I see that you used the translated version of Ney’s memoires…Yes I was going through both languages to see what the difference was.

I myself was more interested in the term colonne serrée par regiment et colonnes serrées par bataillons.

If the lead division kept any resemblance to order on their ligne de bataille while in colonne serrée par regiment…can you imagine the difficulty of a passages des ligne executed by two divisions. Becasue this is most emphatically not an ideal text book situation to do a passages of lines.

Best Regards,
Art