Your view on Michel Ney? and Emmanuel de Grouchy?
Ney...good commander in his heyday..but highly erratic.Incredibly brave and inspirational to his men.Prone to great blunders due to either impulsive action- examples jena 1806 and waterloo 1815 or overcautious sloth examples- eylau 1807,quatre bras 1815 and bautzen 1813.
Best rearguard commander in the grande armee.Saved the grande armee's remnant at berezina and also gave wellington a bloody nose in spain in rearguard actions too.
Best moments -berezina 1812,echlingen 1805 and friedland 1807.
Worst moments- Bautzen 1813,Quatre bras and waterloo 1815,jena 1806.
Bautzen cost napoleon his empire arguably...ney's failure to close the trap meant the allies were saved from a second austerlitz scenario , overcautiousness at quatre bras followed by rashness at waterloo in 1815 campaign also cost french heavily.
Overall ney seems to have been much more able at defense.
Grouchy ....very capable cavalry commander.Good organizer,capable of combined arms actions.Probably best defensive cavalry commander along with montbrun in the grande armee.Main problem overcautious and lack of initiative.
Greatest hour- Friedland.Held off far superior russian cavalry with a brilliant combined arms defense all day.Saved french left wing.
Worst hour- Friedland and waterloo.
Curiously after his superb performance all day long,once the russians began to rout..grouchy made no attempt to pursue even though such action would have led to complete annihilation of the remnants of the russian army.
Waterloo..ignored the unspoken rule of the day-'march to the sound of the guns' even though he could hear the guns firing from waterloo.But he is given overblame for this.His main mistake in this campaign was not that he didn't on his own initiative disregard his previous orders and join napoleon at waterloo..because it takes an exceptional officer to make such a decision..like desaix at marengo.His main failing was that he failed to effectively pursue blucher..blucher wasn't even supposed to be on waterloo..because grouchy was supposed to be tailing him.
Overall grouchy's career has been tainted too much.brecause of waterloo episode..he was among the top 10 french cavalry commanders of the era.