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    A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed
    & treasured upon purpose to a life beyond life.

    Milton




THE HISTORY
OF NAPOLEON
BUONAPARTE

BY

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART


LONDON & TORONTO J.M. DENT & SONS LTD.
NEW YORK E.P. DUTTON & CO


First issue of this edition: _February 1906_

Reprinted:                   _April 1906_; _May 1907_;
                             _July 1909_; _November 1910_;
                             _November 1912_; _March 1915_




INTRODUCTION

[LOCKHART, 1794-1854]


"Nations yet to come will look back upon his history as to some grand
and supernatural romance. The fiery energy of his youthful career, and
the magnificent progress of his irresistible ambition, have invested his
character with the mysterious grandeur of some heavenly appearance; and
when all the lesser tumults and lesser men of our age shall have passed
away into the darkness of oblivion, history will still inscribe one
mighty era with the majestic name of Napoleon."

These enthusiastic words, too, are Lockhart's, though they are not from
this history, but from some "Remarks on the Periodical Criticism of
England," which he published in _Blackwood's Magazine_. They serve, if
they are taken in conjunction with his book, to mark his position in the
long list of the historians, biographers and critics who have written in
English, and from an English or a British point of view, upon "Napoleon
the Great." Lockhart, that is to say, was neither of the idolaters, like
Hazlitt, nor of the decriers and blasphemers.

One recalls at once what he said of "the lofty impartiality" with which
Sir Walter Scott had written of Napoleon before him, and with which he
appears to have faced his lesser task. As a biography, as a writing of
history, as an example of historic style, Lockhart's comparatively
modest essay must be called a better performance than Scott's. But "the
real Napoleon" has not yet been painted.

Lord Rosebery, in his book on _Napoleon: the Last Phase_, asks if there
will ever be an adequate portrait? The life is yet to be written that
shall profit by all the new material that has come to light since Scott
wrote his nine volumes in 1827, and Lockhart published his in 1829. But
Lockhart's book has still the value of one written by a genuine man of
letters, who was a born biographer, and one written while the
world-commotion of Napoleon was a matter of personal report. It is
tinged by some of the contemporary illusions, no doubt; but it is
clearer in its record than Scott's, and while it is less picturesque, it
is more direct.

His comparative brevity is a gain, since he has to tell how, in brief
space, "the lean, hungry conqueror swells," as Lord Rosebery says, "into
the sovereign, and then into the sovereign of sovereigns."

In view of the influence of the one book upon the other, and the one
writer upon the other, it is worth note that Lockhart had a fit of
enthusiasm over Scott's _Napoleon_ when it first appeared, or rather
when he first read the first six volumes of the work, before they were
"out," in 1827. He thought Scott would make as great an effect by it as
by any two of his novels. This proved a mistaken forecast, but Scott was
paid an enormous price--some eighteen thousand pounds. When then John
Murray, who had already co-opted Lockhart as his _Quarterly_ editor,
thought of inaugurating a "Family Library," and he proposed to his
editor this other Napoleon book, it must have seemed in many ways a very
attractive piece of work. But owing partly to Lockhart's relations with
Scott, and partly to the need of avoiding any literary comparisons,
these small, fat duodecimos appeared anonymously. That was, as it has
been already mentioned, in 1829, two years after Scott's book.

To-day, it makes a capital starting-point for the long Napoleon
adventure, whose end, so far as it is prolonged by fresh literary
divigations, seems to be as remote as ever.

It is from the French side that one might chiefly draw those vivid and
sometimes questionable glimpses at first-hand, that can best add to
Lockhart's presentment. One must compare his retreat from Russia with
Rapp's and other remembrancers' accounts, and be reminded by Rapp to go
on to Jomini's _Vie Militaire_, and even turn for a single personal
reminiscence to a flagrant hero-worshipper like Dumas, in his rapid and
military biography.

"Only twice in his life," said Dumas, "had he who writes these lines
seen Napoleon. The first time on the way to Ligny; the second, when he
returned from Waterloo. The first time in the light of a lamp; the first
time amid the acclamations of the multitude; the second, amid the
silence of a populace. Each time Napoleon was seated in the same
carriage, in the same seat, dressed in the same attire; each time, it
was the same look, lost and vague; each time, the same head, calm and
impassible, only his brow was a little more bent over his breast in
returning than in going. Was it from weariness that he could not sleep,
or from grief to have lost the world?"

This is the French postscript to many English books about the victor and
loser of the world.

       *       *       *       *       *

The following is a list of the works of John Gibson Lockhart
(1794-1854):--

Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk, by Peter Morris the Odontist (pseud.)
1819; Valerius, a Roman Story, 1821; Some Passages in the Life of Mr.
Adam Blair, 1822; Reginald Dalton, a Story of English University Life,
1823; Ancient Spanish Ballads (trans.) 1823; Matthew Wald, a Novel,
1824; Life of Robert Burns, 1828; History of Napoleon Buonaparte, 1829;
History of the late War, with Sketches of Nelson, Wellington and
Napoleon, 1832; Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, 7 vols. 1836-8;
Theodore Hook, a Sketch, 1852.

Lockhart was a Contributor to "Blackwood," and Editor of the "Quarterly
Review" from 1825 to 1853.




LIFE OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE




CHAPTER I

     Birth and Parentage of Napoleon Buonaparte--His Education at
     Brienne and at Paris--His Character at this Period--His Political
     Predilections--He enters the Army as Second Lieutenant of
     Artillery--His First Military Service in Corsica in 1793.


Napoleon Buonaparte was born at Ajaccio on the 15th of August, 1769. The
family had been of some distinction, during the middle ages, in Italy;
whence his branch of it removed to Corsica, in the troubled times of the
Guelphs and Gibellines. They were always considered as belonging to the
gentry of the island. Charles, the father of Napoleon, an advocate of
considerable reputation, married his mother, Letitia Ramolini, a young
woman eminent for beauty and for strength of mind, during the civil
war--when the Corsicans, under Paoli, were struggling to avoid the
domination of the French. The advocate had espoused the popular side in
that contest, and his lovely and high-spirited wife used to attend him
through the toils and dangers of his mountain campaigns. Upon the
termination of the war, he would have exiled himself along with Paoli;
but his relations dissuaded him from this step, and he was afterwards
reconciled to the conquering party, and protected and patronised by the
French governor of Corsica, the Count de Marbœuff.

It is said that Letitia had attended mass on the morning of the 15th of
August; and, being seized suddenly on her return, gave birth to the
future hero of his age, on a temporary couch covered with tapestry,
representing the heroes of the Iliad. He was her second child. Joseph,
afterwards King of Spain, was older than he: he had three younger
brothers, Lucien, Louis, and Jerome; and three sisters, Eliza, Caroline,
and Pauline. These grew up. Five others must have died in infancy; for
we are told that Letitia had given birth to thirteen children, when at
the age of thirty she became a widow.

In after-days, when Napoleon had climbed to sovereign power, many
flatterers were willing to give him a lofty pedigree. To the Emperor of
Austria, who would fain have traced his unwelcome son-in-law to some
petty princes of Treviso, he replied, "I am the Rodolph of my race,"[1]
and silenced, on a similar occasion, a professional genealogist, with,
"Friend, my patent dates from Monte Notte."[2]

Charles Buonaparte, by the French governor's kindness, received a legal
appointment in Corsica--that of _Procureur du Roi_ (answering nearly to
Attorney-General); and scandal has often said that Marbœuff was his
wife's lover. The story received no credence in Ajaccio.

Concerning the infancy of Napoleon we know nothing, except that he ever
acknowledged with the warmest gratitude the obligations laid on him, at
the threshold of life by the sagacity and wisdom of Letitia. He always
avowed his belief that he owed his subsequent elevation principally to
her early lessons; and indeed laid it down as a maxim that "the future
good or bad conduct of a child depends entirely on the mother." Even of
his boyish days few anecdotes have been preserved in Corsica. His chosen
plaything, they say, was a small brass cannon; and, when at home in the
school-vacations, his favourite retreat was a solitary summer-house
among the rocks on the sea-shore, about a mile from Ajaccio, where his
mother's brother (afterwards Cardinal Fesch) had a villa. The place is
now in ruins, and overgrown with bushes, and the people call it
"Napoleon's Grotto." He has himself said that he was remarkable only for
obstinacy and curiosity: others add, that he was high-spirited,
quarrelsome, imperious; fond of solitude; slovenly in his dress. Being
detected stealing figs in an orchard, the proprietor threatened to tell
his mother, and the boy pleaded for himself with so much eloquence, that
the man suffered him to escape. His careless attire, and his partiality
for a pretty little girl in the neighbourhood, were ridiculed together
in a song which his playmates used to shout after him in the streets of
Ajaccio:

    "Napoleone di mezza calzetta
    Fa l'amore a Giacominetta."[3]

His superiority of character was early felt. An aged relation, Lucien
Buonaparte, Archdeacon of Ajaccio, called the young people about his
death-bed to take farewell and bless them: "You, Joseph," said the
expiring man, "are the eldest; but Napoleon is the head of his family.
Take care to remember my words." Napoleon took excellent care that they
should not be forgotten. He began with beating his elder brother into
subjection.

From his earliest youth he chose arms for his profession. When he was
about seven years old (1776) his father was, through Marbœuff's
patronage, sent to France as one of a deputation from the Corsican
_noblesse_ to King Louis XVI.; and Napoleon, for whom the count had also
procured admission into the military school of Brienne, accompanied him.
After seeing part of Italy, and crossing France, they reached Paris; and
the boy was soon established in his school, where at first everything
delighted him, though, forty years afterwards, he said he should never
forget the bitter parting with his mother ere he set out on his travels.
He spoke only Italian when he reached Brienne; but soon mastered French.
His progress in Latin, and in literature generally, attracted no great
praise; but in every study likely to be of service to the future
soldier, he distinguished himself above his contemporaries. Of the
mathematical tutors accordingly he was a great favourite. One of the
other teachers having condemned him for some offence or neglect to wear
a course woollen dress on a particular day, and dine on his knees at the
door of the refectory, the boy's haughty spirit swelling under this
dishonour, brought on a sudden vomiting, and a strong fit of hysterics.
The mathematical master passing by, said they did not understand what
they were dealing with, and released him. He cared little for common
pastimes; but his love for such as mimicked war was extreme; and the
skill of his fortifications, reared of turf, or of snow, according to
the season, and the address and pertinacity with which he conducted
their defence, attracted the admiration of all observers. Napoleon was
poor and all but a foreigner[4] among the French youth, and underwent
many mortifications from both causes. His temper was reserved and proud;
he had few friends--no bosom-companion; he lived by himself, and among
his books and maps. M. Bourienne, whose friendship for him commenced
thus early, says--"Buonaparte was noticeable at Brienne for his Italian
complexion, the keenness of his look, and the tone of his conversation
both with masters and comrades. There was almost always a dash of
bitterness in what he said. He had very little of the disposition that
leads to attachments; which I can only attribute to the misfortunes of
his family every since his birth, and the impression which the conquest
of his country had made on his early years." One day, at dinner, the
principal of the school happened to say something slightingly of Paoli.
"He was a great man," cried young Buonaparte, "he loved his country; and
I shall never forgive my father, who had been his adjutant, for
consenting to the union of Corsica with France. He ought to have
followed the fortunes of Paoli."

There is reason to believe that the levity and haughtiness with which
some of the young French gentlemen at this seminary conducted themselves
towards this poor, solitary alien, had a strong effect on the first
political feelings of the future Emperor of France. He particularly
resented their jokes about his foreign name _Napoleon_. Bourienne says
he often told him--"Hereafter I will do the French what harm I can; as
for you, you never make me your jest--you love me."

From the beginning of the revolutionary struggle, boy and youth, he
espoused and kept by the side of those who desired the total change of
government. It is a strange enough fact, that Pichegru, afterwards so
eminent and ultimately so unfortunate, was for some time his monitor in
the school of Brienne. Being consulted many years later as to the chance
of enlisting Buonaparte in the cause of the exiled Bourbons, this man is
known to have answered: "It will be lost time to attempt that--I knew
him in his youth--he has taken his side, and he will not change it."

In 1783 Buonaparte was, on the recommendation of his masters, sent from
Brienne to the Royal Military School at Paris; this being an
extraordinary compliment to the genius and proficiency of a boy of
fifteen.[5] Here he spent nearly two years, devoted to his studies. That
he laboured hard, both at Brienne and at Paris, we may judge; for his
after-life left scanty room for book-work, and of the vast quantity of
information which his strong memory ever placed at his disposal, the far
greater proportion must have been accumulated now. He made himself a
first-rate mathematician; he devoured history--his chosen authors being
Plutarch and Tacitus; the former the most simple painter that antiquity
has left us of heroic characters--the latter the profoundest master of
political wisdom. The poems of Ossian were then new to Europe, and
generally received as authentic remains of another age and style of
heroism. The dark and lofty genius which they display, their indistinct
but solemn pictures of heroic passions, love, battle, victory, and
death, were appropriate food for Napoleon's young imagination; and, his
taste being little scrupulous as to minor particulars, Ossian continued
to be through life his favourite poet. While at Paris, he attracted much
notice among those who had access to compare him with his fellows; his
acquirements, among other advantages, introduced him to the familiar
society of the celebrated Abbé Raynal. Napoleon, shortly after entering
the school at Paris, drew up a memorial, which he in person presented to
the superintendents of the establishment. He complained that the mode of
life was too expensive and delicate for "poor gentlemen," and could not
prepare them either for returning to their "modest homes," or for the
hardships of the camp. He proposed that, instead of a regular dinner of
two courses daily, the students should have ammunition bread, and
soldiers' rations, and that they should be compelled to mend and clean
their own stockings and shoes. This memorial is said to have done him no
service at the military school.

He had just completed his sixteenth year when (in August, 1785,) after
being examined by the great Laplace, he obtained his first commission as
second lieutenant in the artillery regiment _La Fere_. His corps was at
Valance when he joined it; and he mingled, more largely than might have
been expected from his previous habits, in the cultivated society of the
place. His personal advantages were considerable; the outline of the
countenance classically beautiful; the eye deep-set and dazzlingly
brilliant; the figure short, but slim, active, and perfectly knit.
Courtly grace and refinement of manners he never attained, nor perhaps
coveted; but he early learned the art, not difficult probably to any
person possessed of such genius and such accomplishments, of rendering
himself eminently agreeable wherever it suited his purpose or
inclination to be so.

On the 27th February in this year his father died of a cancer in the
stomach, aged forty-five; the same disease which was destined, at a
somewhat later period of life, to prove fatal to himself.

While at Valance Buonaparte competed anonymously for a prize offered by
the Academy of Lyons for the best answer to Raynal's Question: "What are
the principles and institutions by the application of which mankind can
be raised to the highest happiness?" He gained the prize: what were the
contents of his Essay we know not. Talleyrand, long afterwards, obtained
the manuscript, and, thinking to please his sovereign, brought it to
him. He threw his eye over two or three pages, and tossed it into the
fire. The treatise of the Lieutenant probably abounded in opinions which
the Emperor had found it convenient to forget.

Even at Brienne his political feelings had been determined. At Valance
he found the officers of his regiment divided, as all the world then
was, into two parties; the lovers of the French Monarchy, and those who
desired its overthrow. He sided openly with the latter. "Had I been a
general," said Napoleon in the evening of his life, "I might have
adhered to the king: being a subaltern, I joined the patriots."

In the beginning of 1792 he became captain of artillery (_unattached;_)
and, happening to be in Paris, witnessed the lamentable scenes of the
20th of June, when the revolutionary mob stormed the Tuileries, and the
king and his family, after undergoing innumerable insults and
degradations, with the utmost difficulty preserved their lives. He
followed the crowd into the garden before the palace; and when Louis
XVI. appeared on a balcony with the red cap on his head, could no longer
suppress his contempt and indignation. "Poor driveller!" said Napoleon,
loud enough to be heard by those near him, "how could he suffer this
rabble to enter? If he had swept away five or six hundred with his
cannon, the rest would be running yet." He was also a witness of the
still more terrible 10th of August, when, the palace being once more
invested, the National Guard assigned for its defence took part with the
assailants; the royal family were obliged to take refuge in the National
Assembly, and the brave Swiss Guards were massacred almost to a man in
the courts of the Tuileries. Buonaparte was a firm friend to the
Assembly, to the charge of a party of which, at least, these excesses
must be laid; but the spectacle disgusted him. The yells, screams, and
pikes with bloody heads upon them, formed a scene which he afterwards
described as "hideous and revolting." At this time Napoleon was without
employment and very poor; and De Bourienne describes him as wandering
idly about Paris, living, chiefly at his (M. de B.'s) expense, at
restaurateurs' shops, and, among other wild-enough schemes, proposing
that he and his schoolfellow should take some houses on lease, and
endeavour to get a little money by subletting them in apartments. Such
were the views and occupations of Buonaparte--at the moment when the
national tragedy was darkening to its catastrophe. As yet he had been
but a spectator of the Revolution, destined to pave his own path to
sovereign power; it was not long before circumstances called on him to
play a part.

General Paoli, who had lived in England ever since the termination of
that civil war in which Charles Buonaparte served under his banner, was
cheered, when the great French Revolution first broke out, with the hope
that liberty was about to be restored to Corsica. He came to Paris, was
received with applause as a tried friend of freedom, and appointed
governor of his native island, which for some time he ruled wisely and
happily. But as the revolution advanced, Paoli, like most other wise
men, became satisfied that license was more likely to be established by
its leaders, than law and rational liberty; and avowing his aversion to
the growing principles of Jacobinism, and the scenes of tumult and
bloodshed to which they gave rise, he was denounced in the National
Assembly as the enemy of France. An expedition was sent to deprive him
of his government, under the command of La Combe, Michel, and Salicetti,
one of the Corsican deputies to the Convention; and Paoli called on his
countrymen to take arms in his and their own defence.

Buonaparte happened at that time (1793) to have leave of absence from
his regiment, and to be in Corsica on a visit to his mother. He had
fitted up a little reading-room at the top of the house as the quietest
part of it, and was spending his mornings in study, and his evenings
among his family and old acquaintance, when the arrival of the
expedition threw the island into convulsion. Paoli, who knew him well,
did all he could to enlist him in his cause; he used, among other
flatteries, to clap him on the back, and tell him he was "one of
Plutarch's men." But Napoleon had satisfied himself that Corsica was too
small a country to maintain independence,--that she must fall under the
rule either of France or England; and that her interests would be best
served by adhering to the former. He therefore resisted all Paoli's
offers, and tendered his sword to the service of Salicetti. He was
appointed provisionally to the command of a battalion of National
Guards; and the first military service on which he was employed was the
reduction of a small fortress, called the Torre di Capitello, near
Ajaccio. He took it, but was soon besieged in it, and he and his
garrison, after a gallant defence, and living for some time on
horseflesh, were glad to evacuate the tower, and escape to the sea. The
English government now began to reinforce Paoli, and the cause of the
French party seemed for the moment to be desperate. The Buonapartes were
banished from Corsica, and their mother and sisters took refuge first at
Nice, and afterwards at Marseilles, where for some time they suffered
all the inconveniences of exile and poverty. Napoleon rejoined his
regiment. He had chosen France for his country; and seems, in truth, to
have preserved little or no affection for his native soil.

After arriving at supreme power, he bestowed one small fountain on
Ajaccio; and succeeded, by the death of a relation, to a petty olive
garden near that town. In the sequel of his history the name of Corsica
will scarcely recur.

[Footnote 1: Rodolph of Hapsburg was the founder of the Austrian
family.]

[Footnote 2: His first battle.]

[Footnote 3: Napoleon, with his stockings about his heels, makes love to
Giacominetta.]

[Footnote 4: Corsica became by law a French department only two months
before Napoleon was born.]

[Footnote 5: The report, in consequence of which Buonaparte received
this distinction, is in these words: "M. de Buonaparte (Napoleon), born
the 15th August, 1769, height four feet ten inches ten lines; good
constitution; health excellent; character docile, upright, grateful;
conduct very regular: has always distinguished himself by his
application to the mathematics. He is passably acquainted with history
and geography: is weak enough as to his Latin diction and other elegant
accomplishments: would make an excellent sea-officer: deserves to be
transferred to the Military School at Paris."]




CHAPTER II

     Buonaparte commands the Artillery at Toulon--Fall of Toulon--The
     Representatives of the People--Junot.


Buonaparte's first military service occurred, as we have seen, in the
summer of 1793. The king of France had been put to death on the 21st of
January in that year; and in less than a month afterwards the convention
had declared war against England. The murder of the king, alike
imprudent as atrocious, had in fact united the princes of Europe against
the revolutionary cause; and within France itself a strong reaction took
place. The people of Toulon, the great port and arsenal of France on the
Mediterranean, partook these sentiments, and invited the English and
Spanish fleets off their coast to come to their assistance, and garrison
their city. The allied admirals took possession accordingly of Toulon,
and a motley force of English, Spaniards, and Neapolitans, prepared to
defend the place. In the harbour and roads there were twenty-five ships
of the line, and the city contained immense naval and military stores of
every description, so that the defection of Toulon was regarded as a
calamity of the first order by the revolutionary government.

This event occurred in the midst of that period which has received the
name of _the reign of terror_. The streets of Paris were streaming with
innocent blood; Robespierre was glutting himself with murder; fear and
rage were the passions that divided mankind, and their struggles
produced on either side the likeness of some epidemic frenzy. Whatever
else the government wanted, vigour to repel aggressions from without was
displayed in abundance. Two armies immediately marched upon Toulon; and
after a series of actions, in which the passes in the hills behind the
town were forced, the place was at last invested, and a memorable siege
commenced.

It was conducted with little skill, first by Cartaux, a vain coxcomb who
had been a painter, and then by Doppet, an ex-physician, and a coward.
To watch and report on the proceedings of these chiefs, there were
present in the camp several Representatives of the People, as they were
called--persons holding no military character or rank, but acting as
honourable spies for the government at Paris. The interference of these
personages on this, as on many other occasions, was productive of
delays, blunders, and misfortunes; but the terror which their ready
access to the despotic government inspired was often, on the other hand,
useful in stimulating the exertions of the military. The younger
Robespierre was one of the deputies at Toulon, and his name was enough
to make his presence formidable.

Cartaux had not yet been superseded, when Napoleon Buonaparte made his
appearance at headquarters, with a commission to assume the command of
the artillery. It has been said that he owed his appointment to the
private regard of Salicetti; but the high testimonials he had received
from the Military Academy were more likely to have served him; nor is it
possible to suppose that he had been so long in the regiment of La Fere
without being appreciated by some of his superiors. He had, besides,
shortly before this time, excited attention by a pamphlet, called the
_Supper of Beaucaire_, in which the politics of the Jacobin party were
spiritedly supported; and of which he was afterwards so ashamed, that he
took great pains to suppress it. However this may have been, he was
received almost with insolence by Cartaux, who, strutting about in an
uniform covered with gold lace, told him his assistance was not wanted,
but he was welcome to partake in _his_ glory.

The commandant of the artillery, on examining the state of affairs,
found much to complain of. They were still disputing which extremity of
the town should be the chief object of attack; though at the one there
were two strong and regular fortifications, and at the other only a
small and imperfect fort called Malbosquet. On inspecting their
batteries, he found that the guns were placed about two gunshots from
the walls; and that it was the custom to heat the shot at a distance
from the place where they were to be discharged; in other words, to heat
them to no purpose. Choosing officers of his own acquaintance to act
under him, and exerting himself to collect guns from all quarters,
Buonaparte soon remedied these disorders, and found himself master of an
efficient train of 200 pieces; and he then urged the general to adopt a
wholly new plan of operations in the future conduct of the siege.

The plan of Buonaparte appears _now_ the simplest and most obvious that
could have been suggested; yet it was not without great difficulty that
he could obtain the approbation of the doctor, who had by this time
superseded the painter. "Your object," said he, "is to make the English
evacuate Toulon. Instead of attacking them in the town, which must
involve a long series of operations, endeavour to establish batteries so
as to sweep the harbour and roadstead. If you can do this--the English
ships must take their departure, and the English troops will certainly
not remain behind them." He pointed out a promontory nearly opposite the
town, by getting the command of which he was sure the desired effect
must be accomplished. "Gain _La Grasse_" said he, "and in two days
Toulon falls." His reasoning at length forced conviction, and he was
permitted to follow his own plan.

A month before nothing could have been more easy; but within that time
the enemy had perceived the importance of the promontory, which commands
the narrow passage between the port and the Mediterranean, and fortified
it so strongly, that it passed by the name of the Little Gibraltar. It
was necessary, therefore, to form extensive batteries in the rear of La
Grasse, before there could be a prospect of seizing it. Buonaparte
laboured hard all day, and slept every night in his cloak by the guns,
until his works approached perfection. He also formed a large battery
behind Malbosquet; but this he carefully concealed from the enemy. It
was covered by a plantation of olives, and he designed to distract their
attention by opening its fire for the first time when he should be about
to make his great effort against Little Gibraltar. But the
Representatives of the People had nearly spoiled everything. These
gentlemen, walking their rounds, discovered the battery behind the
olives, and inquiring how long it had been ready, were told for eight
days. Not guessing with what views so many guns had been kept so long
idle, they ordered an immediate cannonade. The English made a vigorous
sally, and spiked the guns before Buonaparte could reach the spot. On
his arrival at the eminence behind, he perceived a long deep ditch,
fringed with brambles and willows, which he thought might be turned to
advantage. He ordered a regiment of foot to creep along the ditch, which
they did without being discovered until they were close upon the enemy.
General O'Hara, the English commander, mistook them for some of his own
allies, and, rushing out to give them some direction, was wounded and
made prisoner. The English were dispirited when they lost their general;
they retreated, and the French were at liberty to set about the repair
of their battery. In this affair much blood was shed. Napoleon himself
received a bayonet-thrust in his thigh, and fell into the arms of
Muiron, who carried him off the field. Such was the commencement of
their brotherly friendship. His wound, however, did not prevent him from
continuing his labours behind Little Gibraltar.

That fort had very nearly been seized, by a sort of accident, some time
before his preparations were completed; a casual insult excited a sudden
quarrel between the men in Buonaparte's trenches and the Spaniards in
Little Gibraltar. The French soldiers, without waiting for orders,
seized their arms, and rushed to the assault with fury. Napoleon coming
up, perceived that the moment was favourable, and persuaded Doppet to
support the troops with more regiments; but the doctor, marching at the
head of his column, was seized with a panic, on seeing a man killed by
his side, and ordered a retreat, before anything could be effected.

A few days after, this poltroon was in his turn superseded by a brave
veteran, General Dugommier, and Napoleon could at last count on having
his efforts backed. But, for the second time, the Representatives did
their best to ruin his undertaking. The siege had now lasted four
months, provisions were scarce in the camp, and these civilians, never
being able to comprehend what was meant by bestowing all this care on a
place so far below the city as Little Gibraltar, wrote to Paris that
they saw no chance of success, and hoped the government would agree with
them that the siege ought to be abandoned. Two days before this letter
reached Paris, Toulon had fallen, and the Representatives gave out that
the despatch was a forgery.

The moment had at last come when Buonaparte judged it right to make his
grand attempt. During the night of the 17th of December he threw 8000
bombs and shells into Little Gibraltar, and the works being thus
shattered, at daybreak Dugommier commanded the assault. The French,
headed by the brave Muiron, rushed with impetuous valour through the
embrasures, and put the whole garrison to the sword. The day was spent
in arranging the batteries, so as to command the shipping; and next
morning--so true had been Buonaparte's prophecy--when the French stood
to their posts, the English fleet was discovered to be already under
weigh.

Then followed a fearful scene. The English would not quit Toulon without
destroying the French ships and arsenals that had fallen into their
possession; nor could they refuse to carry with them the Antijacobin
inhabitants, who knew that their lives would be instantly sacrificed if
they should fall into the hands of the victorious Republicans, and who
now flocked to the beach to the number of 14,000, praying for the means
of escape. The burning of ships, the explosion of magazines, the roar of
artillery, and the cries of these fugitives, filled up many hours. At
last the men-of-war were followed by a flotilla bearing those miserable
exiles; the walls were abandoned; and Dugommier took possession of the
place.

The Republicans found that all persons of condition, who had taken part
against them, had escaped; and their rage was to be contented with
meaner victims. A day or two having been suffered to pass in quiet, a
proclamation, apparently friendly, exhorted the workmen, who had been
employed on the batteries of the besieged town, to muster at
headquarters. One hundred and fifty poor men, who expected to be
employed again in repairing the same fortifications obeyed this
summons--were instantly marched into a field--and shot in cold blood;
not less than a thousand persons were massacred under circumstances
equally atrocious. Buonaparte himself repelled with indignation the
charge of having had a hand in this butchery. Even if he had, he was not
the chief in command, and durst not have disobeyed orders but at the
sacrifice of his own life. It is on all sides admitted that a family of
royalists, being shipwrecked on the coast near Toulon a few days after,
were rescued from the hands of the ferocious Republicans, solely by his
interference and address. Putting himself at the head of some of his
gunners, he obtained possession of the unhappy prisoners; quieted the
mob by assuring them that they should all be publicly executed the next
morning; and meanwhile sent them off during the night in artillery
waggons supposed to be conveying stores.

The recovery of Toulon was a service of the first importance to the
government. It suppressed all insurrectionary spirit in the south of
France; and placed a whole army at their disposal elsewhere. But he, to
whose genius the success was due, did not at first obtain the credit of
his important achievement at Paris. The Representatives of the People
never made their appearance on the eventful morning at Little Gibraltar,
until three hours after the troops were in possession of the best part
of the fortifications. Then, indeed, they were seen sword in hand in the
trenches, blustering and swaggering in safety. Yet these men did not
blush to represent themselves as having headed the assault, while, in
their account of the conflict, even the name of Buonaparte did not find
a place. The truth could not, however, be concealed effectually; and he
was appointed to survey and arrange the whole line of fortifications on
the Mediterranean coast of France.

It was during the siege of Toulon that Napoleon, while constructing a
battery under the enemy's fire, had occasion to prepare a despatch, and
called out for some one who could use a pen. A young sergeant, named
Junot, leapt out, and, leaning on the breastwork, wrote as he dictated.
As he finished, a shot struck the ground by his side, scattering dust in
abundance over him and everything near him. "Good," said the soldier,
laughing, "this time we shall spare our sand." The cool gaiety of this
pleased Buonaparte; he kept his eye on the man; and Junot came in the
sequel to be Marshal of France and Duke of Abrantes.




CHAPTER III

     Buonaparte Chief of Battalion at Nice--Fall of Robespierre--He is
     superseded--Buonaparte at Paris in 1795--The day of the
     Sections--Commands the Army of the Interior--Marries Josephine de
     Beauharnois--Appointed to the command of the Army of Italy.


From this time Napoleon advanced by rapid strides to greatness. His
admirable skill was still further displayed in his survey of the
fortifications above mentioned; and having completed this service, he
was appointed to join the army of Italy, then stationed at Nice, with
the rank of Chief of Battalion.

Here his advice suggested a plan by which the Sardinians were driven
from the Col di Tende on the 7th March, 1794; Saorgio, with all its
stores, surrendered; and the French obtained possession of the maritime
Alps, so that the difficulties of advancing into Italy were greatly
diminished. Of these movements, however, his superior officers reaped as
yet the honour. He was even superseded (Aug. 6, 1794) very shortly after
their success. But this, which at the moment seemed a heavy misfortune,
was, in truth, one of the luckiest circumstances that ever befell him.

It is not true that he was put under arrest in consequence of the
downfall of Robespierre; although there is no doubt that he was supposed
to belong to the party which that monster had made the instrument of his
crimes, and known to have lived on terms of friendship with his younger
brother. He incurred the suspicion of Laporte and the other
"Representatives" attached to "the army of Italy," in consequence of a
journey to the Gulf of Genoa, which he performed in obedience to secret
orders from Paris; and, so soon as his absence from headquarters was
thus explained, he regained his freedom. The officer, who came to
release him, was surprised to find him busy in his dungeon over the map
of Lombardy. The "Representatives," however, had certainly taken up a
general prejudice against him; for he did not reassume his functions at
Nice; and seems to have spent some time in obscurity with his own
family, who were then in very distressed circumstances, at Marseilles.
It was here that he fell in love with Mademoiselle Clery, whom, but for
some accident, it appears he would have married. Her sister was shortly
afterwards united to his brother Joseph, and she herself became in the
sequel the wife of Bernadotte, now King of Sweden. It is supposed that
Buonaparte found himself too poor to marry at this time; and
circumstances interfered to prevent any renewal of his proposals.

Before the end of the year he came to Paris to solicit employment; but
at first he met with nothing but repulses. The President of the Military
Committee, Aubry, objected to his youth. "Presence in the field of
battle," said Buonaparte, "might be reckoned in place of years." The
President, who had not seen much actual service, thought he was
insulted, and treated Napoleon very coldly. After a little while,
however, he was asked to go to _La Vendée_, as commandant of a brigade
of infantry. This he declined, alleging, that nothing could reconcile
him to leave the artillery, but really, if we are to follow De
Bourienne, considering the Vendean warfare as unworthy of him. His
refusal was followed by the erasure of his name from the list of general
officers _in employment_; and for a time his fortunes seemed to be in a
desperate condition. He thought of settling in some way in Paris; and
said to Bourienne, that, if he could afford to have a small house in the
street where his school-fellow lived, and to keep a cabriolet, he would
be contented. His elder brother had about this time married Mademoiselle
Clery, whose father, the merchant of Marseilles, gave her a handsome
dowry. "How fortunate," Napoleon would often exclaim, "is that fool
Joseph!"[6]

Talma, the celebrated tragedian, was one of his chief associates at this
time, and even then talked with confidence of the future fortunes of
"little Buonaparte." This player's kindness and Aubry's opposition were
both remembered. The Emperor always patronised Talma; and Aubry died in
exile.

Napoleon, despairing of employment at home, now drew up a memorial to
the government, requesting to be sent with a few other officers of
artillery into Turkey, for the purpose of placing that branch of the
Grand Seignior's service in a condition more suitable to the
circumstances of the times--in which it seemed highly probable that the
Porte might find itself in alliance with France, and assaulted by the
combined armies of Russia and Austria. No answer was returned to this
memorial, over which he dreamt for some weeks in great enthusiasm. "How
strange," he said to his friends, "would it be if a little Corsican
soldier should become King of Jerusalem!" Go where he might, he already
contemplated greatness.

At length Napoleon was nominated to the command of a brigade of
artillery in Holland. The long-deferred appointment was, no doubt, very
welcome; but in the meantime his services were called for on a nearer
and a more important field.

The French nation were now heartily tired of the National Convention: it
had lost most of its distinguished members in the tumults and
persecutions of the times; and above all it had lost respect by
remaining for two years the slave and the tool of the Terrorists. The
downfall of Robespierre, when it did take place, showed how easily the
same blessed deliverance might have been effected long before, had this
body possessed any sense of firmness or of dignity. Even the restoration
of the members banished by the tyrant did not serve to replace the
Convention in the confidence of the public. They themselves saw clearly
that a new remodelling of the government was called for and must be; and
their anxiety was to devise the means of securing for themselves as
large a share as possible of substantial power, under some arrangement
sufficiently novel in appearance to throw dust in the eyes of the
people.

A great part of the nation, there is no doubt, were at this time anxious
to see the royal family restored, and the government settled on the
model of 1791. Among the more respectable citizens of Paris in
particular such feelings were very prevalent. But many causes conspired
to surround the adoption of this measure with difficulties, which none
of the actually influential leaders had the courage, or perhaps the
means, to encounter. The soldiery of the Republican armies had been
accustomed to fight against the exiled princes and nobility, considered
them as the worst enemies of France, and hated them personally. The
estates of the church, the nobles, and the crown, had been divided and
sold; and the purchasers foresaw that, were the monarchy restored at
this period, the resumption of the forfeited property would be pressed
with all the powers of government. And, lastly, the men who had earned
for themselves most distinction and influence in public affairs, had
excellent reasons for believing that the Bourbons and nobility, if
restored, would visit on their own heads the atrocities of the
Revolution, and above all the murder of the King.

The Conventionalists themselves, however, had learned by this time that
neither peace nor security could be expected, unless some form of
government were adopted, in which the legislative and the executive
functions should at least appear to be separated; and they were also at
length inclined to admit the excellence of that part of the British
constitution, which, dividing the legislatorial power between two
assemblies of senators, thus acquires the advantage of a constant
revision of counsels, and regulates the political machine by a system of
mutual checks and balances. They were desirous, therefore, of proposing
some system which might, in a certain degree, satisfy those who had been
endeavouring to bring about the restoration of the monarchy; and the new
constitution of the year _three_ of the Republic (1795) presented the
following features. I. The executive power was to be lodged in Five
Directors, chosen from time to time, who were to have no share in the
legislation. II. There was to be a Council of Five Hundred, answering
generally to our House of Commons: and III. A smaller assembly, called
the Council of Ancients, intended to fulfil in some measure the purposes
of a House of Peers.

The outline of this scheme might perhaps have been approved of; but the
leading members of the Convention, from views personal to themselves,
appended to it certain conditions which excited new disgust. They
decreed, first, that the electoral bodies of France, in choosing
representatives to the two new Councils, must elect at least two-thirds
of the present members of Convention; and, secondly, that if full
two-thirds were not returned, the Convention should have the right to
supply the deficiency out of their own body. It was obvious that this
machinery had no object but the continuance of the present legislators
in power; and the nation, and especially the superior classes in Paris,
were indignant at conduct which they considered as alike selfish and
arbitrary. The royalist party gladly lent themselves to the diffusion of
any discontents; and a formidable opposition to the measures of the
existing government was organised.

The Convention meantime continued their sittings, and exerting all their
skill and influence, procured from many districts of the country reports
accepting of the New Constitution, with all its conditions. The
Parisians, being nearer and sharper observers, and having abundance of
speakers and writers to inform and animate them, assembled in the
several sections of the city, and proclaimed their hostility to the
Convention and its designs. The National Guard, consisting of armed
citizens, almost unanimously sided with the enemies of the Convention;
and it was openly proposed to march to the Tuileries, and compel a
change of measures by force of arms.

The Convention, perceiving their unpopularity and danger, began to look
about them anxiously for the means of defence. There were in and near
Paris 5000 regular troops, on whom they thought they might rely, and who
of course contemned the National Guard as only half-soldiers. They had
besides some hundreds of artillerymen; and they now organized what they
called "the Sacred Band," a body of 1500 ruffians, the most part of them
old and tried instruments of Robespierre. With these means they prepared
to arrange a plan of defence; and it was obvious that they did not want
materials, provided they could find a skilful and determined head.

The Insurgent Sections placed themselves under the command of _Danican_,
an old general of no great skill or reputation. The Convention opposed
to him _Menou_; and he marched at the head of a column into the section
Le Pelletier to disarm the National Guard of that district--one of the
wealthiest of the capital. The National Guard were found drawn up in
readiness to receive him at the end of the Rue Vivienne; and Menou,
becoming alarmed, and hampered by the presence of some of the
"Representatives of the People," entered into a parley, and retired
without having struck a blow.

The Convention judged that Menou was not master of nerves for such a
crisis; and consulted eagerly about a successor to his command. Barras,
one of their number, had happened to be present at Toulon, and to have
appreciated the character of Buonaparte. He had, probably, been applied
to by Napoleon in his recent pursuit of employment. Deliberating with
Tallien and Carnot, his colleagues, he suddenly said, "I have the man
whom you want; it is a little Corsican officer, who will not stand upon
ceremony."

These words decided the fate of Napoleon and of France. Buonaparte had
been in the Odéon Theatre when the affair of Le Pelletier occurred, had
run out, and witnessed the result. He now happened to be in the gallery,
and heard the discussion concerning the conduct of Menou. He was
presently sent for, and asked his opinion as to that officer's retreat.
He explained what had happened, and how the evil might have been
avoided, in a manner which gave satisfaction. He was desired to assume
the command, and arrange his plan of defence as well as the
circumstances might permit; for it was already late at night, and the
decisive assault on the Tuileries was expected to take place next
morning. Buonaparte stated that the failure of the march of Menou had
been chiefly owing to the presence of the "Representatives of the
People," and refused to accept the command unless he received it free
from all such interference. They yielded: Barras was named
Commander-in-Chief; and Buonaparte second, with the virtual control. His
first care was to dispatch Murat, then a major of Chasseurs, to Sablons,
five miles off, where fifty great guns were posted. The Sectionaries
sent a stronger detachment for these cannon immediately afterwards; and
Murat, who passed them in the dark, would have gone in vain had he
received his orders but a few minutes later.

On the 4th of October (called in the revolutionary almanack the 13th
Vendemaire) the affray accordingly occurred. Thirty thousand National
Guards advanced, about two p.m., by different streets, to the siege of
the palace: but its defence was now in far other hands than those of
Louis XVI.

Buonaparte, having planted artillery on all the bridges, had effectually
secured the command of the river, and the safety of the Tuileries on one
side. He had placed cannon also at all the crossings of the streets by
which the National Guard could advance towards the other front; and
having posted his battalions in the garden of the Tuileries and Place du
Carousel, he awaited the attack.

The insurgents had no cannon; and they came along the narrow streets of
Paris in close and heavy columns. When one party reached the church of
St. Roche, in the Rue St. Honoré, they found a body of Buonaparte's
troops drawn up there, with two cannons. It is disputed on which side
the firing began; but in an instant the artillery swept the streets and
lanes, scattering grape-shot among the National Guards, and producing
such confusion that they were compelled to give way. The first shot was
a signal for all the batteries which Buonaparte had established; the
quays of the Seine, opposite to the Tuileries, were commanded by his
guns below the Palace and on the bridges. In less than an hour the
action was over. The insurgents fled in all directions, leaving the
streets covered with dead and wounded: the troops of the Convention
marched into the various sections, disarmed the terrified inhabitants,
and before nightfall everything was quiet.

This eminent service secured the triumph of the Conventionalists, who
now, assuming new names, continued in effect to discharge their old
functions. Barras took his place at the head of _the Directory_, having
Sieyes, Carnot, and other less celebrated persons, for his colleagues;
and the First Director took care to reward the hand to which he owed his
elevation. Within five days from _the day of the Sections_ Buonaparte
was named second in command of the army of the interior; and shortly
afterwards, Barras, finding his duties as Director sufficient to occupy
his time, gave up the command-in-chief of the same army to his "little
Corsican officer."

He had no lack of duties to perform in this new character. The National
Guard was to be re-organised; a separate guard for the representative
body to be formed; the ordnance and military stores were all in a
dilapidated condition. The want of bread, too, was continually producing
popular riots, which could rarely be suppressed but by force of arms. On
one of these last occasions, a huge sturdy fishwife exhorted the mob to
keep to their places, when Buonaparte had almost persuaded them to
disperse. "These coxcombs with their epaulettes and gorgets," said she,
"care nothing for us; provided they feed well and fatten, we may
starve." "Good woman," cried the general of the interior, who at this
time was about the leanest of his race, "only look at me,--and decide
yourself which of the two is the fatter." The woman could not help
laughing: the joke pleased the multitude, and harmony was restored.

Buonaparte, holding the chief military command in the capital, and daily
rising in importance from the zeal and firmness of his conduct in this
high post, had now passed into the order of marked and distinguished
men. He continued, nevertheless, to lead in private a quiet and modest
life, studying as hard as ever, and but little seen in the circles of
gaiety. An accident which occurred one morning at his military levee,
gave at once a new turn to his mode of life, and a fresh impetus to the
advance of his fortunes.

A fine boy, of ten or twelve years of age, presented himself; stated to
the general that his name was Eugene Beauharnois, son of Viscount
Beauharnois, who had served as a general officer in the Republican
armies on the Rhine, and been murdered by Robespierre; and said his
errand was to recover the sword of his father. Buonaparte caused the
request to be complied with; and the tears of the boy, as he received
and kissed the relic, excited his interest. He treated Eugene so kindly,
that next day his mother, Josephine de Beauharnois, came to thank him;
and her beauty and singular gracefulness of address made a strong
impression.

This charming lady, the daughter of a planter, by name Tascher de la
Pagerie, was born in the island of Martinico, 24th June, 1763. While yet
an infant, according to a story which she afterwards repeated, a negro
sorceress had prophesied that "she should one day be greater than a
queen, and yet outlive her dignity."[7]

The widow of Beauharnois had been herself imprisoned until the downfall
of Robespierre. In that confinement she had formed a strict friendship
with another lady who was now married to Tallien, one of the most
eminent of the leaders of the Convention. Madame Tallien had introduced
Josephine to her husband's friends; and Barras, the First Director,
having now begun to hold a sort of court at the Luxembourg, these two
beautiful women were the chief ornaments of its society. It was
commonly said--indeed it was universally believed--that Josephine, whose
character was in some respects indifferent, possessed more than
legitimate influence over the First Director. Buonaparte, however,
offered her his hand; she, after some hesitation, accepted it; and the
young general by this marriage (9th March, 1796) cemented his connection
with the society of the Luxembourg, and in particular with Barras and
Tallien, at that moment the most powerful men in France.

Napoleon had a strong tendency to the superstition of fatalism, and he
always believed that his fortunes were bound up in some mysterious
manner with those of this graceful woman. She loved him warmly, and
served him well. Her influence over him was great, and it was always
exerted on the side of humanity. She, and she alone, could overrule, by
gentleness, the excesses of passion to which he was liable; and her
subsequent fate will always form one of the darkest pages in the history
of her lord.

Tranquillity was now restored in Paris; and the Directory had leisure to
turn their attention to the affairs of the army of Italy, which were in
a most confused and unsatisfactory condition. They determined to give it
a new general; and Buonaparte was appointed to the splendid command. It
is acknowledged, in one of Josephine's letters, that the First Director
had promised to procure it for him before their marriage took place.
"Advance this man," said Barras to his colleagues, "or he will advance
himself without you."

Buonaparte quitted his wife ten days after their marriage; paid a short
visit to his mother at Marseilles; and arrived, after a rapid journey,
at the headquarters at Nice. From that moment opened the most brilliant
scene of his existence; yet, during the months of victory and glory that
composed it, his letters, full of love and home-sickness, attest the
reluctance with which he had so soon abandoned his bride.

[Footnote 6: De Bourienne.]

[Footnote 7: According to some, the last clause ran "die in an
hospital," and this was in the sequel interpreted to mean Malmaison--a
palace which (like our own St. James's) had once been an hospital.]




CHAPTER IV

     The Army of Italy--Tactics of Buonaparte--Battle of Monte
     Notte--Battle of Millesimo--Battle of Mondovi--Armistice of
     Cherasco--Close of the Campaign of Piedmont--Peace granted to
     Sardinia.


Buonaparte at the age of twenty-six assumed the command of the army of
Italy; exulting in the knowledge that, if he should conquer, the honour
would be all his own. He had worked for others at Toulon, at the Col di
Tende, at Saorgio: even in the affair of the Sections the first command
had been nominally in the hands of Barras. Henceforth he was to have no
rivals within the camp. "In three months," said he, "I shall be either
at Milan or at Paris." He had already expressed the same feeling in a
still nobler form. "You are too young," said one of the Directors,
hesitating about his appointment as general. "In a year," answered
Napoleon, "I shall be either old or dead."

He found the army in numbers about 50,000; but wretchedly deficient in
cavalry, in stores of every kind,[8] in clothing and even in food; and
watched by an enemy greatly more numerous. It was under such
circumstances that he at once avowed the daring scheme of forcing a
passage to Italy, and converting the richest territory of the enemy
himself into the theatre of the war. "Soldiers," said he, "you are
hungry and naked; the Republic owes you much, but she has not the means
to pay her debts. I am come to lead you into the most fertile plains
that the sun beholds. Rich provinces, opulent towns, all shall be at
your disposal. Soldiers! with such a prospect before you, can you fail
in courage and constancy?" This was his first address to his army. The
sinking hearts of the men beat high with hope and confidence when they
heard the voice of the young and fearless leader; and Augereau, Massena,
Serrurier, Joubert, Lannes--distinguished officers might themselves
have aspired to the chief command--felt, from the moment they began to
understand his character and system, that the true road to glory would
be to follow the star of Napoleon.

He perceived that the time was come for turning a new leaf in the
history of war. With such numbers of troops as the infant Republic could
afford him, he saw that no considerable advantages could be obtained
against the vast and highly-disciplined armies of Austria and her
allies, unless the established rules and etiquettes of strategy were
abandoned. It was only by such rapidity of motion as should utterly
transcend the suspicion of his adversaries, that he could hope to
concentrate the whole pith and energy of a small force upon some one
point of a much greater force opposed to it, and thus _rob_ them
(according to his own favourite phrase) of the victory. To effect such
rapid marches, it was necessary that the soldiery should make up their
minds to consider tents and baggage as idle luxuries; and that, instead
of a long and complicated chain of reserves and stores, they should dare
to rely wholly for the means of subsistence on the resources of the
countries into which their leader might conduct them. They must be
contented to conquer at whatever hazard; to consider no sacrifices or
hardships as worthy of a thought. The risk of destroying the character
and discipline of the men, by accustoming them to pillage, was obvious.
Buonaparte trusted to victory, the high natural spirit of the nation,
and the influence of his own genius, for the means of avoiding this
danger; and many years, it must be admitted, elapsed, before he found
much reason personally to repent of the system which he adopted. Against
the enemies of the Republic its success was splendid, even beyond his
hopes.

The objects of the approaching expedition were three: first, to compel
the King of Sardinia, who had already lost Savoy and Nice, but still
maintained a powerful army on the frontiers of Piedmont, to abandon the
alliance of Austria: secondly, to compel the Emperor, by a bold invasion
of Lombardy, to make such exertions in that quarter as might weaken
those armies which had so long hovered on the Rhine; and, if possible,
to stir up the Italian subjects of that crown to adopt the revolutionary
system and emancipate themselves for ever from its yoke. The third
object, though more distant, was not less important. The influence of
the Romish Church was considered by the Directory as the chief, though
secret, support of the cause of royalism within their own territory; and
to reduce the Vatican into insignificance, or at least force it to
submission and quiescence, appeared indispensable to the internal
tranquillity of France. The Revolutionary Government, besides this
general cause of hatred and suspicion, had a distinct injury to avenge.
Their agent, Basseville, had three years before been assassinated in a
popular tumult at Rome: the Papal troops had not interfered to protect
him, nor the Pope to punish his murderers; and the haughty Republic
considered this as an insult which could only be washed out with a sea
of blood.

Napoleon's plan for gaining access to the fair regions of Italy differed
from that of all former conquerors: they had uniformly penetrated the
Alps at some point or other of that mighty range of mountains: he judged
that the same end might be accomplished more easily by advancing along
the narrow strip of comparatively level country which intervenes between
those enormous barriers and the Mediterranean Sea, and forcing a passage
at the point where the last of the Alps melt, as it were, into the first
and lowest of the Apennine range. No sooner did he begin to concentrate
his troops towards this region, than the Austrian general, Beaulieu,
took measures for protecting Genoa, and the entrance of Italy. He
himself took post with one column of his army at Voltri, a town within
ten miles of Genoa: he placed D'Argenteau with another Austrian column
at Monte Notte, a strong height further to the westward; and the
Sardinians, under Colli, occupied Ceva--which thus formed the extreme
right of the whole line of the allied army. The French could not advance
towards Genoa but by confronting some one of the three armies thus
strongly posted, and sufficiently, as Beaulieu supposed, in
communication with each other.

It was now that Buonaparte made his first effort to baffle the science
of those who fancied there was nothing new to be done in warfare. On the
10th of April, D'Argenteau came down upon Monte Notte, and attacked some
French redoubts, in front of that mountain and the villages which bear
its name, at Montelegino. At the same time General Cervoni and the
French van were attacked by Beaulieu near Voltri, and compelled to
retreat. The determined valour of Colonel Rampon, who commanded at
Montelegino, held D'Argenteau at bay during the 10th and 11th: and
Buonaparte, contenting himself with watching Beaulieu, determined to
strike his effectual blow at the centre of the enemy's line. During the
night of the 11th various columns were marched upon Montelegino, that of
Cervoni and that of Laharpe from the van of the French line, those of
Augereau and Massena from its rear. On the morning of the 12th,
D'Argenteau, preparing to renew his attack on the redoubts of
Montelegino, found he had no longer Rampon only and his brave band to
deal with; that French columns were in his rear, on his flank, and drawn
up also behind the works at Montelegino; in a word, that he was
surrounded. He was compelled to retreat among the mountains; he left his
colours and cannon behind him, 1000 killed, and 2000 prisoners. The
centre of the allied army had been utterly routed, before either the
Commander-in-Chief at the left, or General Colli at the right of the
line, had any notion that a battle was going on.

Such was the battle of Monte Notte, the first of Napoleon's fields.
Beaulieu, in order that he might re-establish his communication with
Colli (much endangered by the defeat of D'Argenteau) was obliged to
retreat upon Dego; the Sardinian, with the same purpose in view, fell
back also, and took post at Millesimo; while D'Argenteau was striving to
re-organise his dispirited troops in the difficult country between. It
was their object to keep fast in these positions until succours could
come up from Lombardy; but Napoleon had no mind to give them such
respite.

The very next day after this victory he commanded a general assault on
the Austrian line. Augereau, with a fresh division, marched at the left
upon Millesimo; Massena led the centre towards Dego; and Laharpe, with
the French right wing, manœuvred to turn the left flank of Beaulieu.

Augereau rushed upon the outposts of Millesimo, seized and retained the
gorge which defends that place, and cut off Provera with two thousand
Austrians, who occupied an eminence called Cossaria, from the main body
of Colli's army. Next morning Buonaparte himself arrived at that scene
of the operations. He forced Colli to accept battle, utterly broke and
scattered him, and Provera, thus abandoned, was obliged to yield at
discretion.

Meanwhile Massena on the same day had assaulted the heights of Biastro,
and carrying them at the point of the bayonet, cut off Beaulieu's
communication with Colli; then Laparpe came in front and in flank also
upon the village of Dego, and after a most desperate conflict, drove the
Austrian commander-in-chief from his post. From this moment Colli and
Beaulieu were entirely separated. After the affairs of Dego and
Millesimo, the former retreated in disorder upon Ceva; the latter, hotly
pursued, upon Aqui; Colli, of course, being eager to cover Turin, while
the Austrian had his anxious thoughts already upon Milan. Colli was
again defeated at Mondovi in his disastrous retreat; he there lost his
cannon, his baggage, and the best part of his troops. The Sardinian army
might be said to be annihilated. The conqueror took possession of
Cherasco, within 10 miles of Turin, and there dictated the terms on
which the King of Sardinia was to be permitted to retain any shadow of
sovereign power.

Thus, in less than a month, did Napoleon lay the gates of Italy open
before him. He had defeated in three battles forces much superior to his
own; inflicted on them in killed, wounded and prisoners, a loss of
25,000 men; taken eighty guns and twenty-one standards; reduced the
Austrians to inaction; utterly destroyed the Sardinian king's army; and
lastly, wrested from his hands Coni and Tortona, the two great
fortresses called "the keys of the Alps,"--and indeed, except Turin
itself, every place of any consequence in his dominions. This
unfortunate prince did not long survive such humiliation. He was
father-in-law to both of the brothers of Louis XVI., and, considering
their cause and his own dignity as equally at an end, died of a broken
heart, within a few days after he had signed the treaty of Cherasco.

Buonaparte meanwhile had paused for a moment to consolidate his columns
on the heights, from which the vast plain of Lombardy, rich and
cultivated like a garden, and watered with innumerable fertilising
streams, lay at length within the full view of his victorious soldiery.
"Hannibal forced the Alps," said he gaily, as he now looked back on
those stupendous barriers, "and we have turned them."

"Hitherto" (he thus addressed his troops) "you have been fighting for
barren rocks, memorable for your valour, but useless to your country;
but now your exploits equal those of the armies of Holland and the
Rhine. You were utterly destitute, and you have supplied all your wants.
You have gained battles without cannon, passed rivers without bridges,
performed forced marches without shoes, bivouacked without strong
liquors, and often without bread. None but republican phalanxes,
soldiers of liberty, could have endured such things. Thanks for your
perseverance! But, soldiers, you have done nothing--for there remains
much to do. Milan is not yet ours. The ashes of the conquerors of
Tarquin are still trampled by the assassins of Basseville."

The consummate genius of this brief campaign could not be disputed; and
the modest language of the young general's despatches to the Directory,
lent additional grace to his fame. At this time the name of Buonaparte
was spotless: and the eyes of all Europe were fixed in admiration on his
career.

[Footnote 8: Berthier used to keep, as a curiosity, a general order, by
which three louis-d'or were granted as a great supply to each general of
division, dated on the very day of the victory at Albegna.]




CHAPTER V

     The French cross the Po at Placenza--The Battle of Fombio--The
     Bridge of Lodi--Napoleon occupies Milan--Resigns, and resumes his
     command--Insurrection of Pavia--Military Executions--The French
     pass the Mincio at Borghetto--Beaulieu retreats behind the
     Adige--Mantua besieged--Peace with the King of the Two
     Sicilies--The Pope buys a Respite.


Piedmont being now in the hands of Buonaparte, the Austrian general
concentrated his army behind the Po, with the purpose of preventing the
invader from passing that great river and making his way to the capital
of Lombardy.

Napoleon employed every device to make Beaulieu believe that he designed
to attempt the passage of the Po at Valenza; and the Austrian, a man of
routine, who had himself crossed the river at that point, was easily
persuaded that these demonstrations were sincere. Meanwhile his crafty
antagonist executed a march of incredible celerity upon Placenza, fifty
miles lower down the river; and appeared there on the 7th of May, to the
utter consternation of a couple of Austrian squadrons, who happened to
be reconnoitring in that quarter. He had to convey his men across that
great stream in the common ferry boats, and could never have succeeded
had there been anything like an army to oppose him. Andreossi
(afterwards so celebrated) was commander of the advanced guard; Lannes
(who became in the sequel Marshal Duke of Montebello) was the first to
throw himself ashore at the head of some grenadiers. The German hussars
were driven rapidly from their position. Buonaparte himself has said
that no operation in war is more critical than the passage of a great
river; on this occasion the skill of his arrangements enabled him to
pass one of the greatest in the world without the loss of a single man.

Beaulieu, as soon as he ascertained how he had been outwitted, advanced
upon Placenza, in the hope of making the invader accept battle with the
Po in his rear, and therefore under circumstances which must render any
check in the highest degree disastrous. Buonaparte, in the meantime, had
no intention to await the Austrian on ground so dangerous, and was
marching rapidly towards Fomboi, where he knew he should have room to
manœuvre. The advanced divisions of the hostile armies met at that
village on the 8th of May. The Imperialists occupied the steeples and
houses, and hoped to hold out until Beaulieu could bring up his main
body. But the French charged so impetuously with the bayonet, that the
Austrian, after seeing one-third of his men fall, was obliged to
retreat, in great confusion, leaving all his cannon behind him, across
the Adda; a large river which, descending from the Tyrolese mountains,
joins the Po at Pizzighitone--and thus forms the immediate defence of
the better part of the Milanese against any enemy advancing from
Piedmont. Behind this river Beaulieu now concentrated his army,
establishing strong guards at every ford and bridge, and especially at
Lodi, where as he guessed (for once rightly) the French general designed
to force his passage.

The wooden bridge of Lodi formed the scene of one of the most celebrated
actions of the war; and will ever be peculiarly mixed up with the name
of Buonaparte himself. It was a great neglect in Beaulieu to leave it
standing when he removed his headquarters to the east bank of the Adda:
his outposts were driven rapidly through the old struggling town of Lodi
on the 10th; and the French sheltering themselves behind the walls and
houses, lay ready to attempt the passage of the bridge. Beaulieu had
placed a battery of thirty cannon so as to sweep it completely; and the
enterprise of storming it in the face of this artillery, and the whole
army drawn up behind, is one of the most daring on record.

Buonaparte's first care was to place as many guns as he could get in
order in direct opposition to this Austrian battery. A furious cannonade
on his side of the river also now commenced. The General himself
appeared in the midst of the fire, pointing with his own hand two guns
in such a manner as to cut off the Austrians from the only path by which
they could have advanced to undermine the bridge; and it was on this
occasion that the soldiery, delighted with his dauntless exposure of his
person, conferred on him his honorary nickname of _The Little Corporal_.
In the meantime he had sent General Beaumont and the cavalry to attempt
the passage of the river by a distant ford (which they had much
difficulty in effecting), and awaited with anxiety the moment when they
should appear on the enemy's flank. When that took place, Beaulieu's
line, of course, showed some confusion, and Napoleon instantly gave the
word. A column of grenadiers, whom he had kept ready drawn up close to
the bridge, but under shelter of the houses, were in a moment wheeled to
the left, and their leading files placed upon the bridge. They rushed
on, shouting _Vive la Republique!_ but the storm of grape-shot for a
moment checked them. Buonaparte, Lannes, Berthier, and Lallemagne,
hurried to the front, and rallied and cheered the men. The column dashed
across the bridge in despite of the tempest of fire that thinned them.
The brave Lannes was the first who reached the other side, Napoleon
himself the second. The Austrian artillerymen were bayoneted at their
guns, before the other troops, whom Beaulieu had removed too far back,
in his anxiety to avoid the French battery, could come to their
assistance. Beaumont pressing gallantly with his horse upon the flank,
and Napoleon's infantry forming rapidly as they passed the bridge, and
charging on the instant, the Austrian line became involved in
inextricable confusion, broke up, and fled. The slaughter on their side
was great; on the French there fell only 200 men. With such rapidity,
and consequently with so little loss, did Buonaparte execute this
dazzling adventure--"the terrible passage," as he himself called it, "of
the bridge of Lodi."

It was indeed, terrible to the enemy. It deprived them of another
excellent line of defence, and blew up the enthusiasm of the French
soldiery to a pitch of irresistible daring. Beaulieu, nevertheless,
contrived to withdraw his troops in much better style than Buonaparte
had anticipated. He gathered the scattered fragments of his force
together, and soon threw the line of the Mincio, another tributary of
the Po, between himself and his enemy. The great object, however, had
been attained: the Austrian general escaped, and might yet defend
Mantua, but no obstacle remained between the victorious invader and the
rich and noble capital of Lombardy. The garrison of Pizzighitone, seeing
themselves effectually cut off from the Austrian army, capitulated. The
French cavalry pursued Beaulieu as far as Cremona, which town they
seized; and Napoleon himself prepared to march at once upon Milan.

It was after one of these affairs that an old Hungarian officer was
brought prisoner to Buonaparte, who entered into conversation with him,
and among other matters questioned him "what he thought of the state of
the war?" "Nothing," replied the old gentleman, who did not know he was
addressing the general-in-chief,--"nothing can be worse. Here is a young
man who knows absolutely nothing of the rules of war; to-day he is in
our rear, to-morrow on our flank, next day again in our front. Such
violations of the principles of the art of war are intolerable!"

The Archduke, who governed in Lombardy for the Emperor, had made many a
long prayer and procession; but the saints appeared to take no
compassion on him, and he now withdrew from the capital. A revolutionary
party had always existed there, as indeed in every part of the Austrian
dominions beyond the Alps; and the tricolor cockade, the emblem of
France, was now mounted by multitudes of the inhabitants. The
municipality hastened to invite the conqueror to appear among them as
their friend and protector; and on the 14th of May, four days after
Lodi, Napoleon accordingly entered, in all the splendour of a military
triumph, the venerable and opulent city of the old Lombard kings.

He was not, however, to be flattered into the conduct, as to serious
matters, of a friendly general. He levied immediately a heavy
contribution (eight hundred thousand pounds sterling) at Milan,--taking
possession, besides, of twenty of the finest pictures in the Ambrosian
gallery.

The conqueror now paused to look about and behind him; and proceeded
still farther to replenish his chest by exactions, for which no
justification can be adduced from the ordinary rules of international
law. With Sardinia he had already reckoned; of the Austrian capital in
Italy he had possession; there was only one more of the Italian
governments (Naples) with which the French Republic was actually at war;
although, indeed, he had never concealed his intention of revenging the
fate of Basseville on the court of Rome. The other powers of Italy were,
at worst, neutrals; with Tuscany and Venice, France had friendly
relations. But Napoleon knew or believed, that all the Italian
governments, without exception, considered the French invasion of Italy
as a common calamity; the personal wishes of most of the minor princes
(nearly connected as these were, by blood or alliance, with the imperial
house of Austria) he, not unreasonably, concluded were strongly against
his own success in this great enterprise. Such were his pretences--more
or less feasible; the temptation was, in fact, great; and he resolved to
consider and treat whatever had not been with him as if it had been
against him. The weak but wealthy princes of Parma and Modena, and
others of the same order, were forthwith compelled to purchase his
clemency not less dearly than if they had been in arms. Besides money,
of which he made them disburse large sums, he demanded from each a
tribute of pictures and statues, to be selected at the discretion of
Citizen Monge and other French connoisseurs, who now attended his march
for such purposes.

In modern warfare the works of art had hitherto been considered as a
species of property entitled in all cases to be held sacred; and
Buonaparte's violent and rapacious infraction of this rule now excited a
mighty clamour throughout Europe. Whether the new system originated with
himself, or in the commands of the Directory, is doubtful. But from this
time the formation of a great national gallery of pictures and statues
at Paris was considered as an object of the first importance; and every
victorious general was expected to bring trophies of this kind in his
train. Whether the fine arts themselves are likely to be improved in
consequence of the accumulation in any one place of such vast treasures
as the Louvre were long exhibited, there has been, and will no doubt
continue to be, much controversy. It is certain that the arts of France
derived no solid advantage from Napoleon's museum. The collection was a
mighty heap of incense for the benefit of the national vanity; and the
hand which brought it together was preparing the means of inflicting on
that vanity one of the most intolerable of wounds, in its ultimate
dispersion.

The Duke of Modena would fain have redeemed the famous St. Jerome, of
Correggio, at the price of £80,000; and Buonaparte's lieutenants urged
him to accept the money. "No," said he, "the duke's two millions of
francs would soon be spent; but his Correggio will remain for ages to
adorn Paris, and inspire the arts of France." The prophecy was not
inspired. Of one thing there can be no doubt; namely, that the
abstraction of these precious monuments of art from the Italian
collections was deeply and permanently resented by the Italian people.
This sacrilege, as those enthusiastic and intelligent lovers of all the
elegant arts considered it, turned back many a half-made convert from
the principles of the French Revolution.

Buonaparte remained but five days in Milan; the citadel of that place
still held out against him; but he left a detachment to blockade it, and
proceeded himself in pursuit of Beaulieu. The Austrian had now planted
the remains of his army behind the Mincio, having his left on the great
and strong city of Mantua, which has been termed "the citadel of Italy,"
and his right at Peschiera a Venetian fortress, of which he took
possession in spite of the remonstrances of the Doge. Peschiera stands
where the Mincio flows out of "its parent lake," the Lago di Guarda.
That great body of waters, stretching many miles backwards towards the
Tyrolese Alps, at once extended the line of defence, and kept the
communication open with Vienna. The Austrian veteran occupied one of the
strongest positions that it is possible to imagine. The invader hastened
once more to dislodge him.

The French Directory, meanwhile, had begun to entertain certain not
unnatural suspicions as to the ultimate designs of their young general,
whose success and fame had already reached so astonishing a height. They
determined to check, if they could, the career of an ambition which they
apprehended might outgrow their control. Buonaparte was ordered to take
half his army, and lead it against the Pope and the King of Naples, and
leave the other half to terminate the contest with Beaulieu, under the
orders of Kellerman. But he acted on this occasion with the decision
which these Directors in vain desired to emulate. He answered by
resigning his command. "One half of the army of Italy," said he, "cannot
suffice to finish the matter with the Austrian. It is only by keeping my
force entire that I have been able to gain so many battles and to be now
in Milan. You had better have one bad general than two good ones." The
Directory durst not persist in displacing the chief whose name was
considered as the pledge of victory. Napoleon resumed the undivided
command, to which now, for the last time, his right had been questioned.

Another unlooked-for occurrence delayed, for a few days longer, the
march upon Mantua. The heavy exactions of the French, and even more
perhaps the wanton contempt with which they treated the churches and the
clergy, had produced or fostered the indignation of a large part of the
population throughout Lombardy. Reports of new Austrian levies being
poured down the passes of the Tyrol were spread and believed. Popular
insurrections against the conqueror took place in various districts: at
least 30,000 were in arms. At Pavia the insurgents were entirely
triumphant; they had seized the town, and compelled the French garrison
to surrender.

This flame, had it been suffered to spread, threatened immeasurable evil
to the French cause. Lannes instantly marched to Benasco, stormed the
place, plundered and burnt it, and put the inhabitants to the sword
without mercy. The general in person appeared before Pavia; blew the
gates open; easily scattered the townspeople; and caused the leaders to
be executed, as if they had committed a crime in endeavouring to rescue
their country from the arm of a foreign invader. Everywhere the same
ferocious system was acted on. The insurgent commanders were tried by
courts-martial, and shot without ceremony. At Lugo, where a French
squadron of horse had been gallantly and disastrously defeated, the
whole of the male inhabitants were massacred. These bloody examples
quelled the insurrections; but they fixed the first dark and indelible
stain on the name of Napoleon Buonaparte.

The spirit of the Austrian and Catholic parties in Lombardy thus
crushed, the French advanced on the Mincio. The general made such
disposition of his troops, that Beaulieu doubted not he meant to pass
that river, if he could, at Peschiera. Meantime he had been preparing to
repeat the scene of Placenza;--and actually, on the 30th of May, forced
the passage of the Mincio, not at Peschiera, but further down at
Borghetto. The Austrian garrison at Borghetto in vain destroyed one arch
of the bridge. Buonaparte supplied the breach with planks; and his men,
flushed with so many victories, charged with a fury not to be resisted.
Beaulieu was obliged to abandon the Mincio, as he had before the Adda
and the Po, and to take up the new line of the Adige.

Meanwhile an occurrence, which may be called accidental, had nearly done
more than repay the Austrians for all their reverses. The left of their
line, stationed still further down the Mincio,--at Puzzuolo, no sooner
learned from the cannonade that the French were at Borghetto, than they
hastened to ascend the stream, with the view of assisting the defence of
their friends. They came too late for this; the commander at Borghetto
had retreated before they arrived. They, however, came unexpectedly;
and, such was the chance, reached Valleggio after the French army had
pursued the Austrians through it and onwards--and, at the moment when
Buonaparte and a few friends, considering the work of the day to be
over, and this village as altogether in the rear of both armies, were
about to sit down to dinner in security. Sebetendorff, who commanded the
Puzzuolo division, came rapidly, little guessing what a prize was near
him, into the village. The French general's attendants had barely time
to shut the gates of the inn, and alarm their chief by the cry "To
arms." Buonaparte threw himself on horseback, and galloping out by a
back passage, effected the narrowest of escapes from the most urgent of
dangers. Sebetendorff was soon assaulted by a French column, and
retreated, after Beaulieu's example, on the line of the Adige.
Buonaparte, profiting by the perilous adventure of Valleggio, instituted
a small corps of picked men, called _Guides_, to watch continually over
his personal safety. Such was the germ from which sprung the famous
Imperial Guard of Napoleon.

The Austrian had, in effect, abandoned for the time the open country of
Italy. He now lay on the frontier, between the vast tract of rich
provinces which Napoleon had conquered, and the Tyrol. The citadel of
Milan, indeed, still held out; but the force there was not great, and,
cooped up on every side, could not be expected to resist much longer.
Mantua, which possessed prodigious natural advantages, and into which
the retreating general had flung a garrison of full 15,000 men, was, in
truth, the last and only Italian possession of the imperial crown,
which, as it seemed, there might still be a possibility of saving.
Beaulieu anxiously waited the approach of new troops from Germany, to
attempt the relief of this great city; and his antagonist, eager to
anticipate the efforts of the imperial government, sat down immediately
before it.

Mantua lies on an island, being cut off on all sides from the main land
by the branches of the Mincio, and approachable only by five narrow
causeways, of which three were defended by strong and regular fortresses
or entrenched camps, the other two by gates, drawbridges, and batteries.
Situated amidst stagnant waters and morasses, its air is pestilential,
especially to strangers. The garrison were prepared to maintain the
position with their usual bravery; and it remained to be seen whether
the French general possessed any new system of attack, capable of
abridging the usual operations of the siege, as effectually as he had
already done by those of the march and the battle. His commencement was
alarming: of the five causeways, by sudden and overwhelming assaults, he
obtained four; and the garrison were cut off from the main land, except
only at the fifth causeway, the strongest of them all, named, from a
palace near it, _La Favorita_. It seemed necessary, however, in order
that this blockade might be complete, that the Venetian territory, lying
immediately beyond Mantua, should be occupied by the French. The power
of this ancient government was no longer such as to inspire much
respect, and Buonaparte resolved that the claim of neutrality should
form no obstacle to his measures. The French Directory had already most
ungenerously trampled on the dignity of Venice, by demanding that she
should no longer afford a retreat to the illustrious exile, the Count of
Provence, eldest surviving brother of Louis XVI.[9] That unfortunate
prince had, accordingly, though most reluctantly, been desired to quit
the Venetian states, and had already passed to the Rhine, where his
gallant cousin, the Prince of Condé, had long been at the head of a
small and devoted army composed of the expatriated gentry of France.
Buonaparte, however, chose to treat the reluctance with which Venice had
been driven to this violation of her hospitality, as a new injury to his
government: he argued that a power who had harboured in friendship, and
unwillingly expelled, the _Pretender_ to the French monarchy, had lost
all title to forbearance on the part of the Revolutionary forces. This
was a gross and ungenerous insult, and it was a gratuitous one; for he
had a far better argument behind. The imperial general had, as we have
seen, neglected the reclamations of the Doge, when it suited his purpose
to occupy Peschiera. "You are too weak," said Buonaparte, when the
Venetian envoy reached his headquarters, "to enforce neutrality on
hostile nations such as France and Austria. Beaulieu did not respect
your territory when his interest bade him violate it; nor shall I
hesitate to occupy whatever falls within the line of the Adige." In
effect, garrisons were placed forthwith in Verona, and all the strong
places of that domain. The tricolor flag now waved at the mouth of the
Tyrolese passes; and Napoleon, leaving Serrurier to blockade Mantua,
returned to Milan, where he had important business to arrange.

The King of Naples, utterly confounded by the successes of the French,
was now anxious to procure peace, almost on whatever terms, with the
apparently irresistible Republic. Nor did it, for the moment, suit
Buonaparte's views to contemn his advances. A peace with this prince
would withdraw some valuable divisions from the army of Beaulieu; and
the distance of the Neapolitan territory was such, that the French had
no means of carrying the war thither with advantage, so long as Austria
retained the power of sending new forces into Italy by the way of the
Tyrol. He concluded an armistice accordingly, which was soon followed by
a formal peace, with the King of the Two Sicilies; and the Neapolitan
troops, who had recently behaved with eminent gallantry, abandoning the
Austrian general, began their march to the south of Italy.

This transaction placed another of Napoleon's destined victims entirely
within his grasp. With no friend behind him, the Pope saw himself at the
mercy of the invader; and in terror prepared to submit. Buonaparte
occupied immediately his legations of Bologna and Ferrara, making
prisoners in the latter of these towns four hundred of the papal troops,
and a cardinal, under whose orders they were. The churchman militant was
dismissed on parole; but, being recalled to headquarters, answered that
his master, the Pope, had given him a dispensation to break his promise.
This exercise of the old dispensing power excited the merriment of the
conquerors. The Vatican, meanwhile, perceived that no time was to be
lost. The Spanish resident at the Roman court was despatched to Milan;
and the terms on which the holy father was to obtain a brief respite
were at length arranged. Buonaparte demanded and obtained a million
sterling, a hundred of the finest pictures and statues in the papal
gallery, a large supply of military stores, and the cession of Ancona,
Ferrara, and Bologna, with their respective domains.

He next turned his attention to the grand duke of Tuscany,--a prince who
had not only not taken any part in the war against the Republic, but had
been the very first of the European rulers to recognise its
establishment, and had kept on terms of friendship with all its
successive authorities. Buonaparte, however, in pursuance of his system,
resolved that the brother of the emperor should pay for his presumed
inclinations. For the present, the Florentine museum and the grand
duke's treasury were spared; but Leghorn, the seaport of Tuscany and
great feeder of its wealth, was seized without ceremony; the English
goods in that town were confiscated to the ruin of the merchants; and a
great number of English vessels in the harbour made a narrow escape. The
grand duke, in place of resenting these injuries, was obliged to receive
Buonaparte with all the appearances of cordiality at Florence; and the
spoiler repaid his courtesy by telling him, rubbing his hands with glee,
during the princely entertainment provided for him, "I have just
received letters from Milan; the citadel has fallen;--your brother has
no longer a foot of land in Lombardy." "It is a sad case," said Napoleon
himself long afterwards--speaking of these scenes of exaction and
insolence,--"it is a sad case when the dwarf comes into the embrace of
the giant; he is like enough to be suffocated--but 'tis the giant's
nature to squeeze hard."

In the meantime the general did not neglect the great and darling plan
of the French government, of thoroughly revolutionising the North of
Italy, and establishing there a group of Republics modelled after their
own likeness, and prepared to act as subservient allies in their mighty
contest with the European monarchies. The peculiar circumstances of
Northern Italy, as a land of ancient fame and high spirit, long split
into fragments, and ruled, for the most part, by governors of German
origin, presented many facilities for the realisation of this design;
and Buonaparte was urged constantly by his government at Paris, and by
a powerful party in Lombardy, to hasten its execution. He, however, had
by this time learned to think of many idols of the Directory with about
as little reverence as they bestowed on the shrines of Catholicism; in
his opinion more was to be gained by temporising with both the
governments and the people of Italy, than by any hasty measures of the
kind recommended. He saw well the deep disgust which his exactions had
excited. "You cannot," said he, "at one and the same moment rob people
and persuade them you are their friends." He fancied, moreover, that the
Pope and other nerveless rulers of the land might be converted into at
least as convenient ministers of French exaction, as any new
establishments he could raise in their room. Finally he perceived that
whenever the Directory were to arrange seriously the terms of a
settlement with the great monarchy of Austria, their best method would
be to restore Lombardy, and thereby purchase the continued possession of
the more conveniently situated territories of Belgium and the
Luxembourg. The general, therefore, temporised; content, in the
meantime, with draining the exchequers of the governments, and cajoling
from day to day the population. The Directory were with difficulty
persuaded to let him follow his own course; but he now despised their
remonstrances, and they had been taught effectually to dread his
strength.

Napoleon, it is clear enough, had no intention to grant these Italian
governments anything but a respite; nor is it to be doubted that their
disposition to take part with Austria remained as it had been before
they entered into these treaties with France. That the purpose of deceit
was mutual, affords, however, no plea of justification--least of all to
the stronger party. "It will be well," says Sir Walter Scott, "with the
world, when falsehood and finesse are as thoroughly exploded in
international communication as they are among individuals in civilised
countries."

[Footnote 9: The same who became afterwards Louis XVIII. of France.]




CHAPTER VI

     Wurmser supersedes Beaulieu--Jourdan and Moreau march into Germany,
     and are forced to retreat again--The Austrians advance from the
     Tyrol--Battle of Lonato--Escape of Napoleon--Battle near
     Castiglione--Wurmser retreats on Trent, and is recruited--Battle of
     Roveredo--Battle of Primolano--Battle of Bassano--Battle of St.
     George--Wurmser shut up in Mantua.


The general was now recalled to the war. The cabinet of Vienna, apt to
be slow, but sure to be persevering, had at last resolved upon sending
efficient aid to the Italian frontier. Beulieu had been too often
unfortunate to be trusted longer: Wurmser, who enjoyed a reputation of
the highest class, was sent to replace him: 300,000 men were drafted
from the armies on the Rhine to accompany the new general; and he
carried orders to strengthen himself further, on his march, by whatever
recruits he could raise among the warlike and loyal population of the
Tyrol.

The consequences of thus weakening the Austrian force on the Rhine were,
for the moment, on that scene of the contest, inauspicious. The French,
in two separate bodies, forced the passage of the Rhine--under Jourdan
and Moreau; before whom the imperial generals, Wartensleben and the
Archduke Charles, were compelled to retire. But the skill of the
Archduke ere long enabled him to effect a junction with the columns of
Wartensleben; and thus to fall upon Jourdan with a great superiority of
numbers, and give him a signal defeat. The loss of the French in the
field was great, and the bitter hostility of the German peasantry made
their retreat a bloody one. Moreau, on the other hand, learning how
Jourdan was discomfited, found himself compelled to give up the plan of
pursuing his march further into Germany, and executed that famous
retreat through the Black Forest which has made his name as splendid as
any victory in the field could have done. But this reverse, however
alleviated by the honours of Moreau's achievement, was attended with
appearances of the most perilous kind. The genius of Carnot had devised
a great scheme of operations, of which one half was thus at once cut
short. He had meant Moreau and Jourdan, coalescing beyond the Rhine, to
march upon the Tyrol; while Buonaparte should advance from the scene of
his Italian conquests, join his brother generals on that frontier, and
then march in union with them to dictate a peace before the gates of
Vienna. All hope of this junction of forces was now at an end for this
campaign. The French saw themselves compelled to resume the defensive on
the western frontier of Germany; and the army of Italy had to await the
overwhelming war which seemed ready to pour down upon Lombardy from the
passes of the Tyrol.

Wurmser, when he fixed his headquarters at Trent, mustered in all
80,000; while Buonaparte had but 30,000, to hold a wide country, in
which abhorrence of the French cause was now prevalent, to keep up the
blockade of Mantua, and to oppose this fearful odds of numbers in the
field. He was now, moreover, to act on the defensive, while his
adversary assumed the more inspiriting character of invader. He awaited
the result with calmness.

Wurmser might have learned from the successes of Buonaparte the
advantages of compact movement; yet he was unwise enough to divide his
great force into three separate columns, and to place one of these upon
a line of march which entirely separated it from the support of the
others. He himself, with his centre, came down on the left bank of the
Lago di Guarda, with Mantua before him as his mark: his left wing, under
Melas, was to descend the Adige, and drive the French from Verona; while
the right wing, under Quasdonowich, were ordered to keep down the valley
of the Chiese, in the direction of Brescia, and so to cut off the
retreat of Buonaparte upon the Milanese;--in other words, to interpose
the waters of the Lago di Guarda between themselves and the march of
their friends--a blunder not likely to escape the eagle eye of Napoleon.

He immediately determined to march against Quasdonowich, and fight him
where he could not be supported by the other two columns. This could
not be done without abandoning for the time the blockade of Mantua; but
it was not for Buonaparte to hesitate about purchasing a great ultimate
advantage by a present sacrifice, however disagreeable. The guns were
buried in the trenches during the night of the 31st July, and the French
quitted the place with a precipitation which the advancing Austrians
considered as the result of terror.

Napoleon meanwhile rushed against Quasdonowich, who had already come
near the bottom of the Lake of Guarda. At Salo, close by the lake, and,
further from it, at Lonato, two divisions of the Austrian column were
attacked and overwhelmed. Augereau and Massena, leaving merely
rear-guards at Borghetto and Peschiera, now marched also upon Brescia.
The whole force of Quasdonowich must inevitably have been ruined by
these combinations, had he stood his ground; but by this time the
celerity of Napoleon had overawed him, and he was already in full
retreat upon his old quarters in the Tyrol. Augereau and Massena,
therefore, countermarched their columns, and returned towards the
Mincio. They found that Wurmser had forced their rear-guards from their
posts: that of Massena, under Pigeon, had retired in good order to
Lonato; that of Augereau, under Vallette, had retreated in confusion,
abandoning Castiglione to the Austrians.

Flushed with these successes, old Wurmser now resolved to throw his
whole force upon the French, and resume at the point of the bayonet his
communication with the scattered column of Quasdonowich. He was so
fortunate as to defeat the gallant Pigeon at Lonato, and to occupy that
town. But this great new success was fatal to him. In the exultation of
victory he extended his line too much towards the right; and this
over-anxiety to open the communication with Quasdonowich had the effect
of so weakening his centre, that Massena, boldly and skilfully seizing
the opportunity, poured two strong columns on Lonato, and regained the
position; whereon the Austrian, perceiving that his army was cut in two,
was thrown into utter confusion. Some of his troops, marching to the
right, were met by those of the French, who had already defeated
Quasdonowich in that quarter, and obliged to surrender: the most
retreated in great disorder. At Castiglione alone a brave stand was
made. But Augereau, burning to wipe out the disgrace of Vallette,[10]
forced the position, though at a severe loss. Such was the battle of
Lonato. Thenceforth nothing could surpass the discomfiture and disarray
of the Austrians. They fled in all directions upon the Mincio, where
Wurmser himself, meanwhile, had been employed in revictualling Mantua.

A mere accident had once more almost saved the Imperialist. One of the
many defeated divisions of the army, wandering about in anxiety to find
some means of reaching the Mincio, came suddenly on Lonato, the scene of
the late battle, at a moment when Napoleon was there with only his staff
and guards about him. He knew not that any considerable body of the
enemy remained together in the neighbourhood; and, but for his presence
of mind, must have been their prisoner. The Austrian had not the skill
to profit by what fortune threw in his way; the other was able to turn
even a blunder into an advantage. The officer sent to demand the
surrender of the town was brought blindfolded, as is the custom, to his
headquarters; Buonaparte, by a secret sign, caused his whole staff to
draw up around him, and when the bandage was removed from the
messenger's eyes, saluted him thus: "What means this insolence? Do you
beard the French general in the middle of his army?" The German
recognised the person of Napoleon, and retreated stammering and
blushing. He assured his commander that Lonato was occupied by the
French in numbers that made resistance impossible. Four thousand men
laid down their arms; and then discovered that, if they had used them,
nothing could have prevented Napoleon from being their prize.

Wurmser collected together the whole of his remaining force, and
advanced to meet the conqueror. He, meanwhile, had himself determined on
the assault, and was hastening to the encounter. They met between Lonato
and Castiglione. Wurmser was totally defeated, and narrowly escaped
being a prisoner; nor did he without great difficulty regain Trent and
Roveredo, those frontier positions from which his noble army had so
recently descended with all the confidence of conquerors. In this
disastrous campaign the Austrians lost 40,000: Buonaparte probably
understated his own loss at 7000. During the seven days which the
campaign occupied he never took off his boots, nor slept except by
starts. The exertions which so rapidly achieved this signal triumph were
such as to demand some repose; yet Napoleon did not pause until he saw
Mantua once more completely invested. The reinforcement and
revictualling of that garrison were all that Wurmser could show, in
requital of his lost artillery, stores, and 40,000 men.

During this brief campaign the aversion with which the ecclesiastics of
Italy regarded the French manifested itself in various quarters. At
Pavia, Ferrara, and elsewhere, insurrections had broken out, and the
spirit was spreading rapidly at the moment when the report of Napoleon's
new victory came to re-awaken terror and paralyse revolt. The conqueror
judged it best to accept for the present the resubmission, however
forced, of a party too powerful to be put down by examples. The Cardinal
Mattei, Archbishop of Ferrara, being brought into his presence, uttered
the single word _peccavi_: the victor was contented with ordering him a
penance of seven days' fasting and prayer in a monastery: but he had no
intention to forget these occurrences whenever another day of reckoning
with the Pope should come.

While he was occupied with restoring quiet in the country, Austria, ever
constant in adversity, hastened to place 20,000 fresh troops under the
orders of Wurmser; and the brave veteran, whose heart nothing could
chill, prepared himself to make one effort more to relieve Mantua, and
drive the French out of Lombardy. His army was now, as before, greatly
the superior in numbers; and though the bearing of his troops was more
modest, their gallantry remained unimpaired. Once more the old general
divided his army; and once more he was destined to see it shattered in
detail.

He marched from Trent towards Mantua, through the defiles of the Brenta,
at the head of 30,000; leaving 20,000 under Davidowich at Roveredo, to
cover the Tyrol. Buonaparte instantly detected the error of his
opponent. He suffered him to advance unmolested as far as Bassano, and
the moment he was there, and consequently completely separated from
Davidowich and his rear, drew together a strong force, and darted on
Roveredo, by marches such as seemed credible only after they had been
accomplished.

The battle of Roveredo (Sept. 4) is one of Napoleon's most illustrious
days. The enemy had a strongly entrenched camp in front of the town; and
behind it, in case of misfortune, Calliano, with its castle seated on a
precipice over the Adige, where that river flows between enormous rocks
and mountains, appeared to offer an impregnable retreat. Nothing could
withstand the ardour of the French. The Austrians, though they defended
the entrenched camp with their usual obstinacy, were forced to give way
by the impetuosity of Dubois and his hussars. Dubois fell, mortally
wounded, in the moment of his glory: he waved his sabre, cheering his
men onwards with his last breath. "I die," said he, "for the
Republic;--only let me hear, ere life leaves me, that the victory is
ours." The French horse, thus animated, pursued the Germans, who were
driven, unable to rally, through and beyond the town. Even the gigantic
defences of Calliano proved of no avail. Height after height was carried
at the point of the bayonet; 7000 prisoners and fifteen cannon remained
with the conquerors. The Austrians fled to Levisa, which guards one of
the chief defiles of the Tyrolese Alps, and were there beaten again.
Vaubois occupied this important position with the gallant division who
had forced it. Massena fixed himself in Wurmser's late headquarters at
Trent; and Napoleon, having thus totally cut off the field-marshal's
communication with Germany, proceeded to issue proclamations calling on
the inhabitants of the Tyrol to receive the French as friends, and seize
the opportunity of freeing themselves for ever from the dominion of
Austria. He put forth an edict declaring that the sovereignty of the
district was henceforth in the French Republic, and inviting the people
themselves to arrange, according to their pleasure, its interior
government.

The French general made a grievous mistake when he supposed that the
Tyrolese were divided in their attachment to the Imperial government,
because he had found the Italian subjects of that crown to be so. The
Tyrol, one of the most ancient of the Austrian possessions, had also
been one of the best governed; the people enjoyed all the liberty they
wished under a paternal administration. They received with scornful
coldness the flattering exhortations of one in whom they saw only a
cunning and rapacious enemy; and Buonaparte was soon satisfied that it
would cost more time than was then at his disposal to republicanise
those gallant mountaineers. They, in truth, began to arm themselves, and
waited but the signal to rise everywhere upon the invaders.

Wurmser heard with dismay the utter ruin of Davidowich; and doubted not
that Napoleon would now march onwards into Germany, and joining Jourdan
and Moreau, whose advance he had heard of, and misguessed to have been
successful, endeavour to realise the great scheme of Carnot--that of
attacking Vienna itself. The old general saw no chance of converting
what remained to him of his army to good purpose, but by abiding in
Lombardy, where he thought he might easily excite the people in his
emperor's favour, overwhelm the slender garrisons left by Buonaparte,
and so cut off, at all events, the French retreat through Italy, in case
they should meet with any disaster in the Tyrol or in Germany. Napoleon
had intelligence which Wurmser wanted. Wurmser himself was his mark; and
he returned from Trent to Primolano where the Imperialist's vanguard
lay, by a forced march of not less than sixty miles performed in two
days. The surprise with which this descent was received may be imagined.
The Austrian van was destroyed in a twinkling. The French, pushing
everything before them, halted that night at Cismone--where Napoleon was
glad to have half a private soldier's ration of bread for his supper.
Next day he reached Bassano where the aged Marshal once more expected
the fatal rencounter. The battle of Bassano (Sept. 8) was a fatal
repetition of those that had gone before it. Six thousand men laid down
their arms. Quasdonowich, with one division of 4000, escaped to Friuli;
while Wurmser himself, retreating to Vicenza, there collected with
difficulty a remnant of 16,000 beaten and discomfited soldiers. His
situation was most unhappy; his communication with Austria wholly cut
off--his artillery and baggage all lost--the flower of his army no more.
Nothing seemed to remain but to throw himself into Mantua, and there
hold out to the last extremity, in the hope, however remote, of some
succours from Vienna; and such was the resolution of this often
outwitted but never dispirited veteran.

In order to execute his purpose, it was necessary to force a passage
somewhere on the Adige; and the Austrian, especially as he had lost all
his pontoons, would have had great difficulty in doing so, but for a
mistake on the part of the French commander at Legnago, who, conceiving
the attempt was to be made at Verona, marched to reinforce the corps
stationed there, and thus left his proper position unguarded. Wurmser,
taking advantage of this, passed with his army at Legnago, and after a
series of bloody skirmishes, in which fortune divided her favours pretty
equally, was at length enabled to throw himself into Mantua. Napoleon
made another narrow escape, in one of these skirmishes, at Arcola. He
was surrounded for a moment, and had just galloped off, when Wurmser
coming up and learning that the prize was so near, gave particular
directions to bring him in alive!

Buonaparte, after making himself master of some scattered corps which
had not been successful in keeping up with Wurmser, re-appeared once
more before Mantua. The battle of St. George--so called from one of the
suburbs of the city--was fought on the 13th of September, and after
prodigious slaughter, the French remained in possession of all the
causeways; so that the blockade of the city and fortress was henceforth
complete. The garrison, when Wurmser shut himself up, amounted to
26,000. Before October was far advanced the pestilential air of the
place, and the scarcity and badness of provisions, had filled his
hospitals, and left him hardly half the number in fighting condition.
The misery of the besieged town was extreme; and if Austria meant to
rescue Wurmser, there was no time to be lost.

[Footnote 10: Vallette was cashiered. Augereau was afterwards created
Duke of Castiglione, in memory of this exploit.]




CHAPTER VII

     Affairs of Corsica--Alvinzi assumes the Command of the Austrians on
     the Italian frontier--The three Battles of Arcola--Retreat of
     Alvinzi--Battle of Rivoli--Battle of La Favorita--Surrender of
     Mantua--Victor marches on Ancona--Despair of the Pope--Treaty of
     Tollentino.


The French party in Corsica had not contemplated without pride and
exultation the triumphs of their countryman. His seizure of Leghorn, by
cutting off the supplies from England, greatly distressed the opposite
party in the island, and an expedition of Corsican exiles, which he now
despatched from Tuscany, was successful in finally reconquering the
country. To Napoleon this acquisition was due; nor were the Directory
insensible to its value. He, meanwhile, had heavier business on his
hands.

The Austrian council well knew that Mantua was in excellent keeping; and
being now relieved on the Rhenish frontier, by the failure of Jourdan
and Moreau's attempts, were able to form once more a powerful armament
on that of Italy. The supreme command was given to Marshal Alvinzi, a
veteran of high reputation. He, having made extensive levies in Illyria,
appeared at Friuli; while Davidowich, with the remnant of Quasdonowich's
army, amply recruited among the bold peasantry of the Tyrol, and with
fresh drafts from the Rhine, took ground above Trent. The marshal had in
all 60,000 men under his orders. Buonaparte had received only twelve new
battalions, to replace all the losses of those terrible campaigns, in
which three imperial armies had already been annihilated. The enemy's
superiority of numbers was once more such, that nothing but the most
masterly combinations on the part of the French general could have
prevented them from sweeping everything before them in the plains of
Lombardy.

Buonaparte heard in the beginning of October that Alvinzi's columns were
in motion: he had placed Vaubois to guard Trent, and Massena at Bassano
to check the march of the field-marshal: but neither of these generals
was able to hold his ground. The troops of Vaubois were driven from
that position of Calliano, the strength of which has been already
mentioned, under circumstances which Napoleon considered disgraceful to
the character of the French soldiery. Massena avoided battle; but such
was the overwhelming superiority of Alvinzi, that he was forced to
abandon the position of Bassano. Napoleon himself hurried forward to
sustain Massena; and a severe rencontre, in which either side claimed
the victory, took place at Vicenza. The French, however, retreated, and
Buonaparte fixed his headquarters at Verona. The whole country between
the Brenta and the Adige was in the enemy's hands; while the still
strong and determined garrison of Mantua in Napoleon's rear, rendering
it indispensable for him to divide his forces, made his position
eminently critical.

His first care was to visit the discomfited troops of Vaubois. "You have
displeased me," said he, "you have suffered yourselves to be driven from
positions where a handful of determined men might have bid an army
defiance. You are no longer French soldiers! You belong not to the army
of Italy." At these words, tears streamed down the rugged cheeks of the
grenadiers. "Place us but once more in the van," cried they, "and you
shall judge whether we do not belong to the army of Italy." The general
dropped his angry tone; and in the rest of the campaign no troops more
distinguished themselves than these.

Having thus revived the ardour of his soldiery, Buonaparte concentrated
his columns on the right of the Adige, while Alvinzi took up a very
strong position on the heights of Caldiero, on the left bank, nearly
opposite to Verona. In pursuance of the same system which had already so
often proved fatal to his opponents, it was the object of Buonaparte to
assault Alvinzi, and scatter his forces, ere they could be joined by
Davidowich. He lost no time, therefore, in attacking the heights of
Caldiero; but in spite of all that Massena, who headed the charge, could
do, the Austrians, strong in numbers and in position, repelled the
assailants with great carnage. A terrible tempest prevailed during the
action, and Napoleon, in his despatches, endeavoured to shift the blame
to the elements.

The country behind Caldiero lying open to Davidowich, it became
necessary to resort to other means of assault, or permit the dreaded
junction to occur. The genius of Buonaparte suggested to him on this
occasion a movement altogether unexpected. During the night, leaving
1,500 men under Kilmaine to guard Verona, he marched for some space
rearwards, as if he had meant to retreat on Mantua, which the failure of
his recent assault rendered not unlikely. But his columns were ere long
wheeled again towards the Adige: and finding a bridge ready prepared,
were at once placed on the same side of the river with the enemy,--but
in the rear altogether of his position, amidst those wide-spreading
morasses which cover the country about Arcola. This daring movement was
devised to place Napoleon between Alvinzi and Davidowich; but the unsafe
nature of the ground, and the narrowness of the dykes, by which alone he
could advance on Arcola, rendered victory difficult, and reverse most
hazardous. He divided his men into three columns, and charged at
daybreak (Nov. 15) by the three dykes which conduct to Arcola. The
Austrian, not suspecting that the main body of the French had evacuated
Verona, treated this at first as an affair of light troops; but as day
advanced the truth became apparent, and these narrow passages were
defended with the most determined gallantry. Augereau headed the first
column that reached the bridge of Arcola, and was there, after a
desperate effort, driven back with great loss. Buonaparte, perceiving
the necessity of carrying the point ere Alvinzi could arrive, now threw
himself on the bridge, and seizing a standard, urged his grenadiers once
more to the charge.

The fire was tremendous: once more the French gave way. Napoleon
himself, lost in the tumult, was borne backwards, forced over the dyke,
and had nearly been smothered in the morass, while some of the advancing
Austrians were already between him and his baffled column. His imminent
danger was observed: the soldiers caught the alarm, and rushing
forwards, with the cry, "Save the general," overthrew the Germans with
irresistible violence, plucked Napoleon from the bog, and carried the
bridge. This was the first battle of Arcola.

This movement revived in the Austrian lines their terror for the name of
Buonaparte; and Alvinzi saw that no time was to be lost if he meant to
preserve his communication with Davidowich. He abandoned Caldiero, and
gaining the open country behind Arcola, robbed his enemy for the moment
of the advantage which his skill had gained. Napoleon, perceiving that
Arcola was no longer in the rear of his enemy but in his front, and
fearful lest Vaubois might be overwhelmed by Davidowich, while Alvinzi
remained thus between him and the Brenta, evacuated Arcola, and
retreated to Ronco.

Next morning, having ascertained that Davidowich had not been engaged
with Vaubois, Napoleon once more advanced upon Arcola. The place was
once more defended bravely, and once more it was carried. But this
second battle of Arcola proved no more decisive than the first; for
Alvinzi still contrived to maintain his main force unbroken in the
difficult country behind; and Buonaparte again retreated to Ronco.

The third day was decisive. On this occasion also he carried Arcola;
and, by two stratagems, was enabled to make his victory effectual. An
ambuscade, planted among some willows, suddenly opened fire on a column
of Croats, threw them into confusion, and, rushing from the concealment,
crushed them down into the opposite bog, where most of them died.
Napoleon was anxious to follow up this success by charging the Austrian
main body on the firm ground behind the marshes. But it was no easy
matter to reach them there. He had, in various quarters, portable
bridges ready for crossing the ditches and canals; but the enemy stood
in good order, and three days' hard fighting had nearly exhausted his
own men. In one of his conversations at St. Helena, he thus told the
sequel. "At Arcola I gained the battle with twenty-five horsemen. I
perceived the critical moment of lassitude in either army--when the
oldest and bravest would have been glad to be in their tents. All my men
had been engaged. Three times I had been obliged to re-establish the
battle. There remained to me but some twenty-five _Guides_. I sent them
round on the flank of the enemy with three trumpets, bidding them blow
loud and charge furiously. _Here is the French cavalry_, was the cry;
and they took to flight."... The Austrians doubted not that Murat and
all the horse had forced a way through the bogs; and at that moment
Buonaparte commanding a general assault in front, the confusion became
hopeless. Alvinzi retreated finally, though in decent order, upon
Montebello.

It was at Arcola that Muiron, who ever since the storming of Little
Gibraltar had lived on terms of brotherlike intimacy with Napoleon,
seeing a bomb about to explode threw himself between it and his general,
and thus saved his life at the cost of his own. Napoleon, to the end of
his life, remembered and regretted this heroic friend.

In these three days Buonaparte lost 8000 men: the slaughter among his
opponents must have been terrible. Davidowich, in never coming up to
join Alvinzi after his success over Vaubois, and Wurmser, in remaining
quiet at Mantua, when by advancing with his garrison he might have
incommoded the French rear, were guilty of grievous misjudgment or
indecision. Once more the rapid combinations of Napoleon had rendered
all the efforts of the Austrian cabinet abortive. For two months after
the last day of Arcola, he remained the undisturbed master of Lombardy.
All that his enemy could show, in set-off for the slaughter and
discomfiture of Alvinzi's campaign, was that they retained possession of
Bassano and Trent, thus interrupting Buonaparte's access to the Tyrol
and Germany. This advantage was not trivial; but it had been dearly
bought.

A fourth army had been baffled; but the resolution of the Imperial Court
was indomitable, and new levies were diligently forwarded to reinforce
Alvinzi. Once more (January 7, 1797) the Marshal found himself at the
head of 60,000: once more his superiority over Napoleon's muster-roll
was enormous; and once more he descended from the mountains with the
hope of relieving Wurmser and reconquering Lombardy. The fifth act of
the tragedy was yet to be performed.

We may here pause to notice some civil events of importance which
occurred ere Alvinzi made his final descent. The success of the French
naturally gave new vigour to the Italian party, who, chiefly in the
large towns, were hostile to Austria, and desirous to settle their own
government on the republican model. Napoleon had by this time come to be
anything but a Jacobin in his political sentiments: his habits of
command; his experience of the narrow and ignorant management of the
Directory; his personal intercourse with the ministers of sovereign
powers; his sense daily strengthened by events, that whatever good was
done in Italy proceeded from his own skill and the devotion of his
army,--all these circumstances conspired to make him respect himself and
contemn the government, almost in despite of which he had conquered
kingdoms for France. He therefore regarded now with little sympathy the
aspirations after republican organisation which he had himself
originally stimulated among the northern Italians. He knew, however,
that the Directory had, by absurd and extravagant demands, provoked the
Pope to break off the treaty of Bologna, and to raise his army to the
number of 40,000,--that Naples had every disposition to back his
Holiness with 30,000 soldiers, provided any reverse should befall the
French in Lombardy,--and, finally, that Alvinzi was rapidly preparing
for another march, with numbers infinitely superior to what he could
himself extort from the government of Paris;[11] and considering these
circumstances, he felt himself compelled to seek strength by gratifying
his Italian friends. Two Republics accordingly were organised; the
Cispadane and the Transpadane--handmaids rather than sisters of the
great French democracy. These events took place during the period of
military inaction which followed the victories of Arcola. The new
Republics hastened to repay Napoleon's favour by raising troops, and
placed at his disposal a force which he considered as sufficient to keep
the Papal army in check during the expected renewal of Alvinzi's
efforts.

Buonaparte at this period practised every art to make himself popular
with the Italians; nor was it of little moment that they in fact
regarded him more as their own countryman than a Frenchman; that their
beautiful language was his mother tongue; that he knew their manners and
their literature, and even in his conquering rapacity displayed his
esteem for their arts. He was wise enough too, on farther familiarity
with the state of the country, to drop that tone of hostility which he
had at first adopted towards the priesthood; and to cultivate the most
influential members of that powerful order by attentions which the
Directory heard of with wonder, and would have heard of, had he been any
other than Napoleon, with scorn and contempt.[12] Wherever he could
have personal intercourse with the priesthood, he seems to have
considerably softened their spleen. Meanwhile the clergy beyond the
Apennines, and the nobility of Romagna, were combining all their efforts
to rouse the population against him; and the Pope, pushed, as we have
seen, to despair by the French Directory, had no reason to complain that
his secular vassals heard such appeals with indifference.

Alvinzi's preparations were in the meantime rapidly advancing. The
enthusiasm of the Austrian gentry was effectually stirred by the
apprehension of seeing the conqueror of Italy under the walls of Vienna,
and volunteer corps were formed everywhere and marched upon the
frontier. The gallant peasantry of the Tyrol had already displayed their
zeal; nor did the previous reverses of Alvinzi prevent them from once
more crowding to his standard. Napoleon proclaimed that every Tyrolese
caught in arms should be shot as a brigand. Alvinzi replied, that for
every murdered peasant he would hang a French prisoner of war:
Buonaparte rejoined, that the first execution of this threat would be
instantly followed by the gibbeting of Alvinzi's own nephew, who was in
his hands. These ferocious threats were laid aside, when time had been
given for reflection; and either general prepared to carry on the war
according to the old rules, which are at least sufficiently severe.

Alvinzi sent a peasant across the country to find his way if possible
into the beleaguered city of Mantua, and give Wurmser notice that he was
once more ready to attempt his relief. The veteran was commanded to make
what diversion he could in favour of the approaching army; and if things
came to the worst, to fight his way out of Mantua, retire on Romagna,
and put himself at the head of the Papal forces. The spy who carried
these tidings was intercepted, and dragged into the presence of
Napoleon. The terrified man confessed that he had swallowed the ball of
wax in which the despatch was wrapped. His stomach was compelled to
surrender its contents; and Buonaparte prepared to meet his enemy.
Leaving Serrurier to keep up the blockade of Mantua, he hastened to
resume his central position at Verona, from which he could, according to
circumstances, march with convenience on whatever line the Austrian main
body might choose for their advance.

The Imperialists, as if determined to profit by no lesson, once more
descended from the Tyrol upon two different lines of march; Alvinzi
himself choosing that of the Upper Adige; while Provera headed a second
army, with orders to follow the Brenta, and then, striking across to the
Lower Adige, join the marshal before the walls of Mantua. Could they
have combined their forces there, and delivered Wurmser, there was
hardly a doubt that the French must retreat before so vast an army as
would then have faced them. But Napoleon was destined once more to
dissipate all these victorious dreams. He had posted Joubert at Rivoli,
to dispute that important position, should the campaign open with an
attempt to force it by Alvinzi; while Augereau's division was to watch
the march of Provera. He remained himself at Verona until he could learn
with certainty by which of these generals the first grand assault was to
be made. On the evening of the 13th of January, tidings were brought him
that Joubert had all that day been maintaining his ground with
difficulty; and he instantly hastened to what now appeared to be the
proper scene of action for himself.

Arriving about two in the morning (by another of his almost incredible
forced marches) on the heights of Rivoli, he, the moonlight being clear,
could distinguish five separate encampments, with innumerable
watch-fires, in the valley below. His lieutenant, confounded by the
display of this gigantic force, was in the very act of abandoning the
position. Napoleon instantly checked this movement; and bringing up more
battalions, forced the Croats from an eminence which they had already
seized on the first symptoms of the French retreat. Napoleon's keen eye,
surveying the position of the five encampments below, penetrated the
secret of Alvinzi; namely, that his artillery had not yet arrived,
otherwise he would not have occupied ground so distant from the object
of attack. He concluded that the Austrian did not mean to make his
grand assault very early in the morning, and resolved to force him to
anticipate that movement. For this purpose, he took all possible pains
to conceal his own arrival; and prolonged, by a series of petty
manœuvres, the enemy's belief that he had to do with a mere outpost of
the French. Alvinzi swallowed the deceit; and, instead of advancing on
some great and well-arranged system, suffered his several columns to
endeavour to force the heights by insulated movements, which the real
strength of Napoleon easily enabled him to baffle. It is true that at
one moment the bravery of the Germans had nearly overthrown the French
on a point of pre-eminent importance; but Napoleon himself galloping to
the spot, roused by his voice and action the division of Massena, who,
having marched all night, had lain down to rest in the extreme of
weariness, and seconded by them and their gallant general,[13] swept
everything before him. The French artillery was in position: the
Austrian (according to Napoleon's shrewd guess) had not yet come up, and
this circumstance decided the fortune of the day. The cannonade from the
heights, backed by successive charges of horse and foot, rendered every
attempt to storm the summit abortive; and the main body of the
Imperialists was already in confusion, and, indeed, in flight, before
one of their divisions, which had been sent round to outflank
Buonaparte, and take higher ground in his rear, was able to execute its
errand. When, accordingly, this division (that of Lusignan) at length
achieved its destined object--it did so, not to complete the misery of a
routed, but to swell the prey of a victorious enemy. Instead of cutting
off the retreat of Joubert, Lusignan found himself insulated from
Alvinzi, and forced to lay down his arms to Buonaparte. "Here was a good
plan," said Napoleon, "but these Austrians are not apt to calculate the
value of minutes." Had Lusignan gained the rear of the French an hour
earlier, while the contest was still hot in front of the heights of
Rivoli, he might have made the 14th of January one of the darkest,
instead of one of the brightest days, in the military chronicles of
Napoleon.

He, who in the course of this trying day had three horses shot under
him, hardly waited to see Lusignan surrender, and to entrust his
friends, Massena, Murat, and Joubert, with the task of pursuing the
flying columns of Alvinzi. He had heard during the battle, that Provera
had forced his way to the Lago di Guarda, and was already, by means of
boats, in communication with Mantua. The force of Augereau having proved
insufficient to oppose the march of the Imperialists' second column, it
was high time that Napoleon himself should hurry with reinforcements to
the Lower Adige, and prevent Wurmser from either housing Provera, or
joining him in the open field, and so effecting the escape of his own
still formidable garrison whether to the Tyrol or the Romagna.

Having marched all night and all next day, Napoleon reached the vicinity
of Mantua late on the 15th. He found the enemy strongly posted, and
Serrurier's situation highly critical. A regiment of Provera's hussars
had but a few hours before nearly established themselves in the suburb
of St. George. This Austrian corps had been clothed in white cloaks,
resembling those of a well-known French regiment; and advancing towards
the gate, would certainly have been admitted as friends--but for the
sagacity of one sergeant, who could not help fancying that the white
cloaks had too much of the gloss of novelty about them, to have stood
the tear and wear of three Buonapartean campaigns. This danger had been
avoided, but the utmost vigilance was necessary. The French general
himself passed the night in walking about the outposts, so great was his
anxiety.

At one of these he found a grenadier asleep by the root of a tree; and
taking his gun, without wakening him, performed a sentinel's duty in his
place for about half an hour; when the man, starting from his slumbers,
perceived with terror and despair the countenance and occupation of his
general. He fell on his knees before him. "My friend," said Napoleon,
"here is your musket. You had fought hard, and marched long, and your
sleep is excusable; but a moment's inattention might at present ruin the
army. I happened to be awake, and have held your post for you. You will
be more careful another time."

It is needless to say how the devotion of his men was nourished by such
anecdotes as these flying ever and anon from column to column. Next
morning there ensued a hot skirmish, recorded as the battle of St.
George. Provera was compelled to retreat, and Wurmser, who had sallied
out and seized the causeway and citadel of La Favorita, was fain to
retreat within its old walls, in consequence of a desperate assault
headed by Napoleon in person.

Provera now found himself entirely cut off from Alvinzi, and surrounded
with the French. He and 5000 men laid down their arms on the 16th of
January. Various bodies of the Austrian force, scattered over the
country between the Adige and the Brenta, followed the example;[14] and
the brave Wurmser, whose provisions were by this time exhausted, found
himself at length under the necessity of sending an offer of
capitulation.

General Serrurier, as commander of the blockade, received Klenau, the
bearer of Wurmser's message, and heard him state, with the pardonable
artifice usual on such occasions, that his master was still in a
condition to hold out considerably longer, unless honourable terms were
granted. Napoleon had hitherto been seated in a corner of the tent
wrapped in his cloak; he now advanced to the Austrian, who had no
suspicion in whose presence he had been speaking, and taking his pen,
wrote down the conditions which he was willing to grant. "These," said
he, "are the terms to which your general's bravery entitles him. He may
have them to-day; a week, a month hence, he shall have no worse.
Meantime, tell him that General Buonaparte is about to set out for
Rome." The envoy now recognised Napoleon; and on reading the paper
perceived that the proposed terms were more liberal than he had dared to
hope for. The capitulation was forthwith signed.

On the 2nd of February, Wurmser and his garrison marched out of Mantua;
but when the aged chief was to surrender his sword, he found only
Serrurier ready to receive it. Napoleon's generosity, in avoiding being
present personally to witness the humiliation of this distinguished
veteran, forms one of the most pleasing traits in his story. The
Directory had urged him to far different conduct. He treated their
suggestions with scorn: "I have granted the Austrian," he wrote to them,
"such terms as were, in my judgment, due to a brave and honourable
enemy, and to the dignity of the French Republic."

The loss of the Austrians at Mantua amounted, first and last, to not
less than 27,000 men. Besides innumerable military stores, upwards of
500 brass cannon fell into the hands of the conqueror; and Augereau was
sent to Paris, to present the Directory with _sixty_ stands of colours.
He was received with tumults of exultation, such as might have been
expected, on an occasion so glorious, from a people less vivacious than
the French.

The surrender of Provera and Wurmser, following the total rout of
Alvinzi, placed Lombardy wholly in the hands of Napoleon; and he now
found leisure to avenge himself on the Pope for those hostile
demonstrations which, as yet, he had been contented to hold in check.
The terror with which the priestly court of the Vatican received the
tidings of the utter destruction of the Austrian army, and of the
irresistible conqueror's march southwards, did not prevent the Papal
troops from making some efforts to defend the territories of the Holy
See. General Victor, with 4000 French and as many Lombards, advanced
upon the route of Imola. A Papal force, in numbers about equal, lay
encamped on the river Senio in front of that town. Monks with crucifixes
in their hands, ran through the lines, exciting them to fight bravely
for their country and their Faith. The French general, by a rapid
movement, threw his horse across the stream a league or two higher up,
and then charged with his infantry through the Senio in their front. The
resistance was brief. The Pope's army, composed mostly of new recruits,
retreated in confusion. Faenza was carried by the bayonet. Colli and
3000 more laid down their arms; and the strong town of Ancona was
occupied.[15] On the 10th of February the French entered Loretto, and
rifled that celebrated seat of superstition of whatever treasures it
still retained; the most valuable articles had already been packed up
and sent to Rome for safety.[16]--Victor then turned westwards from
Ancona, with the design to unite with another French column which had
advanced into the papal dominion by Perugia.

The panic which the French advance had by this time spread was such,
that the Pope had no hope but in submission. The peasants lately
transformed into soldiers abandoned everywhere their arms, and fled in
straggling groups to their native villages. The alarm in Rome itself
recalled the days of Alaric.

The conduct of Buonaparte at this critical moment was worthy of that
good sense which formed the original foundation of his successes, and of
which the madness of pampered ambition could alone deprive him
afterwards. He well knew that, of all the inhabitants of the Roman
territories, the class who contemplated his approach with the deepest
terror were the unfortunate French priests, whom the Revolution had made
exiles from their native soil. One of these unhappy gentlemen came forth
in his despair, and surrendering himself at the French headquarters,
said he knew his fate was sealed, and that they might as well lead him
at once to the gallows. Buonaparte dismissed this person with courtesy,
and issued a proclamation that none of the class should be molested; on
the contrary, allotting to each of them the means of existence in
monasteries, wherever his arms were or should be predominant.

This conduct, taken together with other circumstances of recent
occurrence, was well calculated to nourish in the breast of the Pope the
hope that the victorious general of France had, by this time, discarded
the ferocious hostility of the revolutionary government against the
church of which he was head. He hastened, however, to open a
negotiation, and Napoleon received his envoy not merely with civility,
but with professions of the profoundest personal reverence for the holy
father. The Treaty of Tollentino (Feb. 12, 1797) followed. By this the
Pope conceded formally (for the first time), his ancient territory of
Avignon. He resigned the legations of Ferrara, Bologna, and Romagna, and
the port of Ancona; agreed to pay about a million and a half sterling,
and to execute to the utmost the provisions of Bologna with respect to
works of art. On these terms Pius was to remain nominal master of some
shreds of the patrimony of St. Peter.

The French Directory heard with indignation that any semblance of
sovereignty was still left to an enemy whose weakness had been made so
manifest. But Buonaparte had now learned to act for himself. He knew
that any formal dethronement of the Pope would invest his cause with
tenfold strength wherever the Romish religion prevailed; that a new
spirit of aversion would arise against France; and that Naples would
infallibly profit by the first disturbances in the north of Italy, to
declare war, and march her large army from the south. He believed
also--and he ere long knew--that even yet Austria would make other
efforts to recover Lombardy; and was satisfied, on the whole, that he
should best secure his ultimate purposes by suffering the Vatican to
prolong, for some time further, the shadow of that sovereignty which had
in former ages trampled on kings and emperors.

[Footnote 11: Buonaparte, to replace all his losses in the two last
campaigns, had received only 7000 recruits.]

[Footnote 12: He found among them a wealthy old canon of his own name,
who was proud to hail the Corsican as a true descendant of the Tuscan
Buonapartes; who entertained him and his whole staff with much
splendour; amused the general with his anxiety that some interest should
be applied to the Pope, in order to procure the canonisation of a
certain long defunct worthy of the common lineage, by name Buonventara
Buonaparte; and dying shortly afterwards, bequeathed his whole fortune
to his new-found kinsman.]

[Footnote 13: Hence, in the sequel, Massena's title, "Duke of Rivoli."]

[Footnote 14: Such was the prevailing terror, that one body of 6000
under René surrendered to a French officer who had hardly 500 men with
him.]

[Footnote 15: The priests had an image of the Virgin Mary at this place,
which they exhibited to the people in the act of shedding tears, the
more to stimulate them against the impious Republicans. On entering the
place, the French were amused with discovering the machinery by which
this trick had been performed; the Madonna's tears were a string of
glass beads, flowing by clockwork within a shrine which the worshippers
were too respectful to approach very nearly. Little ormolu fountains,
which stream on the same principle, are now common ornaments for the
chimney-piece in Paris.]

[Footnote 16: The _Santa Casa_, or _holy house_ of Loretto, is a little
brick building, round which a magnificent church has been reared, and
which the Romish calendar states to have been the original
dwelling-house of the Virgin Mary in Nazareth, transported through the
air to Italy by miracle. This was for ages the chief resort of Romish
pilgrims, and the riches of the place were _once_ enormous.]




CHAPTER VIII

     Neutrality of Venice--The Archduke Charles--Battle of
     Tagliamento--Retreat of the Archduke--Treaty of Leoben--War with
     Venice--Venice conquered.


Napoleon was now master of all northern Italy, with the exception of the
territories of Venice, which antique government, though no longer
qualified to keep equal rank with the first princes of Europe, was still
proud and haughty, and not likely to omit any favourable opportunity of
aiding Austria in the great and common object of ridding Italy of the
French. Buonaparte heard without surprise that the Doge had been raising
new levies, and that the senate could command an army of 50,000,
composed chiefly of fierce and semi-barbarous Sclavonian mercenaries. He
demanded what these demonstrations meant, and was answered that Venice
had no desire but to maintain a perfect neutrality. Meantime there was
not wanting a strong party, throughout the Venetian territories of the
mainland, who were anxious to emulate the revolutionary movements of the
great cities of Lombardy, and to emancipate themselves from the yoke of
the Venetian oligarchy, as their neighbours had done by that of the
Austrian crown. Insurrections occurred at Bergamo, Brescia, and
elsewhere; and Buonaparte, though little disposed to give the
inhabitants of these places the boon they were in quest of, saw and
profited by the opportunity of dividing, by their means, the resources,
and shaking the confidence, of the senate. After some negotiation, he
told the Venetian envoy that he granted the prayer of his masters. "Be
neuter," said he, "but see that your neutrality be indeed sincere and
perfect. If any insurrection occur in my rear, to cut off my
communications in the event of my marching on Germany--if any movement
whatever betray the disposition of your senate to aid the enemies of
France, be sure that vengeance will follow--from that hour the
independence of Venice has ceased to be."

More than a month had now elapsed since Alvinzi's defeat at Rivoli; in
nine days the war with the Pope had reached its close; and, having left
some garrisons in the towns on the Adige, to watch the neutrality of
Venice, Napoleon hastened to carry the war into the hereditary dominions
of the Emperor. Twenty thousand fresh troops had recently joined his
victorious standard from France; and, at the head of perhaps a larger
force than he had ever before mustered, he proceeded to the frontier of
the Frioul, where, according to his information, the main army of
Austria, recruited once more to its original strength, was preparing to
open a sixth campaign--under the orders, not of Alvinzi, but of a
general young like himself, and hitherto eminently successful--the same
who had already by his combinations baffled two such masters in the art
of war as Jourdan and Moreau--the Archduke Charles; a prince on whose
high talents the last hopes of the empire seemed to repose.

To give the details of the sixth campaign, which now commenced, would be
to repeat the story which has been already five times told. The
Archduke, fettered by the Aulic Council of Vienna, saw himself compelled
to execute a plan which he had discrimination enough to condemn. The
Austrian army once more commenced operations on a double basis--one
great division on the Tyrolese frontier, and a greater under the
Archduke himself on the Friulese; and Napoleon--who had, even when
acting on the defensive, been able, by the vivacity of his movements, to
assume the superiority on whatever point he chose to select--was not
likely to strike his blows with less skill and vigour, now that his
numbers, and the acquiescence of Italy behind him, permitted him to
assume the offensive.

Buonaparte found the Archduke posted behind the river Tagliamento, in
front of the rugged Carinthian mountains, which guard the passage in
that quarter from Italy to Germany. Detaching Massena to the Piave,
where the Austrian division of Lusignan were in observation, he himself
determined to charge the Archduke in front. Massena was successful in
driving Lusignan before him as far as Belluno, (where a rear guard of
500 surrendered,) and thus turned the Austrian flank. Buonaparte then
attempted and effected the passage of the Tagliamento. After a great and
formal display of his forces, which was met by similar demonstrations
on the Austrian side of the river, he suddenly broke up his line and
retreated. The Archduke, knowing that the French had been marching all
the night before, concluded that the general wished to defer the battle
till another day; and in like manner withdrew to his camp. About two
hours after Napoleon rushed with his whole army, who had merely lain
down in ranks, upon the margin of the Tagliamento, no longer adequately
guarded--and had forded the stream ere the Austrian line of battle could
be formed. In the action which followed (March 12) the troops of the
Archduke displayed much gallantry, but every effort to dislodge Napoleon
failed; at length retreat was judged necessary. The French followed hard
behind. They stormed Gradisca, where they made 5000 prisoners; and--the
Archduke pursuing his retreat--occupied in the course of a few days
Trieste, Fiume, and every stronghold in Carinthia. In the course of a
campaign of twenty days, the Austrians fought Buonaparte ten times, but
the overthrow on the Tagliamento was never recovered; and the Archduke,
after defending Styria inch by inch as he had Carinthia, at length
adopted the resolution of reaching Vienna by forced marches, there to
gather round him whatever force the loyalty of his nation could muster,
and make a last stand beneath the walls of the capital.

This plan, at first sight the mere dictate of despair, was in truth that
of a wise and prudent general. The Archduke had received intelligence
from two quarters of events highly unfavourable to the French. General
Laudon, the Austrian commander on the Tyrol frontier, had descended
thence with forces sufficient to overwhelm Buonaparte's lieutenants on
the upper Adige, and was already in possession of the whole Tyrol, and
of several of the Lombard towns. Meanwhile the Venetian Senate, on
hearing of these Austrian successes, had plucked up courage to throw
aside their flimsy neutrality, and not only declared war against France,
but encouraged their partizans in Verona to open the contest with an
inhuman massacre of the French wounded in the hospitals of that city.
The vindictive Italians, wherever the French party was inferior in
numbers, resorted to similar atrocities. The few troops left in Lombardy
by Napoleon were obliged to shut themselves up in garrisons, which the
insurgent inhabitants of the neighbouring districts invested. The
Venetian army passed the frontier; and, in effect, Buonaparte's means
of deriving supplies of any kind from his rear were for the time wholly
cut off. It was not wonderful that the Archduke should, under such
circumstances, anticipate great advantage from enticing the French army
into the heart of Austria; where, divided by many wide provinces and
mighty mountains and rivers from France, and with Italy once more in
arms behind them, they should have to abide the encounter of an imperial
army, animated by all the best motives that can lend vigour to the arm
of man; fighting for their own hearths under the eyes of their own
sovereign; seconded everywhere by the loyalty of the peasants; and well
convinced that, if they could compel their enemy to a retreat, his total
ruin must be the consequence.

The terror of the Aulic Council stepped in to prevent the Archduke from
reaping either the credit or the disgrace of this movement. Vienna was
panic-struck on hearing that Buonaparte had stormed the passes of the
Julian Alps; the imperial family sent their treasure into Hungary; the
middle ranks, whose interest is always peace, became clamorous for some
termination to a war, which during six years had been so unfortunate;
and the Archduke was ordered to avail himself of the first pretence
which circumstances might afford for the opening of a negotiation.

That prince had already, acting on his own judgment and feelings,
dismissed such an occasion with civility and with coldness. Napoleon had
addressed a letter to his Imperial Highness from Clagenfurt, in which he
called on him, as a brother soldier, to consider the certain miseries
and the doubtful successes of war, and put an end to the campaign by a
fair and equitable treaty. The Archduke replied, that he regarded with
the highest esteem the personal character of his correspondent, but that
the Austrian government had committed to his trust the guidance of a
particular army, not the diplomatic business of the empire. The prince,
on receiving these new instructions from Vienna, perceived, however
reluctantly, that the line of his duty was altered; and the result was a
series of negotiations--which ended in the provisional treaty of Leoben,
signed April 18, 1797.

It was here, at Leoben, that Buonaparte's schoolfellow, De Bourienne,
who had been summoned to act as secretary to the general, reached
headquarters. He found his old comrade (whom he had not met with since
the days of his envying small houses and cabriolets in Paris) in the
midst of a splendid staff. "So thou art come at last," cried Napoleon,
in the ancient tone of familiarity; but De Bourienne knew the world, and
greeted the general of the army of Italy with profound and distant
respect. When the company were gone, Buonaparte signified that he
understood and approved this change of demeanour.

But to resume--no sooner was the negotiation in a fair train, than
Napoleon, abandoning for the moment the details of its management to
inferior diplomatists, hastened to retrace his steps, and pour the full
storm of his wrath on the Venetians. The Doge and the Senate, whose only
hopes had rested on the successes of Austria on the Adige, heard with
utter despair that the Archduke had shared the fate of Beaulieu, of
Wurmser, and of Alvinzi, and that the preliminaries of peace were
actually signed. The rapidity of Buonaparte's return gave them no
breathing-time. They hastened to send offers of submission, and their
messengers were received with anger and contempt. "French blood has been
treacherously shed," said Napoleon; "if you could offer me the treasures
of Peru, if you could cover your whole dominion with gold--the atonement
would be insufficient--the lion of St. Mark[17] must lick the dust."
These tidings came like a sentence of death upon the devoted Senate.
Their deliberations were unceasing; their schemes innumerable; their
hearts divided and unnerved. Those secret chambers, from which that
haughty oligarchy had for so many ages excluded every eye and every
voice but their own, were invaded with impunity by strange-faced men,
who boldly criticised their measures, and heaped new terrors on their
heads, by announcing that the mass of the people had ceased to consider
the endurance of their sway as synonymous with the prosperity of Venice.
Popular tumults filled the streets and canals; universal confusion
prevailed. The commanders of their troops and fleets received
contradictory orders, and the city which

    "--had held the gorgeous East in fee,"

seemed ready to yield everything to a ruthless and implacable enemy,
without even striking a blow in defence.

Buonaparte appeared, while the confusion was at its height, on the
opposite coast of the Lagoon. Some of his troops were already in the
heart of the city, when (31st May) a hasty message reached him,
announcing that the Senate submitted wholly. He exacted severe revenge.
The leaders who had aided the Lombard insurgents were delivered to him.
The oligarchy ceased to rule, and a democratical government was formed,
provisionally, on the model of France. Venice consented to surrender to
the victor large territories on the mainland of Italy; five ships of
war; 3,000,000 francs in gold, and as many more in naval stores; twenty
of the best pictures, and 500 manuscripts. Lastly, the troops of the
conqueror were to occupy the capital until tranquillity was established.
It will be seen in what that tranquillity was destined to consist.

Such was the humiliation of this once proud and energetic, but now
worn-out and enfeebled, oligarchy: so incapable was that hoary polity of
contending with the youthful vigour of Napoleon.

[Footnote 17: The armorial bearing of Venice.]




CHAPTER IX

     Pichegru--The Directory appeal to Buonaparte--The 18th
     Fructidor--The Court of Montebello--Josephine--The Treaty of
     Campo-Formio--Buonaparte leaves Italy.


In their last agony the Venetian Senate made a vain effort to secure the
personal protection of the general, by offering him a purse of seven
millions of francs. He rejected this with scorn. He had already treated
in the same style a bribe of four millions, tendered on the part of the
Duke of Modena. The friend employed to conduct the business reminded him
of the proverbial ingratitude of all popular governments, and of the
little attention which the Directory had hitherto paid to his personal
interests. "That is all true enough," said Napoleon, "but for four
millions I will not place myself in the power of this duke." Austria
herself, it is said, did not hesitate to tamper in the same manner,
though far more magnificently, as became her resources, with his
republican virtue. He was offered, if the story be true, an independent
German principality for himself and his heirs. "I thank the emperor," he
answered, "but if greatness is to be mine, it shall come from France."

The Venetian Senate were guilty, in their mortal struggle, of another
and a more inexcusable piece of meanness. They seized the person of
Count D'Entraigues, a French emigrant, who had been living in their city
as agent for the exiled house of Bourbon; and surrendered him and all
his papers to the victorious general. Buonaparte discovered among these
documents ample evidence that Pichegru, the French general on the Rhine,
and universally honoured as the conqueror of Holland, had some time
before this hearkened to the proposals of the Bourbon princes, and,
among other efforts in favour of the royal cause, not hesitated even to
misconduct his military movements with a view to the downfall of the
government which had entrusted him with his command.

This was a secret, the importance of which Napoleon could well
appreciate;[18] and he forthwith communicated it to the Directory at
Paris.

The events of the last twelve months in France had made Pichegru a
person of still higher importance than when he commenced his intrigues
with the Bourbons as general on the Rhine. Some obscure doubts of his
fidelity, or the usual policy of the Directory, which rendered them
averse (wherever they could help it) to continue any one general very
long at the head of one army, had induced them to displace Pichegru, and
appoint Hoche, a tried republican, in his room. Pichegru, on returning
to France, became a member of the Council of Five Hundred, and (the
royalist party having at this season recovered all but a preponderance)
was, on the meeting of the chambers, called to the chair of that in
which he had his place.

The Five Directors had in truth done everything to undermine their own
authority. They were known to be divided in opinion among themselves;
three only of their number adhered heartily to the existing
constitution: one was a royalist: another was a democrat of the
Robespierre school. One of these new and uncourtly men excited laughter
by affecting a princely state and splendour of demeanour and equipage.
Another disgusted one set of minds, and annoyed all the rest, by
procuring a law for the observation of the tenth day as the day of
repose, and declaring it a crime to shut up shops on the Sabbath. A
ridiculous ritual of an avowedly heathen worship followed, and was
received with partial horror, universal contempt. A tyrannical law about
the equalisation of weights and measures spread confusion through all
mercantile transactions, and was especially unpopular in the provinces.
A contemptible riot, set on foot by one who called himself Gracchus
Barbœuf, for the purpose of bringing back the reign of _terrorism_ was
indeed suppressed; but the mere occurrence of such an attempt recalled
too vividly the days of Robespierre, and by so doing tended to
strengthen the cause of the royalists in public opinion. The truth is,
that a vast number of the emigrants had found their way back again to
Paris after the downfall of Robespierre, and that the old sway of
elegant manners and enlightened saloons was once more re-establishing
itself where it had so long been supreme. The royalist club of Clichy
corresponded with the exiled princes, and with the imperial government,
and was gaining such influence as to fill Buonaparte himself with alarm.
Everything indicated that the Directory (the _five majesties_ of the
Luxembourg, as they were called in derision) held their thrones by a
very uncertain tenure; and those gentlemen, nothing being left them but
a choice among evils, were fain to throw themselves on the protection of
the armies which they dreaded, and of Hoche and Buonaparte--which last
name in particular had long filled them with jealousy proportioned to
its splendour and popularity.

Napoleon's recent conduct, in more important points than one, had
excited powerfully the resentment of the Directory, which now appealed
to him for aid. He had taken upon himself the whole responsibility of
the preliminary treaty of Leoben, although the French government had
sent General Clarke into Italy for the express purpose of controlling
him, and acting as his equal at least in the negotiation. A clause in
that treaty, by which Mantua, the strongest fortress in Italy, was to be
surrendered back to Austria, had been judged necessary at the time by
the general, in order to obtain from the emperor the boundary of the
Rhine and the cession of Belgium. But the Directory thought the
conqueror underrated the advantages of his own position and theirs in
consenting to it, and but for Carnot would never have ratified it.[19]
At the other side of the Italian Peninsula, again, the victorious
general, immediately after the fall of Venice, had to superintend the
revolution of Genoa; in which great city also the democratic party
availed themselves of the temper and events of the time, to emancipate
themselves from their hereditary oligarchy. They would fain have
excluded the nobility from all share in the remodelled government; and
Napoleon rebuked and discountenanced this attempt in terms little likely
to be heard with approbation by the "_Sires_ of the Luxembourg." He told
the Genoese, that to exclude the nobles was in itself as unjust as
unwise, and that they ought to be grateful for the means of
re-organising their constitution, without passing _like France_ through
the terrible ordeal of a revolution. The rulers of France might be
excused for asking at this moment--Does the lecturer of the Ligurian
Republic mean to be our Washington, our Monk, or our Cromwell?

He, however, received with alacrity the call of the trembling Directory.
He harangued his soldiery, and made himself secure of their readiness to
act as he might choose for them. He not only offered large pecuniary
supplies, and sent his lieutenant Augereau to Paris to command the
National Guard for the government, should they find it necessary to
appeal immediately to force, but announced that he was himself prepared
to "pass the Rubicon," (an ominous phrase) and march to their
assistance, with 15,000 of his best troops.

The Directory, meanwhile, had in their extremity ventured to disregard
the law against drawing regular troops within a certain distance of the
capital, and summoned Hoche to bring a corps of his Rhenish army for
their instant protection.

It was by this means that the new revolution, as it may be called, of
the 18th Fructidor was effected. On that day, (Sept. 4, 1797,) the
majority of the Directory, marching their army into Paris, dethroned
their two opposition colleagues. Pichegru and the other royalists of
note in the assemblies, to the number of more than 150, were arrested
and sent into exile. The government, for the moment, recovered the
semblance of security; and Buonaparte heard, with little satisfaction,
that they had been able to accomplish their immediate object without the
intervention of his personal appearance on the scene. He remonstrated,
moreover, against the manner in which they had followed up their
success. According to him, they ought to have executed Pichegru and a
few ring-leaders, and set an example of moderation, by sparing all those
whose royalism admitted of any doubt, or, if it was manifest, was of
secondary importance. It would have been hard for the Directory at this
time to have pleased Buonaparte, or for Buonaparte to have entirely
satisfied them; but neither party made the effort.

The fall of Venice, however, gave Napoleon the means, which he was not
disposed to neglect, of bringing his treaty with Austria to a more
satisfactory conclusion than had been indicated in the preliminaries of
Leoben.

After settling the affairs of Venice, and establishing the new Ligurian
Republic, the general took up his residence at the noble castle of
Montebello, near Milan. Here his wife, who, though they had been married
in March, 1796, was still a bride, and with whom, during the intervening
eventful months, he had kept up a correspondence full of the fervour, if
not of the delicacy of love,[20] had at length rejoined him. Josephine's
manners were worthy, by universal admission, of the highest rank; and
the elegance with which she did the honours of the castle, filled the
ministers and princes, who were continually to be seen in its precincts,
with admiration. While Napoleon conducted his negotiations with as much
firmness and decision as had marked him in the field, it was her care
that nature and art should lend all their graces to what the Italians
soon learnt to call _the Court_ of Montebello. Whatever talent Milan
contained, was pressed into her service. Music and dance, and festival
upon festival, seemed to occupy every hour. The beautiful lakes of
Lombardy were covered with gay flotillas; and the voluptuous retreats
around their shores received in succession new life and splendour from
the presence of Napoleon, Josephine, and the brilliant circle amidst
whom they were rehearsing the imperial parts that destiny had in reserve
for them. Montebello was the centre from which Buonaparte, during the
greater part of this autumn, negotiated with the emperor, controlled all
Italy, and overawed the Luxembourg.

The final settlement with the emperor's commissioners would have taken
place shortly after the fall of Venice, but for the successful intrigues
of the royalist Clichyens, the universal belief that the government of
France approached some new crisis, and the Austrians' hope that from
such an event their negotiation might derive considerable advantages.
Buonaparte well knew the secret motive which induced Cobentzel, the
emperor's chief envoy, to protract and multiply discussions of which he
by this time was weary. One day, in this ambassador's own chamber,
Napoleon suddenly changed his demeanour; "you refuse to accept our
ultimatum," said he, taking in his hands a beautiful vase of porcelain,
which stood on the mantelpiece near him. The Austrian bowed. "It is
well," said Napoleon, "but mark me--within two months I will shatter
Austria like this potsherd." So saying, he dashed the vase on the ground
in a thousand pieces, and moved towards the door. Cobentzel followed
him, and made submissions which induced him once more to resume his
negotiations.

The result was the treaty of Campo-Formio, so-called from the village at
which it was signed, on the 3d of October, 1797. By this act the emperor
yielded to France, Flanders and the boundary of the Rhine, including the
great fortress of Mentz. The various new republics of Lombardy were
united and recognised under the general name of the Cisalpine Republic.
To indemnify Austria for the loss of those territories, the fall of
Venice afforded new means--of which Napoleon did not hesitate to
propose, nor Austria to accept the use. The French general had indeed
conquered Venice, but he had entered into a treaty subsequently, and
recognised a wholly new government in place of the oligarchy. The
emperor, on the other hand, well knew that the Doge and Senate had
incurred ruin by rising to his own aid. Such considerations weighed
little on either side. France and Austria agreed to effect a division of
the whole territories of the ancient republic. Venice herself, and her
Italian provinces, were handed over to the emperor in lieu of his lost
Lombardy; and the French assumed the sovereignty of the Ionian islands
and Dalmatia. This unprincipled proceeding excited universal disgust
throughout Europe. It showed the sincerity of Buonaparte's love for the
cause of freedom; and it satisfied all the world of the excellent title
of the imperial court to complain of the selfishness and rapacity of the
French democracy.

The emperor set his seal at Campo-Formio to another of Buonaparte's acts
of dictatorship, which, though in one point of view even more
unjustifiable than this, was not regarded by the world with feelings of
the same order. The Italian territory of the Valteline had for ages been
subject to the Grison League. The inhabitants, roused by the prevailing
spirit all around them, demanded Napoleon's intercession with their
Swiss masters, to procure their admission to all the political
privileges of the other cantons. They refused; and Napoleon, in the
plenitude of his authority, immediately supported the Valteline in
throwing off the Grison yoke, and asserting its utter independence. This
territory was now annexed to the Cisalpine Republic. A government, with
which France was on terms of alliance and amity, was thus robbed of its
richest possession; but the Valteline belonged by natural position,
religion, and language, to Italy, and its annexation to the new Italian
republic was regarded as in itself just and proper, however questionable
Buonaparte's title to effect that event. He himself said at the time,
"It is contrary to the rights of man that any one people should be
subject to another;" a canon on which his after history formed a lucid
commentary.

In concluding, and in celebrating the conclusion of his treaty,
Napoleon's proud and fiery temperament twice shone out. Cobentzel had
set down as the first article, "The Emperor recognises the French
Republic." "Efface that," said Napoleon, sternly, "it is as clear as
that the sun is in heaven. Woe to them that cannot distinguish the light
of either!" At the TE DEUM after the proclamation of the peace,
the imperial envoy would have taken the place prepared for Buonaparte,
which was the most eminent in the church. The haughty soldier seized his
arm and drew him back. "Had your master himself been here," said he, "I
should not have forgotten that in my person the dignity of France is
represented."

Various minor arrangements remained to be considered; and a congress of
all the German powers being summoned to meet for that purpose at
Rastadt, Napoleon received the orders of the Directory to appear there,
and perfect his work in the character of ambassador of France. He took
an affecting leave of his soldiery, published a temperate and manly
address to the Cisalpine Republic, and proceeded, by way of Switzerland,
(where, in spite of the affair of the Valteline, he was received with
enthusiasm,) to the execution of his duty. He carried with him the
unbounded love and devotion of one of the finest armies that ever the
world had seen; and the attachment, hardly less energetic, of all those
classes of society throughout Italy, who flattered themselves with the
hope that the Cisalpine Republic, the creature of his hands, would in
time prepare the way for, and ultimately merge in a republican
constitution common to the whole Italian people. With what hopes or
fears as to his future fortunes he abandoned the scene and the
companions of his glory, the reader must form his own opinion.

[Footnote 18: Moreau knew it some months sooner, and said so _after_
Napoleon had communicated it to the Directory. This is a suspicious
circumstance when considered along with the sequel of Moreau's history.]

[Footnote 19: Mantua, as will appear hereafter, was saved to France
under Napoleon's final treaty with Austria; but the events which
rendered this possible were as yet unknown and unexpected.]

[Footnote 20: It would be painful to show, as might easily be done, from
this correspondence, the original want of delicacy in Napoleon's mind.
Many of his letters are such as no English gentleman would address to a
_mistress_. In others, the language is worthy of a hero's passion.
"Wurmser," says he, "shall pay dearly for the tears he causes you to
shed."]




CHAPTER X

     Napoleon at Rastadt--He arrives in Paris--His reception by the
     Directory--His Conduct and Manners--He is appointed to command the
     Army for the Invasion of England--He recommends an Expedition to
     Egypt--Reaches Toulon--Embarks.


Napoleon was received by the ministers assembled at Rastadt with the
respect due to the extraordinary talents which he had already displayed
in negotiation as well as in war. But he stayed among them only two or
three days, for he perceived that the multiplicity of minor arrangements
to be discussed and settled, must, if he seriously entered upon them,
involve the necessity of a long-protracted residence at Rastadt; and he
had many reasons for desiring to be quickly in Paris. His personal
relations with the Directory were of a very doubtful kind, and he
earnestly wished to study with his own eyes the position in which the
government stood towards the various orders of society in the
all-influential capital. He abandoned the conduct of the diplomatic
business to his colleagues, and reached Paris at the beginning of
December. Nor was he without a feasible pretext for this rapidity. On
the 2nd of October, the Directory had announced to the French people
their purpose to carry the war with the English into England itself; the
immediate organisation of a great invading army; and their design to
place it under the command of "Citizen General Buonaparte."

During his brief stay at Rastadt the dictator of Campo-Formio once more
broke out. The Swedish envoy was Count Fersen, the same nobleman who had
distinguished himself in Paris, during the early period of the
Revolution, by his devotion to King Louis and Marie-Antoinette.
Buonaparte refused peremptorily to enter into any negotiation in which a
man, so well known for his hostility to the cause of the Republic,
should have any part; and Fersen instantly withdrew.

On quitting this congress Napoleon was careful to resume, in every
particular, the appearance of a private citizen. Reaching Paris, he
took up his residence in the same small modest house that he had
occupied before he set out for Italy, in the _Rue Chantereine_, which,
about this time, in compliment to its illustrious inhabitant, received
from the municipality the new name of _Rue de la Victoire_. Here he
resumed with his plain clothes his favourite studies and pursuits, and,
apparently contented with the society of his private friends, seemed to
avoid, as carefully as others in his situation might have courted, the
honours of popular distinction and applause. It was not immediately
known that he was in Paris, and when he walked the streets his person
was rarely recognised by the multitude. His mode of life was necessarily
somewhat different from what it had been when he was both poor and
obscure; his society was courted in the highest circles, and he from
time to time appeared in them, and received company at home with the
elegance of hospitality over which Josephine was so well qualified to
preside. But policy as well as pride moved him to shun notoriety. Before
he could act again, he had much to observe; and he knew himself too well
to be flattered by the stare either of mobs or of saloons. "They have
memories for nothing here"--he said at this time to his secretary--"if I
remain long without doing anything, I am done. Fame chases fame in this
great Babylon. If they had seen me three times at the spectacle, they
would no longer look at me." Another day Bourienne could not help
congratulating him on some noisy demonstration of popular favour. "Bah!"
he answered, "they would rush as eagerly about me if I were on my way to
the scaffold."

In his intercourse with society at this period, he was, for the most
part, remarkable for the cold reserve of his manners. He had the
appearance of one too much occupied with serious designs, to be able to
relax at will into the easy play of ordinary conversation. If his eye
was on every man, he well knew that every man's eye was upon him; nor,
perhaps, could he have chosen a better method (had that been his sole
object) for prolonging and strengthening the impression his greatness
was calculated to create, than this very exhibition of indifference. He
did not suffer his person to be familiarised out of reverence. When he
did appear, it was not the ball or _bon mot_ of the evening before, that
he recalled:--he was still, wherever he went, the Buonaparte of Lodi,
and Arcola, and Rivoli. His military bluntness disdained to disguise
itself amidst those circles where a meaner _parvenu_ would have been
most ambitious to shine. The celebrated daughter of Necker made many
efforts to catch his fancy and enlist him among the votaries of her wit,
which then gave law in Paris. "Whom," said she, half wearied with his
chillness, "do you consider as the greatest of women?" "Her, madam," he
answered, "who has borne the greatest number of children." From this
hour he had Madame de Staël for his enemy; and yet, such are the
inconsistencies of human nature, no man was more sensitive than he to
the assaults of a species of enemy whom he thus scorned to conciliate.
Throughout his Italian campaigns--as consul--as emperor--and down to the
last hour of the exile which terminated his life--Buonaparte suffered
himself to be annoyed by sarcasms and pamphlets as keenly and constantly
as if he had been a poetaster.

The haughtiness, for such it was considered, of his behaviour in the
society of the capital, was of a piece with what he had already
manifested in the camp. In the course of his first campaigns, his
officers, even of the highest rank, became sensible, by degrees, to a
total change of demeanour. An old acquaintance of the Toulon period,
joining the army, was about to throw himself into the general's arms
with the warmth of the former familiarity. Napoleon's cold eye checked
him; and he perceived in a moment how he had altered with his elevation.
He had always, on the other hand, affected much familiarity with the
common soldiery. He disdained not on occasion to share the ration or to
taste the flask of a sentinel; and the French private, often as
intelligent as those whom fortune has placed above him, used to address
the great general with even more frankness than his own captain.
Napoleon, in one of his Italian despatches, mentions to the Directory
the pleasure which he often derived from the conversation of the men:
"But yesterday," says he, "a common trooper addressed me as I was
riding, and told me he thought he could suggest the movement which ought
to be adopted. I listened to him, and heard him detail some operations
on which I had actually resolved but a little before." It has been
noticed (perhaps by over-nice speculators) as a part of the same
system, that Napoleon, on his return to Paris, continued to employ the
same tradespeople, however inferior in their several crafts, who had
served him in the days of his obscurity.[21]

If we may follow M. de Bourienne, Napoleon at this time laboured under
intense anxiety of mind. Conscious of the daring heights to which he had
ere now accustomed his ambitious imagination, he was fearful that others
had divined his secret, and was haunted with the perpetual dread that
some accident might unite Royalists and Republicans in the work of his
personal ruin.

The first public appearance of Buonaparte occurred (January 2, 1798)
when the treaty of Campo-Formio was to be formally presented to the
Directory. The great court of the Luxembourg was roofed over with flags;
an immense concourse, including all the members of the government and of
the two legislative bodies, expected the victorious negotiator; and when
he appeared, followed by his staff, and surrounded on all hands with the
trophies of his glorious campaign, the enthusiasm of the mighty
multitude, to the far greater part of which his person was, up to the
moment, entirely unknown, outleaped all bounds, and filled the already
jealous hearts of the directors with dark presentiments. They well knew
that the soldiery, returning from Italy, had sung and said through every
village that it was high time to get rid of the lawyers, and make the
"little corporal" king. With uneasy hearts did they hear what seemed too
like an echo of this cry, from the assembled leaders of opinion in Paris
and in France. Anxious curiosity and mutual distrust were written in
every face. The voice of Napoleon was for the first time heard in an
energetic speech, ascribing all the glories that had been achieved to
the zeal of the French soldiery--for "the glorious constitution of the
year THREE"--the same glorious constitution which, in the year _eight_,
was to receive the _coup de grace_ from his own hand; and Barras, as
presiding director, answering, that "Nature had exhausted all her powers
in the creation of a Buonaparte," awoke a new thunder of unwelcome
applauses.

Carnot had been exiled after the 18th Fructidor, and was at this time
actually believed to be dead. The institute nominated Buonaparte to fill
his place; and he was received by this learned body with enthusiasm not
inferior to that of the Luxembourg. He thenceforth adopted, on all
public occasions, the costume of this academy; and, laying aside as far
as was possible, the insignia of his military rank, seemed to desire
only the distinction of being classed with those whose scientific
attainments had done honour to their country. In all this he acted on
calculation. "I well knew," said he at St. Helena, "that there was not a
drummer in the army, but would respect me the more for believing me to
be not a mere soldier."

Some time before he left Italy, a motion had been made in one of the
chambers for rewarding him with a grant of the estate of Chambord, and
lost owing solely to the jealousy of the Directory. This opposition was
on their part unjust and unwise, and extremely unpopular also; for it
was known to all men that the general might easily have enriched himself
during his wonderful campaigns, and it was almost as generally believed
that he had brought with him to the _Rue de la Victoire_ only 100,000
crowns, saved from the fair allowances of his rank. No one who considers
the long series of intrigues which had passed between Buonaparte and the
party that triumphed in Fructidor, can doubt how he regarded this part
of their conduct. Every day confirmed them in their jealousy; nor did he
take much pains on the other hand to conceal his feelings towards them.
On many occasions they were willing to make use of him, although they
dreaded in so doing to furnish him with new proofs of the vast
superiority which he had reached in public opinion above themselves; and
he was, on his part, chary of acceding to any of their proposals.

On the 21st of January, the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI. was
to be celebrated, according to custom, as a great festival of the
Republican calendar; and, conscious how distasteful the observance had
by this time become to all persons capable of reflection, the government
would fain have diverted attention from themselves, by assigning a
prominent part in the ceremonial to him, on whom, as they knew, all eyes
were sure to be fixed whenever he made his appearance. Napoleon
penetrated their motives. He remonstrated against the ceremony
altogether, as perpetuating the memory of a deed, perhaps unavoidable,
but not the less to be regretted. He told them that it was unworthy of a
great Republic to triumph, year after year, in the shedding of an
individual enemy's blood. They answered by reminding him that the
Athenians and Romans of old recorded, in similar festivals, the downfall
of the Pisistratidæ and the exile of the Tarquins. He _might_ have
replied, that it is easier for a nation to renounce Christianity in
name, than to obliterate altogether the traces of its humanising
influence. But this view did not as yet occur to Napoleon--or if it had,
could not have been promulgated to their conviction. He stood on the
impolicy of the barbarous ceremony; and was at length, with difficulty,
persuaded to appear in it as a private member of the institute, along
with the rest of that association. His refusal to be there as the great
general of the Republic annoyed the timid Directory; and yet, on his
being recognised in his civic dress, and pointed out to new myriads of
observers, the effect which the government had desired to produce was
brought about in spite of all Buonaparte's reluctance. The purpose of
the assemblage was almost forgotten: the clamours of the people
converted it into another fête for Napoleon.

It has already been said that as early as October, 1797, the Directory
announced their intention of committing an army, destined for the
invasion of England, to the conqueror of Italy. He wholly disapproved of
their rashness in breaking off the negotiations of the preceding summer
with the English envoy, Lord Malmesbury, and, above all, of the insolent
abruptness of that procedure.[22] But the die was cast; and he willingly
accepted the appointment now pressed upon him by the government, who, in
truth, were anxious about nothing so much as to occupy his mind with the
matters of his profession, and so prevent him from taking a prominent
part in the civil business of the state. Solely owing to his celebrity
two of his brothers were already distinguished members of the
legislative bodies; and there could be no doubt that the gates of either
would fly open for his own admission, if he chose it, on the next
election.

Whatever views of ulterior ambition might have opened themselves to
Napoleon at this period, he well knew that the hour was not yet come, in
which he could serve his purpose better than by the pursuit of his
military career. According to De Bourienne, he had for some time
flattered himself that the law, which prevented a person so young as he
from being a director, might be waived in his favour; not doubting, we
may conclude, that such colleagues as Barras and Rewbell would soon sink
into the mere ministers of his will: but the opposition to this scheme
was so determined that it was never permitted to be proposed openly. The
Directory were popular with no party; but there were many parties; and,
numerically, probably the royalists were the strongest. The pure
republicans were still powerful: the army of Italy was distant and
scattered; that of the Rhine, far more numerous, and equally well
disciplined, had its own generals--men not yet in reputation
immeasurably inferior to himself; and, having been less fortunate than
their brethren in Italy, and consequently acquired less wealth, it was
no wonder that the soldiery of the Rhine regarded the others, if not
their leader, with some little jealousy. In Napoleon's own language,
"the pear was not yet ripe."

He proceeded, therefore, to make a regular survey of the French coast
opposite to England, with the view of improving its fortifications, and
(ostensibly at least) of selecting the best points for embarking an
invading force. For this service he was eminently qualified; and many
local improvements of great importance, long afterwards effected, were
first suggested by him at this period. But, if he had really thought
otherwise beforehand (which M. de Bourienne denies), the result of his
examination was a perfect conviction that the time was not yet come for
invading England. He perceived that extensive and tedious preparations
were indispensable ere the French shipping on that coast could be put
into a condition for such an attempt; and the burst of loyalty which
the threat of invasion called forth in every part of Britain--the
devotion with which all classes of the people answered the appeal of the
government--the immense extent to which the regular and volunteer forces
were increased everywhere--these circumstances produced a strong
impression on his not less calculating than enterprising mind. He had
himself, in the course of the preceding autumn, suggested to the
minister for foreign affairs, the celebrated Talleyrand, the propriety
of making an effort against England in another quarter of the world:--of
seizing Malta, proceeding to occupy Egypt, and therein gaining at once a
territory capable of supplying to France the loss of her West Indian
colonies, and the means of annoying Great Britain in her Indian trade
and empire. To this scheme he now recurred: the East presented a field
of conquest and glory on which his imagination delighted to brood:
"Europe," said he, "is but a molehill, all the great glories have come
from Asia." The injustice of attacking the dominions of the Grand
Seignior, an old ally of France, formed but a trivial obstacle in the
eyes of the Directory: the professional opinion of Buonaparte that the
invasion of England, if attempted then, must fail, could not but carry
its due weight: the temptation of plundering Egypt and India was great;
and great, perhaps above all the rest, was the temptation of finding
employment for Napoleon at a distance from France. The Egyptian
expedition was determined on: but kept strictly secret. The attention of
England was still riveted on the coasts of Normandy and Picardy, between
which and Paris Buonaparte studiously divided his presence--while it was
on the borders of the Mediterranean that the ships and the troops really
destined for action were assembling.

Buonaparte, having rifled to such purpose the cabinets and galleries of
the Italian princes, was resolved not to lose the opportunity of
appropriating some of the rich antiquarian treasures of Egypt; nor was
it likely that he should undervalue the opportunities which his
expedition might afford, of extending the boundaries of science, by
careful observation of natural phenomena. He drew together therefore a
body of eminent artists and connoisseurs, under the direction of
_Monge_, who had managed his Italian collections: it was perhaps the
first time that a troop of _Savans_ (there were 100 of them) formed
part of the staff of an invading army.[23]

The various squadrons of the French fleet were now assembled at Toulon;
and everything seemed to be in readiness. Yet some time elapsed before
Napoleon joined the armament: and it is said by _Miot_ that he did all
he could to defer joining it as long as possible, in consequence of
certain obscure hopes which he had entertained of striking a blow at the
existing government, and remodelling it, to his own advantage, with the
assent, if not assistance, of Austria. This author adds that Barras,
having intercepted a letter of Buonaparte to Cobentzel, went to him late
one evening, and commanded him to join the fleet instantly, on pain of
being denounced as the enemy of the government; that the general ordered
his horses the same hour, and was on his way to Toulon ere midnight.
These circumstances may or may not be truly given. It is not doubtful
that the command of the Egyptian expedition was ultimately regarded,
both by Napoleon and the Directory, as a species of honourable
banishment. On reaching Toulon, Buonaparte called his army together, and
harangued them. "Rome," he said, "combated Carthage by sea as well as
land; and England was the Carthage of France.--He was come to lead them,
in the name of the Goddess of Liberty, across mighty seas, and into
remote regions, where their valour might achieve such glory and such
wealth as could never be looked for beneath the cold heavens of the
west. The meanest of his soldiers should receive seven acres of
land;"--_where_ he mentioned not. His promises had not hitherto been
vain. The soldiery heard him with joy, and prepared to obey with
alacrity.

The English government, meanwhile, although they had no suspicion of the
real destination of the armament, had not failed to observe what was
passing in Toulon. They probably believed that the ships there assembled
were meant to take part in the great scheme of the invasion of England.
However this might have been, they had sent a considerable reinforcement
to Nelson, who then commanded on the Mediterranean station; and he, at
the moment when Buonaparte reached Toulon, was cruising within sight of
the port. Napoleon well knew that to embark in the presence of Nelson
would be to rush into the jaws of ruin; and waited until some accident
should relieve him from his terrible watcher. On the evening of the 19th
of May fortune favoured him. A violent gale drove the English off the
coast, and disabled some ships so much that Nelson was obliged to go
into the harbours of Sardinia to have them repaired. The French general
instantly commanded the embarkation of all his troops; and as the last
of them got on board, the sun rose on the mighty armament: it was one of
those dazzling suns which the soldiery delighted afterwards to call "the
suns of Napoleon."

Seldom have the shores of the Mediterranean witnessed a nobler
spectacle. That unclouded sun rose on a semicircle of vessels, extending
in all to not less than six leagues: thirteen ships of the line and
fourteen frigates (under the command of Admiral Brueyes); and 400
transports. They carried 40,000 picked soldiers, and officers whose
names were only inferior to that of the general-in-chief;--of the men,
as well as of their leaders, the far greater part already accustomed to
follow Napoleon, and to consider his presence as the pledge of victory.

[Footnote 21: A silversmith, who had given him credit when he set out to
Italy for a dressing-case worth £50, was rewarded with all the business
which the recommendation of his now illustrious debtor could bring to
him; and, being clever in his trade, became ultimately, under the
patronage of the imperial household, one of the wealthiest citizens of
Paris. A little hatter, and a cobbler, who had served Buonaparte when a
subaltern, might have risen in the same manner, had their skill equalled
the silversmith's. Not even Napoleon's example could persuade the
Parisians to wear ill-shaped hats and clumsy boots; but he, in his own
person, adhered, to the last, to his original connection with these poor
artisans.]

[Footnote 22: The Directory broke off the negotiation in a most insolent
manner, by ordering Lord Malmesbury to quit France within twenty-four
hours: this they did in their exultation after the 18th Fructidor.]

[Footnote 23: Before leaving Paris, Buonaparte ordered his secretary to
prepare a camp library, of small volumes, arranged under the different
heads of Science, Geography and Travels, History, Poetry, Romance,
Politics. The "works on Politics" are six in number: viz. Montesquieu's
_Spirit of Laws_, a compendium of Mythology, the Vedam, the Koran, and
the Old and New Testaments--all in French.]




CHAPTER XI

     The Voyage to Egypt--Malta surrendered--The French escape Nelson,
     and take Alexandria--The March up the Nile--The Battle of the
     Pyramids--Cairo surrenders--The Battle of Aboukir.


The French fleet was reinforced, ere it had proceeded far on its way, by
General Dessaix, and his division from Italy; and, having prosperous
winds, appeared on the 10th of June off Malta. The Knights of St. John
were no longer those hardy and devout soldiers of the cross, who for
ages inspired terror among the Mussulmans, and were considered as the
heroic outguards of Christendom. Sunk in indolence and pleasure, these
inheritors of a glorious name hardly attempted for a moment to defend
their all but impregnable island, against the fleet which covered the
seas around them. The Parisian authorities had tampered successfully
beforehand with some of the French knights. Division of counsels
prevailed: and in confusion and panic the gates were thrown open. As
Napoleon was entering between the huge rocky barriers of La Valette,
Caffarelli said to him: "It is well there was some one within to open
the door for us; had there been no garrison at all, the business might
have been less easy."

From Malta--where he left a detachment of troops to guard an acquisition
which he expected to find eminently useful in his future communications
with France--Buonaparte steered eastwards; but, after some days, ran
upon the coast of Candia to take in water and fresh provisions, and, by
thus casually diverging from his course, escaped imminent danger. For
Nelson, soon returning to Toulon, missed the shipping which had so
lately crowded the harbour, and ascertaining that they had not sailed
towards the Atlantic, divined on the instant that their mark must be
Egypt. His fleet was inferior in numbers, but he pursued without
hesitation; and taking the straight line, arrived off the Nile before
any of the French ships had appeared there. Buonaparte, on hearing off
Candia that the English fleet was already in the Levant, directed
Admiral Brueyes to steer not for Alexandria, but for a more northerly
point of the coast of Africa. Nelson, on the other hand, not finding the
enemy where he had expected, turned back and traversed the sea in quest
of him, to Rhodes--and thence to Syracuse. It is supposed that on the
20th of June the fleets almost touched each other; but that the
thickness of the haze, and Nelson's want of frigates, prevented an
encounter. Napoleon, reconnoitring the coast, ascertained that there was
no longer any fleet off Alexandria, and in effect reached his
destination undisturbed on the 1st of July. At that moment a strange
sail appeared on the verge of the horizon. "Fortune," exclaimed he, "I
ask but six hours more--wilt thou refuse them?" The vessel proved not to
be English; and the disembarkation immediately took place, in spite of a
violent gale and a tremendous surf. The Admiral Brueyes in vain
endeavoured to persuade Buonaparte to remain on board until the weather
should be more calm. He sternly refused, and landed at Marabout, three
leagues to the eastward of Alexandria, about one in the morning of the
2nd July--having lost many by drowning.

Egypt, a province of the Ottoman empire, then at peace with France, was
of course wholly unprepared for this invasion. The Turks, however,
mustered what force they could, and, shutting the gates of the city,
held out--until a division, headed by Napoleon in person, forced their
way, at three in the morning, through the old crumbling walls, and it
was no longer possible to resist at once superior numbers and European
discipline. Two hundred French died in the assault; the Turkish loss was
much greater: and, if we are to believe almost all who have written
concerning this part of his history, Buonaparte, after taking
possession, abandoned the place for three hours to the unbridled licence
of military execution and rapine--an atrocity for which, if it really
occurred, there could have been only one pretext; namely, the urgent
necessity of striking awe and terror into the hearts of the population,
and so preventing them from obeying the call of their military
chieftains, to take arms in defence of the soil. De Bourienne and
Berthier, however, wholly deny this story.

If Napoleon's conduct on this occasion was as it has been commonly
represented, it was strangely contrasted with the tenor of his _General
Order_ to the army, issued immediately before their disembarkation.
"The people," he then said, "with whom we are about to live, are
Mahometans; the first article of their faith is, _There is no God but
God, and Mahomet is his Prophet._ Do not contradict them: deal with them
as you have done with the Jews and the Italians. Respect their muphtis
and imans, as you have done by the rabbis and the bishops elsewhere....
The Roman legions protected all religions. You will find here usages
different from those of Europe: you must accustom yourselves to them.
These people treat their women differently from us; but _in all
countries he who violates is a monster; pillage enriches only a few; it
dishonours us, destroys our resources, and makes those enemies whom it
is our interest to have for friends_."

To the people of Egypt, meanwhile, Napoleon addressed a proclamation in
these words:--"They will tell you that I come to destroy your religion;
believe them not: answer that I come to restore your rights, to punish
the usurpers, and that I respect, more than the Mamelukes ever did, God,
his Prophet, and the Koran. Sheiks and Imans, assure the people that we
also are true Mussulmans. Is it not we that have ruined the Pope and the
Knights of Malta? Thrice happy they who shall be with us! Woe to them
that take up arms for the Mamelukes! they shall perish!"[24]

Buonaparte was a fatalist--so that one main article of the Mussulman
creed pleased him well. He admired Mahomet as one of those rare beings,
who, by individual genius and daring, have produced mighty and permanent
alterations in the world. The General's assertion of his own belief in
the inspiration of the Arab impostor, was often repeated in the sequel;
and will ever be appreciated, as it was at the time by his own
soldiery--whom indeed he had addressed but the day before in language
sufficiently expressive of his real sentiments as to all forms of
religion. Rabbi, muphti, and bishop, the Talmud, the Koran, and the
Bible, were much on a level in his estimation. He was willing to make
use of them all as it might serve his purpose; and, though not by nature
cruel, he did not hesitate, when his interest seemed to demand it, to
invest his name with every circumstance of terror, that could result
from the most merciless violation of those laws of humanity which even
his Koran enforces, and which his own address to his army had so
recently inculcated.

Napoleon left Alexandria on the 7th July, being anxious to force the
Mamelukes to an encounter with the least possible delay. He had a small
flotilla on the Nile, which served to guard his right flank: the
infantry marched over burning sand at some distance from the river. The
miseries of this progress were extreme. The air is crowded with
pestiferous insects, the glare of the sand weakens most men's eyes, and
blinds many; water is scarce and bad: and the country had been swept
clear of man, beast, and vegetable. Under this torture even the gallant
spirits of such men as Murat and Lannes could not sustain
themselves:--they trod their cockades in the sand. The common soldiers
asked, with angry murmurs, if it was here the General designed to give
them their seven acres? He alone was superior to all these evils. Such
was the happy temperament of his frame, that--while others, after having
rid them of their usual dress, were still suffused in perpetual floods
of perspiration, and the hardiest found it necessary to give two or
three hours in the middle of the day to sleep--Napoleon altered
nothing; wore his uniform buttoned up as at Paris; never showed one bead
of sweat on his brow; nor thought of repose except to lie down in his
cloak the last at night, and start up the first in the morning. It
required, however, more than all his example of endurance and the
general influence of Napoleon's character, could do to prevent the army
from breaking into open mutiny. "Once," said he at St. Helena, "I threw
myself suddenly amidst a group of _generals_, and, addressing myself to
the tallest of their number with vehemence, said, _You have been talking
sedition: take care lest I fulfil my duty: your five feet ten inches
would not hinder you from being shot within two hours._"

For some days no enemy appeared; but at length scattered groups of
horsemen began to hover on their flanks; and the soldier, who quitted
the line but for a moment, was surrounded and put to death ere his
comrades could rescue him. The rapidity with which the Mamelukes rode,
and their skill as marksmen, were seconded by the character of the soil
and the atmosphere; the least motion or breath of wind being sufficient
to raise a cloud of sand, through which nothing could be discerned
accurately, while the constant glare of the sun dazzled almost to
blindness. It was at Chebreis that the Mamelukes first attacked in a
considerable body; and at the same moment the French flotilla was
assaulted. In either case the superiority of European discipline was
made manifest; but in either case also the assailants were able to
retreat without much loss. Meantime the hardships of the march
continued; the irregular attacks of the enemy were becoming more and
more numerous; so that the troops, continually halting and forming into
squares to receive the charge of the cavalry by day, and forced to keep
up great watches at night, experienced the extremes of fatigue as well
as of privation. In the midst of this misery the common men beheld with
no friendly eyes the troop of _savans_ mounted on asses (the common
conveyance of the country), with all their instruments, books and
baggage. They began to suspect that the expedition had been undertaken
for some merely scientific purposes; and when, on any alarm, they were
ordered to open the square and give the learned party safe footing
within, they used to receive them with military jeerings. "Room for the
asses:--stand back, here come the _savans_ and the _demi-savans_."

On the 21st of July the army came within sight of the Pyramids, which,
but for the regularity of the outline, might have been taken for a
distant ridge of rocky mountains. While every eye was fixed on these
hoary monuments of the past, they gained the brow of a gentle eminence,
and saw at length spread out before them the vast army of the beys, its
right posted on an entrenched camp by the Nile, its centre and left
composed of that brilliant cavalry with which they were by this time
acquainted. Napoleon, riding forwards to reconnoitre, perceived (what
escaped the observation of all his staff) that the guns on the
entrenched camp were not provided with carriages; and instantly decided
on his plan of attack. He prepared to throw his force on the left, where
the guns could not be available. Mourad Bey, who commanded in chief,
speedily penetrated his design; and the Mamelukes advanced gallantly to
the encounter. "Soldiers," said Napoleon, "from the summit of yonder
pyramids forty ages behold you;" and the battle began.

The French formed into separate squares, and awaited the assault of the
Mamelukes. These came on with impetuous speed and wild cries, and
practised every means to force their passage into the serried ranks of
their new opponents. They rushed on the line of bayonets, backed their
horses upon them, and at last, maddened by the firmness which they could
not shake, dashed their pistols and carbines into the faces of the men.
They who had fallen wounded from their seats, would crawl along the
sand, and hew at the legs of their enemies with their scimitars. Nothing
could move the French: the bayonet and the continued roll of musketry by
degrees thinned the host around them; and Buonaparte at last advanced.
Such were the confusion and terror of the enemy when he came near the
camp, that they abandoned their works, and flung themselves by hundreds
into the Nile. The carnage was prodigious. Multitudes more were drowned.
Mourad and a remnant of his Mamelukes retreated on Upper Egypt. Cairo
surrendered: Lower Egypt was entirely conquered.

Such were the immediate consequences of _the Battle of the Pyramids_.
The name of Buonaparte now spread panic through the East; and the
"Sultan Kebir" (or King of Fire--as he was called from the deadly
effects of the musketry in this engagement) was considered as the
destined scourge of God, whom it was hopeless to resist.

The French now had recompense for the toils they had undergone. The
bodies of the slain and drowned Mamelukes were rifled, and, it being the
custom for those warriors to carry their wealth about them, a single
corpse often made a soldier's fortune. In the deserted harems of the
chiefs at Cairo, and in the neighbouring villages, men at length found
proofs that "eastern luxury" is no empty name. The _savans_ ransacked
the monuments of antiquity, and formed collections which will ever
reflect honour on their zeal and skill. Napoleon himself visited the
interior of the Great Pyramid, and on entering the secret chamber, in
which, 3000 years before, some Pharaoh had been in-urned, repeated once
more his confession of faith--"There is no God but God, and Mahomet is
his prophet." The bearded orientals who accompanied him, concealed their
doubts of his orthodoxy, and responded very solemnly, "God is merciful.
Thou hast spoken like the most learned of the prophets."

While Napoleon was thus pursuing his career of victory in the interior,
Nelson, having scoured the Mediterranean in quest of him, once more
returned to the coast of Egypt. He arrived within sight of the towers of
Alexandria on the 1st of August--ten days after the battle of the
Pyramids had been fought and won--and found Brueyes still at his
moorings in the bay of Aboukir. Nothing seems to be more clear than that
the French admiral ought to have made the best of his way to France, or
at least to Malta, the moment the army had taken possession of
Alexandria. Napoleon constantly asserted that he had urged Brueyes to do
so. Brueyes himself lived not to give his testimony; but Gantheaume, the
vice-admiral, always persisted in stating, in direct contradiction to
Buonaparte, that the fleet remained by the General's express desire. The
testimonies being thus balanced, it is necessary to consult other
materials of judgment; and it appears extremely difficult to doubt that
the French admiral,--who, it is acknowledged on all hands, dreaded the
encounter of Nelson--remained off Alexandria for the sole purpose of
aiding the motions of the army, and in consequence of what he at least
conceived to be the wish of its general. However this might have been,
the results of his delay were terrible.

The French fleet were moored in a semicircle in the bay of Aboukir, so
near the shore, that, as their admiral believed, it was impossible for
the enemy to come between him and the land. He expected, therefore, to
be attacked on one side only, and thought himself sure that the English
could not renew their favourite manœuvre of breaking the line,[25] and
so at once dividing the opposed fleet, and placing the ships
individually between two fires. But Nelson daringly judged that his
ships might force a passage between the French and the land, and
succeeding in this attempt, instantly brought on the conflict, in the
same dreaded form which Brueyes had believed impossible. The details of
this great sea fight belong to the history of the English hero.[26] The
battle was obstinate--it lasted more than twenty hours, including the
whole night. A solitary pause occurred at midnight, when the French
admiral's ship _L'Orient_, a superb vessel of 120 guns, took fire, and
blew up in the heart of the conflicting squadrons, with an explosion
that for a moment silenced rage in awe. The admiral himself perished.
Next morning two shattered ships, out of all the French fleet, with
difficulty made their escape to the open sea. The rest of all that
magnificent array had been utterly destroyed, or remained in the hands
of the English.

Such was the battle of Aboukir, in which Nelson achieved, with a force
much inferior to the French, what he himself called, "not a victory, but
a conquest." Three thousand French seamen reached the shore: a greater
number died. Had the English admiral possessed frigates, he must have
forced his way into the harbour of Alexandria, and seized the whole
stores and transports of the army. As things were, the best fleet of the
Republic had ceased to be; the blockade of the coast was established:
and the invader, completely isolated from France, must be content to
rely on his own arms and the resources of Egypt.

[Footnote 24: At this period Egypt, though nominally governed by a pacha
appointed by the Grand Seignior, was in reality in the hands of the
Mamelukes; a singular body of men, who paid but little respect to any
authority but that of their own chiefs. Of these chiefs or beys there
were twenty-four; each one of whom ruled over a separate district; who
often warred with each other; and were as often in rebellion against
their nominal sovereign. According to the institutions of the Mamelukes
their body was recruited solely by boys, chiefly of European birth,
taken captive, and brought up from their earliest days in all military
exercises. These were promoted according to their merits; it being the
custom that when a bey died, the bravest of his band succeeded him. The
Mamelukes thus formed a separate _caste_; and they oppressed most
cruelly the population of the country which had fallen into their
keeping. The _fellahs_, or poor Arabs, who cultivate the soil, being
compelled to pay exorbitantly for permission to do so, suffered the
extreme of misery in the midst of great natural wealth. The _Cophts_,
supposed to be descended from the ancient Egyptian nation, discharged
most civil functions under the Mamelukes, and had the trades and
professions in their hands, but they also were oppressed intolerably by
those haughty and ferocious soldiers.

The Mamelukes were considered by Napoleon to be, individually, the
finest cavalry in the world. They rode the noblest horses of Arabia, and
were armed with the best weapons which the world could produce:
carbines, pistols, etc., from England, and sabres of the steel of
Damascus. Their skill in horsemanship was equal to their fiery valour.
With that cavalry and the French infantry, Buonaparte said, it would be
easy to conquer the world.]

[Footnote 25: This manœuvre was first practised on the 12th of August,
1782, by Lord Rodney's fleet; and, as appears to be now settled, at the
suggestion of that admiral's captain of the fleet, the late Sir Charles
Douglas, Bart.]

[Footnote 26: See the admirable _Life of Nelson_, by Southey; which will
form one of the volumes of this Library.]




CHAPTER XII

     Buonaparte's Administration in Egypt--Armaments of the
     Porte--Buonaparte at Suez--At El-Arish--Gaza, Jaffa, Acre--Retreat
     to Egypt--Defeat of the Turks at Aboukir--Napoleon embarks for
     France.


Before Nelson's arrival, Buonaparte is said to have meditated returning
to France, for the purpose of extorting from the government those
supplies of various kinds which, on actual examination, he had perceived
to be indispensable to the permanent occupation of Egypt, and which he
well knew the Directors would refuse to any voice but his own. He
intended, it is also said, to urge on the Directory the propriety of
resuming the project of a descent on England itself, at the moment when
the mind of that government might be supposed to be engrossed with the
news of his dazzling successes in Egypt. All these proud visions died
with Brueyes. On hearing of the battle of Aboukir a solitary sigh
escaped from Napoleon. "To France," said he, "the fates have decreed the
empire of the land--to England that of the sea."

He endured this great calamity with the equanimity of a masculine
spirit. He gave orders that the seamen landed at Alexandria should be
formed into a marine brigade, and thus gained a valuable addition to his
army; and proceeded himself to organise a system of government, under
which the great natural resources of the country might be turned to the
best advantage. We need not dwell on that vain repetition of his faith
in Mahomet, to which he would not and could not give effect by openly
adopting the rules and ceremonies of the Koran; which accordingly but
amused his own followers; and which deceived none of the Mussulman
people. This was the trick of an audacious infidel, who wanted wholly
that enthusiasm without which no religious impostor can hope to partake
the successes of the Prophet of Mecca. Passing over this worthless
preliminary, the arrangements of the new administration reflect honour
on the consummate understanding, the clear skill, and the unwearied
industry of this extraordinary man.

He was careful to advance no claim to the sovereignty of Egypt, but
asserted, that having rescued it from the Mameluke _usurpation_, it
remained for him to administer law and justice, until the time should
come for restoring the province to the dominion of the Grand Seignior.
He then established two councils, consisting of natives, principally of
Arab chiefs and Moslem of the church and the law, by whose advice all
measures were, nominally, to be regulated. They formed of course a very
subservient senate. He had no occasion to demand more from the people
than they had been used to pay to the beys; and he lightened the impost
by introducing as far as he could the fairness and exactness of a
civilised power in the method of levying it. He laboured to make the
laws respected, and this so earnestly and rigidly, that no small wonder
was excited among all classes of a population so long accustomed to the
licence of a barbarian horde of spoilers. On one occasion one of the
Ulemahs could not help smiling at the zeal which he manifested for
tracing home the murder of an obscure peasant to the perpetrator. The
Mussulman asked if the dead man were anywise related to the blood of the
Sultan Kebir? "No," answered Napoleon, sternly--"but he was more than
that--he was one of a people whose government it has pleased Providence
to place in my hands." The measures which he took for the protection of
travellers to Mecca were especially acceptable to the heads of the
Moslem establishment, and produced from them a proclamation, (in direct
contradiction to the Koran,) signifying that it was right and lawful to
pay tribute to the French. The virtuosi and artists in his train,
meanwhile, pursued with indefatigable energy their scientific
researches; they ransacked the monuments of Egypt, and laid the
foundation, at least, of all the wonderful discoveries, which have since
been made concerning the knowledge, arts, polity (and even language) of
the ancient nation. Nor were their objects merely those of curiosity.
They, under the General's direction, examined into the long-smothered
traces of many an ancient device for improving the agriculture of the
country. Canals that had been shut up for centuries were re-opened: the
waters of the Nile flowed once more where they had been guided by the
skill of the Pharaohs or the Ptolemies. Cultivation was extended;
property secured; and it cannot be doubted that the signal improvements
since introduced in Egypt, are attributable mainly to the wise example
of the French administration. At Cairo itself there occurred one stormy
insurrection, provoked, as may be supposed, by some wantonness on the
part of the garrison; but, after this was quelled by the same merciless
vigour which Napoleon had displayed on similar occasions in Italy, the
country appears to have remained in more quiet, and probably enjoyed, in
spite of the presence of an invading army, more prosperity, than it had
ever done during any period of the same length, since the Saracen
government was overthrown by the Ottomans.

In such labours Napoleon passed the autumn of 1798. "At this period,"
writes his secretary, "it was his custom to retire early to bed, and it
was my business to read to him as long as he remained awake. If I read
poetry, he soon fell asleep, but if, as sometimes happened, he called
for _The Life of Cromwell_, I made up mind to want repose for that
night."

General Dessaix, meanwhile, had pursued Mourad Bey into Upper Egypt,
where the Mamelukes hardly made a single stand against him, but
contrived, by the excellence of their horses, and their familiarity with
the deserts, to avoid any total disruption of their forces. Mourad
returned to the neighbourhood of Cairo on hearing of the insurrection
already mentioned; but departed when he learned its suppression. Those
gallant horsemen were gradually losing numbers in their constant desert
marches--they were losing heart rapidly: and everything seemed to
promise, that the Upper Egypt, like the Lower, would soon settle into a
peaceful province of the new French colony.

The General, during this interval of repose, received no communication
from the French government; but rumours now began to reach his quarters
which might well give him new anxieties. The report of another rupture
with Austria gradually met with more credence; and it was before long
placed beyond a doubt, that the Ottoman Porte, instead of being tempted
into any recognition of the French establishment in Egypt, had declared
war against the Republic, and summoned all the strength of her empire
to pour in overwhelming numbers on the isolated army of Buonaparte.

As yet, however, there was no appearance of an enemy; and Napoleon
seized the opportunity to explore the Isthmus of Suez, where a narrow
neck of land divides the Red Sea from the Mediterranean, partly with the
view of restoring the communication which in remote times existed
between them, and partly of providing for the defence of Egypt, should
the Ottomans attempt their invasion by the way of Syria.

He visited the Maronite monks of Mount Sinai, and, as Mahomet had done
before him, affixed his name to their charter of privileges; he examined
also the fountain of Moses: and nearly lost his life in exploring,
during low water, the sands of the Red Sea, where Pharaoh is supposed to
have perished in the pursuit of the Hebrews. "The night overtook us,"
says Savary in his Memoirs, "the waters began to rise around us, the
guard in advance exclaimed that their horses were swimming. Buonaparte
saved us all by one of those simple expedients which occur to an
imperturbable mind. Placing himself in the centre, he bade all the rest
form a circle round him, and then ride out each man in a separate
direction, and each to halt as soon as he found his horse swimming. The
man whose horse continued to march the last, was sure, he said, to be in
the right direction; him accordingly we all followed, and reached Suez
at two in the morning in safety, though so rapidly had the tide
advanced, that the water was at the poitrels of our horses ere we made
the land."

On his return to Cairo, the General despatched a trusty messenger into
India, inviting _Tippoo Saib_ to inform him exactly of the condition of
the English army in that region, and signifying that Egypt was only the
first post in a march destined to surpass that of Alexander! "He spent
whole days," writes his secretary, "in lying flat on the ground
stretched upon maps of Asia."

At length the time for action came. Leaving 15,000 in and about Cairo,
the division of Dessaix in Upper Egypt, and garrisons in the chief
towns,--Buonaparte on the 11th of February 1799 marched for Syria at the
head of 10,000 picked men, with the intention of crushing the Turkish
armament in that quarter, before their chief force (which he now knew
was assembling at Rhodes) should have time to reach Egypt by sea.
Traversing the desert which divides Africa from Asia, he took possession
of the fortress El-Arish, (15 Feb.) whose garrison, after a vigorous
assault, capitulated on condition that they should be permitted to
retreat into Syria, pledging their parole not to serve again during the
war. Pursuing his march, he took Gazah (that ancient city of the
Philistines) without opposition; but at Jaffa (the Joppa of holy writ)
the Moslem made a resolute defence. The walls were carried by storm,
3000 Turks died with arms in their hands, and the town was given up
during three hours to the fury of the French soldiery--who never, as
Napoleon confessed, availed themselves of the licence of war more
savagely than on this occasion.

A part of the garrison--amounting, according to Buonaparte, to 1200 men,
but stated by others as nearly 3000 in number--held out for some hours
longer in the mosques and citadel; but at length, seeing no chance of
rescue, grounded their arms on the 7th of March. Eugene Beauharnois, who
in person accepted their submission, was violently rebuked by Napoleon
for having done so: the soldiery murmured, asking how these barbarians
were to be fed, when they themselves were already suffering severe
privations. The General summoned his chief officers to council and,
after long discussion, it was resolved that, in this case, necessity
left no room for mercy. On the 10th--three days after their
surrender--the prisoners were marched out of Jaffa, in the centre of a
battalion under General Bon. When they had reached the sand-hills, at
some distance from the town, they were divided into small parties, and
shot or bayoneted to a man. They, like true fatalists, submitted in
silence; and their bodies were gathered together into a pyramid, where,
after the lapse of thirty years, their bones are still visible whitening
the sand.

Such was the massacre of Jaffa, which will ever form one of the darkest
stains on the name of Napoleon. He admitted the fact himself;--and
justified it on the double plea, that he could not afford soldiers to
guard so many prisoners, and that he could not grant them the benefit of
their parole, because they were the very men who had already been set
free on such terms at El-Arish. To this last defence the answer is,
unfortunately for him, very obvious. He could not possibly have
recognised in every one of these victims, an individual who had already
given and broken his parole. If he did--still that would not avail
him:--the men surrendered with arms in their hands. No general has a
right to see men abandon the means of defence, and then--after the lapse
of three days too!--inflict on them the worst fate that could have
befallen them had they held out. The only remaining plea is that of
expediency; and it is one upon which many a retail as well as wholesale
murderer might justify his crime.

Buonaparte had now ascertained that the Pacha of Syria,
Achmet-Djezzar,[27] was at St. Jean d'Acre, (so renowned in the history
of the crusades,) and determined to defend that place to extremity, with
the forces which had already been assembled for the invasion of Egypt.
He in vain endeavoured to seduce this ferocious chief from his
allegiance to the Porte, by holding out the hope of a separate
independent government, under the protection of France. The first of
Napoleon's messengers returned without an answer; the second was put to
death; and the army moved on Acre in all the zeal of revenge, while the
necessary apparatus of a siege was ordered to be sent round by sea from
Alexandria.

Sir Sydney Smith was then cruising in the Levant with two British ships
of the line, the _Tigre_ and the _Theseus_; and, being informed by the
Pacha of the approaching storm, hastened to support him in the defence
of Acre. Napoleon's vessels, conveying guns and stores from Egypt, fell
into his hands, and he appeared off the town two days before the French
army came in view of it. He had on board his ship Colonel Philippeaux, a
French royalist of great talents (formerly Buonaparte's school-fellow at
Brienne);[28] and the Pacha willingly permitted the English commodore
and this skilful ally, to regulate for him, as far as was possible, the
plan of his defence.

The loss of his own heavy artillery and the presence of two English
ships, were inauspicious omens; yet Buonaparte doubted not that the
Turkish garrison would shrink before his onset, and he instantly
commenced the siege. He opened his trenches on the 18th of March. "On
that little town," said he to one of his generals, as they were standing
together on an eminence, which still bears the name of Richard
Cœur-de-lion--"on yonder little town depends the fate of the East.
Behold the key of Constantinople, or of India."--"The moment Acre
falls," said he about the same time to De Bourienne, "all the Druses
will join me; the Syrians, weary of Djezzar's oppressions, will crowd to
my standard. I shall march upon Constantinople with an army to which the
Turk can offer no effectual resistance--and it seems not unlikely that I
may return to France by the route of Adrianople and Vienna--destroying
the house of Austria on my way!"

From the 18th to the 28th of March, the French laboured hard in their
trenches, being exposed to the fire of extensive batteries, arranged by
Philippeaux so as to command their approach, and formed chiefly of
Buonaparte's own artillery, captured on the voyage from Alexandria. The
Turks also were constantly sallying out, and their Pacha personally set
the example of the most heroic resolution. Nevertheless, on the 28th, a
breach was at last effected, and the French mounted with such fiery zeal
that the garrison gave way, until Djezzar appeared on the battlements,
and flinging his own pistols at the heads of the flying men, urged and
compelled them to renew the defence. In the end the French retreated
with great loss, and--the Turks, headed by the English seamen, pursuing
them to their lines--a great mine, designed to blow up the chief tower
of Acre, was explored, and means taken for countermining it.

Meanwhile a vast Mussulman army had been gathered among the mountains of
Samaria, and was preparing to descend upon Acre, and attack the
besiegers in concert with the garrison of Djezzar. Junot, with his
division, marched to encounter them, and would have been overwhelmed by
their numbers, had not Napoleon himself followed and rescued him (April
8) at Nazareth, where the splendid cavalry of the orientals were, as
usual, unable to resist the solid squares and well-directed musketry of
the French. Kleber, with another division, was in like manner
endangered, and in like manner rescued by the general-in-chief at Mount
Tabor (April 15). The Mussulmans dispersed on all hands; and Napoleon,
returning to his siege, pressed it on with desperate assaults, day after
day, in which his best soldiers were thinned, before the united efforts
of Djezzar's gallantry, and the skill of his allies. At length, however,
a party of French succeeded in forcing their way into the great tower,
and in establishing themselves in one part of it, in despite of all the
resolution that could be opposed to them. At the same critical moment,
there appeared in the offing a Turkish fleet, which was known to carry
great reinforcements for the Pacha. Everything conspired to prompt
Napoleon to finish his enterprise at whatever cost, and he was bravely
seconded.

Sir Sydney Smith, however, was as resolute to hold out until the fleet
should arrive, as Napoleon was eager to anticipate its coming. The
English commander repaired with his handful of seaman to the tower, and
after a furious assault dislodged the occupants. Buonaparte did not
renew the attack in that quarter, but succeeded in breaking the wall in
another part of the town; and the heroic Lannes headed a French party
who actually entered Acre at that opening. But Djezzar was willing they
should enter. He suffered them to come in unmolested; and then, before
they could form, threw such a crowd of Turks upon them, that discipline
was of no avail: it was a mere multitude of duels, and the brave
orientals with their scimitars and pistols, overpowered their enemies,
and put them to death--almost to a man. Lannes himself was with
difficulty carried back desperately wounded.

The rage of Buonaparte at these repeated discomfitures may be imagined.
The whole evil was ascribed, and justly, to the presence of Sir Sydney
Smith; and he spoke of that chivalrous person ever after with the venom
of a personal hatred. Sir Sydney, in requital of Buonaparte's
proclamation--inviting (as was his usual fashion) the subjects of the
Pacha to avoid his yoke, and ally themselves with the invaders--put
forth a counter address to the Druses and other Christian inhabitants of
Syria, invoking their assistance in the name of their religion, against
the blasphemous general of a nation which had renounced Christianity.
Napoleon upon this said that Sir Sydney was a madman; and if his story
be true, Sir Sydney challenged him to single combat; to which he made
answer, that he would not come forth to a duel unless the English could
fetch Marlborough from his grave, but that, in the meantime, any one of
his grenadiers would willingly give the challenger such satisfaction as
he was entitled to demand. Whatever inaccuracy there may be in some of
these circumstances, there is no doubt of the fact that Buonaparte and
the brave commodore strove together at Acre, under the highest influence
of personal resentment, as well as martial skill and determination.

[_21st May._] The siege had now lasted sixty days. Once more Napoleon
commanded an assault, and his officers and soldiery once more obeyed him
with devoted and fruitless gallantry. The loss his army had by this time
undergone was very great. Caffarelli and many other officers of the
highest importance were no more. The plague had some time before this
appeared in the camp; every day the ranks of his legions were thinned by
this pestilence, as well as by the weapons of the defenders of Acre. The
hearts of all men were quickly sinking. The Turkish fleet was at hand to
reinforce Djezzar; and upon the utter failure of the attack of the 21st
of May, Napoleon yielded to stern necessity, and began his retreat upon
Jaffa.

The plague now raged in the army. The very name of this horrible scourge
shook the nerves of the Europeans; its symptoms filled them with
indescribable horror. The sick despaired utterly; the healthy trembled
to minister to them in their misery. Napoleon went through the
hospitals, and at once breathed hope into the sufferers, and rebuked the
cowardice of their attendants, by squeezing and relieving with his own
hand the foul ulcers which no one had dared to touch. Pity that this act
of true heroism must ever be recorded on the same page that tells the
story of the sand-hills!

The name of Jaffa was already sufficiently stained; but fame speedily
represented Napoleon as having now made it the scene of another
atrocity, not less shocking than that of the massacre of the Turkish
prisoners.

The accusation, which for many years made so much noise throughout
Europe, amounts to this: that on the 27th of May, when it was necessary
for Napoleon to pursue his march from Jaffa for Egypt, a certain number
of the plague-patients in the hospital were found to be in a state that
held out no hope whatever of their recovery; that the general, being
unwilling to leave them to the tender mercies of the Turks, conceived
the notion of administering opium, and so procuring for them at least a
speedy and an easy death; and that a number of men were accordingly
taken off in this method by his command. The story, the circumstances of
which were much varied in different accounts, especially as regards the
numbers of the poisoned (raised sometimes as high as 500), was first
disseminated by Sir Robert Wilson, and was in substance generally
believed in England. In each and all of its parts, on the contrary, it
was wholly denied by the admirers of Buonaparte, who treated it as one
of the many gross falsehoods, which certainly were circulated touching
the personal character and conduct of their idol, during the continuance
of his power.

Buonaparte himself, while at St. Helena, referred to the story
frequently; and never hesitated to admit that it originated in the
following occurrence. He sent, he said, the night before the march was
to commerce, for Desgenettes, the chief of the medical staff, and
proposed to him, under such circumstances as have been described, the
propriety of giving opium, in mortal doses, to _seven_ men, adding that,
had his son been in their situation, he would have thought it his duty,
as a father, to treat him in the same method; and that, most certainly,
had he himself been in that situation, and capable of understanding it,
he would have considered the deadly cup as the best boon that friendship
could offer him. M. Desgenettes, however, (said the ex-Emperor) did not
consider himself as entitled to interfere in any such method with the
lives of his fellow men: the patients were abandoned; and, at least, one
of the number fell alive into the hands of Sir Sidney Smith, and
recovered.

Such is Napoleon's narrative; and it is confirmed in all particulars of
importance, save _two_, by De Bourienne. That writer states distinctly
that he was present when Napoleon, Berthier and the usual suite,
examined the hospital--heard the discussion which followed, and _the
order given_ for administering mortal potions to the hopeless
patients--in number _sixty_. He does not assert that he saw the poison
administered, but says he has no doubt the order was executed; and
concludes with defending the measure by arguments similar to those
already quoted from the lips of his master.

Whether the opium was really administered or not--that the audacious
proposal to that effect was made by Napoleon, we have his own admission;
and every reader must form his opinion--as to the degree of guilt which
attaches to the fact of having meditated and designed the deed in
question, under the circumstances above detailed. That Buonaparte,
accustomed to witness slaughter in every form, was in general but a
callous calculator when the loss of human life was to be considered, no
one can doubt. That his motives, on this occasion, were cruel, no human
being, who considers either the temper or the situation of the man, will
ever believe. He doubtless designed, by shortening those men's lives, to
do them the best service in his power. The presumption of thus daring to
sport with the laws of God and man, when expedience seemed to recommend
such interference, was quite in the character of the young General:
cruelty was not; least of all, cruelty to his own soldiery--the very
beings on whose affection all his greatness depended.

The march onwards was a continued scene of misery; for the wounded and
the sick were many, the heat oppressive, the thirst intolerable; and the
ferocious Djezzar was hard behind, and the wild Arabs of the desert
hovered round them on every side, so that he who fell behind his company
was sure to be slain. How hard and callous the hearts of brave men can
become when every thought is occupied with self, the story of that march
presents a fearful picture. When a comrade, after quitting his ranks,
being stimulated by the despair of falling into the hands of the Turks
or Arabs, yet once again reared himself from the burning sand, and made
a last attempt to stagger after the column, his painful and ineffectual
efforts furnished matter for military merriment. "He is drunk," said
one; "his march will not be a long one," answered another; and when he
once more sank helpless and hopeless, a third remarked, "our friend has
at length taken up his quarters." It is not to be omitted, that Napoleon
did, on this occasion, all that became his situation. He issued an order
that every horse should be given up to the service of the sick. A moment
afterwards one of his attendants came to ask which horse the General
wished to reserve for himself: "Scoundrel!" cried he, "do you not know
the order? Let everyone march on foot--I the first.--Begone." He
accordingly, during the rest of the march, walked by the side of the
sick, cheering them by his eye and his voice, and exhibiting to all the
soldiery the example at once of endurance and of compassion.

[_June 14._] Having at length accomplished this perilous journey,
Buonaparte repaired to his old headquarters at Cairo, and re-entered on
his great functions as the establisher of a new government in the state
of Egypt. But he had not long occupied himself thus, ere new rumours
concerning the beys on the Upper Nile, who seemed to have some strong
and urgent motive for endeavouring to force a passage downwards, began
to be mingled with, and by degrees explained by, tidings daily repeated
of some grand disembarkation of the Ottomans, designed to have place in
the neighbourhood of Alexandria. Leaving Dessaix, therefore, once more
in command at Cairo, he himself descended the Nile, and travelled with
all speed to Alexandria, where he found his presence most necessary.
For, in effect, the great Turkish fleet had already run into the bay of
Aboukir; and an army of 18,000, having gained the fortress, were there
strengthening themselves, with the view of awaiting the promised descent
and junction of the Mamelukes, and then, with overwhelming superiority
of numbers, advancing to Alexandria, and completing the ruin of the
French invaders.

Buonaparte, reaching Alexandria on the evening of the 24th of July,
found his army already posted in the neighbourhood of Aboukir, and
prepared to anticipate the attack of the Turks on the morrow. Surveying
their entrenched camp from the heights above with Murat, he said, "Go
how it may, the battle of to-morrow will decide the fate of the world."
"Of this army at least," answered Murat; "but the Turks have no cavalry,
and, if ever infantry were charged to the teeth by horse, they shall be
so by mine." Murat did not penetrate the hidden meaning of Napoleon's
words, but he made good his own.

The Turkish outposts were assaulted early next morning, and driven in
with great slaughter; but the French, when they advanced, came within
the range of the batteries, and also of the shipping that lay close by
the shore, and were checked. Their retreat might have ended in a rout,
but for the undisciplined eagerness with which the Turks engaged in the
task of spoiling and maiming those that fell before them--thus giving to
Murat the opportunity of charging their main body in flank with his
cavalry, at the moment when the French infantry, profiting by their
disordered and scattered condition, and rallying under the eye of
Napoleon, forced a passage to the entrenchments. From that moment the
battle was a massacre. The Turks, attacked on all sides, were
panic-struck; and the sea was covered with the turbans of men who flung
themselves headlong into the waves rather than await the fury of _Le
Beau Sabreur_,[29] or the steady rolling fire of the _Sultan Kebir_. Six
thousand surrendered at discretion: twelve thousand perished on the
field or in the sea. Mustapha Pacha, the general, being brought into the
presence of his victor, was saluted with these words:--"It has been your
fate to lose this day; but I will take care to inform the sultan of the
courage with which you have contested it." "Spare thyself that trouble,"
answered the proud pacha, "my master knows me better than thou."

Napoleon once more returned to Cairo on the 9th of August; but it was
only to make some parting arrangements as to the administration, civil
and military; for, from the moment of his victory at Aboukir, he had
resolved to entrust Egypt to other hands, and Admiral Gantheaume was
already preparing in secret the means of his removal to France.

Buonaparte always asserted, and the Buonapartist writers of his history
still maintain, that this resolution was adopted in consequence of a
mere accident;[30] namely, that Sir Sydney Smith, in the course of some
negotiations about prisoners which followed after the battle of Aboukir,
sent a file of English newspapers for the amusement of the General. Some
say the English Commodore did so out of mere civility: others, that he
designed to distract the movements of Napoleon, by showing him the
dangerous condition to which, during his absence, the affairs of France,
both at home and abroad, had been reduced. It seems, however, to be
generally believed (as without doubt it is the more probable case) that
Buonaparte had long ere now received intelligence of the great events in
which he was so deeply concerned. He had, assuredly, many friends in
Paris, who were watching keenly over his interests, and who must have
been singularly ill served if they never were able to communicate with
him during so many months.

However this might have been, the General succeeded in preventing any
suspicion of his projected evasion from arising among the soldiery; and
when he finally turned his back on Cairo, it was universally believed
that it was but to make a tour in the Delta.

Napoleon reached the coast on the 22nd August, and was there met by
Berthier, Andreossi, Murat, Lannes, Marmont, and the _savans_ Monge and
Berthollet; none of whom had suspected for what purpose they were
summoned. Admiral Gantheaume had by this time two frigates and two
smaller vessels (which had been saved in the harbour of Alexandria)
ready for sea; and on the morning of the 23rd, the wind having
fortunately driven the English squadron of blockade off the coast,
Buonaparte and his followers embarked at Rosetta.

The same day the event was announced to the army by a proclamation which
the General left behind him, naming Kleber as his successor in the
command. The indignation of the soldiery, who thought themselves
deserted by their chief, was for a time violent; but, by degrees, the
great qualities displayed by Kleber softened this feeling, and
Buonaparte had left agents well qualified to explain what had happened,
in the manner most favourable for himself.

Kleber received at the same time a parting letter of instructions--one
of the most singular pieces that ever proceeded from Napoleon's pen. "I
send you," said he, "English gazettes to the 10th of June. You will
there see that we have lost Italy; that Mantua, Turin, and Tortona are
blockaded. I hope, if fortune smiles on me, to reach Europe before the
beginning of October.... It is the intention of government that General
Dessaix should follow me, unless great events interpose themselves, in
the course of November.... There is no doubt that, on the arrival of our
squadron at Toulon, means will be found of sending you the recruits and
munitions necessary for the army of Egypt. The government will then
correspond with you directly; while I, both in my public and in my
private capacity, will take measures to secure for you frequent
intelligence."

Buonaparte proceeds, after thus boldly assuming to himself the right of
speaking for the government--and in terms, it will be observed,
calculated to leave no doubt that his own departure was the result of
orders from Paris--to impress upon Kleber the necessity of always
considering the possession of Egypt as a point of the highest importance
to France; and, nevertheless, of negotiating, as long as possible, with
the Porte, on the basis that the French Republic neither had now, nor
ever had had, the smallest wish to be permanently mistress of that
country. He finally authorised Kleber, if not released or recruited by
May following, to make a peace with the Porte, even if the first of its
conditions should be the total evacuation of Egypt.

Then follow directions for the internal administration of Egypt, in
which, among other sufficiently characteristic hints, Kleber is desired
to cultivate the good will of _the Christians_, but, nevertheless, to
avoid carefully giving the Mussulmans any reason to confound _the
Christians_ with _the French_. "Above all," says Napoleon, "gain the
Sheiks, who are timid, who cannot fight, and who, like all priests,
inspire fanaticism without being fanatics."

The conclusion is in these words. "The army which I confide to you is
composed of my children; in all times, even in the midst of the greatest
sufferings, I have received the marks of their attachment: keep alive in
them these sentiments. You owe this to the particular esteem and true
attachment which I bear towards yourself."

[Footnote 27: Djezzar means _butcher_: he had well earned this title by
the mercilessness of his administration.]

[Footnote 28: Sir Sydney Smith, having been taken prisoner and most
unjustifiably confined by the French government in the dungeons of the
Temple, had made his escape through the zeal of certain of the royalist
party, and chiefly of Philippeaux.]

[Footnote 29: The handsome swordsman--_i.e._ Murat.]

[Footnote 30: De Bourienne, whose curious work has appeared since the
first edition of this narrative was published, confirms this statement
of Napoleon: but Napoleon, it is obvious, _might_ have received letters
which he did not choose to communicate to his secretary.]




CHAPTER XIII

     Retrospect--Buonaparte arrives in France--The Revolution of the
     18th Brumaire--The Provisional Consulate.


We must now pause for a moment to indicate, however briefly and
imperfectly, the course of events which had determined Napoleon to
abandon the army of Egypt.

While the negotiations at Rastadt were still in progress, the Directory,
on the most flimsy of pretences, marched an army into Switzerland; and,
by vast superiority of numbers, overwhelmed the defence of the
unprepared mountaineers. The conquered cantons were formed into another
republic of the new kind--to wit, "the Helvetian:" nominally a sister
and ally, but really a slave of the French. Another force, acting under
orders equally unjustifiable, seized Turin, and dethroned the King of
Sardinia. Lastly, the Pope, in spite of all his humiliating concessions
at Tollentino, saw a republican insurrection, roused by French
instigation, within his capital. Tumults and bloodshed ensued; and
Joseph Buonaparte, the French ambassador, narrowly escaped with his
life. A French army forthwith advanced on Rome; the Pope's functions as
a temporal prince were terminated; he retired to the exile of Siena; and
another of those feeble phantoms, which the Directory delighted to
invest with glorious names, appeared under the title of "the Roman
Republic."

These outrages roused anew the indignation, the first, of all true
lovers of freedom, the second, of the monarchs whose representatives
were assembled at Rastadt, and the third, of the Catholic population
throughout Europe. England was not slow to take advantage of the
unprincipled rashness of the Directory, and of the sentiments which it
was fitted to inspire; and the result was a new coalition against
France, in which the great power of Russia now, for the first time, took
a part. The French plenipotentiaries were suddenly ordered to quit
Rastadt; and, within a few hours afterwards, they were murdered on their
journey by banditti clad in the Austrian uniform, most assuredly not
acting under orders from the Austrian government--and now commonly
believed to have been set on by certain angry intriguers of the
Luxembourg.

The King of Naples had, unfortunately for himself, a greater taste for
arms than the nation he governed; and, justly concluding that the
conquerors of Rome would make himself their next object, he rashly
proclaimed war, ere the general measures of the coalition were arranged.
The arrival of Nelson in his harbour, bringing the news of the
destruction of the French fleet at Aboukir, and the consequent isolation
of Napoleon, gave him courage to strike a blow which the officers of his
army were little likely to second. The result of his hasty advance to
the northwards was not a battle, but a flight: and though the Lazzaroni
of Naples, rising in fury, held the capital for some days against the
French, their defences were at length overcome; the king passed over to
his Sicilian dominions; and another tributary of France was announced by
the name of the Parthenopean Republic.

Far different success attended the better-considered movements by which
the great powers of the new coalition re-opened the war. The details of
those bloody campaigns by which Holland and Belgium were for a moment
rescued from the grasp of the Republic; Jourdan beaten beyond the Rhine
by the Archduke Charles; and the north of Italy, the whole of
Buonaparte's mighty conquests, recovered by the Austro-Russians under
Suwarrow; as also of the ultimate reverses of the allies in the
direction of Holland,--of the concentration of their forces in two great
armies, one on the frontier of Switzerland, and another lower down on
the Rhine, for the purpose of carrying the war by two inlets into the
heart of France--and finally, of the masterly retreat of Macdonald, by
which he succeeded in leading the army which had occupied Naples quite
through Italy into Provence;--all these details belong rather to the
general history of the period, than to the biography of Buonaparte.
Neither is it possible that we should here enter upon any minute account
of the internal affairs of France during the period of his Egyptian and
Syrian campaigns. It must suffice to say that the generally unfortunate
course of the war had been accompanied by the growth of popular
discontent at home; that the tottering Directory for a moment gathered
strength to themselves by associating Sieyes to their number; that the
mean and selfish conduct of the rulers soon nullified the results of
that partial change; that the Directory at length found it impossible to
maintain the favourite system of balancing faction against faction, and
so neutralising their efforts; in a word, that the _moderates_ (under
which name the royalists are included) had obtained a decided command in
the Council of Ancients, and the republicans, or democratical party, an
equally overpowering majority in the Assembly of the Five Hundred; while
the Directors, as a body, had no longer the slightest power to control
either. Finally, the Chouans (as the royalists of Bretagne were called)
had been stimulated by the disordered appearance of things at home and
abroad, and 40,000 insurgents appeared in arms, withstanding, with
varied success, the troops of the Republic, and threatening, by their
example, to rekindle a general civil war in France. Such was, or had
recently been, the state of affairs when Buonaparte landed at Frejus,
and sent before him to Paris, to the inexpressible delight of a nation
of late accustomed to hear of nothing but military disasters, the
intelligence of that splendid victory which had just destroyed the great
Turkish armament at Aboukir. He arrived at a moment when all men, of all
parties, were satisfied that a new revolution was at hand; and when the
leaders of all the contending factions were equally desirous of invoking
arms to their support in the inevitable struggle. Napoleon's voyage had
been one of constant peril; for the Mediterranean was traversed in all
directions by English ships of war, in whose presence resistance would
have been hopeless. He occupied his time, during this period of general
anxiety, in very peaceful studies: he read the Bible, the Koran, Homer;
conversed with his _savans_ on the old times and manners of the East;
and solved problems in geometry. He also spent many hours in playing at
the game of _vingt-un_; and M. de Bourienne says, that he never
hesitated to play unfairly when it suited his purpose, though he always
returned whatever he had gained on rising from the table. On the 30th of
September they reached Ajaccio, and he was received with enthusiasm at
the place of his birth. But, according to his own phrase, "it rained
cousins:" he was wearied with solicitations, and as soon as the wind
proved favourable, on the 7th of October, the voyage was resumed.
Gantheaume, descrying an English squadron off the French coast, would
have persuaded him to take to the long-boat; but he refused, saying,
"that experiment may be reserved for the last extremity." His confidence
in fortune was not belied. They passed at midnight, unseen, through the
English ships, and on the morning of the 9th were moored in safety in
the bay of Frejus; and no sooner was it known that Buonaparte was at
hand, than, in spite of all the laws of quarantine, persons of every
description, including the chief functionaries, both civil and military,
repaired on board to welcome him. He had looked forward with the utmost
disgust to a long quarantine: this dread was dissipated in a moment; the
deck was crowded with persons, crying aloud, "We prefer the plague to
the Austrians!" His presence alone was considered as the pledge of
victory. The story of Aboukir gave new fuel to the flame of universal
enthusiasm; and he landed, not so much like a general who had quitted
his post without orders, as a victorious prince, who had returned to
restore the lost hearts and fortunes of a people that confided only in
him. His progress towards the capital, wherever his person was
recognised, bore all the appearance of a triumphal procession. He
reached his own house, in the _Rue de la Victoire_, on the 16th October.

The trembling Directory received him, when he presented himself at the
Luxembourg, with every demonstration of joy and respect. Not a question
was asked as to his abandonment of his army; for all dreaded the answer
which they had the best reason for anticipating. He was invited to
accept of a public dinner, and agreed to do so. The assemblage was
magnificent, and his reception enthusiastic; but his demeanour was cold
and reserved. After proposing as a toast, "the union of all
parties"--ominous words from those lips--he withdrew at an early hour of
the evening.

He continued for some little time to avoid public notice, resuming
apparently the same studious and sequestered life which he had led when
last in Paris. It was, however, remarked that, when recognised by the
populace, he received their salutations with uncommon affability; and
that if he met any old soldier of the army of Italy, he rarely failed to
recollect the man, and take him by the hand.

Buonaparte had been tormented when in Egypt by certain rumours
concerning the conduct of Josephine in his absence from Paris. She had
quitted the capital with the purpose of meeting him on his journey
thither, the moment his arrival at Frejus was known; but taking the road
of Burgundy, while he was travelling by that of Lyons, missed him. When
she at length joined him in Paris, he received her with marked coldness;
but, after a few days, the intercessions and explanations of friends
restored harmony between them. He felt acutely, says De Bourienne, the
ill effects which a domestic fracas must produce at the moment when all
France was expecting him to take the chief part in some great political
revolution.

The universal enthusiasm which waited on his person at this crisis
appears to have at length given definite shape to his ambition. All
parties equally seemed to be weary of the Directory, and to demand the
decisive interference of the unrivalled soldier. The members of the
tottering government were divided bitterly among themselves; and the
_moderates_, with the Director Sieyes at their head, on the one side,
the _democrats_, under the Director Barras, on the other, were equally
disposed to invoke his assistance. He received the proposals of both
parties; and at length decided on closing with those of the former, as
consisting of a class of men less likely than the others to interfere
with his measures--when the new government, which he had determined
should be _his_, had been arranged. His brother Lucien, recently elected
President of the Council of Five Hundred--the acute and spirited Abbé
Sieyes, for whom, as "a man of systems," Buonaparte had formerly
manifested great repugnance, but who was now recommended effectually by
his supposed want of high ambition--and Fouché, minister of
police--these were his chief confidants; nor could any age or country
have furnished instruments more admirably qualified for his purpose.
Josephine, too, exerted indefatigably in his cause all the arts of
address, and contrived to neutralise by flattery many whom promises had
failed to gain. Meanwhile his house was frequented by the principal
officers who had accompanied him from Egypt, and by others who had
served in his Italian campaigns; and though no one pretended to say what
was about to happen, the impression became universal throughout Paris,
that some great and decisive event was at hand, and that it was to be
brought about by means of Buonaparte.

His friends at first busied themselves with schemes for making him one
of the directorial body; but the law, requiring that every candidate for
that office should be forty years of age, still subsisted; and this
presented an obstacle which Napoleon chose rather to avoid than to
overcome. The conspirators in his confidence were from day to day more
numerous, and, before he had been three weeks in Paris, audacity reached
its height. "During this crisis" (writes Bourienne) "there occurred
nothing a whit more elevated, more grand, more noble, than had been
observed in our preceding revolutionary commotions. In these political
intrigues, all is so despicable--so made up of trickery, lying, spying,
treachery, and impudence--that for the honour of human nature the
details ought to be buried under an eternal veil."

Sieyes governed absolutely one of his colleagues in the Directory,
Ducos; and the party of which he was the chief predominated strongly, as
has been mentioned, in the Council of Ancients. It was through the
instrumentality of that council, accordingly, that the conspirators
resolved to strike their first blow. And how well their measures had
been preconcerted, will sufficiently appear from the most naked
statement of the events of the 18th and 19th Brumaire (Nov. 10 and 11,
1799), in the order of their occurrence.

As soon as Buonaparte's arrival was known, three regiments of dragoons,
forming part of the garrison of Paris, petitioned for the honour of
being reviewed by him. He had promised to do this, but delayed naming
the day. In like manner the forty adjutants of the National Guard of
Paris (which, as we have seen, was remodelled by himself while General
of the Interior) had requested leave to wait upon him, and congratulate
him on his arrival: these also had been told that he would soon appoint
the time for receiving them. Lastly, the officers of the garrison, and
many besides, had sent to beg admittance to Napoleon's presence, that
they might tender him the expression of their admiration and attachment;
and to them also an answer of the same kind had been given.

On the evening of the 17th Brumaire all the officers above-mentioned
received, separately, the General's invitation to come to his house in
the _Rue de la Victoire_, at six o'clock the next morning; and the three
regiments of dragoons were desired to be mounted for their review, at
the same early hour, in the _Champs Elysées_. How many of these persons
knew the real purpose of the assemblage it is impossible to tell; but
Moreau, Macdonald, and other generals of the first reputation, avowedly
attached to the _moderés_, were in the number of those who
attended,--having, it is not to be doubted, received sufficient
intimation that the crisis was at hand, though not of the manner in
which Buonaparte designed it to terminate. However, at the appointed
hour, the dragoons were at their post in the Champs Elysées; and the
concourse of officers at Napoleon's residence was so great that, the
house being small, he received them in the courtyard before it, which
they entirely filled.

Among those who came thither was Bernadotte; but he certainly came
without any precise notion of the purposes of his friend Joseph
Buonaparte, who invited him. He was, next to Napoleon, the general who
possessed the greatest influence at the period in Paris; in fact, the
fate of the government depended on whether the one party in the
Directory should be the first to summon him to interfere, or the others
to throw themselves on Buonaparte. He came; but, unlike the rest, he
came _not_ in uniform, nor on horseback. Being introduced into
Napoleon's private chamber, he was informed, with little preface, that a
change in the government was necessary, and about to be effected that
very day. Bernadette had already been tampered with by Sieyes and Ducos,
and he rejected Napoleon's flatteries as he had theirs. It was well
known to Buonaparte that, had this great officer's advice been taken, he
would, immediately on his arrival from Egypt, have been arrested as a
deserter of his post: he in vain endeavoured now to procure his
co-operation; and at last suffered him to depart, having with difficulty
extorted a promise, that he would not, at least, do anything against him
_as a citizen_. It will soon be seen that he could have little reason to
apprehend Bernadotte' s interference in his military capacity.

In effect the Council of the Ancients assembled the same morning, in the
Tuileries, at the early hour of seven; one of the conspirators forthwith
declared that the salvation of the state demanded vigorous measures,
and proposed two decrees for their acceptance; one by which the meetings
of the legislative bodies should be instantly transferred to the Chateau
of St. Cloud, some miles from Paris: and another investing Napoleon with
the supreme command of all the troops in and about the capital,
including the National Guard. These motions were instantly carried; and,
in the course of a few minutes, Buonaparte received, in the midst of his
martial company, the announcement of his new authority. He instantly
mounted and rode to the Tuileries, where, being introduced into the
council, together with all his staff, he pronounced those memorable
words--"You are the wisdom of the nation: I come, surrounded by the
generals of the Republic, to promise you their support. Let us not lose
time in looking for precedents. Nothing in history resembled the close
of the eighteenth century--nothing in the eighteenth century resembled
this moment. Your wisdom has devised the necessary measure; our arms
shall put it in execution." Care had been taken to send no summons to
the members of the council whom the conspirators considered as decidedly
hostile to their schemes; yet several began to murmur loudly at this
tone. "I come," resumed Napoleon, sternly, "I come accompanied by the
God of War and the God of Fortune." His friends were alarmed lest this
violence should produce some violent re-action in the assembly, and
prevailed on him to withdraw. "_Let those that love me follow me_" said
he, and was immediately on horseback again. "In truth," says De
Bourienne, "I know not what would have happened, had the President, when
he saw the General retiring, exclaimed, _Grenadiers, let no one go out_:
it is my conviction that, instead of sleeping the day after at the
Luxembourg, he would have ended his career on the _Place de la
Revolution_."

The command entrusted to Napoleon was forthwith announced to the
soldiery; and they received the intelligence with enthusiasm--the mass
of course little comprehending to what, at such a moment, such authority
amounted.

The three Directors, meanwhile, who were not in the secret, and who had
been much amused with seeing their colleague Sieyes set off on horseback
an hour or two earlier from the Luxembourg, had begun to understand
what that timely exhibition of the Abbé's awkward horsemanship
portended. One of them, Moulins, proposed to send a battalion to
surround Buonaparte's house and arrest him. Their own guard laughed at
them. Buonaparte was already in the Tuileries, with many troops around
him; and the Directorial Guard, being summoned by one of his
aides-de-camp, instantly marched thither also, leaving the Luxembourg at
his mercy. Barras sent his secretary to expostulate. Napoleon received
him with haughtiness. "What have you done," cried he, "for that fair
France which I left you so prosperous? For peace I find war; for the
wealth of Italy, taxation and misery. Where are the 100,000 brave French
whom I knew--where are the companions of my glory?--They are dead."
Barras, who well knew that Buonaparte would never forgive him for having
boasted that the conqueror of Italy and Egypt owed everything to his
early favour, and whose infamous personal conduct in the articles of
bribery and exaction made him tremble at the thought of impeachment,
resigned his office: so did his colleagues, Gohier and Moulins. Sieyes
and Ducos had done so already. Bernadotte, indeed, repaired to the
Luxembourg ere Moulins and Gohier had resigned, and offered his sword
and influence, provided they would nominate him to the command of the
forces jointly with Napoleon. They hesitated: his word of honour given
to Buonaparte, that he would do nothing _as a citizen_, rendered it
indispensable that they should take that decisive step; by doing so they
would at least have given the soldiery a fair choice--they
hesitated--and their power was at an end. The Luxembourg was immediately
guarded by troops in whom Napoleon could place implicit confidence. The
Directory was no more.

Barras, in his letter, said that "he had undertaken his office solely
for the purpose of serving the cause of liberty, _and_ that now, seeing
the destinies of the Republic in the hands of her young and invincible
general, he gladly resigned it." By this courtly acquiescence he
purchased indemnity for the past, and the liberty of retiring to his
country-seat, there to enjoy the vast fortune he had so scandalously
accumulated. The other two remained for the present under surveillance.

At ten o'clock on the same morning, the adverse Council of Five Hundred
assembled also, and heard, with astonishment and indignation, of the
decree by which their sittings were transferred from Paris (the scene of
their popular influence) to St. Cloud. They had, however, no means of
disputing that point: they parted with cries of "_Vive la République!
Vive la Constitution!_" and incited the mob, their allies, to muster
next morning on the new scene of action--where, it was evident, this
military revolution must either be turned back, or pushed to
consummation. During the rest of the day, Napoleon remained at the
Tuileries: the troops were in arms; the population expected with
breathless anxiety the coming of the decisive day. A strong body of
soldiery marched to St. Cloud under the orders of Murat.

The members of both assemblies repaired thither early in the morning of
the 19th; and those of the opposite party beheld with dismay the
military investment of the Chateau. Scattered in groups about the courts
and gardens, surrounded with the mob from the city, and watched by Murat
and his stern veterans, they awaited with impatience the opening of the
doors; which, in consequence of some necessary preparations, did not
occur until two o'clock in the afternoon.

The Council of Ancients were ushered into the Gallery of Mars, and, the
minority having by this time recovered from their surprise, a stormy
debate forthwith commenced touching the events of the preceding day.
Buonaparte entered the room, and, by permission of the subservient
president, addressed the assembly. "Citizens," said he, "you stand over
a volcano. Let a soldier tell the truth frankly. I was quiet in my home
when this council summoned me to action. I obeyed: I collected my brave
comrades, and placed the arms of my country at the service of you who
are its head. We are repaid with calumnies--they talk of Cromwell--of
Cæsar. Had I aspired at power the opportunity was mine ere now. I swear
that France holds no more devoted patriot. Dangers surround us. Let us
not hazard the advantages for which we have paid so dearly--Liberty and
Equality!--"

A democratic member, Linglet, added aloud--"and the Constitution--"

"The Constitution!" continued Napoleon, "it has been thrice violated
already--all parties have invoked it--each in turn has trampled on it:
since that can be preserved no longer, let us, at least, save its
foundations--Liberty and Equality. It is on you only that I rely. The
Council of Five Hundred would restore the Convention, the popular
tumults, the scaffolds, the reign of terror. I will save you from such
horrors--I and my brave comrades, whose swords and caps I see at the
door of this hall; and if any hireling prater talks of outlawry, to
those swords shall I appeal." The great majority were with him, and he
left them amidst loud cries of "_Vive Buonaparte!_"

A far different scene was passing in the hostile assembly of the Five
Hundred. When its members at length found their way into the Orangery,
the apartment allotted for them, a tumultuous clamour arose on every
side. _Live the Constitution! The Constitution or death! Down with the
Dictator!_--such were the ominous cries. Lucien Buonaparte, the
president, in vain attempted to restore order: the _moderate_ orators of
the council, with equal ill success, endeavoured to gain a hearing. A
_democrat_ member at length obtained a moment's silence, and proposed
that the council should renew, man by man, the oath of fidelity to the
Constitution of the year _three_. This was assented to, and a vain
ceremony, for it was no more, occupied time which might have been turned
to far different account. Overpowered, however, by the clamour, the best
friends of Napoleon, even his brother Lucien, took the oath. The
resignatory letter of Barras was then handed in, and received with a
shout of scorn. The moment was come; Napoleon, himself, accompanied by
four grenadiers, walked into the chamber--the doors remained open, and
plumes and swords were visible in dense array behind him. His grenadiers
halted near the door, and he advanced alone towards the centre of the
gallery. Then arose a fierce outcry--_Drawn swords in the sanctuary of
the laws! Outlawry! Outlawry! Let him be proclaimed a traitor! Was it
for this you gained so many victories?_ Many members rushed upon the
intruder, and, if we may place confidence in his own tale, a Corsican
deputy, by name, Arena, aimed a dagger at his throat. At all events
there was such an appearance of personal danger as fired the grenadiers
behind him. They rushed forwards, and extricated him almost breathless;
and one of their number (Thomé) was at least rewarded on the score of
his having received a wound meant for the General.

It seems to be admitted that at this moment the iron nerves of
Buonaparte were, for once, shaken. With the dangers of the field he was
familiar--in order to depict the perfect coolness of his demeanour
during the greater part of this very day, his secretary says--"_he was
as calm as at the opening of a great battle_;" but he had not been
prepared for the manifestations of this civil rage. He came out,
staggering and stammering, among the soldiery, and said, "I offered them
victory and fame, and they have answered me with daggers."

Sieyes, an experienced observer of such scenes, was still on horseback
in the court, and quickly re-assured him. General Augereau came up but a
moment afterwards, and said, "You have brought yourself into a pretty
situation." "Augereau," answered Napoleon (once more himself again),
"things were worse at Arcola. Be quiet: all this will soon right
itself." He then harangued the soldiery. "I have led you to victory, to
fame, to glory. Can I count upon you?" "Yes, yes, we swear it" (was the
answer that burst from every line), "_Vive Buonaparte!_"

In the council, meantime, the commotion had increased on the retreat of
Napoleon. A general cry arose for a sentence of outlawry against him;
and Lucien, the President, in vain appealed to the feelings of nature,
demanding that, instead of being obliged to put that question to the
vote, he might be heard as the advocate of his brother. He was
clamorously refused, and in indignation flung off the insignia of his
office. Some grenadiers once more entered, and carried him also out of
the place.

Lucien found the soldiery without in a high state of excitement. He
immediately got upon horseback, that he might be seen and heard the
better, and exclaimed: "General Buonaparte, and you, soldiers of France,
the President of the Council of Five Hundred announces to you that
factious men with daggers interrupt the deliberations of the senate. He
authorises you to employ force. The Assembly of Five Hundred is
dissolved."

Napoleon desired Le Clerc to execute the orders of the President, and
he, with a detachment of grenadiers, forthwith marched into the hall.
Amidst the reiterated screams of "_Vive la Republique_" which saluted
their entrance, an aide-de-camp mounted the tribune, and bade the
assembly disperse. "Such," said he, "are the orders of the General."
Some obeyed; others renewed their shouting. The drums drowned their
voices. "Forward, grenadiers," said Le Clerc; and the men, levelling
their pieces as if for the charge, advanced. When the bristling line of
bayonets at length drew near, the deputies lost heart, and the greater
part of them, tearing off their scarfs, made their escape, with very
undignified rapidity, by way of the windows. The apartment was cleared.
It was thus that Buonaparte, like Cromwell before him,

    "Turn'd out the members, and made fast the door."[31]

Some of his military associates proposed to him that the unfriendly
legislators should be shot, man by man, as they retreated through the
gardens; but to this he would not for a moment listen.

Lucien Buonaparte now collected the _moderate_ members of the Council of
Five Hundred; and that small minority, assuming the character of the
assembly, communicated with the Ancients on such terms of mutual
understanding, that there was no longer any difficulty about giving the
desired colouring to the events of the day. It was announced by
proclamation, that a scene of violence and uproar, and the daggers and
pistols of a band of conspirators, in the Council of Five Hundred, had
suggested the measures ultimately resorted to. These were--the
adjournment of the two councils until the middle of February next
ensuing; and the deposition, meantime, of the whole authority of the
state in a provisional _consulate_--the consuls being Napoleon
Buonaparte, Sieyes, and Ducos.

Thus terminated the 19th of Brumaire. One of the greatest revolutions on
record in the history of the world was accomplished, by means of swords
and bayonets unquestionably, but still without any effusion of blood.
From that hour the fate of France was determined. The Abbé Sieyes,
Talleyrand, and other eminent civilians, who had a hand in this great
day's proceedings, had never doubted that, under the new state of things
to which it should lead, they were to have the chief management of the
civil concerns of France. The ambition of Buonaparte, they questioned
not, would be satisfied with the control of the armies and military
establishments of the Republic. But they reckoned without their host.
Next day the three consuls met in Paris; and a lengthened discussion
arose touching the internal condition and foreign relations of France,
and the measures not only of war, but of finance and diplomacy, to be
resorted to. To the astonishment of Sieyes, Napoleon entered readily and
largely upon such topics, showed perfect familiarity with them in their
minutest details, and suggested resolutions which it was impossible not
to approve. "Gentlemen," said the Abbé, on reaching his own house, where
Talleyrand and the others expected him--and it is easy so imagine the
sensations with which Sieyes spoke the words, and Talleyrand heard
them--"Gentlemen, I perceive that you have got a master. Buonaparte can
do, and will do, everything himself. But" (he added, after a pause) "it
is better to submit than to protract dissension for ever."

Buonaparte sent word next morning to _Gohier_ and _Moulins_ that they
were at liberty. These ex-Directors were in haste to seclude themselves
from public view; and the new ruler took possession the same evening of
the Palace of the Luxembourg.

[Footnote 31: Crabbe.]




CHAPTER XIV

     The Provisional Consulate--Reforms in France--Pacification of the
     Chouans--Constitution of the year VIII.--Buonaparte Chief Consul.


The upper population of Paris had watched the stormy days of the 18th
and 19th Brumaire with the most anxious fears, lest the end should be
anarchy and the re-establishment of the reign of terror. Such, in all
likelihood, must have been the result, had Buonaparte failed, after once
attempting to strike his blow. His success held out the prospect of
victory abroad, and of a firm and stable government at home, under which
life and property might exist in safety; and wearied utterly with so
many revolutions and constitutions, each in turn pretending everything,
and ending in nothing but confusion, the immense majority of the nation
were well prepared to consider any government as a blessing which seemed
to rest on a solid basis, and to bid fair for endurance. The
revolutionary fever had in most bosoms spent its strength ere now; and
Buonaparte found henceforth little opposition to any of his measures,
unless in cases where the substantial personal comforts of men--not
abstract theories or dogmas--nor even political rights of unquestionable
value and importance--were invaded by his administration.

The two chambers, on breaking up, appointed small committees to take
counsel during the recess with the new heads of the executive; and, in
concert with these, Buonaparte and Sieyes entered vigorously on the
great task of restoring confidence and peace at home. The confusion of
the finances was the most pressing of many intolerable evils; and the
first day was devoted to them. In lieu of forced loans, by which the
Directory had systematically scourged the people, all the regular taxes
were at once raised 25 per cent.; and the receipt and expenditure of the
revenue arranged on a business-like footing. The repeal of the "Law of
Hostages"--a tyrannical act, by which the relations of emigrants were
made responsible for the behaviour of their exiled kinsmen,--followed
immediately, and was received with universal approbation. A third and a
bolder measure was the discarding of the heathen ritual, and re-opening
of the churches for Christian worship; and of this the credit was wholly
Napoleon's, who had to oppose the _philosophic_ prejudices of almost all
his colleagues. He, in his conversations with them, made no attempt to
represent himself as a believer in Christianity; but stood on the
necessity of providing the people with the regular means of worship,
wherever it is meant to have a state of tranquillity. The priests who
chose to take the oath of fidelity to government were re-admitted to
their functions; and this wise measure was followed by the adherence of
not less than 20,000 of these ministers of religion, who had hitherto
languished in the prisons of France. Cambaceres, an excellent lawyer and
judge, was of great service to Napoleon in these salutary reforms.

Many other judicious measures might be mentioned in this place. Some
emigrants, cast on the shores by shipwreck, had been imprisoned and
destined for trial by the Directory. They were at once set free: and, in
like manner, La Fayette and other distinguished revolutionists, who had
been exiled for not adhering to all the wild notions of the preceding
administrations, were at once recalled. Carnot was one of these:
Buonaparte forthwith placed him at the head of the war department; and
the reform of the army was prosecuted with the vigour which might have
been expected from the joint skill and talent of the provisional head of
the government and this practised minister. The confusion which had of
late prevailed in that department was extreme. The government did not
even know the existence of regiments raised in the provinces: arms,
clothing, discipline in every article, had been neglected. The
organisation of the army was very speedily mended.

The insurgent Chouans next claimed attention: and here the personal
character of Napoleon gave him advantages of the first importance. The
leaders of those brave bands were disposed to consider such a soldier as
a very different sort of ruler from the Pentarchy of the Luxembourg; and
their admiration for his person prepared them to listen to his terms.
The first measures of the new government were obviously calculated to
soothe their prejudices, and the general display of vigour in every
branch of the administration to overawe them. Chatillon, D'Antichamp,
Suzannet, and other royalist chiefs, submitted in form. Bernier, a
leading clergyman in La Vendée, followed the same course, and was an
acquisition of even more value. Others held out; but were soon routed in
detail, tried and executed. The appearances of returning tranquillity
were general and most welcome.

Some of the party vanquished on the 18th Brumaire, however, still
lingered in Paris, and were busy in plotting new convulsions. It was
therefore the advice of all the ministers to condemn them to exile; and
lists of proscription were drawn up and published. But Buonaparte only
meant to overawe these persons: no one was apprehended: they kept quiet
for a season; and the edict of exile sank by degrees into oblivion.

Meanwhile it was necessary that the government itself should assume some
permanent form, ere the time arrived for the re-assembly of the
legislative bodies. Their two committees met in one chamber with the
consuls, and the outline of a new constitution was laid before them by
Sieyes; who enjoyed the reputation of being the greatest of scientific
politicians. The Abbé, however, had soon perceived that Napoleon was to
be the real creator of whatever should be adopted; and, in the progress
of the ensuing consultations, submitted, step by step, to the laconic
Dictator, who accepted or discarded propositions, exactly as they
happened to coincide, or be at variance with, his own notions of his own
personal interest. He cared little in what manner the structure of the
future representative assemblies might be arranged; but there must be no
weakening of the executive power, which he was determined to vest
virtually in himself alone, and by means of which, he doubted not, it
would be easy to neutralise all other influences.

The metaphysical Abbé proposed a scheme by far too delicately
complicated for the tear and wear of human business and human passions.
The absurdity, even of the parts which Napoleon consented to adopt,
became apparent to all when the machine was set in motion. The two most
prominent and peculiar devices--namely, that of placing at the head of
the state a sort of mock sovereign, destitute of any effective power,
and capable at any time of being degraded by the vote of a single
legislative body, under the title of GRAND ELECTOR; and secondly, that
of committing the real executive power to two separate consuls, one for
war and one for peace, nominally the inferiors of the Elector, but in
influence necessarily quite above him, and almost as necessarily the
rivals and enemies of each other; these ingenious twins were strangled
in the birth by Napoleon's shrewd practical sense. "Who," said he,
"would accept an office, the only duties of which were to fatten like a
pig, on so many millions a year? And your two consuls--the one
surrounded with churchmen, lawyers, and civilians--the other with
soldiers and diplomatists--on what footing would be their intercourse?
the one demanding money and recruits, the other refusing the supplies? A
government, made up of such heterogeneous and discordant materials,
would be the shadow of a state." He added two words, which at once
decided the main question; "I, for one, would never be your Grand
Elector."

The constitution actually announced by proclamation on the 14th of
December, 1799, presents the following principal features. I. The male
citizens who are of age, and who pay taxes, in every _commune_ shall
choose a tenth of their number to be the notables of the commune; and
out of those notables the officers of the commune shall be appointed.
II. The notables of the communes constituting a _department_, shall
choose, in like manner, the tenth of their number to be the notables of
the department; and out of these the officers of the department shall be
appointed. III. The notables of all the departments shall, in the same
way, choose the tenth of their number to be notables of France; and out
of these the public functionaries of _The State_ shall be chosen. IV.
Three assemblies shall be composed of persons chosen from the notables
of France, viz.--1. The _Conservative Senate_, consisting (at first) of
twenty-four men, of forty years of age, to hold their places for life,
and to receive, each, a salary equal to 1-20th of that of the chief
consul: 2. _The Tribunate_, to be composed of 100 men, of twenty-five
years of age and upwards, of whom 1-5th go out every year, but
re-eligible indefinitely; the salary of each 15,000 francs (£625); and
thirdly, _The Legislative Senate_, composed of 300 members, of thirty
years of age, renewable by fifths every year, and having salaries of
10,000 francs (£416). V. The executive power shall be vested in three
consuls, chosen individually, as chief consul, second and third; the two
former for ten years, the last for five. VI. In order that the
administration of affairs may have time to settle itself, the tribunate
and legislative senate shall remain as first constituted for ten years,
without any re-elections. VII. With the same view, of avoiding
discussions during the unsettled state of opinion, a majority of the
members of the conservative senate are for the present appointed by the
consuls, Sieyes and Ducos, going out of office, and the consuls,
Cambaceres and Lebrun, about to come into office; they shall be held to
be duly elected, if the public _acquiesce_; and proceed to fill up their
own number, and to nominate the members of the tribunate and legislative
senate. VIII. The acts of legislation shall be proposed by the consuls:
the tribunate shall discuss and propound them to the legislative senate,
but _not vote_: the legislative senate shall hear the tribunate, and
vote, but _not debate_ themselves; and the act thus discussed and voted,
shall become law on being promulgated by the chief consul. IX.
Buonaparte is nominated chief consul, Cambaceres (minister of justice)
second, and Lebrun third consul.

It would be rash to say that this could never have turned out in
practice a free constitution. Circumstances might have modified its
arrangements, and given the spirit of freedom to institutions not
_ex-facie_ favourable to it. But for the present it was universally
admitted that, under these new forms, the power of the state must be
virtually lodged in Buonaparte. He, in fact, named himself chief consul.
His creatures chose the conservative senate, and the conservative senate
were to choose the members of the other two assemblies. The machinery,
thus set in motion, could hardly fail to remain under his control; and,
looking at things more largely, the contrivances of making the electoral
bodies in the departments choose, not their actual representatives, but
only the persons from among whom these were to be chosen by the
conservative senate, and of preventing the legislative senate from
debating for themselves on the measures destined to pass into law,
appear to have been devised for the purpose of reducing to a mere
nullity the forms of a representative government.[32] However, the
consuls announced their manufacture to the people in these
terms:--"Citizens, the Constitution is grounded on the true principles
of a representative government, on the sacred rights of property, of
equality, and of liberty. The powers which it institutes will be
vigorous and permanent: such they should be to secure the rights of the
citizens and the interests of the state. Citizens! the Revolution is
fixed on the principles from which it originated: IT IS ENDED." And in
effect, books being opened throughout France, the names of the citizens
who inscribed their acceptance of this new constitution amounted to four
millions, while but a few votes to the contrary were registered--an
irrefragable proof that the national mind was disposed to think no
sacrifice too dear, so tranquillity could be obtained.

The circumstance, perhaps, which occasioned most surprise on the
promulgation of the new constitution, was the non-appearance of the name
of Sieyes in the list of permanent consuls. It is probable that the Abbé
made up his mind to retire, so soon as he found that Buonaparte was
capable not only of mutilating his ideal republican scheme, but of
fulfiling in his own person all the functions of a civil ruler of
France. Howbeit the ingenious metaphysician did not disdain to accept of
a large estate (part of the royal domain of Versailles!) and a large
pension besides, by way of "public recompense"--when he withdrew to a
situation of comparative obscurity, as President of the Conservative
Senate.

One of Buonaparte's first acts was to remove the seat of government from
the Luxembourg to the old Palace of the Tuileries, "which," he
significantly said to his colleagues, "is a good military position." It
was on the 19th of February, 1800, that the Chief Consul took possession
of the usual residence of the French kings. Those splendid halls were
re-opened with much ceremony, and immediately afterwards Napoleon held a
great review in the Place du Carousel. This was the first public act of
the Chief Consul. Shortly after, he appeared in his new official
costume, a dress of red silk and a black stock. Someone observed to him
that this last article was out of keeping with the rest: "No matter,"
answered he, smiling, "a small remnant of the military character will do
us no harm." It was about the same time that Buonaparte heard of the
death of Washington. He forthwith issued a general order, commanding the
French army to wrap their banners in crape during ten days in honour of
"a great man who fought against tyranny and consolidated the liberties
of his country."

Talleyrand, appointed minister of foreign affairs by Buonaparte, was now
the chief partner of his counsels. The second Consul, Cambaceres, soon
learned to confine himself to the department of justice, and Lebrun to
that of finance. The effective branches of government were, almost from
the first, engrossed by Napoleon. Yet, while with equal audacity and
craft he was rapidly consolidating the elements of a new monarchy in his
own person--the Bourbonists, at home and abroad, had still nourished the
hope that this ultimate purpose was the restoration of the rightful king
of France. Very shortly after the 18th Brumaire, one of the foreign
ambassadors resident at Paris had even succeeded in obtaining a private
audience for Messieurs Hyde de Neuville and Dandigné, two agents of the
exiled princes. Buonaparte received them at night in a small closet of
the Tuileries, and requested them to speak with frankness. "You, sir,"
they said, "have now in your hands the power of re-establishing the
throne, and restoring to it its legitimate master. Tell us what are your
intentions; and, if they accord with ours, we, and all the Vendeans, are
ready to take your commands." He replied that the return of the Bourbons
could not be accomplished without enormous slaughter; that his wish was
to forget the past, and to accept the services of all who were willing
henceforth to follow the general will of the nation; but that he would
treat with none who were not disposed to renounce all correspondence
with the Bourbons and the foreign enemies of the country. The conference
lasted half-an-hour; and the agents withdrew with a fixed sense that
Buonaparte would never come over to their side. Nevertheless, as it will
appear hereafter, the Bourbons themselves did not as yet altogether
despair; and it must be admitted, that various measures of the
provisional government were not unlikely to keep up their delusive
hopse. We may notice in particular a change in the national oath of
allegiance, by which one most important clause was entirely erased:
namely, that expressive of hatred to _royalty_: and an edict, by which
the celebration of the day on which Louis XVI. died, was formally
abolished. Sieyes, in opposing this last measure, happened to speak of
Louis as "the tyrant":--"Nay, nay," said Napoleon, "he was no tyrant:
had he been one, I should this day have been a captain of engineers--and
you saying mass." The Bourbons were very right in considering these as
monarchical symptoms; but shrewd observers perceived clearly in whose
favour such changes were designed to operate. It appears that some of
Napoleon's colleagues made a last effort to circumscribe his power, by
urging on him the necessity of his immediately placing himself at the
head of the armies in the field; expecting, no doubt, great advantages,
could they remove him from the seat of government, at the time when the
new machinery was getting into a regular course of motion. He sternly
resisted all such suggestions. "I am Chief Consul," said he, biting his
nails to the quick, "I will remain in Paris."

And it was, indeed, most necessary for his success that he should remain
there at this critical epoch; for, in the arrangement of every branch of
the new government, he had systematically sought for his own security in
balancing against each other the lovers of opposite sets of principles
-men, who, by cordially coalescing together, might still have undone
him; or by carrying their animosities to extremity, overturned the whole
fabric of his manufacture. It was thus that he had chosen one consul
from the Republican party, and another from the Royalist; either of whom
might, in his absence, have been tempted to undermine his sway; whereas
both Cambaceres and Lebrun, overawed by his presence, proved eminently
serviceable in drawing over to the interests of the Chief Consul
innumerable persons, of their own ways of thinking originally, but no
longer such zealous theorists as to resist the arguments of
self-interest--those strong springs of hope and fear, of both of which
Napoleon, while at the Tuileries, held the master-key. It was thus,
also, that, in forming his ministry, he grouped together men, each of
whom detested or despised the others; but each unquestionably fitted, in
the highest degree, for the particular office assigned to him; and each,
therefore, likely to labour in his own department, communicating little
with his colleagues, and looking continually to the one hand that had
invested him with his share of power. It was in vain that one party
objected to the weathercock politics of Talleyrand. "Be it so," answered
the Chief Consul: "but he is the ablest minister for foreign affairs in
our choice, and it shall be my care that he exerts his abilities."
Carnot, in like manner, was objected to as a firm republican.
"Republican or not," answered Napoleon, "he is one of the last Frenchmen
that would wish to see France dismembered. Let us avail ourselves of his
unrivalled talents in the war department, while he is willing to place
them at our command." All parties equally cried out against the
falsehood, duplicity, and, in fact, avowed profligacy of Fouché.
"Fouché," said Buonaparte, "and Fouché alone, is able to conduct the
ministry of the police: he alone has a perfect knowledge of all the
factions and intrigues which have been spreading misery through France.
We cannot create men: we must take such as we find; and it is easier to
modify by circumstances the feelings and conduct of an able servant,
than to supply his place." Thus did he systematically make use of
whatever was willing to be useful--counting on the ambition of one man,
the integrity of a second, and the avarice of a third, with equal
confidence; and justified, for the present time (which was all he was
anxious about) by the results of each of the experiments in question.

It is impossible to refuse the praise of consummate prudence and skill
to these, and indeed, to all the arrangements of Buonaparte, at this
great crisis of his history. The secret of his whole scheme is unfolded
in his own memorable words to Sieyes: "We are creating a new era,--of
the past we must forget the bad, and remember only the good." From the
day when the consular government was formed, a new epoch was to date.
Submit to that government, and no man need fear that his former acts,
far less opinions, should prove any obstacle to his security--nay, to
his advancement. Henceforth the regicide might dismiss all dread of
Bourbon revenge; the purchaser of forfeited property of being sacrificed
to the returning nobles; provided only they chose to sink their theories
and submit. To the royalist, on the other hand, Buonaparte held out the
prospect, not indeed of Bourbon restoration, but of the re-establishment
of a monarchical form of government, and all the concomitants of a
court; for the churchman the temples were at once opened; and the
rebuilding of the hierarchical fabric, in all its wealth, splendour and
power, was offered in prospective. Meanwhile, the great and crying evil,
from which the revolution had really sprung, was for ever abolished. The
odious distinction of castes was at an end. Political liberty existed,
perhaps, no longer; but civil liberty--the equality of all Frenchmen in
the eye of the law--was, or seemed to be, established. All men
henceforth must contribute to the state in the proportion of their
means: all men appeal to the same tribunals; and no man, however meanly
born, had it to say, that there was one post of power or dignity in
France to which talent and labour never could elevate him. Shortly after
Napoleon took possession of the Tuileries, _Murat_, who had long been
the lover of his sister Caroline, demanded her hand in marriage. The
gallantry and military talents of this handsome officer had already
raised him to a distinguished rank in the army, and Josephine warmly
espoused his interests: but Buonaparte was with difficulty persuaded to
give his consent to the match. "Murat is the son of an innkeeper," said
he,--"in the station to which events have elevated me, I must not mix my
blood with his." These objections, however, were overcome by the address
of Josephine, who considered Napoleon's own brothers as her enemies, and
was anxious, not without reason, to have some additional support in the
family. Her influence, from this time, appears to have remained
unshaken; though her extravagance and incurable habit of contracting
debts gave rise to many unpleasing scenes between her and the most
methodical of mankind.

[Footnote 32: The morning after the constitution was announced, the
streets of Paris were placarded with the following pasquil:--

------------------------------------------------
|        POLITICAL SUBTRACTION.                |
|                From 5 Directors              |
|                Take 2                        |
|                    ---                       |
|        There remain 3 Consuls                |
|      From them take 2                        |
|                    ---                       |
|   And there remains 1 BUONAPARTE.   |
------------------------------------------------

This sufficiently expresses what was considered to be the essence of the
new constitution.]




CHAPTER XV

     The Chief Consul writes to the King of England--Lord Grenville's
     Answer--Napoleon passes the Great St. Bernard--The taking of St.
     Bard--The Siege of Genoa--The Battle of Montebello--The Battle of
     Marengo--Napoleon returns to Paris--The Infernal Machine--The
     Battle of Hohenlinden--The Treaty of Luneville.


Much had been already done towards the internal tranquillisation of
France: but it was obvious that the result could not be perfect until
the war, which had so long raged on two frontiers of the country, should
have found a termination. The fortune of the last two years had been far
different from that of the glorious campaigns which ended in the
treaty--or armistice, as it might more truly be named--of Campo-Formio.
The Austrians had recovered the north of Italy, and already menaced the
Savoy frontier, designing to march into Provence, and there support a
new insurrection of the royalists. The force opposed to them in that
quarter was much inferior in numbers, and composed of the relics of
armies beaten over and over again by Suwarrow. The Austrians and French
were more nearly balanced on the Rhine frontier; but even there, there
was ample room for anxiety. On the whole, the grand attitude in which
Buonaparte had left the Republic when he embarked for Egypt, was
exchanged for one of a far humbler description; and, in fact, as has
been intimated, the general disheartening of the nation, by reason of
those reverses, had been of signal service to Napoleon's ambition. If a
strong hand was wanted at home, the necessity of having a general who
could bring back victory to the tricolor banners in the field had been
not less deeply felt. And hence the decisive revolution of Brumaire.

Of the allies of Austria, meanwhile, one had virtually abandoned her.
The Emperor Paul, of Russia, resenting the style in which his army under
Suwarrow had been supported, withdrew it altogether from the field of
its victories; and that hare-brained autocrat, happening to take up an
enthusiastic personal admiration for Buonaparte, was not likely for the
present to be brought back into the Antigallican league. England
appeared steadfast to the cause; but it remained to be proved whether
the failure of her expedition to Holland under the Duke of York, or the
signal success of her naval arms in the Mediterranean under Lord Nelson,
had had the greater influence on the feelings of the government of St.
James's. In the former case Napoleon might expect to find his advances
towards a negotiation, in his new character of Chief Consul, received
with better disposition than his predecessors of the Directory had
extended to the last overtures of the English cabinet tendered by Lord
Malmesbury. He resolved to have the credit of making the experiment at
least, ere the campaign with the Austrians should open; and, discarding,
as he had on a former occasion,[33] the usual etiquettes of diplomatic
intercourse, addressed a letter to King George III., in person, almost
immediately after the new consulate was established in the Tuileries, in
these terms (Dec. 25, 1799).

             "_French Republic--Sovereignty of the People--
                          Liberty and Equality._
                          "_Buonaparte, First Consul of the Republic,
                                   to his Majesty the King of Great
                                   Britain and Ireland._

     "Called by the wishes of the French nation to occupy the first
     magistracy of the Republic, I have thought proper, in commencing
     the discharge of its duties, to communicate the event directly to
     your Majesty.

     "Must the war, which for eight years has ravaged the four quarters
     of the world, be eternal? Is there no room for accommodation? How
     can the two most enlightened nations of Europe, stronger and more
     powerful than is necessary for their safety and independence,
     sacrifice commercial advantages, internal prosperity, and domestic
     happiness, to vain ideas of grandeur? Whence comes it that they do
     not feel peace to be the first of wants as well as of glories?
     These sentiments cannot be new to the heart of your Majesty, who
     rule over a free nation with no other view than to render it happy.
     Your Majesty will see in this overture only my sincere desire to
     contribute effectually, for the second time, to a general
     pacification--by a prompt step taken in confidence, and freed from
     those forms, which, however necessary to disguise the
     apprehensions of feeble states, only serve to discover in the
     powerful a mutual wish to deceive.

     "France and England, abusing their strength, may long defer the
     period of its utter exhaustion; but I will venture to say, that the
     fate of all civilised nations is concerned in the termination of a
     war, the flames of which are raging throughout the whole world. I
     have the honour to be, &c. &c.

     "BUONAPARTE."

It is manifest that the Chief Consul was wonderfully ignorant of the
English constitution, if he really believed that the King (whose public
acts must all be done by the hands of responsible ministers) could
answer his letter personally. The reply was an official note from Lord
Grenville, then secretary of state for the department of foreign
affairs, to Talleyrand. It stated "that the King of England had no
object in the war but the security of his own dominions, his allies, and
Europe in general; he would seize the first favourable opportunity to
make peace--at present he could see none. The same general assertions of
pacific intentions had proceeded, successively, from all the
revolutionary governments of France; and they had all persisted in
conduct directly and notoriously the opposite of their language.
Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Germany, Egypt,--what country had been safe
from French aggression? The war must continue until the causes which
gave it birth ceased to exist. The restoration of the exiled royal
family would be the easiest means of giving confidence to the other
powers of Europe. The King of England by no means pretended to dictate
anything as to the internal polity of France; but he was compelled to
say, that he saw nothing in the circumstances under which the new
government had been set up, or the principles it professed to act upon,
which could tend to make foreign powers regard it as either more stable
or more trustworthy than the transitory forms it had supplanted."

Such was the tenor of Lord Grenville's famous note. It gave rise to an
animated discussion in both Houses immediately on the meeting of the
British Parliament; and, in both, the conduct of the ministry was
approved by very great majorities. When, however, the financial
preparations were brought forward, and it turned out that Russia was no
longer to be subsidised--or, in other words, had abandoned the league
against France--the prospects of the war were generally considered as
much less favourable than they had been during this discussion. In the
meantime the French government put forth, by way of commentary on Lord
Grenville's state paper, a pretended letter from the unfortunate heir of
the House of Stuart to George III., demanding from him the throne of
England, which, now that the principle of legitimacy seemed to be
recognised at St. James's, there could (said the pasquinade) be no fair
pretext for refusing. Some other trifles of the same character might be
noticed; but the true answer to Mr. Pitt was the campaign of Marengo.

Buonaparte rejoiced cordially in the result of his informal negotiation.
It was his policy, even more clearly than it had been that of his
predecessors, to buy security at home by battle and victory abroad. The
national pride had been deeply wounded during his absence; and something
must be done in Europe, worthy of the days of Lodi, and Rivoli, and
Tagliamento, ere he could hope to be seated firmly on his _throne_. On
receiving the answer of the British minister, he said to Talleyrand
(rubbing his hands, as was his custom when much pleased), "it could not
have been more favourable." On the same day, the 7th of January (just
three days after the date of Lord Grenville's note), the First Consul
issued his edict for the formation of an army of reserve, consisting of
all the veterans who had ever served, and a new levy of 30,000
conscripts.

At this time France had four armies on her frontiers: that of the North,
under Brune, watched the partisans of the House of Orange in Holland,
and guarded those coasts against any new invasion from England; the
defeat of the Duke of York had enabled the government to reduce its
strength considerably. The second was the army of the Danube, under
Jourdan, which, after the defeat at Stockach, had been obliged to repass
the Rhine. The third, under Massena, styled the army of Helvetia, had
been compelled in the preceding campaign to evacuate great part of
Switzerland; but, gaining the battle of Zurich against the Russians, now
re-occupied the whole of that republic. The fourth was that broken
remnant which still called itself the "army of Italy." After the
disastrous conflict of Genola it had rallied in disorder on the Apennine
and the heights of Genoa, where the spirit of the troops was already so
much injured, that whole battalions deserted _en masse_, and retired
behind the Var. Their distress, in truth, was extreme; for they had lost
all means of communication with the valley of the Po, and the English
fleet effectually blockaded the whole coasts both of Provence and
Liguria; so that, pent up among barren rocks, they suffered the
hardships and privations of a beleaguered garrison.

The Chief Consul sent Massena to assume the command of the "army of
Italy"; and issued, on that occasion, a general order, which had a
magical effect on the minds of the soldiery, Massena was highly esteemed
among them; and after his arrival at Genoa, the deserters flocked back
rapidly to their standards. At the same time Buonaparte ordered Moreau
to assume the command of the two corps of the Danube and Helvetia, and
consolidate them into one great "army of the Rhine." Lastly, the
rendezvous of the "army of reserve" was appointed for Dijon: a central
position from which either Messena or Moreau might, as circumstances
demanded, be supported and reinforced; but which Napoleon really
designed to serve for a cloak to his main purpose. For he had already,
in concert with Carnot, sketched the plan of that which is generally
considered as at once the most daring and the most masterly of all the
campaigns of the war; and which, in so far as the execution depended on
himself, turned out also the most dazzlingly successful.

In placing Moreau at the head of the army of the Rhine, full 150,000
strong, and out of all comparison the best disciplined as well as
largest force of the Republic, Buonaparte exhibited a noble superiority
to all feelings of personal jealousy. That general's reputation
approached the most nearly to his own, but his talents justified this
reputation, and the Chief Consul thought of nothing but the best means
of accomplishing the purposes of the joint campaign. Moreau, in the
sequel, was severely censured by his master for the manner in which he
executed the charge entrusted to him. His orders were to march at once
upon Ulm, at the risk of placing the great Austrian army under Kray
between him and France; but he was also commanded to detach 15,000 of
his troops for the separate service of passing into Italy by the defiles
of St. Gothard; and given to understand that it must be his business to
prevent Kray, at all hazards, from opening a communication with Italy by
way of the Tyrol. Under such circumstances, it is not wonderful that a
general, who had a master, should have proceeded more cautiously than
suited the gigantic aspirations of the unfettered Napoleon. Moreau,
however, it must be admitted, had always the reputation of a prudent
rather than a daring commander. The details of his campaign against Kray
must be sought elsewhere. A variety of engagements took place with a
variety of fortune. Moreau, his enemies allow, commenced his operations
by crossing the Rhine in the end of April; and, on the 15th of July, had
his headquarters at Augsburg, and was in condition either to reinforce
the French in Italy, or to march into the heart of the Austrian states,
when the success of Buonaparte's own expedition rendered either movement
unnecessary.

The Chief Consul had resolved upon conducting, in person, one of the
most adventurous enterprises recorded in the history of war. The
formation of the army of reserve at Dijon was a mere deceit. A numerous
staff, indeed, assembled in that town; and the preparation of the
munitions of war proceeded there as elsewhere with the utmost energy:
but the troops collected at Dijon were few; and--it being universally
circulated and believed, that they were the force meant to re-establish
the once glorious army of Italy, by marching to the headquarters of
Massena at Genoa,--the Austrians received the accounts of their numbers
and appearance, not only with indifference but with derision.
Buonaparte, meanwhile, had spent three months in recruiting his armies
throughout the interior of France; and the troops, by means of which it
was his purpose to change the face of affairs beyond the Alps, were
already marching by different routes, each detachment in total ignorance
of the other's destination, upon the territory of Switzerland. To that
quarter Buonaparte had already sent forward Berthier, the most
confidential of his military friends, and other officers of the highest
skill, with orders to reconnoitre the various passes in the great Alpine
chain, and make every other preparation for the movement, of which they
alone were, as yet, in the secret.

The statesmen who ventured, even after Brumaire, to oppose the
investiture of Buonaparte with the whole power of the state, had, at
first (as we have seen) attempted to confine him to the military
department; or so arrange it that his orders, as to civil affairs,
should, at least, not be absolute. Failing in this, they then proposed
that the Chief Consul should be incapable of heading an army in the
field, without abdicating previously his magistracy; and to their
surprise, Napoleon at once acceded to a proposition which, it had been
expected, would rouse his indignation. It now turned out how much the
saving clause in question was worth. The Chief Consul could not, indeed,
be general-in-chief of an army; but he could appoint whom he pleased to
that post; and there was no law against his being present, in his own
person, as a spectator of the campaign. It signified little that a
Berthier should write himself commander, when a Napoleon was known to be
in the camp.

It was now time that the great project should be realised. The situation
of the "army of Italy" was become most critical. After a variety of
petty engagements, its general saw his left wing (under Suchet) wholly
cut off from his main body; and, while Suchet was forced to retire
behind the Var, where his troops had the utmost difficulty in presenting
any serious opposition to the Austrians, Massena had been compelled to
throw himself with the remainder into Genoa. In that city he was
speedily blockaded by the Austrian general Ott; while the imperial
commander-in-chief, Melas, advanced with 30,000 upon Nice--of which
place he took possession on the 11th of May. The Austrians, having shut
up Massena, and well knowing the feebleness of Suchet's division, were
in a delirium of joy. The gates of France appeared, at length, to be
open before them; and it was not such an army of reserve as had excited
the merriment of their spies at Dijon that could hope to withstand them
in their long-meditated march on Provence--where Pichegru, as they
supposed, was prepared to assume the command of a numerous body of
royalist insurgents, as soon as he should receive intelligence of their
entrance into France. But they were soon to hear news of another
complexion from whence they least expected it--from behind them.

The Chief Consul remained in Paris until he received Berthier's decisive
despatch from Geneva--it was in these words: "I wish to see you here.
There are orders to be given by which three armies may act in concert,
and you alone can give them in the lines. Measures decided on in Paris
are too late." He instantly quitted the capital; and, on the 7th of May
appeared at Dijon, where he reviewed, in great form, some 7000 or 8000
raw and half-clad troops, and committed them to the care of Brune. The
spies of Austria reaped new satisfaction from this consular review:
meanwhile Napoleon had halted but two hours at Dijon; and, travelling
all night, arrived the next day, at Geneva. Here he was met by Marescot,
who had been employed in exploring the wild passes of the Great St.
Bernard, and received from him an appalling picture of the difficulties
of marching an army by that route into Italy. "Is it possible to pass?"
said Napoleon, cutting the engineer's narrative short. "The thing is
barely possible," answered Marescot. "Very well," said the Chief Consul,
"_en avant_--let us proceed."

While the Austrians were thinking only of the frontier where Suchet
commanded an enfeebled and dispirited division,--destined, as they
doubted not, to be reinforced by the army, such as it was, of
Dijon,--the Chief Consul had resolved to penetrate into Italy, as
Hannibal had done of old, through all the dangers and difficulties of
the great Alps themselves. The march on the Var and Genoa might have
been executed with comparative ease, and might, in all likelihood, have
led to victory; but mere victory would not suffice. It was urgently
necessary that the name of Buonaparte should be surrounded with some
blaze of almost supernatural renown; and his plan for purchasing this
splendour was to rush down from the Alps, at whatever hazard, upon the
rear of Melas, cut off all his communications with Austria, and then
force him to a conflict, in which, Massena and Suchet being on the other
side of him, reverse must needs be ruin.

For the treble purpose of more easily collecting a sufficient stock of
provisions for the march, of making its accomplishment more rapid, and
of perplexing the enemy on its termination, Napoleon determined that his
army should pass in four divisions, by as many separate routes. The left
wing, under Moncey, consisting of 15,000 detached from the army of
Moreau, was ordered to debouch by the way of St. Gothard. The corps of
Thureau, 5000 strong, took the direction of Mount Cenis: that of
Chabran, of similar strength, moved by the Little St. Bernard. Of the
main body, consisting of 35,000, the Chief Consul himself took care;
and he reserved for them the gigantic task of surmounting, with the
artillery, the huge barriers of the Great St. Bernard. Thus along the
Alpine Chain--from the sources of the Rhine and the Rhone to Isere and
Durance--about 60,000 men, in all, prepared for the adventure. It must
be added, if we would form a fair conception of the enterprise, that
Napoleon well knew not one-third of these men had ever seen a shot fired
in earnest.

The difficulties encountered by Moncey, Thureau, and Chabran will be
sufficiently understood from the narrative of Buonaparte's own march.
From the 15th to the 18th of May all his columns were put in motion;
Lannes, with the advanced guard, clearing the way before them; the
general, Berthier, and the Chief Consul himself superintending the rear
guard, which, as having with it the artillery, was the object of highest
importance. At St. Pierre all semblance of a road disappeared.
Thenceforth an army, horse and foot, laden with all the munitions of a
campaign, a park of forty field-pieces included, were to be urged up and
along airy ridges of rock and eternal snow, where the goatherd, the
hunter of the chamois, and the outlaw-smuggler are alone accustomed to
venture; amidst precipices where to slip a foot is death; beneath
glaciers from which the percussion of a musket-shot is often sufficient
to hurl an avalanche; across bottomless chasms caked over with frost or
snow-drift; and breathing

    "The difficult air of the iced mountain top,
    Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing
    Flit o'er the herbless granite."[34]

The transport of the artillery and ammunition was the most difficult
point; and to this, accordingly, the Chief Consul gave his personal
superintendence. The guns were dismounted, grooved into the trunks of
trees hollowed out so as to suit each calibre, and then dragged on by
sheer strength of muscle--not less than an hundred soldiers being
sometimes harnessed to a single cannon. The carriages and wheels, being
taken to pieces, were slung on poles, and borne on men's shoulders. The
powder and shot, packed into boxes of fir-wood, formed the lading of all
the mules that could be collected over a wide range of the Alpine
country. These preparations had been made during the week that elapsed
between Buonaparte's arrival at Geneva and the commencement of Lannes's
march. He himself travelled sometimes on a mule, but mostly on foot,
cheering on the soldiers who had the burden of the great guns. The
fatigue undergone is not to be described. The men in front durst not
halt to breathe, because the least stoppage there might have thrown the
column behind into confusion, on the brink of deadly precipices; and
those in the rear had to flounder knee deep, through snow and ice
trampled into sludge by the feet and hoofs of the preceding divisions.
Happily the march of Napoleon was not harassed, like that of Hannibal,
by the assaults of living enemies. The mountaineers, on the contrary,
flocked in to reap the liberal rewards which he offered to all who were
willing to lighten the drudgery of his troops.

On the 16th of May Napoleon slept at the convent of St. Maurice; and, in
the course of the four following days, the whole army passed the Great
St. Bernard. It was on the 20th that Buonaparte himself halted an hour
at the convent of the Hospitallers, which stands on the summit of this
mighty mountain. The good fathers of the monastery had been warned
beforehand of the march, and they had furnished every soldier as he
passed with a luncheon of bread and cheese and a glass of wine; for
which seasonable kindness, they now received the warm acknowledgments of
the chief.[35] It was here that he took his leave of a peasant youth,
who had walked by him, as his guide, all the way from the convent of St.
Maurice. Napoleon conversed freely with the young man, and was much
interested with his simplicity. At parting, he asked the guide some
particulars about his personal situation; and, having heard his reply,
gave him money and a billet to the head of the monastery of St. Maurice.
The peasant delivered it accordingly, and was surprised to find that,
in consequence of a scrap of writing which he could not read, his
worldly comforts were to be permanently increased. The object of his
generosity remembered, nevertheless, but little of his conversation with
the Consul. He described Napoleon as being "a very dark man" (this was
the effect of the Syrian sun), and having an eye that, notwithstanding
his affability, he could not encounter without a sense of fear. The only
saying of the hero which he treasured in his memory was, "I have spoiled
a hat among your mountains: well, I shall find a new one on the other
side."--Thus spoke Napoleon, wringing the rain from his covering as he
approached the hospice of St. Bernard.--The guide described, however,
very strikingly, the effects of Buonaparte's appearance and voice, when
any obstacle checked the advance of his soldiery along that fearful
wilderness which is called emphatically, "The Valley of Desolation." A
single look or word was commonly sufficient to set all in motion again.
But if the way presented some new and apparently insuperable difficulty,
the Consul bade the drums beat and the trumpets sound, as if for the
charge; and this never failed. Of such gallant temper were the spirits
which Napoleon had at command, and with such admirable skill did he
wield them!

On the 16th the vanguard, under Lannes, reached the beautiful vale of
Aosta, and the other divisions descended rapidly on their footsteps.
This part of the progress was not less difficult than the ascent before.
The horses, mules, and guns, were to be led down one slippery steep
after another--and we may judge with what anxious care, since Napoleon
himself was once contented to slide nearly a hundred yards together,
_seated_.

On the 17th Lannes arrived at Chatillon, where he attacked and defeated
a corps of 5000 Austrians--who received the onset of a French division
in that quarter, with about as much surprise as if an enemy had dropped
on them from the clouds. Every difficulty now seemed to be surmounted,
and corps after corps came down into the plentiful and verdant valley,
full of joy. But suddenly the march of the vanguard was arrested by an
obstacle unforeseen, or, at least, grievously under-estimated. Midway
between Aosta and Ivrea the Dora flows through a defile, not more than
fifty yards in width: the heights on either hand rise precipitous; and
in the midst an abrupt conical rock, crowned with the fortress of St.
Bard, entirely commands the river, and a small walled town, through the
heart of which lies the only passage. Lannes having vainly attempted to
force the place by a _coup de main_, a panic arose, and this spreading
to the rear, orders were given for stopping the descent of the
artillery. The Consul had come as far as the town of Aosta when this
intelligence reached him. He immediately hastened to St. Bard, where he
found the troops in much confusion.

On occasions like this Napoleon rarely failed to vindicate the
_prestige_ of his reputation. After hastily surveying the localities, he
climbed the height of the Albaredo, which rises on the one side above
the fort, and satisfied himself that, though the path had hitherto been
trodden only by solitary huntsmen, the army who had crossed the St.
Bernard might, by similar efforts, find or make their way here also. A
single cannon being, with the last difficulty, hoisted to the summit, he
planted it so as to play full on the chief bastion of St. Bard. The
moment this was arranged the troops began their painful march; and they
accomplished it without considerable loss; for the Consul's gun was so
excellently placed that the main battery of the subjacent castle, was,
ere long, silenced. The men crept along the brow of the Albaredo in
single file, each pausing (says an eye-witness) to gaze for a moment on
Napoleon, who, overcome with his exertions, had lain down and fallen
fast asleep upon the summit of the rock. Thus passed the main body,
slowly, but surely. Meantime Colonel Dufour had been ordered to scale
the wall of the town at nightfall; and his regiment (the 58th) performed
this service so impetuously, that the Austrian troops took refuge in the
castle, and the French made good their lodgment in the houses below. For
some hours the garrison poured down grape-shot at half-musket distance
upon the French, but at last out of compassion for the inhabitants, the
fire slackened, and ere day broke Buonaparte had effected his main
purpose. The streets of the town having been strewn with litter to
deafen sound, the guns, covered with straw and branches of trees, were
dragged through it under the very guns of St. Bard, and without exciting
the least suspicion in its garrison. Next morning the Austrian sent on
a messenger to Melas, with tidings that a large division of the French
had indeed passed by the goat-tracks of Albaredo, but that most
certainly not one great gun was with them. Buonaparte, meantime, was
hurrying forwards with horse, foot, and artillery too, upon Ivrea.

The march of the Consul received no new check until he reached the town
of Ivrea, where, after two days' hard fighting, Lannes at length forced
an entrance, and the garrison, with severe loss, withdrew. Buonaparte
then took the road to Turin, and the vanguard had another severe piece
of service at the bridge of Chiusilla, where 10,000 Austrians had been
very strongly posted. Lannes broke them, and pursuing as far as Orca,
cut them off from their magazines at Chevagno, and seized a vast
quantity of stores which had been embarked on the Po. The advance was
now within one march of Turin, while Murat occupied Vercelli, and the
other divisions (those of Moncey, Chabran, and Thureau), having
accomplished their several Alpine journeys, were pouring down upon the
low country, and gradually converging towards the appointed rendezvous
on the Ticino. Buonaparte had thus overcome the great difficulties of
his preparation, and was ready with his whole army to open the campaign
in good earnest against Melas.

The blockade of Genoa had been kept up all this time; while Suchet
resolutely maintained the last line of defence on the old frontier of
France. On the 22nd of May Melas made a desperate effort to force the
passage of the Var, but failed; and immediately afterwards received his
first intelligence of the movements of Buonaparte, and the defeat of his
own detachment at the bridge of Chiusilla. He perceived that it was high
time to leave Suchet to inferior hands, and set off to oppose in person
"the army of reserve." Suchet, on his part, was not slow to profit by
the departure of the Austrian Commander-in-chief: he, being informed of
Buonaparte's descent, forthwith resumed the offensive, re-crossed the
Var, and carried Vintimiglia at the point of the bayonet. Pursuing his
advantage, Suchet obtained the mastery, first of the defile of Braus,
and then of that of Tende, and at length re-occupied his old position at
Melagno, whence his advanced guard pushed on as far as Savona.

The garrison of Genoa, meantime, had been holding out gallantly.
Massena for some time kept possession of the semicircular chain of
heights on the land side, and was thus enabled to obtain provisions,
despite the 40,000 Austrians under General Ott who lay watching him, and
the English fleet under Lord Keith which completely blockaded the shore.
A great effort made to dislodge him from the heights on the 3rd of April
had failed. But by degrees the superiority of numbers proved too much
for him, and being shut at last within the walls--where, to increase all
his difficulties, a great part of the population was violently hostile
to the French cause--his sufferings from want of provisions, and the
necessity of constant watchfulness and daily skirmishes, began to be
severe. In his sorties, Massena had for the most part the advantage; and
never in the whole war was the heroism of the French soldiery more
brilliantly displayed than during this siege.[36] The news of the
expedition of Napoleon at length penetrated to the beleaguered garrison,
and the expectation of relief gave them from day to day new courage to
hold out. But day passed after day without any deliverer making his
appearance, and the scarcity of food rendered it almost impossible to
keep the inhabitants from rising _en masse_ to throw open the gates. The
English, meanwhile, anchored closer to the city, and having cut out the
vessels which guarded the entrance of the harbour, were bombarding the
French quarters at their pleasure. Everything eatable, not excepting the
shoes and knapsacks of the soldiers, had been devoured, ere Massena at
length listened to the proposal of a conference with General Ott and
Lord Keith. If the French general's necessities were urgent, the English
admiral's desire to get possession of Genoa, ere Buonaparte could make
further progress, was not less vehement. Lord Keith frankly told
Massena, that his gallantry had been such that no terms could be too
good for him. The word _capitulation_ Was omitted: the French marched
out of the town with arms and baggage, and were allowed to proceed to
Suchet's headquarters; and, on the 5th of June, Ott occupied Genoa.

General Ott, notwithstanding this success, had been very ill-employed in
lingering before Genoa while Napoleon was so rapidly advancing; and
Melas, utterly perplexed between Suchet on the one side and the Consul
on the other, had in fact lain still, and done nothing. Buonaparte,
between the 1st and 4th of June, crossed the Ticino with his whole army.
Murat carried Turbigo on the 5th, the very day that Genoa fell; and on
the 2nd, the Chief Consul himself once more entered Milan, where he was
received with enthusiasm. Lannes, after various conflicts, occupied
Pavia. Chapon and Thureau threatened Turin by two different routes; and
Melas, at last roused to a sense of his imminent danger, abandoned the
open country of Piedmont, took up his headquarters at Alessandria, and
began to draw together his widely separated columns, and concentrate
them for the inevitable battle which must decide the fate of Italy.

Buonaparte, meanwhile, was ignorant of the fall of Genoa. He supposed,
therefore, that the army of Ott was still at a wide distance from that
of the Austrian commander-in-chief, and meditated to pass the Po
suddenly, and either attack Ott and relieve Genoa, ere Melas knew that
he was in that neighbourhood, or, if he should find this more
practicable, force Melas himself to accept battle unsupported by Ott.
Lannes and the van, accordingly, pushed on as far as Montebello, where,
to their surprise, they found the Austrians in strength. Early in the
morning of the 9th of June, Lannes was attacked by a force which he had
much difficulty in resisting. The Austrians were greatly superior in
cavalry, and the ground was favourable for that arm. But at length
Victor's division came up, and, after a severe struggle, turned the
tide. The battle was a most obstinate one. The fields being covered with
very tall crops of rye, the hostile battalions were often almost within
bayonet's length ere they were aware of each other's presence; and the
same circumstances prevented the generals, on either side, from
displaying much science in their manœuvres. It was a conflict of man
against man, and determined at a dear cost of blood. The field was
strewn with dead, and the retiring Austrians left 5000 prisoners in the
hands of Lannes--who, in memory of this day of slaughter, was created
afterwards Duke of Montebello. It was from the prisoners taken here that
the Consul learned the fate of Genoa. He immediately concluded that
Melas had concentrated his army; and, having sent messengers to Suchet,
urging him to cross the mountains by the Col di Cadibona, and march on
the Scrivia (which would place him in the rear of the enemy), halted his
whole line upon the strong position of Stradella.

It was on the evening after Montebello, that General Dessaix, whom
Napoleon considered as second only to himself in military genius,
arrived at headquarters. Buonaparte had, as we have seen, on leaving
Egypt, ordered Kleber to send Dessaix to France in the course of
November. He had accordingly landed at Frejus shortly after the
establishment of the new government, where he found letters from the
Chief Consul, urging him to join him without delay. In these letters
there were some melancholy phrases, and Dessaix, who really loved
Napoleon, was heard to say, "He has gained all, and yet he is not
satisfied." A hundred obstacles rose up to keep Dessaix from joining his
friend so speedily as both wished. He was yet in France when the news of
St. Bernard came thither, and exclaiming, "He will leave us nothing to
do," travelled night and day until he was able to throw himself into his
arms. Napoleon immediately gave him the command of a division; and they
spent the night together in conversing about the affairs of Egypt.

The First Consul was anxious to tempt Melas to attack him at Stradella,
where the ground was unfavourable to cavalry movements; but, after lying
there unmolested for three days, he began to fear that the Austrian had
resolved, either on moving to the left flank, crossing the Ticino,
occupying Milan, and so re-opening his communications with Vienna;--or,
on falling back to Genoa, overwhelming Suchet, and taking up a position
where the British fleet could supply him with provisions--or even, in
case of necessity, embark his army, carry it round to the other side of
Italy, and by that means place him once more between his enemy and the
German states. Buonaparte, being perplexed with these apprehensions, at
last descended into the great plain of Marengo, on which he had, not
without reason, feared to abide the onset of Melas and the Austrian
horse. He was at Volghera on the 11th, and the next day at St. Juliano,
in the very centre of the plain; but still no enemy appeared. On the
13th, he advanced to the village of Marengo itself, and finding nothing
even there but a scanty outpost, which retreated before him, concluded
certainly that Melas had given him the slip, and marched either to the
left on the Ticino, or to the right on Genoa. In great anxiety he
detached one division under Dessaix to watch the road to Genoa, and
another under Murat towards the Scrivia. Dessaix was already
half-a-day's journey from headquarters, when Napoleon received
intelligence which made him hastily recall all his detachments. The
Austrian general, after a long hesitation, had at length resolved to let
a fair field decide once more the fate of Italy. On the evening of the
13th, his whole army mustered in front of Alessandria having only the
river Bormida between them and the plain of Marengo; and early in the
following morning, they passed the stream at three several points, and
advanced towards the French position in as many columns.

The Austrians were full 40,000 strong; while, in the absence of Dessaix
and the reserve, Napoleon could, at most, oppose to them 20,000, of whom
only 2500 were cavalry. He had, however, no hesitation about accepting
the battle. His advance, under Gardanne, occupied the small hamlet of
Padre Bona, a little in front of Marengo. At that village, which
overlooks a narrow ravine, the channel of a rivulet, Napoleon stationed
Victor with the main body of his first line--the extreme right of it
resting on Castel Ceriolo, another hamlet almost parallel with Marengo;
Kellerman, with a brigade of cavalry, was posted immediately behind
Victor for the protection of his flanks. A thousand yards in the rear of
Victor was the second line, under Lannes, protected in like fashion by
the cavalry of Champeaux. At about an equal distance, again, behind
Lannes, was the third line, consisting of the division of St. Cyr, and
the consular guard, under Napoleon in person. The Austrian heavy
infantry, on reaching the open field, formed into two lines, the first,
under General Haddick, considerably in advance before the other, which
Melas himself commanded, with General Zach for his second. These moved
steadily towards Marengo; while the light infantry and cavalry, under
General Elsnitz, made a detour round Castel Ceriolo with the purpose of
outflanking the French right.

Such was the posture of the two armies when this great battle began.
Gardanne was unable to withstand the shock, and abandoning Padre Bona,
fell back to strengthen Victor. A furious cannonade along the whole
front of that position ensued; the tirailleurs of either army posted
themselves along the margins of the ravine, and fired incessantly at
each other, their pieces almost touching. Cannon and musketry spread
devastation everywhere--for the armies were but a few toises apart. For
more than two hours Victor withstood singly the vigorous assaults of a
far superior force; Marengo had been taken and retaken several times,
ere Lannes received orders to reinforce him. The second line at length
advanced, but they found the first in retreat, and the two corps took up
a second line of defence considerably to the rear of Marengo. Here they
were, again, charged furiously--and again, after obstinate resistance,
gave way. General Elsnitz, meantime, having effected his purpose, and
fairly marched round Castel Ceriolo, appeared on the right flank, with
his splendid cavalry, and began to pour his squadrons upon the
retreating columns of Lannes. That gallant chief formed his troops _en
echelon_; and retired in admirable order--but the retreat was now
general; and, had Melas pursued the advantage with all his reserve, the
battle was won. But that aged general (he was eighty-four years old)
doubted not that he had won it already; and at this critical moment,
being quite worn out with fatigue, withdrew to the rear, leaving Zach to
continue what he considered as now a mere pursuit.

At the moment when the Austrian horse were about to rush on Lannes's
retreating corps, the reserve under Dessaix appeared on the outskirts of
the field. Dessaix himself, riding up to the First Consul, said, "I
think this is a battle lost." "I think it is a battle won," answered
Napoleon. "Do you push on, and I will speedily rally the line behind
you."--And in effect the timely arrival of this reserve turned the
fortune of the day.

Napoleon in person drew up the whole of his army on a third line of
battle, and rode along the front, saying, "Soldiers, we have retired far
enough. Let us now advance. You know it is my custom to sleep on the
field of battle." The enthusiasm of the troops appeared to be revived,
and Dessaix prepared to act on the offensive; he led a fresh column of
5000 grenadiers to meet and check the advance of Zach. The brave Dessaix
fell dead at the first fire, shot through the head. "Alas! it is not
permitted to me to weep," said Napoleon; and the fall of that beloved
chief redoubled the fury of his followers. The first line of the
Austrian infantry charged, however, with equal resolution. At that
moment Kellerman's horse came on them in flank; and being, by that
unexpected assault, broken, they were, after a vain struggle, compelled
to surrender:--General Zach himself was here made prisoner. The Austrian
columns behind, being flushed with victory, were advancing too
carelessly, and proved unable to resist the general assault of the whole
French line, which now pressed onwards under the immediate command of
Napoleon. Post after post was carried. The noble cavalry of Elsnitz,
perceiving the infantry broken and retiring, lost heart; and, instead of
forming to protect their retreat, turned their horses' heads and
galloped over the plain, trampling down every thing in their way. When
the routed army reached at length the Bormida, the confusion was
indescribable. Hundreds were drowned--the river rolled red amidst the
corpses of horse and men. Whole corps, being unable to effect the
passage, surrendered: and at ten at night the Austrian commander with
difficulty rallied the remnant of that magnificent array on the very
ground which they had left the same morning in all the confidence of
victory.

It is not to be denied that Napoleon was saved on this occasion by the
arrival of the reserve under Dessaix, and the timely charge of
Kellerman. On the other hand it is impossible not to condemn the
rashness with which the Austrian generals advanced after their first
successes.

The discomfiture of the imperialists was so great, that rather than
stand the consequences of another battle, while Suchet was coming on
their rear, they next day entered into a negotiation. Melas offered to
abandon Genoa and all the strong places in Piedmont, Lombardy, and the
Legations--provided Buonaparte would allow him to march the remains of
his army unmolested to the rear of Mantua. Napoleon accepted this offer.
By one battle he had regained nearly all that the French had lost in the
unhappy Italian campaign of 1799: at all events he had done enough to
crown his own name with unrivalled splendour, and to show that the
French troops were once more what they had used to be--when he was in
the field to command them. He had another motive for closing with the
propositions of General Melas. It was of urgent importance to regain
Genoa, ere an English army, which he knew was on its voyage to that
port, could reach its destination.

On the 17th of June Napoleon returned in triumph to Milan, where he
formally re-established the Cisalpine Republic, and was present at a
festival of high state and magnificence. He then gave the command of the
army of Italy to Massena; and appointed Jourdan French minister in
Piedmont--in other words, governor of that dominion; and set out on his
journey to Paris. He halted at Lyons to lay the first stone of the new
_Place de Bellecour_, erected on the ruins of a great square destroyed
by the Jacobins during the revolutionary madness; and reached the
Tuileries on the 2nd of July. He had set out for Switzerland on the 6th
of May. Two months had not elapsed, and in that brief space what wonders
had been accomplished! The enthusiasm of the Parisians exceeded all that
has been recorded of any triumphal entry. Night after night every house
was illuminated; and day following day the people stood in crowds around
the palace, contented if they could but catch one glimpse of the
preserver of France.

The effusion of joy was the greater--because the tale of victory came on
a people prepared for other tidings. About noontide on the 14th of June,
when the French had been driven out of Marengo, and were apparently in
full and disastrous retreat, a commercial traveller left the field, and
arriving, after a rapid journey, in Paris, announced that Buonaparte had
been utterly defeated by Melas. It is said that the ill-wishers of the
First Consul immediately set on foot an intrigue for removing him from
the government, and investing Carnot with the chief authority. It is
not doubtful that many schemes of hostility had been agitated during
Napoleon's absence; or that, amidst all the clamour and splendour of his
triumphant reception in Paris, he wore a gloomy brow; nor has any one
disputed that, from this time, he regarded the person of Carnot with
jealousy and aversion.

The tidings of the great battle, meanwhile, kindled the emulation of the
Rhenish army; and they burned with the earnest desire to do something
worthy of being recorded in the same page with Marengo. But the Chief
Consul, when he granted the armistice to Melas, had extended it to the
armies on the German frontier likewise; and Moreau, consequently, could
not at once avail himself of the eagerness of his troops. The
negotiations which ensued, however, were unsuccessful. The emperor,
subsidised as he had been, must have found it very difficult to resist
the remonstrances of England against the ratification of any peace in
which she should not be included; and it is natural to suppose, that the
proud spirit of the Austrian cabinet revolted from setting the seal to
an act of humiliation, not yet, as the English government insisted,
absolutely necessary. News, meantime, were received, of the surrender of
Malta to an English expedition under Lord Keith and Sir Ralph
Abercrombie;[37] and this timely piece of good fortune breathed fresh
spirit into the Antigallican league. In fine, insincerity and suspicion
protracted, from day to day, a negotiation not destined to be concluded
until more blood had been shed.

During this armistice, which lasted from the 15th of June to the 10th of
November, the exiled princes of the House of Bourbon made some more
ineffectual endeavours to induce the Chief Consul to be the Monk of
France. The Abbé de Montesquiou, secret agent for the Count de Lille
(afterwards Louis XVIII.), prevailed on the Third Consul, Le Brun, to
lay before Buonaparte a letter addressed to him by that prince--in these
terms: "You are very tardy about restoring my throne to me: it is to be
feared that you may let the favourable moment slip. You cannot establish
the happiness of France without me; and I, on the other hand, can do
nothing for France without you. Make haste, then, and point out,
yourself, the posts and dignities which will satisfy you and your
friends." The First Consul answered thus: "I have received your Royal
Highness's letter. I have always taken a lively interest in your
misfortunes and those of your family. You must not think of appearing in
France--you could not do so without marching over five hundred thousand
corpses. For the rest, I shall always be zealous to do whatever lies
within my power towards softening your Royal Highness's destinies, and
making you forget, if possible, your misfortunes." The Comte D'Artois
(Charles X. of France) took a more delicate method of negotiating. He
sent a very beautiful and charming lady, the Duchesse de Guiche, to
Paris; she without difficulty gained access to Josephine, and shone, for
a time, the most brilliant ornament of the consular court. But the
moment Napoleon discovered the fair lady's errand, she was ordered to
quit the capital within a few hours. These intrigues, however, could not
fail to transpire; and there is no doubt that, at this epoch, the hopes
of the royalists were in a high state of excitement.

Meantime, among the meaner orders of both the great parties, who
regarded with aversion the sovereign authority of the Chief Consul,
there wanted not hearts wicked enough, nor hands sufficiently desperate,
for attempts far different from these. The lawfulness, nay, the merit
and the glory of tyrranicide, were ideas familiar to the Jacobins of
every degree; and, during the years of miserable convulsion which
followed the imprisonment and murder of Louis XVI., the royalist bands
had often been joined, and sometimes guided, by persons in whom a
naturally fanatical spirit, goaded by the sense of intolerable wrongs,
dared to think of revenge--no matter how accomplished--as the last and
noblest of duties: nor is it wonderful that amidst a long protracted
civil war, when scenes of battle and slaughter were relieved only by the
hardships of skulking in woods and the fears of famine, the character of
others, originally both pure and gentle, had come to be degraded into a
callous indifference of dark sullenness of temper, fit preparatives for
deeds, the thought of which, in earlier and better days, would have been
horror and loathing.

It was among the Jacobins, who had formerly worshipped Buonaparte as the
"child and champion" of their creed, that the first schemes of
assassination were agitated. An Italian sculptor, by name Ceracchi, who
had modelled the bust of Napoleon while he held his court at
Montebello, arrived in Paris, and, under pretence of retouching his
work, solicited admission to the presence of the new Cæsar, whose Brutus
he had resolved to be. The occupations of the Consul did not permit of
this, and the Italian, having opened his purpose to Topineau, Lebrun, a
painter, the adjutant-general Arena, Damerville, and others of kindred
sentiments, arranged a plan by which Buonaparte was to have been
surrounded and stabbed in the lobby of the opera house. But one of the
accomplices betrayed the conspiracy; and Ceracchi and his associates
were arrested in the theatre, at the moment when they were expecting
their victim.

This occurred towards the middle of August; and it has been said that
the Jacobin conspirators, being thrown into the same prison with some
desperadoes of the Chouan faction, gave to these last the outline of
another scheme of assassination, which had more nearly proved
successful. This was the plot of _the infernal machine_. A cart was
prepared to contain a barrel of gunpowder, strongly fastened in the
midst of a quantity of grape-shot, which, being set on fire by a slow
match, was to explode at the moment when Buonaparte was passing through
some narrow street, and scatter destruction in every direction around
it. The night selected was that of the 10th of October, when the Chief
Consul was expected to visit the opera, and the machine was planted in
the Rue St. Nicaise, through which he must pass in his way thither from
the Tuileries. Napoleon told his friends at St. Helena, that having
laboured hard all day, he felt himself overpowered with sleep after
dinner, and that Josephine, who was anxious to be at the opera, had much
difficulty in at last rousing and persuading him to go. "I fell fast
asleep again" (he said), "after I was in my carriage; and at the moment
when the explosion took place, I was dreaming of the danger I had
undergone some years before in crossing the Tagliamento at midnight, by
the light of torches, during a flood." He awoke, and exclaimed to Lannes
and Bessieres, who were with him in the coach, "We are blown up." The
attendants would have stopped the carriage, but, with great presence of
mind, he bade them drive as fast as they could to the theatre, which he
alone of all the party entered with an unruffled countenance. He had
escaped most narrowly. The coachman, happening to be intoxicated, drove
more rapidly than was his custom.[38] The engine exploded half a minute
after the carriage had passed it--killing twenty persons, wounding
fifty-three (among whom was St. Regent, the assassin who fired the
train), and shattering the windows of several houses on both sides of
the street.

The audience in the opera-house, when the news was divulged, testified
their feelings with enthusiasm. The atrocity of the conspiracy roused
universal horror and indignation, and invested the person of the Chief
Consul with a new species of interest. The assassins were tried fairly,
and executed, glorying in their crime: and, in the momentary exaltation
of all men's minds, an edict of the senate, condemning to perpetual
exile 130 of the most notorious leaders of the _Terrorists_, was
received with applause. But Napoleon himself despised utterly the relics
of that odious party; and the arbitrary decree in question was never put
into execution.

The Chief Consul, nevertheless, was not slow to avail himself of the
state of the public mind, in a manner more consistent with his prudence
and farsightedness. It was at this moment that the erection of a new
tribunal, called _the Special Commission_, consisting of eight judges,
without jury, and without revision or appeal, was proposed to the
legislative bodies. To their honour the proposal was carried by very
narrow majorities; for after that judicature was established, the Chief
Consul had, in effect, the means of disposing of all who were suspected
of political offences, according to his own pleasure. Another law which
soon succeeded, and which authorised the chief magistrate to banish
disaffected persons, as "enemies of the state," from Paris or from
France, whenever such steps should seem proper, without the intervention
of any tribunal whatever, completed (if it was yet incomplete) the
despotic range of his power: and the police, managed as that fearful
engine was by Fouché, presented him with the most perfect means of
carrying his purposes into execution.

A singular anecdote belongs to this time--(December, 1800). During the
effervescence of public opinion consequent on the affair of the infernal
machine, there appeared a pamphlet, entitled, "Parallel between Cæsar,
Cromwell, Monk, and Bonaparte"[39]--a production evidently designed to
favour the assumption of regal dignity by the Consul. Appearing at such
a moment, it could not fail to excite a vivid sensation; the
confidential friends of Napoleon assured him, in one voice, that the
publication was likely to injure him. He sent for Fouché, and reproached
him violently for suffering such a pamphlet to appear. The minister of
police heard him with perfect coolness, and replied that he had not
chosen to interfere, because he had traced the manuscript to the hotel
of his brother Lucien. "And why not denounce Lucien?" cried Napoleon;
"he ought to have been arrested instantly, and confined in the Temple."
The Consul having spoken thus, quitted the apartment, shutting the door
with violence. Fouché smiled, and whispered to De Bourienne--"Confine
the author in the Temple! Lucien showed me the manuscript; I found it
full of corrections in the handwriting of--the First Consul!" Lucien,
informed of his brother's wrath, came forthwith to the Tuileries, and
complained that "he had been made a puppet and abandoned." "The fault is
your own," answered Napoleon; "it was your business not to be detected.
Fouché has shown himself more dexterous--so much the worse for you."
Lucien resigned forthwith the office which he held in the ministry, and
proceeded as ambassador to Spain.

How far these disturbances in the French capital might have contributed
to the indecision of the Austrian cabinet during this autumn, we know
not. Five months had now elapsed since the armistice after Marengo; and
the First Consul, utterly disgusted with the delay, determined to resume
arms, and to be first in the field. Between the 17th and the 27th of
November his generals received orders to set all their troops once more
in motion. Everywhere the French arms had splendid success. Brune
defeated the Austrians on the Mincio, and advanced within a few miles of
Venice. Macdonald occupied the mountains of the Tyrol, and was prepared
to reinforce either the army of Italy or that of the Rhine, as might be
desired. Moreau, finally, advanced into the heart of Germany, and was
met by the Archduke John of Austria, who obtained considerable
advantages in an affair at Haag. The Archduke, elated by this success,
determined on a general engagement, and appeared in front of the French
on the evening of the 2nd December, at Hohenlinden, between the Inn and
the Iser.[40] At seven, on the morning of the 3rd, the conflict began.
The deep snow had obliterated the tracks of roads; several Austrian
columns were bewildered; and either came not at all into their
positions, or came too late. Yet the battle was obstinate and severe:
10,000 Imperialists were left dead on the field: and Moreau, improving
his success, marched on immediately, and occupied Salzburg.

The Austrian capital now lay exposed to the march of three victorious
armies; and the Emperor was at last compelled to release himself from
his English obligations, and negotiate in sincerity for a separate
peace. Mr. Pitt himself considered the prosecution of the continental
war as for the time hopeless. On reading the bulletin of Marengo, he
said, "Fold up that map" (the map of Europe); "it will not be wanted for
these twenty years."

A definitive treaty was signed at Luneville on the 9th February, 1801;
by which the Emperor, not only as the head of the Austrian monarchy, but
also in his quality of Chief of the German empire, guaranteed to France
the boundary to the Rhine; thereby sacrificing certain possessions of
Prussia and other subordinate princes of the empire, as well as his own.
Another article, extremely distasteful to Austria, yielded Tuscany;
which Napoleon resolved to transfer to a prince of the House of Parma,
in requital of the good offices of Spain during the war. The Emperor
recognised the union of the Batavian Republic with the French;--and
acknowledged the Cisalpine and Ligurian Commonwealths; both virtually
provinces of the great empire, over which the authority of the First
Consul seemed now to be permanently established.

[Footnote 33: When he wrote from Clagenfurt to the Archduke Charles.]

[Footnote 34: Byron's "Manfred."]

[Footnote 35: The worthy Hospitallers of St. Bernard have stationed
themselves on that wild eminence, for the purpose of alleviating the
misery of travellers lost or bewildered amidst the neighbouring defiles.
They entertain a pack of dogs, of extraordinary sagacity, who roam over
the hills night and day, and frequently drag to light and safety
pilgrims who have been buried in the snow.]

[Footnote 36: The following anecdote is given by _Dumas_:--"On one of
these occasions, when a desperate attack was led on by Soult, there
occurred a circumstance as honourable as it was characteristic of the
spirit which animated the French. The soldiers of two regiments or
demi-brigades, of the army of Italy, namely, the 25th Light, and the
24th of the Line, had sworn eternal enmity against one another, because
that, previous to the opening of the campaign, when desertion and all
the evils of insubordination prevailed in that army, disorganised by
suffering, the former, in which discipline had been maintained, was
employed to disarm the latter. The utmost care had been taken to keep
them separate; but it so happened that these two corps found themselves
one day made rivals as it were in valour, the one before the eyes of the
other. The same dangers, the same thirst of glory, the same eagerness to
maintain themselves, at once renewed in all hearts generous sentiments;
the soldiers became instantly intermingled; they embraced in the midst
of the fire, and one half of the one corps passing into the ranks of the
other, they renewed the combat, after the exchange, with double
ardour."]

[Footnote 37: Sept. 5, 1800.]

[Footnote 38: The man took the noise for that of a salute.]

[Footnote 39: "Napoleon dropped the _u_ in his surname _after_ his first
campaign in Italy."--_Bourienne_.]

[Footnote 40: The poet Campbell has vividly painted the opening of the
great battle which followed.

    "On Linden, when the sun was low,
    All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,
    And dark as winter was the flow
      Of Iser rolling rapidly:

    But Linden saw another sight
    When the drums beat at dead of night,
    Commanding fires of death to light
      The darkness of her scenery," &c.
]




CHAPTER XVI

     Affairs of Naples and of the Pope--The Emperor Paul of
     Russia--Northern confederacy against England--Battle of
     Copenhagen--Nelson's Victory--Death of Paul--Expedition to Egypt
     under Sir Ralph Abercrombie--Battle of Alexandria--Conquest of
     Egypt--The Flotilla of Boulogne--Negotiations with England--Peace
     of Amiens.


England alone remained steadfast in her hostility; and, as we shall
presently see, the Chief Consul was even able to secure for himself the
alliance against her of some of the principal powers in Europe; but
before we proceed to the eventful year of 1801, there are some incidents
of a minor order which must be briefly mentioned.

It has been already said that the half-crazy Emperor of Russia had taken
up a violent personal admiration for Buonaparte, and, under the
influence of that feeling, virtually abandoned Austria before the
campaign of Marengo. Napoleon took every means to flatter the Autocrat
and secure him in his interests. Paul had been pleased to appoint
himself Grand Master of the ruined Order of the Knights of St. John. It
was his not idle ambition to obtain, in this character, possession of
the Island of Malta; and Buonaparte represented the refusal of the
English government to give up that stronghold as a personal insult to
Paul. Some 10,000 Russian prisoners of war were not only sent back in
safety, but new clothed and equipped at the expense of France; and the
Autocrat was led to contrast this favourably with some alleged neglect
of these troops on the part of Austria, when arranging the treaty of
Luneville. Lastly, the Queen of Naples, sister to the German Emperor,
being satisfied that, after the battle of Marengo, nothing could save
her husband's Italian dominions from falling back into the hands of
France (out of which they had been rescued, during Napoleon's Egyptian
campaign, by the English, under Lord Nelson), took up the resolution of
travelling in person to St. Petersburg in the heart of the winter, and
soliciting the intercession of Paul. The Czar, egregiously flattered
with being invoked in this fashion, did not hesitate to apply in the
Queen's behalf to Buonaparte; and the Chief Consul, well calculating the
gain and the loss, consented to spare Naples for the present, thereby
completing the blind attachment of that weak-minded despot.

At the same time when Nelson delivered Naples from the French, a party
of English seamen, under Commodore Trowbridge, had landed at the mouth
of the Tiber, marched to Rome, and restored the Pope. The French army,
after the great victory which gave them back Lombardy and Piedmont,
doubted not that the re-establishment of "the Roman Republic" would be
one of its next consequences. But Buonaparte, who had in the interim
re-opened the churches of France, was now disposed to consider the
affairs of the Pope with very different eyes. In a word, he had already
resolved to make use of the Holy Father in the consolidation of his own
power as a monarch; and, as the first step to this object, the
government of the Pope was now suffered to continue--not a little to the
astonishment of the French soldiery, and to the confusion, it may be
added, and regret, of various powers of Europe.

The First Consul, meanwhile, proceeded to turn the friendship of the
Russian Emperor to solid account. It has never, in truth, been difficult
to excite angry and jealous feelings, among the minor maritime powers,
with regard to the naval sovereignty of England. The claim of the right
of searching neutral ships, and her doctrine on the subject of
blockades, had indeed been recognised in many treaties by Russia, and by
every maritime government in Europe. Nevertheless, the old grudge
remained; and Buonaparte now artfully employed every engine of diplomacy
to awaken a spirit of hostility against England, first, in the
well-prepared mind of the Czar, and then in the cabinets of Prussia,
Denmark, and Sweden. The result was, in effect, a coalition of these
powers against the mistress of the seas; and, at the opening of the
nineteenth century, England had to contemplate the necessity of
encountering single-handed the colossal military force of France, and
the combined fleets of Europe. To deepen the shadows of her prospects at
that great crisis of her history, the people suffered severely under a
scarcity of food, in consequence of bad harvests; and the efforts which
England made, under such an accumulation of adverse circumstances, must
ever be treasured among the proudest of her national recollections.

In January, 1801, the first imperial parliament of Great Britain and
Ireland assembled; and, shortly afterwards, in consequence of a
difference of opinion, touching the Roman Catholic Question, between
George III. and Mr. Pitt, that great minister resigned his office, and a
new cabinet was formed, with Mr. Addington (afterwards Viscount
Sidmouth) at its head. These changes were a new source of embarrassment;
yet the prosecution of the war was urged with undiminished vigour.

Early in March, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson
conducted a fleet into the Baltic, with the view of attacking the
northern powers in their own harbours, ere they could effect their
meditated junction with the fleets of France and Holland. The English
passed the Sound on the 13th of March, and reconnoitred the road of
Copenhagen, where the Crown-Prince, Regent of Denmark, had made
formidable preparations to receive them. It was on the 2nd of April that
Nelson, who had volunteered to lead the assault, having at length
obtained a favourable wind, advanced with twelve ships of the line,
besides frigates and fire-ships, upon the Danish armament, which
consisted of six sail of the line, eleven floating batteries, and an
enormous array of small craft, all chained to each other and to the
ground, and protected by the Crown-batteries, mounting eighty-eight
guns, and the fortifications of the isle of Amack. The battle lasted for
four hours, and ended in a signal victory. Some few schooners and
bomb-vessels fled early, and escaped: the whole Danish fleet besides
were sunk, burnt, or taken. The Prince Regent, to save the capital from
destruction, was compelled to enter into a negotiation, which ended in
the abandonment of the French alliance by Denmark. Lord Nelson then
reconnoitred Stockholm; but, being unwilling to inflict unnecessary
suffering, did not injure the city, on discovering that the Swedish
fleet had already put to sea. Meantime, news arrived that Paul had been
assassinated in his palace at St. Petersburg; and that the policy which
he had adopted, to the displeasure of the Russian nobility, was likely
to find no favour with his successor. The moving spirit of the northern
confederacy was, in effect, no more, and a brief negotiation ended in
its total disrupture.[41]

In the same month of March the British arms were crowned with a more
pleasing triumph in a more distant region. From the time when Buonaparte
landed in Egypt, the occupation of that country by a French army, and
its possible consequences to our empire in the East, had formed a
subject of anxious solicitude in the cabinet of St. James's; and the
means for attacking the army which Napoleon had entrusted to Kleber,
had, at length, been combined and set in motion, in opposition to the
sentiments both of the King and Mr. Pitt, by the bold spirit of Lord
Melville, then at the head of the Indian Board of Control. The fleet of
Lord Keith, carrying Sir Ralph Abercrombie and his army, were already in
possession of Malta; another army of 7000, composed partly of English
troops and partly of sepoys, had been dispatched from India, and
approached Egypt by the way of the Red Sea; and, lastly, the Ottoman
Porte was prepared to co-operate with General Abercrombie, whenever he
should effect a landing in the neighbourhood of Alexandria. That event
occurred on the 13th of March, the British troops disembarking in the
face of the French, who were very strongly posted; and, at length,
driving them from the shore. On the 21st a general engagement took place
in front of Alexandria; and Sir Ralph Abercrombie fell, mortally
wounded, in the moment of victory. General Hutchinson (afterwards Earl
of Donoughmore), on whom the command devolved, pursued the advantage.
Kleber, who by his excellent administration had earned the title of the
_Just Sultan_, had been assassinated by an obscure fanatic on the same
day when Dessaix died gloriously at Marengo; and Menou, who succeeded to
the command of the French army in Egypt, was found wholly incapable of
conducting either the civil or the military business of the colony to
advantage. He shut himself up in Alexandria with the relics of the army
defeated on the 21st. The English, forthwith, let the sea into the lake
Maréotis: the capital was thus made an island, and all communication
with the country cut off. Hutchinson was now joined by the Turkish
Capitan-pasha and 6000 men; and intelligence reached him that the Indian
reinforcement, under General Baird, had landed at Cossire. Rosetta was
soon captured; and, after various skirmishes, Cairo was invested. On the
28th of June General Belliard and a garrison of 13,000 surrendered, on
condition that they should be transported in safety to France: and
Menou, perceiving that defence was hopeless and famine at hand,
followed, ere long, the same example. Thus, in one brief campaign, was
Egypt entirely rescued from the arms of France. But even that great
advantage was a trifle, when compared with the stimulus afforded to
national confidence at home, by this timely re-assertion of the
character of the English army. At sea we had never feared an enemy; but
the victories of Abercrombie destroyed a fatal prejudice which had, of
recent days, gained ground,--that the military of Great Britain were
unfit to cope with those of revolutionary France. Nor should it be
forgotten, that if Abercrombie had the glory of first leading English
soldiers to victory over the self-styled _Invincibles_ of Buonaparte, he
owed the means of his success to the admirable exertions of the Duke of
York, in reforming the discipline of the service as commander-in-chief.

On learning the fate of Egypt, Buonaparte exclaimed, "Well, there
remains only the descent on Britain;" and, in the course of a few weeks,
not less than 100,000 troops were assembled on the coasts of France. An
immense flotilla of flat-bottomed boats was prepared to carry them
across the Channel, whenever, by any favourable accident, it should be
clear of the English fleets; and both the soldiery and the seamen of the
invading armament were trained and practised incessantly, in every
exercise and manœuvre likely to be of avail when that long-looked-for
day should arrive. These preparations were met, as might have been
expected, on the part of the English government and nation. Nelson was
placed in command of the Channel fleet; and the regular army was
reinforced on shore by a multitude of new and enthusiastic volunteers;
men of all parties and ranks joining heart and hand in the great and
sacred cause. Lord Nelson, more than once, reconnoitred the flotilla
assembled at Boulogne, and, at length, attempted the daring movement of
cutting out the vessels, in the teeth of all the batteries. The boats
being chained to the shore, crowded with soldiery, and placed
immediately under the fortifications, the attempt was unsuccessful; but
the gallantry with which it was conducted struck new terror into the
hearts of the French marine, and, Nelson continuing to watch the Channel
with unsleeping vigilance, the hopes of the First Consul, ere long,
sunk.

The successes of the English in the Baltic and in Egypt were well
calculated to dispose Napoleon for negotiation: and the retirement of
Mr. Pitt, who was considered throughout Europe as the author and very
soul of the anti-revolutionary war, was not without its influence. On
the other hand, Napoleon's mighty successes against the German emperor
had been followed up this same year by the march of a French and Spanish
army into Portugal, in consequence of which that last ally of England
had been compelled to submit to the general fate of the continent. On
both sides there existed the strongest motives for accommodation; and,
in effect, after a tedious negotiation, the preliminaries of peace were
signed, on the 10th of October, at Amiens. By this treaty England
surrendered all the conquests which she had made during the war, except
Ceylon and Trinidad. France, on the other hand, restored what she had
taken from Portugal, and guaranteed the independence of the Ionian
Islands. Malta was to be restored to the Knights of St. John, and
declared a free port: neither England nor France was to have any
representatives in the order; and the garrison was to consist of the
troops of a neutral power. This article was that which cost the greatest
difficulty--and Malta was destined to form the pretext, at least, for
the re-opening of the war at no distant date.

Meantime, except by a small party, who thought that England should never
make peace unless the Bourbon family were restored to the throne of
France, this news was received with universal satisfaction throughout
Great Britain. "It was," as Mr. Sheridan summed up the matter, "a peace
which all men were glad of, and of which no man could be proud." The
definitive treaty was signed on the 25th of March, 1802: and nothing
could surpass the demonstrations of joy on this occasion, both in London
and in Paris--or the enthusiastic display of good-will with which the
populace of either capital welcomed the plenipotentiaries.

[Footnote 41: For the details of the battle of Copenhagen see Southey's
_Life of Nelson_. That conflict has been celebrated, in a noble lyric,
by Campbell--

    "Of Nelson and the North
      Sing the glorious day's renown,
    When to the battle fierce came forth
      All the might of Denmark's crown," &c.
]




CHAPTER XVII

     Peace of Amiens--The Concordat--The Legion of Honour--Buonaparte
     President of the Cisalpine Republic--First Consul for Life--Grand
     Mediator of the Helvetic Confederacy--St. Domingo--Toussaint
     L'Ouverture--Dissatisfaction of England--Trial of Peltier--Lord
     Whitworth--Rupture of the Peace of Amiens--Detention of English
     Travellers in France.


The peace of Amiens, like that of Campo-Formio, turned out a mere
armistice. It was signed in the midst of mutual suspicion; and the
audacious ambition of the French government, from the very day of its
ratification, accumulated the elements of an inevitable rupture. The
continent, however, had been virtually shut against the English for ten
years; and now, in the first eagerness of curiosity, travellers of all
ranks, ages, and sexes poured across the Channel, to contemplate, with
their own eyes, the scenes and effects of the many wonderful deeds and
changes which had been wrought since the outbreaking of the French
Revolution. The chief object of curiosity was Napoleon himself; and
English statesmen, of the highest class, were among those who now
thronged the levees of the Tuileries. Mr. Fox, in particular, seems to
have been courted and caressed by the Chief Consul; and these two great
men parted with feelings of mutual admiration. Our countrymen, in
general, were received in Paris with extraordinary attentions and
civilities; and for a brief space, the establishment of friendly
feelings between the two nations was confidently expected.

The English were agreeably disappointed with the condition of Paris. To
their great surprise they found the consular court already arranged, in
many particulars, upon the old model of the monarchy, and daily
approximating to that example, step by step. Josephine had restored,
titles alone excepted, the old language of polite intercourse:
_Citoyenne_ had been replaced by _Madame_; and _Citoyen_ was preparing
to make way for _Monsieur_. The emigrant nobility had flocked back in
great numbers; and Buonaparte, dispensing with the awkward services of
his aides-de-camp in the interior of the palace, was now attended by
chamberlains and other officers of state--chosen for the most part, from
the highest families of the monarchy; and who studiously conducted
themselves towards the Chief Consul exactly as if the crown of Louis
XVI. had descended to him by the ordinary laws of inheritance. Napoleon
himself, if we may believe Madame de Staël, had the weakness to affect,
in many trivial matters, a close imitation of what his new attendants
reported to have been the personal demeanour of the Bourbon princes. His
behaviour as the holder of a court was never graceful. He could not, or
would not, control the natural vehemence of his temper, and ever and
anon confounded the old race of courtiers, by ebullitions which were
better suited to the camp than the saloons of the Tuileries. But
whenever he thought fit to converse with a man capable of understanding
him, the Consul failed not to create a very lively feeling in his own
favour; and, meantime, Josephine was admirably adapted to supply his
deficiencies in the management of circles and festivals.

The labour which Napoleon underwent at this period, when he was
consolidating the administration throughout France (in every department
of which intolerable confusion had arisen during the wars and tumults of
the preceding years), excited the astonishment of all who had access to
his privacy. He exhausted the energies of secretary after secretary;
seemed hardly to feel the want of sleep; and yet sustained the
unparalleled fatigue without having recourse to any stimulus stronger
than lemonade. Of the many great measures adopted and perfected during
this short-lived peace we may notice in particular the following:--

A decree of the senate, dated 26th April, 1802, allowed all emigrants to
return to France, provided they chose to do so within a certain space of
time, and to pledge allegiance to the consular government; and offered
to restore to such persons whatever property of theirs, having been
confiscated during the Revolution, still remained at the disposal of the
state. From this amnesty about 5000 persons, however, were excepted;
these were arranged under five heads, viz.: those who had headed bodies
of royalist insurgents; who had served in the armies of the allies; who
had belonged to the household of the Bourbons during their exile; who
had been agents in stirring up foreign or domestic war; and lastly,
generals, admirals, Representatives of the People, who had been banished
for treason to the Republic; together with bishops who were obstinate in
refusing to accept of the conditions on which the exercise of
ecclesiastical functions had been sanctioned by the consuls. The event,
in a great measure, justified the prudence of this merciful edict. The
far greater part of the emigrants returned, and became peaceful subjects
of Napoleon--even although the restoration of forfeited property never
took place to anything like the promised extent. He, having yielded back
a few princely estates to their rightful lords, was, it is said, made
aware, by sufficiently significant behaviour on their parts, that they
had now obtained all they wished, and would not in future trouble
themselves to merit his favour. Some instances of haughty ingratitude
may, very probably, have occurred; but the Consul, in breaking his word
with the despoiled emigrants as a body, was preparing for himself
dangers greater than those he removed by permitting their return to
France.

A still more important measure was that by which the Romish religion was
finally re-established as the national faith. The sparing of the Papal
dominion after Marengo, and the re-opening of the churches in France,
were the preliminaries of the peace, which was, at length, signed on the
18th of September, 1802, between the Pope and the revolutionary
government. This famous _concordat_ was the work of Napoleon himself,
who seems to have met with more opposition, whenever he touched the
matter of religion, than the men of the Revolution, with whom he
consulted, thought fit to exhibit on any other occasions whatever. The
question was argued one evening, at great length, on the terrace of the
garden, at Buonaparte's favourite villa of Malmaison. The Chief Consul
avowed himself to be no believer in Christianity; "But religion," said
he, "is a principle which cannot be eradicated from the heart of man."
"Who made all that?" he continued, looking up to the heaven, which was
clear and starry. "But last Sunday evening I was walking here alone when
the church bells of the village of Ruel rung at sunset. I was strongly
moved, so vividly did the image of early days come back with that sound.
If it be thus with me, what must it be with others? In re-establishing
the church, I consult the wishes of the great majority of my people."

Volney, the celebrated traveller, was present. "You speak of the
majority of the people," said he: "if that is to be the rule, recall the
Bourbons to-morrow." Napoleon never conversed with this bold infidel
afterwards.

The _concordat_ gave no satisfaction to the high Catholic party, who
considered it as comprehending arrangements wholly unworthy of the
dignity of the Pope, and destructive of the authority of the church. The
great majority of the nation, however, were wise enough to be contented
with conditions which the Vatican had found it necessary to admit. The
chief articles were these: I. The Roman Catholic religion is recognised
as the national faith. II. The Pope, in concert with the French
government, shall make a new division of dioceses, requiring, if
necessary, the resignation of any existing prelate. III. Vacant sees now
and henceforth shall be filled by the Pope _on nominations by the
government_. IV. No bishops shall hold their sees unless they swear
allegiance to the government, and adopt a ritual in which prayers are
offered up for the Consuls. V. The church livings shall be, like the
dioceses, rearranged; and the curés be appointed by the bishop, but not
without the approbation of the government. VI. The French government
shall make provision for the prelates and clergy, and the Pope renounces
for ever all right to challenge the distribution of church property
consequent on the events of the revolutionary period.

The Pope, in acceding to these terms, submitted to "the exigence of the
time--which," said his Holiness in the deed itself, "lays its violence
even upon us." The most bitter point of execution was that which
regarded the bishops--the great majority of whom were yet in exile.
These prelates were summoned to send in, each separately, and within
fifteen days, his acceptance of the terms of the concordat, or his
resignation of his see. Thus taken by surprise, having no means of
consultation, and considering the concordat as fatal to the rights of
the church, and the Pope's assent as extorted by mere necessity, almost
all of them, to their honour be it said, declined complying with either
of these demands. That these bishops should prefer poverty and exile to
submission, was not likely to increase the popularity of the concordat
with the more devout part of the nation. Meantime, the self-called
philosophers looked on with scorn; and the republicans, of every sect,
regarded with anger and indignation a course of policy which, as they
justly apprehended, provided for the re-establishment of the church,
solely because that was considered as the likeliest means of
re-establishing the monarchy--in a new dynasty indeed, but with all, or
more than all, the old powers.

In moments of spleen Napoleon is known to have sometimes expressed his
regret that he should ever have had recourse to this concordat: but at
St. Helena, when looking back calmly, he said that it was so needful a
measure that had there been no Pope, one ought to have been created for
the occasion.

The name of the First Consul was now introduced into the church service
at least as often as that of the king had used to be. The cathedral of
Notre Dame was prepared for the solemn reception of the concordat.
Napoleon appeared there with the state and retinue of a monarch; and in
every part of the ceremonial the ancient rules were studiously attended
to. The prelate who presided was the same Archbishop of Aix who had
preached the coronation sermon of Louis XVI.

It was not easy, however, to procure the attendance of some of the
revolutionary generals of the true republican race. Berthier had invited
a large party of them long beforehand to breakfast: he carried them from
thence to the levee of the Chief Consul, and they found it impossible
not to join in the procession. Buonaparte asked one of these persons,
after the ceremony was over, what he thought of it? "It was a true
_Capucinade_" was the answer. To another of these, whom he thought less
sincere, he said with a smile, "Things, you see, are returning to the
old order." "Yes," the veteran replied, "all returns--all but the two
millions of Frenchmen who have died for the sake of destroying the very
system which you are now rebuilding." These officers are said to have
paid dearly for their uncourtly language. Moreau was not to be tampered
with by Berthier. The Chief Consul personally invited him to be present
at the _Te Deum_ in Notre Dame, to attend afterwards at the consecration
of some colours, and, lastly, to dine at the Tuileries. Moreau answered,
"I accept the last part of your invitation."

A third great measure, adopted about the same period, was received with
unqualified applause. This was the establishment of a national system of
education, the necessity of which had been much felt, since the old
universities and schools under the management of the clergy had been
broken up amidst the first violence of the Revolution. The Polytechnic
School, established under the direction of Monge, dates from this epoch;
and furnished France, in the sequel, with a long train of eminent men
for every department of the public service.

It was now also that the Chief Consul commenced the great task of
providing France with an uniform code of laws. He himself took
constantly an earnest share in the deliberations of the jurists, who
were employed in this gigantic undertaking; and astonished them by the
admirable observations which his native sagacity suggested, in relation
to matters commonly considered as wholly out of the reach of
unprofessional persons. But of the new code we shall have occasion to
speak hereafter.

Buonaparte at this period devised, and began to put into execution,
innumerable public works of the highest utility. The inland navigation
of Languedoc was to be made complete: a great canal between the Yonne
and the Saonne was begun, for the purpose of creating a perfect water
communication quite across the republican dominion--from Marseilles to
Amsterdam. Numberless bridges, roads, museums, were planned; and the
vain were flattered with rising monuments of magnificence, while the
wise recognised in every such display the depths and forecast of a
genius made for empire.

Thus far the measures of the Consulate may be said to have carried with
them the approbation of all but a few individuals. They were accompanied
or followed by proceedings, some of which roused, or strengthened and
confirmed, sentiments of a very different description among various
important classes of the French community; while others were well
calculated to revive the suspicion of all the neighbouring nations.

It is said that the first idea of the Legion of Honour arose in the
breast of Napoleon on witnessing one day, from a window at the
Tuileries, the admiration with which the crowd before the palace
regarded the stars and crosses worn by the Marquis Lucchesini,
ambassador of Prussia, as he descended from his carriage. The
republican members of the senate could not be persuaded that the
institution of an order, with insignia, was anything but the first step
to the creation of a new body of nobility; and they resisted the
proposed measure with considerable pertinacity. On this head, as on that
of the concordat with the Pope, the Consul condescended to enter
personally into discussion with the chief persons who differed from his
opinion, or suspected his intentions; and if any, who heard his language
on this occasion, doubted that both nobility and monarchy were designed
to follow hard behind the Legion of Honour, they must have been
singularly slow of understanding. _Berthier_ had called ribbons and
crosses "the playthings of monarchy," and cited the Romans of old as
"having no system of honorary rewards." "They are always talking to us
of the Romans," said Buonaparte. "The Romans had patricians, knights,
citizens, and slaves:--for each class different dresses and different
manners--honorary recompenses for every species of merit--mural
crowns--civic crowns--ovations--triumphs--titles. When the noble band of
patricians lost its influence, Rome fell to pieces--the people were vile
rabble. It was then that you saw the fury of Marius, the proscriptions
of Sylla, and afterwards of the emperors. In like manner Brutus is
talked of as the enemy of tyrants: he was an aristocrat, who stabbed
Cæsar, because Cæsar wished to lower the authority of the noble senate.
You talk of _child's rattles_--be it so: it is with such rattles that
men are led. I would not say that to the multitude; but in a council of
statesmen one may speak the truth. I do not believe that the French
people love _liberty_ and _equality_. Their character has not been
changed in ten years: they are still what their ancestors, the Gauls,
were--vain and light. They are susceptible but of one
sentiment--_honour_. It is right to afford nourishment to this
sentiment: and to allow of distinctions. Observe how the people bow
before the decorations of foreigners. Voltaire calls the common soldiers
_Alexanders at five sous a day_. He was right: it is just so. Do you
imagine that you can make men fight by reasoning? Never. You must bribe
them with glory, distinctions, rewards. To come to the point: during ten
years there has been a talk of institutions. Where are they? All has
been overturned: our business is to build up. There is a government
with certain powers: as to all the rest of the nation what is it but
grains of sand? Before the Republic can be definitely established, we
must, as a foundation, cast some blocks of granite on the soil of
France. In fine, it is agreed that we have need of some kind of
institutions. If this Legion of Honour is not approved, let some other
be suggested. I do not pretend that it alone will save the state; but it
will do its part." Such were the words of Napoleon when the scheme was
in preparation. Many years afterwards, in his exile at St. Helena, he
thus spoke of his Order. "It was the reversion of every one who was an
honour to his country, stood at the head of his profession, and
contributed to the national prosperity and glory. Some were dissatisfied
because the decoration was alike for officers and soldiers; others
because it was given to civil and military merit indiscriminately. But
if ever it cease to be the recompense of the brave private, or be
confined to soldiers alone, it will cease to be the Legion of Honour."

On the 15th of May, 1802, the Legion of Honour was formally instituted;
large national domains were set apart for its maintenance; and crosses
(each of which entitled the bearer to certain precedence and a pension)
widely distributed among the soldiery, and among citizens of almost all
professions.

The personal authority of the future emperor, meantime, was daily
widening and strengthening. After the Consulate was established in
France, some corresponding change in the government of the Cisalpine
Republic was judged necessary, and Napoleon took care that it should be
so conducted as to give himself not only permanent, but wholly
independent, power beyond the Alps. A convention of 450 Italian deputies
was summoned to meet at _Lyons_; and there Talleyrand was ready to
dictate the terms of a new constitution, by which the executive
functions were to be lodged in a president and vice-president, the
legislative in a council chosen from three electoral colleges. It was
next proposed that Buonaparte should be invited to take on him the
office of president--Buonaparte, it was studiously explained, not as
Chief Consul of France, but in his own individual capacity. He repaired
to Lyons in person, and having harangued the convention in the Italian
tongue, assumed the dignity thus conferred on him on the 2nd of
January, 1802.

The next step was to prolong the period of his French Consulate. Chabot
de L'Allier, his creature, moved in the Tribunate that the Conservative
Senate should be requested to mark the national feelings of gratitude by
conferring some new honour on Napoleon. The Senate proposed accordingly
that he should be declared Consul for a second period of ten years, to
commence on the expiration of his present magistracy. He thanked them;
but said he could not accept of any such prolongation of his power
except from the suffrages of the people. To the people the matter was to
be referred; but the Second and Third Consuls, in preparing the edict of
the Senate for public inspection and ratification, were instructed by
their master-colleague to introduce an important change in its terms.
The question which they sent down was, "Shall Buonaparte be Chief Consul
for life?" No mention was made of _ten years_. Books were opened as on a
former occasion: the officers of government in the departments well knew
in what method to conduct the business, and the voice of the nation was
declared to be in favour of the decree. Some few hundreds of sturdy
republicans alone recorded their opposition; and Carnot, who headed
them, said he well knew he was signing his own sentence of exile. But
Napoleon was strong enough to dispense with any such severities; Carnot
remained in safety, but out of office, until, many years afterwards, his
services were tendered and accepted on the entrance of foreign invaders
into France. Buonaparte was proclaimed Consul for life on the 2nd of
August.

Shortly afterwards, in the committee occupied with the Code, Napoleon
entered upon a long disquisition in favour of the Roman law of adoption;
urging with intrepid logic, that an heir so chosen ought to be even
dearer than a son. The object of this harangue was not difficult of
detection. Napoleon had no longer any hope of having children by
Josephine; and meditated the adoption of one of his brother's sons as
his heir. In the course of the autumn a simple edict of the Conservative
Senate authorised him to appoint his successor in the consulate by a
testamentary deed. By this act (Aug. 4, 1802) a new dynasty was called
to the throne of France. The farce of opening books in the departments
was dispensed with. Henceforth the words "_Liberty, Equality,
Sovereignty of the People_," disappeared from the state papers and
official documents of the government--nor did the change attract much
notice. The nation had a master, and sate by, indifferent spectators;
while he, under whose sway life and property were considered safe,
disposed of political rights and privileges according to his
pleasure.[42]

This year was distinguished by events of another order, and not likely
to be contemplated with indifference by the powers of Europe. After the
peace of Amiens was ratified, certain treaties which the Chief Consul
had concluded with Turkey, Spain, and Portugal, and hitherto kept
profoundly secret, were made known. The Porte, it now appeared, had
yielded to France all the privileges of commerce which that government
had ever conceded to the most favoured nations. Spain had agreed that
Parma, after the death of the reigning prince, should be added to the
dominions of France: and Portugal had actually ceded her province in
Guyana. In every quarter of the world the grasping ambition of
Buonaparte seemed to have found some prey.

Nearer him, in the meantime, he had been preparing to strike a blow at
the independence of Switzerland, and virtually unite that country also
to his empire. The contracting parties in the treaty of Luneville had
_guaranteed_ the independence of the Helvetic Republic, and the
unquestionable right of the Swiss to settle their government in what
form they pleased. There were two parties there as elsewhere--one who
desired the full re-establishment of the old federative
constitution--another who preferred the model of the French Republic
"one and indivisible." To the former party the small mountain cantons
adhered--the wealthier and aristocratic cantons to the latter. Their
disputes at last swelled into civil war--and the party who preferred the
old constitution, being headed by the gallant Aloys Reding, were
generally successful. Napoleon, who had fomented their quarrel, now,
unasked and unexpected, assumed to himself the character of arbiter
between the contending parties. He addressed a letter to the eighteen
cantons, in which these words occur:--"Your history shows that your
intestine wars cannot be terminated, except through the intervention of
France. I had, it is true, resolved not to intermeddle in your
affairs--but I cannot remain insensible to the distress of which I see
you the prey--I recall my resolution of neutrality--I _consent_ to be
the mediator in your differences." Rapp, adjutant-general, was the
bearer of this insolent manifesto. To cut short all discussion, Ney
entered Switzerland at the head of 40,000 troops. Resistance was
hopeless. Aloys Reding dismissed his brave followers, was arrested, and
imprisoned in the castle of Aarburg. The government was arranged
according to the good pleasure of Napoleon, who henceforth added to his
other titles that of "Grand Mediator of the Helvetic Republic."
Switzerland was, in effect, degraded into a province of France; and
became bound to maintain an army of 16,000 men, who were to be at the
disposal, whenever it should please him to require their aid, of the
Grand Mediator. England sent an envoy to remonstrate against this signal
and unprovoked rapacity: but the other powers suffered it to pass
without any formal opposition. The sufferings, however, of Aloys Reding
and his brave associates, and this audacious crushing-down of the old
spirit of Swiss freedom and independence, were heard of throughout all
Europe with deep indignation.

Feelings of the same kind were nourished everywhere by the results of an
expedition which Buonaparte sent, before the close of 1801, to St.
Domingo, for the purpose of reconquering that island to France. The
black and coloured population had risen, at the revolutionary period,
upon their white masters, and, after scenes of terrible slaughter and
devastation, emancipated themselves. The chief authority was, by
degrees, vested in Toussaint L'Ouverture, a negro, who, during the war,
displayed the ferocity of a barbarian, but after its conclusion, won the
applause and admiration of all men by the wisdom and humanity of his
administration. Conscious that, whenever peace should be restored in
Europe, France would make efforts to recover her richest colony,
Toussaint adopted measures likely to conciliate the exiled planters and
the government of the mother country. A constitution on the consular
model was established, Toussaint being its Buonaparte: the supremacy of
France was to be acknowledged to a certain extent; and the white
proprietors were to receive half the produce of the lands of which the
insurgents had taken possession. But Napoleon heard of all these
arrangements with displeasure and contempt. He fitted out a numerous
fleet, carrying an army full 20,000 strong, under the orders of General
Leclerc, the husband of his own favourite sister Pauline. It has often
been said, and without contradiction, that the soldiers sent on this
errand were chiefly from the army of the Rhine, whose good-will to the
Consul was to be doubted. Leclerc summoned Toussaint (Jan. 2, 1802) to
surrender, in a letter which conveyed expressions of much personal
respect from Buonaparte. The negro chief, justly apprehending
insincerity, stood out and defended himself gallantly for a brief space;
but stronghold after stronghold yielded to numbers and discipline; and
at length he too submitted, on condition that he should be permitted to
retire in safety to his plantation. Some obscure rumours of insurrection
were soon made the pretext for arresting him; and he, being put on board
ship, and sent to France, was shut up in a dungeon, where either the
midnight cord or dagger, or the wasting influence of confinement and
hopeless misery, ere long put an end to his life. His mysterious fate,
both before and after its consummation, excited great interest.[43] The
atrocious cruelty of the French soldiery, in their subjugation of St.
Domingo, equalled (it could not have surpassed) that of the barbarous
negroes whom they opposed; but was heard of with disgust and horror,
such as no excesses of mere savages could have excited. As if Heaven had
been moved by these bloody deeds of vengeance, disease broke out in the
camp; thousands, and among them Leclerc himself, died. For the time,
however, the French armament triumphed--and, in the exultation of
victory, the government at home had the extreme and seemingly
purposeless ungenerosity, to publish an edict banishing all of the negro
race from their European dominions.[44] But the yellow fever was already
rapidly consuming the French army in St. Domingo; and its feeble
remnant, under Rochambeau, having been at length expelled, in November,
1803, the independence of _Hayti_ was formally proclaimed on the 1st of
January, 1804.

The course of Napoleon's conduct, in and out of Europe, was calculated
to fill all independent neighbours with new or aggravated suspicion; and
in England, where public opinion possesses the largest means of making
itself heard, and consequently the greatest power, the prevalence of
such feelings became, from day to day, more marked. The British envoy's
reclamation against the oppression of Switzerland, was but one of many
drops, which were soon to cause the cup of bitterness to overflow. As in
most quarrels, there was something both of right and of wrong on either
side. When the English government remonstrated against any of those
daring invasions of the rights of independent nations, or crafty
enlargements, through diplomatic means, of the power of France, by which
this period of peace was distinguished, the Chief Consul could always
reply that the cabinet of St. James's, on their part, had not yet
fulfilled one article of the treaty of Amiens, by placing Malta in the
keeping of some power which had been neutral in the preceding war. The
rejoinder was obvious: to wit, that Napoleon was every day taking
measures wholly inconsistent with that balance of power which the treaty
of Amiens contemplated. It is not to be denied that he, in his
audaciously ambitious movements, had contrived to keep within the strict
terms of the treaty: and it can as little be disputed that the English
cabinet had _equity_ with them, although they violated the letter of the
law, in their retention of the inheritance of the worthless and
self-betrayed Knights of St. John.

The feelings of the rival nations, however, were soon kindled into rage;
and, on either side of the Channel the language of the public prints
assumed a complexion of even more bitter violence than had been
observable during the war. The English journalists resorted to foul, and
often false and even absurd, personal criminations of the Chief Consul:
and the Parisian newspapers replied in language equally indefensible on
the score of truth and decency, but with this most essential difference,
that whereas the press of England was free, that of France, being
entirely under the control of Fouché and the police, could not, as all
men knew, put forth any such calumnies otherwise than with the consent
of the consular government. When Napoleon complained to the English
ministers, their answer was obvious: "Our courts of law are open--we are
ourselves accustomed to be abused as you are, and in them we, like you,
have our only resource." The paragraphs in the _Moniteur_, on the other
hand, were, it was impossible to deny, virtually so many manifestoes of
the Tuileries.

Of all the popular engines which moved the spleen of Napoleon, the most
offensive was a newspaper (_L'Ambigu_) published in the French language,
in London, by one Peltier, a royalist emigrant; and, in spite of all the
advice which could be offered, he at length condescended to prosecute
the author in the English courts of law. M. Peltier had the good fortune
to retain, as his counsel, Mr. Mackintosh,[45] an advocate of most
brilliant talents, and, moreover, especially distinguished for his
support of the original principles of the French Revolution. On the
trial which ensued, this orator, in defence of his client, delivered a
philippic against the personal character and ambitious measures of
Napoleon, immeasurably more calculated to injure the Chief Consul in
public opinion throughout Europe, than all the efforts of a thousand
newspapers; and, though the jury found Peltier guilty of libel, the
result was, on the whole, a signal triumph to the party of whom he had
been the organ.

This was a most imprudent, as well as undignified proceeding; but ere
the defendant, Peltier, could be called up for judgment, the doubtful
relations of the Chief Consul and the cabinet of St. James's were to
assume a different appearance. The truce of St. Amiens already
approached its close. Buonaparte had, perhaps, some right to complain of
the unbridled abuse of the British press: but the British government had
a far more serious cause of reclamation against him. Under pretence of
establishing French consuls for the protection of commerce, he sent
persons, chiefly of the military profession, who carried orders to make
exact plans of all the harbours and coasts of the United Kingdom. These
gentlemen endeavoured to execute their commission with all possible
privacy; but the discovery of their occupation was soon made; they were
sent back to France without ceremony; and this treacherous measure of
their government was openly denounced as a violation of every rule of
international law, and a plain symptom of warlike preparation.

Ere hostilities were renewed, Buonaparte employed M. Meyer, president of
the regency of Warsaw, to open a negotiation with the head of the House
of Bourbon, then resident in Poland. He proposed that Louis should
execute a formal deed resigning for himself and his family all
pretensions to the throne of France, and offered in return to put the
Bourbon princes in possession of independent dominions in Italy. The
heir of the French kings answered in language worthy of his birth: "I do
not confound Monsieur Buonaparte," said he, "with those who have
preceded him. I esteem his bravery and military genius, and I owe him
goodwill for many of the acts of his government--for benefits done to my
people I will always consider as done to me. But he is mistaken if he
supposes that my rights can ever be made the subject of bargain and
compromise. Could they have been called in question, this very
application would have established them. What the designs of God may be
for me and my house I know not; but of the duties imposed on me by the
rank in which it was His pleasure I should be born, I am not wholly
ignorant. As a Christian, I will perform those duties while life
remains. As a descendant of St. Louis, I will know how to respect
myself, were I in fetters. As the successor of Francis the First, I
will, at least, say with him--'all is lost except honour.'"

Such is the account of the Bourbon princes. Buonaparte utterly denied
having given any authority for such a negotiation; and added, that in
doing so he should have played the part of a madman, since any
application to Louis must have been an admission that his own authority
in France was imperfect in title. It is obvious that the Consul would
have acted most imprudently in avowing such an attempt--after it had
proved unsuccessful; but the veracity of the exiled king lies under no
suspicion; nor is it easy to believe that Meyer would have dared to open
such a negotiation without sufficient authority from Napoleon. Hitherto
he had betrayed no symptom of personal malevolence towards the House of
Bourbon--but henceforth the autocrat, insulted as he thought in the
style of "_Monsieur_ Buonaparte," appears to have meditated some signal
act of revenge.

He resented the refusal of Louis the more because he doubted not that
that prince well understood how little the great powers of Europe were
disposed to regard, with favourable eyes, the establishment of the
Buonapartes as a new dynasty in France. He suspected, in a word, that
his recent disputes with the cabinet of St. James's, had inspired new
hopes into the breasts of the exile family.

It was at this period that Napoleon published, in the _Moniteur_, a long
memorial, drawn up by General Sebastiani, who had just returned from a
mission to the Levant, abounding in statements, and clothed in language,
such as could have had no other object but to inflame the government of
England to extremity. Sebastiani detailed the incidents of his journey
at great length, representing himself as having been everywhere received
with honour, and even with enthusiasm, as the envoy of Napoleon. Such,
he said, were the dispositions of the Mussulmans, that 6000 French would
now suffice to restore Egypt to the republic; and it was in vain that
_General Stuart_, who represented the English king in that country, had
endeavoured to excite the Turkish government to assassinate him,
Sebastiani. Lastly, the report asserted, that the Ionian Islands would,
on the first favourable occasion, declare themselves French.

The English government reclaimed against this publication, as at once a
confession of the dangerous ambition of Buonaparte, and a studied insult
to them, whose representative's character and honour one of its chief
statements must have been designed to destroy, at a wilful sacrifice of
truth. The French minister replied, that the Chief Consul had as much
right to complain of the recent publication of Sir Robert Wilson's
_Narrative of the English Expedition to Egypt_, which contained
statements in the highest degree injurious to his character and
honour;[46] and had, nevertheless, been dedicated by permission to the
Duke of York. The obvious answer, namely, that Sir Robert Wilson's book
was the work of a private individual, and published solely on his own
responsibility, whereas Sebastiani's was a public document set forth by
an official organ, was treated as a wanton and insolent evasion.
Meanwhile the language of the press on either side became from day to
day more virulently offensive; and various members of the British
Parliament, of opposite parties, and of the highest eminence, did not
hesitate to rival the newspapers in their broad denunciations of the
restless and insatiable ambition of the Chief Consul.--"Buonaparte,"
said Mr. Wyndham, "is the Hannibal who has sworn to devote his life to
the destruction of England. War cannot be far off, and I believe it
would be much safer to anticipate the blow than to expect it. I would
advise ministers to appeal to the high-minded and proud of
heart--whether they succeed or not, we shall not then go down like the
_Augustuli_." "The destruction of this country," said Mr. Sheridan, "is
the first vision that breaks on the French Consul through the gleam of
the morning: this is his last prayer at night, to whatever deity he may
address it, whether to Jupiter or to Mahomet, to the Goddess of Battles
or the Goddess of Reason. Look at the map of Europe, from which France
was said to be expunged, and now see nothing but France. If the ambition
of Buonaparte be immeasurable, there are abundant reasons why it should
be progressive."

Stung to the quick by these continual invectives, Napoleon so far
descended from his dignity as to make them the subject of personal
complaint and reproach to the English Ambassador. He obtruded himself on
the department of Talleyrand, and attempted to shake the resolution of
the ambassador, Lord Whitworth, by a display of rude violence, such as
had, indeed, succeeded with the Austrian envoy at Campo-Formio, but
which produced no effect whatever in the case of this calm and
high-spirited nobleman. The first of their conferences took place in
February, when the Consul harangued Lord Whitworth for nearly two hours,
hardly permitting him to interpose a word on the other side of the
question. "Every gale that blows from England is burdened with enmity,"
said he; "your government countenances Georges, Pichegru, and other
infamous men, who have sworn to assassinate me. Your journals slander
me, and the redress I am offered is but adding mockery to insult. I
could make myself master of Egypt to-morrow, if I pleased. _Egypt,
indeed, must sooner or later belong to France_; but I have no wish to go
to war for such a trivial object. What could I gain by war? Invasion
would be my only means of annoying you; and invasion you shall have, if
war be forced on me--but I confess the chances would be an hundred to
one against me in such an attempt. In ten years I could not hope to have
a fleet able to dispute the seas with you: but, on the other hand, the
army of France could be recruited in a few weeks to 480,000 men. United,
we might govern the world:--Why can we not understand each other?" Lord
Whitworth could not but observe the meaning of these hints, and
answered, as became him, that the King of England had no wish but to
preserve his own rights, and scorned the thought of becoming a partner
with France in a general scheme of spoliation and oppression. They
parted with cold civility, and negotiations were resumed in the usual
manner: but England stood firm in the refusal to give up Malta--at least
for ten years to come. The aggressions of Napoleon had wholly changed
the arrangement of territory and power contemplated when the treaty of
Amiens was drawn up; what security could there be for the retention of
Malta by Naples, or any such minor power, if Buonaparte wished to have
it? To surrender it would in fact be to yield an impregnable harbour and
citadel in the heart of the Levant, to a government which had gone on
trampling down the independence of state after state in the west.
Meanwhile the English government openly announced, in Parliament, that
the position of affairs seemed to be full of alarm--that the French were
manning fleets and recruiting their armies, and that it was necessary to
have recourse to similar measures; and, accordingly, a considerable
addition to the military establishment was agreed to.

Thus stood matters on the 13th of March, when Lord Whitworth made his
appearance at the levee of the Chief Consul, in company with all the
rest of the diplomatic body. Napoleon no sooner entered, than, fixing
his eye on the English Ambassador, he exclaimed aloud and fiercely, in
presence of the circle, "You are then determined on war!" Lord Whitworth
denied the charge, but the Consul drowned his voice, and pursued
thus:--"We have been at war for fifteen years--you are resolved to have
fifteen years more of it--you force me to it." He then turned to the
other ministers, and said, in the same violent tone: "The English wish
for war; but if they draw the sword first, I will be the last to sheath
it again. They do not respect treaties--henceforth we must cover them
with black crape." Then, turning again to Whitworth, "To what purpose,"
he cried, "are these armaments? If you arm, I will arm too; if you
fight, I can fight also. You may destroy France, but you cannot
intimidate her." "We desire neither to injure nor to alarm her, but to
live on terms of good intelligence," said Lord Whitworth. "Respect
treaties, then," said Napoleon; "woe to those by whom they are not
respected!--they shall be responsible to Europe for the result." He
repeated these last words sternly, and immediately quitted the
apartment, leaving the assembled ministers utterly confounded by this
indecent display of violence.

Some persons, who knew Buonaparte well, have always asserted that this
undignified scene was got up with calm premeditation, and that the
ferocity of passion on the occasion was a mere piece of acting. Lord
Whitworth, however, was an excellent judge of men and manners, and he
never doubted that the haughty soldier yielded to the uncontrollable
vehemence of wrath. The cautious Talleyrand made various efforts to
explain away the intemperate words of his master; but they, and the tone
in which they had been uttered, went far to increase the jealousy and
animosity of the English government and nation, and to revive or confirm
the suspicion with which the other powers of Europe had had but too much
reason to regard the career of revolutionary France.

On the 18th of May Great Britain declared war. Orders had previously
been given for seizing French shipping wherever it could be found, and
it is said that 200 vessels, containing property to the amount of three
millions sterling, had been laid hold of accordingly, ere the
proclamation of hostilities reached Paris. Whether the practice of thus
unceremoniously seizing private property, under such circumstances, be
right on abstract principle, or wrong, there can be no doubt that the
custom had been long established, acted upon by England on all similar
occasions, and of course considered, after the lapse of ages, and the
acquiescence of innumerable treaties, as part and parcel of the European
system of warfare. This was not denied by Napoleon; but he saw the
opportunity, and determined to profit by it, of exciting the jealousy of
other governments, by reclaiming against the exercise, on the part of
England, of a species of assault which England, from her maritime
predominance, has more temptations and better means to adopt than any
other power. He resolved, therefore, to retaliate by a wholly
unprecedented outrage. The very night that the resolution of the cabinet
of St. James's reached Paris, orders were given for arresting the
persons of all English subjects residing or travelling within the
dominion of France.

Not less than 10,000 persons, chiefly of course of the higher classes of
society, thus found themselves condemned to captivity in a hostile land.
Had Napoleon adopted less violent measures, his reclamations against the
English government might have been favourably attended to throughout
Europe. But this despotic and unparalleled infliction of exile and
misery on a host of innocent private individuals, was productive of far
different effects. It moved universal sympathy, indignation, and
disgust.

[Footnote 42: See Wordsworth's verses, "written at Calais the 15th Aug.
1802," in which the indifference of the people is contrasted with their
enthusiasm in the early days of the Revolution.

    "Festivals have I seen that were not names:--
    This is young Buonaparte's natal day;
    And his is henceforth an established sway,
    Consul for life. With worship France proclaims
    Her approbation, and with pomps and games
    Heaven grant that other cities may be gay!
    Calais is not: and I have bent my way
    To the sea coast, noting that each man frames
    His business as he likes. Another time
    That was, when I was here long years ago,
    The senselessness of joy was then sublime!" &c.
]

[Footnote 43: Witness, among other evidences, the noble sonnet of
Wordsworth:--

    "TOUSSAINT, the most unhappy Man of Men!
    Whether the all-cheering sun be free to shed
    His beams around thee, or thou rest thy head
    Pillowed in some dark dungeon's noisome den
    O, miserable chieftain! where and when
    Wilt thou find patience! Yet die not; do thou
    Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow:
    Though fallen Thyself, never to rise again,
    Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind
    Powers that will work for thee--Air, Earth, and Skies;
    There's not a breathing of the common Wind
    That will forget thee; thou hast great Allies;
    Thy friends are Exultations, Agonies,
    And Love, and Man's unconquerable Mind."
]

[Footnote 44: See Wordsworth's sonnet, "22nd Sept. 1802."

    "We had a fellow-passenger who came
    From Calais with us, gaudy in array,--
    A Negro Woman like a Lady gay,
    Yet silent as a woman fearing blame;
    Dejected, meek, yet pitiably tame,
    She sate, from notice turning not away,
    But on our proffered kindness still did lay
    A weight of languid speech, or at the same
    Was silent, motionless in eyes and face,
    She was a Negro Woman, driven from France--
    Rejected, like all others of that race,
    Not one of whom may now find footing there;
    Thus the poor outcast did to us declare,
    Nor murmured at the unfeeling Ordinance."
]

[Footnote 45: Afterwards Sir James.]

[Footnote 46: It was by this book that the two dark stories of Jaffa
were first promulgated through Europe: and it is proper to add, that Sir
R. Wilson publicly presented a copy to George III. at his levee.]




CHAPTER XVIII

     Recommencement of the War--French seize Hanover and Naples--the
     English seize various French colonies--Scheme of invading England
     resumed--Moreau--Pichegru--Georges Cadoudal--Captain Wright--Murder
     of the Duke d'Enghien--Napoleon Emperor of France--King of
     Italy--Genoa united to the Empire.


The war was re-opened vigorously on both sides. The English fleets
rapidly reconquered various colonies surrendered back to France by the
treaty of Amiens, and assisted in compelling the dwindled army which
Leclerc had commanded to evacuate St. Domingo. Buonaparte, on the other
hand, despised utterly the distinction between the British Empire and
Hanover--a possession indeed of the same prince, but totally unconnected
with the English Constitution, and, as belonging to the Germanic Empire,
entitled, if it chose, to remain neutral--and having first marched an
army into Holland, ordered Mortier, its chief, to advance without
ceremony and seize the Electorate. At the same time, and with the same
pretext, French troops poured into the South of Italy, and occupied
Naples.

General Mortier's appearance on the Hanoverian frontier was such as to
satisfy the Duke of Cambridge, governor for the Elector, that resistance
was hopeless. He entered into a negotiation (May, 1803), by which the
territory was to be surrendered, provided his army were permitted to
retire unbroken behind the Elbe, pledging themselves not to take the
field again against France during this war. But the ministers of George
III. advised him not to ratify this treaty. Mortier demanded of General
Walmsloden, commander-in-chief of the Hanoverian army, to surrender his
arms--or abide the consequences of being attacked beyond the Elbe--and
that fine body of men was accordingly disarmed and disbanded. The
cavalry, being ordered to dismount and yield their horses to the French,
there ensued a scene which moved the sympathy of the invading soldiery
themselves. The strong attachment between the German dragoon and his
horse is well known; and this parting was more like that of dear
kindred than of man and beast.

The emperor, whose duty it was, as head of the German body, to reclaim
against this invasion of its territory, was obliged to put up with the
Consul's explanation, viz. that he had no wish to make the conquest of
Hanover, but merely to hold it until England should see the necessity of
fulfilling the Maltese article in the treaty of Amiens. Prussia, alarmed
by the near neigbourhood of Mortier, hardly dared to remonstrate.
Denmark alone showed any symptom of active resentment. She marched
30,000 men into her German provinces; but finding that Austria and
Prussia were resolved to be quiescent, was fain to offer explanations,
and recall her troops. The French General, meantime, scourged Hanover by
his exactions, and even, without the shadow of a pretext, levied heavy
contributions in Bremen, Hamburg, and the other Hansetowns in the
vicinity of the Electorate.

These successes enabled Napoleon to feed great bodies of his army at the
expense of others, and to cripple the commerce of England, by shutting
up her communication with many of the best markets on the continent. But
he now recurred to his favourite scheme, that of invading the island
itself, and so striking the fatal blow at the heart of his last and
greatest enemy. Troops to the amount of 160,000, were mustered in camps
along the French and Dutch coasts, and vast flotillas, meant to convey
them across the Channel, were formed, and constantly manoeuvred in
various ports, that of Boulogne being the chief station.

The spirit of England, on the other hand, was effectually stirred. Her
fleets, to the amount of not less than 500 ships of war, traversed the
seas in all directions, blockaded the harbours of the countries in which
the power of the Consul was predominant, and from time to time made
inroads into the French ports, cutting out and destroying the shipping,
and crippling the flotillas. At home the army, both regular and
irregular, was recruited and strengthened to an unexampled extent. Camps
were formed along the English coasts opposite to France, and the King in
person was continually to be seen in the middle of them. By night
beacons blazed on every hill-top throughout the island; and the high
resolution of the citizen-soldiery was attested, on numberless
occasions of false alarm, by the alacrity with which they marched on the
points of supposed danger.[47] There never was a time in which the
national enthusiasm was more ardent and concentrated; and the return of
Pitt to the prime-ministry (March, 1804) was considered as the last and
best pledge that the councils of the sovereign were to exhibit vigour
commensurate with the nature of the crisis. The regular army in Britain
amounted, ere long, to 100,000; the militia to 80,000; and of volunteer
troops there were not less than 350,000 in arms.

Soult, Ney, Davoust, and Victor were in command of the army designed to
invade England, and the Chief Consul personally repaired to Boulogne,
and inspected both the troops and the flotilla. He constantly gave out
that it was his fixed purpose to make his attempt by means of the
flotilla alone; but while he thus endeavoured to inspire his enemy with
false security (for Nelson had declared this scheme of a boat invasion
to be _mad_, and staked his whole reputation on its miserable and
immediate failure, if attempted), the Consul was in fact providing
indefatigably a fleet of men-of-war, designed to protect and cover the
voyage. These ships were preparing in different ports of France and
Spain, to the number of fifty; Buonaparte intended them to steal out to
sea individually or in small squadrons, rendezvous at Martinico, and,
returning thence in a body, sweep the Channel free of the English for
such a space of time at least as might suffice for the execution of his
great purpose. These designs, however, were from day to day thwarted by
the watchful zeal of Nelson and the other English admirals; who observed
Brest, Toulon, Genoa, and the harbours of Spain so closely, that no
squadron, nor hardly a single vessel, could force a passage to the
Atlantic.

Napoleon persisted to the end of his life in asserting his belief that
the invasion of England was prevented merely by a few unforeseen
accidents, and that, had his generals passed the sea, they must have
been successful. The accidents to which he attributed so much influence,
were, it is to be supposed, the presence and zeal of Nelson, Pellew,
Cornwallis, and their respective fleets of observation. As for the
results of the expedition, if the Channel had once been
crossed--Napoleon never seemed to doubt that a single great battle would
have sufficed to place London in his hands. Once arrived in the capital,
he would, he said, have summoned a convention, restored the mass of the
English people to their proper share of political power,--in a word,
banished the King, and revolutionised England on the model of France:
the meaning of all which is--reduced this island to be a province of the
French empire, and yet bestowed upon its people all those rights and
liberties of which he had already removed the last shadow, wherever his
own power was established on the continent.

There can be little doubt that Napoleon egregiously underrated the
resistance which would have been opposed to his army, had it effected
the voyage in safety, by the spirit of the British people, and the great
natural difficulties of the country through which the invaders must have
marched. Nevertheless, it is not to be denied that, had the attempt been
made instantly on the rupture of the peace, the chances of success might
have been considerable--of success, temporary and short-lived indeed,
but still sufficient to inflict a terrible injury upon this country--to
bathe her soil in blood--to give her capital to the flames--and not
impossibly to shake some of her institutions. The enemy himself was, in
all likelihood, unprepared to make the attempt, until England had had
time to make adequate preparation for its encounter. It was otherwise
ordered of God's providence, than that the last bulwark of liberty
should have to sustain the shock of battle at its own gates.

The invasion of England was the great object of attention throughout
Europe during the autumn and winter of 1803. Early in the succeeding
year Paris itself became the theatre of a series of transactions which
for a time engrossed the public mind.

Even before Buonaparte proclaimed himself Consul for life, it appears
that, throughout a considerable part of the French army, strong symptoms
of jealousy had been excited by the rapidity of his advance to sovereign
power. After the monarchy of France was in effect re-established in him
and his dynasty, by the decrees of the 2nd and 4th of August, 1802, this
spirit of dissatisfaction showed itself much more openly; and ere long
it was generally believed that the republican party in the army looked
up to Moreau as their head, and awaited only some favourable opportunity
for rising in arms against Napoleon's tyranny. Moreau was known to have
treated both the Concordat and the Legion of Honour with undisguised
contempt; and Buonaparte's strictures on his conduct of the campaign of
1801 were not likely to have nourished feelings of personal goodwill in
the bosom of him whom all considered as second only to the Chief Consul
himself in military genius. It has already been intimated that the army
of the Rhine had been all along suspected of regarding Napoleon with
little favour. He had never been their general; neither they nor their
chiefs had partaken in the plunder of Italy, or in the glory of the
battles by which it was won. It was from their ranks that the unhappy
expedition under Leclerc had been chiefly furnished, and they considered
their employment in that unwholesome climate as dictated, more by the
Consul's doubts of their fidelity to himself, than his high appreciation
of their discipline and gallantry. How far Pichegru, while corresponding
with the Bourbons as head of the army of the Rhine, had intrigued among
his own soldiery, no evidence has as yet appeared. But after Pichegru's
banishment, Moreau possessed the chief sway over the minds of one great
division of the armed force of the Republic.

Carnot, meantime, and other genuine republicans in the legislative
bodies, had been occupied with the endeavour, since they could not
prevent Napoleon from sitting on the throne of France, to organise at
least something like a constitutional opposition (such as exists in the
Parliament of England) whereby the measures of his government might be,
to a certain extent, controlled and modified. The creation of the Legion
of Honour, the decree enabling Buonaparte to appoint his successor, and
other leading measures, had accordingly been carried through far less
triumphantly than could be agreeable to the self-love of the autocrat.

On the other hand, the return of so many emigrants--(a great part of
whom, not receiving back the property promised to them, were
disappointed and aggrieved anew)--could not fail to strengthen the
influence of the royalists in the private society of Paris; and by
degrees, as has often happened in the history of parties, the leaders of
the republicans and those of the Bourbonists came together, sinking for
the time the peculiar principles of either side, in the common feeling
of hatred to Napoleon.

Pichegru returned from his exile at Cayenne, and after spending some
time in England, where he, no doubt, communicated with the Bourbon
princes, and with some members of Mr. Addington's government, passed
over secretly into France. Georges Cadoudal and other Chouan chiefs were
busy in stirring up their old adherents, and communicated with Pichegru
on his arrival in Paris.

Suddenly, on the 12th of February, Paris was surprised with the
announcement, that a new conspiracy against the life of the Chief Consul
had been discovered by the confession of an accomplice; that 150 men had
meant to assemble at Malmaison in the uniform of the consular guard, and
seize Buonaparte while hunting; that Georges, the Chouan, had escaped by
a quarter of an hour--but that Mairn, La Jollais, and other leaders of
the conspiracy had been taken; finally, that Moreau had held various
conferences with Georges, La Jollais and Pichegru, and that he also was
under arrest.

It is said that Georges Cadoudal had once actually penetrated into the
chamber of Napoleon at the Tuileries, and been prevented by the merest
accident from assassinating him: others of the conspirators had
approached his person very nearly on pretext of presenting petitions.
Buonaparte attributed his escape chiefly to the irregular mode of
living which his multifarious occupations involved; he seldom dined two
days following at the same hour, hardly ever stirred out of the palace
except with his attendants about him for some review or public ceremony,
and perhaps never appeared unguarded except where his appearance must
have been totally unexpected. The officer who betrayed Cadoudal and his
associates, was, it seems, a violent republican, and as such desired the
downfall of the Consul; but he had also served under Napoleon, and
learning at a late hour that the life of his old leader was to be
sacrificed, remonstrated vehemently, and rather than be accessary to
such extremities, gave the necessary information at the Tuileries.
Moreau was forthwith arrested; but Pichegru lurked undiscovered in the
heart of Paris until the 28th; six gens-d'armes then came upon his
privacy so abruptly that he could not use either his dagger or pistols,
though both were on his table. He wrestled for a moment, and then
attempted to move compassion--but was immediately fettered. Shortly
after Cadoudal himself, who had for days traversed Paris in cabriolets,
not knowing where to lay his head, was detected while attempting to pass
one of the barriers. Captain Wright, an English naval officer, who had
distinguished himself under Sir Sydney Smith at Acre, and from whose
vessel Pichegru was known to have disembarked on the coast of France,
happened about the same time to encounter a French ship of much superior
strength, and become a prisoner of war. On pretext that this gentleman
had acted as an accomplice in a scheme of assassination, he also was
immediately placed in solitary confinement in a dungeon of the Temple.

It was now openly circulated that England and the exiled Bourbons had
been detected in a base plot for murdering the Chief Consul; that the
proof of their guilt was in the hands of the government, and would soon
be made public. The Duke de Berri himself, it was added, had been
prepared to land on the west coast of France, whenever Pichegru or
Cadoudal should inform him that the time was come; while another of the
royal exiles lay watching the event, and in readiness to profit by it,
on the other side, immediately behind the Rhine.

The name of this last prince, the heir of Condé, well known for the
brilliant gallantry of his conduct while commanding the van of his
grandfather's little army of exiles, and beloved for many traits of
amiable and generous character, had hardly been mentioned in connection
with these rumours, ere the inhabitants of Paris heard, in one breath,
with surprise and horror, that the Duke d'Enghien had been arrested at
Ettenheim, and tried and executed within sight of their own houses at
Vincennes. This story will ever form the darkest chapter in the history
of Napoleon.

The duke had his residence at a castle in the Duchy of Baden, where,
attended by a few noble friends, the partakers of his exile, he was
chiefly occupied with the diversions of the chase. On the evening of the
14th of March, a troop of French soldiers and gens-d'armes, under
Colonel Ordonner (who derived his orders from Caulaincourt) suddenly
passed the frontier into the independent territory of Baden, surrounded
the Castle of Ettenheim, rushed into the apartment of the prince, and
seized him and all his company. He would have used his arms, but his
attendants, representing the overpowering number of the assailants,
persuaded him to yield without resistance. He was forthwith conveyed to
the citadel of Strasburg, and separated from all his friends except one
aide-de-camp, the Baron de St. Jaques, and allowed no communication with
any one else. After being here confined three days, he was called up at
midnight on the 18th and informed that he must prepare for a journey. He
desired to have the assistance of his valet-de-chambre, and was refused:
they permitted him to pack up _two_ shirts, and the journey immediately
begun.

The duke reached Paris early on the 20th; and after lying a few hours in
the Temple, was removed to the neighbouring Castle of Vincennes, used
for ages as a state prison. Being much fatigued he fell asleep, but was
presently roused, and his examination forthwith commenced. Weary and
wholly unprepared as he must have been, the unfortunate prince conducted
himself throughout in such a manner as to command the respect of his
inquisitors. He at once avowed his name and his services in the army of
Condé, but utterly denied all knowledge of Pichegru and his designs. To
this the whole of his evidence (and there was no evidence but his own)
amounted; and having given it; he earnestly demanded an audience of the
Consul. "My name," said he, "my rank, my sentiments, and the peculiar
distress of my situation, lead me to hope that this request will not be
refused."

At midnight the duke was again called from his bed, to attend the court
which had been constituted for his trial. It consisted of eight military
officers, appointed by Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, then governor
of Paris. General Hullin, president of the military commission,
commanded him to listen to the charges on which he was to be tried: of
having fought against France; of being in the pay of England; and of
plotting with England against the internal and external safety of the
Republic. The Duke was again examined, and the second interrogatory was
a mere repetition of the first, with this addition, that the prisoner
avowed his readiness to take part again in the hostilities against
France, if the opportunity should present itself. No other evidence
whatever was adduced, except the written report of a spy of the police,
who testified that the duke received many emigrants at his table at
Ettenheim, and occasionally left the castle for several days together,
without the spy's being able to trace where he was: a circumstance
sufficiently explained by the duke's custom of hunting in the Black
Forest.

General Hullin, in his account of the proceedings,[48] says, "He
uniformly maintained that 'he had only sustained the rights of his
family, and that a Condé could never enter France but with arms in his
hands. My birth,' said he, 'and my opinions must ever render me
inflexible on this point.'"--"The firmness of his answers," continues
Hullin, "reduced the judges to despair. Ten times we gave him an opening
to retract his declarations, but he persisted in them immovably. 'I
see,' he said, 'the honourable intentions of the commissioners, but I
cannot resort to the means of safety which they indicate.' Being
informed that the military commission judged without appeal, 'I know
it,' answered he, 'nor do I disguise to myself the danger which I incur.
My only desire is to have an interview with the First Consul.'"

The irregularities of all this procedure were monstrous. In the first
place, the duke owed no allegiance to the existing government of France.
2ndly, The seizure of his person was wholly illegal; it took place by
means of a violation of an independent territory: an outrage for which
it is impossible to offer the smallest excuse. 3rdly, Had the arrest
been ever so regular, the trial of a prisoner accused of a political
conspiracy was totally beyond the jurisdiction of a court-martial.
4thly, It was against the laws of France to hold any trial at midnight.
5thly, The interrogatory was not read over to the prisoner, which the
law imperatively demanded; and, 6thly, No defender was assigned to
him--an indulgence which the French code refuses not to the meanest or
most atrocious criminal, by what tribunal soever he may be tried.

But to proceed--The judges were moved by the conduct of the prisoner,
and inclined to listen to his request of an audience of the Chief
Consul. But Savary, then minister of police, had by this time introduced
himself into the chamber, and watched the course of procedure from
behind the chair of the president. He now leaned forward, and whispered
into Hullin's ear, "this would be inopportune."--These significant words
were obeyed. The court pronounced the duke guilty of the capital crimes
of having fought against the Republic; of having intrigued with England;
of having maintained intelligence with Strasburg, with the view of
seizing that place; and of having conspired against the life of the
Chief Consul. The prisoner, being remanded to his confinement, the
report was instantly forwarded to Buonaparte, with a request that his
further pleasure might be made known.

The court remained sitting until their messenger returned: he brought
back their own letter with these words inscribed on it, "Condemned to
death." The prisoner being called in again, heard his sentence with
perfect composure. He requested the attendance of a confessor, and was
answered,--"Would you die like a monk?" Without noticing this brutality
he knelt for a moment, as in prayer, and rising, said, "Let us go."

He was immediately led down a winding stair by torch-light; and,
conceiving that he was descending into some subterraneous dungeon, said
to one of the soldiers of the escort, "Am I to be immured in an
_oubliette_?" "Monseigneur," the man replied, sobbing, "be tranquil on
that point." They emerged from a postern into the ditch of the castle,
where a party of gens-d'armes d'élite were drawn up, Savary, their
master, standing on the parapet over them. It was now six o'clock in the
morning, and the gray light of the dawn was mingled with the gleam of
torches. The prince refused to have his eyes bandaged--the word was
given, and he fell. The body, dressed as it was, was immediately thrown
into a grave--which had been prepared beforehand; at least, so say all
the witnesses, except M. Savary.

To resume our notice of the mere informalities of the procedure:--1. The
sentence was altogether unsupported by the evidence, except as to the
mere fact of D'Enghien's having borne arms against France; but this
could be no crime in him: he owed no allegiance to the French
government; on the contrary, he and all his family had been expressly
excepted from every act of amnesty to emigrants, and thereby constituted
_aliens_. 2. The execution took place immediately after the sentence was
pronounced; this is contrary to the laws of all civilised nations, and
in direct contradiction to an article in the French code then in force,
which gave twenty-four hours to every prisoner convicted by a
court-martial, that he might, if he chose, appeal from their sentence.
But, 3rdly, the publications (long afterwards extorted) of Savary and
Hullin, prove that the court, perplexed with the difficulty of making
their sentence appear to have any conformity with the charge and the
evidence, drew up in fact, two different _sentences_: one before the
duke was executed, which bore the article, "immediate execution"; the
other a more careful document, intended alone to meet the public eye, in
which not a word about immediate execution occurs. The duke was _not_
executed, therefore, at six in the morning of the 21st of March, upon
that sentence which was made public at the time, as the authority for
his death.

Every circumstance in the dismal tale, from the quantity of linen packed
up at Strasburg, to the preparation of the grave in the ditch of
Vincennes, attests the fact that the fate of the unfortunate young man
(for he was but 32 years old when he fell) had been determined on, to
the minutest particular, long before he was summoned to a mock trial,
before an incompetent tribunal. If ever man was murdered, it was the
Duke d'Enghien.

Such was the fate of the gallant and generous youth, who, by his fiery
courage, won the battle of Bertsheim; and who, when his followers, to
whom the republicans had so often refused quarter, seemed disposed to
retaliate in the hour of victory, threw himself between them and their
discomfited countrymen, exclaiming, "They are French--they are
unfortunate; I place them under the guardianship of your honour."

The horror with which this remorseless tragedy was heard of in Paris,
soon spread throughout all Europe; and from that day the name of
Buonaparte was irremediably associated with the ideas of sullen revenge
and tyrannic cruelty. The massacre of Jaffa had been perpetrated in a
remote land, and many listened with incredulity to a tale told by the
avowed enemies of the homicide. But this bloody deed was done at home,
and almost in the sight of all Paris. Of the fact there could be no
doubt; and of the pretexts set forth by the organs of the French
government, there were few men of any party who affected not to perceive
the futility. Hitherto Napoleon had been the fortunate heir of a
revolution, in whose civil excesses he had scarcely
participated--henceforth he was the legitimate representative and symbol
of all its atrocities.

In so far as Buonaparte had the power to suppress all mention of this
catastrophe, it was, at the time, suppressed. But in after days, at St.
Helena, when dictating the apology of his life to the companions of his
exile, he not only spoke openly of the death of the Duke d'Enghien, but
appears to have dwelt upon it often and long. Well aware that this was
generally regarded as the darkest trait in his history, he displayed a
feverish anxiety to explain it away. But the Sultan Akber wore a signet,
inscribed, "I never knew any one that lost his way in a straight road;"
and he that is conscious of innocence can have no temptation to multiply
the lines of his defence. Buonaparte, according to the mood of the
moment, or the companion whom he addressed, adopted different methods of
vindicating himself. They were inconsistent as well as diverse; and even
Las Cases seems to have blushed for his hero when he recorded them.

At one time Napoleon represents himself as having been taken by
surprise: his ministers come on him when he is alone, at midnight, and
inform him that the Bourbons have conspired to assassinate him--that the
proofs are in their hands--that the Duke d'Enghien has already been more
than once in Paris, and is lying close to the frontier, expecting the
signal to return and head the conspirators in person.--In the first
flush of indignation he gives the order for arresting the duke--every
artifice is adopted to prevent him from interfering
afterwards--everything is arranged by Talleyrand--the duke addresses a
letter to him from Strasburg--that letter Talleyrand suppresses until
the tragedy is over--had it been delivered in time, the life of the
unhappy prince had been saved.

Unfortunately for Buonaparte, eight days elapsed between the order for
the arrest and the order for the execution, a much longer period than
was ever necessary for restoring the composure of his strong
understanding. Further, the Duke d'Enghien kept a diary during his
imprisonment, in which the minutest incidents are carefully recorded; it
contains no hint of the letter to Napoleon; and the Baron de St. Jaques,
who never quitted his master's chamber while he remained at Strasburg,
bears distinct testimony that no such letter was written there.
Moreover, neither Talleyrand nor any other individual in the world,
except Buonaparte, could have had the slightest motive for desiring the
death of D'Enghien. On the contrary, every motive that has weight with
mankind in general, must have swayed the other way with Talleyrand; a
member of one of the noblest families in France; a man unstained by
participation in any of the butcheries of the revolution; and, above
all, a man whose consummate skill has through life steadily pursued one
object, namely, his own personal interest, and who must have been mad to
perpetrate a gratuitous murder. And, lastly, Talleyrand was minister for
foreign affairs. A letter written at Strasburg could by no accident have
been forwarded through his department in the government; and, in fact,
there is perfect proof that the whole business was done by the police,
whose chief, Savary, communicated directly with the Chief Consul, and
the military, who acted under the orders either of Buonaparte's
aide-de-camp, Caulaincourt (afterwards Duke of Vicenza), or of his
brother-in-law, Murat, the governor of Paris. It is needless to observe,
that Napoleon's accusation of Talleyrand dates _after_ that politician
had exerted all his talents and influence in the work of procuring his
own downfall, and the restoration of the House of Bourbon. But in truth
whether Talleyrand, or Savary, or Caulaincourt, had the chief hand in
the death of the Duke d'Enghien, is a controversy about which posterity
will feel little interest. It is obvious to all men, that not one of
them durst have stirred a finger to bring about a catastrophe of such
fearful importance, without the express orders of Napoleon.

At other times the exile of St. Helena told a shorter and a plainer
tale. "I was assailed," said he, "on all hands by the enemies whom the
Bourbons had raised up against me: threatened with air-guns, infernal
machines, and stratagems of every kind. There was no tribunal to which I
could appeal for protection; therefore I had a right to protect myself.
By putting to death one of those whose followers threatened my life, I
was entitled to strike a salutary terror into all the rest."

The princes of the House of Bourbon, so far from stimulating assassins
to take off the usurper of their throne, never failed, when such schemes
were suggested, to denounce them as atrocities hateful in the sight of
God and man. As to this part of their conduct, the proofs are abundant,
clear, and irrefragable. But it is very possible that Buonaparte
entertained the foul suspicion on which he justifies his violence. And
indeed it is only by supposing him to have sincerely believed that the
Bourbons were plotting against his life, that we can at all account for
the shedding of D'Enghien's blood.--Unless Josephine spake untruly, or
her conversation has been wilfully misrepresented, she strenuously
exerted her influence to procure mercy for the royal victim; and so,
unquestionably, did his venerable mother. But it demanded neither
affection for Napoleon's person, nor regard for his interest, nor
compassion for the youth and innocence of the Duke d'Enghien, to
perceive the imprudence, as well as wickedness, of the proceeding. The
remark of the callous _Fouché_ had passed into a proverb, "It was worse
than a crime--it was a blunder."

A few days after the execution of the Duke d'Enghien (on the morning of
the 7th of April) General Pichegru was found dead in prison: a black
handkerchief was tied round his neck, and tightened by the twisting of a
short stick, like a tourniquet. It could not appear probable that he
should have terminated his own life by such means; and, accordingly, the
rumour spread that he had been taken off in the night by some of the
satellites of Savary; or, according to others, by some Mamelukes whom
Napoleon had brought with him from the East, and now retained near his
person, as an interior body-guard of the palace. This is a mystery which
has never been penetrated. The recent fate of D'Enghien had prepared men
to receive any story of this dark nature; and it was argued that
Buonaparte had feared to bring Pichegru, a bold and dauntless man, into
an open court, where he might have said many things well calculated to
injure the Consul in public opinion.[49]

The other prisoners were now brought to trial. There was not a shadow of
evidence against General Moreau, except the fact, admitted by himself,
that he had been twice in company with Pichegru since his return to
Paris. He in vain protested that he had rejected the proposals of
Pichegru, to take part in a royalist insurrection; and, as for the
murderous designs of Georges Cadoudal, that he had never even heard of
them. He was sentenced to two years' confinement: but, on the
intercession of his wife with Josephine, or rather on finding that a
great part of the soldiery considered so eminent a commander as hardly
used, the Chief Consul ere long, commuted this punishment for two years
of exile.

Moreau was innocent; by his side, on the day of trial, appeared men who
would have scorned to be so. Georges Cadoudal appeared in court with the
miniature of Louis XVI. suspended round his neck, and gloried in the
avowal of his resolution to make war personally on the usurper of the
throne. The presiding judge, Thuriot, had been one of those who
condemned the king to death. Georges punned on his name, and addressed
him as "Monsieur Tue-Roi."[50] When called up for sentence, the judge
missed the miniature, and asked him what he had done with it? "And you,"
answered the prisoner, "what have you done with the original?"--a retort
which nothing could prevent the audience from applauding. Georges and
eighteen more were condemned to death; and he, and eleven besides,
suffered the penalty with heroic firmness. Of the rest, among whom were
two sons of the noble house of Polignac, some were permitted to escape
on condition of perpetual banishment: others had their punishment
commuted to imprisonment.

With what indignation the death of the Duke d'Enghien had been heard of
throughout Europe, now began to appear. The Emperor of Russia and the
Kings of Sweden and Denmark put their courts into mourning, and made
severe remonstrances through their diplomatic agents; and the
correspondence which ensued laid the train for another general burst of
war. Austria was humbled for the time, and durst not speak out: Prussia
could hardly be expected to break her long neutrality on such an
occasion: but wherever the story went, it prepared the minds of princes
as of subjects, to take advantage of the first favourable opportunity
for rising against the tyranny of France.

A conspiracy suppressed never fails to strengthen the power it was meant
to destroy: and Buonaparte, after the tragedies of D'Enghien and
Pichegru, beheld the French royalists reduced everywhere to the silence
and the inaction of terror. Well understanding the national temper, he
gave orders that henceforth the name of the exiled family should be as
much as possible kept out of view; and accordingly after this time it
was hardly ever alluded to in the productions of the enslaved press of
Paris. The adherents of the Bourbons were compelled to content
themselves with muttering their resentment in private saloons, where,
however, the Chief Consul commonly had spies--who reported to him, or to
his Savarys and Fouchés, the jests and the caricatures in which the
depressed and hopeless party endeavoured to find some consolation.

In order to check the hostile feeling excited among the sovereigns of
the continent by the murder of the Bourbon Prince, the French government
were now indefatigable in their efforts to connect the conspiracy of
Georges Cadoudal with the cabinet of England. The agents of the police
transformed themselves into numberless disguises, with the view of
drawing the British ministers resident at various courts of Germany into
some correspondence capable of being misrepresented, so as to suit the
purpose of their master. Mr. Drake, envoy at Munich, and Mr. Spencer
Smith, at Stuttgard, were deceived in this fashion; and some letters of
theirs, egregiously misinterpreted, furnished Buonaparte with a pretext
for complaining, to the sovereigns to whom they were accredited, that
they had stained the honour of the diplomatic body by leaguing
themselves with the schemes of the Chouan conspirators. The subservient
princes were forced to dismiss these gentlemen from their residences;
but the English ministry made such explanations in open Parliament as
effectually vindicated the name of their country. Lord Elgin, British
ambassador at Constantinople, had been one of those travellers detained
at the out-breaking of the war, and was now resident on his parole in
the south of France. He was, on some frivolous pretext, confined in a
solitary castle among the Pyrenees; and there every device was practised
to induce him to, at least, receive letters calculated, if discovered in
his possession, to compromise him. But this nobleman, sagaciously
penetrating the design, baffled it by his reserve. Being liberated from
confinement shortly after, he communicated what had happened to a
friend, a member of the French Senate, who traced the matter home to
some of Fouché's creatures, and congratulated Lord Elgin on having
avoided very narrowly the fate of Pichegru.

Sir George Rumbold, the British minister at Hamburg, escaped that
consummation still more narrowly. During the night of the 23rd October a
party of French soldiers passed the Elbe, as Ordonner and his gang had
crossed the Rhine on the 14th of March, and boldly seized Rumbold within
the territory of an independent and friendly state. He was hurried to
Paris, and confined in the fated dungeons of the Temple: but none of his
papers afforded any plausible pretext for resisting the powerful
remonstrance which the King of Prussia thought fit to make against an
outrage perpetrated almost within sight of his dominions; and, after a
few days, Sir George was set at liberty.

Meantime, while all the princes of Europe regarded with indignation
(though few of them, indeed, cared to express the feeling openly) the
cruel tragedies which had been acted in France, the death of Pichegru
had suppressed effectually the hopes of the royalists in that country,
and the exile of Moreau deprived the republicans of the only leader
under whom there was any likelihood of their taking arms against the
Chief Consul. He resolved to profit by the favourable moment for
completing a purpose which he had long meditated; and, on the 30th of
April, little more than a month after the Duke d'Enghien died, one
Curée was employed to move, in the Tribunate, "that it was time to bid
adieu to political illusions--that victory had brought back
tranquillity--the finances of the country had been restored, and the
laws renovated--and that it was a matter of duty to secure those
blessings to the nation in future, by rendering the supreme power
hereditary in the person and family of Napoleon."--"Such," he said, "was
the universal desire of the army and of the people. The title of
Emperor, in his opinion, was that by which Napoleon should be hailed, as
best corresponding to the dignity of the nation."

This motion was carried in the Tribunate, with one dissenting voice,
that of Carnot; who, in a speech of great eloquence, resisted the
principle of hereditary monarchy altogether. He admitted the merits in
war and in policy of the Chief Consul--he was at present the Dictator of
the Republic, and, as such, had saved it.--"Fabius, Camillus,
Cincinnatus were dictators also. Why should not Buonaparte, like them,
lay down despotic power, after the holding of it had ceased to be
necessary to the general good? Let the services of a citizen be what
they might, was there to be no limit to the gratitude of the nation? But
at all events, even granting that Buonaparte himself could not be too
highly rewarded, or too largely trusted, why commit the fortunes of
posterity to chance? Why forget that Vespasian was the father of
Domitian, Germanicus of Caligula, Marcus Aurelius of Commodus?" In
effect Carnot, colleague as he had been of Robespierre, and stained as
he was with the blood of Louis XVI., was a sincere republican; and,
after his own fashion, a sincere patriot. He was alone in the
Tribunate--the rest of whose members prolonged, during three whole days,
a series of fulsome harangues, every one of which terminated in the same
implicit agreement to the proposal of Curée.

The legislative body, without hesitation, adopted it; and a
senatus-consultum forthwith appeared, by which Napoleon Buonaparte was
declared Emperor of the French: the empire to descend in the male line
of his body: in case of having no son, Napoleon might adopt any son or
grandson of his brothers as his heir: in default of such adoption,
Joseph and Louis Buonaparte were named as the next heirs of the crown
(Lucien and Jerome being passed over, as they had both given offence to
Napoleon by their marriages). The members of Napoleon's family were
declared princes of the blood of France.

This decree was sent down to the departments: and the people received it
with indifference. The Prefects reported on the 1st of December, that
between three and four millions of citizens had subscribed their assent
to the proposed measure, while not many more than three thousand voted
in opposition to it. This result indicated, as these functionaries chose
to say, the unanimous approbation of the French people. That nation,
however, consisted at the time of more than thirty millions!

But Napoleon did not wait for this authority, such as it proved to be.
On the 18th of May (more than six months ere the report reached him) he
openly assumed the imperial title and dignity. On the same day he
nominated his late colleagues in the Consulate, Cambaceres and Le Brun,
the former to be Arch-Chancellor, the latter Arch-Treasurer of the
Empire. The offices of High-Constable, Grand Admiral, &c., were revived
and bestowed on his brothers, and others of his immediate connections.
Seventeen generals (viz. Berthier, Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Massena,
Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust,
Bessieres, Kellerman, Lefebre, Perignon, Serrurier) were named Marshals
of the Empire; Duroc, Grand Marshal of the Palace; Caulaincourt, Master
of the Horse; Berthier, Grand Huntsman; and Count Segur, a nobleman of
the ancient regime, Master of the Ceremonies. It was in vain attempted
to excite popular enthusiasm. "It appeared," says an eye-witness, "as if
the shades of D'Enghien and Pichegru had hovered over the scene, and
spread coldness on all that was meant for the manifestation of joy."

It was not so with the soldiery. Napoleon, with his empress, visited the
camps at Boulogne, and was received with the excess of military applause
and devotion. He made a progress to Aix-la-Chapelle, and along the
Rhenish frontier, flattered and extolled at every station. Except
Russia, Sweden, and England, every crown in Europe sent to congratulate
him on his enrolment in the body of hereditary monarchs. Nay, not a few
of the smaller German potentates came in person, to swell, on this great
occasion, the state and magnificence of the new imperial court.

In assuming the title of Emperor, not of King, it escaped not
observation, that Napoleon's object was to carry back the minds of the
French to a period antecedent to the rule of the recently dethroned
dynasty--to the days of Charlemagne, who, with the monarchy of France,
combined both a wider dominion and a loftier style. As that great
conqueror had caused himself to be crowned by Pope Leo, so Napoleon now
determined that his own inauguration should take place under the
auspices of Pius VII.; nay, that the more to illustrate his power, the
head of the Catholic church should repair to Paris for this purpose. It
may be doubted whether, in this measure, he regarded more the mere
gratification of his pride or the chance of conferring a character of
greater solemnity on the installation of the new dynasty, in the eyes of
the Catholic population of France. On the 5th of November, however, the
unresisting Pope left Rome, and, having been received throughout his
progress with every mark of respect and veneration, arrived in Paris to
bear his part in the great pageant. On the 2nd of December Buonaparte
and Josephine appeared, amidst all that was splendid and illustrious in
their capital, and were crowned in Notre-Dame. The Pope blessed them and
consecrated the diadems; but these were not placed on their heads by his
hand. That office, in either case, Napoleon himself performed.
Throughout the ceremonial his aspect was thoughtful: it was on a stern
and gloomy brow that he with his own hands planted the symbol of
successful ambition and uneasy power, and the shouts of the deputies
present, carefully selected for the purpose, sounded faint and hollow
amidst the silence of the people.

As a necessary sequel to these proceedings in Paris, the senators of the
Italian republic now sent in their humble petition, that their president
might be pleased to do them also the favour to be crowned as their king
at Milan. The Emperor proceeded to that city accordingly, and in like
fashion, on the 26th of May, 1805, placed on his own head the old iron
crown of the Lombard kings, uttering the words which, according to
tradition, they were accustomed to use on such occasions, "_God hath
given it me. Beware who touches it._"--Napoleon henceforth styled
himself Emperor of the French and King of Italy, but announced that the
two crowns should not be held by the same person after his death.

It was not, however, for mere purposes of ceremonial that he had once
more passed the Alps. The Ligurian republic sent the Doge to Milan to
congratulate the King of Italy, and also to offer their territories for
the formation of another department of the French empire. But this was a
step of his ambition which led to serious results.

Meanwhile Eugene Beauharnois, son to Josephine, was left Viceroy at
Milan, and the imperial pair returned to Paris.

[Footnote 47: To this period belong Sir W. Scott's song to the Edinburgh
Volunteers:--

      "If ever breath of British gale
      Shall fan the tricolor,
    Or footstep of invader rude,
    With rapine foul and red with blood,
      Pollute our happy shore--
    Then farewell home! and farewell friends!
      Adieu each tender tie!
    Resolved, we mingle in the tide
    Where charging squadron furious ride,
      To conquer or to die," &c.

And various sonnets of Mr. Wordsworth; such as--

    "It is not to be thought of that the flood
      Of British freedom," &c.

    "Vanguard of liberty! ye men of Kent,
    Ye children of a soil that doth advance
    Its haughty brow against the coast of France,
    Now is the time to prove your hardiment!" &c.
]

[Footnote 48: This account was published _more than twenty years
afterwards_, in consequence of a pamphlet by Savary (Duke of Rovigo).]

[Footnote 49: About a year afterwards Captain Wright was found dead in
his dungeon in the Temple, with his throat cut from ear to ear. This
mystery has hitherto remained in equal darkness; but Buonaparte was far
from Paris at the period of Wright's death, and, under all the
circumstances of the case, there seems to be no reason for supposing
that he could have had any concern in that tragedy.]

[Footnote 50: _i.e._ Kill-king.]




CHAPTER XIX

     New coalition against France--Sweden--Russia--Austria joins the
     Alliance--Napoleon heads the Army in Germany--Ulm surrendered by
     Mack--Vienna taken--Naval Operations--Battle of Trafalgar--Battle
     of Austerlitz--Treaty of Presburg--Joseph Buonaparte King of
     Naples--Louis Buonaparte King of Holland--Confederation of the
     Rhine--New Nobility in France.


On the 27th of January, 1805, Napoleon, in his new character of Emperor,
addressed a letter (as he had done before at the commencement of his
Consulate) to King George III. in person; and was answered, as before,
by the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The new Emperor's
letter contained many well-turned sentences about the blessings of
peace, but no distinct proposition of any kind--least of all any hint
that he was willing to concede Malta. The English minister, however,
answered simply, that in the present state of relations between the
cabinet of St. James's and that of St. Petersburg, it was impossible for
the former to open any negotiation without the consent of the latter.

This sufficiently indicated a fact of which Napoleon had just suspicion
some time before. The murder of the Duke d'Enghien had been regarded
with horror by the young Emperor of Russia; he had remonstrated
vigorously, and his reclamations had been treated with indifference. The
King of Sweden, immediately after he heard of the catastrophe of
Vicennes, had made known his sentiments to the Czar: a strict alliance
had been signed between those two courts about a fortnight before
Napoleon wrote to the King of England; and it was obvious that the
northern powers had resolved to take part with Great Britain in her
struggle against France. The Consul now made the _Moniteur_ the vehicle
of continual abuse against the sovereigns of Russia and Sweden; and the
latter caused a note to be handed to the French minister at Stockholm,
complaining of the "indecent and ridiculous insolence which _Monsieur
Buonaparte_ had permitted to be inserted" in that official journal.

The cabinets of London, Petersburg, and Stockholm were parties in a
league which had avowedly the following objects: to restore the
independence of Holland and Switzerland: to free the north of Germany
from the presence of French troops: to procure the restoration of
Piedmont to the King of Sardinia; and, finally, the evacuation of Italy
by Napoleon. Until, by the attainment of these objects, the sway of
France should be reduced to limits compatible with the independence of
the other European states, no peace was to be signed by any of the
contracting powers; and, during several months, every means was adopted
to procure the association of Austria and Prussia. But the latter of
these sovereigns had the misfortune at this time to have a strong French
party in his council, and, though personally hostile to Napoleon, could
not as yet count on being supported in a war against him by the hearty
goodwill of an undivided people. Austria, on the other hand, had been
grievously weakened by the campaign of Marengo, and hesitated, on
prudential grounds, to commit herself once more to the hazard of arms.

Alexander repaired in person to Berlin, for the purpose of stimulating
the King of Prussia. The two sovereigns met in the vault where the great
Frederick lies buried, and swore solemnly, over his remains, to effect
the liberation of Germany. But though thus pledged to the Czar, the King
of Prussia did not hastily rush into hostilities. He did not even follow
the example of the Austrian, whose forbearance was at length wholly
exhausted by the news of the coronation at Milan, and the annexation of
Genoa to the empire of France.

The government of Vienna no sooner heard of this new aggrandisement,
than it commenced warlike preparations, rashly and precipitately,
without making sure of the co-operation of Berlin, or even waiting until
the troops of Russia could perform the march into Germany. But this
great fault was not the greatest. The Emperor haughtily demanded that
the Elector of Bavaria should take the field also; nay, that he should
suffer his army to be entirely incorporated with the Austrian, and
commanded by its chiefs. The Elector, who had a son travelling in
France, resisted anxiously and strenuously. "On my knees," he wrote to
the Emperor, "I beg of you that I may be permitted to remain neutral."
This appeal was disregarded. The Austrian troops advanced into Bavaria,
where they appear to have conducted themselves as in an enemy's country;
and the indignant Elector withdrew his army into Franconia, where he
expected the advance of the French as liberators.

This unjustifiable behaviour was destined to be severely punished. No
sooner did Napoleon understand that war was inevitable, than he broke up
his great army on the coast opposite to England, and directed its march
upon the German frontier; while Massena received orders to assume, also,
the offensive in Italy, and force his way, if possible, into the
hereditary states of Austria. The favourite scheme of Carnot was thus
revived, and two French armies, one crossing the Rhine, and the other
pushing through the Tyrolese, looked forward to a junction before the
walls of Vienna.

The rashness which had characterised the conduct of the Cabinet of
Vienna, was fatally followed out in that of its general, Mack: instead
of occupying the line of the river Inn, which, extending from the Tyrol
to the Danube at Passau, affords a strong defence to the Austrian
territory, and on which he might have expected, in comparative safety,
the arrival of the Russians--this unworthy favourite of the Emperor left
the Inn behind him, and established his headquarters on the western
frontier of Bavaria, at Ulm.

Napoleon hastened to profit by this unpardonable error. Bernadotte
advanced from Hanover, with the troops which had occupied that
electorate, towards Wurtzburg, where the Bavarian army lay ready to join
its strength to his; five divisions of the great force lately assembled
on the coasts of Normandy, under the orders of Davoust, Ney, Soult,
Marmont, and Vandamme, crossed the Rhine at different points, all to the
northward of Mack's position; while a sixth, under Murat, passing at
Kehl, manoeuvred in such a manner as to withdraw the Austrian's
attention from these movements, and to strengthen him in his belief that
Napoleon and all his army were coming against him through the Black
Forest in his front.

The consequence of Buonaparte's combinations was, that while Mack lay
expecting to be assaulted in front of Ulm, the great body of the French
army advanced into the heart of Germany, by the left side of the Danube,
and then, throwing themselves across that river, took ground in his
rear, interrupting his communication with Vienna, and isolating him. In
order that Bernadotte and the Bavarians might have a part in this great
manœuvre, it was necessary that they should disregard the neutrality of
the Prussian territories of Anspach and Bareuth; and Napoleon, well
aware of the real sentiments of the court of Berlin, did not hesitate to
adopt this course. Prussia remonstrated indignantly, but still held back
from proclaiming war; and Napoleon cared little for such impediments as
mere diplomacy could throw in the way of his campaign. He did not,
however, effect his purpose of taking up a position in the rear of Mack
without resistance. On the contrary, at various places, at Wertenghen,
Guntzburg, Memingen, and Elchingen, severe skirmishes occurred with
different divisions of the Austrian army, in all of which the French had
the advantage. General Spangenburg and 5000 men laid down their arms at
Memingen; and, in all, not less than 20,000 prisoners fell into the
hands of the French between the 26th of September, when they crossed the
Rhine, and the 13th of October, when they were in full possession of
Bavaria and Swabia, holding Mack cooped up behind them in Ulm--as
Wurmser had been in Mantua, during the campaign of Alvinzi.

But Mack was no Wurmser. Napoleon's recent movements had perplexed
utterly the counsels of the Austrians, whose generals, adopting
different views of the state of the campaign, no longer acted in unison.
Schwartzenberg, and the Archduke Ferdinand, considering further
resistance in Bavaria as hopeless, cut their way, at the head of large
bodies of cavalry, into Bohemia, and began to rouse the inhabitants of
that kingdom to a levy _en masse_. The French Emperor, perceiving that
they had for the present escaped him, drew back upon Ulm, invested that
town on every side, and summoned Mack to surrender.

The garrison consisted of full 20,000 good troops; the place was amply
victualled and stored; the advance of the great Russian army could not
be distant; the declaration of war against Napoleon by Berlin was hourly
to be expected: and the armies of Austria, though scattered for the
present, would be sure to rally and make every effort for the relief of
Ulm. Under circumstances comparatively hopeless the brave Wurmser held
Mantua to extremity. But in spite of example or argument, in terror or
in treachery, General Mack capitulated without hazarding a blow.

On the 16th he published a proclamation, urging his troops to prepare
for the utmost pertinacity of defence, and forbidding, on pain of death,
the very word _surrender_ to be breathed within the walls of Ulm. On the
17th he signed articles by which hostilities were immediately to cease,
and he and all his men to surrender themselves prisoners of war within
ten days, unless some Austrian or Russian force should appear in the
interval, and attempt to raise the blockade. After signing this
document, Mack visited, in person, the headquarters of Napoleon; and,
whatever the nature of their conversation may have been, the result was,
a _revision_ of the treaty on the 19th, and the formal evacuation of Ulm
on the 20th. Twenty thousand soldiers filed off, and laid down their
arms before Napoleon and his staff.--Eighteen generals were dismissed on
parole; an immense quantity of ammunition of all sorts fell into the
hands of the victor; and a waggon filled with Austrian standards was
sent to gratify the vanity of the Parisians.

The catastrophe of Ulm, striking new terror into the Prussian counsels,
prevented the violation of the territory of Anspach from being
immediately followed by the declaration of war, for which Buonaparte
must have made up his mind when he hazarded that measure. Meantime
success had attended Massena in his advance from Lombardy towards the
Venetian states, where the Archduke Charles commanded an army of 60,000
men for Austria. The Archduke, after sustaining various reverses, was
forced to abandon Italy; and retreated, though slowly and leisurely,
before Massena, through the strong passes of the Carinthian mountains.

Nor had Marshal Ney, whom Napoleon had detached from his own main army
with orders to advance in the Tyrol, been less successful than Massena.
The Archduke John, who commanded in that province, was beaten like his
brother; and the outposts of the army of Massena from Italy and that of
Ney from the Upper Rhine, at length met and saluted in triumph at
Clagenfurt. The Archduke Charles, understanding how Ney was prospering
in the Tyrol, had given up the design of retreating by that way into
Germany, and proceeded through the Carinthian Mountains towards
Hungary. Prince John now followed his brother's example; and, the
remains of those two armies thus coalescing in a distant region, the
divisions of Ney and Messena came to be at the immediate disposal of
Napoleon, who was now concentrating his force for the purpose of
attacking Vienna.

While the victorious corps of Ney thus secured his right--Murat, on his
left, watched the Austrians who had made their way into Bohemia; and
Augereau, who had now advanced at the head of a large reserve from
France, remained behind him in Swabia, to guard the passes from the
Voralberg, in case of any hostile movement from that mountainous
province, and, at the same time, to be ready for action against the
Prussians, should that army at length receive orders to take part in the
war, and cross the Danube. Thus guarded, as he judged, against any
chance of having his communications intercepted in the rear or flanks,
Napoleon himself, with the main body, now moved on the capital of the
German Emperor. Austrian and Russian troops, to the number of 45,000,
had been thrown together with the view of relieving Ulm, and advanced
considerably for that purpose ere they heard of the treacherous
capitulation of Mack. They now retired again before the movement of
Napoleon, halting, indeed, occasionally, and assuming the aspect of
determination; but, whenever the outposts met, losing heart, and
continuing their progress towards Moravia:--for there, at length, the
Czar, with his principal army, had made his appearance; and there,
around that standard, every disposable force was now to be rallied. The
Emperor Francis himself, perceiving that Vienna was incapable of
defence, quitted his capital on the 7th of November, and proceeded to
Brunn, in Moravia, the headquarters of Alexander.

On the same evening Count Giulay reached Napoleon's headquarters at
Lintz, with proposals for an immediate armistice and negotiation.
Buonaparte refused to pause unless the Tyrol and Venice were instantly
ceded to him. These were terms to which the Austrian envoy had no
authority to submit. On the 13th of November, accordingly, the French
entered Vienna, and Napoleon took up his residence in the castle of
Schoenbrunn, the proud palace of the Austrian Cæsars. General Clarke was
appointed governor of the city; and the Elector of Bavaria was
gratified with a large share of the military stores and equipments found
in its arsenals.

But the intoxication of this success was to be sobered by a cup of
bitterness--and from a hand which had already dashed more than one of
Napoleon's proudest triumphs.

When Buonaparte took up arms again, and devoted every energy of his mind
to the descent upon England, Spain, the next maritime power after
France, professed, indeed, neutrality,--but by some of her proceedings
raised the suspicion that her fleet was really destined to act along
with that of the invader. The English government resolved to bring this
matter to the test: and a squadron of four ships demanded a similar
force of the Spaniards to yield themselves into their keeping as a
pledge of neutrality. The British squadron sent on such an errand ought,
on every principle of policy and humanity, to have been much stronger
than that which Commodore Moore commanded on this occasion. The
Castilian pride took fire at the idea of striking to an equal foe; and,
unhappily, an action took place, in which three of the Spanish ships
were captured, and one blown up. This catastrophe determined, as might
have been expected, the wavering counsels of Madrid. Spain declared war
against England, and placed her fleets at the command of the French
Emperor.

Two of his own squadrons, meantime, had, in pursuance of the great
scheme traced for the ruin of England, escaped early in this year out of
Rochefort and Toulon. The former, passing into the West Indies, effected
some trivial services, and returned in safety to their original port.
The latter, under Villeneuve, had like fortune; and, venturing on a
second sortie, joined the great Spanish fleet under Gravina at Cadiz.
The combined fleets then crossed the Atlantic, where they captured an
insignificant island, and once more returned towards Europe. Nelson had
spent the summer in chasing these squadrons across the seas--and on this
occasion they once more eluded his grasp: but on approaching Cape
Finisterre (22nd July), another English squadron of fifteen sail of the
line and two frigates, under Sir Robert Calder, came in view: and the
allied admirals, having twenty sail of the line, three fifty-gun ships,
and four frigates, did not avoid the encounter. They were worsted,
notwithstanding their superiority of strength, and Calder captured two
of their best ships. But that they escaped from an English fleet,
howsoever inferior in numbers, without sustaining severer loss than
this, was considered as a disgrace by the British public.--Calder, being
tried by a court-martial, was actually censured for not having improved
his success more signally; a striking example of the height to which
confidence in the naval superiority of the English had been raised, at
the very time when no arm appeared capable of thwarting the career of
French victory by land.

Villeneuve and Gravina now made their way to Vigo, and thence finally to
Cadiz: while Nelson, having at length received accurate intelligence of
their motions, took the command in the Mediterranean, and lay watching
for the moment in which they should be tempted to hazard another egress.
The coasts of Spain being strictly blockaded, some difficulty began to
be felt about providing necessaries for the numerous crews of the allied
fleets; but the circumstance which had most influence in leading them to
quit, once more, their place of safety, was, according to general
admission, the impatience of Villeneuve under some unmerited reproaches
with which Napoleon visited the results of the battle off Cape
Finisterre. Villeneuve, a man of dauntless gallantry and the highest
spirit, smarting under this injury, was anxious to take the noble
revenge of victory. And, in truth, had numbers been to decide the
adventure, he ran little risk: for Nelson commanded only twenty-seven
sail of the line, and three frigates, manned in the ordinary manner;
whereas the fleet in Cadiz mustered thirty-three ships of the line, and
seven frigates; and, besides the usual crews, carried 4000 troops,
chiefly rifle-men. The result was the most glorious day in the proud
annals of the English Marine. The combined fleets sailed from Cadiz on
the 19th of October, and on the morning of the 21st--the very day after
Mack surrendered at Ulm--they came in sight of the English Admiral, off
Cape Trafalgar.

The reader is referred to the historian of Lord Nelson for the
particulars of this great action. The French and Spaniards awaited the
attack in a double line. Nelson hoisted the famous signal--"England
expects every man to do his duty"; charged in two columns, and broke
their array at the first onset. The battle, nevertheless, was sternly
contested. In the end nineteen ships of the line were taken; and of
those Spanish vessels which escaped into Cadiz, seven had been rendered
wholly unserviceable. Four French ships of the line, under Commodore
Dumanoir, made way for the Straits, and were captured a few days after
by Sir Richard Strachan, commander of the English squadron off
Rochefort. The fleets of France and Spain were annihilated: yet, great
as was the triumph, glorious and unrivalled, it was dearly
purchased--for Nelson fell, mortally wounded, early in the action. The
hero lived just long enough to hear the cheer of consummated victory;
and then breathed out his noble spirit, in words worthy of his life,
"Thank God! I have done my duty."[51]

The French and Spaniards had fought together against Nelson; but not in
the same spirit. The former were determined and malignant enemies; the
latter generous friends, hurried, by the excitement of temporary and
pardonable passion, into hostilities against the only power which could
afford their country any chance of avoiding that political slavery,
under which it was now the settled purpose of Napoleon's ambition to
crush every nation of Europe. But the unprincipled conduct of Dumanoir,
who escaped from Nelson to be captured shortly after, as has been
mentioned, by Strachan, at once brought out the different feelings
under which the two allied fleets had been acting. This French officer,
retreating with his four ships, which had had no part in the battle,
discharged his broadsides, as he passed, into English vessels no longer
capable of pursuit,--conduct which, as the victory was complete, could
have no object but that of carnage. Nay, such was the ruffian nature of
this man's soul, he fired into the Spanish ships which had yielded to
the English, thus, for the sake of trivially injuring his enemy,
sacrificing without scruple the blood of his own unfortunate friends.
The Spanish prisoners, in their indignation at this brutality, asked
their English captors to permit them to man their guns against the
retreating French; and such was the earnestness of their entreaty, and
the confidence of Englishmen in the honour of Spaniards, that these men
actually were permitted to do as they had requested. A mutual
interchange of good offices ensued. In the evening after the battle a
gale sprung up, and some of the captured vessels drifting on shore, a
number of British seamen fell into the hands of the garrison of Cadiz.
They were received as friends: for the accommodation of their wounded
the Spanish soldiers gave up their own beds. Collingwood, who succeeded
to Nelson's command, sent all the wounded Spaniards on shore to be cured
in their own country, merely taking their parole that they would not
serve again during the war: and the governor of Cadiz, with still more
romantic generosity, offered his hospitals for the use of Collingwood's
wounded seamen, pledging the honour of the Spanish name that they should
be cared for like his own men, and sent back to their admiral whenever
they had recovered. It will appear, hereafter, what illustrious
consequences the kindly feelings thus manifested were destined to
produce.

Buonaparte, when he heard of this mighty discomfiture, which for ever
put an end to all his visions of invading England, is said to have lost
that possession of himself, which he certainly maintained when the
catastrophe of Aboukir was announced to him at Cairo. Yet arrogance
mingled strangely in his expressions of sorrow.--"I cannot be
everywhere," said he to the messenger of the evil tidings--as if
Napoleon could have had any more chance of producing victory by his
presence at Trafalgar, than Nelson would have dreamed of having by
appearing on horseback at Marengo. In his newspapers, and even in his
formal messages to the senate at Paris, Buonaparte always persisted in
denying that there had been a great defeat at Trafalgar, or even a great
battle. But how well he appreciated the facts of the case was well known
to the unfortunate Admiral Villeneuve. That brave officer, after
spending a short time in England, was permitted to return to France on
his parole. He died almost immediately afterwards at Rennes: whether by
his own hand, in the agony of despair, as the French _Gazette_ asserted,
or assassinated, as was commonly believed at the time, by some of the
blood-hardened minions of Fouché's police, is a mystery not yet cleared
up; and, perhaps, never destined to be so until the day comes in which
nothing shall be hid.

The tidings of Trafalgar, after the first moment, served but as a new
stimulus to the fire of Napoleon's energy. He quitted Vienna, and put
himself at the head of his columns, which, passing the Danube into
Moravia, soon found themselves within reach of the forces of Russia and
Austria, at length combined, and prepared for action, under the eyes of
their respective emperors. These princes, on the approach of the French,
drew back as far as Olmutz, in order that a reserve of Russians, under
Bexhowden, might join them before the decisive struggle took place.
Napoleon fixed his headquarters at _Brunn_, and, riding over the plain
between Brunn and Austerlitz (a village about two miles from that town),
said to his generals, "study this field--we shall, ere long, have to
contest it."

Buonaparte has been much criticised by strategists for the rashness of
thus passing the Danube into Moravia, while the Archduke Ferdinand was
organising the Bohemians on his left, the Archdukes Charles and John in
Hungary, with still formidable and daily increasing forces on his right,
the population of Vienna and the surrounding territories ready to rise,
in case of any disaster, in his rear; and Prussia as decidedly hostile
in heart as she was wavering in policy. The French leader did not
disguise from himself the risk of his adventure; but he considered it
better to run all that risk, than to linger in Vienna until the armies
in Hungary and Bohemia should have had time to reinforce the two
emperors.

Napoleon's preparations were as follows:--his left, under Larmes, lay
at Santon, a strongly fortified position: Soult commanded the right
wing: the centre, under Bernadotte, had with them Murat and all the
cavalry. Behind the line lay the reserve, consisting of 20,000, 10,000
of whom were of the Imperial guard, under Oudinot: and here Napoleon
himself took his station. But besides these open demonstrations,
Davoust, with a division of horse and another of foot, lay behind the
convent of Raygern, considerably in the rear of the French right--being
there placed by the Emperor, in consequence of a false movement, into
which he, with a seer-like sagacity, foresaw the enemy might, in all
likelihood, he tempted; and to which he lured them on accordingly by
every engine of his craft.

Buonaparte, on learning that the Emperor Alexander was personally in the
hostile camp, sent Savary to present his compliments to that sovereign;
but really, as we may suppose, to observe as much as he could of the
numbers and condition of the troops. Savary, on his return, informed his
master that the Russian prince was surrounded by a set of young
coxcombs, whose every look and gesture expressed overweening confidence
in themselves and contempt for their opponents. All the reverses of the
previous campaign were, as they took care to signify, the result of
unpardonable cowardice among the Austrians, whose spirit had been quite
broken by the wars in Italy: but they were the countrymen of the same
Suwarrow who had beaten the French out of all Buonaparte's Lombard
conquests, and the first general battle would show what sort of enemies
the Russians were. How much of this statement is true we know not: it
was openly made at the time in one of Buonaparte's bulletins--and, what
is of more moment, he appears to have acted on the belief that Savary
told the truth. Having, ere he received it, advanced several leagues
beyond the chosen field of battle, near Austerlitz, he forthwith
retreated on that position, with a studied semblance of confusion. The
Czar sent a young aide-de-camp to return the compliment carried by
Savary; and this messenger found the French soldiery actively engaged in
fortifying their position--the very position which their Emperor had all
along determined to occupy. The account of what the young Russian saw in
the French lines gave, as Napoleon wished, a new stimulus to the
presumption of his enemy; and, having made the preparations above
described, he calmly expected the consequences of their rashness and
inexperience.

On the 1st of December he beheld the commencement of those false
movements which he had desired and anticipated. On seeing the Russians
begin to descend from the heights, on which they might have lain in
safety until the Archdukes could come to swell their array with the
forces in Bohemia and Hungary, Napoleon did not repress his rapturous
joy: "In twenty-four hours," said he, "that army is mine."

Shortly afterwards there arrived Count Haugwitz, an envoy from the King
of Prussia, who being introduced into the Emperor's presence, signified
that he was the bearer of an important communication. "Count," said
Napoleon, "you may see that the outposts of the armies are almost
meeting--there will be a battle to-morrow--return to Vienna, and deliver
your message when it is over." The envoy did not require two biddings.
Napoleon had all this year been protracting the indecision of the
Prussian counsels by holding out the delusive hope, that, were Austria
effectually humbled, the imperial crown of Germany might be transferred
to the house of Brandenburg. The old jealousies, thus artfully awakened,
had been sufficient to prevent a declaration of war from immediately
following on the violation of the territory of Anspach and Bareuth. The
intervention of the Czar had, it is not to be doubted, at length
determined the Court of Berlin to close their unworthy neutrality:--but
Haugwitz had no Prussian army in his train; and, seeing what was before
him, he certainly did prudently to defer that which had been so unwisely
as well as ungenerously put off from month to month, for one day more.

At one o'clock in the morning of the 2nd of December, Napoleon, having
slept for an hour by a watch-fire, got on horseback, and proceeded to
reconnoitre the front of his position. He wished to do so without being
recognised, but the soldiery penetrated the secret, and, lighting great
fires of straw all along the line, received him from post to post with
shouts of enthusiasm. They reminded him that this was the anniversary of
his coronation, and assured him they would celebrate the day in a manner
worthy of its glory. "Only promise us," cried an old grenadier, "that
you will keep yourself out of the fire." "I will do so," answered
Napoleon, "I shall be with the reserve _until you need us._" This
pledge, which so completely ascertains the mutual confidence of the
leader and his soldiers, he repeated in a proclamation issued at
daybreak. The sun rose with uncommon brilliancy: on many an after-day
the French soldiery hailed a similar dawn with exultation as the sure
omen of victory, and "the Sun of Austerlitz" has passed into a proverb.

The Russian General-in-Chief, Kutusoff, fell into the snare laid for
him, and sent a large division of his army to turn the right of the
French. The troops detached for this purpose met with unexpected
resistance from Davoust, and were held in check at Raygern. Napoleon
immediately seized the opportunity. They had left a deep gap in the
line, and upon that space Soult forthwith poured a force, which entirely
destroyed the communication between the Russian centre and left. The
Czar perceived the fatal consequences of this movement, and his guards
rushed to beat back Soult. It was on an eminence, called the hill of
Pratzen, that the encounter took place. The Russians drove the French
infantry before them: Napoleon ordered Bessieres to hurry with the
imperial guard to their rescue. The Russians were in some disorder from
the impatience of victory. They resisted sternly, but were finally
broken, and fled. The Grand Duke Constantine, who had led them
gallantly, escaped by the fleetness of his horse.

The French centre now advanced, and the charges of its cavalry under
Murat were decisive. The Emperors of Russia and Germany beheld from the
heights of Austerlitz the total ruin of their centre, as they had
already of their left. Their right wing had hitherto contested well
against all the impetuosity of Lannes: but Napoleon could now gather
round them on all sides, and, his artillery plunging incessant fire on
them from the heights, they at length found it impossible to hold their
ground. They were forced down into a hollow, where some small frozen
lakes offered the only means of escape from the closing cannonade. The
French broke the ice about them by a storm of shot, and nearly 20,000
men died on the spot, some swept away by the artillery, the greater part
drowned. Buonaparte, in his bulletin, compares the horrid spectacle of
this ruin to the catastrophe of the Turks at Aboukir, when "the sea was
covered with turbans." It was with great difficulty that the two
emperors rallied some fragments of their armies around them, and
effected their retreat. Twenty thousand prisoners, forty pieces of
artillery, and all the standards of the imperial guard of Russia,
remained with the conqueror. Such was the battle of Austerlitz;--or, as
the French soldiery delighted to call it, "the battle of the emperors."

The Prussian envoy now returned, and presented to Napoleon his master's
congratulations on the victory thus achieved. The Emperor whispered to
Haugwitz, "Here is a message, of which circumstances have altered the
address." Frederick-William, however, had 150,000 men under arms, and it
by no means suited Napoleon's views to provoke him to extremities at
this moment. He entered into a treaty with Haugwitz; and Prussia was
bribed to remain quiescent, by a temptation which she wanted virtue to
resist. The French Emperor offered her Hanover, provided she would
oppose no obstacle to any other arrangements which he might find it
necessary to form: and the house of Brandenburg did not blush to accept
at his hands the paternal inheritance of the royal family of England.

The Austrian, understanding how Prussia was disposed of, perceived too
clearly that further resistance was hopeless; and negotiations
immediately begun.

The haughty Emperor of Germany repaired to the French headquarters. He
was received at the door of a miserable hut. "Such," said Buonaparte,
"are the palaces you have compelled me to occupy for these two months."
"You have made such use of them," answered Francis, "that you ought not
to complain of their accommodation."

The humiliated sovereign, having ere this obtained an armistice for
himself, demanded of Napoleon that the Czar might be permitted to
withdraw in safety to his own states. To this the conqueror assented:
and on the 6th of December the Russians commenced their retreat.

The definitive treaty with Francis was signed at Presburg on the 15th of
December, another with Prussia on the 26th, at Vienna:--and the terms of
both arranged, on Napoleon's side, by Talleyrand, corresponded with the
signal and decisive events of the campaign.

Austria yielded the Venetian territories to the kingdom of Italy: her
ancient possessions of the Tyrol and Voralberg were transferred to
Bavaria, to remunerate that elector for the part he had taken in the
war; Wirtemberg, having also adopted the French side, received
recompense of the same kind at the expense of the same power, and both
of these electors were advanced to the dignity of kings. Bavaria
received Anspach and Bareuth from Prussia, and, in return, ceded Berg,
which was erected into a grand duchy, and conferred, in sovereignty, on
Napoleon's brother-in-law, Murat. Finally, Prussia added Hanover to her
dominions, in return for the cession of Anspach and Bareuth, and
acquiescence in the other arrangements above-mentioned.

Eugene Beauharnois, son of Josephine, and Viceroy of Italy, received in
marriage the eldest daughter of the new king of Bavaria: this being the
first occasion on which Napoleon manifested openly his desire to connect
his family with the old sovereign houses of Europe. It was announced at
the same time, that in case the Emperor should die without male issue,
the crown of Italy would descend to Eugene.

Other events of the same character now crowded on the scene. The king,
or rather the queen of Naples, had not failed, during the recent
campaign, to manifest the old aversion to the French cause. St. Cyr's
army, which on the first rupture of the peace of Amiens had occupied the
seaports of that kingdom, being called into the north of Italy to
reinforce Massena against the Archduke Charles, an Anglo-Russian
expedition soon landed in Naples, and were welcomed cordially by the
court. Napoleon, immediately after the battle of Austerlitz, issued a
proclamation, declaring that "the royal house of Naples had ceased to
reign for _ever_." On hearing of the decisive battle, and the retreat of
the Czar, the English and Russians evacuated the Neapolitan territories
on the mainland of Italy. Joseph Buonaparte conducted a French army
towards the frontier; the court passed over into Sicily; and Joseph was
proclaimed King of Naples.

The King of Sweden, rushing as hastily and inconsiderately as he of
Naples into the war of 1805, landed with a small army in Germany, and
besieged Hamelen, a fortress of Hanover, where Bernadotte had left a
strong garrison. This movement, had Prussia broken her neutrality, might
have been of high importance to the general cause; as events turned out,
it was fruitless. The Swedes raised their siege in confusion, on
receiving the news of Austerlitz; and Napoleon from that hour meditated
the dethronement of the dynasty of Gustavus--but this object was not yet
within reach.

The Principalities of Lucca, Massa-Carrara, and Garfagnana, were now
conferred on Napoleon's sister, Eliza (Madame Bacciochi): on Pauline,
the younger sister, who, after the death of General Leclerc, had married
the Prince Borghese, the sovereignty of Guastalla was in like manner
bestowed.

The Batavian republic had for years been in effect enslaved by France.
On pretence that her leading men, however, still yearned after the
alliance of England, and thwarted him in his designs on the commerce of
that great enemy, Napoleon now resolved to take away even the shadow of
Dutch independence. The Batavian Senate were commanded to ask Louis
Buonaparte for their king; and these republicans submitted with the
better grace, because the personal character of Louis was amiable, and
since Holland must be an appendage to France, it seemed probable that
the connection might be rendered the less galling in many circumstances,
were a prince of Napoleon's own blood constituted her natural guardian.
Louis had married the beautiful Hortense-Fanny de Beauharnois, daughter
of Josephine--so that, by this act, two members of the imperial house
were at once elevated to royalty.--They began their reign at the Hague
in May, 1806.

Another great consequence of Austerlitz remains to be mentioned. The
Kings of Wirtemberg and Bavaria, the Grand Duke of Berg, and other
sovereigns of the West of Germany, were now associated together in a
close alliance under the style of the _Confederation of the Rhine_:
Napoleon added to his other titles that of _Protector_ of this
confederacy; and the princes of the league were bound to place 60,000
soldiers at his command.

Finally, it was on his return from the triumph of Austerlitz, that
Napoleon trampled down the last traces of the revolutionary organisation
in France, by creating a new order of nobility. Talleyrand became Prince
of Benevento, Bernadotte, of Ponte Corvo, Berthier, of Neufchatel; the
most distinguished of the Marshals received the title of Duke, and a
long array of Counts of the Empire filled the lower steps of the throne.

These princedoms and dukedoms were accompanied with grants of extensive
estates in the countries which the French arms had conquered; and the
great feudatories of the new empire accordingly bore titles not
domestic, but foreign. In everything it was the plan of Napoleon to sink
the memory of the Bourbon Monarchy, and revive the image of Charlemagne,
Emperor of the West.

[Footnote 51:

    "Lamented hero! when to Britain's shore
    Exulting Fame those awful tidings bore,
    Joy's bursting shout in whelming grief was drowned
    And Victory's self unwilling audience found;
    On every brow the cloud of sadness hung;
    The sounds of triumph died on every tongue.
    Yet not the vows thy weeping country pays;
    Not that high meed, thy mourning sovereign's praise,
    Not that the great, the beauteous, and the brave
    Bend in mute reverence o'er thy closing grave;
    That with such grief as bathes a kindred bier
    Collective nations mourn a death so dear;
    Not these alone shall soothe thy sainted shade,
    And consecrate the spot where thou art laid--
    Not these alone!--but bursting thro' the gloom,
    With radiant glory from thy trophied tomb,
    The sacred splendour of thy deathless name
    Shall grace and guard thy country's martial fame;
    Far seen shall blaze the unextinguished ray,
    A mighty beacon lighting glory's way--
    With living lustre this proud land adorn,
    And shine, and save, thro' ages yet unborn."[52]
]

[Footnote 52: "Ulm and Trafalgar," a poem, by the Rt. Honourable George
Canning.]




CHAPTER XX

     Discontent of Prussia--Death of Pitt--Negotiation of Lords Yarmouth
     and Lauderdale broken off--Murder of Palm, the bookseller--Prussia
     declares War--Buonaparte heads the Army--Naumburg taken--Battle of
     Jena--Napoleon enters Berlin--Fall of Magdeburg, &c.--Humiliation
     of Prussia--Buonaparte's cruelty to the Duke of Brunswick--his
     rapacity and oppression in Prussia.


The establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine rendered Napoleon,
in effect, sovereign of a large part of Germany; and seemed to have so
totally revolutionised Central Europe, that Francis of Austria declared
the Imperial Constitution at an end. He retained the title of Emperor as
sovereign of his own hereditary dominions; but "The Holy Roman Empire,"
having lasted full one thousand years, was declared to be no more; and
of its ancient influence the representative was to be sought for not at
Vienna, but at Paris.

The vacillating court of Berlin heard with much apprehension of the
formation of the Rhenish confederacy;[53] and with deep resentment of
its immediate consequence, the dissolution of the Germanic Empire. The
house of Brandenburg had consented to the humiliation of Francis in the
hope of succeeding, at the next election, to the imperial crown so long
worn by the princes of Austria; and now, not only was that
long-cherished hope for ever dispelled, but it appeared that Napoleon
had laid the foundation of a new system, under which the influence of
the house of Brandenburg must, in all probability, be overruled far more
effectually than it ever had been, of recent times, by the imperial
prerogative of Austria.

The only method of counteracting the consolidation of French power all
over Germany, seemed to be that of creating another confederacy in the
northern circles, capable of balancing the league of the Rhine. The
Elector of Saxony, however, perceived that Napoleon was not likely to
acquiesce in the realisation of this scheme; and his Minister at Berlin
continued to decline acceding to the Northern alliance. The Prince of
Hesse-Cassel took a similar view of the case; but acted with a degree of
vacillation worthy of the late conduct of Prussia herself, refusing on
the one hand to embrace the confederation proposed by the Cabinet of
Berlin, and yet declining, on the other, to form part of the Rhenish
league, to which effect Buonaparte had frequently and urgently invited
this elector. In the reluctance, however, of these princes, Prussia saw
nothing but the determination of Napoleon to suppress, in the beginning,
any such confederation of the Northern German States as had been
contemplated; and irritation and jealousy from day to day increased.

The relations of France and Prussia continued in this dubious state,
until the Cabinet of Berlin learned some particulars of a negotiation
between Napoleon and the English Government, which took place in the
summer of 1806.

Mr. Pitt, who despaired of opposing Buonaparte on the continent after
Marengo, did not long survive the disastrous intelligence of Austerlitz.
Worn out and broken by the endless anxieties of his situation, not even
the glorious tidings of Trafalgar could revive the sinking spirit of
this great minister. He died on the 23rd of January, 1806, and was
succeeded in the government by Mr. Fox, the same statesman who had,
throughout every variety of fortune, arraigned his conduct of the war as
imbecile and absurd, and who all along professed his belief that in the
original quarrel between Great Britain and revolutionised France, the
blame lay with his own country, and above all with Mr. Pitt.

The personal intercourse which took place between Fox and Napoleon,
during the peace of Amiens, has already been alluded to. It was
calculated to make all men regard the chances of a solid peace between
France and England as increased by the event which transferred the reins
of government, in the latter country, into the hands of the illustrious
opponent of Mr. Pitt. But the peculiar feelings of English politicians
have seldom been understood by foreigners--never more widely
misunderstood than by Buonaparte. When Fox visited him, as First Consul,
at the Tuileries, he complained that the English Government countenanced
the assassins who were plotting against his life. Mr. Fox, forgetting
all his party prejudice when the honour of his country was assailed,
answered in terms such as Napoleon's own military bluntness could not
have surpassed--"Clear your head of that nonsense." And now, in like
manner, Mr. Fox, once placed in the responsible management of his
country's interests, was found, not a little to the surprise and
disappointment of Napoleon, about as close and watchful a negotiator as
he could have had to deal with in Pitt himself. The English minister
employed on this occasion, first, Lord Yarmouth,[54] one of the
_detenus_ of 1803, and afterwards Lord Lauderdale. For some time strong
hopes of a satisfactory conclusion were entertained; but, in the end,
the negotiation broke up, on the absolute refusal of Napoleon to concede
Malta to England, unless England would permit him to conquer Sicily from
the unfortunate sovereign whose Italian Kingdom had already been
transferred to his brother Joseph. Mr. Fox was lost to his country in
September, 1806; and Napoleon ever afterwards maintained that, had that
great statesman lived, the negotiation would have been resumed, and
pushed to a successful close. Meantime, however, the diplomatic
intercourse of the Tuileries and St. James's was at an end, and the
course which the negotiation had taken transpired necessarily in
Parliament.

It then came out that the article of _Hanover_ had not formed one of the
chief difficulties;--in a word, Napoleon had signified that, although
the Electorate had been ceded by him to Prussia under the treaty of
Vienna, at the close of 1805, Prussia yielding to him in return the
principalities of Anspach, Bareuth and Neufchatel, still, if the English
Government would agree to abandon Sicily, he, on his part, would offer
no opposition to the resumption of Hanover by its rightful sovereign,
George III. This contemptuous treachery being ascertained at Berlin, the
ill-smothered rage of the court and nation at length burst into a flame.
The beautiful Queen of Prussia, and Prince Louis, brother to the king,
two characters whose high and romantic qualities rendered them the
delight and pride of the nation, were foremost to nourish and kindle the
popular indignation. The young nobility and gentry rose in tumult, broke
the windows of the ministers who were supposed to lean to the French
interest, and openly whetted their sabres on the threshold-stone of
Napoleon's ambassador. The lovely Queen appeared in the uniform of the
regiment which bore her name, and rode at its head. The enthusiasm of
the people thus roused might be directed, but could hardly be repressed.

Nor was it in Prussia alone that such sentiments prevailed. Split as
Germany has for ages been into many independent states, there has
always, nevertheless, been felt, and acknowledged, a certain national
unity of heart as well as head among all that speak the German language:
the dissolution of the empire was felt all over the land as a common
wrong and injury: Napoleon's insulting treatment of Prussia was resented
as indicative of his resolution to reduce that power also (the only
German power now capable of opposing any resistance to French
aggression) to a pitch of humiliation as low as that in which Austria
was already sunk; and, lastly, another atrocious deed of the French
Emperor--a deed as darkly unpardonable as the murder of D'Enghien--was
perpetrated at this very crisis, and arrayed against him, throughout all
Germany, every feeling, moral and political, which could be touched
either by the crimes or the contumelies of a foreign tyrant.

Palm, a bookseller of the free city of Naumburg, having published a
pamphlet in which the ambition of Napoleon was arraigned, a party of
French gens-d'armes passed the frontier, and seized the unsuspecting
citizen, exactly as the Duke d'Enghien had been arrested at Ettingen,
and Sir George Rumbold at Hamburg, the year before. The bookseller was
tried for a libel against Napoleon, at Braunau, before a French
court-martial; found guilty, condemned to death, and shot immediately,
in pursuance of his sentence. It is needless to dwell upon this outrage:
the death of D'Enghien has found advocates or palliators--this mean
murder of a humble tradesman, who neither was nor ever had been a
subject either of France or Buonaparte, has been less fortunate.

The Emperor of Russia once more visited Berlin, when the feelings of
Prussia, and indeed of all the neighbouring states, were in this fever
of excitement. He again urged Frederick William to take up arms in the
common cause, and offered to back him with all the forces of his own
great empire. The English Government, taking advantage of the same
crisis, sent Lord Morpeth[55] to Berlin, with offers of pecuniary
supplies--about the acceptance of which, however, the anxiety of Prussia
on the subject of Hanover created some difficulty. Lastly, Buonaparte,
well informed of what was passing in Berlin, and desirous, since war
must be, to hurry Frederick into the field ere the armies of the Czar
could be joined with his, now poured out in the _Moniteur_ such abuse on
the persons and characters of the Queen, Prince Louis, and every
illustrious patriot throughout Prussia, that the general wrath could no
longer be held in check. Warlike preparations of every kind filled the
kingdom during August and September. On the first of October the
Prussian Minister at Paris presented a note to Talleyrand, demanding,
among other things, that the formation of a Confederacy in the North of
Germany should no longer be thwarted by French interference, and that
the French troops within the territories of the Rhenish League should
recross the Rhine into France, by the 8th of the same month of October.

But Napoleon was already in person on the German side of the Rhine; and
his answer to the Prussian note was a general order to his own troops,
in which he called on them to observe in what manner a German sovereign
still dared to insult the soldiers of Austerlitz.

The conduct of Prussia, in thus rushing into hostilities, without
waiting for the advance of the Russians, was as rash as her holding back
from Austria, during the campaign of Austerlitz, had been cowardly. As
if determined to profit by no lesson, the Prussian council also directed
their army to advance towards the French, instead of lying on their own
frontier--a repetition of the great leading blunder of the Austrians in
the preceding year. The Prussian army accordingly invaded the Saxon
provinces, and the Elector, seeing his country treated as rudely as that
of Bavaria had been on a similar occasion by the Austrians, and wanting
the means to withdraw his own troops as the Bavarian had succeeded in
doing under like provocation, was compelled to accept the alliance which
the Cabinet of Berlin urged on him, and to join his troops with those of
the power by which he had been thus insulted and wronged.

No sooner did Napoleon know that the Prussians had advanced into the
heart of Saxony, than he formed the plan of his campaign: and they,
persisting in their advance, and taking up their position finally on the
Saale, afforded him, as if studiously, the means of repeating, at their
expense, the very manœuvres which had ruined the Austrians in the
preceding campaign. In a word, he perceived that the Prussian army was
extended upon too wide a line, and the consequent possibility of
destroying it in detail. He further discovered that the enemy had all
his principal stores and magazines at Naumburg, to the rearward, not of
his centre, but of his extreme right; and resolved to commence
operations by an attempt to turn the flank, and seize those magazines,
ere the main body of the Prussians, lying at Weimar, could be aware of
his movement. The French came forward in three great divisions; the
corps of Soult and Ney, in the direction of Hof; Murat, Bernadotte and
Davoust, towards Saalburg and Schleitz; and Lannes and Augereau upon
Coburg and Saalfield. These last generals were opposed sternly, at
Saalfield, by the corps of Prince Louis of Prussia. This brave young
officer imprudently abandoned the bridge over the Saale, which he might
have defended with success, and came out into the open plain, where his
troops were overpowered by the French impetuosity. He himself, fighting
hand to hand with a subaltern, was desired to surrender, and replying by
a sabre cut, was immediately struck down with a mortal thrust. The
Prussians fled; the bridge, which ought to have defended, gave the
French access to the country behind the Saale. The flank of the Prussian
position was turned: the French army passed entirely round them;
Napoleon seized Naumburg, and blew up the magazines there,--announcing,
for the first time, by this explosion, to the King of Prussia and his
Generalissimo, the Duke of Brunswick, that he was in their rear.

From this moment the Prussians were isolated, and cut off from all their
resources, as completely as the army of Mack was at Ulm, when the French
had passed the Danube and overrun Suabia. The Duke of Brunswick hastily
endeavoured to concentrate his forces for the purpose of cutting his way
back again to the frontier which he had so rashly abandoned. Napoleon,
meantime, had posted his divisions so as to watch the chief passages of
the Saale, and expected, in confidence, the assault of his outwitted
opponent. It was now that he found leisure to answer the manifesto of
Frederick William, which had reached Paris a day or two after he himself
quitted that capital for the camp. His letter, dated at Gera, is written
in the most elaborate style of insult. The King of Prussia (said he) had
sent him a silly pamphlet of twenty pages, in very bad French--such a
pamphlet as the English ministry were in the habit of commanding their
hireling scribblers to put forth--but he acquitted the King of having
read this performance. He was extremely anxious to live on the most
friendly terms with his "good brother," and begged him, as the first
token of equal goodwill, to dismiss the counsellors who had hurried him
into the present unjust and unequal war. Such was the language of this
famous note. Napoleon, now sure of his prey, desired his own generals to
observe how accurately he had already complied with one of the requests
of the Prussian Manifesto--"The French army," said he, "has done as it
was bidden. This is the 8th of October, and we _have_ evacuated the
territories of the Confederation of the Rhine."

The Prussian King understood well, on learning the fall of Naumburg, the
imminent danger of his position; and his army was forthwith set in
motion, in two great masses; the former, where he was in person present,
advancing towards Naumburg; the latter attempting, in like manner, to
force their passage through the French line in the neighbourhood of
Jena. The King's march was arrested at Auerstadt by Davoust, who, after
a severely contested action, at length repelled the assailant. Napoleon
himself, meanwhile, was engaged with the other great body of the
Prussians. Arriving on the evening of the 13th October at Jena, he
perceived that the enemy were ready to attempt the advance next morning,
while his own heavy train were still six-and-thirty hours' march in his
rear. Not discouraged with this adverse circumstance, the Emperor
laboured all night in directing and encouraging his soldiery to cut a
road through the rocks, and draw up by that means such light guns as he
had at command to a position, on a lofty plateau in front of Jena, where
no man could have expected beforehand that any artillery whatever should
be planted, and where, accordingly, the effect even of a small park
proved more decisive than that of a much larger one might have been
under other circumstances. Buonaparte spent all the night among the men,
offering large sums of gold for every piece that should be dragged to
the position, and continually reminding his followers that the Prussians
were about to fight not for honour, but for safety,--that they were
already isolated as completely as Mack's army had been at Ulm, and on
stern resistance must needs submit to the fate of the Austrians. Lannes
commanded the centre; Augereau the right; Soult the left; and Murat the
reserve and cavalry.

Soult had to sustain the first assault of the Prussians, which was
violent--and sudden; for the mist lay so thick on the field that the
armies were within half gunshot of each other ere the sun and wind rose
and discovered them; and on that instant Mollendorf charged. The battle
was contested well for some time on this point; but at length Ney
appeared in the rear of the Emperor with a fresh division; and then the
French centre advanced to a general charge, before which the Prussians
were forced to retire. They moved for some space in good order; but
Murat now poured his masses of cavalry on them, storm after storm, with
such rapidity and vehemence that their rout became inevitable. It ended
in the complete breaking up of the army--horse and foot all flying
together, in the confusion of panic, upon the road to Weimar. At that
point the fugitives met and mingled with their brethren flying, as
confusedly as themselves, from Auerstadt. In the course of this
disastrous day 20,000 Prussians were killed or taken; 300 guns, twenty
generals, and sixty standards. The Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of
Brunswick, being wounded in the face with a grape-shot, was carried
early off the field, never to recover. The loss of superior officers on
the Prussian side was so great, that of an army which, on the evening of
the 13th of October, mustered not less than 150,000, but a few regiments
were ever able to act in concert for some time after the 14th. The
various routed divisions roamed about the country, seeking separately
the means of escape: they were in consequence destined to fall an easy
prey. Mollendorf and the Prince of Orange-Fulda laid down their arms at
Erfurt. General Kalkreuth's corps was overtaken and surrounded among the
Hartz Mountains: Prince Eugene of Wirtemberg, and 16,000 men,
surrendered to Bernadotte at Halle. The Prince of Hohenlohe at length
drew together not less than 50,000 of these wandering soldiers, and
threw himself, at their head, into Magdeburg. But it turned out that
that great fortress had been stripped of all its stores for the service
of the Duke of Brunswick's army before Jena. Hohenlohe, therefore, was
compelled to retreat towards the Oder. He was defeated in a variety of
skirmishes; and at length, finding himself devoid of ammunition or
provisions, laid down his arms at Prenzlow; 20,000 surrendered with the
Prince. His rear, consisting of about 10,000, under the command of the
celebrated General Blucher, were so far behind as to render it possible
for them to attempt escape. Their heroic leader traversed the country
with them for some time unbroken, and sustained a variety of assaults,
from far superior numbers, with the most obstinate resolution. By
degrees, however, the French, under Soult, hemmed him in on one side,
Murat on the other, and Bernadotte appeared close behind him. He was
thus forced to throw himself into Lubeck, where a severe action was
fought in the streets of the town, on the 6th of November. The Prussian,
in this battle, lost 4000 prisoners, besides the slain and wounded: he
retreated to Schwerta, and there, it being impossible for him to go
farther without violating the neutrality of Denmark, on the morning of
the 7th, Blucher at length laid down his arms--having exhibited a
specimen of conduct and valour such as certainly had not been displayed
by any of his superiors in the campaign.

The strong fortresses of the Prussian monarchy made as ineffectual
resistance as the armies in the field. In how far the charge of actual
treachery, brought then, and still continued, against the commanders of
those places, be just, we know not; but the fact is certain that the
Governors of Spandau, Stettin, Custrin, Hamelen, and Magdeburg itself,
yielded successively to the French Generals, under circumstances which
roused the indignant suspicion of the Prussian people, as well as the
soldiery and their unfortunate King. Buonaparte, in person, entered
Berlin on the 25th of October: and before the end of November, except
Konigsberg--where the King himself had found refuge, and gathered round
him a few thousand troops, the sad relics of an army which had been
considered as not unable to withstand the whole power of France,--and a
few less important fortresses, the whole of the German possessions of
the house of Brandenburg were in the hands of the conqueror. Louis
Buonaparte, King of Holland, meanwhile, had advanced into Westphalia,
and occupied that territory also, with great part of Hanover, East
Friesland, Embden, and the dominions of Hesse-Cassel.

Thus in the course of a few short weeks, was the proud fabric of the
Prussian monarchy levelled with the ground. The government being of a
strictly military character, when the army, the pride and strength of
the nation, disappeared, every bond of union among the various provinces
of the crown seemed to be at once dissolved. To account for the
unexampled rapidity of such a downfall, it must be remembered, first,
that the Prussian states, many of them the fruits of recent military
conquest, were held together by little but the name of the great
Frederick, and the terror of the highly disciplined force, which he had
bequeathed to his successors; that, in a word, they had not yet had time
to be blended and melted thoroughly into a national whole: secondly,
that Prussia had rushed into this war not only with imprudent rashness,
but with the stain of dishonour on her hands. The acceptance of Hanover,
as a bribe, from the French despot, and the hard and brazen reluctance
to part with that ill-gotten spoil, even when the preservation of peace
with France seemed hopeless--these circumstances, together with the mean
desertion of Austria during the preceding campaign of Austerlitz--had,
in effect, injured the government deeply and degradingly in the opinion
of its own subjects, as well as of other nations: but, thirdly, the
imbecile conduct of the chief Prussian officers, in the campaign of
Jena, was as little likely to have been foreseen or expected, as the
pusillanimous, if not treacherous, baseness of those who, after the army
was defeated, abandoned so easily a chain of the best fortresses in
Europe.

The personal character of King Frederick William was never calumniated,
even when the measures of his government were most generally and most
justly exposed to suspicion and scorn. On the contrary, the misfortunes
of this virtuous sovereign and his family were heard of with unmixed
regret and compassion.

These sentiments, and all sentiments likely in their consequences to be
injurious to the cause of Napoleon, the conduct of the Conqueror in
Prussia, at this time of national humiliation and sorrow, was well
calculated to strengthen and confirm. The Duke of Brunswick, retiring
wounded from Jena to the capital of his own hereditary principality,
addressed a letter from thence to Napoleon, requesting that the
territory of Brunswick might not be confounded with that of Prussia,
although he, as an individual, had appeared in Prussian uniform against
him. Buonaparte answered with insolence as well as harshness. He styled
the Duke "General Brunswick," and said he was determined to destroy his
city, and displace his family for ever. The brave, though unfortunate
Duke, retired on this to Altona, a Danish town, from which he meant to
embark for England; but his wound being inflamed by these untimely
movements, he died ere a vessel could be prepared for him. His son,
considering him as murdered, vowed eternal revenge--and how he kept his
vow, we shall see hereafter. The Prussian nobility and gentry were
treated on almost every occasion with like brutality. The great
Conqueror did not hesitate to come down from his dignity for the petty
pleasure of personally insulting gentlemen, who had done him no injury
except that of being loyal to their own prince. The exactions of the
victorious military were beyond all former example of licence; and
studied contempt was everywhere mingled with their rapacity. It was now
that the French laid the foundation of that universal hatred with which
the Prussian nation, in the sequel, regarded them, and which assumed
everywhere the virulence of a private and personal passion.

In justice to Buonaparte, a solitary instance of generous conduct, which
occurred ere he had been long in Berlin, must be noticed. The Prince of
Hatzsfeld, continuing to reside in Berlin under his protection,
corresponded, nevertheless, with Hohenlohe, then in the field, and sent
information of the state and movements of the French army. One of his
letters fell into the hands of the French--the Prince was arrested--his
wife gained access to the Emperor, and, ignorant of her husband's
conduct, spoke with the boldness of innocence in his favour. He handed
to her the Prince's letter; and, confounded with the clearness of that
evidence, she fell on her knees in silence. "Put the paper in the fire,
madam," said Napoleon, "and there will then be no proof."

Perhaps no part of Buonaparte's conduct at this time gave more general
disgust than his meanness in robbing the funeral monument of Frederick
the Great of his sword and orders. These unworthy trophies he
transmitted to Paris, along with the best statues and pictures of the
galleries of Berlin and Potsdam, thus dealt with according to the
example of Lombardy and Venice.

[Footnote 53: Published 27th July, 1806.]

[Footnote 54: Afterwards third Marquis of Hertford.]

[Footnote 55: Afterwards sixth Earl of Carlisle.]




CHAPTER XXI

     The Decrees of Berlin--Napoleon renews the campaign--Warsaw
     taken--Enthusiasm of the Poles--Retreat of the Russians--Battle of
     Pultusk--The French go into winter quarters--Battle of
     Preuss-Eylau--Taking of Dantzick--Battle of
     Friedland--Armistice--Expeditions of the English to Calabria,
     Constantinople, Egypt, and Buenos Ayres--Peace of Tilsit.


Napoleon had achieved the total humiliation of the Prussian monarchy in
a campaign of a week's duration: yet severe as the exertions of his army
had been, and splendid his success, and late as the season was now
advanced, there ensued no pause of inaction: the Emperor himself
remained but a few days in Berlin.

This brief residence, however, was distinguished by the issue of the
famous _decrees of Berlin_; those extraordinary edicts by which
Buonaparte hoped to sap the foundations of the power of England--the one
power which he had no means of assailing by his apparently irresistible
arms.

Napoleon declared the British Islands to be in a state of blockade: any
intercourse with that country was henceforth to be a crime; all her
citizens found in any country in alliance with France to be prisoners;
every article of English produce or manufacture, wherever discovered, to
be confiscated. In a word, wherever France had power, the slightest
communication with England was henceforth to be treason against the
majesty of Napoleon; and every coast of Europe was to be lined with new
armies of _douaniers_ and _gens-d'armes_, for the purpose of carrying
into effect what he called "the continental system."

He had long meditated the organisation of this system, and embraced, as
a favourable opportunity for its promulgation, the moment which saw him
at length predominant in the North of Germany, and thus, in effect,
master of the whole coasts of Europe from the mouth of the Oder round to
the Adriatic Gulf. The system, however, could not be carried into
effect, because from long habit the manufactured goods and colonial
produce of Britain had come to be necessaries of life among every
civilised people of the world; and consequently every private citizen
found his own domestic comforts invaded by the decree, which avowedly
aimed only at the revenues of the English crown. Every man, therefore,
was under continual temptation, each in his own sphere and method, to
violate the decrees of Berlin. The custom-house officers were exposed to
bribes which their virtue could not resist. Even the most attached of
Napoleon's own functionaries connived at the universal spirit of
evasion--his brothers themselves, in their respective dominions, could
not help sympathising with their subjects, and winking at the methods of
relief to which they were led by necessity, the mother of invention. The
severe police, however, which was formed everywhere as a necessary part
of the machinery for carrying these edicts into execution--the insolence
of the innumerable spies and informers whom they set in motion--and the
actual deprivation of usual comforts, in so far as it existed--all these
circumstances conspired to render the name of the Berlin decrees odious
throughout Europe and in France itself. It may be added that the
original conception of Napoleon was grounded on a mistaken opinion, to
which, however, he always clung--namely, that England derives all her
strength from her foreign commerce. Great as that commerce was, and
great as, in spite of him, it continued to be, it never was anything but
a trifle when compared with the internal traffic and resources of Great
Britain--a country not less distinguished above other nations for its
agricultural industry, than for its commercial.

Napoleon received at Berlin a deputation of his Senate, sent from Paris
to congratulate him on the successes of his campaign. To them he
announced these celebrated decrees: he made them the bearers of the
trophies of his recent victories, and, moreover, of a demand for the
immediate levying of 80,000 men, being the _first_ conscription for the
year 1808--that for the year 1807 having been already anticipated. The
subservient Senate recorded and granted whatever their master pleased to
dictate; but the cost of human life which Napoleon's ambition demanded
had begun, ere this time, to be seriously thought of in France. He,
meanwhile, prepared, without further delay, to extinguish the feeble
spark of resistance which still lingered in a few garrisons of the
Prussian Monarchy, beyond the Oder: and to meet, before they could
reach the soil of Germany, those Russian legions which were now
advancing, too late, to the assistance of Frederick William. That
unfortunate Prince sent Lucchesini to Berlin, to open, if possible, a
negotiation with the victorious occupant of his capital and palace; but
Buonaparte demanded Dantzick, and two other fortified towns, as the
price of even the briefest armistice; and the Italian envoy returned to
inform the King, that no hope remained for him except in the arrival of
the Russians.

Napoleon held in his hands the means of opening his campaign with those
allies of Prussia, under circumstances involving his enemy in a new, and
probably endless train of difficulties. The Partition of Poland--that
great political crime, for which every power that had a part in it has
since been severely, though none of them adequately punished--had left
the population of what had once been a great and powerful kingdom, in a
state of discontent and irritation, of which, had Napoleon been willing
to make full use of it, the fruits might have been more dangerous for
the Czar than any campaign against any foreign enemy. The French Emperor
had but to announce distinctly that his purpose was the restoration of
Poland as an independent state, and the whole mass, of an eminently
gallant and warlike population would have risen instantly at his call.
But Buonaparte was withheld from resorting to this effectual means of
annoyance by various considerations; of which the chief were these:
first, he could not emancipate Poland without depriving Austria of a
rich and important province, and consequently provoking her once more
into the field: and secondly, he foresaw that the Russian Emperor, if
threatened with the destruction of his Polish territory and authority,
would urge the war in a very different manner from that which he was
likely to adopt while acting only as the ally of Prussia. In a word,
Napoleon was well aware of the extent of the Czar's resources, and had
no wish at this time to give a character of irremediable bitterness to
their quarrel.

Though, however, he for these and other reasons refrained from openly
appealing in his own person to the Poles as a nation, Buonaparte had no
scruple about permitting others to tamper, in his behalf, with the
justly indignant feelings of the people. Some of the heroic leaders of
the Poles, in the struggles for their expiring independence, had long
been exiles in France--not a few of them had taken service in her
armies. These men were allowed, and encouraged, to address themselves to
the body of their countrymen, in language which could hardly fail to
draw eager and enthusiastic recruits to the French standard, and
increase mightily the perplexities of the Russian counsels. Nor did
Napoleon scruple to authorise the circulation of an appeal of like
tendency, bearing _falsely_[56] the venerated signature of Kosciusko.
"Dear countrymen and friends," said the forgery, "arise! the Great
Nation is before you--Napoleon expects, and Kosciusko calls on you. We
are under the Ægis of the Monarch who vanquishes difficulties as if by
miracles, and the re-animation of Poland is too glorious an achievement
not to have been reserved for him by the Eternal." Dombrowski and
Wibichi, two Polish officers in Buonaparte's own army, sent forward from
Berlin, on the 8th of the same month, a proclamation, which commenced in
these words:--"Poles! Napoleon, the Great, the Invincible, enters Poland
with an army of 300,000 men. Without wishing to fathom the mystery of
his views, let us strive to merit his magnanimity. _I will see_ (he has
said to us) _whether you deserve to be a nation._ Poles! it depends then
on yourselves to exert a national spirit, and possess a country. Your
avenger, your restorer is here. Crowd from all quarters to his presence,
as children in tears hasten to behold a succouring father. Present to
him your hearts, your arms. Rise to a man, and prove that you do not
grudge your blood to your country!" Lastly, in one of Napoleon's own
bulletins, the following ominous sentences were permitted to
appear:--"Shall the Polish throne be re-established, and shall the Great
Nation secure for it respect and independence? Shall she recall it to
life from the grave? God only, who directs all human affairs, can
resolve this great mystery!" These appeals produced various eager
addresses from Poland--and Buonaparte prepared to visit that country,
though not as her liberator.

Before re-opening the great campaign, Buonaparte received the submission
and explanation of the Elector of Saxony, who truly stated that Prussia
had forced him to take part in the war. The apology was accepted, and
from this time the Elector adhered to the League of the Rhine, and was a
faithful ally of Napoleon. The Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel had worse
fortune. The answer to all his applications was, that he had ceased to
reign. What use the Conqueror designed to make of the territories thus
confiscated, we shall presently see. The Saxon army, and that of
Hesse-Cassel, were both, however, at his disposal, and they both
accordingly were marched forwards, and blended with the forces occupying
Prussia.

The French, having invested Glogau, Breslau, and Graudentz, and left
detachments to urge these sieges, moved towards the Polish frontier.
General Bennigsen, with a considerable Russian army, had advanced to
overawe the dissatisfied population, and was now at Warsaw. But the
march of the French van, under Murat, soon alarmed him in these
quarters. After some skirmishes of little moment the Russians retired
behind the Vistula, and Murat took possession of the Polish metropolis
on the 28th of November. On the 25th Napoleon himself had reached Posen,
and found himself surrounded by a population in a high state of
excitement and enthusiasm. The ancient national dress reappeared: hope
and exultation beamed in every countenance; the old nobles, quitting the
solitary castles in which they had been lamenting over the downfall of
Poland, crowded the levees of the Victor, and addressed him in language
which recalled the half-oriental character and manners of their nation.
"We adore you," said the Palatine of Gnesna, "and with confidence repose
in you all our hopes, as upon him who raises empires and destroys them,
and humbles the proud--the regenerator of our country, the legislator of
the universe." "Already," said the President of the Council of Justice,
"already our country is saved, for we adore in your person the most just
and the most profound Solon. We commit our fate into your hands, and
implore the protection of the most august Cæsar."

Having largely recruited his armies with brave Poles, who fancied him
both a Solon and Cæsar, Napoleon now moved forwards. General Bennigsen
found himself under the necessity of abandoning first the line of the
Vistula, and then that of the Bug, and, the French still advancing in
numbers not to be resisted by his division, at length threw himself
behind the river Wkra, where Kaminskoy, the Russian commander-in-chief,
and three other divisions of the army, had by this time taken their
ground. On the 23rd of December Napoleon reached and crossed the Wkra,
and Kaminskoy ordered his whole army to fall back upon the line of the
Niemen. Bennigsen accordingly retired towards Pultusk, Galitzin upon
Golymin, both followed by great bodies of the French, and both
sustaining with imperturbable patience and gallantry the severity of a
march through probably the very worst roads in Europe, and of frequent
skirmishes with their pursuers. But the minor divisions of D'Anrep and
Bexhouden retreated without keeping up the requisite communications with
either Bennigsen or Galitzin, and consequently suffered considerably,
though the matter was grossly exaggerated in the French bulletins.

Bennigsen, in spite of Kaminskoy's orders to retreat at all hazards,
made a stand, and a most gallant one at Pultusk. Having his left in that
town, and his right on a wood, the general conceived his position to be
too favourable for speedy abandonment, and on the 26th of December
expected the onset of Lannes, Davoust, and the imperial guard of France.
They charged with their usual impetuosity, and drove the Russian right
wing, under General Barclay de Tolly, out of the wood; but Bennigsen
skilfully availed himself of this occurrence; by his orders Barclay de
Tolly retired much further than was necessary for his own safety, and
the French, advancing unguardedly, found themselves confronted on very
unfavourable ground with the Russian main body, which had now been
arranged on a new line of battle, and of a battery of 120 guns, placed
so as to command their march with terrible efficacy. The result was that
the Russians lost 5000 in killed and wounded, the French 8000--one of
their wounded being Marshal Lannes himself; and the French drew back
from the hardly contested field with such haste, that all next day the
advancing Cossacks sought in vain for their rear-guard. On the same day,
and with nearly as much success, Prince Galitzin halted also, and
awaited and repelled his pursuers at Golymin; and had either Bennigsen
or Galitzin been supported by the other divisions which were doing
nothing within a few miles of their respective marches, these events
might have been improved so as to involve the French army in great and
immediate perplexity. But in truth, the total want of plan and
combination on the part of Kaminskoy was by this time apparent to the
veriest tyro in his camp. Symptoms of actual insanity appeared shortly
afterwards, and the chief command was transferred, with universal
approbation, to Bennigsen.

The affairs of Pultusk and Golymin, however, were productive of
excellent effects. They raised to a high pitch the spirits of the
Russian soldiery; and they afforded Napoleon such a specimen of the
character of his new enemy, that instead of pursuing the campaign, as he
had announced in his bulletins, he thought fit to retire, and place his
troops in winter quarters. He himself took up his residence at Warsaw,
and the army occupied cantonments in various towns to the eastward.

But General Bennigsen, having proved at Pultusk what Russian troops
could do when under a determined commander, no sooner found himself at
the head of an army of nearly 100,000 men, than he resolved to disturb
the French in their quarters, and at all events give them such
occupation as might enable the King of Prussia to revictual Konigsberg,
where the few troops, gathered round that unfortunate sovereign, were
already beginning to suffer many privations. With this view Bennigsen
advanced as far as Mohrungen, where the French sustained considerable
damage in a skirmish, and from whence his Cossacks spread themselves
abroad over the country--creating such confusion, that the leaguer of
Konigsberg being for the moment relaxed, the Prussian garrison received
welcome supplies of all kinds, and Napoleon himself perceived the
necessity of breaking up his cantonments, and once more concentrating
the army for active war.

His design was to occupy Willensberg, to the rear of the great Russian
camp at Mohrungen; thus cutting off the new enemy's communications with
his own means of resource, in the same manner which had proved so fatal
to the Austrians at Ulm, and the Prussians at Jena. But Bennigsen,
having learned the plan from an intercepted despatch, immediately
countermarched his army with masterly skill, and thus involved Napoleon
in a long series of manœuvres, not to be executed in such a country at
that dismal season without the extremity of hardship. The Russians
themselves, inured as they were to northern climates, and incapable of
even dreaming that a soldier could seek safety in flight, were reduced
to the border of frenzy by the privations of these long marches. Their
commissariat was wretched: the soldiers had often no food, except such
frozen roots as they could dig out of the ground; and, tortured with
toil and famine, they at length demanded battle so vehemently, that,
against his own judgment, General Bennigsen consented to grant the
prayer. He selected the town of Preuss-Eylau, and a strong position
behind it, as his field of battle; and--after two skirmishes, one at
Landsberg, the other nearer the chosen ground, in the former of which
the French, in the latter the Russians, had the advantage,--the whole
army reached Preuss-Eylau on the 7th of February.

In the confusion of so great a movement, a division designed by
Bennigsen to occupy the town itself, misunderstood the order, and
evacuated it at the approach of the enemy's van. The French took
possession of the place accordingly, and--General Bennigsen commanding
it to be regained, as soon as he learned the mistake that had
occurred--the whole day was spent in severe fighting within the town,
which was taken and retaken several times, and at the fall of night
remained in the hands of the French. On either side the loss had been
very great, and Napoleon coming up in person, perceived that the contest
must needs be renewed at daybreak. The night was clear, and he could
trace the enemy's line darkening the whole of an admirably selected
position, between which and the dearly contested town, a level space
covered with snow, and two or three small frozen lakes, glittered in the
mingled light of an unclouded moon and innumerable watch-fires.

The great battle of PREUSS-EYLAU was fought on the 8th of February. At
dawn of day the French charged at two different points in strong
columns, and were unable to shake the iron steadiness of the infantry,
while the Russian horse, and especially the Cossacks under their gallant
Hetman Platoff, made fearful execution on each division, as successively
they drew back from their vain attempt. A fierce storm arose at mid-day:
the snow drifted right in the eyes of the Russians; the village of
Serpallen, on their left, caught fire, and the smoke also rolled dense
upon them. Davoust skilfully availed himself of the opportunity, and
turned their flank so rapidly, that Serpallen was lost, and the left
wing compelled to wheel backwards so as to form almost at right angles
with the rest of the line. The Prussian corps of L'Estocq, a small but
determined fragment of the campaign of Jena, appeared at this critical
moment in the rear of the Russian left; and, charging with such
gallantry as had in former times been expected from the soldiery of the
Great Frederick, drove back Davoust and restored the Russian line. The
action continued for many hours along the whole line--the French
attacked boldly, the Russians driving them back with unfailing
resolution. Ney, and a fresh division, at length came up, and succeeded
in occupying the village of Schloditten, on the road to Konigsberg. To
regain this, and thereby recover the means of communicating with the
King of Prussia, was deemed necessary; and it was carried accordingly at
the point of the bayonet. This was at ten o'clock at night. So ended the
longest and by far the severest battle in which Buonaparte had as yet
been engaged. The French are supposed to have had 90,000 men under arms
at its commencement; the Russians not more than 60,000. After fourteen
hours of fighting, either army occupied the same position as in the
morning. Twelve of Napoleon's eagles were in the hands of Bennigsen, and
the field between was covered with 50,000 corpses, of whom at least half
were French.

Either leader claimed the victory; Bennigsen exhibiting as proof of his
success the twelve eagles which his army, admitted to be inferior in
numbers, bore off the field: Buonaparte, that he kept possession of the
field, while the enemy retired, the very night after the battle, from
Eylau towards Konigsberg. It was, in truth, a drawn battle; and to have
found an equal was sufficient bitterness to Napoleon. The Russian
general-in-chief had retreated, in opposition to the opinion of most of
his council, out of anxiety for the personal safety of the King of
Prussia at Konigsberg, and desire to recruit his army ere another great
action should be hazarded. The French, triumphant as was the language of
their bulletins, made no effort to pursue. Bennigsen conducted his army
in perfect order to Konigsberg, and the Cossacks issuing from that city
continued for more than a week to waste the country according to their
pleasure, without any show of opposition from the French. But the best
proof how severely Napoleon had felt the struggle of Preuss-Eylau, is to
be found in a communication which he made to Frederick William, on the
13th of February, five days after the battle, offering him, in effect,
the complete, or nearly complete restoration of his dominions, provided
he would accept of a separate peace: with the king's answer; namely,
that it was impossible for him to enter on any treaty unless the Czar
were a party in it. Finally, on the 19th of February, Napoleon left
Eylau, and retreated with his whole army on the Vistula; satisfied that
it would be fatal rashness to engage in another campaign in Poland,
while several fortified towns, and, above all, Dantzick, held out in his
rear; and determined to have possession of these places, and to summon
new forces from France, ere he should again meet in the field such an
enemy as the Russian had proved to be.

Dantzick was defended with the more desperate resolution, because it was
expected that, as soon as the season permitted, an English fleet and
army would certainly be sent to its relief. But the besiegers having a
prodigious superiority of numbers, and conducting the siege with every
advantage of skill, the place was at length compelled to surrender, on
the 7th of May; after which event, Napoleon's extraordinary exertions in
hurrying supplies from France, Switzerland and the Rhine country, and
the addition of the division of 25,000, which had captured Dantzick,
enabled him to take the field again at the head of not less than 280,000
men. The Russian general also had done what was in his power to recruit
his army during this interval; but his utmost zeal could effect no more
than bringing his muster up again to its original point--90,000; the
chief blame lying, as it was alleged, with the coldness of the English
cabinet, who, instead of lavishing gold on the Emperor of Russia, as had
been done in other similar cases, were with difficulty persuaded to
grant him at this critical time, so small a supply as £80,000. Russia
has men to any amount at her command; but the poverty of the national
purse renders it at all times very difficult for her to maintain a large
army in a distant contest.

Bennigsen, nevertheless, was the first to reappear in the field. In the
beginning of June he attacked Ney's division stationed at Gustadt, and
pursued them to Deppen, where, on the 8th, a smart action took place,
and Napoleon arrived in person to support his troops. The Russians were
then forced to retire towards Heilsberg, where they halted, and
maintained their position, during a whole day, in the face of an enemy
prodigiously superior in numbers. The carnage on both sides was fearful;
and Bennigsen, continuing his retreat, placed the river Aller between
him and Napoleon.

The French Emperor now exerted all his art to draw the Russian into a
general action: the resistance he had met with had surprised and enraged
him, and he was eager to overpower and extinguish Bennigsen before
further supplies of these hardy Muscovities should come up to swell his
ranks. The Russian general was on the eastern bank of the Aller,
opposite to the town of Friedland, when Buonaparte once more came up
with him on the 13th of June. There was a long and narrow wooden bridge
over the river, close by, which might have been destroyed if not
defended; and Napoleon's object was to induce Bennigsen, instead of
abiding by his position, to abandon its advantages, pass over to the
western bank, and accept battle with the town and river in his rear. His
crafty management outwitted the Russian, who, being persuaded that the
troops which appeared in front of him were only a small division of the
French army, was tempted to send some regiments over the river for the
purpose of chastising them. The French, sometimes retreating, and then
again returning to the combat, the Russians were by degrees induced to
cross in greater numbers; until at length Bennigsen found himself and
his whole army on the western bank, with the town and bridge in their
rear--thus completely entrapped in the snare laid for him by his enemy.

On the 14th of June, under circumstances thus disadvantageous, the
Russian general was compelled to accept battle. His army occupied open
ground; the intricate and narrow streets of the town of Friedland, and
the bridge behind it, appeared to be his only means of retreat in case
of misadventure; and in front, and on either flank, extended those woods
which had covered Buonaparte's stratagems of the preceding day, and
which now afforded complete shelter to the Imperial army--the means of
attacking from whatever point they might select--and of retiring with
safety as often as it might be found advisable.

The battle commenced at ten in the morning, and the Russians stood their
ground with unbroken resolution until between four and five in the
evening; sustaining numberless charges of foot and horse, and exposed
all the while to a murderous cannonade. At length Napoleon put himself
at the head of the French line, and commanded a general assault of all
arms, which was executed with overpowering effect. Having lost full
12,000 men, General Bennigsen was at last compelled to attempt a
retreat; the French poured after him into the town: the first Russian
division which forced the passage of the river destroyed the bridge
behind them in their terror; and the rest of the army escaped by means
of deep and dangerous fords, which, desperate as the resource they
afforded was, had been discovered only in the moment of necessity.
Nevertheless such were the coolness and determination of the Russians,
that they saved all their baggage, and lost only seventeen cannon; and
such was the impression which their obstinate valour left on the enemy,
that their retreat towards the Niemen was performed without any show of
molestation.

The results of the battle of Friedland were, however, as great as could
have been expected from any victory. On the retreat of Bennigsen towards
the Niemen, the unfortunate King of Prussia, evacuating Konigsberg,
where he now perceived it must be impossible to maintain himself, sought
a last and precarious shelter in the seaport of Memel; and the Emperor
Alexander, overawed by the genius of Napoleon, which had triumphed over
troops more resolute than had ever before opposed him, and alarmed for
the consequence of some decisive measure towards the re-organisation of
the Poles as a nation, began to think seriously of peace. Buonaparte, on
his part also, had many reasons for being anxious to bring hostilities
to a close. The Swedish king was in Pomerania, besieging Stralsund, and
hourly expecting reinforcements from England, which might have ended in
a formidable diversion in the rear of the French army. Schill, an able
partizan, was in arms in Prussia, where the general discontent was such,
that nothing by opportunity seemed wanting for a national insurrection
against the conquerors. The further advance of the French towards the
north could hardly have failed to afford such an opportunity. Neither
could this be executed, to all appearance, without involving the
necessity of proclaiming the independence of Poland; thereby giving a
character of mortal rancour to the war with Russia, and, in all
likelihood, calling Austria once more into the field. Under such
circumstances the minds of Napoleon and Alexander were equally disposed
towards negotiation: General Bennigsen sent, on the 21st of June, to
demand an armistice; and to this proposal the victor of Friedland
yielded immediate assent.

In truth over and above the parsimony of the court of St. James in
regard to subsidies, the recent conduct of the war on the part of
England had been so ill-judged, and on the whole so unfortunate, that
the Czar might be excused for desiring to escape from that alliance.
Almost the only occasion on which the character of the British arms had
been gloriously maintained, was the battle of Maida, in Calabria, fought
July the 4th, 1806--when Sir John Stuart and 7000 English soldiers
encountered a superior French force under General Regnier, and drove
them from the field with great loss. This was one of those rare
occasions on which French and English troops have actually crossed
bayonets--the steadiness of the latter inspired the former with panic,
and they fled in confusion. But this occurrence, except for its moral
influence on the English soldiery, was of small importance. General
Stuart had been sent to support the Calabrian peasantry in an
insurrection against Joseph Buonaparte; the insurgents were on the whole
unable to stand their ground against the regular army of the intrusive
king; and the English, soon after their fruitless victory, altogether
withdrew. The British had, indeed, taken possession of Curaçao, and of
the Cape of Good Hope (this last an acquisition of the highest moment to
the Indian empire); but on the whole the ill success of our measures had
been answerable to the narrow and shallow system of policy in which they
originated--the system of frittering away blood and gold upon detached
objects, instead of rallying the whole resources of the empire around
some one great leader for some one great purpose. The British
expeditions of this period to the Turkish dominions and to Spanish
America were especially distinguished for narrowness of design,
imbecility of execution, and consequent misadventure.

On the assumption of the Imperial dignity by Napoleon, the Ottoman
Porte, dazzled by the apparently irresistible splendour of his fate,
sent an embassy to congratulate him; and in effect the ancient alliance
between France and Turkey was re-established. Napoleon consequently had
little difficulty in procuring from Constantinople a declaration of war
against Russia, the great hereditary enemy of the Turk, at the time when
he was about to encounter the armies of the Czar in Poland. The
Dardanelles were shut against Russian vessels; and the English
government, considering this as sufficient evidence that the Grand
Seignior was attaching himself to the Antibritannic Confederacy,
despatched a squadron of ships under Admiral Duckworth, in February,
1807, with orders to force the passage of the Dardanelles, present
themselves before Constantinople, and demand from the Porte the custody
_pro tempore_ of all her ships of war. The Turks negotiated for a week
upon this proposal, but in the meantime increased and manned their
fortifications, under the direction of French engineers, with such
skill, that the English admiral began to be seriously alarmed for his
own safety; and at length, on the 1st of March, effected his retreat
through the Straits with considerable loss--this disgrace being the only
result of his expedition. On the 20th of the same month (of March, 1807)
another English expedition under General Fraser, having sailed from
Sicily to Egypt, took possession of Alexandria. But every subsequent
step they took proved unfortunate: after severe loss the English were
compelled to enter into a convention with the Turks, and wholly evacuate
Egypt on the 20th of September.

In January, 1807, an English expedition landed near Montevideo, and
carried that city by assault. Sir Home Popham, the admiral, was
recalled, and tried by a court-martial, on the ground that he had
undertaken this warfare without due authority; but he escaped with a
reprimand, and new reinforcements were sent out, first under General
Crawford, and secondly under General Whitelocke. The last-named officer
invested Buenos Ayres, and commanded a general assault of that town on
the 5th of July; on which occasion, notwithstanding the excellent
behaviour of the soldiery, he was repulsed with a loss of 2000 killed,
wounded, and prisoners; and reduced to such extremity, that he was soon
afterwards glad to enter into a convention, and wholly withdraw the
armament. The timid and incompetent Whitelocke was tried and cashiered.
Some of these disasters were unknown at the time when Bennigsen demanded
an armistice; but the general ill success of the British expeditions was
notorious, and produced without doubt a very serious impression on the
mind of Alexander.

The armistice was ratified on the 23rd of June, and on the 25th the
Emperors of France and Russia met personally, each accompanied by a few
attendants, on a raft moored on the river Niemen, near the town of
Tilsit. The sovereigns embraced each other, and retiring under a canopy
had a long conversation, to which no one was a witness. At its
termination the appearances of mutual goodwill and confidence were
marked: immediately afterwards the town of Tilsit was neutralised, and
the two Emperors established their courts there, and lived together, in
the midst of the lately hostile armies, more like old friends who had
met on a party of pleasure, than enemies and rivals attempting by
diplomatic means the arrangement of differences which had for years been
deluging Europe with blood. Whatever flatteries could be suggested by
the consummate genius and mature experience of Napoleon, were lavished,
and produced their natural effects, on the mind of a young autocrat, of
great ambition, and as great vanity. The intercourse of the Emperors
assumed by degrees the appearance of a brotherlike intimacy. They spent
their mornings in reviewing each other's troops, or in unattended rides;
their evenings seemed to be devoted to the pleasures of the table, the
spectacle, music, dancing and gallantry. Meanwhile the terms of a future
alliance were in effect discussed, and settled much more rapidly than
could have been expected from any of the usual apparatus of diplomatic
negotiation.

The unfortunate King of Prussia was invited to appear at Tilsit; but,
complying with this invitation, was admitted to no share of the intimacy
of Napoleon. The conqueror studiously, and on every occasion, marked the
difference between his sentiments respecting this prince and the young
and powerful sovereign, for whose sake alone any shadow of royalty was
to be conceded to the fallen house of Brandenburg. The beautiful and
fascinating queen also arrived at Tilsit; but she was treated even more
coldly and harshly than her husband. Involuntary tears rushed from her
eyes as she submitted to the contemptuous civilities of Napoleon. His
behaviour to this admirable person rekindled with new fervour the wrath
and hatred of every Prussian bosom; and her death, following soon
afterwards, and universally attributed to the cruel laceration which all
her feelings as a woman and a queen had undergone, was treasured as a
last injury, demanding, at whatever hazard, a terrible expiation.

The Treaty of Tilsit, to which, as the document itself bore testimony,
the King of Prussia was admitted as a party solely by reason of
Napoleon's "esteem for the Emperor of Russia," was ratified on the 7th
July. Napoleon restored, by this act, to Frederick William, Ancient
Prussia, and the French conquests in Upper Saxony--the King agreeing to
adopt "the continental system," in other words, to be henceforth the
vassal of the conqueror. The Polish provinces of Prussia were erected
into a separate principality, styled "the Grand Duchy of Warsaw," and
bestowed on the Elector of Saxony; with the exception, however, of some
territories assigned to Russia, and of Dantzick, which was declared a
free city, to be garrisoned by French troops until the ratification of a
maritime peace. The Prussian dominions in Lower Saxony and on the Rhine,
with Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and various other small states, formed a new
kingdom of Westphalia, of which Jerome Buonaparte, Napoleon's youngest
brother, was recognised as King; Jerome having at length made his peace
with his brother by repudiating his wife, an American lady of the name
of Patterson, and consenting to a new alliance, more consonant with the
views of the Emperor, with a daughter of the King of Wirtemberg. The
Elector of Saxony was recognised as another _King_ of Napoleon's
creation; Joseph Buonaparte as King of Naples; and Louis, of Holland.
Finally, Russia accepted the mediation of France for a peace with
Turkey, and France that of Russia for a peace with England.

Such were the public articles of the peace of Tilsit; but it contained
secret articles besides; and of these the English government were, ere
long, fortunate enough to ascertain the import.

The British cabinet had undergone a complete change in March, 1807--the
management of affairs passing from the friends and heirs of Mr. Fox into
the hands of Mr. Perceval and other statesmen of the school of Pitt. The
unhappy conduct of the war had rendered the preceding government
eminently unpopular; and the measures of the new one assumed from the
beginning a character of greater energy. But the orders which had been
given must be fulfilled; and the councils of 1806 bequeathed a fatal
legacy in the disastrous expeditions of 1807. Lord Granville Leveson
Gower[57] (the minister at St. Petersburg) was ere this time prepared to
offer to the Czar such subsidies as he had in vain expected when
preparing for the campaign of Poland; but it was too late to retrieve
the error of the preceding cabinet; and the English ambassador, being
unable to break off the negotiations at Tilsit, was compelled to bestow
all his efforts on penetrating the secrets of the compact wherein they
ended.

The result of his exertions was the complete assurance of the government
of St. James's, that the Emperor of Russia had adopted the alliance of
Napoleon to an extent far beyond what appeared on the face of the treaty
of the 7th July; that he had agreed not only to lay English commerce, in
case his mediation for a peace should fail, under the same ban with that
of the decrees of Berlin, but to place himself at the head of a general
confederation of the Northern Maritime Powers against the naval
supremacy of England--in other words, resign his own fleets, with those
of Denmark, to the service of Napoleon. In requital of this obligation
the French Emperor unquestionably agreed to permit the Czar to conquer
Finland from Sweden--thereby adding immeasurably to the security of St.
Petersburg. On the other hand it is almost as impossible to doubt that
Alexander pledged himself not to interfere with those ambitious designs
as to the Spanish Peninsula, which Napoleon was ere long to develop, and
which were destined ultimately to work his ruin.

In a word, there seems to be little doubt that Napoleon broached at
Tilsit the dazzling scheme of dividing the European world virtually
between the two great monarchs of France and Russia: and that the Czar,
provided he were willing to look on, while his Imperial brother of the
West subjected Spain, Portugal and England to his yoke, was induced to
count on equal forbearance, whatever schemes he might venture on for his
own aggrandisement, at the expense of the smaller states of the North of
Europe, and, above all, of the Ottoman Porte.

[Footnote 56: Kosciusko himself subsequently disavowed any knowledge of
the production.]

[Footnote 57: Afterwards first Earl Granville.]




CHAPTER XXII

     British Expedition to Copenhagen--Coalition of France, Austria,
     Prussia, and Russia, against English Commerce--Internal affairs of
     France--The Administration of Napoleon--his Council of
     State--Court--Code--Public Works--Manufactures--Taxes--Military
     Organisation--The Conscription.


Napoleon, having left strong garrisons in the maritime cities of Poland
and Northern Germany, returned to Paris in August, and was received by
the Senate and other public bodies with all the triumph and excess of
adulation. The Swedish King abandoned Pomerania immediately on hearing
of the treaty of Tilsit. In effect the authority of the Emperor appeared
now to be consolidated over the whole continent of Europe. He had
reached indeed the pinnacle of his power and pride;--henceforth he was
to descend; urged downwards, step by step, by the reckless audacity of
ambition and the gathering weight of guilt.

The English government, being satisfied that the naval force of Denmark
was about to be employed for the purposes of Napoleon, determined to
anticipate him, while it was yet time, and to send into the Baltic such
a fleet as should at once convince the court of Copenhagen that
resistance must be vain, and so bring about the surrender of the vessels
of war (to be retained by England, not in property, but in pledge until
the conclusion of a general peace), without any loss of life or
compromise of honour. Twenty-seven sail of the line, carrying a
considerable body of troops under the orders of Earl Cathcart, appeared
before the capital of Denmark in the middle of August, and found the
government wholly unprepared for defence. The high spirit of the Crown
Prince, however, revolted against yielding to a demand which imperious
necessity alone could have rendered justifiable on the part of England:
nor, unfortunately, were these scruples overcome until the Danish troops
had suffered severely in an action against the British, and the capital
itself had been bombarded during three days, in which many public
buildings, churches and libraries perished, and the private population
sustained heavy loss both of life and property. The fleet being at
length surrendered, the English withdrew with it in safety; and the rage
of Napoleon--ill disguised in lofty philippics about the violations of
the rights and privileges of independent nations--betrayed how
completely he had calculated on the use of this marine, and how little
he had anticipated a movement of such vigour from the cabinet of St.
James's.

The Emperor of Russia is said to have signified, through a confidential
channel, that, though for the present he found himself compelled to
temporise, he approved and admired the procedure of the English
government. If this be true, however, his public and open conduct bore a
very different appearance. The British ambassador was dismissed from St.
Petersburg, and a general coalition of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and
Denmark, against the commerce of England being speedily afterwards
formed, the decrees of Berlin--still further strengthened by other
decrees, issued by Napoleon on the 7th December, 1806, at Milan--were in
fact announced as part and parcel of the universal law of the continent.
Alexander of Russia marched a large army into Finland, and took
possession of that great Swedish province--the promised booty of Tilsit.
His fleet in the Mediterranean gained a signal victory over the Turks,
and terms of amity between the courts of St. Petersburg and
Constantinople were at length arranged under the mediation or dictation
of Napoleon. Everything seemed to point to a state of universal
tranquillity or submission throughout the continent, and to a steady
devotion of all the resources of the European monarchies to the service
of the French Emperor and the destruction of his last and greatest
enemy.

That enemy was ere long, in consequence of a new and unforeseen
explosion of guilty ambition, to possess the means of rekindling the
continental war, of distracting the alliances of Napoleon, and
ultimately of ruining the power which, for the present, appeared
irresistible. But a short interval of tranquillity ensued: and we may
avail ourselves of the opportunity to recur for a moment to the internal
administration of French affairs under the Imperial Government, as now
finally organised.

Buonaparte, shortly after the peace of Tilsit, abolished _the
Tribunate_; and there remained, as the last shadows of assemblies
having any political influence, the Legislative Senate and the Council
of State. The former of these bodies was early reduced to a mere
instrument for recording the imperial decrees; the latter consisted of
such persons as Napoleon chose to invest for the time with the privilege
of being summoned to the palace, when it pleased him to hear the
opinions of others as to measures originating in his own mind, or
suggested to him by his ministers. He appears to have, on many
occasions, permitted these counsellors to speak their sentiments frankly
and fully, although differing from himself; but there were looks and
gestures which sufficiently indicated the limits of this toleration, and
which persons, owing their lucrative appointment to his mere pleasure,
and liable to lose it at his nod, were not likely to transgress. They
spoke openly and honestly only on topics in which their master's
feelings were not much concerned.

His favourite saying during the continuance of his power was, "I am the
State;" and in the exile of St. Helena he constantly talked of himself
as having been, from necessity, the Dictator of France. In effect no
despotism within many degrees so complete and rigid was every before
established in a civilised and Christian country. The whole territory
was divided into prefectures--each prefect being appointed by
Napoleon--carefully selected for a province with which he had no
domestic relations--largely paid--and entrusted with such a complete
delegation of power that, in Napoleon's own language, each was in his
department an _Empereur à petit pied_. Each of these officers had under
his entire control inferior local magistrates, holding power from him as
he did from the Emperor: each had his instructions direct from Paris;
each was bound by every motive of interest to serve, to the utmost of
his ability, the government from which all things were derived, to be
hoped for, and to be dreaded. Wherever the Emperor was, in the midst of
his hottest campaigns, he examined the details of administration at home
more closely than, perhaps, any other sovereign of half so great an
empire did during the profoundest peace. It was said of him that his
dearest amusement, when he had nothing else to do, was to solve problems
in algebra or geometry. He carried this passion into every department of
affairs; and having, with his own eye, detected some errors of
importance in the public accounts, shortly after his administration
began, there prevailed thenceforth in all the financial records of the
state such clearness and accuracy as are not often exemplified in those
of a large private fortune. Nothing was below his attention, and he
found time for everything. The humblest functionary discharged his duty
under a lively sense of the Emperor's personal superintendence; and the
omnipresence of his police came in lieu, wherever politics were not
touched upon, of the guarding powers of a free press, a free senate, and
public opinion. Except in political cases the trial by jury was the
right of every citizen. The _Code Napoleon_, that elaborate system of
jurisprudence, in the formation of which the Emperor laboured personally
along with the most eminent lawyers and enlightened men of the time, was
a boon of inestimable value to France. "I shall go down to posterity"
(said he, with just pride) "with the Code in my hand." It was the first
uniform system of laws which the French Monarchy had ever possessed: and
being drawn up with consummate skill and wisdom, it at this day forms
the code not only of France, but of a great portion of Europe besides.
Justice, as between man and man, was administered on sound and fixed
principles, and by unimpeached tribunals. The arbitrary Commission
Courts of Napoleon interfered with nothing but offences, real or
alleged, against his authority.

The Clergy were, as we have seen, appointed universally under the
direction of Government: they were also its direct stipendiaries; hence
nothing could be more complete than their subjection to its pleasure.
Education became a part of the regular business of the state; all the
schools and colleges being placed under the immediate care of one of
Napoleon's ministers--all prizes and bursaries bestowed by the
government--and the whole system so arranged, that it was hardly
possible for any youth who exhibited remarkable talents to avoid the
temptations to a military career, which on every side surrounded him.
The chief distinctions and emoluments were everywhere reserved for those
who excelled in accomplishments likely to be serviceable in war: and the
_Lyceums_, or schools set expressly apart for military students, were
invested with numberless attractions, scarcely to be resisted by a young
imagination. The army, as it was the sole basis of Napoleon's power,
was also at all times the primary object of his thoughts. Every
institution of the state was subservient and administered to it, and
none more efficaciously than the imperial system of education.

The ranks of the army, however, were filled during the whole reign of
Napoleon by _compulsion_. The conscription law of 1798 acquired under
him the character of a settled and regular part of the national system;
and its oppressive influence was such as never before exhausted, through
a long term of years, the best energies of a great and civilised people.
Every male in France, under the age of twenty-five, was liable to be
called on to serve in the ranks; and the regulations as to the procuring
of substitutes were so narrow, that young men of the best families were
continually forced to comply, in their own persons, with the stern
requisition. The first conscription list for the year included all under
the age of twenty-one; and the result of the ballot within this class
amounted to nearly 80,000 names. These were first called on: but if the
service of the Emperor demanded further supply, the lists of those aged
twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, and twenty-five, were
successively resorted to. There was no exemption for any one who seemed
able to bear arms. The only child of his parents, the young husband and
father, were forced, like any others, to abandon fireside, profession,
all the ties and all the hopes of life, on a moment's notice: and there
is nothing in the history of modern Europe so remarkable, as that the
French people should have submitted, during sixteen years, to the
constant operation of a despotic law, which thus sapped all the
foundations of social happiness, and condemned the rising hopes of the
nation to bleed and die by millions in distant wars, undertaken solely
for the gratification of one man's insatiable ambition. On the other
hand, it is not to be denied that the great majority of the conscripts,
with whatever reluctance they might enter the ranks, were soon
reconciled to their fate. The avenues to promotion, distinction, wealth,
honour, nobility, even royal dignity, were all open before the devoted
and successful soldiers of Napoleon; and the presence of so many youths
of good condition and education, among the ranks of the private
soldiery, could not fail, first, to render the situation immeasurably
less irksome than it otherwise could have been to each individual of
the class, and secondly, to elevate the standard of manners and
acquirements among the soldiery generally. There never was an army in
whose ranks intelligence so largely abounded, nor in which so many
officers of the highest rank had originally carried a musket.

The taxation rendered necessary by the constant wars of Napoleon was
great; and the utter destruction of the foreign commerce and marine of
France, which the naval supremacy of England effected, made the burden
the more intolerable for various important classes of the community. On
the other hand the taxes were levied fairly on the whole population,
which presented a blessed contrast to the system of the old _régime_;
and the vast extension and improvement of agriculture consequent on the
division of the great estates at the Revolution, enabled the nation, at
large to meet the calls of the government with much less difficulty than
could have been anticipated at any former period of French history.
Napoleon's great public works, too, though undertaken chiefly for the
purpose of gratifying his own vanity and that of the nation, could not
be executed without furnishing subsistence to vast bodies of the
labouring poor, and were thus serviceable to more important ends. From
his vain attempts to supply the want of English manufactured goods and
colonial produce, by new establishments and inventions (such especially
as that of manufacturing a substitute for sugar out of beetroot),
partial good, in like manner, resulted.

The evils of the conscription, of a heavy taxation, of an inquisitorial
police, and of a totally enslaved press--these, and all other evils
attendant on this elaborate system of military despotism, were endured
for so many years chiefly in consequence of the skill with which
Napoleon, according to his own favourite language, knew "to play on the
imagination," and gratify the vanity of the French people. In the
splendour of his victories, in the magnificence of his roads, bridges,
aqueducts, and other monuments, in the general pre-eminence to which the
nation seemed to be raised through the genius of its chief, compensation
was found for all financial burdens, consolations for domestic
calamities, and an equivalent for that liberty in whose name the Tyrant
had achieved his first glories. But it must not be omitted that
Napoleon, in every department of his government, made it his first rule
to employ the men best fitted, in his mind, to do honour to his service
by their talents and diligence; and that he thus attached to himself,
throughout the whole of his empire as well as in his army, the hopes and
the influence of those whose personal voices were most likely to control
the opinions of society.

He gratified the French nation by adorning the capital, and by
displaying in the Tuileries a court as elaborately magnificent as that
of Louis XIV. himself. The old nobility, returning from their exile,
mingled in those proud halls with the heroes of the revolutionary
campaigns; and over all the ceremonial of these stately festivities
Josephine presided with the grace and elegance of one born to be a
queen. In the midst of the pomp and splendour of a court, in whose
antechambers kings jostled each other, Napoleon himself preserved the
soldier-like simplicity of his original dress and manners. The great
Emperor continued throughout to labour more diligently than any
subaltern in office. He devoted himself wholly to the ambition to which
he compelled all others to contribute.

Napoleon, as Emperor, had little time for social pleasures. His personal
friends were few; his days were given to labour, and his nights to
study. If he was not with his army in the field, he traversed the
provinces, examining with his own eyes into the minutest details of
local arrangement; and even from the centre of his camp he was
continually issuing edicts which showed the accuracy of his observation
during these journeys, and his anxiety to promote by any means,
consistent with his great purpose, the welfare of some French district,
town, or even village.

The manners of the Court were at least decent. Napoleon occasionally
indulged himself in amours unworthy of his character and tormenting to
his wife; but he never suffered any other female to possess influence
over his mind, nor insulted public opinion by any approach to that
system of unveiled debauchery which had, during whole ages, disgraced
the Bourbon Court, and undermined their throne.




CHAPTER XXIII

     Relations of Napoleon with Spain--Treaty of Fontainebleau--Junot
     marches to Portugal--Flight of the Braganzas to Brazil--French
     troops proceed into Spain--Dissensions in the Court--Both parties
     appeal to Napoleon--Murat occupies Madrid--Charles and Ferdinand
     abdicate at Bayonne--Joseph Buonaparte crowned King of Spain.


After the ratification of the treaty of Tilsit, Napoleon, returning as
we have seen to Paris, devoted all his energies to the perfect
establishment of "the continental system." Something has already been
said as to the difficulties which this attempt involved: in truth it was
a contest between the despotic will of Buonaparte, and the interests and
habits, not only of every sovereign in his alliance, but of every
private individual on the continent; and it was therefore actually
impossible that the imperial policy should not be baffled. The Russian
government was never, probably, friendly to a system which, from the
nature of the national produce and resources, must, if persisted in for
any considerable time, have inflicted irreparable injury on the finances
of the landholders, reduced the public establishments, and sunk the
effective power of the state. In that quarter, therefore, Napoleon soon
found that, notwithstanding all the professions of personal devotion
which the young Czar continued, perhaps sincerely, to make, his
favourite scheme was systematically violated: but the distance and
strength of Russia prevented him from, for the present, pushing his
complaints to extremity. The Spanish peninsula lay nearer him, and the
vast extent to which the prohibited manufactures and colonial produce of
England found their way into every district of that country, and
especially of Portugal, and thence through the hands of whole legions of
audacious smugglers, into France itself, ere long fixed his attention
and resentment. In truth, a proclamation, issued at Madrid shortly
before the battle of Jena, and suddenly recalled on the intelligence of
that great victory, had prepared the Emperor to regard with keen
suspicion the conduct of the Spanish Court, and to trace every
violation of his system to its deliberate and hostile connivance.

The court presented in itself the lively image of a divided and degraded
nation. The King, old and almost incredibly imbecile, was ruled
absolutely by his Queen, a woman audaciously unprincipled, whose strong
and wicked passions again were entirely under the influence of Manuel
Godoy, "Prince of the Peace," raised, by her guilty love, from the
station of a private guardsman, to precedence above all the grandees of
Spain, a matrimonial connection with the royal house, and the supreme
conduct of affairs. She, her paramour, and the degraded King, were held
in contempt and hatred by a powerful party, at the head of whom were the
Canon Escoiquiz, the Duke del Infantado, and Ferdinand, Prince of
Asturias, heir of the throne. The scenes of dissension which filled the
palace and court were scandalous beyond all contemporary example: and,
the strength of the two parties vibrating in the scale, according as
corrupt calculators looked to the extent of Godoy's present power, or to
the probability of Ferdinand's accession, the eyes of both were turned
to the hazardous facility of striking a balance by calling in support
from the Tuileries. Napoleon, on his part, regarding the rival factions
with equal scorn, flattered himself that, in their common fears and
baseness, he should find the means of ultimately reducing the whole
Peninsula to complete submission under his own yoke.

The secret history of the intrigues of 1807, between the French Court
and the rival parties in Spain, has not yet been clearly exposed; nor is
it likely to be so while most of the chief agents survive. According to
Napoleon the first proposal for conquering Portugal by the united arms
of France and Spain, and dividing that monarchy into three separate
prizes, of which one should fall to the disposition of France, a second
to the Spanish King, and a third reward the personal exertions of Godoy,
came not from him, but from the Spanish minister. It was unlikely that
Napoleon should have given any other account of the matter. The
suggestion has been attributed, by every Spanish authority, to the
Emperor; and it is difficult to doubt that such was the fact. The
treaty, in which the unprincipled design took complete form, was
ratified at Fontainebleau on the 29th October, 1807, and accompanied by
a convention, which provided for the immediate invasion of Portugal by
a force of 28,000 French soldiers, under the orders of Junot, and of
27,000 Spaniards; while a reserve of 40,000 French troops were to be
assembled at Bayonne, ready to take the field by the end of November, in
case England should land an army for the defence of Portugal, or the
people of that devoted country presume to meet Junot by a national
insurrection.

Junot forthwith commenced his march through Spain, where the French
soldiery were received everywhere with coldness and suspicion, but
nowhere by any hostile movement of the people. He would have halted at
Salamanca to organise his army, which consisted mostly of young
conscripts, but Napoleon's policy outmarched his General's schemes, and
the troops were, in consequence of a peremptory order from Paris, poured
into Portugal in the latter part of November. Godoy's contingent of
Spaniards appeared there also, and placed themselves under Junot's
command. Their numbers overawed the population, and they advanced,
unopposed, towards the capital--Junot's most eager desire being to
secure the persons of the Prince Regent and the royal family. The feeble
government, meantime, having made, one by one, every degrading
submission which France dictated, having expelled the British factory
and the British minister, confiscated all English property, and shut the
ports against all English vessels, became convinced at length that no
measures of subserviency could avert the doom which Napoleon had
fulminated. A _Moniteur_, proclaiming that "the House of Braganza had
ceased to reign," reached Lisbon. The Prince Regent re-opened his
communication with the English admiral off the Tagus (Sir Sydney Smith)
and the lately expelled ambassador (Lord Strangford), and being assured
of their protection, embarked on the 27th of November, and sailed for
the Brazils on the 29th, only a few hours before Junot made his
appearance at the gates of Lisbon. The disgust with which the Portuguese
people regarded his flight, the cowardly termination, as they might not
unnaturally regard it, of a long course of meanness, was eminently
useful to the invader. With the exception of one trivial insurrection,
when the insolent conqueror took down the Portuguese arms and set up
those of Napoleon in their place, several months passed in apparent
tranquillity; and these were skilfully employed by the General in
perfecting the discipline of his conscripts, improving the
fortifications of the coast, and making such a disposal of his force as
might best guard the country from any military demonstration on the part
of England.

Napoleon thus saw Portugal in his grasp: but that he had all along
considered as a point of minor importance, and he had accordingly
availed himself of the utmost concessions of the treaty of
Fontainebleau, without waiting for any insurrection of the Portuguese,
or English debarkation on their territory. His army of reserve, in
number far exceeding the 40,000 men named in the treaty, had already
passed the Pyrenees, in two bodies, under Dupont and Moncey, and were
advancing slowly, but steadily, into the heart of Spain. Nay, without
even the pretext of being mentioned in the treaty, another French army
of 12,000, under Duhesme, had penetrated through the eastern Pyrenees,
and being received as friends among the unsuspecting garrisons, obtained
possession of Barcelona, Pampeluna, and St. Sebastian, and the other
fortified places in the north of Spain, by a succession of treacherous
artifices, to which the history of civilised nations presents no
parallel. The armies then pushed forwards, and the chief roads leading
from the French frontiers to Madrid were entirely in their possession.

It seems impossible that such daring movements should not have awakened
the darkest suspicions at Madrid; yet the royal family, overlooking the
common danger about to overwhelm them and their country, continued,
during three eventful months, to waste what energies they possessed in
petty conspiracies, domestic broils, and, incredible as the tale will
hereafter appear, in the meanest diplomatic intrigues with the court of
France. The Prince of Asturias solicited the honour of a wife from the
House of Napoleon. The old King, or rather Godoy, invoked anew the
assistance of the Emperor against the treasonable, nay (for to such
extremities went their mutual accusations), the parricidal plots of the
heir-apparent. Buonaparte listened to both parties, vouchsafed no direct
answer to either, and continued to direct the onward movement of those
stern arbiters, who were ere long to decide the question. A sudden panic
at length seized the King or his minister, and the court, then at
Aranjuez, prepared to retire to Seville, and, sailing from thence to
America, seek safety, after the example of the House of Braganza, in the
work of whose European ruin they had so lately been accomplices. The
servants of the Prince of Asturias, on perceiving the preparations for
this flight, commenced a tumult, in which the populace of Aranjuez
readily joined, and which was only pacified (for the moment) by a royal
declaration that no flight was contemplated. On the 18th of March, 1808,
the day following, a scene of like violence took place in the capital
itself. The house of Godoy in Madrid was sacked. The favourite himself
was assaulted at Aranjuez, on the 19th; with great difficulty saved his
life by the intervention of the royal guards; and was placed under
arrest. Terrified by what he saw at Aranjuez, and heard from Madrid,
Charles IV. abdicated the throne; and on the 20th, Ferdinand, his son,
was proclaimed King of Madrid, amidst a tumult of popular applause.
Murat, Grand Duke of Berg, had before this assumed the chief command of
all the French troops in Spain; and hearing of the extremities to which
the court factions had gone, he now moved rapidly on Madrid, surrounded
that capital with 30,000 men, and took possession of it in person, at
the head of 10,000 more, on the 23rd of March. Charles IV. meantime
despatched messengers both to Napoleon and Murat, asserting that his
abdication had been involuntary, and invoking their assistance against
his son. Ferdinand, entering Madrid on the 24th, found the French
general in possession of the capital, and in vain claimed his
recognition as king. Murat accepted the sword of Francis I., which,
amidst other adulations, Ferdinand offered to him; but pertinaciously
declined taking any part in the decision of the great question, which
demanded, as he said, the fiat of Napoleon.

The Emperor heard with much regret of the precipitancy with which his
lieutenant had occupied Madrid--for his clear mind had foreseen ere now
the imminent hazard of trampling too rudely on the jealous pride of the
Spaniards; and the events of the 17th, 18th, and 19th March were well
qualified to confirm his impression, that although all sense of dignity
and decorum might be extinguished in the court, the ancient elements of
national honour still remained, ready to be called into action, among
the body of the people. He, therefore, sent Savary, in whose practised
cunning and duplicity he hoped to find a remedy for the military
rashness of Murat, to assume the chief direction of affairs at Madrid;
and the rumour was actively spread, that the Emperor was about to appear
there in person without delay.

Madrid occupied and begirt by forty thousand armed strangers, his title
unrecognised by Murat, his weak understanding and tumultuous passions
worked upon incessantly by the malicious craft of Savary, Ferdinand was
at length persuaded, that his best chance of securing the aid and
protection of Napoleon lay in advancing to meet him on his way to the
capital, and striving to gain his ear before the emissaries of Godoy
should be able to fill it with their reclamations. Savary eagerly
offered to accompany him on this fatal journey, which began on the 10th
of April. The infatuated Ferdinand had been taught to believe that he
should find Buonaparte at Burgos; not meeting him there, he was tempted
to pursue his journey as far as Vittoria: and from thence, in spite of
the populace, who, more sagacious than their prince, cut the traces of
his carriage, he was, by a repetition of the same treacherous arguments,
induced to proceed stage by stage, and at length to pass the frontier
and present himself at Bayonne, where the arbiter of his fate lay
anxiously expecting this consummation of his almost incredible folly. He
arrived there on the 20th of April--was received by Napoleon with
courtesy, entertained at dinner at the imperial table, and the same
evening informed by Savary that his doom was sealed--that the Bourbon
dynasty had ceased to reign in Spain, and that his personal safety must
depend on the readiness with which he should resign all his pretensions
into the hands of Buonaparte.

He, meanwhile, as soon as he was aware that Ferdinand had actually set
out from Madrid, had ordered Murat to find the means of causing the old
King, the Queen, and Godoy to repair also to Bayonne; nor does it appear
that his lieutenant had any difficulty in persuading these personages
that such was the course of conduct most in accordance with their
interests. They reached Bayonne on the 4th of May, and Napoleon,
confronting the parents and the son on the 5th, witnessed a scene in
which the profligate rancour of their domestic feuds reached extremities
hardly to have been contemplated by the wildest imagination. The
flagitious Queen did not, it is said and believed, hesitate to signify
to her son that the King was not his father--and this in the presence of
that King and of Napoleon. Could crime justify crime--could the fiendish
lusts and hatreds of a degenerate race offer any excuse for the
deliberate guilt of a masculine genius, the conduct of this abject court
might have apologised for the policy which it perhaps tempted the
pampered ambition of Napoleon to commence, and which it now encouraged
him to consummate by an act of suicidal violence.

Charles IV. resigned the Crown of Spain for himself and his heirs,
accepting in return from the hands of Napoleon a safe retreat in Italy
and a large pension. Godoy, who had entered into the fatal negotiation
of Fontainebleau, with the hope and the promise of an independent
sovereignty carved out of the Portuguese dominions, was pensioned off in
like manner, and ordered to partake the Italian exile of his patrons. A
few days afterwards, Ferdinand VII., being desired to choose at length
between compliance and death, followed the example of his father, and
executed a similar act of resignation. Napoleon congratulated himself on
having added Spain and the Indies to his empire, without any cost either
of blood or of treasure; and the French people, dazzled by the apparent
splendour of the acquisition, overlooked, if there be any faith in
public addresses and festivals, the enormous guilt by which it had been
achieved. But ere the ink with which the Spanish Bourbons signed away
their birthright was dry, there came tidings to Bayonne which might well
disturb the proud day-dreams of the spoliator, and the confidence of his
worshippers.

Not that Napoleon had failed to measure from the beginning the mighty
dangers which surrounded his audacious design. He had been warned of
them in the strongest manner by Talleyrand, and even by Fouché; nay, he
had himself written to rebuke the headlong haste of Murat in occupying
the Spanish capital--to urge on him the necessity of conciliating the
people, by preserving the show of respect for their national authorities
and institutions--to represent the imminent hazard of permitting the
Duke del Infantado to strengthen and extend his party in Madrid--and
concluding with those ominous words: _Remember, if war breaks out, all
is lost_.

Ferdinand, before he left Madrid, invested a council of regency with the
sovereign power, his uncle, Don Antonio, being president, and Murat one
of the members. Murat's assumption of the authority thus conferred, the
departure of Ferdinand, the liberation and departure of the detested
Godoy, the flight of the old King--these occurrences produced their
natural effects on the popular mind. A dark suspicion that France
meditated the destruction of the national independence, began to spread;
and, on the 2nd of May, when it transpired that preparations were making
for the journey of Don Antonio also, the general rage at last burst out.
A crowd collected round the carriage meant, as they concluded, to convey
the last of the royal family out of Spain; the traces were cut; the
imprecations against the French were furious. Colonel La Grange, Murat's
aide-de-camp, happening to appear on the spot, was cruelly maltreated.
In a moment the whole capital was in an uproar: the French soldiery were
assaulted everywhere--about 700 were slain. The mob attacked the
hospital--the sick and their attendants rushed out and defended it. The
French cavalry, hearing the tumult, entered the city by the gate of
Alcala--a column of 3000 infantry from the other side by the street
Ancha de Bernardo. Some Spanish officers headed the mob, and fired on
the soldiery in the streets of Maravelles: a bloody massacre ensued:
many hundreds were made prisoners: the troops, sweeping the streets from
end to end, released their comrades; and, to all appearance,
tranquillity was restored ere nightfall. During the darkness, however,
the peasantry flocked in armed from the neighbouring country: and, being
met at the gates by the irritated soldiery, not a few more were killed,
wounded, and made prisoners. Murat ordered all the prisoners to be tried
by a military commission, which doomed them to instant death. It is
disputed whether the more deliberate guilt of carrying the sentence into
execution lies with the commander-in-chief himself, or with Grouchy; it
is certain that a considerable number of Spaniards--the English
authority most friendly to the French cause admits
_ninety-five_[58]--were butchered in cold blood on the 3rd of May.

This commotion had been preceded by a brief insurrection, easily
suppressed and not unlikely to be soon forgotten, on the 23rd of April,
at Toledo. The events in the capital were of a more decisive character,
and the amount of the bloodshed, in itself great, was much exaggerated
in the reports which flew, like wildfire, throughout the Peninsula--for
the French were as eager to overawe the provincial Spaniards, by
conveying an overcharged impression of the consequences of resistance,
as their enemies in Madrid were to rouse the general indignation, by
heightened details of the ferocity of the invaders and the sternness of
their own devotion. In almost every town of Spain, and almost
simultaneously, the flame of patriotic resentment broke out in the
terrible form of assassination. The French residents were slaughtered
without mercy: the supposed partisans of Napoleon and Godoy (not a few
men of worth being causelessly confounded in their fate) were sacrificed
in the first tumult of popular rage. At Cadiz, Seville, Carthagena,
above all in Valencia, the streets ran red with blood. The dark and
vindictive temper of the Spaniards covered the land with scenes, on the
details of which it is shocking to dwell. The French soldiery, hemmed
in, insulted, and whenever they could be found separately,
sacrificed--often with every circumstance of savage torture--retorted by
equal barbarity whenever they had the means. Popular bodies (juntas)
assumed the conduct of affairs in most of the cities and provinces,
renounced the yoke of France, reproclaimed Ferdinand king, and at the
maritime stations of chief importance entered into communication with
the English fleets, from whom they failed not to receive pecuniary
supplies, and every encouragement to proceed in their measures. Deputies
were sent to England without delay; and welcomed there with the utmost
enthusiasm of sympathy and admiration. England could both speak and act
openly. Throughout the whole of the enslaved continent the news of the
Spanish insurrection was brooded over with a sullen joy.

Napoleon received the intelligence with alarm; but he had already gone
too far to retract without disturbing the magical influence of his
reputation. He, moreover, was willing to flatter himself that the lower
population of Spain alone took an active part in these transactions;
that the nobility, whose degradation he could hardly over-estimate,
would abide by his voice; in a word, that with 80,000 troops in Spain,
besides Junot's army in Portugal, he possessed the means of suppressing
the tumult after the first effervescence should have escaped. He
proceeded, therefore, to act precisely as if no insurrection had
occurred. Tranquillity being re-established in Madrid, the Council of
Castile were convoked, and commanded to elect a new sovereign: their
choice had of course been settled beforehand: it fell on Joseph
Buonaparte, King of Naples; and ere it was announced, that personage was
already on his way to Bayonne. Ninety-five _Notables_ of Spain met him
in that town; and swore fealty to him and a new Constitution, the
manufacture of course of Napoleon. Joseph, on entering Spain, was met by
unequivocal symptoms of scorn and hatred:--nay, one great battle had
already been fought between the French and the patriots:--but, the main
road being strongly occupied throughout with his brother's troops, he
reached Madrid in safety.

Lucien Buonaparte, it is understood, received the first offer of this
crown; but he did not envy the condition of his brother's royal vassals,
and declined the dangerous honour. Murat had expected it, and much
resented his disappointment; but Napoleon did not consider him as
possessed of the requisite prudence, and he was forced to accept the
succession to the vacant throne of Naples.

Joseph had become not unpopular in Naples, and being a peaceful man,
would gladly have remained in that humbler kingdom; but Napoleon no more
consulted the private wishes of his subaltern princes on such occasions,
than he did those of his generals in the arrangements of a campaign.

On the 24th of July (says Colonel Napier), "Joseph was proclaimed King
of Spain and the Indies, with all the solemnities usual upon such
occasions; not hesitating to declare himself the enemy of eleven
millions of people, the object of a whole nation's hatred; calling, with
a strange accent, from the midst of foreign bands, upon that fierce and
haughty race to accept of a constitution which they did not understand,
and which few of them had even heard of; his only hope of success
resting on the strength of his brother's arms; his claims on the consent
of an imbecile monarch and the weakness of a few pusillanimous nobles,
in contempt of the rights of millions now arming to oppose him."

[Footnote 58: Colonel Napier, p. 25.]




CHAPTER XXIV

     Insurrection of the Spaniards and Portuguese--Their Alliance with
     England--Battle of Riosecco--Joseph enters Madrid--First Siege of
     Zaragossa--Dupont's March into Andalusia--The Battle of
     Baylen--Dupont Surrenders--Joseph quits Madrid--Situation of
     Junot--Arrival of Sir Arthur Wellesley--Battle of Roriça--Battle of
     Vimiero--Convention of Cintra.


On the 4th of July the King of England addressed his Parliament on the
subject which then fixed the universal enthusiasm of his people. "I
view" (said he) "with the liveliest interest the loyal and determined
spirit manifested in resisting the violence and perfidy with which the
dearest rights of the Spanish nation have been assailed. The kingdom
thus nobly struggling against the usurpation and tyranny of France, can
no longer be considered as the enemy of Great Britain, but is recognised
by me as a natural friend and ally." It has been already mentioned that
the British commanders in the neighbourhood of Spain did not wait for
orders from home to espouse openly the cause of the insurgent nation.
The Spanish prisoners of war were forthwith released, clothed, equipped,
and sent back to their country. Supplies of arms and money were
liberally transmitted thither; and, Portugal catching the flame and
bursting into general insurrection also, a formal treaty of alliance,
offensive and defensive, was soon concluded between England and the two
kingdoms of the Peninsula.

This insurrection furnished Great Britain with what she had not yet
possessed during the war, a favourable theatre whereon to oppose the
full strength of her empire to the arms of Napoleon; and the opportunity
was embraced with zeal, though for some time but little skill appeared
in the manner of using it. The Emperor, on the other hand, observed with
surprise and rage the energy of the Spaniards, and not doubting that
England would hasten to their aid, bent every effort to consummate his
flagitious purpose. "Thus" (says a distinguished writer) "the two
leading nations of the world were brought into contact at a moment when
both were disturbed by angry passions, eager for great events, and
possessed of surprising power."[59]

Napoleon, from the extent and population of his empire, under the
operation of the Conscription Code was enabled to maintain an army
500,000 strong; but his relations with those powers on the continent
whom he had not entirely subdued were of the most unstable character,
and even the states which he had formally united to France were, without
exception, pregnant with the elements of disaffection. It was therefore
impossible for him to concentrate the whole of his gigantic strength on
the soil of Spain. His troops, moreover, being drawn from a multitude of
different countries and tongues, could not be united in heart or in
discipline like the soldiers of a purely national army. On the other
hand, the military genius at his command has never been surpassed in any
age or country: his officers were accustomed to victory, and his own
reputation exerted a magical influence over both friends and foes. The
pecuniary resources of the vast empire were great, and they were managed
so skilfully by Buonaparte that the supplies were raised within the
year, and in a metallic currency.

His ancient enemy was omnipotent at sea; and if the character of her
armies stood at the moment much lower both at home and abroad than it
ever deserved to do, this was a mistake which one well-organised
campaign was likely to extinguish. England possessed at this time a
population of twenty millions, united in the spirit of loyalty and
regarding the Spanish cause as just, noble and sacred: a standing army
of 200,000 of the best troops in the world, an immense recruiting
establishment, and a system of militia which enabled her to swell her
muster to any limit. Her colonies occupied a large share of this army;
but there remained at her immediate command a force at least equal to
that with which Buonaparte had conquered Austria and Prussia. Her credit
was unbounded; and her commerce not only supplied means of information
altogether unrivalled, but secured for her the secret goodwill of whole
classes in every country. England possessed Generals worthy to cope with
the best of Buonaparte's Marshals, and in the hour of need discovered
that she possessed one capable of confronting, and of conquering, the
great Emperor himself. Finally, she possessed the incalculable
advantage of warring on the side of justice and freedom, against an
usurper, whose crimes were on the same gigantic scale with his genius.
The remembrance of their leader's perfidy weighed heavily on the moral
strength of the French army throughout the approaching contest; while a
proud conviction that their cause was the right sustained the hearts of
the English.

Upon them, ultimately, the chief burden and the chief glory of the war
devolved: yet justice will ever be done to the virtuous exertions of
their allies of the Peninsula. At the moment when the insurrection
occurred, 20,000 Spanish troops were in Portugal under the orders of
Junot; 15,000 more, under the Marquis de Romana, were serving Napoleon
in Holstein. There remained 40,000 Spanish regulars, 11,000 Swiss, and
30,000 militia; but of the best of these the discipline, when compared
with French or English armies, was contemptible. The nobility, to whose
order the chief officers belonged, were divided in their
sentiments--perhaps the greater number inclined to the interests of
Joseph. Above all, the troops were scattered, in small sections, over
the face of the whole country, and there was no probability that any one
regular army should be able to muster so strong as to withstand the
efforts of a mere fragment of the French force already established
within the kingdom. The fleets of Spain had been destroyed in the war
with England: her commerce and revenues had been mortally wounded by the
alliance with France and the maladministration of Godoy. Ferdinand was
detained a prisoner in France. There was no natural leader or chief,
around whom the whole energies of the nation might be expected to rally.
It was amidst such adverse circumstances that the Spanish people rose
everywhere, smarting under intolerable wrongs, against a French army,
already 80,000 strong, in possession of half the fortresses of the
country, and in perfect communication with the mighty resources of
Napoleon.

There are authors who still delight to undervalue the motives of this
great national movement; according to whom the commercial classes rose
chiefly, if not solely, from their resentment of the pecuniary losses
inflicted on them by Godoy's alliance with the author of the
"continental system"; the priesthood because Godoy had impoverished the
church, and they feared that a Buonapartean government would pursue the
same course to a much greater extent; the peasantry because their
priests commanded them. All these influences unquestionably operated,
and all strongly; but who can believe in the absence of others
infinitely above these, and common to all the Spaniards who, during six
years, fought and bled, and saw their towns ruined and their soil a
waste, that they might vindicate their birthright, the independence of
their nation? Nor can similar praise be refused to the great majority of
the Portuguese. Napoleon summoned a body of the nobles of that kingdom
also to meet him early in the year at Bayonne: they obeyed, and being
addressed by the haughty usurper in person, resisted all his efforts to
cajole them into an imitation of the Spanish Notables, who at the same
time and place accepted Joseph for their King. They were in consequence
retained as prisoners in France during the war which followed; but their
fate operated as a new stimulus upon the general feeling of their
countrymen at home, already well prepared for insurrection by the brutal
oppression of Junot.

The Spanish arms were at first exposed to many reverses; the rawness of
their levies, and the insulated nature of their movements, being
disadvantages of which it was not difficult for the experienced Generals
and overpowering numbers of the French to reap a full and bloody
harvest. After various petty skirmishes, in which the insurgents of
Arragon were worsted by Lefebre Desnouettes, and those of Navarre and
Biscay by Bessieres, the latter officer came upon the united armies of
Castile, Leon and Galicia, commanded by the Generals Cuesta and Blake,
on the 14th of July, at Riosecco, and defeated them in a desperate
action, in which not less than 20,000 Spaniards died. This calamitous
battle it was which opened the gates of Madrid to the intrusive
king--whose arrival in that capital on the 20th of the same month has
already been mentioned.

But Joseph was not destined to remain long in Madrid: the fortune of
war, after the great day of Riosecco, was everywhere on the side of the
patriots. Duhesme, who had so treacherously possessed himself of
Barcelona and Figueras, found himself surrounded by the Catalonian
mountaineers, who, after various affairs, in which much blood was shed
on both sides, compelled him to shut himself up in Barcelona. Marshal
Moncey conducted another large division of the French towards Valencia,
and was to have been further reinforced by a detachment from Duhesme.
The course of events in Catalonia prevented Duhesme from affording any
such assistance; and the inhabitants of Valencia, male and female,
rising _en masse_, and headed by their clergy, manned their walls with
such determined resolution, that the French marshal was at length
compelled to retreat. He fell back upon the main body, under Bessieres,
but did not effect a conjunction with them until his troops had suffered
miserably in their march through an extensive district, in which every
inhabitant was a watchful enemy.

A far more signal catastrophe had befallen another powerful _corps
d'armée_, under General Dupont, which marched from Madrid towards the
south, with the view of suppressing all symptoms of insurrection in that
quarter, and, especially, of securing the great naval station of Cadiz,
where a French squadron lay, watched, as usual, by the English. Dupont's
force was increased as he advanced, till it amounted to 20,000 men; and
with these he took possession of Baylen and La Carolina, in Andalusia,
and stormed Jaen. But before he could make these acquisitions, the
citizens of Cadiz had universally taken the patriot side; the commander
of the French vessels had been forced to surrender them; and the place,
having opened a communication with the English fleet, assumed a posture
of determined defence. General Castaños, the Spanish commander in that
province, meanwhile, having held back from battle until his raw troops
should have had time to be disciplined, began at length to threaten the
position of the French. Jaen was attacked by him with such vigour, that
Dupont was fain to evacuate it, and fall back to Baylen, where his
troops soon suffered severe privations, the peasantry being in arms all
around them, and the supply of food becoming from day to day more
difficult. On the 16th of July, Dupont was attacked at Baylen by
Castaños, who knew from an intercepted despatch the extent of his
enemy's distress: the French were beaten, and driven as far as Menjibar.
They returned on the 18th, and attempted to recover Baylen; but, after a
long and desperate battle, in which 3000 of the French were killed,
Dupont, perceiving that the Spaniards were gathering all around in
numbers not to be resisted, proposed to capitulate. In effect, he and
20,000 soldiers laid down their arms at Baylen, on condition that they
should be transported in safety into France. The Spaniards broke this
convention, and detained them as prisoners--thus, foolishly as well a
wickedly, imitating the perfidy of Napoleon's own conduct to Spain. This
battle and capitulation of Baylen were termed by the Emperor himself
_the Caudine forks_ of the French army. He attributed the disaster to
treachery on the part of Dupont: it was the result of the rashness of
the expedition, and the incompetency of the conductor. The richest part
of Spain was freed wholly of the invaders: the light troops of Castaños
pushed on, and swept the country before them; and within ten days, King
Joseph perceived the necessity of quitting Madrid, and removed his
headquarters to Vittoria.

In the meantime Lefebre Desnouettes, whose early success in Arragon has
been alluded to, was occupied with the siege of Zaragossa--the
inhabitants of which city had risen in the first outbreak, and prepared
to defend their walls to the last extremity. Don Jose Palafox, a young
nobleman of no great talents, who had made his escape from Bayonne, was
invested with the command; but the real leaders were the priests and
some of the private citizens, who selected him for the prominent place
as belonging to a family of eminent distinction in their kingdom, but in
effect considered and used him as their tool. Some Spanish and Walloon
regiments, who had formed the garrisons of strong places treacherously
seized by the enemy before the war commenced, had united with Palafox,
and various bloody skirmishes had occurred--ere the French general was
enabled to shut them up in Zaragossa and form the siege. The importance
of success in this enterprise was momentous, especially after the
failure of Moncey at Valencia. Napoleon himself early saw, that if the
Valencians should be able to form an union with the Arragonese at
Zaragossa, the situation of the Catalonian insurgents on the one side
would be prodigiously strengthened; while, on the other hand, the armies
of Leon and Galicia (whose coasts offered the means of continual
communication with England) would conduct their operations in the
immediate vicinity of the only great road left open between Madrid and
Bayonne--the route by Burgos. He therefore had instructed Savary to
consider Zaragossa as an object of the very highest importance; but the
corps of Lefebre was not strengthened as the Emperor would have wished
it to be, ere he sat down before Zaragossa. The siege was pressed with
the utmost vigour; but the immortal heroism of the citizens baffled all
the valour of the French. There were no regular works worthy of notice:
but the old Moorish walls, not above eight or ten feet in height, and
some extensive monastic buildings in the outskirts of the city, being
manned by crowds of determined men, whose wives and daughters looked on,
nay, mingled boldly in their defence--the besiegers were held at bay
week after week, and saw their ranks thinned in continual assaults
without being able to secure any adequate advantage. Famine came and
disease in its train, to aggravate the sufferings of the townspeople;
but they would listen to no suggestions but those of the same proud
spirit in which they had begun. The French at length gained possession
of the great convent of St. Engracia, and thus established themselves
within the town itself: their general then sent to Palafox this brief
summons: "Headquarters, Santa Engracia--Capitulation"; but he received
for answer: "Headquarters, Zaragossa--War to the knife." The battle was
maintained literally from street to street, from house to house, and
from chamber to chamber. Men and women fought side by side, amidst
flames and carnage; until Lefebre received the news of Baylen, and
having wasted two months in his enterprise, abandoned it abruptly, lest
he should find himself insulated amidst the general retreat of the
French armies. Such was the first of the two famous sieges of Zaragossa.

The English government meanwhile had begun their preparations for
interfering effectually in the affairs of the Peninsula. They had
despatched one body of troops to the support of Castaños in Andalusia;
but these did not reach the south of Spain until their assistance was
rendered unnecessary by the surrender of Dupont at Baylen. A more
considerable force, amounting to 10,000, sailed early in June, from
Cork, for Coruña, under the command of the Honourable Sir Arthur
Wellesley. This armament, originally designed to co-operate with another
from India in a great attack on Mexico, had its destination altered the
moment the Spanish Insurrection was announced. Sir Arthur, being
permitted to land at what point of the Peninsula he should judge most
advantageous for the general cause, was soon satisfied that Portugal
ought to be the first scene of his operations, and accordingly lost no
time in opening a communication with the patriots, who had taken
possession of Oporto. Here the troops which had been designed to aid
Castaños joined him. Thus strengthened, and well informed of the state
of the French armies in Spain, Sir Arthur resolved to effect a landing
and attack Junot while circumstances seemed to indicate no chance of his
being reinforced by Bessieres.

It is, perhaps, an evil unavoidable in the institutions of an old and
settled government, that men rarely, very rarely, unless they possess
the advantages of illustrious birth and connection, can hope to be
placed in situations of the highest importance until they have passed
the prime vigour of their days. Sir Arthur Wellesley, fortunately for
England and for Europe, commenced life under circumstances eminently
favourable for the early development and recognition of his great
talents. To his brother, the Marquis Wellesley's rank as
Governor-General of India, he owed the opportunity of conducting our
armies in the East at a time of life when, if of inferior birth, he
could hardly have commanded a battalion; and the magnificent campaign of
Assaye so established his reputation, that shortly after his return to
Europe he was entrusted without hesitation with the armament assembled
at Cork.

It was on the 8th of August, 1808--a day ever memorable in the history
of Britain--that Sir Arthur Wellesley effected his debarkation in the
bay of Mondego. He immediately commenced his march towards Lisbon, and
on the 17th came up with the enemy under General Laborde, strongly
posted on an eminence near Roriça. The French contested their ground
gallantly, but were driven from it at the point of the bayonet, and
compelled to retreat. The British General, having hardly any cavalry,
was unable to pursue them so closely as he otherwise would have done:
and Laborde succeeded in joining his shattered division to the rest of
the French forces in Portugal. Junot (recently created Duke of Abrantes)
now took the command in person; and finding himself at the head of full
24,000 troops, while the English army were greatly inferior in numbers,
and miserably supplied with cavalry and artillery, he did not hesitate
to assume the offensive. On the 21st of August he attacked Sir Arthur at
Vimiero. In the language of the English General's despatch, "a most
desperate contest ensued"; and the result was "a signal defeat," Junot,
having lost thirteen cannon and more than two thousand men, immediately
fell back upon Lisbon, where his position was protected by the strong
defile of the Torres Vedras.

This retreat would not have been accomplished without much more
fighting, had Sir Arthur Wellesley been permitted to follow up his
victory, according to the dictates of his own understanding and the
enthusiastic wishes of his army. But just as the battle was about to
begin, Sir Harry Burrard, an old officer of superior rank, unfortunately
entitled to assume the chief command, arrived on the field. Finding that
Sir Arthur had made all his dispositions, General Burrard handsomely
declined interfering until the fortune of the day should be decided; but
he took the command as soon as the victory was won, and more cautiously
than wisely, prevented the army from instantly advancing, as Sir Arthur
Wellesley proposed, upon the coast road towards Mafra, and thus
endeavouring to intercept the retreat of Junot upon Lisbon. Sir Harry,
having made this unhappy use of his command, was, the very next day,
superseded in his turn by Sir Hew Dalrymple, the Governor of Gibraltar;
another veteran more disposed to imitate the prudence of Burrard than
the daring of Wellesley.

Shortly after the third general had taken the command, Junot sent
Kellerman to demand a truce, and propose a convention for the evacuation
of Portugal by the troops under his orders. Dalrymple received Kellerman
with more eagerness of civility than became the chief of a victorious
army, and forthwith granted the desired armistice. Junot offered to
surrender his magazine, stores, and armed vessels, provided the British
would disembark his soldiers, with their arms, at any French port
between Rochefort and L'Orient, and permit them to take with them their
private property; and Dalrymple did not hesitate to agree to these
terms, although Sir John Moore arrived off the coast with a
reinforcement of 10,000 men during the progress of the negotiation. The
famous "_Convention of Cintra_" (most absurdly so named, as it was in
fact concluded thirty miles from Cintra) was signed accordingly on the
30th of August; and the French army wholly evacuated Portugal in the
manner provided for. The English people heard with indignation that the
spoilers of Portugal had been suffered to escape on such terms; and the
article concerning private property gave especial offence, as under that
cover the French removed with them a large share of the plunder which
they had amassed by merciless violence and rapacity during their
occupation of the Portuguese territories. A parliamentary investigation
was followed by a court-martial, which acquitted Dalrymple. In truth it
seems now to be admitted, by competent judges, that after Burrard had
interfered so as to prevent Wellesley from instantly following up the
success of Vimiero, and so enabled Junot to re-occupy Lisbon and secure
the pass of the Torres Vedras, it would have been imprudent to decline
the terms proffered by a repelled, but still powerful enemy--who, if
driven to extremities, could hardly fail to prolong the war, until
Napoleon should be able to send him additional forces from Spain.
Meanwhile Portugal was free from the presence of her enemies; England
had obtained a permanent footing within the Peninsula; what was of still
higher moment, the character of the British army was raised not only
abroad, but at home; and had the two insurgent nations availed
themselves, as they ought to have done, of the resources which their
great ally placed at their command, and conducted their own affairs with
unity and strength of purpose, the deliverance of the whole peninsula
might have been achieved years before that consummation actually took
place.

The Portuguese, however, split into factions--under leaders whose
primary objects were selfish, who rivalled each other in their absurd
jealousy of England, afforded to her troops no such supplies and
facilities as they had the best title to demand and expect, and wasted
their time in petty political intrigues, instead of devoting every
energy to the organisation of an efficient army, and improving the
defences of their naturally strong frontier. The Spaniards conducted
themselves with even more signal imprudence. For months each provincial
junta seemed to prefer the continuance of its own authority to the
obvious necessity of merging all their powers in some central body,
capable of controlling and directing the whole force of the nation; and
after a supreme junta was at last established in Madrid, its orders were
continually disputed and disobeyed--so that in effect there was no
national government. Equally disgraceful jealousies among the generals
prevented the armies from being placed under one supreme chief,
responsible for the combination of all their movements. In place of this
it was with difficulty that the various independent generals could be
prevailed on even to meet at Madrid, and agree to the outline of a joint
campaign; and that outline seemed to have no recommendation except that
its gross military defects held out to each member of the Council the
prospect of being able to act without communication, for good or for
evil, with any of the others. The consequences of these shameful follies
were calamitous: and but for events which could not have been foreseen,
must have proved fatal: for the gigantic resources of the common enemy
were about to be set in motion by Napoleon himself; who, on hearing of
the reverses of Dupont, Lefebre, and Junot, perceived too clearly that
the affairs of the Peninsula demanded a keener eye and a firmer hand
than his brother's.

[Footnote 59: Col. Napier, chap. i.]




CHAPTER XXV

     Napoleon at Erfurt--At Paris--Arrives at Vittoria--Disposition of
     the French and Spanish Armies--Successes of Soult--Passage of the
     Somosierra--Surrender of Madrid--Sir John Moore's Campaign--his
     Retreat--Battle of Coruña--Death of Moore--Napoleon leaves Spain.


Three Spanish armies, each unfortunately under an independent chief,
were at length in motion: their nominal strength was 130,000 men; in
reality they never exceeded 100,000. Had they been combined under an
able general, they might have assaulted the French army, now not
exceeding 60,000, with every likelihood of success; for the position
first taken up by King Joseph, after his retreat into the north, was
very defective; but the Spaniards chose their basis of operations so
absurdly, and were so dilatory afterwards, that Napoleon had time both
to rectify Joseph's blunders and to reinforce his legions effectually,
before they were able to achieve any considerable advantage.

Blake, who commanded on the west, extended his line from Burgos to
Bilboa; Palafox, on the east, lay between Zaragossa and Sanguessa;
Castaños, general of the central army, had his headquarters at Soria.
The three armies thus lay in a long and feeble crescent, of which the
horns were pushed towards the French frontier; while the enemy, resting
on three strong fortresses, remained on the defensive until the Emperor
should pour new forces through the passes of the Pyrenees. It was
expected that the English army in Portugal would forthwith advance, and
put themselves in communication either with Blake or with Castaños; and
had this junction occurred soon after the battle of Virniero, the result
might have been decisive: but Wellesley was recalled to London to bear
witness on the trial of Dalrymple; and Sir John Moore, who then assumed
the command, received neither such supplies as were necessary for any
great movement, nor any clear and authentic intelligence from the
authorities of Madrid, nor finally any distinct orders from his own
government--until the favourable moment had gone by. In effect,
Napoleon's gigantic reinforcements had begun to show themselves within
the Spanish frontier, a week before the English general was in a
condition to commence his march.

The Emperor, enraged at the first positive disgraces which had ever
befallen his arms, and foreseeing that unless the Spanish insurrection
were crushed ere the Patriots had time to form a regular government and
to organise their armies, the succours of England, and the growing
discontents of Germany, might invest the task with insurmountable
difficulties, determined to cross the Pyrenees in person, at the head of
a force capable of sweeping the whole Peninsula clear before him "at one
fell swoop." Hitherto no mention of the unfortunate occurrences in Spain
had been made in any public act of his government, or suffered to
transpire in any of the French journals. It was now necessary to break
this haughty silence. The Emperor announced accordingly that the
peasants of Spain had rebelled against their _King_; that treachery had
caused the ruin of one corps of his army; and that another had been
forced, by the English, to evacuate Portugal: demanding two new
conscriptions, each of 80,000 men--which were of course granted without
hesitation. Recruiting his camps on the German side, and in Italy, with
these new levies, he now ordered his veteran troops, to the amount of
200,000, including a vast and brilliant cavalry, and a large body of the
Imperial Guards, to be drafted from those frontiers, and marched through
France towards Spain. As these warlike columns passed through Paris,
Napoleon addressed to them one of those orations which never failed to
swell the resolution and pride of his soldiery on the eve of some great
enterprise. "Comrades," said he, "after triumphing on the banks of the
Danube and the Vistula, with rapid steps you have passed through
Germany. This day, without a moment of repose, I command you to traverse
France. Soldiers, I have need of you. The hideous presence of the
leopard contaminates the peninsula of Spain and Portugal. In terror he
must fly before you. Let us bear our triumphant eagles to the Pillars of
Hercules: there also we have injuries to avenge. Soldiers! you have
surpassed the renown of modern armies; but have you yet equalled the
glory of those Romans, who, in one and the same campaign, were
victorious on the Rhine, and the Euphrates, in Illyria and on the Tagus?
A long peace, a lasting prosperity, shall be the reward of your labours.
A real Frenchman could not, should not rest, until the seas are free and
open to all. Soldiers, what you have done, and what you are about to do,
for the happiness of the French people and for my glory, shall be
eternal in my heart!"

Having thus dismissed his troops on their way, Buonaparte himself
travelled rapidly to Erfurt, where he had invited the Emperor Alexander
to confer with him. It was most needful that before he went to Spain
himself, he should ascertain the safety of his empire on the other side;
and there was much in the state of Germany that might well give rise to
serious apprehensions. Austria was strengthening her military
establishment to a vast extent, and had, by a recent law, acquired the
means of drawing on her population unlimitedly, after the method of
Napoleon's own conscription code. She professed pacific intentions
towards France, and intimated that her preparations were designed for
the protection of her Turkish frontier; but the Emperor Francis
positively declined to acknowledge Joseph Buonaparte as King of Spain;
and this refusal was quite sufficient for Napoleon. In Prussia,
meantime, and indeed all over Germany, a spirit of deep and settled
enmity was manifesting itself in the shape of patriotic clubs (the chief
being called the _Tugend-bund_, or Alliance of Virtue), which included
the young and the daring of every class, and threatened, at no distant
period, to convulse the whole fabric of society with the one purpose of
clearing the national soil of its foreign oppressors. Napoleon affected
to deride, but secretly estimated at its true importance, the danger of
such associations, if permitted to take firm root among a people so
numerous, so enthusiastic, and so gallant. Lastly, there is every reason
to believe that, cordial as the Czar's friendship had seemed to be at
Tilsit, Buonaparte appreciated the unpopularity of his "continental
system" in Russia, and the power of the aristocracy there, far too
accurately, not to entertain some suspicion that Alexander himself might
be compelled to take the field against him, should England succeed in
persuading Austria and Germany to rise in arms during his own absence in
Spain. For these reasons he had requested the Czar's presence at Erfurt;
and this conference was apparently as satisfactory to either as that of
Tilsit had been. They addressed a joint letter to the King of England,
proposing once more a general peace; but as they both refused to
acknowledge any authority in Spain save that of King Joseph, the answer
was of course in the negative. Buonaparte, however, had obtained his
object when he thus exhibited the Czar and himself as firmly allied. He
perceived clearly that Austria was determined on another campaign; gave
orders for concentrating and increasing his own armies, accordingly,
both in Germany and Italy; and--trusting to the decision and rapidity of
his own movements, and the comparative slowness of his ancient
enemy--dared to judge that he might still bring matters to an issue in
Spain, before his presence should be absolutely necessary beyond the
Rhine.

On the 14th of October the conferences of Erfurt terminated; on the 24th
Napoleon was present at the opening of the Legislative Session in Paris;
two days after he left that capital, and reached Bayonne on the 3rd of
November, where he remained, directing the movements of the last columns
of his advancing army, until the morning of the 8th. He arrived at
Vittoria the same evening: the civil and military authorities met him at
the gates of the town, and would have conducted him to a house prepared
for his reception, but he leapt from his horse, entered the first inn
that he observed, and calling for maps and a detailed report of the
position of all the armies, French and Spanish, proceeded instantly to
draw up his plan for the prosecution of the war. Within two hours he had
completed his task. Soult, who had accompanied him from Paris, and whom
he ordered to take the command of Bessieres' corps, set off on the
instant, reached Briviesca, where its headquarters were, at daybreak on
the 9th, and within a few hours the whole machinery was once more in
motion.

Napoleon had, early in October, signified to Joseph that the French
cause in Spain, would always be favoured by acting on the offensive, and
his disapproval of the extent to which the King had retreated had not
been heard in vain. General Blake's army had already been brought to
action, and defeated disastrously by Moncey, at Espinosa; from which
point Blake had most injudiciously retreated towards Reynosa, instead
of Burgos, where another army, meant to support his right, had assembled
under the orders of the Count de Belvedere.

Soult now poured down his columns on the plains of Burgos. Belvedere was
defeated by him at Gomenal even more easily than Blake had been at
Espinosa. The latter, again defeated by the indefatigable Soult, at
Reynosa, was obliged to take refuge, with what hardly could be called
even the skeleton of an army, in the seaport of St. Ander. Thus the
whole of the Spanish left was dissipated; and the French right remained
at liberty to march onwards at their pleasure.

Palafox meanwhile had effected at length a junction with Castaños; and
the combined Spanish armies of the centre and the east awaited the
French attack, on the 22nd of November, at Tudela. The disaster here was
still more complete. Castaños and Palafox separated in the moment of
overthrow; the former escaping to Calatayud with the wreck of his
troops, while the latter made his way once more to Zaragossa.

Napoleon now saw the main way to Madrid open before him--except that
some forces were said to be posted at the strong defile of the
Somosierra, within ten miles of the capital; while Soult, continuing his
march by Carrion and Valladolid, could at once keep in check the
English, in case they were still so daring as to advance from Portugal,
and outflank the Somosierra, in case the mountains should be so defended
as to bar the Emperor's approach in that direction to Madrid. Palafox
was pursued, and soon shut up in Zaragossa by Lannes. That heroic city
on the east, the British army on the west, and Madrid in front, were the
only far-separated points on which any show of opposition was still to
be traced--from the frontiers of France to those of Portugal, from the
sea coast to the Tagus.

Napoleon, with his guards and the first division, marched towards
Madrid. His vanguard reached the foot of the Somosierra chain on the
30th of November, and found that a corps of 12,000 men had been
assembled for the defence of the pass, under General St. Juan. No
stronger position could well be fancied than that of the Spaniards: the
defile was narrow, and excessively steep, and the road completely swept
by sixteen pieces of artillery. At daybreak, on the 1st of December, the
French began their attempt to turn the flanks of St. Juan: three
battalions scattered themselves over the opposite sides of the defile,
and a warm skirmishing fire had begun. At this moment Buonaparte came
up. He rode into the mouth of the pass, surveyed the scene for an
instant, perceived that his infantry were making no progress, and at
once conceived the daring idea of causing his Polish lancers to charge
right up the causeway in face of the battery. The smoke of the
skirmishers on the hill-sides mingled with the thick fogs and vapours of
the morning, and under this veil the brave Krazinski led his troopers
impetuously up the ascent. The Spanish infantry fired as they passed
them, threw down their arms, abandoned their entrenchments, and fled.
The Poles speared the gunners, and took possession of the cannon. The
Spaniards continued their flight in such disorder that they were at last
fain to quit the road to Madrid, and escape in the direction, some of
Segovia, others of Talaveyra. On the morning of the 2nd, three divisions
of French cavalry made their appearance on the high ground to the
north-west of the capital.

During eight days the inhabitants had been preparing the means of
resistance. A local and military junta had been invested with authority
to conduct the defence. Six thousand regular troops were in the town,
and crowds of the citizens and of the peasantry of the adjoining country
were in arms along with them. The pavement had been taken up, the
streets barricadoed, the houses on the outskirts loopholed, and the
Retiro, a large but weak edifice, occupied by a strong garrison.
Terrible violence prevailed--many persons suspected of adhering to the
side of the French were assassinated; the bells of churches and convents
rung incessantly; ferocious bands paraded the streets day and night: and
at the moment when the enemy's cavalry appeared, the universal uproar
seemed to announce that he was about to find a new and a greater
Zaragossa in Madrid.

The town was summoned at noon; and the officer employed would have been
massacred by the mob but for the interference of the Spanish regulars.
Napoleon waited until his infantry and artillery came up in the evening,
and then the place was invested on one side. "The night was clear and
bright" (says Napier); "the French camp was silent and watchful; but the
noise of tumult was heard from every quarter of the city, as if some
mighty beast was struggling and howling in the toils." At midnight the
city was again summoned; and the answer being still defiance, the
batteries began to open. In the course of the day the Retiro was
stormed, and the immense palace of the Dukes of Medina Celi, which
commands one side of the town, seized also. Terror now began to prevail
within; and shortly after the city was summoned, for the third time, Don
Thomas Morla, the governor, came out to demand a suspension of arms.
Napoleon received him with anger, and rebuked him for the violation of
the capitulation at Baylen. "Injustice and bad faith," said he, "always
recoil on those who are guilty of them." Many an honester Spaniard was
obliged to listen in silence to such words from the negotiator of
Fontainebleau and Bayonne.

Morla was a coward, and there is no doubt a traitor also. On returning
to the town he urged the necessity of instantly capitulating; and most
of those in authority took a similar part, except Castellas, the
commander of the regular troops. The peasantry and citizens kept firing
on the French outposts during the night; but Castellas, perceiving that
the civil rulers were all against further resistance, withdrew his
troops and sixteen cannon in safety. At eight in the morning of the 4th,
Madrid surrendered. The Spaniards were disarmed, and the town filled
with the French army. Napoleon took up his residence at Chamartin, a
country house four miles off. In a few days tranquillity seemed
completely re-established. The French soldiery observed excellent
discipline: the shops were re-opened, and the theatres frequented as
usual. Such is in most cases the enthusiasm of a great city!

Napoleon now exercised all the rights of a conqueror. He issued edicts
abolishing the Inquisition, all feudal rights, and all particular
jurisdictions; regulating the number of monks; increasing, at the
expense of the monastic establishments, the stipends of the parochial
clergy; and proclaiming a general amnesty, with only _ten_ exceptions.
He received a deputation of the chief inhabitants, who came to signify
their desire to see Joseph among them again. His answer was, that Spain
was his own by right of conquest; that he could easily rule it by
viceroys; but that if they chose to assemble in their churches, priests
and people, and swear allegiance to Joseph, he was not indisposed to
listen to their request.

This was a secondary matter: meantime the Emperor was making his
dispositions for the completion of his conquest. His plan was to invade
forthwith Andalusia, Valencia and Galicia, by his lieutenants, and to
march in person to Lisbon. Nor was this vast plan beyond his means; for
he had at that moment 255,000 men, 50,000 horses, and 100 pieces of
field artillery, actually ready for immediate service in Spain: while
80,000 men and 100 cannon, besides, were in reserve, all on the south
side of the Pyrenees. To oppose this gigantic force there were a few
poor defeated corps of Spaniards, widely separated from each other, and
flying already before mere detachments: Seville, whose local junta had
once more assumed the nominal sovereignty, and guarded in front by a
feeble corps in the Sierra Morena; Valencia, without a regular garrison;
Zaragossa, closely invested, and resisting once more with heroic
determination; and the British army under Sir John Moore. The moment
Napoleon was informed that Moore had advanced into Spain, he abandoned
every other consideration, and resolved in person to march and overwhelm
him.

The English general had, as we have already seen, been prevented by
circumstances over which he could have no control, from commencing his
campaign so early as he desired, and as the situation of the Spanish
armies, whom he was meant to support, demanded. At length, however, he
put his troops, 20,000 in number, into motion, and advanced in the
direction of Salamanca; while a separate British corps of 13,000, under
Sir David Baird, recently landed at Coruña, had orders to march through
Galicia, and effect a junction with Moore either at Salamanca or
Valladolid. The object of the British was of course to support the
Spanish armies of Blake and Belvedere in their defence: but owing to the
delays and blundering intelligence already alluded to, these armies were
in a hopeless condition before Sir John Moore's march began.

The news of the decisive defeat of Castaños, at Tudela, satisfied Moore
that the original purpose of his march was now out of the question; but,
having at length effected a junction with Baird, he felt extreme
unwillingness to retreat without attempting something. He continued to
receive from Madrid the most solemn assurances that the resistance of
the capital would be desperate: and, with more generosity than prudence,
resolved to attack Soult, then posted behind the Carrion. In doing so he
fancied it possible that he should defeat an important branch of the
enemy's force, intercept the communications of the Emperor's left flank,
give Romana time to re-organise an army in Galicia, create a formidable
diversion in favour of the south of Spain, if not of Madrid--and, at
worst, secure for himself a safe retreat upon Coruña; from which port
his troops might be sent round without difficulty to Seville, to take
part in the defence of that part of the Peninsula which was yet unbroken
and the seat of the actual government.

But Buonaparte, hearing on the 20th of December of the advance of Moore,
instantly put himself at the head of 50,000 men, and marched with
incredible rapidity, with the view of intercepting his communications
with Portugal, and in short hemming him in between himself and Soult.
Moore no sooner heard that Napoleon was approaching, than he perceived
the necessity of an immediate retreat; and he commenced accordingly a
most calamitous one through the naked mountains of Galicia, in which his
troops maintained their character for bravery, rallying with zeal
whenever the French threatened their rear, but displayed a lamentable
want of discipline in all other part of their conduct. The weather was
tempestuous; the roads miserable; the commissariat utterly defective;
and the very notion of retreat broke the high spirits of the soldiery.
They ill-treated the inhabitants, drank whatever strong liquors they
could obtain, straggled from their ranks, and in short lost the
appearance of an army except when the trumpet warned them that they
might expect the French charge. Soult hung close on their rear until
they reached Coruña; and Moore perceived that it would be impossible to
embark without either a convention or a battle. He chose the braver
alternative. The French were repelled gallantly; and the British were
permitted to embark without further molestation. In the moment of
victory (January 16, 1809) Sir John Moore fell, mortally wounded by a
cannon-shot: his men buried him in his cloak; and the French, in
testimony of their admiration of his gallantry, erected a monument over
his remains.

Napoleon came up with the troops in pursuit of Moore at Benevente, on
the 29th of December, and enjoyed for a moment the spectacle of an
English army in full retreat. He saw that Moore was no longer worthy of
his own attention, and entrusted the consummation of his ruin to Soult.

It excited universal surprise that the Emperor did not immediately
return from Benevente to Madrid, to complete and consolidate his Spanish
conquest. He, however, proceeded, not towards Madrid, but Paris; and
this with his utmost speed,--riding on post-horses, on one occasion, not
less than seventy-five English miles in five hours and a half. The cause
of this sudden change of purpose, and extraordinary haste, was a
sufficient one; and it ere long transpired.




CHAPTER XXVI

     Austria declares War--Napoleon heads his army in Germany--Battles
     of Landshut and Eckmuhl--Ratisbonne taken--Napoleon in
     Vienna--Hostilities in Italy, Hungary, Poland, the North of
     Germany, and the Tyrol--Battle of Raab--Battle of Wagram--Armistice
     with Austria.... Progress of the War in the Peninsula, Battle of
     Talaveyra--Battle of Ocaña--English Expedition to Walcheren....
     Seizure of Rome and arrest of the Pope.... Treaty of Schoenbrunn.


Napoleon had foreseen that Austria, hardly dissembling her aversion to
the "continental system," and openly refusing to acknowledge Joseph as
King of Spain, would avail herself of the insurrection of that country,
necessarily followed by the march of a great French army across the
Pyrenees, as affording a favourable opportunity for once more taking
arms, in the hope of recovering what she had lost in the campaign of
Austerlitz. His minister, Talleyrand, had, during his absence, made
every effort to conciliate the Emperor Francis; but the warlike
preparations throughout the Austrian dominions proceeded with increasing
vigour--and Napoleon received such intelligence ere he witnessed the
retreat of Moore, that he immediately countermanded the march of such of
his troops as had not yet reached the Pyrenees,--wrote (from Valladolid)
to the princes of the Rhenish league, ordering them to hold their
contingents in readiness--and travelled to Paris with extraordinary
haste. He reached his capital on the 22nd of January; renewed the
negotiations with Vienna; and, in the meantime, recruited and
concentrated his armies on the German side--thus adjourning, and as it
turned out for ever, the completion of the Spanish conquest.

On the 6th of April, Austria declared war; and on the 9th, the Archduke
Charles, Generalissimo of armies which are said to have been recruited,
at this period, to the amount of nearly 500,000 men, crossed the Inn at
the head of six corps, each consisting of 30,000; while the Archduke
John marched with two other divisions towards Italy, by the way of
Carinthia; and the Archduke Ferdinand assumed the command of a ninth
corps in Galicia, to make head against Russia, in case that power should
be forced or tempted by Napoleon to take part in the struggle. Napoleon,
having so great an army in Spain, could not hope to oppose numbers such
as these to the Austrians; but he trusted to the rapid combinations
which had so often enabled him to baffle the same enemy; and the instant
he ascertained that Bavaria was invaded by the Archduke Charles, he
proceeded, without guards, without equipage, accompanied solely by the
faithful Josephine, to Frankfort, and thence to Strasbourg. He assumed
the command on the 13th, and immediately formed the plan of his
campaign.

He found the two wings of his army, the one under Massena, the other
under Davoust, at such a distance from the centre that, if the Austrians
had seized the opportunity, the consequences might have been fatal. On
the 17th of April, he commanded Davoust and Massena to march
simultaneously towards a position in front, and then pushed forward the
centre, in person, to the same point. The Archduke Lewis, who commanded
two Austrian divisions in advance, was thus hemmed in unexpectedly by
three armies, moving at once from three different points; defeated and
driven back, at Abensberg, on the 20th; and utterly routed, at Landshut,
on the 21st. Here the Archduke lost 9000 men, thirty guns, and all his
stores.

Next day Buonaparte executed a variety of movements, considered as among
the most admirable displays of his science, by means of which he brought
his whole force, by different routes, at one and the same moment upon
the position of the Archduke Charles. That prince was strongly posted at
Eckmuhl, with full 100,000 men. Napoleon charged him at two in the
afternoon; the battle was stern and lasted till nightfall, but it ended
in a complete overthrow. The Austrians, besides their loss in the field,
left in Napoleon's hands 20,000 prisoners, fifteen colours, and the
greater part of their artillery; and retreated in utter disorder upon
Ratisbonne. The Archduke made an attempt to rally his troops and defend
that city, on the 23rd; but the French stormed the walls and drove the
Austrians through the streets: and their general immediately retreated
into Bohemia: thus; in effect, abandoning Vienna to the mercy of his
conqueror.

Napoleon was wounded in the foot during the storming of Ratisbonne, and
for a moment the troops crowded round him in great alarm; but he
scarcely waited to have his wound dressed, threw himself again on
horseback, and restored confidence by riding along the lines.

Thus, in five days, in spite of inferiority of numbers, and of the
unfavourable manner in which his lieutenants had distributed an inferior
force, by the sole energy of his genius did the Emperor triumph over the
main force of his opponent.

He reviewed his army on the 24th, distributing rewards of all sorts with
a lavish hand, and, among others, bestowing the title of Duke of Eckmuhl
on Davoust; and forthwith commenced his march upon Vienna. The corps
defeated at Landshut had retreated in that direction, and being
considerably recruited, made some show of obstructing his progress; but
they were defeated again and totally broken at Ehrensberg, on the 3rd of
May, by Massena, and on the 9th Napoleon appeared before the walls of
the capital. The Emperor had already quitted it, with all his family,
except his daughter, the Archduchess Maria Louisa, who was confined to
her chamber by illness. The Archduke Maximilian, with the regular
garrison of 10,000 men, evacuated it on Napoleon's approach; and though
the inhabitants had prepared for a vigorous resistance, the bombardment
soon convinced them that it was hopeless. It perhaps deserves to be
mentioned, that on learning the situation of the sick princess,
Buonaparte instantly commanded that no fire should be directed towards
that part of the town. On the 10th a capitulation was signed, the French
troops took possession of the city, and Napoleon once more established
his headquarters in the imperial palace of Schoenbrunn.

In the meantime, the Archduke Ferdinand had commenced the war in Poland,
and obtaining the advantage in several affairs, taken possession of
Warsaw; but the news of Eckmuhl recalled this division to the support of
the main army, under the Archduke Charles; and the Russian troops not
only retook Warsaw, but occupied the whole of the Austro-Polish
provinces. Alexander, however, showed no disposition to push the war
with vigour, or to advance into Germany for the support of Napoleon. In
Italy, in like manner, the Archduke John had at first been successful.
But after defeating Eugene Beauharnois, Napoleon's viceroy, and taking
possession of Padua and Vicenza, this prince also was summoned to
retrace his steps, in consequence of the catastrophe at Eckmuhl. Eugene
pursued him into Hungary, and defeated him in a great battle at Raab.
Colonel Schill, the Prussian partisan already mentioned, had availed
himself of the concentration of Napoleon's troops for the Austrian
campaign, to take up arms, though without any authority from his
sovereign, in the hope that the national resentment would burst out in
an universal insurrection; and the Duke of Brunswick, son to him who was
mortally wounded at Jena, had also appeared in Lusatia, and invited all
true Germans to imitate the heroic conduct of the Spaniards. These
occurrences threatened a general burst of war wherever the _Tugend-bund_
and other patriotic associations had for some time been strongly
influencing the popular mind. The battle of Eckmuhl, however, diffused
new awe all over the north of Germany. The troops of Saxony checked the
Duke of Brunswick's progress, and Schill's heroic band were at last shut
up in Stralsund, where their leader perished in a sortie; thus, and only
thus, escaping the vengeance of Napoleon.

Among the mountains of the Tyrol, the native zeal of a few hardy
peasants achieved more than all the mighty population of Germany. This
ancient province of the house of Austria had been, in sinful violation
of all the rights of mankind, transferred to the hated yoke of Bavaria,
by the treaty of Presburg. The mountaineers no sooner heard that their
rightful sovereign was once more in arms against Napoleon, than they
rose (early in April), under the guidance of Hofer, a gallant peasant,
seized the strong passes of their country, and, in the course of four
days, made every French and Bavarian soldier quartered among them a
prisoner,--with the exception of the garrison of the fortress of
Kufstein. Napoleon caused Lefebre to march into the country with his
division; but Hofer posted his followers on the edge of precipices, from
which they fired on the French columns with the skill of practised
marksmen, and rolled down torrents of stones with such effect, that
Lefebre was compelled to retreat. Austria, however, having enough of
work at home, could not afford to sustain the efforts of these heroic
peasants by any detachment of regular troops. On the retirement of
Lefebre, they issued from their hills and wasted the neighbouring
territory of Bavaria; but the general issue of the campaign left them at
the mercy of Napoleon, who suppressed the insurrection, finally, by
overwhelming numbers, and avenged it by massacring Hofer and all who had
taken a prominent part in the cause of freedom.

These popular movements, however, could not be regarded with
indifference by him who had witnessed and appreciated the character of
the Spanish insurrection. Napoleon well knew, that unless he concluded
the main contest soon, the spirit of Schill and Hofer would kindle a
general flame from the Rhine to the Elbe; and he therefore desired
fervently that the Austrian generalissimo might be tempted to quit the
fastnesses of Bohemia, and try once more the fortune of a battle.

The Archduke, having re-established the order and recruited the numbers
of his army, had anticipated these wishes of his enemy, and was already
posted on the opposite bank of the Danube, which river, being greatly
swollen, and all the bridges destroyed, seemed to divide the two camps,
as by an impassable barrier.

Napoleon determined to pass it; and after an unsuccessful attempt at
Nussdorff, met with better fortune at Ebersdorff, where the river is
broad and intersected by a number of low and woody islands, the largest
of which bears the name of Lobau. On these islands Napoleon established
the greater part of his army, on the 19th of May, and on the following
day made good his passage, by means of a bridge of boats, to the left
bank of the Danube; where he took possession of the villages of Asperne
and Essling, with so little show of opposition, that it became evident
the Archduke wished the inevitable battle to take place with the river
between his enemy and Vienna.

On the 21st, at daybreak, the Archduke appeared on a rising ground,
separated from the French position by an extensive plain; his whole
force divided into five heavy columns, and protected by not less than
200 pieces of artillery. The battle began at four p.m., with a furious
assault on the village of Asperne; which was taken and retaken several
times, and remained at nightfall in the occupation, partly of the
French, and partly of the assailants, who had established themselves in
the church and churchyard. Essling sustained three attacks also; but
there the French remained in complete possession. Night interrupted the
action; the Austrians exulting in their partial success; Napoleon
surprised that he should not have been wholly victorious. On either side
the carnage had been terrible, and the pathways of the villages were
literally choked with the dead.

Next morning the battle recommenced with equal fury; the French
recovered the church of Asperne; but the Austrian right wing renewed
their assaults on that point with more and more vigour, and in such
numbers, that Napoleon guessed the centre and left had been weakened for
the purpose of strengthening the right. Upon this he instantly moved
such masses, _en échelon_, on the Austrian centre, that the Archduke's
line was shaken; and for a moment it seemed as if victory was secure.

At this critical moment, by means of Austrian fireships suddenly sent
down the swollen and rapid river, the bridge connecting the island of
Lobau with the right bank was wholly swept away. Buonaparte perceived
that if he wished to preserve his communications with the right of the
Danube, where his reserve still lay, he must instantly fall back on
Lobau; and no sooner did his troops commence their backward movement,
than the Austrians recovered their order and zeal, charged in turn and
finally made themselves masters of Asperne. Essling, where Massena
commanded, held firm, and under the protection of that village and
numerous batteries erected near it, Napoleon succeeded in withdrawing
his whole force during the night. On the morning of the 23rd the French
were cooped up in Lobau and the adjacant islands--Asperne, Essling, the
whole left bank of the river, remaining in the possession of the
Austrians. On either side a great victory was claimed; and with equal
injustice. But the situation of the French Emperor was imminently
hazardous: he was separated from Davoust and his reserve; and had the
enemy either attacked him in the islands, or passed the river higher up,
and so overwhelmed Davoust and relieved Vienna, the results might have
been fatal. But the Archduke's loss in these two days had been great;
and, in place of risking any offensive movement, he contented himself
with strengthening the position of Asperne and Essling, and awaiting
quietly the moment when his enemy should choose to attempt once more
the passage to the left bank, and the re-occupation of these hardly
contested villages.

Napoleon availed himself of this pause with his usual skill. That he had
been checked was true, and that the news would be heard with enthusiasm
through Germany he well knew. It was necessary to revive the tarnished
magic of his name by another decisive battle: and he made every exertion
to prepare for it. Some weeks, however, elapsed ere he ventured to
resume the offensive. On the 4th of July he had at last re-established
thoroughly his communication with the right bank, and arranged the means
of passing to the left at a point where the Archduke had made hardly any
preparation for receiving him. The Austrians, having rashly calculated
that Asperne and Essling must needs be the objects of the next contest
as of the preceding, were taken almost unawares by his appearance in
another quarter. They changed their line on the instant; and occupied a
position, the centre and key of which was the little town of Wagram.

Here, on the 6th of July, the final and decisive battle was fought. The
Archduke had extended his line over too wide a space; and this old error
enabled Napoleon to ruin him by his old device of pouring the full shock
of his strength on the centre. The action was long and bloody: at its
close there remained 20,000 prisoners, besides all the artillery and
baggage, in the hands of Napoleon. The Archduke fled in great confusion
as far as Znaim, in Moravia. The Imperial Council perceived that further
resistance was vain: an armistice was agreed to at Znaim; and Napoleon,
returning to Schoenbrunn, continued occupied with the negotiation until
October.

In this fierce campaign none more distinguished himself than Lannes,
Duke of Montebello. At Ratisbonne he headed in person the storming
party, exclaiming, "Soldiers, your general has not forgotten that he was
once a grenadier." At the battle of Asperne his exertions were
extraordinary. He was struck, towards the close of the day, by a
cannon-shot, which carried off both his legs. The surgeons, on examining
the wound, declared it mortal. He answered them with angry imprecations,
and called with frantic vehemence for the Emperor. Napoleon came up, and
witnessed the agonies of the dying marshal, who blasphemed heaven and
earth that he should be denied to see the end of the campaign. Thus
fell Lannes, whom, for his romantic valour, the French soldiery
delighted to call the Roland of the camp.

The war, meanwhile, had been pursued with mixed fortune in the
Peninsula. Zaragossa, after sustaining another siege with fortitude not
unworthy of the first, was at length compelled to surrender in the month
of February. Sir Arthur Wellesley, being restored to the command of the
British army in Portugal, landed at Lisbon on the 22nd of April, and
immediately marched upon Oporto, which Soult had occupied early in the
year. Soult was defeated under the walls of the town, and forthwith
began his retreat towards Galicia, which he effected under circumstances
as miserable as had attended Sir John Moore's march on Coruña in the
preceding campaign. Sir Arthur was prevented from urging the pursuit of
Soult by the intelligence that Marshal Victor was laying Andalusia
waste, being opposed only by Cuesta, a bigoted old general, and an army
which had lost heart by repeated disasters. The English leader perceived
that if he marched into Galicia, Victor must possess the means of
instantly re-occupying Portugal; and resolved, in place of following
Soult, to advance towards this more formidable enemy. He effected a
junction with Cuesta at Oropesa, on the 20th of July, and marched along
the Tagus towards the position of Victor. He, however, having a force at
least double that of Wellesley, assumed the offensive, and attacked the
allies, on the 28th, at Talaveyra de la Reyna. The battle ended in the
total defeat and repulsion of Victor; but Wellesley found it impossible
to advance further into Spain, because Ney, Soult and Mortier were
assembling their divisions, with the view of coming between him and
Portugal. The English retired, therefore, to Badajos, and thence to the
Portuguese frontier.

On the eastern side of the Peninsula, Blake, advancing with the view of
recovering Zaragossa, was met on the 19th of June by Marshal Suchet,
Duke of Albufera, and totally routed. The central Spanish army, under
Ariezaga, attempted, with equal ill-fortune, to relieve Madrid. King
Joseph, accompanied by Soult, Victor, and Mortier, met them at Ocaña on
the 19th November, and broke them utterly. In December Girona
surrendered to Augereau; and the intrusive King appeared to be in
possession of far the greater part of Spain. But his command extended
no further than the actual presence of his brother's legions. Wherever
they were posted, all was submission; beyond their lines the country
remained as hostile as ever. The soldiery of the defeated armies
dispersed themselves in small bands, watching every opportunity to
surprise detachments and cut off supplies; and, in spite of all their
victories, the situation of the invaders became every hour more
embarrassing. In Portugal, meanwhile, the English general (created Lord
Wellington after the battle of Talaveyra) was gradually organising a
native force not unworthy of acting under his banners; and on that side
it was obvious that, unless Napoleon made some extraordinary exertions,
the French cause was wholly undone.

Portugal was safe; and the character of the British army had been raised
by another splendid victory in Spain; but these were trivial advantages
compared with what Lord Wellington might have achieved, had his
government placed him, as they could easily have done, at the head of an
army of 80,000 or 100,000 men, while Napoleon was occupied with the
campaign of Essling and Wagram. Instead of strengthening Wellington's
hands in an efficient manner, the English cabinet sent 40,000 troops,
under the command of the Earl of Chatham, an indolent or incompetent
general, to seize the isle of Walcheren, and destroy the shipping and
works at the mouth of the Scheld; nor was this ill-judged expedition
despatched from Britain until the first of August, three weeks after the
decisive battle of Wagram had been fought and won. Lord Chatham took
Flushing, and fixed his headquarters at Middleburg; but Bernadotte
(Prince of Ponte Corvo) put Antwerp into such a state of defence that
the plan of besieging that city was, ere long, abandoned. A pestilence,
meantime, raged among the marches of Walcheren; the English soldiers
were dying by thousands. The news of the armistice of Znaim arrived; and
Lord Chatham abandoned his conquests. A mere skeleton of his army
returned to their own country, from the most disastrous expedition which
England had undertaken since that of Carthagena, seventy years before.

The announcement of the armistice with Austria put an end, in effect, to
all hostile demonstrations on the continent, the Peninsula alone
excepted. The brave Schill (as has already been said) was happy enough
to fall in the field: his followers, being at last compelled to
surrender at Stralsund, were treated as rebels, and died with the
constancy of patriots. The Duke of Brunswick, who had by this time
obtained considerable successes in Franconia, found himself abandoned,
in like manner, to the undivided strength of Napoleon. At the head of a
few regiments, whose black uniform announced their devotion to the one
purpose of avenging their former sovereign, the Duke succeeded in
cutting his way to the Baltic, where some English vessels received him.
Germany, in apparent tranquillity, awaited the result of the
negotiations of Vienna.

Napoleon, a few days after he returned from Moravia to Schoenbrunn,
escaped narrowly the dagger of a young man, who rushed upon him in the
midst of all his staff, at a grand review of the Imperial Guard.
Berthier and Rapp threw themselves upon him, and disarmed him at the
moment when his knife was about to enter the Emperor's body. Napoleon
demanded what motive had actuated the assassin. "What injury," said he,
"have I done to you?" "To me, personally, none," answered the youth,
"but you are the oppressor of my country, the tyrant of the world; and
to have put you to death would have been the highest glory of a man of
honour." This enthusiastic youth, by name Stabbs, son of a clergyman of
Erfurt, was, justly--no doubt--condemned to death, and he suffered with
the calmness of a martyr.

Buonaparte led at Schoenbrunn nearly the same course of life to which he
was accustomed at the Tuileries; seldom appearing in public; occupied
incessantly with his ministers and generals. The length to which the
negotiations with Austria were protracted excited much wonder; but he
had other business on hand besides his treaty with the Emperor Francis,
and that treaty had taken a very unexpected shape.

It was during his residence at Schoenbrunn that a quarrel, of no short
standing, with the Pope reached its crisis. The very language of the
Consular Concordat sufficiently indicated the reluctance and pain with
which the head of the Romish church acquiesced in the arrangements
devised by Buonaparte, for the ecclesiastical settlement of France; and
the subsequent course of events, but especially in Italy and in Spain,
could hardly fail to aggravate those unpleasant feelings. In Spain and
in Portugal, the resistance to French treachery and violence was mainly
conducted by the priesthood; and the Pope could not contemplate their
exertions without sympathy and favour. In Italy, meantime, the French
Emperor had made himself master of Naples, and of all the territories
lying to the north of the papal states; in a word, the whole of the
peninsula was his, excepting only that, narrow central stripe which
still acknowledged the temporal sovereignty of the Roman Pontiff. This
state of things was necessarily followed by incessant efforts on the
part of Napoleon to procure from the Pope a hearty acquiescence in the
system of the Berlin and Milan decrees; and thus far he at length
prevailed. But when he went on to demand that his holiness should take
an active part in the war against England, he was met by a steady
refusal. Irritated by this opposition, and, perhaps, still more by his
suspicion that the patriots of the Spanish Peninsula received secret
support from the Vatican, Buonaparte did not hesitate to issue a decree
in the following words: "Whereas the temporal sovereign of Rome has
refused to make war against England, and the interests of the two
kingdoms of Italy and Naples ought not to be intercepted by a hostile
power; and whereas the donation of Charlemagne, _our illustrious
predecessor_, of the countries which form the Holy See, was for the good
of _Christianity_, and not for that of the _enemies of our holy
religion_, we, therefore, decree that the duchies of Urbino, Ancona,
Macerata, and Camarino, be for ever united to the kingdom of Italy."

The seaports of the papal territory were forthwith occupied by French
troops, but Pius remained for some time in undisturbed possession of
Rome itself. On his return from Spain, however, Napoleon determined to
complete his work in Italy, ere he should begin the inevitable campaign
with Austria. General Miollis, therefore, took military possession of
Rome in February, 1809; the Pope, however, still remaining in the
Vatican, and attended there as usual by his own guards.

On the 17th of May, Napoleon issued, from Vienna, his final decree
declaring the temporal sovereignty of the Pope to be wholly at an end,
incorporating Rome with the French empire, and declaring it to be _his_
second city; settling a pension on the holy father in his spiritual
capacity--and appointing a committee of administration for the civil
government of Rome. The Pope, on receiving the Parisian
senatus-consultum, ratifying this imperial rescript, instantly
fulminated a bull of excommunication against Napoleon. Shortly after
some unauthentic news from Germany inspired new hopes into the adherents
of the Pontiff; and, disturbances breaking out, Miollis, on pretence
that a life sacred in the eyes of all Christians might be endangered,
arrested Pius in his palace at midnight, and forthwith despatched him
under a strong escort to Savona.

The intelligence of this decisive step reached Napoleon soon after the
battle of Wagram, and he was inclined to disapprove of the conduct of
Miollis as too precipitate. It was now, however, impossible to recede;
the Pope was ordered to be conveyed across the Alps to Grenoble. But his
reception there was more reverential than Napoleon had anticipated, and
he was soon reconducted to Savona.

This business would, in any other period, have been sufficient to set
all Catholic Europe in a flame; and even now Buonaparte well knew that
his conduct could not fail to nourish and support the feelings arrayed
against him openly in Spain and in Southern Germany, and suppressed, not
extinguished, in the breasts of a great party of the French clergy at
home. He made, therefore, many efforts to procure from the Pope some
formal relinquishment of his temporal claims--but Pius VII. remained
unshaken; and the negotiation at length terminated in the removal of His
Holiness to Fontainebleau, where he continued a prisoner, though treated
personally with respect, and even magnificence, during more than three
years:--until, in the general darkening of his own fortunes, the
imperial jailer was compelled to adopt another line of conduct.

The treaty with Austria was at last signed at Schoenbrunn on the 14th of
October. The Emperor Francis purchased peace by the cession of Salzburg,
and a part of Upper Austria, to the Confederation of the Rhine; of part
of Bohemia to the King of Saxony, and of Cracow and western Galicia to
the same Prince, as Grand Duke of Warsaw; of part of eastern Galicia to
the Czar; and to France herself, of Trieste, Carniola, Fruili, Villach,
and some part of Croatia and Dalmatia. By this act, Austria gave up in
all territory to the amount of 45,000 square miles, with a population of
nearly four millions; and Napoleon, besides gratifying his vassals and
allies, had completed the connection of the kingdom of Italy with his
Illyrian possessions, obtained the whole coasts of the Adriatic, and
deprived Austria of her last seaport. Yet, when compared with the signal
triumphs of the campaign of Wagram, the terms on which the conqueror
signed the peace were universally looked upon as remarkable for
moderation; and he claimed merit with the Emperor of Russia on the score
of having spared Austria in deference to his personal intercession.

Buonaparte quitted Vienna on the 16th of October; was congratulated by
the public bodies of Paris, on the 14th of November, as "the greatest of
heroes, who never achieved victories but for the happiness of the
world"; and soon after, by one of the most extraordinary steps of his
personal history, furnished abundant explanation of the motives which
had guided his diplomacy at Schoenbrunn.




CHAPTER XXVII

     Napoleon divorces Josephine--Marries the Archduchess Maria
     Louisa--Deposes Louis Buonaparte--Annexes Holland and the whole
     Coast of Germany to France--Revolution in Sweden--Bernadotte
     elected Crown Prince of Sweden--Progress of the War in the
     Peninsula--Battle of Busaco--Lord Wellington retreats to the Lines
     of Torres Vedras.


The treacherous invasion of Spain, and the imprisonment of the Pope,
were but the first of a series of grand political errors, destined to
sap the foundations of this apparently irresistible power. On his return
to Paris, Napoleon proudly proclaimed to his senate, that no enemy
opposed him throughout the continent of Europe--except only a few
fugitive-bands of Spanish rebels, and "the English leopard"[60] in
Portugal, whom ere long he would cause to be chased into the sea. In the
meantime, the Pensinula was too insignificant an object to demand either
his own presence, or much of their concern: the general welfare of the
empire called on them to fix their attention on a subject of a very
different nature; namely, the situation of the imperial family. "I and
my house," said Napoleon, "will ever be found ready to sacrifice
everything, even our own dearest ties and feeling, to the welfare of the
French people."

This was the first public intimation of a measure which had for a
considerable period occupied much of Napoleon's thoughts, and which,
regarded at the time (almost universally) as the very master-stroke of
his policy, proved in the issue no mean element of his ruin.

Josephine had loved Napoleon, and been beloved passionately by him in
his youth. She had shared his humbler fortune; by her connections in
Paris, and especially by her skilful conduct during his Egyptian
expedition, and immediately afterwards, she had most materially assisted
him in the attainment of the sovereign dignity: she had subsequently
adorned his court, and gratified his pride, by the elegance of her
manners, and won to herself the attachment of his people, by her sincere
good nature and active benevolence. Her power over him was known to be
great, and no one ever doubted but that it had uniformly been exerted on
the side of mercy. She was considered as the good angel who, more
frequently and effectually than any influence besides, interfered to
soothe the fierce passions and temper the violent acts of her lord. Her
devotion to him was perfect: she partook his labours as far as he would
permit her to do so, submitted to all his caprices, and, with a dark
presentiment that his ambition would one day cast her aside, continued
to centre the whole of her existence in the contemplation of his glory.

Long before Napoleon assumed the imperial title, his hopes of offspring
from this union were at an end; and, at least from the hour in which his
authority was declared to be hereditary, Josephine must have begun to
suspect that, in his case also, the ties of domestic life might be
sacrificed to those views of political advantage, which had so often
dissolved the marriages of princes. For a moment she seems to have
flattered herself that Napoleon would be contented to adopt her son: and
Eugene, as we have seen, was indeed announced, at the period of his
alliance with the royal family of Bavaria, as the successor to the
throne of Italy, in case his father-in-law should leave no second son to
inherit it. Louis Buonaparte afterwards wedded Hortense de Beauharnois,
and an infant son, the only pledge of their ill-assorted union, became
so much the favourite of Napoleon, that Josephine, as well as others,
regarded this boy as the heir of France. But the child died early; and
the Emperor began to familiarise himself with the idea of dissolving his
own marriage.

There is now no doubt that, as early as the conferences of Tilsit, the
scheme of such a connection with the imperial family of Russia was
broached; and as little that Alexander treated the proposal with
coldness, in consequence of the insuperable aversion with which the
empress-mother (a princess whose influence was always commanding)
persisted in regarding the character of Buonaparte. At Erfurt this
matter was once more touched upon; and a second rejection of his
personal alliance was probably the chief of not a few incidents at that
meeting, which satisfied Napoleon as to the uncertain condition of his
relations with the Russian court. Then, however, he had abundant reasons
for dissembling his displeasure: and the pretext of difficulties arising
from difference of religion was permitted to pass.

Fouché was one of the first to penetrate the secret thoughts of
Buonaparte: and he, with audacity equal to his cunning, ventured to take
on himself the dangerous office of sounding the Empress as to this most
delicate of all subjects. One evening, before Napoleon left Paris on his
unhallowed expedition to Spain, the minister of police drew Josephine
aside into a corner of her saloon, and, after a preface of abundant
commonplaces, touching the necessities of the empire and the painful
position of the Emperor, asked her in plain terms whether she were not
capable of sacrificing all private feelings to these? Josephine heard
him with at least the appearance of utter surprise, ordered him to quit
her presence, and went immediately to demand of Napoleon whether the
minister had had any authority for this proceeding. The Emperor answered
in the negative, and with high demonstrations of displeasure: but when
Josephine went on to ask the dismissal of Fouché, as the only fit
punishment for so great an outrage, he refused to comply. He remained
steadfast, in spite of the urgencies and lamentations of an insulted
woman; and from that hour Josephine must have felt that her fate was
fixed.

The apartments of Napoleon, and those of his wife, which were
immediately over them, at the Tuileries, had communication by means of a
private staircase; and it was the custom of the Emperor himself to
signify, by a tap on the door of Josephine's sitting-room, his desire to
converse with her in his cabinet below. In the days of their cordial
union the signal was often made, most commonly in the evening, and it
was not unusual for them to remain shut up together in conversation for
hours. Soon after his return from Schoenbrunn, the ladies in attendance
began to remark that the Emperor's knock was heard more frequently than
it had ever used to be, that their mistress seemed to listen for it at
certain hours with a new and painful anxiety, and that she did not obey
the signal with her accustomed alacrity. One evening Napoleon surprised
them by carrying Josephine into the midst of them, pale, apparently
lifeless. She was but awaking from a long swoon into which she had
fallen on hearing him at last pronounce the decree which terminated
their connection.

This was on the 5th of December. On the 15th the Emperor summoned his
council, and announced to them, that at the expense of all his personal
feelings, he, devoted wholly to the welfare of the state, had resolved
to separate himself from his most dear consort. Josephine then appeared
among them, and, not without tears, expressed her acquiescence in the
decree. The council, after haranguing the imperial spouses on the
nobleness of their mutual sacrifice, accepted and ratified the
dissolution of the marriage. The title of Empress was to continue with
Josephine for life, and a pension of two millions of francs (to which
Napoleon afterwards added a third million from his privy purse) was
allotted to her. She retired from the Tuileries, residing thenceforth
mostly at the villa of Malmaison; and in the course of a few weeks it
was signified that Napoleon had demanded the hand of the Archduchess
Maria Louisa, daughter to the Emperor Francis, the same youthful
princess who has been mentioned as remaining in Vienna, on account of
illness, during the second occupation of that capital.

Having given her hand, at Vienna, to Berthier, who had the honour to
represent the person of his master, the young archduchess came into
France in March, 1810. On the 28th, as her carriage was proceeding
towards Soissons, Napoleon rode up to it, in a plain dress, altogether
unattended; and, at once breaking through all the etiquettes of such
occasions, introduced himself to his bride. She had never seen his
person till then, and it is said that her first exclamation was, "Your
majesty's pictures have not done you justice." Buonaparte was at this
time forty years of age; his countenance had acquired a certain fulness,
and that statue-like calmness of expression with which posterity will
always be familiar; but his figure betrayed as yet nothing more than a
tendency towards corpulence. He was considered as a handsomer man at
this period than he had been in her earlier days. They spent the evening
at the chateau of Compiegne, and were remarried, on the 2nd of April, at
Paris, amidst every circumstance of splendour. Among other imperial
gallantries, Napoleon had provided a set of apartments at the Tuileries
in which, down to the minutest article of furniture, Maria-Louisa found
a facsimile of those which she had been accustomed to occupy in her
father's palace of Schoenbrunn. For some time he seemed to devote
himself, like a mere lover, to the society of his new partner; and was
really, according to his own account at St. Helena, enchanted with the
contrast which her youthful simplicity of character and manners
presented to the finished and elaborate graces of Josephine. Of the
uniform attachment and affection of both his wives, he spoke afterwards
with equal praises. But he in vain endeavoured to prevail on
Maria-Louisa to make a personal acquaintance with her predecessor; and,
at length, found it necessary to give up his own visits to Malmaison,
which for a time were not unfrequent.

Napoleon, in his exile, said that "the Spanish ulcer" and the Austrian
match were the two main causes of his ruin;--and they both contributed
to it largely, though by no means equally. His alliance with the
haughtiest of the old sovereign houses gave deep offence indeed to that
great party in France, who, though willing to submit to a Dictator,
still loathed the name of hereditary monarchy. Nothing, perhaps, could
have shocked those men more grievously than to see the victorious heir
and representative of their revolution seeking to mix his blood with
that of its inveterate enemies, and making himself free, as it were, of
what they had been accustomed to call the old-established "corporation
of tyrants." Another, and, it is to be hoped, as large a class of his
subjects, were disgusted with his abandonment of the wife of his youth,
for the sake of gratifying his vanity and ambition. There were also, we
may easily believe, not a few royalists of the old school who had
hitherto acquiesced in his sway the more easily, because he seemed
destined to die childless, and in a contest for the throne of France,
they flattered themselves the legitimate heir of the monarchy might
outweigh any of his remoter kindred. And, lastly, it is not improvable
that some of Napoleon's marshals had accustomed themselves to dream of
events such as occurred on the death of Alexander the Great. But making
all allowance for these exceptions, it is hardly possible to doubt that
a vast proportion of the upper classes of society in France must have
been disposed to hail the Emperor's alliance with the house of Austria,
as a pledge of his desire to adopt, henceforth, a more moderate line of
policy as to his foreign relations; or that his throne must have been
strengthened in the eyes of the nation at large by the prospect--soon
realised--of a son of his own blood to fill it after him. Napoleon's own
opinion was, that the error lay, not in seeking a bride of imperial
birth, but in choosing her at Vienna. Had he persisted in his demands,
the Czar, he doubted not, would have granted him his sister; the proud
dreams of Tilsit would have been realised, and Paris and St. Petersburg
become the only two capitals of Europe.

The Emperor's new marriage was speedily followed by another event, which
showed how little the ordinary ties and feelings of domestic life now
weighed with him in the scale against ambition. His brother Louis, a
weak, but benevolent man, had in vain been cautioned by Napoleon, on his
promotion to the Dutch throne, that, in his administration of this
subaltern monarchy, "the first object of his care must ever be _the
Emperor_, the second _France_, and the third _Holland_." Louis,
surrounded by native ministers, men of great talents and experience, and
enlightened lovers of their country, had his sympathies ere long
enlisted on the side of those whom he might be pardoned for wishing to
consider as really his subjects. His queen, on the other hand, the
daughter of Josephine, and the favourite of Napoleon, made her court, as
far as she could, a French one, and was popularly regarded as heading
the party who looked in all things to the Tuileries. The meek-spirited
Louis, thwarted by this intriguing woman, and grossly insulted by his
brother, struggled for some time with the difficulties of his situation;
but his patience availed nothing: his supposed connivance at the
violations of the Berlin and Milan decrees, in the same proportion as it
tended to raise him more and more in the affections of the Dutch, fixed
and heightened the displeasure of Napoleon. He was at length summoned to
Paris, and without a moment's hesitation obeyed. On arriving there he
took up his residence in the house of his mother, and next morning found
himself a prisoner. Having abdicated his throne, Louis retired to Gratz,
in Styria, and to that private mode of life for which his character
fitted him: his name continues to be affectionately remembered in
Holland. His beautiful wife, despite the fall of her mother, chose to
fix her residence in Paris, where she once more shone the brightest
ornament of the court. On the 9th of July, 1810, the kingdom of Holland
was formally annexed to the French empire; Amsterdam taking rank among
the cities next after Rome.

In pursuance of the same stern resolution to allow no consideration to
interfere with the complete and effectual establishment of the
"continental system," Buonaparte shortly afterwards annexed the Hanse
towns, Oldenburg, and the whole sea-coast of Germany, from the frontier
of Holland to that of Denmark, to the French empire. The King of Prussia
was as yet in no condition to remonstrate against this new act of
rapacity: opposition from any other German state was wholly out of the
question.

In truth there had been, for several years, but one power in the North
of Europe at once decidedly adverse in spirit, and in any degree
independent; and now, to all appearance, this last exception also was
removed. Gustavus IV., King of Sweden, had persisted in his original
hatred of the French Revolution, and of Buonaparte, in opposition to a
powerful party in that country, who considered the conduct of their
sovereign, in standing out against so gigantic an enemy, as mere
obstinacy--in fact as insane. In consequence of his pertinacious refusal
to submit to the supreme will of Napoleon, the Pomeranian provinces and
Finland had been lost to the kingdom. The monarch's personal behaviour
unfortunately was so extravagant as to furnish some grounds for
suspecting him of mental aberration. He was arrested in his palace, and,
an act of abdication for himself and his children being extorted,
deposed: his uncle, the Duke of Sudermania, was called to the throne in
his room, as Charles XIII.; and, amicable relations being soon
established between the Courts of Stockholm and the Tuileries, Pomerania
was restored, and the English flag and commerce banished from the ports
of Sweden in December, 1809.

In May, 1810, the Prince of Augustenburg, who had been recognised as
heir to Charles XIII., died suddenly: and the choice of a successor was,
according to the Constitution of Sweden, to depend on the vote of the
Diet, which assembled accordingly as Orebro, in the month of August
following.

The royal house (except the immediate line of the deposed king) being
extinct, many candidates were proposed; and among others the King of
Denmark and Norway, upon whom, in true policy, the choice should have
fallen, as in that case a state capable of balancing the power of Russia
on the Baltic might have been consolidated. But the eyes of men were
turned almost exclusively at this time to Napoleon; and in the hope of
securing his friendship and protection, the succession was at last
proposed to Marshal Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo, and
brother-in-law to Joseph Buonaparte, as married to that Mademoiselle
Clery, who in early days had received Napoleon's own addresses. The
Marshal had gained goodwill by his moderation and justice, when
entrusted with the government of Hanover and Swedish Pomerania, after
these countries fell into the hands of the French in consequence of the
campaign of 1806-7. His military reputation was high; there was no stain
on his private character: and there was one circumstance especially in
his favour, that he had been bred a Protestant, and might therefore be
expected to conform, without scruple, to the established church of
Sweden. But the chief recommendation was, without doubt, the belief of
the Swedish Diet that Bernadotte stood in the first rank of Napoleon's
favour.

Napoleon, however, had never forgiven Bernadotte for his refusal to act
on his side on the 18th Brumaire. He thenceforth considered this great
soldier of the Republic as one who might serve the Emperor well, because
in doing so he served France, but who looked to himself with none of
those feelings of personal devotion which could alone entitle a subject
to his favour. Bernadotte had been distinguished in the army before
Napoleon himself appeared on the great theatre of events; he could never
be classed with those who had earned all their distinction and
pre-eminence under the banners of the Emperor; he had an existence
separate and his own; he had stood aloof at the great and decisive
crisis of Napoleon's fate; he might be entrusted and employed
afterwards--he could never be loved. The proposal of the Diet,
therefore, was the reverse of agreeable to him whose favour it was
expressly designed to conciliate. Bernadotte, however, was powerful in
the esteem of a great party in the French army, as well as among the old
republicans of the state: to have interfered against him would have been
to kindle high wrath and hatred among all those officers who belonged
to the ante-Buonapartean period; and, on the other hand, to oppose the
free-will of the Swedes would have appeared extraordinary conduct indeed
on the part of a sovereign who studiously represented himself as owing
everything to the free-will of the French. Sweden, finally, was still an
independent state; and the events of the Peninsula were likely to
impress the Emperor with a lively sense of the dangers of exciting a
spirit of national aversion at the other extremity of Europe. Napoleon
consented to the acceptance of the proffered dignity by Bernadotte. The
Marshal was called on to sign a declaration, before he left Paris, that
he would never bear arms against France. He rejected this condition as
incompatible with the connexion which Napoleon himself had just
sanctioned him in forming with another state, and said he was sure the
suggestion came not from the Emperor, who knew what were the duties of a
sovereign, but from some lawyer. Napoleon frowned darkly, and answered
with an air of embarrassment, "Go; our destinies are about to be
fulfilled." Bernadotte said he had not heard his words distinctly:
Napoleon repeated them; and they parted. Bernadotte was received with an
enthusiastic welcome in Stockholm; and, notwithstanding the unpleasant
circumstances under which Napoleon had dismissed him, the French
alliance continued to be maintained. The private history of the
transaction was not likely to be divulged at the time; and the natural
as well as universal notion was, that Sweden, governed in effect by
Marshal Bernadotte as crown prince, had become almost as mere a
dependence of France as Naples under King Joachim Murat, or Westphalia
under King Jerome Buonaparte.

The war, meanwhile, continued without interruption in the Peninsula;
whither, but for his marriage, Napoleon would certainly have repaired in
person after the peace of Schoenbrunn left him at ease on his German
frontier. Although the new alliance had charms enough to detain him in
France, it by no means withdrew his attention from the state of that
fair kingdom which still mocked Joseph with the shadow of a crown. In
the open field, indeed, the French appeared everywhere triumphant,
except only where the British force from Portugal interfered, and in
almost every district of Spain the fortresses were in their hands; yet
the spirit of the people remained wholly unsubdued. The invaders could
not count an inch of soil their own beyond their outposts. Their troops
continued to be harassed and thinned by the indomitable _guerillas_ or
partisan companies; and, even in the immediate neighbourhood of their
strongest garrisons, the people assembled to vote for representatives in
the Cortes, which had at last been summoned to meet in Cadiz, there to
settle the national government, during the King's absence, on a regular
footing.

The battle of Ocaña left the central part of Spain wholly undefended;
and Soult, Victor and Mortier, forcing the passes of the Sierra Morena,
made themselves masters, early in the year of Jaen, Cordova, Grenada,
Malaga, and Seville itself. Cadiz, to which the Central Junta had ere
this retired, was now garrisoned by a large Spanish force, including the
army of Estremadura, under the Duke D'Albuquerque, and a considerable
detachment of English troops from Gibraltar; and Soult sat down before
the place in form. Could he have taken Cadiz, no fortress of importance
would have remained with the patriots in the south of Spain: but the
strength of the situation and the ready access to the sea and Gibraltar,
rendered all his efforts vain.

On the eastern side of Spain Suchet defeated the Spanish General
O'Donnell under the walls of Ostalric; and took afterwards that town,
Lerida, Mequineza, and Tortosa. But Valencia once more repelled the
invaders. After a bloody sally of the inhabitants Suchet withdrew from
before the walls.

It was on the Portuguese side, however, that the events of most
importance occurred. It was there that the disgraces of Vimiero and
Talaveyra must be avenged; and there accordingly Napoleon had directed
his chief force to be set in motion. Massena (Prince of Essling), second
only to himself in reputation, took the command, early in the season, of
"the army of Portugal," at least 100,000 strong, and whose commission it
was to drive the English _leopards_, and the _Seapoy General_ (as,
ignorant of the future, Buonaparte at this time called Wellington) into
the sea. To this gigantic army that leader could oppose at most 20,000
British troops; but 30,000 Portuguese had by this time been so well
trained by General Beresford, that they were held not unworthy of
fighting by the side of Englishmen. Still Lord Wellington's whole force
was barely half that of Massena: and his operations were necessarily
confined to the defensive. He had no means to prevent the French Marshal
from taking Oviedo and Ciudad Rodrigo--almost in his sight; but
commenced his retreat, and conducted it with a coolness and precision
which not a little disconcerted the pursuers. They at length ventured to
attack the English on their march. On the 27th September, 1810, they
charged in five columns, on the heights of Busaco, and were driven back
with such terrible carnage that no further assault was threatened.
Massena kept advancing, step by step, as Wellington withdrew, not
doubting that his enemy would embark as soon as he reached Lisbon, and
leave him in quiet possession of that capital and the rich country
around. His surprise was great when Lord Wellington at last halted on
the lines of the Torres Vedras, which had by this time been so
strengthened, that even in inferior hands they might have been
considered impregnable.

This formidable position, extending about twelve leagues between the sea
and the Tagus, placed the port of Lisbon and the adjacent territory in
the secure possession of the English general. Massena might flatter his
master with the announcement that he was besieging Lisbon; but in
reality his own army very soon suffered all the inconveniences and
privations of a besieged garrison. The country around him had been laid
waste: every Portuguese peasant was a deadly enemy. To advance was
impossible, and there was infinite difficulty in keeping his
communications open behind. Thus, during many months, the two armies lay
face to face in inaction.

[Footnote 60: The leopards had been changed into lions in the English
shield five hundred years before this! To such small matters could
Buonaparte's rancour stoop.]




CHAPTER XXVIII

     Events of the year 1811--Birth of the King of Rome--Disgrace of
     Fouché--Discontents in France--Relations with Russia--Licence
     System--Napoleon prepares for War with Russia--The Campaign in the
     Peninsula--Massena's Retreat--Battle of Fuentes d'Onor--Lord
     Wellington blockades Ciudad Rodrigo--Retreats--Joseph wishes to
     Abdicate.


On the 20th of April, 1811, Napoleon's wishes were crowned by the birth
of a son. The birth was a difficult one, and the nerves of the medical
attendant were shaken. "She is but a woman," said the Emperor, who was
present: "treat her as you would a _Bourgeoise_ of the _Rue St. Denis_."
The accoucheur at a subsequent moment withdrew Napoleon from the couch,
and demanded whether, in case one life must be sacrificed, he should
prefer the mother's or the child's. "The mother's," he answered; "it is
her right!" At length the child appeared, but without any sign of life.
After the lapse of some minutes a feeble cry was heard, and Napoleon
entering the ante-chamber in which the high functionaries of the state
were assembled, announced the event in these words: "It is a King of
Rome."

The birth of the heir of Napoleon was received with as many
demonstrations of loyal enthusiasm as had ever attended that of a
Dauphin; yet, from what has been said as to the light in which various
parties of men in France from the beginning viewed the Austrian
alliance, it may be sufficiently inferred that the joy on this occasion
was far from universal. The royalists considered the event as fatal to
the last hopes of the Bourbons; the ambitious generals despaired of any
future dismemberment of the empire: the old republicans, who had endured
Buonaparte's despotic power as the progeny of the revolution, looked
forward with deep disgust to the rule of a dynasty proud of sharing the
blood of the haughtiest of all the royal houses of Europe, and
consequently more likely to make common cause with the little band of
hereditary sovereigns than with the people. Finally, the title, "King of
Rome," put an end to the fond hopes of the Italians, who had been taught
by Napoleon to expect that, after his death, their country should
possess a government separate from France; nor could the same title fail
to excite some bitter feelings in the Austrian court, whose
heir-apparent under the old empire had been styled commonly "The King of
the Romans." For the present, however, both at home and abroad, the
event was naturally looked on as adding much strength to the throne of
Napoleon.

He, thus called on to review with new seriousness the whole condition
and prospects of his empire, appears to have felt very distinctly that
neither could be secure, unless an end were, by some means, put to the
war with England. However he might permit himself to sneer at his great
enemy in his public addresses from the throne, and in his bulletins,
Napoleon had too much strength of mind not to despise those who, in any
of their private communications, had the meanness to affect acquiescence
in such views. When Denon brought him, after the battle of Wagram, the
design of a medal representing an eagle strangling a leopard, Buonaparte
rebuked and dismissed the flatterer. "What," said he, "strangling the
leopard! There is not a spot of the sea on which the eagle dares show
himself. This is base adulation. It would have been nearer the truth to
represent the eagle as choked by the leopard."

He sent a private messenger to London to ascertain from personal
communication with the Marquess Wellesley, then minister for foreign
affairs, on what terms the English government would consent to open a
formal negotiation; but this attempt was baffled by a singular
circumstance. Fouché, having derived new audacity from the results of
his extraordinary conversation with Josephine, on the subject of the
divorce, had ventured to send a dependent of his own to London, for the
purpose of sounding Lord Wellesley on the question of preliminaries; not
doubting that could he give distinct information on this head to his
master, without having in any degree compromised the imperial dignity,
the service would be considered as most valuable. But Lord Wellesley,
beset, at the same time, and on the same very delicate topic, by two
different persons, neither of whom produced any proper credentials, and
who denied all knowledge of each other, conceived, very naturally, that
they were mere adventurers if not spies, and at once broke off his
communications with both. Napoleon, on discovering this intrigue,
summoned Fouché to his presence. "So, sir," said he, "I find you make
peace and war without consulting me." He was dismissed from the ministry
of police, and sent into an honourable banishment, as Governor of Rome.
Fouché's presumption had been great: but long ere now Napoleon was
weary, not of him only, but of Talleyrand, and indeed of all those
ministers who, having reached eminent stations before he himself
acquired the supreme power, preserved, in their manner of transacting
business, and especially of offering advice, any traces of that period
in which Frenchmen flattered themselves they were free. The warnings
which he had received, when about to commence his atrocious proceedings
against Spain, were remembered with the higher resentment, as the course
of events in that country, month after month, and year after year,
confirmed the accuracy of the foresight which he had contemned. This
haughty spirit could not endure the presence of the man who could be
supposed to fancy that even on one point, he had the better of his
master.

The disgrace of Fouché was certainly a very unpopular measure. The
immediate cause of it could not be divulged, and the minister was
considered as having fallen a sacrifice to the honesty of his
remonstrances on the Spanish invasion and the increased rigour of the
Emperor's domestic administration. It was about this time that, in
addition to the castle of Vincennes, nine new state-prisons were
established in France; and the number of persons confined in these
receptacles, on warrants signed by the Emperor and his slavish privy
council, far exceeded those condemned to similar usage in any recent
period of the Bourbon monarchy, under the _lettres de cachet_ of the
sovereign. These were proofs, not to be mistaken, of the growth of
political disaffection. In truth the "continental system," the terrible
waste of life occasioned by the late campaigns in Poland and Austria,
and the constant demands, both on the treasure and the blood of France,
rendered necessary by the apparently interminable war in the
Peninsula--these were evils which could not exist without alienating the
hearts of the people. The police filled the ears of the Emperor with
reports of men's private conversation. Citizens were daily removed from
their families, and buried in remote and inaccessible dungeons, for no
reason but that they had dared to speak what the immense majority of
their neighbours thought. His quarrels with Lucien, who had contracted a
marriage unsuitable, in the Emperor's opinion, to his rank, were so
indecently violent, that that ablest of his brothers at length sought a
refuge in England, where he remained during several years. The total
slavery of the press, its audacious lies, and more audacious silence,
insulted the common sense of all men. Disaffection was secretly, but
rapidly, eating into the heart of his power; and yet, as if blinded to
all consequences by some angry infliction of heaven, the irritable
ambition of Napoleon was already tempting another great foreign enemy
into the field.

When the Emperor of Russia was informed of Buonaparte's approaching
nuptials with the Austrian princess, his first exclamation was, "Then
the next thing will be to drive us back into our forests." In truth the
conferences of Erfurt had but skinned over a wound, which nothing could
have cured but a total alteration of Napoleon's policy. The Russian
nation suffered so much from the "continental system," that the
sovereign soon found himself compelled to relax the decrees drawn up at
Tilsit in the spirit of those of Berlin and Milan. Certain harbours were
opened partially for the admission of colonial produce, and the export
of native productions; and there ensued a series of indignant
reclamations on the part of Napoleon, and haughty evasions on that of
the Czar, which, ere long, satisfied all near observers that Russia
would not be slow to avail herself of any favourable opportunity of once
more appealing to arms. The Spanish insurrection, backed by the
victories of Lord Wellington, must have roused alike the hope and the
pride of a young and ambitious prince, placed at the head of so great a
nation; the inference naturally drawn from Napoleon's marriage into the
house of Austria was, that the whole power of that monarchy would,
henceforth, act in unison with his views--in other words, that were the
Peninsula once thoroughly subdued, the whole of Western Europe would be
at his command, for any service he might please to dictate. It would
have been astonishing if, under such circumstances, the ministers of
Alexander had not desired to bring their disputes with Paris to a close,
before Napoleon should have leisure to consummate the conquest of
Spain.

During the summer of 1811, then, the relations of these two governments
were becoming every day more dubious; and when, towards the close of it,
the Emperor of Austria published a rescript, granting a free passage
through his territories to the troops of his son-in-law, England, ever
watchful of the movements of her great enemy, perceived clearly that she
was about to have an ally.

From the moment in which the Russian government began to reclaim
seriously against certain parts of his conduct, Buonaparte increased by
degrees his military force in the north of Germany and the Grand Duchy
of Warsaw, and advanced considerable bodies of troops nearer and nearer
to the Czar's Polish frontier. These preparations were met by some
similar movements on the other side; yet, during many months, the hope
of terminating the differences by negotiation was not abandoned. The
Russian complaints, at length, assumed a regular shape, and embraced
three distinct heads, viz.:--

First, the extension of the territories of the Duchy of Warsaw, under
the treaty of Schoenbrunn. This alarmed the court of St. Petersburg, by
reviving the notion of Polish independence, and Buonaparte was in vain
urged to give his public guarantee that no national government should be
re-established in the dismembered kingdom:

Second, the annexation of the Duchy of Oldenburg to the French empire,
by that edict of Napoleon which proclaimed his seizure of the whole
sea-coast of Germany, between Holland and the Baltic. Oldenburg, the
hereditary territory of the Emperor Alexander's brother-in-law, had been
expressly guaranteed to that prince by the treaty of Tilsit. Napoleon
was asked to indemnify the ejected duke by the cession of Dantzick, or
some other territory in the neighbourhood of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw;
but this he declined, though he professed his willingness to give some
compensation elsewhere:

Thirdly, the Czar alleged, and most truly, that the state of his country
made it altogether necessary that the regulations of the "continental
system" should be dispensed with in his instance, and declared that he
could no longer submit to see the commerce of an independent empire
trammelled for the purpose of serving the policy of a foreign power.
Buonaparte admitted that it might be necessary to modify the system
complained of, and expressed his belief that it would be found possible
to devise some middle course, by which the commercial interests of
France and Russia might be reconciled. His meaning probably was, that,
if their other differences could be arranged, this part of the dispute
might be settled by admitting the Czar to adopt, to a certain extent, in
the north of Europe, a device which he himself had already had recourse
to on a large scale, for counteracting the baneful effects of his own
favourite system, in his own immediate territories. Napoleon had soon
discovered that, to exclude English goods and colonial produce entirely,
was actually impossible; and seeing that, either with or without his
assent, the decrees of Berlin and Milan would, in one way or other,
continue to be violated, it occurred to him that he might at least
engross the greater part of the profits of the forbidden traffic
himself. This he accomplished by the establishment of a system of
custom-house regulations, under which persons desirous to import English
produce into France might purchase the imperial licence for so doing. A
very considerable relaxation in the pernicious influence of the Berlin
code was the result of this device; and a proportional increase of the
Emperor's revenue attended it. In after-days, however, he always spoke
of this licence-system as one of the few great mistakes of his
administration. Some petty riots among the manufacturing population of
the county of Derby were magnified in his eyes into symptoms of an
approaching revolution in England; the consequence, as he flattered
himself, of the misery inflicted on his great enemy by the "continental
system"; and to the end he continued to think that, had he resisted the
temptation to enrich his own exchequer by the produce of licences, such
must have been the ultimate issue of his original scheme. It was,
however, by admitting Alexander to a share in the pecuniary advantages
of the licence-system, that he seems to have thought the commercial part
of his dispute with Russia might be accommodated.

And, indeed, had there been no cause of quarrel between these powers,
except what appeared on the face of their negotiations, it is hardly to
be doubted that an accommodation might have been effected. The simple
truth was, that the Czar, from the hour of Maria Louisa's marriage, felt
a perfect conviction that the diminution of the Russian power in the
north of Europe would form the next great object of Napoleon's ambition.
His subsequent proceedings, in regard to Holland, Oldenburg, and other
territories, and the distribution of his troops, in Pomerania and
Poland, could not fail to strengthen Alexander in this view of the case;
and if war must come, there could be no question as to the policy of
bringing it on before Austria had entirely recovered from the effects of
the campaign of Wagram, and, above all, while the Peninsula continued to
occupy 200,000 of Buonaparte's troops.

Before we return to the war in Portugal (the details of which belong to
the history of Wellington, rather than of Napoleon), we may here notice
very briefly one or two circumstances connected with the exiled family
of Spain. It affords a melancholy picture of the degradation of the old
king and queen, that these personages voluntarily travelled to Paris for
the purpose of mingling in the crowd of courtiers congratulating their
deceiver and spoiler on the birth of the king of Rome. Their daughter,
the queen of Etruria, appears to have been the least degenerate of the
race; and she accordingly met with the cruellest treatment from the hand
which her parents were thus mean enough to kiss. She had been deprived
of her kingdom at the period of the shameful scenes of Bayonne in 1807,
on pretext that that kingdom would afford the most suitable
indemnification for her brother Ferdinand on his cession to Buonaparte
of his rights in Spain, and with the promise of being provided for
elsewhere. This promise to the sister was no more thought of afterwards
than the original scheme for the indemnification of the brother. Tuscany
became a French department. Ferdinand was sent a prisoner to the castle
of Valençay--a seat of Talleyrand--and she, after remaining for some
time with her parents, took up her residence, as a private person, under
_surveillance_, at Nice. Alarmed by the severity with which the police
watched her, the queen at length made an attempt to escape to England.
Her agents were discovered, tried by a military commission, and shot;
and the unfortunate lady herself confined in a Roman monastery. A plan
for the liberation of Ferdinand was about the same time detected by the
emissaries of the French police: the real agent being arrested, a
pretender, assuming his name and credentials, made his way into
Valençay, but Ferdinand was either too cunning, or too timid to incur
this danger; revealing to his jailers the proposals of the stranger, he
escaped the snare laid for him, and thus cheated Napoleon of a pretext
for removing him also to some Italian cell.

During four months after Wellington's famous retreat terminated in his
occupation of the lines of Torres Vedras, Massena lay encamped before
that position, in vain practising every artifice which consummate skill
could suggest for the purpose of drawing the British army back into the
field. He attempted to turn first the one flank of the position and then
the other; but at either point he found his antagonist's preparations
perfect. Meantime his communication with Spain was becoming every day
more and more difficult, and the enmity of the peasantry was so
inveterate that his troops began to suffer much from the want of
provisions. Massena at length found himself compelled to retreat; and,
if he executed the military movement with masterly ability, he for ever
disgraced his name by the horrible licence which he permitted to his
soldiery. Every crime of which man is capable--every brutality which can
dishonour rational beings--must be recorded in the narrative of that
fearful march. Age, rank, sex, character, were alike contemned; it
seemed as if, maddened with a devilish rage, these ferocious bands were
resolved to ruin the country which they could not possess, and to
exterminate, as far as was in their power, the population which they
could neither conciliate nor subdue.

Lord Wellington followed hard on their footsteps until they were beyond
the Portuguese frontier; within it they had left only one garrison--at
Almeida, and of this town the siege was immediately formed; while the
British general himself invested the strong Spanish city and fortress of
Ciudad Rodrigo. But Massena, on regaining communication with the French
armies in Castile, swelled his numbers so much, that he ventured to
resume the offensive. Lord Wellington could not maintain the siege of
Ciudad Rodrigo in the face of such an army as Massena had now assembled;
but when the marshal indicated his wishes to bring on battle, he
disdained to decline the invitation. The armies met at Fuentes d'Onor,
on the 5th May 1811, and the French were once more defeated. The
garrison of Almeida contrived to escape across the frontier, before the
siege, which had been interrupted, could be renewed. Portugal remained
in a miserable state of exhaustion indeed, but altogether delivered of
her invaders; and Napoleon, as if resolved that each of his marshals in
succession should have the opportunity of measuring himself against
Wellington, now sent Marmont to displace Massena.

Soult meanwhile had advanced on the southern frontier of Portugal from
Estremadura, and obtained possession of Badajos, under circumstances
which Lord Wellington considered as highly disgraceful to the Spanish
garrison of that important place, and the armies which ought to have
been ready to cover it. On the other hand, an English corps, under
General Graham, sallied out of Cadiz, and were victorious in a brilliant
affair on the heights of Barossa, in front of that besieged city.

As concerned the Spanish armies, the superiority of the French had been
abundantly maintained during this campaign; and it might still be said
that King Joseph was in military possession of all but some fragments of
his kingdom. But the influence of the English victories was by no means
limited to the Portuguese, whose territory they had delivered. They
breathed new ardour into the Spanish people: the Guerilla warfare,
trampled down in one spot only to start up in fifty others, raged more
and more widely, as well as fiercely, over the surface of the country:
the French troops lost more lives in this incessant struggle, wherein no
glory could be achieved, than in any similar period spent in a regular
campaign; and Joseph Buonaparte, while the question of peace or war with
Russia was yet undecided, became so weary of his situation, that he
earnestly entreated Napoleon to place the crown of Spain on some other
head.

Such were the circumstances under which the eventful year 1812 began.




CHAPTER XXIX

     Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo--and of Badajos--Battle of
     Salamanca--State of Napoleon's Foreign Relations--His Military
     Resources--Napoleon at Dresden--Rupture with Russia--Napoleon's
     conduct to the Poles--Distribution of the Armies--Passage of the
     Niemen--Napoleon at Wilna.


Lord Wellington had now complete possession of Portugal; and lay on the
frontiers of that kingdom, ready to act on the offensive within Spain,
whenever the distribution of the French armies should seem to offer a
fit opportunity. Learning that Marmont had sent considerable
reinforcements to Suchet, in Valencia, he resolved to advance and once
more besiege Ciudad Rodrigo. He re-appeared before that strong fortress
on the 8th of January 1812, and carried it by storm on the 19th, four
days before Marmont could collect a force adequate for its relief. He
instantly repaired the fortifications, entrusted the place to a Spanish
garrison, and repaired in person to the southern part of the Portuguese
frontier, which required his attention in consequence of that miserable
misconduct of the Spaniards which had enabled the French to make
themselves masters of Badajos in the preceding year. He appeared before
that city on the 16th March, and in twenty days took it also. The loss
of life on both sides, in these rapid sieges, was very great; but they
were gained by a general at the head of at most 50,000 men, in despite
of an enemy mustering full 80,000; and the results were of the first
importance to the English cause. Marmont, on hearing of the fall of the
second fortress, immediately retreated from the neighbourhood of Ciudad
Rodrigo, which he had made a vain attempt to regain; and Soult, who had
arrived from before Cadiz just in time to see the British flag mounted
on the towers of Badajos, retired in like manner. The English general
hastened to make the best use of his advantage, by breaking up the only
bridge by which Marmont and Soult could now communicate; and, having
effected this object early in May, marched in June to Salamanca, took
the forts there, and 800 prisoners, and--Marmont retiring as he
advanced--hung on his rear until he reached the Douro.

Marmont was now joined by Bonnet's army from Asturias, and thus once
more recovered a decided superiority in numbers. Wellington accordingly
retired in his turn; and for some days the two hostile armies moved in
parallel lines, often within half cannon shot, each waiting for some
mistake of which advantage might be taken. The weather was all the while
intensely hot; numbers fainted on the march; and when any rivulet was in
view, it was difficult to keep the men in their ranks. On the evening of
the 21st of July, Wellington and Marmont lay in full view of each other,
on two opposite rising grounds near Salamanca; a great storm of thunder
and rain came on, and during the whole night the sky was bright with
lightning. Wellington was at table when he received intelligence that
his adversary was extending his left,--with the purpose of coming
between him and Ciudad Rodrigo. He rose in haste, exclaiming, "Marmont's
good genius has forsaken him," and was instantly on horseback. The great
battle of Salamanca was fought on the 22nd of July. The French were
attacked on the point which Marmont's movement leftwards had weakened,
and sustained a signal defeat. The commander-in-chief himself lost an
arm: 7000 prisoners, eleven guns, and two eagles were taken; and it was
only the coming on of night that saved the army from utter destruction.
Wellington pursued the flying enemy as far as Valladolid, and then,
re-crossing the Douro, marched upon Madrid. King Joseph fled once more
at his approach, and the English were received with enthusiasm in the
capital of Spain.

Lord Wellington had thus ventured to place himself in the heart of
Spain, with, at most, 60,000 men, well-knowing that the French armies in
the Peninsula still mustered at the least 150,000 in the expectation
that so spirited a movement, coming after the glorious successes of
Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajos, and Salamanca, would effectually stimulate the
Spanish generals. Ballasteros in particular, he doubted not, would at
least take care to occupy all the attention of Soult, and prevent that
able leader from advancing out of the south. But the Spaniard's
egregious pride took fire at the notion of being directed by an
Englishman, and he suffered Soult to break up the siege of Cadiz, and
retire with all his army undisturbed towards the Sierra Morena. Lord
Wellington, incensed at this folly, was constrained to divide his army.
Leaving half at Madrid under Sir R. Hill, to check Soult, he himself
marched with the other for Burgos, by taking which great city he judged
he should have it in his power to overawe effectually the remains of the
army of Marmont. He invested Burgos accordingly on the 19th of
September, and continued the siege during five weeks, until Soult, with
a superior force, began to threaten Hill, and (Marmont's successor)
Clausel, having also received great reinforcements, appeared ready to
resume the offensive. Lord Wellington then abandoned the siege of Burgos
and commenced his retreat. He was joined in the course of it by Hill,
and Soult and Clausel then effected their junction also, in his
rear--their troops being nearly double his numbers. He retired leisurely
and deliberately as far as Ciudad Rodrigo--and thus closed the
Peninsular campaign of 1812. But in sketching its progress we have lost
sight for a moment of the still mightier movements in which Napoleon was
personally engaged upon another scene of action.

It has already been mentioned, that before the year 1811 reached its
close, the approach of a rupture with Russia was sufficiently indicated
in an edict of the Emperor of Austria, granting a free passage through
his territories to the armies of his son-in-law. However, during several
months following, the negotiations between the Czar and Napoleon
continued; and more than once there appeared considerable likelihood of
their finding an amicable termination. The tidings of Lord Wellington's
successes at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos were calculated to temper the
ardour of Buonaparte's presumption; and for a moment he seems to have
felt the necessity of bringing the affairs of the Peninsula to a point,
ere he should venture to involve himself in another warfare. He, in
effect, opened a communication with the English government, when the
fall of Badajos was announced to him; but before the negotiation had
proceeded many steps, his pride returned on him in its original
obstinacy, and the renewed demand, that Joseph should be recognised as
King of Spain, abruptly closed the intercourse of the diplomatists.

Such being the state of the Peninsula, and all hope of an accommodation
with England at an end, it might have been expected that Napoleon would
have spared no effort to accommodate his differences with Russia, or, if
a struggle must come, to prepare for it, by placing his relations with
the other powers, capable of interfering on one side or the other, on a
footing favourable to himself. But here also the haughty temper, which
adversity itself could never bend, formed an insurmountable and fatal
obstacle. To gain the cordial friendship of Sweden was obviously, from
the geographical position of that country, and the high military talents
of Bernadotte, an object of the most urgent importance; yet the Crown
Prince, instead of being treated with as the head of an independent
state, was personally insulted by the French resident at Stockholm, who,
in Bernadotte's own language, "demeaned himself on every occasion as if
he had been a Roman proconsul, dictating absolutely in a province." In
his anxiety to avoid a rupture, Bernadotte at length agreed to enforce
the "continental system," and to proclaim war against England. But these
concessions, instead of producing hearty goodwill, had a directly
contrary effect. England, considering Sweden as an involuntary enemy,
disdained to make any attempt against her; and the adoption of the
anti-commercial edicts of Napoleon was followed by a multiplicity of
collisions between the Swedish coasters and the Imperial _douaniers_,
out of which arose legal questions without number. These, in most cases,
were terminated at Paris, with summary injustice, and the provocations
and reclamations of Bernadotte multiplied daily. Amazed that one who had
served under his banners should dare to dispute his will, Napoleon
suffered himself to speak openly of causing Bernadotte to finish his
Swedish studies in Vincennes. Nay, he condescended to organise a
conspiracy for the purpose of putting this threat into execution. The
Crown Prince escaped, through the zeal of a private friend at Paris, the
imminent danger of being carried off after the fashion of the D'Enghiens
and the Rumbolds: and thenceforth his part was fixed.

On the other flank of the Czar's dominion--his hereditary enemy, the
Grand Seignior, was at this time actually at war with him. Napoleon had
neglected his relations with Constantinople for some years past; but he
now perceived the importance of keeping this quarrel alive, and
employed his agents to stimulate the Grand Seignior to take the field
in person at the head of 100,000 men, for the purpose of co-operating
with himself in a general invasion of the Russian empire. But here he
encountered a new and an unforeseen difficulty. Lord Castlereagh, the
English minister for foreign affairs, succeeded in convincing the Porte,
that, if Russia were once subdued, there would remain no power in Europe
capable of shielding her against the universal ambition of Napoleon. And
wisely considering this prospective danger as immeasurably more
important than any immediate advantage which she could possibly reap
from the humiliation of her old rival, the Porte commenced a
negotiation, which, exactly at the most critical moment (as we shall see
hereafter) ended in a peace with Russia.

The whole forces of Italy--Switzerland, Bavaria, and the princes of the
Rhenish League,--including the Elector of Saxony,--were at Napoleon's
disposal. Denmark hated England too much to have leisure for fear of
him. Prussia, surrounded and studded with French garrisons, was more
than ever hostile to France; and the king was willing, in spite of all
that he had suffered, to throw himself at once into the arms of Russia.
But this must have inferred his immediate and total ruin, unless the
Czar chose to march at once into Germany. Such a movement was wholly
inconsistent with the plan of operations contemplated, in case of a war
with Buonaparte, by the military advisers of Alexander; and Frederick
William saw himself compelled to place 20,000 troops, the poor relics of
his army, at the disposal of the common oppressor.

Austria was bound by treaty to assist Napoleon with 30,000 men, whenever
he chose to demand them; but this same treaty included Buonaparte's
guarantee of Austria's Polish provinces. Could he have got rid of this
pledge, he distinctly perceived the advantages which he might derive
from the enthusiasm of the Poles; to proclaim their independence would
have been, he well knew, to array a whole gallant nation under his
banners; and of such objections to their independence as might be
started by his own creature, the Grand Duke of Warsaw, he made little
account. But Austria would not consent to give up his guarantee of
Galicia, unless he consented to yield back the Illyrian territory which
she had lost at Schoenbrunn; and this was a condition to which Napoleon
would not for a moment listen. He would take whatever he could gain by
force or by art; but he would sacrifice nothing. The evil consequences
of this piece of obstinacy were twofold. Austria remained an ally
indeed, but at best a cold one; and the opportunity of placing the whole
of Poland in insurrection, between him and the Czar, was for ever lost.

But if Napoleon, in the fulness of his presumption, thus neglected or
scorned the timely conciliation of foreign powers-some of whom he might
have arrayed heartily on his side, and others at least retained
neutral-he certainly omitted nothing as to the preparation of the
military forces of his own empire. Before yet all hopes of an
accommodation with St. Petersburg where at an end, he demanded and
obtained two new conscriptions in France; and moreover established a law
by which he was enabled to call out 100,000 men at a time, of those whom
the conscriptions had spared, for service _at home_. This limitation of
their service he soon disregarded; and in effect the new system-that of
_the Ban_, as he affected to call it-became a mere extension of the old
scheme. The amount of the _French_ army at the period in question
(exclusive of _the Ban_) is calculated at 850,000 men; the army of the
kingdom of Italy mustered 50,000; that of Naples, 30,000; that of the
Grand Duchy of Warsaw, 60,000; the Bavarian, 40,000; the Westphalian,
30,000; the Saxon, 30,000; Wirtemberg, 15,000; Baden, 9,000; and the
minor powers of the Rhenish League, 23,000. Of these armies Napoleon had
the entire control. In addition, Austria was bound to furnish him with
30,000, and Prussia with 20,000 auxiliaries. The sum-total is 1,187,000.
Deducting 387,000--a large allowance for hospitals, furloughs, and
incomplete regiments-there remained 800,000 effective men at his
immediate command. The Spanish peninsula might perhaps occupy, even now,
150,000; but still Napoleon could bring into the field against Russia,
in case all negotiation failed, an army of 650,000 men; numbers such as
Alexander could have no chance of equalling; numbers such as had never
before followed an European banner.

Notwithstanding all this display of military strength, the French
statesmen who had in former days possessed the highest place in the
Emperor's confidence, and who had been shaken in his favour by their
bold prophecies of the result of his attempts on Spain and Portugal,
did not hesitate to come forward on this new occasion, and offer
warnings, for which the course of events in the Peninsula might have
been expected to procure a patient hearing. Talleyrand, still in office,
exhausted all his efforts in vain. Fouché, who on pretence of ill health
had thrown up his Roman government, and was now resident at his country
seat near Paris, drew up a memorial, in which the probable consequences
of a march into Russia were detailed with masterly skill and eloquence;
and demanded an audience of the Emperor, that he might present it in
person. Napoleon, whose police now watched no one so closely as their
former chief, was prepared for this. He received Fouché with an air of
cool indifference. "I am no stranger to your errand," said he. "The war
with Russia pleases you as little as that of Spain." Fouché answered,
that he hoped to be pardoned for having drawn up some reflections on so
important a crisis. "It is no crisis at all," resumed Buonaparte, "but a
mere war of politics. Spain falls whenever I have destroyed the English
influence at St. Petersburg. I have 800,000 soldiers in readiness: with
such an army I consider Europe as an old prostitute, who must obey my
pleasure. Did not you yourself once tell me that the word _impossible_
is not French? You grandees are now too rich, and though you pretend to
be anxious about my interests, you are only thinking of what might
happen to yourselves in case of my death, and the dismemberment of my
empire. I regulate my conduct much more by the sentiments of my army
than by yours. Is it my fault that the height of power which I have
attained compels me to ascend to the dictatorship of the world? My
destiny is not yet accomplished-the picture exists as yet only in
outline. There must be one code, one court of appeal, and one coinage
for all Europe. The states of Europe must be melted into one nation, and
Paris be its capital." It deserves to be mentioned that neither the
statesman thus contemptously dismissed, nor any of his brethren, ever
even alluded to the injustice of making war on Russia for the mere
gratification of ambition. Their arguments were all drawn from the
extent of Alexander's resources-his 400,000 regulars, and 50,000
Cossacks, already known to be in arms-and the enormous population on
which he had the means of drawing for recruits; the enthusiastic
national feelings of the Muscovites; the distance of their country; the
severity of their climate; the opportunity which such a war would afford
to England of urging her successes in Spain; and the chance of Germany
rising in insurrection in case of any reverses.

There was, however, one person who appealed to the Emperor on other
grounds. His uncle, the Cardinal Fesch, had been greatly afflicted by
the treatment of the Pope, and he contemplated this new war with dread,
as likely to bring down the vengeance of Heaven on the head of one who
had dared to trample on its vicegerent. He besought Napoleon not to
provoke at once the wrath of man and the fury of the elements; and
expressed his belief that he must one day sink under the weight of that
universal hatred with which his actions were surrounding his throne.
Buonaparte led the churchman to the window, opened it, and pointing
upwards, said, "Do you see yonder star?" "No, sire," replied the
Cardinal. "But I see it," answered Napoleon; and abruptly dismissed him.

Trusting to this star, on which one spot of fatal dimness had already
gathered, Napoleon, without waiting for any formal rupture with the
Russian diplomatists at Paris, now directed the march of very great
bodies of troops into Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Alexander's
minister was ordered, in the beginning of April, to demand the
withdrawal of these troops, together with the evacuation of the
fortresses in Pomerania, in case the French government still entertained
a wish to negotiate. Buonaparte instantly replied that he was not
accustomed to regulate the distribution of his forces by the suggestions
of a foreign power. The ambassador demanded his passports, and quitted
Paris.

On the 9th of May, Napoleon left Paris with his Empress, and arrived on
the 16th at Dresden, where the Emperor of Austria, the Kings of Prussia,
Naples, Wirtemberg, and Westphalia, and almost every German sovereign of
inferior rank, had been invited, or commanded, to met him. He had sent
to request the Czar also to appear in this brilliant assemblage, as
affording a last chance of an amicable arrangement; but the messenger
could not obtain admission to Alexander's presence.

Buonaparte continued for some days to play the part of undisputed master
amidst this congregation of royalties. He at once assumed for himself
and his wife precedence over the Emperor and Empress of Austria; and, in
the blaze of successive festivals, the King of Saxony appeared but as
some chamberlain, or master of the ceremonies, to his imperious guest.

Having sufficiently indicated to his allies and vassals the conduct
which they were respectively to adopt, in case the war should break out,
Napoleon, already weary of his splendid idleness, sent on the Abbé de
Pradt to Warsaw, to prepare for his reception among the Poles, dismissed
Maria Louisa on her return to Paris, and broke up the Court in which he
had, for the last time, figured as "the King of Kings." Marshal Ney,
with one great division of the army, had already passed the Vistula;
Junot, with another, occupied both sides of the Oder. The Czar was known
to be at Wilna, his Lithuanian capital, there collecting the forces of
his immense empire, and entrusting the general arrangements of the
approaching campaign to Marshal Barclay de Tolly.[61] The season was
advancing; and it was time that the question of peace or war should be
forced to a decision.

Napoleon arrived at Dantzick on the 7th of June; and during the
fortnight which ensued, it was known that the final communications
between him and Alexander were taking place. The attention of mankind
was never more entirely fixed on one spot than it was, during these
fourteen days, upon Dantzick. On the 22nd, Buonaparte broke silence in a
bulletin. "Soldiers," said he, "Russia is dragged on by her fate: her
destiny must be accomplished. Let us march! let us cross the Niemen: let
us carry war into her territories. Our second campaign of Poland will be
as glorious as our first: but our second peace shall carry with it its
own guarantee: it shall put an end for ever to that haughty influence
which Russia has exercised for fifty years on the affairs of Europe."
The address, in which the Czar announced the termination of his
negotiations, was in a far different tone. After stating the innumerable
efforts he had made to preserve peace, without losing for Russia the
character of an independent state, he invoked the aid of Almighty
Providence as "the witness and the defender of the true cause;" and
concluded in these words--"Soldiers, you fight for your religion, your
liberty, and your native land. Your Emperor is amongst you; and God is
the enemy of the aggressor."

Buonaparte reviewed the greater part of his troops on the field of
Friedland; and having assured them of still more splendid victories over
the same enemy, issued his final orders to the chief officers of his
vast army. Hitherto the Poles had had no certain intelligence of the
object which Napoleon proposed to himself. As soon as no doubt remained
on that score, the Diet at Warsaw sent both to him and to the King of
Saxony, to announce their resolution to seize this opportunity of
re-establishing the ancient national independence of their dismembered
country. We have already mentioned the circumstance which compelled the
Emperor to receive this message with coldness. He was forced to
acknowledge that he had guaranteed to Austria the whole of her Polish
provinces. It was therefore impossible for him to take part in the
re-establishment of Old Poland:--"Nevertheless," added he, with
audacious craft, "I admire your efforts; I even authorise them. Persist;
and it is to be hoped your wishes will be crowned with success."

This answer effectually damped the ardour of the Poles; and thenceforth,
with a few exceptions, the eminent and influential men of the nation
were mere observers of the war. If any doubt as to Napoleon's treachery
could have remained after his answer to the Diet, it must have been
wholly removed when the plan of his campaign transpired, and the
Austrian auxiliaries were known to be stationed on the right of his
whole line. On them, as it seemed, the march through Volhynia was thus
devolved, and no clearer proof could have been afforded that it was
Napoleon's desire to repress every symptom of a national insurrection in
Lithuania. The inhabitants, had French soldiers come amongst them, might
have been expected to rise in enthusiasm; the white uniform of Austria
was known to be hateful in their eyes, in the same degree, and for
precisely the same reason, as the Russian green.

The disposition of the French army when the campaign commenced was as
follows:--The left wing, commanded by Macdonald, and amounting to 30,000
men, had orders to march through Courland, with the view of, if
possible, outflanking the Russian right, and gaining possession of the
sea coast, in the direction of Riga. The right wing, composed almost
wholly of the Austrians, 30,000 in number, and commanded by
Schwartzenberg, were stationed, as has been already mentioned, on the
Volhynian frontier. Between these moved the various corps forming the
grand central army, under the general superintendence of Napoleon
himself, viz. those of Davoust, Ney, the King of Westphalia, the Viceroy
of Italy, Poniatowski, Junot and Victor; and in numbers not falling
below 250,000. The communication of the centre and left was maintained
by the corps of Oudinot, and that of the centre and the extreme right by
the corps of Regnier, who had with him the Saxon auxiliaries and the
Polish legion of Dombrowski. The chief command of the whole cavalry of
the host was assigned to Murat, King of Naples; but he was in person at
the headquarters of the Emperor, having immediately under his order
three divisions of horse, those of Grouchy, Montbrun, and Nansouty.
Augereau with his division was to remain in the north of Germany, to
overawe Berlin and protect the communications with France.

A glance at the map will show that Napoleon's base of operations
extended over full one hundred leagues; and that the heads of his
various columns were so distributed, that the Russians could not guess
whether St. Petersburg or Moscow formed the main object of his march.

The Russian main army, under Barclay de Tolly himself, had its
headquarters at Wilna; and consisted, at the opening of the campaign, of
120,000. Considerably to the left lay "the second army," as it was
called, of 80,000, under Bagrathion; with whom were Platoff and 12,000
of his Cossacks; while, at the extreme of that wing, "the army of
Volhynia," 20,000 strong, commanded by Tormazoff, watched
Schwartzenberg. On the right of Barclay de Tolly was Witgenstein with
30,000, and between these again and the sea, the corps of Essen, not
more than 10,000 strong. Behind the whole line two armies of reserve
were rapidly forming at Novgorod and Smolensko; each, probably, of about
20,000 men. The Russians actually on the field at the opening of the
campaign were, then, as nearly as can be computed, in number 260,000;
while Napoleon was prepared to cross the Niemen at the head of at least
470,000 men.

On the Russian side the plan of the campaign had been settled ere now;
it was entirely defensive. Taught by the events of the former war in
Poland, and of that which had already fixed the reputation of Wellington
in the Peninsula, the Czar was resolved, from the beginning, to draw
Buonaparte if possible into the heart of his own country ere he gave him
battle. The various divisions of the Russian force had orders to fall
back leisurely as the enemy advanced, destroying whatever they could not
remove along with them, and halting only at certain points, where
intrenched camps had already been formed for their reception. The
difficulty of feeding half a million of men in a country deliberately
wasted beforehand, and separated by so great a space from Germany, to
say nothing of France, was sure to increase with every hour and every
step; and Alexander's great object was to husband his own strength until
the Polar winter should set in around the strangers, and bring the
miseries which he thus foresaw to a crisis. Napoleon, on the other hand,
had calculated on being met by the Russians at, or even in advance of,
their frontier (as he had been by the Austrians in the campaigns of
Austerlitz and Wagram, and by the Prussians in that of Jena); of gaining
a great battle; marching immediately either to St. Petersburg or to
Moscow--and dictating a peace, after the fashion of Presburg or
Schoenbrunn, within the walls of one of the Czar's own palaces.

On the 24th of June, the grand imperial army, consolidated into three
masses, began their passage of the Niemen; the King of Westphalia at
Grodno; the Viceroy Eugene at Pilony, and Napoleon himself near Kowno.
The emperor rode on in front of his army to reconnoitre the banks; his
horse stumbled, and he fell to the ground. "A bad omen--a Roman would
return," exclaimed some one; it is not certain whether Buonaparte
himself or one of his attendants. The first party that crossed were
challenged by a single Cossack. "For what purpose," said he, "do you
enter the Russian country?" "To beat you and take Wilna," answered the
advanced guard. The sentinel struck spurs to his horse, and disappeared
in the forest. There came on at the same moment a tremendous
thunder-storm. Thus began the fatal invasion.

No opposition awaited these enormous hosts as they traversed the plains
of Lithuania. Alexander withdrew his armies deliberately as they
advanced. The capital itself, Wilna, was evacuated two days before they
came in sight of it; and Napoleon took up his quarters there on the 28th
of June. But it was found that all the magazines, which Buonaparte had
counted on seizing, had been burnt before the Russians withdrew, and the
imperial bulletins began already to denounce the "barbarous method" in
which the enemy seemed resolved to conduct his defence.

It was noticed in an early part of this narrative that Napoleon's plan
of warfare could hardly have been carried into execution on a great
scale, unless by permitting the troops to subsist on plunder; and we
have seen through how many campaigns the marauding system was adopted
without producing any serious inconvenience to the French. Buonaparte,
however, had learned from Spain and Portugal how difficult it is for
soldiers to find food in these ways, provided the population around them
be really united in hostility against them. He had further considered
the vast distance at which a war with Russia must needs be carried on,
and the natural poverty of most of the Czar's provinces, and came to the
resolution of departing on this occasion from his old system. In a word,
months before he left Paris, he had given orders for preparing immense
quantities of provisions of all kinds, to be conveyed along with his
gigantic host, and render him independent of the countries which might
form the theatre of his operations. The destruction of the magazines at
Wilna was sufficient indication that the Emperor had judged well in
ordering his commissariat to be placed on an efficient footing; and his
attention was naturally directed to ascertaining, ere he advanced
further, in how much his directions as to this matter had been
fulfilled. He remained twenty days at Wilna--a pause altogether
extraordinary in a Buonapartean campaign, and which can only be
accounted for by his anxiety on this head. The result of his inquiries
was most unsatisfactory. The prodigious extent of the contracts into
which his war-minister had entered was adequate to the occasion; but the
movement of such enormous trains of cattle and waggons as these
contracts provided for must, under any circumstances, have been tedious,
and in some degree uncertain. In this case they were entered into either
by French traders, who, in consequence of Buonaparte's own practice in
preceding campaigns, could have slender experience of the method of
supplying a great army in the field; by Germans, who regarded the French
Emperor as the enemy of the world, and served him accordingly with
reluctance; or finally, by Polish Jews--a race of inveterate smugglers,
and consequently of inveterate swindlers.

The result was, that after spending three weeks at Wilna, the Emperor
found himself under the necessity, either of laying aside his invasion
for another year, or of urging it in the face of every difficulty which
he had foreseen, and, moreover, of that presented by a commissariat less
effective by two-thirds than he had calculated on.

[Footnote 61: This officer had been born and educated in Germany. He was
descended from an ancient Scottish family, exiled for adherence to the
Stuarts, in 1715.]




CHAPTER XXX

     Russia makes Peace with England, with Sweden, and with
     Turkey--Internal preparations--Napoleon leaves Wilna--The
     Dwina--Bagrathion's Movements--Battle of Smolensko--Battle of
     Borodino--Napoleon enters Moscow--Constancy and Enthusiasm of the
     Russians--Conduct of Rostophchin--The burning of Moscow--Kutusoff
     refuses to Treat.


While Napoleon was detained in the capital of Lithuania by the confusion
and slowness which marked almost every department of his commissariat at
this great crisis, the enemy employed the unexpected pause to the best
advantage. The Czar signed treaties of strict alliance with England,
Sweden, and the Spanish Cortes, in the middle of July; and the
negotiation with Turkey was urged, under the mediation of England, so
effectually, that a peace with that Power also was proclaimed early in
August. By these means Alexander was enabled to withdraw whatever troops
he had been maintaining on the two flanks of his European dominions, and
bring them all to the assistance of his main army. Admiral Tchichagoff,
at the head of 50,000 soldiers, hitherto opposed to the Turks on the
side of Moldavia, marched towards the left wing of Barclay de Tolly's
force; and the right, which had gradually retired until it reached a
strong camp formed on the river Dwina, was reinforced from Finland,
though not so largely. The enthusiasm of the Russian nation appeared in
the extraordinary rapidity with which supplies of every kind were poured
at the feet of the Czar. From every quarter he received voluntary offers
of men, of money, of whatever might assist in the prosecution of the
war. The Grand Duchess, whose hand Napoleon had solicited, set the
example by raising a regiment on her estate. Moscow offered to equip and
arm 80,000 men. Platoff, the veteran hetman of the Cossacks, promised
his only daughter and 200,000 roubles to the man by whose hand
Buonaparte should fall. Noblemen everywhere raised troops, and displayed
their patriotism by serving in the ranks themselves, and entrusting the
command to experienced officers, chosen by the government. The
peasantry participated in the general enthusiasm, and flocked in from
every province, demanding arms and training. Two hundred thousand
militiamen were called out, and in separate divisions began their march
upon the camp.

Napoleon, having done whatever lay in his power to remedy the disorders
of his commissariat--and this, after all, does not appear to have been
much--at length reappeared in the field. He had now determined to make
St. Petersburg his mark: he counted much on the effects which a
triumphal entry into the capital would produce throughout the country;
and the fleet at Cronstadt was in itself a prize of the utmost
importance. He directed, therefore, all his efforts towards the Dwina,
where the Russian commander-in-chief had now halted on extensive
intrenchments, and Riga. This town, however, was now defended, not only
by Essen, but by the English sailors of Admiral Martin's fleet, and
resisted effectually; and, to the confusion of Napoleon, he was repelled
in three successive attempts to force Barclay's camp at Dunaburg.

He upon this changed his plan of operations, and resolving to march, not
for Petersburg, but for Moscow, threw forward the centre of his army,
under Davoust, with the view of turning Barclay's position, and cutting
off his communications with Bagrathion. That general was compelled by
this movement to pass the Dnieper (or Borysthenes); and Barclay, on
perceiving the object of Davoust's march, broke up from the camp on the
Dwina, and retired upon Vitepsk, where he hoped to be joined by
Bagrathion. Davoust, however, brought Bagrathion to action near Mohilow,
on the 23rd of July; and as the French remained in possession of that
town at the end of the day, the Russians found themselves under the
necessity of altering the line of their retreat. Bagrathion informed
Barclay that he was now marching, not on Vitepsk, but on Smolensko, and
the commander-in-chief felt the necessity of abandoning Vitepsk also.
During three days (the 25th, 26th, and 27th of July), his troops were
engaged with the French at Vitepsk; and, though Napoleon's bulletins
announced three splendid victories, the result was that the Russians
left their position in admirable order, and retired altogether
unmolested on the proposed point of junction. Meantime Regnier, on the
right wing, and Oudinot, on the left, were defeated; the former by
Tormazoff, the latter by Witgenstein, both with severe loss. The Emperor
halted at Vitepsk for several days; "his troops," as the bulletins
admitted, "requiring refreshment." The Russian plan of defence was
already ascertained--and alarming. The country was laid utterly desolate
wherever they retired; every village was burned ere they quitted it: the
enthusiastic peasantry withdrew with the army and swelled its ranks.

Napoleon quitted Vitepsk on the 8th of August, and after a partial
engagement at Krasnoi on the 14th, came in sight of Smolensko, on the
16th. The first and second armies of the Czar (Bagrathion having at
length effected his junction with Barclay), lay behind the river which
flows at the back of this town; but it was occupied in great force.
Three times did Buonaparte attack it, and three times he was repulsed.
During the night the garrison withdrew, and joined the army across the
river--but before they went they committed the city to the flames, and,
the buildings being chiefly of wood, the conflagration, according to the
French bulletin, "resembled in its fury an eruption of Vesuvius."
"Never" (continues the same bulletin) "was war conducted with such
inhumanity: the Russians treat their own country as if it were that of
an enemy." Such was indeed their resolution. They had no desire that the
invader should establish himself in winter quarters at Smolensko. With
the exception of some trivial skirmishes, they retreated unmolested from
Smolensko to Dorogobuz, and thence on Viasma; halting at each of these
towns, and deliberately burning them in the face of the enemy.

It now, however, began to be difficult in the extreme to prevail on the
Russian soldiery to continue their retreat. They had consented to retire
in the beginning solely because they were assured that such was the will
of their _Father_--as they affectionately call their sovereign; but
reinforcements were now joining them daily from the interior, and the
skirmishes which had occurred had so inflamed their spirits, that it
seemed impossible to restrain them much longer. At this period also,
Barclay was appointed to the war-ministry at St. Petersburg, and
Kutusoff, who assumed the command in his stead, was supposed to doubt
whether the system of retreat had not been far enough persisted in. The
new general at length resolved to comply with the clamorous entreaties
of his troops, and fixed on a strong position between Borodino and
Moskwa, on the high road to Moscow, where he determined to await the
attack of Napoleon. It was at Gjatz that the Emperor was informed of
Kutusoff's arrival, and of the universal belief that the Czar had at
length consented to run the hazard of a great battle. A little further
on a Russian officer, on some pretext, appeared with a flag of truce;
his real errand being, no doubt, to witness the state of the invader's
camp. Being brought into Napoleon's presence this man was asked, "What
he should find between Viasma and Moscow?" He answered, "Pultowa."

On the 5th of September, Napoleon came in sight of the position of
Kutusoff, and succeeded in carrying a redoubt in front of it. All the
6th the two armies lay in presence of each other, preparing for the
contest. The Russians were posted on an elevated plain; having a wood on
their right flank, their left on one of the villages, and a deep ravine,
the bed of a small stream, in their front. Extensive field-works covered
every more accessible point of this naturally very strong ground; and in
the centre of the whole line, a gentle eminence was crowned by an
enormous battery, serving as a species of citadel. The Russian army were
120,000 in numbers; nor had Napoleon a greater force in readiness for
his attack. In artillery also the armies were equal. It is supposed that
each had 500 guns in the field. Buonaparte addressed his troops in his
usual style of language: "Soldiers! here is the battle you have longed
for; it is necessary, for it brings us plenty, good winter-quarters, and
a safe return to France. Behave yourselves so that posterity may say of
each of you, _He was in that great battle beneath the walls of Moscow._"

In the Russian camp, meanwhile, the clergy appeared in their richest
vestments, and displaying their holiest images, called on the men to
merit Paradise by devoting themselves in the cause of their country. The
soldiers answered with shouts which were audible throughout all the
enemy's lines.

At four o'clock in the morning of the 7th, the French advanced under
cover of a thick fog, and assaulted at once the centre, the right, and
the left of the position. Such was the impetuosity of the charge that
they drove the Russians from their redoubts; but this was but for a
moment. They rallied under the very line of their enemy's fire, and
instantly re-advanced. Peasants who, till that hour, had never seen war,
and who still wore their usual rustic dress, distinguished only by a
cross sewed on it in front, threw themselves into the thickest of the
combat. As they fell, others rushed on and filled their places. Some
idea may be formed of the obstinacy of the contest from the fact, that
of one division of the Russians which mustered 30,000 in the morning,
only 8000 survived. These men had fought in close order, and unshaken,
under the fire of eighty pieces of artillery. The result of this
terrible day was, that Buonaparte withdrew his troops and abandoned all
hope of forcing his way through the Russians. In no contest by many
degrees so desperate had he hitherto been engaged. Night found either
army on the ground they had occupied at daybreak. The number of guns and
prisoners taken by the French and the Russians was about equal; and of
either host there had fallen not less than 40,000 men. Some accounts
raise the gross number of the slain to 100,000. Such was the victory in
honour of which Napoleon created Marshal Ney _Prince of Moskwa_.

Buonaparte, when advised by his generals, towards the conclusion of the
day, to bring forward his own guard and hazard one final attack at their
head, answered, "And if my guard fail, what means should I have for
renewing the battle to-morrow?" The Russian commander, on the other
hand, appears to have spared nothing to prolong the contest.--During the
night after, his cavalry made several attempts to break into the enemy's
lines; and it was only on receiving the reports of his regimental
officers in the morning, that Kutusoff perceived the necessity of
retiring until he should be further recruited. His army was the mainstay
of his country: on its utter dissolution his master might have found it
very difficult to form another; but while it remained perfect in its
organisation, the patriotic population of the empire were sure to fill
up readily every vacancy in its ranks. Having ascertained then the
extent of his loss, and buried his dead (among whom was the gallant
Bagrathion) with great solemnity,--the Russian slowly and calmly
withdrew from his intrenchments, and marched on Mojaisk. Napoleon was so
fortunate as to be joined exactly at this time by two fresh divisions
from Smolensko, which nearly restored his muster to what it had been
when the battle began; and, thus reinforced, commanded the pursuit to
be vigorously urged. On the 9th, the French van came in sight of the
Russian rear again, and Buonaparte prepared for battle. But next morning
Kutusoff had masked his march so effectually, by scattering clouds of
Cossacks in every direction around the French, that down to the 12th the
invader remained uncertain whether he had retreated on Kalouga, or
directly to the capital. The latter he, at length, found to be the case;
and on the 14th of September Napoleon reached the Hill of Salvation; so
named because from that eminence the Russian traveller obtains his first
view of the ancient metropolis, affectionately called "Mother Moscow,"
and hardly less sacred in his eyes than Jerusalem. The soldiery beheld
with joy and exultation the magnificent extent of the place; its mixture
of Gothic steeples and Oriental domes; the vast and splendid mansions of
the haughty boyards, embosomed in trees; and, high over all the rest,
the huge towers of the Kremlin, at once the palace and the citadel of
the old Czars. The cry of "Moscow! Moscow!" ran through the lines.
Napoleon himself reined in his horse and exclaimed, "Behold at last that
celebrated city!" He added, after a brief pause, "it was time."

Buonaparte had not gazed long on this great capital ere it struck him as
something remarkable that no smoke issued from the chimneys. Neither
appeared there any military on the battlements of the old walls and
towers. There reached him neither message of defiance, nor any
deputation of citizens to present the keys of their town, and recommend
it and themselves to his protection. He was yet marvelling what these
strange circumstances could mean, when Murat, who commanded in the van,
and had pushed on to the gates, came back and informed him that he had
held a parley with Milarodowitch, the general of the Russian rear-guard,
and that, unless two hours were granted for the safe withdrawing of his
troops, he would at once set fire to Moscow. Napoleon immediately
granted the armistice. The two hours elapsed, and still no procession of
nobles or magistrates made its appearance.

On entering the city the French found it deserted by all but the very
lowest and most wretched of its vast population. They soon spread
themselves over its innumerable streets, and commenced the work of
pillage. The magnificent palaces of the Russian boyards, the bazaars of
the merchants, churches and convents, and public buildings of every
description, swarmed with their numbers.

The meanest soldier clothed himself in silk and furs, and drank at his
pleasure the costliest wines. Napoleon, perplexed at the abandonment of
so great a city, had some difficulty in keeping together 30,000 men
under Murat, who followed Milarodowitch, and watched the walls on that
side.

The Emperor, who had retired to rest in a suburban palace, was awakened
at midnight by the cry of _fire_. The chief market-place was in flames;
and some hours elapsed before they could be extinguished by the
exertions of the soldiery. While the fire still blazed, Napoleon
established his quarters in the Kremlin, and wrote, by that fatal light,
a letter to the Czar, containing proposals for peace. The letter was
committed to a prisoner of rank; no answer ever reached Buonaparte.

Next morning found the fire extinguished, and the French officers were
busied throughout the day in selecting houses for their residence. The
flames, however, burst out again as night set in, and under
circumstances which might well fill the mind of the invaders with
astonishment and with alarm. Various detached parts of the city appeared
to be at once on fire; combustibles and matches were discovered in
different places as laid deliberately; the water-pipes were cut: the
wind changed three times in the course of the night, and the flames
always broke out again with new vigour in the quarter from which the
prevailing breeze blew right on the Kremlin. It was sufficiently plain
that Rostophchin, governor of Moscow, had adopted the same plan of
resistance in which Smolensko had already been sacrificed; and his
agents, whenever they fell into the hands of the French, were massacred
without mercy.

A French adventurer, who had been resident for some time in Moscow, gave
an account of Rostophchin's conduct in quitting the city, which might
have prepared Napoleon for some such catastrophe. This person, on
hearing of the approach of his countrymen, had used some expressions
which entitled him to a place in the prisons of Moscow. The day before
Buonaparte entered it, Rostophchin held a last court of justice. This
Frenchman, and a disaffected Russian, were brought before him. The
latter's guilt having been clearly proved, the governor, understanding
his father was in court, said he granted some minutes to the old man to
converse with and bless his son. "Shall I give my blessing to a rebel?"
cried the aged parent--"I hereby give him my curse." Rostophchin ordered
the culprit to be executed, and then turning to the Frenchman, said,
"Your preference of your own people was natural. Take your liberty.
There was but one Russian traitor, and you have witnessed his death."
The governor then set all the malefactors in the numerous jails of
Moscow at liberty, and, abandoning the city to them, withdrew at the
head of the inhabitants, who had for some time been preparing the means
of retreat at his suggestion.

Such was the story of the Frenchman; and every hour brought some new
confirmation of the relentless determination of Rostophchin's
countrymen. Some peasants, brought in from the neighbouring country,
were branded on the arm with the letter N. One of them understanding
that this marked him as the property and adherent of Napoleon, instantly
seized an axe and chopped off his limb. Twelve slaves of Count Woronzow
were taken together and commanded to enlist in the French service, or
suffer death; four of the men folded their arms in silence, and so died.
The French officer in command spared the rest. Such were the anecdotes
which reached Napoleon as he surveyed, from the battlements of the
Kremlin, the raging sea of fire which now swept the capital, east, west,
north, and south. During four days the conflagration endured, and
four-fifths of the city were wholly consumed. "Palaces and temples,"
says the Russian author, Karamsin, "monuments of art and miracles of
luxury, the remains of ages long since past, and the creations of
yesterday, the tombs of ancestors, and the cradles of children, were
indiscriminately destroyed. Nothing was left of Moscow save the memory
of her people, and their deep resolution to avenge her fall."

During two days Napoleon witnessed from the Kremlin the spread of this
fearful devastation, and, in spite of continual showers of sparks and
brands, refused to listen to those who counselled retreat. On the third
night, the equinoctial gale rose, the Kremlin itself took fire, and it
became doubtful whether it would be possible for him to withdraw in
safety; and then he at length rode out of Moscow, through streets in
many parts arched over with flames, and buried, where this was not the
case, in one dense mantle of smoke. "These are indeed Scythians," said
Napoleon. He halted, and fixed his headquarters at Petrowsky, a country
palace of the Czar, about a league distant. But he could not withdraw
his eyes from the rueful spectacle which the burning city presented, and
from time to time repeated the same words, "This bodes great
misfortune."

On the 20th, the flames being at length subdued or exhausted, Napoleon
returned to the Kremlin, well aware how mighty a calamity had befallen
him, but still flattering himself that the resolution of the enemy would
give way on learning the destruction of their ancient and sacred
metropolis. The poor remains of the enormous city still furnished
tolerable lodgings for his army: of provisions there was as yet
abundance; and the invaders, like true Frenchmen, fitted up a theatre,
and witnessed plays acted by performers sent from France; while the
Emperor himself exhibited his equanimity by dating a decree, regulating
the affairs of the Théâtre Français at Paris, from "the imperial
headquarters in the Kremlin." His anxiety to show the French that, even
during his hottest campaigns, his mind continued to be occupied with
them and their domestic administration has already been alluded to.
There was audacious quackery in a stage rescript from Moscow.

Day passed after day and still there came no answer from Alexander:
Buonaparte's situation was becoming hourly more difficult. The news of
the great battle of Salamanca had already reached him: the rumour of
some distant disaster could not be prevented from spreading among the
soldiery. Nearer him, the two flanks of his mighty host had been alike
unsuccessful. The united army of Tormazoff and Tchichagoff, on the
south, and that of Witgenstein, on the north, had obtained decided
advantages over the French generals respectively opposed to them, and
now threatened to close in between Napoleon's central columns and the
magazines in Poland. Witzingerode was at the head of a formidable force
on the road to St. Petersburg; and to the south-west of Moscow lay
Kutusoff, on a very strong position, with an army to which every hour
brought whole bands of enthusiastic recruits. On every side there was
danger; the whole forces of Russia appeared to be gathering around him.
Meantime the season was far advanced; the stern winter of the north was
at hand; and the determined hostility of the peasantry prevented the
smallest supplies of provision from being introduced into the capital.
Had the citizens remained there, the means of subsistence would of
course have continued to be forwarded in the usual methods from the
provinces; but neither boat nor sledge was put in motion after it was
known that Moscow contained no population but the French. The stores, at
first sight so ample, within the city itself, had already begun to fail:
the common soldiers had rich wines and liqueurs in abundance, but no
meat except horse-flesh, and no bread. Daru gave the Emperor what the
latter called "a lion's counsel"; to draw in all his detachments,
convert Moscow into an intrenched camp, kill and salt every horse, and
trust to foraging parties for the rest--in a word, to lay aside all
thoughts of keeping up communication with France, or Germany, or even
Poland; and issue forth from Moscow, with his army entire and refreshed,
in the commencement of the spring. But Napoleon had excellent reasons
for suspecting that were he and his army cut off from all communication,
during six months, with what they had left behind them, the Prussians,
the Austrians, his Rhenish vassals themselves, might throw off the yoke:
while, on the other hand, the Russians could hardly fail, in the course
of so many months, to accumulate, in their own country, a force before
which his isolated army, on re-issuing from their winter quarters, would
appear a mere speck.

Napoleon at length sent Count Lauriston to the headquarters of Kutusoff,
with another letter to Alexander, which the Count was to deliver in
person. Kutusoff received the Frenchman in the midst of all his
generals, and answered with such civility that the envoy doubted not of
success. The end, however, was that the Russian professed himself
altogether unable to entertain any negotiation, or even to sanction the
journey of any French messenger--such being, he said, the last and most
express orders of his Prince. He offered to send on Napoleon's letter to
St. Petersburg, by one of his own aides-de-camp; and to this Lauriston
was obliged to agree. This interview occurred on the 6th of October: no
answer from St. Petersburg could be expected sooner than the 26th. There
had already been one fall of snow. To retreat after having a second time
written to the Czar, would appear like the confession of inability to
remain. The difficulties and dangers attendant on a longer sojourn in
the ruined capital have already been mentioned; and they were increasing
with fearful rapidity every hour. It was under such circumstances that
Napoleon lingered on in the Kremlin until the 19th of October; and it
seems probable that he would have lingered even more days there, had he
not received the tidings of a new reverse, near at hand, and which
effectually stirred him. His attendants have not hesitated to say that,
from the time when he entered Russia, his mind had seemed to be in a
state of indecision and lethargy, when compared with what they had been
accustomed to witness in previous campaigns. From this hour his decision
and activity (if indeed they had ever been obscured) appear to have been
displayed abundantly.

Murat had, without Napoleon's command, and indeed in opposition to his
wishes, established a strange species of armistice with Kutusoff, under
articles which provided that three hours' notice must precede any
regular affair between the two armies confronted to each other, but
allowed the petty warfare of the Cossacks and other light troops to
proceed without interruption on either flank. This suited Kutusoff's
purpose; for it in effect left him in full possession of the means to
avoid a general action until he chose to hazard one, and yet offered no
interruption to the measures by which he and his nation were
deliberately and systematically straitening the supplies of the invader.
Napoleon alleged that Murat had entered on the compact from the desire
of gratifying his own vanity, by galloping about on a neutral ground,
and attracting the admiration of both armies, but especially of the
Cossacks, by his horsemanship, and the brilliant, if not fantastic,
dresses in which it was at all times his delight to exhibit his fine
person. But King Joachim never displayed his foppery so willingly as on
the field of battle: he committed only, on a smaller scale, the same
error which detained his master in the Kremlin.




CHAPTER XXXI

     Napoleon quits Moscow--Battles of Vincovo and
     Malo-Yaraslovetz--Retreat on Verreia--and Smolensko--Repeated
     Defeats and Sufferings of the French--Smolensko--Krasnoi--Passage
     of the Beresina--Smorgonie--Napoleon quits the Army--his arrival at
     Warsaw--at Dresden--in Paris.


The armistice, such as it was, between Joachim and Kutusoff, was broken
through so soon as the latter had sufficiently disciplined the new
recruits who had crowded to his standard from every region of the
empire. Murat then received considerable reinforcements from Moscow,
together with Napoleon's commands to gain possession, if possible, of
one of the roads leading to Kalouga. There, and at Toula, the chief
magazines of the Russian army were known to be established; and,
moreover, by retiring in that direction towards Poland, (should a
retreat finally be found necessary,) Napoleon counted on the additional
and far greater advantage of traversing a country hitherto unwasted.

The King of Naples, accordingly, pushed his light troops over a new
district; and had the mortification to find the Russian system of
defence persevered in wherever he advanced. The splendid country house
of Rostophchin was burnt to the ground, ere the French reached it; and
the following letter, affixed to its gates, breathed the same spirit
which had dared to sacrifice Moscow:--"I have for eight years
embellished this residence, and lived happily in it with my family. The
inhabitants of the estate, in number 1720, quitted it at your approach;
and I set fire to my house, that it may not be polluted with your
presence."

Kutusoff was no longer disposed to witness in inaction the progress of
Murat. He divined that Napoleon must at last be convinced of the
necessity of abandoning Moscow, and determined that at all events he
should not make his retreat in the direction of Kalouga. General
Bennigsen was ordered to attack Murat, on the 18th October, at Vincovo:
and the result was decidedly in favour of the Russians, in whose hands
there remained nearly 3000 prisoners, and forty pieces of artillery.
The cannonade was heard at the Kremlin; and no sooner did the issue of
the day reach Napoleon, than he made up his mind to march his whole army
to the support of the King of Naples. That same evening, several
divisions were put in motion; he himself, at the head of others, left
Moscow on the 19th; and the metropolis was wholly evacuated on the
morning of the 22nd. Russian troops entered it immediately afterwards,
in time to preserve the Kremlin, which had been undermined and attempted
to be blown up in a last access of rage; and within a few hours, so
completely had the patriotic peasants baffled Napoleon, the town swarmed
with people, and all the market-places were crowded with every species
of provision. The Emperor's bulletins announced that "Moscow had been
found not to be a good military position,"--that it was "necessary for
the army to breathe on a wider space." The precipitancy, however, with
which the French retired was such that they left their sick and wounded
to the mercy of the Russians; and yet thousands of waggons, laden with
the spoil of Moscow, attended and encumbered their march.

Kutusoff now perceived that he had to expect the attack of a greater
than Murat. The Russian general occupied a position at Taroutino, on the
old road to Kalouga (the central one of three nearly parallel routes),
so strong by nature, and so improved by art, that Napoleon judged it
hopeless to attack him there. He therefore made a lateral movement, and
pushed on by the western road--meaning, after he had passed Taroutino,
to strike back again into the central one, and so interpose himself
between Kutusoff and Kalouga. The old Russian, however, penetrated this
plan; and instantly, by a manœuvre of precisely the same kind--marching
to the eastward, and thence back to the centre again,--baffled it. The
French van, having executed the first part of their orders, and regained
the middle road in the rear of Taroutino, advanced without opposition as
far as Malo-Yaraslovetz, and occupied that town. But at midnight they
were assaulted furiously within it, and driven back across the river
Louja, where the leading divisions of the army bivouacked. Early in the
morning the French retook Malo-Yaraslovetz at the point of the bayonet,
and the greater part of the day was spent in a succession of obstinate
contests, in the course of which the town five times changed masters. In
the evening, Napoleon came up with his main body. He found his troops,
indeed, in possession of the place; but beyond it, his generals informed
him, Kutusoff and his whole army were now posted, and this on a position
at least as strong as that of Taroutino, which he himself had considered
unassailable.

The Emperor's headquarters were in the wretched and filthy hut of a poor
weaver, and here an angry debate ensued between Murat and Davoust; the
former of whom urged the necessity of instantly attacking the Russian,
while the latter pronounced such an attempt to be worthy of a madman.
The Emperor heard them in gloomy silence, and declared that he would
judge for himself in the morning. He dismissed them all, and, if Segur
may be believed, spent the night in great agitation; now rising, now
lying down again--incessantly calling out--yet refusing to admit anyone
within a temporary screen of cloth which concealed his person from the
eyes of his attendants. This was the first occasion on which Buonaparte
betrayed in his demeanour that dark presentiment which had settled on
his mind ever since he beheld the flames of Moscow.

At daybreak he passed the Louja with a few attendants, for the purpose
of reconnoitring Kutusoff's position. He had scarcely crossed the
bridge, when a party of Platoff's Cossacks, galloping furiously, and
sweeping some scattered companies of the French before them, came full
upon the Emperor and his suite. Napoleon was urged to seek safety in
flight; but he drew his sword and took post on the bank by the way-side.
The wild spearmen, intent on booty, plunged on immediately below him,
and, after stripping some soldiers, retired again at full speed to their
Pulk, without having observed the inestimable prize. The Emperor watched
their retreat, and continued his reconnaissance. It satisfied him that
Davoust had judged rightly.

He made another effort to force a passage southwards at Medyn; but here
also he was repelled, and forced to abandon the attempt. Meantime the
army which had occupied Moscow begun to send forth its Cossacks on his
rear. In a word, it became apparent that if the retreat were to be
urged, it must now be in the direction of Verreia and Smolensko; that
is, through the same provinces which had been entirely wasted in the
earlier part of the campaign.

Kutusoff, whether merely overpowered for the moment with that vague
sentiment which Buonaparte's name had hitherto been accustomed to
inspire, or that he knew of a still better position nearer Kalouga, was,
in fact, retiring from his strong ground behind Malo-Yaraslovetz, at the
moment when the French began to break up from the Louja. No sooner,
however, was that movement known, than the Russian penetrated the extent
of his adversary's embarrassments; and Platoff, with the Cossacks,
received orders to hang close on the French rear--while Milarodowitch,
with 18,000 men, pushed directly on Viasma; and the main army taking a
parallel, and a shorter, though less practicable route, marched also
with the view of watching the retreat on Smolensko.

As Buonaparte was about to leave Verreia, General Witzingerode was
brought a prisoner into his presence. This officer had advanced to the
Kremlin, ere it was abandoned, with a flag of truce, for the purpose of
entering into some arrangements concerning the French wounded; and it is
to be supposed, of dissuading the departing garrison from destroying the
citadel. He was, however, placed instantly under arrest, and hurried
away with the enemy's march. Napoleon, whose temper was by this time
embittered into ungovernable rage, charged the General with being the
leader of the Cossacks, and threatened to have him shot, on the instant,
as a brigand. Witzingerode replied, that "he commanded not the Cossacks,
but a part of the regular army; and that, in the character of a Russian
soldier, he was at all times prepared for a French bullet." Napoleon,
now ascertaining the name, country, and rank of his prisoner, pursued in
these angry ejaculations: "Who are you? A man without a country--You
have ever been my enemy--You were in the Austrian's ranks at
Austerlitz--I now find you in the Russian! Nevertheless, you are a
native of the Confederation of the Rhine--therefore my subject--and a
rebel.--Seize him, gens-d'armes! Let the traitor be brought to trial."
The Emperor's attendants were wise enough to foresee the effects of such
violence, if persisted in: they interposed, and Witzingerode was sent
on as a prisoner of war towards Smolensko.[62]

On the 28th of October, Napoleon himself, with 6000 chosen horse, began
his journey towards Smolensko; the care of bringing up the main body
being given to Beauharnois, while Ney commanded the rear. From the
commencement of this march, hardly a day elapsed in which some new
calamity did not befall those hitherto invincible legions. The Cossacks
of Platoff came on one division at Kolotsk, near Borodino, on the 1st of
November, and gave them a total defeat. A second division was attacked
on the day after, and with nearly equal success, by the irregular troops
of Count Orloff Denizoff. On the 3rd, Milarodowitch reached the main
road near Viasma, and after routing Ney, Davoust, and Beauharnois, drove
them through the town, which he entered with drums beating and colours
flying, and making a passage for the rest of the army over the dead
bodies of the enemy. Beauharnois, after this, separated his division
from the rest, and endeavoured to push for Vitepsk, by the way of
Douchowtchina, and Platoff followed him, while Milarodowitch continued
the pursuit on the main road. The separation of troops so pressed is a
sufficient proof that they were already suffering severely for want of
food; but their miseries were about to be heightened by the arrival of a
new enemy. On the 6th of November, the Russian winter fairly set in; and
thenceforth, between the heavy columns of regular troops which on every
side watched and threatened them, the continued assaults of the Cossacks
who hung around them in clouds by day and by night, rushing on every
detached party, disturbing every bivouack, breaking up bridges before,
and destroying every straggler behind them, and the terrible severity of
the climate, the frost, the snow, the wind--the sufferings of this once
magnificent army were such as to baffle all description.

The accounts of the Russian authorities, of the French eye-witnesses who
have since told this story, and, it must be added, of the Emperor's own
celebrated "twenty-ninth bulletin," are in harmony with each other. The
enormous train of artillery which Napoleon had insisted on bringing away
from Moscow was soon diminished; and the roads were blocked up with the
spoils of the city, abandoned of necessity as the means of transport
failed. The horses, having been ill-fed for months, were altogether
unable to resist the united effects of cold and fatigue. They sank and
stiffened by hundreds and by thousands. The starving soldiery slew
others of these animals, that they might drink their warm blood, and
wrap themselves in their yet reeking skins. The discipline of these
miserable bands vanished. Ney was indeed able to keep together some
battalions of the rear guard, and present a bold aspect to the
pursuers--the marshal himself not disdaining to bear a firelock, and
share the meanest fatigues of his followers; but elsewhere there
remained hardly the shadow of military order. Small and detached bodies
of men moved, like soldiers, on the highway--the immense majority
dispersed themselves over the ice and snow which equalised the surface
of the fields on either side, and there sustained from time to time the
rapid and merciless charge of the Cossacks.

Beauharnois, meantime, discovered before he had advanced far on his
separate route, that Witgenstein, having defeated successively St. Cyr
and Victor on the Dwina, was already in possession of Vitepsk. The
viceroy therefore was compelled to turn back towards the Smolensko road.
Platoff turned with him, and brought him once more to action, "killing
many," said the Hetman's despatch, "but making few prisoners." The army
of Italy, if it could still be called an army, mingled with the few
troops who still preserved some show of order under Ney, before they
came in sight of Smolensko, and communicated to them their own terror
and confusion.

Meanwhile the Russian "army of Volhynia," after it was strengthened by
the arrival of Tchichagoff from the Danube, had been able (as we have
already hinted) to bear down all the opposition of Schwartzenberg and
Regnier; had driven their forces before them, and taken possession of
Napoleon's great depôt, Minsk, from which they might hope ere long to
communicate with Witgenstein. The armies of Witgenstein and Tchichagoff,
then, were about to be in communication with each other, and in
possession of those points at which Napoleon was most likely to attempt
his escape from Smolensko, into Poland; while the main army itself,
having advanced side by side with the French, was now stationed to the
south-west of Smolensko, in readiness to break the enemy's march
whenever Kutusoff should choose; Milarodowitch, finally, and Platoff,
were hanging close behind, and thinning every hour the miserable bands
who had no longer heart, nor, for the most part, arms of any kind
wherewith to resist them. But the whole extent of these misfortunes was
not known to any one of the French generals, nor even to Napoleon
himself, at the time when Beauharnois and Ney at length entered
Smolensko.

The name of that town had hitherto been the only spell that preserved
any hope within the soldiers of the retreat. There, they had been told,
they should find food, clothing, and supplies of all sorts: and there,
being once more assembled under the eye of the Emperor, speedily
reassume an aspect, such as none of the northern barbarians would dare
to brave.

But these expectations were cruelly belied. Smolensko had been, as we
have seen, almost entirely destroyed by the Russians in the early part
of the campaign. Its ruined walls afforded only a scanty shelter to the
famished and shivering fugitives; and the provisions assembled there
were so inadequate to the demands of the case, that after the lapse of a
few days, Buonaparte found himself under the necessity of once more
renewing his disastrous march. He had, as yet, received no intelligence
of the capture of Minsk by Tchichagoff. It was in that direction,
accordingly, that he resolved to force his passage into Poland.

Although the grand army had mustered 120,000 when it left Moscow, and
the fragments of various divisions besides had met the Emperor at
Smolensko, it was with great difficulty that 40,000 men could now be
brought together in anything like fighting condition. These Napoleon
divided into four columns, nearly equal in numbers: of the first, which
included 6000 of the imperial guard, he himself took the command, and
marched with it towards Krasnoi, the first town on the way to Minsk: the
second corps was that of Eugene Beauharnois; the third, Davoust's; and
the fourth, destined for the perilous service of the rear, and
accordingly strengthened with 3000 of the guard, was entrusted to the
heroic guidance of Ney. The Emperor left Smolensko on the 13th of
November, having ordered that the other corps should follow him on the
14th, 15th, and 16th, respectively; thus interposing a day's march
between every two divisions.

It is not to be questioned that Napoleon, in thus arranging his march,
was influenced by the pressing difficulty of finding provisions, and
also by the enfeebled condition of the greater part of his remaining
troops. The division of his force, however, was so complete, that had he
been opposed by a general adequate to the occasion, his total and
immediate ruin could hardly have been avoided. But Kutusoff appears to
have exhausted the better part of his daring at Borodino, and
thenceforth to have adhered to the plan of avoiding battle--originally
wise and necessary--with a pertinacity savouring of superstition. It
must be admitted, that hitherto, in suffering the climate to waste his
enemy's numbers, and merely heightening the misery of the elemental war
by his clouds of Cossacks, and occasional assaults of other light
troops, he had reaped almost every advantage which could have resulted
from another course. But the army of Napoleon had been already reduced
to a very small fragment of its original strength; and even that
fragment was now split into four divisions, against any one of which it
would have been easy to concentrate a force overwhelmingly superior. It
seems to be generally accepted that the name of Napoleon saved whatever
part of his host finally escaped from the territory of Russia; in a
word, that had Kutusoff been able to shake off that awe which had been
the growth of a hundred victories, the Emperor himself must have either
died on some bloody field between Smolensko and the Beresina, or
revisited, as a prisoner, the interior of the country which, three
months before, he had invaded at the head of half a million of warriors.

He himself, with his column, reached Krasnoi unmolested, although the
whole of the Russian army, moving on a parallel road, were in full
observation of his march. Eugene, who followed him, was, however,
intercepted on his way by Milarodowitch, and after sustaining the
contest gallantly against very disproportionate numbers, and a terrible
cannonade, was at length saved only by the fall of night. During the
darkness, the Viceroy executed a long and hazardous _detour_, and joined
the Emperor in Krasnoi, on the 17th. On this night-march they fell in
with the videttes of another of Kutusoff's columns, and owed their
preservation to the quickness of a Polish soldier, who answered the
challenge in Russian. The loss, however, had been severe; the two
leading divisions, now united in Krasnoi, mustered scarcely 15,000.

Napoleon was most anxious to secure the passage of the Dnieper at Liady,
and immediately gave Eugene the command of the van, with orders to march
on this point; but he was warned by the losses which his son-in-law had
undergone, of the absolute necessity of waiting at Krasnoi until Davoust
and Ney should be able to come up with him. He determined, therefore, to
abide, with 6000 of the guard, and another corps of 5000, whatever
numbers Kutusoff might please to bring against him. He drew his sword,
and said, "I have long enough played the Emperor--I must be the general
once more."

In vain was Kutusoff urged to seize this opportunity of pouring an
irresistible force on the French position. The veteran commanded a
cannonade--and, as he had 100 pieces of artillery well placed, the ranks
of the enemy were thinned considerably. But, excepting one or two
isolated charges of cavalry, he adventured on no closer collision; and
Napoleon held his ground, in face of all that host, until nightfall,
when Davoust's division, surrounded and pursued by innumerable Cossacks,
at length were enabled to rally once more around his headquarters.

He had the mortification to learn, however, that Ney was probably still
in Smolensko, and that a Russian force had marched on towards Liady,
with the design of again intercepting Eugene. The Emperor, therefore,
once more divided his numbers--pushed on in person to support
Beauharnois and secure Liady--and left Davoust and Mortier to hold out
as long as possible at Krasnoi, in the hope of being there joined by
Ney. Long, however, before that gallant chief could reach this point,
the Russians, as if the absence of Napoleon had at once restored all
their energy, rushed down and forced on Davoust and Mortier, the battle
which the Emperor had in vain solicited. On that fatal field the French
left forty-five cannon and 6000 prisoners, besides the slain and the
wounded. The remainder with difficulty effected their escape to Liady,
where Napoleon once more received them, and crossed the Dnieper.

Ney, meanwhile, having in execution of his master's parting injunctions
blown up whatever remained of the walls and towers of Smolensko, at
length set his rear-guard in motion, and advanced to Krasnoi, without
being harassed by any except Platoff, whose Cossacks entered Smolensko
ere he could wholly abandon it. The field strewn with many thousand
corpses, informed him sufficiently that a new disaster had befallen the
fated army. Yet he continued to advance on the footsteps of those who
had thus shattered Davoust and Mortier, and met with no considerable
interruption until he reached the ravine in which the rivulet Losmina
has its channel. A thick mist lay on the ground, and Ney was almost on
the brink of the ravine, before he perceived that it was manned
throughout by Russians, while the opposite banks displayed a long line
of batteries deliberately arranged, and all the hills behind were
covered with troops.

A Russian officer appeared and summoned Ney to capitulate. "A mareschal
of France never surrenders," was his intrepid answer; and immediately
the batteries, distant only 250 yards, opened a tremendous storm of
grape shot. Ney, nevertheless, had the hardihood to plunge into the
ravine, clear a passage over the stream, and charge the Russians at
their guns. His small band were repelled with fearful slaughter; but he
renewed his efforts from time to time during the day, and at night,
though with numbers much diminished, still occupied his original
position in the face of a whole army interposed between him and
Napoleon.

The Emperor had by this time given up all hope of ever again seeing
anything of his rear-column. But during the ensuing night, Ney effected
his escape; nor does the history of war present many such examples of
apparently insuperable difficulties overcome by the union of skill and
valour. The marshal broke up his bivouac at midnight, and marched back
from the Losmina, until he came on another stream, which he concluded
must flow also into the Dnieper. He followed this guide, and at length
reached the great river at the place where it was frozen over, though so
thinly, that the ice bent and crackled beneath the feet of the men, who
crossed it in single files. The waggons laden with the wounded, and what
great guns were still with Ney, were too heavy for this frail bridge.
They attempted the passage at different points, and one after another
went down, amidst the shrieks of the dying and the groans of the
onlookers. The Cossacks had by this time gathered hard behind, and
swept up many stragglers, besides the sick. But Ney had achieved his
great object: and on the 20th, he, with his small and devoted band,
joined the Emperor once more at Orcsa. Napoleon received him in his
arms, hailed him as "the bravest of the brave," and declared that he
would have given all his treasures to be assured of his safety.

The Emperor was once more at the head of his united "grand army"; but
the name was ere now become a jest. Between Smolensko and the Dnieper
the Russians had taken 228 guns, and 26,000 prisoners; and, in a word,
having mustered 40,000 effective men at leaving Smolensko, Napoleon
could count only 12,000 after Ney joined him at Orcsa. Of these there
were but 150 cavalry; and, to remedy this defect, officers still in
possession of horses, to the number of 500, were now formed into a
"sacred band," as it was called, for immediate attendance on the
Emperor's person. The small fragment of his once gigantic force had no
sooner recovered something like the order of discipline, than it was
again set in motion.

But scarcely had the Emperor passed the Dnieper, when he received the
tidings of the fall of Minsk, and the subsequent retreat of
Schwartzenberg towards Warsaw. It was, therefore, necessary, to alter
his plan, and force a passage into Poland to the northward of that great
depôt. It was necessary, moreover, to do this without loss of time, for
the Emperor well knew that Witgenstein had been as successful on his
right flank, as Tchichagoff on his left; and that these generals might
soon be, if they already were not, in communication with each other, and
ready to unite all their forces for the defence of the next great river
on his route--the Beresina.

Napoleon had hardly resolved to attempt the passage of this river at
Borizoff, ere, to renew all his perplexities, he received intelligence
that Witgenstein had defeated Dombrowski there, and retained possession
of the town and bridge. Victor and Oudinot, indeed, advanced immediately
to succour Dombrowski, and re-took Borizoff; but Witgenstein burnt the
bridge before he re-crossed the Beresina. Imperfect as Victor's success
was, Napoleon did not hear of it immediately. He determined to pass the
Beresina higher up, at Studzianska, and forthwith threw himself into the
huge forests which border that river, adopting every stratagem by which
his enemies could be puzzled as to the immediate object of his march.

His 12,000 men, brave and determined, but no longer preserving in their
dress, nor, unless when the trumpet blew, in their demeanour, a
soldier-like appearance, were winding their way amidst these dark woods,
when suddenly the air around them was filled with sounds which could
only proceed from the march of some far greater host. They were
preparing for the worst, when they found themselves in presence of the
advanced guard of the united army of Victor and Oudinot, who had,
indeed, been defeated by Witgenstein, but still mustered 50,000 men,
completely equipped and hardly shaken in discipline. With what feelings
must these troops have surveyed the miserable half-starved and half-clad
remains of that "grand army," their own detachment from whose banners
had, some few short months before, filled every bosom among them with
regret!

Having melted the poor relics of his Moscow army into these battalions,
Napoleon now continued his march on Studzianska; employing, however, all
his wit to confirm Tchichagoff in the notion that he meant to pass the
Beresina at a different place,--and this with so much success, that
Tchaplitz, with the Russian rear-guard, abandoned a strong position,
commanding the river, during the very night which preceded his
appearance there. Two bridges were erected, and Oudinot had passed over
before Tchaplitz perceived his mistake, and returned again toward
Studzianska.

Discovering that the passage had already begun, and that in consequence
of the narrowness of the only two bridges, it must needs proceed slowly,
Tchichagoff and Witgenstein now arranged a joint plan of attack. The
latter once more passed to the eastern bank of the river, and, having
wholly cut off one division of 7000, under Partonneux, not far from
Borizoff, proceeded towards Studzianska. Platoff and his indefatigable
Cossacks joined Witgenstein on this march, and they arrived long before
the rear-guard of Napoleon could pass the river. But the operations on
the other side of the Beresina were far less zealously or skilfully
conducted. Tchichagoff was in vain urged to support effectually
Tchaplitz; who attacked the French that had passed, and being repelled
by Oudinot, left them in unmolested possession, not only of the bridges
on the Beresina, but of a long train of wooden causeways, extending for
miles beyond the river, over deep and dangerous morasses, and which
being composed of old dry timber, would have required, says Segur, "to
destroy them utterly, but a few sparks from the Cossacks' tobacco
pipes."

In spite of this neglect, and of the altogether extraordinary conduct of
Kutusoff, who still persisted in marching on a line parallel with
Napoleon, and refusing to hazard any more assaults, the passage of the
Beresina was one of the most fearful scenes recorded in the annals of
war. Victor, with the rear-division, consisting of 8000 men, was still
on the eastern side--when Witgenstein and Platoff appeared on the
heights above. The still numerous retainers of the camp, crowds of sick,
wounded, and women, and the greater part of the artillery, were in the
same situation. When the Russian cannon began to open upon this
multitude, crammed together near the bank, and each anxiously expecting
the turn to pass, a shriek of utter terror ran through them, and men,
women, horses, and waggons rushed at once, pell-mell, upon the bridges.
The larger of these, intended solely for waggons and cannon, ere long
broke down, precipitating all that were upon it into the dark and
half-frozen stream. The scream that rose at this moment, says one that
heard it, "did not leave my ears for weeks; it was heard clear and loud
over the hurrahs of the Cossacks, and all the roar of artillery." The
remaining bridge was now the only resource, and all indiscriminately
endeavoured to gain a footing on it. Squeezed, trampled, forced over the
ledges, cut down by each other, and torn by the incessant shower of
Russian cannonade, they fell and died in thousands. Victor stood his
ground bravely until late in the evening, and then conducted his
division over the bridge. There still remained behind a great number of
the irregular attendants, besides those soldiers who had been wounded
during the battle, and guns and baggage-carts enough to cover a large
meadow. The French now fired the bridge, and all these were abandoned to
their fate. The Russian account states, that when the Beresina thawed
after that winter's frost, 36,000 bodies were found in its bed.

Tchaplitz was soon joined in his pursuit of the survivors by
Witgenstein and Platoff, and nothing could have saved Napoleon but the
unexpected arrival of a fresh division under Maison, sent forwards from
Poland by Maret, Duke of Bassano.

But the severity of the winter began now to be intense, and the
sufferings of the army thus recruited were such, that discipline ere
long disappeared, except among a few thousands of hardy veterans, over
whose spirits the Emperor and Ney preserved some influence. The assaults
of the Cossacks continued as before: the troops often performed their
march by night, by the light of torches, in the hope of escaping their
merciless pursuers. When they halted, they fell asleep in hundreds to
wake no more. Their enemies found them frozen to death around the ashes
of their watch-fires. It is said, among other horrors, that more than
once they found poor famished wretches endeavouring to broil the flesh
of their dead comrades. On scenes so fearful the veil must not be
entirely dropt. Such is the price at which ambition does not hesitate to
purchase even the chance of what the world has not yet ceased to call
glory!

The haughty and imperious spirit of Napoleon sank not under all these
miseries. He affected, in so far as was possible, not to see them. He
still issued his orders as if his army, in all its divisions, were
entire, and sent bulletins to Paris announcing a succession of
victories. When his officers came to inform him of some new calamity, he
dismissed them abruptly, saying, "Why will you disturb my tranquillity?
I desire to know no particulars. Why will you deprive me of my
tranquillity?"

On the 3rd of December he reached Malodeczno, and announced to his
marshals that the news he had received from Paris, and the uncertain
nature of his relations with some of his allies, rendered it
indispensable for him to quit his army without further delay. They were
now, he said, almost within sight of Poland; they would find plenty of
everything at Wilna. It was his business to prepare at home the means of
opening the next campaign in a manner worthy of _the great nation_. At
Smorgoni, on the 5th, the garrison of Wilna met him; and then, having
entrusted to these fresh troops the protection of the rear, and given
the chief command to Murat, he finally bade adieu to the relics of his
host. He set off at midnight in a _traineau_, accompanied by
Caulaincourt, whose name he assumed: two other vehicles of the same kind
followed, containing two officers of rank, Rustan the Emperor's
favourite Mameluke, and one domestic besides.

Having narrowly escaped being taken by a party of irregular Russians at
Youpranoni, Napoleon reached Warsaw at nightfall, on the 10th of
December. His ambassador there, the Abbé de Pradt, who had as yet heard
no distinct accounts of the progress of events, was unexpectedly visited
by Caulaincourt, who abruptly informed him that the grand army was no
more. The Abbé accompanied Caulaincourt to an obscure inn, where the
Emperor, wrapped in a fur cloak, was walking up and down rapidly, beside
a newly-lit fire. He was received with an air of gaiety, which for a
moment disconcerted him; and proceeded to mention that the inhabitants
of the Grand Duchy were beginning to show symptoms of disaffection, and
even of a desire to reconcile themselves with the Prussians, under whose
yoke they feared they were destined to return. The Abbé expressed his
own satisfaction that the Emperor had escaped from so many dangers.
"Dangers," cried Napoleon, "there were none--I have beat the Russians in
every battle--I live but in dangers--it is for kings of Cockaigne to sit
at home at ease. My army is in a superb condition still--it will be
recruited at leisure at Wilna, and I go to bring up 300,000 men more
from France. I quit my army with regret, but I must watch Austria and
Prussia, and I have more weight on my throne than at headquarters. The
Russians will be rendered foolhardy by their successes--I shall beat
them in a battle or two on the Oder, and be on the Niemen again within a
month." This harangue, utterly contradictory throughout, he began and
ended with a favourite phrase--"Monsieur L'Ambassadeur, from the sublime
to the ridiculous there is but a step."

Resuming his incognito and his journey, Napoleon reached Dresden on the
evening of the 14th December, where the King of Saxony visited him
secretly at his inn, and renewed his assurances of fidelity. He arrived
at the Tuileries on the 18th, late at night, after the Empress had
retired to rest. He entered the ante-chamber, to the confusion of her
attendants, who at length recognised him with a cry that roused Maria
Louisa from her slumbers; and Napoleon was welcomed with all the warmth
of undiminished affection.

The army, whom its chief had thus abandoned, pursued meanwhile that
miserable march, of which every day augmented the disorder. The garrison
of Wilna and Maison's corps, united to those who escaped across the
Beresina, might number in all 80,000. Before Murat reached Wilna, 40,000
of these had either died or fallen alive into the hands of their
unrelenting pursuers. In that city there were abundant magazines of
every kind, and the few who had as yet preserved some appearance of
order, together with the multitudes of broken stragglers, rushed in
confusion into the place, in the hope of at length resting from their
toils, and eating and drinking, for at least one day, in peace. Strong
men were observed weeping with joy at the sight of a loaf of bread. But
scarcely had they received their rations, ere the well-known _hurrah_ of
Platoff rung once more in their ears. They fled once more, with such of
their baggage as could be most easily got into motion; but many fell
beneath the spears of the Cossacks, and not a few, it is said, were
butchered deliberately in the moment of their perplexity by their
Lithuanian hosts, the same Polish Jews who had already inflicted such
irreparable injury on the whole army, by their non-observance of their
contracts. Shortly after, a waggon laden with coin was overturned on the
road, and the soldiers, laying aside all attention to their officers,
began to plunder the rich spoil. The Cossacks came up--but there was
enough for all, and friend and foe pillaged the imperial treasure, in
company, for once, without strife. It deserves to be recorded that some
soldiers of the imperial guard restored the money which fell to their
share on this occasion, when the weary march at length reached its end.

They passed the Niemen at Kowno; and the Russians did not pursue them
into the Prussian territory. At the time when they escaped finally from
Poland, there were about 1000 in arms, and perhaps 20,000 more, utterly
broken, dispersed, and demoralised.

Schwartzenberg, the general of the Austrian auxiliaries, on learning the
departure of Napoleon, formed an armistice with the Russians, and
retired by degrees into his own prince's territory. These allies had
shown little zeal in any part of the campaign; and their conduct seems
to have been appreciated by the Russians accordingly.

In Courland, on the left flank of the French retreat, there remained the
separate corps of Macdonald, who had with him 20,000 Prussians and
10,000 Bavarians and other Germans. These Prussians had been sent on
this detached service in just apprehension of their coldness to the
invader's cause. Macdonald, on learning the utter ruin of the main army,
commenced his march upon Tilsit. On reaching that place D'York, the
commander of the Prussians, refused any longer to obey the marshal's
orders, and separated his men entirely--thus taking on himself the
responsibility of disobeying the letter of his sovereign's commands, and
anticipating that general burst of national hatred which, as all men
perceived, could not much longer be deferred.

To the great honour, however, of the Prussian people, the wearied relics
of Napoleon's grand army were received in the country which, in the days
of their prosperity, they had so wantonly insulted, if not with
friendship, at least, with compassion. They took up their quarters, and
remained for a time unmolested, in and near Konigsberg.

Thus ended the invasion of Russia. There had been slain in battle, on
the side of Napoleon, 125,000 men. Fatigue, hunger, and cold, had caused
the death of 132,000! and the Russians had taken of prisoners
193,000--including forty-eight generals and 3000 regimental officers.
The total loss was, therefore, 450,000 men. The eagles and standards
left in the enemy's hands were seventy-five in number, and the pieces of
cannon nearly one thousand.

Exclusive of the Austrian and Prussian auxiliaries, there remained of
all the enormous host which Napoleon set in motion in August about
40,000 men; and of these not 10,000 were of the French nation.

[Footnote 62: He was rescued in Poland by a party of Cossacks.]




CHAPTER XXXII

     Conspiracy of Mallet--Napoleon's reception in Paris--his Military
     Preparations--Prussia declares War--Austria negotiates with
     Napoleon--Bernadette appears in Germany--The Russians advance into
     Silesia--Napoleon heads his Army in Saxony--Battle of
     Lutzen--Battle of Bautzen.


Some allusion has already been made to the news of a political
disturbance in Paris, which reached Napoleon during his retreat from
Moscow, and quickened his final abandonment of the army. The occurrence
in question was the daring conspiracy headed by General Mallet. This
officer, one of the ancient noblesse, had been placed in confinement in
1808, in consequence of his connection with a society called the
_Philadelphes_, which seems to have sprung up within the French army, at
the time when Napoleon seized the supreme power, and which had for its
immediate object his deposition--while some of the members contemplated
the restoration of a republican government, and others, of whom Mallet
was one, the recall of the royal family of Bourbon. The people of Paris
had for some weeks received no official intelligence from the grand
army, and rumours of some awful catastrophe were rife among all classes,
when Mallet conceived the daring project of forging a senatus-consultum,
announcing the fall of Napoleon in a great battle in Russia, and
appointing a provisional government. Having executed this forgery, the
general escaped from his prison, and appeared in full uniform, attended
by a corporal dressed as an aide-de-camp, at midnight, on the 22nd of
October 1812, at the gates of the Minims barracks, then tenanted by some
new and raw levies. The audacity with which he claimed the obedience of
these men to the senatorial decree overawed them. He assumed the
command, and on the instant arrested by their means Savary, minister of
police, and some others of the principal functionaries in the capital.
General Hullin, the military governor, was summoned and hesitated; at
that moment the officer of police, from whose keeping Mallet had
escaped, recognised him, and he was immediately resisted, disarmed, and
confined. The whole affair was over in the course of a few hours, but
the fact that so wild a scheme should have been so nearly successful was
sufficiently alarming. The ease and indifference with which a
considerable body of armed men, in the very heart of Paris, had
transferred their services to a new authority, proclaimed by a stranger,
made Napoleon consider with suspicion the basis of his power. And
ignorant to what extent the conspiracy had actually gone, he heard with
additional alarm, that no fewer than twenty-four persons, including the
leader, had been condemned to death. Of so many he was willing to
believe that some at least had been mere dupes, and apprehended that so
much bloodshed might create a violent revulsion of public feeling. The
Parisians beheld the execution of these men with as much indifference as
their bold attempt; but of this Napoleon was ignorant, until he reached
the Tuileries.

His arrival, preceded as it had been by the twenty-ninth bulletin, in
which the veil was at last lifted from the fatal events of the campaign,
restored for the moment the appearances of composure, amidst a
population of which almost every family had lost a son or a brother.
Such was the influence that still clung to his name. The Emperor was
safe. However great the present calamity, hope remained. The elements,
as they were taught to believe, had not merely quickened and increased,
but wholly occasioned the reverses of the army. The Russian winter was
the only enemy that had been able to triumph over his genius, and the
valour of Frenchmen. The senate, the magistrates, all those public
bodies and functionaries who had the means of approaching the throne,
now crowded to its footsteps with addresses full of adulation yet more
audacious than they had ever before ventured on. Tho voice of applause,
congratulation, and confidence, re-echoed from every quarter, drowned
the whispers of suspicion, resentment, and natural sorrow. Every
department of the public service appeared to be animated with a spirit
of tenfold activity. New conscriptions were called for and yielded.
Regiments arrived from Spain and from Italy. Every arsenal resounded
with the preparation of new artillery--thousands of horses were
impressed in every province. Ere many weeks had elapsed. Napoleon found
himself once more in a condition to take the field with not less than
350,000 soldiers. Such was the effect of his new appeal to the national
feelings of this great and gallant people.

Meanwhile the French garrisons dispersed over the Prussian territory
were wholly incompetent to overawe that oppressed and insulted nation,
now burning with the settled thirst and the long-deferred hope of
vengeance. The king interposed, indeed, his authority to protect the
soldiers of Napoleon from popular violence; but it presently became
manifest that their safety must depend on their concentrating themselves
in a small number of fortified places; and that even if Frederick
William had been cordially anxious to preserve his alliance with France,
it would soon be impossible for him to resist the unanimous wishes of
his people. Murat was already weary of his command. He found himself
thwarted and controlled by the other generals, none of whom respected
his authority; and one of whom, when he happened to speak of himself in
the same breath with the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia, answered
without ceremony, "You must remember that these are kings by the grace
of God, by descent, and by custom; whereas you are only a king by the
grace of Napoleon, and through the expenditure of French blood." Murat
was moreover jealous of the extent to which his queen was understood to
be playing the sovereign in Naples, and he threw up his command; being
succeeded by Eugene Beauharnois, and insulted anew by Napoleon himself,
in a general order which announced this change, and alleged as its
causes, the superior military skill of the viceroy, and his possession
of "the full confidence of the Emperor." Eugene succeeded to the command
at the moment when it was obvious that Frederick William could no
longer, even if he would, repress the universal enthusiasm of his
people. On the 31st of January, the King made his escape to Breslau, in
which neighbourhood no French were garrisoned, erected his standard, and
called on the nation to rise in arms. Whereon Eugene retired to
Magdeburg, and shut himself up in that great fortress, with as many
troops as he could assemble to the west of the Elbe.

Six years had elapsed since the fatal day of Jena; and, in spite of all
the watchfulness of Napoleon's tyranny, the Prussian nation had
recovered in a great measure its energies. The people now answered the
call of their beloved prince, as with the heart and voice of one man.
Youths of all ranks, the highest and the lowest, flocked
indiscriminately to the standard: the students of the universities
formed themselves into battalions, at the head of which, in many
instances, their teachers marched. The women flung their trinkets into
the king's treasure--the gentlemen melted their plate--England poured in
her gold with a lavish hand. The rapidity with which discipline was
established among the great levies thus assembled, excited universal
astonishment. It spoke the intense and perfect zeal with which a people,
naturally warlike, had devoted themselves to the sacred cause of
independence. The Emperor of Russia was no sooner aware of this great
movement, than he resolved to advance into Silesia. Having masked
several French garrisons in Prussian Poland, and taken others, he pushed
on with his main army to support Frederick William. There was some risk
in leaving a considerable number of hostile fortresses behind him and
his own frontier; but this he encountered cheerfully, rather than permit
the Prussians to stand alone in the first onset of Napoleon, of whose
extensive preparations all Europe was well aware. The two sovereigns,
long attached to each other by the warmest feelings of personal
friendship, though of late compelled by the iron force of circumstances
to put on the disguise of hostility, met at Breslau on the 15th of
March. Tears rushed down the cheeks of Frederick William, as he fell
into the arms of Alexander--"Wipe them," said the Czar; "they are the
last that Napoleon shall ever cause you to shed."

The aged Kutusoff having died, the command of the Russian army was now
given to Witgenstein; while that of the Prussians was entrusted to a
leader, whose name was hailed as the sure pledge of unremitting activity
and indomitable perseverance. This was Blucher, an officer originally
trained under the great Frederick, whose exemplary conduct after the
battle of Jena has already been mentioned. The brave old man had, since
that catastrophe, lived in utter retirement. The soldiery had long
before bestowed on him the _nom-de-guerre_ of _Marshal Forwards_, and
they heard of his appointment with universal delight. Addicted to
drinking, smoking, and gambling, and little conversant with the higher
branches of war as an art, Blucher was at first despised by Napoleon.
But his technical deficiencies were abundantly supplied by the skill of
Scharnforst, and afterwards of Gneisenau; and he himself possessed such
influence over the minds of his men in the day of action, and was sure
to rally them so rapidly after defeat, and to urge them on so keenly
when fortune was more favourable, that ere long the Emperor was forced
to confess that no one gave him so much trouble as that "debauched old
dragoon." Blucher hated the very names of France and Buonaparte with a
perfect hatred; and, once more permitted to draw his sword, he swore
never to sheathe it until the revenge of Prussia was complete.

The Crown Prince of Sweden landed with 35,000 men at Stralsund, and
advanced through Mecklenburg, while the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia
were concentrating their armies in Silesia. It was announced and
expected that German troops would join Bernadotte, so as to enable him
to open the campaign on the lower Elbe with a separate army of 100,000.
Lord Wellington was about to advance once more into Spain, with his
victorious veterans. Three great armies, two of which might easily
communicate with each other, were thus taking the field against him at
once; and yet, such was Napoleon's pride or obstinacy, that he would
make no sacrifice whatever to secure the assistance of Austria. He still
adhered to his resolution of entering into no general peace which should
not recognise Joseph as King of Spain; and refused absolutely to listen
to any proposals which included the cession either of Illyria or the
Tyrol. Ere he once more left Paris, he named Maria Louisa Regent in his
absence; but this was a circumstance not likely to have much weight with
the wavering counsels of the Austrian.

While Napoleon's military preparations were in progress, he made an
effort to conciliate that large party of his subjects, who had hitherto
looked on him with coldness as the oppressor of the head of the Catholic
church. During his absence in Russia, the Pope had been removed once
more to Fontainebleau, where he now occupied apartments in the palace,
under strict _surveillance_ of the police. The Emperor presented himself
suddenly in his hunter's dress before the holy father on the 13th of
January; and exerted his talents with such success, that preliminary
articles of a new concordat were at length drawn up. But in his
eagerness to produce a favourable impression on the Catholic public,
Napoleon published these preliminary articles, as if they had formed a
definite and ratified treaty; and Pius, indignant at this conduct, which
he considered as equally false and irreverent, immediately announced his
resolution to carry the negotiation no further.

The Pope, however, was the only man in France who as yet durst openly
confront the rage of Buonaparte. As the time when he was expected to
assume once more the command of his army in the field drew near, the
addresses of his apparently devoted subjects increased in numbers, and
still more in the extravagance of their adulations.

Napoleon quitted Paris in the middle of April, and on the 18th reached
the banks of the Saale; where the troops he had been mustering and
organising in France had now been joined by Eugene Beauharnois and the
garrison of Magdeburg. The Czar and his Prussian ally were known to be
at Dresden; and it soon appeared that, while they meditated a march
westwards on Leipsig, the French intended to move eastwards with the
view of securing the possession of that great city. Of the armies thus
about to meet each other's shock in the heart of Saxony, there is no
doubt that Buonaparte's was considerably the more numerous. His activity
had been worthy of his reputation; and a host nearly 200,000 strong was
already concentrated for action, while reserves to nearly a similar
extent were gradually forming behind him on the Rhine. The Russians had
not as yet pushed forward more than half their disposable troops beyond
the Vistula--wherever the blame lay, such was the fact; the Prussians,
unanimous as their patriotism was, had had only three months to
reorganise their establishments. Under such circumstances, the advance
of the allies beyond the Elbe, could only have proceeded from their
ardent wish to stimulate the spirit of insurrection in the kingdom of
Saxony and the neighbouring states. It was obviously Napoleon's interest
to bring them to action while their numbers were thus unequal, and ere
the sole object of their hazardous advance could be realised.

The armies met sooner than he had ventured to hope, on the first of May,
near the town of Lutzen, celebrated already as the scene of the battle
in which King Gustavus Adolphus died. The allies crossed the Elster
suddenly, under the cover of a thick morning fog, and attacked the left
flank of the French, who had been advancing in column, and who thus
commenced the action under heavy disadvantages. But the Emperor so
skilfully altered the arrangement of his army, that, ere the day closed,
the allies were more afraid of being enclosed to their ruin within his
two wings, than hopeful of being able to cut through and destroy that
part of his force which they had originally charged and weakened, and
which had now become his centre. Night interrupted the conflict. They
retreated next morning, leaving Napoleon in possession of the field. But
here the advantage stopped. The slain of the one army were not more
numerous than those of the other; and the allies, convinced of their
mistake, but neither broken nor discouraged, fell back leisurely on
Leipsig, thence on Dresden, and finally across the Elbe to Bautzen,
without leaving either prisoners or guns in the hands of the French. The
victory of Lutzen was blazoned abroad, as having restored all its glory
to the eagle of Napoleon; but he clearly perceived that the days were no
more in which a single battle determined the fate of a campaign, and an
empire. It was at Lutzen that Marshal Bessieres died.

Napoleon entered Dresden on the 6th, and on the 12th was joined there by
the King of Saxony, who certainly had been individually a gainer by his
alliance, and who still adhered to it, in opposition to the wishes both
of his people and his army. The Saxon troops, who had been wavering,
once more submitted to act in concert with the French; and Hamburg,
which city had partaken in the movement of Prussia, and all the country
to the left of the Elbe, fell back, for the moment, into their hands.
The cruelty with which the defection of Hamburg, in particular, was now
revenged on the inhabitants by Marshal Davoust, has consigned to lasting
abhorrence the name of that able but heartless satellite of Napoleon.
All the atrocities of Junot and Massena, in Portugal, in 1808 and 1809,
were equalled on the banks of the Elbe, by Davoust, in the summer of
1813.

While the Emperor paused at Dresden, Ney made various demonstrations in
the direction of Berlin, with the view of inducing the allies to quit
Bautzen; but it soon became manifest that they had resolved to sacrifice
the Prussian capital, if it were necessary, rather than forego their
position; by adhering to which they well knew Buonaparte must ultimately
be compelled to carry his main force into a difficult and mountainous
country, in place of acting in the open plains of Saxony and
Brandenburg. They were, moreover, desirous to remain in the
neighbourhood of Bohemia for another reason. The Austrian Emperor had
again renewed his negotiation with Napoleon; urging him to accept his
mediation for the conclusion of a general peace, and at the same time
giving him to understand that such a peace could not be obtained, unless
he would consent to be satisfied with the frontier of the Rhine, and
restore effectively the independence of the German nation. Napoleon's
conferences with Bubna, the Austrian envoy, were frequent and long; but
they ended where they began. He was well aware, however, that the
Emperor Francis was increasing his military establishment largely, and
that a great body of troops was already concentrated behind the
mountainous frontier of Bohemia. He could not but see that Austria
regarded herself as enabled and entitled to turn the scale on
whichsoever side she might choose; and he determined to crush the army
which had retreated from Lutzen, ere the ceremonious cabinet of Vienna
should have time to come to a distinct understanding with the
headquarters of Alexander and Frederick William. Victory, he clearly
saw, could alone serve his interests with the Austrian.

Having replaced by woodwork some arches of the magnificent bridge over
the Elbe, at Dresden, which the allies had blown up on their retreat,
Napoleon now moved towards Bautzen, and came in sight of the position on
the morning of the 21st of May. Its strength was obviously great. In
their front was the river Spree: wooded hills supported their right, and
eminences well fortified their left. The action began with an attempt to
turn their right, but Barclay de Tolly anticipated this movement, and
repelled it with such vigour, that a whole column of 7000 dispersed and
fled into the hills of Bohemia for safety. The Emperor then determined
to pass the Spree in front of the enemy, and they permitted him to do
so, rather than come down from their position. He took up his quarters
in the town of Bautzen, and his whole army bivouacked in presence of the
allies. The battle was resumed at daybreak on the 22nd; when Ney on the
right, and Oudinot on the left, attempted simultaneously to turn the
flanks of the position; while Soult and Napoleon himself directed charge
after charge on the centre. During four hours the struggle was
maintained with unflinching obstinacy; the wooded heights, where Blucher
commanded, had been taken and retaken several times--the bloodshed, on
either side, had been terrible--ere, the situation of both flanks being
apparent, the allies perceived the necessity either of retiring, or of
continuing the fight against superior numbers on disadvantageous ground.
They withdrew accordingly; but still with all the deliberate coolness of
a parade: halting at every favourable spot, and renewing their
cannonade. "What," exclaimed Napoleon, "no results! not a gun! not a
prisoner!--these people will not leave me so much as a nail." During the
whole day he urged the pursuit with impetuous rage, reproaching even his
chosen generals as "creeping scoundrels," and exposing his own person in
the very hottest of the fire. By his side was Duroc, the grand master of
the palace, his dearest--many said, ere now, his only friend. Bruyeres,
another old associate of the Italian wars, was struck down in their
view. "Duroc," whispered Napoleon, "fortune has a spite at us this day."
A few minutes afterwards, Duroc himself was mortally wounded. The
Emperor instantly ordered a halt, and remained all the afternoon in
front of his tent, surrounded by the guard, who did not witness his
affliction without tears. From this time he would listen to no reports
or suggestions.--"Everything to-morrow," was his invariable answer. He
stood by Duroc while he died; drew up with his own hand an epitaph to be
placed over his remains by the pastor of the place, who received 200
napoleons to defray the expense of a fitting monument; and issued also a
decree in favour of his departed friend's children. Thus closed the
22nd. The allies being strongly posted during most of the day, had
suffered less than the French; the latter had lost 15,000, the former
10,000 men.

They continued their retreat into Upper Silesia; and Buonaparte advanced
to Breslau, and released the garrison of Glogau. Meanwhile the Austrian
having watched these indecisive though bloody fields, once more renewed
his offers of mediation. The sovereigns of Russia and Prussia expressed
great willingness to accept it; and Napoleon also appears to have been
sincerely desirous for the moment of bringing his disputes to a peaceful
termination. He agreed to an armistice, and in arranging its conditions
agreed to fall back out of Silesia; thus enabling the allied princes to
re-open communications with Berlin. The lines of country to be occupied
by the armies, respectively, during the truce, were at length settled,
and it was signed on the 1st of June. The French Emperor then returned
to Dresden, and a general congress of diplomatists prepared to meet at
Prague.




CHAPTER XXXIII

     Napoleon's Interview with Metternich--Advice of his Ministers and
     Generals--Intelligence from Spain--Battle of Vittoria--Congress of
     Prague Dissolved--Austria declares War--Battle of Dresden--Death of
     Moreau--Battle of Culm--Surrender of Vandamme--Battles of
     Grossbeeren, Wahlstadt, and Dennewitz--Napoleon retires from the
     Elbe--The Battle of Leipsig--The Battle of Hanau--The Allies on the
     Rhine.


England alone refused to send any representative to Prague, alleging
that Buonaparte had as yet signified no disposition to recede from his
pretensions on Spain, and that he had consented to the armistice with
the sole view of gaining time for political intrigue and further
military preparation. It may be doubted whether any of the allied powers
who took part in the congress did so with much hope that the disputes
with Napoleon could find a peaceful end. His recent successes were to
the general view dazzling, however in reality unproductive, and must
have been supposed to quicken the flame of his pride. But it was of the
utmost importance to gain time for the advance of Bernadotte; for the
arrival of new reinforcements from Russia; for the completion of the
Prussian organisation; and, above all, for determining the policy of
Vienna.

Metternich, the Austrian minister, repaired in person to Dresden; and,
while inferior diplomatists wasted time in endless discussions at
Prague, one interview between him and Napoleon brought the whole
question to a definite issue. The Emperor had hitherto seen in
Metternich only a smooth and elegant courtier, and he expected to bear
him down by military violence and rudeness. He assumed at once that
Austria had no wish but to drive a good bargain for herself, and asked
broadly, _What is your price? Will Illyria satisfy you? I only wish you
to be neutral--I can deal with these Russians and Prussians
single-handed._ Metternich stated plainly that the time in which Austria
could be neutral was past; that the situation of Europe at large must be
considered. Napoleon insinuated that he would be happy to dismember
Prussia, and give half her territories to Austria. Metternich replied
that his government was resolved to be gained by no share in the spoils
of others; that events had proved the impossibility of a steadfast
peace, unless the sovereigns of the continent were restored to the rank
of independence; in a word, that the Rhenish Confederacy must be broken
up; that France must be contented with the boundary of the Rhine, and
pretend no longer to maintain her usurped and unnatural influence in
Germany. Napoleon replied by a gross personal insult: _Come,
Metternich_, said he, _tell me honestly how much the English have given
you to take their part against me?_

The Austrian court at length sent a formal document, containing its
_ultimatum_: the tenor of which Metternich had sufficiently indicated in
this conversation. Talleyrand and Fouché, who had now arrived from
Paris, urged the Emperor to accede to the proffered terms. They
represented to him the madness of rousing all Europe to conspire for his
destruction, and insinuated that the progress of discontent was rapid in
France itself. Their arguments were backed by intelligence of the most
disastrous character from Spain. Wellington, on perceiving that Napoleon
had somewhat weakened his armies in that country, when preparing for his
Saxon campaign, had once more advanced from the Portuguese frontier. He
was now in possession of the supreme authority over the Spanish armies,
as well as the Portuguese and English, and had appeared in greater force
than ever. The French line of defences on the Douro had been turned and
abandoned: their armies had concentrated to withstand him at Vittoria,
and there, on the 21st of June, Joseph and Marshal Jourdan had sustained
a total defeat. The "Intrusive King" was now retreating towards the
Pyrenees, chased from post to post by an enemy who, as it seemed, bade
fair to terminate his campaign by an invasion of the south-western
provinces of France. Napoleon was urged by his military, as well as
political advisers, to appreciate duly the crisis which his affairs had
reached. Berthier, and indeed almost all the generals on whose opinions
he had been accustomed to place reliance, concurred in pressing him
either to make peace on the terms proposed, or to draw in his garrisons
on the Oder and Elbe, whereby he would strengthen his army with 50,000
veterans, and retire to the Rhine. There, they said, with such a force
assembled on such a river, and with all the resources of France behind
him, he might bid defiance to the united armies of Europe, and, at
worst, obtain a peace that would leave him in secure tenure of a nobler
dominion than any of the kings, his predecessors, had ever hoped to
possess. _Ten battles lost_, said he, _would not sink me lower than you
would have me to place myself by my own voluntary act; but one battle
gained enables me to seize Berlin and Breslau, and make peace on terms
compatible with my glory._ He proceeded to insult both ministers and
generals by insinuations that they were actuated by selfish motives;
complained haughtily that they seemed disposed to draw distinctions
between the country and the sovereign; and ended by announcing that he
did not wish for any plans of theirs, but their service in the execution
of his.

Thus blinded by arrogance and self-confidence, and incapable of weighing
any other considerations against what he considered as the essence of
his personal glory, Napoleon refused to abate one iota of his
pretensions--until it was too late. Then, indeed, whether more accurate
intelligence from Spain had reached him, or the accounts of those who
had been watching the unremitting preparations of the allies in his
neighbourhood, had at length found due weight--then, indeed, he did show
some symptoms of concession. A courier arrived at Prague with a note, in
which he signified his willingness to accede to a considerable number of
the Austrian stipulations. But this was on the 11th of August. The day
preceding was that on which, by the agreement, the armistice was to end.
On that day Austria had to sign an alliance, offensive and defensive,
with Russia and Prussia. On the night between the 10th and 11th, rockets
answering rockets, from height to height along the frontiers of Bohemia
and Silesia, had announced to all the armies of the allies this
accession of strength and the immediate recommencement of hostilities.

On neither side had the pending negotiation been permitted for a moment
to interrupt or slacken military preparation. Napoleon had sent
Beauharnois into Italy, to be ready in case of any Austrian
demonstration in that quarter; and General Wrede, with the Bavarian
army, guarded his rear. An Austrian army, 60,000 strong, was now ready
to pass the Alps; and, to watch Wrede, another corps of 40,000, under
the Prince of Reuss, had taken their station. These were minor
arrangements. The forces now assembled around Napoleon himself were
full 250,000 in number, and disposed as follows: Macdonald lay with
100,000 at Buntzlaw, on the border of Silesia; another corps of 50,000
had their headquarters at Zittau, in Lusatia; St. Cyr, with 20,000, was
at Pirna, on the great pass from Bohemia; Oudinot at Leipsig, with
60,000; while with the Emperor himself at Dresden remained 25,000 of the
imperial guard, the flower of France. The reader, on referring to the
map, will perceive that these corps were so distributed as to present a
formidable front on every point where it was likely the allies should
hazard an attack, and, moreover, so that Napoleon could speedily
reinforce any threatened position with his reserve from Dresden. For the
armies to be opposed were thus situated:--Behind the Erzgebirge, or
Metallic Mountains, and having their headquarters at Prague, lay _The
Grand Army of the Allies_ (consisting of 120,000 Austrians and 80,000
Russians and Prussians), commanded in chief by the Austrian general
Schwartzenberg. The French corps at Zittau and Pirna were prepared to
encounter these, should they attempt to force their way into Saxony,
either on the right or the left of the Elbe. The Second Army of the
Allies (consisting of 80,000 Russians and Prussians), called the _Army
of Silesia_, and commanded by Blucher, lay in advance at Breslau. The
French corps at Zittau and Buntzlau were in communication, and could
confront Blucher wherever he might attempt to approach the Elbe. Lastly
the Crown Prince of Sweden was at Berlin, with 30,000 of his own troops,
and 60,000 Russians and Prussians, Oudinot and Macdonald were so
stationed that he could not approach the upper valley of the Elbe
without encountering one or other of them, and they also had the means
of mutual communication and support. The French had garrisons at
Wittemberg, Magdeburg, and elsewhere on the Elbe; and between the main
armies of the Allies were various flying corps of Russian and Prussian
light troops.

On the whole, Dresden formed the centre of a comparatively small circle,
completely occupied by the French; while the Allies might be considered
as lying on part of a much wider circle beyond them. Napoleon had
evidently arranged his troops with a view of provoking his enemies to
make isolated assaults, and so beating them in detail. But he was now
opposed by generals well acquainted with his system of tactics, and who
had accordingly prepared a counter-scheme expressly calculated to baffle
the plan of arrangements on which he had reckoned. The commanders of the
three allied armies agreed--that whosoever of them should be first
assailed or pressed by the French, should on no account accept battle,
but retreat; thus tempting Napoleon in person to follow, leaving Dresden
open to the assault of some other great branch of their confederacy, and
so enabling them at once to seize all his magazines, to break the
communications between the remaining divisions of his army, and
interpose a hostile force in the rear of them all--between the Elbe and
the Rhine. The plan of the Allies is supposed to have been drawn up by
two generals who thoroughly understood the military system of
Napoleon--Bernadotte, the Crown Prince of Sweden and Moreau; who had
some time ere this accepted the invitation of the Emperor Alexander, and
returned from his American exile, to take part in the war--which now, in
the opinion of many Frenchmen, had for its object the emancipation of
France itself, as well as of the other countries of Europe. The conduct
of Moreau, in placing himself in the ranks of the Allies, will be
praised or condemned, according as men judge him to have been swayed by
patriotic motives, or by those of personal resentment and ambition.
There can be no question that his arrival brought a great accession of
military skill to their counsels.

Blucher made the first movement; and no sooner did Napoleon understand
that he was threatening the position of Macdonald than he quitted
Dresden (15th August) with his guard and a powerful force of cavalry,
and proceeded to the support of his lieutenant. The Prussian adhered
faithfully to the general plan, and retired across the Katsbach, in the
face of his enemies. Napoleon was still pursuing him in the direction of
the Neiss and Breslau, when he was informed that Schwartzenberg had
rushed down from the Bohemian hills. He instantly abandoned Blucher to
the care of Macdonald, and sent his guards back to Dresden, whither he
himself also began his journey early on the 23rd.

Having driven St. Cyr, and his 20,000 men, before him, Schwartzenberg
(with whom were the Sovereigns of Russia and Prussia in person) made his
appearance on the heights to the south of the Saxon capital, on the
25th. The army of St. Cyr had thrown themselves into the city, and it
was now surrounded with fortifications of considerable strength. Yet had
this vast host attacked it at once, there is every reason to believe it
must have fallen before Napoleon could have returned from Silesia. They
delayed, for whatever reason, until daybreak on the 26th; and then
assailed Dresden in six columns, each more numerous than its garrison.
St. Cyr already began to despair, when the imperial guard made their
appearance crossing the bridge from the Eastern side of the Elbe, and in
the midst of them Napoleon. A German author[63] says: "It was then that,
for the first time, I beheld his face. He came on with the eye of a
tyrant, and the voice of a lion, urging his breathless and eager
soldiers." Two sallies were on the instant executed by these troops, hot
as they were from their long and toilsome march. The Allies were driven
back for some space. Night set in, and the two armies remained in
presence till the morning. Then, amidst a fierce storm of wind and rain,
Napoleon renewed the battle. 200,000 men (such had been the rapid
decision of his orders to his various generals) were now gathered round
him, and he poured them out with such skill, on either flank of the
enemy's line that ere the close of the day, they were forced to withdraw
altogether from their attempt. Ney and Murat on the left flank, and
Vandamme on the right (at Pirna), had taken possession of the two chief
roads into Bohemia, and in consequence they were compelled to retreat by
the comparatively difficult country paths between. On either side 8000
men had been slain or wounded; but with the French there remained from
15 to 20,000 prisoners, and twenty-six cannon; and the ablest of all the
enemy's generals had fallen.

Early in the day Buonaparte himself ordered some half-dozen cannon to be
fired at once upon a group, apparently of reconnoitring officers, and
this was followed by a movement which was thought to indicate that some
personage of importance had been wounded. A peasant came in the evening,
and brought with him a bloody boot and a greyhound, both the property,
he said, of the great man who was no more: the name on the collar was
_Moreau_. Both his legs had been shot off. He continued to smoke a cigar
while they were amputated and dressed, in the presence of Alexander,
and died shortly after; thus, if he had erred, paying the early forfeit
of his errors.

But Fortune had only revisited the banners of her ancient favourite with
a momentary gleam of sunshine. The fatigues he had undergone between the
15th and the 28th of August would have broken any other frame, and they,
for the time, weakened his. It is said that a mess of mutton and garlic,
the only food he had tasted on the 26th, had besides deranged his
stomach. Unable to remain with the columns in the rear of
Schwartzenberg, he returned to Dresden weary and sick; and thenceforth
evil tidings awaited him.

Vandamme continued the pursuit on the Pirna road. Seduced by the
enormous prize which lay before him at Tœplitz, where the chief
magazines of the Allies had been established, and on which all their
broken columns were now endeavouring to reassemble, this rude and
hot-headed soldier incautiously advanced beyond the wooded heights of
Peterswald into the valley of Culm. A Russian corps suddenly turned on
him, and formed in line of battle. Their General, Count D'Osterman,
assured them that the life of "their Father" depended on their
steadfastness; and no effort could shake them. The battle continued till
night, when Vandamme ought undoubtedly to have retired to Peterswald. He
lingered till the morning of the 30th;--when behind him, on those very
heights, appeared the Prussian corps of Kleist, who had been wandering
and lost their way amidst the forests. The French rushed up the hill in
despair, thinking they were intercepted by design. The Prussians, on
their part, doubted not that some other division of Napoleon's force was
hard behind them, and rushed down--with the same fear, and the same
impetuosity. The Russians advanced and completed the disarray. The field
was covered with dead: Vandamme and nearly 8000 men laid down their
arms. Many eagles were taken--the rest of the army dispersed in utter
confusion among the hills.

This news reached Napoleon still sick at Dresden. "Such," said he to
Murat, "is the fortune of war--high in the morning--low ere night.
Between triumph and ruin there intervenes but a step." A map lay
stretched on the table before him; he took his compasses, and measuring
distances on it with an idle hand, repeated the lines of one of his
favourite poets:

    "J'ai servi, commandé, vaincu quarante années;
    Du monde, entre mes mains, j'ai vu les destinées;
    Et j'ai toujours connu qu'en chaque événement
    Le destin des états dépendait d'un moment."

Hard on the tidings of Culm followed others of the same complexion. No
sooner did Blucher perceive that Napoleon had retired from Silesia, than
he resumed the offensive, and descended from the position he had taken
up at Jauer. He encountered Macdonald, who was by no means prepared for
this boldness, on the plains between Wahlstadt and the river Katsbach,
on the 26th of August, and after a hard fought day gained a complete
victory.[64] The French lost 15,000 men and 100 guns, and fell back on
Dresden. Oudinot, meanwhile, had advanced from Leipsig towards Berlin,
with the _view_ of preventing Bernadotte from effecting a junction with
Blucher, or overwhelming the French garrisons lower down the Elbe. The
Crown Prince, however, met and defeated him at Grossbeeren, on the 23rd
of August; took Luckau, where 1000 men were in garrison, on the 28th;
and continued to advance towards Wittemberg, under the walls of which
city Oudinot at length concentrated all his forces. Napoleon, perceiving
the importance of this point, sent Ney with new troops, and gave him the
chief command, with strict orders to force his way to Berlin; so placing
Bernadotte between the Leipsig army and himself at Dresden. Ney
endeavoured to pass the Swedes without a battle, but failed in this
attempt. A general action was forced on him on the 7th of September, at
Dennewitz. He also was wholly defeated; 10,000 prisoners and forty-six
guns remained in the hands of Bernadotte; and Ney retreated in confusion
upon Torgau.

Napoleon had now recovered his health and activity; and the exertions
which he made at this period were never surpassed, even by himself. On
the 3rd of September he was in quest of Blucher, who had now advanced
near to the Elbe; but the Prussian retired and baffled him as before.
Returning to Dresden he received the news of Dennewitz, and immediately
afterwards heard that Witgenstein had a second time descended towards
Pirna. He flew thither on the instant; the Russian also gave way,
according to the general plan of the campaign; and Buonaparte once more
returned to Dresden on the 12th. Again he was told that Blucher, on the
one side, and Witgenstein on the other, were availing themselves of his
absence, and advancing. He once more returned to Pirna: a third time the
Russian retired. Napoleon followed him as far as Peterswald, and, having
contemplated with his own eyes the scene of Vandamme's catastrophe, once
more returned to his centre-point.

Not all Ney's exertions could prevent Bernadotte and Blucher from at
length effecting their junction to the west of the Elbe. The Marshal,
having witnessed the combination of these armies, retreated to Leipsig.
Napoleon ordered Regnier and Bertrand to march suddenly from Dresden on
Berlin, in the hope of recalling Blucher; but the veteran persisted.
Meantime Schwartzenberg was found to be skirting round the hills to the
westward, as if for the purpose of joining Blucher and Bernadotte, in
the neighbourhood of Leipsig. It became manifest to all that Dresden had
ceased to be the key of Napoleon's defence: yet he clung to the Elbe, as
he had done to the Kremlin.

He lingered at Dresden at least three weeks after all rational hope of
holding that river was gone; and even at the last, when he perceived the
necessity of transferring his person to Leipsig, he could not be
persuaded to call in his garrisons scattered down the valley, which he
still hoped some turn of events would enable him to revisit in triumph.

Towards Leipsig, however, as on a common centre, the forces of France,
and all her enemies, were now at length converging. Napoleon reached
that venerable city on the 15th of October, and almost immediately the
heads of Schwartzenberg's columns began to appear towards the south. It
was necessary to prepare on the northern side also, in case Bernadotte
and Blucher should appear ere the grand army was disposed of; and,
lastly, it was necessary to secure effectually the ground to the west of
Leipsig;--a series of marshy meadows interfused with the numerous
branches of the Pleiss and the Elster, through which lies the only road
to France. Napoleon having made all his preparations, reconnoitred every
outpost in person, and distributed eagles, in great form, to some new
regiments which had just joined him. The ceremonial was splendid: the
soldiers knelt before the Emperor, and in presence of all the line:
military mass was performed, and the young warriors swore to die rather
than witness the dishonour of France. Upon this scene the sun descended;
and with it the star of Napoleon went down for ever.

At midnight three rockets, emitting a brilliant white light, sprung into
the heavens to the south of the city; these marked the position on which
Schwartzenberg (having now with him the Emperor of Austria, as well as
Alexander and Frederick William) had fixed his headquarters. They were
answered by four rockets of a deep red colour, ascending on the instant
from the northern horizon; and Napoleon doubted not that he was to
sustain on the morrow the assault of Blucher and Bernadotte, as well as
of the grand army of the Allies. Blucher was indeed ready to co-operate
with Schwartzenberg; and though the Crown Prince had not yet reached his
ground, the numerical superiority of the enemy was very great.
Buonaparte had with him, to defend the line of villages to the south and
north of Leipsig, 136,000 men; while, even in the absence of Bernadotte,
who might be hourly looked for, the Allies mustered not less than
230,000.

The battle commenced on the southern side, at daybreak of the 16th. The
Allies charged the French line there six times in succession, and were
as often repelled. Napoleon then charged in his turn, and with such
effect, that Murat's cavalry were at one time in possession of a great
gap between the two wings of the enemy. The Cossacks of the Russian
imperial guard, however, encountered the French horse, and pushed them
back again. The combat raged without intermission until nightfall: three
cannon shots, discharged at the extremity of either line, then marked as
if preconcertedly, the pause of battle; and both armies bivouacked
exactly where the morning light had found them. Such was the issue on
the south, where Napoleon himself commanded. Marmont, his lieutenant on
the northern side, had been less fortunate. Blucher attacked him with a
vast superiority of numbers: nothing could be more obstinate than his
defence; but he lost many prisoners and guns, was driven from his
original ground, and occupied, when the day closed, a new line of
positions, much nearer the walls of the city.

Gallant as the behaviour of his troops had been, the result satisfied
Napoleon that he must finally retreat from Leipsig; and he now made a
sincere effort to obtain peace. General Mehrfeldt, the same Austrian
officer who had come to his headquarters after the battle of Austerlitz,
to pray for an armistice on the part of the Emperor Francis, had been
made prisoner in the course of the day, and Napoleon resolved to employ
him as his messenger. Mehrfeldt informed him that the King of Bavaria
had at length acceded to the alliance. This intelligence added to his
perplexities, already sufficiently great, the prospect of finding a new
enemy stationed on the line of his march to France. He entreated the
Austrian to request for him the personal intercession of Francis. "I
will renounce Poland and Illyria," said he, "Holland, the Hanse Towns,
and Spain. I will consent to lose the sovereignty of the kingdom of
Italy, provided that state remain as an independent one--and I will
evacuate all Germany. Adieu! Count Mehrfeldt, when on my part you name
the word armistice to the two Emperors, I doubt not the sound will
awaken many recollections."

It was now too late: the Allied Princes had sworn to each other to
entertain no treaty while one French soldier remained on the Eastern
side of the Rhine. Napoleon received no answer to his message; and
prepared for the difficult task of retreating with 100,000 men, through
a crowded town, in presence of an enemy already twice as numerous, and
in early expectation of being joined by a third great and victorious
army.

During the 17th the battle was not renewed, except by a distant and
partial cannonade. The Allies were resolved to have the support of
Bernadotte in the decisive contest.

At eight in the morning of the 18th it began, and continued until
nightfall without intermission. Buonaparte had contracted on the south,
as well as on the north, the circuit of his defence; and never was his
generalship, or the gallantry of his troops, more brilliantly displayed
than throughout this terrible day. Calm and collected, the Emperor again
presided in person on the southern side, and again, where he was
present, in spite of the vast superiority of the enemy's numbers, the
French maintained their ground to the end. On the north, the arrival of
Bernadotte enabled Blucher to push his advantages with irresistible
effect; and the situation of Marmont and Ney (now also stationed on that
side) was further perplexed by the shameful defection of 10,000 Saxons,
who went over with all their artillery to the enemy, in the very midst
of the battle. The two marshals, therefore, were compelled to retire
from point to point, and at nightfall lay almost close to the walls of
Leipsig. Three cannon shot, as before, marked the general termination of
the battle.

The loss on either side had been great. Napoleon's army consisted
chiefly of very young men--many were merely boys--the produce of his
forestalled conscriptions: yet they fought as bravely as the guard. The
behaviour of the Germans, on the other hand, at length considering their
freedom and independence as hanging on the fortune of a single field,
had been answerable to the deep enthusiasm of that thoughtful people.
The burghers of Leipsig surveyed from their towers and steeples one of
the longest, sternest, and bloodiest of battles: and the situation of
the King of Saxony, who remained all the while in the heart of his
ancient city, may be imagined.

Napoleon gave orders at midnight for the commencement of the inevitable
retreat; and while the darkness lasted, the troops continued to file
through the town, and across the two bridges, over the Pleisse, beyond
its walls. One of these bridges was a temporary fabric, and it broke
down ere daylight came to show to the enemy the movement of the French.
The confusion necessarily accompanying the march of a whole army,
through narrow streets and upon a single bridge, was fearful. The Allies
stormed at the gates on either side, and, but for the heroism of
Macdonald and Poniatowski, to whom Napoleon entrusted the defence of the
suburbs, it is doubted whether he himself could have escaped in safety.
At nine in the morning of the 19th, he bade farewell for ever to the
King of Saxony, who remained to make what terms he could with the allied
sovereigns. The battle was ere then raging all round the walls.

At eleven o'clock the Allies had gathered close to the bridge from
either wing; and the walls over against it had been entrusted to Saxons,
who now, like their brethren of the day before, turned their fire on the
French. The officer to whom Napoleon had committed the task of blowing
up the bridge, when the advance of the enemy should render this
necessary, conceived that the time was come, and set fire to his train.
The crowd of men, urging each other on the point of safety, could not at
once be stopped. Soldiers and horses, cannons and wains, rolled headlong
into the deep though narrow river; which renewed, though on a smaller
scale, the horrors of the Beresina. Marshal Macdonald swam the stream in
safety: the gallant Poniatowski, the hope and pride of Poland, had been
twice wounded ere he plunged his horse into the current, and he sank to
rise no more. Twenty-five thousand Frenchmen, the means of escape
entirely cut off, laid down their arms within the city. Four Princes,
each entering at the head of his own victorious army, met at noon in the
great market-place at Leipsig: and all the exultation of that solemn
hour would have been partaken by the inhabitants, but for the fate of
their own sovereign, personally esteemed and beloved, who now vainly
entreated to be admitted to the presence of the conquerors, and was sent
forthwith as a prisoner of war to Berlin.

Napoleon, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, lost at Leipsig at least
50,000 men.

The retreat of the French through Saxony was accompanied with every
disaster which a hostile peasantry, narrowness of supplies, and the
persevering pursuit of the Cossacks and other light troops could inflict
on a disordered and disheartened mass of men. The soldiers moved on,
while under the eye of Napoleon, in gloomy silence: wherever he was not
present, they set every rule of discipline at nought, and were guilty of
the most frightful excesses. The Emperor conducted himself as became a
great mind amidst great misfortunes. He appeared at all times calm and
self-possessed; receiving, every day that he advanced, new tidings of
evil.

He halted for two days at Erfurt, where extensive magazines had been
established, employing all his energies in the restoration of
discipline: and would have remained longer, had he not learned that the
victors of Leipsig were making progress on either flank of his march,
while the Bavarians (so recently his allies), reinforced by some
Austrian divisions, were moving rapidly to take post between him and the
Rhine. He resumed his march, therefore, on the 25th. It was here that
Murat quitted the army. Notwithstanding the unpleasant circumstances
under which he had retired to Naples in January, Joachim had reappeared
when the Emperor fixed his headquarters at Dresden in the summer, and
served with his usual gallantry throughout the rest of the campaign. The
state of Italy now demanded his presence; and the two brothers-in-law,
after all their differences, embraced each other warmly and repeatedly
at parting--as if under a mutual presentiment that they were parting to
meet no more.

The Austro-Bavarians had taken up a position amidst the woods near Hanau
before the Emperor approached the Mayne. He came up with them in the
morning of the 30th, and his troops charged on the instant with the fury
of desperation. Buonaparte cut his way through ere nightfall; and
Marmont, with the rear, had equal success on the 31st. In these actions
there fell 6000 of the French; but the enemy had 10,000 killed or
wounded, and lost 4000 prisoners, and these losses would have been far
greater but for the ready wit of a patriotic miller, who, watching the
tide of battle, suddenly let the water into his mill-stream, and thus
interposed a seasonable obstacle between the French cavalry and some
German infantry, whom they had been driving before them; a service which
the King of Prussia subsequently rewarded with munificence.

The pursuit on the road which Napoleon adopted had been entrusted to the
Austrians, who urged it with far less vigour than the Prussians under
the fiery guidance of Blucher would probably have exerted. No
considerable annoyance, therefore, succeeded to the battle of Hanau. The
relics of the French host at length passed the Rhine; and the Emperor
having quitted them at Mentz, arrived in Paris on the 9th of November.

The armies of Austria and Prussia at length halted on the Rhine. To the
Germans of every age this great river has been the object of an
affection and reverence scarcely inferior to that with which an Egyptian
contemplates the Nile, or the Indian his Ganges. When these brave bands
having achieved the rescue of their native soil, came in sight of this
its ancient landmark, the burden of an hundred songs, they knelt, and
shouted _the Rhine! the Rhine!_ as with the heart and voice of one man.
They that were behind rushed on, hearing the cry, in expectation of
another battle.

[Footnote 63: Hoffman's Account of his own Life.]

[Footnote 64: Blucher was created Prince of Wahlstadt.]




CHAPTER XXXIV

     Declaration of the Allies at Frankfort--Revolution of
     Holland--Liberation of the Pope and Ferdinand VII.--Obstinacy of
     Napoleon--His Military Preparations--Dissolution of the Legislative
     Senate.


Of the events which crowded upon each other in the space of a few weeks
after the overthrow of Leipsig, any one would in times less
extraordinary have been sufficient to form an epoch in history. Having
once reached the summit of his greatness, the long-favoured child of
fortune was destined to sink even more rapidly than he had ascended.
Every day added some new alliance to the camp of his foreign enemies;
and every hour that passed brought with it clearer indications that the
French nation (considered apart from the army) were weary utterly of the
very names of War, and Ambition, and Napoleon.

The fabric of his German empire crumbled into nothing, as at the spell
of a magician. Hanover returned to the dominion of its rightful
sovereign immediately. Brunswick, Hesse, and the other states which had
formed Jerome's kingdom of Westphalia, followed the same example. The
Confederation of the Rhine was dissolved for ever; and the princes who
had adhered to that league were permitted to expiate their, in most
cases involuntary, error, by now bringing a year's revenue and a double
conscription to the banner of the Allies. Bernadotte turned from Leipsig
to reduce the garrisons which Napoleon, in the rashness of his
presumption, had disdained to call in, even when compelled to evacuate
Dresden; and one by one they fell, though in most cases--particularly at
Dantzick, Wirtemberg, and Hamburg--the resistance was obstinate and
long. The Crown Prince--having witnessed the reduction of some of these
fortresses, and entrusted the siege of the others to his
lieutenants--invaded Denmark, and the government of that country
perceived the necessity of acceding to the European alliance, by
whatever fine its long adhesion to Napoleon might be expiated. The
treaty was concluded at Kiel, on the 14th of January, 1814. Sweden
yielded Pomerania to Denmark; Denmark gave up Norway to Sweden; and
10,000 Danish troops having joined his standard, Bernadotte then turned
his face towards the Netherlands.

In Holland, no sooner had the story of Leipsig reached it than a
complete, though bloodless revolution was effected. The cry of _orange
boven_, "up with the orange," burst simultaneously from every part of
the country: the French governors, yielding to a power which they
perceived the absurdity of attempting to resist, retired on the instant,
and the long-exiled Stadtholder, the Prince of Orange, returning in
triumph from England, assumed the administration of affairs in November,
1813. A few French garrisons remained shut up in strong places, of which
the most important was Bergen-op-Zoom; and Bernadotte now co-operated
with the Russian corps of Witzingerode, the Prussians of Bulow, and a
British force of 10,000, under Sir T. Graham,[65] with the view of
completing the deliverance of Holland; which was ere long effected, with
the exception of Bergen-op-Zoom, from whose walls the English were
repulsed with dreadful slaughter.

On the side of Italy the aspect of affairs was almost as dark. General
Hiller, having conducted an Austrian army through the Tyrol, as soon as
the decision of his government was taken, had defeated Eugene
Beauharnois, and driven him behind the Adige. The Croats, the Tyrolese,
all the Illyrians were rising, and--so far from giving aid in the
defence of the French soil--it was manifest that the Viceroy could
hardly hope to maintain himself much longer in Lombardy. An English
naval force had already taken Trieste: the Adriatic was free; and, to
complete Napoleon's perplexity as to this quarter, it was no longer a
secret that Murat, his brother-in-law, his creature, was negotiating
with Austria, and willing, provided that Naples were guaranteed to him,
to array the force of that state also on the side of the confederacy.

As little comfort could Buonaparte derive if he turned to the Pyrenees.
He had sent Soult thither from Dresden, to retrieve if possible the
fortunes of the army defeated in June at Vittoria; and that most able
general, with considerable reinforcements, had entered Spain, and
attempted to relieve the siege of Pamplona--of which strong place, as
well as St. Sebastian Lord Wellington had resolved to be master before
he should pass the French frontier with his victorious army. But Soult
also had been twice defeated; the fortresses had fallen: except a
detached, and now useless force under Suchet in Catalonia, there
remained no longer a single French soldier in Spain. The Peninsula had
at length been delivered by the genius of Wellington; and his army were
cantoned within the territory of France ere the close of the campaign.
Such were the tidings which reached Napoleon from his Italian and
Spanish frontiers, at the very moment when it was necessary for him to
make head against the Russians, the Austrians, and the Germans, chiefly
armed and supplied at the expense of England, and now rapidly
concentrating in three great masses on different points of the valley of
the Rhine.

Nor were even these the worst tidings. Two parties, of which one had not
of late years attracted much public notice, and the other had as long
wanted efficient leaders, were well-known ere now to be labouring
throughout France, though not as yet in conjunction, for one common
purpose--the deposition of Buonaparte. The royalists had recovered a
great share of their ancient influence in the society of Paris, even
before the disasters of the Russian expedition. The exiled Bourbon had
found means to distribute proclamations early in 1813: his agents had
ever since been exerting themselves indefatigably, both in Paris and in
the provinces, especially in those of the west. The Mayor of Bourdeaux
(Lynch) was at the head of a loyal association, comprehending the chief
inhabitants of that great city, and already in communication with the
Marquess of Wellington, who, however, felt it his duty to check them on
this occasion, lest the progress of events should render their efforts
fruitless to Louis, and fatal to themselves. La Roche Jacquelein (a name
already so illustrious in La Vendée) had once more prepared that
faithful province for insurrection. Saintonge had been organised by the
Abbé Jaqualt; Perigord by Messieurs de la Roche Aymon; and in the
countries about Nantes, Angers, and Orleans, great bands, consisting
partly of Buonaparte's own refractory conscripts, were in training under
the Counts De L'Orge, D'Antichamp, and Suzannet. The royalist gentlemen
of Touraine, to the number of 1000, were headed by the Duke of Duras;
those of Brittany were mustering around Count Vittray, and various
chieftains of the old Chouans; and Cadoudal, brother to Georges, was
among the peasantry of Varnes. These names, most of them well-known in
the early period of the Revolution, are of themselves sufficient to show
how effectually the Buonapartean government had endeavoured, during
thirteen years, to extinguish the old fire of loyalty. It had all the
while glowed under the ashes, and it was now ready to burst forth
shining and bright. The Bourbon princes watched the course of events
with eager hope. The Duke of Berri was already in Jersey, Monsieur (now
Charles X.) in the Netherlands, and the Duke D'Angouleme about to make
his appearance at the headquarters of Wellington, in Bearn, the cradle
of his race. The republicans, meanwhile,--those enthusiasts of the
Revolution who had in the beginning considered Buonaparte's consulate as
a dictatorship forced on France by the necessities of the time, and to
be got rid of as soon as opportunity should serve--and who had long
since been wholly alienated from him, by his assumption of the imperial
dignity, his creation of orders and nobles, his alliance with the House
of Austria, and the complete despotism of his internal government--these
men had observed, with hardly less delight than the royalists, that
succession of reverses which darkens the story of the two last
campaigns. Finally, not a few of Napoleon's own ministers and generals,
irritated by his personal violence, and hopeless of breathing in peace
while that fierce and insatiable spirit continued at the head of
affairs, were well prepared to take a part in his overthrow; nor was it
long ere all these internal enemies, at whatever distance their
principles and motives might have seemed to place them from each other,
were content to overlook their differences and work together.
Talleyrand, there can be little doubt, and others only second to him in
influence, were in communication with the Bourbons, before the Allies
crossed the Rhine. _Ere then_, said Napoleon at St. Helena, _I felt the
reins slipping from my hands_.

The allied princes issued, at Frankfort on the Mayne, a manifesto, the
firm and temperate language of which was calculated to make a strong
impression in France, as well as elsewhere. The sovereigns announced
their belief that it was for the interest of Europe that France should
continue to be a powerful state, and their willingness to concede to
her, even now, greater extent of territory than the Bourbon kings had
ever claimed--the boundaries, namely, of the Rhine, the Alps, and the
Pyrenees. Their sole object in invading France was to put an end to the
authority which Napoleon had usurped over other nations. They disclaimed
any wish to interfere with the internal government--it was the right of
the nation to arrange that as they pleased; the hostility of Europe was
against, not France, but Napoleon--and even as to Napoleon, against not
his person, but his system. The same terms were tendered to Napoleon
himself, through M. de St. Aignan, one of his own ministers, who
happened to have fallen into the hands of the Allies at Weimar; and his
answer was such that diplomatists from all the belligerent powers
forthwith assembled at Manheim;--Lord Aberdeen appearing on the part of
the government of England--a circumstance of itself sufficient to give
to these new conferences a character of greater promise than had
attended any of recent date.

But although Napoleon authorised Caulaincourt to commence this
negotiation on his behalf, it was very soon manifest that he did so
merely, as before, for the purpose of gaining time. His military
preparations were urged with unremitting energy. New conscriptions were
called for, and granted: every arsenal resounded with the fabrication of
arms: and all the taxes were at once doubled by an imperial decree. The
enslaved press proclaimed that the national ardour was thoroughly
stirred, and with its thousand voices reminded the Allies of the effects
of the Duke of Brunswick's proclamation when about to touch the sacred
soil of France in 1793.

But the enthusiasm of the revolutionary period was long since gone by.
In vain did Napoleon send special agents through the departments,
calling on Frenchmen of all classes to rise in arms for the protection
of the soil. Coldness, languor, distrust met them almost everywhere. The
numerical results even of the conscription-levy were far under what they
should have been; and of those who did enrol themselves, multitudes
daily deserted, and not a few took part with those royalist bands who
were, as we have already seen, mustering and training zealously in
almost every district that was either strong by nature, or remote from
the great military establishments of Buonaparte. Nay, even the
Legislative Senate, so long the silent and submissive slaves of all his
imperial mandates, now dared to testify some sympathy with the feelings
of the people, whom, in theory at least, they were supposed to
represent. This was a novelty for which Napoleon had not been prepared,
and he received it in a manner little likely to conciliate the
attachment of wavering men. They ventured to hint that ancient France
would remain to him, even if he accepted the proposals of the Allies,
and that Louis XIV., when he desired to rouse the French people in his
behalf in a moment of somewhat similar disaster, had not disdained to
detail openly the sincere efforts which he had made to obtain an
honourable peace. "Shame on you!" cried the Emperor, "Wellington has
entered the south, the Russian menace the northern frontier, the
Prussians, Austrians, and Bavarians, the eastern. Shame! Wellington is
in France, and we have not risen _en masse_ to drive him back! All my
Allies have deserted--the Bavarian has betrayed me. No peace till we
have burned Munich! I demand a levy of 300,000 men--with this and what I
already have, I shall see a million in arms. I will form a camp of
100,000 at Bourdeaux; another at Mentz; a third at Lyons. But I must
have grown men--these boys serve only to encumber the hospitals and the
road-sides.... Abandon Holland! sooner yield it back to the sea!
Senators, an impulse must be given--all must march--you are fathers of
families--the heads of the nation--you must set the example. Peace! I
hear of nothing but peace when all around should echo to the cry of
war." The senate, nevertheless, drew up and presented a report which
renewed his wrath. He reproached them openly with desiring to purchase
inglorious ease for themselves at the expense of his honour. _I am the
state_, said he, repeating a favourite expression: _What is the
throne?--a bit of wood gilded and covered with velvet--I am the state--I
alone am here the representative of the people. Even if I had done wrong
you should not have reproached me in public--people wash their dirty
linen at home. France has more need of me than I of France._

Having uttered these furious words, Napoleon repaired to his council of
state, and there denounced the legislative senate, as composed of one
part of traitors and eleven of dupes. _In place of assisting_, said he,
_they impede me. Our attitude alone could have repelled the enemy--they
invite him. We should have presented a front of brass--they lay open
wounds to his view. I will not suffer their report to be printed. They
have not done their duty, but I will do mine--I dissolve the Legislative
Senate_. And the Emperor did accordingly issue his decree, proroguing
indefinitely that assembly, the last feeble shadow of popular
representation in France.

The greatest confusion already began to pervade almost every department
of the public service. The orders of the government were more peremptory
than ever, and they were hourly more neglected. Whole bands of
conscripts, guilty of endeavouring to escape, were tried by military
commissions and decimated. Even close to the barriers of Paris such
executions were constantly going on; and all in vain. The general
feeling was that of sullen indifference. Hireling musicians paraded the
streets, singing fine-new ballads in honour of the Emperor, to the
long-forgotten tune of _ça ira_; the passengers gathered round them, and
drowned the strains in hooting and laughter. In every saloon discussions
such as the police had long suppressed were urged without ceremony.
_This will not continue; the cord is too much stretched--it will soon be
over_; such was the universal language. Talleyrand, hearing an officer
express his alarm and astonishment, made answer in words which have
passed into a proverb:--_It is the beginning of the end._

During this uneasy pause, Napoleon at last dismissed his venerable
prisoner of Fontainebleau. It is not unlikely that, in the altered state
of Italy, he thought the arrival of the Pope might tend to produce some
dissension among his enemies in that quarter; and, in effect, when Pius
reached Rome, he found the capital of the Catholic world in the hands of
Murat, who had ere then concluded his treaty with Francis, and was
advancing into the north of Italy, in the view of co-operating in the
campaign against Beauharnois, with the Austrians on the one side, and on
the other, with an English force recently landed at Leghorn, under Lord
William Bentinck.

He also unlocked the gates of Valençay on Ferdinand of Spain; and,
without doubt, the letter, in which he announced this intention to his
injured victim, will ever be recorded among the prime instances of his
audacity. He informed Ferdinand that the English were spreading _jacobin
principles_ in Spain, and attacking the foundations of the throne, the
aristocracy, and the church; and that he, therefore, was anxious to see
him at the head of affairs in the kingdom, provided he would expel the
English, and re-establish its relations with France, on the footing of
the peace which gave Godoy his title. Ferdinand durst not execute any
treaty without consulting the Cortes. They disdained to treat at all
with Napoleon. He then liberated the King unconditionally; and after
five years' captivity, Ferdinand re-entered Spain, amidst the all but
universal acclamations of a nation, who had bled at every pore in his
cause, and whom his government was destined ere long to satisfy that
they had bled in vain. Napoleon, no doubt, understood well what sort of
a present he was conferring on the Spaniards when he restored Ferdinand,
and probably calculated that his arrival would fill the country with
civil tumults, sufficient to paralyse its arm for foreign war. And--had
the King returned but a year earlier--such, in all likelihood, would
have been the consequence. Once more Napoleon was too late in doing good
that evil might follow.

For some time, thanks to the slavery of the Parisian press, the
population of the capital remained in ignorance as to the proceedings of
the Allies on the Rhine. Indeed--such was still the influence of the
Emperor's military reputation--the inhabitants of the French provinces
on that frontier, continued to believe it impossible that any foreign
army should dare to invade their soil, until they that had ears to hear,
and eyes to see, were perforce undeceived. Schwartzenberg, with the
_Grand Army_, at length crossed the Rhine, between Basle and
Schaffhausen, on the 20th of December, and disregarding the claim of the
Swiss to preserve neutrality, advanced through that territory unopposed,
and began to show themselves in Franche-Comté, in Burgundy, even to the
gates of Dijon. On the 1st of January, 1814, the _Silesian Army_, under
Blucher, crossed the river at various points between Rastadt and
Coblentz; and shortly after, the _Army of the North_, commanded by
Witzingerode and Bulow (for Bernadotte declined having any part in the
actual invasion of France) began to penetrate the frontier of the
Netherlands. The wealthier inhabitants of the invaded provinces escaped
to Paris, bearing with them these tidings; the English _détenûs_ of
Verdun were seen traversing the capital on their route to more distant
quarters; the state prisoners of Vincennes itself, under the walls of
Paris, were removed. The secret, in a word, could no longer be kept. It
was known to every one that the Pyrenees had been crossed by Wellington,
and the Rhine by three mighty hosts, amounting together to 300,000 men,
and including representatives of every tongue and tribe, from the
Germans of Westphalia to the wildest barbarians of Tartary. Persons of
condition despatched their plate and valuables to places at a distance
from the capital; many whole families removed daily; and the citizens of
Paris were openly engaged in laying up stores of flour and salted
provisions, in contemplation of a siege.

The violation of the Swiss territory was in itself indefensible; but he
who had so often disdained all rules of that kind in his own person, who
had seized D'Enghien, who had traversed Bareuth, could hardly hope to be
listened to when he complained of Schwartzenberg's proceeding. The
allied generals, moreover, proclaimed everywhere as they advanced, that
they came as the friends not the enemies of the French nation, and that
any of the peasantry who took up arms to oppose them must be content to
abide the treatment of brigands. This assuredly was a flagrant outrage
against the most sacred and inalienable rights of mankind: but Napoleon
had set the fatal example himself in Lombardy, and followed it without a
blush, in Egypt, in Germany, in Spain, in Portugal, and but yesterday in
Russia. Here also, therefore, his reclamations moved no feeling
favourable to himself; and the time was gone by when the French people
would have been ready to take fire at so lawless an aggression upon
their national rights:--these Napoleon's tyranny had trampled down ere
strangers dared to insult them. There were some few scattered instances
of resistance; but in general, the first advance of the Allies was
regarded with indifference; and it was only at a later period, when the
invading generals were no longer able to maintain strict discipline
among their barbarous hordes of horsemen, then scattered over a wide
extent of country, that the sense of individual suffering afforded even
a glimpse of hope to Napoleon, and those who, like him, were eager to
oppose a national insurrection to the allied march.

Meantime, nearer and nearer every day the torrent of invasion rolled
on--sweeping before it, from post to post, the various corps which had
been left to watch the Rhine. Marmont, Mortier, Victor, and Ney,
commanding in all about 50,000 men, retired of necessity before the
enemy. It had been considered as certain that much time must be occupied
with the besieging of the great fortresses on the Rhenish frontier. But
it was now apparent that the Allies had resolved to carry the war into
the interior, without waiting for the reduction of these formidable
outworks. Their numbers were such that they could afford to mask them,
and still pass on with hosts overwhelmingly superior to all those of
Napoleon's lieutenants. These withdrew, and with them, and behind them,
came crowds of the rustic population possessing any means of transport.
Carts and waggons, crammed with terrified women and children, thronged
every avenue to the capital. It was at last necessary that the Emperor
should break silence to the Parisians, and re-appear in the field.

The invasion of France, however, rallied around Napoleon some persons of
eminence who had long hung aloof from him. Carnot in particular, who,
ever since he opposed the assumption of the imperial title, had remained
in retirement, came forward to offer his sword in what he now considered
as the cause of his country. Nor did Buonaparte fail to receive such
proposals as they deserved. He immediately sent his old enemy to command
the great city and fortress of Antwerp; and similar instances of manly
confidence might be mentioned to his honour.

On the 22nd of January the first official news of the invasion appeared;
the _Moniteur_ announced that Schwartzenberg had entered Switzerland on
the 20th of December, and that Blucher also had crossed the Rhine on the
first day of the year; thus confessing openly the deliberate deceit of
its previous silence. The next morning, being Sunday, the officers of
the National Guard were summoned to the Tuileries. They lined the
_Saloon of the Marshals_, to the number of 900, altogether ignorant of
the purpose for which they had been convoked. The Emperor took his
station in the centre of the hall; and immediately afterwards the
Empress with the King of Rome (carried in the arms of Countess
Montesquiou), appeared at his side. "Gentlemen," said Napoleon, "France
is invaded; I go to put myself at the head of my troops, and, with God's
help and their valour, I hope soon to drive the enemy beyond the
frontier." Here he took Maria Louisa in one hand and her son in the
other, and continued--"But if they should approach the capital, I
confide to the National Guard the Empress and the King of Rome"--then
correcting himself, he said in a tone of strong emotion--"_my wife and
my child_." Several officers stepped from their places and approached
him; and tears were visible on the cheeks even of those who were known
to be no worshippers of the Emperor, or hearty supporters of his cause.

A Frenchman can rarely resist a scene: and such this was considered, and
laughed at accordingly, ere next morning. It is, nevertheless, difficult
to refuse sympathy to the chief actor. Buonaparte was sincerely attached
to Maria Louisa, though he treated her rather with a parental tenderness
than like a lover; and his affection for his son was the warmest passion
in his heart, unless, indeed, we must except his pride and his ambition,
both of which may be well supposed to have merged for a moment in the
feeling which shook his voice.

[Footnote 65: Now Lord Lynedoch.]




CHAPTER XXXV

     The Campaign of France--Battles of Brienne and La
     Rothiere--Expedition of the Marne--Battles of Nangis and
     Montereau--Schwartzenberg Retreats--Napoleon again marches against
     Blucher--Attacks Soissons and is Repulsed--Battles of Craonne and
     Laon--Napoleon at Rheims--His Perplexities--He Marches to St.
     Dizier.


Napoleon spent part of the 24th of January in reviewing troops in the
courtyard of the Tuileries, in the midst of a fall of snow, which must
have called up ominous recollections, and at three in the morning of the
25th, once more left his capital. He had again appointed Maria Louisa
Regent, placed his brother Joseph at the head of her council, and given
orders for raising military defences around Paris, and for converting
many public buildings into hospitals. He set off in visible dejection;
but recovered all his energy on reaching once more the congenial
atmosphere of arms.

He arrived at Chalons ere midnight; and found that Schwartzenberg and
Blucher, having severally passed through Franche-Comté and Lorraine,
were now occupying--the former with 97,000 men, the latter with
40,000--an almost complete line between the Marne and the Seine. Blucher
was in his own neighbourhood, and he immediately resolved to attack the
right of the Silesian army, which was pushing down the valley of the
Marne, while its centre kept the parallel course of the Aube, ere the
Prussian marshal could concentrate all his own strength, far less be
adequately supported from the side of Schwartzenberg, who was advancing
down the Seine towards Bar. A sharp skirmish took place accordingly on
the 27th at St. Dizier; and Blucher, warned of Napoleon's arrival, lost
no time in calling in his detachments, and taking a post of defence at
Brienne-le-Chateau on the Aube--the same town where Buonaparte had
received his military education. Could Napoleon force him from the Aube,
it was evident that the French would be enabled to interpose themselves
effectually between the two armies of the Allies: and it was most
necessary to divide the enemy's strength, for after all his exertions,
Napoleon had been able to add only 20,000 good troops to the 50,000 who
had been retiring before the allied columns from the course of the
Rhine.

Napoleon, therefore, marched through a thick forest upon the scene of
his youthful studies, and appeared there on the 29th:--having moved so
rapidly that Blucher was at dinner in the chateau, when the French
thundered at his gates, and with difficulty escaped to the rear through
a postern--actually leading his horse down a stair. The Russians,
however, under Alsusieff, maintained their place in the town
courageously; and, some Cossacks throwing themselves upon the rear of
the French, the Emperor himself was involved in the melée, drew his
sword, and fought like a private dragoon. General Gourgaud shot a
Cossack when in the act of thrusting his spear at Napoleon's back. The
town of Brienne was burnt to the ground; Alsusieff was made prisoner;
Lefebre Desnouettes died; and there was considerable slaughter on both
sides; but the affair had no result of importance. Blucher retired but a
little further up the Aube, and posted himself at La Rothiere, where
Schwartzenberg, warned by the cannonade, hastened to co-operate with
him.

Napoleon said at St. Helena, that during the charge of the Cossacks at
Brienne, he recognised a particular tree, under which, when a boy, he
used to sit and read the _Jerusalem Delivered_ of Tasso. The field had
been, in those days, part of the exercise ground of the students, and
the chateau, whence Blucher escaped so narrowly, their lodging. How
strange must have been the feelings of the man who, having but yesterday
planted his eagles on the Kremlin, now opened his fifteenth campaign
amidst the scenes of his own earliest recollections--of the days in
which he had never dreamt of empire!

On the first of February Blucher, in his turn, assumed the offensive,
assaulting the French position in his front at once on three several
points. The battle lasted all day, and ended in the defeat of the
French, who, with the loss of 4000 prisoners and seventy-three guns,
escaped from the field in such disorder, that, according to Napoleon's
own avowal at St. Helena, he had serious thoughts of putting an end to
the war by voluntarily resigning the crown to the heir of the Bourbons.
However this may have been, while the division of Marmont retired down
the Aube before Blucher, Napoleon himself struck across the country to
Troyes, which there was every reason to fear must be immediately
occupied by Schwartzenberg; and was there joined by a considerable body
of his own guard, in high order and spirits, whose appearance restored,
in a great measure, the confidence of the troops beaten at La Rothiere.

On the 3rd, he received at Troyes a despatch from Caulaincourt,
informing him that Lord Castlereagh, the English Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, had arrived at the headquarters of the Allies--that
negotiations were to be resumed the morning after at Chatillon--(now in
the rear of the armies), and beseeching him to intimate distinctly at
what price he was now willing to purchase peace. Napoleon replied, by
granting Caulaincourt full powers to do everything necessary "to keep
the negotiation alive, and save the capital." But the Duke of Vicenza
durst not act immediately on a document so loosely worded, and sent back
once more to beg for a specific detail of the Emperor's purposes.
Napoleon had his headquarters at Nogent, on the Seine, some leagues
below Troyes, when the despatch reached him, on the evening of the 8th
of February; and his counsellors unanimously urged him to make use of
this, probably last, opportunity. They at length prevailed on him to
agree to abandon Belgium, the left of the Rhine, Italy, and Piedmont.
But in the night after the consultation, and before the ultimatum
received his signature, Napoleon received information which quite
altered his views. He learned that Blucher, instead of continuing his
march down the Aube, and in communication with Schwartzenberg on the
Seine, had transferred his whole army to the Marne, and was now
advancing towards Paris by the Montmirail road. That the Allies, after
experiencing the effects of disunion at Brienne, and those of
conjunction at La Rothiere, should have almost in the moment of victory
again resolved on separating their forces, is a circumstance which no
writer has as yet explained in any satisfactory manner. The blunder was
great; yet in the end its consequences were disastrous, not to those who
committed, but to him whose eagle-eye detected it, and who could not
resist the temptation which it presented, to make one warlike effort
more. Buonaparte, in a word, refused to sign the despatch on the
morning of the 9th; and having left Bourmont at Nogent, with a small
force to defend the bridge over the Seine, and Oudinot with another, for
the same purpose, at the next bridge in descending the river, namely,
that of Bray, immediately commenced his march with the main body of his
army upon Sezanne.

It was the depth of winter--the cross-roads on which they moved were in
the most frightful condition, insomuch that had not the zealous Mayor of
Barbonne collected 500 horses, and come to their assistance, they must
have been forced to leave all their artillery in a slough near that
town; yet this determined band marched nearly forty miles ere they
halted with the dark. Next morning they proceeded with equal alacrity,
and at length debouched on the road by which Blucher's army was
advancing, at Champaubert. Alsusieff and the central division were
passing, when Napoleon unexpectedly appeared at this point, and were
altogether unable to resist his onset. They dispersed in confusion with
great loss, and fled towards the Marne. Meantime the van of the same
army, commanded by Sacken, who were advancing on La Ferté, and the
division of D'York, already in sight of Meaux, turned on hearing the
cannonade of Champaubert, and countermarched with the view of supporting
Alsusieff. They shared the fate of the centre, and having been severely
handled at Montmirail, escaped across the Marne at Chateau-Tierry; thus
leaving Blucher and the rear division alone to abide the attack of
Napoleon's entire force between the Marne and the Aube. The Prussian
marshal, advancing rapidly in consequence of the firing of these
battles, found himself all at once in presence of an army flushed with
victory, vastly superior in numbers, and well provided with cavalry, of
which he had almost none. He retired in alternate squares, sustaining
all day the charges of the French, with much loss of life, but with no
disorder; and at length cut his way, at Etoges, through a column of
heavy horse, sent round to intercept him, and drawn up on the causeway.
Blucher himself was, in the course of this day, obliged to fight hand to
hand like a private soldier. His retreat was masterly, and he finally
crossed the Marne at Chalons.

Such was Napoleon's celebrated "Expedition of the Marne." In five days
his arms had been three times successful. He had shattered and dispersed
(as he thought effectually) the Silesian army, and above all, recovered
the spirits of his own soldiery. A column of 7000 Prussian prisoners,
with a considerable number of guns and standards, at length satisfied
the Parisians that Victory had not entirely forsworn her old favourite.
Thus far all was well; and had Napoleon, from the field which thus
raised the courage of his troops, and revived the confidence of his
capital, despatched authority to Caulaincourt to conclude the treaty on
the terms before described--the victor of Montmirail might have kept the
throne of France. But his own presumption was rekindled by the same
success which dazzled inferior eyes--and Napoleon wrote on the instant
to his representative at Chatillon, that he might now assume "an
attitude less humble." This error proved fatal.

Scarcely had the Parisians seen the prisoners from Montmirail marched
along their boulevards, before they heard that the Cossacks were in
possession of Fontainebleau. Napoleon had left, as was mentioned, small
divisions of his army to guard the bridges over the Seine at Nogent and
Bray. The enemy, however, soon discovered that the Emperor and his chief
force were no longer in that quarter, and--while he was beating
Alsusieff, Sacken, and Blucher--had made good the passage of the Seine,
at three different points, at Nogent, at Bray, and still further down,
at Montereau, driving the discomfited guardians of these important
places before them. Schwartzenberg had already his headquarters at
Nangis, and was obviously resolved to reach Paris, if possible, while
Napoleon was on the Marne. The light troops of the grand allied army
were scattering confusion on both sides of the Seine--and one party of
them were so near the capital as Fontainebleau.

Buonaparte instantly committed to Marmont and Mortier the care of
watching the Chalons road and the remains of Blucher's army, and marched
with his main body on Meaux, where he received (15th February) the
welcome reinforcement of 20,000 veterans from Spain, commanded by
Grouchy. On the 16th, Victor and Oudinot were engaged with the van of
Schwartzenberg, on the plains of Guignes, when the Emperor arrived to
their assistance. The enemy immediately drew back, and concentrated his
strength at Nangis. Napoleon attacked that position on the morning of
the 17th, and with such effect, that the allies retreated after
considerable loss, though not in disorder, on the bridges in their rear.

They halted, however, at Montereau, and Victor, who commanded the
pursuers on that route, failed in dislodging them. Napoleon resented
this as a heinous error, and coming up on the morning of the 18th,
rebuked him in terms of violent wrath, and formally dismissed him from
the service. The Marshal, tears streaming down his face, declared that
though he had ceased to be an officer, he must still be a soldier, and
would serve once more in the ranks, from which he had originally risen.
The old man's son-in-law, General Chateau, had been slain the same
morning. Napoleon extended his hand to him, and said he could not give
him back the command of his corps d'armée, which had already been
assigned to another, but that he was welcome to place himself at the
head of a brigade of the guard. The attack then commenced with fury, and
the bridge and town of Montereau were carried. The defence was, however,
long and stern, and Napoleon was seen pointing cannon with his own hand,
under the heaviest of the fire. The artillerymen, delighted with
witnessing this resumption of his ancient trade, were, nevertheless,
alarmed at the exposure of his person, and entreated him to withdraw. He
persisted in his work, answering gaily, "My children! the bullet that
shall kill me is not yet cast." Pursuing his advantage, Napoleon saw the
grand army continue their retreat in the direction of Troyes, and on the
morning of the 22nd arrived before Mery.

The astonishment of the Emperor was great, when he found this town
occupied, not by a feeble rear-guard of Schwartzenberg, but by a
powerful division of Russians, commanded by Sacken, and, therefore,
belonging to the apparently indestructible army of Blucher. These
unexpected enemies were charged in the streets, and at length retired
out of the town (which was burnt to the ground in the struggle) and
thence beyond the Aube--which, in that quarter, runs nearly parallel
with, and at no great distance from, the Seine. The Emperor then halted,
and spent the night in a wheelwright's cottage at Chatres.

All this while the semblance, at least, of negotiation had been kept up
at Chatillon. Caulaincourt, receiving no answer to that important
despatch which reached Buonaparte (as has been mentioned) at Nogent, on
the 8th of February proceeded to act on the instructions dated at
Troyes, on the 3rd; and, in effect, accepted the basis of the Allies.
When Schwartzenberg was attacked at Nangis on the 17th, he had just
received the intelligence of Caulaincourt's having signed the
preliminary articles; and he, therefore, sent a messenger to ask why the
Emperor, if aware of his ambassador's act, persisted in hostilities?
Napoleon had ere then, as we have seen, desired Caulaincourt to assume
"a less humble attitude," and instead of ratifying, as he was bound on
every principle of honour and law to do, the signature which his
ambassador had had full powers to affix, he returned no answer whatever
to Schwartzenberg, but despatched a private letter to the Emperor of
Austria, once more endeavouring to seduce him from the European league.
The Emperor's reply to this despatch reached Napoleon at this hovel in
Chatres: it announced his resolution on no account to abandon the
general cause; but, at the same time, intimated that Francis lent no
support to the Bourbonists (who were now arming in Franche-Comté around
Monsieur), and urged Napoleon to avert by concession, ere it was yet too
late, total ruin from himself and his House. Buonaparte, flushed with a
succession of victories, was in no temper to listen to such advice, and
the Austrian envoy left his headquarters with a note, signifying that
_now_ he would not even consent to a day's armistice, unless the Allies
would fall back so as to leave _Antwerp_ in their front.

The same evening there came news from Paris, which might have been
expected to disturb the pride of these imaginations. The Council of
State had discussed deliberately the proposals of the Allied Powers,
and, with only one dissenting voice, now entreated the Emperor to accept
them. They announced to him that--while he had been driving the
Austrians up the Seine--the _Army of the North_, the third great force
of the Allies, had at length effected their juncture with Blucher; who
was now, therefore, at the head of a much greater army than he had as
yet commanded, and was manifestly resolved to descend directly on Paris
from Chalons. Napoleon was urged anew by those about his person, to send
to Chatillon and accept the basis to which Caulaincourt had agreed. He
answered that he had sworn at his coronation to preserve the territory
of the Republic entire, and that he could not sign this treaty without
violating _his oath_!--and dismissed his counsellors, saying haughtily,
"If I am to be scourged, let the whip at least come on me of necessity,
and not through any voluntary stooping of my own."

Instead, therefore, of sending messengers of peace to Chatillon,
Napoleon now thought only of the means of at once holding Schwartzenberg
in check on the Seine, and returning once more to confront Blucher on
the Marne. He pushed on, however, as far as Troyes, in the expectation
of still terrifying the allied princes into some compromise. In this
city he found that certain gentlemen had openly assumed the white
cockade, the mark of the Bourbonists, during its occupation by the
enemy, though without any countenance from the sovereigns. One of these
gentlemen was so unfortunate as to fall into his hands, and was
immediately executed.

The Emperor in vain expected new proposals from Chatillon; none such
reached him at Troyes--and he recurred to his scheme of a second
"Expedition of the Marne." He desired Oudinot and Macdonald, with their
divisions, to manœuvre in the direction of Schwartzenberg: and these
generals commanded their troops to shout "vive l'Empereur" whenever they
were within hearing of the enemy, which for a little time kept up the
notion that Napoleon himself was still advancing on the road to Bar.
Meanwhile he was once more marching rapidly across the country to
Sezanne; at which point he received intelligence that Mortier and
Marmont had been driven from Ferté-sous-Jouarre by Blucher, and were in
full retreat to Meaux. Meaux he considered as almost a suburb of Paris,
and quickened his speed accordingly. Hurrying on, at Ferté-Goucher, he
was at once met and overtaken by evil tidings. Schwartzenberg, having
discovered the Emperor's absence, had immediately resumed the offensive,
defeated Oudinot and Macdonald at Bar, and driven them before him as far
as Troyes; and Augereau, who commanded in the neighbourhood of Lyons,
announced the arrival of a new and great army of the Allies in that
quarter. Napoleon resumed, however, his march, and having been detained
some time at Ferté, in consequence of the destruction of the bridge,
took the direction of Chateau-Thierry and Soissons, while Mortier and
Marmont received his orders to resume the offensive in front of Meaux.
He hoped, in this manner, to throw himself on the flank of Blucher's
march, as he had done before at Champaubert. But the Prussian received
intelligence this time of his approach; and, drawing his troops
together, retired to Soissons in perfect order.

Napoleon proceeded with alacrity in the direction of Soissons, not
doubting that the French garrison entrusted with the care of that town,
and its bridge over the Marne, were still in possession of it, and
eager, therefore, to force Blucher into action with this formidable
obstacle in his rear. But Soissons had been taken by a Russian corps,
retaken by a French one, and fallen once more into the hands of the
enemy, ere the Emperor came in sight of it. The Muscovite Black Eagle,
floating on the towers, gave him the first intimation of this
misfortune. He assaulted the place impetuously: the Russians repelled
the attack; and Napoleon, learning that Blucher had filed his main body
through the town, and posted himself behind the Marne, marched up the
left bank of that river, and crossed it also at Bery.

A few leagues in front of this place, on the heights of Craonne, two
Russian corps, those of Sacken and Witzingerode, were already in
position; and the Emperor lost no time in charging them there, in the
hope of destroying them ere they could unite with Blucher. The battle of
Craonne began at eleven a.m. on the 7th of March, and lasted till four
in the afternoon. The Russians had down to this hour withstood the
utmost exertions of Ney on their right, of Victor on their left, and of
Napoleon himself on their centre. The loss in slain and wounded had been
about equal on both sides; no cannon, and hardly a prisoner, had been
taken. The Emperor, enraged with this obstinate resistance, was
preparing for a final effort, when suddenly the Russians began to
retreat. He followed them; but they withdrew with the deliberation and
impunity of a parade. They had been ordered to fall back on the plateau
of Laon, in order to form there on the same line with Blucher, who was
once more in presence, and eager to concentrate all his force for a
decisive conflict.

It took place on the 9th. Napoleon found his enemy strongly posted along
an elevated ridge, covered with wood, and further protected in front by
a succession of terrace-walls, the enclosures of vineyards. There was a
heavy mist on the lower ground, and the French were advancing up the
hill ere their movement was discovered. They were met by a storm of
cannonade which utterly broke their centre. On either flank of the
enemy's position they then charged in succession, and with like results.
On all points they were repelled, except only at the village of Athies,
where Marmont had obtained some advantage. Night interrupted the
contest, and the armies bivouacked in full view of each other. The
Allies, in consequence of their well-covered position, had suffered
comparatively little; of the French some thousands had died--and all in
vain. Napoleon was, however, resolved to renew the attack, and mounted
his horse accordingly at four in the morning of the 10th. At that moment
news came that Marmont's corps had just been assaulted at Athies, and so
thoroughly discomfited that they were now flying in confusion towards
Corbery. Notwithstanding this ominous opening, the battle in front of
Laon was continued all the day. But the tide of fortune had turned, and
could not be resisted. On the 11th, Napoleon commenced his retreat,
having lost thirty cannon and ten thousand men.

Soissons had been evacuated by the Allies when concentrating themselves
for the battle of Laon. Napoleon threw himself, therefore, into that
town, and was making his best efforts to strengthen it, in expectation
of the Prussian advance, when once more a messenger of evil tidings
reached him. A detached Russian corps, commanded by St. Priest, a French
emigrant, had seized Rheims by a coup-de-main. The possession of this
city (as a glance at any good map will show) could hardly fail to
re-establish Blucher's communications with Schwartzenberg--and Napoleon
instantly marched thither in person, leaving Marmont to hold out as well
as he could at Soissons, in case that should be the direction of
Blucher's march. Buonaparte, moving with his usual rapidity, came
unexpected on Rheims, and took the place by assault at midnight. St.
Priest had fallen; and the bulletin announced that he met his fate by a
ball from the same cannon which killed Moreau. If it were so, no one
could have ascertained the fact; but Napoleon's imagination was always
ready to welcome a tale that savoured of fatality.

From Rheims, where he remained for three days to refresh his unfortunate
followers, he despatched at length full powers to Caulaincourt to
conclude _any treaty_, which should secure the immediate evacuation of
the old French territory, and a mutual restoration of prisoners. Maret,
(Duke of Bassano,) however, wrote--by the same messenger--at much
greater length; informing the plenipotentiary that the Emperor would
refuse to ratify _any treaty_ whatever--if, in the interim, events
should have taken a turn in his favour. It is to be doubted whether
Caulaincourt would have ventured to act, on instructions thus qualified,
with the decision which the emergency required. But he was not put to
the proof. The Allies had determined to negotiate no more, ere the
despatch of Rheims reached him.

Throughout this crisis of his history, it is impossible to survey the
rapid energy of Napoleon--his alert transitions from enemy to enemy, his
fearless assaults on vastly superior numbers, his unwearied resolution,
and exhaustless invention--without the highest admiration which can
attend on a master of warfare. But it is equally impossible to suppress
astonishment and indignation in following, or rather attempting to
follow, the threads of obstinacy, duplicity, pride, and perfidy, which,
during the same period, complicated, without strengthening, the tissue
of his negotiations. It is only when we fix our eyes on the battles and
marches of this wonderful campaign, that we can hesitate to echo the
adage:--_Whom God hath doomed to destruction, he first deprives of
reason._

To complete our notion of the energies of Napoleon--he had all through
this, the most extraordinary of his campaigns, continued to conduct,
from his perpetually changing headquarters, the civil business of his
empire. He occupied himself largely with such matters during his stay at
Rheims; but it was there that the last despatches from the
home-department at Paris were destined to reach him; and, before he
could return his answer, there came couriers upon couriers--with tidings
which would have unmanned any other mind, and which filled his with
perplexity. On the one side, Blucher had profited by his departure,
crushed down the feeble opposition of the corps left at Soissons, and
repassed the Marne. On the other hand, Schwartzenberg had detected,
almost as soon as it took place, his march on Sezanne, and instantly
resumed the offensive. Oudinot and Girard had been forced to give way
before the immeasurably superior numbers of the Grand Army. They had
been defeated with great slaughter at Bar on the Aube; and the Austrian
was once more at Troyes. The Allies were, therefore, to all appearance,
in full march upon Paris, both by the valley of the Marne, and by that
of the Seine, at the moment when Napoleon had thought to paralyse all
their movements by taking up a position between them at Rheims.

He still counted largely on the magic of his name; and even now he had
hardly over-reckoned. When Schwartzenberg understood that Napoleon was
at Rheims, the old terror returned, and the Austrian instantly proposed
to fall back from Troyes. But there was by this time, in the camp of the
allied powers, one who, though not a soldier, appreciated, far better
than all those about him, that had grown grey in arms, the circumstances
of the time, and the conduct which these demanded. Lord Castlereagh took
upon himself the responsibility of signifying that the Grand Army might
retire if the sovereigns pleased, but that if such a movement took
place, the subsidies of England must be considered as at an end. This
bold word determined the debate. Schwartzenberg's columns instantly
resumed their march down the Seine.

Napoleon, meanwhile, had been struggling with himself; whatever line of
action he might adopt was at best hazardous in the extreme. Should he
hasten after Blucher on the Marne, what was to prevent Schwartzenberg
from reaching Paris, ere the Silesian army, already victorious at Laon,
could be once more brought to action by an inferior force? Should he
throw himself on the march of Schwartzenberg, would not the fiery
Prussian be at the Tuileries, long before the Austrian could be checked
on the Seine? There remained a third course--namely, to push at once
into the country in the rear of the Grand Army; and to this there were
sundry inducements. By doing so, he might possibly--such were still the
Emperor's conceptions as to the influence of his name--strike the
advancing Allies, both the Austrian and the Prussian, with terror, and
paralyse their movements. Were they likely to persist in their _Hurrah
on Paris_ (at this period the Cossack vocabulary was in vogue), when
they knew Napoleon to be posting himself between them and their own
resources, and at the same time relieving and rallying around him all
the garrisons of the great fortresses of the Rhine? Would not such
conduct be considered as entirely out of the question by superstitious
adherents to the ancient technicalities of war? Would not Schwartzenberg
at least abandon the advance and turn to follow him, who still fancied
that no one could dream of conquering France without having ruined
Napoleon? But--even supposing that the allied powers should resist all
these suggestions and proceed upon the capital--would not that great
city, with Marmont and Mortier, and the national guard, be able to hold
the enemy at bay for some considerable space; and, during that space,
could the Emperor fail to release his garrisons on the Rhine, and so
place himself once more at the head of an army capable, under his
unrivalled guidance, of relieving France and ruining her invaders, by a
great battle under the walls of Paris?

It must be added, in reference to Napoleon's choice among these
difficulties, that ere now the continuance of the warfare had much
exacerbated the feelings of the peasantry, who, for the most part,
regarded its commencement with indifference. The perpetual marches and
counter-marches of the armies, the assaults and burnings of towns and
villages, the fierce demeanour of the justly embittered Prussians, and
the native barbarism of the Russians, had spread devastation and horror
through some of the fairest provinces of France. The desolation was such
that wolves and other beasts of prey appeared, in numbers which recalled
the ages of the unbroken forest, amidst the vineyards and gardens of
Champagne. All who could command the means of flight had escaped; of
those that remained there were few who had not, during three months,
suffered painful privations, seen their cottages occupied by savage
strangers, and their streams running red with the blood of their
countrymen. The consequence was that the peasantry on the theatre of the
war, and behind it, were now in a state of high excitement. Might not
the Emperor, by throwing himself and his sorely diminished, but still
formidable, band of veterans among them, give the finishing impulse, and
realise at length his fond hope of a national insurrection?

While Napoleon was thus tossed in anxiety by what means to avert, if it
were yet possible, from Paris, the visitation of those mighty armies,
against whom energies, such as he alone possessed, had been exerted in
vain--the capital showed small symptoms of sympathising with him. The
newspapers had announced nothing but victories; but the truth could not
fail to penetrate in spite of all this treachery. The streets were daily
traversed by new crowds of provincialists, driven or terrified from
their dwellings. Every hospital, and many public buildings besides, were
crammed with wounded soldiers; and the number of dead bodies,
continually floating down the Seine was so great, that the meanest of
the populace durst no longer make use of the water. As one conclusive
token of the universal distrust, it may be mentioned that, whereas in
usual times the amount of taxes paid daily into the exchequer at Paris
is about £3000, the average, after the 1st of March, did not exceed £15.
It was Savary's business to despatch a full account of the state of the
city every night to headquarters;--and he did not hesitate to inform the
Emperor that the machinery of government was clogged in every wheel, and
that the necessity of purchasing peace, by abandoning him, was the
common burden of conversation.

Meantime, to swell the cup of his anxieties, there reached him new
intelligence of the most alarming character from the south-western
provinces, invaded by Lord Wellington. That victorious general had
driven Soult before him through the _Pays de Gaves_ (the tract of strong
country broken by the torrents descending from the Pyrenees); defeated
him in another great battle at Orthes; and was now pursuing him in the
direction of Toulouse. Nor was even this the worst: the English had been
received more like friends than enemies by the French; their camp was
far better served with provisions than that of Soult; and lastly,
Bourdeaux had risen openly in the cause of Louis. The white flag was
floating on every tower of the third city in France, and the Duke
D'Angouleme was administering all the offices of government, in the
midst of a population who had welcomed him with the enthusiasm of old
loyalty.

It was amidst such circumstances that Napoleon at length decided on
throwing himself on the rear of the Allies. They were for some time
quite uncertain of his movements after he quitted Rheims, until an
intercepted letter to Maria Louisa informed them that he was at St.
Dizier.




CHAPTER XXXVI

     The Allies approach Paris--Maria Louisa retires to Blois--Marmont
     and Mortier occupy the Heights of Montmartre--They are
     defeated--King Joseph escapes--Marmont capitulates--the Allies
     enter Paris--Napoleon at Fontainebleau--His abdication.


Napoleon continued for several days to manœuvre on the country beyond
St. Dizier. Having thus seized the roads by which the Grand Army had
advanced, he took prisoners many persons of distinction on their way to
its headquarters--and at one time the Emperor of Austria himself escaped
most narrowly a party of French hussars. Meanwhile petty skirmishes were
ever and anon occurring between Napoleon's rear-guard and Austrians,
whom he took for the van-guard of Schwartzenberg. They were, however,
detached troops, chiefly horse, left expressly to hang on his march, and
cheat him into this belief. The Grand Army was proceeding rapidly down
the Seine; while Blucher, having repeatedly beaten Marmont and Mortier,
was already within sight of Meaux.

It has been mentioned that Napoleon, ere he commenced his campaign,
directed some fortifications to be thrown up on the side of Paris
nearest to the invading armies. His brother Joseph, however, was, as
Spain had witnessed, neither an active nor a skilful soldier; and the
civil government of this tempestuous capital appears to have been more
than enough to employ what energies he possessed. The outworks executed
during the campaign were few and inconsiderable; and to occupy them,
there were now but 8000 fresh regulars, the discomfited divisions of
Marmont and Mortier, and the National Guard of the metropolis. This last
corps had 30,000 names on its roll: but such had been the manifestations
of public feeling, that the Emperor's lieutenants had not dared to
furnish more than a third of these with firearms: the others had only
pikes: and every hour increased the doubts of the Regency-council
whether any considerable portion of these men--who were chiefly, in
fact, the shopkeepers of Paris--would consent to shed their blood in
this cause.

Meanwhile the royalists within the city had been watching the progress
of events with eagerness and exultation. Talleyrand was ere now in close
communication with them, and employing all the resources of his talents
to prevail on them to couple their demand for the heir of the Bourbons,
with such assertions of their belief that that dynasty ought never to be
re-established otherwise than on a constitutional basis, as might draw
over to their side the more moderate of the republicans. Nor had these
efforts been unsuccessful. Various deputations from the royalists had
found their way to the headquarters, both of Blucher and Schwartzenberg,
before the middle of March, and expressed sentiments of this nature. As
yet, however, none of the Allies had ventured to encourage directly the
hopes of the Bourbon party. They persisted in asserting their resolution
to let the French nation judge for themselves under what government they
should live; and to take no part in their civil feuds. Talleyrand
himself was in correspondence with the Czar; but, in his letters, he, as
far as is known, confined himself to urging the advance of the armies. A
billet from him was delivered to Alexander just before the final rush on
Paris begun: it was in these words--"You venture nothing, when you may
safely venture everything--venture once more."

De Pradt, and many other of those statesmen whom Napoleon, in latter
days, had disgraced or disobliged, were, ere this time, labouring
diligently in the same service. It must be admitted that he, like the
falling Persian, was

    "Deserted in his utmost need
    By those his former bounty fed;"

but he had brought himself to this extremity by his scorn of their
counsels; nor even at the eleventh hour did his proud heart dream of
recalling confidence, by the confession of error.

On the 26th of March, the distant roaring of artillery was heard at
intervals on the boulevards of Paris; and the alarm began to be violent.
On the 27th (Sunday) Joseph Buonaparte held a review in the Place
Carousel; and the day being fine, and the uniforms mostly new, the
confidence of the spectators rose, and the newspapers expressed their
wishes that the enemy could but behold what forces were ready to meet
and destroy them. That same evening the Allies passed the Marne at
various points; at three in the morning of the 28th, they took Meaux;
and at daybreak, "the terrified population of the country between Meaux
and Paris came pouring into the capital," says an eye-witness, "with
their aged, infirm, children, cats, dogs, live-stock, corn, hay, and
household goods of every description. The boulevards were crowded with
waggons, carts, and carriages thus laden, to which cattle were tied, and
the whole surrounded with women." The regular troops now marched out of
the town, leaving all the barriers in charge of the National Guard. The
confusion that prevailed everywhere was indescribable.

On the 29th, the Empress, her son, and most of the members of the
Council of State, set off, attended by 700 soldiers, for
Rambouillet--from which they continued their journey to Blois--and in
their train went fifteen waggons laden with plate and coin from the
vaults of the Tuileries. The spectators looked on their departure in
gloomy silence: and King Joseph published the following proclamation;
"Citizens of Paris! A hostile column has descended on Meaux. It
advances; but the Emperor follows close behind, at the head of a
victorious army. The Council of Regency has provided for the safety of
the Empress and the King of Rome. I remain with you. Let us arm
ourselves to defend this city, its monuments, its riches, our wives, our
children--all that is dear to us. Let this vast capital become a camp
for some moments; and let the enemy find his shame under the walls which
he hopes to overleap in triumph. The Emperor marches to our succour.
Second him by a short and vigorous resistance, and preserve the honour
of France." No feeling favourable to Napoleon was stirred by this
appeal. The boulevards continued to be thronged with multitudes of
people; but the most part received the proclamation with
indifference--not a few with murmurs. Some officers urged Savary to have
the streets unpaved, and persuade the people to arm themselves with the
stones, and prepare for a defence such as that of Zaragossa. He
answered, shaking his head, "the thing cannot be done."

All day, waggons of biscuit and ammunition were rolling through the
town; wounded soldiers came limping to the barriers; and the Seine
heaved thicker and thicker with the carcases of horses and men. That
night, for once, the theatres were deserted.

On the 30th, the Allies fought and won the final battle. The French
occupied the whole range of heights from the Marne at Charenton, to the
Seine beyond St. Denis; and the Austrians began the attack about eleven
o'clock, towards the former of these points, while nearly in the midst
between them, a charge was made by the Russians on Pantin and
Belleville. The Prussians, who were posted over against the heights of
Montmartre, did not come into action so early in the day. The French
troops of the line were stationed everywhere in the front, and commanded
by Marmont and Mortier. Those battalions of the National Guard, whose
spirit could be trusted, and who were adequately armed, took their
orders from Moncey, and formed a second line of defence. The scholars of
the Polytechnic School volunteered to serve at the great guns, and the
artillery was, though not numerous, well arranged, and in gallant hands.

The French defence, in spite of all the previous disasters, and of the
enormous superiority of the enemy's numbers, was most brave: but by two
o'clock the Allies had completely beaten them at all points, except only
at Montmartre, where they were rapidly making progress. Marmont then
sent several aides-de-camp to request an armistice, and offer a
capitulation. One only of his messengers appears to have reached the
headquarters of the sovereigns--and both the Czar and King of Prussia
immediately professed their willingness to spare the city, provided the
regular troops would evacuate it. Blucher, meanwhile, continued pressing
on at Montmartre, and shortly after four, the victory being completed in
that direction, the French cannon were turned on the city, and shot and
shells began to spread destruction within its walls. The capitulation
was drawn up at five o'clock, close to the barrier St. Denis.

King Joseph showed himself on horseback among the troops early in the
morning; but was not visible after the attack began. At one o'clock he
received a message from Marmont, requesting reinforcements. "Where am I
to find them?" answered he--"is your horse a good one?" The aide-de-camp
answered in the affirmative. "Then follow me," said Joseph; and without
further ceremony began his journey to Blois.[66]

We must now turn to Napoleon. It was not until the 27th that he
distinctly ascertained the fact of both the allied armies having marched
directly on Paris. He instantly resolved to hasten after them, in hopes
to arrive on their rear, ere yet they had mastered the heights of
Montmartre; nor did his troops refuse to rush forward once more at his
bidding. He had to go round by Doulevent and Troyes, because the direct
route was utterly wasted, and could not furnish food for his men. At
Doulevent he received a billet from La Vallette, his Post-Master
General, in these terms: "The partisans of the stranger are making head,
seconded by secret intrigues. The presence of the Emperor is
indispensable--if he desires to prevent his capital from being delivered
to the enemy. There is not a moment to be lost." Urging his advance
accordingly with renewed eagerness--Buonaparte reached Troyes on the
night of the 29th--his men having marched fifteen leagues since the
daybreak. On the 30th, Macdonald in vain attempted to convince him that
the fate of Paris must have been decided ere he could reach it, and
advised him to march without further delay so as to form a conjunction
with Augereau. "In that case," said the marshal, "we may unite and
repose our troops, and yet give the enemy battle on a chosen field. If
Providence has decreed our last hour, we shall, at least, die with
honour, instead of being dispersed, pillaged, and slaughtered by
Cossacks." Napoleon was deaf to all such counsel. He continued to
advance. Finding the road beyond Troyes quite clear, he threw himself
into a postchaise, and travelled on before his army at full speed, with
hardly any attendance. At Villeneuve L'Archeveque he mounted on
horseback, and galloping without a pause, reached Fontainebleau late in
the night. He there ordered a carriage, and taking Caulaincourt and
Berthier into it, drove on towards Paris. Nothing could shake his belief
that he was yet in time--until, while he was changing horses at La Cour
de France, but a few miles from Paris, General Belliard came up, at the
head of a column of cavalry--weary and dejected men, marching towards
Fontainebleau, in consequence of the provisions of Marmont's
capitulation, from the fatal field of Montmartre.

Even then Napoleon refused to halt. Leaping from his carriage, he began:
"What means this? Why here with your cavalry, Belliard? And where are
the enemy? Where are my wife and my boy? Where Marmont? Where Mortier?"
Belliard walking by his side, told him the events of the day. He called
out for his carriage--and insisted on continuing his journey. The
general in vain informed him that there was no longer an army in Paris;
that the regulars were all coming behind, and that neither they nor he
himself, having left the city in consequence of a convention, could
possibly return to it. The Emperor still demanded his carriage, and bade
Belliard turn with the cavalry and follow him. "Come," said he, "we must
to Paris--nothing goes aright when I am away--they do nothing but
blunder." He strode on, crying, "You should have held out longer--you
should have raised Paris--they cannot like the Cossacks--they would
surely have defended their walls--Go! go! I see every one has lost his
senses. This comes of employing fools and cowards." With such
exclamations Buonaparte hurried onwards, dragging Belliard with him,
until they were met, a mile from La Cour de France, by the first of the
retreating infantry. Their commander, General Curial, gave the same
answers as Belliard. "In proceeding to Paris," said he, "you rush on
death or captivity." Perceiving at length that the hand of necessity was
on him, the Emperor then abandoned his design. He sank at once into
perfect composure; gave orders that the troops, as they arrived, should
draw up behind the little river Essonne; despatched Caulaincourt to
Paris, with authority to accept whatever terms the Allied Sovereigns
might be pleased to offer; and turned again towards Fontainebleau.

It was still dark when Napoleon reached once more that venerable castle.
He retired to rest immediately; not, however, in any of the state-rooms
which he had been accustomed to occupy, but in a smaller apartment, in a
different and more sequestered part of the building.

The Duke of Vicenza reached the Czar's quarters at Pantin early in the
morning of the 31st, while he was yet asleep; and recognised, amidst the
crowd in the ante-chamber, a deputation from the municipality of Paris,
who were waiting to present the keys of the city, and invoke the
protection of the conqueror. As soon as Alexander awoke, these
functionaries were admitted to his presence, and experienced a most
courteous reception. The Czar repeated his favourite expression, that he
had but one enemy in France: and promised that the capital, and all
within it, should be treated with perfect consideration. Caulaincourt
then found his way to Alexander--but he was dismissed immediately. The
countenance of the envoy announced, as he came out, that he considered
the fate of his master as decided; nor, if he had preserved any hope,
could it have failed to expire when he learned that Alexander had
already sent to Talleyrand, requesting him on no account to quit the
capital, and proposing to take up his own residence in his hotel.
Nesselrode, the Russian minister, who received the municipal deputation
ere the Czar awoke, entered freely into conversation with the gentleman
at their head, M. Laborde. That person, being questioned as to the state
of public feeling, answered that there were three parties: the army, who
still adhered to Buonaparte; the republicans, who wished for his
deposition, but would not object to the King of Rome being recognised as
Emperor, provided a liberal constitution were established, and the
regency placed in fit hands; and finally, the old nobility and the
saloons of Paris, who were united in desiring the restoration of the
Bourbons. "But at the Prince of Benevento's," said Laborde, "the Emperor
will best acquire a knowledge of all this--it is there that our chief
statesmen assemble habitually." This conversation is supposed to have
fixed Alexander's choice of a residence; and as we have already seen
that Talleyrand was ere now committed in the cause of Louis, the result
of this choice may be anticipated.

The history of what La Vallette had called "the secret intrigues with
the stranger" has not yet been cleared up--nor is it likely to be so for
some time. If there was one of the Allied Princes on whose disposition
to spare himself, or at least his family, Napoleon might have been
supposed to count,--it must have been the Emperor of Austria; and yet,
at daybreak this very morning, a proclamation was tossed in thousands
over the barriers of Paris, in which several phrases occurred, not to be
reconciled with any other notion than that he and all the Allies agreed
in favouring the restoration of the Bourbons, ere any part of their
forces entered the capital. This document spoke of the anxiety of "the
sovereigns" to see the establishment of "a salutary authority in
France": of the opportunity offered to the Parisians of "accelerating
the peace of the world"; of the "conduct of Bordeaux" as affording "an
example of the method in which foreign war and civil discord might find
a common termination"; it concluded thus: "It is in these sentiments
that _Europe in arms_ before your walls addresses herself to you. Hasten
then to respond to the confidence which she reposes in your love for
your country, and in your wisdom;" and was signed "SCHWARTZENBERG,
_Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies_."

There was a circumstance of another kind which assisted in stimulating
the hopes and swelling the adherents of the royal cause. The Allies had,
in the early part of the campaign, experienced evil from the
multiplicity of uniforms worn among the troops of so many nations and
tongues, and the likeness which some of the dresses, the German
especially, bore to those of the French. The invading soldiers had
latterly adopted the practice of binding pieces of white linen round
their left arms; and this token, though possibly meant only to enable
the strangers to recognise each other, was not likely to be observed
with indifference by the Parisians, among whom the Bourbonists had
already begun to wear openly the white cockade.

Finally, a vivid sensation was excited in Paris at this critical moment
by the publication of Chateaubriand's celebrated tract, entitled "Of
Buonaparte and of the Bourbons." The first symptom of freedom in the
long enslaved press of Paris was not likely, whatever it might be, to
meet with an unfriendly reception; but this effusion of one of the most
popular writers of the time (though composed in a style not suited to
sober English tastes) was admirably adapted to produce a powerful
effect, at such a moment of doubt and hesitation, on the people to whom
it was addressed.

The agents of Buonaparte had not been idle during the 30th: they had
appealed to the passions of those wretched classes of society who had
been the willing instruments of all the horrible violence of the
revolution, and among whom the name of Bourbon was still detested; nor
without considerable effect. The crowds of filthy outcasts who emerged
from their lanes and cellars, and thronged some of the public places
during the battle, were regarded with equal alarm by all the decent part
of the population, however divided in political sentiments. But the
battle ended ere they could be brought to venture on any combined
movement; and when the defeated soldiery began to file in silence and
dejection through the streets, the mob lost courage, and retreated also
in dismay to the obscure abodes of their misery and vice.

The royalists welcomed with exultation the dawn of the 31st. Together
with the proclamation of Schwartzenberg, they circulated one of
Monsieur, and another of Louis XVIII. himself; and some of the leading
gentlemen of the party, the Montmorencys, the Noailles, the Rohans, the
Rochefoucalds, the Polignacs, the Chateaubriands, were early on
horseback in the streets; which they paraded without interruption from
any, either of the civil authorities, or of the National Guard,
decorated with the symbols of their cause, and appealing with eloquence
to the feelings of the onlookers. As yet, however, they were only
listened to. The mass of the people were altogether uncertain what the
end was to be: and, in the language of the chief orator himself, M.
Sosthenes de Rochefoucald, "the silence was most dismal." At noon the
first of the Allied troops began to pass the barrier and enter the city.
The royalist cavaliers met them; but though many officers observing the
white cockade exclaimed "la belle decoration!" the generals refused to
say anything which might commit their sovereigns. Some ladies of rank,
however, now appeared to take their part in the scene; and when these
fair hands were seen tearing their dresses to make white cockades, the
flame of their enthusiasm began to spread. Various pickets of the
National Guard had plucked the tricolor badge from their caps, and
assumed the white, ere many of the Allies passed the gates.

At noon, as has been mentioned, this triumphal procession began, and it
lasted for several hours. The show was splendid; 50,000 troops, horse,
foot, and artillery, all in the highest order and condition, marched
along the boulevards; and in the midst appeared the youthful Czar and
the King of Prussia, followed by a dazzling suite of princes,
ambassadors, and generals. The crowd was so great that their motion,
always slow, was sometimes suspended. The courteous looks and manners of
all the strangers--but especially the affable and condescending air of
Alexander, were observed at first with surprise; as the cavalcade passed
on, and the crowd thickened, the feelings of the populace rose from
wonder to delight, and ended in contagious and irresistible rapture. No
sovereigns entering their native capitals were ever received with more
enthusiastic plaudits; and still, at every step, the shouts of _Vive
L'Empereur Alexandre!_--_Vive le Roi de Prusse!_ were more and more
loudly mingled with the long-forgotten echoes of _Vive le Roi!_--_Vive
Louis XVIII._--_Vivent les Bourbons!_

The monarchs at last halted, dismissed their soldiers to quarters in the
city, saw Platoff and his Cossacks establish their bivouack in the
_Champs Elysées_, and retired to the residences prepared for them; that
of Alexander being, as we have mentioned above, in the hotel of
Talleyrand.

While the Czar was discussing with this wily veteran, and a few other
French statesmen of the first class, summoned at his request, the state
of public opinion, and the strength of the contending parties--the
population of Paris continued lost in surprise and admiration, at the
sudden march of events, the altogether unexpected amount of the troops
of the Allies--(for they that had figured in the triumphal procession
were, it now appeared, from the occupation of all the environs, but a
fragment of the whole)--and above all, perhaps--such is the theatric
taste of this people--the countless varieties of lineament and costume
observable among the warlike bands lounging and parading about their
streets and gardens. The capital wore the semblance of some enormous
masquerade. Circassian noblemen in complete mail, and wild Bashkirs with
bows and arrows, were there. All ages, as well as countries, seemed to
have sent their representatives to stalk as victors amidst the nation
which but yesterday had claimed glory above the dreams of antiquity,
and the undisputed mastery of the European world.

The council at the hotel of Talleyrand did not protract its sitting.
Alexander and Frederick William, urged by all their assessors to
re-establish the House of Bourbon, still hesitated. "It is but a few
days ago," said the Czar, "since a column of 5 or 6000 new troops
suffered themselves to be cut in pieces before my eyes, when a single
cry of _Vive le Roi_ would have saved them." De Pradt answered, "Such
things will go as long as you continue to treat with Buonaparte--even
although at this moment he has a halter round his neck." The Czar did
not understand this last illusion; it was explained to him that the
Parisians were busy in pulling down Napoleon's statue from the top of
the great pillar in the Place Vendome. Talleyrand now suggested that the
Conservative Senate should be convoked, and required to nominate a
provisional government, the members of which should have power to
arrange a constitution. And to this the sovereigns assented. Alexander
signed forthwith a proclamation asserting the resolution of the Allies
to "treat no more with Napoleon Buonaparte, or any of his family."
Talleyrand had a printer in waiting, and the document was immediately
published, with this significant _affix_, "Michaud, Printer to the
King." If any doubt could have remained after this, it must be supposed
to have ceased at nine the same evening, when the royalist gentry once
more assembled, sent a second deputation to Alexander, and were (the
Czar himself having retired to rest) received, and answered in these
words, by his minister Nesselrode:--"I have just left the Emperor, and
it is in his name that I speak. Return to your assembly, and announce to
all the French, that, touched with the cries he has heard this morning,
and the wishes since so earnestly expressed to him, his Majesty is about
to restore the crown to him to whom alone it belongs. Louis XVIII. will
immediately ascend his throne."

And yet it is by no means clear that even at the time when this
apparently most solemn declaration was uttered, the resolution of the
Allies had been unalterably taken. Nesselrode personally inclined to a
regency, and preserving the crown to the King of Rome; nor is it to be
doubted that that scheme, if at all practicable, would have been
preferred by the Emperor of Austria. But the Frenchmen who had once
committed themselves against Napoleon could not be persuaded but that
his influence would revive, to their own ruin, under any Buonapartean
administration; and the events of the two succeeding days were decisive.
The Municipal Council met, and proclaimed that the throne was empty.
This bold act is supposed to have determined the Conservative Senate. On
the 1st of April that body also assembled, and named a provisional
government, with Talleyrand for its head. The deposition of Napoleon was
forthwith put to the vote, and carried without even one dissentient
voice. On the 2nd the Legislative Senate, angrily dispersed in January,
were in like manner convoked; and they too ratified the decrees proposed
by the Conservative. On the 3rd the senatus-consultum was published, and
myriads of hands were busy in every corner of the city pulling down the
statues and pictures, and effacing the arms and initials of Napoleon.
Meantime the Allied Princes appointed military governors of Paris, were
visible daily at processions and festivals, and received, night after
night, in the theatres, the tumultuous applause of the most inconstant
of peoples.

It was in the night between the 2nd and the 3rd that Caulaincourt
returned from his mission to Fontainebleau, and informed Napoleon of the
events which he had witnessed; he added, that the Allies had not yet, in
his opinion, made up their minds to resist the scheme of a regency, but
that he was commissioned to say nothing could be arranged, as to
ulterior questions, until he, the Emperor, had formally abdicated his
throne. The Marshals assembled at Fontainebleau seem, on hearing this
intelligence, to have resolved unanimously that they would take no
further part in the war; but Napoleon himself was not yet prepared to
give up all without a struggle. The next day, the 4th of April, he
reviewed some of his troops, harangued them on "the treasonable
proceedings in the capital," announced his intention of instantly
marching thither, and was answered by enthusiastic shouts of "Paris!
Paris!" He, on this, conceiving himself to be secure of the attachment
of his soldiery, gave orders for advancing headquarters to Essonne. With
the troops which had filed through Paris, under Marmont's convention,
and those which had followed himself from Troyes, nearly 50,000 men
were once more assembled around Fontainebleau; and with such support
Napoleon was not yet so humbled as to fear hazarding a blow, despite all
the numerical superiority of the Allies.

When, however, he retired to the chateau, after the review, he was
followed by his Marshals, and respectfully, but firmly, informed, that
if he refused to negotiate on the basis of his personal abdication, and
persisted in risking an attack on Paris, they would not accompany him.
He paused for a moment in silence--and a long debate ensued. The
statements and arguments which he heard finally prevailed; and Napoleon
drew up, and signed, in language worthy of the solemn occasion, this
act:--

     _The Allied powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon is
     the sole obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, he,
     faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend from the
     throne, to quit France, and even to relinquish life, for the good
     of his country; which is inseparable from the rights of his Son,
     from those of the Regency in the person of the Empress, and from
     the maintenance of the laws of the Empire. Done at our Palace of
     Fontainebleau, April the 4th, 1814. NAPOLEON._

Buonaparte appointed Caulaincourt to bear this document to Paris on his
behalf; and the Marshals proposed that Ney should accompany him as their
representative. It was suggested that Marmont also should form part of
the deputation; but he was in command of the advanced division at
Essonne, and Macdonald was named in his stead. These officers now
desired to know on what stipulations, as concerned the Emperor
personally, they were to insist. "On none," he answered; "obtain the
best terms you can for France--for myself I ask nothing."

Hitherto nothing could be more composed or dignified than his demeanour.
He now threw himself on a sofa, hid his countenance for some minutes,
and then starting up with that smile which had so often kindled every
heart around him into the flame of onset, exclaimed--"Let us march, my
comrades; let us take the field once more."

The answer was silence and some tears; and he, also in silence,
dismissed the messengers and the assemblage.

Caulaincourt, Ney and Macdonald immediately commenced their journey; and
on reaching Essonne received intelligence which quickened their speed.
Victor, and many other officers of the first rank, not admitted to the
council at Fontainebleau, and considering the events of the two
preceding days in the capital as decisive, had already sent in their
adhesion to the provisional government; and Marmont, the commander of
Napoleon's division in advance, had not only taken the same step for
himself personally, but entered into a separate convention the night
before, under which it had been settled that he should forthwith march
his troops within the lines of the allied armies. The Marshals of the
mission entreated Marmont to suspend his purpose, and repair with
themselves to Paris. He complied; and on arriving in the capital they
found themselves surrounded on all sides with the shouts of _Vive le
Roi_! Such sounds accompanied them to the hôtel Talleyrand, where they
were forthwith admitted to the presence of the Czar. The act of
abdication was produced; and Alexander expressed his surprise that it
should have contained no stipulations for Napoleon personally; "but I
have been his friend," said he, "and I will willingly be his advocate. I
propose that he should retain his imperial title, with the sovereignty
of Elba or some other island."

When Buonaparte's envoys retired from the Autocrat's presence, it still
remained doubtful whether the abdication would be accepted in its
present form, or the Allies would insist on an unconditional surrender.
There came tidings almost on the instant which determined the question.
Napoleon had, shortly after the mission left him, sent orders to General
Souham, who commanded at Essonne in the absence of Marmont, to repair to
his presence at Fontainebleau. Souham, who, like all the upper officers
of Marmont's corps (with but two exceptions), approved of the convention
of the 3rd, was alarmed on receiving this message. His brethren, being
summoned to council, participated in his fears; and the resolution was
taken to put the convention at once in execution. The troops were wholly
ignorant of what was intended, when they commenced their march at five
in the morning of the 5th; and for the first time suspected the secret
views of their chiefs, when they found themselves in the midst of the
allied lines, and watched on all sides by overwhelming numbers, in the
neighbourhood of Versailles. A violent commotion ensued; some blood was
shed; but the necessity of submission was so obvious, that ere long
they resumed the appearance of order, and were cantoned in quiet in the
midst of the strangers.

This piece of intelligence was followed by more of the like complexion.
Officers of all ranks began to abandon the camp at Fontainebleau, find
present themselves to swear allegiance to the new government. Talleyrand
said wittily when some one called Marmont a traitor, "his watch only
went a little faster than the others."

At length the allied princes signified their resolution to accept of
nothing but an unconditional abdication; making the marshals, however,
the bearers of their unanimous accession to the proposals of Alexander
in favour of Napoleon and his House; which, as finally shaped, were
these:--

1st, The imperial title to be preserved by Napoleon, with the free
sovereignty of Elba, guards, and a navy suitable to the extent of that
island, a pension from France of six millions of francs annually: 2nd,
The Duchies of Parma, Placentia and Guastalla to be granted in
sovereignty to Maria Louisa and her heirs: and 3rd, Two millions and a
half of francs annually to be paid, by the French government, in
pensions to Josephine and the other members of the Buonaparte family.

Napoleon, on hearing the consequences of Marmont's defection, exclaimed,
"Ungrateful man! but I pity him more than myself." Every hour
thenceforth he was destined to meet similar mortifications. Berthier,
his chosen and trusted friend, asked leave to go on private business to
Paris, adding that he would return in a few hours. The Emperor
consented; and, as he left the apartment, whispered with a smile, "He
will return no more." What Napoleon felt even more painfully, was the
unceremonious departure of his favourite Mameluke, Rustan.

Ere the Marshals returned from Paris he reviewed his guard again; and it
was obvious to those about him that he still hankered after the chances
of another field. We may imagine that his thoughts were like those of
the Scottish usurper:--

    "I have lived long enough: my May of life
    Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf....
    Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff.
    ... The Thanes fly from me."

He sometimes meditated a march southwards, collecting on his way the
armies of Augereau and Soult, and re-opening the campaign as
circumstances might recommend, behind either the Loire or the Alps. At
other times the chance of yet rousing the population of Paris recurred
to his imagination. Amidst these dreams, of which every minute more
clearly showed the vanity, Napoleon received the ultimatum of the
invading powers. He hesitated and pondered long ere he would sign his
acceptance of it. The group of his personal followers had been sorely
thinned; and the armies of the Allies, gradually pushing forward from
Paris, had nearly surrounded Fontainebleau, when he at length (on the
11th of April) abandoned all hope, and executed an instrument, formally
"renouncing for himself and his heirs the thrones of France and of
Italy."

Even after signing this document, and delivering it to Caulaincourt, he
made a last effort to rouse the spirits of the chief officers still
around his person. They, as the Marshals had done on the 4th, heard his
appeals in silence; and the Duke of Vicenza, though repeatedly commanded
to give him back the act of abdication, refused to do so. It is
generally believed that, during the night which ensued, Napoleon's
meditations were, once more, like those of the falling Macbeth:--

    "There is no flying hence, nor tarrying here.
    I 'gin to be weary o' the sun."--

Whether the story, very circumstantially told, of his having swallowed
poison on that night, be true, we have no means of deciding. It is
certain that he underwent a violent paroxysm of illness, sank into a
death-like stupor, and awoke in extreme feebleness, lassitude, and
dejection; in which condition several days were passed.

Napoleon remained long enough at Fontainebleau to hear of the
restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy, and the triumphant entrance of the
Count d'Artois (now Charles X.) into Paris, as Lieutenant for his
brother, Louis XVIII.; and of another event, which ought to have given
him greater affliction. Immediately on the formation of the provisional
government, messengers had been sent from Paris to arrest the progress
of hostilities between Soult and Wellington. But, wherever the blame of
intercepting and holding back these tidings may have lain, the English
General received no intelligence of the kind until, pursuing his career
of success, he had fought another great and bloody battle, and achieved
another glorious victory, beneath the walls of Toulouse. This
unfortunate, because utterly needless, battle, occurred on the 11th of
April. On the 14th the news of the fall of Paris reached Lord
Wellington; and, Soult soon afterwards signifying his adhesion to the
new government, his conqueror proceeded to take part in the final
negotiations of the Allies at Paris.

It was on the 20th of April that Napoleon once more called his officers
about him, and signified that they were summoned to receive his last
adieus. Several of the marshals and others who had some time before
sworn fealty to the king, were present. "Louis," said he, "has talents
and means: he is old and infirm; and will not, I think, choose to give a
bad name to his reign. If he is wise, he will occupy my bed, and only
change the sheets. But he must treat the army well, and take care not to
look back on the past, or his time will be brief. For you, gentlemen, I
am no longer to be with you;--you have another government; and it will
become you to attach yourselves to it frankly, and serve it as
faithfully as you have served me."

He now desired that the relics of his imperial guard might be drawn up
in the courtyard of the castle. He advanced to them on horseback; and
tears dropped from his eyes as he dismounted in the midst. "All Europe,"
said Napoleon, "has armed against me. France herself has deserted me,
and chosen another dynasty. I might, with my soldiers, have maintained a
civil war for years--but it would have rendered France unhappy. Be
faithful to the new sovereign whom your country has chosen. Do not
lament my fate: I shall always be happy while I know that you are so. I
could have died--nothing was easier--but I will always follow the path
of honour. I will record with my pen the deeds we have done together. I
cannot embrace you all" (he continued, taking the commanding officer in
his arms)--"but I embrace your general. Bring hither the eagle. Beloved
eagle! may the kisses I bestow on you long resound in the hearts of the
brave; farewell, my children--farewell, my brave companions--surround me
once more--farewell!"

Amidst the silent but profound grief of these brave men, submitting like
himself to the irresistible force of events, Napoleon placed himself in
his carriage, and drove rapidly from Fontainebleau.

Of all that lamented the fall of this extraordinary man, no one shed
bitterer tears than the neglected wife of his youth. Josephine had fled
from Paris on the approach of the Allies; but being assured of the
friendly protection of Alexander, returned to Malmaison ere Napoleon
quitted Fontainebleau. The Czar visited her frequently, and endeavoured
to soothe her affliction. But the ruin of "her Achilles," "her Cid" (as
she now once more, in the day of misery, called Buonaparte), had entered
deep into her heart. She sickened and died before the Allies left
France.

Maria Louisa, meanwhile, and her son, were taken under the personal
protection of the Emperor of Austria, and had begun their journey to
Vienna some time before the fallen "Child of Destiny" reached Elba.

[Footnote 66: An English _détenu_, who was then in Paris, says: "During
the battle, the Boulevard des Italiens and the Caffé Tortoni were
thronged with fashionable loungers of both sexes, sitting as usual on
the chairs placed there, and appearing almost uninterested spectators of
the number of wounded French brought in. The officers were carried on
mattresses. About two o'clock a general cry of _sauve qui peut_ was
heard on the boulevards, from the Porte St. Martin to Les Italiens; this
caused a general and confused flight, which spread like the undulations
of a wave, even beyond the Pont Neuf.... During the whole of the battle
wounded soldiers crawled into the streets, and lay down to die on the
pavement.... The _Moniteur_ of this day was a full sheet; but no notice
was taken of the war, or the army. Four columns were occupied by an
article on the dramatic works of Denis, and three with a dissertation on
the existence of Troy."--_Memorable Events in Paris in_ 1814, p. 93.]




CHAPTER XXXVII

     Napoleon's Journey to Frejus--Voyage to Elba--his conduct and
     occupations there--Discontents in France--Return of Prisoners of
     War--Jealousy of the Army--Union of the Jacobins and
     Buonapartists--Their intrigues--Napoleon escapes from Elba.


Four commissioners, one from each of the great Allied Powers, Austria,
Russia, Prussia, and England, accompanied Buonaparte on his journey. He
was attended by Bertrand, Grand Master of the Palace, and some other
attached friends and servants; and while fourteen carriages were
conveying him and his immediate suite towards Elba, 700 infantry and
about 150 cavalry of the Imperial Guard (all picked men, and all
volunteers), marched in the same direction, to take on them the military
duties of the exiled court.

During the earlier part of his progress Napoleon continued to be
received respectfully by the civil functionaries of the different towns
and departments, and with many tokens of sympathy on the part of the
people; and his personal demeanour was such as it had been wont to
appear in his better days. At Valence he met Augereau, whose conduct
during the campaign had moved his bitterest displeasure; the interview
was short--the recriminations mutual, and, for the first time perhaps,
the fallen Emperor heard himself addressed in that tone of equality and
indifference to which, for so many years, he had been a stranger.
Thenceforth the course of his journey carried him more and more deeply
into the provinces wherein his name had never been popular, and
contemptuous hootings began by degrees to be succeeded by clamours of
fierce resentment. On more than one occasion the crowd had threatened
personal violence when the horses were changing, and he appears to have
exhibited alarm such as could hardly have been expected in one so
familiar with all the dangers of warfare. But civil commotions, as we
have seen in the case of the revolution of Brumaire, were not
contemplated by Napoleon so calmly as the tumults of the field. At this
time besides he was suffering under a bodily illness, the fruit of
debauchery, which acts severely on the stoutest nerves. It is admitted
on all hands that he showed more of uneasiness and anxiety than accords
with the notion of a heroic character. At length he disguised himself,
and sometimes appearing in an Austrian uniform, at others riding on
before the carriages in the garb of a courier, reached in safety the
place of embarkation.

A French vessel had been sent round from Toulon to Cannes, for the
purpose of conveying him to Elba; but there happened to be an English
frigate also in the roads, and he preferred sailing under any flag
rather than the Bourbon. His equanimity seemed perfectly re-established
from the moment when he set his foot on the British deck. He conversed
affably with Captain Usher and the officers; and by the ease and
plainness of his manners, his intelligent curiosity as to the
arrangements of the ship, and the warm eulogies which he continued to
pronounce on them, and on the character of the English nation at large,
he succeeded in making a very favourable impression on all the
crew--with the exception of Hinton, a shrewd old boatswain, who, unmoved
by all the imperial blandishments, growled, at the close of every fine
speech, the same homely comment, "humbug." Saving this hard veteran, the
usual language of the forecastle was, that "Buonaparte was a very good
fellow after all"; and when, on finally leaving the _Undaunted_, he
caused some 200 _Napoleons_ to be distributed among the sailors, they
"wished his honour long life, and better luck the next time."

He came within view of his new dominions on the afternoon of the 4th of
May, and went ashore in disguise the same evening, in order to ascertain
for himself whether the feelings of the Elbese at all resembled those of
the Provençals. Finding that, on the contrary, the people considered his
residence as likely to increase in every way the consequence and
prosperity of their island, he returned on board the ship, and at noon,
the day after, made his public entrance into the town of Porto Ferraio,
amidst all possible demonstrations of welcome and respect.

The Russian and Prussian commissioners did not accompany him beyond the
coast of Provence: the Austrian Baron Kholer, and the English Sir Neil
Campbell, landed with Napoleon, and took up their residence at Ferraio.
He continued for some time to treat both of these gentlemen with every
mark of distinction, and even cordiality: made them the companions of
his table and excursions; and conversed with apparent openness and
candour on the past, the present, and the future. "There is but one
people in the world," said he to Colonel Campbell--"the English--the
rest are only so many populaces. I tried to raise the French to your
level of sentiment, and failing to do so, fell of course. I am now
politically dead to Europe. Let me do what I can for Elba.... It must be
confessed," said he, having climbed the hill above Ferraio, from whence
he could look down on the whole of his territory as on a map--"it must
be confessed," said the Emperor, smiling, "that my island is very
small."

The island, however, was his; and, as on the eye itself a very small
object near at hand fills a much greater space than the largest which is
distant, so, in the mind of Napoleon, that was always of most importance
in which his personal interests happened for the time to be most
concerned. The island--mountainous and rocky, for the most part barren,
and of a circumference not beyond sixty miles--was his; and the Emperor
forthwith devoted to Elba the same anxious care and industry which had
sufficed for the whole affairs of France, and the superintendence and
control of half Europe besides. He, in less than three weeks, had
explored every corner of the island, and projected more improvements of
all sorts than would have occupied a long lifetime to complete. He even
extended his empire by sending some dozen or two of his soldiers to take
possession of a small adjacent islet, hitherto left unoccupied for fear
of corsairs. He established four different residences at different
corners of Elba, and was continually in motion from one to another of
them. Wherever he was, in houses neither so large nor so well furnished
as many English gentlemen are used to inhabit, all the etiquettes of the
Tuileries were, as far as possible, adhered to; and Napoleon's eight or
nine hundred veterans were reviewed as frequently and formally as if
they had been the army of Austerlitz or of Moscow. His presence gave a
new stimulus to the trade and industry of the islanders; the small port
of Ferraio was crowded with vessels from the opposite coasts of Italy;
and, such was still the power of his name, that the new flag of Elba
(covered with Napoleon's _bees_), traversed with impunity the seas most
infested with the Moorish pirates.

Buonaparte's eagerness as to architectural and other improvements was,
ere long, however, checked in a manner sufficiently new to him--namely,
by the want of money. The taxes of the island were summarily increased;
but this gave rise to discontent among the Elbese, without replenishing
at all adequately the Emperor's exchequer. Had the French government
paid his pension in advance, or at least quarterly, as it fell due, even
that would have borne a slender proportion to the demands of his
magnificent imagination. But Napoleon received no money whatever from
the Bourbon court; and his complaints on this head were unjustly and
unwisely neglected. These new troubles embittered the spirit of the
fallen Chief; and the first excitement of novelty being over he sank
into a state of comparative indolence, and apparently of listless
dejection; from which, however, he was, ere long, to be roused
effectually, by the course of events in that great kingdom, almost in
sight of whose shores he had been most injudiciously permitted to
preserve the shadow of sovereign state.

Louis XVIII., advanced in years, gross and infirm in person, and devoted
to the luxuries of the table, was, in spite of considerable talents and
accomplishments, and a sincere desire to conciliate the affections, by
promoting the interests, of all orders of his people, but ill-adapted
for occupying, in such trying times, the throne which, even amidst all
the blaze of genius and victory, Napoleon had at best found uneasy and
insecure.[67] The King himself was, perhaps, less unpopular than almost
any other member of his family; but it was his fatal misfortune, that
while, on the whole, every day increased the bitterness of those who had
never been sincerely his friends, it tended to chill the affections of
the royalists who had partaken his exile, or laboured, ere success was
probable, for his return.

Louis had been called to the throne by the French senate, in a decree
which at the same time declared the legislative constitution, as
composed of a hereditary sovereign and two houses of assembly, to be
fixed and unchangeable; which confirmed the rights of all who had
obtained property in consequence of the events of the Revolution, and
the titles and orders conferred by Buonaparte: in a word, which summoned
the Bourbon to ascend the throne of Napoleon--on condition that he
should preserve that political system which Napoleon had violated.
Louis, however, though he proceeded to France on this invitation, did
not hesitate to date his first act in the twentieth year of his reign;
and though he issued a charter, conferring, as from his own free will,
every privilege which the senate claimed for themselves and the nation,
this mode of commencement could not fail to give deep offence to those,
not originally of his party, who had consented to his recall. These men
saw, in such assumptions, the traces of those old doctrines of _divine
right_, which they had through life abhorred and combated; and asked
why, if all their privileges were but the gifts of the King, they might
not, on any tempting opportunity, be withdrawn by the same authority?
They, whose possessions and titles had all been won since the death of
Louis XVI., were startled when they found, that, according to the royal
doctrine, there had been no legitimate government all that time in
France. The exiled nobles, meanwhile, were naturally the personal
friends and companions of the restored princes: their illustrious names,
and, we must add, their superior manners, could not fail to excite
unpleasant feelings among the new-made dukes and counts of Buonaparte.
Among themselves it was no wonder that expectations were cherished, and
even avowed, of recovering gradually, if not rapidly, the estates of
which the Revolution had deprived them. The churchmen, who had never
gone heartily into Napoleon's ecclesiastical arrangements, sided of
course with these impoverished and haughty lords; and, in a word, the
first tumult of the restoration being over, the troops of the Allies
withdrawn, and the memory of recent sufferings and disasters beginning
to wax dim amidst the vainest and most volatile of nations, there were
abundant elements of discontent afloat among all those classes who had
originally approved of, or profited by, the revolution of 1792.

Of these the most powerful and dangerous remains to be noticed; and,
indeed, had the Bourbons adopted judicious measures concerning _the
army_, it is very probable that the alarms of the other classes now
alluded to might have subsided. The Allies, in the moment of universal
delight and conciliation, restored at once, and without stipulation, the
whole of the prisoners who had fallen into their hands during the war.
At least 150,000 veteran soldiers of Buonaparte were thus poured into
France ere Louis was well-seated on the throne; men, the greater part of
whom had witnessed nothing of the last disastrous campaigns; who had
sustained themselves in their exile by brooding over the earlier
victories in which themselves had had a part; and who now, returning
fresh and vigorous to their native soil, had but one answer to every
tale of misfortune which met them: "These things could never have
happened had we been here."

The conquerors, in their anxiety to procure for Louis XVIII. a warm
reception among the French, had been led into other mistakes, which all
tended to the same issue. They had (with some exceptions on the part of
Prussia) left the pictures and statues, the trophies of Napoleon's
battles, untouched in the Louvre--they had not even disturbed the
monuments erected in commemoration of their own disgraces. These
instances of forbearance were now attributed by the fierce and haughty
soldiery of Buonaparte, to the lingering influence of that terror which
their own arms under his guidance had been accustomed to inspire.
Lastly, the concessions to Napoleon himself of his imperial title, and
an independent sovereignty almost within view of France, were
interpreted in the same fashion by these habitual worshippers of his
renown. The restored King, on his part, was anxious about nothing so
much as to conciliate the affections of the army. With this view he kept
together bands which, long accustomed to all the licence of warfare,
would hardly have submitted to peace even under Napoleon himself. Even
the Imperial Guard, those chosen and devoted children of the Emperor,
were maintained entire on their old establishment; the Legion of Honour
was continued as before; the war ministry was given to Soult, the
ablest, in common estimation, of Buonaparte's surviving marshals; and
the other officers of that high rank were loaded with every mark of
royal consideration. But these arrangements only swelled the
presumption of those whose attachment they were meant to secure. It was
hardly possible that the King of France should have given no military
appointments among the nobles who had partaken his exile. He gave them
so few, that they, as a body, began to murmur ere the reign was a month
old: but he gave enough to call up insolent reclamations among those
proud legionaries, who in every royalist, beheld an emblem of the
temporary humiliation of their own caste. When, without dissolving or
weakening the Imperial (now _Royal_) Guard, he formed a body of
household troops, composed of _gentlemen_, and entrusted them with the
immediate attendance on his person and court, this was considered as a
heinous insult; and when the King bestowed the cross of the Legion of
Honour on persons who would have much preferred that of St. Louis, the
only comment that obtained among the warriors of Austerlitz and
Friedland, was, that which ascribed to the Bourbons a settled design of
degrading the decoration which they had purchased with their blood.

In a word, the French soldiery remained cantoned in the country in a
temper stern, gloomy, and sullen; jealous of the Prince whose bread they
were eating; eager to wipe out the memory of recent disasters in new
victories; and cherishing more and more deeply the notion (not perhaps
unfounded) that had Napoleon not been betrayed at home, no foreigners
could ever have hurled him from his throne. Nor could such sentiments
fail to be partaken, more or less, by the officers of every rank who had
served under Buonaparte. They felt, almost universally, that it must be
the policy of the Bourbons to promote, as far as possible, others rather
than themselves. And even as to those of the very highest class--could
any peaceful honours compensate, to such spirits as Ney and Soult, for a
revolution, that for ever shrouded in darkness the glittering prizes on
which Napoleon had encouraged them to speculate? Were the comrades of
Murat and Bernadotte to sit down in contentment as peers of France,
among the Montmorencies and the Rohans, who considered them at the best
as low-born intruders, and scorned, in private society, to acknowledge
them as members of their order? If we take into account the numerous
personal adherents whom the Imperial government, with all the faults of
its chief, must have possessed--and the political humiliation of
France, in the eyes of all Europe, as well as of the French people
themselves, immediately connected with the disappearance of Napoleon--we
shall have some faint conception of that mass of multifarious griefs and
resentments, in the midst of which the unwieldy and inactive Louis
occupied, ere long, a most unenviable throne--and on which the
eagle-eyed Exile of Elba gazed with reviving hope even before the summer
of 1814 had reached its close.

Ere then, as we have seen, the demeanour and conduct of Napoleon were
very different from what they had been when he first took possession of
his mimic empire. Ere then his mother, his sister Pauline (a woman,
whose talents for intrigue equalled her personal charms), and not a few
ancient and attached servants, both of his civil government and of his
army, had found their way to Elba, and figured in "his little senate."
Pauline made repeated voyages to Italy, and returned again. New and busy
faces appeared in the circle of Porto Ferraio--and disappeared
forthwith--no one knew whence they had come or whither they went; an air
of bustle and of mystery pervaded the atmosphere of the place. Sir Neil
Campbell found it more and more difficult to obtain access to the
presence of Buonaparte--which the refusal of the English government to
acknowledge the Imperial title, and this officer's consequent want of
any very definite character at Elba, left him no better means of
overcoming than to undertake journeys and voyages, thereby gaining a
pretext for paying his respects at every departure and return. Sir Neil
early suspected that some evil was hatching, and repeatedly remarked on
the absurdity of withholding Napoleon's pension, thereby tempting him,
as it were, to violence. But neither the reports nor the reclamations of
this gentleman appear to have received that attention which they
merited.

What persons in France were actually in communication on political
subjects with the turbulent court of Elba, during that autumn and the
following winter, is likely to remain a secret: that they were neither
few nor inactive, nor unskilful, the event will sufficiently prove. The
chiefs of the police and of the post-office had been removed by Louis;
but the whole inferior machinery of these establishments remained
untouched; and it is generally believed, that both were early and
sedulously employed in the service of the new conspiracy. We have seen
that Soult was commander-in-chief of the army; and it is very difficult,
on considering the subsequent course of events, to doubt that he also
made a systematic use of his authority with the same views, distributing
and arranging the troops according to far other rules than the interests
of his royal master.

Ere the autumn closed, Buonaparte granted furloughs on various pretexts
to about 200 of his guardsmen; and these were forthwith scattered over
France, actively disseminating the praises of their chief, and, though
probably not aware how soon such an attempt was meditated, preparing the
minds of their ancient comrades for considering it as by no means
unlikely that he would yet once more appear in the midst of them. It is
certain that a notion soon prevailed that Napoleon would revisit the
soil of France in the spring of the coming year. He was toasted among
the soldiery, and elsewhere also, under the _soubriquet_ of Corporal
Violet. That early flower, or a ribbon of its colour, was the symbol of
rebellion, and worn openly, in the sight of the unsuspecting Bourbons.

Their security was as profound as hollow; nor was it confined to them.
The representatives of all the European princes had met in Vienna, to
settle finally a number of questions left undecided at the termination
of the war. Talleyrand was there for France, and Wellington for England;
and yet it is on all hands admitted, that no surprise was ever more
sudden, complete, and universal than theirs, when on the 11th of March,
1815, a courier arrived among them with the intelligence that Napoleon
Buonaparte had reared his standard in Provence.[68]

[Footnote 67: When the King first came to Paris, there appeared a
caricature representing an eagle flying away from the Tuileries, and a
brood of porkers entering the gate; and His Majesty was commonly called
by the rabble, not Louis _dix huit_, but Louis _Cochon_ (the pig), or
Louis _des huîtres_ (of the oysters).]

[Footnote 68: The Emperor Alexander alone preserved perfect
self-possession; and, turning to the Duke of Wellington, exclaimed "Eh
bien, Wellington, c'est à vous encore une fois sauver le monde."]




CHAPTER XXXVIII

     Napoleon lands at Cannes--his progress to
     Grenoble--Lyons--Fontainebleau--Treason of Labedoyere and
     Ney--Louis XVIII. retires to Ghent, and Napoleon arrives in Paris.


The evening before Napoleon sailed (February the 26th), his sister
Pauline gave a ball, to which all the officers of the Elbese army were
invited. A brig (the _Inconstant_) and six small craft, had meanwhile
been prepared for the voyage, and at dead of night, without apparently
any previous intimation, the soldiery were mustered by tuck of drum, and
found themselves on board ere they could ask for what purpose. When the
day broke, they perceived that all the officers and the Emperor himself
were with them, and that they were steering for the coast of France; and
it could no longer be doubtful that the scheme which had for months
formed the darling object of all their hopes and dreams was about to be
realised.

Sir Neil Campbell, who had been absent on an excursion to Leghorn,
happened to return to Porto Ferraio almost as soon as the flotilla had
quitted it. The mother and sister of Buonaparte in vain endeavoured to
persuade the English officer that he had steered toward the coast of
Barbary. He pursued instantly towards Provence, in the _Partridge_,
which attended his orders, and came in sight of the fugitive armament
exactly when it was too late. Ere then Napoleon had encountered almost
an equal hazard. A French ship of war had crossed his path; but the
Emperor made all his soldiery lie flat on the decks, and the steersman
of the _Inconstant_, who happened to be well acquainted with the
commanding officer, had received and answered the usual challenge
without exciting any suspicion. Thus narrowly escaped the flotilla which
carried "Cæsar and his fortune."

On the 1st of March he was once more off Cannes--the same spot which had
received him from Egypt, and at which he had embarked ten months before
for Elba. There was no force whatever to oppose his landing; and his
handful of men--500 grenadiers of the guard, 200 dragoons, and 100
Polish lancers, these last without horses, and carrying their saddles on
their backs--were immediately put in motion on the road to Paris.
Twenty-five grenadiers which he detached to summon Antibes were arrested
on the instant by the governor of that place; but he despised this omen,
and proceeded without a pause. He bivouacked that night in a plantation
of olives, with all his men about him. As soon as the moon rose, the
réveille sounded. A labourer going thus early afield, recognised the
Emperor's person, and, with a cry of joy, said he had served in the army
of Italy, and would join the march. "Here is already a reinforcement,"
said Napoleon; and the march recommenced. Early in the morning they
passed through the town of Grasse, and halted on the height beyond
it--where the whole population of the place forthwith surrounded them,
some cheering, the great majority looking on in perfect silence, but
none offering any show of opposition. The roads were so bad in this
neighbourhood, that the pieces of cannon which they had with them were
obliged to be abandoned in the course of the day, but they had marched
full twenty leagues ere they halted for the night at Cerenon. On the
5th, Napoleon reached Gap. He was now in Dauphiny, called "The cradle of
the Revolution," and the sullen silence of the Provençals was succeeded
by popular acclamations; but still no troops had joined him--and his
anxiety was great.

It was at Gap that he published his first proclamations; one "To the
Army," another "To the French people," both no doubt prepared at Elba,
though dated "March 1st, Gulf of Juan." The former, and more important
of the two, ran in these words--"Soldiers! we have not been beaten. Two
men, raised from our ranks,[69] betrayed our laurels, their country,
their prince, their benefactor. In my exile I have heard your voice. I
have arrived once more among you, despite all obstacles, and all perils.
We ought to forget that we have been the masters of the world; but we
ought never to suffer foreign interference in our affairs. Who dares
pretend to be master over us? Take again the eagles which you followed
at Ulm, at Austerlitz, at Jena, at Montmirail. Come and range yourselves
under the banners of your old chief. Victory shall march at the
charging step. The Eagle, with the national colours, shall fly from
steeple to steeple--on to the towers of Notre Dame! In your old age,
surrounded and honoured by your fellow-citizens, you shall be heard with
respect when you recount your high deeds. You shall then say with
pride--I also was one of that great army which entered twice within the
walls of Vienna, which took Rome, and Berlin, and Madrid, and
Moscow--and which delivered Paris from the stain printed on it by
domestic treason, and the occupation of strangers."

It was between Mure and Vizele that Cambronne, who commanded his
advanced guard of forty grenadiers, met suddenly a battalion sent
forwards from Grenoble to arrest the march. The colonel refused to
parley with Cambronne; either party halted until Napoleon himself came
up. He did not hesitate for a moment. He dismounted, and advanced alone;
some paces behind him came a hundred of his guard, with their arms
reversed. There was perfect silence on all sides until he was within a
few yards of the men. He then halted, threw open his surtout so as to
show the star of the Legion of Honour, and exclaimed, "If there be among
you a soldier who desires to kill his general--his Emperor--let him do
it now. Here I am."--The old cry of _Vive l'Empereur_ burst
instantaneously from every lip. Napoleon threw himself among them, and
taking a veteran private, covered with chevrons and medals, by the
whisker, said, "Speak honestly, old Moustache, couldst thou have had the
heart to kill thy Emperor?" The man dropped his ramrod into his piece to
show that it was uncharged, and answered, "Judge if I could have done
thee much harm--all the rest are the same." Napoleon gave the word, and
the old adherents, and the new, marched together on Grenoble.

Some space ere they reached that town, Colonel Labedoyere, an officer of
noble family, and who had been promoted by Louis XVIII., appeared on the
road before them, at the head of his regiment, the seventh of the line.
These men, and the Emperor's little column, on coming within view of
each other, rushed simultaneously from their ranks, and embraced with
mutual shouts of _Live Napoleon! Live the Guard! Live the Seventh!_
Labedoyere produced an eagle, which he had kept concealed about his
person, and broke open a drum which was found to be filled with
tricolor cockades; these ancient ensigns were received with redoubled
enthusiasm. This was the first instance of an officer of superior rank
voluntarily espousing the side of the invader. The impulse thus afforded
was decisive; in spite of all the efforts of General Marchand,
Commandant of Grenoble, the whole of that garrison, when he approached
the walls, exclaimed _Vive l'Empereur_! Their conduct, however,
exhibited a singular spectacle. Though thus welcoming Napoleon with
their voices, they would not so far disobey the governor as to throw
open the gates. On the other hand no argument could prevail on them to
fire on the advancing party. In the teeth of all the batteries,
Buonaparte calmly planted a howitzer or two, and blew the gates open,
and then, as if the spell of discipline were at once dissolved, the
garrison broke from their lines, and he in an instant found himself
dragged from his horse, and borne aloft on these men's shoulders towards
the principal inn of the place, amidst the clamours of enthusiastic and
delirious joy. Marchand remained faithful to his oath; and was dismissed
without injury. Next morning the authorities of Grenoble waited on
Napoleon, and tendered their homage. He reviewed his troops, now about
7000 in numbers, and on the 9th recommenced his march.

On the 10th, Buonaparte came within sight of Lyons, and was informed
that Monsieur and Marshal Macdonald had arrived to take the command,
barricaded the bridge of Guillotierre, and posted themselves at the head
of a large force to dispute the entrance of the town. Nothing daunted
with this intelligence, the column moved on, and at the bridge of Lyons,
as at the gates of Grenoble, all opposition vanished when his person was
recognised by the soldiery. The Prince and Macdonald were forced to
retire, and Napoleon entered the second city of France in triumph. A
guard of mounted gentlemen had been formed among the citizens to attend
on the person of Monsieur. These were among the foremost to offer their
services to the Emperor, after he reached his hotel. Surrounded by his
own soldiery, and by a manufacturing population, whom the comparatively
free admission of English goods after the peace of Paris had filled with
fear and discontent, and who now welcomed the great enemy of England
with rapturous acclamations, Napoleon could afford to reject the
assistance of these faithless cavaliers. He dismissed them with
contempt; but finding that _one_ of their number had followed Monsieur
until his person was out of all danger, immediately sent to that
individual the cross of the Legion of Honour.

This revolution had been proceeding during more than a week, ere the
gazettes of Paris ventured to make any allusion to its existence. There
then appeared a royal ordonnance, proclaiming Napoleon Buonaparte _an
outlaw_, and convoking on the instant the two chambers. Next day the
_Moniteur_ announced that, surrounded on all hands by faithful garrisons
and a loyal population, this outlaw was already stripped of most of his
followers, wandering in despair among the hills, and certain to be a
prisoner within two or three days at the utmost. The _Moniteur_,
however, was no very decisive authority in 1815, any more than in 1814;
and the public mind continued full of uncertainty, as to the motives and
every circumstance of this unparalleled adventure. Monsieur, meanwhile,
had departed, we have seen with what success, to Lyons; the Duke of
Angouleme was already at Marseilles, organising the loyal Provençals,
and preparing to throw himself on Grenoble and cut off the retreat of
Buonaparte; and Louis continued to receive addresses full of loyalty and
devotion from the public bodies of Paris, from towns, and departments,
and, above all, from the marshals, generals, and regiments who happened
to be near the capital.

This while, however, the partisans of Napoleon in Paris were far more
active than the royalists. They gave out everywhere that, as the
proclamation from the Gulf of Juan had stated, Buonaparte was come back
thoroughly cured of that ambition which had armed Europe against his
throne; that he considered his act of abdication void, because the
Bourbons had not accepted the crown on the terms on which it was
offered, and had used their authority in a spirit, and for purposes, at
variance with the feelings and the interests of the French people; that
he was come to be no longer the dictator of a military despotism, but
the first citizen of a nation which he had resolved to make the freest
of the free; that the royal government wished to extinguish by degrees
all memory of the revolution--that he was returning to consecrate once
more the principles of liberty and equality, ever hateful in the eyes of
the old nobility of France, and to secure the proprietors of forfeited
estates against all the machinations of that dominant faction; in a
word, that he was fully sensible to the extent of his past errors, both
of domestic administration and of military ambition, and desirous of
nothing but the opportunity of devoting, to the true welfare of peaceful
France, those unrivalled talents and energies which he had been rash
enough to abuse in former days. With these suggestions they mingled
statements perhaps still more audacious. According to them, Napoleon had
landed with the hearty approbation of the Austrian court, and would be
instantly rejoined by the Empress and his son. The Czar also was
friendly; even England had been sounded ere the adventure began, and
showed no disposition to hazard another war for the sake of the
Bourbons. The King of Prussia, indeed, remained hostile--but France was
not sunk so low as to dread that state single-handed. It was no secret,
ere this time, that some disputes of considerable importance had sprung
up among the great powers whose representatives were assembled at
Vienna; and such was the rash credulity of the Parisians, that the most
extravagant exaggerations and inventions which issued from the saloon of
the Duchess de St. Leu (under which name Hortense Beauharnois, wife of
Louis Buonaparte, had continued to reside in Paris)--and from other
circles of the same character, found, to a certain extent, credence.
There was one tale which ran louder and louder from the tongue of every
Buonapartist, and which royalist and republican found, day after day,
new reason to believe; namely, that the army were, high and low, on the
side of Napoleon; that every detachment sent to intercept him, would but
swell his force; in a word, that--unless the people were to rise _en
masse_--nothing could prevent the outlaw from taking possession of the
Tuileries ere a fortnight more had passed over the head of Louis.

It was at Lyons, where Napoleon remained from the 10th to the 13th, that
he formally resumed the functions of civil government. He published
various decrees at this place; one, commanding justice to be
administered everywhere in his name after the 15th; another abolishing
the Chambers of the Peers and the Deputies, and summoning all the
electoral colleges to meet in Paris at a _Champ-de-Mai_,[70] there to
witness the coronation of Maria Louisa and of her son, and settle
definitively the constitution of the state; a third, ordering into
banishment all whose names had not been erased from the list of
emigrants prior to the abdication of Fontainebleau; a fourth, depriving
all strangers and emigrants of their commissions in the army; a fifth,
abolishing the order of St. Louis, and bestowing all its revenues on the
Legion of Honour; and a sixth, restoring to their authority all
magistrates who had been displaced by the Bourbon government. These
proclamations could not be prevented from reaching Paris; and the Court,
abandoning their system of denying or extenuating the extent of the
impending danger, began to adopt more energetic means for its
suppression.

It was now that Marshal Ney volunteered his services to take the command
of a large body of troops, whose fidelity was considered sure, and who
were about to be sent to Lons-le-Saunier, there to intercept and arrest
the invader. Well aware of this great officer's influence in the army,
Louis did not hesitate to accept his proffered assistance; and Ney, on
kissing his hand at parting, swore that in the course of a week he would
bring Buonaparte to his majesty's feet in a cage, like a wild beast.

On reaching Lons-le-Saunier, Ney received a letter from Napoleon,
summoning him to join his standard as "the bravest of the brave." In how
far he guided or followed the sentiments of his soldiery we know not,
but the fact is certain, that he and they put themselves in motion
forthwith, and joined the march of Buonaparte on the 17th at Auxerre.
Ney, in the sequel, did not hesitate to avow that he had chosen the part
of Napoleon long ere he pledged his oath to Louis; adding that the
greater number of the marshals were, like himself, original members of
the Elbese conspiracy. Of the latter of these assertions no other proof
has hitherto been produced; and the former continues to be generally as
well as mercifully discredited.

In and about the capital there still remained troops far more than
sufficient in numbers to overwhelm the advancing column, and drag its
chief to the feet of Louis. He entrusted the command of these battalions
to one whose personal honour was as clear as his military reputation
was splendid--Marshal Macdonald; and this gentleman proceeded to take
post at Melun, in good hope, notwithstanding all that happened, of being
duly supported in the discharge of his commission.

On the 19th, Napoleon slept once more in the chateau of Fontainebleau;
on the morning of the 20th he advanced through the forest in full
knowledge of Macdonald's arrangements--and he advanced alone. It was
about noon that the marshal's troops, who had for some time been under
arms on an eminence beyond the wood, listening, apparently with delight,
to the loyal strains of _Vive Henri Quatre_ and _La Belle Gabrielle_,
perceived suddenly a single open carriage coming at full speed towards
them from among the trees. A handful of Polish horsemen, with their
lances reversed, followed the equipage. The little flat cocked hat--the
grey surtout--the person of Napoleon was recognised. In an instant the
men burst from their ranks, surrounded him with the cries of _Vive
l'Empereur_, and trampled their white cockades in the dust.

Macdonald escaped to Paris; but his master had not awaited the issue of
the last stand at Melun. Amidst the tears and lamentations of the loyal
burghers of the capital, and the respectful silence of those who really
wished for the success of his rival, Louis had set off from the
Tuileries in the middle of the preceding night. Macdonald overtook him,
and accompanied him to the frontier of the Netherlands, which he reached
in safety. There had been a plan organised by Generals Lallemand and
Lefevre for seizing the roads between Paris and Belgium, and
intercepting the flight of the King; but Marshal Mortier had been
successful in detecting and suppressing this movement.

On the evening of the 20th of March, Napoleon once more entered Paris.
He came preceded and followed by the soldiery, on whom alone he had
relied, and who, by whatever sacrifices, had justified his confidence.
The streets were silent as the travel-worn cavalcade passed along; but
all that loved the name or the cause of Napoleon were ready to receive
him in the Tuileries; and he was almost stifled by the pressure of those
enthusiastic adherents, who the moment he stopped, mounted him on their
shoulders, and carried him so in triumph up the great staircase of the
palace. He found, in the apartments which the King had just vacated, a
brilliant assemblage of those who had in former times filled the most
prominent places in his own councils and court: among the rest was
Fouché. This personage was not the only one present who had recently
intrigued with the Bourbons against Buonaparte--with as much apparent
ardour, and perhaps with about as much honesty, as in other times he had
ever brought to the service of the Emperor. "Gentlemen," said Napoleon,
as he walked round the circle, "it is disinterested people who have
brought me back to my capital. It is the subalterns and the soldiers
that have done it all. I owe everything to the people and the army."

[Footnote 69: The allusion is to Marmont's conduct at Essonne, and
Augereau's hasty abandonment of Lyons when the Austrians approached it
in March, 1814.]

[Footnote 70: Napoleon took the idea and name of this assembly from the
history of the early Gauls.]




CHAPTER XXXIX

     The Hundred Days--Declaration of the Congress at Vienna--Napoleon
     prepares for War--Capitulation of the Duke
     d'Angouleme--Insurrection of La Vendée--Murat advances from
     Naples--Is Defeated--And takes refuge in France--The
     Champ-de-Mai--Dissatisfaction of the Constitutionalists.


The reports so zealously circulated by the Buonapartists, that some at
least of the great European powers were aware, and approved, of the
meditated debarkation at Cannes--and the hopes thus nourished among the
French people, that the new revolution would not disturb the peace of
the world--were very speedily at an end. The instant that the news of
Napoleon's daring movement reached Vienna, the Congress published a
proclamation in these words:--"By breaking the convention which
established him in Elba, Buonaparte destroys the only legal title on
which his existence depended. By appearing again in France, with
projects of confusion and disorder, he has deprived himself of the
protection of the law, and manifested to the universe that there can be
neither peace nor truce with him. The powers consequently declare that
Napoleon Buonaparte has placed himself without the pale of civil and
social relations, and that, as an enemy and disturber of the
tranquillity of the world, he has rendered himself liable to public
vengeance." These sentiments underwent no change in consequence of the
apparently triumphant course of Napoleon's adventure. All Europe
prepared once more for war. It was evident that the usurper owed
everything to the French soldiery--that body to which the treaty of
Paris had at once restored 150,000 veterans, idle, and indisposed for
ordinary labour--and that until this ferocious military were effectually
humbled there could be no peace for the world.

A formal treaty was forthwith entered into, by which the four great
powers bound themselves to maintain each of them at least 150,000 troops
in arms, until Buonaparte should either be dethroned, or reduced so low
as no longer to endanger the peace of Europe. The other states of the
continent were to be invited to join the alliance, furnishing
contingents adequate to their respective resources. The King of France
was to be requested to sign the treaty also; but with reference to this
article an explanatory note was affixed, by the representatives of the
Prince Regent of England, denying, on the part of his royal highness,
any wish to force a particular government on the people of France: and
it was further stipulated that in case Britain should not furnish all
the men agreed on, she should compensate by paying at the rate of £30
per annum for every cavalry soldier, and £20 per annum for every foot
soldier under the full number. Such was the treaty of Vienna; but the
zeal of the contracting parties went far beyond the preparations
indicated in its terms. Napoleon was hardly re-seated on his throne ere
he learned that he must in all likelihood maintain it against 300,000
Austrians, 225,000 Russians, 236,000 Prussians, an army of 150,000 men
furnished by the minor states of Germany, 50,000 contributed by the
government of the Netherlands, and 50,000 English, commanded by the Duke
of Wellington;--in all one million eleven thousand soldiers.

His preparations to meet this gigantic confederacy began from the moment
when he re-established himself in the Tuileries. Carnot became once more
minister of war; and what Napoleon and he, when labouring together in
the re-organisation of an army, could effect, had been abundantly
manifested at the commencement of the consulate. The army cantoned in
France, when Buonaparte landed at Cannes, numbered 175,000; the cavalry
had been greatly reduced: and the disasters of 1812, 1813, and 1814,
were visible in the miserable deficiency of military stores and arms,
especially of artillery. By incredible exertions, notwithstanding the
pressure of innumerable cares and anxieties of all kinds, and although
the temper of the nation prevented him from having recourse to the old
method of conscription--the Emperor, ere May was over, had 375,000 men
in arms--including an imperial guard of 40,000 chosen veterans, in the
most splendid state of equipment and discipline, a large and brilliant
force of cavalry, and a train of artillery of proportional extent and
excellence.

Napoleon, however, made sundry attempts to open a negotiation with the
Allies--nor wanted there statesmen, even in England, to lend their best
support to his reclamations. He urged three arguments in defence of his
breach of the convention by which he had become sovereign of Elba: 1st,
the detention of his wife and son by the court of Austria--an affair
with which the king whose dominions he had invaded could have had
nothing to do: 2nd, the nonpayment of his pension--a grievance which
might have furnished a legitimate ground of complaining to the powers
that guaranteed its punctual discharge, and which, if so complained of
at the Congress of Vienna, there is no reason to doubt would have been
redressed: and 3rd, the voice of the French nation, which he, according
to his own statement, had but heard and obeyed. But the state of public
feeling in France could not be effectually misrepresented now: and the
answer that met him from every quarter was one and the same--namely,
that he had ascended the throne of Louis in consequence of the treason
of the army, and the intrigues of a faction, in direct opposition to the
wishes of almost all the upper classes of society throughout France,
and, as regarded the mass of the nation, amidst profound indifference.

Meanwhile the royalists at home had failed in all their endeavours to
prevent his authority from being recognised all over France. The Duke
d'Angouleme was soon surrounded by the superior numbers of General
Gilly, and capitulated--on condition of being permitted to disband his
followers, and embark at Cette for Spain--a convention which Napoleon
did not hesitate to ratify. The Duchess of Angouleme, daughter of Louis
XVI., displayed at Bourdeaux such heroism as drew from Napoleon himself
the sarcastic eulogy, "She is the only man of her race;" but in spite of
the loyalty of the inhabitants all her efforts were vain. The garrison
was strong; they had caught the general flame; and the Princess was at
length compelled to take refuge in an English frigate. The Duke of Berri
repaired, on the first alarm, to La Vendée: but the regular troops in
that faithful province were, thanks to the previous care of King Louis's
war-minister, so numerous and so well posted, that this effort failed
also, and the Duke escaped to England. Before March had ended, the
tricolor flag was displayed on every tower of France.

Having discovered that there was no chance--if indeed he had ever
contemplated one--of persuading the Emperor of Austria to restore his
wife and son to him, Napoleon, ere he had been many days at the
Tuileries, set on foot a scheme for carrying them off from Vienna, by a
mixture of stratagem and force. There were French people in the suite of
Maria Louisa who easily embarked in this plot; and forged passports,
relays of horses, and all other appliances had been so well provided,
that but for a single individual, who betrayed the design, there seems
to have been a considerable probability of its success. On discovering
this affair the Emperor of Austria dismissed the French attendants of
his daughter, and caused her to discontinue the use of the arms and
liveries of Napoleon, which she had hitherto retained--nay, even the
imperial title itself, resuming those of her own family, and original
rank as archduchess. This procedure could not be concealed at Paris, and
completed the conviction of all men, that there was no hope whatever of
avoiding another European war; and almost at the same time a rash
expedition of Murat, which, if successful, might have materially
influenced the conduct of Austria, reached its end.

Napoleon, when at St. Helena, always persisted in denying any
participation in this design of his brother-in-law; but, however this
may have been, it is certain that much intercourse subsisted, during his
stay at Elba, between the Queen of Naples and the female branches of the
family at Porto Ferraio; nor can anyone doubt either that Murat had
received some pretty distinct intimation of Napoleon's intended descent
in France--or that he ventured on his movement in the confidence that
this and the Emperor's would lend to each other much moral support--or
that, if Joachim had prospered, Napoleon would have considered what he
did as the best service that could have been rendered to himself.

Among the subjects which, prior to Buonaparte's reappearance, occupied
the Congress of Vienna, one of the chief was the conduct of Murat during
the campaign of 1814. Talleyrand charged him with having, throughout,
been a traitor to the cause of the Allies; and exhibited a series of
intercepted letters, from him to Napoleon, in proof of this allegation.
The Duke of Wellington, on the other hand, considered these documents as
proving no more than that Murat had reluctantly lifted his banner
against the author of his fortunes. Talleyrand had always hated Murat
and despised him--(the father of the King of Naples had originally been
steward in the household of the Perigords)--and persisted in urging on
the Congress the danger of suffering a sovereign of Buonaparte's family
and creation to sit on the throne which belonged of right to the King of
the Sicilies. The affair was still under discussion, to the mortal
annoyance of the person whose interests were at stake, when Napoleon
landed at Cannes. Murat resolved to rival his brother's daring; and,
without further pause, marched, at the head of 50,000 men, to Rome, from
which the Pope and cardinals fled precipitately at his approach. The
Neapolitans then advanced into the North of Italy, scattering
proclamations by which Joachim invited all true Italians to rally round
him, and assist in the erection of their country into one free and
independent state, with him at its head. The Austrian commander in
Lombardy forthwith put his troops in motion to meet Murat. The rencontre
took place at Occhiobello. The Neapolitans fled in confusion almost at
the sight of the enemy; and Murat, unable to rally them, sought personal
safety in a fishing vessel, which landed him near Toulon, about the end
of May. Napoleon was in vain entreated to receive him at Paris. He
refused, asking, with bitter scorn--if the war between France and
Naples, which subsisted in 1814, had ever been terminated by treaty?
Murat lingered for some time in obscurity near Toulon; and, relanding on
the coast of Naples after the King of the Two Sicilies had been
re-established on that throne, in the vain hope of exciting an
insurrection and recovering what he had lost, was seized, tried, and
executed. This vain, but high-spirited, man, met his fate with heroic
fortitude; and Napoleon, at St. Helena, often said that the fortune of
the world might have been changed, had there been a Murat to head the
French cavalry at Waterloo.

The result of this rash expedition enabled Austria to concentrate all
her Italian forces also for the meditated re-invasion of France. The
Spanish army began to muster towards the passes of the Pyrenees: the
Russians, Swedes, and Danes were already advancing from the north: the
main armies of Austria, Bavaria, and the Rhenish princes were rapidly
consolidating themselves along the Upper Rhine. Blucher was once more in
command of the Prussians, in the Netherlands; and Wellington,
commanding in chief the British, Hanoverians, and Belgians, had also
established his headquarters at Brussels by the end of May. Every hour
the clouds were thickening apace, and it became evident, that, if
Napoleon remained much longer in Paris, the war would burst
simultaneously on every frontier of his empire.

He had no intention to abide at home the onset of his enemies; but the
situation of civil affairs was such as to embarrass him, in the prospect
of departure, with difficulties which, in former days, were not used to
perplex the opening of his campaigns.

Hard indeed was his task from the beginning--to conciliate to himself
heartily the political faction who detested, and had assisted in
overthrowing the government of the Bourbons, and this without chilling
the attachment of the military, who despised these coadjutors, both as
theorists and as civilians, and had welcomed Napoleon only as the
certain harbinger of war, revenge, and plunder. How little his soldiery
were disposed to consider him as owing anything to a civil revolution,
appeared almost from the commencement of his march from Cannes. It was
observed that these haughty bands moved on in contemptuous silence
whenever the populace cheered his approach, and shouted _Vive
l'Empereur_ only when there were no _pequin_[71] voices to mingle in the
clamour. Every act of Napoleon after he reached Paris, that was meant to
conciliate the common people of the capital, was the theme of angry
comment among these martial circles. Such measures as he adopted in
deference to the prejudices of the old republican party, were heard of
with equal contempt. The pacific language of his first proclamations was
considered as a fair stratagem--and no more. To them the man was nothing
but as the type of the system: they desired to hear of nothing in France
but the great Cæsar, and the legions to whom he owed his greatness, and
who had the same right to a new career of battles, as he to his Imperial
crown, at once the prize of past, and the pledge of future victories.

With the views of these spirits, eager for blood and plunder, and
scornful of all liberty but the licence of the camp, Napoleon was
engaged in the endeavour to reconcile the principles and prejudices of
men who had assisted in rebuilding his throne, only because they put
faith in the assertions of himself and his friends, that he had
thoroughly repented of the despotic system on which he had formerly
ruled France--that ten months of exile and reflection had convinced him
how much better it was to be the first citizen of a free state, than the
undisputed tyrant of half the world--in a word, that his only remaining
ambition was to atone for the violence of his first reign by the
mildness of his second. As a first step to fasten the goodwill of these
easy believers, he, immediately on arriving in Paris, proclaimed the
freedom of the press; but he soon repented of this concession. In spite
of all the watchfulness, and all the briberies of his police, he could
never bend to his own service the whole of this power. The pure
republicans--even the pure royalists--continued to have their organs;
and the daily appeals of either to the reason and the passions of a
people so long strange to the exercise of such influence, otherwise than
in subservience to the government of the time, whatever that might be,
produced such effects, that, almost from the time in which he bestowed
the boon, he was occupied with devising pretexts for its recall. He ere
long caused, perhaps, more resentment by some efforts to thwart the
conduct of the press, than would have resulted from the absolute
prolongation of its slavery. Some even of the decrees of Lyons were hard
to be reconciled with the professions of one who disclaimed any wish to
interfere with the sacred right of the nation to frame its constitution
for itself. But in almost every act of his government after he reached
Paris, he furnished additional evidence how imperfectly his mind had
divested itself of the ancient maxims. Even the edict, emancipating the
press from all control, was an assumption on his part of the complete
power of legislation. The same might be said of another decree,
abolishing negro slavery and the slave trade, which he published shortly
after: but this second measure exposed him to other comments. Who could
seriously believe that at that moment of tumult, ere France was even in
semblance entirely his, and while all Europe was openly arming against
him, he had leisure for the affairs of the negroes? This display of
philanthropy was set down universally for a stage-trick; and men
quickened their eyes, lest such unsubstantial shows in the distant
horizon might be designed to withdraw their attention from the
foreground.

The great assemblage of _Champ-de-Mai_ had been originally announced for
the 10th of May; and its principal business as the formation of a new
constitution. The meeting did not take place so early, and the task of
proposing a constitutional scheme for its consideration, proved far more
difficult than the Emperor had contemplated. He had the assistance, in
this labour, of Carnot and Sieyes, whose names would have carried great
weight with the republican party--had not both of these old jacobins and
regicides accepted, on entering the Emperor's service, high rank in his
peerage--a proceeding in direct violation of all the professions of
their lives. He was further favoured with the aid of his brother Lucien,
who, in spite of all previous misunderstandings, returned on this
occasion to Paris; influenced, probably, by the same egregious vanity
which made him fancy himself a poet, and hoping, under existing
circumstances, to impress Napoleon with such a sense of his value as
might secure him henceforth a commanding influence in the government of
France. The Abbé Sieyes, and Lucien also, had had some experience ere
now of Napoleon in the character of a constitution-maker. He was no
longer so powerful as he had been when they formerly toiled together
upon such a task: disputes arose; and the Emperor, to cut these short,
and give a decisive proof of his regard for freedom of debate, soon
broke up the discussion, retired from the Tuileries to the small palace
called the Elysée, and there drew up the scheme which pleased himself,
and which was forthwith published under the title of "Act Additional to
the Constitutions of the Empire."

This title gave great offence, because it seemed to recognise many
anterior enactments, wholly irreconcilable with the tenor of the
document itself; and the mode of its promulgation furnished even more
serious ground of objection. This constitution was, on the face of it,
not a compact between the prince and the people, but the record of boons
conceded by the former to the latter. In a word, all they that had
condemned Louis XVIII. for his royal _charter_, were compelled to
acknowledge that their own imperial champion of freedom was beginning
his new career by a precisely similar display of presumption.

The substance of the "additional act" disappointed all those who
hankered after the formal exposition of first principles; but it must be
allowed that its provisions seem to include whatever is needful for the
arrangement of a free representative constitution; hereditary monarchy;
a hereditary peerage; a house of representatives, chosen by the people,
at least once within every five years; yearly taxes, levied only by the
whole legislature; responsible ministers; irremovable judges; and, in
all criminal cases whatever, the trial by jury. The act, however, was
published; the electoral colleges accepted of it, as they had done of
all its predecessors; and it by degrees came out that the business of
the _Champ-de-Mai_ was to be--not even the discussion of the imperial
scheme, but only to swear submission to its regulations, and witness a
solemn distribution of eagles to those haughty bands who acknowledge no
law but that of the sword.

This promised assemblage was preceded by one of the rabble of Paris,
convoked in front of the Tuileries on the 17th of May, and there feasted
and harangued by Napoleon--a condescension which excited lively
displeasure among his soldiery. He himself looked and spoke as one
thoroughly ashamed of what he had done and was doing. It had been his
desire to stimulate among these people something of the old zeal of the
revolutionary period, in case Paris should be once more threatened by a
foreign enemy; but he had the double mortification to find that the army
considered their touch as contamination, and that among themselves the
name of Louis was almost as popular as his own. Even the _Dames des
halles_, so conspicuous in the revolutionary tumults, screamed royalist
ditties in his ear as they drank his wine; and the only hearty cheers
were those of the day-labourers, who had profited by his resumption of
some great public works suspended by the King's government.

The _Champ-de-Mai_ itself, which, despite its name, fell on the 1st of
June, turned out hardly a more successful exhibition. Napoleon, his
brothers, and the great civil functionaries, appeared in theatric
dresses, in the midst of an enormous amphitheatre, where the deputies,
sent from the departments to swear allegiance to the Emperor and the
"additional act," were almost lost in the military among whom the eagles
were to be distributed. The enthusiasm was confined to these. The same
ominous silence which prevailed at the coronation of 1804 was preserved
among the people. The sun shone bright, and the roar of cannon filled
every pause of the martial music. It was a brilliant spectacle; but
Napoleon retired from it in visible dejection.

Three days after, the two houses met; and while that of the peers,
composed of persons who all owed their rank, and most of them much
besides, to Napoleon, showed every disposition to regulate their conduct
by his pleasure, there appeared from the beginning a marked spirit of
independence in a considerable proportion of the representative body.
The Emperor's address to both was moderate and manly. He requested their
support in the war which circumstances had rendered unavoidable, and
professed his desire that they should consider the "additional act" and
all other subjects of national interest, and suggest whatever
alterations might appear to them improvements. Some debates, by no means
gratifying to Napoleon, ensued; but he had no leisure for witnessing
much of their proceedings. It was now needful that he should appear once
more in his own element.

[Footnote 71: By this contemptuous name his soldiery designated all who
had never borne arms. The word dropt once from the lips of one of
Napoleon's marshals in the hearing of Talleyrand, who asked its meaning.
"Nous nommons _pequin_," answered the rude soldier, "tout ce qui n'est
pas militaire."--"Ah!" said the cool Talleyrand--"comme nous nommons
_militaire_ tout ce qui n'est pas civil."]




CHAPTER XL

     Napoleon heads his army on the Belgian frontier--Passes the Sambre
     at Charleroi--Defeats Blucher at Ligny--Battle of Quatre-Bras--The
     English fall back on a position previously selected by
     Wellington--THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO--Napoleon returns to
     Paris.


Napoleon had now, among other preparations, strongly fortified Paris and
all the positions in advance of it on the Seine, the Marne and the Aube,
and among the passes of the Vosgesian hills. Lyons also had been guarded
by very formidable outworks. Massena, at Metz, and Suchet, on the Swiss
frontier, commanded divisions which the Emperor judged sufficient to
restrain Schwartzenberg for some time on the Upper Rhine: should he
drive them in, the fortresses behind could hardly fail to detain him
much longer. Meantime the Emperor himself had resolved to attack the
most alert of his enemies, the Prussians and the English, beyond the
Sambre--while the Austrians were thus held in check on the Upper Rhine,
and ere the armies of the North could debouche upon Manheim, to
co-operate by their right with Wellington and Blucher, and by their left
with Schwartzenberg. Of the Belgian army, and even of the Belgian
people, he believed himself to possess the secret goodwill, and that one
victory would place the Allies in a hostile country. By some daring
battle, and some such splendid success, he yet hoped to shatter the
confidence of the European confederacy; nor--even had he entertained
little hope of this kind--was the situation of affairs in Paris such as
to recommend another protracted and defensive warfare within France. The
fatal example of 1814 was too near: it behoved Napoleon to recommence
operations in the style which had characterised his happier campaigns.

He left Paris on the evening of the 11th of June, exclaiming, as he
entered his carriage, "I go to measure myself against Wellington." He
arrived at Vervins on the 12th, and assembled and reviewed at Beaumont,
on the 14th, the whole of the army which had been prepared to act
immediately under his own orders. They had been carefully selected, and
formed, perhaps, the most perfect force, though far from the most
numerous, with which he had ever taken the field. Buonaparte saw before
him 25,000 of his imperial guard, 25,000 cavalry in the highest
condition, 300 pieces of artillery admirably served, and infantry of the
line, almost all veterans, sufficient to swell his muster to at least
135,000 men. He reminded them that this was the anniversary of Marengo
and of Friedland, and asked, "Are they and we no longer the same men?
The madmen!" he continued, "a moment of prosperity has blinded them. The
oppression and humiliation of the French people is beyond their power.
If they enter France they will there find their tomb. Soldiers! we have
forced marches, battles and dangers before us. For every Frenchman who
has a heart the moment is arrived to conquer or to perish!" Such was his
oration: and never was army more thoroughly imbued with the spirit of
its chief.

Blucher's army numbered at this time about 100,000 men, and, extending
along the line of the Sambre and the Meuse, occupied Charleroi, Namur,
Givet, and Liege. They communicated on their right with the left of the
Anglo-Belgian army, under Wellington, whose headquarters were at
Brussels. This army was not composed, like Blucher's or Napoleon's, of
troops of the same nation. The Duke had less than 35,000 English; and of
these but few were veterans--the flower of his Peninsular Army having
been despatched to America, to conclude a war into which the United
States had forced England, on very trivial pretences, during the season
of her greatest difficulties and dangers, in 1812. The King's German
Legion, 8000 strong, was, however, equal to the best British force of
like amount; and there were 5000 Brunswickers, headed by their gallant
Duke and worthy of his guidance. The Hanoverians, exclusive of the
Legion, numbered 15,000: of Nassau troops, Dutch and Belgian, commanded
by the Prince of Orange, son to the sovereign of the Netherlands, there
might be 17,000; but the spirit of the Belgian part of this army was,
not without reason, suspected on all sides. The Duke of Wellington's
motley host amounted, then, in all to 75,000 men. His first division
occupied Enghien, Brain-le-Comte and Nivelles, communicating with the
Prussian right at Charleroi. The second division (Lord Hill's) was
cantoned in Halle, Oudenard and Gramont--where was most of the cavalry.
The reserve (Sir Thomas Picton's) were at Brussels and Ghent. The
English and Prussian commanders had thus arranged their troops, with
the view of being able to support each other, wherever the French might
hazard their assault. It could not be ascertained beforehand whether
Napoleon's mark was Ghent or Brussels; even had the Allied Generals
known that it was the latter city, who could inform them by which of the
three great routes, of Namur, of Charleroi, or of Mons, he designed to
force his passage thither? Fouché, indeed, doubly and trebly dyed in
treason, had, when accepting office under Napoleon, continued to
maintain his correspondence with Louis at Ghent, and promised to furnish
the Allies with the outline of the Emperor's plan of the campaign ere it
began. But the minister of police took care that this document should
not arrive until the campaign was decided.

At daybreak on Thursday, the 15th, the French drove in all the outposts
on the west bank of the Sambre, and at length assaulted Charleroi; thus
revealing the purpose of the Emperor; namely, to crush Blucher ere he
could concentrate all his own strength, far less be supported by the
advance of Wellington, and then rush at once upon Brussels. Ziethen,
however, held out, though with severe loss, at Charleroi so long, that
the alarm spread along the whole Prussian line; and then fell back in
good order on a position between Ligny and Armand; where Blucher now
awaited Napoleon's attack--at the head of the whole of his army, except
the division of Bulow which had not yet come up from Liege. The scheme
of beating the Prussian divisions in detail had therefore failed; but
the second part of the plan, namely, that of separating them wholly from
Wellington, might still succeed. With this view, while Blucher was
concentrating his force about Ligny, the French held on the main road to
Brussels from Charleroi; beating in some Nassau troops at Frasnes, and
followed them as far as _Quatre-Bras_, a farmhouse, so called, because
it is there that the roads from Charleroi to Brussels, and from Nivelles
to Namur, cross each other.

At half-past one o'clock, p.m., of the same day (Thursday the 15th) a
Prussian officer[72] of high rank arrived at Wellington's headquarters
in Brussels, with the intelligence of Napoleon's decisive operations. By
two o'clock orders were despatched to all the cantonments of the Duke's
army, for the divisions to break up, and concentrate on the left at
Quatre-Bras; his Grace's design being that his whole force should be
assembled there, by eleven o'clock on the next night, Friday the 16th.

It was at first intended to put off a ball announced for the evening of
Thursday, at the Duchess of Richmond's hotel in Brussels; but on
reflection it seemed highly important that the population of that city
should be kept as far as possible in ignorance as to the course of
events, and the Duke of Wellington desired that the ball should proceed
accordingly; nay, the general officers received his commands to appear
in the ball-room--each taking care to quit the apartment as quietly as
possible, at ten o'clock, and proceed to join his respective division
_en route_. This arrangement was carried into strict execution. The Duke
himself retired at twelve o'clock, and left Brussels at six o'clock next
morning for Quatre-Bras. The reserve quitted Brussels in the night with
the most perfect silence and regularity, unnoticed by the inhabitants;
and the events which had occurred were almost wholly unknown in that
city, except to the military authorities, until the next day.

The Duke of Wellington conversed at the ball with various persons on the
movements which had occurred; stated his calculation of the French force
directed against his left, and expressed his confidence that his whole
army would be up at Quatre-Bras by eleven o'clock the next night. This
most extraordinary and rapid concentration of force was effected; the
various divisions of the army, previously cantoned over an extent of
fifty miles, were collected at Quatre-Bras, within the short space of
twenty-four hours.

Napoleon, on coming up from Charleroi, about noon on the 16th, hesitated
for a time whether Blucher at Ligny, or the English at Quatre-Bras,
ought to form the main object of his attack. The Anglo-Belgian army was
not yet concentrated--the Prussian, with the exception of one division,
was: and he at length resolved to give his own personal attention to the
latter. With the main strength of his army, therefore, he assaulted
Blucher at three in the afternoon; and about the same time Ney, with
45,000 men, commenced seriously (for there had been skirmishes ever
since daybreak) the subordinate attack on the position of Wellington.

The English General had held a conference with Blucher this morning at
Bry; and settled with him the ultimate measures to be adopted under
whatever course the events of the day might assume; and he now awaited
the assault of Ney under many disadvantages. His troops were vastly
inferior in number, and all, except a few Belgians, that were now on the
field, had been marching since midnight. The enemy were comparatively
fresh; and they were posted among growing corn, as high as the tallest
man's shoulders, which, with an inequality of ground, enabled them to
draw up a strong body of cuirassiers close to the English, and yet
entirely out of their view. The 79th and 42nd regiments were thus taken
by surprise, and the former would have been destroyed but for the coming
up of the latter. The 42nd, formed into a square, was repeatedly broken,
and as often recovered--though with terrible loss of life: for out of
800 that went into the action, only ninety-six privates and four
officers returned unhurt. The divisions of Alten, Halket, Cooke,
Maitland, and Byng successively arrived; and night found the English
general, after a severe and bloody day, in possession of Quatre-Bras.
The gallant Duke of Brunswick, fighting in the front of the line, fell
almost in the beginning of the battle. The killed and wounded on the
side of the Allies were 5000, and the French loss could not have been
less.

Blucher fought as stern a battle, but with worse fortune. With 80,000
men he had to sustain the assault of 90,000, headed by Napoleon; and the
villages of Amand and Ligny were many times taken and re-taken in the
course of the day. It is said, that two of the French corps hoisted the
black flag: it is certain that little quarter was either asked or given.
The hatred of the French and Prussians was inflamed to the same mortal
vehemence. It is said that the loss on Blucher's side was 20,000
men--and on the other 15,000--numbers, when we consider the amount of
the troops engaged, all but unparalleled. However, the non-arrival of
Bulow, and the successive charges of fresh divisions of the enemy, at
length forced Blucher to retire. In the course of the day the brave old
man had his horse shot under him, in heading a charge of cavalry, and
was ridden over undetected, by both his own men and the French. He now
retreated on the river Dyle, in the direction of Wavre; but contrived to
mask his movements so skilfully, that Napoleon knew not until noon on
the 17th what way he had taken.

The bulletins of the Emperor announced two victories of the most
dazzling description as the work of the 16th. Blucher would be heard of
no more, they said; and Wellington, confounded and amazed, was already
within the jaws of ruin.

Napoleon, having ascertained the retreat of the Prussian, now committed
the pursuit of him to Marshal Grouchy, and a corps of 32,000 men--and
turned in person to Quatre-Bras, in the hope of pouring his main force,
as well as Ney's, on Wellington, in a situation where it was altogether
improbable he should receive any assistance from Blucher. But no sooner
was the Duke aware of Blucher's march on Wavre, than he, in adherence to
the common plan of the campaign, gave orders for falling back from
Quatre-Bras. He had before now been heard to say, that if ever it were
his business to defend Brussels, he would choose to give battle on the
field of Waterloo, in advance of the forest of Soignies; and he now
retired thither--in the confidence of being joined there in the morning,
ere the decisive contest should begin, by Blucher. The day was rainy,
the roads were covered deep with mud, and the English soldiery are of
all others most discouraged by the command to retreat. Their spirits,
however, rose gallantly when, on reaching the destined field, they
became aware of their leader's purpose; and, having taken up their
allotted stations, they bivouacked under the storm in the sure hope of
battle.

All his arrangements having been effected early in the evening of the
17th, the Duke of Wellington rode across the country to Blucher, to
inform him personally that he had thus far effected the plan agreed on
at Bry, and express his hope to be supported on the morrow by two
Prussian divisions. The veteran replied, that he would leave a single
corps to hold Grouchy at bay as well as they could, and march himself
with the rest of his army upon Waterloo; and Wellington immediately
returned to his post.[73] The cross roads between Wavre and Mont St.
Jean were in a horrid condition; the rain fell in torrents, and Grouchy
had 32,000 men to attack Thielman's single division, left at Wavre.
Blucher's march, however, began; and if it occupied longer time than had
been anticipated, the fault was none of his.

The position of the Duke of Wellington was before the village of Mont
St. Jean, about a mile and a half in advance of the small town of
Waterloo, on a rising ground, having a gentle and regular declivity
before it--beyond this a plain of about a mile in breadth--and then the
opposite heights of La Belle Alliance, on which the enemy would of
course form their line. The Duke had now with him about 75,000 men in
all; of whom about 30,000 were English. He formed his first line of the
troops on which he could most surely rely--the greater part of the
British foot--the men of Brunswick and Nassau, and three corps of
Hanoverians and Belgians. Behind this the ground sinks and then rises
again. The second line, formed in rear of the first, was composed of the
troops whose spirit and discipline were more doubtful--or who had
suffered most in the action of Quatre-Bras; and behind these lay all the
horse. The position crosses the two highways from Nivelles and Charleroi
to Brussels, nearly where they unite: these roads gave every facility
for movements from front to rear during the action; and two country
roads, running behind and parallel with the first and second lines,
favoured equally movements from wing to wing. The line was formed
convex, dropping back towards the forest at either extremity; the right
to Mark Braine, near Braine-la-Leude; the left to Ter-la-Haye. The
chateau and gardens of Hougomont, and the farmhouse and enclosures of La
Haye Sainte, about 1500 yards apart, on the slope of the declivity, were
strongly occupied, and formed the important out-works of defence. The
opening of the country roads leading directly from Wavre to Mont St.
Jean, through the wood of Ohain, was guarded by the British left; while
those running through Souhain and Frichemont, further in advance, might
be expected to bring the first of the Prussians on the right flank of
the French, during their expected attack.

The field was open and fair: and in case the enemy should force the Duke
from his position, the village of Mont St Jean behind, still further
back the town of Waterloo, and lastly the great forest of
Soignies--offered successively the means of renewing his defence, and
protecting his retreat.--The British front extended, in all, over about
a mile. It was Wellington's business to hold the enemy at bay, until the
Prussian advance should enable him to charge them with superior numbers:
it was Napoleon's to beat the English ere Blucher could disengage
himself from Grouchy, and come out of the woods of Ohain; which being
accomplished, he doubted not to have easy work with the Prussians amidst
that difficult country. He had in the field 75,000 men; all French
veterans--each of whom was in his own estimation, worth one Englishman,
and two Prussians, Dutch or Belgians. But on the other hand,
Wellington's men, all in position over-night, had had, notwithstanding
the severe weather, some hours to repose and refresh themselves: whereas
the army of Napoleon had been on the march all through the hours of
tempestuous darkness, and the greater part of them reached not the
heights of Belle Alliance until the morning of the 18th was considerably
advanced. The Emperor himself, however, had feared nothing so much as
that Wellington would continue his retreat on Brussels and Antwerp--thus
deferring the great battle until the Russians should approach the valley
of the Rhine; and when, on reaching the eminence of La Belle Alliance,
he beheld the army drawn up on the opposite side, his joy was great. "At
last, then," he exclaimed, "at last, then, I have these English in my
grasp."

The tempest abated in the morning--but the weather all day long was
gusty, and the sky lowering. It was about noon that the French opened
their cannonade, and Jerome Buonaparte, under cover of its fire, charged
impetuously on Hougomont. The Nassau men in the wood about the house
were driven before the French; but a party of English guards maintained
themselves in the chateau and garden, despite the desperate impetuosity
of many repeated assaults. Jerome, masking the post thus resolutely
held, pushed on his cavalry and artillery against Wellington's right.
The English formed in squares, and defied all their efforts. For some
time both parties opposed each other here, without either gaining or
losing a foot of ground. At length the English fire forced back the
French--and the garrison of Hougomont were relieved and strengthened.

The next attempt was made on the centre of the British line, by a great
force of cuirassiers and four columns of infantry. The horse, coming
boldly along the causeway of Genappe, were met in the path by the
English heavy cavalry, where the road has been cut down deep, leaving
high banks on either side. Their meeting was stern: they fought for some
time at sword's length; at last the cuirassiers gave way, and fled for
the protection of their artillery. The English followed them too far,
got amidst the French infantry, and were there charged by fresh cavalry
and driven back with much loss.--It was here that Picton died. Meanwhile
the infantry of this movement had pushed on beyond La Haye Sainte, and
dispersed some Belgian regiments; but being then charged in turn, in
front by Pack's brigade of foot, and in flank by a brigade of heavy
English horse, were totally routed--losing, besides the slain and
wounded, 2000 prisoners and two eagles. The only favourable result of
this second grand attempt was the occupation of the farmhouse of La Haye
Sainte, which had been garrisoned by Hanoverians. And scarcely had the
charge of Pack proved successful, ere the French were again compelled by
shells and cannon to evacuate this prize.

The third assault was levelled again on the British right--where the
infantry awaited it, formed in a double line of squares, placed
chequerwise, and protected in front by a battery of thirty field pieces.
The French cuirassiers charged the artillerymen and drove them from
their guns; and then rode fiercely on the squares behind. These remained
steadfast until the enemy were within ten yards of them, and then fired
with deadly effect. The cavalry gave back--rallied again, and renewed
their charge: this they did several times--and always with the like
result. Sometimes they even rode between the squares, and charged those
of the second line. At length protracted exposure to such cross fire
completed the ruin of these fearless cavaliers. The far greater part of
this magnificent force was annihilated in this part of the battle.

When the relics of the cuirassiers withdrew, the French cannonade opened
once more furiously all along the line; and the English were commanded
to lie flat on the ground for some space, in order to diminish its
effects. Lord Wellington had by this time lost 10,000, Buonaparte at
least 15,000 men. It was now half-past six o'clock. The heads of
Prussian columns began to be discerned among the woods to the right of
the French. It was obvious, that unless a last and decisive onset should
drive Wellington from the post which he had continued to hold during
near seven hours of unintermitting battle, his allies would come fully
into the field, and give him a vast superiority of numbers wherewith to
close the work of the day. Napoleon prepared, therefore, for his final
struggle. Hitherto he had kept his guard, the flower of his fine army,
out of the fray. He now formed them into two columns,--desired them to
charge boldly, for that the Prussians, whom they saw in the wood, were
flying before Grouchy--and they doubted not that the Emperor was about
to charge in person at their head. He, however, looked on, as they put
themselves in motion, and committed them to the guidance of Ney, "the
bravest of the brave," whose consciousness of recent treason must have
prepared him, even had his temper been less gallant, to set all upon the
cast. Four battalions of the Old Guard only remained as a reserve; and
were formed in squares to protect the march of the columns.

The English front by this time presented not a convex line, but a
concave, either wing having gradually advanced a little in consequence
of the repeated repulses of the enemy. They were now formed in an
unbroken array, four deep, and poured on the approaching columns (each
man firing as often as he could reload) a shower which never
intermitted. The wings kept moving on all the while; and when the heads
of the French columns approached, they were exposed to such a storm of
musketry in front and on either flank, that they in vain endeavoured to
deploy into line for the attack. They stopped to make this attempt,
reeled, lost order, and fled at last in one mass of confusion.

The Duke of Wellington now dismounted, placed himself at the head of
his line, and led them, no longer held to defence, against the four
battalions of the Old Guard--the only unbroken troops remaining--behind
whom Ney was striving to rally his fugitives.

The Marshal, at Wellington's approach, took post once more in the van,
sword in hand, and on foot. But nothing could withstand the impetuous
assault of the victorious British. The Old Guard also were shaken.
Napoleon had hitherto maintained his usual serenity of aspect on the
heights of La Belle Alliance. He watched the English onset with his
spy-glass--became suddenly pale as death--exclaimed, "They are mingled
together--all is lost for the present," and rode off the field, never
stopping for a moment until he reached Charleroi.

Hardly had the English advanced for this fatal charge, when Blucher's
columns, emerging from the woods, were at length seen forming on the
right of the French, and preparing to take part in the battle. Their
cannonade played on the flank of the Old Guard, while the British attack
in front was overwhelming them. The fatal cry of _sauve qui peut_ was
heard everywhere: the French were now flying pellmell in the most woeful
confusion. Blucher and Wellington met at length at the farmhouse of La
Belle Alliance; and the Prussian eagerly undertook to continue the
pursuit during the night, while the English General halted to refresh
his weary men.

The loss of Wellington's army on this great day was terrible: 100
officers slain (many of the first distinction), and 500 wounded, very
many mortally; and of rank and file killed and wounded, 15,000. The Duke
himself had been, all through the day, wherever the danger was greatest;
and he alone, and one gentleman besides, of all a very numerous staff,
came off the ground unhurt.

Of the 75,000 men whom Napoleon conducted to this last and severest of
his fields, what with the slain and the wounded, and those who, losing
heart and hope, deserted and fled separately to their homes, not more
than 30,000 were ever again collected in arms. The Prussians followed
hard on the miserable fugitives, and in every hamlet and village, for
many miles beyond La Belle Alliance, cut down the lingerers without
mercy.

Napoleon at length halted at Philippeville: from which point he designed
to turn towards Grouchy, and take in person the command of that
remaining division, leaving Soult to re-assemble and rally, at Avesnes,
the relics of Waterloo. But hearing that Blucher was already at
Charleroi (which was true), and that Grouchy had been overtaken and made
prisoner (which was false), the Emperor abandoned his purpose, and
continued his journey, travelling post, to Paris.

On the 19th the capital had been greeted with the news of three great
victories, at Charleroi, at Ligny, and at Quatre-Bras--100 cannon fired
in honour of the Emperor's successes--his partisans proclaimed that the
glory of France was secured--and dejection filled the hearts of the
royalists. On the morning of the 21st it transpired that Napoleon had
arrived the night before, alone, at the Elysée. The secret could no
longer be kept. A great, a decisive field had been fought;--and the
French army was no more.

[Footnote 72: The fiction of the Duke of Wellington having been
_surprised_ on this great occasion has maintained its place in almost
all narratives of the war for fifteen years. The Duke's magnanimous
silence under such treatment for so long a period will be appreciated by
posterity. The facts of the case are now given from the most
unquestionable authority.]

[Footnote 73: The fact of Wellington and Blucher having met between the
battles of Ligny and Waterloo is well known to many of the superior
officers then in the Netherlands; but the writer of this compendium has
never happened to see it mentioned in print. The horse that carried the
Duke of Wellington through this long night journey, so important to the
decisive battle of the 18th, remained till lately, it is understood, if
he does not still remain, a free pensioner in the best paddock of
Strathfieldsaye.]




CHAPTER XLI

     Napoleon appeals in vain to the Chambers--Abdicates for the second
     time--Is sent to Malmaison--And then to Rochefort--Negotiates with
     Capt. Maitland--Embarks in the _Bellerophon_--Arrives at
     Torbay--Decision of the English Government--Interview with Lord
     Keith, &c.--Napoleon on board the _Northumberland_--Sails for St.
     Helena.


On how sandy a foundation the exile of Elba had rebuilt the semblance of
his ancient authority, a few hours of adversity were more than
sufficient to show. He was still consulting with his ministers (even
they were not all his friends) on the morning of the 21st, in what
manner he ought to inform the Chambers of his great misfortune, and what
assistance he should demand, when the news reached the _Elysée_, that
both the assemblies had met as soon as the story of Waterloo transpired,
and passed a series of resolutions, one of which declared the state to
be in danger--and another, _their_ sittings _permanent_; in other words,
proclaimed his reign to be at an end. If anything could have been wanted
to complete Napoleon's conviction that the army had elevated him in
opposition to the nation--it must have been found in the fact that the
funds rose rapidly from the moment in which it was known in Paris that
the army was ruined. They went on to tell him that the Chambers were
debating on the means of defending Paris. "Ah," said he--deeply feeling
in what loss all had been lost to him--"Ah, could they but defend them
like my Old Guard!"

If Napoleon had listened to the advice of his brother Lucien, and the
few who really considered their own fortunes as irrevocably bound up
with his, he would have instantly put himself at the head of 6000 of the
Imperial Guard, who were then in the capital, and dissolved the
unfriendly senate of Paris, on the 21st of June, as unceremoniously as
he had that of St. Cloud on the 19th of Brumaire. Lucien said ever
after, that, "the smoke of Mont St. Jean had turned his brain." He
certainly gave what remained of the day to vacillation. Late in the
evening he held a council, to which the presidents and vice-presidents
of both Chambers were admitted. In their presence La Fayette signified
that nothing could be done until _a great sacrifice_ had been made.
Maret answered with fierceness; called for severe measures against the
royalists and the disaffected. "Had such been resorted to earlier,"
cried he, "one who hears me would not be smiling at the misfortunes of
France, and Wellington would not be marching on Paris." This strong
allusion to Fouché suited not the temper of the moment. Maret was
murmured down; and Carnot himself is said to have shed tears, when he
perceived that the abdication was judged necessary. That ancient
democrat had indeed just consented to be a count; but he enjoys
apparently the credit of having acted on this occasion as a good
Frenchman. He saw, say even the anti-Buonapartist historians, that
France was invaded, and the same feelings which made him offer his own
sword in December, 1813, urged him now to oppose any measure which must
deprive his country of the military talents of Napoleon. The Emperor
heard all in silence--and broke up the meeting without having come to
any decision.

Early next morning the Chambers again met, and the necessity of the
Emperor's abdication was on the point of being put to the vote--when
Fouché appeared, and saved them that trouble by producing the following
proclamation. "To the French people ":

     _Frenchmen! In commencing war for the maintenance of the national
     independence, I relied on the union of all efforts, all wills, and
     all authorities. I had reason to hope for success, and I braved all
     the declarations of the powers against me. Circumstances appear to
     be changed. I offer myself as a sacrifice to the hatred of the
     enemies of France. May they prove sincere in their declarations,
     and to have aimed only at me! My political life is ended; and I
     proclaim my son, Napoleon II., Emperor of the French. Unite for the
     public safety, if you would remain an independent nation.--Done at
     the palace Elysée, June the 22nd,1815.--_

     NAPOLEON.

The debate which followed the production of this act in either house,
but especially in that of the Peers, was violent. In the latter, Carnot,
having received some grossly exaggerated accounts of the force and
success of Grouchy, endeavoured to persuade the assembly, that that
marshal must have ere then added 60,000 men at Laon to Soult and the
relics of Waterloo, and so formed an army capable, under fit guidance,
of even yet effectually retrieving the affairs of France. But Ney had
arrived in Paris the same morning, and this speech called up the man
who, if any single energies could have done so, would have saved the day
at Waterloo. "Grouchy," said he, "cannot have more than 20--at most
25,000--men; and as to Soult--I myself commanded the guard in the last
assault--I did not leave the field until they were exterminated. Be
assured there is but one course--negotiate, and recall the Bourbons. In
their return I see nothing but the certainty of being shot as a
deserter. I shall seek all I have henceforth to hope for in America.
Take you the only course that remains for France."

Napoleon, in his bulletins, did not scruple to throw the blame of his
discomfiture on the misconduct of his chief officers--particularly of
Grouchy--and even of Ney himself; nor wanted there devoted men, such as
Labedoyere, to sustain these most unfounded charges, and all other
arguments anywise favouring the cause of the Emperor, in either chamber.
But the truth was great, and prevailed. The Senate, no more than the
people, could be deceived now; and though a deputation waited on him at
the Elysée, and in most respectful terms thanked him for the sacrifice
he had made, he in vain endeavoured to extort any direct avowal that, in
accepting his abdication, they considered that act as necessarily
accompanied with the immediate proclamation of Napoleon II. The Emperor,
for the last time clothed in the imperial garb, and surrounded with his
great officers of state, received the deputation with calmness and
dignity, and dismissed them with courtesy. He perceived clearly that
there was no hope for his son.

Thus terminated the second reign--_the hundred days_ of Napoleon.

By this time, however, Labedoyere's violent language in the Senate--his
repeated protestations that unless Napoleon II. were recognised, the
abdication of his father was null, and that the country which could
hesitate about such an act of justice was worthy of nothing but
slavery--began to produce a powerful effect among the regular soldiery
of Paris. The Senate called on Napoleon himself to signify to the army
that he no longer claimed any authority over them; and he complied,
though not without mingling many expressions highly offensive to those
whose mandate he obeyed. A provisional government, however, consisting
of Fouché, Carnot, and three more, was forthwith proclaimed; and when
the first of these persons conceived that Napoleon's continued presence
in the capital might produce disturbances, and accordingly requested him
to withdraw to Malmaison, he found himself obliged to do so. This was on
the 24th; and no sooner was he established in this villa, than it became
obvious to himself that he was in fact a prisoner. Fouché's police
surrounded him on all sides; and the military duties about Malmaison
were discharged by a party of the national guard, attached to Louis
XVIII., and commanded by General Beker, an officer well known to be
personally hostile to the fallen sovereign. We have seen how the
Parisians veered from side to side at every former crisis of his
history, according as the wind of fortune happened to blow. To finish
the picture it remains to be told that, ere Napoleon had been two days
at Malmaison, he was to all appearance, as much forgotten in the
neighbouring capital as if he had never returned from Elba.

The relics of Waterloo, and Grouchy's division, having at length been
gathered together under Soult at Laon; were now marching towards Paris,
and followed hard behind by Wellington and Blucher. The provisional
government began to be seriously alarmed lest Buonaparte should, by some
desperate effort, escape from Malmaison, and once more place himself at
the head of a considerable armed force. He himself, indeed, was
continually sending to them, requesting permission to take the field as
General for Napoleon II.; and one of the government, Carnot, was
heartily desirous that this prayer should be granted. Under such
circumstances, Fouché, who had, throughout, corresponded with and
plotted against all parties, now employed every art to persuade the
fallen chief that the only course, whether of safety or of dignity, that
remained for him, was to fly immediately to the United States of
America; and, that nothing may be wanting to show how the great and the
little were perpetually intermingled in the fortunes of Buonaparte, one
of the means adopted by this intriguer, and not the least effectual,
was that of stimulating the personal creditors of the dethroned Emperor
and his family to repair incessantly to Malmaison and torment him with
demands of payment. Meantime Fouché sent to the Duke of Wellington,
announcing that Napoleon had made up his mind to repair to America, and
requesting a safe-conduct for him across the Atlantic. The Duke replied,
that he had no authority to grant any passports to Napoleon Buonaparte;
and the only consequence (as Fouché had perhaps anticipated) was, that
the English Admiralty quickened their diligence, and stationed no less
than thirty cruisers along the western coasts of France, for the purpose
of intercepting the disturber of the world in his meditated flight.

Fouché, in communicating to Napoleon the refusal of Wellington, took
care to signify urgent fears that the English government might adopt
such measures as these, and to build on this a new argument for the
hastening of his departure from the neighbourhood of Paris. He informed
him that two frigates and some smaller vessels awaited his orders at
Rochefort, and assured him, that if he repaired thither on the instant,
he would still be in time.

Napoleon hesitated at Malmaison, as he had done before at the
Kremlin--at Dresden--and at Fontainebleau. The cry of the approaching
soldiery of Soult was already in his ear, inviting him to be once more
their Emperor. On the other hand, it was now too obvious, that the army
alone retained any reverence for him; and, lastly, what after all could
he hope to effect with at most 60,000 men, against the victorious hosts
of Wellington and Blucher, backed, as they were about to be, by great
reinforcements from England and Prussia, and by the whole armies of
Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria and the Czar?--Napoleon well knew that
ere six weeks more elapsed, 800,000 foreigners would be cantoned within
the boundaries of France. He at length yielded; and on the 29th of June
left Malmaison, accompanied by Savary, Bertrand, Las Cazes, and others
of his attached servants, and attended by a considerable guard.

Napoleon reached Rochefort on the 3rd of July; and took up his residence
in the prefect's house, with the view of embarking immediately: but he
forthwith was informed, that a British line-of-battle ship (the
_Bellerophon_, Captain Maitland) and some smaller vessels of war were
off the roads, and given to understand that the commanders of the
squadron at his own disposal showed no disposition to attempt the
passage out in face of these watchers. A Danish merchant-ship was then
hired, and the Emperor occupied himself with various devices for
concealing his person in the hold of this vessel. But the Danish captain
convinced him ere long that the British searchers would not be likely to
pass him undetected, and this plan too was abandoned. Some young French
midshipmen then gallantly offered to act as the crew of a small flat
coasting vessel, a _chausse-marree_, and attempt the escape in this way
under cloud of night. But all experienced seamen concurred in
representing the imminent hazard of exposing such a vessel to the
Atlantic, as well as the numberless chances of its also being detected
by the English cruisers. "Where-ever wood can swim," said Napoleon,
"there I am sure to find this flag of England."

Meanwhile time passed on; and it became known that the French army had
once more retired from before the walls of Paris under a convention:
that Wellington and Blucher were about to enter the city, and reseat
Louis on his throne; that the royalists were everywhere assuming the
decided advantage--that the white flag was already hoisted in the
neighbouring town of Rochelle--and that it would be so at Rochefort
itself on the instant, were his person removed. Under such
circumstances, to attempt a journey into the interior of France, with
the view of rejoining Soult, now marching on the Loire, or with any
other purpose, must needs expose Napoleon to every chance of falling
into the hands of the Bourbons; and at length, since it was impossible
to sail out of Rochefort without the consent of the English, it was
resolved to open a negotiation with their commander.

On the 19th of July, Savary and Count Las Cazes came off with a flag of
truce, and began their conversation by stating that the Emperor had been
promised a safe-conduct for America, and asking if the document were in
Captain Maitland's hands? No safe-conduct of any kind had been promised
or contemplated by any English authority whatever; and the captain could
only answer that, as far as concerned himself, his orders were to make
every effort to prevent Buonaparte from escaping, and if so fortunate
as to obtain possession of his person, to sail at once with him for
England. Savary and Las Cazes made great efforts to persuade Maitland
that Napoleon's removal from France was a matter of pure voluntary
choice; but this the British officer considered as a question wherewith
he had nothing to do. The utmost the Frenchmen could extract from him
was, that he, as a private individual, had no reason to doubt but that
Buonaparte, if he sailed for England in the _Bellerophon_, would be well
treated there.

The same personages returned on the 14th, and another conversation,
longer, but to the same purpose, was held by them with Maitland, in the
presence of Captain Sartorius and Captain Gambier, both of the royal
navy. These gentlemen have corroborated completely the statement of
Maitland, that he, on the second as on the first interview, continued to
guard the Frenchmen against the remotest conception of his being
entitled to offer any pledge whatever to Napoleon, except that he would
convey him in safety off the English coast, there to abide the
determination of the English government. Savary and Las Cazes, on the
contrary, persisted in asserting that Maitland, _on the 14th July_, gave
a pledge that Napoleon, if he came on board the _Bellerophon_, should be
received there not as a prisoner of war, but as a voluntary guest, and
that it was solely in consequence of this pledge that Napoleon finally
resolved to embark. But there is one piece of evidence in contradiction
of this story, of which even themselves could hardly dispute the
weight--to wit, the _date_ of the following letter to the Prince Regent
of England, which General Gourgaud brought out the same evening to the
_Bellerophon_, and which clearly proves--that what Napoleon ultimately
did on the 15th, depended in nowise on anything that Maitland said on
the 14th.

     _Rochefort, July_ THE 13TH, 1815

     _"Royal Highness,_

     _"A victim to the factions which divide my country, and to the
     hostility of the greatest Powers of Europe, I have terminated my
     political career, and come, like Themistocles, to seat myself on
     the hearth of the British people. I put myself under the protection
     of their laws, which I claim from your Royal Highness as the most
     powerful, the most constant, and the most generous of my enemies._

     NAPOLEON."

Maitland sent on Gourgaud in the _Slaney_ with this letter; and having
once more addressed Las Cazes in these words "You will recollect that I
am not authorised to stipulate as to the reception of Buonaparte in
England, but that he must consider himself as entirely at the disposal
of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent"--prepared his ship for the
reception of the fallen Emperor.

On the 15th the _Epervier_ brig brought him out of the Aix roads; but
wind and tide being unfavourable, Maitland sent the barge of the
_Bellerophon_ to transport him to the ship. The officers and most of the
crew of the _Epervier_ saw him depart, with tears in their eyes, and
continued to cheer him as long as their voices could be heard. Captain
Maitland received him respectfully, but without any salute or
distinguished honours. Napoleon uncovered himself on reaching the
quarter-deck, and said in a firm tone of voice, "I come to place myself
under the protection of your prince and laws."

On board the _Bellerophon_, as before in the _Undaunted_, Buonaparte
made himself very popular among both officers and crew. He examined
everything--praised everything--extolled the English nation--above all,
the English navy--and even admitted that the Duke of Wellington, "equal
to himself in all other military qualities, was superior in prudence."
On the 23rd they passed Ushant, and Napoleon gazed long and
mournfully--and for the last time--on the coast of France. On the 24th
the _Bellerophon_ entered Torbay, and Maitland was instantly admonished
to permit no communication of any kind between his ship and the coast.
On the 26th Maitland was ordered round to Plymouth Sound: and the
arrival of Buonaparte having by this time transpired, the ship was
instantly surrounded by swarms of boats, filled with persons whose
curiosity nothing could repress. There was considerable difficulty in
keeping the ship itself clear of these eager multitudes. Napoleon
appeared on the deck, was greeted with huzzas, and bowed and smiled in
return.

On the 31st of July, Sir H. Bunbury, under-secretary of state, and Lord
Keith, admiral of the Channel fleet, repaired on board the
_Bellerophon_, and announced the final resolution of the British
government: namely, 1st, that _General Buonaparte_ should not be landed
in England, but removed forthwith to St. Helena, as being the situation
in which, more than any other at their command, the government thought
security against a second escape, and the indulgence to himself of
personal freedom and exercise, might be reconciled; 2ndly, that, with
the exception of Savary and L'Allemand, he might take with him any three
officers he chose, as also his surgeon, and twelve domestics.

This letter was read in French by Sir Henry Bunbury. Napoleon listened
without look or gesture of impatience or surprise. Being then asked if
he had anything to reply, he with perfect calmness of voice and manner
protested against the orders to which he had been listening, and against
the right claimed by the English Government to dispose of him as a
prisoner of war. "I came into your ship," said he, "as I would into one
of your villages. If I had been told I was to be a prisoner, I would not
have come." He then expatiated at great length on the title given
him--General Buonaparte--and on the right which he had to be considered
as a sovereign prince; he was, he said, three months before, as much
Emperor of Elba as Louis was King of France, and, by invading another
monarch's dominions, could not have forfeited his own rank as a monarch.
He next adverted to the ignoble attitude in which England would place
herself in the eyes of the world by abusing his confidence--hinted that
either his father-in-law or the Czar would have treated him far
differently--and concluded by expressing his belief that the climate and
confinement of St. Helena would kill him, and his resolution, therefore,
not to go to St. Helena. By what means he designed to resist the command
of the English government, Napoleon did not say: there can be no doubt
he meant Lord Keith and Sir H. Bunbury to understand, that, rather than
submit to the voyage in question, he would commit suicide; and what he
thus hinted, was soon expressed distinctly, with all the accompaniments
of tears and passion, by two French ladies on board the
_Bellerophon_--Madame Bertrand and Madame Montholon. But all this
appears to have been set down, from the beginning, exactly for what it
was worth. He who had chosen to outlive Krasnoi, and Leipzig, and
Montmartre, and Waterloo, was not likely to die by his own hand in the
_Bellerophon_. We desire not to be considered as insinuating, according
to the custom of many, that Napoleon ought to have rushed voluntarily
on some English bayonet, when the fate of the 18th of June could no
longer be doubtful. Laying all religious and moral obligations out of
view (as probably he did), Napoleon himself said truly, that "if Marius
had fallen on his sword amidst the marches of Minturnæ, he would never
have enjoyed his 7th consulate." No man ever more heartily than Napoleon
approved the old maxim, that while there is life there is hope; and, far
from thinking seriously at any time of putting an end to his own days,
we must doubt if, between his abdication at the Elysée and the time
wherein he felt the immediate approach of death, there occurred one day,
or even one hour, in which some hope or scheme of recovering his
fortunes did not agitate his mind.

With regard to Napoleon's reclamations against the decision of the
English government, it may probably suffice _now_ to observe--1st, that
that government had never, at any period, acknowledged him as Emperor of
France, and that it refused to be a party to the treaty under which he
retired to Elba, simply because it was resolved not to acknowledge him
as Emperor of Elba. These things Napoleon well knew; and as to his
recent re-exercise of imperial functions in France, he well knew that
the English government had continued to acknowledge Louis XVIII. as
_King_ all through the hundred days. Upon no principle, therefore, could
he have expected beforehand to be treated as _Emperor_ by the ministers
of the Prince Regent; nor, even if he had been born a legitimate prince,
would it have been in the usual course of things for him, under existing
circumstances, to persist in the open retention of his imperial style.
By assuming some _incognito_, as sovereigns when travelling out of their
own dominions are accustomed to do, Napoleon might have cut the root
away from one long series of his subsequent disputes with the English
government and authorities. But in doing as he did, he acted on
calculation. He never laid aside the hopes of escape and of empire. It
was his business to have complaints. If everything went on quietly and
smoothly about him, what was to ensure the keeping up of a lively
interest in his fortunes among the faction, to which he still looked as
inclined to befriend him, and above all, among the soldiery, of whose
personal devotion, even after the fatal catastrophe of Waterloo, he had
no reason to doubt? Buonaparte, in his days of success, always attached
more importance to etiquette than a prince born to the purple, and not
quite a fool, would have been likely to do: but in the obstinacy with
which, after his total downfall, he clung to the airy sound of majesty,
and such pigmy toys of observance as could be obtained under his
circumstances, we cannot persuade ourselves to behold no more than the
sickly vanity of a _parvenu_. The English government acknowledged him by
the highest military rank he had held at that time when the treaty of
Amiens was concluded with him as First Consul; and the sound of _General
Buonaparte_, now so hateful in his ears, who had under that style
wielded the destinies of the world, might have been lost, if Napoleon
himself had chosen, in some factitious style.

To come to the more serious charges. Napoleon, driven to extremity in
1814 by the united armies of Europe, abdicated his throne, that
abdication being the price of peace to France, and to soothe his
personal sufferings, obtained the sovereignty of Elba. When he violated
the treaty by returning in arms to Provence, the other provisions, which
gave peace to France and Elba to him, were annulled of course. When the
fortune of Waterloo compelled him to take refuge in the
_Bellerophon_--what was to be done? To replace in Elba, or any similar
situation, under some new treaty, the man who had just broken a most
solemn one, was out of the question. To let him remain at large in the
midst of a country close to France, wherein the press is free to
licentiousness, and the popular mind liable to extravagant agitations,
would have been to hazard the domestic tranquillity of England, and
throw a thousand new difficulties in the way of every attempt to
consolidate the social and political system of the French monarchy. In
most other times the bullet or the axe would have been the gentlest
treatment to be expected by one who had risen so high, and fallen so
fatally. This his surrender to Captain Maitland--to say nothing of the
temper of the times--put out of the question. It remained to place him
in a situation wherein his personal comfort might as far as possible be
united with security to the peace of the world; and no one has as yet
pretended to point out a situation preferable in this point of view to
that remote and rocky island of the Atlantic, on which it was the
fortune of the great Napoleon to close his earthly career. The reader
cannot require to be reminded that the personage, whose relegation to
St. Helena has formed the topic of so many indignant appeals and
contemptuous commentaries, was, after all, the same man, who, by an act
of utterly wanton and unnecessary violence, seized Pius VII. and
detained him a prisoner for nearly four years, and who, having entrapped
Ferdinand VII. to Bayonne, and extorted his abdication by the threat of
murder, concluded by locking him up during five years at Valençay.

The hints and threats of suicide having failed in producing the desired
effect--and a most ridiculous attempt on the part of some crazy persons
in England to get possession of Napoleon's person, by citing him to
appear as a witness on a case of libel, having been baffled, more
formally than was necessary, by the swift sailing of the _Bellerophon_
for the Start--the fallen Emperor at length received in quiet the
intimation, that Admiral Sir George Cockburn was ready to receive him on
board the _Northumberland_, and convey him to St. Helena. Savary and
L'Allemand were among the few persons omitted by name in King Louis's
amnesty on his second restoration, and they were extremely alarmed when
they found that the retreat of St. Helena was barred on them by the
English government. They even threatened violence--but consulting Sir
Samuel Romilly, and thus ascertaining that the government had no
thoughts of surrendering them to Louis XVIII., submitted at length with
a good grace to the inevitable separation. Napoleon's suite, as finally
arranged, consisted of Count Bertrand (grand master of the palace),
Count Montholon (one of his council of state), Count Las Cazes, General
Gourgaud (his aide-de-camp), and Dr. O'Meara, an Irish naval surgeon,
whom he had found in the _Bellerophon_, and who was now by his desire
transferred to the _Northumberland_. Bertrand and Montholon were
accompanied by their respective countesses and some children; and twelve
upper domestics of the imperial household followed their master's
fortune. Of the money which Napoleon had with him, to the amount of some
£4000, the British government took possession, _pro tempore_, announcing
that they charged themselves with providing regularly for all the
expenditure of his establishment; but his plate, chiefly gold and of
much value, was permitted to remain untouched.

On the 8th of August the _Northumberland_ sailed for St. Helena, and the
exile had his first view of his destined retreat on the 15th of October,
1815. During the voyage, Sir George Cockburn departed from some
observances of respect into which Captain Maitland had very naturally
fallen, under very different circumstances. The admiral, in a word, did
not permit Napoleon to assume the first place on board the
_Northumberland_. He did the honours of the table himself; nor did he
think it necessary to break up his company immediately after dinner,
because the ex-emperor chose to rise then--in adherence to the custom of
French society: neither did he man his yards or fire salutes on any
occasion, as is done in the case of crowned heads, nor follow the
example of the French suite in remaining at all times uncovered in the
presence of Napoleon. With these exceptions, _General Buonaparte_ was
treated with all the respect which great genius and great misfortunes
could claim from a generous mind; nor was he on the whole insensible to
the excellent conduct either of Maitland or of Cockburn. Cruelly and
most unjustly attacked, as the former had been, by Las Cazes and
Savary--and by Napoleon--when the captain of the _Bellerophon_ comes to
record his final sentiments towards his prisoner, it is in these
affecting words--"It may appear surprising that a possibility should
exist of a British officer being prejudiced in favour of one who had
caused so many calamities to his country; but to such an extent did he
possess the power of pleasing, that there are few people who could have
sat at the same table with him for nearly a month, as I did, without
feeling a sensation of pity, perhaps allied to regret, that a man
possessed of so many fascinating qualities, and who had held so high a
station in life, should be reduced to the situation in which I saw him."

To the extraordinary power of fascination which Napoleon had at command,
a still more striking testimony occurs in an anecdote, apparently well
authenticated, of Lord Keith. When someone alluded in this old admiral's
hearing to Buonaparte's repeated request of a personal interview with
the Prince Regent, "On my conscience," said Lord Keith, "I believe, if
you consent to that, they will be excellent friends within half an
hour."




CHAPTER XLII

     Napoleon at St. Helena--The Briars--Longwood--Charges against the
     English Government respecting his accommodations and treatment at
     St. Helena--Charges against the Governor, Sir Hudson
     Lowe--Napoleon's mode of life at Longwood--His Health falls
     off--His Death and Funeral--Conclusion.


Napoleon was weary of shipboard, and, therefore, landed immediately.
Finding the curiosity of the people troublesome, he took up his quarters
at _The Briars_, a small cottage about half a mile from James's Town,
during the interval which must needs elapse before the admiral could
provide suitable accommodation for his permanent residence. For that
purpose Longwood, a villa about six miles from James's Town, was, after
an examination of all that the island afforded, determined on; except
Plantation House, the country residence of the governor, there was no
superior house in St. Helena; and two months having been employed
diligently in some additions and repairs, the fallen Emperor took
possession of his appointed abode on the 10th of December. The very
limited accommodation of the Briars (where, indeed, Napoleon merely
occupied a pavilion of two chambers in the garden of a Mr. Balcombe),
had hitherto prevented him from having, all his little suite of
attendants under the same roof with him. They were now re-assembled at
Longwood, with the exception of M. and Mme. Montholon, who occupied a
separate house at some little distance from it. While at The Briars,
Napoleon made himself eminently agreeable to the family of the
Balcombes, particularly the young ladies and children, and submitted on
the whole with temper and grace to the inconveniences of narrow
accommodation in-doors, and an almost total want of exercise
abroad--this last evil occasioned wholly by his own reluctance to ride
out in the neighbourhood of the town. He continued also to live on terms
of perfect civility with Sir George Cockburn; and, notwithstanding some
occasional ebullitions of violence, there seemed to be no reason for
doubting that, when fairly established with his suite about him, he
would gradually reconcile himself to the situation in which he was
likely to remain, and turn his powerful faculties upon some study or
pursuit worthy of their energy, and capable of cheating captivity of
half its bitterness. These anticipations were not realised.

The accusations brought by the prisoner and his instruments against the
government of England, in regard to the accommodations at Longwood, the
arrangements concerning the household establishment, and the regulations
adopted with a view to the security of his person, have been so often
answered in detail, that we may spare ourselves the pain of dwelling on
transactions little worthy of filling a large space in the story of
Napoleon. It being granted that it was necessary to provide against the
evasion of Buonaparte; that the protracted separation from him of his
wife and son (not, at any rate, the act of England, but of Austria) was
in itself justified by obvious political considerations; and that
England would have given good reason of offence to the King of France,
had she complied with Napoleon's repeated demands, to be styled and
treated as Emperor--if these things be granted, we do not see how even
the shadow of blame can attach to the much-abused ministers, on whom
fortune threw one of the most delicate and thankless of all offices. His
house was, save one (that of the governor), the best on the island: from
the beginning it was signified that any alterations or additions,
suggested by Napoleon, would be immediately attended to; and the
framework of many apartments was actually prepared in England, to be
sent out and distributed according to his pleasure. As it was, Napoleon
had for his own immediate personal accommodation, a suite of rooms,
consisting of a saloon, an eating-room, a library, a billiard-room, a
small study, a bedroom, and a bathroom; and various English gentlemen,
accustomed to all the appliances of modern luxury, who visited the exile
of Longwood, concur in stating that the accommodations around him
appeared to them every way complete and unobjectionable. He had a good
collection of books, and the means of adding to these as much as he
chose. His suite consisted in all of five gentlemen and two ladies: the
superior French and Italian domestics about his own person were never
fewer than eleven; and the sum allowed for his domestic expenditure was
£12,000 per annum--the governor of St. Helena, moreover, having
authority to draw on the treasury for any larger sum, in case he should
consider £12,000 as insufficient. When we consider that wines, and most
other articles heavily taxed in England, go duty-free to St. Helena, it
is really intolerable to be told that this income was not adequate--nay,
that it was not munificent--for a person in Napoleon's situation. It was
a larger income than is allotted to the governor of any English colony
whatever, except the governor-general of India. It was twice as large as
the official income of a British secretary of state has ever been. We
decline entering at all into the minor charges connected with this
humiliating subject: at least a single example may serve. One of the
loudest complaints was about the deficiency and inferior quality of
wine: on examination it appeared, that Napoleon's upper domestics were
allowed each day, per man, a bottle of claret, costing £6 per dozen
(without duty) and the lowest menial employed at Longwood a bottle of
good Teneriffe wine daily.--That the table of the fallen Emperor himself
was always served in a style at least answerable to the dignity of a
general officer in the British service--this was never even denied.
Passing from the interior--we conceive that we cannot do better than
quote the language of one of his casual and impartial visitors, Mr.
Ellis. "There never, perhaps," (says this gentleman), "was a prisoner,
so much requiring to be watched and guarded, to whom so much liberty and
range for exercise was allowed. With an officer he may go over any part
of the island: wholly unobserved, his limits extend four
miles--partially observed, eight--and overlooked twelve. At night the
sentinels certainly close round Longwood itself." It indeed appears
impossible to conceive of a _prisoner_ more liberally treated in all
these respects. There remains the constantly repeated vituperation of
the climate of St. Helena. It appears, however, by tables kept and
published by Dr. Arnott, that the sick list of a regiment, stationed
close to Buonaparte's residence during his stay, rarely contained more
than one name out of forty-five--a proportion which must be admitted to
be most remarkably small. In effect, the house of Longwood stands 2000
feet above the level of the sea; the ocean breezes purify the air
continually; and within the tropics there is probably no healthier
situation whatever. If it be said that Napoleon should not have been
confined within the tropics at all--it is answered that it was
_necessary_ to remove him from the neighbourhood of the countries in
which his name was the watchword of rebellion and discord--and that,
after all, Napoleon was a native of Corsica, one of the hottest climates
in Europe, and was at all times, constitutionally, able to endure the
extremes of heat much better than of cold--witness Egypt and Russia.

There was a rule that Napoleon's correspondence should all pass through
the hands of the governor of St. Helena--and this Sir Walter Scott
condemns. Had the English government acted on the Buonapartean model,
they would have made no such regulation, but taken the liberty of
privately examining his letters, and resealing them, after the fashion
of the post-office under Lavalette. It diminishes our regret when we
learn from Sir Walter Scott's next page, that, in spite of all laws and
severities on this score, Napoleon and the companions of his exile
contrived, from the beginning to the end, to communicate with their
friends in Europe, without the supervision of any English authorities
whatever.

The finishing touch is put to the picture of unworthy duplicity by one
of Napoleon's own followers, and most noisy champions, General Gourgaud.
This gentleman himself informed the English government, that at the time
when Napoleon, in order to create the notion that his supplies were
restricted beyond all endurance, sent some plate to James's Town to be
broken up and sold, he, Napoleon, had in his strong box at Longwood at
least £10,000 in gold coin.

There is one name which will descend to posterity laden with a tenfold
portion of the abuse which Napoleon and his associates lavished on all
persons connected in any degree with the superintendence and control of
his captive condition--that of Sir Hudson Lowe, a general officer in the
English army, who became governor of St. Helena in May, 1816, and
continued to hold that situation down to the period of the ex-emperor's
death in 1821. The vanity of Napoleon appears to have been wounded from
the beginning by this appointment. According to him, no person ought in
decency to have been entrusted with the permanent care of his detention,
but some English nobleman of the highest rank. The answer is very plain,
that the situation was not likely to find favour in the eyes of any
such person; and when one considers what the birth and manners of by far
the greater number of Buonaparte's own courtiers, peers and princes
included, were, it is difficult to repress wonder in listening to this
particular subject of complaint. Passing over this original quarrel--it
appears that, according to Buonaparte's own admission, Sir H. Lowe
endeavoured, when he took his thankless office upon him, to place the
intercourse between himself and his prisoner on a footing as gracious as
could well be looked for under all the circumstances of the case; and
that he, the ex-emperor, ere the governor had been a week at St. Helena,
condescended to insult him to his face by language so extravagantly,
intolerably, and vulgarly offensive, as never ought, under any
circumstances whatever, to have stained the lips of one who made any
pretension to the character of a gentleman. Granting that Sir Hudson
Lowe was not an officer of the first distinction--it must be admitted
that he did no wrong in accepting a duty offered to him by his
government; and that Napoleon was guilty, not only of indecorum, but of
meanness, in reproaching a man so situated, as he did almost at their
first interview, with the circumstances--of which at worst it could but
be said that they were not splendid--of his previous life. But this is
far too little. Granting that Sir Hudson Lowe had been in history and in
conduct, both before he came to St. Helena and during his stay there,
all that the most ferocious libels of the Buonapartists have ever dared
to say or to insinuate--it would still remain a theme of unmixed wonder
and regret, that Napoleon Buonaparte should have stooped to visit on his
head the wrongs which, if they were wrongs, proceeded not from the
governor of St. Helena, but from the English ministry, whose servant he
was. "I can only account," says Mr. Ellis, "for his petulance and
unfounded complaints from one of two motives--either he wishes by these
means to keep alive an interest in Europe, and more especially in
England, where he flatters himself he has a party; or his troubled mind
finds an occupation in the tracasseries which his present conduct gives
to the governor. If the latter be the case, it is in vain for any
governor to unite being on good terms with him to the performance of his
duty."

Napoleon did everything he could to irritate this unfortunate governor.
He called him _scrivener, thieftaker, liar, hangman_; rejected all his
civilities as insults; encouraged his attendants to rival in these
particulars the audacity of his own language and conduct; refused by
degrees to take the exercise which his health required, on pretext that
it did him more harm than good when he knew himself to be riding within
view of English sentinels (which was not necessary at all within four
miles of Longwood), or attended by an English officer--which was not
necessary unless at the distance of twelve miles from Longwood: above
all, opposed every obstacle to the enforcement of that most proper
regulation which made it necessary that his person should, once in every
twenty-four hours, be visible to some British officer. In a word,
Napoleon Buonaparte bent the whole energies of his mighty intellect to
the ignoble task of tormenting Sir Hudson Lowe; and the extremities of
degradation to which these efforts occasionally reduced himself, in the
eyes of his own attendants, are such as we dare not particularise, and
as will be guessed by no one who has not read the memoir of his Italian
doctor, Antommarchi.

Meantime, the great object was effectually attained. The wrongs of
Napoleon, the cold cruelty of the English government, and the pestilent
petty tyranny of Sir Hudson Lowe, were the perpetual themes of
table-talk all over Europe. There were statesmen of high rank in either
house of the British parliament, who periodically descanted on these
topics--and the answers as often elicited from the ministers of the
crown, only silenced such declamations for the moment, that they might
be renewed with increased violence after time had elapsed sufficient to
allow the news to come back to England with the comments of Longwood.
The utter impossibility of an escape from St. Helena was assumed on all
such occasions, with the obvious inference that there could be no use
for sentinels and domiciliary visitations at Longwood, except for the
gratification of malignant power. But it is now ascertained, that,
throughout the whole period of the detention, schemes of evasion were in
agitation at St. Helena, and that agents were busy, sometimes in London,
more frequently in North America, with preparations which had no other
object in view. A steamship, halting just beyond the line of sight,
might undoubtedly have received Napoleon at certain seasons of the year
without difficulty, could he only contrive to elude the nocturnal
vigilance of the sentinels about the house of Longwood: and that this
was impossible, or even difficult, General Gourgaud himself does not
hesitate to deny. The rumours of these plots reached from time to time
Sir Hudson Lowe; and, quickening of course his fears and his
circumspection, kept the wounds of jealousy and distrust continually
open and angry.

There were moments, however, in which Napoleon appeared, to persons
likely to influence public feeling in Europe by their reports, in
attitudes of a far different description. When strangers of eminence
(generally officers on their way to or from India), halting at St.
Helena, requested and obtained permission to pay their respects at
Longwood, Napoleon received them, for the most part, with the ease and
dignity of a man superior to adversity. It was by these worthier
exhibitions that the fallen Emperor earned the lofty eulogy of Byron:

    "--Well thy soul hath brooked the turning tide,
    With that untaught innate philosophy,
    Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride,
    Is gall and wormwood to an enemy.
    When the whole host of hatred stood hard by,
    To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled
    With a sedate and all-enduring eye;
    When Fortune fled her spoiled and favourite child,
    He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled."

Among the visitors now alluded to was Captain Basil Hall: and he has,
perhaps, presented the world with the most graphic sketch of Napoleon as
he appeared on such occasions at Longwood. "Buonaparte" (says this
traveller) "struck me (Aug. 13, 1817) as differing considerably from all
the pictures and busts I had seen of him. His face and figure looked
much broader and more square--larger, indeed, in every way, than any
representation I had met with. His corpulency, at this time reported to
be excessive, was by no means remarkable. His flesh looked, on the
contrary, firm and muscular. There was not the least trace of colour in
his cheeks; in fact, his skin was more like marble than ordinary flesh.
Not the smallest wrinkle was discernible on his brow, nor an approach to
a furrow on any part of his countenance. His health and spirits, judging
from appearances, were excellent; though, at this period, it was
generally believed in England that he was fast sinking under a
complication of diseases, and that his spirits were entirely gone. His
manner of speaking was rather slow than otherwise, and perfectly
distinct: and he waited with great patience and kindness for my answers
to his questions. The brilliant and sometimes dazzling expression of his
eye could not be overlooked. It was not, however, a permanent lustre,
for it was only remarkable when he was excited by some point of
particular interest. It is impossible to imagine an expression of more
entire mildness, I may almost call it of benignity and kindliness, than
that which played over his features during the whole interview. If,
therefore, he was at this time out of health and in low spirits, his
power of self-command must have been even more extraordinary than is
generally supposed; for his whole deportment, his conversation, and the
expression of his face, indicated a frame in perfect health, and a mind
at ease."

These favourable reports from seemingly impartial witnesses, lent new
wings to the tale of Sir Hudson Lowe's oppression; and perhaps the exile
of St. Helena continued to fill a larger space in the eye of the world
at large, than had ever before fallen to the lot of one removed for
ever, to all appearance, from the great theatre of human passions. It
was then that Lord Byron thus apostrophised him:

    "Conqueror and Captive of the Earth art thou!
    She trembles at thee still--and thy wild name
    Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now
    That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame,
    Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal and became
    The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert
    A god unto thyself--nor less the same
    To the astounded kingdoms all inert,
    Who deemed thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert."

And it was then that an English nobleman of high rank, who throughout
manifested especial interest in the fortunes of Napoleon, inscribed his
statue (in the gardens of Holland House) with the lines of Homer:

    Οὐ γαρ πω τεθνηκεν ἐπι χθονι δῐος Ὀδυσσευς,
    Αλλ' ἐτι πω ζωος κατερυκεται εὐρεϊ ποντῳ
    Νησῳ ἐν ἀμφιρυτῃ· χαλεποι δε μιν ἀνδρες ἐχουσιν.[74]

In ordinary times, the course of Napoleon's life at Longwood appears to
have been as follows. He rose early, and, as soon as he was out of bed,
either mounted on horseback, or began to dictate some part of the
history of his life to Montholon or Gourgaud. He breakfasted _à la
fourchette_, sometimes alone, sometimes with his suite, between 10 and
11 o'clock; read or dictated until between 2 and 3, when he received
such visitors as he chose to admit. He then rode out, either on
horseback or in his carriage, for a couple of hours, attended generally
by all his suite; then read or dictated again until near eight, at which
hour dinner was served. He preferred plain food, and ate plentifully. A
few glasses of claret, less than an English pint, were taken during
dinner; and a cup of coffee concluded the second and last meal of the
day, as the first. A single glass of champagne, or any stronger wine,
was sufficient to call the blood into his cheek. His constitutional
delicacy of stomach, indeed, is said to have been such, that it was at
all times actually impossible for him to indulge any of the coarser
appetites of our nature to excess. He took, however, great quantities of
snuff. A game of chess, a French tragedy read aloud, or conversation,
closed the evening. The habits of his life had taught him to need but
little sleep, and to take this by starts; and he generally had some one
to read to him after he went to bed at night, as is common with those
whose pillows are pressed by anxious heads.

Napoleon was elaborately careful of his person. He loved the bath, and
took it at least once every day. His dress at St. Helena was generally
the same which he had worn at the Tuileries as Emperor--viz. the green
uniform, faced with red, of the chasseurs of the guard, with the star
and cordon of the Legion of Honour. His suite to the last continued to
maintain around him, as far as was possible, the style and circumstance
of his court.

As early as the battle of Waterloo, reports were prevalent in France
that Napoleon's health was declining; yet we have already seen that, so
late as April, 1817, no symptom of bodily illness could be traced in his
external appearance. From this time, however, his attendants continued
to urge, with increasing vehemence, the necessity of granting more
indulgence, in consequence of the shattered condition of his
constitution: and, although such suggestions were, for obvious reasons,
listened to at first with considerable suspicion, there can be little
doubt now, that in this matter the fame of Longwood spake truth.

Dr. Arnott, an English physician, already referred to, who attended on
Napoleon's death-bed, has informed us that he himself frequently
reverted to the fact, that his father died of scirrhus of the pylorus.
"We have high authority" (says this writer) "that this affection of the
stomach cannot be produced without a considerable predisposition of the
parts to disease. If, then, it should be admitted that a previous
disposition of the parts to this disease did exist, might not the
depressing passions of the mind act as an exciting cause? It is more
than probable that Napoleon Buonaparte's mental sufferings in St. Helena
were very poignant. By a man of such unbounded ambition, and who had
once aimed at universal dominion, captivity must have been severely
felt. I can safely assert, that any one of temperate habits, who is not
exposed to much bodily exertion, night air, and atmospherical changes,
may have as much immunity from disease in St. Helena as in Europe; and I
may, therefore, further assert, that the disease of which Buonaparte
died was _not_ the effect of climate."--It is added, that out of all
Napoleon's family, which, including English and Chinese servants,
amounted to fifty persons, only one individual died during the five
years of their stay in St. Helena, and this man, an Italian major-domo,
had brought the seeds of consumption with him from Europe.

In March, 1817, Lord Holland made a solemn appeal to the British
Parliament on the subject of Napoleon's treatment, and was answered by
Lord Bathurst--in such a manner that not one could be found to second
him. The intelligence of this appears to have exerted a powerful
influence on the spirits of the captive. It was about the 25th of
September 1818, that his health began to be affected in a manner
sufficient to excite alarm in Dr. O'Meara, who informed him, that unless
he took regular exercise out of doors (which of late he had seldom
done), the progress of the evil would be rapid. Napoleon declared, in
answer, that he would never more take exercise while exposed to the
challenge of sentinels. The physician stated, that if he persisted, the
end would be fatal. "I shall have this consolation at least," answered
he, "that my death will be an eternal dishonour to the English nation,
who sent me to this climate to die under the hands of...." O'Meara again
represented the consequences of his obstinacy. "That which is written,
is written," said Napoleon, looking up, "our days are reckoned."

Shortly after this, O'Meara--being detected in a suspicious
correspondence with one Holmes, Napoleon's pecuniary agent in
London--was sent home by Sir Hudson Lowe; and, Napoleon declining to
receive any physician of the governor's nomination instead, an Italian,
by name Antommarchi, was sent out by his sister Pauline. With this
doctor there came also two Italian priests, whose presence Napoleon
himself had solicited, and selected by his uncle, Cardinal Fesch.

His obstinate refusal to take bodily exercise might have sprung in some
measure from internal and indescribable sensations. To all Antommarchi's
medical prescriptions, he opposed the like determination. "Doctor," he
said (14th October 1820), "no physicking; we are a machine made to live;
we are organised for that purpose, and such is our nature; do not
counteract the living principle--let it alone--leave it the liberty of
self-defence--it will do better than your drugs. Our body is a watch,
intended to go for a given time. The watchmaker cannot open it, and must
work at random. For once that he relieves or assists it by his crooked
instruments, he injured it ten times, and at last destroys it."

With the health of Napoleon his mind sank also. Some fishes in a pond in
the garden at Longwood had attracted his notice; a deleterious substance
happened to mix with the water--they sickened and died. "Everything I
love," said Napoleon, "everything that belongs to _me_--is stricken.
Heaven and mankind unite to afflict me." Fits of long silence and
profound melancholy were now frequent. "In those days," he once said
aloud, in a reverie, "In those days I was Napoleon. Now I am nothing--my
strength, my faculties forsake me--I no longer live, I only exist."

When Sir Hudson Lowe was made aware of the condition of the captive, he
informed the government at home; and by his Majesty's desire, authority
was immediately given for removing to St. Helena from the Cape, any
medical officer on whom Napoleon's choice might fall. This despatch did
not, however, reach St. Helena, until Napoleon had breathed his last.

About the middle of April, 1821, the disease assumed such an appearance,
that Dr. Antommarchi became very anxious to have the advice of some
English physician, and the patient at length consented to admit the
visits of Dr. Arnott, already referred to. But this gentleman also was
heard in vain urging the necessity of medical applications. "Quod
scriptum scriptum," once more answered Napoleon; "our hour is marked,
and no one can claim a moment of life beyond what fate has predestined."

From the 15th to the 25th of April, Napoleon occupied himself with
drawing up his last will--in which he bequeathed his orders, and a
specimen of every article in his wardrobe, to his son. On the 18th he
gave directions for opening his body after death, expressing a special
desire that his stomach should be scrutinised, and its appearances
communicated to his son. "The vomitings," he said, "which succeed one
another without interruption, seem to show that of all my organs the
stomach is the most diseased. I am inclined to believe it is attacked
with the disorder which killed my father--a scirrhus in the pylorus--the
physicians of Montpelier prophesied it would be hereditary in our
family." He also gave directions to the priest Vignali as to the manner
in which he wished his body to be laid out in a _chambre ardente_ (a
state-room lighted with torches). "I am neither an atheist," said
Napoleon, "nor a rationalist; I believe in God, and am of the religion
of my father. I was born a Catholic, and will fulfil all the duties of
that church, and receive the assistance which she administers."

On the 3rd of May it became evident that the scene was near its close.
The attendants would fain have called in more medical men; but they
durst not, knowing his feelings on this head: "Even had he been
speechless," said one of them, "we could not have brooked his eye." The
last sacraments of the church were now administered by Vignali. He
lingered on thenceforth in a delirious stupor. On the 4th the island was
swept by a tremendous storm, which tore up almost all the trees about
Longwood by the roots. The 5th was another day of tempests; and about
six in the evening, Napoleon--having pronounced the words "tête
d'armée," passed for ever from the dreams of battle.

On the 6th of May the body being opened by Antommarchi, in the presence
of five British medical men, and a number of the military officers of
the garrison, as well as Bertrand and Montholon, the cause of death was
sufficiently manifest. A cancerous ulcer occupied almost the whole of
the stomach.

Napoleon desired in his will, that his body should be buried "on the
banks of the Seine; among the French people, whom he had loved so well."
Sir Hudson Lowe could not, of course, expect the King of France to
permit this to take place; and a grave was prepared among some weeping
willows beside a fountain, in a small valley called _Slane's_, very near
to Longwood. It was under the shade of these willows that the Exile had
had his favourite evening seat; and it was there he had been heard to
say, that if he must be interred in St. Helena, he would prefer to lie.

The body of the Emperor, clad in his usual uniform, was now exposed to
the public view, and visited accordingly by all the population of the
island. The soldiers of the garrison passed the couch slowly, in single
file; each officer pausing, in his turn, to press respectfully the
frozen hand of the dead. On the 8th, his household, the governor, the
admiral, and all the civil and military authorities of the place,
attended him to the grave--the pall spread over his coffin being the
military cloak which he wore at Marengo. The road not being passable for
carriages, a party of English grenadiers bore Napoleon to his tomb. The
admiral's ship fired minute guns, while Vignali read the service of his
church. The coffin then descended amidst a discharge of three volleys
from fifteen cannon; and a huge stone was lowered over the remains of
one who needs no epitaph.

       *       *       *       *       *

Napoleon confessed more than once at Longwood that he owed his downfall
to nothing but the extravagance of his own errors. "It must be owned,"
said he, "that fortune spoiled me. Ere I was thirty years of age, I
found myself invested with great power, and the mover of great events."
No one, indeed, can hope to judge him fairly, either in the brilliancy
of his day or the troubled darkness of his evening, who does not task
imagination to conceive the natural effects, on a temperament and genius
so fiery and daring, of that almost instantaneous transition from
poverty and obscurity to the summit of fame, fortune, and power. The
blaze which dazzled other men's eyes, had fatal influence on his. He
began to believe that there was something superhuman in his own
faculties, and that he was privileged to deny that any laws were made
for him. Obligations by which he expected all besides to be fettered, he
considered himself entitled to snap and trample. He became a deity to
himself; and expected mankind not merely to submit to, but to admire and
reverence, the actions of a demon. Well says the Poet,

    "O! more or less than man--in high or low,
    Battling with nations, flying from the field;
    Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now
    More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield;
    An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild,
    But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor,
    However deeply in, men's spirits skilled,
    Look through thine own--nor curb the lust of war,
    Nor learn that tempted fate will leave the loftiest star."

His heart was naturally cold. His school-companion, who was afterwards
his secretary, confesses that, even in the spring of youth, he was very
little disposed to form friendships.[75] To say that he was incapable of
such feelings, or that he really never had a friend, would be to deny to
him any part in the nature and destiny of his species.--No one ever
dared to be altogether alone in the world.--But we doubt if any man ever
passed through life, sympathising so slightly with mankind; and the most
wonderful part of his story is, the intensity of sway which he exerted
over the minds of those in whom he so seldom permitted himself to
contemplate anything more than the tools of his own ambition. So great a
spirit must have had glimpses of whatever adorns and dignifies the
character of man. But with him the feelings which bind love played only
on the surface--leaving the abyss of selfishness untouched. His one
instrument of power was genius; hence his influence was greatest among
those who had little access to observe, closely and leisurely, the
minutiæ of his personal character and demeanour. The exceptions to this
rule were very few.

Pride and vanity were strangely mingled in his composition. Who does
not pity the noble chamberlain that confesses his blood to have run cold
when he heard Napoleon--seated at dinner at Dresden among a circle of
crowned heads--begin a story with, _When I was a lieutenant in the
regiment of La Fere_? Who does not pity Napoleon when he is heard
speaking of some decorations in the Tuileries, as having taken place "in
the time of the king, my uncle?"[76]

This last weakness was the main engine of his overthrow. When he
condescended to mimic all the established etiquettes of feudal
monarchy--when he coined titles and lavished stars, and sought to melt
his family into the small circle of hereditary princes--he adopted the
surest means which could have been devised for alienating from himself
the affections of all the men of the revolution, the army alone
excepted, and for re-animating the hopes and exertions of the
Bourbonists. It is clear that thenceforth he leaned almost wholly on the
soldiery. No civil changes could after this affect his real position.
Oaths and vows, charters and concessions, all were alike in vain. When
the army was humbled and weakened in 1814, he fell from his throne,
without one voice being lifted up in his favour. The army was no sooner
strengthened, and re-encouraged, then it recalled him. He re-ascended
the giddy height, with the daring step of a hero, and professed his
desire to scatter from it nothing but justice and mercy. But no man
trusted his words. His army was ruined at Waterloo; and the brief day of
the second reign passed, without a twilight, into midnight.

We are not yet far enough from Buonaparte to estimate the effects of his
career. He recast the art of war; and was conquered in the end by men
who had caught wisdom and inspiration from his own campaigns. He gave
both permanency and breadth to the influence of the French Revolution.
His reign, short as it was, was sufficient to make it impossible that
the offensive privileges of _caste_ should ever be revived in France;
and, this iniquity being once removed, there could be little doubt that
such a nation would gradually acquire possession of a body of
institutions worthy of its intelligence. Napoleon was as essentially,
and irreclaimably, a despot, as a warrior; but his successor, whether a
Bourbon or a Buonaparte, was likely to be a constitutional sovereign.
The tyranny of a meaner hand would not have been endured after that
precedent.

On Europe at large he has left traces of his empire, not less marked or
important. He broke down the barriers everywhere of custom and
prejudice; and revolutionised the spirit of the Continent. His successes
and his double downfall taught absolute princes their weakness and
injured nations their strength. Such hurricanes of passion as the French
Revolution--such sweeping scourges of mankind as Napoleon Buonaparte,
are not permitted but as the avengers of great evils, and the harbingers
of great good. Of the influence of both, as regards the continent, it
may be safely said--that even now we have seen only "the beginning of
the end." The reigning sovereigns of Europe are, with rare exceptions,
benevolent and humane men; and their subjects, no less than they, ought
to remember the lesson of all history--that violent and sudden changes,
in the structure of social and political order, have never yet occurred,
without inflicting utter misery upon at least one generation.

It was England that fought the great battle throughout on the same
principle, without flinching; and, but for her perseverance, all the
rest would have struggled in vain. It is to be hoped that the British
nation will continue to see, and to reverence, in the contest and in its
result, the immeasurable advantages which the sober strength of a free
but fixed constitution possesses over the mad energies of anarchy on the
one hand, and, on the other, over all that despotic selfishness can
effect, even under the guidance of the most consummate genius.

[Footnote 74:

    "The godlike Ulysses is not yet dead upon the earth;
    He still lingers a living captive within the breadth of ocean,
    In some unapproachable island, where savage men detain him."

ODYSS. book i. ver. 195.]

[Footnote 75: Très peu aimant.]

[Footnote 76: _Louis XVI.!_--married to the aunt of Maria Louisa--See
Bourienne.]




INDEX


Abercrombie, Sir Ralph, in Egypt, 164

Aberdeen, Earl of, 399

Aboukir, battle of, 95;
  Turks defeated at, 107

Acre, siege of, 101, 102

Alexander, Emperor of Russia, resents the murder of the Duke
      d'Enghien, 210;
  stimulates King of Prussia against Napoleon, 211;
  meets Napoleon at Tilsit, 254

Alexandria captured by French, 89;
  battle of, 164

Allies approach Paris, 420;
  their proclamation, 427;
  enter Paris, 429;
  refuse to treat with Napoleon, 430;
  resolved to restore Louis XVIII., 430

Almeida, siege of, 327

Aloys Reding, 178

Alps, passage of the, 143-145

Alvinzi, Marshal, opposes Napoleon, 50, _et seq._

Amiens, peace of, 166, 168;
  rupture of treaty of, 187

Ancona occupied by French, 61

Andalusia, Dupont marches into, 279

Andreossi, General, 30

Antommarchi, Dr., 501

Arcola, Napoleon's narrow escape at, 54;
  three battles at, 52-54

Arnott, Dr., 493, 500

Asperne, battle of, 300, 301

Augereau, General, 24, 44, 61;
  made Marshal, 207

Austerlitz, battle of, 223

Austria, Venice handed over to, 75;
  declares war against France, 296, 382


Badajos taken by Lord Wellington, 329

Bagrathion, General, 344;
  death of, 347

Baird, General, 165

Barclay de Tolly, 337

Barras, 20, 21

Bassano, battle of, 48

Bavaria, Elector of, created King, 225

Bautzen, battle of, 379

Baylen, battle of, 279

Beauharnois, Eugene, first meeting with Napoleon, 22:
  appointed Viceroy of Italy, 209;
  marries daughter of King of Bavaria, 225

Beauharnois, Hortense, marries Louis Buonaparte, 310;
  her intrigues, 314

Beauharnois, Josephine, first meeting with Napoleon, 22;
  marries Napoleon, 23;
  her influence, 23, 310;
  her court at Montebello, 74;
  her extravagance, 134;
  divorced, 309;
  her death, 437

Beaulieu, 26, 27;
  superseded by Wurmser, 42

Bennigsen, General, 244-252

Beresina, passage of the, 365

Berlin decrees, 240

Bernadotte, his conduct on 18th Brumaire, 119;
  made Marshal, 207;
  created Prince of Corvo, 226;
  elected Crown Prince of Sweden, 317;
  Napoleon's conduct towards, 332;
  lands in Germany, 375

Berri, Duke of, 458

Berthier made Marshal, 207;
  created Prince of Neufchatel, 226

Bertrand, General, 438

Bessieres, made Marshal, 207;
  death of, 377

Blucher, General, opposes Napoleon, 374, _et seq._;
  at Ligny and Waterloo, 466, _et seq._

Borodino, battle of, 347

Boulogne, flotilla of, 166, 191

Bourbons, restoration of, 435

Bourienne, De, 4, 7, 67, 105

Braganzas, flight of the, 267

Brienne, battle of, 407

Brueyes, Admiral, 94, 95

Brumaire, revolution of 18th, 119

Buonaparte, Charles, 1

Buonaparte, Eliza, made Princess of Lucca. 226

Buonaparte, Jerome, made King of Westphalia, 255

Buonaparte, Joseph, made King of Naples, 225;
  made King of Spain, 274;
  leaves Madrid, 280;
  civil commander of Paris, 406;
  flight from Paris, 423

Buonaparte, Louis, made King of Holland, 226;
  deposed by Napoleon and retires to Gratz, 314

Buonaparte, Lucien, president of Council of Five Hundred, 115;
  conduct on 19th Brumaire, 121;
  his pamphlet, 158;
  ambassador to Spain, 159;
  quits France for England, 323

Buonaparte, Napoleon, birth and parentage, 1;
  education at Brienne, 3, 4;
  at Paris, 5;
  appointed second lieutenant of artillery, 6;
  political views, 6;
  made captain of artillery, 6;
  De Bourienne's description of, 7;
  first military service, 8;
  commands artillery at Toulon, 9;
  wounded at Toulon, 12;
  surveys Mediterranean coast fortifications, 14;
  chief of battalion in army of Italy, 15;
  is superseded, 15;
  in love with Mdlle. Clery, 16;
  at Paris, 16;
  refuses to go to La Vendée, 16;
  name erased from list of officers, 16;
  asks to be sent to Turkey, 16;
  commands artillery brigade, 17;
  commands army of interior, 21;
  meets Josephine, 22;
  marries Josephine, 23;
  commands army of Italy, 24;
  at Monte Notte, 27;
  at Millesimo, 27;
  at Mondovi, 28;
  dictates peace to Sardinia, 28;
  crosses the Po, 30;
  at the bridge of Lodi, 31;
  enters Milan, 33;
  seizes works of art, 34;
  suspected by the Directory, 35;
  crosses the Mincio, 36;
  escapes capture at Valleggio, 37;
  besieges Mantua, 38;
  insults Venice, 39;
  peace with Sicily, 39;
  grants respite to Pope, 40;
  seizes Leghorn and enters Florence, 40;
  policy in Italy, 41;
  at battle of Lonato and narrow escape, 44, 45;
  defeats Wurmser, 45;
  marches on Mantua, 46;
  at Roveredo, 47;
  at Primolano and Bassano, 48;
  escapes capture at Arcola, 49;
  sends expedition to Corsica, 50;
  at Arcola, 52;
  life saved by Muiron, 54;
  forms new Italian republics, 55;
  at battle of Rivoli, 57;
  grants terms to Mantua, 60;
  wars against the Pope, 61;
  treaty of Tollentino, 63;
  at battle of Tagliamento, 65;
  treaty of Leoben, 67;
  conquers Venice, 69;
  offered bribes, 70;
  discovers Pichegru's intrigues, 70;
  at Montebello, 74;
  treaty of Campo-Formio, 75;
  at congress at Rastadt, 78;
  returns to Paris, 79;
  conduct in Paris, 79, 80;
  appointed to command army for invasion of England, 83;
  opinion of projected invasion, 84;
  suggests seizure of Malta and invasion of Egypt, 85;
  forms troop of "Savans," 86;
  at Toulon, 86;
  embarks for Egypt, 87;
  captures Malta, 88;
  escapes Nelson and takes Alexandria, 89;
  conduct in Egypt, 89-92;
  at the Pyramids, 93;
  enters Cairo, 94;
  administration in Egypt, 96;
  remarks on battle of Aboukir, 96;
  quells insurrection at Cairo, 98;
  explores isthmus of Suez, 99;
  visits Mount Sinai and explores Red Sea, 99;
  marches for Syria, 99;
  captures El-Arish, Gazah and Jaffa, 100;
  orders massacre of prisoners, 100;
  besieges Acre, 101;
  rescues Junot at Nazareth and Kleber at Mount Tabor, 102;
  retreats to Jaffa, 104;
  massacres Turkish prisoners, 104;
  arrives at Alexandria and defeats Turks at Aboukir, 107;
  embarks for France, 109;
  instructions to Kleber, 109, 110;
  occupations on voyage, 113;
  lands at Frejus, 114;
  reception by Directory in Paris, 114;
  conduct on 18th Brumaire, 118;
  commands troops in Paris, 118;
  enters Council of Five Hundred, 121;
  dissolves Council and establishes provisional consulate, 123;
  at the Luxembourg, 124;
  re-opens churches, 126;
  pacifies Chouans, 127;
  made Chief Consul, 129;
  occupies the Tuileries, 131;
  writes to King of England, 136;
  at Dijon, 142;
  crosses the Alps, 143;
  takes St. Bard, 146;
  enters Milan, 149;
  at Marengo, 151;
  establishes Cisalpine Republic, 154;
  arrives in Paris, 155;
  attempted assassination, 157;
  conduct towards the Pope, 162;
  prepares to invade England, 165;
  peace with England, 166;
  his court, 169;
  allows emigrants to return, 169;
  re-establishes Catholic religion, 170;
  concordat with Pope, 171;
  institutes Legion of Honour, 175;
  First Consul for life, 176;
  Grand Mediator of Helvetic Republic, 178;
  sends expedition to St. Domingo, 178;
  banishes negroes, 180;
  negotiates with Louis XVIII., 183;
  arrests English subjects, 187;
  seizes Hanover and Naples, 189;
  prepares to invade England, 190;
  conspiracy against him, 194;
  condemns the Duke d'Enghien, 198;
  declared Emperor, 206;
  at Boulogne and Aix-la-Chapelle, 207;
  crowned in Notre Dame, and at Milan, 208;
  heads army in Germany, 212;
  enters Vienna, 215;
  at Austerlitz, 221;
  offers Hanover to Prussia, 224;
  confers crowns on his relatives, 226;
  at Jena, 234;
  exactions in Prussia, 238;
  robs monument of Frederick the Great, 239;
  issues decrees of Berlin, 240;
  takes Warsaw, 244;
  at battle of Preuss-Eylau, 247;
  meets Russian Emperor at Tilsit, 254;
  his administration in France, 259-264;
  relations with Spain, 265, _et seq._;
  at Erfurt, 288;
  at Vittoria, 289;
  at Samosierra, 290;
  takes Madrid and abolishes Inquisition, 292;
  leaves Spain, 295;
  in Germany, 296;
  at battle of Eckmuhl, 297;
  wounded at Ratisbonne, 298;
  takes Vienna, 298;
  at Asperne and Essling, 301;
  at Wagram, 302;
  attempted assassination, 305;
  decree against the Pope, 306;
  concludes peace with Austria, 307;
  divorces Josephine, 311;
  marries Maria Louisa, 312;
  deposes his brother Louis, 314;
  annexes Holland, 315;
  birth of his son, 320;
  prepares for war with Russia, 324;
  at Dresden, 336;
  at Dantzick, 337;
  address to his army, 337;
  passes the Niemen, 340;
  at Wilna, 341;
  marches for Moscow, 344;
  at battle of Borodino, 346;
  enters Moscow, 348;
  at the Kremlin, 349;
  retreats from Moscow, 355;
  at Verreia, 357;
  at Smolensko, 358;
  sufferings of his army, 358;
  passes the Beresina, 365;
  quits his army, 367;
  arrives in Paris, 368;
  his military preparations, 372;
  heads his army in Saxony, 376;
  at battle of Lutzen, 377;
  enters Dresden, 377;
  at Bautzen, 379;
  agrees to an armistice, 380;
  interview with Metternich, 381;
  at battle of Dresden, 387;
  at battle of Leipsig, 390;
  at battle of Hanau, 394;
  returns to Paris, 394;
  his obstinacy, 398;
  dissolves Legislative Senate, 401;
  releases the Pope and Ferdinand VII., 401;
  announces the invasion of France, 404;
  leaves Paris, 406;
  life saved at battle of Brienne, 407;
  at battle of La Rothiere, 407;
  his expedition to the Marne, 409;
  at Nangis, 410;
  dismisses Victor, 411;
  at battle of Montereau, 411;
  refuses to sign peace preliminaries, 412;
  at Troyes, 413;
  repulsed at Soissons, 414;
  at battles of Craonne and Laon, 414;
  captures Rheims, 415;
  his remarkable energy, 416;
  distrusted at Paris, 419;
  at St. Dizier, 419;
  Macdonald's advice to him, 424;
  at Fontainebleau, 425;
  throne declared empty, 431;
  he abdicates, 432;
  abdication accepted, 434;
  paroxysm of illness, 435;
  bids his officers and guards farewell, 436;
  sails from Frejus for Elba, 439;
  conduct and occupations at Elba, 440, _et seq._;
  intrigues of his friends, 445;
  escapes from Elba and lands at Cannes, 447;
  reaches Gap, 448;
  proclamation to the army and nation, 448, 449;
  at Grenoble and Lyons, 450;
  resumes functions of civil government, 452;
  enters Paris, 454;
  prepares for war, 457;
  schemes to regain his wife and son, 459;
  publishes "Additional Act." 463;
  at the Champ de Mai, 464;
  heads his army on Belgian frontier, 466;
  passes the Sambre at Charleroi, 468;
  defeats Blucher at Ligny, 470;
  at the battle of Waterloo, 473-476;
  is defeated and flees to Charleroi, 476;
  reaches Paris, 477;
  his second abdication, 479;
  is sent to Malmaison, 481;
  at Rochefort, 482;
  negotiates with Captain Maitland, 483;
  letter to the Prince Regent of England, 484;
  embarks in the _Bellerophon_, 485;
  interview with Lord Keith at Torbay, 485;
  ordered to St. Helena, 485;
  his protest, 486;
  sails on _Northumberland_ for St. Helena, 490;
  arrival there, 491;
  resides at The Briars, 491;
  removes to Longwood, 491;
  complaints against English Government, 492;
  and against Sir Hudson Lowe, 495;
  manner of life at Longwood, 499;
  health failing, 500;
  refuses to take exercise, 501;
  draws up his will, 502;
  his death, 502;
  his burial, 503

Buonaparte, Pauline, marries Prince Borghese, 226;
  her intrigues at Elba, 445

Buonapartes, the, banished from Corsica, 8

Burrard, General Sir H., 283

Busaco, battle of, 319

Byron, Lord, quoted, 143, 497, 498, 504


Cairo, surrender of, 93;
  English occupy, 165

Calder, Sir Robert, 216

Cambaceres, 126

Campbell, Sir Neil, 439, 445

Campo-Formio, treaty of, 75

Canning, Mr., quoted, 218

Carnot, 20;
  made minister of war, 126;
  Napoleon's opinion of, 133;
  in opposition to Napoleon, 104, 206;
  governor of Antwerp, 404;
  minister of war, 457;
  assists at the Champ de Mai, 463

Cartaux, 10

Castaños, General, 279

Castiglione, battle of, 45

Castlereagh, Lord, 408

Caulaincourt, 207, 368, 408, 426, 431

Ceracchi plans assassination of Napoleon, 157

Champ de Mai, 464

Charles, Archduke of Austria, 65

Charles IV. of Spain abdicates, 271

Chateaubriand, his tract, 427

Cherasco, armistice of, 28

Chouans, submission of, 127

Cintra, convention of, 283

Cisalpine Republic, 175

Ciudad Rodrigo, blockade of, 327;
  capture of, 329

Clery, Mademoiselle, 16

Clichy, Royalist Club of, 72

Coalition against France, 210;
  against English commerce, 259

Cobentzel at Campo-Formio, 75, 76

Code Napoleon projected, 173;
  Napoleon's dictum of the, 261

Col di Tende, 15

Collingwood, Admiral, at Trafalgar, 219

Concordat, the, 170;
  rejected by bishops, 171

Confederation of the Rhine, 226

Congress at Rastadt, 78;
  at Prague, 380

Conscription in France, 262

Constitution of the year VIII., 128, 129

"Continental System," the, 240

Convention of Cintra, 283

Copenhagen, battle of, 163;
  British expedition to, 258

Corsica, 1, 7, 8, 50

Coruña, battle of, 294

Cossacks attack French, 356

Craonne, battle of, 414

Culm, battle of, 387


Dalrymple, Sir Hew, 283

D'Angouleme, Duke, capitulates, 458

D'Angouleme, Duchess, heroic conduct of, 458

Danican, General, 19

Dantzick taken by French, 249

D'Argenteau, 26, 27

D'Artois, Count, 156

Davidowich, at Roveredo, 46

Davoust made Marshal, 207;
  his conduct at Hamburg, 377

D'Enghien, Duke, arrested, 196;
  murdered, 199;
  reflections thereon, 201

Dennewitz, battle of, 388

D'Entraigues, Count, 70

De Pradt, Abbé, 368, 430

Desgenettes, 105

Dessaix, General, Napoleon's opinion of, 150;
  killed at Marengo, 153

Detention of English travellers in France, 187

Directory, the, ask Napoleon's aid, 72;
  their jealousy of him, 82;
  oppose grant of estate to him, 218

Doppet, cowardice of, at Toulon, 12

Dresden, battle of, 387

Dubois, death of, 47

Dufour, Colonel, 146

Dugommier, General, 13

Dumanoir, Commodore, 218

Dupont marches into Andalusia, 279;
  surrenders at Baylen, 280

Duroc, death of, at Bautzen, 379


Eckmuhl, battle of, 297

Education under Napoleon, 261

Egypt, French expedition to, 86;
  Napoleon's administration in, 96;
  English expedition to, 164;
  conquered from France, 165

El Arish taken by French, 100

Elba, Napoleon at, 439, _et seq._

Elgin, Lord, sagacity of, 205

Emigrants allowed to return to France, 169

England, Napoleon's letter to King of, 136;
  treaty of peace with, 166;
  rupture of treaty, 187

Erfurt, conferences at, 288, 289

Essling, battle of, 301

Etruria, Napoleon's treatment of Queen of, 326


Fatalism, Napoleon's tendency to, 23

Fayette, La, his recall, 126

Ferdinand VII., abdication of, 271;
  prisoner at Valençay, 326;
  released, and re-enters Spain, 401, 402

Ferrara, Archbishop of, 46

Fersen, Count, conduct of Napoleon towards, 78

Fesch, Cardinal, remonstrates with Napoleon, 336

Flotilla of Boulogne, 165, 191

Fombio, battle of, 31

Fontainebleau, treaty of, 266;
  Napoleon abdicates at, 435

Fouché, Napoleon's character of, 133;
  Josephine demands his dismissal, 311;
  in disgrace, 322;
  made governor of Rome, 322;
  his memorial against the war with Russia, 335;
  joins Napoleon on his return from Elba, 455;
  corresponds with Louis XVIII. at Ghent, 468;
  advises Napoleon to escape to America, 481

Fox, Mr., and Napoleon, 168, 229

Frankfort, declaration of Allies at, 398

Francis, Emperor of Germany, his interview with Napoleon, 224

Friedland, battle of, 251

Fructidor, revolution of 18th, 73

Fuentes d'Onor, battle of, 327


Gazah, capture of, 100

Genoa, revolution of, 72;
  siege of, 147

Georges Cadoudal, conspiracy of, 194;
  trial and condemnation of, 203

Godoy, Manuel, his intrigues, 266;
  arrested, 269

Gourgaud, General, 494

Grenville, Lord, 137

Grossbeeren, battle of, 388

Guiche, Duchess of, 156


Hall, Captain Basil, 497

Hamburg, Davoust's cruelties at, 377

Hanau, battle of, 394

Hanover seized by French, 189

Haugwitz, Count, 222, 224

Helvetic Republic, 177

Hesse Cassel, Landgrave of, 244

Hofer and his followers, massacre of, 299, 300

Hohenlinden, battle of, 160

Holland, annexed to France, 315;
  revolution of, 396

Hospitallers of St. Bernard, Napoleon's visit to, 144

Hullin, General, 197, 198

Hundred Days, the, 436, _et seq._

Hutchinson, General, succeeds Sir Ralph Abercrombie, 164


Inquisition abolished by Napoleon, 292

Invasion of England, scheme for, 190


Jaffa, capture of, 100;
  garrison massacred, 100;
  Turkish prisoners massacred at, 104

Jena, battle of, 235

Joubert, 57

Jourdan, Marshal, enters Germany, 42;
  in Spain, 382

Junot, coolness of, at siege of Toulon, 14;
  marches on Portugal, 267


Kellerman made Marshal, 207

Kleber, General, rescued by Napoleon, 102;
  left in command of army in Egypt, 109;
  his assassination, 164

Kosciusko, 243

Kutusoff, General, commands Russian army, 345, _et seq._


Labedoyere, Colonel, 449, 480

Landshut, battle of, 297

Lannes at Placenza, 30;
  wounded at Acre, 103;
  made Marshal, 207;
  killed at Asperne, 302

Laon, battle of, 415

La Rothiere, battle of, 407

Law of Hostages repealed, 125

Le Clerc, 122, 123, 179

Lefebre Desnouettes, 278, 280, 281

Leghorn seized by Napoleon, 40

Legion of Honour instituted, 175

Leipsig, battle of, 390-392

Leoben, treaty of, 67

Licence System, 325

Lodi, passage of bridge of, 32

Lonato, battle of, 44

Loretto, French enter, 61:
  image of Virgin at, 61;
  Holy House at, 62

Louvre, Gallery of the, 34

Louis XVIII., his letter to Napoleon, 155;
  Napoleon's proposition to, 182;
  his restoration, 441;
  quits Paris and retires to Ghent, 454

Lowe, Sir Hudson, 494-497

Luneville, treaty of, 160

Lutzen, battle of, 377


Macdonald, General, 112, 384, 454

Mack, General, surrender of, at Ulm, 213, 214

Madrid occupied by Murat, 269;
  massacre of, 272;
  surrender of, 292

Mahomet, Napoleon's admiration of, 91

Maitland, Captain, 483, 490

Mallet, conspiracy of, 371

Malo-Yaraslovetz, battle of, 355, 356

Malta, Napoleon suggests seizure of, 85;
  surrenders to French, 88;
  surrenders to English, 155

Mamelukes, description of, 90

Mantua, siege of, 38;
  surrender of, 60

Marengo, battle of, 151

Maria Louisa, Archduchess of Austria, marries Napoleon, 312;
  quits Paris and retires to Blois, 422

Marmont crosses the Rhine, 212

Massena, General, in Italy, 139;
  his retreat from Portugal, 327

Mehrfeldt, General, 391

Menou, General, 19, 165

Metternich, Prince, his interview with Napoleon, 381

Milan occupied by French, 33;
  decrees against English commerce, 259

Millesimo, battle of, 27

Mincio, passage of the, 36

Miollis, General, occupies Rome, 306

Modena, Duke of, offers bribe to Napoleon, 70

Moncey made Marshal, 207

Mondovi, battle of, 28

Montebello, battle of, 149

Monte Notte, battle of, 27

Montmartre, battle of, 423

Moore, Sir John, commands army in Portugal, 286;
  advances into Spain, 293;
  retreat and death at Coruña, 294

Moreau, his retreat through the Black Forest, 42;
  Napoleon's suspicions of, 193;
  his arrest, 195;
  exiled, 203;
  returns and joins allies, 385;
  his death, 386

Morla, Governor of Madrid, 292

Mortier seizes Hanover, 189;
  made Marshal, 207

Moscow, French enter, 348;
  burning of, 349;
  French retreat from, 355

Muiron, at Toulon, 12;
  saves Napoleon's life, 54

Murat, his conduct on Day of the Sections, 20;
  marries Caroline Buonaparte, 134;
  made Marshal, 207;
  occupies Madrid, 269;
  created King of Naples, 274;
  his rash expedition, 460;
  takes refuge in France, is seized and executed, 460


Napier, Colonel, quoted, 272, 274, 276

Naples, Queen of, her journey to Russia, 161;
  seized by French, 189

"Napoleon's Grotto," 2

National Convention, the, 17

Naumburg, capture of, 233

Negroes banished from France, 180

Nelson, Lord, at Alexandria, 74;
  at Aboukir, 95;
  at Copenhagen, 163;
  at Trafalgar, 217

Ney, Marshal, at Clagenfurt, 214;
  at battle of Borodino, 347;
  retreats from Smolensko, 360;
  "the bravest of the brave," 364;
  his treason, 453;
  at Waterloo, 476;
  at Paris, 480

Niemen, passage of the, 341

Nile, French army march up, 91

Northern confederacy against England, 162


Ocaña, battle of, 303

O'Meara, Dr., 500

Ossian, Napoleon's favourite poet, 5


Palafox, General, 280

Palm, the bookseller, murder of, 231

Paoli, General, 7

Passage of the Po, 31;
  of the Mincio, 36

Pavia, insurrection of, 36

Paul, Emperor of Russia, admires Napoleon, 161;
  assassinated, 163

Peltier, trial of, 182

Perignon made Marshal, 207

"Philadelphes," Society of, 371

Pichegru, Napoleon's monitor, 4;
  listens to the Bourbons' proposals, 70;
  arrested and exiled, 73;
  returns, 195;
  arrested in Paris, 195;
  found dead in prison, 202

Piedmont conquered, 28

Pitt, Mr., death of, 229

Po, passage of the, 31

Poles, Napoleon's conduct towards, 338

Polytechnic School, 173

Pope, the, buys respite of Napoleon, 40;
  negotiates with Napoleon, and concludes treaty at Tollentino, 62;
  restored by England, 161;
  arrested by Miollis, 306;
  sent to Fontainebleau, 307;
  released, 401

Popham, Admiral Sir Home, court-martialled, 253

Prague, congress at, 380;
  congress dissolved, 382

Presburg, treaty of, 224

Preuss-Eylau, battle of, 247

Primolano, battle of, 48

"Prince of the Peace," 266

Prussia, makes peace with Napoleon, 224;
  accepts Hanover from him, 225;
  declares war against France, 232, 373;
  Queen of, Napoleon's treatment of, 255

Pultusk, battle of, 245

Pyramids, battle of the, 93


Quasdonowich, 43, 44, 48

Quatre-bras, battle of, 468


Raab, battle of, 299

Rastadt, battle of, 78;
  murder of French commissioners at, 111

Ratisbonne, taken by French, 297

Red Sea explored by Napoleon, 99

Reign of Terror, the, 9

Revolution of the 18th Fructidor, 73

Rhine, confederation of the, 226

Riosecco, battle of, 278

Rivoli, battle of, 57

Robespierre, fall of, 17

Rome seized by Miollis, 306;
  King of, 320

Rostophchin burns Moscow, 349

Roveredo, battle of, 47

Rumbold, Sir George, 205

Russia, French relations with, 323;
  Napoleon's invasion of, 340


"Sacred Band," the, 19

St. Bard, capture of, 146

St. Bernard, passage of the Great, 143-145

St. Domingo, French expedition to, 178

St. George, battle of, 59

St. Helena, Napoleon at, 491, _et seq._

Salamanca, battle of, 330

Samosierra, passage of the, 290

Saorgio, surrender of, 15

"Savans" accompany army in Egypt, 86, 92, 94

Savary quoted, 99;
  at trial of Duke d'Enghien, 198

Schill, Colonel, 299

Schoenbrunn, treaty of, 307

Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 41, 191, 494

Sebastiani, his memorial, 183

Sections, Day of the, 21

Serrurier made Marshal, 207

Sheridan, Mr., quoted, 185

Sieyes, Abbé, 115-119, 127, 130, 463

Smith, Sir Sydney, at Acre, 101;
  Napoleon's hatred of, 103

Smolensko, battle of, 359

Soult, Marshal, in Spain, 290

Stabbs, his attempt to assassinate Napoleon, 305

Staël, Madame de, 80, 169

Suchet, Marshal, defeats Blake, 303;
  defeats O'Donnell, 318

Suez, Napoleon explores isthmus of, 99

"Sun of Austerlitz," 223

"Suns of Napoleon," 87

Sweden, revolution in, 316

Swiss Cantons, Napoleon's letter to, 178


Tacitus, Napoleon's chosen author, 5

Tactics, Napoleon's military, 25

Tagliamento, battle of, 65

Talaveyra, battle of, 303

Talleyrand, his character, 133;
  created Prince of Benevento, 227;
  corresponds with the Bourbons, 421;
  his billet to Alexander of Russia, 421

Talma, early associate of Napoleon, 16

Taxation under Napoleon, 263

Tilsit, treaty of, 255

Tollentino, treaty of, 62

Torres Vedras, Wellington at, 319

Toulon, siege of, 9-14

Toussaint l'Ouverture, 179

Trafalgar, battle of, 217-219

Tugend-bund, the, 288

Tyrol, peasants revolt in, 299


Ulm, surrender of, by Mack, 213, 214

Usher, Captain, 439


Vandamme, surrender of, 387

Vendemaire, the 13th, 20

Venice threatened by Napoleon, 38;
  neutrality of, 64;
  conquered by Napoleon, 69;
  handed over to Austria, 75

Victor, Marshal, 149, 303

Vienna taken by French, 313, 298;
  congress at, 456

Villeneuve, Admiral, 217

Vimiero, battle of, 283

Vincovo, battle of, 354

Vittoria, battle of, 382

Volney, 171


Wagram, battle of, 303

Wahlstadt, battle of, 388

Walcheren, expedition to, 304

Warsaw taken by French, 244;
  Grand Duchy of, 255

Waterloo, battle of, 472-477

Wellesley, Sir Arthur, commands British army in the Peninsula, 281;
  lands in Mondego Bay, 282;
  defeats French at Roriça, 283;
  defeats Junot at Vimiero, 283;
  lands at Lisbon, 303;
  defeats Soult, 303;
  at Talaveyra, 303;
  created Lord Wellington, 304;
  retreats to lines of Torres Vedras, 319;
  at Fuentes d'Onor, 327;
  captures Ciudad Rodrigo, 329;
  takes Badajos, 329;
  at Salamanca, 330;
  at Vittoria, 382;
  interview with Blucher, 470;
  at battle of Waterloo, 472-477

Westphalia, new kingdom of, 255

Whitelocke, General, repulsed at Buenos Ayres, 253, 254

Whitworth, Lord, confers with Napoleon, 185

Wilna, Napoleon at, 341

Wilson, Sir Robert, 105, 184

Wirtemberg, Elector of, made king, 225

Witzingerode taken prisoner, 357;
  interview with Napoleon, 357

Wordsworth, Mr., quoted, 177, 179, 180, 191

Wright, Captain, 195, 203 (note)

Wurmser, General, 42, _et seq._


Yarmouth, Lord, 230


Zaragossa, siege of, 281

Znaim, armistice of, 302


THE END


THE TEMPLE PRESS

LETCHWORTH, ENGLAND