His first job was to repair a road on the Wuergauer Hill. A landslide had occurred along the road from Bamberg to Bayreuth. Because of this the army troops passing through had to make a troublesome detour.
A French adjutant had stabbed Peter Tritt’s predecessor to death. Peter spoke French and was a much-travelled man of the world. Because of these gifts he was in great demand in those times of war.
Thus he took part in the establishment of a large army hospital in a wing of the Bamberg Residenz. He could tell a tale of how, when the wards were crammed full, the dead would be thrown out of the windows onto the corpse waggons that took them away.
Peter was also present at the embalming and funeral ceremonies of the French Marshal Berthier, who lived like a son of the Bavarian Duke Pius with his wife and children in the Bamberg Residence. As the Russian troops were moving in, the Marshal had fallen from a window of the uppermost floor into the street.5
Whether it was an accident or not will always remain a secret. In favour of suicide, as Peter Tritt believed, because of his rather desperate position of having negotiated with the Allies as well as with Napoleon, instead of firmly taking the Emperor’s side after Napoleon’s return from Elba.