The French army CODE MILITAIRE prohibited stealing or plunder and the CODE PENAL provided penalties -- up to and including capital punishment -- for transgressors. As we have already established, these two documents were in force in 1813 and probably to the end of the empire.

If evidence is forthcoming that senior French officers plundered than they should, by their own army's military law, have been subject to a court martial and, if found guilty, punished.

If they were not subjected to a court martial or, if found guilty, not punished, we can only deduce two things:

a) French senior officers were exempt from the provisions of the army's military law, or

b) the French army did not follow its own military law on this matter.

I tend toward (b) but then I am cynical. If solid evidence is forthcoming that French senior officers looted or plundered between 1796 (the year the CODE PENAL went into force) and 1815, we can apply the above and make some conclusions about the discipline of the French army.

dg