I very much look forward to reading this when it's out! Looks brilliant!

Sabred in the forehead at Benavente in Spain (1808).
Shot through the left leg by Spanish guerrillas (1810).

Remarkably he survived all this - and came through Russia unscathed - to be promoted to maréchal-de-logis (sergeant) in February 1813. What happened to him next I don't yet know. End/

His wounds:
Hit by a shell blast in the hip at Aboukir in Egypt (1799).
Sabred five times, in the left hand (x3), right hand and right thigh, at Marengo (1800).
Shot and bayonetted in the right side at Austerlitz (1805).
Hit in the chin by grapeshot at Eylau (1807)
Cont... 3/

Rougé was born in the small town of Riom in the centre of France in 1779. In 1794, at the age of 15, he volunteered for the 7e Hussars.

Having fought through the Revolutionary Wars, he was appointed to the Consular Guard in 1800, then became a Chasseur of the Imperial Guard. 2/

The 1814 sample is really small - only 47 men joined in 1814, so it's skewed. 5 became corporals, 1 fourrier, 2 sergeants and one sergeant major (probably, as you say, because the army needed NCOs in 1815). None gained commissions before the end of 1815.

There was also a difference between conscripts and volunteers.

Only 113 men volunteered for the 33e in the period 1803-14, so it's a small sample, but 30.1% of volunteers achieved some rank, with 6.2% being commissioned.

56.6% of volunteers remained private soldiers throughout their career. End/

...cont
1810 - 7.6%
1811 - 1.2%
1812 - 7.4%
1813 - 7.2%
1814 - 19.1%

The really low number of promotions in 1811 is simply because the conscripts of that year took huge casualties in Russia before they could be promoted. 4/

But it really differed by year. Of Rev War soldiers who served after 1803, 40.4% were promoted (9.3% became officers). Total promotions in other years:

1799 - 28.7%
1800 - 29.4%
1801 - 31.1%
1802 - 19.4%
1803 - 10.4%
1804 - 8.7%
1805 - 9.1%
1806 - 10.6%
1807 - 9.1%
1808 - 10.1%
1809 - 8.8%
cont 3/

In total, 88.4% of men were never promoted and 1.1% went into specialist roles without rank (e.g. drummer, wagoner).

4.7% ended careers as corporals;
0.5% fourrier
2.6% sergeant
0.5% sergeant major
0.2% adjutant sous officier
1.1% commissioned officer

0.4% promoted at some point then demoted. 2/

He threatened it on several occasions:
The 60e Ligne, after a riot in Toulon in 1811.
For the crew of a ship who abandoned their posts in 1811.
For deserters from the army in Dec 1813 & again in Feb 1814.

In 1814 at least the army Provost Marshal, Gen Radet, seems to have declined to carry it out

I agree with you entirely - when French troops burned and plundered in Tyrol or Spain they claimed it was in response to their comrades being killed. But the violence in response to minor unrest in north Italy, Germany and the Netherlands shows how fear and force was important to the regime.

Yes, and there were plenty of other incidents (shooting of civilians in Amsterdam and Rotterdam by conscript escorts during riots in 1811, for example).

What interests me here is Napoleon's habitual use of extreme violence and summary execution.

('De Adelaar en Het Lam' is excellent, by the way)

And one in the Netherlands in 1813:

"Burn the first village within reach with the Orange cockade, and announce that the first individual that you find with this cockade will be shot"

These are not isolated incidents or even responses to particularly serious uprisings.

Such violence can generally be interpreted as showing the strength of a regime's armed force and the weakness of its authority.

Hesse-Cassel 1807: "Hersfeld seems guilty. Send a column of 4,000 men to pillage the town from top to bottom for insulting 60 of my soldiers...
Vacha is guilty...it must give up 4 principal authors of revolt or be burned.
Eschwege...must give up guilty or be burned" 2/

🎶 Is this the real sign? Is this just fantasy?