A Surgeon in Napoleon’s Grande Armée : Introduction (Part 1)

Pierre-François Percy was Surgeon-in-Chief of Napoleon’s Grande Armée from 1804–1808. His Campaign Journal, published in 1904, was edited by Émile Longin, who provided an illuminating (if hagiographical) introduction to the life and work of the surgeon. What follows is Part 1 of this introduction.
To read the rest of Longin’s introduction, see here.
Percy’s fascinating and informative Journal is now available in English, via Pen&Sword Books. To see more, visit here.

Pierre-François Percy, to whom the gratitude of the soldiers was to attribute the beautiful title of “father of military surgery”, was born in Montagney-lez-Pesmes on 28 October 1754. His father, Claude Percy, was originally from the village of Parcey; in Montagney he exercised the humble functions of a surgeon. The house in which he lived still exists, and an inscription engraved on a marble plaque brings it to the attention of passers-by. According to certain authors, the Percy family allegedly came to France following in the wake of the Stuarts; but this assertion rests only on a remark by the Duke of Northumberland who, under the Restoration, called the old surgeon-in-chief of Napoleon’s armies “my cousin Percy”, for the parish registers of Parcey tell us that his great-great-grandfather took a wife in Franche-Comté twelve…