutenants than the corporals are doing anyway."

Ney rubbed his face, exasperated. What Messier was saying made some sense, keeping veteran sergeants in their current positions would help keep men disciplined, and the corporals would be more open to learning their vastly different duties as a lieutenant than the sergeants would be. Still… promoting corporals to the rank of lieutenant.

These were desperate measures.

"How are the stragglers doing with their new regiments?"

Messier scratched his head. "Most of them are assimilating well. Obviously morale is lower with the straggler regiments, but at least they're organized again. I wouldn't say they're good, but they're capable.

"Good." With the straggler regiments, Ney's corps would have a total of thirteen-thousand fighting men.

Messier grinned. "We'll be ready to fight anything that we come across, don't worry about that."

Ney nodded. "Speaking of fighting anything, have you heard anything from our scouts or foraging parties? Do we know who we're fighting?"

"Nothing new," Messier muttered. "The foragers report that the villages speak a language we haven't been able to decipher yet. It appears to be the same as the one our prisoners speak."

"And the army we fought?"

"We haven't encountered any other soldiers. Colonel Feraud has his cavalry scouting-"

Colonel Feraud burst into the command tent with a frantic look on his face.

"Speak of the devil…" Messier whispered.

Feraud ignored Messier and looked immediately at Ney. "Sir, we've spotted the enemy."

Ney swore before replying, "Show me where."

Feraud unraveled a map onto the table. He pointed to a hill on the map which had a mountain range to the east and open plains to the west. "This is where we have encamped. The enemy," he pointed to a position northeast of the encampment, "is marching down to meet us from what we assume is a city. At the same time another force," Feraud pointed to a position southeast of the encampment, "is marching up to meet us."

"They are moving independently from each other?" Ney asked.

"Yes." Feraud hesitated. "I'm not entirely certain that they are of the same nation."

"What do you mean?"

"The force to the south carries a different flag from the one to the north. Additionally, the equipment of the two forces have slight differences from each other. It's possible they are two allied nations or perhaps one is a vassal state of the other."

"Intriguing, but not entirely relevant to the current situation. Do we know their intentions?"

Feraud nodded. "They are marching along different sections of the same road. I believe both forces intend to march on our encampment and utilize their combined numbers to crush us. Each individual force has slightly less men than we do, but together they're almost double our corps."

Messier, who had until this point been silent, laughed. "We've been fortifying this position for a week now. Let them come, we'll grind them down against our earthworks."

Ney shook his head. "No. If we stay then they will surround us and starve us out. We are entirely dependent on foraging for supplies. We cannot allow them to cut us off from the countryside."

Messier scratched his head. "Then we retreat. March west and use our mobility to escape before the enemy can catch us."

Ney shook his head again. "If we retreat they will simply pursue us. We don't know the terrain, they do. Eventually they would catch us."

"Then we fight?" Feraud asked. "Show them what we're made of?"

"You said they outnumber us," Messier protested. "Even with our technological advantage, they could soundly defeat us."

"We can't defend, we can't retreat, we must fight." Feraud argued.

"We'll be crushed if we fight them head on."

"We have no choice."

"Sir, you can't seriously-"

Ney held his hand up to silence the general. He placed his finger on top of where his corps was encamped on the map. "We will fight, but that does not mean we need to fight an even battle. The enemy has presented us with a great opportunity. Two armies separated from each other by a great distance. Where we need to be," Ney traced his finger from the encampment to a spot on the road in between the two armies, "is right here."

"We'd be surrounded on two sides by the enemy," General Messier objected, "They would pincer us between their two armies."

Ney grinned like a wolf. "Not if we attack first."

I have to say, I did not expect the amount of interest this story garnered. It only had one chapter, so I thought it would be buried in obscurity, but it seems that a lot of people like it and there are far more reviews than I had expected. I read every one of them and I thank everyone who reviewed the first chapter.

In this chapter I introduced Jacques Duclos in order to bring a perspective from the lower ranks rather than just simply having the entire story be told through the gaze of Marshal Ney. Jacques Duclos is not a real historical figure, he is one of my own creations as are most of the people he interacts with. There's simply not enough information on individual soldiers in the lower ranks for me to draw on, so I am forced to utilize my own creativity. Of course, that means I don't have much inspiration to draw on which can disguise my amateurish writing, so forgive that if you can.

Finally here's a glossary of any Napoleonic terms or references I used so that people can follow along better:

Marshal Murat: Joachim Murat was a Marshal of the Empire during Napoleon's reign and most notably his primary cavalry commander. He would often wear a highly decorated uniform that stood out among other men. Even in Russia, he managed to continue to dress fantastically which is what is referenced in this chapter.

Company: The smallest organizational unit in the French Army. The company was an administrative term, on the battlefield a company was called a platoon. At full strength, a company would have 140 men with a captain in command, a first lieutenant, a second lieutenant, a sergeant major, four sergeants, one company clerk, eight corporals, two drummers, and 121 privates (on a side note, the rank private wasn't really a thing. The lowest ranks were called "soldat" or soldier, but it was equivalent to private, so most English sources call them privates).

Battalion: The second smallest organizational unit in the French Army. Each line battalion had four companies of fusiliers (regular infantry), one company of grenadiers (shock infantry), and one company of voltigeurs (light infantry). The battalion was led by a "Chef de bataillon" which is equivalent to the rank of major (most English sources will call them majors rather than chiefs of battalion).

Regiment: Another organizational unit in the French Army. Each regiment had three war battalions (the type previously explained) and one depot battalion (where new soldiers were sent to be trained and equipped before being sent out to the proper war battalions). A regiment was lead by a colonel. Two or more regiments would then form a brigade and two or more brigades would then form a division. Divisions would combine with other divisions to form a corps which often varied in size.

Again, thank you for reading my nonsense. I do appreciate feedback, just keep in mind I'm a very inexperienced writer. I'm still busy, so I don't know how often I can update this, but I will continue try my best to write more.