



Produced by Thierry Alberto, Henry Craig, Christine P.
Travers and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net






[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected,
all other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's
spelling has been maintained.

Unusual subscripts have been marked with ^, e.g.: V^te for Vicomte.]




[Illustration: From the collection of W. C. Crane. Engraved by T.
Levasseur.

THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON.

Drawn by F. Gerard.]




               THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

                             BY

                   WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE
                     PH.D., L.H.D., LL.D.
        _Professor of History in Columbia University_


                    Revised and Enlarged
                       With Portraits


                         VOLUME III


[Illustration: Editor's arm.]

                          NEW YORK
                       THE CENTURY CO.
                            1916




              Copyright, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1910
                             BY
                      THE CENTURY CO.

                 _Published, October, 1910_




CONTENTS


    CHAPTER                                                       Page

         I. War with Russia: Pultusk................................ 1

        II. Check to the Grand Army: Eylau......................... 12

       III. An Indecisive Victory: Friedland....................... 24

        IV. Napoleon and Alexander at Tilsit....................... 39

         V. The Treaty of Tilsit................................... 54

        VI. The Path of Napoleonic Empire.......................... 66

       VII. The New Feudalism...................................... 80

      VIII. The Empires of Land and Ocean.......................... 97

        IX. French Empire and European Nationality................ 115

         X. The Awakening of Spain................................ 137

        XI. The First Revolt of Nations........................... 153

       XII. Napoleon and Alexander at Erfurt...................... 171

      XIII. The Failure of the Spanish Campaign................... 182

       XIV. The Transformation of Austria......................... 192

        XV. The Fifth War with Austria--Eckmuehl................... 202

       XVI. Aspern, Essling, and Wagram........................... 218

      XVII. The Peace of Schoenbrunn............................... 233

     XVIII. Napoleon's Fatal Decision............................. 244

       XIX. The Austrian Marriage................................. 251

        XX. Rigors of the Continental System...................... 262

       XXI. The Continental System Completed...................... 274

      XXII. The Course of the Peninsular War...................... 282

     XXIII. Birth of the King of Rome............................. 293

      XXIV. Tension Between Emperor and Czar...................... 303

       XXV. The Array of Nations.................................. 313

      XXVI. The Congress of Kings................................. 325

     XXVII. The Invasion of Russia--Borodino...................... 335

    XXVIII. The Evacuation of Moscow.............................. 346

      XXIX. The Retreat from Russia............................... 357

       XXX. The Horrors of the Beresina........................... 368

      XXXI. The Prodigal's Return................................. 378

     XXXII. The Revolt of the Nations............................. 388

    XXXIII. The First Campaign in Saxony.......................... 401

     XXXIV. The Nations in Grand Array............................ 413




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


  The Emperor Napoleon................................. _Frontispiece_

  Map of the Battle of Eylau....................................... 14

  Map of the Battle of Heilsberg................................... 28

  Map of the Battle of Friedland................................... 36

  Napoleon--by Ingres.............................................. 50

  Queen Hortense................................................... 98

  Napoleon in his Study........................................... 146

  Map of the Spanish Campaign..................................... 184

  Joseph Bonaparte................................................ 196

  Map of the Battle of Eckmuehl.................................... 212

  Two Maps of the Battles of Aspern and Essling................... 221

  Map of the Battle of Wagram..................................... 228

  Eugene Beauharnais.............................................. 246

  Napoleon Bonaparte in 1809...................................... 296

  Map of the Russian Campaign, 1812............................... 340




LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE




CHAPTER I

WAR WITH RUSSIA: PULTUSK[1]

         [Footnote 1: References as before.]

     Poland and the Poles -- The Seat of War -- Change in the
     Character of Napoleon's Army -- The Battle of Pultusk --
     Discontent in the Grand Army -- Homesickness of the French --
     Napoleon's Generals -- His Measures of Reorganization -- Weakness
     of the Russians -- The Ability of Bennigsen -- Failure of the
     Russian Manoeuvers -- Napoleon in Warsaw.


[Sidenote: 1806-07]

The key to Napoleon's dealings with Poland is to be found in his
strategy; his political policy never passed beyond the first tentative
stages, for he never conquered either Russia or Poland. The struggle
upon which he was next to enter was a contest, not for Russian
abasement but for Russian friendship in the interest of his
far-reaching continental system. Poland was simply one of his weapons
against the Czar. Austria was steadily arming; Francis received the
quieting assurance that his share in the partition was to be
undisturbed. In the general and proper sorrow which has been felt for
the extinction of Polish nationality by three vulture neighbors, the
terrible indictment of general worthlessness which was justly brought
against her organization and administration is at most times and by
most people utterly forgotten. A people has exactly the nationality,
government, and administration which expresses its quality and secures
its deserts. The Poles were either dull and sluggish boors or haughty
and elegant, pleasure-loving nobles. Napoleon and his officers
delighted in the life of Warsaw, but he never appears to have
respected the Poles either as a whole or in their wrangling cliques;
no doubt he occasionally faced the possibility of a redeemed Poland,
but in general the suggestion of such a consummation served his
purpose and he went no further. That he had no sentiment about Polish
nationality is self-evident.

After Jena the Czar displayed great activity. In spite of being
compelled to detach eighty thousand men for service against Turkey, he
had got together a second numerous army; Lestocq, with a corps of
fifteen thousand Prussians, had joined him, and he was clearly
determined to renew the war. For a time the French had no certain
information as to whether he would cross the Prussian frontier or not,
and Napoleon at first expected the city of Posen to be the center of
operations. Before long, however, it became evident that the Russians
were drawing together on Pultusk. Displaying an astounding assurance
as to the stability of his power in France, and without regarding the
possible effect upon conditions at home of a second war, at an
enormous distance, Napoleon determined to meet them. With the same
celerity and caution as of old, the various French divisions were led
first across the Vistula, and then over the plains, until in the end
of December they were concentrated before the enemy. During the three
weeks consumed in these operations much besides was done to strengthen
the position of the French and to assure their communications. The
Russians were dislodged from Warsaw, and Thorn was besieged; the
Vistula, Bug, Wkra, Narew, and other rivers were bridged; and a
commissary department was organized. The seat of war was different
indeed from any of those to which Napoleon had hitherto been
accustomed. It was neither as densely settled nor as well tilled as
Italy and Germany, the population was far lower in the scale of
civilization, and therefore fiercer. The inhabitants could easily
strip their villages of the little forage and the few goods they
possessed, and at that season the fields were bare. The roads were of
the worst description; the rivers were deep and broad, often with
swampy banks and treacherous bottoms. In these circumstances it was
almost impossible to secure reliable information, for scouts and spies
were alike at fault.

These new conditions of warfare were further complicated by a change
in the character of Napoleon's army. After Austerlitz many men of
German speech were to be found among the rank and file, and after Jena
the character of the soldiery grew more and more cosmopolitan. On the
first appearance of the imperial eagles of France in Poland, Jerome
was at the head of a whole corps of Wuertembergers and Bavarians; many
Poles, Italians, Swiss, and Dutch were in others of the French corps;
and among the foreigners there were even Prussians from beyond the
Elbe. Some confusion was caused by this, and it was not diminished by
the fact that the French themselves had scarcely recovered from the
orgies in which they had been indulging for the last six weeks.
Moreover, the determination of the Emperor to "conquer the sea by
land" had emphasized in his mind the necessity of an overwhelming
superiority of numbers, and in November he demanded from the French
senate the eighty thousand conscripts who, according to law, could not
be drawn until September, 1807. This was the beginning of the fatal
practice destined in the end to enervate France and demoralize the
army. There was already little patriotism among the men, except what
served as a pretext for plunder; the homogeneity of purpose,
principle, nationality, and age was soon to disappear.

In the preliminary operations this deterioration was not apparent. The
troops marched doggedly through the mud, worked hard when called upon,
and although their rations, which were supplied by rascally
contractors, were very bad and altogether different from those to
which they had become accustomed in the years just preceding, the men
ate them without murmuring. But when, on December twenty-sixth, they
joined battle, the old push and nerve seemed lacking. The preparations
had been made on the plan of concentration, but at the last moment
Lannes was detached with his division to cut off the enemy's line of
retreat over the Narew. Napoleon, as at Jena, believed the main army
of his opponent to be where it was not, and he was incautious in thus
dividing and weakening his forces. Accordingly the battle had an
irregular and indecisive character. Lannes came unexpectedly upon the
mass of the Russian army, two columns forming the center and right,
and engaged them from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon.
At that hour a reserve arrived under Gudin, and attacked the Russian
right. But Bennigsen, the commander of that column, had ready a fresh
reserve, and with its aid the newcomers were repulsed. Lannes, who had
simultaneously made a final onset, was also beaten off by the superior
force of his enemy. On the same day, Murat, Davout, and Augereau
reached the neighboring village of Golymin, expecting to find the
Russian center there; on the left wing, at Neidenburg, Ney stood face
to face with Lestocq and his Prussians. There was nothing but
skirmishing at either place, for the French emperor could not drag his
artillery through the mud swiftly enough to make it tell at the right
time, and both Prussians and Russians drew slowly off. Soult was to
have repeated the turning manoeuver as carried out before Jena, but
the marching was so difficult, owing to a thaw, that he could not
accomplish anything like the necessary distance.

The morning after this indecisive battle the entire Russian army was
far away. For strategic reasons and for lack of provisions it had
withdrawn to Ostrolenka. There was no pursuit. The natural question,
Why? is still unanswered. Some declare that the French troops were too
weary and bad-tempered; others, that Napoleon, in view of the
quagmires to which the roads were now reduced, dared not abandon his
base of supplies, as he was accustomed to do in summer weather and in
fruitful lands. There is still a third answer, that nothing was to be
gained; for of what use were the few miles of bare, flat land which
the army, putting forth its utmost exertions, might have been able to
traverse? All these reasons have validity. There was discontent among
the soldiers, for there was no booty; not even a soldier's common
comforts could be found. For the first time men of the line shouted
insults after the Emperor, and with impunity; even the faithful guard
indulged in double-meaning quips, but they, on the other hand, were at
the proper time soundly berated. "The short campaign of fifteen days,"
wrote one of them, "made us ten years older." There was also danger in
advancing beyond reach of the commissary department,--deficient and
contemptible as it was in the hands of unscrupulous speculators,--and
there was indeed little to be gained by such a pursuit as was
possible, except prestige, which at that moment and at that distance
from France was not a valuable commodity.

This element of distance from home was weighty. In far-off Egypt and
Syria, French soldiers had fought bravely; an ideal will carry even
the commonest Frenchman far, and they then believed themselves to be
fighting for a principle. But since the armies of France had begun to
fight for booty and glory, they must have both. Of the former there
was little or none at all in the lands they now occupied; the latter
could be enjoyed only in the jubilations of their kinsfolk; and
although no account of any battle was more beclouded than that of
Pultusk which the Emperor sent to Paris, the approbation of the
fatherland could not reach Poland until long afterward, and in tones
that were low and almost inaudible. It is an old French saying that
next to the kingdom of heaven France is the most beautiful land, and
every Frenchman believes it. The Emperor himself said that his French
soldiers were unfitted for distant expeditions by their yearnings for
home. In his mind, therefore, the one essential thing to restore the
spirits of his men was rest. This opinion was strengthened when he
endeavored to visit the posts. Although his carriage stuck in the mud
and a saddle-horse could scarcely make its way, yet he got far enough
to see that his men were suffering and destitute.

This preliminary campaigning, allowing for all obstacles so far
enumerated, was so generally inefficient and futile, that there
remains a conviction of further causes not lying on the surface. That
which is most to be suspected is the hastening corruption in the
character and morals, not of the soldiery,--that has been noted,--but
of the generals. One diarist of the time saw four marshals at Anspach.
He sketches Bernadotte as "a very tall dark man with fiery eyes under
thick brows." Humble as was his origin, his ambitions were lofty and
he was beginning to make ventures on his own account, not for the
master who had made him. There was also Mortier, fairly tall, "with a
stupid sentinel look"; considering his career, he was probably
putting up his mask. There too were "Lefebvre, an old Alsatian
camp-boy, with his wife, former washerwoman in the regiment; and
Davout, a little smooth-pated, unpretending man, who was never tired
of waltzing." Mme. Lefebvre was aware of how costly were such
drawing-room triumphs as she imaged in her ambitious soul, and where
the supplies of booty could be found; Davout and Lannes and Ney were
still faithful and efficient; Augereau in action was utterly
uncertain, in morals pompous and wrong-headed; Murat knew where and
how the great prizes were to be found, and was as dashing and
venturesome as he was selfish and worldly-wise. The Russian generals
were plodding disciples of routine. Bennigsen was an able Hanoverian
mercenary, despising alike his Livonian colleague, Buxhoewden, and his
chief, the servile Russian marshal, Kamenski. The Prussian general
Lestocq was capable but inexperienced. The chief and his subordinate
were far from harmonious.

The measures adopted to secure a period of comfort and repose for the
army were, unlike those taken for the campaign, apparently adequate.
The Emperor proceeded at once to station the various corps along the
Vistula, with provision and munition depots behind them. The
commissary department was thoroughly overhauled and much improved. The
line ran from Warsaw northwestward through Poland into Prussia, to the
river's mouth near Dantzic. Bernadotte had eighteen thousand men; Ney,
sixteen thousand; Soult, twenty-eight thousand; Augereau, eleven
thousand; Davout, twenty thousand; Lannes, eighteen thousand; Murat,
fourteen thousand; and the guard numbered fifteen thousand--a total of
about a hundred and forty thousand men. As conscripts and troops from
various garrisons came in, a new corps of twenty-three thousand men
was formed, and placed under the command of Lefebvre. At the same
time, from his headquarters at Warsaw, the Emperor proceeded with the
organization of a government for Poland, and with the training of her
national guard. The two Russian columns had withdrawn to Szuczyn,
where they united under the command of Bennigsen, and the Prussians
were at Angerburg under Lestocq. This left open the way to Koenigsberg,
and early in January, 1807, Ney, overpowered by the temptation to
relieve the miseries of his men, and to make a stroke on his own
account by seizing the capital of East Prussia, set out from
Neidenburg without orders, leaving Bernadotte's position at Elbing
much exposed. Lestocq, however, managed to block Ney's path until the
Russians under Bennigsen arrived and compelled the French general to
return with his men to their quarters. Napoleon administered a severe
reprimand; and well he might, for the advantage thus offered to the
Russians had tempted Bennigsen to move, and the Russian army, once
afoot, seemed determined to remain so. In this way were destroyed
Napoleon's excellent calculations for the season of absolutely
essential repose.

The action of Pultusk had made clear two serious defects in the
efficiency of Russia's force. During the battle, Kamenski, the
general-in-chief, a martinet and disciple of routine, had twice given
the order for retreat, and it was Bennigsen's disobedience which made
the conflict so indecisive that Russia claimed it as a victory. If a
victory, it was a barren one, because a weak and venal administration
of the commissary department had deprived the soldiers of sustenance
at the critical moment. Kamenski, who was seventy-six years old, was
retired on the ground of his health, and Bennigsen succeeded him, but
the bad commissary administration was not remedied. The Russian army
was strong in regular infantry, but weak in well-disciplined cavalry,
although the latter defect was largely supplied by the Cossacks, a
peculiar body of riders from the Volga and the Don, who paid the
rental of their lands to the crown by four years' military service at
their own charges. Then, as now, they fought with barbaric ferocity;
they attacked in open formation, each man for himself, and gave no
quarter until the Czar offered a ducat for every live Frenchman. They
were known to ride a hundred miles in twenty-four hours, and their
services in pursuing an enemy were invaluable.

The one remarkable and unique feature of the Russian army in every
branch of the service has ever been its personal devotion to the Czar.
This feeling is a compound of religious fervor, patriotism, and
dynastic loyalty; these elements, welded inseparably, form a sentiment
of tremendous strength, which is a fair substitute for enlightened
patriotism. The case is different with the Tatar hordes from Central
Asia, who fight only for plunder, and in a crisis are often utterly
unreliable. At this time both Cossacks and Tatars were in the field,
the former in considerable numbers. The appointment of Bennigsen as
commander-in-chief, and the results of Pultusk, awakened great
enthusiasm among his hungry soldiers, who were now clamorous for a
decisive battle. He had ninety thousand men,--at least on paper,--and
was not disposed to leave the French in peace to recruit their numbers
and physical strength in comfortable winter quarters. Unlike the
Prussian officers, he had learned the lessons of recent campaigns, and
had the strength of his character been equal to the cleverness of his
strategy, he would have been a fair match for Napoleon. Moreover, the
King of Prussia, shut up in Koenigsberg with a few thousand men, was in
a most precarious situation, both Ney and Bernadotte being within
striking distance. Finally, the garrison of the fortress at Graudenz
was dependent on the precarious supplies which they received as
Lestocq found an opportunity to send them.

Very soon, therefore, the Cossacks were sent out to scour the country.
In their repeated skirmishes with the French light cavalry they showed
such daring and address that their foes became timid and cautious. In
this way the movements of Bennigsen's army were successfully
concealed, and he hoped by a swift march to overtake and destroy Ney's
isolated division; if successful he would secure access to Dantzic and
a connection with Graudenz, Kolberg, and other fortresses, which would
give him a position strong enough to jeopardize that of Napoleon at
Warsaw. Accordingly, with about sixty-five thousand men he began a
rapid and circuitous march northwesterly and around behind the
impenetrable belt of dark forests, past Lake Spirding to Heilsberg,
where he found Ney in full retreat on January twenty-second. But he
had overestimated the strength of his Russians; they were too
exhausted to strike quickly. Frost had set in, snow had fallen, and
both Ney and Bernadotte made their escape to Gilgenburg, the latter
after defeating the Russian advance-guard in a skirmish at Mohrungen.
Bennigsen was compelled to retire in order to recruit the strength of
his men.

The Emperor of the French was still at Warsaw. The Polish capital was
gay and frivolous. New hopes had awakened the spirit of folly in the
aristocracy, and the "liberator," now at the very height of his
physical power, was often conspicuous in the revels. In the intervals
of his serious labors Napoleon gave way to a life of sensuality, and
the women were prodigal of their charms. One of them was the
well-known Countess Walewska, a beautiful woman, who while yet a
child had been forced into wedlock with an aged nobleman. She was now
made to feel that the future of her country depended upon her
captivating Napoleon, for he had singled her out as the most beautiful
of all the crowd which pressed around him on his entry. Indignant when
the proposition was first made, she finally listened to the prejudiced
morality of her friends, and gave an unwilling consent. It is thought
that her child was the first born to Napoleon, and that this fact,
combined with his disgust for Josephine's incessant and inconsistent
outpourings of jealous complaint as to his conduct, had much to do
with his attitude concerning the political advantages of the divorce.
Such was the young Polish noblewoman's eventual devotion to the father
of her boy, that throughout his subsequent life in Europe she ran
every risk to be near her idol, and actually followed him to Elba.
Their son, the Count Walewski, was a devoted Frenchman, and a man of
quality, filling, with dignity, important offices in the service of
his country.




CHAPTER II

CHECK TO THE GRAND ARMY: EYLAU[2]

         [Footnote 2: References more specifically valuable for this
         and the next chapter are Haeusser, Czartoryski, Marbot,
         Lejeune, Oudinot, Lettow-Vorbeck, Sir R. Wilson, with the
         Castlereagh Letters and Napoleon's Correspondence.]

     Napoleon's Preparations -- His Clever Strategy -- The Plan
     Discovered by the Russians -- The Armies at Eylau -- Failure of
     Napoleon's Tactics -- The Battle Indecisive -- The French Army
     Demoralized -- Napoleon's Anxiety -- His Army in Winter Quarters
     -- The Emperor's Activity -- Rearrangement of his Forces -- An
     Envoy from the Shah of Persia -- Reinforcements from France and
     Germany -- The Neutrality of Austria.


[Sidenote: 1807]

It was not a very rude shock to his sensuous ease, however, when on
January twenty-seventh, 1807, Napoleon received the news of
Bennigsen's march. In a general way he had been aware for some days
that the enemy was moving, but he believed they had no other intention
than to derive what immediate advantage could be had from Ney's
rashness. In the absence of fuller information he had not changed his
opinion, but the army was nevertheless put in readiness, the trains
were equipped, and orders were issued for abandoning temporarily the
siege of Dantzic and for the complete occupation of Thorn. This step
was taken, as a glance at the map will show, to insure a new line of
connection with Posen and Berlin, directly in front of his base, in
case the oblique one he was holding between Warsaw and Bartenstein
should be endangered by a flank movement of the Russians.

Believing that Bennigsen's plan was to reach Elbing and defend his
communications with Dantzic, Napoleon issued orders on January
twenty-seventh for a countermarch in that direction, to engage him
either there or farther to the eastward. The orders given next day to
Davout and Augereau show that by swift movements he hoped to attack at
Willenberg, break through Bennigsen's center, and scatter his forces
right and left. Lannes had been taken ill after Pultusk, and was still
an invalid; Savary was therefore put in command of his well-tried
corps to bear the brunt of the battle. His business was to cover the
line of the Narew for the purpose of assuring freedom of action to the
main French army, and with that end in view to attack the Russian
corps under Essen, which was menacing it. Three days after the orders
of Napoleon were given, his army of a hundred thousand men was in
position on a line running in general east and west within the space
bounded by Willenberg, Gilgenburg, Mlawa, and Przasnysz, with one
reserve of forty thousand on the left, to prevent the loss of Thorn,
and another of fourteen thousand on the right. Everything was in
readiness for an advance under the most advantageous circumstances, to
take Bennigsen by surprise, strike him on his flank, and close the
campaign in a single battle. On January thirty-first the final orders
were issued for the advance, and the march began. As in Franconia, on
the eve of Jena, it seemed as if the victory were already assured, won
by the marvelous moving of great bodies of men, this time in the depth
of winter.

[Illustration: Map of the Battle of Eylau.]

On what a slender thread hang the fortunes of war! That day a French
courier carrying to Bernadotte a particularly detailed account of the
Emperor's plan, and orders to advance to Gilgenburg, was caught by the
Cossacks. The precious papers were in Bennigsen's hands next morning.
The Russian troops were still in a wretched condition, badly clothed,
and sustaining life by marauding; moreover, they numbered but sixty-five
thousand, Lestocq not yet having come in from Mohrungen. The Russian
general saw how he was entrapped, and that he could escape only by a
swift retreat. His conduct of the movement was masterly, and on February
sixth, though the French columns were not far behind, he had reached
Heilsberg. During the day the Russian rear-guard was driven in, and
Bennigsen, marching all night, found himself next morning before the
town of Eylau, or, more precisely, Preussisch-Eylau, the spot he had
selected for a desperate stand in defense of Koenigsberg. The Russian
rear-guard was again overtaken, this time at Landsberg, where Murat
arrived with his cavalry on the morning of the seventh. All day the
Russians slowly resisted him, fighting bravely under Prince Bagration,
and receding steadily as far as Eylau, which they held by a stubborn
stand until induced to evacuate it voluntarily by the considerations of
gathering darkness and a foe superior in numbers. Their loss during the
day was upward of two thousand. When night fell the Russian lines were a
short distance behind Eylau, and stretched two miles, from Serpalten on
the left to Schloditten on the right. Lestocq, coming up with his
Prussians, had reached Rositten, between nine and ten miles away, where
he received orders to hurry onward. The French held the town of Eylau;
in and near it were the troops of Murat, Soult, Augereau, and just in
their rear the Emperor with the guard. Ney was farther to the north and
west on the left, with orders to cut off Lestocq. The terrain abounded
in lakes and ponds of considerable size, but a black frost had rendered
them so hard, and the snow had so completely bedecked them, that they
were for the purposes of manoeuvering as available as the solid
earth, both for cavalry and artillery.

When day broke on February eighth the general arrangement of the
hostile lines was such as to favor neither. Soult was before the town
on the French left, Augereau in the center, and Saint-Hilaire with one
division of Soult on the right. Behind the two latter was Murat with
the cavalry; in the rear, on rising ground, was the guard under
Bessieres as a reserve. Davout was far out on the right near
Bartenstein. The total number of French on the ground was about eighty
thousand. The Russian right was commanded by Tutschkoff, the center by
Sacken, the left by Ostermann-Tolstoi; their reserve was behind the
center, under Doctoroff and Prince Galitzin. Their total number was
about fifty-eight thousand, but they were superior to their enemy in
artillery. Between the armies, in a low plain, lay several of the
frozen ponds, covered with snow. Napoleon's plan was to send Davout
around the Russian left flank, while Saint-Hilaire engaged Tolstoi.
Augereau and the cavalry were to be hurled against the center and to
push toward the enemy's right; the combined onset would roll up
Bennigsen's entire line and result in a rout; Ney would intervene, and
make the battle not only decisive, but annihilating.

The combination did not work out correctly. It was a raw and bitter
day; during the morning there were occasional snow flurries, and at
midday a heavy downfall. Bennigsen seized the initiative, and opened
the battle by a cannonade. Napoleon, divining his plan, sent a
messenger for Ney to come and strengthen Soult. At nine the Russian
right advanced and drove in the French left, which was weak, to the
town. At that moment the order was given for Augereau and
Saint-Hilaire to move. In the driving storm they lost connection with
each other, and the latter was repulsed by Russian cavalry, while
Augereau's corps was almost destroyed by the enemy's center. The
dashing horsemen of Galitzin reached the foot of the very hill on
which Napoleon stood, and a panic seized all about him, not excepting
Berthier and Bessieres, who excitedly called up the guard to save
their Emperor. The Emperor, though almost "trodden under foot" as
Bertrand testified, nevertheless remained calm, exclaiming, "What
boldness! What boldness!" The pursuers fell back exhausted, and Murat
in turn dashed with his cavalry toward the gap between the enemy's
center and right. So worn out were both sides, however, that without a
collision they ceased to charge, and began to fire.

About noon Davout at last arrived on the Russian left, and drove it
from its position, while Saint-Hilaire again charged, and the two in
combination effected the movement contemplated by the Emperor. In a
few hours the Russians, who were receding in fair order and fighting
fiercely, began to waver, and some of the formations broke into
flight. In this crisis Scharnhorst arrived with five thousand
Prussians; he had been compelled to make a long detour in order to
avoid Ney, with whom Lestocq had been engaged. By nightfall the French
were brought to a stand, and soon after they were driven back from the
hamlets which they had seized in their advance. Night ended the fight.
Ney had not received his orders until two in the afternoon, and
arrived too late for service. The armies retained their relative
positions, and both claimed the day. Neither had lost, neither had
gained, the field. But the battle was disastrous for both: from first
to last the struggle had been desperate and bloody. The losses were
virtually equal--about eighteen thousand men on each side. During the
evening Napoleon began to arrange a retreat; in fact, Davout was
about to begin it when he learned that there was a great commotion in
the enemy's bivouac. Advancing as far as possible, the marshal put his
ear to the ground and distinctly noted a diminishing rumble, which
convinced him that the Russians were withdrawing. This was an
agreeable surprise, and Napoleon, when informed of the fact, ordered
his army to stand fast. The morning light displayed an abandoned
Russian camp.

It is impossible to tell which army was in the worse plight; both were
in the utmost distress. Augereau had been wounded, and, though not
disabled, had left the field. This brought down on him the commander's
displeasure, and inasmuch as his corps was nearly annihilated, it was
disbanded; some of his regiments were virtually destroyed. The living
were gaunt, exhausted, and ill with hunger; an eye-witness declared
that but for the arrival, about noon, of some Jewish traders from
Warsaw with four tuns of brandy, thousands would have perished from
cold and fatigue. The dead were strewn thick over the field, and in
some places were piled in heaps. On the white background of a Northern
winter the carnage was terribly apparent; the prowlers who skulked
from place to place in search of booty could be distinguished in all
directions. Marauding began on a frightful scale, discipline was
slackened by misery, and for miles around thousands of wretched
soldiers stripped the scarcely less wretched peasantry of their few
remaining bits of property.

The army was eager to be gone from these sickening sights. But
Bennigsen had technically admitted defeat by his withdrawal, which the
Prussians characterized as "a sin and a shame." Napoleon, therefore,
waited to secure his victory, and formally despatched a few parties in
pursuit. Murat advanced to within touch of Bennigsen, who had taken
his position under the walls of Koenigsberg. At the same time the
Emperor dictated a glowing account of the French triumph and of the
admirable condition of the army. It was at once despatched for
publication in the official journals of Paris. Soon afterward, on
February thirteenth, a messenger carried to Frederick William verbal
proposals for either an armistice or a separate peace on most
favorable terms. In these Napoleon set forth that the relation of
Prussia to Russia was mere vassalage, and that her rehabilitation as
an independent power was essential to the peace of Europe, agreeing to
restore her lands as far as the Elbe, and saying that as to Poland he
cared nothing whatever. The confident feeling of the allies was shown
by the Prussian king's prompt refusal to accept such overtures, and by
his determination to abide by the issue. On the other hand, the mere
fact of the proposition was evidence of Napoleon's anxiety. It is said
on good authority that the French emissary verbally offered the
complete restoration of Prussia if she would desert her ally.

Stern necessity would wait no longer on Napoleon's bravado; in a few
days his troops withdrew to the tableland behind the river Passarge.
There they found better cantonments, but the food was neither better
nor more abundant. The Emperor had only a thatched hovel for his
headquarters at Osterode, and, as he wrote to his brother Joseph,
lived in snow and filth, without wine, brandy, or bread. "We shall be
in fine condition when we get bread," he said to Soult. "My position
would be fine if I had food; the lack of food makes it only moderate,"
he wrote, on February twenty-seventh, to Talleyrand. This was true,
because now the army was more concentrated than before; and when
headquarters were moved in the spring to Finkenstein the Emperor was
more comfortable. The movements culminating in Pultusk clearly prove
that Napoleon could not until then adapt his means to the novel
conditions of warfare he found in Poland. But in the movements
antecedent to Eylau there are, in spite of virtual defeat, a clear
apprehension of the difficulties, and an evident ability to surmount
them. While Bennigsen constantly assumes the offensive, Napoleon
always seizes the initiative, and in the retreat his choice of the
plateau around Osterode as a rallying-point displays a continued
mastery of all the conditions.

Around the camp-fires there was, during the remaining months of
winter, a passive endurance, mingled with some murmuring about the
horrors caused by one man's ambition. The Emperor set his men an
example of uncomplaining cheerfulness. His health continued as
exuberant as it had been for the year past, and his activity, though
no longer feverish, lost nothing of its intensity. Savary thought he
outdid himself, accomplishing in one month what elsewhere would have
been, even for him, the work of three. Mme. de Remusat remembered to
have heard him say that he felt better during those months than ever
before or after. This vigor of body, combined with the same iron
determination as of old, did indeed work miracles, and this in spite
of the fact that his indefatigable secretary, Maret, was long at the
point of death.

To remedy the blunder of having left Dantzic behind in the hands of
the Prussians, Lefebvre was despatched with his new corps to beleaguer
it. Savary drove the Russians from the Narew and out of Ostrolenka;
Mortier threatened Stralsund and stopped the Swedes, who, as members
of the coalition, were finally about to take an active share in the
fighting. To strengthen the weakened ranks of the invaders, new levies
were ordered in both Switzerland and Poland, while at the same time
some of the soldiers occupying Silesia and besieging her fortresses
were called in. Both Neisse and Glatz were still beset by French
troops, but the siege of Kolberg was abandoned, and still further
reinforcements thus became available. In the daily skirmishes which
occurred at the outposts the fighting was sharp; but the Cossacks were
as saucy as ever, and the French light horse could bring in little
news. Meantime Russia's difficulties, of which Napoleon remained
ignorant, kept her from reinforcing her army to the proper size. Her
credit was so low that she could raise no money on her own account,
and when she applied to England for a subsidy, it was refused. The
Czar was consequently furious, and strained Russia's resources to the
utmost; but he could give Bennigsen no more than enough funds and men
to restore his original strength.

The arms of Russia had been fairly successful on the lower Danube, for
the Turks had been paralyzed by an unforeseen danger. Great Britain
had sent a fleet to Constantinople, and the Sultan, though he
immediately declared war against England, was terrified. But
Napoleon's emissary, Sebastiani, engaged the English admiral in
negotiations until the shore batteries were sufficiently strengthened
to compel the British fleet to retire. Filled by this success with new
enthusiasm for his Eastern projects, the Emperor of the French devised
and set on foot a scheme for the alliance of Turkey and Persia in
order to checkmate the ambitions of either Russia or Austria. About
the end of April an envoy from the Shah arrived at Finkenstein. He was
received with great demonstrations, and France was delighted to see
the kings of the East seeking, as she believed, her Emperor's favor.
Napoleon's information with regard to the Orient was detailed and
accurate; his knowledge of the Eastern character was fraternally
instinctive. A treaty was easily negotiated in which France promised
to drive Russia from Georgia and to supply Persia with artillery; in
return the Shah was to break with England, confiscate British
property, instigate the peoples of Afghanistan and Kandahar to
rebellion, set on foot an army to invade India, and in case the French
should also despatch a land force against India, he was to give them
free passage along a line of march to be subsequently laid out,
together with means of sustenance. None of the Emperor's achievements
during this eventful winter shows more clearly than this how he could
rise above the discouragements of a doubtful situation, and how
sanguine his disposition was when his health was really good.

Throughout the late campaign the Emperor Francis had occupied a
position of non-intervention and hesitating neutrality similar to that
of Frederick William the year before. If he had intervened any time
during the winter after Eylau, his will would have been imperative.
But as Prussia had held off in his hour of need, leaving Napoleon
untrammeled, so now he let Prussia drink of the same cup, and remained
nominally neutral. Andreossy reported, however, that Austria's
strength was being rapidly recruited, and that her preparations
foreboded a renewal of hostilities. There was a new prime minister,
Count Stadion, remarkable for his energy and insight. Napoleon
immediately began to make propositions for an alliance, intended
merely to gain time. As he had the previous year called for the boy
conscripts of 1807, so he now demanded those for 1808, who were even
somewhat younger. The Confederacy of the Rhine was summoned to supply
fresh troops, and even Spain, in which there had recently been
symptoms of serious uneasiness, was called on for a large contingent
of auxiliaries. Before the close of negotiations with Francis,
Napoleon had virtually doubled his army; the new levies were kept in
Silesia and central Prussia, apparently as a reserve, but they were
not far from the Austrian frontier.

On May twenty-sixth, in spite of a gallant and persistent defense by
Kalkreuth, Dantzic, the queen fortress of the Baltic, capitulated.
This made Lefebvre's force available to strengthen further the army
which still lay behind the Passarge. Napoleon again offered Silesia to
Francis, this time entire and outright, as the price of an alliance;
he was even willing to make an exchange for Dalmatia. On April
twenty-sixth, at Bartenstein, Russia and Prussia had signed a new
treaty, according to which they bound themselves to make no separate
peace, and agreed that they would endeavor to unite the Scandinavian
powers with England, Austria, and themselves for a general war of
liberation. The Viennese cabinet was again divided on the question of
renewing hostilities, and in the end proposed its services as a
mediator, provided that Poland should remain divided and Turkey
unmolested, and that German affairs should be rearranged. Napoleon
coquetted with this proposal until Russia and Prussia gave their
reply, which was not an assent to Austria's proposition, but a request
for Francis's adherence to the convention of Bartenstein.[3] When
Austria's offer was thus refused the French position was virtually
secure as against her, at least for the season. Shrewd onlookers could
hardly credit their senses, and thought that so far from Francis's
policy being one of neutrality, it was a favor of the highest
importance to Napoleon. The fact was that Austria knew Prussia's
weakness and had little confidence in Russia's strength. Moreover,
France had powerful friends in Vienna, where Andreossy was
influential, and Austria's own preparations were not complete. It
would be a serious matter if she should conclude a treaty with two
allies who might be beaten before she could herself take the field.
Hence nothing disturbed the impenetrable front of the Danube power;
her own plans were maturing slowly but surely, and while the enormous
French reinforcements in central Europe were in a sense a menace, she
threw a strong military cordon upon the frontiers of Galicia, and
haughtily held aloof from anything likely to fetter her own ambitions.

         [Footnote 3: On the refusal of Russia and Prussia to join
         Austria, see Vandal: Napoleon et Alexandre Ier, Vol. I,
         Chapitre Preliminaire.]




CHAPTER III

AN INDECISIVE VICTORY: FRIEDLAND[4]

         [Footnote 4: References as before.]

     The State of France -- Remedies Proposed by the Emperor --
     Napoleon's Self-Indulgence -- Perplexities of both Combatants in
     Poland -- Opening of the Campaign -- Heilsberg -- Friedland --
     The Result Indecisive -- The Strategic Problem -- The Statesman's
     Point of View -- The Armistice -- Napoleon's Resolution -- The
     Czar's Obligations to Prussia -- His Attitude toward Napoleon.


The situation in Paris was even less satisfactory to Napoleon than
that in the rest of Europe. Then, as now, France was too much like one
of those interesting creatures called by the pleasant scientific name
of cephalopod--all head except a few tentacles; so we say Paris, and
not France. Imperial interests rested on two supports, Paris and the
rest of the world. When Napoleon withdrew behind the Passarge, not all
the fictions which his fertile brain could devise and his busy agents
spread were sufficient to deceive the astute operators of the Paris
exchange. Accordingly, the price of French government bonds went down
with a serious drop; England having announced soon afterward that she
meant to land a great army on the shores of the Baltic, public
confidence was further shaken. A year before, the French nation had
been startled by the premature demand for more French youth; the new
call to anticipate the conscription filled them with consternation.
These were grave matters, and the roads from Paris to Osterode and
Finkenstein continually resounded under the hoofs of horses and the
roll of wheels as messengers sped back and forth with questions and
replies. The nature of this correspondence shows how perfectly the
government of France was centralized in Napoleon's person, even in his
absence at such a distance: the whole gamut of administration was run,
from state questions of the gravest importance down to the disposition
of trivial affairs connected with the opera and its coryphees. As to
reviving the finances, the Emperor was at his wit's end, and in a sort
of blind helplessness he ordered the state to lend five hundred
thousand francs per month to such manufacturers as would keep at work
and deposit their wares in a government storehouse as collateral; nor
did he disdain such measures as the founding of one or two factories
of military supplies, or even the refurnishing of the Tuileries, in
which he requested the women of his family to spend their money
freely.

Of course he was absurdly unsuccessful; scarcely less so than he was
in his attempts to restore general confidence by the publication of
inspired articles in the newspapers. The censorship was more rigid
than ever, and Fouche was instructed to stop indiscreet private
letters from the army. Nevertheless, with no great difficulty the
senate was bullied into approving the new conscription, and the
volatile people soon listened without alarm to the siren voice of
their Emperor, which said these boys would be only a national guard,
children obeying the law of nature, the objects of his own paternal
care. Louis, who was governing Holland with reference to its own best
interests, and ordering the affairs of his family rigidly but
admirably, received a severe and passionate reprimand from the Emperor
for his economy. What was wanted was pay for the troops, plenty of
conscripts, encouragement for the Dutch Catholics, and a giddy court
where men would forget more serious things, and where the gay young
Queen Hortense could make a display. "Let your wife dance as much as
she wants to; it is proper for her age. I have a wife forty years old,
and from the field of battle I recommend her to go to balls; while you
want one of twenty to live in a cloister, or like a wet-nurse, always
bathing her child." In the absence of her bogy, Mme. de Stael, who
said she loved the gutters of Paris better than the mountain streams
of Switzerland, reappeared in the suburbs of that city. When Napoleon
heard of it he grew furious, and gave orders to seize her as an
intriguer, and to send her back to Geneva, by force if necessary. It
was done, but an awful presentiment took possession of the Emperor
that she had appeared like a crow foreboding a coming tempest. As if
to compensate France for the loss of the exile's literary powers and
those of her friends, many means were devised and tried for the
encouragement of an imperial literature. In his assumed and noisy
contempt for ideals, Napoleon displayed his fear of them: the Academy
was ordered to occupy itself with literary criticism; when in public
assemblies mention was made of Mirabeau or other Revolutionary heroes,
the speaker was to be admonished that he should confine himself to
their style and leave their politics alone; the schools were ordered
to train the children in geography and in history, but the instruction
must be confined to facts, and not be philosophical or religious.

Napoleon's worst qualities and his growing weaknesses were made
manifest this winter in two exhibitions of self-indulgence most
far-reaching in their results. The first bad symptom was his notorious
license, which brought from the Empress expressions of the bitterest
reproach. Growing old at forty-three, not forty, as Napoleon gallantly
but untruthfully wrote to Louis, the aging Creole dismissed from
memory the sins of her own youth and middle age, while in jealous
fury she charged her husband not only with his adulteries, but with
crimes the mere name of which sullies the ordinary records of human
wickedness and folly. She would have followed the Emperor to Poland,
but his repeated dissuasions, although honeyed, were virtual
prohibitions, and she dared not. His unfriendly annalist, Mme. de
Remusat, says he retorted to all Josephine's charges that he needed
but one reply, the persistent I: "I am different from every one else,
and accept the limitations of no other." Her continuous weeping, he
wrote to his consort, showed neither character nor courage. "I don't
like cowards; an empress should have pluck." The second sign of
weakness was the growing neglect of detail in his work. Life has
always been too short for a despot both to gratify his passions and at
the same time to be a beneficent ruler, even under the simplest
conditions. On the recovery of Maret, the Emperor relaxed very much in
his personal attention to detail, while his secretary sought to drown
a domestic sorrow and scandal in a feverish activity still greater
than that which he had always displayed. This conjunction gave the
secretary an eminence he had not hitherto reached, and made him
thereafter a power behind the throne whose influence was dangerous to
the Empire, to France, and to the peace of Europe.

In spite of the enemy's numerical inferiority, Napoleon had been
thwarted at Eylau by the weather, by the unsurpassed bravery of the
Russian soldiers, and by the able tactics of Bennigsen. The latter had
not been worsted in the arbitrament of arms, yet the Emperor's
character for resolution and energy had virtually defeated the
Russians, and had given him not only a technical but a real victory.
Although he fell back and assumed the defensive, feeling that without
enormous reinforcements and the capture of Dantzic he could not
resume the offensive, yet nevertheless he had remained for four months
unmolested by his foe. Bennigsen's perplexities were great. The
Russian court was rent by dissensions, affairs at Constantinople were
occupying much of the Czar's attention, and the force available for
fighting in the North seemed too small for a decisive victory: he
remained virtually inert. There was an effort late in February to
drive the French left wing across the Vistula, but it failed. A few
days later Napoleon in person made a reconnaissance on his right, and
this show of activity reduced the opposing ranks to inactivity. He had
proposed to resume hostilities on June tenth, and had by that time
increased his strength on the front to one hundred and sixty thousand
men, all well equipped and fairly well fed. The reserve army in
central Europe was much larger; there were about four hundred thousand
men, all told, in the field.

[Illustration: Battle of Heilsberg.]

Meanwhile, however, the pleasant season had mended the roads and dried
the swamps. The Russians were refreshed by their long rest, and,
children of nature as they were, felt the summer's warmth as a spur to
activity. Bennigsen had by that time about ninety thousand men,
excluding the Prussians, who now numbered eighteen thousand. By his
delay he had lost the services of his best ally, the inclement
weather; but he had at least come to a decision, and forestalling
Napoleon's scheme, advanced on June sixth to the Passarge, against
Ney's corps, which was the French advance-guard. Ney retreated, and
the seventh was spent in manoeuvers which resulted in uniting his
corps with the main army. Bennigsen, having hoped to cut off and
destroy his division before attacking in force, felt compelled, in
consequence of failure, to retreat in turn, and this movement left
Lestocq at a dangerous distance to the right. At this juncture
Napoleon determined to assume the offensive himself. On the eighth he
began to concentrate his troops, and took measures to find the enemy
in order to force a battle. Bennigsen had withdrawn beyond the river
Alle; Soult and Lannes, with Murat in advance, were sent up its left
bank to Heilsberg; Davout and Mortier were to pass farther on, as part
of a general movement to surround; Ney and the guard were held in
reserve, while Victor was despatched to block Lestocq.

The first shock occurred on the morning of the tenth, in the
neighborhood of Heilsberg; for Bennigsen had sent a considerable
number of his troops back over the river to feel the enemy. The
Russians were slowly driven across the plain, fighting fiercely as
they went, until by six in the evening they reached the heights near
the town, which had been intrenched. Here they turned, and for five
hours hurled back one advancing French column after another until
eleven o'clock at night, when, fortunately for the attacking
troops,--so at least thought Savary, who was with them,--it grew too
dark, even near the summer solstice and in those high latitudes, to
fight longer. Next morning Napoleon woke after his bivouac and looked
to see his enemy gone, as at Pultusk and Eylau. But this time a
repetition of that pleasant experience was denied him. His losses had
been so serious the day before that he spent the eleventh in
manoeuvers, further concentrating his army before Heilsberg, and
despatching Davout to throw himself between Lestocq and Bennigsen,
thus turning the latter's right and checking the former, if all went
well. This movement determined the character of the whole campaign. It
had the desired effect, and on the morning of the twelfth the trenches
in front of him were empty. The Russians had stolen away, and for two
days they steadily retreated down the Alle in the general direction
of Koenigsberg, until on the evening of the thirteenth they reached
Friedland.

Bennigsen had expected to retreat still farther, hoping to reach
Wehlau, and cross to the right bank of the Pregel for a strong
defensive position before Koenigsberg. Lestocq with the Prussians was
well forward on the extreme right toward that place. But at three in
the morning of June fourteenth the head of Lannes's column appeared
before Friedland, and the Russian commander, supposing he had to do
with a single division, turned, and crossing to the left bank of the
Alle, passed through Friedland in order to meet his enemy in the open.
His evident intention was to follow the Napoleonic plan of
overwhelming the attacking divisions one by one as they arrived. His
right wing was stationed in the rear of the hamlet of Heinrichsdorf,
his left rested on a forest known as the Sortlack. When his
arrangements were completed it was nine o'clock in the morning. What
information he had is unknown, but what he did remains inexplicable.
Starting to seize Heinrichsdorf, he was, after a short conflict,
repulsed; for Lannes had stretched his line far to the left for the
same purpose, and had been reinforced by Mortier's vanguard. Bennigsen
withdrew about noon to his first position, and stood there in idleness
for three long hours, exchanging useless volleys with his foe. Having
his entire force already on the field, he remained absolutely inactive
while the enemy formed their line. In respect to his having massed his
forces before the French could form, his position was exactly parallel
to that which the latter had occupied at Jena with regard to the
Prussians, and which was used by Napoleon with such vigor for a flank
attack. But Bennigsen lacked the promptness and insight necessary to
use his advantage, and the long delay was decisive. In the interval,
Ney, Victor's artillery, and the guard arrived; at three the Emperor
issued his orders for forming the line; and two hours later he gave
the signal for Ney to attack on the right. The Russians had but
shortly before learned that the main French army was in front of them,
and were beginning their retreat with the intention of recrossing the
Alle, many having entered Friedland, which lies on the left bank of
the stream. In the first rush toward the town, Ney was repulsed with
dreadful loss; but as Ney's corps rolled back to right and left,
Dupont appeared with Victor's first division in the very middle of the
breaking lines, and at the same moment Senarmont pressed forward close
to the Russian ranks with all Victor's artillery,--thirty-six
pieces,--and began to pour in a deadly fire. This routed the enemy,
who fled through the town and over the stream; but their right wing,
being thus turned into the rear-guard, was caught by Lannes before it
reached the crossing, and checked. The wooden bridge was set in
flames, and before nightfall that portion of the Russian army which
had not yet crossed was virtually annihilated.

About eighty thousand French and about fifty-five thousand Russians
took part in this battle; the former lost seven thousand men, the
latter sixteen thousand, with eighty field-pieces. It was the only one
of Napoleon's great engagements in which he admitted his numerical
superiority to his enemy. The same day Soult and Davout, with Murat's
cavalry, drove Lestocq into Koenigsberg, and prepared to invest the
town. But Lestocq's troops, with the garrison and the court, escaped,
flying for refuge toward the Russian frontier. Bennigsen collected at
Allenburg the troops he had saved, and, retreating in good order,
crossed the Niemen at Tilsit four days later. He then had the option
of awaiting Napoleon, who was close behind, or of making peace, or of
withdrawing into the interior beyond the enemy's reach, as Alexander
had done after Austerlitz. As a matter of fact, he confessed utter
defeat. "This is no longer a fight, it is butchery," he wrote to the
Czar's brother, the Grand Duke Constantine. "Tell the Emperor what you
will," he said again, "if only I can stop the carnage."[5]

         [Footnote 5: Oudinot: Memoires, Ch. II.]

The campaign of Friedland shows either less genius or more than any
other of Napoleon's victories, according to the standpoint from which
it is judged. If he is to be regarded throughout its duration merely
as a general, then his conduct shows comparatively little ability. He
came on his enemy where he did not expect a battle. Although he had
ample time to evolve and execute an admirable plan, and while his loss
was trifling compared with that of his opponents, yet, nevertheless,
Friedland was a commonplace, incomplete affair. It compelled the foe
to abandon Heilsberg, but it did not annihilate him or necessarily end
the war. Bennigsen found all Russia behind him after his defeat:
twenty-five thousand men came in from Koenigsberg, Prince Labanoff
brought up the Russian reserves, and thus was formed a substantial
army. A retreat with this force into the vast interior would have left
Napoleon as a general just where he was before. This ineffectual
result was entirely due to a single deliberate move which terminated
his scheme of surrounding and annihilating the foe--the detachment of
Davout against Lestocq on the enemy's extreme right.

But when viewed from the statesman's point of view, Friedland appears
in a very different light.[6] It is a strange coincidence that in the
month previous a rebellion of the janizaries had deprived Selim III
of his throne, and that, Sebastiani's influence being thus ended,
France's position in the Oriental question was utterly changed. The
formal despatches announcing this fact did not reach Tilsit until June
twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth, but there is a strong probability
that it was known to Napoleon before the battle of Friedland. Is it
possible that the Emperor intended Friedland to do no more than
satisfy his army's eagerness for glory, and yet leave Alexander in a
humor to unite with him for the gratification of those well-known
Oriental ambitions of his which he had so recently seen jeopardized by
the Franco-Turkish alliance and the consequent ascendancy of French
influence at Constantinople? Such a hypothesis is by no means wild;
nevertheless, a careful study of the campaign seems to prove that
Napoleon, in suddenly changing from the defensive to the offensive,
and so finding himself at Heilsberg face to face with defeat, took the
quickest and easiest means to relieve a critical situation. It would
have appeared something very much like bravado had Davout's corps
penetrated between Lestocq's division and the Russian army, and thus
have exposed itself to a rear attack. If the easy self-reliance
Napoleon felt after a winter of robust health had been somewhat less,
and if his intellectual acumen had been somewhat greater, the whole
situation might have been foreseen and provided for. As neither was
the case, he did as a general the best thing that was possible at the
moment. Admitting this, we shall find the statesman making the most of
the general's poor situation; for the treaty which followed Friedland
is unique in the history of diplomacy.

         [Footnote 6: Yorck von Wartenburg: Napoleon als Feldherr, I,
         XIII.]

There were forcible reasons on both sides for arriving at an
understanding. It has been remarked that Napoleon never discharged the
stings and darts of personal abuse at Alexander I as he did at the
persons of other enemies. In what was almost a personal correspondence
at an earlier time the Czar had exhibited his noblest qualities and an
enlightened liberalism. To be sure, every humiliation had been heaped on
Russia in spurning the Oubril treaty of the previous year and by the
light disdain of peace obligations solemnly taken. Yet Napoleon was
alive to the present and imperative need of a strong ally if his
mercantile attack on England were to have even a chance of success. With
Austria he had employed all the diplomatic arts of Talleyrand and
Andreossy to no avail: the Polish campaign had made Francis alert, that
of Russia was reviving the bellicose spirit of the Austrian army.
Negotiation with Frederick William had failed because based on the
concept of a new Prussia eastward of the Elbe, a menace alike to Russia
and Austria, and a confession of defeat by the King, who preferred to
place his trust in Alexander. Francis was equally adverse to
Talleyrand's elaborate scheme of a realm eastern in fact as in name,
stretching away down the Danube valley to the Euxine, a buffer against
Russian aggression, a menace or a support to Turkey as occasion
required. It was therefore a categorical imperative which determined the
Emperor of the French to woo the Emperor of all the Russias at this
juncture. When a proposition for an armistice was made by Bennigsen on
June twenty-first, it was not only courteously but impressively
accepted, and within a very short time things were moving as if the two
emperors were no longer enemies, but rather as if they were already
intimate friends, anxious to embrace. At least, even before their
meeting, such was the attitude they assumed in their communications with
each other and ostentatiously displayed to those about them. Some things
are perfectly patent in the Czar's desire for peace. Russian autocracy
as a system was still unshakable, but the authority of his house was
not: in sixty years there had been no fewer than four revolutionary
upheavals, either by the soldiery or by a palace cabal. The instability
of the throne had sadly diminished the prestige of the country, and
after Austerlitz the nation had been treated with contempt in the person
of the Czar, both in his political and his military character, the rest
of Europe being profoundly indifferent to Russian chagrin. His situation
was not improved by Pultusk, Eylau, or Friedland. Dissensions in the
field were not concealed by the hallelujahs and hosannas of the populace
in the cities; victory bore no fruits; without Austria the next step
could not be taken, and hesitancy still marked that uneasy monarchy as
its own. Prussia, although the principal in the fight, was but a feeble
power. England, though reaping the harvest of Russia's commerce, had
become niggardly in regard to subsidies, and had delayed the
long-promised, much-vaunted Baltic expedition until it was useless. The
King of Sweden was so hated by his own subjects that his efforts as an
ally had been rendered almost futile. In Russia itself there was a
strong party, led by the Grand Duke Constantine, which steadily
denounced the war as one in the interest of strangers, and in it were
included most, if not all, the Russian officers. It was evident that
Alexander as an auxiliary would lose no prestige at home in withdrawing
from a quarrel which was not Russia's, and in which he had more than
paid any debt he owed to Prussia by the sacrifice in her behalf of his
guards and of the flower of his army. Moreover, misery abounded among
the survivors, and Russian finances were not exactly in a flourishing
condition. Such was the general discontent with the war that men of
importance--at least so it was said at the time--ventured to remind
Alexander of his father's violent death.

On the other side the urgency was becoming acute. As the strategists
say, Napoleon had won a battle, but not a victory, at Friedland. The
situation in Paris continued highly unsatisfactory. The threatened
English expedition to the Baltic might arrive at any time.
Contemptible as was Gustavus of Sweden, he was in Pomerania with an
Anglo-Hanoverian army of ten thousand men. Most disquieting of all,
there were movements both of intellectual agitation and of active
partizan warfare in Prussia that presaged a speedy convalescence on
her part. It is evident that an alliance with Russia was better for
France than one with Prussia as regards both the Oriental and European
plans of Napoleon. He therefore determined to suggest the most
glittering prospects to Alexander's messenger--nothing less than the
partition of Turkey, and the Vistula as the Russian frontier on the
Baltic.

[Illustration: Battle of Friedland.]

But all these reasons on both sides seem inadequate to explain the
extraordinary character of the events preliminary to the meeting of
the two emperors at Tilsit, of what occurred at that meeting, and of
the treaty there negotiated. When Bennigsen first proposed an
armistice, Napoleon demanded as a guarantee the three fortresses of
Pillau, Kolberg, and Graudenz. His messenger returned with the reply
that they were not Russia's to give. Soon Duroc was despatched to the
hostile camp. Would the Czar make a separate peace? To do so would be
to betray Prussia by expressly violating the Bartenstein treaty.
Technically the document was invalid, for Austria had never signed it,
although she would gladly have done so when brought to face a
Franco-Russian alliance. Morally it would be base for Alexander to
negotiate separately, for Frederick William had refused a similar
offer.[7] The young Czar, however, cared nothing for the royal Europe
of former days, and but little for the theory of a Western empire
under Napoleon. What he did care for was Russian influence in
geographical Europe under whatever name, for the dismemberment of
Turkey, and for the extension of his empire toward the west by the
acquisition of Finland from Sweden. Having failed to realize his
purpose by a coalition of so-called legitimate sovereigns, and having
heard the almost incredible suggestions which Napoleon had made to
Prince Labanoff, his messenger, he was overpowered by the temptation
thus held out, and, deserting Prussia, answered, "Yes." On the
twenty-first an armistice without serious guarantees was concluded
between France and Russia; but none was made with Prussia, for the
terms offered to her were so severe that, desperate as was her King,
he could not endure the thought of accepting them. She was no longer
an equal with either France or Russia, but a dependent on either and
on both; her nomad court was reduced to Frederick William, his
minister Hardenberg, and a few followers who were here to-day and
there to-morrow, wherever they felt most was to be gained from the
self-interest of either their former ally or their conqueror. The
Queen and royal family were at Memel, the farthest outpost of
Prussia's shattered domain.

         [Footnote 7: On the character of Alexander, see Vandal:
         Napoleon et Alexandre, Vol. I, Ch. I.]

The attitude of the Czar toward Napoleon was markedly different from
that of his predecessors in defeat. Frederick William's ancestor had
only a century before bought his title by supplying Prussian troops to
the German-Roman emperor, and, like Napoleon, had set the crown on his
own head. Francis I of Austria was the grandson of Maria Theresa, a
powerful and masterful woman, who held her throne in direct
contravention of legitimist theories, because she had conquered it.
Both were nevertheless overpowered by the sense of their legitimacy
and sacred aloofness. When Francis humiliated himself before his
conqueror after Austerlitz, his mien was distant and his salute
haughty; the miserable King of Prussia was, like him, dignified and
severe even in his beggary. The Czar was too close to the crime which
had set him on his throne to assume any airs of superiority with the
French Caesar. Having taken the first step, he began to show a childish
eagerness for a personal meeting with Napoleon. The Emperor was far
from averse, and made a formal proposal to that effect, which was
promptly accepted; the intercourse between French and Russian officers
grew warmer and closer every day, and the arrangements for an
interview between the would-be Eastern and Western emperors were soon
completed.




CHAPTER IV

NAPOLEON AND ALEXANDER AT TILSIT[8]

         [Footnote 8: For the years of the Franco-Russian alliance the
         French archives contain a wealth of documentary material:
         regular despatches, verbatim reports of conversations between
         the French ambassadors and the Czar, the news of the day in
         St. Petersburg and the gossip of society. Savary and
         Caulaincourt may be said to have kept their master in
         personal touch with their friend and ally. There is likewise
         the ordinary regular diplomatic correspondence with Austria,
         Prussia, Turkey, and the other European states. An
         interesting and invaluable peculiarity of French archives is,
         that bound up with despatches received are the outlines of
         those sent, and generally not merely a sketch, but the first
         draft with all annotations and corrections, these quite often
         in Napoleon's almost cryptic but still decipherable
         handwriting. Much of course is in cipher, but the key is
         available and sometimes the official decipherment. The
         archives of St. Petersburg are also available for properly
         accredited searchers; Tratchefski has gone a considerable
         distance in publishing the decisive papers, and Tatistcheff
         has printed many important documents in various periodicals.
         Other sources have been already indicated: the published
         correspondence of Napoleon and of Pozzo di Borgo, the
         histories of Bignon, Lefebvre, and Rambaud, and the
         monumental work of Vandal: Napoleon et Alexandre Ier, are all
         of the first importance. Bertrand: Lettres inedites de
         Talleyrand a Napoleon, contains the replies of the minister
         to his chief. Duckworth's check at Constantinople is fully
         explained by Juchereau de Saint Denys: Revolutions de
         Constantinople en 1807 et 1808. Cf. also Hassel: Geschichte
         der Preussischen Politik, 1807 bis 1815. Choiseul-Gouffier:
         Reminiscences sur Napoleon Ier et Alexandre Ier. Adami:
         Louise de Prusse, Erinnerungen der Graefen von Voss. Savary:
         Memoires. Life of Sir Robert Wilson.]

     The Floating Pavilion -- Emperor, Czar, and King -- The Two
     Principals -- Their Relation to Frederick William -- A Diplomatic
     Novelty -- Napoleon's Motives -- Great Britain and the World's
     Commerce -- The Orders in Council -- Napoleon's Decrees -- Russia
     as an Ally -- The Ministers and the Negotiations -- Imperial
     Amusements -- The Fate of Turkey -- The Two Friends -- Work after
     Play.


On the morning of June twenty-fifth, 1807, there lay anchored in the
middle of the Niemen, before Tilsit, a pavilion ingeniously
constructed by French soldiers from boats and boards. It was gaily
decorated, according to the taste of their country, with flags and
garlands. The front bore a large monogram composed of the letters N
and A interlaced. Within were two comfortable rooms, one for the
sovereigns, one for their suites. At a signal two skiffs put out, one
from each shore, amid the mingled cheers of the French and Russian
guards, drawn up in view of each other across the intervening stream.
The dull roar of cannon intoned the tidings of reconciliation. In one
boat was Alexander, suitably arrayed in uniform; in the other was
Napoleon, wearing the traditional gray coat and undress hat. The
Emperor of the French was first on board the float, and received his
guest with all that winning grace which he could so well command.
After a formal embrace he began an informal conversation, which then
continued without a break as the two schemers withdrew to the
apartment arranged for their interview. The staff, at a respectful
distance, could catch nothing of what was said, and although the
interview lasted nearly two hours, no words of it are known except the
opening phrases, reported by Napoleon himself. "Sire," remarked the
Czar, "I shall second you against the English." "In that case," was
the reply, "everything can be arranged, and peace is made." Some doubt
has been cast on the literal truth of this momentous dialogue, since
it rests on a single authority. For a century it has not been denied,
and the cup of bitterness which England had held to Alexander's lips
was certainly brimming. Since the beginning of hostilities Great
Britain had failed in every single engagement. Her naval force in the
Baltic was puny, but it preyed on Russian commerce; the promised war
material did not arrive; her support at Constantinople was farcical;
she had no more heart in Turkish partition than before and ever
since; Canning was less than half-hearted and favored Austria to
Russia's disadvantage; even the money support expected and tacitly
promised was refused. The Czar knew that he had been betrayed by
England in the interest of Austria: he did not know how grave had been
Napoleon's coquetry in a similar suit. He was as much bent on the
emancipation of Russian commerce from English tyranny as Napoleon on
the "freedom of the seas," the revolutionary phrase for British
humiliation. The conversation may well have taken place literally as
reported: even though the Czar hoped to postpone the rupture for some
months, he may have given his complete confidence under four eyes. Who
can measure the fascination under which the young enthusiast fell at
first sight? In any case nothing apparently occurred to disturb the
amiability of either monarch. It was doubtless agreed that they should
form a dual alliance, absolute and exclusive.[9] "I have often slept
two in a bed," the suave but inelegant Napoleon was heard to say at a
subsequent meeting, "but never three." Savary declared that the
smiling and complacent young Czar thought the remark delightful. The
meaning of the riddle, if riddle there be, was, of course, that
Austria could no longer count as an equal in the Continental Olympus,
the membership of which was thus reduced to two.

         [Footnote 9: On this point, see Vandal: Napoleon et Alexandre
         Ier, Ch. I.]

The Czar's conscience smote him in regard to his desertion of
Prussia, but with no great effort he obtained material concessions for
her from his new ally. The same afternoon an armistice was arranged
with Frederick William, by the terms of which he temporarily kept his
strong places in Silesia and Pomerania; but his propositions for an
alliance were incontinently rejected. Next day there was another
meeting on the same raft, but this was tripartite, for the King of
Prussia was present. Napoleon was blunt and imperious, reproaching
Frederick William with the duplicity of his policy, vindictively (the
descriptive word he used himself), and with emphasis, demanding
Hardenberg's dismissal. At parting he invited Alexander to dinner, but
ostentatiously omitted to include Frederick William in the request. It
was agreed that to expedite the final negotiations the three monarchs
should remain on the ground; one half the town of Tilsit was
neutralized and divided into three portions, each of the three parties
to take up his residence in one. This closed the preliminaries, and
the two emperors returned with mutual satisfaction to the respective
sides of the river from which they had come. The sensations of
Frederick William, who accompanied Alexander, must have been those of
a soldier on the field under a capital operation in surgery. That very
afternoon the Czar removed to the quarter of Tilsit appropriated to
him. The King of Prussia took lodgings in the house of a miller, but
spent only a part of each day in them, preferring the melancholy
solitude of the neighboring hamlet of Piktupoenen, where he and
Hardenberg had last alighted.

Alexander was now thirty years of age, sanguine, ambitious,
impressionable, and mature in proportion to his years. His features
were well formed on Slavic lines, his look was sympathetic, and his
form elegant. The many graces of his mind and person were natural. "My
friend," wrote Napoleon to Josephine on the twenty-fifth, "I have
just met the Emperor Alexander. I have been much pleased with him; he
is a very handsome, good young emperor; he has more intelligence than
is generally thought." Napoleon himself was only eight years older,
but his mind was more penetrating and adroit by a whole generation.
The classic cast in his features, which only a few years before made
sculptors mold him like the statue of the young Augustus, had nearly
disappeared. A complete transformation had been produced in his bodily
appearance by the robust health he had for some time enjoyed. He had
become more of a primitive Italian and less of a Roman. His skin was
now clear and of a rich, dark tint. His powerful frame was fully
developed, and while fat, he was not obese; the great head sat on a
neck which was like a pillar in thickness and strength. His expression
was slightly sensuous about the mouth and chin, but his eyes were
quick and penetrating in their glance. It was rarely that his gaze was
intent. The good manners and polished courtesy in which he indulged at
this time were an unwonted luxury.

Cobenzl said that the last step but one to universal conquest was to
divide the world between two. At that moment there was little doubt as
to which of these two would ultimately survive. Alexander was
impressionable and eager for friendship. He was flattered by the
attentive and considerate manner of the greatest man in Europe. The
glittering, intoxicating generalities of Napoleon attracted his
aspiring mind, while the fascination of the Emperor's person strongly
moved his heart. On the other hand, the influence of the Czar on the
Emperor was substantial. Beneath his frank and chivalric manners,
behind his enthusiasm and romanticism, lay much persistence and shrewd
common sense. The advantages which he gained were granted by Napoleon
mainly from motives of self-interest, for Russia, strong, was the best
helper in reducing Austria to impotence; nevertheless, they were
secured largely through personal influence, and were substantial
advantages which might be permanent in case of disaster to a single
life. Frederick William was only two years younger than Napoleon. His
development had been slow; he was well-meaning but dull, proud but
timid. Though destined to see a regeneration of Prussia under his own
reign, he had as yet done nothing to further it, and in an access of
resentment had declared a war in which she had been virtually
annihilated. His former ally insisted that he should occasionally
attend the conferences, but his presence was distasteful to Napoleon.
Thus he sat, dejection and despair stamped on his homely face;
haughty, yet a suppliant; a king, yet only by sufferance. Fortunately
his queen, Louisa, the woman of her day, beautiful, virtuous, and
wise, came finally to his support. Her hopes were destined to be
rudely shattered, and her charm was to be used in vain; but it was her
presence alone which gave any dignity to Prussia at Tilsit.

Both from the place and circumstances, from the station and character
of the persons negotiating, as well as from the nature of the results,
the meeting at Tilsit is the most remarkable in the history of
diplomacy. The motives which disposed Napoleon to an armistice were
plain enough; those which determined his later conduct can only be
divined. Prussia had seemed to the French liberals of the Revolution
to belong by nature to their system: they were quite as angry with her
persistent neutrality as was either Austria or England, both of whom
thought she should adhere to them, if only for self-preservation.
Napoleon's repeated but vain attempts to secure a Prussian alliance
before Jena, or a separate negotiation afterward, rooted this
traditional bitterness in his mind. To secure the prize for which he
was fighting he had only two courses open: either to restore Poland as
the frontier state between the civilization of his empire and the
semi-barbarism and ambitions of Russia, or else to negotiate with
Russia herself.

The former course meant an interminable warfare with Russia, Austria,
and Prussia, at a distance of fifteen hundred miles from Paris; for
Russia would fight to the death rather than lose the only possessions
which put her into the heart of Europe, and thus be relegated to the
character of an Asiatic power. The Emperor of the French had already
seen after Eylau how untrustworthy the grand army was, even in Poland;
if dejected and insubordinate there, as he may well have recalled was
actually the case, what would it be on the banks of the Dnieper, in
the plains of Lithuania? Such considerations probably determined not
only the fact of peace, but its character. In order to secure what he
had gained in western, southern, and central Europe, England must be
brought to terms. Russia must therefore not only be an ally, but a
hearty ally: as the price of her subscription to the Berlin Decree,
and the consequent closing of her harbors to English shipping, she
could gratify any reasonable ambition, and might virtually dictate her
own terms. With an engine in his hands as formidable as Russia's
adhesion to his commercial policy, he could act at the nick of
time,--which, as he declared at this very season to Joseph, was the
highest art of which man is capable,--could destroy England's
commerce, and in a long peace could consolidate the empire he had
already won. His empire thus consolidated, he would be virtual master
of half the solid earth in the Eastern hemisphere. If ambition should
still beckon him on, he would still be young; he could then consider
the next step to universal empire.

It may safely be said that Great Britain was never more haughty than
at this moment. Her king had turned the ministry of "All the Talents"
out of doors; for after Fox's death the combination lost all dignity
and power. The Duke of Portland was now prime minister. He was a blind
but energetic conservative, his Toryism, unlike that of Pitt in his
enlightened days, being of the sort which lay close to his sovereign's
heart. England's monopoly of European commerce seemed assured: Sweden,
Denmark, and the Hanse towns were the only important seafaring powers
of Europe that retained a nominal neutrality, and it was only a
question of time when they must accept terms either from France or
from her. With every other European nation embroiled in the Napoleonic
wars and deeply concerned for its own territorial integrity, the
United States of America was her only real maritime rival, and she had
bullied us into a temporary acquiescence in her interpretation of
international law.[10]

         [Footnote 10: The importance of American commerce at that
         time has not usually had due recognition; statement of its
         value see Mahan: The Influence of Sea Power upon the French
         Revolution and Empire, Vol. II, pp. 231-2.]

When colonies were first recognized as essential to the prosperity of
European nations, the rule was universally observed that only the
mother country could trade with her own. In 1756 France endeavored to
break this rule by permitting neutral ships to engage in traffic
between herself and her West Indian possessions. England at once laid
down the "rule of 1756," that neutrals should not exercise in time of
war privileges of traffic which they were not permitted to enjoy in
time of peace; and this principle she was able to maintain more or
less completely until 1793, when France declared war on her, and again
invited neutral commerce to French colonial harbors. England, having
regained her supremacy of the seas, reasserted in 1793 the rule of
1756, but nevertheless so modified it the following year that she
permitted neutral traders to break, in their own or in her harbors,
their voyages from or to colonial ports. In 1796 France notified all
neutrals that she would treat them just as they permitted Great
Britain to treat them, and in 1798 shut all her harbors to any vessel
which had even touched at a British port. This state of affairs
continued until the peace of Amiens. When war was renewed in 1803
between England and France the former again asserted the rule of 1756
as binding, while indirect trade between neutral ports and the ports
of an enemy was again allowed, but under the new proviso that the
neutral ship did not on her outward voyage furnish the enemy with
goods contraband of war. This privilege of indirect trade was
invaluable to American ship-owners, and for two years the ocean
commerce of all Europe was in their hands. The fortunes they thus
accumulated were enormous, while Great Britain saw her own
manufactures displaced by those of continental nations, and the
colonies of her enemies prospering as never before. In 1805,
therefore, she withdrew the privilege of indirect trade, and her flag
being, after Trafalgar, the only belligerent one left on the ocean,
proceeded both to enforce the new rule and to abuse the proviso
concerning neutral vessels carrying contraband of war by ruthlessly
exercising the right of search. Under the orders in council of
September fifth, 1805, every neutral ship must be examined to see
whether its lading was a cargo of neutral goods, or whether it
contained anything contraband. This could only mean that every
American ship laden with other than American goods was to be seized;
and in May of the following year, by the still more notorious order of
the sixteenth, Great Britain declared that every European harbor from
Brest to the mouth of the Elbe was blockaded. This was a distance of
eight hundred miles, and even she had not ships enough to enforce her
decree. Trafalgar had turned the heads of English statesmen.

This paper blockade was the challenge which called forth the Berlin
Decree from Napoleon. American ships, like those of the French, were
for a time seized, searched, and detained by the British on the
slightest suspicion that they were either leaving or were destined for
a hostile port, while their sailors were pitilessly impressed. The
government at Washington authorized reprisals, but American
ship-owners found it more profitable to compromise than to resist, and
Monroe came to an understanding with the English ministry; the
prosperity of American shipping was again revived, and the merchants
of the United States continued to prosper by carrying English wares
under the American flag into harbors where the union jack was
forbidden. By this evasion Great Britain retained her commercial
supremacy, and her prosperity was rather increased than diminished.
She withheld a similar cooeperation from Sweden and Russia until it was
too late, her enterprise being chiefly concerned to open new channels
for her commerce in Egypt and in South America.

How was this leviathan, which was drawing the wealth of all Europe to
its stores, and eluding or repelling all attack on its chosen
element--how was this tyrant of the ocean to be slain? Clearly the
Americans must be so harassed and annoyed that in the end the public
spirit of the United States would be aroused to resent English
control, and bid defiance to Great Britain's assumption of maritime
supremacy. To this end the rigid enforcement of the Berlin Decree
would be well adapted in the long run, but in the interval much could
be done: if its principle could be extended to the destruction of all
smuggling, to the absolute exclusion of British commerce from the
entire Continent--not only from the seaports, but from the
markets--the end would be gained. With Russia's cooeperation alone was
this possible. Napoleon's present plan, therefore, was to secure
France and the French Empire, as far as won, by compelling the world
to a lasting peace through the immediate establishment of a
counterpoise, the French and Russian empires against Great Britain,
leaving time to do its perfect work of exasperating the rising naval
power of the United States into open hostility against the parent
land.

These, it seems, must have been the considerations which controlled
the course of affairs at Tilsit. The deliberations were both formal,
so called, and informal. At the former were present the three
sovereigns with their ministers--Talleyrand for France, Kurakin and
Labanoff for Russia, Kalkreuth and Goltz for Prussia; at the latter
were sometimes all three of the monarchs, frequently only the two
principals, for they found Frederick William a damper on their
hilarity. The generals, the staff, and the men of the two great armies
which had fought so bravely at Friedland harmonized in mutual respect;
but the unwarlike King and his suite, both military and civil, were
outsiders. Immediately after the formal and brilliant entry of
Alexander into Tilsit, Napoleon began the exchange of prisoners, and
despatched messengers commanding his forces in Germany to restore to
their sovereign the territories of Mecklenburg, whose reigning house
was kin to the Czar. For Frederick William there was scarcely a show
of kindness--nothing, in fact, but a cold condemnation of Hardenberg,
to whose influence, combined with that of the military party, the
conqueror charged Prussia's declaration of war. This minister,
banished at Napoleon's instance, was near by. The King pleaded in vain
that he might still serve as mentor in the coming negotiation; the
Emperor scornfully refused. There were no others available, rejoined
the King. Napoleon named several: among them, and probably not by
inadvertence, Stein. This great name is welded to the regeneration of
Prussia, but its bearer was a liberal in the measures he enforced.
Hardenberg, great and adroit as he was, stood for the passing
conservatism, and while he was indefatigable to the end, he was after
all a worker at twilight, unable to see the coming metamorphosis of
old Europe into the new. It was a proposition outlined by him which
brought forward the first vital question, the partition of Turkey. His
sovereign's stateliest lands had been gained by the partition of
Austria and of Poland; he now suggested that Russia and Austria should
divide the Danubian principalities between them, that France should
take Greece and her isles, and that Poland should be restored and
given to the King of Saxony, who in turn should hand over his German
domains to Prussia. The Czar accepted the paper, which was
communicated to him as approved by the King, but kept silence.

A favorite amusement of the two emperors was playing with the French
army. Napoleon delighted in the display of his condescension to the
men, and in the exhibition of their enthusiastic affection for him.
Their drill, their uniforms, the niceties of military ceremonial, the
gorgeous drum-majors twirling their batons or marching in puffy
state--every detail fascinated the Czar, whose house, said
Czartoryski, was affected with the disease of paradomania.

[Illustration: Napoleon Exposition, 1895.

NAPOLEON, by Ingres.

From nature, during a mass at the Tuileries. Belonging to M. Germain
Bapst]

At an opportune moment on one of these reviewing expeditions,
Napoleon, surrounded by all the splendors of his power, was approached
by a hurrying courier, who put into his hands despatches announcing
the overthrow of the Sultan Selim. "It is a decree of Providence,
announcing the end of Ottoman empire!" he cried. Thenceforth he talked
incessantly of the Orient. As if inspired by prophetic fire, he
sketched a missionary enterprise for the liberation and regeneration
of Greece, and for the emancipation and reorganization of the lands
and peoples on the Danube and in the Levant by distributing them among
enlightened sovereigns. It was language identical with that which
Catherine the Great employed to inspire her people and her descendants
for Russia's policy. But the millennium must wait; for the present the
barbarous Turks must be driven back, not by force, but by a steady,
continuous application of the policy thus outlined; the consummation,
when reached, would be permanent. For the moment more immediate and
pressing matters must be settled; when Alexander should pay his
promised visit to Paris they would have more abundant leisure to
discuss ulterior plans. These dazzling prospects were a part of the
Czar's consideration. He promised in return to conclude a separate
peace with Turkey, which, in the absence of French support, he doubted
not he could make most favorable. But in case the Porte should prove
obdurate, a provisional plan of partition was drawn up to indicate
approximately what Russia might expect.

As the days passed, a routine life was gradually established. The two
emperors met privately in the morning, and chatted about every
conceivable point, pacing the floor or bending with heads touching
over the map of Europe to consider its coming divisions. Alexander had
said at the outset that his prejudice against Napoleon disappeared
at first sight, and later he exclaimed, "Why did we not meet sooner?"
He now repudiated any fondness whatever for the "legitimate" politics
of Europe; he had visited the Bourbon pretender, the so-called Louis
XVIII, at Mittau, and had found him of no account; he even accepted
the light suggestion of his new-found friend that the Russian
councilor Budberg should have no share in the conferences, as being
possibly too closely wedded to old ideas. "You be my secretary," said
Napoleon, "and I will be yours." In the afternoon the King of Prussia,
with his staff, was generally invited to join their cavalcade for a
ride. The Emperor of the French gave in later years a malicious
account of these jaunts. Himself a fearless though awkward horseman,
he spurred his charger to full speed, and the Czar followed with glee,
while the King, as timid in the saddle as in the cabinet, jounced and
bounced, often knocking Napoleon's arms with his elbows. The French
and Russian officers paired in good-fellowship, while the few
Prussians rode together. Constantine gathered Murat, Berthier, and
Grouchy about him, and treating them on equal terms, displayed the
strongest proofs of his regard. The dinners which followed, though
always large and stately, were made short, for the emperors wished to
be alone as quickly and as long as possible. The Czar was full of
curiosity. How did Napoleon win victories? How did he rule men? What
were his family relations? How did he regulate his inner life? The
Emperor was full of good humor: he told again and again the tale of
his victories, and expounded the principles on which he had won them;
he explained with candor and in detail the structure and workings of
his administrative machine; he opened his heart, and told how its
strings had been wrung by the death of the "Little Napoleon," the
eldest son of Queen Hortense.

In such pleasant converse the hours of ease rolled swiftly by, and
then the work of negotiation began once more. Where differences
appeared, Napoleon evaded close discussion and passed to other
matters. Next morning early, the Czar would receive a carefully
worded, concise note on the points at issue, together with an
argument. Sometimes he replied in writing, more frequently not. When
they met again, Napoleon sought, or appeared to seek, a compromise,
and never in vain. The council of ministers, in which there was not a
single man of force except Talleyrand, received the conclusions from
time to time, and elaborated the details.




CHAPTER V

THE TREATY OF TILSIT[11]

         [Footnote 11: References as before. Further: Lefebvre:
         Histoire des cabinets de l'Europe. Tatistcheff: Alexandre Ier
         et Napoleon. Ranke: Hardenberg und die Geschichte des
         Preussischen Staates von 1793-1813. Pingaud: Les Francais en
         Russie et les Russes en France.]

     Two Equal Empires -- Central Europe and the Orient -- Prussia as
     a Second-rate Power -- The Grand Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom
     of Westphalia -- Napoleon and Frederick William -- Queen Louisa
     of Prussia -- The Meeting of Napoleon and Louisa -- Courtesy and
     Diplomacy -- The Bitterness of Disappointment -- The Last Plea --
     Prussia's Humiliation -- The Parting of the Emperors --
     Alexander's Disenchantment -- Napoleon's Gains and Losses.


By such hitherto unknown simplicity and address diplomacy at Tilsit
was rendered most expeditious. The negotiations were complete, the
treaties drawn up, and the signatures affixed on July seventh. There
were three different documents: a treaty of peace, a series of seven
separate and secret articles, and a treaty of alliance. The first
point gained by Napoleon was the recognition of all his conquests
before 1805. The Czar admitted for the first time absolute equality
between the two empires, and recognized the limits of the French
system as it then existed: first, the Confederation of the Rhine, with
any additions yet to be made; second, the kingdom of Italy, including
Dalmatia; third, the vassalage of Holland, Berg, Naples, and
Switzerland. There was a verbal understanding, it is said, that
Napoleon might do as he liked in Spain and the Papal States, while
the Czar should have the same liberty in regard to Finland. Subsequent
events attested the probability of this statement. To illustrate
Napoleon's attitude toward the recent, but now dissolved alliance,
Prussia was given to understand that she owed to Russia what remnants
of territory she retained; the stipulations with regard to her were
therefore included in the treaty with Russia.

Still, there was to be a Prussia. Between the two great empires was to
lie, in realization of a long-cherished plan, a girdle of neutral
states like the "marches" established by Charles the Great. In this
line Silesia was the only break. Prussia and Austria, one on each side
of this mark, shorn of their strength and prestige, might await their
destiny. France was to mediate for peace between Russia and Turkey,
Russia between England and France. In case Great Britain should not
prove tractable,--that is, admit the sanctity of all flags on the high
seas, and restore all the colonies of France and her allies captured
since 1805,--then Russia, in common with France, Denmark, Sweden,
Portugal, and Austria, would declare commercial war on England, and
complete the continental embargo on British trade. Should Turkey
refuse favorable terms, the two empires would divide between them all
her European lands except Rumelia and the district of Constantinople.
Alexander afterward declared that Napoleon gave a verbal promise that
Russia should have a substantial increment on the Danube. The rumor
was that Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bulgaria were indicated
to the Czar as his share.

No mention was made of Austria, which the treaty of Presburg had
sufficiently dismembered. But Prussia? In order to complete the great
"march" between east and west, Silesia was essential. At first
Napoleon thought of combining it with Prussian Poland to form a
kingdom. This would not restore the real Poland, but it would create a
Poland, and give him a Polish army. It was already decided that the
Elbe should form Frederick William's western frontier; to weaken his
strength still further would destroy all balance between Prussia and
Austria. Moreover, Alexander made a tender appeal, and adroitly
suggested a distasteful counter-proposition. Accordingly it was
settled that the great province should remain Prussian. This was a
large concession to the Czar.

To make some pretense of fulfilling the lavish but indefinite promises
made to the Poles, the lands of Warsaw and the province of Posen, with
a considerable tract not now contained in it, were erected into the
grand duchy of Warsaw. Under the influence of historical reminiscence
this was given, not as a province but as a separate sovereignty to the
Elector of Saxony, who was simultaneously made king and a member of
the Rhine Confederation. The Czar, in return for his cessions to the
grand duchy of Warsaw, received the Prussian district of Bielostok. As
a compensation for the Bocche di Cattaro and the Ionian Islands,
Dantzic was restored to its position of a free city. The Prussian
lands of the Elbe, together with Hesse-Cassel and many minor domains,
were erected into the kingdom of Westphalia for the Emperor's brother
Jerome. We have almost forgotten in our day how, less than a century
ago, Germany was divided into insignificant fragments. It is
instructive to recall that the formation of this new kingdom
beneficently ended the separate existence of no fewer than twenty-four
more or less autonomous powers--electorates, duchies, counties,
bishoprics, and cities. It contained the all-important fortress of
Magdeburg, the possession of whose frowning walls carried with it the
command of the Elbe, and virtually made Prussia a conquered and
tributary state.

This seemed to Frederick William the climax of his misfortunes. He had
daily information from the Czar of what was under consideration, and
the rescue of Silesia by his mediator gave him high hopes for the
preservation of Magdeburg. But his poor-spirited behavior wearied even
Alexander, who, willing at the outset to atone for desertion by
intervention, became toward the end very cold. When the King desired
permission to plead in person for Magdeburg, Napoleon refused. The
Prussian case might be presented by counsel. Goltz was speedily
summoned to the task, but though he was always about to have an
interview with the French emperor, he never secured it.

It was at this crisis of Prussia's affairs that the King, after much
urging, consented to summon his Queen. The rumors and insinuations
concerning the Czar's undue admiration of her, so industriously spread
by Napoleon, had made him over-sensitive; but as a last resort he felt
the need of her presence. She came with a single idea--to make the
cause of Magdeburg her own. She had suffered under the malicious
innuendos of Napoleon regarding her character; she had shared the
disgrace of the Berlin war party in the crushing defeat at Jena and
Auerstaedt; she had been a wayfarer among a disgraced and helpless
people; but her spirit was not broken, and she announced her visit
with all the dignity of her station. The court carriage in which she
drove, accompanied by her ladies in waiting, reached Tilsit on July
sixth, and drew up before the door of the humble miller under whose
roof were the rooms of her husband. Officers and statesmen were
gathered to receive and encourage her with good advice; but she waved
them away with an earnest call for quiet, so that she might collect
her ideas.

In a moment Napoleon was announced. As he climbed the narrow stairway
she rose to meet him. Friend and foe agree as to her beauty, her
taste, and her manners; her presence, in a white dress embroidered
with silver, and with a pearl diadem on her brow, was queenly. In her
husband's apartments she was the hostess, and as such she apologized
for the stair. "What would one not do for such an end!" gallantly
replied the somewhat dazzled conqueror. The suppliant, after making a
few respectful inquiries as to her visitor's welfare, and the effect
of the Northern climate on his health, at once announced the object of
her visit. Her manner was full of pathos and there were tears in her
eyes as she recalled how her country had been punished for its appeal
to arms, and for its mistaken confidence in the traditions of the
great Frederick and his glory. The Emperor was abashed by the lofty
strain of her address. So elevated was her mien that she overpowered
him; for the instant his self-assurance fled, and he felt himself but
a man of the people. He felt also the humiliation of the contrast, and
was angry. Long afterward he confessed that she was mistress of the
conversation, adding that she stood with her head thrown back like
Mlle. Duchesnois in the character of Chimene, meaning by this
comparison to stigmatize her attitude and language as theatrical. So
effective was her appeal that he felt the need of something to save
his own role, and accordingly he bowed her to a chair, and in the
moment thus gained determined to strike the key of high comedy. Taking
up the conversation in turn, he scrutinized the beauties of her
person, and, complimenting her dress, asked whether the material was
crape or India gauze. "Shall we talk of rags at such a solemn moment?"
she retorted; and then proceeded with her direct plea for Magdeburg.
In the midst of her eloquence, when the Emperor seemed almost
overcome by her importunity, her meddling husband most inopportunely
entered the room. He began to argue and reason, citing his threadbare
grievance, the violation of Ansbach territory, and endeavoring to
prove himself to be right. Napoleon at once turned the conversation to
indifferent themes, and in a few moments took his leave. "You ask
much," he said to the Queen on parting; "but I promise to think it
over." The courageous woman had done her best, but her cause--if,
indeed, it was ever in the balance--was lost from the moment she put
her judge in an inferior position. Her majestic bearing was fine, but
it was not diplomacy. She might, nevertheless, have succeeded had she
been the wife of a wiser man. Long afterward Napoleon thought her
influence on the negotiations would have been considerable if she had
appeared in their earlier stages, and congratulated himself that she
came too late, inasmuch as they were already virtually closed when she
arrived.

The remainder of the day passed for the Queen in a whirl of
excitement, receiving messengers from Napoleon with the pardons of
Prussian prisoners and accepting polite attentions from his adjutants.
She gladly consented to dine with Napoleon, and Berthier was chosen to
escort her to his Emperor's lodging. On arrival she was received with
distinction, and assigned at table to the seat of honor between the
host and the Czar. The Emperor was all politeness, offering unwelcome
consolations to Frederick William, and expressing astonishment at the
Queen's courage. "Did you know my hussars nearly captured you?" he
said to her. "I can scarcely believe it, sire," was the reply; "I did
not see a single Frenchman." "But why expose yourself thus? Why did
you not wait for me at Weimar?" "Indeed, sire, I was not eager."
There is a tradition that Talleyrand, whose work the treaty really
was, grew anxious and whispered to Napoleon later in the evening that
surely he would not surrender the benefits of his greatest conquest
for the sake of a pretty woman. Whether this admonition was given or
not, the Emperor was respectful and polite, but non-committal. After
dinner he conversed long with his fair guest. To her lady in waiting,
the Countess Voss, he offered snuff--a singular mark of condescension.
Next day, in a note to Josephine, he said that he had been compelled
continually to stand on his guard; and the day following, July eighth,
he again wrote to his Empress: "The Queen is really charming, using
every art to please me; but be not jealous: I am like a waxed cloth
from which all that glides off. It would cost me too much to play the
gallant." The Emperor's courtesy had deceived the poor Queen entirely,
and she is said to have returned to her husband's lodgings at
Piktupoenen in the highest spirits.

On that very night, immediately after the dinner, the step she so much
dreaded was taken, and orders were given to conclude the treaty as it
stood. At the last hour Goltz secured his interview to plead the
expectations awakened in the Queen, but the Emperor coldly explained
that his conduct had been politeness, and nothing more; the house of
Prussia might be glad to recover a crown at all. Talleyrand showed a
completed and final draft of the treaty ready for signature, and said
that his master was in haste, that in two days the documents would be
signed. This was the news which greeted Louisa next morning. She
returned at once to Tilsit, her eyes swollen with weeping; but she
appeared in a stately dress, and with a smile on her lips. Again she
was the object of the most distinguished courtesy from Napoleon's
adjutants, but the expected visit from himself was not made. However,
she was again the Emperor's honored guest at dinner. The host at once
began to speak of her costume. "What, the Queen of Prussia with a
turban! Surely not to gratify the Emperor of Russia, who is at war
with the Turks!" "Rather, I think," replied the Queen, "to propitiate
Rustan," rolling her large, full eyes toward the swarthy Mameluke
behind his master's chair. She had the air, according to Napoleon's
account, of an offended coquette. After the meal it was Murat who took
the part filled the previous evening by the Emperor. "How does your
Majesty pass the time at Memel?" "In reading." "What does your Majesty
read?" "The history of the past." "But our own times afford actions
worthy of commemoration." "It is already more than I can endure to
live in them."

Before parting, Napoleon spent a few moments at her side, and at the
end, turning, pulled from a bunch a beautiful rose, which he offered
with gestures of gallantry and homage. Hesitating a moment, the Queen
at last put out her hand, and said as she accepted it, "At least with
Magdeburg." "Madame," came the frigid reply, "it is mine to give and
yours to accept." But he gave his arm to conduct her to the carriage,
and as they descended the stair together the disappointed guest said,
in a sentimental and emotional voice, "Is it possible that, having had
the happiness to see so near the man of the century and of all
history, he will not afford me the possibility and the satisfaction of
being able to assure him that he has put me under obligations for
life?" With solemn tones Napoleon replied, "Madame, I am to be pitied;
it is a fault of my unlucky star." Queen Louisa's own lady in waiting
related that her sovereign's bitterness overcame her at the last, and
as she stepped into the carriage she said, "Sire, you have cruelly
deceived me." It is certain that next day she overwhelmed Duroc with
reproaches; but she afterward frankly confessed that she could recall
no definite promise made by Napoleon. To Talleyrand she said, with
fine sarcasm, that only two persons regretted her having come to
Tilsit--he and she. Her duty, she believed, as a loving wife, as a
tender mother, as the queen of her people, was fulfilled; but her
heart was broken. Queen Mary of England said of the loss of Calais,
"Should they open my heart, they will find the name of Calais
inscribed in bloody letters within." Queen Louisa pathetically
recalled this moan; she could say the same of Magdeburg.

The treaty with Prussia, signed two days later, did not modify in the
least the terms arranged with Alexander, and for six years that
country remained in a mutilated and conquered condition, compelled to
obey with outward respect the behests of Napoleon. Every domain she
had owned west of the Elbe went to the kingdom of Westphalia, the
circle of Kottbus went to Saxony, the Polish provinces of south
Prussia and new east Prussia to the grand duchy of Warsaw, the circle
of Bielostok to Russia. Napoleon is said to have urged the Czar to
seize Memel and the strip of Prussian land east of the Niemen; but
this is denied, and in any case, Alexander, desiring to be at peace
with his neighbor, firmly refused; moreover, he verbally stipulated
for the evacuation of the Hohenzollern lands by French troops at an
early date. Nominally, therefore, the King of Prussia regained
sovereignty over less than half of his former territory. For this
consideration he was to pay an indefinite but enormous and almost
impossible indemnity, which was to cover the total cost of the war. To
guarantee this a large portion of the French army was, in spite of
Alexander's demand, still left quartered in the Hohenzollern lands, so
that the Prussian people were daily reminded of their disgrace, as
well as irritated by extortionate taxation. First and last, the war
cost Prussia, in the support of the French army and in actual
contributions to France, over a billion of francs--about the gross
national income of thirteen years. The process of Prussian
consolidation begun three years before was thus hastened. What Pozzo
di Borgo called a masterpiece of destruction turned out in the end to
be the beginning of a new birth for the nation. But the royal pair
were stricken down: the high-souled Queen died, three years later, of
chagrin; the King lived to see his people strong once more, but in a
sort of obstructing stupor, being always an uncompromising
conservative. When he died, in 1840, he left to his successor a legacy
of smothered popular discontent.

The treaties of Tilsit between France and Russia were signed, as was
said, on July seventh. The principal personages engaged on both sides
in this grand scene of reconciliation were on that day reciprocally
decorated with the orders of the respective courts, while the imperial
guards of both emperors received food and drink for a great festivity.
Next day Napoleon paid his farewell visit. At his morning toilet he
had his valet loosen the threads which fastened the cross of the
Legion of Honor to his coat, and as the Czar advanced to meet him he
asked in audible tones permission to decorate the first grenadier of
Russia. A veteran named Lazaref was summoned from the ranks, and with
a wrench the Emperor tore off his cross, and fastened it on the breast
of the peasant. The welkin rang with applause, while Lazaref kissed
his benefactor's hands and the hem of his coat. Next day Alexander
crossed the Niemen. Savary went with him as a French envoy, partly to
keep up the Czar's courage and spirits, which would be endangered by
the sullen humor of the court circles in St. Petersburg, partly to
study the temper of the Russian people.

To the last moment of their intercourse the Czar appeared to be under
the spell of Napoleon's seductive powers. He came as a conquered
prince; he left with an honorable peace, with the friendship of his
magnanimous conqueror, and with an unsmirched imperial dignity. He had
saved his recent ally from destruction, and had secured a small
increase of territory for himself; for the future there were Finland
and the fairest portion of Turkey. But in a few days the magic began
to pass. He had not secured Constantinople, and he had promised to
evacuate Wallachia and Moldavia; he had not secured the complete
evacuation of Prussia; he had risked a rupture with England; he had,
above all, submitted to the creation of a state which, under the thin
disguise of another name, was but the germ of a reconstructed Poland.
It began to appear as if he had been wheedled. There is sufficient
evidence that such bitter reflections made their appearance very soon;
but they were repressed, at first from pure shame, and afterward from
stern necessity, when England began to vent her anger. But the
Russians themselves could not be repressed. Before long Savary was
hated and abused by the public, the more because he maintained his
ascendancy over the Czar. The reports sent home by the former police
agent were clever and instructive, but their pictures of factional
disputes and Oriental plots at court, of aristocratic luxury and
general poverty, of popular superstition and barbarous manners, were
not reassuring, and confirmed in his Emperor's mind doubts felt from
the beginning as to the stability of the alliance consummated at
Tilsit, an alliance outwardly fair, but, like all Talleyrand's
diplomacy, more showy than substantial.[12]

         [Footnote 12: For an interesting comment on Talleyrand's
         diplomacy, see Sorel: L'Europe et la Revolution Francaise,
         Vol. VI, pp. 23-25.]

Napoleon left for Koenigsberg the same day on which he bade adieu to
Alexander. His route was by way of Dresden. He was not in the
slightest degree deceived. The peace of Europe, he said, was in St.
Petersburg; the affairs of the world were there. But he had gained
much. The outposts of his empire were established, and from one of
them he could touch with his hand the enchanted East. He had secured
the temporary cooeperation of Russia, and with that as a beginning he
might consolidate the Continent against England, and complete the
stage in his progress now gained. Above all, he could at once restore
the confidence of France by the proclamation of peace and the
upbuilding of her prosperity. To be sure, he had forecast a division
of his prospective Eastern empire with Russia, he had left Prussia
outraged and bleeding, and Austria was uneasy and suspiciously
reserved; but he had checkmated them all in the menace of a restored
Poland, while their financial weakness and military exhaustion,
combined with the reciprocal jealousies of their dynasties, might be
relied on to prevent their immediate hostility. Besides, while he had
sung a certain tune at Tilsit, in the future he would, as he
sarcastically said somewhat later, have to sing it only according to
the written score.




CHAPTER VI

THE PATH OF NAPOLEONIC EMPIRE[13]

         [Footnote 13: References: Jauffret: Memoires historiques sur
         les affaires ecclesiastiques de France pendant les premieres
         annees du XIXe siecle. Thorsoe: Den danske Statspolitiske
         Historie 1800-1864. Lemoine: Napoleon et les Juifs. Lemann:
         Napoleon et les Israelites; La preponderance juive.]

     Napoleon and the Neutral Powers -- The Protectorate of Portugal
     and the End of Etruria -- Annexation of the Papal Legations --
     Seizure of the Danish Fleet by Great Britain -- The Degradation
     of Spain -- Godoy's Impolicy -- The Spanish Court and the Heir
     Apparent -- Effects of the Russian Alliance in Paris --
     Napoleon's Commentary on the Treaty -- His Administrative Wisdom
     -- Public Works in France -- The Jews in France -- The Sanhedrim
     -- Napoleon's Successful Reforms -- War Indemnities and Finance
     -- Annoyances of the Continental System.


But in order to fulfil the purposes and realize the possibilities
which were indicated in the treaties of Tilsit, no time was to be
lost. The fate of Sweden and the Hanse towns having been virtually
settled, there remained three small maritime states in Europe which
still maintained a nominal neutrality--Denmark, Portugal, and Etruria.
One and all, they must choose between England and France. To each a
summons was to be addressed, and Napoleon wrote the preliminary
directions at Dresden. Between the lines of his despatches it was
clear that the precious naval armaments of all three powers--ships,
arsenals, stores, and men--must be put at the disposal of France. "A
thing must needs be done before the announcement of your plan," was
one of Napoleon's own principles, and it was his intention so to
proceed in this case. At Dresden, also, was promulgated the new
constitution of Warsaw. Modeled on that of France, it was far from
liberal; but it abolished serfdom, made all citizens equal before the
law, and introduced the civil code.

In 1804 Portugal had purchased her neutrality for the duration of the
war with the sum of sixteen million francs. She was now ordered to
close her ports to the British, to seize all their goods and ships,
and finally to declare war against Great Britain. Junot, formerly
imperial ambassador at Lisbon, was despatched with twenty-seven
thousand men, designated as a "corps of observation," to be ready on
the frontier to enforce the command. In reply, England seized the
Portuguese fleet, and kept it in security until the close of the war.
During the late campaigns in Poland and Prussia, King Louis of Etruria
had died, and his helpless widow, the Spanish infanta, Maria Louisa,
acting as regent for her young son, had admitted the English to the
harbor of Leghorn. Prince Eugene was now ordered to take another
"corps of observation" of six thousand men, and drive them out. He did
so promptly. Duroc at once suggested to the Spanish minister that
Napoleon would like some proposition for the indemnification of Maria
Louisa for the loss of Etruria--say one portion of Portugal for her,
and the rest for Godoy, the Prince of the Peace.

This "deformity" removed from the Italian peninsula, it revealed a
still greater one--the fact that the Papal States disturbed the
connection between the two kingdoms of Italy and Naples. Pius VII,
returning disillusioned and embittered after the coronation ceremony,
and finding that his temporal weapons had failed him, had taken a
stand with his spiritual armor. It has already been recalled that he
began to refuse everything Napoleon desired,--the coronation as
Western emperor, the extension of the Concordat to Venice, the
confirmation of bishops appointed in France and Italy by the temporal
power, the annulment of Jerome's marriage, the recognition of Joseph's
royalty,--except in return for a guarantee of his own independence and
neutrality; in short, he feebly abjured the French alliance and all
its works. There now came a demand from Napoleon that henceforth there
should be as many French cardinals as Roman, that the agents of
hostile powers should be banished from the Papal States, and that the
papal ports should be closed to England. The Emperor was weary, too,
of the petty squabbles in connection with the Church, of the threats
to excommunicate him and declare his throne vacant. Did they mean to
put him in a convent and whip him like Louis the Pious? If not, let
the full powers of an ambassador be sent to the cardinal legate at
Paris; in any case, let there be an end to menaces. At the same time
Eugene showed to Pius a personal letter from his stepfather, which,
though marked confidential, was intended to be thus shown. It
contained the threat that the Emperor contemplated calling a council
of the Gallican, Italian, German, and Polish churches to liberate
those peoples from the domination of Roman priests. The Pontiff was
terrified, and hastened to yield the most pressing demands made in the
message which he had himself received, among them the nomination of a
negotiator. But he childishly refused the letter of the Emperor's
demand, and commissioned, not the French cardinal legate at Paris, but
an Italian cardinal. Napoleon notified the See that he would treat
only with Bayanne, the French cardinal at Paris, and that longer
dallying would compel him to annex Ancona, Urbino, and Macerata to
the kingdom of Italy. Pius yielded at once, nominating Bayanne,
agreeing to enter the federation with France, and promising to crown
Napoleon; but the annexation took place quite as expeditiously as the
surrender--was, in fact, complete before it!

Of the three minor sea powers, Denmark, commanding as she did the
gateway of the Baltic, was far the most important. Bernadotte was
already on her borders with an army. She was notified by him that she
must declare war against England immediately, or lose all her
continental possessions. Her government promised to obey, but
procrastinated. It has been claimed that English spies at Tilsit had
caught scraps of the bargain contained in the secret articles, and
that the Portland cabinet, in which Canning was secretary for foreign
affairs and Castlereagh for war and the colonies, had divined the
rest. It is now known that Canning believed there were no secret
articles, but was convinced that the two emperors had reached a secret
understanding hostile to England.[14] During the summer the ministry
received what they called the most positive information--what was its
extent and how it was obtained have never been made known--that the
French intended to invade Holstein and force Denmark to close the
Sound to British commerce. The danger seemed imminent: the Danish
fleet contained no fewer than twenty ships of the line, eighteen
frigates, nine brigs, and a number of gunboats. Such a reinforcement
of the French navy would put it again on a war footing. The English
ministry, therefore, offered to defend Denmark, guarantee her
colonies, and give her every means of defense, naval, military,
pecuniary, if only she would surrender her fleet to England, to be
restored in the event of peace. The Danish regent was already
committed to France, and did not accept. Accordingly the English army
under Cathcart landed, and laid siege to Copenhagen, while the fleet
bombarded it for three days, until the government agreed to their
stipulations. This shameful deed of high-handed violence must be laid
at Canning's door. It was the first step in the humiliation of a fine
people, to their loss of Norway, and ultimately of Schleswig and
Holstein. Moreover, it was impolitic in the highest degree, making the
Czar a bitter enemy of England for four years. The wretched country,
in distraction, threw itself into the arms of Bernadotte. Christian
VII had long been an imbecile, and his son, Frederick VI, though
energetic and well-meaning, turned Denmark into another vassal state
of France by the treaty of Fontainebleau, signed October thirtieth,
1807.

         [Footnote 14: See discussion of this question by J. H. Rose,
         "A British Agent at Tilsit," in English Historical Review,
         Oct., 1901.]

In none of their many sovereignties had the incapacity of the Bourbons
been more completely demonstrated than in Spain. With intermittent
flickerings, the light of that famous land had been steadily growing
dimmer ever since Louis XIV exultingly declared that the Pyrenees had
ceased to exist. Stripped of her colonial supremacy, shattered in
naval power, reduced to pay tribute to France, she looked silently on
while Napoleon trafficked with her lands, mourning that even the
memory of her former glories was fading out in foreign countries. The
proud people themselves had, however, never forgotten their past; with
each successive humiliation their irritation grew more extreme, and
soon after Trafalgar they made an effort to organize under the crown
prince against the scandalous regime of Godoy. Both parties sought
French support, and the quarrel was fomented from Paris until the
whole country was torn by the most serious dissensions.

When, in the previous year, Prussia declared war, and the French
legions were about to face those trained in the school of Frederick
the Great, a vigorous attempt was made by the Russian envoy in Madrid
to win the support of Spain for the coalition. England, too, at the
same moment, threatened to make the South American colonies
independent if she did not consent. Godoy was persuaded that Napoleon
had at last found his match, if not his master, and on October
fourteenth issued a manifesto couched for the most part in ambiguous
terms, but clearly announcing war as an immediate necessity. By a
strange coincidence, its date was that of the day on which was fought
the battle of Jena, and after hearing the news of that event the
Prince of the Peace hastened to make his submission in the name of the
King. Napoleon turned pale as he read the news of the contemplated
defection, which reached him at Berlin; he never forgave the
treachery, although for the time he feigned ignorance of its
existence. The renewal of Charles IV's submission gave him the
opportunity to demand that the Spanish fleet should proceed to Toulon,
that the King should send fifteen thousand men to oppose a possible
English landing at the mouth of the Elbe, and at the same time
undertake the sustenance of twenty-five thousand Prussian prisoners of
war, while thenceforward he must rigidly enforce the embargo on
English trade in all Spanish ports and markets.

These demands the weak and contemptible government could not resist.
Godoy and the Queen resumed their scandalous living, while the King
joined in a conspiracy to cut off his son Ferdinand from the
succession. The young prince had the people's sympathy; but although
he had sought Napoleon's favor, and wished to marry the Empress
Josephine's niece, there was no response, and he remained impotent
before an administration apparently supported by France. He was, in
the sequel, arrested on a charge of conspiring against his father's
life. Before the summer of 1807 closed, everything was ripe for
Napoleon's contemplated intervention to "regenerate" Spain.

Such was the harvest of Tilsit in the field of foreign relations--a
harvest which to the last the Emperor claimed that Talleyrand had
sown. As to its effect in France, Metternich, then Austrian ambassador
in Paris, declared that men sat in the cafes coldly discussing an
entire reconstruction of Europe--two empires, and seventeen new
kingdoms with new sovereigns either from or in the interest of the
imperial houses! "Rhapsodies," he said, "which proved that all Europe
might crumble without exciting a single emotion of sorrow,
astonishment, or satisfaction in a people degraded beneath all others,
beneath all imagination, and which, worn out, demoralized to the point
where every trace of even national feeling is wiped out, by nineteen
years of revolution and crimes, now looks on with cold-blooded
indifference at what is passing beyond its own frontiers. Wise men
think that the treaties, being as advantageous to Russia as to France,
necessarily contain a germ which in developing will prove dangerous to
the latter." In reality there was not now a state in Europe toward
which the French empire did not stand in strained relations, not a
nationality besides the French which did not feel its self-respect
wounded, and resent the abasement.

This, however, was not the panorama which the Emperor unfolded in
Paris. He reached St. Cloud quietly on the evening of July
twenty-seventh. The people of Paris learned the news incidentally, and
burst into spontaneous rejoicings, illuminating the city, and sending
addresses in which the terms of adulation were exhausted. Napoleon was
no longer an actor in merely human history: he was a man of the
heroic age; he was beyond admiration; nothing but love could rise to
his lofty place. On August sixteenth the Emperor opened the
legislature in person. "Since your last session," he said, "new wars,
new triumphs, new treaties, have changed the face of Europe." If the
house of Brandenburg still reigned, he continued, it was due to the
sincere friendship he felt for the Czar. A French prince would rule on
the Elbe, and would know how to conciliate his subjects, while ever
mindful of his most sacred duties. Saxony had recovered her
independence, the peoples of Dantzic and the duchy of Warsaw their
country and their rights. All nations rejoiced to see the direful
influence of England destroyed. France was united to the Confederation
of the Rhine by its laws, by the federative system to the countries of
Holland, Switzerland, and Italy; her new relations with Russia were
cemented by reciprocal esteem. In all this, he affirmed, his pole-star
had been the happiness of his people, dearer to him than his own
glory. He would like maritime peace, and for its sake would overlook
the exasperations caused by a people tossed and torn by party strife.
Whatever happened, he would be worthy of his people, as they had shown
themselves to be worthy of him. Their behavior in his absence had only
increased his esteem for their character. He had thought of several
measures to simplify and perfect their institutions.

This picture of martial and political renown, painted by a master who
had on one campaign changed the meaning of his title from its
primitive sense of military ruler to its later and grander one of
chief among and over princes, thus realizing the revival of the
Western Empire, could not but please the fancy and arouse the
enthusiasm of a generous, imaginative, forgiving people. The
impression was heightened by their Emperor's activity in keeping faith
as to their own prosperity. As after Austerlitz, his first care was
now finance. The new commercial code was promulgated, and it proved
scarcely less satisfactory to the merchants than the civil code had
been to the people at large. The Bank of France was immediately
compelled to lower its rate of discount, and a council was held to
consider how Italy and the Rhine Confederation could be made tributary
to French industry and commerce. Recourse was also had to those
measures of internal development by the execution of great public
works which had been begun after Austerlitz, but were suspended before
Jena.

Before the last campaign the Emperor and Empress had been accustomed
to visit various portions of France. During every halt the Emperor
would mount his horse, and, attended occasionally by one or more of
the local officials, but usually only by Rustan or an adjutant, would
gallop hither and thither, gathering information, examining
conditions, and making suggestions. Immediately afterward he would
throw off a sketch of needed improvements: public buildings,
almshouses, roads, canals, aqueducts, town streets, mountain
roads--anything, in short, which would arouse local enthusiasm and
benefit the country at large. Many--most, perhaps--of these schemes
remained inchoate; but many of the grandest were executed, and
Napoleon has left his impress as indelibly upon France itself as upon
its society. The routes of the Simplon and Mont Cenis, the great
canals which bind together the river systems, the restoration of the
cathedral at St. Denis, the quays of the Seine in Paris, the great
Triumphal Arch, the Vendome Column, the Street of Peace, the Street of
Rivoli, the bridges of Austerlitz, Jena, and the Arts--these are some
of the magnificent enterprises due to his initiative. Such works were
pushed throughout the summer of 1807 by employing large numbers of
laborers and artisans, while local workshops were opened in every
department to furnish employment to all who could not otherwise find
it. The political economist may lift his eyebrows and shrug his
shoulders in contemplating such shifts; but they were imperial shifts,
and created a high degree of comfort at the time, while they satisfied
in permanency that passion for beauty in utility which does not
sufficiently enter as an element into economic science.

Closely connected with this policy was a measure of Napoleon's already
referred to, but little known. In some respects it was more successful
than any other; it certainly is most characteristic of the man. The
evil aimed at was cured at the time, and the permanent question is
less acute in modern France than in any other European country. For
years past there had been chronic distress among the agricultural
classes in some of the most fertile districts of France, notably in
the northeast. This was attributed to the presence of Jews in large
numbers. The stringent laws of the old regime had crowded that
unfortunate people out of all occupations but two--peddling and
money-lending. In both of these they became experts, and when
emancipated by the Revolution they used their liberty, not to widen
their activities, but to intensify the evils of the monopoly which
they had secured. Since 1791 large numbers of Polish and German Jews
had established themselves on the right bank of the Rhine; and
reaching hands across that stream to their kinsfolk on the left bank,
they combined to strip the French peasantry by the familiar arts of
barter and usury, which need not be described here, until in a few
years they were creditors to the extent of twenty-three million
francs, and had become extensive landed proprietors. They were never
seen to labor with their hands, and having no family name, they evaded
the conscription laws with impunity, while the courts of justice
became their humble servants in enforcing the collection of scandalous
debts or in the foreclosure of inflated mortgages.

In 1806 a temporary decree had suspended all legal executions in
certain districts, and many Jews of the better class made ready to bow
before the coming tempest and come to the assistance of the
government. Napoleon, aware that the Old Testament law was civil and
political as well as religious, shrewdly asked advice from these and
other men of the more enlightened sort. It was agreed to call a
council. The Emperor summoned his prefects to name its members, and
appointed a committee to represent the government at its sessions.
Decisions taken by this assembly were to be submitted to a general
Sanhedrim of all Europe. The assembly of French Israelites met in
Paris during the latter part of 1806, and after due deliberation gave
satisfactory answers to a carefully prepared set of questions
propounded by the government commission. In 1807 the economic
situation had nevertheless become graver. The Sanhedrim met early in
February. Its members vied in flattery with the Roman priesthood,
setting the imperial eagle above the ark of the covenant, and blending
the letters N and J with those of the Jehovah in a monogram for the
adornment of their meeting-place. On March fourth they issued a decree
which is still the basis of religious instruction among Jewish youth.
They forbade polygamy, and admitted the principle of civil marriage
without anathema; they ordered all Israelites to treat those who
believe that God is the Creator of heaven and earth as fellow-citizens
and brothers; to obey the civil and military laws, including that of
conscription, and to train their children to industry and handiwork;
they also invited them to enter the learned professions, and to attach
themselves to the country by the purchase of public obligations. Usury
was absolutely forbidden, the Israelite being enjoined as a religious
precept to make no distinction in money transactions between Hebrew
and Christian. The minutest details of the whole transaction were
foreseen and regulated by Napoleon, and may be studied in his
correspondence with his ministers.

A year later, after careful and mature deliberation, there appeared an
imperial decree, not only organizing the Jewish Church and regulating
its relations with the state, but defining the civil and political
status of Hebrews. They were pronounced to be citizens like other men;
but they could not exact higher interest than five per cent., while if
they should demand over ten they should be punished for usury. Every
Jew in the northeastern department must have a license to do business,
and a notarial authorization for pawnbrokerage. Any Jew not domiciled
at the moment in Alsace might not thereafter acquire domicile in that
department, and could do so in others only by becoming a landowner and
tilling the soil. Every Jew should be liable to military service, and,
unlike his Christian fellow-citizens might not provide a substitute;
moreover, he must adopt and use a family name. This stringent law was
rigidly enforced, except in Bordeaux, the Gironde, and the Landes,
where no offense had been given. Its effect was steady and sure.
Before long, first one and then another Israelite was exempted from
its rigors, until finally, in 1812, the department or the man still
subject to its provisions was the exception and not the rule. From
that day to this there has scarcely been in France what is known
elsewhere as the Jewish question. Hebrews are found in every line of
human activity; they have the same civil, political, and religious
standing as men of other blood and confessions; they are illustrious
in finance, in politics, in science, and in the arts. They are,
moreover, passionate patriots, and to the casual observer scarcely
distinguishable in mien and appearance from other citizens. The
temporary contravention of the civil code, both as to spirit and
letter, by the notorious decree above referred to has been so
beneficent that it has for the most part escaped any criticism or even
remark.[15]

         [Footnote 15: See Lemoine: Napoleon et les Juifs.]

While in ways like these the clutch of the usurer was relaxed and the
general well-being promoted, measures were taken to crown the work by
a stable system of finance. It will be recalled that two years before
the Emperor had saved the public credit by the direct expenditure of
the Austrian war indemnity. It was his fixed principle that France
should not pay for his wars, except with her children. He knew too
well the thrift of the whole nation and the greed of the lower classes
to jeopardize their good will either by the emission of paper money or
by the increase of tax rates. The panic of 1805 had been precipitated
by the virtual failure of a bankers' syndicate which made advances to
the government on its taxes and on the annual Spanish contribution as
well. In 1807 the war indemnity exacted from Prussia, Poland, and
Westphalia was used for a double purpose, the creation of two funds:
one to furnish an immediate supply of cash on the outbreak of war, the
other to replace the bankers' syndicate by making advances on the
taxes whenever required. There was therefore no increase in the rate
of taxation, work was abundant, and under the forcing process the
wheels were moving in almost every department of trade and industry.
The price of the imperial bonds on the Bourse rose to ninety-nine, a
price never afterward reached in Napoleon's day.

There was one sharp pinch. Coffee and sugar were no longer luxuries,
but necessities; and through the continental embargo colonial wares
had become, and were likely to remain, very dear and very scarce. Such
substitutes as ingenuity could devise were gradually accepted for the
former; to provide the latter the beet-root industry was fostered by
every means. The Emperor kept a sample of sugar made from beets on his
chimney-piece as an ornament, and occasionally sent gifts of the
precious commodity to his fellow-sovereigns. The story is told that an
official who had been banished from favor recovered his standing
entirely by planting a whole estate with beets. Such traits were
considered evidence of plain, homely common sense by the people, who
enjoyed the sensation that their Emperor shared their feelings and
participated in their daily shifts.




CHAPTER VII

THE NEW FEUDALISM[16]

         [Footnote 16: See Blanc: Napoleon Ier. Taine: Le regime
         moderne. Pasquier: Memoires, Histoire de mon temps. Meneval:
         Napoleon et Marie-Louise. V^te de Broc: La vie en France sous
         le premier empire. Metternich: Memoires. Mme. de Remusat:
         Memoires.]

     Imperial France -- The Aristocracy -- The Vassal Sovereigns --
     Suppression of the Tribunate -- The Right of Entail -- Evasions
     of Law -- The New Nobility -- Titles and Emoluments -- Style in
     the First Empire -- Theory of the University -- Its Establishment
     -- The Lycees -- Effects of the System -- Regulation of the Court
     -- The Emperor's Moods -- Matrimonial Alliances with Royalty --
     Gloom at Court -- Decline of Talleyrand's Influence -- His New
     Role.


[Sidenote: 1807-08]

It was not long before the people of Paris and of all France were in
the best possible humor; they were busy, they were clothed, they were
fed, they were making and saving money. With every hour grew the
feeling that their unity and strength were embodied in the Emperor.
Mme. de Remusat was tired of his ill-breeding: it shocked her to
observe his coarse familiarity, to see him sit on a favorite's knee,
or twist a bystander's ear till it was afire; to hear him sow
dissension among families by coarse innuendo, and to see him crush
society that he might rule it. But such things would not have shocked
the masses of plain burgher Frenchmen at all. When the querulous lady
opened her troubles to the sympathetic Talleyrand, and bemoaned the
sad fate which kept her at the imperial court to gain a living, his
reply was not consoling. As time passed, the gulf between the ruler
and his venal but soft-spoken minister had been widening, and the
Prince of Benevento had oftentimes to hear taunts and reproaches in
scenes of such violence as were unsuspected even by the complaining
lady in waiting. But nevertheless Talleyrand replied to her that
Napoleon still stood for the unity of France, and it was both his and
her duty to endure and support their monarch.

No doubt the Emperor was perfectly aware of the situation. But he felt
that what was a new aristocracy in truth, though not yet so in name,
must be appeased as well as the people. He was furious at times with
the venality of his associates. Talleyrand once admitted that he had
taken sixty millions from various German princes. Massena, Augereau,
Brune, and Junot were not so colossal in their greed, but they were
equally ill-disposed, and very successful in lining their coffers.
With Talleyrand Napoleon never joked; but when he wished to give a
warning to the others he drew a bill for some enormous sum on one or
other of them, and deposited it with a banker. There is no evidence
that such a draft was ever dishonored. On one occasion Massena
disgorged two millions of francs in this way. Of the ancient nobility
the Emperor once said, with a sneer: "I offered them rank in my army,
they declined the service. I opened my antechambers to them, they
rushed in and filled them." To this sweeping statement there were many
noteworthy exceptions, but on the whole Napoleon never classed the
estate of the French nobles lower than they deserved. Still they had a
power which he recognized, and it was with a sort of grim humor that
he began to distribute honors and the sops of patronage among both the
old and the new aristocracy--a process which only made the latter
independent and failed to win the affections of the former.

It was in the hope of securing the good will of the ancient nobility
that he took two steps radical in their direct negation of
Revolutionary principles: the destruction of the tribunate and the
restoration of the right of entail. The connection between the two
lies in the tendency of both: merging tribunate and legislature made
it easy to substitute for an elective senate a hereditary house of
lords. Feeling himself sufficiently strong, Napoleon clearly intended
to gratify in others the weak human pride which, as Montesquieu says,
desires the eternity of a name, and thereby to erect a four-square
foundation for the perpetuity of his own dynasty. The brothers Joseph,
Louis, and Jerome were now no longer Bonapartes, but Napoleons, ruling
as Joseph Napoleon, Louis Napoleon, Jerome Napoleon, over their
respective fiefs. Murat, the brother-in-law, was already provided for
in the same way, and there were three reigning princes among the
satellites of the imperial throne. All these could transmit their name
and dominions in the line of hereditary succession. It may be read in
the "Moniteur" of July, 1810, that, in whatever position they were
placed by Napoleon's politics and the interest of his empire, their
first duty was to him, their second to France. "All your other duties,
even those to the people I may intrust to you, are only secondary."

Ten years earlier General Bonaparte had declared that what the French
wanted was glory and the gratification of their vanity; of liberty, he
said, they knew nothing. The Emperor Napoleon, in one of his spoken
musings, applied the same conception to all continental Europeans,
saying that there were everywhere a few men who knew what freedom was
and longed to secure it; but that the masses needed paternal guidance,
and enjoyed it as long as they were comfortable. The asylum of this
enlightened minority in France was for a time the tribunate; to many
it seemed that, if free government be government by discussion, in
the tribunate alone was any semblance of freedom left; its name had
consequently retained a halo of nobility, and its mere existence was a
comfort to the few who still recalled the ideals of the Revolution.
But, in truth, the body itself had ceased to have any dignity
whatsoever. The system of legislation was briefly this: from the
throne came a message exposing the situation of the country, the
council of state then formulated the measures set forth as necessary,
the tribunate approved them in one or other of its sections, and the
legislature gave the enacting vote. The suppression of the tribunate,
therefore, appeared to the general public like final proceedings in
bankruptcy. Some of the members went into the legislature, some into
official administrative positions, and the right of discussion in
committee behind closed doors was transferred to certain sections of
the legislature. By way of compensation it was "decreed by the
senate," as the formality was called, that no man could thenceforth
sit in the legislature until he had reached the age of forty. Perhaps
Napoleon remembered that his own fiery ambition had made him emperor
before he was thirty-six. The measure was announced to the tribunes as
a mere matter of course, and created no stir at the time. In later
years it was recalled that the English Parliament under the
Plantagenets had never entirely perished, and so was ready for
powerful deeds in more propitious days. But in France's later crisis
the French tribunate could not be revived; with it disappeared forever
the last rallying-point for the scattered remnant still true to the
Revolution.

The complement of this negative measure was the creation of the right
to transmit together, and for an indefinite time, a title and the
realty on which its dignity reposed. Though the restoration of this
institution was slightly anterior in time to the other as to its
beginnings, yet the final decree was not published until 1808, and
logically it is complementary and subsequent to it. To this day many
men of ancient and honorable name in France have not ceased to bemoan
the destruction of primogeniture by the Revolution and the Code
Napoleon. They are proud to transmit their title untarnished to their
descendants, are ready to make serious sacrifices in its behalf, to
exercise the rigid self-denials of family control for its sake, and to
engrave the motto of "noblesse oblige" on their hearts in order to
sustain it; but they bitterly complain that without the majorat, and
the transmission of outward, visible supports in land and houses to
strengthen it, the empty sound carries little weight. The compulsory
subdivision of estates at the death of the owner enables every scion
to live, if not to thrive, on the home stock. The failure of France in
colonization is largely due to the absence of men from good families
among the colonizers, while England sends her younger sons to the ends
of the earth, there to found new houses and perpetuate the old line
under favorable conditions. Hence, too, the petty dimensions of
aristocratic French life: little fortunes, little ambitions, little
establishments, little families, among that very class in society
which by cultivating the sentiment of honor should leaven the
practical, materialistic temper of the multitude. At the present time,
when the burghers amass in trade far greater fortunes than the
aristocracy possess, when the learned secure greater power by
intellectual vigor, when the demagogues grow mightier by the command
of votes, titles alone carry little weight, and the virtues of honor,
of chivalry, of elegance, can with difficulty display their example.

No argument can ever restore general confidence in the institution of
primogeniture, but it dies hard, even in England. In the United
States the absolute liberty of testamentary disposition enables a
wealthy father to found a family almost as perfectly as if the right
of entail existed, and the bulk of large fortunes is constantly left
by will to the most capable son, in order that he may keep up the
family name, the family estates, and the family pride. But under the
provisions of the Code Napoleon such a course is impossible. As the
lawgiver did not hesitate to contravene his own legislation in the
case of the Jews, so he again disregarded it in order to consolidate
that aristocracy of which he hoped to make another strong prop to his
throne; for he already had the Church and the people. "The code," he
said, "was made for the welfare of the people; and if that welfare
demands other measures, we must take them." This was not difficult,
because the imperial power had gradually shaped two instruments
wherewith to act: one was the laws sanctioned by the legislature and
pertaining ordinarily to abstract questions of jurisprudence; the
other was the Emperor's personal decrees, which, though discussed by
the council of state, were the expression of the Emperor's will, and
covered in their scope the whole field of authority.

It was by the latter course that he had intended to create the new
nobility. Ostensibly the measure was to be the last blow of the ax at
the root of feudalism. The new dignities carried no privilege with
them; they were, it was explained, a sort of civic crown to which any
one might aspire, and their creation was therefore in no way
derogatory to the principle of equality. The holders might become too
independent and self-reliant, they might even display a class spirit;
but the Emperor felt himself to be striving upward, these creatures of
his would have to run fast before they could outstrip their master. At
St. Helena the prisoner, recalling with bitterness the ingratitude of
his beneficiaries, declared that he took the unfortunate step in order
to reconcile France with the rest of Europe. He was by that time aware
that though the Legion of Honor was, and would continue to be, an
institution dear to the French heart, this one was not so, and needed
an apology; for his imperial nobility had never been taken seriously
or kindly by the people, who could not draw the nice distinction
between a feudal and an imperial aristocracy. Even in the first steps
of his enterprise he was made to feel the need of caution, and it was
by statute, after all, not by decree, that the whole matter was
finally regulated. So curious is popular fickleness that an Emperor
who could boldly tyrannize in almost any other direction felt that he
dared not take the risk of constituting himself a fountain of honor,
such as legitimate monarchs were.

The system was for the world outside like some fairy wonder completed
overnight, since the duchies had been ready the year before. The
Italian titles were the most honorable and the most highly endowed.
They were either at once or later given as follows: Soult, Duke of
Dalmatia; Mortier, Duke of Treviso; Savary, Duke of Rovigo; Bessieres,
Duke of Istria; Duroc, Duke of Friuli; Victor, Duke of Belluno;
Moncey, Duke of Conegliano; Clarke, Duke of Feltre; Massena, Duke of
Rivoli; Lannes Duke of Montebello; Marmont, Duke of Ragusa; Oudinot,
Duke of Reggio; Macdonald, Duke of Taranto; Augereau, Duke of
Castiglione; Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo. In Germany there were
created three similar duchies--Auerstaedt for Davout, Elchingen for
Ney, and Dantzic for Lefebvre. Berthier was made Prince of Neufchatel.
So much for the military officials. In civil life there were
corresponding distinctions: Cambaceres, Duke of Parma; Maret, Duke of
Bassano; Lebrun, Duke of Piacenza; Fouche, Duke of Otranto;
Champagny, Duke of Cadore. The members of the senate, the councilors
of state, the presiding officers of the legislature, and the
archbishops were all created counts. Each one of these titles was,
like the others, richly endowed with land from the public domains in
Poland, Germany, and Italy. But the distinction bestowed on the
soldiers was marked in the difference between the accompanying gifts
to them and those to civilians. The only portion of the great force
which had returned to France was the guard, who were instructed to
keep themselves as exclusive as possible. A most lavish
pension-system, as it was considered even in that age of military
splendor, drew from the army chest five hundred francs a year for
soldiers who had lost a limb; officers received as high as ten
thousand francs, according to the nature of their disabilities. But
the marshals were showered with gold. Berthier had a million; Ney,
Davout, Soult, and Bessieres, six hundred thousand each; Massena,
Augereau, Bernadotte, Mortier, and Victor, four hundred thousand
apiece; and the rest two hundred thousand. But even this was nothing
to what some of them secured later by holding several offices at once.
At one time Berthier had a yearly income of a million three hundred
and fifty-five thousand francs; Davout, of nine hundred and ten
thousand; Ney, of seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand; Massena, of
six hundred and eighty-three thousand. The ministers were able to
secure salaries averaging about two hundred thousand francs, and
ambassadors had incomes corresponding to their dignity. Caulaincourt,
the ablest of all the latter class, had eight hundred thousand francs
at St. Petersburg wherewith to support the imperial state of France.
It is interesting to note from Napoleon's letters that he had
occasionally to admonish some of these gentlemen to make use of their
titles.

The Revolution had chosen to find its artistic expression in the
correct and strict severity of classical forms. Napoleon had from the
beginning of his career been under the spell of Greek and Roman
examples. Thus it happened that the art of the First Empire was what
it is--heavy, conventional, and reminiscent. With the ever-growing
rigidity of censorship, literature sometimes took refuge in
abstractions, or, what is much the same thing, in the contemplation of
events so remote that their discussion could give no offense.
Sometimes authors accepted the curious task of defending the external
forms and results of the Revolution as expressed in the Empire, while
combating every principle from which the movement had sprung. Able men
like Chenier published some of their writings, and locked others in
their desks against a brighter day. In religion the Emperor's
principle was that his subjects should hate the English because they
were heretics, and the Pope because he was a fanatic. The "ideologues"
and "metaphysicians" were anarchists, for the public order was
endangered by their teachings. The newspapers were not only gagged,
but metamorphosed--the "French Citizen" into the "French Courier," the
"Journal of Debates" into the "Journal of the Empire." Their columns
were filled with laudations of the Emperor; their political articles
were virtually composed in the Foreign Office; and there was not a
symptom of anything like the existence of party feeling. A certain
journalist having been allowed to make statements concerning the
luxury at court, the editor of the offending paper was given to
understand that the Emperor would tolerate no such criticism nor any
remarks contrary to his interests.[17]

         [Footnote 17: In general, for the censorship of the press see
         Welschinger: La censure sous le Premier Empire. Sorel: Essais
         d'histoire et de critique.]

But the crowning work of this period was the final realization of the
plan for organizing public instruction in what was designated by the
head of the state as the Imperial University. Though somewhat changed
in name and character, it exists to-day virtually as it came from the
maker's hand. Like the institution of the prefecture, it is a
faultless machine of equalization and centralization, molding the mass
of educated Frenchmen into one form, rendering them responsive and
receptive to authoritative ideas from their youth upward, and passive
in their attitude toward instruction. Joseph de Maistre used to preach
that, all social order depending on the authority of beliefs as well
as on the authority of behavior, no man who denied the supremacy of
the Pope would permanently admit the sovereignty of the state.
Napoleon furnished a standing refutation of this thesis. The whole
system of public instruction in France has under the third republic
not merely been secularized, but it has been made, and for a quarter
of a century has remained, substantially infidel. Twenty-five academic
generations of living French citizens, reckoning each year's output as
a generation, have come out from its laboratory with a minimum of
faith; but state supremacy and state socialism are, in a moderate
form, more prevalent among them than among any similar body of men
elsewhere.

The University of France means literally the totality of all
instruction in the country, organized by successive stages into a
single system, and rigidly controlled from above. The outlines
sketched in the law passed in 1802, and supplemented in 1806, were
carefully followed by Napoleon in his final step, and neither the
theory nor the method need be again discussed. It is significant that
it was an imperial decree, and not a statute, which on March
seventeenth, 1808, created the organism. There was an endowment of
four hundred million francs, and a separate budget, "in order that
instruction might not suffer by passing disturbances in imperial
finances." In order, also, that its doctrine might not feel the
influence of every passing philosophical fashion, the corporation was
subordinate to, but separate from, the ministry, with a grand master,
chancellor, and treasurer of its own, and thirty members, of whom ten
were appointed for life by the Emperor, the rest being annually
designated by the grand master. They made rules for the discipline,
revised the textbooks, and chose the instructors of all the
institutions of learning in all France, except some of the great
ecclesiastical seminaries and a few of the technical schools. At the
outset it was ordered that all the masters, censors, and teachers in
the great intermediate schools or lyceums should be celibates! The
professors might marry, but in that case they could not live in the
precincts of what was virtually a military barrack.

Liberal culture, so far as given, was provided in the lyceums, and
they really form the heart of the university. Under the Empire their
instruction was largely in mathematics, with a sprinkling of Latin. It
is now greatly broadened and elevated. The pupils of the primary
schools felt a quasi-dependence on the Emperor; those of the lyceums
were the very children of patronage, for the cheapness of their
education, combined with their semi-military uniforms and habits,
impressed at every turn on them and their families the immanence of
the Empire. They entered by government examinations; all their letters
passed through the head master's hands; they were put under a
threefold system of espionage culminating in the grand master; the one
hundred and fifty scholarships and bourses in each were paid by the
state; the punishments were, like those of soldiers, arrest and
imprisonment. With the acquisition of military habits the young
_lyceen_ could look forward to military promotion, for two hundred and
fifty of the most select were sent every year to the military schools,
where they lived at the Emperor's expense, expecting professional
advancement by the Emperor's patronage. Others of less merit were
detached for the civil service, and in that also their careers were at
the imperial mercy. They were daily and hourly reminded of Napoleon's
greatness, for twenty-four hundred foreigners from the vassal states
of the Empire were scattered among these institutions, where they were
turned into Frenchmen and docile subjects at the Emperor's expense,
while being virtually held as hostages for the good behavior of their
parents. These powerful engines did not work in vain. During the
comparatively short existence of the Empire their product assumed
enormous proportions, and largely modified the temper of society
throughout France. The youth educated by priests or tutors were found
unable to keep pace with their favored contemporaries from the
government schools, and from the first no prophet was needed to
foretell the destiny of private institutions and ecclesiastical
seminaries. Little by little they made way for or became annexed to
the lyceums which one after another were founded wherever needed. The
charges of the latter were, and are, very low; and thrifty fathers
appreciate the fact. The state is at enormous cost to support them;
but public sentiment, preferring indirect to direct taxation, approves
of the expenditure, while crafty statesmen, whether royalist,
imperialist, or republican, employ them to create citizens of the kind
in power at the time.

Throughout the late summer and autumn of 1807 the imperial court was
more stately than ever before. The old nobility became assiduous in
their attendance, and, as one of the Empress's ladies in waiting is
said to have remarked they "received good company." On his return
Napoleon had found Josephine's extravagance to be as unbounded as
ever; but he could not well complain, because, although for the most
part frugal himself, he had latterly encouraged lavishness in his
family. Still, it was not agreeable to have dressmakers' bills flung
into his carriage when driving in state with his consort, and on one
occasion he sent an unprincipled but clever milliner to the prison of
Bicetre for having disobeyed his orders in furnishing her wares to the
Empress at exorbitant prices. The person was so indispensable to the
court ladies, however, that they crowded her cell, and she was soon
released. At St. Cloud, Malmaison, the Tuileries, and Fontainebleau
the social vices of courts began to appear; but they were sternly
repressed, especially high play. By way of contrast, the city of Paris
was at that very moment debauched by a profusion of gambling-hells and
houses of prostitution, all licensed at an enormous figure by Fouche
and producing great revenues for the secret police. The gorgeous state
uniforms of the marshals, the rich and elegant costumes of the ladies,
the bespangled and begilt coats of the household, dancing,
theatricals, concerts, and excursions--all these elements should have
combined to create brilliancy and gaiety in the imperial circle, but
they did not.

There was something seriously amiss with the central figure. He was
often sullen and morose, often violent and even hysterical. To calm
his nervous agitation the court physician ordered warm baths, which he
spent hours in taking. Then again he was irregular in his habits,
being often somnolent during the daytime, but as frequently breaking
his rest at midnight to set the pens of his secretaries scampering to
keep pace with the flow of his speech. With old friends he was coarse
and severe: even the brutal Vandamme confessed that he trembled before
that "devil of a man," while Lannes was the only human being who still
dared to use the familiar "thou" in addressing his old comrade. To the
face of his generals the Emperor was merely cold: behind their backs
he sneered--saying, for instance, of Davout that he might give him
never so much renown, he would not be able to carry it; of Ney that he
was disposed to ingratitude and turbulence; of Bessieres, Oudinot, and
Victor that they were mere mediocrities. Among all these dazzling
stars he himself moved in simple uniform and in a cocked hat
ornamented with his favorite cheap little cockade. It was a
well-calculated vanity, for with increasing corpulence plainness of
dress called less attention to his waddling gait and growing
awkwardness of gesture.

The summer of 1807 saw the social triumph of the Bonaparte family, the
sometime Jacobins, but now emperor and kings. Jerome Napoleon was
married on August twenty-second to the Princess Catherine of
Wuertemberg. The Emperor had already spoken at Tilsit with the Czar
about unions for himself and family suitable to their rank, but the
hint of an alliance with the Romanoffs was coldly received. In the
Emperor's opinion this, however, was a really splendid match. The
Rhine princes and subsidiary monarchs hastened to Paris, and one of
them showed his want of perspicacity by marked attentions to
Josephine, which he hoped would secure her husband's favor. When men
of such lofty and undisputed lineage were joining what was apparently
an irresistible movement, the recusant nobility of France itself could
not well stand aloof any longer. It amused and interested the Emperor
to see them obey Fouche's hint, and throng to be introduced in the
correct way to the new and undisputed sovereign, not merely of France,
but of western Europe.

Moreover, they were no longer impertinent. They remembered the fate
meted out to Mme. de Stael for her solemn innuendos, and did not
forget that the last item in the indictment on which Mme. de Chevreuse
had been banished was a snippish remark to Napoleon's face. Astonished
at the splendor of her diamonds, he had in his own court clumsily
asked if they were all real. "Indeed, sire, I do not know," she
replied; "but they are good enough to wear here." In consequence,
therefore, of this new and now well-intentioned element the court
swelled in numbers and gained in grace, but not in joyousness. The
Empress was already foreboding her fate; there was the stiffness of
inaptitude about everything, even the amusement, and the languid
weariness of the ladies was an unforgiven imperial sin. The quick wit
of the Emperor remarked this annoying fact, and demanded counsel of
Talleyrand. The Prince of Benevento had by this time resigned his
position as minister, and the relations between himself and the
Emperor were strained, but he was not rebuked when he ventured on the
old license of speech. "It is because pleasure will not move at the
drum-tap," was his answer, "and you look as if you would command every
one just as you do the army: 'Ladies and gentlemen, forward march!'"

Talleyrand's numberless intrigues, his venality and self-seeking, his
cynicism and contemptuous airs, had finally destroyed his
preponderance with Napoleon, although he still retained much
influence. No one was better aware of the fact than he was. Thus far
he had reckoned himself an indispensable factor in the administration
of the Empire; now he saw that he was so no longer, that his time had
come.

He had a sterile mind, and was destitute of principle. Constructive
politics were beyond his powers, and he was hopelessly ignorant of
social movements. The real Europe of his time was to him a closed
book; and while Napoleon was well served in every other function of
state, because he himself could assist and supervise, he was
wretchedly betrayed in the matter of permanent gains by diplomacy, in
which he was personally a blunderer and a tyro. Talleyrand was a
distinguished and typical aristocrat of the old French school,
elegant, adroit, smooth-spoken, and sharp. He was an unequaled
courtier, influential by his moderation in word, gesture, and
expression, but a feeble adviser, and utterly incapable of broad
views. His character, being unequal to his skill, was not strong
enough either to curb or guide a headstrong master, for his intellect
was neither productive nor solid. No treaty ever made by him was
lasting, and he must have known that even the peace of Tilsit would
begin to crumble almost before the papers were signed. The balance of
Europe was disturbed but temporarily by that agreement, not
permanently, as had been intended; the attempted seclusion of Prussia
by Napoleon destroyed her old antagonism to other German powers, and
marked the beginning of amalgamation with all her sister states for
the reconstruction of an avenging German nationality.

Something may be forgiven to an adventurer in the storms of
revolution, but Talleyrand trimmed his sails to every wind, outrode
every storm, and made gains in every port. He was a trusted official
of the Republic, the Consulate, the Empire, and the restored monarchy.
Wise in his day and generation, he had long before made ready to
withdraw, if necessary, from active life, by the accumulation of an
enormous fortune, heaped up by means which scandalized even imperial
France. He had been embittered at the close of the Consulate by
Napoleon's determination that his ministers should not be his highest
dignitaries, his arch-officers. The title of "prince," with two
hundred thousand francs a year, was a poor consolation when men like
Lebrun and Cambaceres had the precedence as arch-treasurer and
arch-chancellor, while--most unendurable of all--they drew salaries of
three hundred and fifty thousand francs. Berthier, the Prince of
Neufchatel, had recently been made vice-constable to represent Louis
Bonaparte, who, though still constable, had left Paris to become Louis
Napoleon, King of Holland. This was Talleyrand's opportunity to resign
from the ministry on his own initiative. He demanded a dignity for
himself similar to that accorded to Berthier. The Emperor told him
that, accustomed to power as he had become, he would be unhappy in a
station which precluded his remaining in the cabinet. But the minister
knew his role in the little comedy, and, persisting, was on August
ninth made vice-grand elector, while Champagny, an excellent and
laborious official, took his seat at the council-board as minister of
external relations. Talleyrand's withdrawal had not the slightest
influence on the Emperor's foreign policy; in fact, the quidnuncs at
Fontainebleau declared that he was seen limping into Napoleon's office
almost every evening.[18] But he was so well known in every court, his
circle of personal acquaintances was so large, so timorous, and so
reverential, that superstitious men believed his retirement augured
the turn of Napoleon's fortunes.

         [Footnote 18: Sorel, Vol. VII, pp. 191-2.]




CHAPTER VIII

THE EMPIRES OF LAND AND OCEAN[19]

         [Footnote 19: References as before, and Mahan: Influence of
         Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire. Loir: Etudes
         d'histoire maritime. Clowes: The Royal Navy. Stanhope: Life
         of Hon. William Pitt.]

     Diplomacy at St. Petersburg -- Internal Politics of Russia --
     Alexander's Perplexities -- War between Great Britain and Russia
     -- New Orders in Council -- The Milan Decree -- Position of the
     United States -- The Regeneration of Prussia -- Napoleon's
     Repressive Measures -- Austria's New Army -- Diplomatic Tension
     between Russia and France -- Designs of Napoleon as to Egypt --
     He Temporizes with Alexander -- Caulaincourt and Tolstoi -- The
     Czar's Demands -- Napoleon's Visit to Italy -- Limitations of his
     Ambition -- Visions of Oriental Empire -- Control of the
     Mediterranean -- His Proposition to Russia -- His Complete
     Program.


The diplomatic intrigues at St. Petersburg were intensely amusing
after the peace of Tilsit. Alexander coquetted with the English
agents, and concealed his plans from the conservative Russians. His
lips were sealed about what had occurred at the meeting with Napoleon,
and the charge has been disproved that some of his suite blabbed
enough to the British diplomats to enable them to divine the rest.
Canning's acuteness and his conviction that Napoleon and Alexander had
reached an understanding hostile to England sufficiently account for
the bombardment of Copenhagen, and place the responsibility for it on
his shoulders. But in the interval before that event the Czar cajoled
the English embassy until they felt assured of a triumph, while
almost simultaneously he assured Lesseps, the French consul-general,
how precious Napoleon's society had been to him, and declared that if
England did not yield the two allies would compel her. To the formal
introductory communications of Russia concerning peace, Canning
replied by a demand for the secret articles of Tilsit, and despatched
the fleet to the Baltic. The successful stroke made in September at
Copenhagen filled the Czar with solicitude; for, like his ally, he had
hoped to gain time, and such promptness in imitating Napoleon's
contempt for neutral rights dismayed him. It looked as though this
were the first event in a maritime war which would end by destroying
the shipyards at Cronstadt, or perhaps even St. Petersburg itself. But
instead of further aggression came a new mission from the London
cabinet asking for Alexander's good offices in appeasing Denmark, and
offering every indemnity to that power except the restoration of the
fleet. Great Britain, commanding the Baltic, could be magnanimous.

[Illustration: From the collection of W. C. Crane. Engraved by
Langier.

QUEEN HORTENSE.

Painted by Girodet.]

This conjunction of affairs destroyed Alexander's self-control. He had
played the friend of England to no advantage, and England now asked
for new and impossible proofs of his friendship. He could neither
disclose to her the secret articles nor mediate in her behalf with a
country which had already joined his own system. On the other hand,
Savary, the French ambassador, and Lesseps, the French consul-general,
were daily reminding him of his engagements to Napoleon. There was
little need, for the alliance meant to him the attainment of his most
cherished ambitions: the acquisition of Finland to the westward, and
of the great Danube principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia to the
south. In all contingencies he had to reckon with the wealthy Russian
proprietors, whose prosperity demanded the easy export of their
enormous produce in timber and grain by the same British ships which
supplied them with essential articles that were not manufactured in
Russia. To them the continental blockade was a horror, and many in the
army declared they would not shed their blood to undermine the
national prosperity.

This tension could not last. The English secretly introduced into
Russia a pamphlet charging that the peace of Tilsit had separated the
Czar from both his people and his troops. Savary, mindful of his old
detective arts, discovered its origin and adroitly laid the facts
before Alexander, who burst into angry abuse of the "libel," and
bemoaned the lack of able men to support him both in a wise foreign
policy and in such internal reforms as the abolition of serfdom, which
he was determined to accomplish. Moreover, Napoleon's conduct was such
as to produce serious uneasiness. So far from evacuating Prussia,
French troops still occupied all her harbor towns, and menaced the
Russian frontier as if their commander were a foe and not a friend.
The agreement made with Kalkreuth for the gradual withdrawal of the
French army from Prussia was held to be null, for the Prussians could
not raise the indemnity of a hundred and fifty million francs computed
as the direct cost of the war. To this was added the fact that no move
was made toward the dismemberment of Turkey. The Emperor of the French
had seized and fortified Corfu, but in a preliminary armistice between
Russia and Turkey, due to his intermediation, not a word was said
about the Danubian principalities; although the Russian troops were
still in Wallachia, it was clear that French influence was daily
growing stronger at Constantinople, and might grow strong enough to
thwart the Czar's plans entirely.

Such were the disquieting considerations which finally brought to a
climax the relations of Russia with England. On October twenty-sixth,
Lord Leveson-Gower, the English ambassador, received a note from Count
Rumianzoff to the effect that twice Russia had taken up arms for
England's advantage, and had in vain solicited even such cooeperation
as would seem to have been in Great Britain's own interest. She had
not even asked, said the writer, for reinforcements, but merely for a
diversion, and had been chagrined to see that her ally, so far from
maintaining the Czar's cause, had instead, like a cold observer of the
bloody theater where war had been kindled at her behest, despatched
expeditions on her own behalf to seize Egypt and to attack Buenos
Ayres. After all this the Czar had still offered his mediation, but in
vain: Great Britain had replied by an act of unheard-of violence,
despoiling an ancient and dignified monarchy. Could the Czar apologize
for such a deed? It was insulting to expect it. After reciting these
grievances and asserting the principles of the armed neutrality, the
paper announced a rupture of all diplomatic relations until reparation
should be made to Denmark.

War was formally declared by Russia on November seventh, and England
retorted by orders in council, issued on the eighteenth and
twenty-sixth of the same month, which declared that every continental
port closed to her flag was thereafter in a state of blockade. The
neutral states were each and all notified that she would exercise the
right of search to the fullest extent; that all neutral ships must put
into English harbors before proceeding to their destination, and pay a
duty in case of reexportation of their cargoes. An exception to this
latter regulation was made in the case of the United States, they
being graciously permitted to have direct commercial intercourse with
Sweden, but with Sweden only. This, of course, meant that neutral
states must either carry on England's trade under their own flags or
abandon their commerce altogether.

This measure was in utter contempt of international law, even as then
understood, and was a high-handed outrage against neutral powers, in
particular against the United States. It was treating the ocean
exactly as Napoleon had treated the lands of Europe. But it was a
powerful weapon, for if successfully enforced it would destroy
Napoleon's Continental System entirely. Accordingly, in pursuance of
his policy that fire must be fought with fire, the Emperor retorted
with equal ruthlessness, fulminating the terrible Milan Decree of
December seventeenth, 1807. In it he declared that any vessel which
obeyed the orders of the English admiralty or suffered itself to be
searched was and would be regarded as an English ship. It was
essential, therefore, that any nation desiring exemption from the
enactments of the Berlin and Milan decrees on the one hand and of the
English orders in council on the other must make itself respected by
force of arms. The Americans must either accept the humiliating terms
of England or enter the French system and seek in a maritime war to
capture the continental markets for themselves.

Napoleon, as has already been narrated, intended to force them into
the latter course immediately, but he was not well informed concerning
American affairs. Jefferson was at that time in his second term as
President of the United States. The Democratic party, of which he was
the leader, was vastly more concerned with agricultural than with
commercial interests. They were afraid to increase the public debt,
cared little for the prosperity of New England commerce, and, seeking
to avoid the dilemma arranged for them by England and France, passed
the notorious embargo act forbidding all foreign commerce whatsoever.
American ships must avoid foreign waters, which, like the land, had
become the arena of a bloody duel in which the United States were not
interested--so, at least, the Democrats fondly believed. Exports to
England fell in a single year from forty-nine to nine millions of
dollars. In other words, the embargo, though causing great distress,
could not be perfectly enforced, since the Eastern merchants continued
their humiliating submission to England for the sake of their
lucrative speculations.

At the same time the farmers were suddenly awakened to the fact that
in the end they suffered as much under the prohibition as the traders.
In the resulting agitations Jefferson closed his public career without
eclat. Madison wisely secured a modification of the embargo by the
Non-intervention Act, which opened all foreign commerce except that
with England and France. But the merchants of New England were
rebellious and dissatisfied even with this. The Federalists wanted a
navy and a place in the European system; in other words, a fair share
in the world's carrying-trade for the seafarers of the Atlantic coast.
Matters drifted on in general discontent and mutual recrimination
until 1810. Napoleon in that year shrewdly announced that he had
abandoned his policy, but for all that he actually continued to
enforce it. This empty pretense of friendship embroiled the United
States still further with England, and in the end led to a second war
for independence.

The Czar had no sooner taken the decisive step of finally declaring
war on England than the Napoleonic policy began further to unfold.
Prussia was at once compelled to follow her protector's example, and
before the ensuing season all her harbors were fortified and closed.
In spite of the French occupation, a national reform movement had
begun in this land. In Koenigsberg was formed the League of Virtue,
which focused the new morality and patriotism of the masses. The pens
of Fichte, Schleiermacher, and other great writers continued to build
up public spirit. Stein accepted office, stipulating that the privy
council should be abolished, and then freed the serfs. Among other
important reforms he destroyed the old distinction between land
tenures, and made transfers simple. Self-government was granted to the
cities. The schools were entirely reconstructed under the direction of
William von Humboldt, and the University of Berlin was founded as a
nursery for the new national spirit.

Under these influences the monarchy of Frederick the Great ceased to
exist; the authority of the "yunker" class which supported it and had
rashly brought on the war with France was temporarily eclipsed by a
wholesome expression of national vigor, and the enlightened liberalism
of Prussia became the stimulus for a similar movement in all Germany.
As to the army, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst entered with zeal upon the
task of reorganization, and the latter was a very genius of reform.
Napoleon at length showed his true colors, forbade his victim to
maintain more than forty-two thousand troops, and declared to the face
of Frederick William's brother in Paris that the occupation of the
fortresses had passed from the narrow domain of particular politics
into the great field of general policy. He meant, of course, that he
was thereby virtually holding in check not merely Prussia, but Russia
and Austria as well. The limitation set by him to the active military
force of the captive state was easily evaded by the subterfuge of
substituting new recruits for those who had completed their training
in the ranks; but the French occupation seemed to be virtually
permanent.

The military reorganization of Austria was already complete, and
Metternich wrote on July twenty-sixth, 1807, to Stadion, the minister
of state, that as the peace of Tilsit had sown broadcast the germs of
its own destruction, the wisdom of his correspondent's administration
would one day bring Austria to the point where three hundred thousand
men united under one will and directed to one goal would play the
first role in Europe, "in a moment of universal anarchy, at one of
those epochs which always follow great usurpations, and wipe out the
traces of the conquerors; an epoch of which no one can foretell the
date, but which nothing postpones except the life of a single man, and
which all the genius of that man can so much the less postpone as he
has not yet taken the first step to preclude its certain results."
This reference to Napoleon's childlessness and the dependence of his
system on his single life is clear enough. The Emperor of the French
was himself thoroughly aware of the influence exerted by such a
consideration upon the course of affairs, and in consequence his
dealing with Francis was somewhat less peremptory than that with
Frederick William. Nevertheless, the results were exceedingly
humiliating to Austria's pride. In a treaty concluded at Fontainebleau
on October tenth, 1807, with reference to the Italian frontier, her
dominions were shorn to the quick. At Napoleon's suggestion, Count
Starhemberg, her ambassador in London, intimated that England, in the
interest of peace, ought to restore the Danish fleet and make terms
with France. On the prompt refusal of Great Britain to listen, the
envoy withdrew from London; but he did not leave the English cabinet
in doubt as to the cause. He knew and broadly hinted that though his
master dared not trifle with a Franco-Russian alliance, his heart was
with the English cause. To all outward appearance, therefore, Austria
was quite as subservient as Prussia to the mighty coalition of
France and Russia.

Almost immediately after the rupture with England, Alexander had the
mortification of seeing his worst fears realized. Napoleon had opened
to him at Tilsit a dazzling vista of territorial aggrandizement.
Slowly but surely the desired effect was produced. Aware of all the
dangers he ran, the Czar nevertheless sacrificed every other
consideration, even that of his people's material comfort, in order to
demonstrate his good faith. By declaring war he likewise paid in
advance. But at the earliest possible moment, on November seventh, his
ambassador to France, sent for the purpose, demanded the return--to
wit, the two principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. Simultaneously
and in another quarter this same demand was made emphatic. Immediately
after the meeting at Tilsit, Guilleminot, a French general, had been
sent as mediator between Russia and Turkey to the seat of war on the
Danube. An armistice was concluded under his direction at Slobozia, in
which were two or three compensatory clauses promising that Russia
would make restitution to Turkey of certain vessels and munitions of
war which had been captured. The Czar professed to take great umbrage
at these stipulations. Shortly afterward he rejected the whole paper,
and the Russian troops remained in Wallachia. This conduct was
intended to indicate his obstinate determination to have the vague
promises of Napoleon defined, and then to secure their performance.

The Emperor of the French had been kept well informed by Savary, and
knew that the Tilsit alliance, being distasteful to the Russian
people, hung on the personal good will of their sovereign. He would
have been glad to put Alexander off with some slight rectification of
the border-line between Russia and Turkey and with further indefinite
promises, but he dared not. Accordingly he devised the plea that the
aggrandizement of the Eastern and Western empires must keep equal
pace, not in the West, for that was his by right, but in those
debatable lands wherewith Russia hoped to secure a permanent seat in
the councils of Europe. He was confirmed in his desire to postpone the
partition of Turkey by finding that Mustapha, the Sultan who had
overthrown Selim in defiance of France, was now ready in turn to make
friends with her and perform her behests. The hope of getting Egypt
was again awakened, but the times were not ripe and delay must be
secured.

In addition to these considerations there was that of immediate
safety. The last two campaigns had seen Napoleon a victor, once over
Austria and Russia combined, again over Prussia and Russia combined;
but in each there had been moments when the coalition of the three
would have overwhelmed him. For this reason he would gladly have
declared at Tilsit that the house of Hohenzollern had ceased to reign,
in order thereby to preclude any future danger from a triple alliance.
This idea he had abandoned for the time in order to gratify Alexander.
His ally secure, he now returned or pretended to return to it. Prussia
was regaining her strength too rapidly; her embittered hostility was
an ever-increasing menace. On the plea that she could never pay the
promised indemnity, and was therefore to be treated as a bankrupt,
Napoleon declared at last that Russia could have the Danube provinces
if France could take Silesia for the grand duchy of Warsaw. "Prussia,"
ran Napoleon's despatch on this subject--"Prussia would have but two
millions of inhabitants; but would not that be enough for the welfare
of the royal family, and is it not in their interest to place her
without delay and with perfect resignation among the inferior
powers, since all their efforts to restore the position she has lost
merely serve to distress their subjects and cherish idle regrets?"
"What the Emperor would prefer," said this same memorandum, "is that
the Turks should remain in peaceable possession of Wallachia and
Moldavia; still he would hand over these provinces to the Czar in
return for a just compensation from Prussian lands; and finally,
though far from wishing a complete partition of Turkey, he desires you
not to condemn utterly the plan, but rather to dwell on the motives
for postponing it. This ancient project of Russian ambition is a tie
which can bind Russia to France."

For the purposes of this difficult negotiation Napoleon had chosen
Caulaincourt, his devoted servant and most adroit diplomat. Having
been concerned in the expeditions to Strasburg and Ettenheim which
captured Enghien, the ambassador had been deeply, though unjustly,
involved in the disrepute of the execution, and that fact was a tie
which bound him to his master. The two seemed thoroughly to understand
each other. Alexander had chosen an envoy who was the very antipodes
of the adroit and elegant Caulaincourt. Count Tolstoi was a bluff
soldier, selected in the belief that he would be uninfluenced by the
intrigues of Paris society, and could secure the utmost return for the
agreement of Tilsit by direct negotiation with the Emperor himself, as
one old soldier talking with another. This officer was instructed to
lay great stress on the liberation of Prussia, but to remember that
the object of his mission was to cement harmony and confidence. On the
journey to Paris he paused at Memel to pay his respects to Frederick
William and his Queen. He found them, considering their station,
actually in want, dependent on the Czar's gifts of clothes and other
necessaries for the little personal comfort they enjoyed. This made a
deep impression on Tolstoi's heart, and though received at Paris with
such distinction as had never been accorded to any other ambassador,
he was cold and distant with both the Emperor and the court. At last
there was positive disagreement between him and the great personages
of the capital; there was even a rumor that Ney and he would fight a
duel. The offensive remarks which led to such tension were due to a
statement by Tolstoi that Russia had been beaten by accident, that
Russian soldiers were invincible, and might one day take their
revenge.

Moreover, the ambassador could not even get on with Napoleon. Both he
and his staff avoided the splendors of Fontainebleau, preferring to
frequent the drawing-rooms of a notorious actress whose name had often
been linked with that of the Emperor. Under such circumstances
diplomacy gathered but little fruit. Napoleon offered both the
Danubian provinces for Silesia, or else the evacuation of Prussia
proper for that of Wallachia; he even mentioned the magic word
"Constantinople" as part of Russia's share in an eventual partition of
the whole Turkish empire. Tolstoi wrote to St. Petersburg that France
was postponing the evacuation of Prussia for selfish purposes, meaning
to dismember her; and from that starting-point depicted the horrors of
a Napoleonic Europe. Such opinions dismayed Alexander, and although he
received Caulaincourt with distinction equal to that which had been
accorded to Tolstoi, he firmly refused the bargain offered by him. He
would not consent to a further dismemberment of Prussia, partly for
sentimental reasons, chiefly because he could not endure the
strengthening of the grand duchy of Warsaw, the new political organism
which suggested the restoration of Poland. As to the principalities,
these he would have. Russian society had for the moment repressed
its hostility to the Czar and his treaty of Tilsit, and was quietly
waiting to see what would be the substantial results. No gain less
than the acquisition of Wallachia and Moldavia would reinstate
Alexander in their good will or make the French alliance endurable.
This was of course a serious crisis; but Caulaincourt, nothing
dismayed, set himself, by the exercise of all those social arts of
which he had such a mastery, to win the aristocratic circles of St.
Petersburg.

In the month of December, 1807, Napoleon was on a royal progress
through his kingdom of Italy, and the news of the diplomatic crisis in
Russia reached him at Venice, which had become his as a result of
Austerlitz and by the treaty of Presburg. Although he had gone thither
for a serious consultation with Joseph, its fascinations were already
weaving curious plans in the Emperor's mind. His rapid journey through
Lombardy and a short visit to Milan, whence he fulminated his reply to
the English admiralty, had convinced him of the firm sovereignty he
exercised throughout these splendid realms. In the few days of his
presence he had further strengthened his power by many generous and
beneficent decrees. It was with a sense of security that he came to
Venice; at once he yielded to her spell, realizing that at last his
control of the Adriatic was complete, inasmuch as now he held both
shores and commanded the entrance by the possession of Corfu. Just
beyond was the brilliant East, ripe for conquest. Could he or should
he lose the opportunity to use such a superb base of operations, win
the gratitude of all Venetia by restoring the ancient glories of her
capital, and thereby lay his hand at last on the bauble which had once
before so dazzled him? Besides, Great Britain, his hated rival,
scorning the terms he had offered, disdaining the continental
blockade, anchored in her strength by the control of Western seas,
was vulnerable in India, and there alone. These considerations
returned with overpowering allurement to his imagination, and four
millions of francs were appropriated to improve the harbor and restore
somewhat the splendors of Venice.

New Year's day found the Emperor again at the Tuileries, in time to
receive a new courier from Russia with still more vigorous
representations of Alexander's desires. The idea of a general
partition of Turkish lands grew stronger, and in an interview with
Metternich, Napoleon hinted that Austria should have a share.
Instructions were sent to Caulaincourt that he should hold out hopes
in order to gain time and to learn whether it was definitely
impossible that matters should remain as the treaty of Tilsit, taken
literally, had arranged them. This procrastinating attitude of mind
had a twofold cause. One appears to have been a gradual realization in
Napoleon's consciousness that dreams and schemes must materialize,
that in the mystery of a life like his one step inevitably leads to
another, that his career must encircle the vast globe, while he
himself was but mortal, finite, and already verging to the utmost
limit of his powers. A year before he had written to Josephine that he
was of all men the most enslaved; "my master has no bowels, and that
master is the nature of things." The other cause was the fearless and
warlike attitude taken in Great Britain by both crown and Parliament
and announced with threats of eternal war at the opening of the
legislative session of 1807. It appears probable, likewise, that
whatever answer should be given by Alexander to his pregnant question,
he felt his only safety now to be in the alliance with the Czar.

Time, time, time--that was the prime necessity; there were only
twenty-four hours in the day, and only a certain quantity of nerve
force in his own system. Before the partition of Turkey, if
Alexander's reply should make it inevitable, two weighty matters must
be settled: first, the road to an Oriental empire must be secured; and
second, the already existing Western empire of Europe must be rounded
out by the "regulation" of Spanish affairs--the appropriation, if it
should seem best, of the whole Iberian peninsula. Any tyro in
geography could see by a glance at the map that as navigation was in
those days--that is, by the propulsion of fickle winds amid the partly
known currents of ocean and sea--the command of Gibraltar and Malta
meant the control of the Levant, and the British held both places.
With Spain in French hands, Gibraltar eventually might be taken, but
the case of Malta was far different. In the possession of a seafaring
nation like the English the island was impregnable. But was this in
reality the only outlet for the French empire to the East? From France
proper, yes; but from Italy, by the Adriatic, there was an admirable
alternative, if not, indeed, the only true line of trade.

Since the first awakening of his ambition, Napoleon had dreamed of
supremacy in the Mediterranean, and every successive treaty made with
Northern powers had looked to some strengthening of French influence
on that sea. Now at last he had Corfu, and the English, straitened for
troops, were withdrawing the forces which occupied Sicily to send them
into Portugal. The squadrons from Brest, Lorient, and Rochefort were
at once ordered to unite in the Mediterranean. This was the moment to
seize Sicily, and with that island added to Corfu, France would
control the best road into Egypt. But the hostile fate which seemed to
attend all Napoleon's undertakings by sea again checkmated him.
English cruisers were found hovering about Corfu, and the landing in
Sicily was temporarily abandoned in order to sweep the English from
the waters of the Ionian Isles. In the event of success, the invasion
of Turkey, the seizure of Egypt, and the gratification of Alexander
would be easy. More remotely, the deadly blow at England could be
struck in Asia. What a conception! What a debauch of the imagination!

But there was one specter which, though laid for intervals, would not
entirely down, and returned with stolid persistency: the existence of
the Western empire hung on the thread of a single life; the very
crowns of France and Italy had no heir. The situation was much
discussed in court circles, sometimes even among the people, and was
becoming acute. In order to solve the problem peace was essential, and
not a remote, but an immediate one, if possible. The Russian
ambassador, returning from London, had reported on his journey through
France that the English were not so envenomed as they seemed. It was
only a straw, yet it was talked of. At once Napoleon seized it, and
announced that his one aim, his most ardently desired goal,
was--peace.

It was now the close of January; Tolstoi was invited to join a
hunting-party, and in the heart of the forest Napoleon found means to
be alone with him. After a long, vague, contradictory, but dramatic
conversation setting forth the same three alternatives,--peace between
Russia and Turkey without the principalities, or the principalities in
exchange for Silesia, or the ultimate but not immediate partition of
Turkey,--the great actor suddenly paused as if in an ecstasy of
sincerity, and snatching his hat off his head with both hands, flung
it on the ground as he said: "Hark you, M. Tolstoi; it is not the
Emperor of the French, but an old general of division that is now
talking to another. May I be thought the vilest of men if I do not
scrupulously fulfil the contract I made at Tilsit, and if I do not
evacuate both Prussia and the duchy of Warsaw as soon as you have
withdrawn your troops from Moldavia and Wallachia! I am neither a fool
nor a child, not to know what I stipulate, and what I stipulate I
always fulfil." Leaving this objurgation time to work its effect, the
Emperor of the French a few days later--on February second--wrote with
his own hand to the Emperor of all the Russias. It was an innocent and
kindly epistle, advising his friend to strengthen his army, and
promising all aid possible in case he should feel that the border-line
of Sweden was too near St. Petersburg. An army of fifty thousand men,
Russian, French, perhaps a "little Austrian," marching into Asia by
way of Constantinople, would not reach the Euphrates before England
would begin to tremble. "I am strong in Dalmatia, you on the Danube.
One month after an agreement we could be on the Bosporus. But our
mutual interests require to be combined and equalized in a personal
conference. Tolstoi is not built on the proportions of Tilsit. We
could have everything ready, you and I, or perhaps Caulaincourt and
Rumianzoff, before March fifteenth, and by May first our troops could
be in Asia at the moment when those of your Majesty were in Stockholm.
We would have preferred peace, you and I, but we must do what is
predestined, and follow whither the irresistible march of events
conducts us."

This letter was a masterpiece. It meant, first, a little European
war, short and sharp, whereby Russia would get Finland as a sop and
have her attention drawn off from Prussia and Spain; secondly, a
menace which would bring England to terms and produce a peace;
thirdly, the neutralization of Austria by inviting her to sit down at
the feast; lastly, the consolidation of Napoleon's dynasty for the
ultimate completion of his designs in the Orient either with or
without Russia's aid. The alternative would be a war of hitherto
unknown dimensions, including not only all Europe, but Asia Minor and
northern Africa; out of such a conflict might result a permanent order
the foundation and copestone of which would be French supremacy.
England would of course rush to the assistance of Sweden, the only
land now left in Europe that had never fallen into the orbit of the
French system. At that moment Spain and Portugal, abandoned to their
fate, must drop into French hands. If England should still prove
resolute, then an expedition to Egypt would sail from Corfu, while
simultaneously the united armies of Russia, France, and Austria would
march to the conquest of Turkey and the seizure of India. It was a
scheme so vast, so logical, so imperial, that it left far behind the
dreams of a Corsican patriot or the visions of an ardent Frenchman.
Successful as a soldier, the Emperor was carried by each new victory
into widening circles of enterprise which could have no relation to
narrow national limits.




CHAPTER IX

FRENCH EMPIRE AND EUROPEAN NATIONALITY[20]

         [Footnote 20: See Oman: Peninsular War. Martins: Historia de
         Portugal. Delagrave: La Campagne de Portugal. Also Memoirs,
         etc., by Barkhaeusen, Brandt, Gomm, Moore, Naylies, Roverea,
         Savary, Miot de Melito.]

     Diplomatic Fencing with Russia -- Caulaincourt and Rumianzoff --
     Plight of the Czar -- Napoleon and the Papacy -- The Pope a
     Prisoner -- The House of Braganza -- Partition of Portugal --
     Flight of the Royal Family -- Junot's Aspirations -- The
     Condition of Spain -- The Court -- The Crown Prince -- The
     Popular Factions -- Napoleon's Plans -- Quarrel of Charles and
     Ferdinand -- Trial of Ferdinand -- Invasion of Spain -- Napoleon
     and Lucien at Mantua -- Napoleon and Joseph at Venice -- Godoy
     Thwarted -- The French Armament -- The Humiliation of Spain --
     Fall of Godoy -- Abdication of the King.


[Sidenote: 1808]

The instructions issued by Napoleon to Caulaincourt in this crisis
reveal the writer's entire political system during the turning-point
of his career: they show him at the height of his powers, promising,
cajoling, suggesting, procrastinating, representing his own actions in
the best light without regard to truth, using Russia as long as she
could serve him, and abandoning her within a few days when she became
recalcitrant; all this to gain time and opportunity. The Czar had been
from the outset instigated by the French ambassador to seize Finland,
but feeling that success in that quarter would weaken his claims on
the principalities, he hesitated. Court intrigue began to thicken
about him once more. With every day the miseries and uncertainties
of his position made him more wretched. At last he behaved with the
inconsistency of distraction and hesitation. Almost while soothing
words were being uttered to the Swedish ambassador, Russian columns
suddenly burst into the Swedish province, and were not withdrawn.
Alexander renewed his demand for the Danube provinces. Napoleon sent
him exquisite presents, Sevres porcelain or some specimen of choice
armor. At last came the letter of February second. The first
impression made on the Czar by its reading was one of exaggerated joy
and enthusiasm: "Ha! the style of Tilsit! What a great man! What large
ideas!" Such were his exclamations as he read. But calm deliberation
awakened suspicions, and before long a defiant spirit led to a
categorical request that any ultimate design on Silesia should be
formally renounced, whereupon Caulaincourt replied: "The Emperor
Napoleon demands that your Majesty shall not be more urgent with him
than he is with you."

As a preliminary to the second personal interview between the two
monarchs, suggested at Tilsit, and for which proposals were now
renewed from Paris, the two ministers, Caulaincourt and Rumianzoff,
finally began to discuss the terms of a partition of Turkey. The
diplomatic gladiators were well matched; between offer and substitute,
demand and excuse, feint and counterfeint, the days passed in a most
entertaining manner, until suddenly the Czar became aware that time
was flying and that he was not making headway. Somewhat petulantly the
interview was postponed, for it was clear that the ministers would not
agree by the time suggested, and without an agreement Alexander
refused to attend. Meanwhile his troops in Finland had met with bitter
and obstinate resistance. His army had been driven from eastern
Bothnia, and his fleet lay blockaded by that of Great Britain under
Admiral Saumarez. St. Petersburg was terrified by the presence of an
English fleet in the Baltic. The Czar could not weaken his force on
the Danube, lest he should lose the coveted provinces, and he dared
not withdraw troops from Poland, for the French were still in Silesia.
With the understanding that Bernadotte should be their active
auxiliary, the Russian forces had rashly crossed the Swedish border
with inadequate numbers; and in reality the marshal did set out to
join them, but half-way on his march, for some unexplained reason, he
had paused. Caulaincourt said it was because of the difficulties
encountered in crossing the Belt; but the halt was, of course, one
move in Napoleon's game. On April twenty-fifth the latter wrote to
Talleyrand: "Was I to send my soldiers so lightly into Sweden? There
was nothing for me there." Simultaneously the French forces in both
Poland and Prussia were compacted and strengthened, while at the
confluence of the Bug and the Vistula, in the grand duchy of Warsaw,
over against the Russian frontier, were steadily rising the walls of a
powerful fort above which waved the tricolor. What a plight was this
for the White Czar, the grandson of Catherine II, the philosophic
monarch educated by Laharpe, the beneficent despot! Behind him a
disgusted nation, before him illimitable warfare; bound by the letter
of an ambiguous treaty, occupied in a doubtful conquest, thwarted in
his ambitions; in short, if not checkmated, put into a position very
much like that known in the noble game of chess as stalemate!

Napoleon's treatment of the Czar makes the whole situation in northern
Europe and Austria easily comprehensible; it is necessary to examine
from the same standpoint, also, what occurred in the southern states
of Europe, remote as they were; otherwise the course of affairs at
the opposite extremities of Europe seems utterly mysterious. If the
path followed at St. Petersburg was tortuous, what shall be said of
the policy pursued in the Papal States, in Tuscany, in Portugal and in
Spain? During the diplomatic reconnaissance led by Caulaincourt, the
statesmen of these countries had been busy at Fontainebleau. What
Cardinal Bayanne seemed anxious to obtain for Pius VII--namely, the
inviolability of his territories--had been lost even before the
concessions demanded from the Pope were made. The trembling prelate
had consented to join the federation against England, to drive out the
monks, to accept an increased French representation in the College of
Cardinals, and to admit Venetia to the Concordat. But to use
Napoleon's own expression in the decree issued from Vienna on May
seventeenth, 1809, the Western Emperor had already "resumed the grant"
of Charles the Great which had been used against his successor. There
was no longer a hostile strip of land, stretching from sea to sea,
which separated the kingdoms of Naples and Italy, for the three
legations were occupied in December, 1807.

With this fulcrum Bayanne had been moved to negotiate a formal treaty
containing all Napoleon's stipulations. The Pope was exasperated by
the occupation of his lands, and refused his assent to the paper; he
would not even enter the French federative system. This attitude
appears to have been quite as agreeable to the Emperor of the French
as one of submission would have been. Appealing to public opinion on
the ground of necessity, he sent his troops on February second, 1808,
into the city of Rome; in March, Ancona, Macerata, Fermo, and Urbino
were consolidated with the kingdom of Italy; and before the end of
April, the foreign priests were banished, the Pope's battalions were
enrolled under the tricolor, and the guard of nobles was disbanded:
the entire administration was in French hands. For a year the
successor of St. Peter remained a faineant prince shut up in the
Quirinal. To a demand for the resignation of his temporal power he
replied by a bull, dated June tenth, 1809, excommunicating the
invaders of his states; thereupon he was seized and sent a prisoner to
Grenoble. Napoleon, looking backward in the days of his humiliation,
said that this quarrel with the Pope was one of the most wearing
episodes in all his career. It undid much of the web knitted in the
Concordat, by alienating the Roman Catholics both in France itself and
in his conquered or allied lands.

During the same autumn months of 1807 another treaty was negotiated at
Fontainebleau; namely, a secret compact with Spain for the partition
of Portugal. The house of Braganza, like the other so-called
legitimate monarchies of Europe, had fallen into a moral and physical
decline. The Queen was a lunatic, and her son Don John, who was
regent, though a mild and honorable man, lacked every element of
greatness such as would have enabled him to swim in the troubled
waters of his time. The land, moreover, was saturated with democratic
principles. There had been a tacit understanding that on account of
the enormous tribute paid to France for the acknowledgment of
neutrality she would close one eye to the traffic with England, which
was essential to the prosperity, if not to the very existence, of the
little country. But the Berlin and Milan decrees were intended to be
measures of serious war, and the Emperor now insisted that they should
be enforced. Although the regent was the son-in-law of Charles IV of
Spain, yet after the peace of Tilsit the court of Madrid united with
that of Fontainebleau in an effort to compel the closing of all
Portuguese harbors and the fulfilment of the decrees to the letter,
demanding the dismissal of the English minister, the arrest of all
British subjects, and the confiscation of all English goods. The reply
of John was a consent to everything except the arrest of innocent
traders.

This partial refusal was a sufficient pretext; at once the French
envoy at Lisbon was recalled, Junot was ordered to enter Spain and to
march on Portugal, while the terms of partition were settled at
Fontainebleau with Charles's minister, Izquierdo, in a compact which
Napoleon must have looked upon as the great practical joke of his
life. For fear he should be too quickly found out, he positively
inhibited Charles from communicating it to his ministers. The French
ambassador at Madrid was also kept in ignorance of its terms. Under it
the King of Spain was to be styled Emperor of the Two Americas; and in
return for Etruria, which was at last to be formally incorporated with
the kingdom of Italy, he was to have what he had so long desired, the
virtual sovereignty of Portugal. Over one portion the young King of
Etruria was to reign as a vassal; over a second, the generalissimo and
high admiral of Spain, the Prince of the Peace, the Queen's paramour,
the King's trusted servant, Manuel Godoy; a third was to remain
unappropriated for Charles's disposal at a later date.

The treaty ended with the seemingly innocent stipulation that a new
French army of forty thousand men should be formed at Bayonne, to be
in readiness should Great Britain land troops in Portugal. It was not,
however, to enter Spain without the agreement of both contracting
parties. Meantime Junot, by his Emperor's command, was sending home
maps, plans, topographical sketches, and itineraries of Spain.
Although twenty-five thousand Spaniards were marching with him, he
received orders, dated October thirty-first, three days after the
treaty was signed at Fontainebleau, to seize all the strong places of
Portugal, occupy them with French troops, and not to permit the
Spaniards to garrison a single one. His first object, he had been
already told, should be to capture the fleet lying in the Tagus and to
take the regent prisoner. The clever and ambitious general marched
swiftly, and on November twenty-seventh reached, with his exhausted
troops, Abrantes, a town about eighty miles from Lisbon. The news of
his arrival was unexpected in the capital; worse still, as it appeared
to the dismayed court, were the evidences that he would receive an
enthusiastic reception from many influential elements of the
population, who still considered the word "French" a synonym for
"democratic." Sir Sidney Smith, who commanded the British ships in the
Tagus, addressed a letter to Don John promising that England would
never recognize a rule in Portugal hostile to the house of Braganza,
and strongly urging him to embark the royal family for the Portuguese
dominions in South America. The prince had probably read what had been
published in the "Moniteur" of November thirteenth: to wit--"The
regent of Portugal loses the throne. The fall of the house of Braganza
is a new proof of the inevitable destruction attending those who unite
with England." At any rate the hard-pressed ruler was unnerved, and
issued a jerky, feeble proclamation, declaring that he would never
submit to the tyranny of Napoleon, announcing his flight, naming a
council of regency, and requesting those who were so disposed to
accompany him. A very few faithful subjects joined themselves to the
royal family, and with the mad Queen in their midst the little band
embarked.

The fleet had hardly worked its way out of the river when Junot
reached Lisbon with a small corps of panting, worn-out men. His prey
had escaped, but so had the mad Queen, and from that moment he began
to wonder why a crown would not sit comfortably on his own head. He
had been Bonaparte's faithful confidant from the outset of his career,
and could furnish a queen who boasted an ancestry no less
distinguished than that of the Greek emperors of the Comnenian family.
The people were most friendly, deputations from the powerful secret
society of Freemasons presented addresses, the regency made no
resistance, the commander-in-chief and his army gave in their
submission. But the French general showed no sign of organizing the
liberal government which they so earnestly desired and fully expected.
On the contrary, he established military provinces, seized all the
public moneys, and sought to conciliate his master's debtors at his
master's expense; for, instead of the forty millions indemnity
demanded by Napoleon, he took his pen, like the unjust steward, and
wrote twenty. In return the Portuguese radicals were to ask the
Emperor that he should be made their king. Owing in part to Junot's
insatiable greed and his appropriation of enormous private
treasure,--an example which his army was quick to follow,--in part to
the subsequent disenchantment and a general revulsion of feeling, the
plan came to naught. Before long the Spanish general Bellesca seized
the French governor of Oporto and began a rebellion in favor of Don
John. The commander-in-chief, called from Lisbon to suppress the
insurgents, left the city under a committee at the head of which was
the Bishop of Oporto. The prelate at once applied to England for help,
and in a short time the whole country had organized secret juntas in
order to throw off the French yoke. England responded with alacrity,
sending troops from Sicily and from Ireland; but the strongest
reinforcement of all was the general appointed to command them, Sir
Arthur Wellesley. Before the middle of August, 1808, the Peninsular
war was raging and the laurels were England's.

Meantime the contemplated upheaval had occurred in Spain. It is
impossible to conceive deeper degradation than that into which the
Bourbon monarchy of that country had sunk, and the court had carried
the country with it in its debasement. The population had fallen to
ten millions, and of a nominal army of a hundred and twenty thousand
men not fifty thousand were really effective. The host of
office-holders and privileged nobility which battened like leeches on
an exhausted treasury was equaled in number only by the clergy,
secular and regular, with nuns, novices, and servants, who lived on
the revenues of the ecclesiastical estates, and on what could be
extorted from an impoverished people. By a terrible form of
primogeniture the lands which did not belong to the Church had
gradually fallen into the hands of a few owners, who lived in state at
Madrid and never laid eyes on their farms, forests, or pastures. The
peasantry had no interest to improve what might be taken from them at
the death of the proprietor, or by caprice be appraised at a higher
value on account of their very efforts toward the amelioration of
their lot. The grandees kept gloomy state in vast palaces filled with
hordes of idle servants. The remnants from their lavish but poorly
served tables supported the crowds of beggars that thronged their
gates. Of social life they had little; they were gloomy, lonely, and
sullenly indifferent. In their stables stood herds of mules and hung
stores of gaudy trappings, but these were used only a few times each
year to convey the owners in proper dignity to the great public
functions.

On such a foundation stood the court: the King, generous-minded but
deceived, and jealously attached to the crown servants, impatient of
any annoyance, and always declaring a willingness to resign his
throne; the Queen, clear-headed and ambitious, but self-indulgent,
extravagant, and vicious; Godoy, the Prince of the Peace,--so called
from the treaty which he had negotiated at Basel to conclude the
French and Spanish revolutionary wars,--the real ruler, soothing the
King's sensibilities and gratifying the Queen's passions. To preserve
his ascendancy this trimmer had thrown in his lot with Napoleon; but,
faithless and perfidious, he would gladly have rejected that or any
other protection to fly to one he believed stronger. In any
centralized monarchy the administrative law is the backbone; in Spain
the administration was feeble and corrupt, for every member of it was
engaged in humbly imitating the example of its head, whose house was a
depot of plunder, whence toward the close of his career the spoils
were transferred on pack-mules by night, no one knew whither. It was
said, and many sober men believed it, that Godoy had all the wealth of
Spain.

Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, and heir apparent to the throne, was a
young widower of good impulses but feeble character. His deceased
wife, married in 1803, had been the daughter of Queen Caroline of
Naples; having quarreled with her mother-in-law, Louisa, she had died
prematurely, probably poisoned. The prince knew the scandals of his
father's household and the abuses of Godoy's administration, but
thought the bonds of degradation too strong to be stricken off by a
weak hand like his own. His followers, however, headed by the Duke del
Infantado and the ambitious Canon Escoiquiz, his former tutor, were
numerous and enlightened. They understood how hollow was the
protection vouchsafed by Napoleon to Godoy, and how faithless was the
pretended friendship of the latter for France. Their plan was that
Ferdinand should refuse the proffered hand of Godoy's sister-in-law,
demand that of a Beauharnais princess, and thus secure the interest
and aid of the French emperor. With such support they might hope to
overthrow the minister and reform the administration. No doubt they
also dreamed of power and place for themselves.

As time passed, the sympathies of the nation rallied more and more to
Ferdinand, until at last he became the leader and representative of
the solid elements in society. Between the waning power of Godoy and
the rising popularity of the crown prince, something like an
equilibrium was at last established, and in 1807 the two embittered
factions stood like gladiators looking for a chance to strike. This
situation was made to Napoleon's hand; but as it gave rise to more and
more serious intrigues, a decision had to be taken promptly. Should he
accede to Ferdinand's desire, formally communicated in a letter sent
by Escoiquiz on October twelfth? Talleyrand and Fouche both urged the
adoption of the policy. What prompted Talleyrand cannot be surmised.
After Austerlitz he had urged moderation, but it was probably because
he was bribed by the vanquished. His judgment and interest may,
however, have kept equal pace in that conclusion. He was most likely
influenced in this one by the Empress, whose position was becoming
desperate, for the Bonaparte family were now persistently and openly
urging a divorce. All Josephine's arts seemed unavailing against her
obdurate enemies, and her last hope was to obtain royal alliances for
her relatives, thus securing new support against those of the Emperor.
She had a charming niece, Mlle. Tascher de la Pagerie, to whom she was
ardently devoted; and to set on the throne of Spain one who was almost
a daughter would both gratify natural affection and fortify her own
position.

There is no indication, however, that Talleyrand's hand was crossed
this time, though again his judgment coincided with his interest in
sound advice. The country was utterly disorganized and a change must
occur; the people were too haughty to endure their humiliation longer;
it would be better to support Ferdinand as a reformer, and thereby
secure for the French system not merely the kingdom proper, but all
her colonial dominions. As Fouche put it, the King had so far been one
of the best of French prefects, and if he were no longer efficient his
legitimate heir had better be continued in the office. But the idea of
securing the Spanish colonies for his Empire dazzled and allured the
Emperor more than the assured support of Spain. Having determined for
that purpose to put one of his brothers on the Spanish throne, he
disregarded both the clamorous calls for aid from the King on one side
and the approaches of Ferdinand on the other. All remonstrance from
his own family was vain, and he proceeded with his scheme. A new
conscription secured the forty thousand men for Bayonne, and General
Clarke was ordered to fortify the frontier.

Exactly in the nick of time the intrigues at Madrid had come to a
head. On October twenty-eighth an armed Spanish force seized the
person and papers of Ferdinand. Godoy feigned illness and kept his
rooms, while the Queen examined what was found. It was said that there
was a cipher code for corresponding with friends; a memorial from
Ferdinand to Napoleon charging Godoy with a design to seize the
throne, and mentioning his mother's shame in covert terms; a memorial
from Escoiquiz asking from the Emperor the hand of a French princess;
and an order under the seal of Ferdinand VII, with blank date, to the
Duke del Infantado, appointing him to the command of New Castile on
the King's death. Two days later Godoy's connection with the seizure
was proved; for, ill as he feigned to be, he was observed entering the
Escorial after nightfall. Next day the King announced the discovery of
this "conspiracy" in a proclamation to his people, and wrote a letter
of similar wording to Napoleon, complaining that Beauharnais, the
French ambassador, had been the center of the intrigue. The charge was
strictly true, for this brother of the Empress's first husband, though
a bluff, honest man, was blindly self-confident, and had fallen into
the trap set for him in Paris. He was not unwilling to gratify
Josephine, he despised Godoy, and his evident friendship for the crown
prince had been largely instrumental in creating the popular
confidence that France would regenerate Spain by means of the
legitimate heir.

Charles also announced his intention of cutting Ferdinand off from the
succession, and humbly requested Napoleon's advice. A commission of
Castilian grandees was appointed to try the culprit, while
simultaneously strenuous efforts were made to force a confession of
conspiracy from him. The latter scheme failed, but the prince obeyed
with alacrity the summons to appear. Exactly what occurred is unknown,
but it can be imagined; some of the facts leaked out, and the result
was a wretched compromise both at court and among the people. The
prince asserted that he had written the suspicious order during his
father's recent illness, basely denounced his accomplices, and by
declaring that it was Beauharnais who had suggested his asking a wife
from the Emperor strengthened the general belief that Napoleon had
instigated his entire course. This was enough to cow the King and
Queen. The offender was at once released, and wrote a formal request
for pardon. His sire issued a proclamation granting the boon. His
friends were formally tried, but Godoy dared not ask questions
compromising the French ambassador, and they were acquitted.

During the trial the "secret hand" was indicated as being still
unknown; some said it was that of the Queen, a few thought the grand
inquisitor had been meddling. Napoleon sent a wily and misleading
epistle declaring that he had never received a letter from the Prince
of Asturias,--which literally was true, though he had been informed of
its existence and of its contents,--and that he had heard nothing but
the vague gossip of palace talk. This letter of Napoleon's was
confided on November thirteenth to one of his shrewdest counselors,
the chamberlain de Tournon, who was carefully instructed to bring home
the most accurate information he could secure regarding the state of
public feeling, and secretly to observe the condition in which he
found the frontier fortresses of Pamplona and Fuenterrabia. On the
same day orders were issued for Dupont to take advantage of the
general excitement incident to the recent events, cross the frontier
with his division, and advance to Vitoria, whence he should
reconnoiter the surrounding country. As if to emphasize his own
indifference, in reality to avoid unpleasant questions and with the
most serious objects in view, the Emperor set out for Italy a few days
earlier; and the day of his arrival in Milan was the date on which
Dupont invaded Spain. During this visit to Venice, which has been
referred to as the time in which Russia was brought to a standstill
and the ultimate method of procedure in the Orient outlined, Napoleon
met the Queen Regent of Etruria. She declared, as was expected of her,
that she could not continue to reign where she did not rule, her
dominions being occupied on the ground of large policy by French
troops; accordingly she was despatched to Madrid with a royal train.
Her sometime kingdom was incorporated with that of Italy, and the
unsuspecting Beauharnais was instructed to have her new Portuguese
realm ready against her arrival.

But the real object of that winter journey to Italy seems to have been
the two interviews which the Emperor had with his brothers Joseph and
Lucien, the former being beckoned from Naples to Venice, the latter
from Rome to Mantua. The younger brother had, after the first juvenile
heats of radicalism, become a moderate republican, holding his
convictions resolutely. Having opposed a hereditary consulate for
Napoleon, and unmindful of any reward he might have claimed for his
services of Brumaire, he withdrew from public life to spend his time
in study and the gratification of his literary tastes. On the death of
his first wife, by whom he had two daughters, he married, in direct
opposition to Napoleon's wishes, the beautiful and accomplished Mme.
de Jauberthon. This was in 1803. Having been importuned to put her
away and lend himself to the project of buttressing the Empire by
accepting a crown and contracting a royal marriage, he had refused. By
far the ablest and most courageous of the Bonaparte brothers, he was
utterly indifferent to the rise of Napoleonic empire, for his
principles were fixed. It was with reluctance that he came to Mantua.
There are two accounts of what happened there: that which has long
been accepted--of Lucien hotly refusing the crown of Portugal, with
the hand of Prince Ferdinand for his daughter Charlotte; and that
which makes Napoleon's first offer to have been Etruria. Both accounts
agree, however, that the Emperor raised his bid to the promise of
Italy--always on condition that his brother should divorce his wife
and rule in the interest of the imperial power. Lucien disdained even
this bribe, declaring that he would accept the crown, but that he
would rule in the interests of his subjects, and that he would in no
case consider a divorce. Angry words were spoken. Napoleon crushed in
his hand a watch with which he had been toying, hissing out that thus
he would crush wills which opposed his. "I defy you to commit a
crime," retorted Lucien. Before parting there was a half
reconciliation, and Napoleon requested that at least his brother's
eldest daughter might be sent to Paris for use in the scheme of royal
alliances. Lucien assented, and the child, a clever girl of about
fourteen, was sent to live with Madame Mere. She was thoroughly
discontented, and wrote bright, sarcastic letters to her stepmother,
whom she loved, depicting the avarice of her grandmother and the
foibles of her other relatives. These, like all other suspected
letters of the time, were intercepted and read in the "cabinet noir";
their contents being made known to Napoleon, he sent the petulant,
witty writer back to her father. Despairing of any support from Lucien
or his family, Napoleon formally adopted his stepson Eugene, the
viceroy, with a view to consolidating and confirming the Italian
feeling of dependence on France.

Joseph's character also had ripened by this time. Experience had
destroyed the adventurous spirit in which he entered on his career; he
had become a gentle, philosophic, industrious monarch, careful of the
best interests of his people, and he was accordingly beloved by them.
Roederer had introduced order into the Neapolitan finances, his own
administrative reforms worked smoothly, and the only discontented
element of his people was composed of the nobles, who chafed at the
repression of their power and the curtailment of their privileges.
There is positive evidence that Joseph was summoned and came to
Venice, but there is no record of the interview, except a marginal
note written by Joseph himself in an existing copy of Miot de
Melito's memoirs, to the effect that Napoleon spoke of the troubles
among the members of the royal family of Spain as likely "to produce
results which he dreaded." The last word is underscored. "I have
enough anxiety prepared," he said; "troubles in Spain can only benefit
the English, who do not desire peace, by destroying the resources
which I find in that ally to carry on the war against them." Over and
above this information there is, however, a high probability that
Joseph was then informed that since Lucien had proved refractory, he
himself was now destined for Spain; that the King expressed at first a
decided unwillingness to accept the unwelcome task; and that, like
Lucien, he departed under his brother's disfavor. Napoleon's offer had
already been discussed at Tilsit as a contingency. Joseph was so
accustomed to obey that a sober second thought led him to repent of
his creditable hesitation; within a week, and before leaving Venice,
he had despatched a confidential messenger to secure Alexander's
formal compliance with his transfer to Spain. He was under the spell
of the magician, for it was probably Napoleon who prompted his
thoughts. After that of Charles the Great, the empire of Charles V had
been the most splendid in Europe, and Joseph perhaps dreamed that if
not first he might be second, eclipsed only by his brother.

Godoy was an adroit diplomat. In reply to Napoleon's letter he
personally asked and urged the bestowal on Ferdinand of a French
princess in marriage, but at the same time he also urged the
publication of what had been stipulated at Fontainebleau. The answer
was most dilatory, and when it was written there was a new tone:
Napoleon would gladly draw the bonds of alliance tighter by such a
match as had been so often suggested, but could such a mark of
confidence be shown to a dishonored son without some proof of his
repentance? He added that it would be premature to publish the
articles of Fontainebleau. In open contempt of that document, a decree
was issued on December twenty-third, 1807, from Milan, appointing
Junot governor of all Portugal. On February second, 1808, this paper
was communicated to the King of Spain by Beauharnais, with the
intimation that the treaty must temporarily remain suspended. The
scales now fell from Godoy's eyes. His agent in Paris informed him
that he had been coldly received by Champagny, the Minister of
External Relations; and soon afterward Mlle. Tascher de la Pagerie was
married to an unimportant member of the Rhenish Confederation, the
Duke of Aremberg. It was thought at Madrid that the Emperor had
abandoned both the court factions; public opinion, whether favorable
to one or the other, was soon united in a common irritation against
France, and before long it was current talk that Napoleon contemplated
the dismemberment of Spain by the connivance of Godoy.

Meantime the new conscription had been carried through, and ever
larger numbers of French striplings, dignified by the name of troops,
appeared at Bayonne, and crossed the border. The sturdy Spaniards
regarded them with amazement and contempt. There was no appearance as
yet of any English invasion, and the army in Portugal was in no need
of assistance; but Moncey followed Dupont with thirty thousand
so-called men; Duhesme led an army corps to Barcelona at one end of
the Pyrenees, while Darmagnac passed the gorge of Roncesvalles into
Navarre with his division, and seized Pamplona; Bessieres hurried on
behind with the guard; and Jerome was ordered to levy forty thousand
men in Westphalia. Figueras, San Sebastian, and Valladolid were soon
in French hands. The "Moniteur" of January twenty-fourth explained
that these acts were necessitated by plans of the English to land at
Cadiz. Six days afterward the Emperor estimated that he had eight
hundred thousand men under arms, and that he would soon have eighty
thousand more. In the presence of such facts the Prince of the Peace
was prostrated, while terror overpowered the feeble King and his
wicked consort. Nor was their panic diminished when a second letter
arrived from Napoleon, dated February twenty-fifth, which plainly
showed a determination to quarrel. "Your Majesty asked the hand of a
French princess for the Prince of Asturias; I replied on January tenth
that I consented. Your Majesty speaks no more of this marriage. All
this leaves in the dark many objects important for the welfare of my
peoples." In a few weeks Izquierdo arrived from Paris and reluctantly
explained the appalling truth: that the gossamer bonds of the treaty
he had negotiated at Fontainebleau were blown away, and that Portugal
was to be given entire to one of the Bonapartes. This was the
explanation of the appalling armaments in northern Spain, beyond the
Ebro. Godoy returned an answer refusing all proposals tending to such
a conclusion. Izquierdo carried back this reply, and toward the close
of March Talleyrand was appointed to negotiate with him under the
pretense of finding some compromise.

Talleyrand was heartily sick of his inactivity, and eagerly seized the
opportunity to reassert his importance. Abandoning utterly the
position of semi-resistance to Napoleon which he had held for some
time past, he now used his adroit and clever gift to further the
Emperor's schemes. The document which was finally drawn up by him gave
the French equal rights in the Spanish colonies with Spanish subjects,
and proposed an exchange for Portugal of the great march north of the
Ebro, which had once been held by Charles the Great and was now held
by Napoleon. When Izquierdo heard the hard stipulations he cried out
in dismay, but to every remonstrance came the cool reply that such was
the Emperor's will. Early in March Bessieres entered Spain with
thirty-five thousand men. This raised the total number in the
scattered divisions of the French troops now south of the Pyrenees to
about a hundred thousand. The Spaniards were at last thoroughly awake
to the fact of their humiliation. Excitement became more and more
intense, until an eruption of popular violence was imminent.

At this crisis Napoleon took a step of great significance. Murat,
Grand Duke of Berg, arrived at Burgos on March thirteenth, with full
powers as commander-in-chief, and at once assumed command. Ordering a
concentration of all the divisions, he slowly marched on Madrid. The
Prince of the Peace and the King heard their hour striking. Godoy's
first thought was to imitate the example set by the house of Braganza,
and, flying beyond the seas, to establish the Spanish Bourbons in
Mexico or Peru. The Queen was from the first ardent for a project
which would prolong the semblance of power for herself and the
favorite, but it was days before Charles could bring himself to such a
conclusion. At last, on March fifteenth, the council was summoned to
hear his determination, and orders were given to keep open the route
to Cadiz. The populace felt that disgrace could go no further, and,
denouncing Godoy, besought the King to remain.

They could get no satisfactory answer from Aranjuez, where the
vacillating, terrified, and disunited court now was. One day followed
another, and the streets of that town swarmed with angry men whose
pride and scorn found expression in calls for Godoy's death. On the
evening of the seventeenth they began to riot, and the wretched
prince saw his house surrounded. Half clad and half starved, he tried
first one door and then another; all were beset, and he was compelled
to take refuge in the loft, where he remained hidden under a rubbish
heap while the mob worked their will in the handsome rooms below. Next
morning Charles yielded to the popular clamor, and deposed Godoy from
his high offices. For forty-eight hours the minister lay concealed. At
last he could no longer endure the tortures of hunger and thirst;
evading the attention of his own household, he reached the street, and
on the nineteenth was taken in charge by the guards who held it. The
rumor of his capture spread fast, and it required great courage on the
part of the soldiers to protect their prisoner from violence. Their
efforts were only partly successful; they had a bloody and fainting
burden when they reached their barracks and withdrew behind the doors.
In that moment, when it seemed as if the mob would finally break down
even the strong entrance and seize its prey, Charles despatched his
son to calm the storm.

The people adored the Prince of Asturias, and without difficulty he
quieted the rioters and offered life to his enemy. The haughty
grandee, broken by pain, fell on his knees and implored protection;
but he retained enough of interest in the situation to murmur through
his gory lips, "Are you already king?" "Not yet, but I shall be soon,"
was the reply. On a promise that the traitorous betrayer of his
country's honor should be delivered to the courts and tried by the
rigor of the law, the excited populace withdrew. At once Charles began
preparations to carry Godoy beyond their reach; but the fact could not
be kept secret, and once more rioting began. The populace of Madrid
burned all the palaces belonging to the prince, except one, which
they spared because they thought it was the property of their
sovereign. The King submitted to what was inevitable, but determined
to lay down the burden of his royal dignity. On the same day, the
nineteenth, he signed the necessary papers and abdicated in favor of
his son. Next morning, in the presence of a great council summoned to
Aranjuez, he explained that he was overwhelmed by misfortune and the
weight of government, and that for his health's sake he must seek the
ease of private life in a milder clime.




CHAPTER X

THE AWAKENING OF SPAIN[21]

         [Footnote 21: See Baumgarten: Geschichte Spaniens vom
         Ausbruch der Franzoesischen Revolution bis auf unsere Tage.
         Manini: Historia de la marina real espanola. Arteche y Maro:
         Guerra de la Independencia. Torino: Guerra de la
         Independencia.

         On the question of the national rising in Spain see an
         article by J. B. Rye and R. A. Bence-Pembroke, of Oxford, in
         the Army Service Corps Quarterly, October, 1905.]

     The National Spirit -- The Spaniards and their Dynasty -- Murat's
     Fatal Blunder -- Louis Napoleon and the Spanish Throne --
     Napoleon's Subterfuge -- A Trap for Charles and Ferdinand -- The
     Course of Savary -- Napoleon and Ferdinand -- Dethronement of the
     Spanish Bourbons -- Quarrels of Father and Son -- The Madrid
     Massacre -- Ferdinand a Prisoner -- Napoleon's Idea of Legitimacy
     -- The Spanish Cortes at Bayonne -- Joseph, King of Spain -- The
     Spanish People -- Agitations in Madrid -- Uprising of Spain.


If there be a time when the turn of Napoleon's fortunes is evident, it
is the spring of 1808. Between the determination to complete his
system of commercial warfare in western Europe and the contempt which
he entertained for the Spanish throne, he appears to have fallen into
a deadly snare--the failure to appreciate how strong and lively was
the popular passion for nationality in Spain, a feeling so long
eclipsed by the failures of Spanish government, the licentiousness of
the Spanish court, and the turbulence of personal ambitions
indifferent to the public welfare. The measures he devised and ordered
taken were ruthless in their purpose to cow officials and monarch, in
their stern repression of disorder, in their intent to give a bitter
lesson to all opposing his designs. But rude as was his procedure,
admirable as were his military dispositions, there is abundant
evidence of his consciousness that ultimately he must reckon with the
national pride of a people which, though crushed to earth, was eager
to rise again. But such reckoning must be postponed until after
conquest and the effort to rise was put forth in the resistance to
invasion with a speed and vigor no one could have foreseen.
Ferdinand's first act as king was to request Napoleon's favor and
protection. His letter was written on March twentieth, and intrusted
to an embassy of three grandees. Charles and Louisa had, however,
repented almost before the formalities of abdication were over, and
the newly arrived Queen of Etruria supported them in their fickleness.
With despicable inconsistency they too despatched an embassy, but to
Murat, imploring his interference on their behalf and his favor for
Godoy. In reply, Murat, whether from slyness or from a desire to gain
time, requested a formal, written demand to that effect. He was
promptly furnished with a paper, signed by both King and Queen,
declaring that they had acted under fear, and begging to be
reinstated. This document was a precious arrow for Napoleon's quiver.
Still, the perplexity of the French commander was great; he knew
nothing of Napoleon's plans, he dared not acknowledge Ferdinand as
king, and he dared not restore Charles, whose sovereignty he had been
virtually menacing by his march. In this dilemma he despatched an
aide-de-camp to Aranjuez with verbal messages of comfort, and,
hurrying forward, entered Madrid with his army on the twenty-third.

Napoleon had frequently enjoined his brother-in-law to enter the city,
recruit his supplies, and give his troops a rest; but with those
injunctions he had likewise given strict commands to allay any fears
in the court. These instructions had not contemplated the revolution
of Aranjuez, and by it every condition was changed. Murat would have
been wise if he had disobeyed the letter of his orders; but he did
not, for new circumstances breed new ideas, and within twenty-four
hours he had made up his mind. Here was a new kingdom; the other men
of the family--Louis, Jerome, and Joseph--all had crowns; the grand
duchy of Berg was very well, but a kingdom was better, and he might
secure that of Spain for himself. For this end he must throw Ferdinand
altogether into the shade, while placing the glory and power of France
in the most brilliant illumination. It was a fatal step to occupy
Madrid, more fatal still for the French general to exhibit himself in
a martial splendor which sadly contrasted with the troops of beardless
boys at his back. He was received by the inhabitants with cool
contempt. Next day Ferdinand made his royal entry. The populace went
mad with delight, and displayed a passionate devotion which augured
ill for the schemes of Prince Joachim of Berg. A less egoistic man
would have seen that a national uprising was imminent. But Murat was
neither modest nor penetrating; he was a great and dashing cavalry
general, at times an excellent commander-in-chief, but he was not a
statesman. His conduct entangled the skeins of Spanish intrigue into a
knot which only war could sever.

His course did not even ultimately lead to the goal, but to
consequences far different. When on March twenty-fifth Napoleon
received the despatch announcing the revolution of Aranjuez and
Murat's neutral attitude, he replied in commendatory language,
instructing his brother-in-law to keep the balance as it was, neither
recognizing the new King until further directions, nor indicating by
any action that the old one had ceased to reign. The same day, the
twenty-fifth, a letter was despatched to King Louis at The Hague,
asking for an answer in categorical terms as to whether he would
accept the Spanish throne. Joseph had hesitated and was momentarily
out of favor, while the perpetual smuggling of the Dutch had convinced
Napoleon that the only means to secure the continental embargo was to
incorporate Holland with France. Three days later Murat received still
higher praise, with a perfectly irrelevant clause interjected: "I
suppose Godoy will come by way of Bayonne." This was, of course, a
hint to send the Prince of the Peace into France. If the commander of
the French forces should act on the suggestion, he would do the work
thoroughly; and under the same date Bessieres was instructed to treat
the old King and Queen with distinction if they should pass his way.
Publicly it was to be made known in Madrid that the long-talked-of
visit by the Emperor would not be further postponed. Such was
Napoleon's confidence in the quick apprehension of his subordinates
that henceforward he regarded the whole royal household of Spain as
his prisoners.

There is in existence what purports to be a letter from Napoleon to
Murat, dated March twenty-ninth.[22] It is undoubtedly by Napoleon,
but it was either written at the time, for public effect, and not
sent, or it was a later fabrication intended to mislead posterity,
because its formal style is not used elsewhere in the correspondence.
It explains to "His Imperial Highness" what was not known until ten
years later, namely, that the Spaniards were a people with violent
political passions, capable of indefinite warfare; that the nation
could and must be regenerated only by careful management; and that
nothing must be done precipitately. At the same time it gives the
Protector, as Murat is designated, his own option in regard to a
recognition of Ferdinand, expresses disapproval of the precipitate
seizure of Madrid, and warns him that he must not create an
irrepressible opposition. Whether the letter be authentic or not,
whether it was sent or not, really matters but little as regards our
judgment of the facts. The disorganization of Spain had been its own
work; the court intrigues were already burning before they were fanned
by Napoleon's agents in the hope that, like the royal house of
Portugal, the incapable Spanish Bourbons would fly to America. The
revolution of Aranjuez was a bitter disappointment to the great
schemer, and disconcerted his plans. But Murat's conduct and
Ferdinand's character rendered difficult, if not impossible, any
course which would combine the consummation of his fixed designs with
even the slightest degree of popular good will in Spain. Nothing was
to be gained at such a supreme moment by the ordinary brutal abuse
which the Emperor was accustomed to heap on his brother-in-law for
commonplace offenses; moreover, in view of the disappointing
revolution, Murat's course was perhaps as good as any other. He must,
however, bear whatever responsibility attached to it, and that
responsibility would have been his even without the supposititious
letter which he never received. The contempt of the people for the
boy-soldiers at whose head he had marched into Madrid, combined with
disdain for his own pompousness and with fury at his subsequent
cruelty, goes far to account for much that was disastrous to French
prestige and to France in the sequel.

         [Footnote 22: For a discussion of this letter see Murat, by
         Murat, Paris, 1897, p. 139. Rosebery: The Last Phase, pp. 10
         and 11.]

In order to secure the Spanish crown it was now necessary that both
the quarreling factions should be removed from the scene of their
scandalous intrigues. Perhaps it would be possible, perhaps not.
Napoleon set out on April second for Bayonne, accompanied by his
Empress with a stately suite, and the adroit Savary was despatched to
Madrid. Savary's memoirs indicate that his instructions for this
memorable journey were very vague: the Emperor wished to see whether
the Bourbons merited dethronement; in other words, whether they could
be uncrowned. For himself, Savary naively declared that much of his
own participation in the subsequent events was mere accident. Murat
had obeyed both his verbal and his implied instructions. According to
the former, Charles and his consort were in the Escorial, treated with
all honor, but prisoners. Godoy, also, was aware that he must soon
appear at Bayonne. But Murat had gone further, for he had slyly
suggested to Napoleon that Ferdinand should appear at the same
rendezvous. Beauharnais told Ferdinand to his face that he ought to
meet Napoleon half-way on his journey, in order the better to make his
peace.

This hint was quietly conveyed to Savary before his departure, and he
was at the same time intrusted with a letter to Murat expressing a
desire that the Prince of Asturias should either remain at Madrid or
come out to meet the Emperor, who intended not to enter Spain for the
present, but to wait at Bayonne. The careful plan worked admirably. No
one knows on conclusive evidence what Savary said to Ferdinand, what
hopes he held out, what promises he made in his master's name; but on
April tenth the young King placed Madrid under the administration of a
junta and set out, expecting to meet Napoleon at Burgos. He had been
easily moved to this course, for Murat had so far coldly refused to
recognize him, while Savary was prodigal of obsequiousness and
addressed him as king. His ministers Escoiquiz and Cavallos declare,
in their justificatory writings, that in addition to the impression
produced by his conduct, Savary actually said, as if in a burst of
military frankness, that the Emperor was already on his way to assure
himself whether Ferdinand's dispositions toward the French system were
as sincere as his father's had been, and would of course be favorably
impressed if a personal interview should be sought by the young King
before his guest could reach Madrid.

At Burgos Ferdinand learned that Napoleon was not yet within the
Spanish borders; at Vitoria he was informed that the Emperor had not
yet even passed Bordeaux. His people had utterly disapproved of the
journey, but they acclaimed him joyously on the two days' progress to
Burgos. Thereafter he remarked a change, and the nearer he approached
the frontier the more they showed their irritation at his insensate
folly. At Vitoria, therefore, he summoned Savary, whose carriage was
"accidentally in the King's convoy," and reproached him with deceit.
It was too late; divisions of French soldiers were scattered all
about, among them the splendid cavalry of Bessieres. To wheel and
return would have been an open insult to the Emperor, which French
soldiers would not have tolerated. The uneasy young King thereupon
penned and despatched by a special courier a long letter recalling the
facts, and begging the Emperor to terminate the equivocal position in
which he found himself placed.

The reply was speedy and most insulting, for it studiously avoided the
recognition of Ferdinand's sovereignty. The Emperor had expected
before this to visit Madrid in person and institute some necessary
reforms, but affairs in the North had delayed him, and the revolution
at Aranjuez had changed the situation. He hoped Ferdinand would
quickly put an end to any attempt at a trial of Godoy, for its
revelations must necessarily dishonor the Queen. "Your Royal
Highness," he wrote, "has no other rights to the throne than those
transmitted through your mother." Had the abdication been a free act
or not? He would like to talk to Ferdinand as to whether or not it was
forced by the riots of Aranjuez. His "Royal Highness" had behaved ill
about his marriage, for he should not have acted without the King's
knowledge, and every such approach to a foreign sovereign made by an
heir apparent is a criminal act. If there had not been force at
Aranjuez, there would be no difficulty in recognizing Ferdinand;
moreover, a French marriage for him would be not merely advantageous
to the Spaniards, but to the interest of the French.

The following day, April seventeenth, orders were issued to Bessieres
that if the prince should continue his journey there should be no
interference; but if, however, he turned back toward Burgos, he was to
be arrested and brought by force to Bayonne. Ferdinand hesitated as he
read the insults, promises, and compliments which made up Napoleon's
letter. His Spanish counselors advised a return; Savary laughed at
such scruples, and was not only voluble in verbal commentaries on the
ambiguous text, but profuse in promises. On the twentieth Ferdinand
VII of Spain, as his supporters called him, was at the gates of
Bayonne. He was received, not with royal honors, but by his own
legates, the three grandees whom he had sent to Napoleon; and they
told him with mournful accents that the Emperor with his own lips had
declared that the Bourbons could no longer reign in Spain. It was with
dejected mien and shaky steps that the young monarch and his suite
followed Duroc and Berthier to the wretched quarters provided for
their residence. The Empress was, throughout the three months spent
at Bayonne, both gracious and conciliatory, playing her part as
hostess with grace, and alleviating with kindness the bitterness of
her compulsory guests. On the evening of Ferdinand's arrival a
handsome dinner was given at the chateau where the court was lodged,
and the visiting prince was most decorously treated. His train grew
more joyous and hopeful as the hours passed, although they noted that
the Emperor did not address his guest as king. Still, that was a
slight matter, and they returned in gaiety to their poor lodgings--all
but one: Canon Escoiquiz had been asked to remain for a short private
interview, while Savary escorted his master. It was an identical
communication which was then made in the same hour to both minister
and prince; short, terse, and brutal: to wit, the Bourbons had ceased
to reign in Spain, and Ferdinand would be indemnified by Etruria if he
would formally renounce a crown which was not even technically his,
since Charles declared that he had abdicated through fear. The
document in which this was announced had already been printed and
published at Madrid by Napoleon's command. He now summoned Charles,
Louisa, and Godoy to Bayonne.

Murat had found trouble in liberating the Prince of the Peace, for the
junta feared the populace if they should remember the object of their
hate and scorn. But he finally succeeded, and in the last days of
April Godoy reached Bayonne, where by the thirtieth all the puppets
were assembled. Dejected and broken-spirited, the minister agreed to
play the part assigned to him. The honors of a royal progress had been
paid to Charles, and he posed for a few days as the King. Ferdinand,
whose character and behavior awakened the contemptuous scorn even of
Talleyrand, was the culprit at the bar, charged with dishonoring his
parents. The trial scene was a shocking exhibition of human frailty.
Ferdinand was summoned before a bench composed of his parents, who
claimed to be still sovereigns, and the French emperor; Godoy, looking
like a bull, as Talleyrand thought, sat sullenly by. The old King
demanded his crown. Ferdinand persistently refused to surrender it.
Finally the trembling and invalid father rose on his shaky, rheumatic
legs and brandished his staff; the undutiful son remained unmoved. A
second demand was made by letter; it was to the same effect, but the
answer was different. Ferdinand agreed that he would renounce his
throne before the assembled Cortes at Madrid, but there only, and to
Charles IV alone. At Napoleon's command Charles refused to consider
the proposal, giving as a reason that Spain could be saved only by the
Emperor. This was Napoleon's opportunity. Two days later an imperial
decree was promulgated, which appointed Murat dictator of Spain, under
the style "lieutenant-general of the kingdom."

[Illustration: In the collection of the Countess of Sandwich.

NAPOLEON IN HIS STUDY.

From the painting by Paul Hippolyte Delaroche]

Meantime that intriguer had been making for himself a tortuous
approach to royalty. Nothing could more hasten the progress of events
than a riot in Madrid. The sensibility of the inhabitants of that city
had been rasped by the French occupation; they had seen the departure
of their idol with irritation, and had been further exasperated by
Godoy's liberation. Murat set fire to the train of their passions
first by a new disposition of his forces, which so menaced the place
as to make it clear that he was no longer an ally, but a conqueror,
and then by the announcement that the infante Don Francisco was to be
despatched to Bayonne with his uncle and all the remaining members of
the royal family, including the Queen of Etruria and her children. On
May second the entire population rose to resist this insolent tyranny.
Murat was ready for the move; the conflict was short, but it was
sharp, for he lost several hundred soldiers, perhaps half as many as
the patriots, in whose ranks some eight hundred fell. The aspirant to
royal honors yielded with ostentatious grace to the first
representations of the junta, and promised a general amnesty; but he
also thought it best to make an example before the eyes of his future
subjects, and in spite of his plighted word two hundred of the
insurgent patriots were seized and shot. This very day, however, there
was pronounced a decree of rude disenchantment for him. It was on May
second that Napoleon definitely wrote to him that the kingdom of Spain
could not be his; he might have Naples or Portugal. The Emperor was
tired of Bayonne, and longed to be back in Paris, where he could be
active about the business of perpetuating his empire and his dynasty.
The stubborn Ferdinand was therefore summoned once more, and charged
with having instigated the upheaval of Madrid. He remained mute for
some minutes, and with downcast eyes. "If before midnight," came the
cold words of the Emperor, "you have not recognized your father as
legitimate king, and notified the fact at Madrid, you will be treated
as a rebel." Some declare that there was besides a menace of death.

This ended all resistance. Ferdinand resigned his rights as king into
his father's hands, his rights as heir into those of Napoleon. Charles
had already assigned his rights as king to the same suzerain.[23] The
complacent old man was actually cheerful and joyous, as his
entertainer desired he should be; but Ferdinand, in spite of the fact
that he was to have the chateau of Navarre with an income of a million
francs, in spite of promises that all the royal family would be
liberally pensioned, remained silent and gloomy. Napoleon was not
pleased by this behavior, and in commending him to the hospitality of
Talleyrand, at the splendid castle of Valencay, declared that his
whole character could be summed up in a single word--sullen. Poor
Talleyrand! he saw himself condemned to the "honorable mission" of
turnkey to a dispossessed monarch whose guard of honor was a troop of
eighty mounted police. By the Emperor's grace the young culprit was
not to be committed to jail, for he had voluntarily surrendered
himself; but Talleyrand was to watch and amuse him, and discover, if
possible, some charming and marriageable girl to entangle his
affections, so that in her society he might forget the delights of
power, while time should weaken the promptings of ambition and
revenge. In a few days Charles, Louisa, and Godoy were comfortably
installed at Compiegne, while Ferdinand, with his brother, went
sullenly away to "visit" at Valencay. The prisoner's character was
soon displayed. The day of his arrival at his destination he wrote a
cringing letter to Napoleon, and soon after not only congratulated the
Emperor on the accession of the King of Naples to the throne he had
claimed for his own, but even felicitated Joseph himself on his
coronation as Catholic Majesty.

         [Footnote 23: Originals will be found in Oman, Vol. I, pp.
         616-18.]

Napoleon knew the mysterious power throughout Europe of that charmed
word "legitimacy." He despised the concept that it expressed, while he
meant to make the most of its power. Having misunderstood the strength
of Spanish patriotism, he now made the blunder of supposing that the
Spaniards would receive as a legitimate prince whomsoever he chose to
appoint as heir to the "legitimacy" which the Spanish Bourbons had
just put into his hands. Louis, moreover, had but recently illustrated
the force of a new environment under the notion of legitimacy.
Replying to Napoleon's letter of March twenty-fifth, he had flatly
refused the Spanish crown, on the ground that he had sworn a solemn
oath to the Dutch. Joseph was immediately restored to favor and
ordered to Bayonne. He came with apparent alacrity, due, as he
claimed, to his desire to free his beloved brother Napoleon from
embarrassment. Soon all was apparently ready for his inauguration.

The treaty of Fontainebleau had produced unexpected complications and
disastrous results on its political side; the apparently insignificant
military clauses had so far been successfully executed. One Spanish
army was far away on the Baltic, held under curb by Bernadotte;
another had been despatched to western Spain, and had remained there;
in the mean while the north and the center of the country were
occupied by the French. General Solano had made some movement to lead
back his troops into the occupied territory, but was checked in his
advance by instructions from the ministers of Charles IV at Madrid.
Uncertain as to their powers in a revolutionary crisis, he rendered
only a half-obedience; but it was sufficient for Napoleon's object,
and there was no body of Spanish troops within striking distance of
the capital. Accordingly, when the Spanish notables were summoned to
Bayonne, they could not well refuse, and a hundred and fifty of them
responded. On June sixth, 1808, the crown of Spain was offered to
Joseph by this strange Cortes, and he accepted it. At the same time
the new constitution, destined by Napoleon to regenerate the country,
was laid before the same body, which discussed and adopted it. In the
following month his Catholic Majesty presented himself, with this
document and a cabinet of able ministers, to the people of Madrid.
Charles IV and his followers found Compiegne too cold, and soon moved,
first to Marseilles, then to Italy. Murat became King of Naples.
Ferdinand remained contentedly in France, licking the hand which had
struck him down. Napoleon returned to Paris, uneasy at the attitude of
the Spanish nation, but hoping that local discontent could be
smothered by the strong hand, as he had seen it smothered in France,
Italy, and the Orient. In this, however, he was to find himself sadly
mistaken.

In the story of Spanish degradation at its worst two names must stand
together as partners in political crime--those of Godoy and Escoiquiz,
who sought to mask their own base ambitions behind the acts of their
feeble creatures, the King and Ferdinand respectively. Throughout the
whole vile complot moves also the figure of the Queen, whose
counterpart must be sought in the annals of witches, furies, and
hetaerae. But there were still left uncontaminated eleven millions of
the Spanish people. They were indolent by nature, had been fettered
both by tradition and by worn-out institutions, and had long groaned
in the chains of corrupt administration. With the removal of the
Bourbons all these paraphernalia were swept away. The brothers
Napoleon believed, and no doubt honestly, that pure and capable
administration under a modern system would soon produce order,
industry, prosperity, and peace, and that a grateful nation would
before long acclaim its preservers, and enroll itself as a devoted
ally against the "perfidious and tyrannical" supremacy of Great
Britain. It is useless to speculate how far this dream would have been
realized but for the utter rottenness of the instruments with which
the reformers worked. The King's senility, the Queen's lust, Godoy's
greed, Escoiquiz's self-seeking, Ferdinand's unreliability, Murat's
ambition, made a poor armory of weapons wherewith to accomplish a
beneficent revolution. But the one vital blunder was, after all, not
in the use of such tools: it was in the contempt for nationality
shown first in making the treaty of Fontainebleau, then in its
violation by the subsequent seizure of Portugal, and finally in the
occupation of Spain by French troops. Declaring that more had been
lost than gained by the events which occurred at Bayonne, Talleyrand
says that on one occasion he icily observed to Napoleon that society
would pardon much to a man of the world, but cheating at cards never.
If this be true, it was a stinging rebuke and one which touched the
heart of the whole matter.

To the bloody butchery and broken faith of May second, the day of the
Madrid riots, may be attributed the turn of Napoleon's fortunes. How
far he was responsible for each of Murat's successive acts cannot be
known. With exaggerated conceptions of the Emperor's ubiquity, some
attribute every detail in every step to the direct intervention of the
master. This is unproved and highly improbable; but the spirit was
his, and the use he made of each occasion as it arose is matter of
history. The fires of rebellion were lighted thenceforth on every
Spanish hearth. Madrid itself was dangerous enough, but Madrid was not
Spain, as Paris is France, and the fine local enthusiasm of
uncorrupted Spanish blood in every district was awakened into vigorous
activity by the news of how faithless had been the French treatment,
not only of the royal house, but of the citizens--men and women who
were themselves true Spaniards, brothers and sisters of every other
Spaniard. This possibility Napoleon had not foreseen, and he did not
grasp the fact until long afterward, when years of bitter experience
had rolled over his head. The Madrid riots, suppressed by Murat with
such terrible bloodshed, were at the time, in Napoleon's mind, only a
welcome leverage for moving Ferdinand to compliance, and that was all.

But the city had been full of provincials attracted from all parts of
the country to swell the triumph of their idol Ferdinand on his
accession to the throne. They returned to their homes inspired with
hatred for the French and with bitter scorn for the pretexts on which
Spain and Portugal had been torn from a commercial system that brought
them considerable prosperity and many comforts, in order that they
might be incorporated, under foreign princes, into another system,
which not only required serious self-denial, but brought stagnation,
disorganization, and the presence of an armed soldiery. One weakness
of the Spanish monarchy had always been the absence of centralization,
but that very fact had been the national strength in fostering local
attachments. Into every city, town, and hamlet, each nourishing its
own local pride by local patriotism, came the news from Madrid of how
the invaders were trampling not merely upon Spanish rights, but upon
every consideration of humanity and good faith. The national will was
stirred as never before or since; its expression grew louder every
day, until at last the conflagration of devotion to a national cause
was kindled far and near. Every community formed its committees, and
these organized such neighborhood resistance as was possible, while
communicating with other juntas of the same sort to unite their little
wars, or guerrillas, into a great combined and vigorous effort
wherever the opportunity offered. Under the surface throughout all
Spain the fires of resistance began to kindle; the crackling could be
heard even while the assembly at Bayonne was adopting the new
constitution.




CHAPTER XI

THE FIRST REVOLT OF NATIONS[24]

         [Footnote 24: See Yorck: Napoleon als Feldherr.
         Correspondence of Napoleon, vols. 17 and 18. Ducasse: Les
         rois freres de Napoleon Ier. Krones: Geschichte Oesterreich im
         Zeitalter der franzoesischen Kriege. Pelet: Memoires sur la
         guerre de 1809 en Allemagne. Maxwell: Life of Wellington.
         Schlesier: Erinnerungen an W. von Humboldt. Arndt: Geist der
         Zeit. Fichte: Fichtes Leben.]

     The New Role of Spain -- Guerrilla Warfare -- The French Cowed --
     The Capitulation of Baylen -- The French Retreat from Spain and
     Portugal -- Complaints of King Joseph -- Napoleon's Exasperation
     -- Imperialist Sentiment in France -- The Emperor's Determination
     -- The Spirit of Prussia -- The Work of Stein -- The Revolution
     in Turkey -- Austria's Anxieties -- War Feeling at Vienna --
     Napoleon Turns to the Czar -- Alexander's Hesitancy -- Napoleon's
     Misrepresentations -- Austria Warned -- Talleyrand and the Czar
     -- Napoleon's Allocution at St. Cloud.


Thus far in the history of Europe all politics had been in the main
dynastic. The nations having been consolidated under powerful houses,
it was the reigning family which seemed to constitute the national
entity, not the common institutions, common speech, common faith,
common territory, common aims, and common destiny of the people.
Spain, like Italy, had a clearly marked national domain, and, in spite
of some striking differences, a fairly homogeneous population. It was
fitting and not entirely unnatural that the land of the Inquisition,
the land of ignorance, the land of intolerance, the land, in short,
which had sunk the lowest under absolutism, should begin the
counterrevolution which, checking the excesses of Napoleon and the
French Revolution in their disregard for nationality, ushered into the
world's forum the nation and national sentiment as the strongest force
of the nineteenth century.

This was exactly what happened in Spain. Napoleon's strategy had
laughed at the military formation of Frederick the Great's system; the
guerrillas of Spain laughed at the formations of regular warfare in
any shape. They rose to fight, and dispersed for safety, leaving their
smarting foe unable to strike for lack of a billet. The occasional
successes of the Spanish regulars showed, moreover, that the generals
were not entirely ignorant of Napoleon's own system. When Joseph
entered Madrid the whole land was already in open rebellion, except
where French force compelled a sullen acquiescence in French rule. The
long inactive, sluggish ecclesiastics suddenly seemed to feel the
vigor to resist and the power to lead. They joined the insurgents, and
invoked the orthodoxy of the nation so as to inflame the passions of
the masses against the persecutor of the Pope. Irregular and undefined
as were the elements of the uprising, it was nevertheless essentially
a popular movement; as Napoleon himself later admitted, it was the
people themselves who refused to ratify his new institutions, and who
declared for Ferdinand VII. The sequel furnished ample illustration of
this fact: the mountaineers of Asturias rose in united rebellion; the
inhabitants of Cartagena threw open their arsenals to the volunteers
of the neighborhood; the citizens of Saragossa beat off their
besiegers, while those of Valencia first massacred the French who took
refuge in their citadel, and then repulsed Moncey in a desperate
conflict. When the Spanish leaders ventured into an open battle-field
they were defeated; on the other hand, when they kept the hills and
fought like bandits they were victorious.

So quick and general was the Spanish rising that the various French
army divisions shut themselves up for safety in whatever towns they
could hold: pretending to defy the national guards, who seemed to
spring from the ground without, they were in reality awestricken
before the wrath of the armed citizens within. A quick burst of
Spanish anger, a sharp stab of the Spanish poniard--the frequency of
such incidents began to create a panic among the French boy-soldiers.
The seizure and sack of a city had for years been a traditional
amusement of the grand army, connected in Italy and Germany with
little or no loss of life, and enhanced by the acquisition of enormous
booty. The young conscripts, who had heard the oft-told tale from
their fathers' lips, found to their bitter disappointment that in
Spain a sack meant much bloodshed and little, if any, booty. Sometimes
the tables were more than turned. A French squadron put in at Cadiz to
cooeperate with a force despatched by Napoleon, under pretense of
resisting an invasion threatened by the English, but really for the
purpose of terrorizing southern Spain. The arrival of the troops
having been delayed by the outbreak of rebellion farther north, the
townsfolk of that ancient city rose and seized the fleet. The corpses
of French soldiers, wherever found throughout the country, were
mutilated by the furious Spaniards, and the wounded received no
quarter.

At the end of May, Murat was in Madrid as commander-in-chief, with
Moncey as his lieutenant; he had thirty thousand troops. Junot was in
Portugal with twenty-five thousand. Bessieres had twenty-five thousand
more, half in Old Castile under himself, half in Aragon under Verdier.
Duhesme commanded the thirteen thousand who were in Catalonia; Dupont
stood on the Tagus near Toledo with twenty-four thousand more. In the
first weeks of June four different skirmishes occurred between the
French regulars and the insurgents in different parts of the country.
Verdier at Logrono on the sixth, Frere in Segovia on the seventh,
Lefebvre at Tudela on the eighth, and Lasalle near Valladolid on the
twelfth, had all dispersed the hordes opposed to them. By the middle
of the month a regular advance was ordered. It took the form of
dispersion for the sake of complete occupation. While Lefebvre laid
siege to Saragossa, Moncey started for Valencia with ten thousand
soldiers, Dupont for Andalusia with nine thousand, and Bessieres's
division was distributed throughout Castile up to the walls of
Santander, which closed its gates and prepared for resistance. Owing
to the defiant attitude and desperate courage of the people, every one
of these movements was unsuccessful, each failing in its own special
purpose. Cordova was captured, but it had almost instantly to be
abandoned. At once Napoleon changed his carefully studied but futile
strategy, and determined to concentrate the scattered columns on the
critical point, wherever it might be. By this time Palafox and others
of the Spanish leaders had shown great ability as generals. The danger
now was that a Spanish army would seize Madrid, and thither the French
army must betake itself. On July fourteenth Bessieres successfully
overwhelmed the opposition made at Medina de Rio Seco by the Spaniards
under La Cuesta and the Irish general Blake. The only corps left
exposed was that of Dupont, to whom reinforcements had been promptly
despatched; but the Spaniards under Castanos caught his army, now
twenty-five thousand strong, in the mountain pass of La Carolina,
among the Sierra Morena mountains, and on July twenty-first forced
him to capitulate at Baylen, where his whole corps laid down their
arms.

This was an awful blow, for Madrid was thereby rendered untenable. The
Emperor gave orders to retreat behind the Duero, and directed
Bessieres to keep open the connection with Junot by way of Valladolid.
In fact, he began to appreciate his task, for he warned his generals
against any system of cordons in dealing with such an enemy, useful as
a string of posts might be in checking smugglers; and besides this
change of plan, there were indications that he would himself soon take
charge in Spain. There was need of this, for his generals and
boy-soldiers did not stop to hold the Duero; evacuating Madrid, they
never halted until they were behind the Ebro, in what they considered
a kind of French borderland. The siege of Saragossa was abandoned, and
Duhesme evacuated Catalonia. Junot's situation was thus rendered most
precarious, for when Wellesley landed early in August with fourteen
thousand English troops, and found that the junta of Corunna had no
need of him, he promptly advanced against the invaders of Portugal.
Having driven in the French outposts on the seventeenth, four days
later he attacked and defeated Junot at Vimeiro. At the very height of
the contest, when victory seemed already secure, Burrard, a superior
officer, arrived to assume command. This reduced Wellesley to the rank
of an adviser, and, his advice not being taken, Junot escaped to the
strong position of Cintra, whence, although entirely cut off from his
base in Spain, he was able to dictate his own terms of surrender. He
and all his troops had a free return by sea to France, but Portugal
was to be evacuated.

Napoleon was at St. Cloud, near Paris, when the news of this disaster
arrived. To some extent he was already aware of the situation. He knew
that the Spaniards would not keep any stipulations they made,
claiming that no faith was due to a hostile army which had entered
their country under the guise of allies--an army, moreover, which
stole the sacred vessels from the sanctuaries of their churches, and
would not keep its promise to restore them. The letters of Joseph, who
was now utterly disenchanted, had for some time been but one string of
bitter complaints. He had asked the Emperor whether an end could not
be made to the organized pillage of the churches, and had told him
that the movement in Spain was as irrepressible as that of the French
Revolution, emphasizing his hopelessness by the suggestion that if
France had raised a million soldiers, Spain could probably raise at
least half as many. He said, too, that men talked openly of
assassinating him; that he had no friends but the scoundrels, the
honest men and patriots being on the other side. "My generals," was
the Emperor's comment on this querulousness, "are a parcel of
post-inspectors; the Ebro is nothing but a line; we must resume the
offensive at Tudela." "I have a spot there," he said, pointing with
his finger at his uniform. To calm his brother's fears, he replied
that the whole Spanish matter had been arranged long before with
Russia; that Europe recognized the change as an accomplished fact; and
that the priests and monks were at the bottom of all the trouble,
stirring up sedition, and acting for the greedy Inquisition. "There is
no question of death, but of life and victory; you shall have both....
I may find in Spain the Pillars of Hercules, but not the limits of my
power." True to his old principles, Napoleon refused to "call off the
thieves," as Joseph besought him, and declared that, according to the
laws of war, when a town was captured under arms pillage was
justifiable.

These were all brave words, but the Emperor was in the last stage of
exasperation. The letters he wrote at the time betray something of the
unutterable pain he felt. No one but himself could really know the
difference to him: his glory was smirched, his Oriental plans and his
scheme for peace with England were indefinitely postponed, his
impatient ally was again put off, while Austria and Prussia were
encouraged to revolt. Was the vast structure he had so laboriously
erected now to fall in one crash at his feet? The news of Junot's
surrender was further embittered by the receipt of information that
the Spanish troops under General La Romana, which had slyly been
posted first in Hamburg, and then sent to Denmark as Bernadotte's
advance-guard, had at last revolted, and were embarking on English
ships for home in order to join the movement of national redemption.
By this disaster the demonstration against Sweden promised to the Czar
was made impossible. This accumulation of misfortunes--defeat before
Valencia, defeat before Saragossa, disaster and surrender at Baylen,
disaster and disgrace at Vimeiro, retreat from Madrid, desertion of
the Duero as a line of defense, exchange of the offensive for a weak
defensive, and loss of the whole Iberian peninsula except the strip
behind the Ebro--all this was shameful and hard to bear. Nevertheless,
under favorable conditions the situation might have been retrieved.
The conditions, however, were most unfavorable. The example and
success of Spain were daily giving new comfort to Napoleon's enemies
both in France and abroad.

For the present, however, France might be trusted. The people as a
whole had become imperial to the core. The republicans and royalists
were so diminished in numbers, and so silenced by the censorship, that
they were virtually impotent. The real ability of the country was no
longer in retreat, but in the public service; the administration,
both financial and judicial, had every appearance of solidity, and the
industrial conditions were so steadily improving that the most
enterprising and intelligent merchants began to have faith in the
ultimate success of the Continental System as a means of securing a
European monopoly to French manufactures and commerce. The perfect
centralization of France kept the provinces in such close touch with
Paris that there was no open expression of discontent in any part of
the country. The people were not well informed as to the facts, and
they were slow to apprehend the significance of what they learned. By
this time the Emperor was France, and whatever he did must be well
done. The gradual infusion of the military spirit into the masses had
made them passive and obedient. There had been, they knew, some
unpleasant troubles beyond the Pyrenees, but the season was not over,
and before winter the Emperor's discipline would no doubt be
successful. The grand army now pouring out of Germany across France
into Spain evidently meant serious business, but there could be no
doubt of the result.

The court remained solemn and dull in its weary round of ceremony. The
moving spirit was now occupied elsewhere, and his constant
absent-mindedness made the whole structure meaningless; for it was an
open secret that the soft grace and beseeching eyes, the graceful and
willowy form, the exquisite taste and winning ways of Josephine would
avail her no longer. The little nephew, Hortense's son and Napoleon's
darling, his intended heir, was dead; Joseph had only daughters, and
there being no male successor to the throne, reasons of state made a
divorce inevitable.[25] The deference of others to the Empress and her
condescension to them were but a mockery, the reality of her power
having vanished. In this vain show the Emperor moved more dark and
mysterious than ever. It was his will that nothing should be changed,
and every courtier played his part as well as possible, the two
leading actors playing theirs superbly. There was an outward display
of confidence and kindness between them, which sometimes may have been
real; there were quarrels, explanations, and reconciliations--a
momentary return at times to old affection: but the resultant of the
conflicting forces was such as to destroy conjugal trust and create
general disquietude.

         [Footnote 25: Masson: Josephine repudiee. Welschinger, La
         divorce de Napoleon.]

When Napoleon looked abroad he saw nothing to reassure him, and
everything to create alarm. In Prussia there was a regeneration such
as was comparable only to a new birth. The old military monarchy,
under which the land had been repressed like an armed camp by its
sovereigns, was gone forever. The Tugendbund, that "band of virtue"
already mentioned, had ramified to the farthest borders; partizan
warfare was abandoned; piety, dignity, purity, courage, and the power
of organization were filling the land. The presence of the French
could not quench the new spirit, but instead it added fuel to the
flames of national hatred. Patriotic conventicles and every other form
of secret meeting were held. Scharnhorst went steadily on with the
training and reform of the army, while Stein, with a noble devotion,
and under an unsympathetic master, was working to perfect his new
administrative system. The churches were filled, and the hearers
understood every allusion in the glowing sermons addressed to them by
a devoted and patriotic clergy; schools, colleges, and universities
swarmed with students, whose youthful zeal found every encouragement
in the instruction of their teachers, which combined two qualities not
always found united in teaching, being at the same time thoroughly
scientific and highly stimulating.

At last, in August, Napoleon, who had looked and listened with deep
interest, read with his own eyes in one of Stein's intercepted letters
that the minister and his colleagues were aiming at a national
uprising, not of Prussia alone, but of all Germany. The illustrious
statesman, having emancipated the Prussian people, and having seen the
reform of the whole political organism in that great land, was
proceeding to extend his beneficent influence throughout all Germany.
In September Napoleon demanded Stein's dismissal, and enforced the
demand by sequestrating Frederick William's Westphalian estates,
threatening at the same time to continue the French occupation of
Prussia indefinitely. There was apparently no alternative, for the
country, although rejuvenated, had no allies, and could not fight
alone. Stein, therefore, resigned after an eventful ministry of about
a year, in which he had prepared the way for every one of the changes
which ultimately reconstructed Prussia.

The two movements which in Spain and Germany menaced Napoleon's
prestige were national; there were two others, which, if not that,
may, by a stretch of definition, be called at least dynastic. The
first was a revolution in Constantinople. The Sultan Mustapha IV had
been from the beginning a feeble creature of the soldiers, who, after
overthrowing Selim, had set him on the throne. Before long he became
the contemptible tool of an irresponsible robber gang known as the
"yamacks," who, under the guise of militia, held the Turkish capital
in terror. The situation in Constantinople had finally grown
unendurable even to the Turks, and the Pasha of Rustchuk appeared at
the gates of the city to restore Selim III, who was still a captive in
the Seraglio. When the doors of that sacred inclosure were forced
open, the first object seen was the body of the murdered sovereign,
killed by Mustapha in the belief that he himself was now the sole
available survivor of Othman's line. But the soldiers ransacked the
palace, and dragged from his concealment the young prince Mahmud,
second of the name, and destined to be a great reformer. Him they
proclaimed Sultan and set upon the throne, appointing their leader
grand vizir. The new government was devoted to reform, contemptuous of
French influence, and determined to repress the evils which seemed to
have ruined its predecessor. This severity was more than the
licentious capital would endure. At once every element of discontent
burst forth again,--the janizaries, the Ulema, or doctors of the
sacred law, and the people,--some mistrusting one thing, others
another, all alike unwilling to obey any master but their own will.
Disintegration of what little administrative organization there still
was, seemed imminent. The Turkish generals on the Danube began to make
light of the armistice or truce of Slobozia, Napoleon's one reliance
in his Eastern designs; they actually set in motion their troops, and
prepared to take the offensive against Russia. This was in the hope
that, before asking a separate peace from the Czar or returning to
seize the leadership at Constantinople, they might secure some
military prestige as a working capital. The whole outlook seemed to
foretell the extinction of French influence with the Porte and a crash
in the Orient before Napoleon was ready to take advantage of it.

But the events of Bayonne had been productive of greater alarm to the
house of Austria than to any other power. In the humiliation of the
Hohenzollerns, Napoleon had the sanction of conquest, though, in view
of Prussia's rising strength, it was now commonly said that he had
done too much or too little. While in weakening that nation he had
rudely lopped the strength of an old French ally, yet he had not
destroyed it, and he had exercised what all Europe still admitted to
be a right--that of superior force. Austria, on the other hand, had
been an old and inveterate rival of France in the race for territorial
extension. Napoleon's treatment of her after Austerlitz had been
bitter, but the Hapsburgs could not plead former friendship. Here,
however, was a new development in Napoleonic ambition. The successive
announcements that minor ruling dynasties had ceased to reign had all
been made with the partial justification of either conquest or general
expediency, or, as in most cases, of both. The Spanish Bourbons had
been the Emperor's most obsequious and useful allies, obeying his
behests without a question: for their degradation there was no plea
either of expediency or of a right secured by conquest. The extinction
of what still ranked as a great royal house was accomplished by
chicane, was due to a boundless ambition, and was rendered utterly
abhorrent to all divine-right dynasties by the specious pretext of
reform under which it was accomplished. This gave Francis food for
reflection.

In the territorial expansion of Rome her victims were first conquered,
then made dependent allies, then at last destroyed, and their lands
turned into Roman provinces. It appeared as if this, too, were, in
general, Napoleon's policy; but in some cases he showed himself quite
willing to dispense with any intermediary stage and marched direct to
his goal. Austria, already irritated by the disposition made of
Etruria and by the treatment of the Pope, could endure the suspense as
to her own fate no longer. Her new military system was complete, her
armies were reorganized and reequipped, her administration was well
ordered, her generals and statesmen were alike confident. The Emperor
of the French had shown quite the same impatience with Austria in
July as with Prussia in September, admonishing both to observe the
Continental System with strictness; but his warning produced no effect
at Vienna. On the contrary, the Viennese newspapers took a belligerent
tone, and called for war; English goods poured in through the harbor
of Triest; communications between the ministry at London and the
cabinet at Vienna became more frequent and regular; the nation
supported its monarch and assumed a warlike attitude. The disasters in
Spain tied Napoleon's hands, and he did nothing in a military way
except to call Davout from Poland into Silesia, and to strengthen
Mortier in Franconia.

With the inconsistency of the highest greatness, Napoleon changed his
whole political campaign in the twinkling of an eye, as he so often
did his military ones. During the long months since the interview at
Tilsit, Alexander had been kept in an agony of uncertainty, deprived
of real French cooeperation in regard either to Sweden or to Turkey,
and actually menaced by the continued occupation of Prussia and the
fortification of the strategic points in the duchy of Warsaw.
Caulaincourt had found his mission of dissimulation and
procrastination most difficult, partly by reason of Pozzo di Borgo's
influence, partly because the conquest of Muscovite society was a task
hitherto unknown to French arts, and experience had to be dearly
bought. In this latter work his success was very moderate, but he
became unconsciously an intimate friend and adviser of the Czar. This
displeased Napoleon, who promptly recalled him to his senses by a
warning that he must not forget that he was a Frenchman. Caulaincourt
bravely repelled the insinuation, but the correspondence of Napoleon
both with him and with the Czar became so voluminous that the Emperor
was virtually his own ambassador.

The contents of these letters were partly personal and friendly;
partly promissory, in preparation for what was about to be done at
Bayonne; partly preliminary to the second interview between the two
emperors, which had been mentioned at Tilsit and often discussed since
then. But so far there was not the slightest change of front, no
substantial fulfilment of the vague promises, no cooeperation; the
world was still under the system of Tilsit in the union of Russia and
France--a union so far represented by the will of Napoleon. The events
at Bayonne deeply affected Alexander. His ally knew they would, and on
July tenth he wrote a long letter to St. Petersburg, lamely justifying
his conduct. But, after all, the Czar cared little for ancient
European dynasties, and, recovering from the first shock, he began to
make sport of a king "who had nothing further to live for than his
Louise and his Emmanuel," and then took a firm stand in approval of
his ally's course. The French and Russian ministers had now completed
their scheme for the partition of Turkey, and the Czar finally and
unconditionally assented to the second meeting with the Emperor.

But before the details of the all-important interview could be
arranged there was much to be done; in particular, Austria must be
held in check. An English vessel had arrived at Triest with a
deputation of Spanish insurgents who offered the throne of their
country to the Archduke Charles. The armaments of Francis grew
stronger day by day. No one could hold the Hapsburg empire in check
except the Czar. Even amid the exhausting labors of Bayonne, Napoleon
remembered this, and thought of the East, reorganizing his fleet in
preparation for cooeperation with that of Russia, and commanding
reports to be made on the geography and military history of Persia.
After the loss of Baylen, of which he learned in the first days of
August, his ingenuity did not desert him, in spite of his heavy
heart. A swift courier was despatched on the fifth, with a letter
dated back to July twenty-first, and written as if in ignorance of
events in Spain. He was enjoined to outrun the ordinary news-carriers,
in order that, reaching St. Petersburg before them, he might present
as an offering of friendship to Alexander the promise of a virtual
evacuation of Prussia--even, in certain contingencies, of Warsaw.
Twenty-four hours later another messenger was despatched, conveying
the bad news in the mildest form, and expressing as the Emperor's
greatest concern a hope that the Russian squadron which had been sent
to Lisbon would escape, as he had reassuring news from its commander.
It mattered not to him that this was untrue; the end was gained, and
the real significance of Baylen was thereby largely concealed from the
Czar, or at least the impression made on him by the news was weakened.

Waiting for these communications to produce their effect, the Emperor
forwarded a formal remonstrance to Vienna, in his own name, against
Austria's warlike attitude, and two weeks later categorically demanded
a similar step from the Czar, opening out once more the vista of
indefinite aggrandizement for Russia in the East if only the European
conflagration were not rekindled. The Czar was charmed by the promises
of Napoleon, but when it came to a menacing remonstrance with Austria
he hesitated. The anti-French party in Russia were now repeating, like
parrots, first, Spain is annihilated, then Austria, then we ourselves.
Moreover, as Alexander himself felt, arrangements like those of Tilsit
are but too easily overset by unforeseen circumstances, and in such an
event what would Europe be without the Hapsburgs? In the end a feeble
hint, backed up by a weak menace, was sent to Vienna. Peace, wrote
the Czar, is the best policy for Austria. "May not the peace of
Tilsit, which I made, carry some obligations with it?" The warning
produced a momentary impression in the city on the Danube.[26]

         [Footnote 26: See Vandal, Vol. I, Chapitre Preliminaire.]

In this short interval every preparation was hastened for the
interview which had now become indispensable to both parties. Napoleon
had only one object--to draw the alliance closer in the eyes of all
Europe for the conservation of his prestige. Alexander had
several--the mitigation of Prussia's bondage, the successful
occupation of Finland, and, what was the real bond of the alliance,
the partition of Turkey. This was substantially what the Czar had been
promised at Tilsit, but he had not yet obtained a single item of the
list then agreed upon. In spite of Caulaincourt's caresses and
Napoleon's cajoling, he was now in a determined humor, and meant to
demand the fulfilment of his ally's engagement, not from good will,
but from necessity. Talleyrand, wearied to distraction by the dull
life of Valencay and the charge of the Spanish princes, had determined
to regain his diplomatic power, and now began, by the agency of his
many devoted friends in Paris, an extensive course of preparation for
a return to public life and to influence. Through semi-official
channels the Czar was informed that France, drunk with victory and
conquest, now looked to his wisdom for protection from the further
ambitions of her fiery ruler. Before long Alexander's own agents began
to confirm this statement. The French nation, at least the reasonable
portion of it, they said, was weary of Napoleon's imperial policy. If
this were true, Spain and Austria might be used to hold France in
check while Russia should work her will on the Danube. No matter now
if her ally were faithless: compliance could be forced from his
weakness.

This disposition had been partly foreseen by Napoleon; he was informed
by Caulaincourt how steadily it was crystallizing into a fixed
determination. To the observer the moment seemed critical, but the
great adventurer was still able to ride the storm. Whence the impulse
came is not easily determined, but he turned to Talleyrand as an agent
likely to be useful in such complications. The intriguer came forward
promptly, and, receiving the Caulaincourt despatches, together with a
verbal explanation from the Emperor, was quickly in readiness for the
duty of counselor, to which he was called. Napoleon himself assumed a
lofty tone. On August fifteenth he held a levee at St. Cloud to which
all the representatives of foreign powers were summoned; those of
Russia and Austria stood near together. Again, as on the famous
occasion before the rupture of the peace of Amiens, he uttered a
public allocution in the form of a conversation; this time it was with
Metternich, the Austrian ambassador, and he was calmer and more
courtly. Reproaching the Emperor of Austria with ingratitude, he
announced his political policy; to wit, that Russia would hold Austria
in check, while he and Alexander divided the East between them without
reference to Francis, unless the latter should disarm and recognize
Joseph as king of Spain. Tolstoi remained frigid throughout the long
harangue. It was he who had declared and repeated that eventually
Napoleon, having humbled Austria, would attack Russia. A fortnight
earlier, in an interview with the stern old Russian, the Emperor had
asseverated the contrary, but to no effect: Tolstoi had shown no
symptoms of faith or conviction. The address to Metternich was,
therefore, a second string to Napoleon's bow in case he should fail at
Erfurt to win Alexander. His general mien was undaunted and his tone
loftier than ever. The tenor of his private conversation with
Metternich and others was that he would rest content with what he had.
Spain would no longer be a danger in the rear, Austria and Russia
would be his allies, sharing in the mastery of the world, and England,
the irreconcilable enemy of them all, would be finally reduced to
ignominious surrender by the loss of her means of subsistence.




CHAPTER XII

NAPOLEON AND ALEXANDER AT ERFURT[27]

         [Footnote 27: See Fischer: Goethe und Napoleon. Pingaud:
         Bernadotte, Napoleon et les Bourbons. Rose: Napoleonic
         Studies. Bernhardi: Geschichte Russlands und der europaeischen
         Politik im XIX^ten Jahrhundert. Schilder: The Emperor
         Alexander I, his Life and Reign.]

     Napoleon's Imperial Hospitality -- The Interviews of Napoleon and
     Goethe -- Meeting of Napoleon and Wieland -- Their Conversation
     -- The Gains of Russia -- Dangerous Elements in the Dual League
     -- Austria Menaced -- Napoleon's Marital Relations -- Fouche's
     Machinations for the Divorce of Josephine -- Napoleon's Proposal
     for a Russian Princess.


The second meeting of the two most powerful monarchs then living
occurred at Erfurt on September twenty-seventh, and their
deliberations lasted eighteen days. It was Napoleon's greatest
diplomatic engagement, and he was the victor. The town was his, and he
was, of course, the host. Such splendid hospitality as he lavished
would have touched a harder heart than Alexander's. The luxury and
military display were barbaric on the one hand, while, on the other,
Germany's greatest scholars and men of letters were summoned to
flatter the Czar's intellectual pretensions. There was the same
exhibition, too, of frank personal confidence and of imperial
magnanimity as at Tilsit. Talleyrand and the Russian chancellor,
Rumianzoff, held protracted conferences, the former, as he confesses
in his memoirs, plotting against his master's interests, in order to
see that Austria should suffer no harm. Day after day Napoleon and
Alexander paced the floor of the great room in the palace which had
been fitted as an office, examining details and bringing matters to a
conclusion. There was intoxication in the very air. The kings of
Bavaria, Wuertemberg, and Westphalia were present with their consorts
and attendant courtiers; so, too, were the Prince Primate and the
minor rulers of Germany. The drawing-rooms, streets, and theaters of
Erfurt were filled with the splendors of their gorgeous apparel and
that of their bedizened attendants. On October fourth the "Oedipe" of
Voltaire was given at the playhouse before the assembled courts. At
the words, "A great man's friendship is a boon from the gods,"
Alexander rose, and, grasping Napoleon's hand, stood for a moment in
an attitude that typified a renewed alliance. The house thundered with
applause.

More memorable still was the appearance on the scene of Germany's most
transcendent genius, who came to lay the homage of his intellect at
the feet of him whom he considered at the moment, and long after, not
only to be the greatest power, but the greatest idealist, in the
world. Goethe and Napoleon met twice--once in Erfurt, once in Weimar.
On both occasions it was the man of arms who sought out the man of
letters--_par nobile fratrum_. They talked of Werther and his sorrows;
the Emperor appreciatively, and with a knowledge of detail. It is said
that the latter took exception to some one passage in particular;
which one is not known. The poet had probably just risen from penning
the "Elective Affinities," and seemed to recognize his dazzling host
as a creature familiar with such ties, transcending the bounds of
nations, the trammels of commonplace human limitations, the confines
of ordinary thought and speech. "A great man can be recognized only
by his peers," is one of Goethe's own sentences. What to the poet were
common men and the chains of political bondage, what were nations and
their ambitions, in comparison with a society where mind and morals
had the glorious license of Olympians and could follow the
unobstructed paths of inclination in realms controlled only by fancy!
Napoleon's greeting was laconic, "Vous etes un homme." This flattered
Goethe, who called it the inverse "ecce <DW25>," and felt its allusion
to his citizenship, not in Germany, but in the world. The
nineteenth-century Caesar then urged the great writer to carry out an
already-formed design and compose a drama on the life of his own great
prototype; such a work, he was sure, would be worthier of the theme
than Voltaire's effort. At St. Cloud Napoleon had once paid a glowing
eulogy to the power of tragic dramas, and, speaking of Corneille,
declared that to his inspiration the French nation owed many of its
finest impulses and its most brilliant deeds. "If he were here, I
would make him a prince." To Goethe he now said that in art, as in
politics, there should be rule and ordered beauty; apropos of the
drama imitated from Shakspere, which mingles tragedy and comedy, the
terrible with the burlesque, he expressed surprise that a great mind
like Goethe's did not like clean-cut models--"N'aime pas les genres
tranches." These two judgments, taken together, give a valuable
picture of Napoleon's mind.

Amid the brilliant scenes arranged for the entertainment of Napoleon
in the stately little town of Weimar, when surrounded by that German
aristocracy which he had humbled, he summoned to his presence the man
who in the two periods of his career personified first the strength
and then the weakness of the German folk--the aged Wieland. Indeed,
the Emperor's conversation throughout that excursion to Weimar was
chiefly of learning, as if he bowed before German knowledge, German
science, German letters. He had studied much, he said, in the
barracks, "when I was a young lieutenant of artillery," and his cold,
piercing glance seemed to search the very hearts of the proud princes
and dukes who crowded around and literally stood at his chair in
domestic service. It was at the ball given by the Grand Duchess that
he asked for Wieland. During the evening this gentle and now temperate
old man had been present while the actors of the French comedy,
brought among other decorative trappings from Paris, had declaimed the
"Death of Caesar" from the stage of the ducal theater; he had listened
to Talma's significant utterance of the words, "Rule without violence
over a conquered universe," and then, wearied by the excitement of
these strange experiences, had withdrawn from further revelry. The
Grand Duchess of Weimar, anxious to gratify her great guest, sent her
carriage to fetch the author of "Oberon"; and rather than detain the
illustrious dictator, the poet started as he was, in his ordinary
garments, with unpowdered hair, wearing his little skull-cap and felt
shoes. The meeting was therefore most dramatic. The dancing almost
ceased when Napoleon advanced to meet his visitor, for the company
crowded in a wide circle to look on and catch what they might hear.
But the conversation was in a low tone.

Wieland would never tell or write what was said, and we know only
enough to feel that the great soldier's words were worthy both of his
genius and of the occasion. He had treated the German nobility with
haughtiness; this plain scholar he treated as an equal. Speaking of
the ancients, and defending the Caesars against Tacitus, he discussed
the rise of Christianity and emphasized the value of all religions in
conserving morals. The poet replied, when needful, in broken French,
but soon felt at his ease, for the Emperor seemed disposed to engross
the conversation, and in the manner of the times proposed questions.
"Which of your works do you prefer?" Wieland disclaimed merit for any,
but, under urgency, confessed that he liked best his "Agathon" and
"Oberon." Then Napoleon asked the stock query which he so often put to
scholars and men of letters: "Which has been the happiest age of
humanity?" "Impossible to give a reply," said the poet; "good and
evil, virtue and vice, continually alternate; philosophy must
emphasize the good and make the evil tolerable." "Admirable!
admirable!" said Napoleon; "it is not just to paint everything dark,
like Tacitus. He is certainly a skilful artist, a bold, seductive
colorist, but above all he aims at effect. History wants no illusions;
it should illuminate and instruct, not merely give descriptions and
narratives which impress us. Tacitus did not sufficiently develop the
causes and inner springs of events. He did not sufficiently study the
mystery of facts and thoughts, did not sufficiently investigate and
scrutinize their connection, to give posterity a just and impartial
opinion. History, as I understand it, should know how to catch men and
peoples as they would appear in the midst of their epoch. It should
take account of external circumstances which would necessarily
exercise an important influence on their actions, and clearly see
within what limits that influence wrought. The Roman emperors were not
so bad as Tacitus describes them. Therefore I am forced to prefer
Montesquieu; he is more just, and his criticism is closer to the
truth." In discussing Christianity Napoleon said: "Philosophers seek
in vain a better doctrine than one which has reconciled man with
himself, and has guaranteed the peace and public order of peoples, as
well as the happiness and hope of individuals." The talk lasted for
two hours, and the interview ended by a movement, not of Napoleon, but
of Wieland himself, who seemed weary with standing. "Go, go," said the
Emperor, gently. "Good-night."

Such were the scenes which unrolled themselves before the eyes of
Europe. Festival succeeded festival--plays, processions, parades,
hunts, balls, and dinners. Onlookers sent broadcast to every quarter
accounts of the millennial harmony which presided over all. Emperors,
kings, princes, nobles, marshals, generals, historians, scholars,
poets, players, diplomatists,--the most brilliant actors on the
world's great stage,--were brought together at Erfurt in a group not
often equaled. The stars of Russian decorations, the ribbons of the
Legion of Honor, glittered for the first time on breasts like those of
Goethe and Wieland, which were not accustomed to such distinctions.
The dual league of emperors appeared to the world stronger and more
illustrious than before. In a sense this was true, for at the close
Alexander seemed to have obtained much, if not all, that he had
demanded. The two empires were still to act in unity for the
reestablishment of a general peace on terms which would guarantee to
France her conquests made in the south since Tilsit, and to Russia
what she had secured in the east and north. Things were looking
brighter for the Czar in Finland, and of the Eastern acquisitions
which he so ardently desired, Wallachia and Moldavia were already
within his grasp. In other words, England was to be forced into
acknowledging the new order of things established by France in Spain,
and into acquiescing in Russia's seizure of Finland, Wallachia, and
Moldavia. If Austria should ally herself with the Turks to defeat
Russia's aims, France would intervene for her ally, and, reciprocally,
Russia would do the same in case the cabinet of Vienna should declare
war against France. In any case, Francis was to be compelled to
recognize the new kings of Spain and Naples under the virtual
compulsion of a united summons by Russia and France. If England should
again prove intractable, the two monarchs would meet a third time, and
within a year, to concert further measures. These were very
substantial gains for Russia, and for the time being the
Franco-Russian alliance was, as it appeared to the world, mightier and
firmer than it had been.

But, on the other hand, it contained now what was wanting
before--active germs of dissolution. In the first place, Alexander and
his ministers had shown themselves so firm that more than once there
had been hot words even between the emperors, and the memories of
these were a source of the increased suspicions which Alexander
carried back to the Neva. The Czar had, moreover, been compelled to
yield a very important point. The treaty, as a whole, was to remain
secret for at least ten years. He might occupy and consider as his own
the two coveted provinces, but even they were not to be openly annexed
until England's answer was received. An Anglo-Turkish alliance,
Napoleon reasoned, would be disastrous, while a Russo-Turkish
alliance, in case of Russian victory, would give the ministers at St.
James's too much insight into the agreement of Erfurt, and perhaps
bring on some such calamity as the seizure of the Danish fleet which
the suspicions entertained at London concerning Tilsit had
precipitated. The ultimate aim of the treaty was to be indefinitely
concealed. Another dangerous element in the affairs of Erfurt was that
contained in the additional provocation given to Prussia and Austria.
It is generally believed that Napoleon urged Alexander to send troops
and occupy not only Warsaw, but parts of both Austria and Prussia.
This would embroil him with his neighbors, and make central Europe
secure while France was fighting Spain. If this be true, it explains
two facts. Prussia in her despair had sent one agent after another to
Paris in order to secure some mitigation of Napoleon's demands. The
last had been Prince William, the King's brother, who early in
September had agreed that his country should pay one hundred and forty
millions of francs, surrender to France the forts on the Oder, and
reduce her army to forty-two thousand men, in return for the
withdrawal of Napoleon's troops and a reduction of the indemnity by
fourteen and a half millions of francs. On October ninth, three weeks
afterward, the prince was invited by Napoleon to hunt hares on the
battle-field of Jena! This incident, taken in connection with the
demand for Stein's dismissal, seemed very significant of Napoleon's
attitude toward Prussia.

General Vincent had been despatched from Vienna nominally to explain
away at Erfurt the Austrian armaments; in reality, to observe what was
going on. Although he found no difficulty in winning the versatile
Talleyrand to his cause, he was treated with scant courtesy by
Napoleon, and sent back with a letter from him to Francis containing
bitter reproaches and menaces. Stein, after his withdrawal, found,
like Hardenberg, a refuge in Vienna. There he formed one of an
influential coterie composed of Alexander's envoy, Pozzo di Borgo, and
others of like mind, who were steadily consolidating the war
sentiment. The activity of these men explained a phrase in the letter
to Francis,--"The last rising in mass would infallibly have brought on
war if I could have supposed that that levy and those preparations had
been arranged with Russia,"--which hinted at Russia's possible
interest in the military preparations; and one day at Erfurt, as
Napoleon's grenadiers were marching by, the Czar had to listen while
their Emperor vaunted the courage they had displayed at Pultusk and
Friedland. Apropos of Napoleon's lack of delicacy, it is said that
once in the Tuileries he significantly addressed one of his court
ladies, not renowned for purity, with the words, "You are fond of men,
I understand." "Yes; when they are polite," was the rejoinder. At
Erfurt Talleyrand gave the same explanation of his master's vagaries.
"We French are more civilized than our monarch," he said to Montgelas,
the Bavarian minister of state; "his is only the civilization of Roman
history."

But there was another incident at Erfurt more pregnant of ultimate
changes than any of these. Thanks to Fouche's Mephistophelian
insinuations, and the details which leaked out concerning the quarrels
between Queen Hortense, representing her mother, and the Grand Duchess
of Berg, representing the Bonapartes, the subject of Napoleon's
divorce had become common talk. The new position at Tilsit as the
recognized head of Europe's kingly hierarchy seems as early as that to
have tempted the Emperor to a course distasteful to the man; but what
occurred there is uncertain, and did not commit him. At Fontainebleau,
the following autumn, his harsh and distant treatment of Josephine
gave color to the suspicion that he was again under temptation. Whom
would he choose? asked the gossips. Sometime during the year a list of
marriageable princesses was prepared by the Emperor's orders. It
included Maria Louisa of Austria, aged sixteen; Maria Amelia, niece of
the King of Saxony; and the two sisters of the Czar, the younger of
whom was not quite thirteen. The general opinion seemed to fix on one
or the other of the Czar's unmarried sisters. This rumor soon reached
St. Petersburg, and the scandal-mongers of that capital promptly
designated the Grand Duchess Catherine, for she was of marriageable
age, and they said she was learning French country dances. Alexander
was in consternation; the Russian party would be aghast if he should
consent, while a refusal might endanger the alliance on which hung all
his ambitions.

Some months previously, Fouche, aware of the conflict in Napoleon's
mind, had actually suggested to the Empress, and probably with her
husband's knowledge, that she should take the initiative. In reply she
ran with disheveled hair and streaming eyes to ask an explanation from
her lord in person. He consoled her with many protestations, but he
left for Italy without having entirely reassured her. On his return
from Milan he roundly abused his minister of police, and forbade his
continued plotting. Nevertheless, the daring functionary persistently
disobeyed, and by the month of March, 1808, the air of Paris was thick
with embittered and ardent pleas on one side or the other. One evening
the court was to attend a gala performance to be given in the
Tuileries. Their Majesties did not appear. Napoleon, in fact, had not
made ready; instead he had retired to his private apartments and had
sent for Josephine. She entered her husband's chamber in full array of
evening costume, to find him in bed, pale, worn, and weary. At once he
began the recital of his perplexities, pouring out, as it were, his
whole heart, and, though not uttering the request, he seemed as if
beseeching in dumb despair the decisive word from her. The Empress,
however, was inflexible. Was he, he said in fierce disappointment, to
be compelled to adopt his bastard children? Surprised and touched by
her signs of assent, the Emperor vowed never to desert her, and there
matters had remained.

At Erfurt the same vacillation overmastered Napoleon as that with
which he had been tormented since Tilsit. By his command Talleyrand
and Caulaincourt were to drop the remark before Alexander that the
matter of the divorce was a European question; he wished to test, he
said, the temper of his ally. Both ministers suggested that a
contemplated match between the daughter of Paul I and the King of
Sweden had fallen through because of the confessional difficulties,
the latter being a Protestant, the former of the Greek Church. The
Emperor shrugged his shoulders in displeasure, and they discharged
their task. Apparently the Czar was not shocked, for, opening the
subject himself, he told Napoleon that his best friends looked with
anxiety to see him consolidate his work and his dynasty by a second
marriage. This of course led to a confidential talk, in which the
possibility of a matrimonial as well as a political alliance was
mentioned. If Napoleon had demanded on the spot the hand of the Czar's
marriageable sister, Catherine, it is doubtful if Alexander would have
refused. But the imperial host still vacillated, for he had not taken
the irrevocable step; a hesitating mention was made of his guest's
younger sister, Anne, who was still a child, as an eventual
possibility, and nothing more was said.

To stamp the success of the meeting, a joint letter was sent to George
III, asking for peace on the principle of "uti possidetis." The two
monarchs parted with every manifestation of personal devotion; but on
Alexander's return to his capital his elder sister was married with
indecent haste to the Duke of Oldenburg.




CHAPTER XIII

THE FAILURE OF THE SPANISH CAMPAIGN[28]

         [Footnote 28: See Jomini: Napoleon, III. Cevallos: Exposicion
         de los hechos y maquinaciones que han preparado la usurpation
         de la corona de Espana, y los medios que el emperador de los
         franzeses ha puesto en obra para realizarla. Suchet: Memoires
         sur ses campagnes en Espagne, 1808-1814. Rocca: Memoirs,
         1808-1812. Also Memoirs of Godoy, Marbot, Massena, and
         Murat.]

     The Grand Army in France -- Their Entrance to Spain -- The
     Opposing Forces -- Napoleon's Strategic Plan -- French Victories
     -- Sir John Moore -- The British and the Spaniards -- Napoleon's
     Advance to Madrid -- His Return Northward -- Moore's Retreat --
     Napoleon at Paris -- Death of Moore -- The Napoleonic
     Constitution for Spain -- Spanish Resistance -- Joseph's Weakness
     -- Establishment of the New Monarchy.


[Sidenote: 1808-09]

While Alexander was hastening the preparations for his sister's
marriage, Napoleon was hurrying toward Spain, whither, too, the
legions of the grand army, released by the evacuation of Prussia, had
already been ordered. Baylen and Cintra must be retrieved at any cost.
As the splendid array of soldiers passed through France they were
received like men who had already conquered. The civil authorities
spread banquets for them, compliments rained from the honeyed lips of
chosen orators, poets sang sweet strains on the theme of their
glories. This appeared a spontaneous outburst to the troops, and they
marched with the elasticity of enthusiasm to their task. The curious
may read to-day what the army could not know--that by Napoleon's
personal decree the ministry of war had prepared every detail of that
triumph, that the prefects acted under stringent orders, that three
sets of warlike songs were written by commission in Paris, and
forwarded one each to various points, so that, as the Emperor wrote,
"the soldier may not hear the same thing twice." The success of the
plan was complete, and the jubilations had every appearance of being
genuine.

It was therefore not a tired and disheartened army which was gathered
under the walls of Burgos early in November, but a body of picked and
energetic veterans. Joseph, to be sure, had done little in the
interval to take advantage of the foolish and careless tumult into
which the joy of victory had thrown the Spanish people. In spite of
the minute directions which had been received almost daily from
Napoleon, Jourdan, who, having been the King's military adviser in
Naples, had come in the same capacity to Spain, gradually lost every
advantage of position. But the French boys who had fought in the
summer were older and more experienced. The defensive attitude of
their leader had given them the training of camp life, and had secured
the recuperation of their strength. When, therefore, they were mingled
with the newcomers, they might be considered almost as good soldiers
as those who had arrived from Germany.

Moreover, the best generals were now in command: Victor was at
Amurrio, Bessieres at Miranda on the Ebro, Moncey at Tafalla, Lefebvre
near Bilbao, Ney at Logrono on the Ebro, Saint-Cyr at La Junquera,
each with a corps, the smallest of twenty, the largest of thirty
thousand men. Duhesme was shut up in Barcelona with ten thousand.
There was a reserve of thirty-five thousand, the guard and cavalry, at
Tolosa and Vitoria. Mortier's corps of twenty-four thousand was in the
rear, and Junot, who had been better received in Paris than he
expected, was coming up with nineteen thousand more. In all, there
were about two hundred and forty thousand troops. Napoleon, reaching
Bayonne on November third, had it announced that there were between
three and four hundred thousand! With such a numerous and efficient
fighting force, there was no need of exaggeration. To oppose it Blake
had thirty-two thousand Spaniards at Valmaseda as the left wing of the
Spanish army, and La Romana, having disembarked at Santander, soon
arrived with eight thousand more; the center, twenty-five thousand
strong, lay between Calahorra and Tudela under Castanos; the right
seventeen thousand in number, was at and near Saragossa under Palafox.
Before Barcelona was Vives, with twenty thousand, and near Burgos was
a reserve of eighteen thousand under Belvedere--about a hundred and
twenty thousand men, all told. In addition to this regular army, there
was another irregular one of vast but vague dimensions, consisting of
the entire nation.

[Illustration: Map of the Spanish Campaign.]

Amid the exciting cares of Erfurt, Napoleon had still found time to
study the military situation in Spain with minuteness, and he finally
wrote to Joseph that he was coming in person to end the war by one
skilful stroke. This hope was founded on the position held by Blake,
advanced as it was beyond the Spanish line, and remote enough to be
exposed. By a swift blow that general's army might therefore be cut
off from its support, and annihilated; the center and right would
successively meet the same fate. This plan had been jeopardized by the
rashness of Lefebvre. On October thirty-first Blake had advanced from
Durango for an attack. He had not only been routed, but in the heat of
victory had been thrown far back to Valmaseda by the over-zealous
French general. Although the Emperor had hoped for something quite
different, having given orders to draw him forward toward Biscay and
Navarre, he still did not abandon his strategic plan. The Spaniards
had grown warlike in a day, but their victories had intoxicated
them, and of military science they had only what they had learned by
experience. There was no harmony among the generals--not even a
preconcerted plan of operation. Accordingly the mass of the French
army was directed toward Burgos to cut off and overwhelm Blake, while
two corps under Soult were directed to intercept his retreat.

Burgos fell almost without opposition on November tenth; Blake was
defeated the next day at Espinosa, and his scattered columns, turned
but not captured by Soult, fled into Asturias, where they joined the
force of La Romana. Without a moment's hesitation Ney was now
despatched to the southeast in order to fall on Castanos's rear, while
Lannes was to unite Moncey's corps with Lagrange's division and attack
his front. The Spanish general was posted, as has been said, on the
Ebro between Calahorra and Tudela. Before the twentieth the two moves
had been executed and all was in readiness. The Spaniards fled before
Lannes's attack on the twenty-third, but Ney with his cavalry remained
inexplicably stationary, and did not cut off their retreat. They were
therefore able to reassemble at Siguenza, while Palafox withdrew to
Saragossa. This was seemingly an easy triumph for Napoleon's matchless
strategy; his plan worked without real resistance, for his
self-sufficient and ignorant enemy was scattered. Nevertheless, it
will be observed that the execution was deficient and the result
disproportionate. Neither Soult on the right nor Ney on the left
showed such vigor or promptness as of old; there was no general
surrender by the Spaniards, nor was any portion of their force
annihilated. All that was gained--and for a common general it would
have been much--was the ability to take another step.

The capitulation at Cintra, the affair at Bayonne, and the uprising of
the Spaniards had combined to intensify rebellion in Portugal. She was
now in full sympathy with Spain, and her people were scarcely less
bitter or less active than the Spaniards. The easy terms secured by
Junot had infuriated England, and not only Dalrymple and Burrard, but
Wellesley himself, had been recalled to give an account of their
conduct. The last was triumphantly vindicated; but while the others
were not convicted of dereliction in duty, they were virtually
withdrawn from active life. Sir John Moore was now in command of the
English troops in the Peninsula. He had been reinforced with ten
thousand men, and feeling sure of Portugal, had advanced into Spain.
To Napoleon it seemed evident that his intention was to seize Madrid.

This was a mistake. The jubilant Spaniards, expecting to treat
Napoleon as they had treated Dupont, had summoned the English to join
them. Moore's orders were to assist them, and he prepared to obey,
although he well knew what would be the consequences of Spanish
hallucination. With one column he reached Salamanca on November
thirteenth; the head of the other was at Astorga. His own division
numbered only fifteen thousand men; the other was even smaller--ten
thousand at the most. It was on that date that he learned of
Napoleon's victories. Accordingly he halted to await the next move of
the French. That move was against Madrid. Saragossa was besieged by
Moncey, Lefebvre was thrown out to guard the right flank, and Ney to
protect the left of the advancing columns; the march began on November
twenty-eighth.

The first obstacle was the mountain-range of Guadarrama, which had to
be crossed by the pass of Somosierra. This defile was found to be
strongly guarded; there were not only infantry stationed on the
heights, but artillery also, sixteen guns being below the turn of the
pass in a most advantageous position. In the early morning of the
thirtieth the French infantry began to climb the cliffs on each side
of the narrow gorge, and as the mists were heavy their movements were
successfully concealed until the Spanish bivouacs were reached
surprised, and dislodged. Simultaneously a regiment of Polish light
horse was launched against the battery. Their charge was magnificent,
and the gunners could fire only a single round before they were
overpowered. By the ordinary breakfast hour the pass was free. On the
evening of December second the whole army--infantry, cavalry, and
artillery--was united on the heights of Chamartin before the gates of
Madrid. Two days later, after a gallant resistance by its little
garrison and the undaunted inhabitants, the city yielded to the
superior strength of Napoleon, and proposed terms. After some parley
these were accepted, but under the circumstances the Emperor felt that
mildness must be seasoned by menace. There were disorders in the
streets, incident to the new occupation by the French, and that fact
he used as a plea to declare the capitulation null and the Spanish
officers prisoners of war. Their men had escaped the day before.

The military operations of the campaign were of course not yet ended,
for Moore had not appeared in the valley of the Tagus, marching, as it
was believed he would, toward Madrid. The first task was to find him.
The different corps were sent out in all directions, but it was not
until the middle of the month that the British position was even
approximately ascertained. Napoleon was surprised by what he learned,
and concluded that the English were about to abandon Portugal in order
to secure Ferrol as a base of supplies. His first impulse was to
march out himself and prevent such a disaster; on the twentieth half
of his army set forth from Madrid, and on the twenty-second he led
them through the snows of the Guadarrama.

Meanwhile Moore had made his decision. It was to attract the attention
of the French, draw them toward him, and then slowly retreat
northward, thus leaving Andalusia free from interference, and giving
the southern Spaniards time to organize once more and equip themselves
for a second Baylen. To this end he prepared on the twenty-third to
attack Soult, but, learning of Napoleon's rapid advance, he promptly
changed his plan and began his retreat; three days later he led his
troops safely across the Esla. Then began a famous chase. The Emperor
hurried forward, marching on foot through cold and snow to encourage
his tired men. He was eager to strike a blow at his enemy's rear
before they should get too far away, and Soult was urged onward to
Mansilla, to flank the retreating column. On the twenty-ninth the
French cavalry reached the Esla and were driven back by the English
rear-guard, while Moore stopped only long enough to destroy the
magazines at Benevento, and then hurried on to Astorga.

For two days longer the retreat continued. Moore, after many
successful skirmishes, reached Corunna, where he hoped to embark.
Soult crossed the Esla at last, and on New Year's day, 1809, the
Emperor found himself at Astorga. He believed there was an English
fleet at Ferrol; the weather was bitter, and his health was
jeopardized by the severity of the cold; moreover, disquieting letters
arrived, and he determined that this game was not worth the candle.
Soult was intrusted with the pursuit, Ney was stationed at Astorga as
a reserve, and Napoleon, putting himself at the head of his guards,
set out for Valladolid, which he reached on the sixth. After a rest
of ten days, new and more disquieting despatches made clear the urgent
need for his presence in Paris, though his task in Spain was far from
ended. On January twenty-third he reached the Tuileries.

The tale of Moore's splendid retreat, of his courage and calmness in
loss and disaster, of his superb control of his men in their
disappointment when Corunna was reached and no fleet was found there,
of his brave fight with Soult on January sixteenth, of the mortal
wound which struck him down in the hour of victory, and of the
self-forgetfulness which enabled him in the agonies of death to make
all necessary arrangements for his men to embark on the belated
ships--all this is a brilliant page of English history, perhaps the
finest record in its entire course of glory won in retreat, of
patience, moderation, and success in the very hour of bitterest
disappointment. It was the spirit and example of Moore which made
possible the victories of Wellington.

The French interests in Spain were left in a most deplorable
condition. The populace of Madrid had received the hero of the age
with coldness, and shut themselves up in their houses to avoid forming
a crowd or creating any enthusiasm in the streets. They would not even
come out to see the gorgeous military parade which was arranged for
their benefit. The gentry and nobility had been alike distant and
cold. It was clear that Spain could neither be wheedled, cajoled, nor
threatened into even passive acquiescence in the new conquest. It was
essential, therefore, that another course should be tried. On December
fourth, Napoleon, in the role of reformer-statesman, pronounced and
issued from Chamartin a series of the most thoroughgoing edicts. All
feudal privileges, all interprovincial customs dues, were swept away;
the Inquisition was abolished, and the number of convents was reduced
to a third. These measures were in themselves most salutary, and
struck at the very root of the upas-tree under the baneful shade of
which Spain had been slowly perishing. But to do good they must be
enforced; there must be a complete military conquest of the country,
and a capable administration.

There was neither. The Spanish army had been defeated, but, severe as
had been its punishment, its power of resistance was not destroyed;
the occupation of the country was also sadly incomplete, and it made
no difference whither French soldiers marched, or what strategic
points they held, some kind of Spanish fighting force, no matter how
irregular, sprang up behind them and on their sides. The complete
military centralization of Prussia had made Jena decisive for the
whole loose-jointed territory of that kingdom; the compact territory
of Spain and the local independence of her peoples made regular
victories utterly fruitless so far as the open country was concerned.

Moreover, Joseph, although he had been driven from his capital, and
had enjoyed neither power nor consequence except as the general of
Napoleon's armies, now asserted that he, and not his brother, was the
king of Spain. He was angry and hurt by the Emperor's assumption of
superior sovereignty. He was the one, he felt, who could best deal
with the Spaniards, win their affection, and consolidate his power. To
be shouldered off his throne, and compelled to stand by while such
radical measures were taken, embittered him. Shame, he said, covered
his face before his pretended subjects; he renounced all rights to the
throne, preferring honor and honesty to power so dearly bought. This
angered Napoleon, and he threatened to divide the land into military
provinces; but, like his gentler brother, he himself recoiled before
the utter annihilation of a nationality so ancient and dignified as
that of Spain.

As the price for the evacuation of Madrid, the people of the capital
swore to accept Joseph once more as their king. Similar oaths of
allegiance came from all the provinces occupied by the French.
Although these oaths were not considered binding by those who took
them, inasmuch as they held themselves to be acting under compulsion,
yet at least the shadow of Joseph's monarchy reappeared under the
imperial protection, and a so-called liberal constitution, modeled on
that of France, was given to the people as a boon. "It depends on
yourselves," was the Emperor's language, "to make this charter yours.
If all my endeavors prove vain, and you do not justify my confidence,
then I have nothing left but to treat you as a conquered province, and
create another throne for my brother. In that case I shall put the
crown of Spain on my own head, and teach the ill-disposed to respect
it; for God has given me the power and the will to overcome all
obstacles."




CHAPTER XIV

THE TRANSFORMATION OF AUSTRIA[29]

         [Footnote 29: See Metternich: Nachgelassene Papiere (English
         translation as Memoirs). Mazade: Alexandre Ier et le Prince
         Czartoryski. Duncker: Friedr. Wilhelm im Jahre 1809. Ranke:
         Hardenberg und die Geschichte des preussischen Staates von
         1793-1813. Rapp: Memoires.]

     Dangers in Napoleon's Rear -- The State of Paris -- Austria
     Warlike -- The Czar's Policy -- National Movements in Germany --
     Napoleon's True Position -- Talleyrand's Responsibility -- The
     Needs of France -- The Conscription again Anticipated -- The
     Archduke Charles -- War Declared by Austria -- Charles's Appeals
     to National Sentiment -- Imperial Excess and Dynastic Moderation
     -- The Uprising of the Tyrol -- Austria's Successes.


[Sidenote: 1809]

The news from central Europe which reached Napoleon in Spain was of a
most alarming character, and made certain considerations so emphatic
that all others became insignificant. It mattered not that he must
leave behind him a half-accomplished task; that while his strategy had
been successful, he had lost the opportunity to annihilate the
English, which, though he did not know it at the time, he had really
had in the tardy arrival of their transports at Corunna; that the
national uprising was not suppressed by his carefully devised
measures; that the oaths of allegiance sworn to Joseph and the
constitution had been sworn under compulsion by a minority, who, pious
as the people were, did not, for that reason, consider even themselves
as bound, much less the nation as a whole--all this was serious
enough, but it was paltry when compared with what had taken place in
German lands while he had been absent from Paris.

During the campaign of Marengo there had been a knot of active,
self-seeking, and traitorous men who, having risen by Bonaparte's
help, schemed how best to sustain themselves in case of his death.
This same group, under the leadership of Talleyrand and Fouche, had
been again arranging plans for their guidance should misfortune
overwhelm Napoleon in Spain. Such was their activity that even
Metternich had been deceived into the belief that they had a large
party of French patriots behind them, who, weary of the Emperor's
incessant calls on France for aid in enterprises foreign to her
welfare, would gladly be rid of him. So grave did the Austrian
ambassador consider the crisis that late in November he left his post
and set out for Vienna. Vincent's reports about the friction at Erfurt
had already found credence in the Austrian capital among the war
party, and the belief was spreading that the Franco-Russian alliance
was hollow.

Stein's absence from North Germany had only intensified the sympathy
of the people with his policy. Even at Koenigsberg, the seat of
government, public opinion demanded the measures he had desired.
Prussia was not only strong once more, but was ardent to redeem its
disgrace. The reflex influence of the popular movements in Prussia and
Austria upon one another had intensified both, until the more advanced
leaders in the two countries cared little whether the process of
German regeneration was begun under Hohenzollern or Hapsburg
leadership. Into this surcharged atmosphere came Metternich with his
exaggerated statements about the great reactionary party in France.
The effect was to raise the elements. He declared, besides, that the
Spanish war had absorbed so much of Napoleon's effective military
strength that not more than two hundred thousand men were available
for use in central Europe, and that Austria alone, with her new
armaments, would be a match for any army the French emperor could lead
against her, at least in the first stages of a war. Austria had been
negotiating for an English subsidy, without which her troops, fine as
they were, could not be maintained; but Great Britain refused a grant
until they should actually take the field. This fact was an inducement
so strong as to put a climax on the already hostile inclinations of
the Emperor Francis; and as his minister Stadion had long felt that
Napoleon's power must not be allowed time for further consolidation,
the government concluded to strike while the difficulties in Spain
were at their height.

Although the Czar had left Erfurt in an anxious mood, he was
nevertheless clear in his mind that through Napoleon alone could his
ambitions be gratified. He was equally convinced that, while the
European system should not be further upturned, it must for the
present be maintained as it now was. On his homeward journey he had
time to reflect on the situation, and as he passed through Koenigsberg
the warlike temper of Prussia was so manifest that he thought
Frederick William, for a while at least, should be removed from its
influence. Accordingly he pressed the King to pay a visit to St.
Petersburg. The invitation was accepted, and the Czar's efforts were
so successful that when his visitor left for home his feeling was as
unwarlike as it had ever been. He informed Austria that his interests
were those of Russia, that there should be no offensive warfare, and
that any conflict must be confined to repelling an attack. The Czar
declared on March second, in response to an inquiry from Vienna, that
if Austria should begin a war he would fulfil his obligations to
Napoleon; but six weeks later, seeing how determined was the war
sentiment at Vienna, and how complete were the preparations of
Francis, it seemed best to throw an anchor to windward, and he so far
modified his attitude as to explain that in the event of war he would
not put his strength into any blow he might aim at Austria.

The cabinet of Vienna was perfectly aware that neither Alexander nor
Frederick William represented the national feeling of their respective
peoples. They knew that Austria's opportunity to lead a great revolt
against Napoleon was to be found in the support of the powerful
conservatives of Russia, in the enthusiasm of all Prussia, where Arndt
was already crying, "Freedom and Austria!" and in the passionate
loyalty of her own peoples, not excepting the sturdy Tyrolese, who,
chafing under Napoleon's yoke, were ready for insurrection. On March
eighteenth, 1809, the French minister at Vienna wrote to Paris that in
1805 the government, but neither army nor nation, had desired war;
that now the government, the army, and the people all desired it. The
Austrian plenipotentiary was ordered, in requesting a subsidy from
Great Britain, to state that in the event of victory his government
hoped to secure such internal vigor as Austria had enjoyed before the
treaty of Presburg. As to the neighboring states, she desired some
minor rectifications of her own frontier, with indemnifications to the
younger branches of her dynasty for their lost domains. These might be
found either in Germany or in Italy, and if she should succeed in
destroying Napoleon's system of tributary powers, she meant to restore
all their territories to their rightful owners, not excepting those of
the German princes who had been hostile.

To suppose, as many do, that no inkling of all the stupendous schemes
reached Napoleon in Spain is preposterous. Bavaria was his faithful
subordinate, and Poland still hoped everything from his successes.
Both were in the heart of Germany, and through a carefully organized
system of spies, information of the most reliable nature was regularly
received in both countries. The same historians who assert that after
Marengo Bonaparte left Italy for Paris to cloak his defeat, and that
he fled to Malmaison to conceal his direct connection with Enghien's
death, expect us to believe that Napoleon fled from Spain merely to
throw the responsibility of failure on Joseph. Most men in any crisis
act from mixed motives. Such a charge displays skill in combining
facts, but Marengo, whether a defeat or a victory, secured France to
the general who commanded there; the retreat to Malmaison did not
induce the Consul to deny his responsibility for the execution at
Vincennes; and it would have been simply an intervention of the
supernatural if Napoleon, for purely subjective reasons, had left
Spain to return to Paris just at the very instant when his presence
was absolutely essential there, not only to check those who, although
ostensibly his supporters, were in reality his deadly foes, but also
for the warlike preparations to meet the storm which was about to
burst. His secretary has asserted that the letters which reached him
at Astorga contained all this disquieting news, and there is
absolutely no proof that they did not. The probability is all on the
side of the account which was universally accepted until attacked by
the group of over-credulous French historians whose zeal for the
Revolution is such that they feel bound to deny every statement of the
equally biased school of Napoleonic advocates.

[Illustration: From the collection of W. C. Crane. Engraved by S. W.
Reynolds.

JOSEPH BONAPARTE.

Painted by J. Goubaud, January 30, 1831, Point-Breeze, U. S. A.]

Moreover, it was from Spain that the Emperor warned the princes
composing the Confederation of the Rhine to have their contingents
ready. His language is guarded--whether the cabinet of Vienna had
drunk from the waters of Lethe or from those of the Danube, he
himself would be ready. Besides, his actions could have but one
meaning. The moment he reached Paris, significant looks and conduct
warned Talleyrand to beware. "Is Joseph," the Emperor said, in an
interview with Roederer, "to talk like an Englishman or behave like
Talleyrand? I have covered this man with honors, riches, and diamonds;
he has used them all against me. At the first opportunity he had, he
has betrayed me as much as he could. He has declared during my absence
that he kneeled in supplication to prevent my enterprise in Spain; for
two years he tormented me to undertake it.... It was the same with
regard to Enghien. I did not even know him; it was Talleyrand who
brought him to my notice. I did not know where he was; it was
Talleyrand who told me the spot, and after having advised the
execution he has groaned over it with every acquaintance."

At the same time the columns of the "Moniteur" were filled with
half-true accounts of the Emperor's success in Spain, and the French
people knew everything that was favorable; but there was a complete
suppression of all the rest. As Austria desired war to secure her
subsidies from England, so France was again in need of funds which her
own resources could not provide. Because of the failure to paralyze
Spain by a single blow, Napoleon had, for the first time in his
history, returned after a "successful" campaign without an enormous
war indemnity. Once again, after temporary patching, French finances
were in disorder, and there was urgent need to repair them. The people
desired peace for their enterprises, but the continental blockade so
hampered commerce that any peace which did not include a pacification
of the seas would avail them little. It was a customary formality of
Napoleon's to put the entire responsibility of war on the enemy, and
it was announced in February that negotiations with Austria had
failed. This was in a large sense true, although the particular effort
referred to was perfunctory, and was intended technically to secure
the help of Russia, which was to fight only in case Austria should be
the aggressor.

Gradually, therefore, the war spirit revived in France. No one
remonstrated when once more recourse was had to the fatal policy of
anticipating the annual conscription. Not only were the conscripts for
1810 called out, but the number was stretched to the utmost, and those
who from immaturity or other causes had been unavailable in 1806,
1807, 1808, and 1809 were now collected. The total of the youths thus
swept together was not less than a hundred and sixty thousand. To
render available their slender efficiency, they were divided among the
various regiments already in the field, in each of which these raw and
boyish recruits constituted a fifth battalion.

Since the Archduke Charles had been again at the helm of military
affairs in Austria, not only had a transformation been wrought in the
army as a fighting instrument, but the general staff had likewise been
completely reorganized. For two years, therefore, Austria's occupation
had been not only forging a sword, but practising, as well, the
wielding of it. The lessons taught her by previous experience in
Napoleonic warfare were thoroughly learned. It was consequently a very
different strategic problem which the Emperor of the French had to
solve in this campaign.

For two years the Archduke had been studying his task, and that in the
light of ample experience. The conclusion he reached was that he would
attack and overpower Davout in Saxony; then, by an appeal to their
German patriotism, raise and use the peoples of northern and central
Germany for an overwhelming assault on Napoleon. But as the time for
action grew near, the moral influence of those annihilating blows
which the French armies had struck once and again began to assert
itself and to create hesitancy. Count Stadion, the minister of state,
knew that diplomacy had reached the limit of its powers and could gain
at most only a few weeks. These he felt sure the enemy would use to
better advantage in strengthening himself than Austria in her poverty
could do. He was therefore urgent for prompt action. Charles, on the
other hand, hesitated to face the miraculous resources of Napoleon
without a finishing touch to some of his preparations which were still
incomplete. He therefore began in January to procrastinate, and
consequently it was not until February that Francis demanded an
advance. In this interval the whole plan of campaign was changed. The
main army, under Charles, was to be collected in Bohemia, ready for
action in any direction, so as to thwart whatever course Napoleon
might adopt. Hiller was to guard the line of the Inn, the Archduke
Ferdinand was to march against Warsaw, while the Archduke John was to
enter the Tyrol from Italy and excite the people to revolt. On April
ninth all these movements were well under way; Hiller had reached the
Inn, and Charles declared war.

Ostensibly this war was to be unlike any other so far waged. The
secret instructions given to the imperial Austrian envoy in London
clearly indicated that the Hapsburgs hoped by victory to restore their
influence both in Italy and Germany; for that was the meaning of
"restoration to rightful owners" and the "slight rectification of
their frontiers," or, in other words, the restoration of European
conditions to what they had been before Napoleon's advent. This was
the dynastic side; the national side was also to be used for the same
end. "The liberties of Europe have taken refuge under your banner,"
ran Charles's proclamation to the army; "your victories will break
their bonds, and your German brethren still in the enemy's ranks await
their redemption." To the German world he said, "Austria fights not
only for her own autonomy, but takes the sword for the independence
and national honor of Germany." Another manifesto, written by Gentz,
the ablest statesman in Vienna, declared that the war was to be waged
not against France, but against the persistent extension of her system
which had produced such universal disorder in Europe.

The tone and language of these papers have an audible Napoleonic echo
in them: if an upstart house, represented by a single life and without
direct descendants, could win success by appeals to the people, and
gain the support of their enthusiasm by identifying its interests with
theirs, why might not an ancient dynasty, with vigorous stock and
numerous shoots, do likewise? Moreover, Napoleon no longer respected
the limits of natural physical boundaries, or the restrictions of
birth, speech, religion, and custom, which inclosed a nation: his
empire was to disdain such influences, to found itself on the
universal brotherhood of man, and to secure the regeneration of
humanity by liberal ideas of universal validity. Austria would offset
this alluring summons by a trumpet-call to the brotherhood of Germans,
to the strong forces of national feeling, to the respect for tradition
and history which would animate her soldiers and justify her course.

If she needed a concrete illustration she could point to the Tyrolese.
Since the treaty of Presburg their chains had chafed their limbs to
the raw; at this very moment they were again in open rebellion. The
administrative reforms introduced by Maximilian of Bavaria were in
reality most salutary; his determined stand against priestly
domination over the Tyrolese people proved in the end their salvation.
But the evils of feudalism were always least among mountaineers, and
relations of patriarchal tenderness existed between the aristocracy
and the peasantry. The devotion of both classes to their institutions,
their habits, their clothes, their customs, their local names, was
intense. They had no mind to see the name of their country disappear
forever, to lose their pleasant, easy-fitting institutions, or to
submit to the conscription and join in the great leveling movement
which compelled them to serve in the ranks as ordinary soldiers. With
their local assemblies they meant to keep their military exclusiveness
as scouts, skirmishers, and sharp-shooters, in all of which lines they
excelled.

The more enlightened citizens of the towns were well pleased with
Bavarian rule, but the impulsive, ignorant, and superstitious
peasantry were the glad instruments of Austrian emissaries. When they
learned that war was inevitable and would soon be formally declared,
they at once rose, seized Innsbruck, and held it against the Bavarian
troops. When an Austrian garrison marched in, their reception was
enthusiastic. This was in the middle of April; simultaneously the
Archduke John defeated Prince Eugene in Italy and drove him back upon
the Adige, while Ferdinand overpowered all resistance in Poland, and
on the twentieth occupied Warsaw. Such successes were intoxicating;
the great general had, it seemed, been caught napping at last, and the
advantage of a successful opening appeared to be with his enemy.




CHAPTER XV

THE FIFTH WAR WITH AUSTRIA--ECKMUeHL[30]

         [Footnote 30: See Saski: Campagne de 1809, Lejeune, Memoires
         du general. Fournier: Oesterreich nach dem Frieden von Wien.
         Beer: Zehn Jahre oesterreichischer Politik (1801-10).]

     Strategic Preliminaries -- Final Orders -- The Defensive Plan of
     Austria -- Berthier's Failure -- Napoleon's Arrival at Donauwoerth
     -- The Height of Napoleon's Ability -- The Austrian Advance --
     The First Collision -- Concentration of Napoleon's Army -- The
     Austrians Divided -- The Austrians at Eckmuehl -- The Battle --
     Charles's Retreat -- The Five Days' Fight -- Its Results --
     Charles at the Bisamberg -- Napoleon at Vienna -- The German
     Risings Demoralized -- Discrimination of the People -- Napoleon's
     Unsuccessful Appeal to Hungary -- Pius VII Loses his Secular
     Power -- Napoleon's Activity -- Charles's Sluggishness -- Plans
     of Both Generals -- Napoleon on the Lobau.


It was Napoleon's pride that in his campaigns no enemy should lay down
the law to him. He did not ask, How will my foe behave? What must I do
to thwart him?--that was defensive warfare. For his purposes he must
ask, Whence can I best strike? This question he now answered by
selecting the valley of the Danube as his line of approach, and
Ratisbon as his headquarters. He had before him the most difficult
task he had so far undertaken. The concentration and sustenance of his
troops must be made along the line of very least resistance. Davout
had four divisions--one each in Magdeburg, Hanover, Stettin, and
Bayreuth; he was also in command of the Poles and Saxons. Bernadotte
had two divisions distributed in Hamburg, Bremen, and Luebeck; Oudinot
had one in Hanau; the soldiers of the Rhine Confederation were
scattered in all its towns. Two other divisions were just starting for
Spain. In the beginning of March Berthier was again appointed chief of
staff, and the Emperor's orders were issued. They were as clear,
concise, and adequate as any of his best; he was once more on familiar
ground, under ordinary conditions, facing a well-known foe, whose
strength was greater than ever before, but whose identity was still
the same. Davout was to collect his troops at Bamberg, the Poles were
to remain in Warsaw, the Saxons in Dresden. To the latter capital
Bernadotte should lead his army and then assume command. Oudinot was
ordered to Augsburg, where he was to be reinforced. The departing
divisions were brought to a halt and sent back to Ulm for Massena's
command, while two fresh ones were gathered in France and sent to
Strasburg. The Rhine princes were to have their contingents ready and
await orders.

A glance at the map will show that, as Napoleon said, he could then in
an emergency reach Munich like lightning. But he expected no move from
his enemy before the middle of April. By that time he hoped to have
his German army gathered, equipped, and ready; in the interval the
forces already on the ground could hold Charles in check; by the end
of March there would be a hundred thousand French in Bamberg, Ulm, and
Augsburg, with thirty thousand Bavarians under Lefebvre about Munich;
before the outbreak of hostilities he hoped to have a total of two
hundred thousand available fighting troops. "Should the Austrians
attack before April tenth," were the orders given on March
twenty-eighth, "the army shall be collected behind the Lech, the right
occupying Augsburg, the left resting on the right bank of the Danube
at Donauwoerth." Then followed the most minute instructions to
Berthier, explaining every move, and setting forth the reasons why
Ratisbon had been chosen as headquarters. This would assure control of
the Danube, keep open a line of communication, and enable the writer
so to control space and time that he could open the campaign much as
he chose.

These dispositions had already compelled another change of plan by the
Austrians. They had expected a repetition of Moreau's advance by
Munich; instead, they were called on to defend their capital a second
time. Two divisions were left to watch the Bohemian Forest; the rest
of the army, with Charles at its head, set out, by the circuitous
route through Linz, to join Hiller and assume the offensive in the
Danube valley. In case of a battle the two divisions were to come up
by the short, direct route through Ratisbon, and add their strength to
the main army. On the declaration of hostilities the Austrians at once
crossed the Inn and began their march; it was the sixteenth before
they reached the line of the Isar. Had the Archduke not been so
sparing of his troops, wearied as they were by the circuit through
Linz, he might have changed the course of history. Napoleon had not
yet arrived, and Berthier, who was but human, had proved unequal to
the execution of his commander's orders.

It had been the object of Napoleon to gather his army on a certain
definite, well-connected line, and thence use it as necessity
demanded. Instead of obeying the letter of his instructions, Berthier
had struggled to obey their spirit, and had failed. The command on the
left bank had been assigned to Davout; that of all the troops on the
other side had been given to Massena; the latter was to concentrate on
the Lech, the former at Ingolstadt. So far all was good; then Berthier
lost his head (the critics say he never could have learned strategy,
if he had had ten lives), and, swerving from the clear letter of
Napoleon's orders, he attempted a more rapid combination--not that
behind the Lech, but one directly at Ratisbon. Davout was to march
thither and remain there; the other divisions were successively to
join him. The result was that three days elapsed before any army was
gathered at all; the two portions, one at Ratisbon, the other at
Augsburg, being for that time widely separated, and each exposed to
the separate attack of an enemy without possibility of cooeperation by
the other half.

When the Archduke Charles learned the general situation of his enemy
he determined to do exactly this thing--that is, to attack and
overwhelm each portion of the French army separately. For this purpose
he crossed the Isar, and, turning to the right, marched directly on
Ratisbon to attack Davout's command with his superior force before
Massena's scattered divisions could reach the positions assigned to
them. But he was too late. The semaphore telegraph then in use had
flashed from station to station its signals of the declaration of war
and of the enemy's advance over the Inn, until the news reached
Napoleon in Paris on the twelfth. On the sixteenth, after four days'
almost unbroken travel, he reached Donauwoerth. The confusion into
which Berthier's orders had thrown his carefully arranged plans
infuriated him; but when he heard, as he descended from his
traveling-carriage, where the enemy was, he could not believe his
ears. When assured of the truth he seemed, as eye-witnesses declared,
to grow taller, his eyes began to sparkle, and with every indication
of delight he cried: "Then I have him! That's a lost army! In one
month we are in Vienna!" The enemy's first decisive blunder was the
march by Linz; the second was yet to be made.

Napoleon's strategy during the following days was, both in his own
opinion and in that of his military commentators, the greatest of his
life. Such had been Berthier's indecision when he saw his blunder that
one general at least--to wit, Pelet--charged him with being a traitor.
In twenty-four hours his puzzled humor and conflicting orders had more
or less demoralized the whole army. But Napoleon's presence inspired
every one with new vigor, from the division commanders to the men in
the ranks. Promptly on the seventeenth the order went forth for Davout
to leave Ratisbon and challenge the enemy to battle by a flank march
up the right bank of the Danube to Ingolstadt in his very face.
Lefebvre was to cover the movement, and Wrede, with one Bavarian
division, was held ready to strengthen any weak spot in case of
battle. Next day Massena was ordered to set out from Augsburg for the
same point, "to unite with the army, catch the enemy at work, and
destroy his columns." To this end he was to march eastward by
Pfaffenhofen. In a twinkling the scattered French army seemed already
concentrated, while scouts came one after the other to announce that
the Austrians were separating.

The Austrians had crossed the Isar in good order, Charles himself at
Landshut. If they had kept directly onward they might have still
wedged themselves between Davout and Lefebvre. But the Archduke grew
timid at the prospect of swamps and wooded hills before him; uncertain
of his enemy's exact position, he threw forward three separate columns
by as many different roads, and thus lengthened his line enormously,
the right wing being at Essenbach, the center advanced before Landshut
to Hohen-Thann, the left at Morsbach. At four in the morning of the
eighteenth Lefebvre received orders to fall on the Austrian left,
while flying messengers followed each other in quick succession to
spur on Massena with urgent pleas of immediate necessity. It was hoped
that he might come up to join an attack which, though intended mainly
to divert the Austrians from Davout, could by his help be turned into
an important victory.

The Archduke during the day collected sixty-six thousand men at Rohr
for his onset, and thirty-five thousand men at Ludmannsdorf to cover
his flank, leaving twenty-five thousand at Moosburg. That night
Davout's last corps, that of Friant, came in, and he began his march.
Massena, who had collected his army and was coming from Augsburg, was
ordered to turn, either left toward Abensberg, in order to join
Davout, or right toward Landshut, to attack Charles's rear, as
circumstances should determine. Lefebvre was now commanded to assume
the defensive and await events at Abensberg. Throughout the morning of
the nineteenth Davout and Charles continued their march, drawing ever
closer to each other. At eleven the French van and the Austrian left
collided. The latter made a firm stand, but were driven in with great
slaughter.

A considerable force which had been sent to strike Davout on the flank
at Abensberg was also defeated by Lefebvre. Before evening the entire
French army was united and in hand. Davout was on the left toward the
river Laber, Lefebvre, with the Bavarians and several French
divisions, was in the center beyond the river Aben, while Massena had
reached a point beyond Moosburg. Within sixty hours Napoleon had
conceived and completed three separate strategic movements: the
withdrawal of the whole army toward Ingolstadt, the advance of his
right to strengthen the incoming left, and the rearrangement of his
entire line with the right on his enemy's base of operations.

"In war you see your own troubles; those of the enemy you cannot see.
You must show confidence," wrote the French emperor about this time to
Eugene. How true it was of his own course! On the morning of the
twenty-first he declared that the enemy was in full retreat. This was
over-confidence on his part, and not true; but it might as well have
been. As a result of the preceding day's skirmishing and
countermarching the Austrian army was almost cut in two; one division,
the right, under Charles, was pressing on to Ratisbon, while the
other, under Hiller, was marching aimlessly behind in a general
northwesterly direction, and the whole straggling line was not less
than twenty miles in length. Lannes, the sturdiest, most
rough-and-ready of all the marshals, had arrived from Spain the night
before. His presence increased the army's confidence that they would
win, and next day he commanded a division formed from the corps of
Morand, Gudin, and Nansouty. Davout received orders to hold the enemy
in front; Massena was to spread out along their rear from Moosburg
down the Isar, ready to harass either flank or rear with half his
strength, and to send the rest, under Oudinot, to Abensberg.

On the morning of the twentieth the Emperor himself, with Lannes and
Wrede, set out to sever the enemy's line. They had little difficulty.
The thin column dispersed before them to the north and south. Hiller
was driven back to Landshut, whence he fled to Neumarkt, leaving the
Isar in possession of the French. Davout advanced simultaneously
against the Archduke's army, which, although very much stronger than
Hiller's division, nevertheless retired and occupied Eckmuehl, standing
drawn up on the highroad toward Ratisbon. At Landshut the Emperor
became aware that the mass of the Austrian army was not before him,
but before Davout. Leaving Bessieres and two divisions of infantry,
with a body of cavalry, to continue the pursuit of Hiller, he turned
back toward Eckmuehl at three in the morning of the twenty-second.
Here, again, a great resolve was taken in the very nick of time and in
the presence of the enemy. With the same iron will and burning genius,
the same endurance and pertinacity, as of old, he pressed on at the
head of his soldiers. It was one o'clock when the eighteen-mile march
was accomplished and the enemy's outposts before Eckmuehl were reached.

Meantime one of the Austrian divisions left in Bohemia had arrived at
Ratisbon. Charles, strengthened by this reinforcement, had determined
to take the offensive, and at noon his advance began. Vandamme seemed
destined to bear the force of the onset, but in the moment before the
shock would have occurred, appeared Napoleon's van. Advancing rapidly
with Lannes, the Emperor rode to the top of a slight rise, and,
scanning the coming Austrians, suddenly ordered Vandamme to seize
Eckmuehl, and then despatched Lannes to cross the Laber and circumvent
the enemy. Davout, having learned the direction of the Austrian
charge, threw himself against the hostile columns on their right, and
after a stubborn resistance began to push back the dogged foe. In less
than two hours the French right, left, and center were all advancing,
and the enemy were steadily retreating, but fighting fiercely as they
withdrew. This continued until seven in the evening, when Lannes
finally accomplished his task.

This destroyed all resistance. The Emperor weakly yielded to his
generals' remonstrance that the troops were exhausted, and did not
order a pursuit. Charles withdrew into Ratisbon. During the night and
early morning he threw a pontoon bridge across the stream, which was
already spanned by a stone one, and next day, after a skirmish in
which his outposts were driven into the town, he crossed the Danube;
three days later he effected a junction with his second division, left
in the Bohemian Forest, and stood at Cham with an effective fighting
force of eighty thousand men. The result proved that Napoleon's
judgment had been unerring; had he pursued, in spite of all
remonstrance and in disregard of the fatigue of his men, he would have
had no mighty foe to fight a few weeks later at Wagram. Some time
thereafter he told an Austrian general that he had deliberated long,
and had refrained from following Charles into Bohemia for fear the
Northern powers would rise and come to the assistance of Austria. "Had
I pursued immediately," he said at St. Helena, "as the Prussians did
after Waterloo, the hostile army crowded on to the Danube would have
been in the last extremity."

"Labor is my element," he remarked on the same dreary isle almost amid
the pangs of dissolution. "I have found the limit of my strength in
eye and limb; I have never found the limit of my capacity for work."
This was certainly true of this five days' fight. "His Majesty is
well," wrote Berthier on the twenty-fourth, "and endures according to
his general habit the exertion of mind and body." Once more his enemy
was not annihilated, but this contentment and high spirits seem
natural to common minds, which recall that in a week he had evolved
order from chaos, and had stricken a powerful, united foe, cutting his
line in two, and sending one portion to the right-about in utter
confusion. To the end of his life Napoleon regarded the strategic
operations culminating at Eckmuehl as his masterpiece in that
particular line. Jomini, his able critic, remained always of the same
opinion. French history knows this conflict as the Battle of Five
Days; Thann, Abensberg, Landshut, Eckmuehl, and Ratisbon being the
places in or near which on each day a skirmish or combat occurred to
mark the successive stages of French victory.

The results were of the most important kind. In the first place,
Austria's pride and confidence were gone. She had lost fifty thousand
men, and her warfare was no longer offensive, but defensive. Charles
called for peace, but the Emperor would not listen. The Archduke John,
moreover, was compelled to abandon the Tyrol, and when he found
himself again in Italy, he was no longer confronted by Eugene alone,
that excellent youth but feeble general, whom he had so easily
defeated: Macdonald was associated with the viceroy in the command. In
Poland, also, Ferdinand's easy successes had carried him too far in
pursuit of Poniatowski, and he began to retreat. Lefebvre with the
Bavarians was stationed at Salzburg to prevent an irruption of the
Tyrolean mountaineers toward the north; all the rest of the Emperor's
army was immediately ordered to march on the Austrian capital.

The advance was scarcely contested. Hiller, commanding Charles's left
wing, had paused in his retreat, and crossing the Inn with his thirty
thousand men, had successfully attacked Wrede at Erding. He had
probably heard that Charles was marching to Passau, but the news was
false. Learning the truth, he turned again and recrossed the Inn;
thence he continued to withdraw, stopping an instant at the Traun to
avail himself of a strong position and hold the line if Charles were
perchance coming thither to join him. At Ebelsberg, on May third, he
made a splendid and momentarily successful resistance, but was
overwhelmed by superior numbers. Hearing of his leader's slow advance,
and being himself in despair, on the seventh he led his army at
Mautern across to the left bank of the Danube in order to effect a
junction with the disheartened Archduke, and then destroyed the bridge
behind him. The forces of Charles and Hiller met and halted on the
<DW72>s of the great hill known as the Bisamberg, which overlooks
Vienna from the north shore, and commands the fertile plains through
which the great river rolls past the Austrian capital.

[Illustration: Battle of Eckmuehl 22 April 1809.]

Day after day, with unimportant interruptions but no real check, the
French ranks marched down the right bank of the stream. On May tenth
they appeared before Vienna. Then, as now, it had no efficient
fortifications, and its garrison consisted of a citizen militia,
strengthened by a small detachment which Hiller had sent forward to
reinforce and encourage them. The defenders were commanded by the
Archduke Maximilian. There was a brave show of resistance; all the
suburbs were evacuated, and the populace gathered behind the old brick
walls which had been erected two centuries before against the Turks.
At first Napoleon thought there would be a second instance of such
embittered and desperate resistance as he had encountered at Madrid.
But a feint of the French to cut off the communication of the town
with the river, together with a few cannon-balls, quickly brought the
unhappy capital to terms; Maximilian marched out at midnight on the
eleventh, and on the twelfth Napoleon returned to the neighboring
palace of Schoenbrunn, where he had already established his
headquarters. The news which arrived from day to day was most
encouraging. Poniatowski was again in possession of Warsaw, which the
Archduke Ferdinand had evacuated in order to rejoin his brother
Charles. The Archduke John, flying before Macdonald, had passed the
Carinthian mountains into Hungary, where the liberal movement
threatened Austrian rule. The Bavarians, after desperate fighting
under Lefebvre, had driven the Tyrolese rebels from Innsbruck. It
seemed a proper time to complete, if possible, the demoralization of
the whole Austrian empire before crossing the Danube to annihilate its
military force. Francis had sown the wind in his declaration of war:
he must reap the whirlwind.

From the beginning Napoleon had made the most of his enemy's being the
aggressor. There were no terms too harsh for the "Moniteur" to apply
when speaking of the hostile court and the resisting populations. The
Emperor's proclamations reveled in abuse of the Tyrolese and of
Schill. The latter was a Prussian partizan who, having distinguished
himself after Jena, was now striving to use the Austrian war in order
to arouse the North Germans. He had already gathered a few desperate
patriots, and in open hostility was defying constituted authority with
the intention of calling his country to arms. The news of Eckmuehl had
destroyed his chances of success, and he was soon to end his gallant
but ill-starred career in a final stand at Stralsund, whither he had
retreated. He was stigmatized by Napoleon as a "sort of robber, who
had covered himself with crimes in the last Prussian campaign." In
repeated public utterances the Emperor of Austria was characterized as
cowardly, thankless, and perjured, while the Viennese were addressed
as "good people, abandoned and widowed." The last acts of their flying
rulers had been murder and arson; "like Medea, they had with their own
hands strangled their own children."

This policy of wooing the people while abusing their rulers had been
successfully undertaken in Italy, and continued with varying results
from that day. No more effective revolutionary engine could have been
devised for Europe in Napoleon's age. The specious statements of the
Emperor were based on truth, and while the idea they expressed was
distorted and reiterated until its exaggeration became falsehood, yet
France and the Napoleonic soldiers appeared to fight and suffer
enthusiastically for what they still considered a great cause. Even
the dull boors, whose intelligence had been nearly quenched by
centuries of oppression, felt stirrings of manhood as they listened to
the Emperor's fiery words; the middle classes, though not deceived,
had no power to refute such language from such a man; and among the
few truly enlightened men of each nation who were aware of their
country's abasement under dynastic absolutism, a tremendous impression
was often created, at least temporarily.

This fact had already been well illustrated in Poland. Austria had
another appanage whose people cared little for the prestige of their
foreign kings and much for their own liberties. The Hungarians were a
conservative, capable race; many of them were ardent Protestants, well
educated and well informed, successfully combining in their
institutions the best elements of both civic and patriarchal life. To
them Napoleon issued a proclamation on May fifteenth which was a
masterpiece of its kind. It set forth that the Emperor Leopold II in
his short reign had acknowledged their rights and confirmed their
liberties; that Francis I had sworn to maintain their laws and
constitution, but had never convoked their estates except to demand
money for his wars; that in view of such treatment, Hungary should now
rise and secure national independence. The proclamation produced some
effect, but as a whole the Hungarians stood fast in their allegiance.

Four years earlier Napoleon's proclamation declaring that the Bourbons
of Naples had ceased to reign was launched from Schoenbrunn. Now
another, to which reference has already been made, equally famous,
was dictated within its walls, though dated, May seventeenth, from the
"Imperial Camp at Vienna." It was a document even abler than that
addressed to the Hungarians. Citing the abuses which had from
immemorial times resulted from the confusion of temporal with
spiritual power in the papacy, it revoked the donation of Charles the
Great to Hadrian I (made a thousand years before!), declared that Pius
VII had ceased to reign, and that, as an indemnity for the loss of his
secular power, he was to receive an annual increase of income
amounting to two million francs. In time of peace this decree would
have produced throughout Europe a tremendous stir; but in the interval
between the two acts of a great campaign, men were much more occupied
with speculations about the decision of arms than with a change which
was, after all, only another phase of a protracted, tiresome struggle
in which the papacy had long since fallen from its pinnacle. It was,
however, an element of terrific demoralization in the house of
Austria, which thus saw the consolidation of Italy under the Napoleon
family complete, and their last hope to regain their European
influence by enlargement in that peninsula extinguished.

Such was the scenic diversion provided for the great world in the
pause of a few days after the occupation of Vienna. These moments were
likewise occupied by the greatest military activity. Morning, noon,
and night secretaries wrote and messengers ran; the roads of central
Europe resounded beneath the feet of tramping infantry and the hoofs
of horses which were dragging provision-trains and artillery
carriages, or bearing despatches to distant points.

The Archduke Charles was a fine strategic theorist, in his age second
only to Napoleon. After the fatal division of his army before
Landshut, he had wonderfully retrieved his strength in seizing
Ratisbon, crossing the Danube, and standing at Cham eighty thousand
strong, as he did after his reinforcement by the division which he
called in from the Bohemian Forest. But again he became the victim of
indecision. Calling for peace negotiations, he loitered long at
Budweis, failed to join Hiller so as to throw their united force
across the French advance to Vienna, and when at last he brought up on
the <DW72>s of the Bisamberg he seemed for an instant aimless. Thus can
the hope of peace paralyze a great general's activity. But when,
having offered to open negotiations with his adversary, he received no
answer, when he learned that the Austrian ministry also was determined
to fight the struggle out, he was himself again. His plan was the
greatest perhaps ever devised by him: so great, indeed, that four
years later Napoleon made it his own at Dresden. It was to free Vienna
by threatening the French communications.

The idea was old enough; the novelty lay in the details. Kollowrath
was to detach twenty-five thousand men from his own force, and to
seize Linz with its bridge; the Archduke John was to join the Army of
the Tyrol, which had retreated to the head waters of the Enns, and
then march with fifty thousand men to the same point. But Massena was
already master of the Enns valley, and Bernadotte was sent to assist
Vandamme at Linz. The Emperor had already divined the plan, and
thwarted it by the rapidity with which his orders were transmitted and
distant divisions summoned. The communications were threatened, but
not broken, and Napoleon gave his whole attention to the problem of
crossing a great river in the face of an enemy. He had done it before,
but never under circumstances so peculiar as these which confronted
him in the size of the Danube and the strength of his foe.

The mighty stream follows for the most part a single channel until it
enters the plains which face Vienna on the north, where, at intervals,
it divides into several arms, inclosing numerous islands. These
branches are nearly all substantial streams; many of them are
navigable. It was determined to choose two such points, one above and
the other below the town, to build bridges at both, and to select
whichever one should prove more feasible when the task was done. The
enterprise above the town failed entirely through the vigilance of the
Austrians. Massena had better success at the other end, and succeeded
in gathering sufficient material without great difficulty; his bridges
between the two shores by the island of Lobau were ready on May
twentieth. In this interval Charles advanced, and occupied a line
farther forward in the great plain, stretching from hamlet to
hamlet--from Korneuburg, Enzersfeld, and Gross-Ebersdorf to
Strebersdorf. Eugene and Macdonald had reached Villach, whence they
could march direct to Vienna; the Archduke John was at Voelkermarkt, on
his way down the Drave toward Hungary. Two days before, eight hundred
French soldiers had crossed into the island of Lobau to drive out the
Austrian scouts; on the nineteenth Napoleon arrived, and the necessary
fortifications were constructed; on the twentieth the passage began,
and Massena, with Lannes's light cavalry, was sent out to reconnoiter.




CHAPTER XVI

ASPERN, ESSLING, AND WAGRAM[31]

         [Footnote 31: See Marbot: Memoirs. Smekal: Die Schlacht bei
         Aspern und Essling. Strobl: Aspern und Wagram. Cadet de
         Gassicourt: Voyage en Autriche. Schmoelzer: Hofer und seine
         Kampfgenossen.]

     The Marchfeld -- Tactics of the Two Armies -- The Battle in
     Aspern and Essling -- The Indecisive Result -- Napoleon's Retreat
     -- Character of the Battle -- Discontent in the French Army --
     The Spirit of Austria -- Preparations to Renew the Conflict --
     The French Army on the Lobau -- Napoleon's New Tactics -- The
     First Day of Wagram -- Napoleon's Use of Artillery -- The Second
     Day of Wagram -- The Victory Dearly Bought -- A French Panic --
     Napoleon's Dilemma.


Charles, having apparently determined to let his enemy cross
unmolested, and to fight the decisive battle on his own ground, had
advanced meantime to still another line of hamlets--Strebersdorf,
Gerasdorf, Deutsch-Wagram. On the morning of the twenty-first
Napoleon's army was partly across the main stream, some of his troops
being yet on the Lobau, some entirely over on the left bank, but a
large portion still on the right bank. His cavalry was again sent to
clear the Marchfeld of the Austrian light horse, who were coursing
from one vantage-point to another; and he himself, in order to survey
the country, advanced to the first slight rise beyond the low meadows
which border the river. Near where he stood was the comfortable hamlet
of Aspern, composed like the others round about of one-story stone
houses and high stone barns, some of which are of great size, with
walls many feet thick. The farmsteads and churchyards are inclosed
with ordinary masonry walls. At a short distance to the eastward lay
Essling, which, like Aspern, had a few hundred inhabitants, and
farther still, but easily visible, the somewhat larger village of
Enzersdorf. The plain, though not rolling, is yet not perfectly flat,
and small watercourses traverse it at frequent intervals, their
direction marked by the trees growing on their banks. The most
important of these, the Russbach, was some miles north of where he
stood. Turning to Massena, after scanning the ground, he said: "I
shall refuse on the left, and advancing on the right, turn in the
Austrian front to the left." That is, he would leave his own left on
the river, turn the Austrian left, and rolling up their line, inclose
them with their rear to the Danube. His success would be their
annihilation, for they had no means of crossing in retreat.

To men of less daring this would have seemed a mad plan. A careful
general would, without hesitation, have seized and strongly garrisoned
Aspern, Essling, and Enzersdorf, in order that his own line of retreat
might be secure, and sufficient room be assured in which to deploy.
Pelet, in his memoirs, declares that the Emperor's orders were "to
cross the river and march against the enemy." Be this as it may, there
were as yet only three infantry divisions on the left bank of the
Danube, and Aspern was but weakly garrisoned. Charles was determined
to maintain if possible his superiority of numbers. The river was
somewhat swollen and he sent floats laden with stones down the main
channel to crash through Napoleon's bridges. The attempt met with only
slight success, though it weakened the most important bridge. Meantime
the Austrians were advancing in five columns, one by Breitenlee
against Aspern, one by Aderklaa against Essling, one direct on
Enzersdorf to their left; the two others were cavalry, and bore in
the general direction of Breitenlee toward Aspern. They appeared in
full sight about one o'clock, the column destined to attack Napoleon
being nearest. Napoleon's over-confidence disappeared at once, and
while the Austrians deployed for the attack, and occupied Aspern, he
sent in Molitor's division to seize and hold that hamlet, Massena
being in command. The divisions of Legrand and Boudet were in the
rear, on the right and left respectively. Bessieres, with the cavalry
of Lasalle and Espagne, stood between Aspern and Essling; the division
of Carra Saint-Cyr arrived later and was held in reserve. Lannes and
Boudet, with a small force, were ordered to hold Essling. Enzersdorf
was abandoned, and quickly occupied by the Austrian left.

The fighting at Aspern was awful. The French pushed in, were driven
out, then turned and seized the place again. Once more, and still once
more, the same alternation of success and defeat was repeated, the
thickest of the fight being at the churchyard in the western end of
the village. At Essling the fore-post about which the battle raged was
a great barn with mighty walls and vaulted cellars. Meanwhile the
Emperor was calling in his troops as fast as possible from behind, but
at three in the afternoon his main bridge over the chief arm of the
Danube gave way before masses of rubbish brought down from the
hill-country by a freshet, which was hourly increasing in volume. The
Austrians were from first to last superior in numbers on the
battle-field; their enfilading batteries were able to sweep the French
lines for several hours, and the carnage was dreadful. At last
Bessieres succeeded in dislodging them from Essling, and by great
exertion that place was held until dusk, when the Austrians drew off
to bivouac. But at Aspern the numbers engaged were greater, Legrand
being sent in toward nightfall. The Archduke intended to take and hold
the village if possible, and the fighting continued there until
midnight. Weakened and inferior in numbers though the French were,
they understood better than their foes the defense of such a place,
and when firing ceased they still held half of the long main street.

[Illustration: Battle of Aspern or Essling. 21st of May 1809.]

[Illustration: Battle of Aspern or Essling. 22nd of May 1809.]

By midnight the French bridge was again repaired, and Davout, in
response to Napoleon's urgent orders, began to bring up
reinforcements, especially artillery, holding them on the south shore
of the main stream in readiness for crossing. At two in the morning
the Austrians made still another effort to drive out the enemy from
Aspern; soon afterward they again attacked Essling. Massena called in
Carra Saint-Cyr to Aspern; within an hour both attacks had been
repulsed, and the latter hamlet was entirely cleared of the enemy.
While the desperate struggle again went on, the Emperor once more
surveyed the field; and when at seven in the morning Davout sent word
that a portion of the reinforcements was already on the Lobau,
Napoleon determined to break through the enemy's center, and for that
purpose threw forward the troops already on the ground. But once more
the weakened and patched structure over the Danube gave way, and the
arrival of reinforcements was stopped; the available French force was
immediately drawn back, and stationed to hold the line from Aspern to
Essling. The enemy was encouraged and pressed on to the attack with
renewed vigor; in the former village the scenes of the previous day
were repeated, first one and then the other contestant holding it for
a time. In the center, where the Austrians almost broke through the
line, Napoleon quickly brought together his recently arrived artillery
and Bessieres's cavalry; after terrific struggles they succeeded in
holding the Austrians in check. On the right Essling, after being
captured and recaptured several times by each side, was taken and long
held by the enemy's left; it was then retaken at about three in the
afternoon, by a portion of the French reserve, Napoleon's "young
guard." Thereupon, from the sheer exhaustion of both sides, the
conflict ceased, nothing being heard but desultory discharges of
artillery. The French were in possession of both Aspern and Essling.
At seven the Emperor called a council of war; the generals advised
recrossing the Danube and a retreat into Vienna. "You must mean to
Strasburg," said their chief; "for if Charles should follow, he might
drive me thither, and if he should march to cut me off at Linz, I must
march thither, too, to meet him. In either case, I must abandon the
capital, my only source of supplies." There was no reply, and it was
determined to withdraw into the Lobau, and hold it until a stronger
bridge could be constructed and Davout bring over his entire force.
After two days of terrific defensive fighting,--so terrific that the
Austrians were several times on the point of retreat,--Napoleon was
obliged to abandon the field.

The night of May twenty-second was the beginning of such bitterness
for the French emperor as he had not yet tasted. His enemy's forces
numbered about seventy thousand, his own perhaps forty-five thousand;
but this was entirely his own fault, due largely to overweening
confidence in himself and a weak contempt for foes who, after a long
and severe novitiate, now fought like veteran Frenchmen, and were led
by one who had learned the lessons of Napoleon's own strategy. Five
times Essling had been lost and won; how often Aspern had been
captured and retaken could only be estimated. Both hamlets were now
abandoned by the French. The last Austrian charge against the center
had been made and repelled with fiery valor, but in it Lannes was
mortally wounded. The grand total, therefore, of the two days was a
loss of gallant troops by the thousand, and of this marshal,
Napoleon's greatest division general, the friend of his youth, and the
only surviving one that was both fearless and honest. Worse even than
this, the "unconquerable," though not conquered, had been checked, and
that, too, not in a corner, as in Spain or at Eylau, but in the sight
of all Europe, on a field chosen by himself.

As the war-sick Emperor passed the litter on which lay his old
comrade, he threw himself on the living but maimed and half-conscious
form in an agony of tenderness; and that night, as he sat at table
before an untasted meal, briny tears rolled over cheeks which did not
often know the sensation. But the bulletin which he dictated ran, "The
enemy withdrew to their position, and we remained masters of the
field." This latter clause was exactly as true of the French at Aspern
as it had been of the Russians at Eylau--the affair was a technical
victory, a moral defeat. The Austrians celebrated the battle as their
victory, the honors of which they accorded to the last cavalry charge
under Prince John Liechtenstein; and in the peaceful churchyard at
Aspern lies the effigy of a majestic lion stricken to the heart, as a
reminder to patriotic Austrians of those two days' victorious
fighting, which literally drenched the spot with blood. "We could not
use the victory," wrote Charles's chief of staff on the twenty-fourth;
"for the enemy's strong position made pursuit impossible." This he
well knew, because the night before the Austrians had tried with
signal failure to dislodge the French army from the Lobau.

The respective feelings of the two forces are mirrored in two facts.
On the twenty-third Napoleon again visited Lannes, who was now fully
conscious and aware that he was doomed. He was as fearless as ever and
with the stern candor of an old republican poured out to the Emperor
all that he felt. The army, he said, was weary of bloodshed, the
nation of its sense of exhaustion; for both were alike aware that they
suffered and bled no longer for a principle, but for the boundless
ambition of one man. The veteran marshal refused all sympathy or
consolation, and turned his face to the wall. Both Marbot and Pelet
declare that this story of Cadet de Gassicourt is an invention; if so,
it is a clever one, for we know from other sources that the language
ascribed to Lannes expressed the sentiments of the soldiery. As there
was little chance for booty in such rapid marching and constant
fighting, the youth and the poor were disheartened. The great fortunes
won by the officers were of little use while peace was denied for
their enjoyment; the millions of Massena did not save him from the
exposures and hardships of the battle-field, and he confessed that he
loved luxury and immoral self-indulgence. Such voices had created an
undercurrent of discontent.

The feeling of Charles and his soldiers was not greatly different.
There was nothing possible as the result of their victory but to take
up a more comfortable position on the same Marchfeld which had
witnessed their losses. Before them were the bodies of ten thousand
dead and four times that number had been wounded: losses which were
about equally divided between their brethren and their foes. The
Archduke urged that now was the time for diplomacy. The battle of
Aspern had softened Napoleon, he said, and Austria might secure an
advantageous peace. But Francis had not changed his nature; he would
await the final decision. His brother Ferdinand would soon arrive from
Poland, and John was already in Hungary. To Frederick William III he
had offered Warsaw if Prussia would only come to his assistance. But
the King of Prussia was stubborn. Fearing lest Austria should secure
German leadership, and expecting in the end to gain more from Russia,
he refused, in spite of the earnest advice of all his ministers, to
assist his rival. It was only when he was assured that Alexander
intended to remain neutral that he consented to a secret armament, but
then it was too late. The insurrection in Westphalia, to assist which
Schill, in disobedience of orders, had led his battalion of hussars
from Berlin, was easily suppressed. This fact, with Napoleon's signal
success in Bavaria, seemed to justify Frederick William, and the
failure of Francis to secure any advantage after Aspern confirmed the
opinion. Such, however, was the temper of the Prussian people that,
under moral compulsion, their King finally proposed formal terms of
alliance. Austria's real spirit appeared in her vague answer. She
first asked England for more assistance, but failing to secure it,
turned ungraciously and with indefinite proposals to Prussia. Her
envoy of course found no response. Thus it was that Charles and
Napoleon lay for weeks watching each other like gladiators, each ready
to take advantage of any false step made by the other, and both
steadily gathering strength to renew the struggle in the same arena.

Napoleon seemed to make his preparations with a determination to risk
all in the next encounter. His line of communication with the west was
abandoned altogether; the Tyrol, too, was virtually evacuated, and
Lefebvre, with the Bavarians, relieved Vandamme and Bernadotte at
Linz, so that both the latter might at once advance within striking
distance. Eugene had reached Bruck in Styria, and was therefore at
hand; Marmont with ten thousand men was called from Illyria. Being
thus safe toward the south, the Emperor sent two divisions to watch
the Austrians at Presburg. Before June tenth he had compacted in and
about Vienna an army of two hundred and forty thousand men. On the
thirteenth the Archduke John, having turned and advanced toward Raab,
was attacked, defeated, and driven back into Hungary by Eugene, who
had learned, if not generalship, at least obedience, and having
carefully obeyed his stepfather's injunctions, had thus won an
important victory.

Meantime all was activity on the Lobau. A new and solid bridge was
built across the main stream. To forestall another such accident as
had occurred before, this structure was not only protected by piles,
but guarded by rowboats which were armed with field-pieces and manned
by artillerymen. The enemy had withdrawn behind the Russbach in a line
from Deutsch-Wagram to Markgrafneusiedl, leaving only a corps to
fortify the old line from Aspern to Essling. In consequence the
Emperor entirely changed his plan. The island of Lobau was first
strongly fortified, and then, not one, but numerous bridges were
constructed to the mainland on the left bank under cover of the guns.
Lower down similar measures were taken. In this way the French troops
could effect their passage very rapidly and much farther eastward than
before, avoid the Aspern-Essling line, and reaching Enzersdorf under
protection of their own forts, turn the enemy's left almost in the act
of crossing, and so roll up the left wing of his line, which was
strongly posted on high ground behind the Russbach, from
Markgrafneusiedl through Parbasdorf toward Wagram, where it was
connected with the center. These arrangements were all completed by
July first, on which date the Emperor left Schoenbrunn for the Lobau.
During the fighting at Aspern he had observed the field from the
swinging rungs of a rope-ladder fastened to one of the tall trees on
the island. This time he brought with him a long step-ladder, one of
those used in the palace gardens to trim high shrubs. The Archduke
John was now in Presburg; the Archduke Charles had raised his numbers
to a hundred and thirty thousand men. On and near the Lobau were a
hundred and eighty thousand French soldiers; twenty-two thousand more
were behind.

It was the fifth before all the preliminary moves were successfully
taken. The passage had been safely accomplished during the previous
night exactly as had been planned, a feint against Aspern having
thrown the Austrians on a false scent. In the morning, therefore, the
two lines were arrayed opposite, but somewhat obliquely, to each
other, the French right overlapping the Austrian left beyond
Enzersdorf as far as Wittau, so as either to prevent the approach of
Archduke John or to outflank the Austrian left according to
circumstances. The French center was thus in front of the Austrian
left, and Massena, with the French left resting on the Danube, was to
attack the Austrian center at the village of Gerasdorf, while
Bernadotte and Eugene were to throw themselves on Charles's left,
which stretched behind the Russbach from Wagram to Markgrafneusiedl.
Napoleon waited for some hours while scouts reconnoitered toward
Presburg. Being assured about five that John had not left that city
nor given any signs of moving, he prepared his columns, and about
seven in the evening ordered the onset.

Massena made a vigorous effort to hold the enemy's center and right,
while Napoleon launched his own center and right against the positions
held by his opponent's left. For some hours there was vigorous
fighting, but Charles saw the Emperor's manoeuver, and swiftly
throwing his reserve from behind Gerasdorf into his left, gained time
to call up reinforcements from his right at the Bisamberg. Bernadotte
moved slowly, and did not render his force effective at the crucial
moment. Napoleon was much incensed by his apparent sluggishness. An
attack made at seven against Wagram by Oudinot failed. This hamlet was
the key of the Austrian position, forming as it did the angle of their
line, and the fighting there was desperate. By nine o'clock the French
were thrown back all along, and compelled to resume the positions they
had held in the morning. At eleven a last attempt was made by Eugene
and Bernadotte on Wagram, but like the other it was bloody and
useless. At the council-fire that evening the leaders of the French
left and center were ordered to move farther to the right, and to
concentrate next morning on the positions behind the Russbach. About
dawn the change was made, and before sunrise all was ready, the
Emperor having passed a sleepless night on his tiger-skin behind the
bivouac fire in front of his tent.

[Illustration: Battle of Wagram. Positions July 5th 1809.]

But Charles did not wait to be attacked. With new courage and added
confidence he ordered his right, under Klenau, to follow down the
Danube against the enemy's weakened left, which might thus be turned,
while with the break of day his center advanced against Massena. For a
time the Austrians carried all before them, and Massena retreated step
by step until it appeared as if the tables would be turned and
Napoleon overwhelmed by his own tactics. Both Aspern and Essling were
taken, and then, turning north, the united Austrian center and right
entirely surrounded the French left and attacked it on the flank. They
thought themselves victorious, when unexpectedly the heavy artillery
on the Lobau opened fire upon them, and they began to waver. At this
crisis the great artillerist brought into action the strong
batteries of his own arm which he had so carefully prepared. Lauriston
was chosen to carry out the decisive movement, and his splendid
conduct not merely secured the victory, but made it overwhelming.
According to the most conservative estimate, there were under his
command one hundred field-pieces,--sixty from the guard,--and these
were supported by cavalry and cuirassiers; some estimate the number of
guns at four hundred, but this is manifestly a wild exaggeration. As
the artillery rolled up and unlimbered, volleys of shot, shell, and
grape began to follow in swift succession, and in a short time the
enemy's pursuit was not only stayed, but with the approach of
Macdonald's infantry to form a new flank it was turned into retreat.
The Austrians made one gallant stand, but were finally forced back to
the foot of the Bisamberg.

Meantime Davout had attacked the left. While he fought he was steadily
reinforced, until at one time, about midday, over a third of the army
was concentrated under his command. The Austrians opposed to them
could not, even with their vantage of high ground, withstand the ever
stronger pressure, and slowly rolled back northward in a curve. Eugene
captured Wagram, and then turned in that direction to unite with
Macdonald, whose division had joined that of Wrede, and had been
steadily pushing back the enemy's line toward the same point. They
were supported by Davout and Oudinot. The Austrians on the right were
then once more dislodged and compelled to withdraw on the highway to
Bruenn. It was about two in the afternoon. Davout had been ordered to
wait for a signal to make the decisive advance. It was given, and as
Oudinot rushed up the heights at Parbasdorf, his comrade appeared from
Markgrafneusiedl, driving the enemy before him. A breach in the
opposing line was made at once, and the whole Austrian wing, being
thus disorganized, hurried back to reform if possible beyond Wagram,
cross the Russbach, and join the main army. They were successful. The
French right halted just beyond the village which gave its name to the
battle. Lasalle, a brilliant light-horse general, was killed in the
last charge, and both armies bivouacked for the night. Next morning
Charles withdrew toward Znaim, Massena, Davout, and Marmont following
with the van of Napoleon's army. Several skirmishes took place between
portions of the Austrian rear and various corps of the French van, in
which the latter were decidedly checked. Marmont was obliged to assume
the defensive under the walls of Znaim. The Austrian losses at the
battle of Wagram were computed at twenty-four thousand, including
seven hundred and fifty-three officers. Those of the French were
certainly not less, if we include seven thousand who were taken
prisoners. They lost, moreover, twelve standards and eleven guns.

In the early hours of July sixth, Charles had despatched an adjutant
to Presburg with orders to the Archduke John to march at once and
attack the enemy's rear. The story at first accepted was that the
messenger found the bridges over the river March destroyed, and
arrived six hours too late for his errand to be successful. There
were, however, many at the time who attributed criminal negligence to
John, among them his own brother, the commander-in-chief. For a time,
by means of court intrigue and persistent misrepresentation, the blame
was put, not on John, but on Charles, but eventually the former was
found guilty and banished to Styria. Had the latter's plan succeeded,
Napoleon would have had a different task--a task so difficult that the
issue of the battle might well have been doubtful, if not disastrous.
As it was, the victory was dearly bought, and the Austrians were not
demoralized.

On the other hand, in the very hour of victory the French, who had
halted to take breath, were thrown into a panic by the appearance of a
few Austrian pickets from the Archduke John's army, then coming up,
and thousands of the victorious soldiers fled in wild demoralization
toward the Danube. John, whose appearance but a short time earlier
would have turned his brother's defeat into victory, drew back his
thirteen thousand men in good order to guard Hungary. As Napoleon
himself had been in a dangerous condition of over-confidence before
Aspern, so now his soldiery were clearly in the same plight.
Self-conceit had made them unreliable. Bernadotte's corps had
displayed something very much like cowardice and mutiny at the last.
The army still fought in the main like the perfect machine it was, but
the individual men had lost their stern virtue. They believed that
victory, plunder, and self-indulgence were the fair compensations of
their toils. Ungirt and freed from the restraints of discipline, they
gave signs that the petulance, timidity, and unruliness which had been
manifested in Poland and Prussia were not diminished.

Their Emperor, if his vision had been unclouded, would have
understood that endurance, suffering, and privation would make such
men an untrustworthy dependence in the hour of need. How changed he
was himself is clear from the fact that Bonaparte would never have
rested until his foe was disorganized and overpowered, while Napoleon
saw himself forced to treat with an opponent who, though beaten, was
still undaunted and active. If the victor had been fighting for life,
his position would have been morally strong; fighting as a
world-conqueror, it was illogical; fighting as equal with equal to
repel aggression, it was comprehensible. This last was the attitude
into which he was forced by the campaign of Aspern, Essling, Wagram.
Francis, whose power he had meant to crush, upon whom a few short
weeks before he had heaped insult and abuse, had turned out a most
dangerous foe. Technically conquered, it would not be well for his
opponent to try conclusions with him again in the still uncertain
position of the Napoleonic power. Rather reap the field secured, the
daunted conqueror reasoned, than risk devastation by grasping for
more. This, and no other, is the explanation of that remarkable
somersault in Napoleon's diplomacy which followed in the next few
weeks.




CHAPTER XVII

THE PEACE OF SCHOeNBRUNN[32]

         [Footnote 32: See Majol de Lupe: Fournier: Gentz und der
         Friede von Schoenbrunn in Deutsche Rundschau, tom. 44. Un pape
         prisonnier a Savone, d'apres des documents inedits. In Le
         Correspondant, 6 articles, du 10 mars au 25 mai. Clair: Hofer
         et l'insurrection du Tyrol.]

     Schill and the Duke of Brunswick -- Andreas Hofer -- The
     Armistice of Znaim -- The Northern Powers Adhere to France --
     Wellesley's Successes in the Peninsula -- The Walcheren
     Expedition -- Negotiations for Peace -- Austria a Second-rate
     Power -- Attempt on Napoleon's Life -- His Great Uneasiness --
     The Tyrol Subdued -- The Pope a Prisoner.


Napoleon's course was probably somewhat influenced both by the
mutterings of national discontent in France and by the actual
insurrections which were taking place in Germany. Schill, after
leaving Berlin, had been successively harassed by the Dutch, the
Westphalians, and the Danes, until in despair he threw himself into
Stralsund in hope of cooeperation from an English fleet. The city was
immediately beleaguered, and on May thirty-first it fell. The King of
Prussia had already denounced the gallant adventurer and his
companions as a robber band of outlaws. As has been told, the daring
patriot was killed in the assault, and only a hundred and fifty of his
comrades escaped. The officers who fled into Prussia were
court-martialed, and punished by a light sentence of imprisonment.
Those captured in Stralsund were taken to Brest and sentenced to penal
servitude. Frederick William, the young Duke of Brunswick, deprived
by Napoleon of his throne, and determined to avenge his father, had
raised, during the progress of the French campaign in Austria, a corps
of Bohemian and other adventurers, which was soon famous for its
extraordinary exploits, and became world-renowned as the Black Legion.
With this force, assisted by that of the Austrian commandant in
Franconia, General Kienmayer, he defeated the Saxons at Nossen, a
French army under Junot at Berneck, and repelled King Jerome of
Westphalia; he then seized Dresden, Leipsic, and Lindenau, holding at
the time of Wagram a considerable portion of Franconia. Napoleon's
victory rendered his situation desperate, but with fifteen hundred men
he cut his way northward through Leipsic, Halle, Halberstadt, and
Brunswick, defeating the Westphalian, Saxon, and Dutch troops which
sought to intercept him, and reached the shores of the North Sea at
Elsfleth, where, seizing a merchant flotilla, he embarked with his men
for England. He was received in London with jubilation, and was richly
pensioned for his heroic adventures.

Almost simultaneously the Tyrolese, taking advantage of Lefebvre's
withdrawal, rose again. The exploits of their hero, Andreas Hofer,
form a romantic episode of history, but they very indirectly affected
the central story, if at all. In the five weeks intervening between
Aspern and Wagram, that able and devoted man had virtually reorganized
his country and cleared it of intruders. Even the double invasion of
French and Bavarians, on one side from Klagenfurth, on the other down
the valley of the Inn, was successfully repelled. The tactics of
Hofer's men were most effective against regular troops, who, marching
in thin lines through mountain defiles, were cut down by
sharp-shooters, overwhelmed with rocks hurled from high ledges over
the precipitous walls of ravines, entrapped by ambushes, or
slaughtered by the scythes, clubs, and pitchforks of the peasantry.

Leaving Eugene to hold the Marchfeld, Napoleon and his army pressed on
after Marmont in pursuit of Charles. Before Znaim, which was reached
on the eleventh, the vanguard had just suffered something very like a
repulse, and the Emperor made ready for another battle if it should be
necessary. In the very midst of the preparations came a proposition
from Charles for an armistice. After a long discussion by the French
generals, Napoleon accepted it. "You must fight only when the hope of
any fortunate turn is gone," he wrote about this time; "for in its
nature the result of a battle is always doubtful." The Archduke's
motive was to gain time. The Emperor Francis had accepted a plan
proposed by John for a reunion of the Austrian armies on the confines
of Hungary to continue the war, and he was still hoping to retrieve
the blunder he had made in not negotiating on equal terms with
Prussia. He therefore acquiesced in Charles's proposal, though not
intending the armistice as a preliminary of peace. Napoleon affected
uncertainty, and demanded an enormous cession of territory as the
price of a truce. Francis in turn demurred, but finally yielded. To
this again Charles, confident in his ability to carry on the war,
would not listen. His quarrel with Francis and John was growing more
bitter; and the Emperor felt that in order to compose the family
difficulties and allay jealousies, time must now be gained at any
price. Francis therefore persisted, Charles resigned the command, and
the former assumed it himself.

The Austrian Emperor's first step was to open negotiations in the hope
of prolonging them until he could rearrange the control of his army
and recuperate his strength, trusting that in the interval the
kaleidoscope of European diplomacy might entirely change. He was not
disappointed in the fact of a change, but the change was far different
from what he had expected. The King of Prussia now definitely withdrew
the propositions which he had half-heartedly made before Wagram. He
thought it was better to reign behind the Oder than not to reign at
all. The Czar kept the promise made at Erfurt most unwillingly; but
having at last secured Finland, he felt bound to fulfil the letter of
his engagement. Prince Galitzin had been put at the head of thirty
thousand unwilling Russians, and sent to invade Galicia. Crossing the
frontier, his officers declared their distaste for the task, and knew
they were reflecting the sentiments of an overpowering majority of
their own nation. The invasion turned out a farce, and was rather in
the nature of a friendly reception by the inhabitants.

Francis therefore hoped for something from Alexander's lukewarmness.
The latter, however, would do nothing, for nominally, and in
occasional skirmishes really, he was fighting Turkey, and meant, after
the peace, to claim the fulfilment of Napoleon's promise. It would be
impolitic to jeopardize his whole ambition by any deviation from the
letter of the Erfurt agreement. Francis therefore was informed that he
must make the best terms with Napoleon that he could. As to Great
Britain, the chances seemed better. In the seas that bordered Italy
and the Ionian Isles, off the coasts of Spain and Portugal, on the
waters of the Baltic, her flag was seen. Wellesley had been landed in
the Iberian peninsula, and, driving Soult before him, had not only
expelled the French from Portugal, but had defeated Victor at
Talavera, and was preparing for the invasion of Spain. The English
government had in readiness another army of forty thousand men and
another fleet of thirty-five ships of the line. Where best could they
employ them? After long deliberation the selfish policy was adopted of
using them, not to <DW36> Napoleon, but for England's immediate
advantage. They were not sent to reinforce Wellesley and insure the
conquest of Spain, nor to save Schill, nor to strengthen Austria. By
any one of these courses the European uprising against the French
emperor would have been inaugurated that very year.

As it was, they were despatched to destroy the dockyards of the
Netherlands, where it was said, and perhaps believed, that Napoleon
was building ships to dispute British supremacy at sea. After
disembarking on the island of Walcheren, the army combined with the
fleet in a successful attack on Flushing, which fell on August
fifteenth. This was their only success. Fouche raised an army of
national guards, and Bernadotte, who, having incurred the Emperor's
displeasure at Wagram for his slowness and lack of success, had been
sent home in disgrace, was induced to put himself at its head. The
army and navy officers of the English disagreed as to how they should
meet him. The result was separation and disaster; the fleet sailed
back to England and the army withdrew to Walcheren, where it was held
in check while the swamp-fever devastated its ranks. About the same
time a plague also broke out in the Austrian army, and, as was
claimed, destroyed its efficiency. Wellesley, unsupported, saw himself
threatened by a flank movement of Soult and drew back, while, in
August, Sebastiani defeated a division of the Spanish army.

These were the circumstances which turned the pretended peace
negotiations of Francis into reality. When proceedings first began at
Altenburg they were simply farcical. Napoleon really needed peace, if
Prussia and Russia were meditating war; but the first proposal made
by Austria he scorned, and talked of Francis's abdication, with a
partition of Hapsburg lands among the new Napoleonic states. When the
nominal plenipotentiaries, Champagny and Metternich, actually met, the
former still scouted anything like reasonable terms, demanding for his
Emperor the lands occupied by French troops. The Austrian, anxious to
gain time, replied with equally impossible propositions. But as the
summer passed, and Francis's hopes of support grew fainter and
fainter, he sent a personal representative, General Bubna, to
Napoleon, and this plenipotentiary began to display sincerity.
Thereupon the Emperor of the French manifested his earnest desire for
peace. So far he had relied on the Czar, who stood by the alliance in
the face of his people's opposition. How much longer, Alexander must
have asked himself, could this state of things continue? It was
praiseworthy in him that he cared nothing for popular opinion, but he
might not be able to hold out against it much longer. It was very
significant that in a formal note just received from St. Petersburg by
the hand of a Russian officer, Alexander advised peace. To this
messenger, when speaking of the chances for renewing hostilities,
Napoleon exclaimed in undisguised horror, "Blood, blood, always
blood!" And then, with a sudden change of manner, he said: "I am
anxious to get back to Paris." Like his generals, the Emperor of the
French was plainly sick of war. His sad countenance, like theirs, was
an open book in which the Russian could clearly read this important
fact. Indeed, the anxious, war-worn, unsettled Napoleon actually
contemplated an alliance with Austria. It was clear that if her
territories were left intact she would gladly join in one. He had need
to be done with her in order to settle his affairs in Spain and
elsewhere. But he feared Francis, and hoped that such a vacillating
temporizer might abdicate in favor of some thoroughly trustworthy
successor. Napoleon confessed to Bubna that he admired the Austrian
troops; they were as good as his own, and under his leadership would
be victorious. Champagny's demands, he admitted, were not final, but
certain territories on the south, on the west, and in Galicia he must
have.

With this understanding, full powers were given to Prince
Liechtenstein, and he went direct to Schoenbrunn. The terms of peace
turned out very hard indeed. A war indemnity of a hundred million
francs was first incorporated in the treaty itself; but afterward, in
a secret article, Francis was required to reduce his army to a hundred
and fifty thousand men, and the indemnity was diminished to
eighty-five millions. This would have been an awful burden to lay on
the empire even as it had been, and Austrian territory was now to be
seriously diminished. Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, and the Inn quarter
went to the Confederation of the Rhine, New Galicia to the grand duchy
of Warsaw, along with a large district in East Galicia and the town of
Cracow. A small strip of the same province was reserved for Russia.
But the most deadly blow was the constitution of a subsidiary
government, to be known as Illyria, by the surrender directly to
France of Goerz, Monfalcone, Triest, Carniola, Willach in Carinthia,
and Croatia east of the Save. This made Austria not only a
second-class, but an inland power, cutting her off entirely from the
sea; but she was, nevertheless, to enter the Continental System
against England, and recognize all that Napoleon had done or might do
in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. These were the hard but imperative
conditions which the Emperor laid down. Liechtenstein accepted them
subject to his sovereign's approval.

But the conqueror was in haste. On October twelfth there had been a
great review of his troops at Schoenbrunn. In the crowd was a youth,
scarcely more than a child, who pressed forward to gain access to
Napoleon. His urgency attracted the attention of Berthier, and he was
seized by General Rapp. On his person was a large knife, and he openly
avowed his purpose of assassination. He was confronted with his
intended victim. His name, he said, was Staps, and he was the son of a
Protestant pastor at Naumburg. The Emperor coldly asked what he would
do if pardoned. "Try again to kill you," was the culprit's reply. He
avowed no penitence, but declared he had no personal feeling. He would
gladly have reasoned with Napoleon, he further said, if he could but
have gained an interview; if unsuccessful in his plan, he would have
thought it a deed of honor to smite down the world's oppressor. The
would-be assassin was secretly shot, and the police had instructions
to say, if there should be much talk, that he was crazy. This event
seemed deeply to impress the intended victim with the intensity of
feeling among the common people of Germany, and he was anxious to be
gone. His fears were well founded; assassination was in the minds of
many unbalanced men. A captain in the Austrian army actually sought a
furlough, giving as his reason that he desired to kill Napoleon.

This mania for assassination completed the depression of spirits which
for some time past had been noticeable in the French emperor. Severely
wounded in the great toe at Ratisbon, he had there been compelled to
exercise enormous self-control to prevent a panic in the army. Knocked
senseless by a fall from his horse on the road to Schoenbrunn, he had
for the same reason been forced to enjoin silence on nearly two
hundred persons who were aware of the fact. At Essling he had thought
it necessary to throw himself into the bullet hail to sustain the
morale of his troops, and having saved Lannes from drowning during a
preliminary reconnaissance of the Danube banks, he had finally lost
him under the most distressing circumstances. To cap the climax of
these experiences, it now seemed as if his own life were in constant
jeopardy. When, therefore, the official articles of the peace were
drawn up on the fourteenth, and Liechtenstein departed to lay them
before Francis, the French cannon did not wait for formalities, but
proclaimed the peace as already made. The next night Napoleon was on
his way to Paris.

The armistice of Znaim had utterly crushed the hopes of the Tyrolese,
but they continued to fight in despair. The peace of Schoenbrunn set
free the entire French army to overwhelm them. A second double
invasion was organized. Prince Eugene offered amnesty to the
insurgents, and the Austrian ministry advised them to cease
resistance. But Hofer had by this time convinced himself that his
mission was more than earthly. After some hesitation, he refused to
accept Austria's advice, and the conflict was renewed. The Tyrolese
were now alone, and after a vain resistance the combatants dispersed
among the mountains. The land was again reduced to submission. Hofer
remained safely hidden for some time, but he was eventually betrayed,
captured, and sent to Mantua for the formality of a trial. Napoleon's
directions to Eugene were very concise. Whenever the order should
reach him, the viceroy was to name a court-martial, try the prisoner,
and have him shot. Throughout suffering and imprisonment the hero
displayed the greatest firmness, and met his death with lofty
devotion. In the previous spring, when at Austria's instigation the
Tyrol had risen, he had been ennobled; ten years later the title and
estates of Passeyr were bestowed on his family. Among the eastern
Alps the name of Andreas Hofer is like that of William Tell among the
mountains of Switzerland. His rugged virtues are celebrated in verse,
and tradition lingers about his haunts.

Napoleon's decree of May seventeenth, depriving the Pope of his
secular power, reached Rome in due time, and Murat proceeded without
delay to execute it. There were no difficulties, for it will be
remembered that in February General Miollis had occupied the city. A
committee of administration was immediately named, whose duties were
to prepare the way for incorporation with Italy. On June tenth formal
proclamation was made that Pius VII was no longer a secular prince,
his dominion having passed to the King of Italy. He was still to
reside in Rome as spiritual head of the Catholic Church. That night
the Pope promulgated a bull excommunicating Napoleon and his
adherents, favorers, and councilors. Unlike similar instruments of his
predecessors, it contained a clause declaring the punishment to be
purely spiritual, and prohibiting every one from using it as a
sanction for attack on the persons of those against whom it was
issued. On the night of July fifth a French general with his guard
forced the doors of the Quirinal palace, and demanded from Pius a
formal renunciation of his secular power. The Pope having firmly and
quietly refused, he was informed that he must make ready to leave the
city. At three the next morning he was placed in a carriage with a
single cardinal, and on a second dignified and solemn refusal to
comply was carried to Florence. There he was separated from his one
companion and put in charge of the gendarmes. Traveling by day and
night, sometimes in a litter, sometimes by sea, the aged man was
finally brought to Grenoble. The devout French of that city could not
understand the secrecy and haste of his journey, and hastened to pay
him homage. So great were the crowds and so intense was the feeling
that very soon his presence in France was considered dangerous. He was
therefore carried back to Savona, where he remained a state prisoner
under rigid supervision in decent but plain apartments until 1812,
when he was conducted to Fontainebleau and lodged like a prince.




CHAPTER XVIII

NAPOLEON'S FATAL DECISION[33]

         [Footnote 33: See Welschinger: Le divorce de Napoleon.
         Vandal: Negociations avec la Russie relatives au second
         mariage de Napoleon, in the Revue historique, tom. 44, pp.
         1-42.]

     Napoleon's Explanations to Alexander -- His New Manner -- Sad
     Plight of Josephine -- The Divorce Announced and Confirmed by the
     Senate -- Negotiations for the Czar's Sister -- Napoleon's
     Impatience -- His Desire for a Great Match.


The treaty of Schoenbrunn was a flagrant violation of the agreement
made between Napoleon and Alexander at Erfurt, inasmuch as it
materially enlarged the grand duchy of Warsaw and thus menaced Russia
with the reconstruction of Poland. "Clearly," said Rumianzoff to
Caulaincourt, "you want to be rid of the Russian alliance, and to
substitute for it that with the grand duchy." Alexander was very
angry, but, though in the strict observance of forms he had been
irreproachable, his conduct in the real support of his ally had not
been sincere. His people were more embittered with the French alliance
every day, and Napoleon knew how both the nation and the Czar would
feel when they were informed that provinces occupied by Russian troops
had been assigned to Poland. Francis, wroth as he was, had not dared
to disturb the popular joy so loudly expressed over Napoleon's
premature announcement of peace. Accordingly, on October twentieth,
1809, the very day in which the papers were signed and ratified, an
explanation was sent to Alexander by the Emperor of the French. It
pleaded that he could not abandon a friendly people to Austria's
vengeance, but declared that he would guarantee their good behavior
under Saxon rule; as for the names of Poles and Poland, for all he
cared, they might disappear from history. The Czar accepted the excuse
with what grace he could, for the partition of Turkey was not yet
accomplished. But the peace of Schoenbrunn marked the initiation of a
policy which dissolved the peace of Tilsit. There could now no longer
be any serious question of marriage between members of the two courts.
Compelled by circumstances to choose between a dual alliance with a
first-rate power which must share on equal terms in the dominion of
the world, and one with a second-rate power whose armies were
surpassed by none, Napoleon had deliberately chosen the latter, as the
shortest way to absolute and complete supremacy, to the assertion of a
sovereign will over a conquered universe.

Napoleon's return to Paris was celebrated in the manner usual after a
victorious campaign. The departments of government issued the most
fulsome addresses; subsidiary and vassal kings crowded to offer their
congratulations; there were the ordinary manifestations of popular
joy, and no one seemed to remember that the Emperor had been smitten
by the papal bolt. But men remarked a great change in his bearing and
expression. Cambaceres said that he seemed to be walking in the midst
of his glory. Moreover, he withdrew from the capital, and held his
court in Fontainebleau. The air was all surcharged. The Duc de Broglie
tells us in his memoirs that he had seen the Empress early that year,
surrounded by the brilliant throng of "ladies in waiting, ladies of
the court and palace, accompanied by the train of 'readers,' which
composed the harem of our sultan, and enabled him for a time to endure
the painted old age of the former sultana." The truth which underlies
this is notorious, and the scene over the divorce before the Emperor's
departure for the campaign just concluded bears witness to the depth
to which Josephine had fallen in her desperate attempts to retain both
her place and some portion of Napoleon's tenderness.

[Illustration: From the collection of W. C. Crane.

EUGENE BEAUHARNAIS.

Drawn by Vigneron after Le Gros]

Napoleon himself had long since announced that he was superior to
plain virtues, and the list of his paramours was daily growing longer
and better known. But all this self-abasement on the part of Josephine
and all the self-indulgence of Napoleon could not do more than
postpone the judgment day. "My enemies," the Emperor was accustomed to
cry out--"my enemies make appointments at my tomb." He could not rest
content with an empire for himself which he knew would break of its
own weight on his death unless he left a legitimate heir. On his
return from Austria his resolution to divorce the Empress was taken,
and Eugene was summoned to convey it to his mother. Josephine, though
forewarned, was still unable to realize the fact. She behaved well;
her own long career of intrigue, license, and extravagance forbade
recriminations, and besides, she was to enjoy the title and state of
an empress for life. Still, as women under the Directory loved, she
loved her husband, and there had been much tenderness between them,
neither taking very seriously the infidelities of the other. To the
end, even after the moderate beauty and great physical charm of her
middle age were transformed into the faded colors and form of old age
(for she was old at forty-five), and when the arts of the toilet could
no longer conceal the ravages of time and license, there still
continued to exist between the Empress and her second husband a mutual
good will and a feeling of comradeship engendered by the memories of
adventure, risk, plots, and gains encountered side by side through
a married life of thirteen years. She had little intellect and not
much character, but she had much feminine sweetness and many soft,
winning ways. Her only weapon, therefore, in the hour of defeat was
tears, and those she shed abundantly. When the paroxysms of grief were
over, the Emperor made a display of tenderness, and the Empress
manifested a gentle and affecting courage.

On December fifteenth, 1809, before the grand council held in the
Tuileries, the divorce was pronounced, and the next day it was
confirmed by decree of the senate. Josephine withdrew to Malmaison to
drag out her remaining years in empty state, for the support of which
she had a grant of two million francs a year. To the hour of her
death, five years later, she asserted her love for Napoleon, and in
general she displayed great anxiety for his welfare and success.
Posterity has always felt a certain tenderness for the unfortunate
woman who was raised so high and then cast down so suddenly. She was
not virtuous, she was not strong, she was not even very beautiful. Her
wrong-doing was like the naughtiness of household pets, impulsive but
not malicious, deceitful but without rancor, determined but quickly
deprecated. For this reason her misfortune has veiled her weakness and
softened the harshness of men's judgment.

Almost a month before the formal divorce Caulaincourt had received
instructions to address the Czar on the question of marriage between
his sister Anne, now sixteen years of age, and the Emperor of the
French. The ambassador was to make no formal demand, but was to ask
for some expression of general intentions and feelings. Alexander was
in the provinces, and did not return until the middle of December.
Meantime Caulaincourt, after careful inquiry, had learned that the
young princess was frail in health and not yet of marriageable age.
The letter to his master conveying this information was crossed by one
of Napoleon's making a formal demand. The difference in confessional
adherence was of no account, he said, and an immediate answer was
desired. "Take as your standpoint that children are wanted." This put
the Czar in a serious dilemma. An alliance with France was still near
his heart. By the treaty of Friedrichshamn, which had been signed on
September ninth, 1809, he had secured Finland at last, but of the
other splendid projects suggested at Tilsit and confirmed at Erfurt
not one was realized. Aside from the chagrin he had felt at the war
with Austria, and its menacing results in the enlargement of Poland,
there was now an additional cause of anxiety; for in the conflict with
Turkey his troops had but recently been driven back across the Danube.
If he broke with Napoleon he might even lose Moldavia and Wallachia,
and realize nothing further. A few weeks had softened the displeasure
he felt after Schoenbrunn, and he now began to shower favors on
Caulaincourt, expressing the greatest anxiety for the match. The youth
of the princess was, however, a serious obstacle, and he must consult
his empress-mother. Of course the dowager made every objection to the
marriage; she was an ardent sympathizer with the old Russian party,
and hated Napoleon. There is little doubt that she was entirely right,
moreover, in declaring at last as an insuperable obstacle that her
daughter was too young. Alexander then turned his whole attention to
cajoling the French ambassador in order to gain time. He had always
been more Napoleon's friend than his ally, he said; surely the Emperor
would grant a delay for a few months.

But this was exactly what the suitor would not do. His dignity
forbade him to abide the empress-dowager's time; the divorce had been
pronounced, and state reasons made his marriage imperative. "To
adjourn is to refuse," he replied; "and besides, I want no strange
priests in my palace between my wife and me." This was apparently a
complete somersault, for it meant that either Alexander must yield or
the alliance would be jeopardized. No one can divine from the evidence
exactly which alternative Napoleon desired; but in view of his general
character, of the treaty he had made with Francis, and of subsequent
events, it was probably the latter. He could have used the Czar's
compliance to found his dynasty, but he seems to have made up his mind
that Austria was the better dependence. Besides, he had very serious
reasons of state for urgency. He recognized at every step of his
career that his power rested in the popular will, not on tradition or
theories. Hence, at every moment two purposes were immediate: first,
to keep the popular favor; second, to transform his tenure of power by
the infusion of a dynastic element.

In the winter of 1809 the people of France were not comfortable. The
promised peace with England seemed again postponed; the war in the
Spanish peninsula was still raging; the Continental System was
steadily undermining public prosperity. There was stagnation in the
great French seaports; hand in hand with commerce, both industry and
trade were languishing. The great southern towns, deprived of their
Spanish market, were nearly bankrupt. In addition the clergy and their
adherents were thoroughly roused by the treatment of the Pope. On the
other hand, the Emperor's personal popularity was also suffering
serious ravages. In the new administrative system the places which led
to promotion had now for a long time been given to members of the old
nobility; the recipients looked on them as their right, and neither
they nor their families were grateful, while the sturdy democracy felt
slighted and injured. Even the new nobility grew more unmanageable
with every day. In full possession of their estates, titles, and
incomes, they felt their independence, and refused to be longer guided
by the hand which had led them into their promised land. They had
allied themselves with the oldest families in France, and the
haughtiness of family pride led them to feel condescension for the
great adventurer whose blood so far flowed in no aristocratic veins.
It seemed to Napoleon that in order to secure popular good will he
must restore prosperity, which was not easy, and to assert a moral
ascendancy over his court he must make a suitable match, which was
easy enough. Neither must be half done; his prestige required a great
stroke, and it was better to make the match first, and thereby ease
the tension until England could be brought to terms--with Russia's aid
if possible, without it if necessary.




CHAPTER XIX

THE AUSTRIAN MARRIAGE[34]

         [Footnote 34: See Welschinger: Le Divorce de Napoleon.
         Vandal: Napoleon et Alexandre Ier, Vol. II, Le second mariage
         de Napoleon. Correspondance de Marie Louise 1799-1847.
         Lettres intimes et inedites a la C^tesse de Colloredo et a
         Mlle de Poutet, depuis 1810 C^tesse de Crenneville.
         Welschinger: Le mariage de Napoleon et de Marie Louise, in
         Revue de la revolution, Paris, Nov., 1788. Durand, Madame la
         Generale, A Memoir, Napoleon and Marie-Louise ("Memoires sur
         Napoleon et Marie-Louise").]

     Anxieties of the Austrian Court -- The Plan for a Matrimonial
     Alliance with Napoleon -- Opening of Formal Negotiations -- The
     Deliberations in Paris -- Napoleon's Decision -- The Czar's
     Indignation -- The Ceremonies at Vienna -- Napoleon's
     Preparations -- His Meeting with Maria Louisa -- The Wedding --
     Gifts and Rejoicings -- Impressions of the New Empress -- The New
     Dynasty.


[Sidenote: 1809-10]

The court of Vienna had regarded what were apparently preparations for
a matrimonial alliance between France and Russia with nothing less
than consternation. Such an arrangement would, if consummated,
temporarily seal the political bond already existing, and might
guarantee it indefinitely. The empire of Austria, already shorn of so
many fair territories, was no longer a first-rate power. The language
used by Napoleon after the armistice of Znaim about Francis and the
necessity for his abdication, had made a deep impression in view of
the events at Bayonne. Was the ancient monarchy really to be
humiliated and remain permanently dismembered? Not if an imperial
alliance was the only thing necessary to secure Napoleon's favor.
There was an archduchess of the proper age, and the house of Hapsburg
was far more ancient and splendid than the house of Romanoff.

Among the many confidential agents of Napoleon concerned in
formulating the treaty of Schoenbrunn was a certain Alexandre de
Laborde, who had once been in the Austrian service and knew Vienna
well. Remaining behind after his employer's departure, he wrote a
memoir in December, 1809, which, though sent to Maret, was intended
for the Emperor himself, and was seen by him. In it is detailed a
conversation with Metternich, in which the latter had first vaguely
and then distinctly spoken of a match between Napoleon and the
Archduchess Maria Louisa. This, it was explained, was to be considered
only in case the divorce should take place, and the Austrian minister
declared that his master knew nothing of the project. There is no
reasonable doubt that Laborde's statement was substantially true, for
as long as there was glory in being the author of the suggestion
Metternich claimed the credit of it, and, in a letter of September
eleventh, 1811, categorically asserted that it was his; but after
Napoleon's fall he declared that the scheme originated in France, and
it was then said that Napoleon had himself taken the initiative, on a
hint from Schwarzenberg, the new Austrian ambassador in Paris. Whether
Napoleon or Francis was the suitor, it soon transpired that both were
willing. When, therefore, the former learned that the fate of the
Russian alliance was in the hands of the empress-dowager, he gave the
surly answer already quoted, and turned toward Austria. During the
pathetic scene of the divorce he formally asserted that having lost
hope of offspring by his well-beloved spouse, he was about to
sacrifice the tenderest emotions of his heart for the welfare of his
people. Being but forty years old, he might still hope to bring up
children and train them in his own ideas. Josephine gave her consent
to the dissolution of her marriage, because it was an obstacle to the
well-being of France, in that it stood in the way of her country's
future government by the descendants of a great man.

To emphasize this thought, the Emperor employed two devices. The first
was to produce an effect intended for home consumption. After the
battle of Wagram, Stadion, the Austrian minister of foreign affairs,
who had advocated the war, resigned; Metternich, who had been called
from the embassy at Paris to negotiate the peace on his master's side,
remained in Vienna to succeed Stadion, and Prince Schwarzenberg was
appointed to France. But the Countess Metternich was still in Paris.
The Beauharnais family--Eugene with the Austrian ambassador, Josephine
and Queen Hortense with Frau von Metternich--opened the negotiation
for securing Maria Louisa as the second Empress of France. To remove
all religious scruples, the bishops' court of Paris met, and on
January fourteenth pronounced Napoleon's first marriage null.

The second device was to lay before an extraordinary council the two
alternatives and ask their decision. Murat, Cambaceres, and probably
Fouche, voted for Russia. Fouche, like Talleyrand, had long been
suspected of playing not for Napoleon's, but for his own interest. A
certain independence of conduct and language which he had displayed in
raising the national guards to repel the Walcheren expedition had
awakened further suspicion in the Emperor's mind, and there had been
plain speaking between them. The minister of police, according to one
account, now declared that there were only two parties in
Europe--those who had gained and those who had lost by the Revolution;
that Russia belonged to the former, and was the true ally for the
French empire. It was believed that this argument was an endeavor to
regain the Emperor's favor, for the words have a Napoleonic ring. The
majority of the council, however, was under Maret's leadership, and
after a long, vague harangue from Talleyrand, in which he seemed to
concur with Maret, expressed itself in favor of Austria. From
immemorial times she had been the pivot of every Continental coalition
against France. She was now irritated, and must be soothed.

Napoleon's friends assert that he himself really favored the Russian
alliance, but looked on the request for delay as a covert refusal, and
considered himself the victim of circumstances. This is not probable,
for Maret was still his confidential man; at any rate, the Emperor
accepted the decision of the majority. Accordingly, a family council
was next called, and the matter was laid before them. There was no
doubt as to the conclusion: they declared for the Austrian marriage.
The formalities of arrangement were speedily concluded. Berthier, the
Prince of Neuchatel, was named ambassador extraordinary to marry the
Archduchess by proxy at Vienna, and the date was fixed for March
eleventh, 1810. The news was received at the Austrian capital with
jubilation. The populace had already lost much of its bitterness
against the French, for they had convinced themselves that in the last
war their own cabinet had been the aggressor. Stadion's resignation
was probably to many minds a confession of the fact, though in reality
it merely marked a change of policy. The French wounded were nursed by
the Viennese with tender care, and even under the lash many turned to
regard the strong hand which wielded it as probably the only power
able to restore peace and bring back its blessings. In judicious minds
the French alliance, even if not a high-spirited course, was popular
because it guaranteed Austria on the east against Russia and on the
west against France. If her identity were not destroyed, she might
hope at some distant day to regain her strength and her place in
Europe.

At St. Petersburg the news produced different effects. The
conservatives were not greatly disturbed, for now they were freed from
the possible disgrace of an imperial marriage with the Bonapartes, and
they could put up with the insult if only it should break the bonds
which tied them to the hated Continental System of Napoleon. But the
Czar was outraged; he had been personally insulted, and his policy was
toppling. He had secured nothing, he would be the laughing-stock of
his people, and he could no longer justify himself in resistance to
popular tendencies. He was likewise true-hearted enough to feel the
loss of a friend, and proud enough to smart under the feeling that he
had been duped. Much of this he concealed, although his suite thought
they could discern all these emotions. In the face of both Austria and
France he could not attack the deed itself. Caulaincourt assured him
in Napoleon's name that the match had no political character, and
changed nothing in the personal friendship which his Emperor continued
to feel. He insinuated that the real cause of the decision was the
religious difference. But this Alexander would not accept.
"Congratulate the Emperor on the choice he has made," was the reply.
"He wants children; all France wants them for him. The decision was
the one which should have been taken, but it is fortunate that the
matter of age stopped us here. Where would we have been if I had not
spoken of it to my mother? What reproaches could she not have heaped
on me? What must I not have said to you? for it is clear you were
dealing in both quarters. Why," he concluded, "has anything been said
about the difference in religion, when at the outset the Emperor
declared it would be no obstacle?" Thus was reached the second stage
in the dissolution of the famous alliance of Tilsit.

The scenes in Vienna were brilliant in the extreme. On the one hand,
they marked the Austrian approach to democracy, because for the first
time the tricolor was displayed in the streets, and the rigid
etiquette of the Hapsburgs, preserved from hoary antiquity with pious
care, snapped at every turn which Berthier took. On the other hand,
they marked the approach of France to absolutism. Napoleon ordered
that his bride should receive the same presents as those which Louis
XV had ordered for Maria Leszcynska, the splendors of the ceremonial
were to be royal, the new Empress's train was arranged according to
the same model, the itinerary of her journey was marked out as a royal
progress. The civil contract was signed on the tenth; the religious
ceremony occurred on the eleventh, as appointed; and then followed a
banquet where Berthier was absolved from all the ceremonies considered
obligatory upon one of his rank in the Hofburg. Three days later the
new Empress was handed to her traveling-carriage by the Archduke
Charles, and amid salvos of artillery, mingled with the cheers of the
populace, she set forth. There were a few signs of discontent among
little knots who collected to curse their national humiliation, and
the aristocracy were not reconciled to see Prince Esterhazy in the
role of guide to the Prince of Wagram, as Berthier had now been styled
by imperial decree in Paris. But, on the whole, Europe was impressed
with a sense of Francis's sincerity. The father went forth a day's
journey to spend an evening alone with his daughter and bestow in
parting his paternal blessing on a child who had saved her country.
Her journey through Bavaria and Wuertemberg was one long ovation, for
these countries believed their welfare to be bound up with that of
France. On the twenty-sixth her cortege, having passed by way of
Strasburg, was moving toward Soissons.

After the divorce Napoleon had withdrawn in solitude to the Trianon at
Versailles, as if to mourn his widowhood the appointed and decent time
in silence. The spot chosen had a significance with reference to the
coming celebrations. For a week he spent his days in the unaccustomed
but truly royal occupation of field sports. Once he visited Josephine
at Malmaison. The next months he had spent again in Paris conducting
the matrimonial negotiations and arranging every detail of the
etiquette to be observed in the cumbrous ceremonial which he had
devised for the celebration of his marriage in France. When all was
completed to his satisfaction he left for Compiegne to supervise the
arrangements made for the reception of his new consort, and spent the
last week of waiting there. Of all his family the giddiest and most
worldly was his sister Pauline. She and his sister-in-law, the
sensible and charming Queen of Westphalia, were chosen to advise and
counsel regarding matters of dress and behavior. The latter wrote to
her brother a full account of the Emperor's passionate expectation.
During these days his occupations were singularly human. Much of the
time was spent in trying on gorgeous clothes: gold-laced coats, and
embroidered waistcoats, which had been sent by Paris tailors. Some of
it was passed in the acquisition of accomplishments, notably in
learning to waltz. Every day he sent a letter with flowers to meet the
new Empress at every stage of her progress, and every day he received
a reply from her written in correct French.

At last she reached the close of the final stage, and her bridegroom
went out to meet her. Half-way between Soissons and Compiegne were
pitched three splendid pavilions. Her suite was to remain in that
nearest their last lodging, his in that nearest the palace, the bridal
pair were to meet in the central tent, where, according to the custom
of feudalism, she was to kneel and pay homage to her liege as his
foremost subject. But when the Emperor heard that his bride was so
near, his impatience seemed to break through all bounds. Entering his
carriage without ceremony or warning, and attended by only a single
companion, the King of Naples, he drove far past Soissons until the
carriages met, when he stepped out of his own, tore open the door of
the other, and entered with the eagerness of a youthful lover to
embrace his bride. The prearranged stops were countermanded, and the
same evening, at ten, the wedding-train reached Compiegne. Such was
the lover's ardor that he again flung propriety to the winds, and,
claiming the validity of the procuratorial ceremony at Vienna, slept
under the same roof with his bride, instead of in the chamber
furnished for his use in one of the administrative buildings. As an
excuse for this conduct he pleaded the example of Henry IV.

Next day the ladies and gentlemen of the Empress's court were
presented, and formally took the oath of office. On the morrow St.
Cloud was reached in the imperial progress; and two days later, on
April first, the civil ceremony of marriage was performed in the
presence of all the great dignitaries of the empire, including all the
cardinals but two. Excepting only those who pleaded their age or
infirmities, the entire college had been transplanted from Rome to
Paris shortly after the seizure of the Pope. There was the usual
festival at night, accompanied by salvos of artillery, with
illuminations of the palace grounds and fountains. The weather, like
the date, was untoward, but the Parisian populace streamed out in
spite of pouring rain to get a foretaste of the more magnificent
spectacles soon to follow. The solemn procession of the bridal pair
into the capital occurred next day, and the religious ceremony was
celebrated in the great gallery of the Louvre, before an assembly
declared at the time to be the most superb ever seen in France, except
for one ominous fact--the twenty-seven cardinals were absent. They
protested that their absence was an empty form, due only to the
circumstance that Pius VII had not sanctioned the divorce. But
Napoleon was as keenly sensitive to the effectiveness of forms as any
Roman prelate; the offenders were banished from Paris, stripped of
their great revenues, and forbidden to wear the color or insignia of
their office. The popular speech dubbed them black cardinals.

In the first outburst of enthusiastic loyalty, Paris and the nation
could not sufficiently manifest their joy. The illuminations were
lavish, the crowds exuberant, the presents to the Empress superb.
Among the latter was a complete toilet service of silver-gilt,
including not merely small vessels, but large pieces of furniture,
such as an arm-chair and cheval glass. Apparently the French people
felt assured that they had exchanged an old, worn-out dynasty for a
new and vigorous one. They were jubilant at the thought of peace and
safety, which seemed to a generation cradled under royalty to be even
yet impossible in Europe except in connection with a great conquering
family. It was for this they poured forth their sentiment and their
substance, not for the affection they bore the new Empress.

Measured by a certain standard, Maria Louisa was beautiful. Her
abundant light-brown hair softened the high color of her brilliant
complexion, her eyes were blue and mild, her features had the pretty
but uncertain fullness of her eighteen years, her glance was frank and
untroubled; but her lips were full and heavy, her waist was long and
stiff, her form was plump like a child's, and her timidity and
self-consciousness were uncontrollable. The French taste inclines to
lines in the human form which suggest a lithe and sinewy figure; the
French instinct seeks in the expression signs of quick emotion, not to
say passion; the French eye knows but one standard of taste in dress;
that alone is natural to French feeling which is the product of
self-control and consummate art. In all these respects the Austrian
archduchess was woefully deficient. She was pious, and, as her letters
declare, had spent much of the previous winter in praying that
Providence would choose another consort for Napoleon. But with the
resignation of her faith, which some call fatalism, and with the
obedience which German life demands from all women, even those of the
highest station, she had accepted her destiny. These qualities,
combined with her capacity for motherhood, soon gained a courteous and
affectionate support from her husband, and together they defied both
irreconcilable royalists and radical republicans, who, in spite of
their ever-waning influence and ever-thinning ranks, still annoyed the
Emperor by significant whisperings and glances. Both were in despair
because the strongest indictment they had urged was now quashed. One
pretext of England, Napoleon declared, had been that he intended to
destroy the ancient dynasties of Europe. Circumstances having opened
the way to his choice of a consort, he had used the opportunity in
order to destroy the flimsy plea under which Great Britain had
disturbed the nations and had stirred up the strife which had
inundated Europe with blood. Metternich heard people wondering in
Vienna whether a new French dynasty was really to be established for
the peace and welfare of France, or whether the alliance was intended
to throw the strength of a hitherto implacable and courageous foe into
another Napoleonic combination for the conquest of Europe and the
world.

The solution of this enigma has never been found. There was at the
moment a lull in the storm; for a time it seemed as if it would
lengthen into a prolonged calm. During the ceremonies at the Louvre
the Austrian ambassador, who had taken to himself the credit of what
was passing, and had impressively accepted the congratulations
showered on him, caught up a wine-glass from the breakfast-table, and,
appearing at the window, announced in a loud voice that he drank to
the "King of Rome," a title reserved under the Holy Roman Empire for
the heir apparent. It was but a short time since Schwarzenberg's proud
master had renounced his proudest style, that of Roman emperor. The
crowd knew that the toast as now given was intended for Napoleon's
issue, and they burst into cheers at this new sign of Austrian amity.
The captive Spaniards at Valencay were not to be outdone. They chanted
a "Te Deum" in their chapel, and drank toasts to the health "of our
august sovereigns, the great Napoleon and Maria Louisa, his august
spouse." Ferdinand set a climax to his disgusting obsequiousness in a
petition begging to be adopted as a son, and asking for permission to
appear at court. Compiegne, whither the imperial pair soon returned,
was crowded with royal personages, with the most distinguished
diplomatists, and with the couriers bearing congratulatory despatches
from persons of consequence throughout Europe.




CHAPTER XX

RIGORS OF THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM[35]

         [Footnote 35: References: Marbot, Memoirs, ch. 28. Mahan:
         Influence of Sea Power. Sloane: Political Science Quarterly,
         The Continental System of Napoleon, XIII, pp. 213 _et seq._]

     Measures of Ecclesiastical Procedure -- Reforms in the Church --
     Napoleon as Suzerain of the Pope -- Methods of Defying the
     Continental System -- Measures to Enforce it -- Rearrangement of
     German Lands -- Napoleon as a Smuggler -- "Simulated Papers" --
     Evasions of the Imperial Restrictions -- Visit to the Netherlands
     -- Napoleon and his Brother Louis -- The Latter Defiant --
     Louis's Negotiations with England -- Fouche's Interference -- His
     Counterplot.


[Sidenote: 1810]

The consolidation of Napoleonic power appeared to be progressing
rapidly. In February a decree of the senate had declared the Papal
States to be divided into two French departments, under the names of
Rome and Trasimenus. The Eternal City was to give her name, as second
city of the Empire, to the imperial heir. The Pope, endowed with a
royal revenue of four millions, was to have a palace in each of
several different places, and reside, according to his choice, in any
one, or in all in turn. He was to swear that he would never contravene
the judgments of the Gallican Church, and his successors were each to
be similarly bound on their accession to office. Daunou wrote a book,
which was published at the Emperor's expense, maintaining the two
theses of Machiavelli: first, that the court of Rome had always used
its spiritual power to increase its temporal estate; secondly, that
its efforts had always been directed against the temporal power
strongest at the moment in Italy. Unconquerable as was the resistance
of Pius VII on the whole, he had nevertheless surrendered temporarily
at the beginning of what might be called the second quarrel of
investitures, by inducting into their offices the bishops nominated by
Napoleon. After he had been thrown into captivity, however, he flatly
refused to continue, and the Emperor cut the knot by installing in the
bishoprics, as they fell vacant, men of his own choice, under the
style of "vicars of the chapters."

This was but the initial step to an entire destruction of the
administrative scheme devised and perfected by the Roman hierarchy.
The college of cardinals had first been brought to Paris, and its
members then banished in pairs to the great provincial towns; the
ecclesiastical courts, with all their archives, were likewise
transplanted from Rome to the French capital; the thirty episcopates
of the two new French departments were reduced to four; the army of
foreign prelates which had been supported by the papal system was
dispersed into the various lands from which its members had come. The
number of Roman parishes, too, was reduced, and all the convents were
secularized. Such of the discharged priests as were ready to swear
allegiance to the Emperor and the Gallican Church received a small
pension; the rest--and they appear to have been in a majority--saw
their personal as well as ecclesiastical goods confiscated and were
themselves exiled.

These or similar measures being applied likewise to Piedmont, Liguria,
Tuscany, Parma, and Placentia, the sums of money raised from
confiscated estates became enormous. A large proportion of these funds
flowed of course into the imperial coffers, and to this fact, as well
as to the restored public confidence, was largely due the rise in
prices on the stock exchange which occurred on the consummation of the
Austrian marriage. These sweeping changes were of great service to
true religion and to the lands in which they were made, breaking as
they did the chains of an ecclesiastical oppression under which the
populace had been reduced to poverty, ignorance, and apathy.
Unfortunately the new rule, while more economical than the old, was
not less arbitrary--military despotism being as little fitted for the
development of a people as the rule of a corporation. Men looked
aghast as the papacy and papal influence crumbled together, while the
seat of real ecclesiastical power was removed from the banks of the
Tiber to those of the Seine. Time seemed to be taking its revenge.
Seven centuries earlier Lothair had been the vassal of Innocent II;
Napoleon was now the suzerain of Pius VII. So contemptible had the
Pope become, even in the eyes of devout Catholics, that de Maistre
called the inflexible but supine Pontiff a punchinello of no
importance.

It had been clear since Trafalgar that though France might dominate
earth, air, and fire in Europe, she could not gain the mastery of the
sea and its islands, at least, by the ordinary means. The Emperor's
infatuation with the plausible scheme of destroying England's commerce
by paper blockades and by embargoes on British goods had not been
diminished either by his inconclusive struggle in Spain or by his
victory over Austria. It was in vain that he had changed his naval
policy from one of fleet-fighting to one of commerce-destroying; that
he had seized and was continuing to seize neutral vessels laden with
British wares; that he had expanded his political system by conquest
until he was nominally master of the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and
Baltic harbors. Since 1805 English trade with the Continent, so far
from diminishing, had steadily increased in the hands of
contrabandists and neutral carriers, until it had now reached annual
dimensions of twenty-five millions sterling. In spite of the Tilsit
alliance, even French soldiers occasionally wore English-made shoes
and clothing. English ships carried naval stores out of Russian
harbors, and colonial wares found their way from the wharves of Riga
to the markets of Mainz. But the chief offenders in defying Napoleon's
chimerical policy were the Dutch and Hanseatic cities. The resistance
elsewhere in the Continent was passive compared with the energetic
smuggling and the clandestine evasion of decrees which went on under
the eyes of the officials in places like Amsterdam and Hamburg.

These facts had not been concealed from the Emperor of the French at
any time, and he now made ready to enforce the threats which he had
uttered in the agony of the late wars. It had come to a life-or-death
struggle between the policies laid down respectively in the imperial
decrees and in the British orders in council. Neither measure was in
the strictest sense military, but it is easy to see that the two were
irreconcilable in their intent, while the success of either one meant
the ruin of the land which upheld the other. It was for the sake,
apparently, of waging this decisive though unwarlike contest that
Napoleon renounced leading his victorious legions into Spain for the
expulsion of English troops from the peninsula. What he himself called
the "Spanish ulcer" might weaken the French system, and one hundred
thousand good troops, together with the imperial guard, were to be
sent to heal it by overwhelming the great English general who had been
made Duke of Wellington, and by seizing Lisbon. But the English
commerce with the peninsula was slender in comparison with what she
carried on with the Baltic and with Holland through the connivance of
governments which were nominally her foes. The Continental System,
therefore, must first be repaired, and it was to convert a nominal
acquiescence into a real one that Davout was despatched to hold the
fortresses from Dantzic westward, while Oudinot was to coerce Holland.

With such purposes in view, the lands taken from Austria were
apportioned among Bavaria, Italy, Wuertemberg, and Baden. Each of these
vassal states was made to pay handsomely for its new acquisitions. The
principality of Ratisbon was given to Dalberg, the prince-primate, and
he in turn delivered that of Frankfort to Prince Eugene. The King of
Westphalia received Hanover and Magdeburg, promising in return about
ten millions a year of tribute, and engaging to support the eighteen
thousand French troops who occupied his new lands. The gradual
evacuation of South Germany began, and before long the entire
coast-land between the Elbe and the Weser was held by soldiers who had
fought at Essling and Wagram. Hamburg, Bremen, and the other Hanseatic
towns, East Friesland, Oldenburg, a portion of Westphalia, the canton
of Valais, and the grand duchy of Berg were destined very soon to be
incorporated with France in order to round out the imperial domain. It
might be possible for southern Europe to substitute flax and
Neapolitan cotton for American cotton, chicory for coffee, grape syrup
or beet sugar for colonial sugar, and woad for indigo, but the North
could not. Like Louis, though in a less degree, Murat and Jerome,
sympathizing with their peoples, had sinned against the Continental
System, and were soon to do penance for their sins by the loss of
important territories. But for the present the ostensible compliance
of the northern dependencies was accepted.

It is a curious and amusing fact that the great smuggler and real
delinquent was Napoleon himself. Even he felt the exigencies of France
to be so fierce that, by a system of licenses, certain privileged
traders were permitted to secure the supplies of dye-stuffs and
fish-oil essential to French industries by exporting to England both
wine and wheat in exchange. The licensed monopolists paid handsomely
for their privilege, not only in the sums which they publicly turned
over, but in those which lined the pockets of unscrupulous ministers
like Fouche, who winked at great irregularities not contemplated by
the immunities secured from Napoleon.

An evasion of the British orders in council analogous to that of the
French decrees was extensively practised, and licenses to neutral
traders were also issued by the English government. But it practised
more discretion, and the regulation of the extensive commerce which
resulted was not attended by those court and private scandals so rife
in France. The worst feature of the English procedure was its adoption
of the so-called "neutralization" system. Dutch, French, and Spanish
trading vessels had long been provided by their owners with forged
papers certifying a neutral origin, generally Prussian. To these both
captains and crews swore without compunction when searched by British
cruisers. This system England made her own, issuing not merely to
real, but also to sham neutrals, licenses which insured them against
search when laden with wares for or from English ports. The firms
which engaged in the trade--and after the removal of the
non-intercourse restrictions many of them were American--compounded
morality with legality, considering themselves perfectly reputable,
even though they continued to furnish "simulated papers"--that is,
prepared forgeries--to their ships as part of the regular outfit.

Such immoralities, inequalities, and absurdities were the necessary
consequence of a fight for the means of subsistence between two
combatants one of which had no hands and the other no feet. So
extensive was the traffic, however, that although England had found it
necessary, in consequence of the Spanish rebellion, to restrict her
paper blockade to the coasts of Holland, France, and northern Italy,
she nevertheless doubled her importations of naval stores during the
season of 1808, while the prices of wool, silk, and colonial wares
gave temporary promise of a revival of manufactures. As long as
Napoleon's energy was elsewhere engaged, the ubiquity of English
war-ships on the high seas rendered the use of "simulated papers"
inordinately profitable; and even after he began to give his undivided
attention to policing the harbors and guarding the coast-line, it
continued to be fairly so. It must further be remembered that in the
treaty which Russia made with Sweden on September seventeenth, 1809,
the latter country promised not only to cede Finland, but also to shut
out from her harbors all British ships except such as brought salt and
colonial wares. In January, 1810, Napoleon had made an agreement with
the same power that he would hand back Pomerania, but in return Sweden
was to import nothing but salt.

The Austrian marriage having now been consummated and Austria having
been added to his system, Napoleon was ready in June to open his novel
campaign and begin the commercial warfare which eventually furnished
one of the most important elements in his overthrow, the other two
being the national uprisings and the treachery of his friends, so
called. But the zenith had not even yet been reached by his star. It
was with undimmed sagacity and undiminished power that, accompanied by
his bride, he set out about the end of April from Compiegne, to visit
the Dutch frontier, his object being to observe how far Holland's
well-nigh open contempt for his cherished scheme would now justify the
destruction of her autonomy and the utter overthrow of her government.
The nominal purpose of the journey was to please the young Empress,
and to gratify the peoples of Belgium and Brabant by a sight of her
charms. This aim was observed in all the arrangements, but in
well-nigh every town visited the sun's first rays saw the Emperor on
horseback inspecting troops, ships, fortifications, and arsenals; and
when its last beams faded away the unwearied man was still holding
interviews with the local authorities, in which every detail of
administration was revised and strengthened. To all appearance the end
of the journey was as prosperous as its inception. Favors were
distributed with lavish hand, the people displayed a wild enthusiasm
when the affable but distant Empress showed herself, and nothing
occurred to mar the outward state in which the Emperor returned to
Paris. But the condition of his mind cannot be depicted, such was his
rage and humiliation in regard to a revelation of treachery made
inadvertently and innocently by Louis on the eve of their separation.
To explain what had occurred a short retrospect is necessary.

From earliest childhood certain qualities of Louis had endeared him to
Napoleon. The school of poverty, in which the younger brother had been
the pupil of the elder, was likewise a school of fraternal affection.
Throughout the Italian and Egyptian campaigns they stood in intimate
relations as general and aide-de-camp, and one of the earliest cares
of the First Consul was to bestow the beautiful Hortense de
Beauharnais on his favorite brother. In 1804 Louis was made general,
then councilor of state, and finally in 1806 he was elevated to the
throne of Holland. His child until its untimely death was cherished by
Napoleon as a son destined to inherit imperial greatness. But, like
the other royal Bonapartes, the King of Holland regarded his high
estate not as a gift from the Emperor, but as a right. He ruled the
land assigned him, if not in his own interest, at least not in that of
the Empire, and from the outset filled his letters with bitter
complaints of all that entered into his lot, not excepting his wife.
Napoleon admonished and threatened, but to no avail. The interests of
his own royalty and of the Dutch were nearer to Louis than those of
the Empire.

At last the Emperor hinted that the air of Holland did not agree with
its monarch, indicating that circumstances required it to be
incorporated with France. In March, 1808, he offered the crown of
Spain as a substitute. A little later the suggestion was made that
Louis might have the Hanseatic towns in exchange for Brabant and
Zealand. Both propositions were scouted. When we remember who the
potentates were, by whom such offers were made and refused, we seem
forced to dismiss all notions of patriotism, uprightness, and loyalty
as the motives of either, and must attribute Louis's course to
petulance. Napoleon was highly incensed. On the failure of the
Walcheren expedition, both Brabant and Zealand were occupied by French
troops, and Louis was summoned to Paris. His first desperate thought
was one of resistance, but on reflection he obeyed. On his arrival he
learned that his fate was imminent. Napoleon announced to the
legislature that a change in the relations with Holland was
imperative. The minister of the interior explained that, as being the
alluvium of three French rivers--namely, the Rhine, the Meuse, and the
Scheldt--that land was by nature a portion of France, one of the great
imperial arteries. Louis sought to fly, but was detained. He at once
despatched the Count de Bylandt with orders to close the Dutch
frontier fortresses and defend the capital against the French troops.
This was done, but Louis's defiance was short. After signing a treaty
which bound him, among other things, to open his fortresses, seize all
"neutralized," and even all neutral, vessels in his harbors, including
those of the United States,--a document which thus left him only a
nominal throne,--he was permitted early in April, 1810, to return to
Amsterdam.

Napoleon's subsequent course was dictated by what might appear to be a
sudden change of view, but was in reality a revival of his perennial
hopes for peace with England. Having in mind the annexation of
Holland, it occurred to him that by desisting from that measure he
might wrench from Great Britain the lasting peace which she had thus
far refused. Accordingly he ordered his brother to open a negotiation
with London and represent his kingdom as in danger of annihilation
unless the British government would consent to a cessation of
hostilities and an enduring treaty of peace. This was done, and though
Labouchere, Louis's agent, had so little to offer that his
propositions were farcical, yet there was at least the show of a
diplomatic negotiation. At this juncture the superserviceable
Mephistopheles of the Empire, Fouche, intervened. By an agent of his
own he approached the cabinet of St. James with an offer of peace on
the basis of restoring the Spanish Bourbons and compensating Louis
XVIII by a kingdom to be carved from the territories of the United
States!

The agent of Fouche reached London somewhat ahead of the one sent by
Louis. He was firmly sent to the right-about. Labouchere was then told
that before entering further on the question, a proposition for peace
must be formulated and presented, not by the King of Holland, but by
the Emperor. The failure of the Walcheren expedition had exasperated
England, Canning had fallen, and Lord Wellesley, his successor,
represented a powerful sentiment for the continuation of the war.
Napoleon replied, therefore, by a note suggesting not a definite
peace, but a step toward it. If England would withdraw the orders in
council of 1807, he would evacuate Holland and the Hanseatic towns.
His note closed with a characteristic threat. If England should delay,
having already lost her trade with Naples, Spain, Portugal, and the
port of Triest, she would now lose that with Holland, the Hanseatic
towns, and Sicily.

Nothing dismayed by his first rebuff, the audacious Fouche again
intervened. This time he selected Ouvrard, a friend of Labouchere's
and of his own, a man well known as a stormy petrel of intrigue, to
operate insidiously through the accredited envoy, who innocently
supposed his friend to be representing Napoleon's own views. There was
consequently but little sense of restraint in the renewed negotiation.
Virtually the entire continental situation was considered as open, and
Fouche's pet scheme of an American kingdom for Louis XVIII was further
amplified by the suggestion of an Anglo-French expedition to establish
it. Labouchere having returned to Holland, much of the negotiation had
been carried on by letter, and Napoleon, getting wind during his
Belgian visit of Ouvrard's presence at the Dutch court, suspected
trickery and called for the correspondence. Its very existence enraged
him; that such matters should have been put in writing was
compromising to his entire policy. Ouvrard afterward declared that he
personally informed the Emperor of what was going on, but he could
never prove it; the only possible basis which can be found for his
statement consists in the seizure and confiscation about this time of
some hundred and thirty American vessels lying in continental
harbors; but, base as that deed was, it proves nothing and was due to
another cause. It is not easy to determine whether this deed was a
well-considered measure of French diplomacy, intended to arouse the
pugnacity of the United States, or a temporary shift to fill empty
coffers. In either case it was not intended to have a direct bearing
on irregular diplomatic negotiations between England and Holland. The
circumstances were a direct result of the Berlin Decree.




CHAPTER XXI

THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM COMPLETED

     The Bayonne and Rambouillet Decrees -- Fouche Replaced by Savary
     -- Abdication of King Louis -- Conduct of Louis and Lucien --
     Holland Incorporated into the Empire -- Napoleon's Relatives
     Untrue to his Interests -- French Empire at its Greatest Extent
     -- The Continental System as Perfected -- Discontent in Russia
     and in Sweden.


The American Embargo Act of 1807 had been for manifest reasons
entirely to Napoleon's liking, as is proved by the Bayonne Decree of
1808, which ordered the seizure and sale in French harbors of all
American ships transgressing it. The Non-intercourse Act of March
first, 1809, was, however, quite another thing. It was passed by the
Democratic majority of Congress in defiance of Federalist sentiment,
and prohibited commercial intercourse with both Great Britain and
France. Napoleon declared that French vessels had been seized under
its terms in United States harbors; and it was nominally in
retaliation for this, which was not a fact, that, according to the
Rambouillet Decree, issued on March twenty-third, 1810, American
vessels with their cargoes, worth together upward of eight million
dollars, were seized and kept. In reality Napoleon regarded or
pretended to regard the Non-intercourse Act as one of open hostility
to himself, and used it to fill his depleted purse, exactly as he used
the substitutes passed by Congress in the following year to bring on
the War of 1812. Owing to the general use of "simulated" American
papers and seals, the non-intercourse system introduced British goods
into every continental harbor. A vessel holding both a French and a
British license and "simulated papers" of the United States or any
other neutral state might by unscrupulous adroitness trade in English
goods almost without restriction, and this was far from Napoleon's
intention. Between 1802 and 1811, nine hundred and seventeen American
vessels were seized by the British and five hundred and fifty-eight by
the French in their harbors; the number seized in the ports of
Holland, Spain, Denmark, and Naples was very large, but it is not
definitely known. The dealings of Napoleon with the United States in
this matter, like those of England, were irregular and evasive; but
there is nothing in them to show that the Emperor of the French
contemplated either the dismemberment of the American republic or the
abandonment of his Continental System.

Having traced the whole English-Dutch conspiracy directly to Fouche,
Napoleon contemplated bringing the treacherous minister to trial on
the charge of treason. Fearing, however, the effect not merely in
Europe, but particularly in France, of such a spectacle, and the
revelations which must necessarily accompany it, he contented himself
with degrading and banishing his unruly henchman. The important office
of police minister was filled by the appointment of Savary, an equally
unscrupulous but more obedient tool. The murderer of Enghien, and the
keeper of Ferdinand as he now was and had been since Talleyrand's
return to public life, was both feared and hated in Paris. "I
believe," he says in his memoirs, "that news of a pestilence having
broken out on some point of the coast would not have caused more
terror than did my nomination to the ministry of police."

Louis, within the narrowed sphere of his activities, continued quite
as incorrigible as before. He refused the perfect obedience demanded,
and even treated the French diplomatic agent in Holland with
indignity. Napoleon's scorn burst its bounds. "Louis," he wrote in a
letter carefully excluded from the authorized edition of his
correspondence, "you do not want to reign long; your actions reveal
your true feelings better than your personal letters. Listen to one
who has known those feelings longer than even you yourself. Retrace
your steps, be French at heart, or your people will drive you out, and
you will leave Holland, the object of pity and ridicule on the part of
the Dutch. Men govern states by the exercise of reason and the use of
a policy, and not by the impulses of an acid and vitiated lymph." Two
days later, on hearing of a studied insult from his brother to the
French minister, he wrote again: "Write no more trite phrases; you
have been repeating them for three years, and every day proves their
falseness. This is the last letter I shall write you in my life." In a
short time French troops were marching on Amsterdam. Louis summoned
his council and advised resistance; but the councilors convinced him
how useless such a course would be. The dispirited King at once
abdicated and fled.

For some days Louis's whereabouts were unknown. There was much talk,
and Napoleon was agitated. He wrote beseeching Jerome to learn where
the fugitive was and send him to Paris, that he might withdraw to St.
Leu and cease to be the laughing-stock of Europe. In ten days it was
known that Louis was at Teplitz in Bohemia. A circular was at once
addressed to the French diplomatists abroad, explaining that the King
of Holland must be excused for his conduct on the ground of his being
a chronic invalid. Inasmuch as about the same time Lucien found the
air of the French department of Rome not altogether to his liking, and
besought his brother's leave to expatriate himself to the United
States, the family relations of the Emperor were published throughout
Europe in a most unbecoming light. The ship in which Lucien sailed was
captured by an English frigate, and he was taken to England, where he
remained in an agreeable captivity until 1814.

The "Moniteur" of July ninth, 1810, published a laconic imperial
decree stating that Holland was henceforth a portion of the Empire.
"What was I to do?" the Emperor exclaimed at St. Helena. "Leave
Holland to the enemy? Nominate a new king?" It is difficult from his
standpoint to answer these questions except in the negative. Louis had
viewed his royal task as if he had been a dynastic king, which of
course he never was, though much beloved by many of his subjects. He
had moved the capital from The Hague to Amsterdam, had reformed the
Dutch jurisprudence by the introduction of the Code Napoleon, had
patronized learning and the arts. In all this he had not followed his
brother's leading, and the results were excellent. But the Dutch
merchants suffered exactly in proportion to the enforcement of the
continental blockade, riots of the unemployed became frequent, and the
King, forgetting the ladder by which he had climbed, became the friend
and the ally of his people. His fate was a natural consequence of his
conduct.

As a portion of the French empire, Holland was divided into eight
departments, her public debt was scaled down from eighty to twenty
millions, the French administration was put upon a basis of the most
rigid economy, and for the ensuing four years the Dutch found what
consolation they might for the loss of their independence and their
trade in a tolerable physical well-being, in the suppression of all
disorders, and in an enforced calm such as Louis, by reason of his
false position, had not been able to secure for them--a boon which,
it must be confessed, their placid dispositions did not undervalue.
When, however, opportunity was ripe, they bravely rose to assert once
more their nationality.

In this connection it is interesting to note the effect which the
conduct of the Emperor's family had finally produced in his mind.
Brothers and sisters alike had come to consider their changed fortunes
as having introduced them into the royal hierarchy of the old
absolutist Europe, which their narrowness and ignorance led them to
regard as still existent. Their behavior was distinctly that of the
old dynastic sovereigns, whose lives were their model. The Emperor at
last saw his mistake. "Relatives and cousins, male or female," he said
in September to Metternich, "are all worthless. I should not have left
a throne in existence, even for my brothers. But one grows wise only
with time. I should have appointed nothing but stadholders and
viceroys." This policy he thenceforward adopted. Carrying out the
threat made in response to Joseph's complaints, Spain as far as the
Ebro had been annexed to the Empire in March, 1810; in December the
whole North Sea coast as far as Luebeck was likewise incorporated into
the Empire. Jerome was deprived of a portion of Hanover, which he had
received only in January, and the Duke of Oldenburg, who had married
that favorite sister of Alexander for whose hand Napoleon had
tentatively sued, was dethroned.

The same year Valais, the little commonwealth which had been separated
from Switzerland and made independent in order to neutralize the
highway into Italy, was likewise annexed. This new department, called
that of the Simplon, together with the four erected out of the
coast-line of the North Sea, brought the limits of Napoleonic empire
to their greatest extent. The Illyrian provinces and the Ionian Isles
were not under direct civil administration from Paris, being held as
military outposts. Biscay, Navarre, Aragon, and Catalonia were each
likewise held as military governments. Murat was made king of Naples,
Louis's infant son became grand duke of Berg, Elisa was already grand
duchess of Tuscany and princess of Lucca and Piombino. It will be
remembered that Pauline was duchess of Guastalla, Jerome king of
Westphalia, Joseph king of Spain, Berthier prince of Neuchatel,
Talleyrand prince of Benevento, and Eugene viceroy of the kingdom of
Italy. These states, together with the Confederation of the Rhine, the
Helvetic Republic, Bavaria, Saxony, Wuertemberg, and Denmark, with
Norway, were all vassal powers. But Rome, Genoa, Parma, Florence,
Siena, Leghorn, Osnabrueck, Muenster, Bremen, and Hamburg were now
capitals of actual French departments, the total number of which
reached one hundred and thirty. They were directly administered by a
central bureaucracy as autocratic as any military despotism.

Thus at last was carried out the program of the Revolution, whose
leaders had determined in 1796 to close the Continent to English
commerce. What republican idealism had imagined, imperial vigor at
least partially realized. According to the Trianon decree of August
fifth, 1810, and that of Fontainebleau, issued on October eighteenth
of the same year, French soldiers crossed the frontiers of the Empire,
seized every depot of English wares within a four-mile limit, and
burned all the contents except the sugar and coffee, which were
transported to the great towns, and sold at auction for the Emperor's
extraordinary expenses; the smugglers themselves were hunted down,
captured, and handed over to the tender mercies of a court created
especially to try them. From the Pyrenees to the North Cape the
"licenses" devised by the Directory and issued by the Empire were the
only certificates under which English goods could be introduced into
the now nearly completed system. Denmark, which still held Norway
under its sway, had neither forgotten nor forgiven the bombardment of
Copenhagen in 1807; and her king, Frederick VI, hoping that in the
chapter of accidents Sweden too might fall to his crown, was only too
willing to assist the Emperor and close his ports to all British
commerce, even to "neutral" ships carrying English goods. The popular
fury against England made the people willing to forego all the
comforts and advantages of free trade in colonial wares.

It was with jealous eyes that Napoleon saw Russia's growing
lukewarmness and marked her evasions of her pact. He knew also that in
spite of his decrees and his vigilance English goods were still
transported under the Turkish flag into the Mediterranean. But direct
and efficient intervention on the Baltic or in the Levant was as yet
impossible. To complete one portion of his structure, a cordon must
first be drawn about both Sweden and Spain. The former was apparently
secure, for Gustavus IV, having nearly ruined his country by
persisting in the English alliance, had made way for his uncle, who
now ruled as Charles XIII under the protection of Napoleon. The new
King, being childless, had selected as his successor Marshal
Bernadotte, whose kindly dealings with the Pomeranians had endeared
him to all Swedes. The estates of Sweden, remembering that he had
married a sister of Joseph Bonaparte's wife, and recalling his long
association with Napoleon, believed that in him they had a candidate
acceptable to the French emperor, and therefore formally accepted him.
They did not know the details of his unfriendly relations to
Napoleon, nor with what unwillingness consent was given by the Emperor
to his candidacy. The bonds of French citizenship were most grudgingly
loosed by the Emperor, for there rankled in his breast a deep-seated
feeling of distrust. But he was forced to a distasteful compliance by
the fear of exposing unsavory details of his own policy. The new crown
prince himself was well aware of the facts. He coveted Norway and
asked for it, that on his accession he might bring Sweden a substitute
for the loss of Finland; but Napoleon would not thus alienate the King
of Denmark. The Czar was not hampered in the same way, and in
December, 1810, offered Sweden the coveted land as the price of her
alliance. When we recall the early republicanism of Bernadotte, his
repeated failures in critical moments,--as on the Marchfeld and
elsewhere,--the impatient and severe reproofs administered to the
inefficient and fiery Gascon by his commander, we are not amazed that
the crown prince Charles John, as his style now ran, began immediately
after his installation at Stockholm to vent his spleen on Napoleon.
Though there was no declared enmity, yet this fact augured ill for the
steadfastness to the French alliance of the land over which he was
soon to reign.




CHAPTER XXII

THE COURSE OF THE PENINSULAR WAR[36]

         [Footnote 36: See Napier, Peninsular War.]

     Napoleon's Plans for Spain -- Character of the Troops Sent
     Thither -- Conflicting Policies in England -- The Battle of
     Busaco -- The Lines of Torres Vedras -- Soult's Dilatoriness --
     Consequences of the Spanish Campaign -- English Opinion Opposed
     to Wellington -- Difficulties of Spanish Warfare -- Marmont
     Replaces Massena -- French Successes -- Their Slight Value -- The
     French Character and the Spanish Invasion.


But matters were much worse beyond the Pyrenees, where there was open
warfare. The seizure of the northern provinces marked the commencement
of a new policy, nothing less than the incorporation of all Spain in
France. Azanza, the envoy of Joseph at Paris, could scarcely trust his
senses when, after long and fruitless efforts to persuade Napoleon
that the troubles of Spain were due to the rapine of the French
generals and the quarrels of their unbridled soldiery, and that the
new King's moderation would be a perfect remedy if left to work its
effects, he was finally shown his master's carefully written
abdication, only waiting on events for publication, and was harshly
told in reply to his intercessions for the integrity of his country
that it was merely "the natural extension of France." It was
Talleyrand who originally said that Italy was the flank of France,
Spain its natural continuation, and Holland its alluvium.

Spain was to be conquered step by step, and by a season of military
administration each new acquisition was to be made ready for the
eventual dignity of a French department. A manifesto setting forth
this policy was prepared and was to be duly issued to the Spanish
people, but it never reached Madrid. The courier who carried it was
captured by a guerrilla, and the proclamation was at once printed in a
popular journal and copied thence into the "London Courier." It is not
difficult to imagine how its perusal intensified the ever-growing
national passion of the insurgent Spaniards for emancipation from the
French yoke.

This spirit was England's powerful ally and Massena's destructive foe.
The great marshal, second in ability only to his imperial master, had
succeeded to the command in the peninsula. The Imperial Guard was the
mainstay of the reinforcements despatched thither in order to end the
military conflict and inaugurate the new peaceful warfare by enforcing
the Continental system of commercial embargo for humiliating England.
Besides the guard there were, however, some of those regiments which
had quailed at Vienna before the supposed approach of the Archduke
John's army from Hungary after the battle of Wagram, by no means the
flower of the Emperor's troops. These newcomers, together with the
forces already in Spain under Suchet, Augereau, Reille, and Thouvenot,
and the remnant of those troops which had been under Soult, were
quickly organized for offensive warfare, first against the Spaniards
and then against the English under Wellington who were still holding
Portugal. The three army corps which were collected in Leon ready for
advance were commanded respectively by Ney, Junot, and Regnier. Their
number on paper was eighty thousand; in reality there were not more
than fifty thousand effective fighting men. By the arrival of Hill's
corps to reinforce Wellington the English numbered nearly if not quite
as many.

For three years public opinion in England had been divided, some
sustaining on the one hand Canning's policy of striving to defeat
Napoleon by rousing the Continental nations and furnishing them with
subsidies for warfare, others preferring that of Castlereagh, which
advocated the sending of English forces into the Continent. The latter
theory had temporarily prevailed. Three expeditions, one to Portugal,
one to Walcheren, and one to Sicily, had been entire or partial
failures. But Wellington's victory at Talavera having kept the
peninsular ports open to English trade, his older brother, Lord
Wellesley, who was now secretary for foreign affairs in the new
cabinet, and who ardently believed that thus alone could England win,
managed continuously to reinforce the army in Portugal until at last
it was strong in numbers and efficient as a fighting machine.

From beginning to end Massena's campaign was marked by unexpected
disaster. Such were the zeal and endurance of the Spaniards that the
old, ill-constructed fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo held out from the
beginning of June until the ninth of July. Owing to the great heat and
the preparations necessary in a hostile and deserted land, Almeida,
which next blocked the way, was not even beleaguered until August
fifteenth, and it held out for nearly a fortnight. Finally, on
September sixteenth, Massena crossed the Portuguese frontier, and
Wellington, who lay near by but had not ventured to assume the
offensive, began a slow and cautious retreat down the valley of the
Mondego, devastating the country as he went. At last he made a stand
on the heights near Busaco, over against a gorge where the river
breaks through the hills into the plains below. Massena attacked on
September twenty-seventh and was repulsed with a loss of four thousand
five hundred dead and wounded. His division commanders showed at once
a spirit which soon developed into unruliness: they had declared from
the outset that their force was not sufficiently strong for the task
assigned to it, and they now demanded a retreat. But the veteran
Massena stood firm: his scouts had brought word of a certain
unprotected vale or rather depression of the land on the English left,
which, having apparently escaped Wellington's observation, was not
fortified, and the French commander determined to outflank his foe on
that line. The movement was thoroughly successful and the British
began a rapid retreat southward before the advancing French.

Massena found easy sustenance for man and beast in the rich lowlands
about Coimbra, and halting in that town for a short time to recruit
his strength and nurse his sick, started at last in the full tide of
success for Lisbon and the sea, to drive the English to their ships
and complete the Continental embargo. As one day succeeded another,
his hopes grew higher until at last he overtook and began to skirmish
with the English rear-guard. But after a final dash on October
eleventh, that rear-guard suddenly vanished. Two days later the French
were brought suddenly to a standstill before a long, perfectly
constructed, and bristling line of fortifications of whose existence
they had known absolutely nothing. These were the famous lines of
Torres Vedras, constructed by Wellington in his recent enforced
vacation, to guard his eventual retreat and embarkment, provided Sir
John Moore's unfortunate campaign and the last Austrian war should
find a climax in a similar French victory over all Spain. These lines
effectually protected the right bank of the Tagus. They consisted of
one hundred and fifty-two redoubts, equipped with seven hundred guns
and manned by thirty thousand English, thirty thousand Portuguese,
and eight thousand Spaniards. As Massena now had but forty-five
thousand men, there could be no question of storming such a fortress,
and nothing was left but to await reinforcements and plan a strategic
movement by which he might cross the Tagus, threaten Lisbon from the
left bank, draw off the foe to its defense, and thus perhaps, having
weakened the garrison, secure the possibility of a successful attack
on the fortified lines in front.

The notion was not visionary. Soult had been despatched with a strong
force southward into Andalusia, with orders to crush out the
resistance of that province; he was then to turn westward, join
Massena in Portugal, and cooeperate with him under his orders for the
expulsion of the English. The belated expedition had not arrived, but
in spite of the delay and disappointment it must surely come at last;
and if the Emperor would but consent to order up the troops lying in
Castile, the quickly formed and brilliant plan of Massena would be
feasible. But, alas for the scheme, what was apparently jealousy on
the part of Soult had quenched all ardor in the Andalusian invasion.
He was at this moment before Cadiz, carrying on a siege in which
either the Spanish were displaying great courage or the French but
little heart. His sluggish progress was not unobserved at Paris, and
finally under pressure he left half his force before the walls of the
"white city," while with the other he advanced and captured the
fortress of Badajoz. There he paused of necessity, being falsely
informed that Massena, who had only withdrawn toward Santarem, was in
full retreat, but being correctly notified that the portions of his
own force left before Cadiz were not able to hold their own. Having
been virtually defeated in his attack on Sir John Moore, his invasion
of Portugal in 1809 had been temporarily successful; but he had
occupied Oporto only to conspire like Junot for the crown of the
country, and he had been driven out without difficulty by the English.
Made commander-in-chief after the empty victory of Wellington at
Talavera, he had won a great battle at Ocana on November nineteenth,
1809; but since then his time had been virtually wasted, for his
bickerings with Joseph and his jealousy of Massena made all his
successes, even this last one at Badajoz, entirely useless. In a short
time he returned to Cadiz, and the French before Lisbon remained
therefore without their auxiliaries.

Both these checks displeased Napoleon greatly. It is often stated that
it was because he felt contempt alike for the Spanish guerrillas and
the English infantry that he delegated the conduct of affairs in the
peninsula to his lieutenants. Quite the reverse appears to be the
truth. Foy, Massena's envoy, reached Paris about the end of November,
and found the Emperor in something like a dull fury. His personal
experience had now the confirmation of that undergone by Massena and
Soult, two of his greatest lieutenants. He had himself found the
rugged and ill-cultivated country unable to support large armies. It
was a discouraging fact that neither Soult nor Massena had succeeded
better than the great captain himself, and Napoleon was thus convinced
that the Continental System could not be enforced against such dogged
persistency as that of the unreasoning, disorganized, but courageous
and frenzied Spaniards, assisted by the cold, calculating, and lucky
Wellington: at least not without terrible cost in life and money.
Accordingly Massena was left without immediate reinforcement, while on
December tenth, 1809, was promulgated the decree incorporating the
North Sea coast into the Empire. Alexander chose to regard this
fateful act as merely disrespectful, remonstrated with the French
envoy at St. Petersburg, and sent a circular to the powers reserving
the rights of his house over Oldenburg; he refused the petty
indemnification of Erfurt offered by Napoleon, and a year later, in
December, 1810, issued a ukase which laid prohibitive duties on French
silks and wines, while at the same time it favored the "neutral"
traffic in English wares. But at the moment he bore the affront
without any menace of war, and merely called attention to the common
obligations of friendship between sovereigns. If the breach were to
occur, it must be plainly and manifestly Napoleon's doing.

Napoleon's failure to reinforce Massena left the situation before
Lisbon precarious. It cannot be proved that he understood all the
difficulties in Wellington's position, but it is not unlikely that he
did. Lisbon was overcrowded with fugitives, and demanded speedy relief
by offensive operations. If Massena had opened a bombardment from the
opposite bank, its inhabitants would have risen in rebellion against
the English general. The opposition party in Westminster used what
seemed in England to be the perennial and everlasting delay of the
younger brother as ground to attack the older one's conduct and to
arraign the entire ministerial policy. The English people had heard of
the Spanish insurrection with wild delight, but the inefficiency and
stubbornness of the insurgent leaders, together with the
untrustworthiness of the provisional governments, had cooled their
ardor, and after the defeat at Ocana--a battle which the vainglorious
Spaniards had fought in direct opposition to Wellington's advice--they
were loud in abuse of their allies. Lord Liverpool openly attacked
Wellington, popular discontent was heightened by the opposition
taunts, and it seemed for a time as if the ministry must abandon the
expedition or fall.

But if Wellington required all the force of his will and the
compulsion of a higher necessity to make him deaf to the clamor of his
allies for an advance, Massena had equal need for strength to sustain
his forces, and to resist the clamor of his own generals for retreat.
Foy finally brought back the necessary orders for reinforcements to
come in from Castile; but, as a large proportion of the men stationed
in that province existed merely on paper, only nine thousand could be
spared from those who actually were there. Still Massena stood like a
rock. Wellington wrote home that with all his money, and assisted by
the good will of the inhabitants, he could not have maintained one
division where all the winter long Massena found sustenance for sixty
thousand men and twelve thousand beasts. This tribute to the
campaigning powers of the French reveals incidentally the exaggerated
conception of their strength entertained by the enemy.

The return of Soult to Cadiz emboldened Wellington to advance into
Spain. After various movements on the part of both sides, Massena was
beaten at Fuentes de Onoro, and Almeida was retaken by the English.
Badajoz was beset by the English, and Soult once more advanced to its
assistance. He, too, was defeated in a battle at Albuera, but
succeeded finally in effecting a junction with Massena, so that
Wellington felt compelled to retreat again into Portugal before the
united army. The exasperation of Napoleon at the failure of Massena in
the battle of Fuentes de Onoro led to the disgrace of the old marshal,
and Marmont was sent to replace him. Such was the difficulty which the
French experienced in securing commissary stores from an impoverished
land that Wellington seemed content to let want fight his battles. The
season of 1811 was marked by inactivity on both sides except in the
east, where Suchet captured Aragon and Valencia, annihilating the
Spanish army under Blake. But at the close of the year Soult was
compelled to withdraw southward toward the coast, in the hope of
securing indispensable supplies. The Spanish guerrillas of central
Spain harassed the French soldiers and took the heart out of them.
Wellington at once resumed the offensive; Ciudad Rodrigo fell before
him on January twelfth, 1812, and on April eighth, after one of the
bravest and bloodiest assaults recorded in English annals, Badajoz
also was carried.

Marmont drew back for concentration, and the English advanced to the
Duero. Thereupon the French turned again, Wellington retreated on
Salamanca, and there made his stand, defeating his enemy on July
twenty-second, in a brilliant engagement. The French commander then
marched to Burgos, but his opponent, instead of following, turned
toward Madrid, in order first to drive Joseph from his capital. By
that time Burgos had been made so strong that all efforts to capture
it proved unavailing, Soult at once abandoned Cadiz and turned
northward to aid Joseph. The English were thus between two foes, and
such was the demoralization of the British soldiery when they
understood their danger that Wellington could with difficulty lead
them back into Portugal. At the close of 1812 the French were in
control of all Spain except the south, which had been freed by Soult's
northward movement. Cadiz became the capital of the nationalists, but
they could not restrain their revolutionary impulses long enough to
form a respectable or trustworthy government, and Wellington was once
more relegated to inactivity. His enforced leisure was occupied by the
consideration of plans for the great successes with which he crowned
the following season.

Viewed from a military standpoint, the French warfare in Spain
appeared utterly disastrous.[37] Regiments melted away like ice before
an April sun; desertions became ominously numerous, and disease laid
thousands low. Guerrilla warfare demoralized the regular forces. The
new conscripts at first showed a noisy zeal, but they had been torn
too young from their home nurture, and had neither strength nor power
of resistance. The troops from vassal kingdoms and newly annexed
territories were dismayed by the sufferings they had to endure, and
beheld with interest the national uprising of the Spaniards, which, in
spite of local jealousies, of rabid and radical doctrines that could
lead to nothing but anarchy, of disastrous failure in government, of
feebleness and falsehood in the temporary rulers, seemed likely to
render of no avail the efforts and successes of a great empire.

         [Footnote 37: Oman, History of the Peninsular War, furnishes
         much valuable material on this period. His point of view in
         one feature is corrected by J. B. Rye and R. A.
         Bence-Pembroke of Oxford. See the Army Service Corps
         Quarterly, October, 1905.]

Yet in some respects the French character appeared in a stronger light
throughout the disasters of the Peninsular war than at any other time.
Marbot's tale of the beautiful young cantiniere, or woman sutler, of
the Twenty-sixth regiment, who after Busaco rushed unhurt through the
English outposts in order to alleviate the sufferings of the captured
general of her brigade, and who returned on her donkey through the
lines without having suffered an insult, reflects equal credit on the
unselfish daring of the French, which she typified, and on the
pure-minded gallantry of the English. The same writer's narrative of
the French deserters who, under a leader nicknamed Marshal Stockpot,
established themselves as freebooters in a convent not far from
Massena's headquarters at Santarem, and of the general's swift,
condign punishment of such conduct, graphically delineates the straits
of the French, which led them into the extreme courses that devastated
the land, but it also displays the quality of the discipline which was
exercised whenever possible. Nor should it be forgotten that the two
most splendid writers of France's succeeding age were profoundly
impressed with the terrible scenes of the French invasion of Spain.
George Sand was in Madrid as an infant for a considerable portion of
1808; Victor Hugo passed the year 1811 in a Madrid school, fighting
childish battles for "the great Emperor," whom his Spanish schoolmates
called Napoladron (Napo the robber). Upon both the fact of their
connection with the repulse of Napoleon's armies left a profound
impression. The former was irresistibly drawn to revisit the country;
the latter recalled his impressions in some of his noblest verse.




CHAPTER XXIII

BIRTH OF THE KING OF ROME[38]

         [Footnote 38: References as before, and Helfert: Marie
         Louise. Welschinger: La censure sous le premier empire.
         Wertheimer: Die Heirat der Erzherzogin Marie Louise mit
         Napoleon I. Montbel: Le duc de Reichstadt. Welschinger: Le
         roi de Rome.]

     England Under the Continental System -- End of Constitutional
     Government in France -- Napoleon's Personal Rule -- Wealth of his
     High Officials -- Literature and the Empire -- Mme. de Stael's
     Aspirations -- Her Attempts to Win Napoleon -- Her Genius Saved
     by Defeat -- The Decennial Prizes -- Pregnancy of Maria Louisa --
     The Heir of the Napoleon Dynasty.


[Sidenote: 1810-11]

It would be idle to suppose that during the winter of 1810-11 the
Spanish situation was not thoroughly appreciated by the imperial
bridegroom at Paris, or that he underrated the ultimate effects of
what was taking place in the Iberian peninsula if the process were to
go on. Still less is it probable that with the direction of all his
energy toward that quarter he could not have quenched the uncertain
and spasmodic efforts of Spanish patriotism, either by arts of which
he was a master, or by making a desert to call it a peace. No; every
indication is that his eye was still fixed on England at her vital
point, and that he took his measures in the North to deal her such a
thrust that the life-blood which sustained the Peninsular war would
either flow inefficacious, or be turned away altogether from Spain,
and change the ever-doubtful success of Wellington into assured
disaster. Wealthy as England was, it was certain that her credit could
not long hold out in view of the lavish subsidies she was constantly
granting to continental powers, while the expeditions to Spain,
Holland, and Sicily were even more costly, inconclusive as they had so
far been. In 1810 English bank-notes were twenty per cent. below par,
and the sovereign could be exchanged on the Continent for only
seventeen francs instead of the twenty-five it usually brought.
Business failures were becoming ominously frequent in London, and
panic was stalking abroad. What must be the necessary result if the
continental embargo were more thoroughly enforced? The enormous
contraband trade of the North was now virtually at an end. Where
English merchants had so far been able to secure at least half of the
prices obtained from the consumers by smugglers, they could now no
longer secure even that doubtful market at any price; the
incorporation of Holland and the North Sea shores into France left
virtually no opening into Europe for them except through Russia. The
fate of England and of the world seemed to hang on how far the Czar
could or would keep the engagements which he had made at Tilsit.

This might not have been so completely true if the French finances had
been desperate; but they were not--that is, the Emperor's personal
finances were not. After the legislative assembly met in December,
1809, it was soon clear to France that the farce of constitutional
government under the Empire was nearly played out. Not only were the
members of the senate, who should have retired according to the
constitution, kept in their seats by a decree of the body to which
they belonged, but an imperial edict appointed the deputies for the
new departments without even the form of an election. Fontanes retired
from the presidency of the senate to become grand master of the
university; the grand chamberlain of the palace was appointed in his
stead. The Emperor had already sold to private corporations the
canals which belonged to the state; the legislature ratified the
illegal act. The penal code was now ready. It contained the iniquitous
and dangerous penalty of confiscation for certain crimes, thus
punishing the children for the faults of their sires, and opening a
most tempting avenue to the courts for indulgence in venality under
legal forms. There was little debate, and the code was adopted in its
entirety as presented.

The reason for this paralysis of constitutional government is clear.
Even the immense war indemnities taken from conquered states did not
suffice for the maintenance of the enormous armies which covered
Europe like swarms of locusts. The marshals and generals were
insatiate, and the greed of the civil administrators was scarcely
less. From the top to the bottom of the public service every official
stood with open hand and hungry eyes. This state of things was
directly due to Napoleon's policy of attaching everybody to himself by
personal ties, and in giving he had the lavish hand of a parvenu. The
recipients were never content, hoarding their fees, and becoming
opulent, pursuing all the time each his personal ambitions, and
ofttimes returning insolence for favors. To meet these enormous
expenditures there had been inaugurated throughout Europe a system of
what may be termed private confiscations, the vast dimensions of which
can never be justly estimated. German princes and Spanish grandees,
English merchants and the Italian clergy, had all been wrung dry;
timorous statesmen, crafty churchmen and sly contractors, unprincipled
financiers and ambitious politicians, not one was forgotten or
overlooked in the accumulation of hoards which, having long been
called the army chest, were now erected into the dignity of an
"extraordinary domain."

Kept so far in a decent obscurity, these ill-gotten possessions, which
belonged, if not to their original owners, then to the state, were, in
the low condition of public morality, not merely recognized--they were
actually increased from new sources of supply. The confiscated
palaces, forests, lands, and fisheries, the proceeds from the sale of
American ships, values of every kind, were all made the private
property of the Emperor. If any of these rills of revenue should run
dry, the criminal code with its legislation of confiscation might be
relied on to supply a menace strong enough to express inexhaustible
treasure from storehouses yet untouched. One orator declared this
barbaric fund to have been in the Emperor's hands a "French
Providence, which made the laurel a fertile tree, the fruits of which
had nourished the brave whom its branches covered." Napoleon had found
the crown moneys sufficient for himself. Berthier now had a revenue of
one million three hundred and fifty thousand eight hundred francs, and
Davout was scarcely less regal with one of nine hundred and ten
thousand; Ney had only seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand, and
Massena five hundred thousand; Soult was ambitious to increase his
income of three hundred and five thousand by securing the Portuguese
crown. What with the great public charities endowed from this
extraordinary fund, what with the great public works in Paris and
elsewhere which had been carried on by its means, the total
expenditures had been more than four hundred and thirty million
francs. The total receipts had risen to about seven hundred and sixty
millions, and there were therefore still in the Emperor's purse upward
of three hundred millions. He could not be called destitute or even
poor.

[Illustration: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE in 1809.

From a painting by Rene-Theodore Berthon, in the possession of the
painter's descendants in Canada.]

The same years which saw the extinction of the remnants of
legislative independence saw likewise the establishment of six state
prisons, in which were to be confined those disaffected persons who
were too powerful to be left at liberty, but whose trials in open
court would have revealed troublesome facts. The censorship of the
press was likewise reestablished with iron rigidity, and the
publishers purchased the meager immunities they were permitted to
enjoy by the payment of whatever pensions the Emperor chose to grant
to needy men of letters. Chenier the poet, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre,
the author of "Paul and Virginia," and others enjoyed, in addition to
decorations of the Legion of Honor, substantial incomes that were
virtually paid by their fellow-craftsmen; while a chosen
few--including Gros, Gerard, Guerin, Lagrange, Monge, and
Laplace--were elevated to the new baronage. Even Carnot did not
hesitate to accept employment and place from Napoleon. At first he
solicited a loan for the relief of his urgent necessities. This the
Emperor made unnecessary by ordering the War Office to pay all arrears
in his rations and other perquisites, by giving him a commission to
prepare a volume on fortification, and by according him a pension of
ten thousand francs. The ponderous sledge-hammer of the censorship was
apparently forged to kill a gnat. Nothing is known to the history of
literature so subservient and humble as the conduct of the great
majority of French writers and artists under the Empire.

There was one exception--Mme. de Stael. That overestimated woman had
gained the halo of martyrdom by the so-called persecution of the
Emperor. But the persecution was, in the opinion of keen observers,
more on her part than his. The Committee of Public Safety had found
her an intriguer, and had called upon her husband to remove her from
Paris; the Directory kept her under watch at Coppet, and ordered her
arrest should she return to France. Her aspirations were boundless,
and Mallet du Pan, royalist agent, said that she shamelessly flaunted
her charms on public occasions. In 1796, aspiring to rule the country
through her friends, she wrote to Bonaparte, who was in Italy, that
the widow Beauharnais was far from possessing the necessary qualities
to supplement those of a genius such as he was, and on his return to
Paris she at once made suspicious advances to win his favor.
Bourrienne declares that he saw one of her letters to Bonaparte, in
which she flatly stated that they two, she herself and her
correspondent, had been created for each other. Mention has elsewhere
been made of the coldness with which Bonaparte treated her when by her
own request she was presented to him in Talleyrand's drawing-room. Not
long afterward, at the reception given by the minister of foreign
affairs to the conqueror of Italy, the indefatigable seeker for
notoriety addressed the latter once again.

The scene is given in the memoirs of Arnault. At first she plied her
suit with fulsome compliment. Bonaparte listened coldly, and the
conversation flagged. In despair she blurted out, "General, what woman
could you love the most?" "My own," was the stinging reply. ("Quelle
femme?" "La mienne.") Woman and wife being the same word in French,
Napoleon's retort was a disdainful pun. "Very well; but which would
esteem you the highest?" she persisted. "The best housekeeper." "Yes,
I understand; but which one would be for you the foremost among
women?" "She who should bear the most children, madame," was the icy
rejoinder, as the harried and disgusted soldier turned on his heel.
Somewhat later she said to Lucien in a melting voice, "I am but a fool
in my desire to please your brother. I am at a loss when I wish to
converse with him. I choose my language and modify my expressions; I
want to make him think of me and occupy himself with me. It ends in my
being and feeling as silly as a goose." When the complacent Lucien
reported the language his brother replied: "I know her thoroughly....
She declared to one who informed me that since I would neither love
her nor permit her to love me, there was nothing left but for her to
hate me, as she could not remain indifferent. What a virago!" In a
letter to Joseph, dated March nineteenth, 1800, the future Emperor
wrote: "M. de Stael is in the depths of misery, and his wife is giving
dinners and balls. If you should continue to see her, would it not be
well to have the woman allow her husband one thousand or one thousand
two hundred francs a month? Have we already reached a time when,
without any protest from decent people, not merely morality but the
most sacred ties which bind children to their parents can be trampled
under foot? Suppose we judge Mme. de Stael as we should a man,--only,
of course, as a man inheriting the fortune of M. de Necker,--one who
had long enjoyed the prerogatives of a distinguished name, and who
should leave his wife in misery while he lived in abundance: could we
associate with a man like that?"

Soon afterward the battle of Marengo was fought. All her passion being
now turned into hate, the scheming woman openly desired Bonaparte's
defeat. Thenceforward she was an avowed and bitter enemy; he would
have called her a conspirator. The ten years of her banishment, as she
herself declared, were occupied in wandering from court to court in
England, Russia, Prussia, and Sweden, engaged in the task of
undermining the Emperor's name and fame, and in fomenting the
coalitions which eventually ruined him. As Bonaparte became an
ultra-imperialist she became an ultra-liberal. Her book on Germany,
published in 1810, was a laudation, in the main just and fair, of a
regenerated land; but it held up to France as a model the achievements
of the country which was now her bitterest foe. The censors gave it a
fictitious renown by ordering its complete suppression.

When, in November, 1810, the decennial prizes, instituted as a spur to
literature and science, were distributed, the judges could find
nothing in science later than 1803 worthy of their favor; but the
prize-winners, old as they were, were all men of real distinction. The
names of the literary men who were crowned are now known only to the
student of history. Napoleon demanded why the name of Chateaubriand
had been omitted from the list, as it was. He may have remembered, as
one of his detractors suggests, that in that writer's great book the
Roman doctrine of obedience to constituted authority was attractively
presented; or else, and more probably, he may have wished his list of
authors to be more brilliant. The Emperor may have instituted those
prizes, as his apologists declared he himself said that he did, to
keep active minds from occupying themselves with politics; but the
exhibition of how the Empire had crushed out originality and fecundity
in the French brain must have appalled him, whatever were his
thoughts.

During the winter of 1810-11 Napoleon's private life was virtually
devoted to beneficence. In addition to the favors granted to Carnot,
he lavished money on other objects, some not so worthy. Canova, who
had been called from Rome to make a portrait-statue of the Empress,
obtained a substantial grant for the learned societies of that city.
Chenier, like Carnot, had been a pronounced adversary of the Empire.
He now sought employment under it, and was made inspector-general of
the university, an office which he did not live long to enjoy. All the
old favorites were remembered in a general distribution of good
things. Talleyrand having just lost an immense sum by the failure of a
trusted bank, the Emperor came to his relief by purchasing one of his
minister's most splendid palaces for more than two million francs. The
court resided sometimes at St. Cloud, sometimes at Rambouillet,
sometimes at the Trianon, but for the most part at Fontainebleau,
where the ceremonious life, to which all concerned were now well
accustomed, was marked by none of the old awkwardness and friction,
but ran as brilliantly as lavish expenditure could make it.

The pregnancy of the Empress was celebrated with great festivities,
during which Napoleon performed one of his most applauded acts--the
endowment of a vast maternity hospital. The Empress was brought into
great prominence as the president of a society consisting of a
thousand noble ladies under whose patronage the charity was placed.

The unconcealed and ecstatic delight of the prospective father found
vent in delicate and tender attention to the mother of his child, and
until her deliverance he was a gentle, devoted, and considerate
husband. His whole nature seemed transformed. When in the early
morning of March twentieth, 1811, word was brought that the Empress
was in labor, and that a false presentation made it of instant
necessity to choose between the life of the mother and that of the
child, the feelings of the Emperor can better be imagined than
described.

If the expected heir should die his dynasty would be jeopardized, his
enemies would once more be making appointments over his grave, the
hopes of a lifetime might be shattered. But there was not a moment's
wavering. "Think only of the mother," he cried. The fears of the
attending physician were vain, after all, and the man-child, coming
without a cry into the world and lying breathless for seven minutes as
if hesitating to accept or decline his destiny, finally gave a wail as
at last he caught the breath of life. Napoleon turned, caught up his
treasure, and pressed it to his bosom. A hundred guns announced the
birth, and the city burst into jubilations, which were reechoed
throughout Europe from Dantzic to Cadiz. Festival succeeded festival,
and for an interval men believed that the temple of Janus would be
again closed. No boy ever came on the earthly stage amid such
splendors, or seemed destined to honors such as appeared to await this
one. The devotion of the father was passionate and unwavering. It
lasted even after he had been deserted and betrayed by the mother,
after the child had been estranged and turned into an Austrian prince.




CHAPTER XXIV

TENSION BETWEEN EMPEROR AND CZAR[39]

         [Footnote 39: References: Bernhardi, Geschichte Russlands,
         II. Ranke, Hardenberg u. Preussen (vol. 48 of his complete
         works, 1879). Lefebvre, Histoire des Cabinets de l'Europe.
         Vandal, Napoleon et Alexandre Ier, parts of Vols. II and
         III.]

     Menaces of War -- Napoleon's "Extraordinary Domain" -- Rupture of
     the Concordat -- The Prospect of War -- The Empire Prepared for a
     Commercial Siege -- Napoleon's Self-deception -- The Empires of
     Ocean and Continent -- The Czar's Humiliation -- Poland and the
     French Empire -- Alexander's Approach to Francis -- Spurious
     Negotiations.


[Sidenote: 1811]

Among other bodies which sent deputations to congratulate the Emperor
on the birth of his child was the Paris Chamber of Commerce. Their
address was sufficiently adulatory, but it contained a suggestion that
the trade and commerce of the country were not all that could be
desired. Napoleon replied in language which attracted attention
throughout Europe. There was some irritability in his tone, but there
was an unqualified assurance with regard to the future. He said, among
other things, that England was depressed. This was true; the new
measures taken to enforce the Continental system had told. British
harbors were glutted with the products of all the colonies--not only
of her own, but of those she had seized during the Napoleonic wars.
The storehouses could hold no more; and as colonial trade was
conducted by barter, all the products of English industry must remain
at home for lack of an export market. Business was at a standstill,
and the specter of English bankruptcy stalked abroad. As to France,
the Emperor declared that he was in no sense the successor of either
Louis XIV or Louis XV, but of Charles the Great; for the present
Empire was but the continuation of the old Frankish dominion. In four
years, he said in substance, I shall have a navy. When my fleets shall
have been three or four years at sea we can hold our own with the
English. I know I may lose three or four battles; very good, I will
lose them. But we are ever courageous, ever booted and spurred, and we
shall succeed. Before ten years have expired I shall have beaten
England. No state of Europe will any longer have intercourse with her.
It is my customhouses which do the greatest harm to the English. Her
blockade has injured herself the most by teaching us how to get on
without her products, her sugar, her indigo. A few years longer, and
we shall be thoroughly accustomed to it. I shall soon have enough
beet-root sugar to supply all Europe; for your manufactures there is
an open market in France, Italy, Naples, and Germany. At the close he
added words to this effect: The Bank of France is full of silver,
while that of England has not a white sou [five francs]. Since 1806 I
have taken over a milliard francs in contributions. I alone have
money. Austria is already bankrupt, and Russia and England will be.
There exist three versions of this famous allocution. In one of them
are the words: "I showed mercy to the Emperor of Russia at Tilsit in
return for promises of help; but if those promises are not kept, I
will go, if need be, to Riga, to Moscow, to St. Petersburg."

Three points of the utmost significance demand attention in this, a
typical deliverance of the "imperator," uttered at the flood-tide of
imperial success: two of them, both negative, are ominous; the third
is positive and plain. There is no reference to the financial
condition of France, or to the ecclesiastical situation. Russia was
openly threatened. The boast of wealth referred to Napoleon's own
"extraordinary domain." About this time Metternich reported to his
government that France was the richest country in Europe, but that her
treasury was empty. The budget of 1811 had nine hundred millions on
the credit side, but it had also nine hundred and fifty-four millions
on the debit. The previous year had required five hundred and ten
millions for army and navy, the present required six hundred and fifty
millions. It was a fixed principle of the Emperor to make each
generation pay its own expenses. The only source of supply he could
find was an increase of the indirect taxes and the institution of a
state monopoly in tobacco. His remedy would have been adequate but for
two causes--the drought of the ensuing summer and Russia's hostile
attitude in regard to French silks and wines. The year 1811 closed
with a deficit of forty-eight millions. This fact had a bearing on the
political situation because in general the Emperor's remedy for an
empty treasury was a new war.

The ecclesiastical situation had now become acute. As one bishopric
after another had fallen vacant, bishops had been nominated by the
Emperor; but the Pope, who was still sitting in captivity at Savona,
had from the moment of his incarceration steadily refused to institute
them. For a time, as has been explained, the difficulty had been
ingeniously avoided by the process of ecclesiastical law, according to
which the chapters of the various dioceses elected the imperial
candidates as vicars capitular, and thus enabled them to perform
episcopal functions without regard to institution. But this could not
go on forever, and every effort had been made to induce the prisoner
of Savona to yield. In response he took a firmer stand, and indicated
to the chapters both of Italy and France that they should no longer
elect the imperial nominees as vicars capitular. This was a rupture of
the Concordat, and was so regarded by Napoleon. The attitude of all
pious Catholics was becoming uneasy, and this new declaration of war
by the Church could only serve to heighten the bellicose humor of the
Emperor. The Pope was eventually brought to terms, partly by
increasing the rigors of his imprisonment, partly by terrorizing his
agents in France, but chiefly through the representations made to him
by the ablest ecclesiastics of the realm, and by the summoning of a
church council, which turned out nearly as subservient to the secular
authority as the Jewish Sanhedrim had been.

With reference to the third point, it seems impossible to determine
whether the menace to Russia was actually made, as one version of the
reply has it, or whether a later speech, at the opening of the
legislature in June, and the report on the situation of France, issued
in the same month, have not both been confused with the Emperor's talk
in March. In either case the result was identical, for France and
Europe instinctively took in the situation, and clearly understood
that the Emperor was not indisposed toward the renewal of war in
northern Europe. This third point was of course the most noteworthy of
the three, for it could be only a question of time when the storm
should burst.

If it were possible at that epoch of the world's history to
distinguish between Napoleon the man and Napoleon the embodied
political force of Europe, the aspect of the former would abound in
human interest. Filled with paternal tenderness, his sole ambition
appeared for a time to be that of retaining what he had gained, the
leadership of a Western empire as splendid as that of Charles the
Great. To make sure of this acquisition and hand it on to his heir,
he seems for a moment to have dreamed of standing forth as the
pacificator of Europe. He actually withdrew the mass of his troops
from Germany for use in Spain, leaving only enough to watch Prussia
and guard Westphalia; with the former power he finally formulated his
pecuniary demands, as if thus to put an end to strife. The "rebellion"
in Spain he intended to crush out by the pacific operations of a
commercial warfare with England, which he felt certain would bring
Great Britain to terms, now that for the first time since the outbreak
of hostilities the blood of her soldiers "was flowing in a stream." He
was probably strengthened in this conviction by the reluctant consent
of the cabinet of St. James to open negotiations for the exchange of
prisoners on the very basis he had suggested long before. Believing,
moreover, that European princes had by this time lost their delicate
sensibility, it seemed no monstrous crime to consolidate his empire
for its commercial siege by the simple expedient of removing the Duke
of Oldenburg from his hereditary domains which bordered on the ocean
and offering him the inland sovereignty of Erfurt, or by adopting the
alternative expedient of leaving him to enjoy the former under French
protection. It seems presumptuous to attempt any revelation of his
feelings, but surely he might hope that then, controlling every inlet
to European commerce from Corfu around by Triest, Italy, Spain, and
the Texel as far as Luebeck, his wall of protection for French
manufactures would do its work, that in a few years France would be
the industrial and commercial center of continental Europe. With Paris
the capital of a new Western empire, the true relation between the
secular and ecclesiastical heads of the world would be reestablished,
as it could not be while the papacy had its seat at Rome, and all
things would work together under a strong hand to humble the island
empire of England, destroy her ascendancy on the mainland, and thus
bring in a moral and material millennium for the civilized world.

But alas for such self-deception, if, indeed, it ever existed. Nature
is too complex and habit too strong for such sudden sublimations of
purpose. Had the true, complex Napoleon in his supposed communing
asked the question, What then? sincerity would have compelled him to
reply, More beyond. Men remembered to have heard him use the
expression, "Emperor of the Continent," in these very days, jocularly,
perhaps, but still with significance. Orders were issued in March,
1811, to fit out vessels for two expeditions, one against Sicily and
Egypt, one against Ireland; if these were successful he could then
work his will at the Cape of Good Hope and ultimately in the East and
West Indies. "They want to know where we are going, where I shall
plant the new Pillars of Hercules," he said. "We will make an end of
Europe, and then, as robbers fling themselves on others less bold, we
will fling ourselves on India, which the latter class have mastered."
About the same time the Bavarian minister, pleading for peace,
received the retort: "Three years more, and I am lord of the
universe." When Mollien advised against war, on account of the fiscal
disorders, the reply was: "On the contrary, the finances are falling
into disorder, and for that very reason need war." Behind Napoleon the
father was the ambitious and haughty statesman combined with the
self-reliant general, the embodiment of French ambitions as they had
consolidated in the old regime, and had been transmitted through the
Revolution, the Directory, and the Consulate to the Empire.

But there were two other gladiators in the arena: England, hard
pressed but still undaunted in her mastery of the seas which flowed
around her majestic colonial empire; Russia, grimly determined to hold
an even balance with France in Europe while reestablishing by the
overthrow of Turkey the eastern counterpoise to Napoleon's western
dominion. The Czar of Muscovy would fain have passed for a
philosopher. Fourteen years earlier, when in his eighteenth year, he
had fallen under the charm of Prince Adam Czartoryski, a youth of
about his own age, whom the Empress Catherine had taken as a hostage
after the final dismemberment of Poland in 1795. Trained by his
grandmother to play her own role of enlightened despot, the young
ruler, still in those early years when generous impulses rule,
conversed with his friend, the representative of a downtrodden land,
about the possibility of a restored and regenerated Poland, avowing
his secret detestation of all that he was compelled in public to
profess. We may picture the joy of the noble Pole at the thought of
his country made whole once more, even though it were destined to be
but semi-autonomous as a member of the Russian empire. But years
rolled by, and Czartoryski, though preferred to place and honor by the
Czar, heard less and less of the young philosopher's scheme. In 1805
he finally wrung from Alexander a promise that he would begin to act;
but it was very soon withdrawn, and Czartoryski retired to his
estates. The realities and selfishness of life eclipsed the man of
sensibility and developed the despot. For a time, however, he essayed
the role of European mediator, with what success Tilsit is the
witness.

Disgusted from the practical point of view with the old dynasties and
their chicanery, Alexander had not only eschewed the idea of a
reconstructed Poland, but had become indifferent to the territorial
lines of all ancient Europe, and momentarily dreamed of Napoleon as
his twin emperor. To this end he too must likewise be a conqueror.
Finland he had gained, but at the price of adhesion to a commercial
system which was gradually ruining his people. The exhausting,
slow-moving war with Turkey was still dragging on, and neither
Moldavia nor Wallachia was yet acquired. Oldenburg was incorporated
into France. The grand duchy of Warsaw was not merely the specter of a
restored Poland: the addition of Galicia to its territories had given
it solidity and substance. The Franco-Austrian alliance was a menace
to all the Czar's aspirations on the Balkan peninsula. It was clear
that he must choose between keeping his engagements to the letter and
an open rupture. He had been beaten and humiliated at his own game.

The first steps toward a rupture had already been taken before
Napoleon's second marriage. In the last days of 1809 Alexander had
negotiated with Caulaincourt, the French ambassador at St. Petersburg,
a treaty requiring from his ally a formal promise that Poland should
never be restored and the name never officially used. It is certain,
from the language used at the time, that the two questions of Poland
and the Russian marriage were not connected; the former he could raise
merely as an ally with a just expectation of a favorable reply. It is
of course possible that Alexander hoped Napoleon might connect them,
and thus sign the Polish treaty in the hope that his request for the
grand duchess would be granted as a return. In that case the Russian
emperor could still have refused his sister's hand, putting his ally's
compliance in regard to Poland on the ground of existing political
relations. He might then have laughed in his sleeve at his outwitted
dupe. Be that as it may, Napoleon was the craftier. He replied that he
would sign, not this document, but one slightly different, though
quite as satisfactory to Russia. Accordingly he drew up, executed, and
forwarded to Russia a counter-project promising "never to give help or
assistance to any power, or to any internal rising whatsoever, looking
to a restoration of the kingdom of Poland." A few days after its
arrival at St. Petersburg came the news of the Austrian marriage.

Two courses were now open to the Czar. One was to take advantage of
the strong Russian party which existed among the Poles in Warsaw,
promise a restoration of Poland with himself as king, and enter on an
offensive campaign against France. This scheme is contained in an
extant letter addressed to him by Prince Galitzin. The other was to
negotiate further and await events. After dallying for a time with the
former idea, the Czar at length told Czartoryski that he could never
consider giving up provinces already incorporated into Russia,--which
meant of course that he would not restore the integrity of
Poland,--but that he might accept the crown of the grand duchy of
Warsaw as it was, including Galicia. Secret agents were thereupon
despatched to sound the Austrian court. If the partition of Turkey
should take place, as was already determined, could not Russia and
Austria join hands to secure each her own interests against France? In
view of the fact that Napoleon had rejected the idea of destroying
Turkey because Russia had displayed jealousy of Austria and had
refused her any share in the Turkish lands, this was a virtual
declaration of hostilities.

Alexander's overture was unheeded at Vienna, at least for the moment,
because Metternich was in Paris wooing Napoleon's good will.
Simultaneously and openly, therefore, the fencing between Paris and
St. Petersburg went on. A rejoinder to the counter-project was laid
on Napoleon's desk, containing the identical words, "that the kingdom
of Poland shall never be restored." This persistence angered the
recipient, and seemed capable of but one interpretation. If Alexander
did not consider the guarantees given by France after Friedland and
Wagram to be sufficient, could Napoleon see in this reiterated demand
anything more or less than a determination of the Czar not to abide by
the engagements of Russia unless new ones were given by himself? He
returned therefore a softly worded, non-committal reply, and began to
make unmistakable preparations: a journey to Flanders for the purpose
of rousing public opinion on his behalf, the strengthening of certain
fortresses, and a general rapprochement to Austria in all his
relations. The negotiations continued a little longer, Russia
insisting on the phrase as first written, France declaring that its
use would be a confession of the insinuation contained in it, and
therefore incompatible with her dignity. Any other equivalent language
she would use, but not that.




CHAPTER XXV

THE ARRAY OF NATIONS[40]

         [Footnote 40: References as before, to which add Lehmann:
         Scharnhorst, Vol. II.]

     Estrangement of France and Russia -- Premonitions of War --
     Alexander's Secret Policy -- The Various Factors in the Situation
     -- Bernadotte -- The Eve of a General Conflagration -- England
     and Prussia -- Austria and Prussia -- Alliance between Sweden and
     Russia -- England and the United States -- The Confederation of
     the Rhine -- The State of France.


[Sidenote: 1811-12]

Meanwhile Metternich, confident that in the partition of Turkey better
terms could be obtained for Austria from Napoleon than from Alexander,
was doing his utmost to embitter the relations of France and Russia. A
strong Russian party in Vienna was in close touch with the numerous
Poles in Warsaw who looked to Alexander for the restoration of their
country's integrity. In both places there was much talk of the
restoration of Poland, in Warsaw especially, and the phrase was
constantly in the newspapers. Alexander's ambassador in Paris made
urgent representations concerning "a persistent rumor that the Emperor
intends to restore Poland." Napoleon retorted in fury, and threatened
war, but immediately wrote a soothing assurance that he was still true
to the engagements of Tilsit, and as to the treaty itself he would
agree to changes, but would never brand his own memory with dishonor.
On July first, while the lines were in the copyist's hands, there
occurred the incident which many thought at the time changed the
course of history. During a magnificent festival given by the Austrian
ambassador, the decorations in an open court took fire, and the
conflagration spread, enveloping the entire embassy. All the important
guests escaped unhurt except Kourakine, the Russian ambassador, who
was so injured that he could no longer perform his official duties. It
appeared to throw a strong light on Napoleon's character as a man that
almost immediately his humor seemed to change; his personal
obligations to the much-abused but well-bred envoy could not now be
wiped out by a gentle reply to the master; hence, apparently, he
curtly dismissed the Russian charge d'affaires, and ended the
negotiation. It was when this news reached St. Petersburg that
Alexander a second time offered Norway to Sweden.

The real cause of Napoleon's abrupt manner was the news communicated
by Metternich that the Russian army had advanced successfully to the
Danube. On July seventeenth Francis despatched an envoy requesting his
new son-in-law to join him in a protest against the aggressions of the
Czar; in other words, to throw the agreements of Tilsit and Erfurt to
the winds. Napoleon returned an unhesitating and honorable refusal,
but said significantly to Metternich: "If Russia quarrels with us she
will lose Finland, Moldavia, and Wallachia," adding that if the Czar,
contrary to his engagement of 1808, should seize anything south of the
Danube, then he himself would intervene on Austria's behalf. But all
Europe seemed convinced that war was inevitable. In all the
watering-places the talk was of nothing else. The Russian party in
Vienna grew bolder; Pozzo di Borgo, Napoleon's life-long foe, who had
been temporarily under a cloud in Russia, appeared in Vienna in his
Russian uniform, courted and oracular. A French interpreter on his way
to Persia was stopped by him, and bribed to enter the Russian service.
In a terse personal note written by his own hand, Napoleon called
Alexander's attention to the facts, but without awaiting the reply he
went further. Kourakine, partly recovered, was leaving Paris for home.
Through him the Emperor poured into his ally's ear a long exposure of
the situation, saying in substance that war was to be avoided, that he
had not the slightest intention of restoring Poland, and that if the
Czar would write what was desired as a guarantee in the form of a
newspaper article, the words should be inserted unchanged in the
"Moniteur." At the same time orders were sent commanding Caulaincourt
to end all negotiation, and the Poles were peremptorily enjoined to
silence. Simultaneously schemes for a new naval campaign were
gradually being perfected, so that they might be realized the
following year.

Something of Alexander's secret diplomacy must have leaked out, but he
appeared unmoved. He was steadily preparing for war, strengthening his
fortresses, and locating fortified camps in the district between the
Dwina and the Dnieper. But his chief concern was with Poland. Relying
on the Jesuit influence at Warsaw for support against the jailer of
the Pope, he again took up his old scheme of restoring the country as
an appanage of the Russian crown, and wrote to Czartoryski. The plan
was dazzling: a national army, a national administration, and a
liberal constitution. But that nobleman, after a long residence in his
native land, had learned how strong was the conviction of his
countrymen that Napoleon would give them a more complete autonomy than
the Czar, and sent back what must have been a discouraging reply,
although it has never been found. Alexander on its receipt determined
that the coming war should be defensive on his part, and immediately
opened communications with England and Sweden concerning the
Continental System. Finally, in the closing days of the year, he
issued a ukase excluding wines, silks, and similar luxuries from
France, but facilitating the entry of the colonial wares in which
England dealt. This was an act of open hostility to his old ally, a
declaration of commercial war. Prussia immediately made semi-official
advances to the Czar, but they were repelled.

It is not easy to estimate Napoleon's responsibility for what had
happened and was about to happen. He was persistently domineering,
contemptuous of national feeling and dynastic politics, over-confident
in the unswerving devotion of France, inflexible in his policy of
territorial aggrandizement, ruthless in applying his peculiar
conceptions of finance and political economy, and pitiless in his own
self-seeking. On the other hand, Alexander, having received Prussia's
autonomy as his part, had proved an untrustworthy ally from the
outset. Having seized Finland, he would not pay the price, but first
evaded the Continental System, then rejected it, and finally declared
commercial war on France; in the latest conflict between France and
Austria he had actually wooed the latter's favor. Procrastinating in
the marriage affair, he was furious when the suppliant turned
elsewhere, and at once displayed an insulting mistrust concerning
Poland; finally, he declared diplomatic war by his overtures to
England and his secret machinations in Vienna; there was but a final
step in the evolution of complete hostility, the declaration of
military war. Austria, too, had done her utmost to bring on a
conflict, hoping to find her account in the dissensions of the two
empires. Her policy demanded her territorial aggrandizement at the
expense of Turkey; in a war between France and Russia she was sure to
find her account, and there was nothing in Metternich's dealings
with Napoleon which tended to preserve the peace of Europe.

Sweden, under Bernadotte, was manifestly anxious to find a cause of
offense, being defiant in temper, and ready to do anything for the
purpose of strengthening the hands of Alexander and escaping from
French protection. So feeble was the titular King of Sweden that the
adoptive crown prince speedily became the real ruler, and his personal
desires were soon the public policy. It was a strange transformation
which took place in the man. He had been generous and kindly in the
difficult positions he held as a French general. Avowedly a
revolutionary democrat of the most radical stripe, he was nevertheless
a true Gascon and failed to display his great abilities wherever his
heart was not engaged. He had, moreover, basked in the sunshine of
imperial favor, and in an age of atheism had remained in the fold of
the Roman Church. Having himself schemed against Napoleon under the
promptings of personal ambition, he often gave aid and comfort to the
Emperor's enemies. When adopted into the royal family of Sweden it
cost him little effort to profess Lutheranism; his republican
sympathies were quenched, and he developed into a beneficent despot
anxious to put Sweden in line with Russia. He never was able to win
the affections of his people, and when before the close of his life
they demanded a liberal constitution, this democratic sovereign,
brought up under the illumination of French revolutionary doctrines,
held back until the paper had to be wrung from him. The phases of
Napoleon's life are scarcely more startling than those of this rather
commonplace actor on a stage which was provincial when compared with
the cosmopolitan scene of the Emperor's life-drama.

In the spring of 1811 all Europe knew that war was inevitable. "It
will occur," wrote Napoleon on April second of that year, "in spite of
me, in spite of the Emperor Alexander, in spite of the interests of
France and those of Russia. I have already so often seen this that it
is my experience of the past which unveils to me the future.... It is
all a scene in an opera, and the English control the machinery." A
week later he notified Alexander that he was aware of the movement of
Russian troops toward Poland, and declared that he himself was
likewise preparing. Lauriston was sent to replace the too pacific
Caulaincourt at St. Petersburg, and Champagny was removed from the
Foreign Office to make way for the fiery Maret. There was much to be
done before the actual outbreak of hostilities. England's history is
the story of her struggles for nationality, for religious, civil, and
political liberty, and for mercantile ascendancy. Her inborn longings
for the highest civilization were not inconsistent with her grim
determination to resist a system that stood on the Continent for
progress, but which she had come to believe meant national ruin for
her. Prussia, with a new vigor born of self-denial, education, and
passionate patriotism; Sweden, restless and uneasy under the yoke of
Napoleonic supremacy; Denmark, friendly, but independent in her
quasi-autonomy; the United States, chafing under the restrictions of
her commerce; Turkey, sick to death, but then as now pivotal in all
European politics--the relation of all these powers to the coming
conflict was still a question, and during a year much might be done in
a diplomatic way to determine it. The whole civilized world was to be
in array, although the life-and-death struggle was to be between two
insatiate despotisms, one Western and modern, the other Oriental and
theocratic. Napoleon grasped the tendency of his own career but dimly.
Goethe said of him, "He lives entirely in the ideal, but can never
consciously grasp it." Unconsciously, too, Alexander the Great had
fought for the extension of Greek culture; Caesar, to destroy the
stifling institutions of a worn-out system; Charles the Great, to
realize the "city of God" on earth; Napoleon, for nationality,
individual liberty, popular sovereignty. What was personal and petty
in the work of these Titans, being ephemeral, disappeared in the death
of each; what was human and large has endured and will endure. The
creative ideas of the revolutionary era with which Napoleon's name is
so closely connected are no longer called in question; his own career
was now verging to its decline, but in his fall the fundamental
conceptions of the epoch were firmly established.

In January, 1812, Wellington, as has been mentioned, stormed Ciudad
Rodrigo; on April sixth Badajoz fell. On April eighteenth Napoleon
offered terms of peace, Spain to be kept intact under Joseph, Portugal
to be restored to the house of Braganza, Sicily to remain under
Ferdinand, and Naples under Murat. Considering all the circumstances,
the offer was worthy of consideration; but the English cabinet refused
it. The possibility of peace with Great Britain being thus
extinguished, Napoleon considered what course he should pursue toward
the other great Protestant land, which also felt itself to be
struggling for life. Some well-informed persons asserted that at first
the Emperor contemplated destroying the Hohenzollern power utterly. If
so, he quickly dismissed the idea as involving unnecessary risk. With
the reforms of Stein and Hardenberg successfully accomplished, with
her educational system completed and her army reorganized, with her
people electrified at last into true patriotism, Prussia was again a
redoubtable power. Her influence permeated all Germany, and the
secret associations which ramified everywhere labored for German
unity, their members already dreaming of the Jura, Vosges, and
Ardennes as the western frontier of their fatherland. At first
Frederick William made overtures to the Czar, offering an army of a
hundred thousand men. Alexander, desiring a purely defensive war, was
cold; but late in 1811 he agreed, in case of an attack on Prussia, to
advance as far as the Vistula, "if possible."

Meantime Austria had at first contemplated neutrality, but she
abandoned the policy when convinced that, whichever side should be
victorious, Prussia would be dismembered. Francis saw Alexander's
continued successes on the Danube with growing anxiety, and, learning
that Napoleon would put four hundred thousand men into the field, made
up his mind that France must win. Accordingly, in March, 1812, a
treaty was executed which put thirty thousand Austrian troops under
Napoleon's personal command, and stipulated for Austria's enlargement
by Galicia, Illyria, and even Silesia, in certain contingencies.
During these negotiations Frederick William had learned how stupendous
Napoleon's preparations were, and, with some hesitancy, he finally
sent Scharnhorst to sound Austria. The result was determinative, and
on February twenty-fourth, 1812, a treaty between France and Prussia
was signed, which gave Prussia nothing, but exacted from her twenty
thousand men for active service, with forty-two thousand for garrison
duty, and afforded the French armies free course through her
territories, with the right to charge up such requisitions as were
made against the war indemnity. To this pass Alexander's narrowness
had brought the proud, regenerated nation; its temper can be imagined.

French diplomacy, triumphant elsewhere, was utterly unsuccessful
with Sweden. Alexander offered Norway as the price of alliance, with
hints of the crown of France for Bernadotte somewhere in the dim
future. Napoleon temptingly offered Finland for forty thousand Swedish
soldiers. But the new crown prince was seemingly coy, and dallied with
both. This temporizing was brought to a sudden end in January, 1812,
when Davout occupied Swedish Pomerania. On April twelfth the alliance
between Sweden and Russia was sealed. It carried with it an armistice
between Russia and Great Britain. This was essential to the Czar, for
he would be compelled to withdraw his troops from the Danube for
service in the North, and to that end must make some arrangement with
Turkey. He offered the most favorable terms; Napoleon, on the other
hand, demanded a hundred thousand men if he were to restore to the
Sublime Porte all it had lost. England threatened to bombard
Constantinople if there should be too much hesitancy, and on May
twenty-eighth, 1812, the Sultan closed a bargain with Russia which
gave him the Pruth as a frontier.

In spite of Turkey's submission, Great Britain was not to be left
passive. The neutrality of the United States had, on the whole, been
successfully maintained, but their commerce suffered. On May first,
1810, Congress enacted that trade with Great Britain should be
forbidden if France revoked her decrees, and vice versa. Madison and
the Republicans believed that this would relieve the strain under
which farmers as well as merchants were now suffering. This enabled
Napoleon, in those days of slow communication, to make a pretense of
relaxing the Berlin and Milan decrees, while continuing to seize
American ships as before. England was not for a moment deceived, and
enforced the orders in council with added indignities. This conduct so
exasperated the American people that they demanded war with the
oppressor, and on June nineteenth the war of 1812 began. Napoleon's
diplomatic juggling had been entirely successful.

A year earlier the princes of the Rhenish Confederation had received
their orders. Their peoples were unresponsive, but the zeal of the
rulers overcame all opposition. The King of Saxony was grateful in a
lively sense of favors to come, and his grand duchy of Warsaw became
an armed camp, the Poles themselves expecting their national
resurrection. The prince primate's realm was erected into a grand
duchy for Eugene, whose viceroyalty was destined for the little King
of Rome, and under the stimulus of a fresh nationality the people gave
more than was demanded. Wuertemberg and Baden learned that Napoleon
"preferred enemies to uncertain friends," and both found means to
supply their respective quotas. Jerome, true to the fraternal
instincts of the Bonapartes, hesitated; but his queen was a woman of
sound sense, and both were alive to the uncertainties of tenure in
royal office, so that, receiving a peremptory summons, Westphalia fell
into line. Bavaria and Switzerland furnished their contingents as a
matter of course. Among the Germans, some hated Napoleon for his
dealings with the papacy, some as the destroyer of their petty
nationalities; some devout Protestants even thought him the
antichrist. But the great majority were in a state of expectancy, many
realizing that even the dynastic politics of Europe had been vitalized
by his advent; others, liberals like Goethe, Wieland, and Dalberg,
hoped for the complete extinction of feudalism and dynasticism before
his march.

This had already been accomplished in France, and for that reason the
peasantry and the townsfolk upheld the Empire. In Paris the upper
classes had never forgotten the Terror, and were ready for monarchy
in any form if only it brought a settled order and peace. There were
still a few radicals and many royalists, but the masses cared only for
two things, glory and security. They enjoyed the temporary repose
under a rule which protected the family, property, and in a certain
sense even religion. Family life at the Tuileries was a model, the
Emperor finding his greatest pleasure in domestic amusements, playing
billiards, riding, driving, and even romping, with his young wife,
while his tenderness for the babe was phenomenal. Still he was no
puritan, and the lapsed classes could indulge themselves in vice if
only they paid; from their purses fabulous sums were turned into the
Emperor's secret funds. Under the Continental System industry was at a
standstill, and every household felt the privation of abstaining from
the free use of sugar and other colonial wares. There was, however,
general confidence in speedy relief, and there were worse things than
waiting. The peasantry were weary of seeing their soldier sons return
from hard campaigning with neither glory nor booty, and began to
resent the conscription law, which tore the rising generation from
home while yet boys. Desertions became so frequent that a terrible law
was passed, making, first the family, then the commune, and lastly the
district, responsible for the missing men. It was enforced mercilessly
by bodies of riders known as "flying columns." Finally, every
able-bodied male was enrolled for military service in three
classes--ban, second ban, and rear ban, the last including all between
forty and sixty. Nevertheless, and in spite of all other hardships,
there was much enthusiasm at the prospect of a speedy change for the
better. In March, 1812, Napoleon could count not far from four hundred
and seventy-five thousand men ready for the field. Berthier was
retained as chief of staff. In the guard were forty-seven thousand
picked men, the old guard under Lefebvre, the young guard under
Bessieres. Davout's corps numbered seventy-two thousand, all French;
Oudinot's thirty-seven thousand, French and Swiss; Ney's thirty-nine
thousand, French and Wuertembergers; Prince Eugene's forty-five
thousand, French and Italians; Poniatowski's thirty-six thousand, all
Poles; Gouvion Saint-Cyr's twenty-five thousand, all Bavarians;
Regnier's seventeen thousand, all Saxons; Vandamme's eighteen
thousand, Hessians and Westphalians; Macdonald's thirty-two thousand,
Prussians and Poles. Murat commanded the cavalry reserve of four corps
under Nansouty, Montbrun, Grouchy, and Latour-Maubourg respectively,
and numbering in all forty thousand. In addition to this majestic
array there were thirty thousand Austrians under Schwarzenberg, and
the ninth corps of thirty-three thousand French and Germans under
Victor was to follow. "I have never made greater preparations," the
Emperor wrote to Davout.




CHAPTER XXVI

THE CONGRESS OF KINGS[41]

         [Footnote 41: References: Bittard des Portes: Les
         preliminaires de l'entrevue d'Erfurt (1808). In Revue
         d'histoire diplomatique, tom. IV, pp. 95-144. Sklower:
         Entrevue de Napoleon Ier et de Goethe suivie de notes et
         commentaires.]

     Forebodings -- Napoleon and Maria Louisa -- The Czar's Ultimatum
     and the Emperor's Choice -- Napoleon's Last Diplomatic Move --
     The Imperial Court at Dresden -- Napoleon and Poland -- The
     Health of Napoleon -- His Strategic Powers Undiminished.


[Sidenote: 1812]

Ready--at least to outward appearance, Napoleon was in truth ready as
far as equipment, organization, commissariat, strategic plan, and every
nice detail of official forethought could go. But how about the
efficiency and zeal of men and officers? There had been murmurings for
some years past. It was remarked that Napoleon's studies in 1808 were
the campaigns of Rome against the Parthians from the days of Crassus
onward; from his death-bed Lannes had warned his chief in 1809 how ready
many of his most trusted servants were to betray him if he continued his
career of conquest; Decres, another true friend, expressed his anxiety
in 1810 lest they should all be thrown into a final horrid elemental
crash; and in 1811 Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely exclaimed, "The
unhappy man will undo himself, undo us all, undo everything." The
Emperor heard neither of these last forebodings, but is doubtfully
reported to have himself declared, "I am driven onward to a goal which I
know not." Caulaincourt made no secret of how his anxiety increased as
he knew Russia better. He was recalled because, having learned Russia's
pride and Russia's resources, he made no attempt to conceal his aversion
to the final arbitrament of bloodshed. Poniatowski believed Lithuania
would refuse to rise against her despot; Segur and Duroc foresaw that
France, if degraded to be but one province of a great empire, would lose
her enthusiasm; even Fouche, having been permitted, on the plea of
ill-health, to return from his exile in Italy, ventured to draw up a
vigorous and comprehensive memorial against war, and instanced the fate
of Charles XII. The contents of Fouche's paper were divulged to Napoleon
by a spy, and when the author presented it he was met by contemptuous
sarcasm. The Emperor believed Prussia to be helpless, chiding Davout for
his doleful reports of the new temper which had been developed. Jomini
declared, but long afterward, that the great captain had avowed to a
confidential friend his eagerness for the excitement of battle.

But in spite of the anxiety felt by a few leading Frenchmen, there was
general confidence, and it was not until after the catastrophe that
details like those enumerated were recalled. It is customary to
attribute Napoleon's zeal for war to the fiery counsels of Maret. But
there is no necessity to seek any scapegoat. In reality the outlook in
1812 was better than in 1809. Napoleon's spirits were higher, his
conscripts were not visibly worse than any drafted since the beginning
of the Consulate, and the veteran Coignet's remark concerning the
march to Russia is that "Providence and courage never abandon the good
soldier." As to the commander-in-chief, he had largely forsaken his
licentious courses, partly from reasons of policy, partly because of
his sincere attachment to wife and child. Throughout the years of
youth and early manhood he had indulged his amorous passions, but
until his second marriage not a single woman had been preferred to
power, not even Josephine. Maria Louisa, however, was an imperial
consort, for whom no attention, no elevation, was too great. Pliant
while an Austrian archduchess, she remained so as empress, apparently
without will or enterprise. Men felt, nevertheless, that, remaining an
Austrian externally, she was probably still one at heart, perhaps a
mere lure thrown out to keep the hawk from other quarry. There was
much in her subsequent conduct to justify such suspicions, but the
utter shamelessness of her later years argues rather the
self-abandonment of one in revolt against the rigid social restraints
and personal annihilation of early life. The hours which Napoleon
spent with her were so many that he laid himself open to the charge of
uxoriousness. The physician attendant at the birth of the infant King
of Rome declared that the mother would succumb to a second
confinement, and the father exercised a self-restraint consonant with
the consideration he had displayed at the birth of his heir. He was
the squire and constant attendant of his spouse, her riding-master
even, and often her playfellow in the romps of which she was still
fond. Scenes of idyllic bliss were daily observed by the keen eyes of
the attendants. The choice of governesses, tutors, and servants for
the little prince was personally superintended by his sire, and every
detail of the feeding, dressing, and airing of the prospective emperor
was the subject of minute inquiry and regulation. When it was clear
that war was imminent, Napoleon seemed for the first time ready to
abandon his abhorrence for female governance. Certainly his domestic
happiness had not sapped his moral power; possibly it rendered him
over-anxious at times, and, perhaps in revulsion from anxiety,
over-confident.

During two years of diplomatic fencing the initiative had been
Russian, the instigation French. For the war which followed no single
cause can be assigned. Some blamed Napoleon, claiming that with his
scheme of universal empire it was inevitable; Metternich said Russia
had brought on war in an unpardonable manner. The Tilsit alliance was
personal; the separation of the contracting parties inevitably
weakened it. The affiliations of the Russian aristocracy with the
Austrian; the smart of both under the Continental System, which
rendered their agriculture unprofitable; England's stand under
Castlereagh; the Oldenburg question--all these were cumulative in
their effect. With Alexander, Poland and the Continental System were
the real difficulties; the marriage question was only secondary. On
January twelfth, 1812, the Czar with mournful and solemn mien declared
his hands clean of blood-guiltiness and laid down his ultimatum. To
the concentration of Russian troops Napoleon had replied by sending
his own to Erfurt and Magdeburg. Alexander formally stated his
readiness to take back his own move if the Emperor would withdraw the
French soldiers; he would even accept Erfurt for Oldenburg, and permit
Warsaw to be capital of a Saxon province. But he said not a word about
the Continental System, being fully determined not to yield one jot,
and for Napoleon this was the primary matter. Alexander's ultimatum by
its clever form compelled his ally either to abandon the scheme of
Western empire or to fight. Both parties to the Tilsit alliance
understood that with European harbors shut to English trade, Great
Britain must cease to support the Spanish insurrection, which in that
case a few thousand troops could hold in check. Then the great scheme
of revolutionary extension which had been inaugurated by the
Convention and logically developed by Napoleon step by step in every
war and treaty since Campo Formio would in a few short years be
complete. But two real powers would thus remain in continental
Europe--France and Russia. They could by united action crush British
power both by land and by sea. To dash this brimming cup from his lips
was for Napoleon an insupportable thought. With the hope, apparently,
of securing from the Czar the last essential concession, he set his
troops in motion toward the Vistula on the very day after his treaty
with Prussia was signed.

The natural counter-move to Napoleon's advance would be the invasion
of Warsaw; although the new Poland was fortified for defense, yet it
might be overwhelmed before assistance could reach the garrisons.
Moreover, there were ominous signs in France at the opening of 1812.
Food supplies were scarce, and speculators were buying such as there
were. Napoleon felt he must remain yet a little while to check such an
outrage and to strengthen public confidence. Ostensibly to avoid a
final rupture, but really to prevent the premature opening of war, he
therefore summoned Czernicheff, the Czar's aide-de-camp, who, as a
kind of licensed spy, had been hovering near him for three years past,
and offered to accept every item of the Russian ultimatum, if only an
equitable treaty of commerce could be substituted for the ukase of
December, 1810; in other words, if Alexander would agree to observe
the letter and spirit of the Continental System. During the two months
intervening before the Czar's reply not a Cossack set foot on Polish
soil, while day by day Napoleon's armies flowed onward across Europe
toward the plains of Russia, and a temporary remedy for the economic
troubles of France was found. When, late in April, the answer came, it
was, as expected, a declaration that without the neutral trade Russia
could not live; she would modify the ukase somewhat, but, as a
condition antecedent to peace, France must evacuate Prussia and make
better terms with Sweden. On May first the French army reached the
Vistula; on May ninth Napoleon and his consort started for Dresden,
whither all the allied sovereigns had been summoned to pay their court
as vassals to the second Charles the Great.

The surge of German patriotism had nearly drowned Napoleon in 1809,
but for manifest reasons it had again receded. The Austrian marriage
had withdrawn the house of Hapsburg from the leadership of Germany;
the imperial progress to Dresden and the high imperial court held
there were intended to dazzle the masses of Europe, possibly to
intimidate the Czar. The French were genuinely enthusiastic; the
Germans displayed no spite; princes, potentates, and powers swelled
the train; all the monarchs of the coalition, under Francis as dean of
the corps, stood in array to receive the august Emperor. From the
spectacular standpoint Dresden is the climax of the Napoleonic drama.
Surrounded by men who at least bore the style of sovereigns, the
Corsican victor stood alone in the focus of monarchical splendor. At
his side, and resplendent, not in her own but in his glory, was the
daughter of the Caesars, the child of a royal house second to none in
antiquity or majesty, his wife, his consort, his defiance to a passing
system. Maria Louisa was as haughty as the Western Empress should be,
patronizing her father and stepmother, and boasting how superior the
civilization of Paris was to that of Vienna. It was during these days
that she first saw Neipperg, the Austrian chamberlain, who was later
her morganatic husband. Napoleon appeared better: self-possessed,
moderate, and genial. His vassals and his relatives, his marshals and
his generals, all seemed content, and even merry. The King of Prussia
had lost his beautiful and unfortunate queen; he alone wore a sad
countenance. Yet it was rumored that the Prussian crown prince was a
suitor for one of Napoleon's nieces. Beneath the gay exterior were
many sad, bitter, perplexed hearts. The Emperor was seldom seen except
as a lavish host at public entertainments; most of the time he spent
behind closed doors with the busy diplomats. As a last resort,
Narbonne was sent to Russia, ostensibly to invite Alexander's presence
in the interest of peace; actually, of course, to get a final glimpse
of his preparations. The Abbe de Pradt was despatched into Poland to
fan the enthusiasm for France.

This unparalleled court was dismissed on May twenty-eighth, the
Empress returning by way of Prague to Paris, Napoleon hastening by
Posen and Warsaw to Thorn. The Poles were exuberant in their delight;
they little knew that their supposed liberator had bargained away
Galicia to Francis in return for Austrian support. For this betrayal,
and his general contempt of the Poles, he was to pay dearly. Had he
labored sincerely to organize a strong nucleus of Polish nationality,
a coalition of Russia, Prussia, and Austria such as finally
overwhelmed him would have been difficult, perhaps impossible. But the
founder of an imperial dynasty could not trust a Polish democracy.
When the Diet, sitting at Warsaw, besought him to declare the
existence of Poland, he criticized the taste which made them compose
their address in French instead of Polish, and gave a further inkling
of his temper by sending his Austrian contingent to serve in Volhynia,
so that neither French nor Polish enthusiasm might rouse the Russian
Poles. When he reached Vilna he found that the impassive Lithuanians
had no intention of rising against Russia, and no attempt was made to
rouse them. If, as appears, his first intention had been to wage a
frontier campaign, that plan was quickly changed. Retaining Venice
and Triest for use against the Orient, with Austria virtually a member
of his system, he determined to force Russia back on to the confines
of Europe, perhaps into Asia, and then--Who can say? It seems as if
Poland was to have been divided into French departments instead of
being erected into another troublesome nation, vassal state, or
semi-autonomous power.

At the opening of the Russian campaign the gradual change which had
been steadily going on in Napoleon's physique was complete. He was now
plethoric, and slow in all his movements. Occasionally there were
exhibitions of quickened sensibility, which have been interpreted as
symptoms of an irregular epilepsy; but in general his senses, like his
expression, were dull. He had premonitions of a painful disease
(dysuria), which soon developed fully. His lassitude was noticeable,
and when he roused himself it was often for trivialities. In other
campaigns he had stolen away from Paris in military simplicity; this
time he had brought the pomp of a court. He planned, too, to bring
theater companies and opera troupes to the very seat of war. Above
all, he was deeply concerned with his imperial state, having in his
trunks the baubles and dress he had worn at his coronation in Notre
Dame. His bearing was proud, but there was no sparkle in his eye; he
seemed spiritless and ailing; he showed no confidence in his
magnificent army.

The haughty, exacting mien of 1812 was very different from the
half-jocular, half-sarcastic curl of the lip and sparkle of the eye
which had inspired his followers in former days quite as much as his
stirring, incisive harangues. Yet careful study will prove that his
sagacity as a great captain was in no way dimmed; his military
combinations were greater than any he had ever formed. As no parallel
to the numbers engaged in this enterprise can be found in European
story, nothing comparable to its organization can be found in the
history of any land or age. Every corps had its ammunition-train, and
great reserves of supplies were stored in Modlin, Thorn, Pillau,
Dantzic, and Magdeburg. In the two last-named arsenals were
siege-trains for beleaguering Duenaburg and Riga. There were pontoons
and bridge material in abundance; one thousand three hundred and fifty
field-pieces, and eighteen thousand horses to draw them. The
commissary stores were prodigious, and there were thousands of
ox-wagons to transport them. The cattle were eventually to be
slaughtered and eaten. In various convenient strongholds there were,
besides, stores for four hundred thousand men for fifty days. Knowing
Russia, he had prepared to conquer streams and morasses, to feed the
army without fear of a devastating population, and to trust the seat
of war for nothing except forage. His strategic plan was amazing,
containing, as it did, the old elements of unexpected concentration,
of breaking through the opposing line, of conclusive victory, and
occupation of the enemy's capital. It was carried also to successful
completion, and in one respect the execution was fine. The obstacles
to be surmounted made every movement slow, and while a vast,
complicated military organization may be reliable for weeks, to make
it work for months requires qualities of greatness which increase in
geometrical ratio according to the extension of time. Twice Napoleon
bared his inmost thought, once to Metternich in Dresden, once to
Jomini at a dinner company in Vilna. The first season he intended to
seize Minsk and Smolensk, winter there, and organize his conquests. If
this should not produce a peace, he would advance in the following
season into the heart of the country, and there await the Czar's
surrender. To his army he issued an address as direct and ringing as
that which had echoed sixteen years before across the plains of
Lombardy. Its substance is that the second Polish war would bring the
same renown to French arms as the first, but the peace would be such
as should end forever the haughty interference of Russia in European
affairs. It seemed to those who heard it as if Russia's hour had
struck.




CHAPTER XXVII

THE INVASION OF RUSSIA--BORODINO[42]

         [Footnote 42: References: Tatistcheff: Alexandre Ier et
         Napoleon. Czartoryski: Memoirs. De Chambray: Oeuvres. Segur:
         La campagne de Russie. Labaume: Relation circonstanciee de la
         campagne de Russie. Wilson: A Narrative of the Campaign in
         Russia during the Year 1812. Du Casse: Memoires et
         Correspondance du Prince Eugene. Rapp: Memoires. Bausset:
         Memoires. Davout: Correspondance (ed. Mazade, 1885), Vol.
         III. Lossberg, V., Briefe in die Heimat geschrieben waehrend
         d. Feldzugs 1812 in Russland. Yorck von Wartenburg: Napoleon
         als Feldherr. Stoltyk: Napoleon en Russie.]

     Success and Failure -- The Struggle with Summer Heat -- Napoleon
     at Vitebsk -- The Russians Over-confident -- The Fight at
     Smolensk -- Technical Victory and Real Defeat -- Napoleon's Fatal
     Decision -- The Russians at Borodino -- The Battle Array --
     Napoleon's Victory -- Russian Efforts to Burn Moscow.


When Napoleon left Dresden his force was so disposed that the Russians
could not tell whether he meant to strike from north or south, and
accordingly they divided theirs, Barclay de Tolly, with a hundred and
twenty-seven thousand men, standing before Vilna; Bagration, with
sixty-six thousand, ensconcing himself behind the swamps of the upper
Pripet in Volhynia. Barclay, hoping to strike a sharp, swift blow, and
open the campaign with a moral victory, was soon convinced of the
danger, and called in Bagration, who was to be replaced by an
auxiliary force. But before the long Russian line could be drawn
together Napoleon struck the first decisive blow. Disposing his army
in echelon, with beautiful precision he suddenly turned against the
enemy's right, crossed the Niemen, and seized Vilna. This turned the
Russian flank, and Barclay fell back to the fortified camp which had
been established at Drissa in order to cover St. Petersburg. If, then,
Jerome's division had promptly advanced from Grodno, Bagration would
have been cut off and annihilated. The plan failed, partly because
Napoleon did not superintend its operation in person, partly because
Davout did not cooeperate with sufficient alertness, but chiefly
through Jerome's ignorance, slowness, and self-assertion. Bagration
turned back, and, descending the Dnieper, placed himself beyond
pursuit. For a moment Napoleon contemplated a junction of Ney and
Eugene against Barclay, but the former had pushed on to seize
Duenaburg, and was out of reach. This scheme, like the other, came to
naught; Bagration, by a long, painful detour, was able to establish
communication with Drissa, and seemed likely to effect a junction with
Barclay on the road to Smolensk. As in these movements both the
Russian commanders had lost many men, there would be only a hundred
and twenty thousand in their united force, a beggarly showing in view
of the two years' preparation necessary to bring it together.
Consternation reigned in the Russian camp. The Czar could raise no
money, Drissa was painfully inadequate as a bulwark, and the people
grew desperate. The nation attributed its sorry plight to the bad
advice of the Czar's German counselors, and such was the
demoralization at the capital that Alexander was compelled to hasten
thither in order to avert complete disaster. In spite of his personal
unpopularity, he met with considerable success. The nobility and
burghers of both St. Petersburg and Moscow caught the war fever,
opened their coffers, equipped a numerous militia, and by the end of
July all Russia was hopeful and eager for battle.

This, too, was the earnest desire of Napoleon. The advance from the
Vistula to the Niemen and from the Niemen to the Dwina had been
successfully carried forward--but at what a cost! "Since we have
crossed the Niemen," wrote the artist Adam, who was at the viceroy's
headquarters, "the Emperor and his entire army are occupied by a
single thought, a single hope, a single wish--the thought of a great
battle." Men talked of a great battle as of a great festival. If the
Russian army in its own territory shriveled as it did before the
summer heat by sickness and desertion, it may be imagined how that of
the French dwindled. Their terrible sufferings could be ended only by
a battle. Heat, dust, and drought wrought havoc in their columns; the
pitiless northern sun left men and animals with little resisting
power; the flying inhabitants devastated their fields, the horses and
oxen gorged themselves on the half-rotten thatch of the abandoned
huts, and died by the wayside; the gasping soldiery had no food but
flesh. Dysentery raged, and soldiers died like flies. For a time
Saint-Cyr's Bavarian corps lost from eight to nine hundred men a day,
and it was by no means a solitary exception. Such facts account for
the dilatoriness of Napoleon's movements in part; for the rest, his
imperial plans demanded that he should organize all the territories in
his rear, and he gave himself the utmost pains to do so. Besides, he
had never before had a task so heroic in all its dimensions, and every
detail of military and political procedure required time and care in
fullest measure, the more so when preparing for a decisive, uncommon
battle.

Vitebsk and Smolensk occupy analogous positions on the rivers Dwina
and Dnieper, the former of which is to the westward and flows north;
the latter, farther inland, flows in the opposite direction into the
very heart of Russia. Barclay had planned to await Bagration at
Vitebsk, and Napoleon, arriving on July twenty-seventh, hoped for a
decisive battle there. But Davout's movements drove Bagration farther
eastward, and Barclay, instead of waiting, hurried to Smolensk, where
the junction was effected. This compulsory pursuit had, as
communications then were, thrown the extreme wings of Napoleon's army
virtually out of reach, the Prussians being near Riga, and the
Austrians in Volhynia. The long, thin line of his center must be,
therefore, drawn in for safety; and since the character of the country
had improved, he determined to concentrate near Vitebsk, and
recuperate his troops in the comparatively pleasant land which
environs that city. Both commander and officers were at first so
disheartened that they contemplated remaining for the season, Murat
alone remonstrating; but Napoleon said three years were necessary for
the Russian war. Such counsels did not long prevail; with new strength
came the old daring, and orders were sent both to Macdonald and the
Prussians on the left, and to the Austrians under Schwarzenberg on the
right, which were indicative of a great project. Napoleon's prestige
among the Poles had in fact shrunk along with his army. The latter he
could not recruit, but the former he must repair at any hazard; this
could be done only by what he designated to Jomini as a "good battle."
The success of the minor engagements to right and left, incident to
concentration, was encouraging for such a speedy and overwhelming
triumph.

The Russians at Smolensk were vainglorious at having outwitted
Napoleon, and longed to fight. Barclay alone was uneasy, but, in
deference to the prevalent sentiment, he advanced to offer battle, and
on August ninth there was a skirmish between pickets. Napoleon at
once set his army in motion, but as neither general was really well
informed or prepared, Barclay pushed on to the right, and the two
armies lost touch. Once aroused, the French spirit brooked no further
delay, and it was determined to seek the "good battle" before
Smolensk, which, lying on the right, or north, bank of the Dnieper,
could be reached only by crossing the stream. This manoeuver was
brilliantly executed. Barclay was a day's march distant on the south
bank when Ney and Murat deployed on the other side for action on
August sixteenth. Bagration, nearer at hand, threw one corps across
the river into the town, and then hurried his main force down-stream
to oppose its passage by the French.

Smolensk, called from its site the Key of Russia, and designated, from
its importance as a shrine, "The Sacred," was then a town of about
thirteen thousand inhabitants. Around the inner city was a line of
thick but dilapidated walls, and these were surrounded outside by
densely built faubourgs. The first attempt of Ney to storm the walls
failed, and a bombardment was ordered. By evening of the seventeenth
the French army were all drawn up on the north bank between the city
and the river; the Russians were opposite on the heights. During the
night of the seventeenth the Russian army began to cross the Dnieper
by the permanent bridge, which they held; a fresh garrison was thrown
into Smolensk, and at four in the morning of the eighteenth the van
began to retreat toward Moscow. Napoleon, foiled in his attempt to
carry Smolensk by storm, had hoped that Barclay would offer battle
under the walls of the town. He, therefore, waited until afternoon for
the expected appearance of his foe, but in vain. Puzzled and uneasy,
he then determined to force the fighting by a fresh assault. The
suburbs were captured late in the evening, but the walls were
impregnable. Barclay then set fire to the quarter opposite that
attacked by the French, and in the resulting confusion safely drew out
his garrison; the next morning saw his rear well beyond Napoleon's
reach, with the bridges destroyed behind it. On the twenty-third he
halted and drew up for battle behind the Uscha.

[Illustration: Map of the Russian Campaign 1812.]

Technically Napoleon had won, since an important frontier fortress was
captured; but he had not fought his great battle, nor had he cut off
his enemy's retreat. Ney and Murat were despatched in pursuit, but it
is charged on good authority that they acted recklessly, without
concert, and gave the first exhibition of a demoralization destined
later to be disastrous. In another land and under ordinary
circumstances the fight at Smolensk would have been, if not a decisive
victory, at least an effective one. But while Russia is despotic
politically, socially she is the least centralized of all lands, and a
wound in one portion of her loose organism does not necessarily reach
a vital point nor affect the seat of life and action. This Napoleon
perfectly understood. He could either summon back the patience he had
vaunted first at Dresden, then at Vitebsk, or he could yield to his
impulse for swift action and go on to Moscow in the hope, before
entering the capital, of fighting the "good battle" for which he so
longed. The older officers with long memories compared the Russian
Smolensk with the Syrian Acre. Murat had foreseen that an affair at
Smolensk would amount to nothing, and had begged Napoleon to avoid a
conflict. Rapp came in after the victory, and recalled the scenes of
distress which had marked every step of his long journey from the
Niemen: the numerous victims of dysentery and typhus who lay dying
along the roadsides, the desperate bands of marauders and deserters
who were eking out a doubtful existence by ravaging the villages, the
maddened hordes of peasants and tradespeople who were shooting or
striking down the enfeebled stragglers from the army like bullocks in
the shambles. Recounting all these horrors, he pleaded with the
Emperor to desist. But Napoleon remembered that his transport barges
had been wrecked on the river bars, and that his wagon-trains were
without horses or oxen to draw them. The counterfeit paper money he
had brought from Paris would no longer pass; where was he to find
sustenance for his still numerous force of a hundred and eighty-five
thousand men at least? Only by pressing on to some populous city; and
on the twenty-fourth his army was in motion eastward. If Alexander
could be brought to terms, he would yield more quickly with one of his
capitals in the enemy's grasp. In the attempt to form a calm judgment
concerning this conclusion it must be remembered that the French base
was secure; there were garrisons of about fourteen thousand men each
in Vitebsk, Orscha, and Mohileff; another was left at Smolensk. The
line from the Niemen to Moscow was very long, yet Schwarzenberg was on
the right to prevent Tormassoff from breaking through, and Napoleon
felt sure that Wittgenstein on the left was too weak to be a menace.
If the great captain had halted at Smolensk and strengthened himself
on the double line of the Dwina and Dnieper, as was perhaps possible
in spite of all difficulties, he would have been quite as strong in a
military way as before Austerlitz or Eylau. But had Russia learned
nothing from these two experiences, and would she come on again a
third time as on those two occasions to certain defeat? To have acted
on the affirmative hypothesis would have been to expect much. The Czar
would rather take time to raise the whole nation; if need be, to
organize, discipline, and drill his numerous levies; to wear out the
patience of the invaders and strike when the advantage was his, not
theirs. Making all allowance for troops to be left in garrison,
Napoleon would still have a hundred and fifty-seven thousand men,
hardened veterans who, though murmuring and grumbling after the
soldier's manner, were nevertheless altogether trustworthy, and would
turn sulky if compelled to retreat.

If this were Napoleon's reasoning, it proved to be fallacious, because
the Russians were constantly increasing their strength, while that of
the French, both on the base of operations and on the line of march,
was diminishing. The Austrian troops, moreover, behaved toward Russia
as the Russian soldiers had behaved toward Austria in the last
campaign; that is, as a friendly exploring guard, and not as hostile
invaders. It is now easy to say that to lengthen the French line of
operation was a military blunder. It was certainly wrong. The reasons
are, however, not altogether strategic; they are chiefly moral, and
were not so clearly discernible then. In the face of national feeling,
before the march of national regeneration, a single man,
world-conqueror though he may have been during a period of national
disorganization, is an object of microscopic size. The French emperor
did not know the strength of Russian feeling, the great revolutionist
was ignorant of the Europe he had unconsciously regenerated. If he
blundered as a strategist in not confessing defeat at Smolensk, he
behaved like a tyro in statesmanship when he courted an overthrow at
Moscow.

Barclay was charged by the old Russians with being too German in
feeling, with manoeuvering timidly when he ought to fight,
and--sacrilege of sacrileges!--with leaving the sacred image of the
Virgin at Smolensk to fall into hostile hands. Yielding to the storm
of popular feeling, Alexander appointed in his stead Kutusoff, the
darling of the conservative Slavonic party; but Barclay was persuaded
to remain as adviser, and his policy was sustained. The Russians
withdrew before the French advance, until, on September third, their
van halted on the right bank of the Kalatscha, opposite Borodino, to
strike the decisive blow in defense of Moscow. On the fourth
Napoleon's van attacked and drove before it the Russian rear, which
was just closing in. He had a hundred and twenty-eight thousand men at
hand, and six thousand more within reach. That night he issued a
ringing address: recalling Austerlitz, he summoned the soldiers to
behave so that future generations would say of each, "He was in that
great battle under the walls of Moscow." Next morning a courier
arrived, bringing a portrait of the little King of Rome. The Emperor
hung it before his tent, and invited his officers to admire it. But at
night the sinister news of Marmont's defeat at Salamanca arrived.
Napoleon said nothing, but was heard in self-communing to deplore the
barbarity of war. All night he seemed restless, fearing lest the
Russians should elude him as they had in other crises; but, rising at
five, and discerning their lines, he called aloud: "They are ours at
last! March on; let us open the gates of Moscow."

The Russians, roused by religious fervor, and elevated by a fatalistic
premonition of success, had thrown up trenches and redoubts at
advantageous points on their chosen battle-fields. In their first
onset they advanced like devotees, with the cry, "God have mercy upon
us!" and, as each forward rank went down before the relentless
invaders, those behind pressed onward over the bodies of their
comrades. But it was all in vain; throughout the fourth and fifth of
September one outpost after another was taken, until at ten in the
evening of the latter day the whole Russian force was thrown back on
its main position, stretching from the bank of the Moskwa on the
north, behind the Kalatscha, as far as Utizy on the south, such
portions as were not naturally sheltered being protected by strong
redoubts. There were a hundred and twenty thousand in all, of which
about seventeen thousand were ununiformed peasantry. Opposite stood
the French, Poniatowski on the right, Davout, with the guard, in the
rear, then Eugene; behind Davout, to the left, Ney; and farther
behind, in the same line, Junot. The orders were for an opening
cannonade, Poniatowski to surround the Russian left, Eugene to cross
the Kalatscha by three bridges thrown over during the night, and
attack the Russian right, while Morand and Gerard, his auxiliaries,
should move on the center, and storm the defenses erected there.

The battle was conducted almost to the letter of these orders, but
such was Russian valor that, instead of being a brilliant manoeuver,
it developed into a bloody face-to-face conflict, determined by sheer
force. At six in the morning the artillery opened. Poniatowski
advanced, was checked, but, supported by Ney, stood firm until Junot
came in; they two then stood together, while Ney and Davout dashed at
the enemy's center. Eugene having acted in perfect concert,
Poniatowski then advanced alone, and his task was completed by nine.
But he was so weakened by his terrific exertions that he could only
hold what he had gained. At ten Ney and Davout, reinforced by Friant,
seized the central redoubts; but they, too, were exhausted, and could
only hold the Russian line, which bent inward and stood without
breaking. Eugene then massed his whole division, and charged. The
resistance was stubborn, and the fighting terrific, but by three his
opponents yielded, his artillery opened, and he held his gains. About
the same time Junot reached Poniatowski, and their combined efforts
finally overpowered the Russian left. So superhuman had been the
exertions of both armies that they rested on their arms in these
relative positions all night, the Russians too exhausted to flee, the
French too weary to pursue. But early on the seventh the flight of
Kutusoff began, and the French started in pursuit.

Between the generals of the Russian rear and those of Napoleon's van
an agreement was made that if the former were left to pass through
Moscow unmolested, the latter should gain the city without a blow. The
contracting parties kept their pact; but the governor of Moscow
rendered the agreement void. Great crowds of the inhabitants joined
the Russian columns as, six days later, they marched between the rows
of inflammable wooden houses of which the suburbs were composed; and,
while they tramped sullenly onward, thin pillars of ascending smoke
began to appear here and there on the outer lines. But when, two hours
after the last Russian soldier had disappeared, the cavalry of Murat
clattered through the streets, the fires attracted little attention,
nor at the moment was Napoleon's contentment diminished by them, as,
from the "mount of salutation," whence pious pilgrims were wont to
greet the holy city, he ordered his guard to advance and occupy the
Kremlin, that fortress which enshrines all that is holiest in Russian
faith. Kutusoff, boasting that he had held his ground overnight, had
persuaded the inhabitants of Moscow, and even the Czar, that he had
been the victor, and that he was withdrawing merely to await the
arrival of the victorious and veteran legions from the Danube, when he
would choose his field and annihilate the invaders.




CHAPTER XXVIII

THE EVACUATION OF MOSCOW[43]

         [Footnote 43: References: Marguerou: Campagne de Russie,
         specially part III. Bertin: La campagne de 1812 d'apres des
         temoins oculaires. Mosbach: Der Uebergang ueber die Beresina
         aus ungedruckten Denkw. d. polnischen Obersten Bialkowski,
         Streffleur's "Oesterr. militaer. Zeitschrift," 1875.
         Clausewitz: "Ueber die Schlacht a.d. Beresina," letter to
         Stein, published in the "Hist. Zeitschrift" for 1888. George:
         Napoleon's Invasion of Russia. Fabry: Campagne de
         Russie,1812, Operations Militaires.]

     The Reasons for Napoleon's Advance -- The Importance of Moscow --
     The Burning of the City -- The French Occupation -- The Military
     Situation -- Alexander's Steadfastness -- Napoleon's Impatience
     -- The Strategic Problem -- The Exaggeration of the Factors --
     The Plan of Retreat -- Malojaroslavetz -- Napoleon's Vacillation.


Some insight into the state of Napoleon's mind may be secured by
contemplating his conduct during and after the battle of Borodino.
That conflict was, on the whole, the bloodiest and most fiercely
contested of all so far fought by him. The French losses were computed
by the Emperor at twenty thousand men, those of the Russians were not
less than double the number. Yet the day was not decisive. Napoleon,
suffering from a severe cold and loss of voice, displayed an unwonted
lassitude. Setting a high value on his personal safety, he did not
intervene at crucial moments, as he was wont to do and as he asserted
was essential in the new science of war, for the purpose of
electrifying officers and men. His scheme of rolling up Kutusoff's
line by a double attack on left and center consequently failed, in
the opinion of the greatest experts, because he did not throw in the
guard on the center at the decisive moment. This failure was due to a
disregard of his own maxim that "generals who save troops for the next
day are always beaten"; not divining a complete cessation of
hostilities by Kutusoff, he thought his reserve might be required on
the morrow. It seems, too, as if he were gradually becoming aware of
the dangers attendant on the prolongation of his base to Moscow. At
Mozhaisk he halted three days, doubtless with the hope that Alexander
would open negotiations to prevent the sack of his sacred capital.
During this pause careful orders were issued for the concentration of
a strong French reserve at Smolensk. Victor was summoned to bring in
his thirty thousand men from the Niemen so as to be ready in an
emergency to advance even as far as Moscow. It seems like a case of
wilful self-deception that on the tenth Napoleon wrote to Maret as if
convinced that the exposure of his flanks would escape Kutusoff's
notice, saying that the enemy struck in the heart was occupied only
with the heart, and not with the extremities. This would have been a
justifiable confidence had Borodino been decisive. But it was not
decisive, since the Russian army, far from being annihilated, drew off
with its files, companies, and regiments so far intact as to be easily
available for the quick incorporation of new recruits. This it was
which gave verisimilitude to Kutusoff's boast and made the French
occupation of Moscow a matter of doubtful expediency.

Yet the temptation was irresistible. Mother Moscow, as runs the
caressing Russian phrase, is indeed the source of all Muscovite
inspiration. Watered by the winding stream of the same name, its heart
is the Kremlin, its citadel of Russian architecture, Russian
orthodoxy, Russian authority, and Russian learning. From its
churches are promulgated the authoritative utterances of the Greek
Metropolitan, within its triangular walls is found the most
characteristic Muscovite architecture, behind its portals stand the
largest bell ever cast and the largest cannon ever founded until the
most recent times; statues of Russian heroes adorn its open spaces,
the splendors of its palaces are lavished with Muscovite profuseness,
the edicts of the White Czar thunder over his many million subjects
from its walls. Clustered about the Kremlin are the various quarters
of the town, which cover a space equal to the area of Paris, and
contain about one fourth as many inhabitants. The epithet of "holy
city" is amply justified by the sanctuary-citadel, but its aptness is
further sustained by the three hundred and sixty churches, each with
its tower and onion-shaped cupola, which are scattered through all the
districts. In the beginning of this century Moscow from within
appeared like a congeries of villages surrounded with groves and
gardens, each with its manor-house and parochial church. Around the
whole was a girdle of country-seats, and the beauty of the scene as
viewed by the approaching traveler was such as to kindle enthusiasm in
the coldest breast. The inhabitants had hoped that the "victory" of
Borodino would spare their home the shame of foreign occupation. When
the governor announced that in a council of war it had been decided to
abandon the city, there was first dismay, then fury, then despair. The
long trains of departing citizens wailed their church hymns with
sullen mien and joyless voices.

The surrender was marked by barbarous conduct on the part of the civil
authorities. It has been recounted that by a military convention the
Russian rear-guard had been permitted to withdraw unmolested after
Borodino, in return for a promise not to destroy Moscow. Yet on
September fourteenth, the day of the French occupation, as has also
been told, fires had been kindled in the suburbs, whether by accident
or design cannot be determined. Besides this, on receipt of the notice
to evacuate, such stores as in the short interval could be reached
were destroyed; the prison doors were opened, and a horde of maddened
criminals was set free in the streets. Nevertheless, there was fair
order throughout the fifteenth. Next day a raging conflagration burst
forth. At the time, and long afterwards, this was attributed as a deed
of dastardly incendiarism to the invaders; with the growth of modern
ideas about ruthlessness in warfare, Russian historians have begun to
attribute it to the inhabitants as a heroic measure. It is now
asserted that the governor cast the first brand into his own
country-seat. More probably, the fanaticism of the populace,
heightened by the criminal rage of the escaped prisoners, led to the
almost simultaneous firing of many buildings in various quarters. A
possibility of method in the destruction of the city begins to dawn,
however, when it is remembered that the devastation of the surrounding
country by the fleeing Russians was equally thorough, and was carried
out according to a carefully devised plan.

The entry of the French into Moscow has been compared to the
appearance of great actors before an empty house. When the
conflagration broke out, every effort was made to stop it, and eight
hundred fire fiends were summarily punished. But as the burning walls
of the storehouses fell, the rabble seized the barrels of spirits thus
revealed, and drank themselves into blind fury; the French soldiery
pillaged with little restraint, not sparing even the Kremlin. Finally,
the flames were checked and order was restored, but not until three
quarters of the city proper were destroyed; the Kremlin and the
remaining fourth were saved. On the evening of the fourth day the
French army was disposed in rude comfort within or about the site of
Moscow, and Murat's riders began to bring in reports concerning
Kutusoff's army. To soothe the peasantry of the neighboring districts,
one of the old insidious proclamations was issued, appealing to their
manhood against the tyranny of their rulers. "Die for your faith and
the Czar!" was the answering cry, as they seized the French
stragglers, surprised the garrison of Wereja, and beset the Smolensk
road. Day by day the people labored, the townsfolk helping to gather
the peasants' goods, both classes waylaying the French supply-trains,
and hiding every article of use in vast underground chambers
constructed for the purpose. Consternation filled the invaders, and
their plight became desperate when they learned of the Russian
military dispositions, and understood how Kutusoff already menaced
their safety.

Instigated by Castlereagh, Bernadotte had released the Russian corps
placed at his disposal for conquering Norway, and Wittgenstein, on the
Russian right, thus suddenly acquired a force of forty thousand
wherewith to menace Napoleon's outlying left on the north. By English
mediation, also, a peace was arranged between Turkey and Russia, thus
releasing Tchitchagoff, who promptly joined Tormassoff, and opposed
Schwarzenberg on the extreme French right with nearly two to one.
Meanwhile Kutusoff had taken a position at Tarutino, where he
commanded the left flank of the main French army, and daily received
new recruits, who flocked to fill his depleted ranks. Napoleon had,
since Borodino, been in daily expectation of some communication from
the Czar. His critical situation made him impatient, and on the
twentieth he wrote, informing his strangely silent foe that Moscow was
burned, a misfortune which might have been averted had negotiations
been opened after Borodino. There was no response. On October fifth
Lauriston was despatched to Kutusoff's camp, nominally to secure an
exchange of prisoners. The latter said that the affair must be
referred to St. Petersburg; but the French general learned that the
Russians had extended their line south toward Kaluga to secure the
fertile base behind, and further threaten the long, weak French flank.

Alexander's silent steadfastness was, indeed, remarkable. Hitherto in
every crisis--as, for example, after Austerlitz and Friedland--he had
yielded. Why was he now so firm? Stein, the Prussian patriot, was at
his side; but so was the trusted Rumianzoff, leader of the French
party, which was for peace. The Old Russian party, demoralized by
Napoleon's advance to the heart of the empire, was also clamorous for
peace negotiations. An English embassy, composed of Lord Cathcart and
the body of English officers under Sir Robert Wilson sent to
reorganize the Russian army, had so far been able to accomplish
little, for by all accounts their influence was slight. The improved
military situation no doubt accounts for much, but the best
information goes to show that Alexander moved and talked like one
dazed, feeling himself to be a storm-tossed child of fate. Destitute
of self-reliance, he appears to have been drawn toward Galitzin, whose
piety was eminent, and verged upon mysticism. It is certain that in
those days the Czar for the first time became an ardent Bible reader,
and frequently exclaimed, "The hand of God hath done this!" On leaving
St. Petersburg at last for the seat of war, his parting act was to
found the Russian Bible Society. It was with but small reliance on the
military situation, and with a feeling of providential guidance, that
he determined to renew the conflict.

Thus passed five weeks. Interminable they seemed to the anxious
conqueror at Moscow, who yawned even at the theater; who forgot the
stern abstemiousness of his table habits, and, like a gourmet, spent
hours at his meals merely to kill time; who threw himself into vicious
ways, and contracted a loathsome disease; who lost all interest even
in his troops, and finally, unkempt, preoccupied, and feverish, seemed
indifferent to everything. The crown, scepter, and robe wherewith he
had hoped to be invested as Emperor of the West were not unpacked from
the camp chests. The pompous ceremonies of military occupation were
scrupulously performed; drills, parades, and concerts followed in due
succession; but the Emperor's interest was languid. At last the dreary
waiting became intolerable, the season, although neither early nor
severe, was rapidly advancing, the predatory excursions of the
soldiers into the surrounding country were growing longer, more
difficult, and less fruitful of results with every day. The elements
of danger were hourly increasing in an appalling ratio. Daru advised
turning Moscow into an armed camp and wintering there. "A lion's
advice," said Napoleon, but he put it aside. The question of retreat
would soon be imperative, and that he sometimes discussed, but only
languidly, until, on October eighteenth, without warning, a truce made
by Murat was broken, and his command driven in. Then at last the
captain in Napoleon awakened, the emperor vanished, the retreat was
ordered, and universal empire, a dependent Czar, the march from Tiflis
to the Ganges, England humiliated, and the ocean liberated--all were
forgotten in the presence of reality. Robe, scepter, and crown were
never seen again.

Political considerations prompted a movement of withdrawal toward the
northwest, as if against St. Petersburg, but military considerations
prevailed, and between the two alternatives--a direct retreat to
Smolensk through a devastated land, or a circuit south-westward,
through fertile districts, toward Kaluga, as if to attack
Kutusoff--the choice fell on the latter. The reason is clear. The seat
of war was within a triangle marked by Riga, Brest-Litovski, and
Moscow; from Riga to Moscow, the left flank, is five hundred and fifty
miles; from Riga to Brest, the base, is three hundred and seventy-five
miles; from Brest to Moscow, the right flank, is six hundred and fifty
miles; the perpendicular from Moscow to the base, which was the
shortest line of retreat, is therefore about five hundred and
seventy-five miles. These distances are all enormous; on the left were
only forty-two thousand men, on the right, about thirty-four thousand;
along the line, forty-two thousand. The diagram, if drawn, will
display all the peculiarities of Napoleonic formation in mass,
abstractly considered, but it will likewise display the fact that with
the highest and most perfect army organization then known, it would
have been well-nigh impossible to work the combination. Neither of the
monstrous flanks could be held by the comparatively scanty forces
available; the line of operation was equally weak. What safety was
there for the army in retreat? None.

There will never be complete agreement as to the causes of Napoleon's
disaster in Russia. A comparison of the relative values of
mass-formation, tactics, and organization in modern warfare, which
uses railroads and telegraphs, with the distances practicable in
present-day operations, must nevertheless reveal the chief cause--that
the Napoleonic organization had not kept pace with the development of
Napoleonic strategy. The emperor had overweighted the general, the
former having soared into an ether which would not sustain the
pinions of the latter. The well-used plea of an "act of God" will not
stand. The autumn of 1812 was mild, the winter late in opening.
Neither cheerless steppes, nor phenomenal cold, nor unheard-of snows,
nor any reversal of nature's laws,--not even the motley nationalities
of the grand army, or an unhistoric migration from south to
north,--none of these was the chief cause of failure, which is to be
found in the attempt monstrously to exaggerate the factors of a
strategic system evolved for national, but not for continental,
proportions.

The first and natural thought of a direct retreat to Smolensk was
momentarily entertained; but it had to be abandoned because, with weak
flanks and a bare country, the distance was too far. The same was true
in regard to the move toward St. Petersburg--the distance was too
great for the conditions. The circuit toward Kaluga was first
considered as a feint to throw the Russians off the scent; it became a
necessity when they assumed the offensive in the unforeseen and
unexpected attack on Murat. The Emperor did not dare to expose his
flank and rear to an advancing foe, and accordingly his army was
assembled on the road toward Kaluga. Should he advance or await a
further movement of the enemy? Evidently the former, otherwise the
entire moral effect of the first offensive would be lost. A long march
had to be extended still farther, partly for strategic reasons, but
chiefly in order to secure an additional advantage of the first
importance; to wit, sustenance from the country when the distances
were too great for the workings of any feasible commissariat
department. If the Russians should even momentarily be deceived into
believing that the French had resumed the offensive, a line from
Kaluga direct to Smolensk would still be open for retreat while the
enemy was preparing for action.

The report was spread in Moscow that Napoleon was going out to
overwhelm Kutusoff and then return. Mortier, with eight thousand of
the young guard, remained behind, his orders being to blow up the
Kremlin before leaving. The main army advanced across the river Pachra
and moved toward the Lusha. There was as yet no word of the enemy;
possibly he had been misled and was advancing directly on Moscow.
Napoleon, therefore, turned westward in the hope that he might reach
Kaluga without opposition. On the twenty-fourth the Russian van
appeared. Had Kutusoff acted on his correct information and thrown
forward his whole army, a decisive battle might have ended the
invasion. As it was, Eugene, after a bloody conflict at
Malojaroslavetz, remained master of the field, and the timid Kutusoff
drew back his force. Meantime the truth leaked out in Moscow.
Suspicion was excited, as the resident French observed not merely the
immense booty packed in the officers' baggage, but also the loads of
Muscovite art treasures under which the government wagons groaned.
They were quick to act, and soon, accompanied by women and children,
they joined the march with all the paraphernalia of their household
goods. From the first this throng, uniting with the usual horde of
stragglers and camp-followers, prevented all rapid movements by the
army; in fact, but for them the half-senile Kutusoff would not have
been able to show even his van to the French line. Mortier's effort to
destroy the Kremlin failed, and served no purpose except to exhibit
the thirst for revenge of a savage nature brought to bay.

In short, every plan of Napoleon's seemed ineffectual, and indecision
marked his every act. Eugene's terrible struggle had resulted in a
list of wounded numbering four thousand. The old Napoleon would have
abandoned them and then have attacked Kutusoff even in the forest
defiles where he was ensconced; or else he would have pressed on past
Kaluga, or would have swiftly wheeled to regain the northern road
toward Smolensk. The harried, sick, exhausted man of 1812 did none of
these things, but called a council of war, and weighed the arguments
there presented for nearly a week, when, finally, he decided, and with
forced marches drove his columns toward the northern road to Smolensk.
He wrote to Junot that his motive for delay was to provide for the
suffering from his depot at Mozhaisk, but, in fact, he had not waited
long enough materially to assist the wounded, and had secured no
advantage from the bloody battle. In the absence of trustworthy
information he took (when once he did move) a long, circuitous road.
As yet there was no cold except the usual sharpness of autumn nights;
but the summer uniforms of the troops were tattered and their shoes
worn. Germans, Italians, and Illyrians began to straggle, and the
horrors of the approaching cold, as depicted by Russian prisoners,
sank deep into the minds of the dispirited French, so far away from
their pleasant homes.




CHAPTER XXIX

THE RETREAT FROM RUSSIA[44]

         [Footnote 44: References as in the preceding chapter. Also:
         Cathcart: Commentaries on the War in Russia and Germany, 1812
         to 1813. Clausewitz: Der Feldzug von 1812 in Russland, der
         Feldzug von 1813 bis zum Waffenstillstand und der Feldzug von
         1814 in Frankreich. Combe: Memoires sur les campagnes de
         Russie 1812, de Saxe 1813, de France 1814 et 1815. Jomini:
         Precis politique et militaire des campagnes de 1812 a 1814.
         Labaume: Relation circonstanciee de la campagne de Russie.
         Gentz: Oesterreichs Theilnahme an den Befreiungskriegen. Ein
         Beitrag zur Geschichte der Jahre 1813-1815, nach
         Aufzeichnungen von F. von Gentz, nebst einem Anhang:
         "Briefwechsel zwischen dem Fuersten Schwarzenberg und
         Metternich." Porter: A Narrative of the Campaign in Russia in
         1812. Segur: Histoire de Napoleon et de la grande armee
         pendant l'annee 1812. Gourgaud: Napoleon et la grande armee
         en Russie, ou examen critique de l'ouvrage de M. le C^te Ph.
         de Segur. Vandal: Napoleon et Alexandre Ier. Wilson: Private
         diary of travels, personal services and public events during
         mission and employment with the European armies in the
         campaigns of 1812, 1813 and 1814; ed. by his nephew, H.
         Murray. Wolseley: The Decline and Fall of Napoleon.]

     State of Napoleon's Mind -- Destruction Imminent -- The Affair at
     Wiazma -- Kutusoff's Timidity -- Napoleon's Despair -- Arrival at
     Smolensk -- The Army Reorganized -- Napoleon's Daring at Krasnoi
     -- Ney's Great Feat -- Sufferings of the Army -- The Russian Plan
     -- Tchitchagoff's Capture of Borrissoff.


For nine days the retreat went steadily on. Mortier came in on October
twenty-seventh; Davout was assigned to keep the rear. Napoleon was no
longer seen on horseback; sometimes he drove, but generally he trudged
among the men, to all outward appearance as spiritless as any one. To
Junot he wrote that he had taken his decision in consequence of the
cold and in order to provide for his wounded from the depot at
Mozhaisk. There was as yet no severe cold, and there was a far shorter
road to Smolensk. The writer's mind was chaotic, confusing what he
knew soon would be with present realities. His maps were worthless,
and clinging to experience, he showed none of his accustomed
venturesomeness. The well-worn summer uniforms of his men were no
protection even against the coolness of autumn nights. What a prospect
when winter's cold should come! It was enough to stun even a Napoleon.

But the present was bad enough, and momentarily grew worse. The road
was lined with charred ruins and devastated fields, and the waysides
were dotted with groups of listless, desperate soldiers who fell out
and sank on the ground as the straggling ranks of their comrades
tramped on. Skirting the battle-field of Borodino, the marching
battalions looked askance on the ghastly heaps of unburied corpses;
but the wounded survivors were dragged from field hospitals and other
cavernous shelters to be carried onward with the departing army. They
were a sight which in some cases turned melancholy into madness. In
order to transport them the wagons were lightened by throwing the
spoils of Moscow into the pond at Semlino. On the thirtieth despatches
of grave import reached the Emperor informing him that Schwarzenberg
had retreated behind the Bug, leaving an open road from Brest for
Tchitchagoff's veterans to attack the right flank of the columns
flying from Moscow. Victor, learning of Napoleon's straits, had left
fifteen thousand men in Smolensk, and was advancing to join Saint-Cyr
on the Dwina in order to assure the safety of the main army from that
side. To him came the dismal news that Wittgenstein had resumed the
offensive against Saint-Cyr, and that the line of attack on the French
left was as open from the north as was that on the other side from the
south. Davout's rear-guard was steadily disintegrating under hardships
and before the harassing attacks of the Russian riders under Platoff.
Partizan warfare was assuming alarming dimensions. In a single swoop
two thousand French recruits under Baraguey d'Hilliers had been made
prisoners, and similar events were growing all too frequent. In
consequence of these crushing discouragements the whole army was
rearrayed. "We must march as we did in Egypt," ran the order: "the
baggage in the middle, as densely surrounded as the road will permit,
with a half battalion in front, a half battalion behind, battalions
right and left, so that when we face we can fire in every direction."
Ney's corps was then assigned to the place of danger in the rear--a
place he kept with desperate gallantry until he earned the title
"bravest of the brave."

The early promise of substantially reinforcing Kutusoff's army had not
been fulfilled. The fanatic zeal at first displayed soon effervesced,
the new levies were untrustworthy, and the long marches of the
Russians told almost as terribly upon them as the retreat did upon
their enemies. Kutusoff's army therefore, though available for
defense, was a poor weapon for attack, especially when the object was
a French army under the dreaded Napoleon. The Russian commander was
only half-hearted in his pursuit; and when, having taken the short cut
which was unknown to his enemy, his van came in contact with the
French line at Wiazma on November third, the Russian soldiers had
little heart to fight. The circumstances offered every chance for a
powerful if not a decisive blow on the flying column from flank and
rear; but the onset was feeble, the commander-in-chief held back his
main force in anxious timidity, and a second time the opportunity was
lost for annihilating the retreating foe, now reduced in number to
about sixty thousand. Napoleon was far away on the front when Kutusoff
attacked, and the battle was conducted on the French side by the
marshals in consultation with Eugene and Poniatowski. The rear-guard
was momentarily severed from the line, but these two generals wheeled
and fiercely attacked the advancing Russians, engaging all within
reach until Davout was able to evade the melee and rejoin the main
army.

The French lost about four thousand, the Russians about half as many.
Neither of the two armies had any courage to renew the struggle next
morning, and each kept its way as best it could, both of them
exhausted, both shrinking hourly in vigor and numbers. Kutusoff's
conduct both at Malojaroslavetz and at Wiazma has been explained by
his fixed resolution to leave the destruction of the invaders to his
gaunt allies, want and winter. If, however, as was possible at either
place, he had annihilated the retreating army, this might have been
the last Napoleonic war, since it was not for a new army that the
Emperor of the French appealed to his people, but for something quite
different; namely, men to recruit the old one. As it was, Napoleon
first learned of the conflict at Wiazma on the fourth, and
contemplated a movement which might lead his pursuers into an ambush.
But he found the three columns which had been engaged so pitifully
disintegrated that he gave up in despair--a feeling heightened when,
for the first time, snowflakes came ominously fluttering through the
frosty air.

The weary march was therefore resumed, and there was some semblance of
order in it, although Ney wrote Berthier that already on the fourth
there were without exaggeration four thousand men of the grand army
who refused to march in rank. The number was increasing daily. On the
sixth Napoleon was informed that Victor, having effected a junction
with Saint-Cyr, had checked Wittgenstein in a series of gallant
struggles, but that step by step the two divisions had been driven
back until now they were only thirty miles distant, having abandoned
the line of the Dwina, including the depot of Vitebsk. "Seize the
offensive; the safety of the army depends on it," was Napoleon's
desperate reply. Terrible as this news was to the general, it was
eclipsed in horror for the Emperor by the accounts he received at the
same time from Paris describing Malet's conspiracy, a movement to
overthrow the Empire based on the false rumor of his own death. "And
Napoleon II, did no one think of him?" he cried in anguish. Grand
army, reputation, personal prestige--all these he might lose and
survive; but to lose France, that were ruin indeed.

That night a heavy frost fell; then, and no sooner, did the relentless
severity of the Russian winter begin. This is proved by Napoleon's
famous twenty-ninth bulletin, and by the journal of Castellane, the
aide-de-camp who made the final copy of it; in spite of assertions put
forth later to sustain the legend of an army conquered by the
elements, the autumn had dallied far beyond its time. Next day the
weary march began again; scarcely a word escaped the Emperor. He was
pale, but his countenance gave no sign of panic; there was merely a
grim, persistent silence. The enemy hung on flank and rear, harassing
the demoralized column until it was more like a horde than an army.
With numbed limbs and in the gnawing misery of bitter cold, the French
straggled on. Men and horses died by the score; the survivors cut
strips of carrion wherewith to sustain life, and desperately pressed
forward, for all who left the highway fell into the enemy's hands. In
some bivouacs three hundred died overnight; there are statements in
the papers of officials which seem to indicate that in the struggle
for life the weaker often perished at the hands of their own comrades.
The half-crazed, frost-bitten, disorderly soldiers of the French van
reached Smolensk on the ninth, and on the thirteenth the remnants of
the rear, with many stragglers, came up and encamped. The heroes of
the hour were Eugene and Ney. Ney's division had well-nigh vanished in
their glory. Fighting without fear, and dying undaunted, they had
saved the moiety of the grand army which reached Smolensk; the other
half had perished by the way. Eugene had taken a long circuit, but his
division had lost fewer and was less demoralized than those of his
colleagues. Murat's recklessness in fighting the Cossacks had resulted
in the loss of nearly all his horses; his men arrived on foot.

The scenes in Smolensk were shameful. At first the garrison shut the
gates in the very faces of the human wolves who clamored for food and
shelter. Discipline having been restored, the guard was admitted. The
stores were ample for a fortnight's rations to all survivors; but the
ravening mob could not be restrained, and the distribution was so
irregular that precious supplies were tumbled into the streets; in the
end it was discovered that the guard had secured sustenance for a
fortnight, while the line had scarcely sufficient for a week. The sick
and wounded were, however, housed and made fairly comfortable. These
nauseating tumults over, the Emperor seemed to regain much of his
bodily vigor, and with it returned his skill and ingenuity: stragglers
were reincorporated into regiments; supply-wagons were destroyed in
large numbers and the horses assigned to the artillery, many of the
guns being abandoned so that the service of the remainder might be
more efficient; the army was rearrayed in four divisions, under the
Emperor, Eugene, Davout, and Ney respectively; and the French made
ready to leave Smolensk with a bold front. Napoleon's contempt for his
enemy was matched only by their palpitating fear of him. Most men
would have abandoned hope in such a crisis. Napoleon was fertile not
merely in strategic expedients, but in devices for realizing his
plans. Accordingly he arranged that the four columns should move on
parallel lines toward Lithuania, a day's march distant from each
other, he with six thousand of the guard in the van; Ney, taking the
other four thousand to strengthen his own line, was to keep the rear.
The movement began on the twelfth, that is, before the last stragglers
had come in; on the fourteenth Napoleon took his departure; and three
days later, on the seventeenth, the towers of the ramparts having been
blown up, the last of the newly ordered ranks marched out. The sick
and wounded had found shelter in houses adjacent to the walls; many
were killed by the explosions, the rest were abandoned to the foe and
found humane treatment. Disorderly and mutinous French soldiers
remained in considerable numbers to plunder; these were for the most
part caught by the entering Russians, and inhumanly done to death. In
all these days the cold had not abated, and at times the thermometer
marked fifteen degrees below zero.

The further line of retreat was through Krasnoi, Borrissoff, and
Minsk, the Emperor expecting Schwarzenberg, reinforced by fourteen
thousand German recruits, to cover the crossing of the Beresina at
Borrissoff. The Russians followed doggedly on their parallel line of
pursuit, harassing the French rear and flanks. On the fifteenth their
van came in touch with Napoleon's division near Krasnoi almost as he
himself passed, and their artillery opened fire. The balls yelled as
they sped by, and there was great excitement. Lebrun called attention
to the fact as if it were remarkable. "Bah!" said Napoleon, as he
pressed forward; "bullets have been flying about our legs these twenty
years." He well knew that his anxious foe would not seriously attack
him and his guard; but, justly considering that the case would be
different in regard to his rear, he halted to await their arrival.
Early on the morning of the seventeenth he sent out a reconnoitering
party, as if about to wheel and give battle; Kutusoff, who for the
moment was considerably inferior in numbers, fell instantly into the
snare, and drawing back his van, as Napoleon had foreseen and desired,
made ready for battle.

Eugene and Davout were within reach, but Ney's position was terrible:
he was only then leaving Smolensk. Was he to be left to his fate?
Around and behind his six thousand troops were swarming almost as many
stragglers; and on the eighteenth the Russians, in spite of their
momentary halt, threw forward their van with the hope of cutting off
his hampered and sore-pressed division. But the short delay had been
precious: Ney rose to the occasion, and on the nineteenth crossed the
Dnieper over the ice, hoping to follow the right bank westward and
rejoin the main army at Orcha. This was one of his most daring feats,
perhaps his most brilliant deed of arms. Summoned by a flag of truce
to surrender, he replied: "A marshal of the Empire has never
surrendered!" Platoff and the Cossacks were hard on his heels; but
fighting and marching throughout the weary, bitter day, at night the
undaunted marshal found himself in touch with Eugene, who had turned
out on the highway from Vitebsk to Orcha to meet him. When, on the
twentieth, they effected a junction, Ney had only eight hundred men in
the ranks with him; perhaps two thousand more were trudging behind in
disorder.

On the eighteenth a thaw had set in; it had begun to rain, the crust
broke under the men's feet, and the roads were lines of icy clods. The
soldiers had no foot-gear but rags; every step was an agony, and
thousands who had so far endured now gave up, and flung away their
guns and equipments. There were not more than twenty-five thousand
regularly marching. Already on the previous day the guard had shown
signs of demoralization. The Emperor alone seemed impassive. For days
he had shared the common hardships; clad in a long Polish coat of
marten fur, a stout birch staff in his hand, without a sign of either
physical or nervous exhaustion he had marched silently for long
distances among his suffering men. If we picture him standing at
Krasnoi, weighing how long he dared to brave an enemy which if
consolidated and hurled upon his lines would have annihilated them, we
must feel that collapse was prevented then only by his nerve and by
the terror of his name. Once more he threw the influence of his
presence into the scale, and, stepping before the guard on this
dreadful day, he said simply: "You see the disorganization of my army.
In unhappy infatuation most of the soldiers have thrown away their
guns. If you follow this dangerous example no hope remains." The state
of the men was, if possible, worse than ever; in fact, it was
indescribable. Night after night they had bivouacked in the snow. What
with the wet, the dazzling glitter, and the insufficient food,--for at
best they had only a broth of horse-flesh thickened with flour,--some
were attacked with blindness, some with acute mania, and some with a
prostrating insensibility. Those who now remained in the ranks were
clad in rags and scarcely recognizable as soldiers. It seemed,
therefore, as if such an appeal could only awaken an echo in an empty
vault; but such was the French character that, desperate as were the
circumstances, the cry was heard. The response was grim and sullen,
but the call was not in vain; and reaching Orcha on the nineteenth,
there was still an army. As yet, however, there was no news of Ney.

The sky seemed dark and the prospect blank when it was learned that
both Victor and Schwarzenberg had been steadily thrown back. The
Russian plan was for Wittgenstein and Tchitchagoff to drive in the
extreme left and right divisions respectively of Napoleon's attenuated
line, and then to concentrate at Borrissoff and attack the main French
army retreating before Kutusoff. So far the various parts of this
scheme had been successfully executed. Borrissoff and its bridge were
still in possession of a Polish regiment; but the garrison was very
small, and could not repulse the attack of the converging Russian
columns or of any portion of them. It behooved Napoleon, therefore, to
move swiftly if his few remaining troops were to cross the Beresina in
safety. It was in this frightful dilemma that Ney at last appeared.
Said Napoleon, when the news was brought to him: "If an hour ago I had
been asked for the three millions I have in the Tuileries vaults as
the price of this event, I would have handed them over." The marshal's
presence was in itself a splendid encouragement.

Purchasing such stores as Jewish contractors offered, abandoning the
heavy pontoons, and hitching the horses to a few field-pieces found in
the park, the undaunted Emperor sent orders to both Victor and
Oudinot, enjoining them to make forced marches and meet him at
Borrissoff. On the twenty-first, amid the slush, mud, and broken cakes
of crust, he started his own army on a swift despairing rush for that
crucial point. It was too late; that very day Tchitchagoffs van, after
a stubborn and bloody struggle, occupied the town and captured the
all-important bridge. The thaw had opened the river, and its
overflowing stream, more than sixty yards in width, was full of
floating ice. To the Russians it seemed as if Napoleon were already
taken in their snare, and Tchitchagoff issued a general order that all
captives below medium stature should be brought to him. "He is short,
stout, pale; has a short, thick neck, and black hair," ran his
description of the "author of Europe's miseries." By a special decree
of the Czar, all the French prisoners of war were kindly treated, each
being furnished with warm clothing at an expense of about twenty
dollars.




CHAPTER XXX

THE HORRORS OF THE BERESINA[45]

         [Footnote 45: References: Bertin, La campagne de 1812,
         d'apres des temoins oculaires. Du Casse, Memoires a
         l'histoire de la campagne de 1812 en Russie. Exner, Der
         Antheil der Koenigl. Saechsischen Armee am Feldzuge gegen
         Russland, 1812. Lafon, Histoire de la conjuration du Gen.
         Malet, avec des details officiels sur cette affaire. Labaume,
         Relation circonstanciee de la campagne de Russie. Lecointe de
         Laveau, Moscou avant et apres l'incendie, ou notice contenant
         une description de cette capitale, des moeurs de ses
         habitants, des evenements qui se passerent pendant
         l'incendie, et des malheurs qui accablerent l'armee francaise
         pendant la retraite de 1812. Mikhailowsky-Danilewsky, Le
         passage de la Beresina. von Pfuel, E., Der Ruckzug der
         Franzosen aus Russland. de Puibusque, Lettres sur la guerre
         de Russie, en 1812, sur la ville de Saint-Petersbourg, les
         moeurs et les usages des habitants de la Russie et de la
         Pologne.]

     Napoleon at Bay -- The Enemy at Fault -- The Crossing of the
     Beresina -- The Carnage -- End of the Tragedy -- Napoleon's
     Departure -- The Remnants of the Army at Vilna -- The Russian
     Generals -- Napoleon's Journey -- Malet's Conspiracy -- The
     Emperor's Anxiety -- The State of France -- Affairs in Spain.


The situation of the French was desperate indeed. With a relentless
foe behind, and on each side, and now in front protected by the
rampart of a swollen river, which was overflowing its banks and was
bordered on both sides by dense forests, the army seemed doomed. A
single overmastering thought began to take possession of Napoleon's
mind--that of his personal safety. He appeared to take a momentous
decision--the determination to sacrifice his army bit by bit that he
might save its head. This resolution once formed, he became strong and
courageous, his head was clear, and his invention active. Oudinot was
summoned, with his eight thousand men, to drive out Tchitchagoff; and
orders were sent to Victor, commanding him to take the eleven
thousand which he had, and at any hazard cut off Wittgenstein from
the Beresina. Schwarzenberg had been temporarily checked by a division
of Russians under Sacken, and was no longer a factor in the problem.
Oudinot accomplished his task, but the Russians fired the bridge as
they fled.

Napoleon was scarcely consoled by news that his cavalry had found a
ford at Studjenka. Early on the twenty-third the French
bridge-builders, with all available assistants and material, were on
their way up the river. The remnants of the army were reorganized, and
the baggage-train was reduced to the smallest possible dimensions.
Unfortunately, Victor had not received his orders in time, and,
ignorant of the Emperor's plans, had changed his line of march to one
more southerly, thus leaving the road to Studjenka open for
Wittgenstein, who abandoned the pursuit and marched direct to the
spot. The latter's advance was, however, slow; Tchitchagoff was
completely deceived, as many of the French believe, by a feint of
Oudinot's, but, as he himself declared, both by false information
concerning the movements of Schwarzenberg, and by misrepresentations
concerning Napoleon's march as communicated through both Kutusoff and
Wittgenstein. Be this as it may, the veterans from the Danube marched
a whole day down the stream to guard against an imaginary danger. The
French therefore worked at Studjenka without disturbance, and, as the
frost set in once more, the swampy shores were hardened enough to make
easy the approach to their works. By the twenty-sixth two bridges
were completed--a light one for infantry early in the morning, and
late in the afternoon another considered strong enough for artillery
and wagons. At one o'clock Oudinot's foot-soldiers began to cross, and
a body of cavalry successfully swam their horses over the stream,
which owing to the freshet was now in places five feet deep instead of
three and a half as when the ford was first discovered; a few hours
later artillery followed, and the opposite shore was cleared of the
enemy sufficiently to open the bridge-head entirely, and control the
direct road to Vilna, which leaves Minsk to the south. This great
success was due partly to unparalleled good fortune, but chiefly to
the gallant fellows who worked for hours without a murmur in the
freezing water, amid cakes of grinding ice.

With two short interruptions, of three and four hours respectively,
due to the breaking of the heavier bridge, the crossing went forward
irregularly, at times almost intermitting, until the morning of the
twenty-eighth. About noon on the twenty-seventh the Emperor passed;
having superintended certain repairs to the bridge, he started next
morning for Zembin. The same afternoon, Victor's van reached
Borrissoff somewhat in advance of Wittgenstein, who came up a few
hours later, and attacking the former's rear, captured two thousand
men. Tchitchagoff, having finally learned the truth, appeared that
night opposite Borrissoff; communication with the opposite shore was
quickly established, and after a conference the two belated Russian
generals agreed to march up-stream, on the right and left banks
respectively. At eight next morning Tchitchagoff attacked Oudinot and
Ney--twenty-six thousand men against seventeen thousand; two hours
later Wittgenstein, with twenty-five thousand, fell upon Victor, who
now had about seven thousand. Yet the French kept the bridges.

Throughout the day a bloody fight went on; it was rendered uncertain
and disorderly by the thousands of stragglers present, and by the
intensity of the steadily increasing cold. Behind the two heroic
combats scenes were occurring which beggar description. Incredible
numbers of stragglers cumbered the roadways and approaches; the vast
mob of camp-followers held stubbornly to their possessions, and, with
loud imprecations, lashed their tired horses while they put their own
shoulders to the wagon wheels. Hundreds were trampled under foot;
families were torn asunder amid wails and shrieks that filled the air;
the weak were pushed from the bridges into the dark flood now
thickening under the fierce cold. Toward midday a cutting wind began
to blow, and by three it was a hurricane. At that instant the heavier
bridge gave way, and all upon it were engulfed. An onlooker declared
that above storm and battle a yell of mortal agony rose which rang in
his ears for weeks.

The mob on the river-bank was momentarily sobered, and for a time
there was order in crossing the remaining bridge; but as dusk fell
both wind and battle raged more fiercely, and groups began to surge
out on right and left to pass those in front. Many dashed headlong
into the angry river; others, finding no opening, seated themselves in
dumb despair to wait the event. At nine the remnant of Victor's ranks
began to cross, and the Russians commenced cannonading the bridge.
Soon the beams were covered with corpses, laid like the transverse
logs on a corduroy road; but the frightful transit went on until all
the soldiers had passed. The heavy bridge was temporarily repaired,
but at last neither was safe; little knots gathered from the rabble at
intervals and rushed recklessly over the toppling structures, until at
eight next morning the French, not daring to wait longer, set fire to
both, leaving seven thousand of their followers in Studjenka. They
burned also the wooden track they had constructed through the swamps.
The Russian accounts of what was seen in the morning light portray
scenes unparalleled in history: a thousand or more charred corpses
were frozen fast on the surface of the river, many of the ghastly
heads being those of women and children; the huts of the town were
packed with the dead. Twenty-four thousand bodies were burned in one
holocaust, and it is solemnly stated that in the spring thaws twelve
thousand more were brought to light. Ten years afterward there were
still islets in the shallows of the stream covered with forget-me-nots
which decked the moldering bones of those who had perished during that
awful night of November twenty-eighth, 1812.

Next day the Emperor wrote to Maret confessing the truth. "The army is
numerous, but shockingly disorganized," he declared. "A fortnight
would be necessary to bring it once more under the standards; and how
can we find a fortnight? Cold and privation have disorganized it. We
may reach Vilna--can we maintain ourselves there? If we only could,
even for the first eight days! But suppose we were attacked within
that time, it is doubtful if we should be able to remain. Food! food!
food!--without that there are no atrocities which this unruly throng
would not commit against the town. In this situation I may regard my
presence in Paris as essential for France, for the Empire--yes, even
for the army." He also composed on the same day a bulletin, since
famous, which was dated December third. It speciously declared that
until November sixth the Emperor had been everywhere successful;
thereafter the elements had done their fell work. The only complete
truth it contained was the closing sentence: "The health of his
Majesty was never better." As the sorry remnants of the grand army
moved toward Vilna, they grew scantier and scantier. Many were
delirious from hunger and cold, many were in the agonies of typhus
fever. On December third there were still nine thousand in the ranks;
on the fifth the marshals were assembled to hear Napoleon explain his
determination to leave at once for Paris, and immediately afterward he
took his departure.

It was not a very "grand army" which was left behind under Murat's
command, with orders to form behind the Niemen. On the eighth the
thermometer marked twenty-five degrees below zero, and a few unarmed
wretches, perhaps five hundred in all, trailed after their leader into
Vilna. Their ears and throats, their legs and feet, were swathed in
rags; their bodies were wrapped in the threadbare garments of their
dead comrades, or in such cast-off woman's apparel as they had been
able to secure by the way. They were followed by Ney with four
hundred, Wrede with two thousand, and finally by two or three thousand
stragglers. After a few half-hearted and ineffectual efforts to
organize this mob into the semblance of an army, Murat abandoned the
attempt and posted away to his kingdom of Naples--a course severely
censured by the Emperor. This was the closing scene of Napoleon's
great drama of invasion. His men and horses had succumbed to summer
heats as rapidly and extensively as to winter frosts; he had brought
ruin to his enterprise by miscalculating the proportions of inanimate
nature and human strategy, and by fatal indecision at critical moments
when the statesman's delay was the soldier's ruin. Russia, like Spain,
had the strength of low organisms; her vigor was not centralized in
one member, the destruction of which would be the destruction of the
whole; Moscow was not the Russian empire, as Berlin was the Prussian
kingdom.

Yet justice requires the consideration of certain undoubted facts.
Making all due allowance, it is true that the elements were Napoleon's
worst foe when once his retreat was fairly under way, and it was not
the least of Napoleon's magnificent achievements that after the
crossing of the Beresina there was still the framework of an army
which within a few months was again that marvelous instrument with
which the campaigns of 1813 and 1814 were fought. This miracle was due
to the shortsightedness and timidity of the Russian generals.
Tchitchagoff is inexcusable both for the indifference he displayed
regarding the various points at which the Beresina might be crossed,
and for the ignorance which made him the easy dupe of feints and
misleading reports. As to Wittgenstein, the caution which he exercised
because operating alone was near in its character to cowardice; his
snail-like movements prevented any efficient cooeperation in the
general plan, and he failed in grasping a situation of affairs which
left open but a single line of retreat for Napoleon. Neither of these
two had any adequate conception of the losses suffered by the French,
and they permitted the last opportunity for annihilating the invaders
to escape. As to Kutusoff, who was fully informed concerning the utter
disintegration of the "grand army," his conduct in holding back the
main Russian force at the crucial moment is utterly indefensible; he
saved thousands of his troops, perhaps, but he has passed into history
as the man who is indirectly responsible for the rivers of blood which
were still to drench the continent of Europe. Both he and Wittgenstein
unloaded all the blame on Admiral Tchitchagoff, and contemporary
opinion sustained them. "Had it not been for the admiral," said the
commander-in-chief, replying to a toast proposed to the conqueror of
Napoleon, "the plain gentleman of Pskoff (namely, himself) could have
said: Europe breathes free again." This opinion is one which history
must reject as utterly false.

When the soldiers heard that their Emperor had departed there was an
almost universal outburst of frenzied wrath. "He flies," they
shrieked, "as in Egypt! He abandons us after he has sacrificed us!" As
has been remarked, this despair was natural, but the accusation was
unjust. Napoleon's abandonment of the grand army at Smorgoni was not a
desertion like the secret flight from Egypt; for now he was chief and
not subordinate, his own judgment was the court of final appeal.
Moreover, it was necessary for the very existence of the army that its
general should once more be emperor, the head of the state. Traveling
incognito, he passed through Vilna, Warsaw, and Dresden. Maret was
left in charge of matters in Lithuania, de Pradt was carefully
instructed how to treat the Poles, and on December fourteenth, at
Dresden, despatches were written to both Francis and Frederick William
in order to assure their continued adhesion. The King of Saxony was
firmly bound in the fetters of a personal fascination never entirely
dispelled. Twice on the long, swift journey efforts were made by
disenchanted German officers to assassinate Napoleon, but he escaped
by the secrecy of his flight. Such conspiracies were the presage of
what was soon to happen in Germany. They were trivial, however, when
compared with the state of public opinion in Paris as displayed by the
Malet conspiracy. In spite of all that he had done to establish a
settled society, France was not yet cured of its revolutionary habits;
it was only too clear that the constitution, codes, and admirable
administrative system were operative, not from political habit, but
by personal impulsion. This was the real sore; the conspiracy itself
was a grotesque affair, the work of a brain-sick enthusiast, lightly
formed and easily crushed.

Malet was a fiery nobleman who, having run the gamut between royalist
and radical, had turned conspirator, having, in 1800, plotted to seize
the First Consul on his way to Marengo, and again, in 1807, having
been imprisoned in the penitentiary of La Force for attempting to
overthrow the Empire. Feigning madness, he succeeded in being
transferred to an asylum, where he successfully reknit his
conspiracies, and finally escaped. On October twenty-third, 1812, he
presented himself to the commander of the Paris guard, announcing
Napoleon's death on the seventh; by the use of a forged decree of the
senate purporting to establish a provisional republican government,
and by the display of an amazing effrontery, he secured the adhesion
of both men and officers. Marching at their heads, he liberated his
accomplices, Lahorie and Guidal, from La Force, seized both Savary and
Pasquier, minister and prefect of police respectively, and wounded
Hulin, commandant of the city, in a similar attempt. But Doucet,
Hulin's assistant, seized and overpowered the daring conspirator,
Savary and Pasquier were at once released, and almost before the facts
were known throughout the city the accomplices of the plot were all
arrested. Malet and twelve of his associates were tried and executed.

The Paris wits declared that the police had made a great "tour de
force," and as far as the city was concerned the affair appeared to
have ended in a laugh. But Napoleon was dismayed, for he saw deeper.
"It is a massacre," he exclaimed, on hearing of the number shot.

If the Russian campaign had been successful, it would have put the
capstone on imperial splendor. But already its failure was known among
the French masses, and ghastly rumors were rife; the Emperor himself
was far distant; the Empress was not beloved; the little heir was
scarcely a personage; the imperial administration was much criticized;
the "system" was raising prices, depressing industry, and increasing
the privations of every household. Pius VII was now living in comfort
at Fontainebleau, but he was a prisoner, and earnest Catholics were
troubled; perhaps Heaven was visiting France with retribution. Worst
of all, ever since the nations at both extremities of Europe had risen
in arms against Napoleon's tyranny, French youth had perished under
the imperial eagles in appalling numbers, and throughout the districts
of France which were at heart royalist there was a rising tide of
bitter vindictiveness.

What had occurred in Spain did not allay the general uneasiness.
Marmont, having outmanoeuvered Wellington until July twenty-second,
had on that fatal day extended his left too far at Salamanca, and had
suffered overwhelming defeat; southern Spain was lost to France.
Suchet, having taken and held Tarragona, concentrated to the eastward,
so that by his holding Aragon and Catalonia for Napoleon, Joseph could
set up a government temporarily at Valencia. Wellington, hampered by
the distracted condition of English politics, had felt bound, in spite
of victory, to withdraw to the Portugal frontier.




CHAPTER XXXI

THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN[46]

         [Footnote 46: References: Foucart: Bautzen, une bataille de
         deux jours, 20-21 mai, 1813. Fievee: Correspondance et
         relations avec Bonaparte, Memoires of Savary. Rousset: La
         grande armee de 1813.]

     War Between Great Britain and the United States -- Napoleon
     Renews his Strength -- His Administrative Measures -- Social
     Forces and Political Results -- Ideas of Peace -- The Military
     Situation -- The Czar's Resolutions -- The Convention of
     Tauroggen -- Defection of Prussia -- Supreme Exertions of France
     in Napoleon's Cause -- Napoleon as a Wonder-worker.


[Sidenote: 1813]

By stringently enforcing the Orders in Council Canning had seriously
injured Great Britain. It was in some sense the outcome of general
exasperation that early in May, 1812, Perceval, the Tory premier, was
assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons by Bellingham, a
bankrupt of disordered mind. In the consequent reconstruction of the
cabinet, Castlereagh had succeeded the Marquis of Wellesley. On May
thirteenth the disastrous orders were repealed, but the United States
had already declared war. By land the Americans failed dismally at the
outset; but at sea they were five times victorious in as many
different engagements, two English frigates striking their flags to
what was then considered as fairly equal force. This was a moral
victory of immense importance. It was disproportionate of course to
the actual English loss, which was easily reparable, but it was an
appalling novelty to the British, who unwillingly realized that the
sons had shown a seamanship of the highest quality and were not
unworthy of their sires. The anxiety of Wellington and the maritime
successes of the Americans were not unwelcome lights in the otherwise
dark picture of European affairs upon which Napoleon was forced to
look after his return from Moscow.

The prodigal Emperor was undismayed; as he had recuperated his
physical powers under incredible hardships, so he sharpened those of
his mind amid the greatest difficulties. His first care was to make
sure of France. To a deputation of the servile senate he roundly
denounced all faint-hearted civil officials as menacing the authority
of law. "Timid and cowardly soldiers," he said, "may cost a nation its
independence; faint-hearted officials, however, destroy the authority
of the laws. The finest death would be that of the soldier on the
field of honor, were not that of the official who dies to defend his
monarch, the throne, and the laws still more glorious." To the council
of state he scorned all such as had continued to attribute to the
people a sovereignty which it was incapable of exercising; who derived
authority, not from the principles of justice nor from the nature of
things nor from civil rights, but from the caprice of persons who
understood neither legislation nor administration. The meaning of such
language was clear, and the words of the master sufficed to bring the
entire machine into perfect order. The great officers of state were
not slow in their response--from the police, from the university, from
the courts came protestation after protestation of loyalty; the
vocabulary of the French language was ransacked for terms to express
the most fulsome adulation. Napoleon's firm front was in itself an
inspiration, and such unanimity of devotion in high quarters confirmed
the people in their changed tendency. Soon not merely the French
nation but the whole Empire was once again under the magician's
spell. Deputations began to arrive, not only from all parts of France
itself, but from the great cities of central and western Europe, from
Rome, Florence, Turin, and Milan, from Hamburg, Mainz, and Amsterdam,
and the expressions of devotion uttered by the deputies were limited
only by the possibilities of expression. Scoffing wits recalled the
famous scene from Moliere, in which the infatuated Orgon displays
indifference to his faithful wife and shows interest only in Tartufe.

But in spite of this trenchant joke, Napoleonic government stood firm
in France, and soon, this all-important point having been gained,
there was not a little infectious enthusiasm, which grew in proportion
as the Emperor deployed with every day and hour his marvelous
faculties of administration. Reduced as the appropriations were, the
public works in Paris went on; the naval station of Brest was
completed; the veterans received their Emperor's minutest care; the
destitute families of soldiers who had perished for France were
relieved; the imperial pair were everywhere conspicuous when a good
work was to be done. Finally, when a plan of regency for Maria Louisa
was divulged, the praiseworthy, genuine sentiment which underlay these
public activities was found to have reinforced their dramatic effect
sufficiently to make the scheme acceptable. This plan, while giving to
the Empress all the splendors of imperial sovereignty throughout both
the Empire and the vassal states, was carefully constructed with
wholesome checks. What she could not do was, however, less evident and
less important than what she could do. In the hands of an able,
devoted wife the regency might have been a tower of strength to an
absent husband battling for the existence of his Empire; worked by a
vain, unstable, and perhaps already disloyal nature, it had, with
all its strength and display, but little value as a safeguard against
the complots of the Talleyrand set, who desired the crash of the
Empire that, amid the ruins, they might further pillage on their own
account.

That the schemers were not sooner successful than they were is due to
a combination of small things--each perhaps trivial in itself, but the
whole most efficacious in perpetuating Napoleon's hold on the French.
During his presence in Paris all the old inquisitiveness and boundless
concern for detail seemed to return without diminution of force.
Before his last departure he had won the popular heart by the model
family life of the Tuileries, which, though never ostentatiously
displayed, was yet seen and widely discussed. In the thick of Russian
horrors he had found time to correspond with his infant's governess
concerning the difficulties and dangers of teething; it was felt that
while the emperor and general was warring on the steppes of Muscovy,
the husband and father was present in spirit on the banks of the
Seine. On his return it was generally remarked that his reception into
the bosom of his family was tender and affectionate, and that parental
pride in a thriving child was paramount to the ruler's ambition for an
established dynasty. The imperial pair were seen in company alike on
the thronged thoroughfares and on the outer boulevards of Paris. They
were always greeted with enthusiasm, sometimes there was a display of
passionate loyalty. When the Emperor visited his invalid veterans, he
tasted their food and would have the Empress taste it too; she
graciously assented and there was universal delight. In short, the
domestic bliss of the Tuileries radiated happiness into the plain
homes of the nation, and made the common people not merely tolerant
but fond of such a paternal despotism.

Napoleon returned from Russia sincerely protesting that what he most
desired was peace. Yes, peace; but of what kind? The answer was
inclusive of the whole European question. It was easy to believe that
Spain was nearly exhausted, that if the process of devastation could
be continued three years longer, her shattered society would finally
accept the gentle Joseph as its regenerator. It was not unnatural for
the Emperor to regard his Confederation of the Rhine as safe and
loyal; yet, just as in the Moscow campaign his superlative strategy
far outran the remainder of his system, so he had failed, embodiment
of the new social order as he believed himself to be, in fully
estimating the creative force of the revolution in middle and southern
Germany. Some inkling of the national movement he must have had, for
Schwarzenberg's lukewarmness had awakened suspicions of Austria, and
Prussia's new strength could not be entirely concealed. Soon after
reaching Paris he learned with dismay that his Prussian auxiliaries
had made terms with the Czar. This was done in defiance of their king;
but it indicated the national temper, which, seeing the hand of God in
the disasters of the monster who after humiliating Prussia had dared
to invade Russia, made it impossible for Prussian troops to serve
again in the ranks of a French army. The bolts of divine wrath had
fallen on the French and the French dependants, the Prussian and the
Austrian contingents had escaped unscathed; both German armies must
surely have been spared for a special purpose.

In his interview at Warsaw with de Pradt, Napoleon had predicted that
he would speedily have another army of three hundred thousand men
afoot. In this rough calculation he had included both Prussians and
Austrians. With a spirit of bravado, he there referred to the narrow
escapes of his life: defeated at Marengo until six, next morning he
had been master of Italy; at Essling, the rise of the Danube by
sixteen feet in one night had alone prevented the annihilation of
Austria; having defeated the Russians in every battle, he had expected
peace; was it possible, he asked, for him to have foreseen the Russian
character, or have foretold their heroic sacrifice of Moscow, for
which doubtless he himself would catch the blame? So now, if his
allies stood firm, he would have another great army, and still
conquer. Not all this was bluster, for his figures were in the main
correct. Moreover, Russia's strength was steadily diminishing, a fact
of which he was dimly aware. Of Kutusoff's two hundred thousand men
only forty thousand remained when he entered Vilna after the
Napoleonic forces had left it; Wittgenstein's army had suffered
proportionately, and the troops from the Danube still more. Kutusoff
wanted peace quite as much as did Napoleon, and the ineffective
Russian pursuit was intrusted to Yermoloff, an untried officer; to
Wittgenstein; and to the incapable Tchitchagoff. The bickerings and
insubordination of the French marshals had now become notorious, but
they were fully offset by the discord and inefficiency of the Russian
generals.

Alexander, however, was not for peace. Out of the rude experiences he
had been undergoing there had been formed two fixed ideas: that
Napoleon could not, even if he would, surrender his preponderance in
Europe, and that he himself might hope to appear as the liberator of
European nationality. For a moment it appeared possible for the Czar
to establish himself as king of Poland by the aid of the Jesuits and
of Czartoryski's friends. But the Jesuit leader knew that Napoleon's
strength was far from exhausted, and fled to Spain. Czartoryski
entertained the idea that in case of Napoleon's overthrow he might
unite Poland under his own leadership and demand a truly liberal
constitution, such as could not be worked by a Russian autocrat with
three hundred thousand Russian soldiers at his back. Should the
virtual independence of Poland be wrung from Alexander, and not be
secured by the French alliance, then the only available constitutional
ruler would, he thought, be a member of his own princely family and
not one of the rival Poniatowskis. The autocrat did not clearly
understand the drift of his boyhood friend, but he saw enough to
render the notion of reconstructing Poland in any form distasteful,
and finally abandoned it. He then took the sensible resolution to
recruit his strength, not by emptying his own lean purse, but by
securing the cooeperation with his forces of the strong armies built up
by Prussia and Austria. It was therefore with a fairly definite
purpose that, on December eighteenth, he left St. Petersburg for
Vilna. He had in mind first to secure the fruits of victory by
energetic pursuit, then to sound the temper of Prussia and Austria.

Murat had left the remnant of the grand army over the Niemen on
December fourteenth; on the nineteenth he entered Koenigsberg. The day
before Macdonald had learned by a despatch from Berthier of the final
disasters to the Russian expedition, and on the twenty-eighth his van
reached Tilsit. The Prussian auxiliaries were in the rear under York,
who had been for nearly two months in regular communication with the
Czar, and knew the details of Napoleon's rout, as Macdonald did not.
Wittgenstein had been despatched to cut off Macdonald's retreat. But
with the dilatoriness which characterized all the Russian movements he
came too late, a single detachment under Diebitsch falling in with the
Prussians on their own territory. The Prussian general was in a
quandary; he was quite strong enough to have beaten Diebitsch, but his
soldiers were friendly to Russia and embittered against Napoleon. His
own sympathies being identical with those of his men, and considering
that he might in extremity plead his isolation, he therefore, on
December thirtieth, concluded the convention of Tauroggen, in which he
agreed to neutralize the district of Prussia which he occupied, and to
await orders from Berlin. Six days later an envoy arrived from
Frederick William, nominally to degrade York, in reality to conclude a
treaty of alliance with Russia.

By the assistance of Stein, who had been called from Vienna to counsel
the Czar, such a document was finally composed and signed at Kalish on
February twenty-eighth, 1813. Prussia and Germany were thus born again
under the auspices of Russia. It was by the Czar's authorization that
Stein began the reorganization of the provinces held by the Prussian
troops. These circumstances left Murat's positions at Dantzic and on
the Vistula untenable. Throughout the campaign he had been vastly more
concerned for his personal prestige than for Napoleon's cause, and he
was only too ready to leave a sinking ship. On January fifteenth, as
has already been told, after surrendering his command to Eugene at
Posen, he left for Naples. He was in haste, for on the twelfth the
Russians had entered the grand duchy of Warsaw on their way to its
capital. Schwarzenberg, with his own and the remnants of two other
corps,--those of Reynier and Poniatowski,--could easily have checked
the foe; but the convention of Tauroggen had quickened the Austrian
memory of Russia's friendly lukewarmness in 1809, Francis was in no
humor to bolster the falling cause of his terrible son-in-law, and
after some show of negotiation a temporary neutrality was arranged.
When a few Cossacks appeared before Warsaw, on February sixth, the
Austrian general evacuated the city as if yielding to superior force,
and withdrew across the Vistula toward the frontier.

These blows seemed to fall lightly on the armor of Napoleon's
intrepidity. So far from feeling any dismay, the Emperor did not
contemplate curtailing his ambition. Perhaps he was not entirely
deceived; quite possibly, by the slightest exhibition of diminished
activity he might have weakened his influence in the great land which
formed the heart of his dominions. As one piece of bad news after
another reached Paris, each in turn seemed only a goad to new exertion
for Emperor and people. France was by that time not merely
enthusiastic; she was fascinated and adoring. The ordinary
conscription of 1813 yielded a hundred and forty thousand recruits;
four regiments were formed for artillery service from the idle
sailors, three thousand men were taken from the gendarmerie, some even
from the national guard. On January thirteenth the senate decreed a
further draft of a hundred thousand from the lists of 1813, and
ordered that the conscription for 1814 should be forestalled in order
that the hundred and fifty thousand boys thus collected might be
hardened by a year's camp life, and rendered available for immediate
use when their time arrived. There is truth in the charge that
Napoleon robbed the cradle and the grave. In order to officer this
mighty host, which included about a third of the able-bodied men of
France between seventeen and forty-five, such commanders as could be
spared were called home from Spain, and the rabble of non-commissioned
and commissioned officers which began to straggle in from Russia was
drawn back into the service. These survivors were treated like
conquerors, being praised and promoted until the nation became
bewildered, and thought of the Russian campaign as a series of
victories. Foreign visitors wrote that the Emperor had but to stamp
his foot and armed men sprang up on every side like AEetes' corps of
Colchian warriors on the field of Mars.

The comparison halted--Napoleon was AEetes and Jason combined; he yoked
the bulls that snorted fire and trod the fields with brazen hoofs, he
held the plow, he harrowed the field, he sowed the teeth and reaped
the harvest. We have abundant proof that literally every department of
administration felt the impulse of his will, while to the organization
of the army, to the arrangement of uniforms, to the designing of
gun-carriages, to questions concerning straps, buckles, and commissary
stores, to the temper of the common soldier, to the opinion of the
nation, to each and all these matters he gave such attention as left
nothing for others to do. By this exhibition of giant strength there
was created a true national impulse. With this behind them, the senate
in April called out another body of a hundred and eighty thousand men,
partly from the national guard and partly from those not ordinarily
taken as recruits. By this time the farmsteads of France and western
Germany had yielded up all their available horses, a number sufficient
to make a brave show of both cavalry and artillery. Allowing for
sickness, desertion, and malingering,--and of all three there was
much,--France and her wizard Emperor had ready on May first a fairly
effective force of nearly half a million armed men. This was exclusive
of the Spanish contingent, and there were a hundred thousand more if
the levies of Bavaria, Saxony, and the Rhenish confederation be
reckoned. At the time men said a miracle had been wrought: it was the
miracle of an iron will, a majestic capacity, and a restless
persistence such as have been combined in few if any other men besides
Napoleon Bonaparte. All that he could do was done,--equipment, drill,
organization,--but even he could not supply the one thing lacking to
make soldiers of his boys--two years of age and experience.




CHAPTER XXXII

THE REVOLT OF THE NATIONS[47]

         [Footnote 47: References: Haussonville: L'Eglise romaine et
         le premier empire. de Pradt: Les quatre concordats. de
         Fallois: L'Empereur Napoleon Ier et le Pape Pie VII. Seche:
         Les origines du concordat. Theiner: Histoire des deux
         concordats de la republique francaise et de la republique
         cisalpine conclus en 1801 et 1813, entre Napoleon Bonaparte
         et le Saint-Siege.]

     Napoleon as a Financier -- Failure to Secure Aid from the
     Aristocracy -- The Fontainebleau Concordat -- Napoleon Defiant --
     His Project for the Coming Campaign -- State of the Minor German
     Powers -- Metternich's Policy -- Its Effect in Prussia -- Prussia
     and her King -- The New Nation -- The Treaty of Kalish -- The
     Sixth Coalition.


This magic was wrought, moreover, without any assistance from the
precious army lists which Napoleon delighted to call his library, for
those volumes had either been lost, destroyed, or left behind in
distant headquarters: it was not merely by recalling his old powers,
but by a supreme effort of memory so comprehensive that not even
superlatives can describe it, that the great captain brought order
into his military estate. No wonder that under such a strain the other
tasks which demanded consideration were not so perfectly performed.
The financial situation, the social uncertainty, the religious
problem, none of these could be overlooked, and each in turn was
clamorous for attention. In the methods employed to meet these
emergencies the revolutionary training of the Emperor comes to light.
To cover the enormous expense of his new army, contributions were
"invited" from the rich corporations and financiers, and it was
announced that any private person who was disposed to maintain a horse
and rider for the imperial service would earn the Emperor's special
gratitude. To any increase of the direct taxes the despot would not
listen. "Credit," he said, "is but a dispensation from paying cash."
In spite of Mollien's protest, however, a new issue of paper money was
ordered, but for this there was collateral security. It was found in
certain plots of land or domains belonging respectively to each of
many thousand communes, by the rentals of which they severally
diminished their direct local taxes. Worth three hundred and seventy
million francs, these properties yielded only nine millions, although
their prospective returns would be far larger. With government five
per cents. selling at seventy-five, an investment of a hundred and
thirty-five millions would yield the interest actually received. This
step was taken, the lands were seized, and the government cleared two
hundred and thirty-five millions; a hundred and forty millions of the
five per cents. were set aside to cover the income charges, and used
simultaneously as collateral for notes to pay current expenses until
the lands could be sold. These last were kept at a fair price by
taking seventy-one millions of treasure from the Tuileries vaults for
their purchase. Throughout the previous year the moribund legislature
had been left inert, the budget being decreed without its consent, and
the Emperor told Metternich at Dresden that he contemplated its
abolition. In a crisis like this latest one, however, its aid was not
to be despised; it was now galvanized, and made to stamp these puerile
measures with the "popular" approval.

There has always been "a mystery in the soul of state." When men
ceased to invest government with a supernatural character, they did
not for all that dispel the mystery. Modern statesmen by the score
have chosen to believe the occult doctrine that the state's promise to
pay is payment, and Napoleon was one of these. He was equally childish
in regard to the knotty social question which confronted him,
apparently believing that his personal volition, as the expression of
political power, was or ought to be equivalent to popular spontaneity.
The mixture of the old and new aristocracies had, in spite of all
efforts, been mechanical rather than chemical, except so far as that
the former was rather the preponderating influence giving color to the
compound. In order to make the blending real, the Emperor proposed a
"spontaneous" rising of those high-born youth who had somehow escaped
the conscription. They were to be formed into four regiments, and
designated "guards of honor." The measure was found to be so utterly
unpopular that it was for the moment abandoned; the young men had no
stomach even for fancy campaigning, and their relatives no mind to
deliver them up as hostages. The guard, moreover, displayed a violent
jealousy.

There remained the ecclesiastical question--that, namely, of canonical
institution. Pius VII had lost much of his obstinacy since his removal
to Fontainebleau, for the Austrian alliance was now the sheet-anchor
of France; the French ecclesiastics had threatened to depose the Pope;
but the Roman Catholics of Bavaria, Italy, and Austria were loyal, and
they were important factors in Napoleon's problem. After an exchange
of New Year's compliments, negotiations between the temporal and the
spiritual powers were reopened. At first the Emperor was exacting, and
the Pope unyielding. Finally, on January eighteenth, Napoleon appeared
in person at Fontainebleau, accompanied by Maria Louisa, and
unannounced they entered the prisoner's apartment. The Pope started
up in pleased surprise. "My father," cried his visitor. "My son," came
the response. The Emperor caught the old man to his arms and kissed
him. Next morning began a series of personal conferences lasting five
days. What happened or what was said was never divulged by either
participant, but on January twenty-third the terms of a new concordat
were settled. Pius VII was to reside at Avignon with his cardinals in
the enjoyment of an ample revenue, and institute in due form the
bishops selected by the council. There was to be amnesty for all
prelates in disgrace, the sees of the Roman bishops were to be
reestablished, and the Pope was to have the nominations for ten
bishoprics either in France or in Italy at his choice; his sequestered
Roman domains were likewise to be restored. The document was not to be
published without the consent of the cardinals, and Napoleon was
actively to promote the innumerable interests of the Church. The
Emperor and the Pope had scarcely separated before the former began to
profess chagrin that he had gained so little, and the latter became a
victim to real remorse. The cardinals were no sooner informed of the
new treaty than they displayed bitter resentment, and Napoleon,
foreseeing trouble, violated his promise, publishing the text of the
Fontainebleau Concordat on February fourteenth as an imperial decree.
On March twenty-fourth the Pope retracted even his qualified assent.
The Emperor had gained a temporary advantage, and had asserted a sound
position in antagonism to the temporal sovereignty of the Pope; but he
had won no permanent support either from France or from the Roman see,
with which he had dealt either too severely or too leniently.

In the previous July a treaty between the Czar and the Spanish nation,
as represented by the Cortes, had been negotiated through the
intermediation of Great Britain. The recent conduct of York was
sufficient indication of how the Prussian people felt. Napoleon
therefore knew that he was face to face with a virtual coalition
comprising Great Britain, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, Spain, and Prussia.
Since his return from Russia he had displayed in private life the
utmost good sense. But in public life he seemed incapable of accepting
the situation in which he must have known himself to be, holding the
loftiest and most pretentious language both to the French nation and
to the world. In his address on the opening of the legislature he
dwelt on Wellington's reverses in the peninsula, and offered peace to
Great Britain on the old terms of "uti possidetis" in Spain. In a less
public way he had it thoroughly understood throughout Europe that he
would take no steps toward peace with Russia; that he would not yield
an inch with reference to the grand duchy of Warsaw, or regarding the
annexed lands of Italy, Holland, and the Hanseatic League. It was as
if the whole world must see that ordinary human concessions could not
be expected from one who had been conquered only by act of Providence,
and was, now as ever, invincible so far as men were concerned. He did,
however, allow the hint to escape him that Prussia, which was still
bound by her treaty, might hope for some territorial increase, and
that Austria might expect Illyria. Such ideas, expressed in
grandiloquent phrase, could not be regarded as indicating a pacific
feeling. Every social class in France had a grievance; yet amid the
din of arms, and in the dazzling splendors of military preparation,
even the retraction of the Concordat attracted little attention, and a
few riots in Dutch cities, which were the only open manifestation of
discontent throughout the whole Empire, aroused no interest at all.
The report of Napoleon's conciliatory attitude had gone abroad,
there was money in the treasury, a vast armament was prepared, the
peace so ardently desired was evidently to be such as is made by the
lion with his prey. On April fifteenth the still haughty Emperor of
the West started for the seat of war.

Around the skeleton abandoned by Murat at Posen Eugene built up out of
the stragglers an army of fourteen thousand men, which he hoped would
enable him to make a stand; but with York deserting at one end of the
line, and Schwarzenberg seeking shelter in Cracow at the other, he was
compelled to withdraw to Berlin. Finding his reception too chilly for
endurance, and being again menaced by the Russian advance, he fell
back thence beyond the Elbe, and early in March had established his
headquarters at Leipsic. By that time new forces had arrived from
France and the various garrison towns, so that on the curving line
from Bremen by Magdeburg, Bernburg, Wittenberg, Meissen, and Dresden,
there stood a force of about seventy-five thousand men in six
divisions, under Vandamme, Lauriston, Victor, Grenier, Davout, and
Reynier. Napoleon charged Eugene to take a position before Magdeburg,
whence he could protect Holland and keep Dresden. The Emperor's
general plan was to assemble an Army of the Elbe on the line of
Magdeburg, Havelberg, Wittenberg, and an Army of the Main on the line
of Wuerzburg, Erfurt, Leipsic; then, despatching the former through
Havelberg toward Stettin, to hurry the latter on its heels, relieve
Dantzic, and seize the lower Vistula.

This would have been a plan worthy of Napoleon's genius but for one
fact. "In war," he had written four years earlier, "the moral element
and public opinion are half the battle." If he had understood these
factors in 1813, and if a sound judgment had developed his ideas, the
projected campaign would have become famous for the boldness of its
conception and for its careful estimate of natural advantages. But
human nature as the conquering Napoleon had known it--at least
Prussian human nature--had changed, and of this change the defeated
Napoleon took no account. He was no longer fighting absolute monarchs
with hireling armies, but uprisen nations which were themselves armies
instinct with capacity and energy. On March twenty-first Eugene began
to carry out his stepfather's directions. But for the new feeling in
Prussia they might have been fully executed. The vassal princes of the
Rhine Confederacy had received the imperial behests concerning new
levies. The Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, aware of the German national
movement and furthest removed from French influence, refused to obey.
King Jerome of Westphalia pleaded poverty, and procrastinated until he
dared do so no longer. Bavaria dreamed for an instant of asserting her
neutrality, but the menace of French armaments wrung an unwilling
compliance from her. Wuertemberg and Frankfurt were too near France to
hesitate at all. Saxony was in a position far different from that of
any other state in the confederation, the predicament of Frederick
Augustus, her king, being peculiar and exceptional. After his
interview with Napoleon on the latter's flight through Dresden he felt
how precarious was the future. Warsaw, the gem of his crown, was gone,
and the Prussian people were in revolt against the Emperor of the
French; he turned perforce toward Austria. But Austria also was
uneasy; the people were again hostile to Napoleon, and Francis, in an
agony of uncertainty, could only temporize. With Saxony in this
attitude, Metternich gave full course to his ingenuity.

For a year past that minister had been playing a double game. Seeking
through his envoy at Stockholm to embroil Bernadotte with the Czar, he
told Hardenberg almost simultaneously that it was all up with Russia,
that England was worn out, and that Austria was about to assume the
role of mediator. It was to his purpose that, on the other hand, he
promised to treat Russia as Russia had treated Austria in 1809. When,
in his despair, Napoleon wrote to Francis from Dresden demanding an
increase of the Austrian contingent to check Kutusoff's advance
through Poland, Metternich suffered his master to give no answer, but
sent a special peace embassy to London, and despatched Bubna, a
favorite with Napoleon, to seek the same end at Paris. The Emperor of
the French laid down his old ultimatum, but offered a subsidy to
Austria if she would double the number of her auxiliaries. Thereupon
Metternich prepared to desert Napoleon, refused to furnish the
auxiliaries, ordered Schwarzenberg "to save his troops for the next
campaign," and secretly advised Prussia to join her cause with that of
Russia. Careful not to formulate any definite terms for the peace he
so clamorously invoked, he refused to intervene with Russia for the
restoration of Prussian Poland, thus avoiding an open rupture with
France, assuring that the seat of war would be in Saxony, and gaining
time to secure Austria's dignity as a mediator by the preparation of
armaments strong enough to enforce her suggestions.

This attitude compelled Prussia to make a decision. Frederick William
could no longer wage a sham warfare nor cover hostile intentions by a
pretense of disinterestedness. A decision must be taken, and the
conduct of General York had indicated what the painful conclusion must
be. The convention of Tauroggen had been duly disavowed; but an envoy
was at Russian headquarters, and Alexander had entered Prussian
territory in his advance against Eugene; Napoleon was demanding an
increased auxiliary force. The temporizer could temporize no longer.
He firmly believed that nothing short of a coalition between Austria,
Russia, and Prussia could annihilate France, and Austria had virtually
refused to enter such a combination. Russia, moreover, was under no
engagement in regard to Prussian Poland. What was to be done? The
King's first instinct led him to seek refuge with Napoleon, and he
despatched an envoy, offering his continued alliance for either an
increase of territory, or for ninety million francs in payment of the
commissary supplies furnished during 1812. With every day, however,
the Prussian people grew more Russian in feeling, and on January
twenty-second, 1813, before the return of the ambassador, the court
was forced by popular opinion to withdraw from Berlin to Breslau, out
of the sphere of French influence. Napoleon's answer soon arrived;
there was no word of payment, and no binding engagement as to
territory--merely a repetition of vague promises. Frederick William
was disappointed, and reluctantly consented to the mobilization of his
now regenerated and splendid army. He cherished the hope of keeping
Alexander behind the Vistula, and forcing Napoleon to an armistice
before he could cross the Elbe.

But Hardenberg, Stein, and Scharnhorst were all convinced that there
could be no peace in Europe without restoring the ancient balance of
power and annihilating Napoleon's preponderance, especially since,
from every class in the nation, came addresses and petitions
expressing detestation of French rule. Moreover, the long, difficult
process of German unification was, in a sense, complete. "I have but
one fatherland, and that is Germany," wrote Stein, in December, 1812;
"the dynasties are indifferent to me in this moment of mighty
development." A born and consistent liberal, he abhorred alike the
tyranny of Napoleon, of Francis, of Alexander, and of his own king.
But the Czar loved him, since a united Germany would be indifferent to
those Polish provinces about which Prussia cared so much. Certain,
therefore, of the Russian monarch, the great statesman determined to
join Frederick William at Breslau, and urge on the work of mobilizing
troops. Already, by Alexander's authority, he had induced the estates
of eastern Prussia to sanction York's action, and to provide for
arming the militia and reserves. Their ready compliance was the more
significant because the German patriot had to some extent been out of
touch with the general movement, having consistently and from
principle refused to work through the popular League of Virtue, or any
secret association whatsoever, and having become in his long exile a
virtual stranger among the Prussians.

It is scarcely possible within moderate limits to give the faintest
conception of Prussia at the opening of 1813. The popular hatred of
Napoleon was defiant; the death of Queen Louisa had made the King
sullen. There was a splendid army of a hundred and fifty thousand men,
and the statesmen had managed so well that there were arms for every
able-bodied male between seventeen and twenty-four. Of these scarcely
any shirked; most volunteered, numbers paid, many did both. The women
sold their hair and their gold ornaments, wearing iron trinkets as a
stimulus to patriotism. In some cases the stout German maidens served
the guns of their artillery, and one of them, disguised in a uniform,
fought in the ranks until seriously wounded. The peasantry saw their
homesteads destroyed with equanimity when told that it would weaken
France. Koerner sang and fought; Arndt sounded the trumpet of German
unity; Luetzow gathered his famous "black troop," and the universities
were so fervid that Professor Steffens of Breslau issued the first
call for war against Napoleon; a summons which swept the students of
that university, as well as those of Berlin, Koenigsberg, Halle, Jena,
and Goettingen, into the ranks. Wherever the Russians appeared they
were hailed as deliverers, not merely in the Prussian army, but among
the citizens.

This was the impelling power which Frederick William could not resist.
Step by step he went forward, postponing his plans for getting back
his Polish provinces and accepting instead contingent promises. By the
treaty of Kalish, already mentioned in another connection, Old Prussia
was definitely guaranteed to him, and he was to have a strip
connecting it with Silesia, but the territorial aggrandizement of the
kingdom was to await the conquest of North Germany, all of which
except Hanover might under certain circumstances be incorporated under
his crown. Both parties agreed to use their best endeavors to win
Austria for the coalition, Russia promising likewise to seek a subsidy
from Great Britain for her impoverished ally. Another stipulation was
fulfilled when on March seventeenth Frederick William called out all
the successive services of the national army and, summoning his people
to emancipate their country from a foreign yoke, declared war. Two
days later a ringing proclamation was issued which summoned to arms
not merely Prussians but even the Germans of the Rhine Confederation.
Hesitating princes were threatened with loss of their domains,
and--what was a very pointed hint--Stein was made head of an
administrative committee to erect new governments in all occupied
lands. Kutusoff's last public act was to issue a manifesto declaring
that those German princes who were untrue to the German cause were
ripe for destruction by the power of public opinion and the might of
righteous arms.

Such a situation was terrible for the King of Saxony. Russia already
had his grand duchy, Prussia coveted his kingdom; in fact, the Czar
was currently and correctly reported to have said that Saxony was
better suited than Poland to round out Frederick William's dominions.
Dresden welcomed the Russian and Prussian sovereigns because the
citizens were smarting under the trials of military occupation. But
when the King turned to Austria, and marching with his cavalry to
Ratisbon virtually put his army at Metternich's disposal, the Saxons
in general supported him. On April twentieth was signed a secret
agreement between Saxony and Austria whereby the former in return for
thirty thousand troops secured the integrity of her dominions. This
was a triumph for the Austrian minister, but not the only one, because
European diplomacy in general soon joined hands with the national
uprisings. Napoleon, determining too late on the dismemberment of
Prussia, made a last attempt to win back his old comrade in arms, and
in February offered Bernadotte not merely Pomerania, but the lands
between the Elbe and the Weser. But the crafty Gascon had studied the
Prussian movement, and, putting aside the rather indefinite promises
of Napoleon, preferred to join the coalition for the safer, easier
prize of Norway. Great Britain abandoned her scheme for a Hanover
expanded to stretch from the Scheldt to the Elbe, and, subsidizing
both Sweden and Prussia, cemented the new coalition. This was a return
to Pitt's policy of restoring the old balance of power in the old
Europe. Bernadotte, promising thirty thousand men, transported twelve
thousand across to Germany, and joined Buelow to cover Berlin. This
force soon became the Russian right. Kutusoff died in April, and
Barclay was ultimately restored to the chief command, having Bluecher
and a second Prussian army as part of the Russian center. Metternich
saw that the coalition did not intend to conclude such a peace as
would leave Napoleon the preponderance in Europe; to secure any peace
at all he would be compelled, as Talleyrand said, to become king of
France. Accordingly a new turn was quickly given to Austrian
diplomacy, and the French emperor's definite offer of Silesia for a
hundred thousand men was rejected. With the thirty thousand which
Saxony had put at his disposal, and with such an army as Austria
herself could raise, the minister felt sure that at some critical
moment she would be able, as a well-armed mediator, to command a peace
in terms restoring to his country the prestige of immemorial empire.




CHAPTER XXXIII

THE FIRST CAMPAIGN IN SAXONY[48]

         [Footnote 48: References: Fain: Manuscrit de l'an 1813.
         Mueffling: Aus meinem Leben. Bade: Napoleon im Jahre 1813.
         Schimpf: 1813; Napoleon in Sachsen. Foucart: Bautzen une
         bataille de deux jours. Metternich's Memoirs, Memoirs of
         Hardenberg.]

     Napoleon Over-hasty -- Weakness of his Army -- The Low Condition
     of the Allies -- Napoleon's Plan Thwarted -- The First Meeting a
     Surprise -- The Battle of Luetzen -- An Ordinary Victory -- The
     Mediation of Austria -- Napoleon's Effort to Approach Russia --
     The Battle of Bautzen -- Death of Duroc -- Napoleon's Greatest
     Blunder.


The grim determination of Napoleon to rule or ruin can be read in his
conduct at this time. This might almost be called foolhardy, inasmuch
as when he arrived at Mainz, on April seventeenth, he knew little or
nothing of the enemy's position, force, or plans. Desirous of
anticipating his foe in opening the campaign, he spent a week of
fruitless endeavor at that place, and then started for Erfurt to
obtain a nearer view. The general aspect of his soldiers was not
reassuring, for the young recruits were still raw and the immaturity
of his preparations was evident in a lack of trained horses and
riders. He had stolen three weeks from the enemy, but he had robbed
himself of all that his indefatigable energy might have accomplished
in that time. His recklessness in diplomacy, his refusal of all
concessions, and his exaggerated cleverness in anticipating his
opponents were to prove his undoing from the military point of view.
The other elements of his failure were the political factor already
mentioned.

At the first appearance of Tettenborn's Cossacks, Hamburg rose and
drove out the French, remaining in possession of the allies until the
end of May; but the trusty French garrisons in Dantzic, Stettin,
Kuestrin, Glogau, Modlin, and Zamosc, having been reinforced by Eugene,
held their respective strongholds, and were left to do so. The absence
of these much-needed veterans was the first element of weakness in
Napoleon's army. A second was the insufficiency of real cavalry, brave
as had been the parade of horses in France. It was the great captain's
firm conviction, repeatedly and emphatically expressed, that without
active cavalry, armed with long-range guns, offensive warfare was not
possible. This defect he had hoped to remedy in the last three weeks
before opening the campaign. The third element in a fatal triad was
the temper of his generals, which was restless and insubordinate
almost from the outset. They were his mightiest men: Berthier as chief
of staff; Mortier commanding the guard; Davout, Ney, Bertrand,
Lauriston, Marmont, Reynier, Macdonald, and Oudinot, each in readiness
with a corps; Victor coming up with another; Augereau preparing to
lead the Bavarians, Rapp at Dantzic, Poniatowski in Galicia--twelve
corps in all.

The French soldiers formed a great army: two hundred and thirty-five
thousand men on paper, actually two hundred thousand, of whom a
hundred and thirty-five thousand were mobile and in readiness when the
Emperor took command. Eugene had forty-seven thousand more.
Consequently when Napoleon, troubled by the exaggerated reports of his
enemy being stronger and more forward in preparation than he had
believed possible, set out for Saxony three weeks earlier than the day
originally fixed by him for the beginning of hostilities, he was
already a victim of his own nervous apprehensions. In colder phlegm
he would have foreseen the truth. Russia had become apathetic as soon
as the seat of war was transferred beyond her borders; strenuous as
were the efforts of Prussia, Scharnhorst's means were slender, and he
could not work miracles. All told, the allies had at the moment only
seventy thousand men ready for the field. Wittgenstein was for the
moment commander-in-chief. The monarchs, utterly uncongenial, were
struggling to act in harmony, but double weakness is not strength.
They had only a single advantage--excellent horses in abundance for
both cavalry and artillery. "The worse the troops, the greater the
need of artillery"; "great battles are won with artillery"; these were
two of Napoleon's aphorisms. The great strategist had lost his
reconnoitering arm in Russia and Poland, the artillery specialist must
have scorned the antiquated guns which now replaced the splendid
field-pieces that rested on the bottom of ponds and rivers whither he
had flung them on his disastrous retreat. With his high officers
sullen, his ranks untried, his cavalry feeble, his artillery hastily
collected from arsenal stores, his staff incomplete, and his prestige
waning, the Emperor might well abdicate temporarily and exclaim, as he
did, "I shall conduct this war as General Bonaparte." This resolution
was sacredly kept.

The premature opening of the campaign was certain to make Austria
pivotal in European politics once again. Her preparations were not
well advanced, but her strength was growing daily, while that of her
rivals was sure to diminish until in the end the coalition would be
powerless without her. This Napoleon saw, and he arranged his strategy
to checkmate what he now felt to be a hostile neutrality. Believing
that the enemy would meet him half way, his first plan showed all the
marks of greatness which characterized the similar one he had so
successfully executed at Jena. Its central idea was a mass formation
with Eugene to break through the enemy's line, then by a wheel toward
the south to annihilate their left, and finally to present himself
victorious before Austria. If successful he might dictate his own
terms. But the enemy did not advance; it was perhaps well for the
Emperor of the French that they did not. An eye-witness declared that
on what was supposed to be the very eve of battle there was little
real discipline outside the sphere of the commander's personal
observation, that the officers had no confidence in their men and the
men but little in their officers, that the superiors were absorbed in
securing some measure of physical comfort, that the inferiors were
listless and disobedient. The forward movement was successful, and the
union with Eugene was effected on April twenty-eighth. Two whole days
elapsed, however, before the enemy was found, and it was May first
when the French van drove in the Russian outposts from Luetzen, ever
famous as the scene of Wallenstein's overthrow by Gustavus Adolphus a
hundred and eighty-one years earlier. The Russian center was
concentrated between the Elster and the Pleisse; Napoleon's line was
more extended, overlapping his enemy's, both right and left. In a
preliminary skirmish at the pass of Rippach, Bessieres, rashly
exposing himself at the head of the cavalry of the guard, was killed.
His loss in such a crisis was like the ruin of a great cohort on the
eve of a close battle. Marmont, forgiven for his failure in Spain, was
near; but close to Napoleon as he was, even he could not replace the
gallant, trusted cavalry leader who for nearly seventeen years had
scarcely quitted his Emperor's side.

Owing probably to the inadequate scouting force of Napoleon, the
battle of Luetzen was in the nature of a surprise. Wittgenstein had
detached five thousand men as if to cover Leipsic, toward which the
French line was advancing; then, concentrating the mass of his center
and left, he crossed the Elster early on May second in order to attack
Ney's corps on the Emperor's right. About nine Lauriston's corps, with
which Napoleon was, came upon the enemy, and was fiercely engaged--so
hotly, indeed, that it seemed as if it must be the Russian right wing
which barred the way. A messenger was immediately despatched to bring
in Ney, who arrived about eleven. The marshal and his emperor at once
advanced to reconnoiter, and were just remarking that there was only a
small force between them and the city, which through their
field-glasses they could dimly discern in the background, its roofs
crowded with curious onlookers, when behind, on the right, was heard
the sound of heavy cannonading. General Bonaparte was himself at once.
No movement is considered more difficult than that by which an army
marching in columns wheels when attacked on its flank, so as in turn
to outflank the assailants. In a flash, and apparently without a
thought, the Emperor issued minute orders for this intricate
manoeuver, and his generals accomplished it with a masterly dexterity.
Napoleon then galloped forward toward Luetzen to carry the guard behind
the center as a reserve, and Ney dashed into the thickest of the fight
to take command of his boy conscripts, who were beginning to yield.

The conflict raged all day, with varying results, along the line from
Great and Little Goerschen to Starsiedel, the latter hamlet being the
scene of terrific fighting. At five the Prussians withdrew from Kaja,
and began to yield along the whole line as far as the Goerschens, which
they had so far held. Napoleon had from the outset been reckless,
cheering his boys by presence and example until they fought like
veterans. As the Prussians gave signs of weakness, he brought in his
artillery, poor as it was, with the old grand style, and ordered the
young guard into the gap he felt sure of making. A Russian reserve
arrived, however, at the crucial instant, and stayed his onset until
seven. At that hour Macdonald bore down his opponents at Eisdorf, and
attacked the Russo-Prussian line on the flank; the second column was
then hurled against its center, and the battle was ended. The Russian
reserve was strong enough to prevent the retreat from becoming a rout,
but since Lauriston had occupied Leipsic as early as two in the
afternoon there was but one course open for the allies: to withdraw
behind the Elbe. Napoleon gathered his army into three columns and
followed; but slowly and circumspectly, because without cavalry he
could not harass them. When, on May eighth, the French reached
Dresden, they found that their enemy had blown up the bridges, and
were entrenched in the Neustadt on the right, or north, shore. Thus
the victory of Luetzen was, after all, indecisive.

And yet the utmost skill and bravery had been shown by the combatants
on both sides. The field was strewn with the corpses, not of such rude
and stalwart peasants as had hitherto filled the ranks of opposing
armies, but of gentle youth from French lyceums and Prussian
universities. There were forty thousand in all, an equal number from
each army, who remained dead or wounded on the hard-contested field.
They had fallen to little purpose. The victor captured neither
prisoners nor guns in important numbers, and to him it was slight
compensation for the loss of Bessieres that Scharnhorst was killed.
The allies, though beaten, were undismayed; long experience had
sharpened their wits and toughened their purpose; there was already
much strategical ability at their headquarters, and there was about
to be more, since Moreau, summoned from America, was soon to take
service with his splendid powers against his country. Great as the
battle was, it must therefore be reckoned as an ordinary victory; it
served to prolong existing conditions, but it did not decide an issue.
It was, however, something that it gave the French a self-confidence
bordering on enthusiasm, and it was more that after Napoleon had
commenced to rebuild the Dresden bridges, Frederick Augustus, the King
of Saxony, declared himself favorable to the French. Abandoning
Austria, he summoned his forces from Torgau, and the allies retreated
eastward behind the Spree. The lower Elbe was also recovered. The King
of Denmark had despatched an auxiliary force to Hamburg. Their
commander, believing Napoleon's fortunes submerged already, at first
assisted the Russians: but after Luetzen he turned his arms to
Vandamme's assistance. The city was retaken, three thousand of
Bernadotte's force marched out, and on May thirtieth Davout, with
fifteen thousand of his own men and three thousand Danes, marched in.

Napoleon's chief purpose, however, was unfulfilled, for Austria was
neither panic-stricken nor dismayed. On the contrary, she still stood
forth as a mediator, and now with armaments to enforce her demands.
Immediately after Luetzen, Stadion, sometime Austrian minister of war,
was sent to the camp of the allies. He stated that the minimum terms
of peace would be the dismemberment of Warsaw, the restoration of
Prussia, the surrender by France of Holland, Oldenburg, and the
Hanseatic lands, the abandonment of the protectorate over the
Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon, and the surrender to Austria
of Illyria and Dalmatia, with a rectification of her western frontier.
Almost simultaneously Bubna appeared at Napoleon's headquarters with
suggestions for a general armistice, during which peace negotiations
should be carried on as rapidly as possible by a congress of the
powers. Dwelling on the necessity of territorial concessions by France
for the sake of a general pacification of the Continent, the envoy
declared that if this were accomplished, Great Britain, finding
herself isolated, must yield, and grant to Napoleon a substantial
indemnification from her vast colonial system. The propositions of
Austria were received by the allies with open eagerness, by the
Emperor of the French with apparent hesitancy. Next to the
establishment of his continental empire, the humiliation of Great
Britain was Napoleon's highest ambition. Compromise with her meant
defeat. With a mixture of proud determination and anxiety, he
therefore replied to Francis that he desired a pacification as
ardently as any one; that he was ready for such a congress as was
suggested; that he would even go further, and admit to it delegates
from the insurgent Spaniards; that he would still further consent to a
truce during its sessions: but that he would rather die at the head of
his high-spirited Frenchmen than make himself ridiculous before
England. Never was the writer's statecraft unfolded to greater daring.
Long consultations were held with the King of Saxony, a man of
gentleness and refinement, who was completely won by Napoleon's almost
filial attentions, and Bubna was often kept at the council-table until
after midnight. Eugene, however, was instantly despatched to raise a
new army in Italy, with orders not to conceal his movements from
Austria.

But Napoleon's chief efforts were put forth in the direction of
Russia. The adroit Caulaincourt was chosen as a fitting envoy, and
instructed not merely to reknit his personal relations with the Czar,
but also to surrender every point which had been contested in the
previous negotiations. He was to offer, first, the surrender of the
Continental System as far as Russia was concerned; and, second, such a
reconstruction of the map of eastern Europe as would put an end to the
grand duchy of Warsaw forever. This mushroom state, with the domain of
Dantzic, was to be divided between the Duke of Oldenburg, Alexander's
near kinsman, and the King of Prussia; Prussia itself was to be a
border state under Russian influence, with a capital at either
Koenigsberg, Dantzic, or Warsaw. Brandenburg, with Berlin, would fall
to Jerome, and Saxony would doubtless get the territory around
Krossen. No surrender could have been more complete. "Your chief
concern," ran the final instruction, written on May seventeenth, "will
be to secure a conversation with the Emperor Alexander. My intention
is to build a golden bridge to save him from the intrigues of
Metternich." Alas for such vain hopes! A new diplomatic star had risen
at the Russian court in the person of the young Count Nesselrode, and
the personal interview so earnestly desired by Caulaincourt was
steadily refused; Napoleon's proposals, the envoy was informed, must
be made through the Austrian cabinet, or not at all.

During the parleyings of Austria, Napoleon won a second great victory,
which was utterly ineffectual because he had no cavalry force
wherewith to pursue. For some days after the occupation of Dresden,
for the same reason, he had been ignorant of his enemy's whereabouts.
Learning at last that the allies had not been separated, as he had
hoped, but were standing at Bautzen in a strong defensive position
behind the Spree, he left Dresden at noon on the eighteenth of May,
determined to strike a decisive blow. His enemy, having been
reinforced by Barclay with sixteen thousand Russians and by Kleist
with eleven thousand Prussians, was about ninety thousand strong. On
the nineteenth both Barclay and York advanced from Bautzen; the former
was defeated by Bertrand in a sharp struggle, the latter by Lauriston
in a protracted fight; and at nightfall the French were before the
place. In front was the unimportant stream, and beyond it were the
allies in a double line, their front on the bank, their rear on the
heights behind. About midday of the twentieth the French attacked.
Macdonald stormed the bridge, Marmont and Bertrand crossed by
pontoons; at three their footing was won, and the assault of the place
began. For three hours the fighting was terrific, but at six a portion
of the defenders withdrew behind the town to the second line; at eight
the rest did likewise. Next morning at five, Napoleon, after a
sleepless night, issued his orders; at eight the conflict opened all
along the line. Then first, the Mameluke body-servant having spread a
couch of skins, the Emperor sought repose; he slept to the lullaby of
cannon and musketry for several hours, calmly assured of his
combinations working perfectly. By one Ney had rolled up the Russian
right under Barclay, and Napoleon, waking, sent Marmont and Bertrand
around the right of the enemy's center. By four the allied armies were
in full retreat. Then would have been the moment for artillery to
crash and cavalry to pursue; but neither was efficient, and while the
French army did what men could do, at best they could only follow at
equal speed with the foe, and could not throw his ranks into disorder.
"What! no results from such carnage?" said Napoleon. "Not a gun? Not a
prisoner?"

There was worse to come. From time to time the flying columns wheeled
and poured a heavy artillery fire into their pursuers. Near
Reichenbach, Bruyeres was killed by a ball; then Kirchener by
another, which, ricochetting from a tree, mortally wounded Duroc, the
commander's faithful aid, his second self. Such a blow was stupefying
indeed, for it was the loss of his closest confidant, of one who
through every vicissitude had been a near, true friend, almost the
only companion of a man reduced to solitude by his great elevation.
Napoleon was stricken to the heart, and, halting, gave way until
nightfall to his despair. "Poor man!" said the troopers one to
another, "he has lost his children." "Everything to-morrow," was the
sorrowing ruler's one reply to all suggestions. From time to time he
betook himself to the bedside of the dying man; at last Duroc himself
could no longer endure his Emperor's prostration, and besought him to
rejoin the soldiers. The friends parted in a long embrace. Thereupon
the pursuit was continued, but without ardor and without success.

The nature of Napoleon's victory at Bautzen was his undoing. Had it
been a second Friedland, Caulaincourt no doubt would have met
Alexander; but, as it was, the allies had saved their army, and
Austria's accession to the coalition would still insure their success.
Nesselrode was convinced that Metternich would assent, and, dark as
was the hour, persisted in refusing to communicate with France except
by way of Austria. Wittgenstein lost his command, Barclay was fully
reinstated as commander-in-chief, and, to gain time for Austria to try
her vaunted mediation, a short armistice was proposed to Napoleon. Had
the latter known the weakness, the discord, the exhaustion of his foe,
wretched as was the state of his own army and depressed as were his
spirits, he might have refused, and even the monumental error of 1812
might now have been made good. As it was, the year 1813 is the date of
his one irreparable blunder, the initiation of his final disaster.
Other mistakes he had made, but they were all petty compared with the
great one to which he was now tempted. But his faithful officers were
falling like standing grain under a hail-storm; his boy soldiers,
though fighting like veterans, inspired little confidence, for there
was the same uneasiness among the humble privates as among the great
officers; he had neither cavalry nor artillery, and his available
force was reduced to a hundred and twenty thousand, men and boys;
Barclay might, as for a moment he contemplated doing, draw off into
the Russian steppes; the traitors in Paris were already stirring; in
short, the Emperor felt that he must at least consider. This was the
monumental blunder of his life because it put him at Austria's mercy
without her being forced to reveal her policy.




CHAPTER XXXIV

THE NATIONS IN GRAND ARRAY[49]

         [Footnote 49: References: Von Odeleben, Napoleons Feldzug in
         Sachsen im Jahre 1813. Yorck, Napoleon als Feldherr. Weil,
         Campagne de 1813.]

     Condition of Affairs after Bautzen -- The Armistice of Poischwitz
     -- Austria's New Terms -- Napoleon's Reliance on his Dynastic
     Influence -- Intervention of British Agents -- Napoleon's
     Interview with Metternich -- The Emperor's Wrath -- Metternich's
     Determination -- Wellington's Victories -- Napoleon at Mainz --
     The Coalition Completed -- Diplomatic Fencing -- Renewal of
     Hostilities -- The Responsibility.


Napoleon determined, however, to deliberate on the strongest possible
vantage-ground, and for this reason continued his pursuit as far as
Breslau, which was occupied by the end of the month. Simultaneously
Berlin was threatened by Oudinot, Victor had relieved Glogau, and
Vandamme was marching to Davout's assistance, so that Hamburg was
safely in hand. The allied forces stood behind Schweidnitz, and by the
same marvelous strategy as of old the various corps of the French army
were disposed, under Ney, Lauriston, Reynier, Macdonald, and Bertrand,
so as virtually to engirdle the enemy. Napoleon was at Neumarkt with
the guard; a single bold dash southward toward the Eulen Mountains
with his concentering force, and he would have crushed his opponents.
But another victory like Luetzen and Bautzen would reduce his army
still further, and then in his weakness he would be confronted by the
hundred thousand Austrians which, according to the best advices, his
father-in-law had assembled in Bohemia. In that juncture Francis might
risk a battle, and if successful he could dictate not merely an
armistice, but the terms of peace--a contingency more terrible than
any other. Time, moreover, seemed quite as valuable to the Emperor of
the French as to his foe: while they were calling in reserves and
strengthening their ranks, his hundred and eighty thousand conscripts
of 1814 could be marched to the Elbe, and Eugene could complete his
work in Italy. Ignorant of the panic at his enemy's headquarters, the
uneasy conqueror decided therefore that his best course was, by
exhibiting a desire for peace and assenting to an armistice, to avoid
the general reprobation of Europe. Accordingly, he took another
disastrous step, and accepted the proposal of the allies for a
conference.

How earnestly Napoleon desired peace appears from his spontaneous
concessions. He would agree to the evacuation of Breslau for the sake
of harmony, and would consent to such a truce as the majesty of a
ruler and the rights of a successful general might alike exact; but he
would not be treated like a besieged commander. Hamburg should remain
as it was at the conclusion of negotiations, and the duration of the
armistice must be longer than the term proposed--six weeks at the
least. On these two points he took his stand. The fatal armistice of
Poischwitz was signed at that village on June fourth by three
commissioners, Shuvaloff for Russia, Kleist for Prussia, and
Caulaincourt for France. It was a compromise providing for a neutral
zone, stretching from the mouth of the Elbe southeastward to Bohemia,
which was to separate the combatants until July twentieth. Hostilities
might not be renewed until August first. Breslau was to be evacuated;
Hamburg was to remain as the truce found it. These terms were reached
only after much bluster, the allies, weak and disorganized as they
were, demanding at first the evacuation of both Breslau and Hamburg,
with a cessation of arms for a month. This stand they took in reliance
partly on England, partly on Austria. The compromise, as mutually
accepted, was reached in spite of British influence when Francis,
apparently nervous and anxious, arrived at Gitschin, near the Bohemian
frontier, and opened a conference with Nesselrode.

At Vienna men had said, when the news of Bautzen came, that the
conqueror was perhaps an angel, perhaps a devil--certainly not a man.
The cabinet had seen with alarm his attempt to negotiate directly with
the Czar. Success in winning Russia would put Austria again at
Napoleon's mercy; Alexander must be kept in warlike humor at all
hazards. Nesselrode demanded nothing less than Austria's adherence to
the coalition; Francis was still unready to fight; and Metternich,
displaying all his adroitness, finally wrung from Nesselrode a basis
for mediation comprising six articles: the extinction of Warsaw, the
enlargement of Prussia by her Polish provinces and Dantzic, the
restoration of Illyria to Austria, the independence of the Hanseatic
towns, the dissolution of the Rhenish Confederacy, and the restoration
of Prussia's western boundaries to the lines of 1806. This was a
"minimum" considerably smaller than that proposed before Bautzen; but
the allies could well accept it if Austria would promise never to take
sides with France, as Metternich is said to have verbally assured the
Czar in a secret meeting would be the case. On June twenty-seventh it
was formally arranged that a congress to pacify the Continent on this
basis should be held preliminary to a general peace including England;
and the treaty binding Russia, Prussia, and Austria to alliance in
case of Napoleon's refusal was signed that day in secret at
Reichenbach. Should Napoleon reject Austria's articles of mediation,
she was, on July twentieth, to join the coalition, and fight not only
until he was driven behind the Rhine, but until the fortresses on the
Oder and the Vistula were evacuated, Italy liberated, Spain restored
to the Bourbons, and Austria reenlarged to her boundaries of 1805.

"If the allies do not in good faith desire peace," said Napoleon on
June fifth, as he left his headquarters for Dresden, "this armistice
may prove fatal to us." Late in life he believed that if he had in his
great crisis marched right on, Austria would not have declared against
him. Shrewd as he was, he was a tyro in dynastic politics. Austria has
been made, aggrandized, and saved by marriages; but no conception of
the duty imposed on families by that relation as understood in private
life has ever controlled her politics. Francis was never unwilling to
use his daughter for public ends, and seems to have delighted in the
construction of family feeling formed in his son-in-law's mind by
homely sentiment. It is preposterous to suppose that Napoleon really
entertained such a view of his marriage as that of the Parisian
bourgeois; but viewing himself as an established dynastic ruler, he
could well imagine that when Austria had her choice between two purely
dynastic alliances, she would, for the sake of Maria Louisa, have
chosen that with France. This rather simple conception he seems to
have entertained for a time, because when Maret and Metternich met,
the former urged the matrimonial bond as a consideration. "The
marriage," rejoined the latter, with a cough--"yes, the marriage; it
was a match founded on political considerations, but--" and the
conclusion of the sentence was a significant wag of the head.

Napoleon's first instinct of treachery was that of the general, and
it was sound. His suspicions were fully aroused as soon as he reached
Dresden; for Bubna began at once to stickle for antiquated formalities
in negotiation, and stung Napoleon to exasperation by his evident
determination to procrastinate. Accordingly the Emperor summoned
Metternich to a personal meeting. The minister could not well explain.
Since Castlereagh's return to power in January, 1812, Great Britain
had kept at Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Vienna able diplomats ready,
with purse in hand, to pay almost any sum for a strong coalition. It
had been the appearance of Sir Charles Stewart from Berlin, and of
Lord Cathcart from St. Petersburg, at the allied headquarters which
accounted for the arrogant firmness of Shuvaloff and Kleist, and
determined the character of the armistice. On June fourteenth and
fifteenth those envoys further concluded treaties with Prussia and
Russia respectively which explain the performances of Bubna at
Dresden, and of the congress which later met at Prague. Prussia
promised, in return for a subsidy of two thirds of a million pounds
sterling, to cede a certain portion of lower Saxony, with the
bishopric of Hildesheim, to the electorate of Hanover, and agreed to
keep on foot eighty thousand men; Russia was to maintain a hundred and
sixty thousand men, in return for one and a third million pounds, and
for the care of English vessels in her harbors she was to receive a
further sum of half a million. Great Britain and Russia were in
conjunction to emit an issue of paper money to the amount of five
millions sterling, and this loan was to be guaranteed by England,
Prussia, and Russia conjointly. In conclusion it was solemnly
stipulated that neither Russia nor Great Britain should negotiate
separately with France.

In view of the successive stages of Napoleon's isolation,--namely, the
armistice, these two subsidy treaties, and the secret treaty of June
twenty-seventh signed at Reichenbach,--it seems futile to discuss the
question whether or not Napoleon really wished peace in his famous
interview with Metternich on June twenty-seventh--an interview which
lasted from a quarter before twelve at midday until nearly nine at
night, and has improperly been considered as the turning-point in
Napoleon's career. Up to that moment Metternich's intervention had
amounted to nothing short of selfish double-dealing. Of this Napoleon
had written evidence. No wonder the shifty minister described his
interview as "a most curious mixture of most heterogeneous subjects,
of intermitting friendliness with the most passionate outbreaks," and
strove in his account to deepen the shadows of his picture by discreet
silence as to certain points--a trick he may have learned from
Whitworth. The unfriendly narrator declares that Napoleon, when told
that his soldiers were only boys, flung his hat into a corner, and
hissed, "You do not know what passes in a soldier's mind; I grew up in
the field, and a man like me troubles himself little about a million
men." The Austrian statesman further reported the French emperor to
have characterized his second marriage as a piece of stupidity, and to
have charged his princely interlocutor with venality!

Probably all this is true: the professional soldier's point of view is
terrible to the laity. Kossuth declared to a trustworthy witness that he
had seen the letters of Maria Louisa which betrayed her husband to her
father; and no one has ever denied that Napoleon was a fair judge of
character, and called a spade a spade when he was angry. And angry he
was. Here was the man who had plumed himself on the Bonaparte-Hapsburg
alliance, who had hitherto professed the most ardent personal esteem for
Napoleon himself, and who had so far found Austria's highest welfare in
supporting the Napoleonic system. And what was his conduct? A complete
and sudden reversal of his previous behavior, personal insolence, and
public scorn. Then and there he demanded the suspension, at least
temporarily, of the treaty of alliance between Austria and France--a
paper solemnly negotiated by himself but little more than one short year
earlier; then, too, he demanded a further prolongation of the armistice
while the peace congress held its sessions, and, coldly throwing every
other consideration to the winds, gave his victim to understand that
Austria was no longer a mediator, but an armed arbiter, determined to
regain her glory by the line of least resistance--that is, by alliance
with Russia, in order to secure a continental peace, to which Great
Britain should not be a party.

Is it wonderful that under such provocation Napoleon's hot Corsican
blood boiled over, or that his unruly tongue uttered startling
language? The time had come when he must recognize masters and laws,
and it was not easy. At thirty, as he liked to boast, he had gained
victories, appeased a popular storm, fused parties, and rallied a
nation. Further, for years he had made sport of European dynasties,
and in particular had found that of Austria both double-faced and
time-serving. Having taken a leaf from her book, he had become her
dupe, and it was hard to bear the consequences. The stormy side of the
famous interview is therefore unimportant historically; its only
significance is that it marks the last stage in the evolution of
Austrian diplomacy. Being now strong enough to reassert equality with
France in the councils of Europe, the Hapsburg empire was about to
act. Metternich believed that Alexander's aid would be more valuable
than Napoleon's, and in a letter to his master, written two days
after the famous interview, he explained that through a continental
peace lay the line of least resistance. The arrangement he suggested
to Napoleon would leave England and France to renew the struggle and
fight until exhausted, while Austria, Russia, and Prussia were
recuperating. Napoleon's one weapon against England was his
Continental System; on the morrow of a victorious campaign he could
not so easily throw it down. If there was to be a continental peace,
and not a general one, it must be made after a final decisive victory;
and to assemble his troops for a grand battle with Austria, Russia,
and Prussia, he needed time. The Poischwitz armistice was his first
fatal blunder; before the close of the interview he consented to its
prolongation until August tenth, ostensibly that the Congress of
Prague might arrange terms for a continental peace; and this was his
undoing.

The Congress of Prague was a puppet-show, and has no place in history
except as it displayed the character of Metternich, deceiving himself
to its close with the belief that he was what he professed to be--an
armed mediator turning the course of European politics back into
dynastic channels. In reality it was as Napoleon said--he believed
himself to be directing everybody, when everything was directing him.
Behind the puppets were Alexander's fatalism, Prussia's regenerated
nationality, the half-awakened sensibility of Austria, and lastly,
British gold with British victories. Wellington had finally focused
the national power of Spain, and was actually menacing the soil of
France. His famous "march to Vitoria," as it has been called because
of the decisive battle fought at that place on June twenty-first,
1813, forced Napoleon finally to abandon Spain. Already the Emperor
had withdrawn his choicest veterans thence, and he was well aware how
futile any further struggles for Joseph's throne must be. His conduct,
therefore, was perfectly consistent; with a bold front he laid down
the ultimatum of _uti possidetis_ for the congress, and left for
Mainz, where he remained from July twenty-fifth to August first,
arranging his military plans for the defense of the Pyrenees, and
despatching Soult, who went against his will, for the campaign which
sealed the marshal's reputation as a great soldier. Doubtless, too,
Napoleon felt that distance from the absurd congress would absolve him
from the guilt of its empty pretense.

There, too, he met his empress; perhaps he fondly dreamed that she
might intercede with her sire; in the long interviews they held he was
probably drilling her in the functions of a regent chosen to sustain
in Paris the tottering cause of her consort and her child. Fouche,
too, was recalled from his suspicious retirement to untangle the
thread of Austrian duplicity. But the long hours of consultation,
arrangement, and execution were mainly concerned, we may suppose, with
the hurrying in of new levies, the raising of cavalry, the creation of
artillery, and the general preparation for the life-and-death struggle
which was soon to take place. The Danish alliance was strengthened,
and Murat by strenuous efforts was kept within the shadowy lines of
the vanishing Napoleonic system. Beugnot, then head of the French
regency of Berg, was one day called at a moment's notice to act as
amanuensis, and in a flurry twice took his Emperor's chair. "So you
are determined to sit in my seat," was Napoleon's simple remark; "you
have chosen a bad time for it." The mayor of Mainz was St. Andre, a
stanch conventional of the old school; another day he and Beugnot,
with the Prince of Nassau, accompanied the visitor on a river
excursion, and the Emperor, scanning with intense interest the castle
of Biberich, leaned far over the boat. "What a curious attitude,"
whispered the veteran revolutionary to the terrified Beugnot; "the
fate of the world depends on a kick or two."

The fate of the world was not in jeopardy, and the seat of Napoleon as
Emperor of the West was not to be occupied by another; but the affairs
of the Continent were to be readjusted, the beneficent work of the
Revolution was to be transferred to other hands, and the notion of
Western empire was to vanish like other baseless fabrics. The
diplomacy of Lord Aberdeen, Castlereagh's envoy at Vienna, had
succeeded before Napoleon returned to Dresden, and the treaty of
eventual triple alliance, signed at Reichenbach on June
twenty-seventh, was made good on August first by Francis, who agreed,
in return for an enormous subsidy from Great Britain, to join Russia
and Prussia with two hundred thousand men. The rosters of Austria's
army had been surreptitiously obtained by French agents in Prague.
Napoleon was aghast as he read the proof of her gigantic efforts. At
once he redoubled his own, and began to unfold a marvelous diplomatic
shrewdness. With Poland's three despoilers thus united in England's
pay, his isolation would be complete; a few days only remained until
the expiration of the armistice; he had but one arrow left in his
quiver, and he determined to speed it: to bribe Austria into
neutrality by accepting her conditions and restoring the national
equilibrium of Europe.

The proposition was made, and staggered Francis; for two days he
dallied, and then made a counter-proposition with a new clause, which
secured, not the emancipation of states, but dynastic independence for
the sovereigns of the Rhine Confederation. This drew the veil from
Metternich's policy. Afraid of a German nationality in which Prussia
would inevitably secure the hegemony, he was determined to perpetuate
the rivalries of petty potentates, and regain Austria's ascendancy in
Germany as well as in Italy. This, too, would strip Napoleon of his
German troops, and confine France to the west shore of the Rhine, even
though it left Westphalia and Berg under French rulers. Such a
contingency was abhorrent to one still pretending to Western empire, and
Napoleon in turn procrastinated until the evening of the ninth, when, as
a final compromise, he offered the dismemberment of Warsaw, the freedom
of Dantzic and Illyria, including Fiume, but retaining Triest. But by
this time dynastic jealousy had done its work at Prague, and when these
terms were communicated to the plenipotentiaries unofficially,
Cathcart's bellicose humor, which was heightened by the news from
Wellington, served to complement Alexander's jealousy of Austria's
rising power. The Prussian nationalists, too, saw their emancipation
indefinitely postponed; and since the communication of Napoleon's
ultimatum was unofficial, and an official notification had not arrived
at midnight on the tenth, the commissioners of Russia and Prussia rose
at the stroke of the clock, and informed Metternich that, their powers
having expired, he was bound by the terms of Reichenbach.

Metternich kept up his mask, and continued to discuss with
Caulaincourt the items of Napoleon's proposition, but the other
diplomats gave vent to their delight. Humboldt lingered until
Austria's formal declaration of war was under way to Dresden;
simultaneously beacons, prearranged for the purpose on Bohemian hills,
flashed the welcome news to the expectant armies of Russia and
Prussia. Napoleon still stood undismayed by forms, for under the terms
of the armistice a week's notice must be given before the renewal of
hostilities. On the thirteenth he offered Austria everything except
Hamburg and Triest; on the fifteenth he offered even these great
ports. But technical right was on the side of war, and his proposals
were refused.

Where the blame or merit for the renewal of hostilities rests will
ever remain a matter of opinion. Amid the tangles of negotiation, it
must be remembered that on March twenty-fourth, 1812, Russia and
Sweden began the coalition; that Russia and Prussia were forced into
union on February twenty-eighth, 1813, by the element of interest
common to Alexander's dynasty and the Prussian people; that Great
Britain entered on the scene in her commercial agreement with Sweden
on March third, 1813; and that English diplomacy combined with the
interests of Austrian diplomacy to complete and cement the coalition
with the necessary subsidies. If we view the negotiations of
Poischwitz and Prague in connection with Napoleon's whole career, they
appear to have run in a channel prepared by his boundless ambition; if
we isolate them and scrutinize their course, we must think him the
moral victor. Whatever he may have been before, he was now eager for
peace, and sincere in his professions. Believing himself to have acted
generously when Austria was under his feet, he was outraged when he
saw that he had been duped by her subsequent course. The concessions
to which he was forced appear to have been made slowly, because what
he desired was not a continental peace in the interests of the
Hapsburgs, but a general peace in the interest of all Europe as
represented by the Empire and the dynasty which he had founded. At
this distance of time, and in the light of intervening history, some
credit should be given to his insight, which convinced him that
strengthened nationality, as well as renewed dynastic influence,
might <DW44> the liberalizing influences of the Revolution, which he
falsely believed himself still to represent. For the duration of the
Holy Alliance this was to a certain extent true. It will be noticed
that throughout the closing negotiations no mention was made of the
"Continental System." That malign concept of the revolutionary epoch
perished in Napoleon's decline, and history knows its name no more.


END OF VOLUME III





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, by
William Milligan Sloane

*** 