Jean Joseph was drawn as a conscript in 1811, and went through the Peninsular War in 1812 and 1813. He belonged to the 3rd Regiment of the Line, whose mission was to pursue in the northern Spanish provinces the guerillas of the famous Espoz y Mina. A legend grew round this wonderful man; he was said to make his own gunpowder in the bleak mountain passes; his innumerable partisans were supplied with arms and ammunition by the English cruisers. He dragged women and old men after him, and little children acted as his scouts. Once or twice however, in May, 1812, the terrible Mina was very nearly caught; but in July he was again as powerful as ever. The French had to organize mobile columns to again occupy the coast and establish communications with France. There was some serious fighting. Mina and his followers were incessantly harassing the small French contingent of the 3rd and 4th Regiments, which were almost alone. “How many traits of bravery,” writes Tissot, “will remain unknown which on a larger field would have been rewarded and honoured!”
The records of the 3rd Regiment allow us to follow step by step this valiant little troop, and among the rank and file, doing his duty steadily through terrible hardships, that private soldier (a corporal in July, 1812, and a sergeant in October, 1813) whose name was Pasteur. The battalion returned to France at the end of January, 1814. It formed a part of that Leval division which, numbering barely 8,000 men, had to fight at Bar-sur-Aube against an army of 40,000 enemies. The 3rd Regiment was called “brave amongst the brave.” “If Napoleon had had none but such soldiers,” writes Thiers in his _History of the Consulate and the Empire_, “the result of that great struggle would certainly have been different.” The Emperor, touched by so much courage, distributed crosses among the men. Pasteur was made a sergeant-major on March 10, 1814, and received, two days later, the cross of the Legion of Honour.
At the battle of Arcis-sur-Aube (March 21) the Leval division had again to stand against 50,000 men--Russians, Austrians, Bavarians, and Wurtembergers. Pasteur’s battalion, the 1st of the 3rd Regiment, came back to St. Dizier and went on by forced marches to Fontainebleau, where Napoleon had concentrated all his forces, arriving on April 4. The battalion was now reduced to eight officers and 276 men. The next day, at twelve o’clock, the Leval division and the remnant of the 7th corps were gathered in the yard of the Cheval Blanc Inn and were reviewed by Napoleon. The attitude of these soldiers, who had heroically fought in Spain and in France, and who were still offering their passionate devotion, gave him a few moments’ illusion. Their enthusiasm and acclamations contrasted with the coldness, the reserve, the almost insubordinations of Generals like Ney, Lefebvre, Oudinot and MacDonald, who had just declared that to march on Paris would be folly.