Cambronne’s military career began in 1792 and he fought his way through the entire Revolutionary War as well as the Napoleonic Wars. He took part in many campaigns including the ill-fated French expedition to Ireland in 1796, the Peninsular War, the invasion of Russia and the battles of 1813-14.
He was wounded at Waterloo but survived and married his English nurse – he died in 1842.Tradition has it that when called upon to surrender at Waterloo (whilst commanding the remnants of the Old Guard) he replied ‘The Guard will die, but will not yield’ but was then wounded in the head and taken prisoner. In Les Miserables, Victor Hugo attributed Cambronne with a more colourful response although Cambronne himself said his actual words were ‘Buggers like us never surrender’.
This is FN367 GENERAL CAMBRONNE, in General’s uniform and cocked hat on foot, with drawn sword and waving arm. The figure is a genuine vintage casting of the only foot figure to be included in the Hinton Hunt personality figure range.
Note: I've tried to tone down the 'Mr Punch' look but the size of the nose on this casting has made that quite difficult.
8 comments:
Now THAT'S THE WAY TO DO IT...!
Tony - Ha Ha! Now why didn't I think of that as the post title?
Trust Tony to come up with that :-)
Lovely figure, that vibrant blue is great.
Great model. I didn`t know that there even was a foot personality in the Hinton Hunt range.
Very nice finish Ian!
He's great Ian.
That nose does make me think of Asterix... & Cleopatra, from memory?!!
There are no coincidences .. there's always a reason ;-)
Regards
Many (many!) years ago, in France, in polite company it was not the done thing to swear. Instead there was a euphemistic phrase "Le mot de Cambronne" (The word of Cambronne or Cambronne's word). This was on the basis that what Cambronne actually said on being asked to surrender was "Merde!" :-)
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