Official account of the French Foreign Legion: 

“The French army was besieging Puebla. The Legion had the mission of ensuring, over a distance of one hundred and twenty kilometers, the movement and security of the convoys. On April 29, 1863, Colonel Jeanningros, who was in command, learned that a large convoy carrying three million in cash, siege equipment, and ammunition was on its way to Puebla. Captain Danjou, his adjutant-major, persuaded him to send a company out to meet the convoy. The 3rd Company of the Foreign Regiment was designated, but it had no officer available. Captain Danjou took command himself, and Second Lieutenants Maudet, the standard-bearer, and Vilain, the paymaster, volunteered to join him.

On April 30, at 1:00 in the morning, the 3rd Company, consisting of three officers and sixty-two men, set out. It had covered about twenty kilometers when, at 7:00 in the morning, it stopped at Palo Verde to make coffee. At that moment, the enemy revealed itself and the battle immediately began. Captain Danjou ordered the men to form square and, while retreating, successfully repelled several cavalry charges, inflicting the enemy’s first heavy losses.

Upon reaching the inn of Camerone, a large building with a courtyard surrounded by a wall three meters high, he decided to barricade himself there in order to pin down the enemy and delay as long as possible the moment when it could attack the convoy.

While the men hastily organized the defense of the inn, a Mexican officer, pointing to his overwhelming numerical superiority, summoned Captain Danjou to surrender. Danjou replied: ‘We have ammunition and we will not surrender.’ Then, raising his hand, he swore to defend himself to the death and had his men take the same oath. It was 10:00 a.m. Until 6:00 p.m., those sixty men, who had neither eaten nor drunk since the day before, despite the extreme heat, hunger, and thirst, resisted 2,000 Mexicans: eight hundred cavalry and twelve hundred infantry.

At noon, Captain Danjou was killed by a bullet to the chest. At 2:00 p.m., Second Lieutenant Vilain fell, struck by a bullet in the forehead. At that moment, the Mexican colonel succeeded in setting fire to the inn.

Despite the heat and the smoke, which only increased their suffering, the legionnaires held firm, but many of them were struck down. By 5:00 p.m., only twelve men around Second Lieutenant Maudet were still able to fight. At that moment, the Mexican colonel gathered his men and told them what shame they would bring upon themselves if they failed to bring down that handful of brave men (a legionnaire who understood Spanish translated his words as he spoke). The Mexicans were about to launch the general assault through the breaches they had managed to open, but first Colonel Milan sent another summons to Second Lieutenant Maudet; Maudet rejected it with contempt.

The final assault was launched. Soon only five men remained around Maudet: Corporal Maine and Legionnaires Catteau, Wensel, Constantin, and Leonhard. Each still had one cartridge left; they fixed bayonets to their rifles and, sheltering in a corner of the courtyard with their backs to the wall, stood facing the enemy. At a signal, they fired their rifles point-blank at the enemy and then rushed at them with bayonets. Second Lieutenant Maudet and two legionnaires fell, mortally wounded. Maine and his two comrades were about to be massacred when a Mexican officer rushed forward and saved them. He shouted to them: ‘Surrender!’

‘We will surrender if you promise to collect and care for our wounded and if you allow us to keep our weapons.’ Their bayonets remained threatening.

‘Nothing can be refused to men such as you!’ the officer replied.

Captain Danjou’s sixty men kept their oath to the very end. For eleven hours, they resisted two thousand enemies, killed three hundred of them, and wounded as many more. Through their sacrifice, by saving the convoy, they fulfilled the mission entrusted to them.

Emperor Napoleon III decided that the name Camerone would be inscribed on the flag of the Foreign Regiment and that, moreover, the names of Danjou, Vilain, and Maudet would be engraved in gold letters on the walls of Les Invalides in Paris.

In addition, a monument was erected in 1892 on the site of the battle. It bears the inscription:

“They were here fewer than sixty, facing an entire army; its sheer mass crushed them.

Life, rather than courage, deserted these French soldiers on April 30, 1863. In their memory, the homeland raised this monument.”

Since then, whenever Mexican troops pass in front of the monument, they present arms.