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THE HISTORY OF 
 
 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 
 
londow : 
 
 printed by j. ogden and co., 
 
 i7», hi. john sibeet, b.c. 
 
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; £&jULsd 
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE: 
 
 EEPEINTED FEOM THE FAMILY LIBEAEY. 
 
 fllttsfmfcb bg 
 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX. 
 
 LONDON: 
 WARD, LOCK, & CO., WARWICK HOUSE, 
 
 DORSET BUILDINGS, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C. 
 

 J«*s&C 
 
~2)C203 
 L 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Biith and Parentage of Napoleon Buonaparte— His Educa- 
 cation at Brienne and at Paris— His character at this period 
 —His political predilections— He enters the Army as Second 
 Lieutenant of Artillery— His first Military Service in Corsica 
 in 1793 * 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Buonaparte commands the Artillery at Toulon— Fall of Tou- 
 lon—The Representatives of the People— Junot 12 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Buonaparte Chief of Battalion at Nice— Fall of Rohespierre— 
 He is superseded — Buonaparte at Paris in 1795 — The Day 
 of the Sections— Commands the Army of the Interior — 
 
 • Marries Josephine de Beauharnois — Appointed to the com- 
 mand of the Army of Italy 
 
 20 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Army of Italy— Tactics of Buonaparte — Battle of Monte 
 Notte— Battle of Millesimo— Battle of Mondovi— Armistice 
 of Cherasco — Close of the Campaign of Piedmont — Peace 
 granted to Sardinia 32 
 
 M6252 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Page. 
 
 The French cross the Po at Placenza — The Battle of Fombio 
 — The Bridge of Lodi — Napoleon occupies Milan — Resigns, 
 and resumes his command — Insurrection of Pavia — Military 
 Executions — The French pass the Mincio at Borghetto — 
 Beaulieu retreats behind the Adige— Mantua besieged — 
 Peace with the King of the Two Sicilies — The Pope buys a 
 Respite 39 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Wurmser supersedes Beaulieu — Jourdan and Moreau march 
 into Germany, and are forced to retreat again — The Aus- 
 trians advance from the Tyrol — Battle of Lonato — Escape 
 of Napoleon — Battle near Castiglione — Wurmser retreats 
 on Trent, and is recruited — Battle of Roveredo — Battle of 
 Primolano — Battle of Bassano — Battle of St. George — 
 Wurmser shut up in Mantua 54 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Affairs of Corsica — Alvinzi assumes the Command of the 
 Austrians on the Italian frontier — The three Battles of 
 Areola — Retreat of Alvinzi — Battle of Rivoli — Battle of La 
 Favorita — Surrender of Mantua — Victor marches on An- 
 cona — Despair of the Pope — Treaty of Tollentino 04 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Neutrality of Venice — The Archduke Charles — Battle of Tag- 
 liamento — Retreat of the Archduke — Treaty of Leoben — 
 War with Venice-^ Venice conquered 81 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Pichegru — The Directory appeal to Buonaparte — The 18th 
 Fructidor — The Court of Montebello — Josephine — The 
 Treaty of Campo Formio — Buonaparte leaves Italy ...... 88 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Pag--. 
 
 Napoleon at Bastadt — Ho arrives in Paris — His Reception 
 by the Directory — His Conduct and Manners — He is ap- 
 pointed to command the Army for the Invasion of England 
 — He recommends an Expedition to Egypt — Reaches 
 Toulon— Embarks 97 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Voyage to Egypt — Malta surrendered — The French 
 escape Nelson, and take Alexandria — The March up the 
 Nfle — The Battle of the Pyramids — Cairo surrenders — 
 The Battle of Aboukir 110 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Buonaparte's Administration in Egypt — Armaments of the 
 Porte — Buonaparte at Suez — At El-Arish — Gaza — Jaffa — 
 Acre— Retreat to Egypt — Defeat of the Turks at Aboukir 
 — Napoleon embarks for France 120 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Retrospect — Buonaparte arrives in France — The Revolution 
 of the 18th Brumaire — The Provisional Consulate 139 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Provisional Consulate — Reforms in France — Pacification 
 of the Chouans— Constitution of the Year VIII. — Buona- 
 parte Chief Consul 137 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Chief Consul -writes to the King of England— Lord 
 Grenville's Answer — Napoleon passes tho Great St. Ber- 
 nard—The taking of St. Bard — The Siege of Genoa— The 
 Battle of Montebello — The Battle of Marengo — Napoleon 
 returns to Paris — The Infernal Machine — The Battle of 
 Hohenlinden— The Treaty of Luneville 170 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Page 
 
 Affairs of Naples and of the Pope— The Emperor Paul of 
 Russia — Northern confederacy against England — Battle of 
 Copenhagen— Nelson's Victory— Death of Paul — Expedi- 
 tion to Egypt under Sir Ralph Ahercromhie — Battle of 
 Alexandria — Conquest of Egypt — The Flotilla of Boulogne 
 — Negotiations with England — Peace of Amiens 204 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Peace of Amiens — The Concordat — The Legion of Honour — 
 Buonaparte President of the Cisalpine Republic— First Con- 
 sul for Life— Grand Mediator of the Helvetic Confederacy 
 — St. Domingo — Touissant L'Ouverture — Dissatisfaction of 
 England— Trial of Peltier— Lord Whitworth— Rupture of 
 the Peace of Amiens — Detention of English Travellers in 
 Fiance 212 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Recommencement of tbe War— French seize Hanover and 
 Naples — The English seize various French Colonies — 
 Scheme of invading England resumed— Moreau — Pichegru 
 Georges Cadoudal— Captain Wright— Murder of the Duke 
 d'Enghien — Napoleon Emperor of France — King of Italy — 
 Genoa united to the Empire 238 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 /•lew Coalition against France — Sweden — Russia — Austria 
 joins the Alliance— Napoleon heads the Army in Germany 
 — TJlm surrendered by Mack — Vienna taken— Naval Opera- 
 tions—Battle of Trafalgar— Battle of Austerlitz— Treaty of 
 Presburg — Joseph Buonaparte King of Naples — Louis 
 Buonaparte King of Holland— Confederation of the Rhine 
 — New Nobility in France 264 
 
CONTEXTS. IX 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 i 
 Discontent of Prussia — Death of Pitt — Negotiation of Lords 
 Yarmouth and Lauderdale — broken off — Murder of Palm, 
 the Bookseller — Prussia declares War — Buonaparte heads 
 the Army — Naumburg taken — Battle of Jena — Napoleon 
 enters Berlin — Fall of Magdeburg, &c. — Humiliation of 
 Prussia — Buonaparte's cruelty to the Duke of Brunswick — 
 His rapacity and oppression in Prussia 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The Decrees of Berlin — Napoleon renews the Campaign — 
 Warsaw taken — Enthusiasm of the Poles — Retreat of the 
 Russians— Battle of Pultusk— The French go into Winter 
 Quarters— Battle of Preuss-Eylau— Taking of Dantzic— 
 Battle of Friedland — Armistice — Expeditions of the English 
 to Calabria, Constantinople, Egypt, and Buenos Ayi'es — 
 Peace of Tilsit , 301 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 British Expedition to Copenhagen — Coalition of France, 
 Austria, Prussia, and Russia, against English Commerce — 
 Internal Affairs of France — The Administration of Napoleon 
 — His Council of State — Court — Code— Public Works- 
 Manufactures— Taxes— Military Organisation — The Con- 
 scription 323 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Relations of Napoleon with Spain — Treaty of FontaineLleau 
 — Junot marches to Portugal — Flight of the Braganzas to 
 Brazil — French troops proceed into Spain — Dissensions in 
 the Court — Both parties appeal to Napoleon — Murat occu- 
 pies Madrid — Charles and Ferdinand abdicate at Bayonne 
 — Joseph Buonaparte crowned King of Spain 332 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Pa e e - 
 Insurrection of the Spaniards and Portuguese — Their alliance 
 
 with England — Battle of Riosecco — Joseph enters Madrid 
 — First Siege of Saragossa — Dupont's March into Anda- 
 lusia — The Battle of Baylen — Dupont surrenders— Joseph 
 quits Madrid — Situation of Junot — Arrival of Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley — Battle of Roriga — Battle of Viniiera — Conven- 
 tion of Cintra 345 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Napoleon at Erfurt — at Paris — arrives at Vittoria — Disposi- 
 tion of the French and Spanish Armies — Successes of Soult 
 ■ — Passage of the Somosierra — Surrender of Madrid — Sir 
 John Moore's Campaign — his Retreat — Battle of Corunna 
 — Death of Moore — Napoleon leaves Spain 309 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Austria declares War — Napoleon heads his army in Germany 
 — Battles of Landshut and Eekmuhl — Ratishonne taken — 
 Napoleon in Vienna — Hostilities in Italy, Hungary, Poland, 
 the North of Germany, and the Tyrol — Battle of Raab — 
 
 Battle of Wagram — Armistice with Austria Progress 
 
 of the War in the Peninsula — Battle of Talavera — Battle of 
 
 Ocana — English Expedition to Walcheren Seizure of 
 
 Rome and arrest of the Pope Treaty of Schoenbrunn 371 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Napoleon divorces Josephine — Marries the Archduchess 
 Maria Louisa — Deposes Louis Buonaparte — Annexes Hol- 
 land and the whole Coast of Germany to France — Revo- 
 lution in Sweden — Bernadotte elected Crown Prince of 
 Sweden — Progress of the War in the Peninsula — Battle of 
 Busaco — Lord Wellington retreats to the Lines of Torres 
 Vedras , 387 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Events of the year 1811 — Birth of the King of Rome — Dis- 
 grace of Fouche — Discontents in France — Relations with 
 Russia — License System — Napoleon prepares for War with 
 Russia — The Campaign in the Peninsula — Massena's Re- 
 treat — Battle of Fuentes d'Onor — Lord Wellington 
 blockades Ciudad Rodrigo — Retreats— Joseph wishes to ab- 
 dicate -iOl 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo — And of Badajos — Battle of Sa- 
 lamanca — State of Napoleon's Foreign Relations — His Mili- 
 tary Resources — Napoleon at Dresden — Rupture with 
 Russia — Napoleon's conduct to the Poles — Distribution of 
 the Armies — Passage of the Niemen — Napoleon at Wilna . . 413 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Russia makes Peace with England, with Sweden, and with 
 Turkey — Internal preparations — Napoleon leaves Wilna — 
 TheDwina — Bagrathion's Movements — Battle of Smolensko 
 — Battle of Borodino — Napoleon enters Moscow — Constancy 
 and enthusiasm of the Russians — Conduct of Rostophchin 
 — The burning of Moscow — Kutusoff refuses to treat 430 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Napoleon quits Moscow — Battles of Vincovo and Malo-Yara- 
 slovctz — Retreat on Yerreia and Smolensko — Repeated 
 Defeats and Sufferings of the French — Smolensko — Krasnoi 
 — Passage of the Beresina — Smorgoni — Napoleon quits 
 the Army — His arrival at Warsaw — At Dresden — In 
 Paris 444 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 P»gc 
 
 Conspiracy of Mallet — Napoleon's reception in Paris — His 
 Military Preparations — Prussia declares War - — Austria ne- 
 gotiates with Napoleon — Bernadotte appears in Germany 
 — The Russians advance into Silesia — Napoleon heads his 
 Army in Saxony — Battle of Lutzen — Battle of Bautzen .... 4G6 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 Napoleon's Interview with Metternich — Advice of his Minis- 
 ters and Generals — Intelligence from Spain — Battle of 
 Vittoria — Congress of Prague dissolved — Austria declares 
 War — Battle of Dresden — Death of Moreau — Battle of 
 Culm — Surrender of Vandamme — Battles of Gross-Beeren, 
 Wahlstadt, and Dennewitz — Napoleon retires from the 
 Elbe— The Battle of Leipzig— The Battle of Hanau— The 
 Allies on the Rhine 478 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 Declaration of the Allies at Frankfort — Revolution of Hol- 
 land — Liberation of the Pope and Ferdinand VII. — Ob- 
 stinacy of Napoleon — His Military Preparations — Dissolu- 
 tion of the Legislative Senate , . , 496 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 The Campaign of France — Battles of Brienne and La Ro= 
 thiere — Expedition of the Marne — Battles of Nangis and 
 Montereau — Schwartzenberg retreats — Napoleon again 
 marches against Blucher — Attacks Soissons and is repulsed 
 — Battles of Craonne and Laon — Napoleon at Rheims — His 
 perplexities — He marches to St. Dizier 510 
 
covTT.yrvs. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 Pngs. 
 
 The Allies approach Paris — Maria Louisa retires to Elois — 
 Marmont and Mortier occupy the Heights of Montmartre — 
 they are defeated — King Joseph escapes — Marmont capitu- 
 lates — the Allies enter Paris — Napoleon at Fontainehleau — 
 his Abdication 528 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVn. 
 
 Napoleon's Journey to Frejus — Voyage to Elba — his conduct 
 and occupations there — Discontents in France — Return of 
 Piisoners of War — Jealousy of the Army — Union of the 
 Jacobins and Buonapartists — their intrigues — Napoleon 
 escapes from Elba , 551 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 Napoleon lands at Cannes — his progress to Grenoble — Lyons 
 — Fontainehleau— Treason of Labedoyere and Ney — Louis 
 XVIII. retires to Ghent, and Napoleon arrives in Paris 563 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 The Hundred Days— Declaration of the Congress at Vienna 
 — Napoleon prepares for War — Capitulation of the Duke 
 d'Angouleme — Insurrection of La Vendee — Murat advances 
 from Naples — is defeated— and takes refuge in France 
 — The Champ-de-Mai — Dissatisfaction of the Constitu- 
 tionalists #..... 574 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 Napoleon heads his army on the Belgian frontier — passes the 
 Sambre at Charleroi— Defeats Blucher at Ligny— Battle of 
 Quatre-bras — The English fall back on a position previously 
 selected by Wellington — Thb Battle of Waterloo — 
 Napoleon returns to Paris 587 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XL1. 
 
 Page 
 
 Napoleon appeals in vain to the Chambers — abdicates for the 
 second time — is sent to Malmaison — and then to Rochefort 
 — negotiates with Captain Maitland — embarks in the 
 "Bellerophon" — arrives at Tarbay — Decision of the Eng- 
 lish Government — Interview with Lord Keith, &c. — Na- 
 poleon on board the "Northumberland" — sails for St. Helena 602 
 
 CHAPTER XL11. 
 
 Napoleon at St. Helena— The Briars— Longwood— Charges 
 against the English Government respecting his accommo- 
 dations and treatment at St. Helena — Charges against the 
 Governor, Sir Hudson Lowe — Napoleon's mode of life at 
 Longwood— his health falls off— his death and funeral — 
 Conclusion 619 
 
 Appendix 
 Tndbx . . . 
 
 641 
 645 
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTKATIONS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 The Bridge of Arcola 6 ? 
 
 Battle of the Pyramids U7 
 
 Death of d'Enghien 
 
 250 
 
 Charge of Cossacks 4S0 
 
 Flight from Smorgoni 461- 
 
 549 
 Fontainebleau 
 
 Waterloo 600 
 
 Tomb of Napoleon 634 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IN tracing the wonderful career of Xapoleon — the circum- 
 stances of the period must not be lost sight of, for they 
 created opportunities for the display of his great talents. 
 
 The year 1774 found France surrounded by insuperable 
 •difficulties, its glory tarnished by recent reverses, and the 
 nation on the eve of bankruptcy. On the accession of Louis 
 XVI. military greatness seems to have been almost extin- 
 guished in the heart of the people, and all the ordinary 
 resources of the treasury so exhausted, that retrenchment of 
 the public expenditure appeared the only chance of saving 
 the State from ruin. At this time, the King — not of an 
 ambitious or warlike disposition — encouraged a system of 
 pomp and display, to advance the glory of bis throne, by the 
 incessant flattery of genius, and thus something of the air of 
 liberty was introduced into France ; and the people were so 
 long permitted to breathe it, that at last it became impos- 
 sible to attempt to deprive fchem of it. For some years the 
 most unbounded profligacy had pi ■ royal house- 
 
 hold, and among the higher ranks the most sacred obligations 
 of morality had become little better than a subject of fashion- 
 able ridicule, while religion was almost iirnored by Church 
 and State. 
 
 In the beginning of the year 17S7, the pecuniary n'.":- 3 .- 
 
XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sities of the Government had reached such a height, that an 
 appeal to the nation was unavoidable. Accordingly, an 
 "Assembly of Notables" was convoked, composed of the 
 principal persons from the different towns and districts of 
 the kingdom, selected by the King, whose object was to 
 ascertain the true state of the public finances ; these, on 
 examination, presented an annual deficit of £5,800,000 ster- 
 ling, independent of a debt incurred in the space of ten 
 years, of nearly £67,000,000. This announcement caused an 
 extraordinary sensation, and, from that moment, all classes 
 began to talk of the convocation of the States-General, as 
 the only measure suited to the wants of the kingdom ; the 
 adoption of this suggestion was demanded from the King by 
 the Parliament, and, on its being disregarded, they came to 
 a resolution, that for the future, no impost could be legally 
 levied unless the opinion of the States-General had been 
 taken upon it. 
 
 This declaration produced a struggle between the Court 
 and the Parliaments, as well of the Provinces as of Paris, 
 backed by the nation, and after a year of collision terminated 
 in the victory of the popular wish. After a second Assem- 
 bly of Notables, to determine the number of deputies to 
 represent the various estates of the realm, the King decided 
 that the representatives of the Commons shoidd equal in 
 number those of the nobility and clergy together, and, on the 
 5th May, 1789, the great national convocation (which France 
 had not seen assembled for a hundred and seventy-five years) 
 once more met at Versailles, and from this time the Eevolu- 
 tion may be said to have commenced in earnest. It had been 
 arranged that each of the three Orders, in distinct halls, 
 should have its single vote on all measures to be discussed, 
 but this method would have left the Commons no prospect 
 of success in any question at issue between themselves and 
 the two privileged orders, so on the second, and for many 
 succeeding days, they assembled in their hall, and, without 
 any formality of business, awaited the arrival of the depu- 
 ties of the other two estates, but their firmness produced no 
 
INTRODUCTION. XVU 
 
 effect till the 13th of June, when three members of the clergy 
 appeared in their hall, and this example was followed by- 
 several other deputies of the same order. This success was 
 taken as an evidence of their power, and on the 17th, the 
 Commons declared themselves a National Assembly. A few 
 days afterwards, the deputies found their hall surrounded by 
 soldiers, and a notice affixed thereon, to the effect, that the 
 King would hold a royal sitting, and commanded their meet- 
 ings to be suspended, but this hasty proceeding enraged the 
 deputies, who, having assembled around their president, 
 Bailly, swore that no intimidation should make them cease 
 from meeting together till they had given a constitution to 
 their country, and this vow was enthusiastically repeated 
 throughout the French empire. 
 
 At the royal sitting, on the 23d, important reforms were 
 proposed, but came too late, and his Majesty's commands to 
 dispersewere treated with defiance. " Go, tell your master," 
 exclaimed Mirabeau, to the grand master of the ceremonies, 
 " that we are here by order of the people, and that we shall 
 not be driven hence but by his bayonets." On the 27th, all 
 the deputies of the other two orders returned to their hall, 
 and the King and the privileged orders, being thus virtually 
 undei' subjection to the new power of the representatives of 
 the Commons, completed the first act of the Revolution. 
 
 The true commencement of the attempt of the mob to con- 
 stitute themselves the sovereign power of the State, was the 
 riot at Paris, on the 12th of July, on the dismissal of the 
 popular minister, Necker, and on the last day of the tumult 
 — the 1-ith — the insurgents attacked and demolished the 
 Bastile. The Xational Assembly, on the recall of Xecker, 
 proceeded with their reforms ; and at their next meeting, on 
 the -1th of August, one member after another of the nobility 
 and clergy surrendered his privileges, and the abolition of 
 provincial immunities, of seignorial courts, rights of chase, 
 and all similar institutions, was decreed, and seven days after 
 tithes were abolished. 
 
 The spirit of insubordination quickly spread throughout 
 
 2 
 
XVU1 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 the greater part of France, and the state of the capital being 
 rendered still more alarming by symptoms of famine, the 
 public mind was inflamed to the highest pitch of fury, when 
 news arrived, of certain extraordinaiy scenes which had been 
 acted at Versailles, where a fete had been given by the 
 soldiers of the King's guards to their officers, at which the 
 royal family having presented themselves, the most violent 
 demonstrations of detestation of the new order of things 
 were made; the white cockade mounted, and that of the 
 nation trampled under foot. The people of Paris could 
 scarcely be restrained from rushing instantly to the scene of 
 these insulting festivities ; and, on the 5th of October, about 
 30,000 persons set out for Versailles, followed by a detach- 
 ment of the [National Guard. Active hostilities commenced 
 between the mob and the military who guarded the palace, 
 which ended in scenes of riot, outrage, and bloodshed, and 
 the lives of the King and Queen were threatened by the in- 
 furiated crowds. A calm, however, was at length produced, 
 and the populace consented to return to Paris, on condition 
 of being accompanied by their majesties. 
 
 This second victory failed to accomplish the subjection of 
 all the constituted authorities of the State. A vast majority 
 of the National Assembly had rejoiced in the destruction of 
 the Bastile, and many deputies looked with complacency on 
 the failure of royal authority, but the two parties were as 
 yet merely fellow- workers in the same cause ; and, although 
 united as to the object, they were divided as to the means. 
 On the 2d November the Assembly declared the possessions 
 of the Church the property of the nation, in the following 
 month decreed their confiscation, and on the 13th February, 
 1790, proclaimed the abohtion of religious orders and mo- 
 nastic vows. The right of declaring peace or war was vested 
 in the legislative body — 22d May — and the suppression of 
 hereditary nobility, coats of arms, and all distinctions of 
 rank decreed 19th June. 
 
 On the 18th April, 1791, the King and royal family pre- 
 pared to leave the Tuilleries, but were not permitted to do so, 
 
IJfTKODUCTION. xix 
 
 by the determined resistance of the people, who suspected 
 the King's object was to escape from France. On the night 
 of the 20th June, his majesty, the queen, princess Elizabeth, 
 and the Dauphin, secretly left the Tuilleries, but were re- 
 taken on the third day of then flight, and brought back to 
 Paris, and on the 25th the Assembly declared the King's 
 authority suspended, and his person under arrest. 
 
 Serious dissensions now arose among the original friends 
 of the Revolution. The National Assembly closed its sittings 
 on 30th September, and on the 1st October the Legislative 
 Assembly opened, from which all who had been members of 
 the former legislature were excluded. The King, who had 
 been restored to the exercise of his authority by the National 
 Assembly, previous to their dissolution, was very soon com- 
 pelled, from the temper of the new legislature, to commit 
 the direction of affairs to a Jacobin or Girondist ministry. 
 In the spring of 1792, troops of emigrants, under distin- 
 guished royalists, were in arms on different parts of the fron- 
 tiers, and Prussia and other foreign powers had joined the 
 coalition. France was at this time suffering scarcity, civil 
 distractions, and exhausted finances, yet the Government, 
 with a determination to be free, declared war against 
 Austria. The Girondist ministry having been dismissed by 
 the King, immediately resorted to their old instrument — the 
 mob of the faubourgs — who made violent attacks on tho 
 Tuilleries, from whence the King and his family were com- 
 pelled to fly and to take refuge in the Legislative Assembly, 
 where a decree was instantly passed, suspending him from 
 las functions. Three days afterwards, ho was imprisoned in 
 the Temple, tried, condemned on the 17th, and executed on 
 21st January, 1793. 
 
 The Legislative Assembly now gave place to the Conven- 
 tion, in which Danton, Robespierre, and Marat had seats. 
 On tho 1st February war was declared against England, and 
 the two famous Committees of General Security and of Pub- 
 lic Safety were established, before which tho Convention 
 itself trembled. The contests in the Assembly, between the 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Girondists and the party of the Mountain (so called from the 
 place of the hall in which they sat), resulted in the defeat of 
 the former, and, after a week of outrage of the most terrible 
 description, a sweeping decree of proscription was passed 
 against more than thirty of the principal Girondist deputies, 
 and that faction was extinguished in the legislature. 
 
 The party now in the ascendant were of the lowest order, 
 and Robespierre was merely the instrument whom they had 
 set up to destroy all but themselves. On the 29th September 
 a maximum price was placed on all commodities ; a new era 
 introduced, and all sorts of atrocities were of constant occur- 
 rence. The inhabitants of Lyons were butchered by hun- 
 dreds, and in Paris people were executed, scores at a time ; 
 on the 16th of October Marie Antoinette was beheaded, and 
 Brissot, with twenty more of the Girondist deputies, and 
 Egalite, the Duke of Orleans, underwent the same fate. The 
 abolition of Christianity was also impiously decreed, and in 
 its place they established the, so-called, worship of Eeason. 
 Thus Eobespierre, it might be thought, had safely founded 
 )iis despotism. But, at the commencement of 1794, the 
 " Hebertists," a party professing more ferocious opinions 
 than his own, obtained a powerful ascendancy in the Com- 
 mune ; but they were overpowered, and, to the number of 
 eighteen, with their chief Hebert, executed in one day. 
 Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and others, were also brought 
 to the scaffold ; and in this summary manner, Eobespierre 
 sought to rid himself of both the moderate and the more 
 violent factions by which he was menaced. The latter 
 appearing the most dangerous, he induced the Convention 
 to proclaim the restoration of the two doctrines — of the 
 existence of a Supreme Being, and the immortality of the 
 oul. At the same time, to convince the rabble that no other 
 elaxation of his code was intended, he took care that the 
 guillotine remained wet with blood, and amongst the victims 
 was the Princess Elizabeth, sister of Louis XVI. The tyrant, 
 was, however, hastening his own destruction, for the more 
 moderate party of the Convention, whom he had kept in awe, 
 
INTRODUCTION. Kxi 
 
 determined to lend their best exertions to aid his downfall, 
 and thereby establish something like a regular governmenl, 
 and partly by favourable accidents, and being aided by Bar 
 ras ; who commanded the military attached to the Conven- 
 tion, on the 27th of July, the national legislature was once 
 more reinstated in liberty and supremacy, and Robespierre, 
 with ninety-one of his principal partisans, were consigned to 
 the scaffold. 
 
 The liberated Convention then proceeded to restrain, within 
 certain defined bounds, the power of those terrible tribunals, 
 the Committees of Public Safety and of General Secm-ity, and 
 aided by the troops, and the general longing of the country 
 for a government of law and order, they dissolved the band 
 of miscreants who called themselves the Commune of Paris, 
 and took into their own hands the functions of the munici- 
 pality of the city. Those deputies, who to the number of 
 seventy-three had fled on the proscription of the Girondist 
 chiefs, now returned to their seats, and the absurd law of the 
 maximum was suppressed. These acts of reparation were 
 most violently opposed by those who conceived themselves 
 to be interested in the continuance of the Reign of Terror. 
 Accordingly, the remaining chiefs of the defeated party 
 headed the rabble, and rose against the Convention in suc- 
 cessive revolts, and by these repeated collisions widened the 
 breach between the two contending parties. Inspired by new 
 hopes, the priests and other emigrants returned to France in 
 considerable numbers. Many of the public papers advocated 
 royalist opinions, and opposition to the Convention as still 
 animated by too democratic a spirit. To obviate the existing 
 difficulties, the legislature proceeded to give the country a 
 new constitution, by which the legislative power of the State 
 was entrusted to two representative bodies, but this measure 
 met with formidable opposition from the royalists, who es- 
 pecially exerted themselves to prevent the popular ratifica- 
 tion of the two appended decrees, by which the Convention 
 had reserved to itself the right of nominating two-thirds of 
 the members of the new legislature from its own body. But 
 
XXU INTRODUCTION. 
 
 by having once again recourse to the military talents of Bar- 
 ras, the Convention, on the 5th of October, obtained a com- 
 plete triumph over its opponents, the new constitution was 
 established ; and on the 26th the Convention closed its sit- 
 tings, after having existed more than three years. 
 
 The history of the French nation, from this time, is to be 
 found in the brilliant career of Napoleon, who was at once 
 the regenerator of France, and the idol of her people. 
 
LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Birth and Parentage of Napoleon Buonaparte — His Education at 
 Brienne and at Paris— His Character at this Period — His Political 
 Predilections — He enters the Army as Second Lieutenant of 
 Artillery — Hit First Military Service in Corsica in 1793. 
 
 Napoleon* Bcoxaparte was born at Ajaccio on the loth 
 of August, 1769. The family had been of some distinc- 
 tion, during the middle ages, in Italy ; whence his 
 branch of it removed to Corsica, in the troubled times 
 of the Guelphs and Gibellines. They were always 
 considered as belonging to the gentry of the island. 
 Charles, the father of Napoleon, an advocate of consider- 
 able reputation, married his mother, Letitia Ramolini, a 
 young woman eminent for beauty and for strength of 
 mind, during the civil war — when the Corsicans, under 
 Paoli, were struggling to avoid the domination of the 
 French. The advocate had espoused the popular side in 
 contest, and his lovely and high-spirited wife used 
 to attend him through the toils and dangers of his 
 mountain campaigns. Upon the termination of the war, 
 he would have exiled himself along with Paoli ; but his 
 relations dissuaded him from this step, and he was after- 
 
2 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [17G9. 
 
 wards reconciled to the conquering party, and protected 
 and patronised by the French governor of Corsica, the 
 Count de Marbceuff. 
 
 It is said that Letitia had attended mass on the morn- 
 ing of the 15th of August; and, being seized suddenly 
 on her return, gave birth to the future hero of his age, 
 on a temporary couch covered with tapestry, represent- 
 ing the heroes of the Iliad. He was her second child. 
 Joseph, afterwards King of Spain, was older than be : 
 be bad three younger brothers, Lucien, Louis, and 
 Jerome ; and three sisters, Eliza, Caroline, and Pauline. 
 These grew up. Five others must have died in infancy ; 
 for we are told that Letitia had given birth to thirteen 
 children, when at the age of thirty she became a widow. 
 
 In after-days, when Napoleon had climbed to sovereign 
 Dower, many flatterers were willing to give him a lofty 
 pedigree. To the Emperor of Austria, who would fain 
 have traced his unwelcome son-in-law to some petty 
 princes of Treviso, he replied, " I am the Rodolph of my 
 race,"* and silenced, on a similar occasion, a professional 
 genealogist, with, " Friend, my patent dates from Monte 
 Notte."t 
 
 Charles Buonaparte, by the Fi'ench governor's kind- 
 ness, received a legal appointment in Corsica — that of 
 Procureur du Boi (answering nearly to Attorney- General); 
 and scandal has often said that Marbceuff was his wife's 
 lover. The story received no credence in Ajaccio. 
 
 Concerning the infancy of Napoleon we know nothing, 
 except that he ever acknowledged with the warmest 
 gratitude the obligations laid on him at the threshold of 
 life by the sagacity and wisdom of Letitia. He always 
 avowed his belief that he owed his subsequent elevation 
 principally to her early lessons ; and indeed laid it down 
 
 * Rodolph of Hapsburg was the founder of the Austrian family. 
 t His first battle. 
 
1776.] AJACCIO O 
 
 as a maxim that " the future good or bad conduct of a 
 child depends entirely on the mother." Even of his 
 boyish days few anecdotes have been preserved in Corsica. 
 His chosen plaything, they say, -was a small brass cannon ; 
 and, when at home in the school- vacations, his favourite 
 retreat was a solitary summer-house among the rocks on 
 the sea shore, about a mile from Ajaccio, where his 
 mother's brother (afterwards Cardinal Fesch) had a 
 villa. The place is now in ruins, and overgrown with 
 bushes, and the people call it "Xapoleon's Grotto." He 
 has himself said that he was remarkable only for obsti- 
 nacy and curiosity : others add, that he was high-spirited, 
 quarrelsome, imperious ; fond of solitude ; slovenly in 
 his dress. Being detected stealing figs in an orchard, 
 the proprietor threatened to tell his mother, and the boy 
 pleaded for himself with so much eloquence, that the man 
 suffered him to escape. His careless attire, and his 
 partiality for a pretty little girl in the neighbourhood, 
 were ridiculed together in a song which his playmates 
 used to shout after him in the streets of Ajaccio : 
 
 " Xapoleone di mezza calzetta 
 Fa l'amore a Giacominetta." * 
 
 His superiority of character was early felt. An aged 
 relation, Lucien Buonaparte, Archdeacon of Ajaccio, 
 called the young people about his deathbed to take fare- 
 well and bless them: "You, Joseph," said the expiring 
 man, " are the eldest ; but Napoleon is the head of his 
 family. Take care to remember my words." Napoleon 
 took excellent care that they should not be forgotten. 
 He began with beating his elder brother into subjection. 
 
 From his earliest youth he chose arms for his profes- 
 sion. When he was about seven years old (1776) his 
 father was, through MarbceufFs patronage, sent to France 
 
 * Napoleon, with his stockings about his heels, makes love to 
 Giacominetta. 
 
4 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1776. 
 
 as one of a deputation from the Corsican noblesse to King 
 Louis XVI. ; and Napoleon, for whom the count had 
 also procured admission into the military school of 
 Brienne, accompanied him. After seeing part of Italy, 
 and crossing France, they reached Paris ; and the boy 
 ■was soon established in his school, where at first every 
 thing delighted him, though, forty years afterwards, he 
 said he should never forget the bitter parting with his 
 mother ere he set out on his travels. He spoke only 
 Italian when he reached Brienne -, but soon mastered 
 French. His progress in Latin, and in literature gene- 
 rally, attracted no great praise ; but in every study likely 
 to be of service to the future soldier, he distinguished 
 himself above his contemporaries. Of the mathematical 
 tutors accordingly he was a great favourite. One of the 
 other teachers having condemned him for some offence 
 or neglect to wear a coarse woollen dress on a particular 
 day, and dine on his knees at the door of the refectory, 
 the boy's haughty spirit swelling under this dishonour, 
 brought on a sudden vomiting, and a strong fit oi 
 hysterics. The mathematical master passing by, said 
 they did not understand what they were dealing with, 
 and released him. He cared little for common pastimes ; 
 but his love for such as mimicked war was extreme ; 
 and the skill of his fortifications, reared of turf, or of 
 snow, according to the season, and the address and 
 pertinacity with which he conducted their defence, at- 
 tracted the admiration of all observers. Napoleon was 
 poor and all but a foreigner* among the French youth, 
 and underwent many mortifications from both causes. 
 His temper was reserved and proud ; he had few friends 
 — no bosom-companion ; he lived by himself, and among 
 his books and maps. M. Bourienne, whose friendship 
 
 * Corsica became by law a French department only two months 
 before Napoleon was born. 
 
1776.] BRIEXXE. & 
 
 for him commenced thus early, says — " Buonaparte was 
 noticeable at Brienne for his Italian complexion, the 
 keenness of his look, and the tone of his conversation both 
 with masters and comrades. There was almost always a 
 dash of bitterness in what he said. Hehad very little of the 
 disposition that leads to attachments ; which I can only 
 attribute to the misfortunes of his family ever since his 
 birth, and the impression which the conquest of his coun- 
 try had made on his early years." One day, at dinner, 
 the principal of the school happened to say something 
 slightingly of Paoli. "He was a great man," cried young 
 Buonaparte, " he loved his country ; and I shall never 
 forgive my father, who had been his adjutant, for con- 
 senting to the union of Corsica with France. He ought 
 to have followed the fortunes of Paoli." 
 
 There is reason to believe that the levity and haughti- 
 ness with which some of the young French gentlemen at 
 this seminaiy conducted themselves towards this poor, 
 solitary alien, had a strong effect on the first political 
 feelings of the future Emperor of France. He particu- 
 larly resented their jokes about his foreign name Napoleon. 
 Bourienne says he often told him— "Hereafter I will do 
 the French what harm I can ; as for yon, you never 
 make me your jest — you love me." 
 
 From the beginning of the revolutionary struggle, boy 
 and youth, he espoused and kept by the side of those 
 who desired the total change of government. It is a 
 strange enough fact, that Pichegru, afterwards so eminent 
 and ultimately so unfortunate, was for some time his 
 monitor in the school of Brienne. Being consulted 
 many years later as to the chance of enlisting Buonaparte 
 in the cause of the exiled Bourbons, this man is known to 
 have answered : " It will be lost time to attempt that — 
 I knew him in his youth — he has taken his side, and he 
 will not change it." 
 
6 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1783. 
 
 In 1783 Buonaparte was, on the recommendation of 
 his masters, sent from Brienne to the Royal Military 
 School at Paris ; this being an extraordinary compliment 
 to the genius and proficiency of a boy of fifteen.* Here 
 he spent nearly two years, devoted to his studies. That 
 he laboured hard, both at Brienne and at Paris, we may 
 judge ; for his after-life left scanty room for book- work, 
 and of the vast quantity of information which his strong 
 memory ever placed at his disposal, the far greater pro- 
 portion must have been accumulated now. He made 
 himself a first-rate mathematician ; lie devoured history 
 — his chosen authors being Plutarch and Tacitus ; the 
 former the most simple painter that antiquity has left us 
 of heroic characters — the latter the profoundest master 
 of political wisdom. The poems of Ossian were then new 
 to Europe, and generally received as authentic remains 
 of another age and style of heroism. The dark and lofty 
 genius which they display, their indistinct but solemn 
 pictures of heroic passions, love, battle, victory, and 
 death, were appropriate food for Napoleon's young ima- 
 gination ; and, his taste being little scrupulous as to 
 minor particulars, Ossian continued to be through life 
 his favourite poet. "While at Paris, he attracted much 
 notice among those who had access to compare him with 
 his fellows ; his acquirements, among other advantages, 
 introduced him to the familiar society of the celebrated 
 Abbe Raynal. Napoleon, shortly after entering the school 
 
 * The report, in consequence of which Buonaparte received this 
 distinction, is in these words: "M. de Buonaparte (Xapoleon), 
 born the 15th August, 1769, height four feet ten inches ten lines; 
 good constitution , health excellent ; character docile, upright, 
 grateful , conduct very regular ; has always distinguished himself 
 by his application to the mathematics. He is passably acquainted 
 with history and geography : is weak enough as to his Latin diction 
 and other elegant accomplishments : would make an excellent sea- 
 officer : deserves to be transferred to the Military School at Paris." 
 
1785.] MILITARY SCHOOL AT PABIS. 7 
 
 at Paris, drew up a memorial, -which he in person pre- 
 sented to the superintendents of the establishment. He 
 complained that the mode of life was too expensive and 
 delicate for " poor gentlemen," and could not prepare 
 them either for returning to their " modest homes," or 
 for the hardships of the camp. He proposed that, instead 
 of a regular dinner of two courses daily, the students 
 should have ammunition bread, and soldiers' rations, and 
 that they should be compelled to mend and clean their 
 own stockings and shoes. This memorial is said to have 
 done him no service at the military school. 
 
 He had just completed his sixteenth year when, (in 
 August, 1785), after being examined by the great Laplace, 
 he obtained his first commission as second lieutenant in 
 the artillery regiment La Fere. His corps was at Valance 
 when he joined it ; and he mingled, more largely than 
 might have been expected from his previous habits, in the 
 cultivated society of the place. His personal advantages 
 were considerable ; the outline of the countenance classi- 
 cally beautiful ; the eye deep-set and dazzlingly brilliant; 
 the figure short, but slim, active, and perfectly knit. 
 Courtly grace and refinement of manners he never at- 
 tained, nor perhaps coveted ; but he early learned the 
 art, not difficult probably to any person possessed of such 
 genius and such accomplishments, of rendering himself 
 eminently agreeable wherever it suited his purpose or 
 inclination to be so. 
 
 On the 27th February in this year his father died of 
 a cancer in the stomach, aged forty-five; the same disease 
 which was destined, at a somewhat later period of life, 
 to prove fatal to himself. 
 
 While at Valance Buonaparte competed anonymously 
 for a prize offered by the Academy of Lyons for the best 
 answer to Raynal's Question : " "What are the principles 
 and institutions by the application of which mankind can 
 
8 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [_1702. 
 
 be raised to the highest happiness ?" He gained the 
 prize : what were the contents of his Essay we know not. 
 Talleyrand, long afterwards, obtained the manuscript, 
 and, thinking to please his sovereign, brought it to him. 
 He threw his eye over two or three pages, and tossed it 
 into the fire. The treatise of the Lieutenant probably 
 abounded in opinions which the Emperor had found it 
 convenient to forget. 
 
 Even at Brienne his political feelings had been deter- 
 mined. At Valauce he found the officers of his regiment 
 divided, as all the world then was, into two parties ; the 
 lovers of the French Monarchy, and those who desired 
 its overthrow. He decided openly with the latter. " Had 
 I been a general," said Napoleon in the evening of his 
 life, " I might have adhered to the king ; being a subal- 
 tern, I joined the patriots." 
 
 In the beginning of 1702 he became captain of artillery 
 (unattached) ; and happening to be in Paris, witnessed 
 the lamentable scenes of the 20th of June, when the re- 
 volutionary mob stormed the Tuilleries, and the king and 
 his family, after undergoing innumerable insults and de- 
 gradations, with the utmost difficulty preserved their 
 lives. He followed the crowd into the garden before 
 the palace ; and when Louis XVI. appeared on a bal- 
 cony with the red cap on his head, could no longer 
 suppi'ess his contempt and indignation. " Poor drivel- 
 ler !" said Napoleon, loud enough to be heard by those 
 near him, " How could he suffer this rabble to enter ? 
 If he had swept away five or six hundred with his can- 
 non, the rest would be running yet." He was also a 
 witness of the still more terrible 10th of August, when, 
 the palace being once more invested, the National Guard 
 assigned for its defence took part with the assailants ; 
 the royal family were obliged to take refuge in the 
 National Assembly, and the brave Swiss Guards were 
 
1792.] PARIS. 9 
 
 massacred almost to a man in the courts of the Tuilleries. 
 Buonaparte was a firm friend to the Assembly, to the 
 charge of a party of which, at least, these excesses must 
 be laid ; but the spectacle disgusted him. The yells, 
 screams, aud pikes with bloody heads upon them, formed 
 a scene which he afterwards described as " hideous and 
 revolting." At this time Napoleon was without employ- 
 ment and very poor ; and De Bourienne describes him 
 as wandering idly about Paris, living, chiefly at his 
 (M. de B.'s) expense, at restaurateurs' shops, and, among 
 other wild-enough schemes, proposing that he and his 
 schoolfellow should take some houses on lease, and en- 
 deavour to get a little money by sub-letting them in 
 apartments. Such were the views and occupations of 
 Buonaparte — at the moment when the national tragedy 
 was darkening to its catastrophe. As yet he had been 
 but a spectator of the Revolution, destined to pave his 
 own path to sovereign power ; it was not long before 
 circumstances called on him to play a part. 
 
 General Paoli, who had lived in England ever since 
 the termination of that civil war in which Charles 
 Buonaparte served under his banner, was cheered when 
 the great French Revolution first broke out, with the 
 hope that liberty was about to be restored to Corsica. 
 He came to Paris, was received with applause as a tried 
 friend of freedom, and appointed governor of his native 
 island, which for some time he ruled wisely and happily. 
 But as the revolution advanced, Paoli, like most other 
 wise men, became satisfied that license was more likely 
 to be established by its leaders, than law and rational 
 liberty; and avowing his aversion to the growing piin. 
 ciples of Jacobinism, and the scenes of tumult and blood- 
 shed to which they gave rise, he was denounced in the 
 National Assembly as the enemy of France. An expe- 
 dition was sent to deprive him of his government, under 
 
10 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1793. 
 
 the command of La Combe, Michel, and Salicetti, one of 
 the Corsican deputies to the Convention ; and Paoli 
 called on his countrymen to take arms in his and then- 
 own defence. 
 
 Buonaparte happened at that time (1793) to have 
 leave of absence from his regiment, and to be in Corsica 
 on a visit to his mother. He had fitted up a little read- 
 ing-room at the top of the house as the quietest part of 
 it, and was spending his mornings in study, and his 
 evenings among his family and old acquaintance, when 
 the arrival of the expedition threw the island into con- 
 vulsion. Paoli, who knew him well, did all he could to 
 enlist him in his cause ; he used, among other flatteries, 
 to clap him on the back, and tell him he was " one of 
 Plutarch's men." But Napoleon had satisfied himself 
 that Corsica was too small a country to maintain inde- 
 pendence, — that she must fall under the rule either of 
 France or England ; and that her interest would be best 
 served by adhering to the former. He therefore resisted 
 all Paoli's offers, and tendered his sword to the service 
 of Salicetti. He was appointed provisionally to the 
 command of a battalion of national guards ; and the first 
 military service on which he was employed was the re- 
 duction of a small fortress, called the Torre de Capitello, 
 near Ajaccio. He took it, but was soon besieged in it, 
 and he and his garrisen, after a gallant defence, and 
 living for some time on horseflesh, were glad to evacuate 
 the tower, and escape to the sea. The English govern- 
 ment now began to reinforce Paoli, and the cause of the 
 French party seemed for the moment to be desperate. 
 The Buonapartes were banished from Corsica, and their 
 mother and sisters took refuge first at Nice, and after- 
 wards at Marseilles, where for some time they suffered 
 all the inconveniences of exile and poverty. Napoleon 
 rejoined his regiment. He had chosen France for his 
 
1793-] PAOLI GOVERNOR OP CORSICA. 1 1 
 
 country ; and seems, in truth, to have preserved little or 
 no affection for his native soil. 
 
 After arriving at supreme power, he bestowed one 
 small fountain on Ajaccio ; and succeeded, by the death 
 of a relation, to a petty olive garden near that town. In 
 the sequel of his history the name of Corsica will scarcely 
 recur. 
 
12 KArOLEON BUOXAl'AIITK. [1793- 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Buonaparte commands the Artillery at Toulon — Fall of Toulon — 
 The Representatives of the People — Junot. 
 
 Buonaparte's first military service occurred, as we have 
 seen, in the summer of 1703. The king of France had 
 been put to death on the 21st of January in that year ; 
 and in less than a month afterwards the convention had 
 declared war against England. The murder of the king, 
 alike imprudent as atrocious, had in fact united the 
 princes of Europe against the revolutionary cause ; and 
 within France itself a strong reaction took place. The 
 people of Toulon, the great port and arsenal of France 
 on the Mediterranean, partook these sentiments, and in- 
 vited the English and Spanish fleets off their coast to 
 come to their assistance, and garrison their city. The 
 allied admirals took possession accordingly of Toulon, 
 and a motley force of English, Spaniards, and Neapoli- 
 tans, prepared to defend the place. In the harbour and 
 roads there were about twenty-five ships of the line, and 
 the city contained immense naval and military stores of 
 every description, so that the defection of Toulon was 
 regarded as a calamity of the first order by the revo- 
 lutionary government. 
 
 This event occurred in the midst of that period which 
 has received the name of " the reign of terror." The 
 streets of Paris were streaming with innocent blood ; 
 Robespierre was glutting himself with murder ; fear and 
 rage were the passions that divided mankind, and their 
 struggles produced on either side the likeness of some 
 epidemic pkrenzy. Whatever else the government 
 
]793.] SIEGE OF TOULON. 13 
 
 wanted, vigour to repel aggressions from without was 
 displayed in abundance. Two armies immediately 
 marched upon Toulon ; and after a series of actions, iu 
 which the passes in the hills behind the town were 
 forced, the place was at last invested, and a memorable 
 siege commenced. 
 
 It was condu ctcd with little skill , first by Cartaux, a vain 
 coxcomb who had been a painter, and then by Doppet, 
 an ex-physician, and a coward. To watch and report on 
 the proceedings of these chiefs, there were present in 
 the camp several Representatives of the People, as they 
 were called — persons holding no military character or 
 rank, but acting as honourable spies for the government 
 at Paris. The interference of these personages on this, 
 as on many other occasions, was productive of delays, 
 blunders, and misfortunes ; but the terror which their 
 ready access to the despotic government inspired was 
 often, on the other hand, useful in stimulating the exer- 
 tions of the military. The younger Robespierre was one 
 of the deputies at Toulon, and his name was enough to 
 make his presence formidable. 
 
 Cartaux had not yet been superseded, when Napoleon 
 Buonaparte made his appearance at head-quarters, with 
 a commission to assume the command of the artillery. 
 It has been said that he owed his appointment to the 
 private regard of Salicetti ; but the high testimonials he 
 had received from the Military Academy were more 
 likely to have served him ; nor is it possible to suppose 
 that he had been so long in the regiment of La Fere 
 without being appreciated by some of his superiors. Ho 
 had, besides, shortly before this time, excited attention 
 by a pamphlet, called the Sv/gper of Seaucaire, in which 
 the politics of the Jacobin party were spiritedly sup- 
 ported ; and of which lie was afterwards so ashamed, 
 that he took great pains to suppress it. However this 
 
14 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1793. 
 
 may have been, he was received almost with insolence 
 by Cartaux, who, strutting about in an uniform covered 
 with gold lace, told him his assistance was not wanted, 
 but he was welcome to partake in his glory. 
 
 The commandant of the artillery, on examining the 
 state of affairs, found much to complain of. They were 
 still disputing which extremity of the town should be the 
 chief object of attack ; though at the one there were two 
 strong and regular fortifications, and at the other only a 
 small and imperfect fort called Malbosquet. On in- 
 specting their batteries, he found that the guns were 
 placed about two gunshots from the walls ; and that it was 
 the custom to heat the shot at a distance from the place 
 where they were to be discharged ; in other words, to 
 heat them to no purpose. Choosing officers of his own 
 acquaintance to act under him, and exerting himself to 
 collect guns from all quarters, Buonaparte soon remedied 
 these disorders, and found himself master of an efficient 
 train of 200 pieces ; and he then urged the general to 
 adopt a wholly new plan of operations in the future conduct 
 of the siege. 
 
 The plan of Buonaparte appears now the simplest and 
 most obvious that could have been suggested ; yet it 
 was not without great difficulty that he could obtain the 
 approbation of the doctor, who had by this time super- 
 seded the painter. " Tour object," said he, " is to make 
 the English evacuate Toulon. Instead of attacking them 
 in the town, which must involve a long series of opera- 
 tions, endeavour to establish batteries so as to sweep the 
 harbour and roadstead. If you can do this — the English 
 ships must take their departure, and the English troops 
 will certainly not remain behind them." He pointed out 
 a promontory nearly opposite the town, by getting the 
 command of which lie was sure the desired effect must 
 be accomplished- " Gain La Grasse" said he, " and in 
 
1793.] SIEGE OF TOULON. 15 
 
 two days Toulon falls." His reasoning at length forced 
 conviction, and he was permitted to follow his own plan. 
 A month before nothing could have been more easy ; 
 but within that time the enemy had perceived the im- 
 portance of the promontory, which commands the narrow 
 passage between the port and the Mediterranean, and 
 fortified it so strongly, that it passed by the name of tho 
 Little Gibraltar. It was necessary, therefore, to form 
 extensive batteries in the rear of La Grasse, before there 
 could be a prospect of seizing it. Buonaparte laboured 
 hard all day, and slept every night in his cloak by the 
 guns, until his works approached perfection. He also 
 formed a large battery behind Malbosquet ; but this he 
 carefully concealed from the enemy. It was covered by 
 a plantation of olives, and he designed to distract their 
 attention by opening its fire for the first time when he 
 should be about to make his great effort against Little 
 Gibraltar. Bat the Representatives of the People 
 had nearly spoiled every thing. These gentlemen, walk- 
 ing their rounds, discovered the battery behind the 
 olives, and mquiring how long it had been ready, were 
 told for eight days. Xot guessing with what view so 
 many guns had been kept so long idle, they ordered an 
 immediate cannonade. The English made a vigorous 
 sally, and spiked the guns before Buonaparte could reach 
 the spot. On his arrival at the eminence behind, he 
 perceived a long deep ditch, fringed with brambles and 
 willows, which he thought might be turned to advantage. 
 He ordered a regiment of foot to creep along the ditch, 
 which they did without being discovered, until they were 
 close upon the enemy. General O'Hara, the English 
 commander, mistook them for some of his own allies, 
 and rushing out to give them some directions, was 
 wounded and made prisoner. The English were dis- 
 pirited when they lost their general ; they retreated ; 
 
16 NAPOLEON" BUONAPARTE. [1793 
 
 and the French, were at liberty to set about the repair of 
 their battery. In this affair much blood was shed. 
 Napoleon himself received a bayonet-thrust in his thigh, 
 and fell into the arms of Muiron, who carried him off the 
 field. Such was the commencement of their brotherly 
 friendship. His wound, however, did not prevent him. 
 from continuing his labours behind Little Gibraltar. 
 
 That fort had very nearly been seized, by a sort of acci- 
 dent, some time before his preparations were completed ; 
 a casual insult excited a sudden quarrel between the men 
 in Buonaparte's trenches, and the Spaniards in Little 
 Gibraltar. The French soldiers, without waiting for 
 orders, seized their arms, and rushed to the assault with 
 fury. Napoleon coming up, perceived that the moment 
 was favourable, and persuaded Doppet to support the 
 troops with more regiments ; but the doctor, marching 
 at the head of his column, was seized with a panic, on 
 seeing a man killed by his side, and ordered a retreat, 
 before anything could be effected. 
 
 A few days after, this poltroon was in his turn super- 
 seded by a brave veteran, General Dugommier, and 
 Napoleon could at last count on having his efforts backed. 
 But, for the second time, the Representatives did their 
 best to ruin his undertaking. The siege had now lasted 
 four months, provisions were scarce in the camp, and 
 these civilians, never being able to comprehend what 
 was meant by bestowing all this care on a place so far 
 below the city as Little Gibraltar, wrote to Paris that 
 they saw no chance of success, and hoped the govern- 
 ment would agree with them that the siege ought to be 
 abandoned. Two days before this letter reached Paris, 
 Toulon had fallen, and the representatives gave out 
 that the despatch was a forgery. 
 
 The moment had at last come when Buonaparte 
 judged it right to make his grand attempt. During the 
 
1793.] PALL OF TOULON. 17 
 
 night of the 17th of December he threw 8000 bombs and 
 shells into Little Gibraltar, and the works being thus 
 shattered, at daybreak Dugommier commanded the 
 assault. The French, headed by the brave Muiron, 
 rushed with impetuous valour through the embrazures, 
 and put the whole garrison to the sword. The day was 
 spent in arranging the batteries, so as to command the 
 shipping ; and next morning — so true had been Buona- 
 parte's prophecy — when the French stood to their posts, 
 the English fleet was discovered to be already under 
 weigh. 
 
 Then followed a fearful scene. The English would 
 not quit Toulon without destroying the French ships 
 and arsenals that had fallen into their possession ; nor 
 could they refuse to carry with them the anti-jacobin 
 inhabitants, who knew that their lives would be instantly 
 sacrificed if they should fall into the hands of the victori- 
 ous Republicans, and who now flocked to the beach to 
 the number of 14,000, praying for the means of escape. 
 The burning of ships, the explosion of magazines, the 
 roar of artillery, and the cries of these fugitives, filled up 
 many hours. At last the men-of-war were followed by 
 a flotilla bearing those miserable exiles ; the walls were 
 abandoned ; and Dugommier took possession of the 
 place. 
 
 The Republicans found that all persons of condition, 
 who had taken part against them, had escaped ; and 
 their rage was to be contented with meaner victims. A 
 day or two having been suffered to pass in quiet, a pro- 
 clamation, apparently friendly, exhorted the workmen, 
 who had been employed on the batteries of the besieged 
 town, to muster at head-quarters. One hundred and fifty 
 poor men, who expected to be employed again in repair- 
 ing the same fortifications, obeyed this summons — were 
 instantly marched into a field — and shot in cold blood ; 
 
18 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. . [1793. 
 
 not less than a thousand persons were massacred under 
 circumstances equally atrocious. Buonaparte himself 
 repelled with indignation the charge of having had a 
 hand in this butchery. Even if he had, he was not the 
 chief in command, and durst not have disobeyed orders 
 but at the sacrifice of his own life. It is on all sides 
 admitted that a family of royalists, being shipwrecked on 
 the coast near Toulon, a few days after, were rescued 
 from the hands of the ferocious Republicans, solely by 
 his interference and address. Putting himself at the 
 head of some of his gunners, he obtained possession of 
 the unhappy prisoners ; quieted the mob by assuring 
 them that they should all be publicly executed the next 
 morning ; and meanwhile sent them off during the night 
 in artillery waggons supposed to be conveying stores. 
 
 The recovery of Toulon was a service of the first im- 
 portance to the government. It suppressed all insur- 
 rectionary spirit in the south of France ; and placed a 
 whole army at their disposal elsewhere. But he, to 
 whose genius the success was due, did not at first obtain 
 the credit of his important achievement at Paris. The 
 Representatives of the people never made their appear- 
 ance on the eventful morning at Little Gibraltar, until 
 three hours after the troops were in possession of the 
 best part of the fortifications. Then, indeed, they were 
 seen sword in hand in the trenches, blustering and 
 swaggering in safety. Yet these men did not blush to 
 represent themselves as having headed the assault, while, 
 in their account of the conflict, even the name of Buona- 
 parte did not find a place. The truth could not, how- 
 ever, be concealed effectually ; and he was appointed to 
 survey and arrange the whole line of fortifications on the 
 Mediterranean coast of France. 
 
 It was during the siege of Toulon that Napoleon, 
 while constructing a battery under the enemy's fire, had 
 
1793.] • JUNOT. 19 
 
 occasion to prepare a despatch, and called out for some 
 one who could use a pen. A young serjeant, named 
 Junot, leapt out, and, leaning on the breastwork, wrote 
 as he dictated. As he finished, a shot struck the ground 
 by his side, scattering dust in abundance over him and 
 everything near him. " Good," said the soldier, laugh- 
 ing, " this time we shall spare our sand." The cool 
 gaiety of this pleased Buonaparte ; he kept his eye on 
 the man ; and Junot came in the sequel to be Marshal 
 of France and Duke of Abrantes. 
 
20 NAVOLEON BUONAPAKTE. [1794. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Buonaparte Chief of Battalion at Nice— Fall of Robespierre — He is 
 superseded— Buonaparte at Paris in 1795 — The day of the Sections 
 — Commands the Army of the Interior — Marries Josephine de 
 Beauhamois — Appointed to the command of the Army of Italy. 
 
 From this time Napoleon advanced by rapid strides to 
 greatness. His admirable skill was still further displayed 
 in his survey of the fortifications above mentioned ; and 
 having completed this service, he was appointed to join 
 the army of Italy, then stationed at Nice, with the rank 
 of Chief of Battalion. 
 
 Here his advice suggested a plan by which the Sar- 
 dinians were driven from the Col di Tende on the 7th 
 March, 1794; Saorgio, with all its stores, surrendered; 
 and the French obtained possession of the maritime Alps, 
 so that the difficulties of advancing into Italy were 
 greatly diminished. Of these movements, however, his 
 superior officers reaped as yet the honour. He was even 
 superseded (Aug. 6, 1794) very shortly after their suc- 
 cess. But this, which at the moment seemed a heavy 
 misfortune, was, in truth, one of the luckiest circum- 
 stances that ever befel him. 
 
 It is not true that he was put under arrest in conse- 
 quence of the downfall of Robespierre ; although there 
 is no doubt that he was supposed to belong to the party 
 which that monster had made the instrument of his 
 crimes, and known to have lived on terms of friendship 
 with his younger brother. He incurred the suspicion of 
 Laporte, and the other " Representatives" attached to 
 " the army of Italy," in consequence of a journey to the 
 
1794.] NICE — PARIS. 21 
 
 Gulf of Genoa, which he performed in ohedience to secret 
 orders from Paris ; arid, so soon as his ahsence from 
 head-quarters was thus explained, he regained his free- 
 dom. The officer who came to release him, was surprised 
 to find him husy in his dungeon over the map of Lom- 
 bard)'. The " Representatives," however, had certainly 
 taken up a general prejudice against him ; for ho did not 
 re-assume his functions at Nice ; and seems to have spent 
 some time in obscurity with his own family, who were 
 then in very distressed circumstances, at Marseilles. It 
 was here that he fell in love with Mademoiselle Clery, 
 whom, but for some accident, it appears he would have 
 married. Her sister was shortly afterwards united to 
 his brother Joseph, and she herself became in the sequel 
 the wife of Bernadotte, afterwards King of Sweden. It 
 is supposed that Buonaparte found himself too poor to 
 marry at this time ; and circumstances interfered to 
 prevent any renewal of his proposals. 
 
 Before the end of the year he came to Paris to solicit 
 employment ; but at first he met with nothing but re- 
 pulses. The President of the Military Committee, Aubiy, 
 objected to his youth. " Presence in the field of battle," 
 said Buonaparte, " might be reckoned in place of years." 
 The President, who had not seen much actual service, 
 thought he was insulted, and treated Napoleon very 
 coldly. After a little while, however, he was asked to 
 go to La I commandant of a brigade of infantry. 
 
 This he declined, alleging, that nothing could reconcile 
 him to leave the artillery, but really, if we are to follow 
 De Jjouriennc, considering the Vendean warfare as un- 
 wortli3 r of him. His refusal was followed by the erasure 
 of his name from the list of general officers in employ- 
 ' -. and for a time liis fortunes seemed to be in a 
 desperate condition. He thought of settling in some 
 way in Paris; and said to Bourienne, that, if he could 
 
22 NArOLE)N' BUONAPARTE. [179o. 
 
 afford to have a small house in the street where his 
 school-fellow lived, and to keep a cabriolet, he would be 
 contented. His elder brother had about this time mar- 
 ried Mademoiselle Cleiy, whose father, the merchant of 
 Marseilles, gave her a handsome dowry. " How fortu- 
 nate," Napoleon would often exclaim, " is that fool 
 Joseph !"* 
 
 Talma, the celebrated tragedian, was one of his chief 
 associates at this time, and even then talked with confi- 
 dence of the future fortunes of " little Buonaparte." 
 This player's kindness and Aubry's opposition were both 
 remembered. The Emperor always patronized Talma ; 
 and Aubry died in exile. 
 
 Napoleon, despairing of employment at home, now 
 drew up a memorial to the government, requesting to be 
 sent with a few other officers of artillery into Turkey, 
 for the purpose of placing that branch of the Grand 
 Seignior's service in a condition more suitable to the 
 circumstances of the times — in which it seemed highly 
 probable that the Porte might find itself in alliance with 
 France, and assaulted by the combined armies of Russia 
 and Austria. No answer was returned to this memorial, 
 over which he dreamt for some weeks in great enthusi- 
 asm. " How strange," he said to his friends, " would 
 it be if a little Corsican soldier should become King of 
 Jerusalem!" Go where he might, he already contem- 
 plated greatness. 
 
 At length Napoleon was nominated to the command 
 of a brigade of artillery in Holland. The long-deferred 
 appointment was, no doubt, very welcome ; but in the 
 mean time his services were called for on a nearer and 
 a more important field. 
 
 The French nation were now heartily tired of the 
 National Convention: it had lost most of its distinguished 
 * Pe BourieuuQ 
 
If 95.] NATIONAL CONVENTION. 23 
 
 members in the tumults and persecutions of the times ; 
 and above all it bad lost respect by remaining for two 
 years tbe slave and the tool of the Terrorists. The 
 downfall of Robespierre, when it did take place, showed 
 how easily the same blessed deliverance might have been 
 effected long before, had this body possessed any sense 
 of finnness or of dignity. Even the restoration of the 
 members banished by the tyrant did not serve to replace 
 the Convention in the confidence of the public. They 
 themselves saw clearly that a new remodelling of the 
 government was called for and must be ; and their 
 anxiety was to devise the means of securing for them- 
 selves as large a share as possible of substantial power, 
 under some arrangement sufficiently novel in appearance 
 to throw dust in the eyes of the people. 
 
 A great part of the nation, there is no doubt, were at 
 this time anxious to see the royal family restored, and 
 the government settled on the model of 1791. Among 
 the more respectable citizens of Paris in particular such 
 feelings were very prevalent. But many causes con- 
 spired to surround the adoption of this measure with 
 difficulties, which none of the actually influential leaders 
 had the courage, or perhaps the means, to encounter. 
 The soldiery of the Republican armies had been accus- 
 tomed to fight against the exiled princes and nobility, 
 considered them as the worst enemies of France, and 
 hated them personally. The estates of the church, the 
 nobles, and the crown, had been divided and sold ; and 
 the purchasers foresaw that, were the monarchy restored 
 at this period, the resumption of the forfeited property 
 would be pressed with all the powers of government, 
 And, lastly, the men who had earned for themselves 
 most distinction and influence in public affairs, had 
 excellent reasons for believing that the Bourbons and 
 nobility, if restored, would visit on their own heads, the 
 
2i NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1795. 
 
 atrocities of the Revolution, and above all the murder of 
 the King. 
 
 The Conventionalists themselves, however, had learned 
 by this time that neither peace nor security could be 
 expected, unless some form of government were adopted, 
 in which the legislative and the executive functions 
 should at least appear to be separated ; and they were 
 also at length inclined to admit the excellence of that 
 part of tie British constitution, which, dividing the 
 legislatorial power between two assemblies of senators, 
 thus acquires the advantage of a constant revision of 
 counsels, and regulates the political machine by a system 
 of mutual checks and balances. They were desirous, 
 therefore, of proposing some system which might, in a 
 certain degree, satisfy those who had been endeavouring 
 to bring about the restoration of the monarchy ; and the 
 new constitution of the year three of the Republic (1795) 
 presented the following features. I. The executive 
 power was to be lodged in Five Directors, chosen from 
 time to time, who were to have no share in the legisla- 
 tion. II. There was to be a Council of Five Hundred, 
 answering generally to our House of Commons ; and 
 III. A smaller assembly, called the Council of Ancients, 
 intended to fulfil in some measure the purposes of a 
 House of Peers. 
 
 The outline of this scheme might perhaps have been 
 approved of; but the leading members of the Convention, 
 from views personal to themselves, appended to it certain 
 conditions which excited new disgust. They decreed, 
 first, that the electoral bodies of France, in choosing 
 representatives to the two new Councils, must elect at 
 least two-thirds of the present members of Convention ; 
 and, secondly, that if full two-thirds were not returned, 
 the Convention should have the right to supply the de- 
 ficiency out of their own body. It was obvious that this 
 
1795.] CONSTITUTION OF THE YEAR THKEK. 25 
 
 machinery had no object but the continuance of the 
 present legislators in power; and the nation, and especi- 
 ally the superior classes in Paris, were indignant at con- 
 duct which they considered as alike selfish and arbitrary. 
 The royalist party gladly lent themselves to the diffusion 
 of any discontents ; and a formidable opposition to the 
 measures of the existing government was organized. 
 
 The Convention meantime continued their sittings, 
 and exerting all their skill and influence, procured from 
 many districts of the country reports accepting of the 
 New Constitution, with all its conditions. The Parisians, 
 being nearer and sharper observers, and having abun- 
 dance of speakers and writers to inform and animate 
 them, assembled in the several sections of the city, and 
 proclaimed their hostility to the Convention and its 
 designs. The National Guard, consisting of armed 
 citizens, almost unanimously sided with the enemies of 
 the Convention ; and it was openly proposed to march 
 to the Tuilleries, and compel a change of measures by 
 force of arms. 
 
 The Convention, perceiving their unpopularity and 
 danger, began to look about them anxiously for the 
 means of defence. There were in and near Paris 5000 
 regular troops, on whom they thought they might rely, 
 and who of course contemned the National Guard as 
 only half- soldiers. They had besides some hundreds of 
 artillerymen ; and they now organized what they called 
 "the Sacred Band," a body of 1500 ruffians, the most 
 part of them old and tried instruments of Robespierre. 
 "With these means they prepared to arrange a plan of 
 defence ; and it was obvious that they did not want 
 materials, provided they could find a skilful and de- 
 termined head. 
 
 The Insurgent Sections placed themselves under the 
 command of Danican, an old general of no great skill or 
 
26 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1795. 
 
 reputation. The Convention opposed to him Menou; 
 and he marched at the head of a column into the section 
 Le Pelletier to disarm the National Guard of that dis- 
 trict — one of the wealthiest of the capital. The National 
 Guard were found drawn up in readiness to receive him 
 at the end of the Rue Vivienne ; and Menou, becoming 
 alarmed, and hampered by the presence of some of the 
 " Representatives of the people," entered into a parley, 
 and retired without having struck a blow. 
 
 The Convention judged that Menou was not master of 
 nerves for such a crisis ; and consulted eagerly about a 
 a successor to his command. Barras, one of their num- 
 ber, had happened to be present at Toulon, and to have 
 appreciated the character of Buonaparte. He had, 
 probably, been applied to by Napoleon in his recent pur- 
 suit of employment. Deliberating with Tallien and 
 Carnot, his colleagues, he suddenly said, " I have the 
 man whom you want ; it is a little Corsican officer, who 
 will not stand upon ceremony." 
 
 These words decided the fate of Napoleon and of 
 France. Buonaparte had been in the Odeon Theatre 
 when the affair of La Pelletier occurred, had run out, 
 and witnessed the result. He now happened to be in 
 the gallery, and heard the discussion concerning the 
 conduct of Menou. He was presently sent for, and 
 asked his opinion as to that officer's retreat. He ex- 
 plained what had happened, and how the evil might have 
 been avoided, in a manner which gave satisfaction. He 
 was desired to assume the command, and arrange his 
 plan of defence as well as the circumstances might per- 
 mit ; for it was already late at night, and the decisive 
 assault on the Tuilleries was expected to take place next 
 morning. Buonaparte stated that the failure of the 
 march of Menou had been chiefly owing to the presence 
 of the " Representatives of the people," and refused to 
 
1795.] THE DAY OF THE SECTIONS. 27 
 
 accept the command unless he received it free from all 
 such interference. They yielded : Bari^as was named 
 Commander-in-chief; and Buonaparte second, with the 
 virtual control. His first great care was to dispatch 
 Murat, then a major of Chasseurs, to Sablons, five miles 
 off, where fifty great guns were posted. The Sectionaries 
 sent a stronger detachment for these cannon immediately 
 afterwards ; and Murat, who passed them in the dark, 
 would have gone in vain had he received his orders but 
 a few minutes later. 
 
 On the 4th of October (called in the revolutionary 
 almanack the loth Vendemaire) the affray accordingly 
 occurred. Thirty thousand National Guards advanced, 
 about two, p.m., by different streets, to the seige of the 
 palace ; but its defence was now in far other hands than 
 those of Louis XVI. 
 
 Buonaparte, having planted artillery on all the bridges, 
 had effectually secured the command of the river, and 
 the safety of the Tuilleries on one side. He had placed 
 cannon also at all the crossings of the streets by which 
 the National Guard could advance towards the other 
 front ; and having posted his battalions in the garden of 
 the Tuilleries and Place du Carousel, he awaited the 
 attack. 
 
 The insurgents had no cannon ; and they came along 
 the narrow streets of Paris in close and heavy columns. 
 When one party reached the Church of St. Roche, in the 
 Rue St. Honore, they found a body of Buonaparte's 
 troops drawn up there, with two cannons. It is disputed 
 on which side the firing began ; but in an instant the 
 artillery swept the streets and lanes, scattering grape- 
 shot among the National Guards, and producing such 
 confusion that they were compelled to give way. The 
 first shot was a signal for all the batteries which Buo- 
 naparte had established ; the quays of the Seine opposite 
 
28 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1795. 
 
 to the Tuilleries, were commanded by Lis guns below the 
 Palace and on the bridges. In less than an hour tbe 
 action was over. The insurgents fled in all directions, 
 leaving the streets covered with dead and wounded ; 
 the troops of the Convention marched into the various 
 sections, disarmed the terrified inhabitants, and before 
 nightfall everything was quiet. 
 
 This eminent service secured the triumph of the Con- 
 ventionalists, who now, assuming new names, continued 
 in effect to discharge their old functions. Barras took 
 his place at the head of the Directory, having Sieyes, 
 Carnot, and other less celebrated persons, for his col- 
 leagues ; and the First Director took cai'e to reward the 
 hand to which he owed bis elevation. Within five days 
 from the day of the Sections Buonaparte was named 
 second in command of the army of the interior ; and 
 shortly afterwards, Barras, finding his duties as Direc- 
 tor sufficient to occupy his time, gave up the command- 
 in-chief of the same army to his " little Corsican 
 officer." 
 
 He had no lack of duties to perform in this new char- 
 acter. The National Guard was to be re-organized ; a 
 separate guard for the representative body to be formed ; 
 the ordnance and military stores were all in a dilapidated 
 condition. The want of bread, too, was continually pro- 
 ducing popular riots, which could rarely be suppressed 
 but by force of arms. On one of these last occasions, a 
 huge sturdy fishwife exhorted the mob to keep to their 
 places, when Buonaparte had almost persuaded them to 
 disperse. " These coxcombs with their epaulettes and 
 gorgets," said she, " care nothing for us ; provided they 
 feed well and fatten, we may starve." " Good woman," 
 cried the general of the interior, who at this time was 
 about the leanest of his race, " only look at me, — and 
 decide yourself which of the two is the fatter." The 
 
1796.] JOSEPHINE. 29 
 
 woman could not help laughing ; the joke pleased the 
 multitude, and harmony was restored. 
 
 Buonaparte, holding the chief military command in the 
 capital, and daily rising in importance from the zeal and 
 firmness of his conduct in this high post, had now passed 
 into the order of marked and distinguished men. He 
 continued, nevertheless, to lead in private a quiet and 
 modest life, studying as hard as ever, and but little seen 
 in the circles of gaiety. An accident which occurred one 
 morning at his military levee, gave at once a new turn 
 to his mode of life, and a fresh impetus to the advance 
 of his fortunes. 
 
 A fine boy, of ten or twelve years of age, presented 
 himself; stated to the general that his name was Eugene 
 Beauharnois, son of Viscount Beauharnois, who had 
 served as a general officer in the Republican armies on 
 the Rhine, and been murdered by Robespierre ; and said 
 his errand was to recover the sword of his father. Buona- 
 parte caused the request to be complied with ; and the 
 tears of the boy, as he received and kissed the relic, 
 excited his interest. He treated Eugene so kindly, that 
 next day his mother, Josephine de Beauharnois, came to 
 thank him ; and her beauty and singular gracefulness of 
 address made a strong impression. 
 
 This charming lady, the daughter of a planter, by name 
 Tascher de la Pagerie, was born in the island of Martinico, 
 June 24th, 1763. While yet an infant, according to a 
 story which she afterwards repeated, a negro sorceress 
 had prophesied that " she should one day be greater 
 than a queen, and yet outlive her dignity."* 
 
 The widow of Beauharnois had been herself imprisoned 
 until the downfall of Robespierre. In that confinement 
 
 * According to some, the last clause ran " die in an hospital," 
 and this was in the sequel inteipreted to mean Malmaison— a palace 
 which (like our own St. James's) had once heen an hospital. 
 
30 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1796 
 
 she had formed a strict friendship with another lady who 
 was now married to Tallien, one of the most eminent of 
 the leaders of the Convention. Madame Tallien had 
 introduced Josephine to her hushand's friends ; and 
 Barras, the First Director, having now hegun to hold a 
 sort of court at the Luxembourg, these two beautiful 
 women were the chief ornaments of its society. It was 
 commonly said — indeed it was universally believed — 
 that Josephine, whose character was in some respects 
 indifferent, possessed more than legitimate influence over 
 the First Director. Buonaparte, however, offered her 
 his hand ; she, after some hesitation, accepted it ; and 
 the young general by this marriage (9th March, 1796) 
 cemented his connection with the society of the Luxem- 
 bourg, and in particular with Barras and Tallien, at that 
 moment the most powerful men in France. 
 
 Napoleon had a strong tendency to the superstition of 
 fatalism, and he always believed that his fortunes were 
 bound up in some mysterious manner with those of this 
 graceful woman. She loved him warmly, and served him 
 well. Her influence over him was great, and it was always 
 exerted on the side of humanity. She, and she alone, 
 could overrule, by gentleness, the excesses of passion to 
 which he was liable ; and her subsequent fate will always 
 form one of the darkest pages in the history of her lord. 
 
 Tranquillity was now restored in Paris ; and the Di- 
 rectory had leisure to turn their attention to the affairs 
 of the army of Italy, which were in a most confused and 
 unsatisfactory condition. They determined to give it a 
 new General ; and Buonaparte was appointed to the 
 splendid command. It is acknowledged, in one of 
 Josephine's letters, that the First Director had promised 
 to procure it for him before their marriage took place. 
 "Advance this man," said Barras to his colleagues, " or 
 he will advance himself without you." 
 
1796.] JOSEPHINE. 31 
 
 Buonaparte quitted his wife ten days after their mar- 
 riage ; paid a short visit to his mother at Marseilles ; 
 and arrived, after a rapid journey, at the head-quarters 
 at Nice. From that moment opened the most brilliant 
 scene of his existence ; yet, during the months of victory 
 and glory that composed it, his letters, fall of love and 
 home-sickness, attest the reluctance with which he had 
 so soon abandoned his bride. 
 
32 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [17S-6. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Army of Italy — Tactics of Buonaparte — Battle of Monte Notte — 
 Battle of Millcsimo — Battle of Mondovi — Armistice of Cherasco — 
 Close of the Campaign of Piedmont — Peace granted to Sardinia. 
 
 Buonaparte, at the age of twenty-six, assumed the com- 
 mand of the army of Italy ; exulting in the knowledge 
 that, if he should conquer, the honour would be all his 
 own. He had worked for others at Toulon, at the Col 
 di Tende, at Saorgio ; even in the affair of the Sections 
 the first command had been nominally in the hands of 
 Barras. Henceforth he was to have no rivals within the 
 camp. " In three months," said he, " I shall be either 
 at Milan or at Paris." He had already expressed the 
 same feeling in a still nobler form. " You are too 
 young," said one of the Directors, hesitating about his 
 appointment as general. " In a year," answered Napo- 
 leon, " I shall be either old or dead." 
 
 He found the army in numbers about 50,000 ; but 
 wretchedly deficient in cavalry, in stores of every kind,* 
 in clothing, and even in food ; and watched by an enemy 
 greatly more numerous. It was under such circum- 
 stances that he at once avowed the daring scheme of 
 forcing a passage to Italy, and converting the richest 
 territory of the enemy himself into the theatre of the war. 
 " Soldiers," said he, " you are hungry and naked ; the 
 Republic owes you much, but she has not the means to 
 pay her debts. I am come to lead you into the most 
 
 * Berthier used to keep, as a curiosity, a general order, by which 
 three louis-d'or were granted as a great supply to each general ot 
 division, dated on the very day of the victory at Alhegna. 
 
1796.] THE ARMY OF ITALY. 33 
 
 fertile plains that the sun beholds. Rich provinces, 
 opulent towns, all shall be at your disposal. Soldiers ! 
 with such a prospect before you, can you fail in courage 
 and constancy r" This was his first address to his armv. 
 The sinking hearts of the men beat high with hope and 
 confidence when they heard the voice of the young and 
 fearless leader; and Augereau, Massena, Serrurier, Jou- 
 bert, Lannes— distinguished officers who might them- 
 selves have aspired to the chief command — felt, from the 
 moment they began to understand his character and 
 system, that the true road to glory would be to follow 
 the star of Xapoleon. 
 
 He perceived that the time was come for turning a 
 new leaf in the history of war. With such numbers of 
 troops as the infant Republic could afford him, he saw 
 that no considerable advantages could be obtained against 
 the vast and highly-disciplined armies of Austria and her 
 allies, unless the established rules and etiquettes of stra- 
 tegy were abandoned. It was only by such rapidity of 
 motion as should utterly transcend the suspicion of his 
 adversaries, that he could hope to concentrate the whole 
 pith and energy of a small force upon some one point of 
 a much greater force opposed to it, and thus rob them 
 (according to his own favourite phrase) of the victory. 
 To effect such rapid marches, it was necessary that the 
 soldiery should make up their minds to consider tents 
 and baggage as idle luxuries ; and that, instead of a long 
 and complicated chain of reserves and stores, they should 
 dare to rely wholly for the means of subsistence on the 
 resources of the countries into which their leader might 
 conduct them. They must be contented to conquer at 
 whatever hazard ; to consider no sacrifices or hardships 
 as worthy of a thought. The risk of destroying the char- 
 acter and discipline of the men, by accustoming them to 
 pillage, wa - 1 »bvious. Buonaparte trusted to victory, the 
 
34 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1796. 
 
 high natural spirit of the nation, and the influence of his 
 own genius, for the means of avoiding this danger ; and 
 many years, it must be admitted, elapsed, before he found 
 much reason personally to repent of the system which he 
 adopted. Against the enemies of the Republic its success 
 was splendid, even beyond his hopes. 
 
 The objects of the approaching expedition were three ; 
 first, to compel the king of Sardinia, who had already 
 lost Savoy and Nice, but still maintained a powerful 
 army on the frontiers of Piedmont, to abandon the alli- 
 ance of Austria ; secondly, to compel the Emperor, by a 
 bold invasion of Lombardy, to make such exertions in 
 that quarter as might weaken those armies which had so 
 long hovered on the Rhine ; and, if possible, to stir up 
 the Italian subjects of that crown to adopt the revolu- 
 tionary system and emancipate themselves for ever from 
 its yoke. The third object, though more distant, was 
 not less important. The influence of the Romish Church 
 was considered by the Directory as the chief, though 
 secret, support of the cause of royalism within their own 
 territory ; and to reduce the Vatican into insignificance, 
 or at least force it to submission and quiescence, ap- 
 peared indispensable to the internal tranquillity of France. 
 The Revolutionary Government, besides this general 
 cause of hatred and suspicion, had a distinct injury to 
 avenge. Their agent, Basseville, had three years before 
 been assassinated in a popular tumult at Rome; the 
 Papal troops had not interfered to protect him, nor the 
 Pope to punish his murderers ; and the haughty Republic 
 considered this as an insult which could only be washed 
 out with a sea of blood. 
 
 Napoleon's plan for gaining access to the fair regions 
 of Italy differed from that of all former conquerors : they 
 had uniformly penetrated the Alps at some point or other 
 of that mighty range of mountains : he judged that the 
 
J796-] BATTLE OF MONTE NOTTE. 35 
 
 same end might be accomplished more easily by advanc- 
 ing along the narrow stripe of comparatively level coun- 
 try which intervenes between those enormous barriers 
 and the Mediterranean sea, and forcing a passage at the 
 point where the last of the Alps melt, as it were, into the 
 first and lowest of the Appenine range. No sooner did 
 he begin to concentrate his troops toward this region, 
 than the Austrian general, Beaulieu, took measures for 
 protecting Genoa, and the entrance of Italy. He himself 
 took post with one column of his army at Voltri, a town 
 within ten miles of Genoa ; he placed D'Argenteau with 
 another Austrian column at Monte Xotte, a strong height 
 farther to the westward; and the Sardinians, under 
 Colli, occupied Ceva — which thus formed the extreme 
 right of the whole line of the allied army. The French 
 could not advance towards Genoa but by confronting 
 some one of the three armies thus strongly posted, and 
 sufficiently, as Beaulieu supposed, in communication with 
 each other. 
 
 It was now that Buonaparte made his first effort to baffle 
 the science of those who fancied there was nothing new 
 to be done in warfare. On the 10th of April, D'Argenteau 
 came down upon Monte Notte, and attacked some French 
 redoubts, in front of that mountain and the villages 
 which hear its name, at Montelegino. At the same time 
 General Cervoni and the French van were attacked by 
 Beaulieu near Voltri, and compelled to retreat. The 
 determined valour of Colonel Rampon, who commanded 
 at Montelegino, held D'Argenteau at bay dui'ing the 10th 
 and 11th; and Buonaparte, contenting himself with 
 watching Beaulieu, determined to strike his effectual 
 blow at the centre of the enemy's line. During the 
 night of the 11th various columns were marched upon 
 Montelegino, that of Cervoni and that of Laharpe from 
 the van of the French line, those of Augereau and Mas- 
 
36 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1796. 
 
 sena trom its rear. On the morning of the 12th, D'Ar- 
 genteau, preparing to renew his attack on the redonbts 
 of Montelegino, fonnd he had no longer Banipon only 
 and his brave band to deal with ; that French columns 
 were in his rear, on his flank, and drawn up also behind 
 the works at Montelegino ; in a word, that he was sur- 
 rounded. He was compelled to retreat among the 
 mountains : he left his colours and cannon behind him, 
 1000 killed, and 2000 prisoners. The centre of the 
 allied army had been utterly routed, before either the 
 Commander-in-chief at the left, or General Colli at the 
 right of the line, had auy notion that a battle was 
 going on. 
 
 Such was the battle of Monte Notte, the first of Napo- 
 leon's fields. Beaulieu, in order that he might re-estab- 
 lish his communication with Colli, (much endangered by 
 the defeat of D'Argenteau,) was obliged to retreat upon 
 Dego ; the Sardinian, with the same purpose in view, 
 fell back also, and took post at Millesirno ; while D'Ar- 
 genteau was striving to re-organize his dispirited troops 
 in the difficult country between. It was their object to 
 keep fast in these positions until succours could come up 
 from Lombardy ; but Napoleon had no mind to give 
 them such respite. 
 
 The very next day after this victory he commanded a 
 general assault on the Austrian line. Augereau, with a 
 fresh division, marched at the left upon Millesirno ; Mas- 
 sena led the centre towards Dego ; and Laharpe, with 
 the French right wing, manoeuvred to turn the left flank 
 of Beaulieu. 
 
 Augereau rushed upon the outposts of Millesirno, 
 seized and retained the gorge which defends that place, 
 and cut off Provera with 2000 Austrians, who occupied 
 an eminence called Cossaria, from the main body of Colli's 
 army. Next morning Buonaparte him self arrived at that 
 
1796.1 DEGO — MILLESIMO — MOXDOVI — CHERASCO. 37 
 
 scene of the operations. He forced Colli to accept battle, 
 utterly broke and scattered him, and Provera, thus aban- 
 doned, was obliged to yield at discretion. 
 
 Meanwhile Massena on the same day had assaulted the 
 heights of Biastro, and carrying them at the point of the 
 bayonet, cut off Beaulieu's communication with Colli; 
 then Laharpe came in front and in flank also upon the 
 village of Dego, and after a most desperate conflict, 
 drove the Austrian Commander-in-chief from his post. 
 From this moment Colli and Beaulieu were entirely 
 separated. After the affairs of Dego and Millesiino, the 
 former reti-eated in disorder upon Ceva ; the latter, hotly 
 pursued, upon Aqui ; Colli, of course, being eager to 
 cover Turin, while the Austrian had his anxious thoughts 
 already upon Milan. Colli was again defeated at Mon- 
 dovi in his disastrous retreat ; he there lost his cannon, 
 his baggage, and the best part of his troops. The Sar- 
 dinian army might be said to be annihilated. The con- 
 queror took possession of Cherasco, within ten miles of 
 Turin, and there dictated the terms on which the King 
 of Sardinia was to be permitted to retain any shadow of 
 sovereign power. 
 
 Thus, in less than a month, did Xapoleon lay the gates 
 of Italy open before him. He had defeated in three 
 battles forces much superior to his own ; inflicted on 
 them, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, a loss of 25,000 
 men ; taken eighty guns and twenty-one standards ; 
 reduced the Austrians to inaction ; utterly destroyed 
 the Sardinian king's army ; and lastly, wrested from his 
 hands Coni and Tortona, the two great fortresses called 
 " the keys of the Alps," — and indeed, except Turin itself, 
 every place of any consequence in his dominions. This 
 unfortunate prince did not long survive such humiliation. 
 He was father-in-law to both of the brothers of Louis 
 XVI., and, considering their cause and his own dignity 
 
'SB NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 
 
 [1796. 
 
 as equally at an end, died of a broken heart, within a few 
 days after lie had signed the treaty of Cherasco. 
 
 Buonaparte meanwhile had paused for a moment to 
 consolidate his columns on the heights, from which the 
 vast plain of Lombardy, rich and cultivated like a garden, 
 and watered with innumerable fertilizing streams, lay at 
 length within the full view of his victorious soldiery. 
 " Hannibal forced the Alps," said he gaiby, as he now 
 looked back on those stupendous barriers, " and we have 
 turned them." 
 
 " Hitherto" (he thus addressed his troops) "you have 
 been fighting for barren rocks, memorable for your 
 valour, but useless to your country ; but now your ex- 
 ploits equal those of the armies of Holland and the 
 Rhine. You were utterly destitute, and you have sup- 
 plied all your wants. You have gained battles without 
 cannon, passed rivers without bridges, performed forced 
 marches without shoes, bivouacked without stronsr 
 liquors, and often without bread. None but republican 
 phalanxes, soldiers of liberty, could have endured such 
 things. Thanks for your perseverance ! But, soldiers, 
 you have done nothing — -for there remains much to do. 
 Milan is not yet ours. The ashes of the conquerors of 
 Tarquin are still trampled by the assassins of Basseville." 
 
 The consummate genius of this brief campaign could 
 not be disputed ; and the modest language of the young 
 general's despatches to the Directory, lent additional 
 grace to his fame. At this time the name of Buonaparte 
 was spotless ; and the eyes of all Europe were fixed in 
 admiration on his career. 
 
1796.] PASSAGE OF THE PO. 39 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The French cross the Po at Placenza — The Battle of Fombio--The 
 Bridge of Lodi — Napoleon occupies Milan — resigns, and resumes 
 his command — Insurrection of J'avia — Military Executions — The 
 French pass the Mincio at Borghetto —Beaulieu retreats behind the 
 Adige — Mantua besieged — Peace with the King of the Two Sicilies 
 — The Pope buys a Respite. 
 
 Piedmont being now in the hands of Buonaparte, the 
 Austrian general concentrated his army behind the Po, 
 with the purpose of preventing the invader from passing 
 that great river, and making his way to the capital of 
 Lombardy. 
 
 Xapoleon employed every device to make Beaulieu 
 believe that he designed to attempt the passage of the 
 Po at Valenza ; and the Austrian, a man of routine, who 
 had himself crossed the river at that point, was easily 
 persuaded that these demonstrations were sincere. 
 Meanwhile his crafty antagonist executed a march of 
 incredible celerity upon Placenza, fifty miles lower down 
 the river ; and appeared there on the 7th of May, to the 
 utter consternation of a couple of Austrian squadrons, 
 who happened to be reconnoitring in that quarter. He 
 had to convey his men across that great stream in the 
 common ferry boats, and could never have succeeded 
 had there been anything like an army to oppose him. 
 Andreossi (afterwards so celebrated) was commander of 
 the advanced guard : Lannes (who became in the sequel 
 Marshal Duke of Montebello) was the first to throw 
 himself ashore at the head of some grenadiers. The 
 German hussars were driven rapidly from their position. 
 Buonaparto himself has said that no operation in war is 
 
40 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1796. 
 
 niore critical than the passage of a great river ; on this 
 occasion the skill of his arrangements enabled him to 
 pass one of the greatest in the world without the loss of 
 a single man. 
 
 Beaulieu, as soon as he ascertained how he had been 
 outwitted, advanced upon Placenza, in the hope of 
 making the invader accept battle with the Po in his rear, 
 and therefore under circumstances which must render 
 any check in the highest degree disastrous. Buonaparte, 
 in the meantime, had no intention to await the Austrian 
 on ground so dangerous, and was marching rapidly to- 
 wards Fombio, where he knew he should have room to 
 manoeuvre. The advanced divisions of the hostile armies 
 met at that village on the 8th of May. The Imperialists 
 occupied the steeples and houses, and hoped to hold out 
 until Beaulieu could bring up his main body. But the 
 French charged so impetuously with the bayonet, that 
 the Austrian, after seeing one-third of his men fall, was 
 obliged to retreat, in great confusion, leaving all his 
 cannon behind him, across the Adda ; a large river 
 which, descending from the Tyrolese mountains, joins the 
 Po at Pizzighitone — and thus forms the immediate 
 defence of the better part of the Milanese against any 
 enemy advancing from Piedmont. Behind this river 
 Beaulieu now concentrated his army, establishing strong 
 guards at every ford and bridge, and especially at Lodi, 
 where, as he guessed (for once rightly), the French gene- 
 ral designed to force his passage. 
 
 The wooden bridge of Lodi formed the scene of one of 
 the most celebrated actions of the war ; and will ever be 
 peculiarly mixed up with the name of Buonaparte himself. 
 It was a great neglect in Beaulieu to leave it standing 
 when he removed his head-quarters to the east bank of 
 the Adda : his outposts were driven rapidly through the 
 old straggling town of Lodi on the 10th ; and the French, 
 
1796.] THE BRIDGE OP LODI. 41 
 
 sheltering themselves behind the walls and houses, lay- 
 ready to attempt the passage of the bridge. Beaulieu 
 had placed a battery of thirty cannon so as to sweep it 
 completely ; and the enterprise of storming it in the face 
 of this artillery, and the whole army drawn up behind, is 
 one of the most daring on record. 
 
 Buonaparte's first care was to place as many guns as 
 he could get in order in direct opposition to this Austrian 
 battery. A furious cannonade on his side of the river 
 also now commenced. The General himself appeared in 
 the midst of the fire, pointing with his own hand two 
 guns in such a manner as to cut off the Austrians from 
 the only path by which they could have advanced to 
 undermine the bridge ; and it was on this occasion that 
 the soldiery, delighted with his dauntless exposure of his 
 person, conferred on him his honorary nickname of The 
 Little Corporal. In the meantime he had sent General 
 Beaumont and the cavalry to attempt the passage of the 
 river by a distant ford (which they had much difficulty 
 in effecting), and awaited with anxiety the moment when 
 they should appear on the enemy's flank. When that 
 took place, Beaulieu's line, of course, showed some con- 
 fusion, and Napoleon instantly gave the word. A column 
 of grenadiers, whom he had kept ready drawn up close 
 to the bridge, but under shelter of the houses, were in a 
 moment wheeled to the left, and their leading files placed 
 upon the bridge. They rushed on, shouting Vive la 
 Mepuhlique ! but the storm of grape-shot for a moment 
 checked them. Buonaparte, Lannes, Berthier, and 
 Laliemagne, hurried to the front, and rallied and cheered 
 the men. The column dashed across the bridge in despite 
 of the tempest of fire that thinned them. Tho brave 
 Lannes was the first who reached the other side, Napoleon 
 himself the second. The Austrian artillerymen were 
 bayoneted at their guns, before the other troops, whom 
 
42 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1796. 
 
 Beaulieu had removed too far back, in. his anxiety to 
 avoid the French batteiy, could come to their assistance. 
 Beaumont pressing gallantly with his horse upon the 
 flank, and Napoleon's infantry forming rapidly as they 
 passed the bridge, and charging on the instant, the 
 Austrian line became involved in inextricable confusion, 
 broke up, and fled. The slaughter on their side was 
 great ; on the Trench, there fell only 200 men. "With 
 such rapidity, and consequently with so little loss, did 
 Buonaparte execute this dazzling adventure — " the 
 terrible passage," as he himself called it, " of the bridge 
 of Lodi." 
 
 It was, indeed, terrible to the enemy. It deprived 
 them of another excellent line of defence, and blew up 
 the enthusiasm of the French soldiery to a pitch of irre- 
 sistible daring. Beaulieu, nevertheless, contrived to 
 withdraw his troops in much better style than Buona- 
 parte had anticipated. He gathered the scattered 
 fragments of his force together, and soon threw the line 
 of the Mincio, another tributary of the Po, between him- 
 self and his enemy. The great object however, had been 
 attained : the Austrian general escaped, and might yet 
 defend Mantua, but no obstacle remained between the 
 victorious invader and the rich and noble capital of 
 Lombardy. The garrison of Pizzighitone, seeing them- 
 selves effectually cut off from the Austrian ai'my, capitu- 
 lated. The French cavalry pursued Beaulieu as far as 
 Cremona, which town they seized ; and Napoleon himself 
 prepared to march at once upon Milan. 
 
 It was after one of these affairs that an old Hungarian 
 officer was brought prisoner to Buonaparte, who entered 
 into conversation with him, and among other matters 
 questioned him "what he thought of the state of the war?" 
 "Nothing," replied the old gentleman, who did not know 
 he was addressing the general-in-chief, — " nothing can 
 
1796.] MILAN. 43 
 
 be worse. Here is a youug man who knows absolutely 
 nothing of the rules of war ; to-day he is in our rear, to- 
 morrow on our flank, next day again in our front. Such 
 violations of the principles of the art of war are intoler- 
 able ! " 
 
 The Archduke, who governed in Lombardy for the 
 Emperor, had made many a long prayer and procession ; 
 but the saints appeared to take no compassion on him, 
 and he now withdrew from the capital. A revolutionary 
 party had always existed there, as indeed in every part 
 of the Austrian dominions beyond the Alps ; and the 
 tricolor cockade, the emblem of France, was now mounted 
 by multitudes of the inhabitants. The municipality has- 
 tened to invite the conqueror to appear among them as 
 their friend and protector ; and on the 14th of May, four 
 days after Lodi, Napoleon accordingly entered, in all the 
 splendour of a military triumph, the venerable and opulent 
 city of the old Lombard kings. 
 
 He was not, however, to be flattered into the conduct, 
 as to serious matters, of a friendly general. He levied 
 immediately a heavy contribution (£800,000 sterling) at 
 Milan, — taking possession, besides, of twenty of the finest 
 pictures in the Ambrosian gallery. 
 
 The conqueror now paused to look about and behind 
 him; and proceeded still farther to replenish bis chest 
 by exactions, for which no justification can be adduced 
 from the ordinary rules of international law. With 
 Sardinia he had already reckoned ; of the Austrian capi- 
 tal in Italy he had possession ; there was only one more 
 of the Italian governments (Naples) with which the French 
 Republic was actually at war ; although, indeed, he had 
 never concealed his intention of revenging the fate of 
 Basseville on the court of Rome. The other powers of 
 Italy were, at worst, neutrals ; with Tuscany and Venice, 
 France had friendly relations. But Napoleon knew, or 
 
44 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. lll'.Ki. 
 
 believed, that ftll the Italian governments, without ex- 
 ception, considered the French invasion of Italy as a 
 common calamity ; the personal wishes of most of the 
 minor princes, (nearly connected as these were, by blood 
 or alliance, with the imperial house of Austria,) he, not 
 unreasonably, concluded were strongly against his own 
 success in this great enterprize. Such were his pretences 
 — more or less feasible ; the temptation was, in fact, 
 great ; and he resolved to consider and ti'eat whatever 
 had not been with him as if it had been against him. 
 The weak but wealthy princes of Parma and Modena, 
 and others of the same order, were forthwith compelled 
 to purchase his clemency not less dearly than if they had 
 been in arms. Besides money, of which he made them, 
 disburse large sums, he demanded from each a tribute of 
 pictures and statues, to be selected at the discretion of 
 Citizen Mono;e and other French connoisseurs who now 
 attended his march for such purposes. 
 
 In modern warfare the works of art had hitherto been 
 considered as a species of property entitled in all cases 
 to bo held sacred ; and Buonaparte's violent and rapa- 
 cious infraction of this rule now excited a mighty clamour 
 throughout Europe. Whether the new system originated 
 with himself, or in the commands of the directory, is 
 doubtful. But from this time the formation of a great 
 national gallery of pictures and statues at Paris was con- 
 sidered as an object of the first importance ; and every 
 victorious general was expected to bring trophies of this 
 kind in his train. Whether the fine arts themselves are 
 likely to be improved in consequence of the accumulation 
 in any one place of such vast treasures as the Louvre ere 
 long exhibited, there has been, and will no doubt continue 
 to bo, much controversy. It is certain that the arts of 
 France derived no solid advantage from Napoleon's 
 museum. The collection was a mighty heap of incense 
 
1796.] KDjAH — PICTURES AN'D STATUES. 45 
 
 for the benefit of the national vanity ; and the hand which 
 brought it together was preparing the means of inflicting 
 on that vanity one of the most intolerable of wounds, in 
 its ultimate dispersion. 
 
 The Duke of Modena would fain have redeemed the 
 famous St. Jerome, of Correggio, at the price of £80,000; 
 and Buonaparte's lieutenants urged him to accept the 
 money. " No," said he, " the duke's two millions of 
 francs would soon be spent ; but his Correggio will 
 remain for ages to adorn Paris, and inspire the arts of 
 France." The prophecy was not inspired. Of one thing 
 there can be no doubt ; namely, that the abstraction of 
 these precious monuments of art from the Italian collec- 
 tions was deeply and permanently resented by the Italian 
 people. This sacrilege, as those enthusiastic and intelli- 
 gent lovers of all the elegant arts considered it, turned 
 back many a half-made convert from the principles of 
 the French Revolution. 
 
 Buonaparte remained but five da}-s in Milan ; the cita- 
 del of that place still held out against him ; but he left 
 a detachment to blockade it, and proceeded himself in 
 pursuit of Beaulieu. Tiie Austrian had now planted the 
 remains of his army behind the Mincio, having his left 
 on the great and strong city of Mantua, which has been 
 termed " the citadel uf Italy," and his right at Peschiera, 
 a Venetian fortress, of which he took possession in spite 
 of the remonstrances of the Dage. Peschiera stands 
 where the Mincio flows out of " its parent lake," the 
 Lago di Guarda. That great body of waters, stretching 
 raauy miles backwards towards the Tyrolese Alps, at 
 once extended the line of defence, and kept the commu- 
 nication open with Vienna, The Austrian veteran occu- 
 pied one of the strongest positions that it is possible to 
 imagine. The invader hastened once more to dislodge 
 him. 
 
4t> NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [.1796. 
 
 The French directory, meanwhile, had begnu to enter- 
 tain certain not unnatural suspicions as to the ultimate 
 designs of their young general, whose success and fame 
 had already reached so astonishing a height. They de- 
 termined to check, if they could, the career of an ambi- 
 tion which they apprehended might outgrow their con- 
 trol. Buonaparte was ordered to take half his army, and 
 lead it against the Pope and the King of Naples, and 
 leave the other half to terminate the contest with Beau- 
 lieu, under the orders of Kellermann. But he acted on 
 this occasion with the decision which these directors in 
 vain desirod to emulate. He answered by resigning his 
 command. " One half of the army of Italy," said he, 
 " cannot suffice to finish the matter with the Austrian. 
 It is only by keeping my force entire that I have been 
 able to gain so many battles and to be now in Milan. 
 You had better have one bad general than two good 
 ones." The directory durst not persist in displacing the 
 chief whose name was considered as the pledge of victory. 
 Napoleon resumed the undivided command, to which now, 
 for the last time, his right had been questioned. 
 
 Another unlooked-for occurrence delayed, for a few 
 days longer, the march upon Mantua. The heavy exac- 
 tions of the French, and even more perhaps the wanton 
 contempt with which they treated the churches and the 
 clergy, had produced or fostered the indignation of a 
 large part of the population throughout Lombardy. 
 Reports of new Austrian levies being poured down the 
 passes of the Tyrol were spread and believed. Popular 
 insurrections against the conqueror took place in various 
 districts : at least 30,000 were in arms. At Pavia the 
 insurgents were entirely triumphant ; they had seized 
 the town, and compelled the French garrison to surrender. 
 
 This flame, had it been suffered to spread, threatened 
 immeasurable evil to the French cause. Lannes instantly 
 
1796.] TOrULAR INSURRECTIONS. 47 
 
 marched to Benasco, stormed the place, plundered and 
 burnt it, and put the inhabitants to the sword without 
 mercy. The general in person appeared before Pavia ; 
 blew the gates open; easily scattered the townspeople; 
 and caused the leaders to be executed, as if they had com- 
 mitted a crime in endeavouring to rescue their country 
 from the arm of a foreign invader. Everywhere the 
 same ferocious system was acted on. The insurgent 
 commanders were tried by courts-martial, and shot with- 
 out ceremony. At Lugo, where a French squadron of 
 horse had been gallantly and disastrously defeated, the 
 whole of the male inhabitants were massacred. These 
 bloody examples quelled the insurrections ; but they fixed 
 t he first dark and indelible stain on the name of Napo- 
 leon Buonaparte. 
 
 The spirit of the Austrian and Catholic parties in 
 Lombardy thus crashed, the French advanced on the 
 Mincio. The general made such disposition of his troops, 
 tbat Beaulieu doubted not he meant to pass that river, 
 if he could, at Peschiera. Meantime he had been pre- 
 paring to repeat the scene of Placenza ; — and actually, on 
 the 30th of May, forced the passage of the Mincio, not 
 at Peschiera, but farther down at Borghetto. The 
 Austrian garrison at Borghetto in vain destroyed one 
 arch of the bridge. Buonaparte supplied the breach 
 with planks ; and his men, flushed with so many victo- 
 ries, charged with a fury not to be resisted. Beaulieu 
 was obliged to abandon the Mincio, as he had before the 
 Adda and the Po, and to take up the new line of the 
 Adige. 
 
 Meantime an occurrence, which may be called acci- 
 dental, had nearly done more than repay the Austrians 
 for all their reverses. The left of their line, stationed 
 still further down the Mincio, — at Puzzuolo, no sooner 
 learned from the cannonade that the French were at 
 
48 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1796. 
 
 Borghetto, than they hastened to ascend the stream, with 
 the view of assisting the defence of their friends. They 
 came too late for this ; the commander at Borghetto had 
 retreated hefore they arrived. They, however, came un- 
 expectedly ; and, such was the chance, reached Valleggio 
 after the French army had pursued the Austrians through 
 it and onwards — and, at the moment when Buonaparte 
 and a few friends, considering the work of the day to be 
 over, and this village as altogether in the rear of both 
 armies, were about to sit down to dinner in security. 
 SebetendorfF, who commanded the Puzzuolo division, 
 came rapidly, little guessing what a prize was near him, 
 into the village. The French general's attendants had 
 barely time to shut the gates of the inn, and alarm their 
 chief by the '-y " To arms." Buonaparte threw himself 
 on horseback, and galloping out by a back -passage, 
 effected the narrowest of escapes from the most urgent 
 of dangers. SebetendorfF was soon assaulted by a 
 French column, and retreated, after Beaulieu's example, 
 on the line of the Adige. Buonaparte, profiting by the 
 perilous adventure of Valleggio, instituted a small corps 
 of picked men, called Guides, to watch continually over 
 his personal safety. Such was the germ from which 
 sprung the famous imperial guard of Napoleon. 
 
 The Austrian had, in effect, abandoned for the time 
 the open country of Italy. He now lay on the frontier, 
 between the vast tract of rich provinces which Napoleon 
 had conquered, and the Tyrol. The citadel of Milan, in- 
 deed, still held out ; but the force there was not great, 
 and, cooped up on every side, could not be expected to 
 resist much longer. Mantua, which possessed prodigious 
 natural advantages, and into which the retreating general 
 had flung a garrison of full 15,000 men, was, in truth, 
 the last and only Italian possession of the imperial crown, 
 which, as it seemed, there might still be a possibility of 
 
1706.] MANTUA. 49 
 
 saving. Beaulieu anxiously waited the approach of new 
 troops from Germany, to attempt the relief of this great 
 city ; and his antagonist, eager to anticipate the efforts 
 of the imperial government, sat down immediately he- 
 fore it. 
 
 Mantua lies on an island, being cut off on all sides 
 from the main land by the branches of the Mincio, and 
 approachable only by five narrow causeways, of which 
 three were defended by strong and regular fortresses or 
 intrenched camps, the other two by gates, drawbridges, 
 and batteries. Situated amidst stagnant waters and 
 morasses, its air is pestilential, especially to strangers. 
 The garrison were prepared to maintain the position with 
 their usual bravery ; and it remained to be seen whether 
 the French general possessed any new system of attack, 
 capable of abridging the usual operations of the seige, as 
 effectually as he had already done by those of the march 
 and the battle. His commencement was alarming ; of 
 the five causeways, by sudden and overwhelming as- 
 saults, he obtained four ; and the garrison were cut off 
 from the main land, except only at the fifth causeway, 
 the strongest of them all, named, from a palace near it, 
 La Favorifa. It seemed necessary, however, in order 
 that this blockade might be complete, that the Venetian 
 territory, lying immediately beyond Mantua, should be 
 occupied by the French. The power of this ancient 
 government was no longer such as to inspire much 
 respect, and Buonaparte resolved that the claim of 
 neutrality should form no obstacle to his measures. 
 The French directory had already most ungenerously 
 trampled on the dignity of Venice, by demanding that 
 she should no longer afford a retreat to the illustrious 
 exile, the Count of Provence, eldest surviving brother 
 of Louis XVI.* That unfortunate prince had, accord- 
 
 ♦ The same who became afterwards Louis XVIIT. of France. 
 
50 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1706. 
 
 ingly, though most reluctantly, been desired to quit the 
 Venetian states, and had already passed to the Rhine, 
 where his gallant cousin, the Prince of Conde, had long 
 been at the head of a small and devoted army composed 
 of the expatriated gentry of France. Buonaparte, how- 
 ever, chose to treat the reluctance with which Venice 
 had been driven to this violation of her hospitality, as a 
 new injury to his government ; he argued that a power 
 who had harboured in friendship, and unwillingly ex- 
 pelled, the Pretender to the French monarchy, had lost 
 all title to forbearance on the part of the Revolutionary 
 forces. This was a gross and ungenerous insult, and it 
 was a gratuitous one ; for he had a far better argument 
 behind. The imperial general had, as we have seen, 
 neglected the reclamations of the Doge, when it suited 
 his purpose to occupy Peschiera. " You are too weak," 
 said Buonaparte, when the Venetian envoy reached his 
 head- quarters, " to enforce neutrality on hostile nations 
 such as France and Austria. Beaulicu did not respect 
 your territory when his interest bade him violate it ; 
 nor shall I hesitate to occupy whatever falls within the 
 line of the Adige." In effect, garrisons were placed 
 forthwith in Verona, and all the strong places of that 
 domain. The tricolor flag now waved at the mouth of 
 the Tyrolcse passes ; and Napoleon, leaving Serrurier to 
 blockade Mantua, returned to Milan, where he had 
 important business to arrange. 
 
 The King of Naples, utterly confounded by the suc- 
 cesses of the French, was now anxious to procure peace, 
 almost on whatever terms, with the apparently irresistible 
 Republic. Nor did it, for the moment, suit Buonaparte's 
 views to contemn his advances. A peace with this prince 
 would withdraw some valuable divisions from the army 
 of Beaulieu ; and the distance of the Neapolitan territory 
 was such, that the French had no means of carrying the 
 
1796.] MILAN. 61 
 
 war thither with advantage, so long as Austria retained 
 the power of sending new forces into Italy by the way of 
 the Tyrol. He concluded an armistice accordingly, which 
 was soon followed by a formal peace, with the King of 
 the Two Sicilies ; and the Neapolitan troops, who had 
 recently behaved with eminent gallantry, abandoning the 
 Austrian general, began their march to the south of Italy. 
 
 This transaction placed another of jSTapol eon's destined 
 victims entirely within his grasp. • With no friend behind 
 him, the Pope saw himself at the mercy of the invader; 
 and in terror prepared to submit. Buonaparte occupied 
 immediately his legations of Bologna and Ferrara, making 
 prisoners in the latter of these towns four hundred of the 
 papal troops, and a cardinal, under whose orders they 
 were. The churchman militant was dismissed on parole ; 
 but, being recalled to head-quarters, answered that his 
 master, the Pope, had given him a dispensation to break 
 his promise. This exercise of the old dispensing power 
 excited the merriment of the conquerors. The Vatican, 
 meanwhile, perceived that no time was to be lost. The 
 Spanish resident at the Roman court was despatched to 
 Milan ; and the terms on which the holy father was to 
 obtain a brief respite were at length arranged. Buona- 
 parte demanded and obtained a million sterling, a 
 hundred of the finest pictures and statues in the papal 
 gallery, a large supply of military stores, and the cession 
 of Ancona, Ferrara, and Bologna, with their respective 
 domains. 
 
 He next turned his attention to the grand Duke of 
 Tuscany, — a prince who had not only not taken any part 
 iu the war against the Republic, but had been the very 
 first of tl.o European rulers to recognise its establish- 
 ment, and had kept on terms of friendship with all its 
 successive authoi-ities. Buonaparte, however, in pirr- 
 Buance of his system, resolved that the brother of tho 
 
52 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1796. 
 
 emperor should pay for his presumed inclinations. For 
 the present, the Florentine museum and the grand duke's 
 treasury were spared ; but Leghorn, the seaport of Tus- 
 cany, and great feeder of its wealth, was seized without 
 ceremony ; the English goods in that town were confis- 
 cated, to the ruin of the merchants ; and a great number 
 of English vessels in the harbour made a narrow escape. 
 The grand duke, in place of resenting these injuries, was 
 obliged to receive Buonaparte with all the appearances 
 of cordiality at Florence ; and the spoiler repaid his 
 courtesy by telling him, rubbing his hands with glee, 
 during the princely entertainment provided for him, " I 
 have just received letters from Milan ; the citadel has 
 fallen ; your brother has no longer a foot of land in Lom- 
 bardy." " It is a sad case," said Napoleon himself long 
 afterwards, — speaking of these scenes cf exaction and in- 
 solence, — " it is a sad case when the dwarf comes into 
 the embrace of the giant ; — he is like enough to be suffo- 
 cated — but 'tis the giant's nature to squeeze hard." 
 
 In the meantime the general did not neglect the 
 great and darling plan of the French government, of 
 thoroughly revolutionizing the North of Italy, and 
 establishing there a group of Republics modelled after 
 their own likeness, and prepared to act as subservient 
 allies in their mighty contest with the European mon- 
 archies. The peculiar circumstances of Northern Italy, 
 as a land of ancient fame and high spirit, long split into 
 fragments, and ruled, for the most part, by governors of 
 German origin, presented many facilities for the realiza- 
 tion of this design ; and Buonaparte was urged constantly 
 by his government at Paris, and by a powerful party in 
 Lombardy, to hasten its execution. He, however, had 
 by this time learned to think of many idols of the direc- 
 < ory with about as little reverence as they bestowed on 
 the shrines of Catholicism ; in his opinion more was to 
 
1796. J EXACTIONS IN ITALY. 53 
 
 be gained by temporizing with both the governments 
 and the people of Italy, than by any hasty measures of 
 the kind recommended. He saw well the deep disgust 
 which his exactions had excited. "You cannot," said 
 he, " at one and the same moment rob people, and per- 
 snade them you are their friends." He fancied, more- 
 over, that the Pope and other nerveless rulers of the land 
 might be converted into at least as convenient ministers 
 of French exaction as any new establishments he could 
 raise in their room. Finally, he perceived that whenever 
 the directory were to arrange seriously the terms of a 
 settlement with the great monarchy of Austria, their best 
 method would be to restore Lombardy, and thereby pur- 
 chase the continued possession of the more conveniently 
 situated territories of Belgium and the Luxembourgh. 
 The general, therefore, temporized ; content, in the 
 meancime, with draining the exchecpiers of the govern- 
 ments, and cajoling from day to day the population. The 
 directory were with difficulty persuaded to let him follow 
 his own course ; but he now despised their remon- 
 strances, aud they had been taught effectually to dread 
 his strength. 
 
 Napoleon, it is clear enough, had no intention to grant 
 these Italian governments anything but a respite ; nor is 
 it to be doubted that their disposition to take part with 
 Austria remained as it had been before they entered into 
 these treaties with France. That the purpose of deceit 
 was mutual, affords, however, no plea of justification — 
 least of all to the stronger party. " It will be well," 
 says Sir Walter Scott, " with the world, when falsehood 
 and finesse are as thoroughly exploded in international 
 communication, as they arc among individuals in all 
 civilized countries." 
 
54 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1796. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Wurmser supersedes Beaidicu — Jourdan and Morcau march into Ger- 
 many, and are forced to retreat again — The Austrians advance from 
 the Tryol— Battle of Lonato -Escape of Napoleon — Battle near 
 Castiglione — Wurmser retreats on Trent, and is recruited — Battle of 
 Roveredo — Battle of Primolano— Battle of Bassano —Battle of St. 
 George — Wurmser shut up in Mantua. 
 
 The general was now recalled to the war. The cabinet 
 of Vienna, apt to be slow, but sure to be persevering, had 
 at last resolved upon sending efficient aid to the Italian 
 frontier. Beaulieu had been too often unfortunate to be 
 trusted longer : Wurmser, who enjoyed a reputation of 
 the highest class, was sent to replace him : 30,000 men 
 were drafted from the armies on the Rhine to accompany 
 the new general ; and he carried orders to strengthen 
 himself further, on his march, by whatever recruits he 
 could raise among the warlike and loyal population of 
 the Tyrol. 
 
 The consequences of thus weakening the Austrian force 
 on the Rhine were, for the moment, on that scene of the 
 contest, inauspicious. The French, in two separate bodies, 
 'breed the passage of the Rhine — under Jourdan and 
 Moreau ; before whom the imperial generals, Wartens- 
 leben and the Archduke Charles, were compelled to re- 
 tire. But the skill of the Archduke ere long enabled 
 him to effect a junction with the columns of Wartensle- 
 ben ; and thus to fall upon Jourdan with a great superi- 
 ority of numbers, and give him a signal defeat. The loss 
 of the French in the field was great, and the bitter 
 hostility of the German peasantry made their retreat a 
 
1796.] MOKEAU'S RETREAI. 56 
 
 bloody one. Moreau, on the other hand, learning how 
 Jourdan was discomfited, found himself compelled to 
 give up the plan of pursuing his march further into Ger- 
 many, and executed that famous retreat through the 
 Black Forest which has made his name as splendid as 
 any victory in the field could have done. But this re- 
 verse, however alleviated by the honours of Moreau's 
 achievement, was attended with appearances of the most 
 perilous kind. The genius of Carnot had devised a great 
 scheme of operations, of which one half was thus at once 
 cut short. He had meant Moreau and Jourdan, coalesc- 
 ing beyond the Rhine, to march upon the Tyrol ; while 
 Buonaparte should advance from the scene of his Italian 
 conquests, join his brother generals on that frontier, and 
 then march in union with them to dictate a peace before 
 the gates of Vienna. All hope of this junction of forces 
 was now at an end for this campaign. The French saw 
 themselves compelled to resume the defensive on the 
 western frontier of Germany ; and the army of Italy had 
 to await the overwhelming war which seemed ready to 
 pour down upon Lombardy from the passes of the Tyrol. 
 
 "Wurmser, when he fixed his head-quarters at Trent, 
 mustered in all 80,000 ; while Buonaparte had but 
 30,000, to hold a wide country, in which abhorrence of 
 the French cause was now prevalent, to keep up the 
 blockade of Mantua, and to oppose this fearful odds of 
 numbers in the field. He was now, moreover, to act on 
 the defensive, while his adversary assumed the more in- 
 spiriting character of invader. He awaited the result 
 with calmness. 
 
 Wurmser might have learned from the successes of 
 Buonaparte the advantages of compact movement ; yet 
 he was unwise enough to divide his great force into three 
 separate columns, and to place one of these upon a line 
 of march which entirely separated it from the support of 
 
56 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1796. 
 
 the others. He himself, with his centre, came down on 
 the left bank of the Lago di Guarda, with Mantua before 
 him as his mark : his left wing, under Melas, was to 
 descend the Adige, and drive the French from Verona ; 
 while the right wing, under Quasdonowich, were ordered 
 to keep down the valley of the Chiese, in the direction 
 of Brescia, and so to cut off the retreat of Buonaparte 
 upon the Milanese; — in other words, to interpose the 
 waters of the Lago di Guarda between themselves and 
 the march of their friends — a blunder not likely to escape 
 the eagle eye of Napoleon. 
 
 He immediately determined to march against Quas- 
 donowich, and fight him where he could not be supported 
 by the other two columns. This could not be done 
 without abandoning for the time the blockade of Mantua ; 
 but, as it was not for Buonaparte to hesitate about 
 purchasing a great ultimate advantage, by a present 
 sacrifice, however disagreeable, the guns were buried in 
 the trenches during the night of the 31st July, and the 
 French quitted the place with a precipitation which the 
 advancing Austrians considered as the result of terror. 
 
 Napoleon meanwhile rushed against Quasdonowich, 
 who had already come near the bottom of the Lake of 
 Guarda. At Salo, close by the lake, and, further from 
 it, at Lonato, two divisions of the Austrian column were 
 attacked and overwhelmed. Augereau and Massena, 
 leaving merely rear-guards at Borghetto and Peschiera, 
 now marched also upon Brescia. The whole force of 
 Quasdonowich must inevitably have been ruined by these 
 combinations, had he stood his ground ; but by this time 
 the celerity of Napoleon had overawed him, and he was 
 already in full retreat upon his old quarters in the Tyrol. 
 Augereau and Massena, therefore, countermarched their 
 columns, and returned towards the Mincio. They found 
 that Wurmser had forced their rear- guards from their 
 
J 796.] BATTLE OF LONATO, 57 
 
 posts : that of Massena, under Pigeon, bad retired in good 
 order to Lonato ; that of Augerean, under Yallette, had 
 retreated in confusion, abandoning Castiglione to the 
 Austrians. 
 
 Flushed with these successes, old "Wurmser now re- 
 solved to throw his whole force upon the French, and 
 resume at the point of the bayonet his communication 
 with the scattered column of Quasdonowich. He was 
 so fortunate as to defeat the gallant Pigeon at Lonato, 
 and to occupy that town. But this new success was 
 fatal to him. In the exultation of victory he extended 
 his line too much towards the right ; and this over- 
 anxiety to open the communication with Quasdonowich 
 had the effect of so weakening his centre, that Massena, 
 boldly and skilfully seizing the opportunity, poured two 
 strong columns on Lonato, and regained the position; 
 whereon the Austrian, perceiving that his army was cut 
 in two, was thrown into utter confusion. Some of his 
 troops, marching to the right, were met by those of the 
 French, who had already defeated Quasdonowich in that 
 quarter, and obliged to surrender : the most retreated in 
 great disorder. At Castiglione alone a brave stand was 
 made. But Augereau, burning to wipe out the disgrace 
 of Vallette,* forced the position, though at a severe 
 loss. Such was the battle of Lonato. Thenceforth no- 
 thing could surpass the discomfiture and disarray of the 
 Austrians. They fled in all directions upon the Mincio, 
 where Wurmser himself, meanwhile, had been employed 
 in revictualling Mantua. 
 
 A mere accident had once inoi'o almost saved the 
 Imperialist. One of the many defeated divisions of the 
 army, wandering about in anxiety to find some means of 
 reaching the Mincio, came suddenly on Lonato, the scene 
 
 *■ Vallette -was cashiered. Augereau was afterwards created 
 Duke of Castiglione, in memory of this exploit. 
 
58 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1796, 
 
 of the late battle, at a moment when Napoleon was there 
 with only his staff and guards about him. He knew not 
 that any considerable body of the enemy remained to- 
 gether in the neighbourhood ; and, but for his presence 
 of mind, must have been their prisoner. The Austrian 
 had not the skill to profit by what fortune threw in his 
 way ; the other was able to turn even a blunder into an 
 advantage. The officer sent to demand the surrender of 
 the town was brought blindfolded, as is the custom, to 
 his head- quarters ; Buonaparte, by a secret sign, caused 
 his whole staff to draw up around him, and when the 
 bandage was removed from the messenger's eyes, saluted 
 him thus : " What means this insolence ? Do you beard 
 the French general in the middle of his army ?" The 
 German recognized the person of Napoleon, and retreated 
 stammering and blushing. He assured his commander 
 that Lonato was occupied by the French in numbers that 
 made resistance impossible. Four thousand men laid 
 down their arms ; and then discovered that, if they had 
 used them, nothing could have prevented Napoleon from 
 being their prize. 
 
 Wurmser collected together the whole of his remaining 
 force, and advanced to meet the conqueror. He, mean- 
 while, had himself determined on the assault, and was 
 hastening to the encounter. They met between Lonato 
 and Castiglione. Wurmser was totally defeated, and 
 narrowly escaped being a prisoner ; nor did he without 
 great difficulty regain Trent and Roveredo, those frontier 
 positions from which his noble army had so recently de- 
 scended with all the confidence of conquerors. In this dis- 
 astrous campaign the Austrians lost 40,000 : Buonaparte 
 probably understated his own loss at 7,000. During the 
 seven days which the campaign occupied he never took 
 off his boots, nor slept except by starts. The exertions 
 which so rapidly achieved this signal triumph were such 
 
1796.] MANTUA RE-rNTESTED. 59 
 
 as to demand some repose ; yet Napoleon did not pause 
 until he saw Mantua once more completely invested. 
 The reinforcement and revictualling of that garrison 
 were all that "Wurmser could show, in requital of his lost 
 artillery, stores, and 40,000 men. 
 
 During this brief campaign the aversion with which 
 the ecclesiastics of Italy regarded the French manifested 
 itself in various quarters. At Pavia, Ferrara, and else- 
 where, insurrections had broken out, and the spirit was 
 spreading rapidly at the moment when the report of 
 Napoleon's new victory came to re-awaken terror and 
 paralyse revolt. The conqueror judged it best to accept 
 for the present the re-submission, however forced, of a 
 party too powerful to be put down by examples. The 
 Cardinal Mattel, Archbishop of Ferrara, being brought 
 into his presence, uttered the single word peccavi ; the 
 victor was contented with ordering him a penance of 
 seven days' fasting and prayer in a monastery : but he 
 had co intention to forget these occurrences whenever 
 another day cf reckoning with the Pope should come. 
 
 While he was occupied with restoring quiet in the 
 country, Austria, ever constant in adversity, hastened to 
 place 20,000 fresh troops under the orders of "Wurmser : 
 and the brave vetei'an, whose heart nothing could chill, 
 prepared himself to make one effort more to relieve Man- 
 tua, and drive the French out of Lombardy. His army 
 was now, as before, greatly the superior in numbers; and 
 though the bearing of his troops was more modest, their 
 gallantry remained unimpaired. Once more tbe old 
 general divided his army ; and once more he was des- 
 tined to see it shattered in detail. 
 
 He marched from Trent towards Mantua, through the 
 defiles of the Brenta, at the head of 30,000; leaving 
 -0,000 under Davidowich at Roveredo, to cover the 
 Tyrol. Buonaparte instantly detected the error of his 
 
60 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1796. 
 
 opponent. He suffered him to advance unmolested as 
 far as Bassano, and the moment he was there, and con- 
 sequent^' completely separated from Davidowich and his 
 rear, drew together a strong force, and darted on Ro- 
 veredo, by marches such as seemed credible only after 
 they had been accomplished. 
 
 The battle of Roveredo (Sept. 4) is one of Napoleon's 
 most illustrious days. The enemy had a strongly en- 
 trenched camp in front of the town ; and behind it, in 
 case of misfortune, Calliano, with its castle seated on a 
 precipice over the Adige, where that river flows between 
 emormous rocks and mountains, appeared to offer an 
 impregnable retreat. Nothing could withstand the 
 ardour of the French. The Austrians, though they de- 
 fended the intrenched camp with their usual obstinacy, 
 were forced to give way by the impetu" c ity of Dubois 
 and his hussars. Dubois fell, mortally wounded, in the 
 moment of his glory ; he waved his sabre, cheering his 
 men onwards with his last breath. " I die," said he, 
 " for the Republic ; — only let me hear, ere life leaves 
 me, that the victory is ours." The French horse, thus 
 animated, pursued the Germans, who were driven, un- 
 able to rally, through and beyond the town. Even the 
 gigantic defences of Calliano proved of no avail. Height 
 after height was carried at the point of the bayonet ; 
 7000 prisoners and fifteen cannon remained with the 
 conquerors. The Austrians fled to Levisa, which guards 
 one of the chief defiles of the Tyrolese Alps, and were 
 there beaten again. Yaubois occupied this important 
 position with the gallant division who had forced it. 
 Massena fixed himself in Wurmser's late head-qnarters 
 at Trent; and Napoleon, having thus totally cut off the 
 field-marshal's communication with Germany, proceeded 
 to issue proclamations calling on the inhabitants of the 
 Tyrol to receive the French as friends, and seize the 
 
1796.] BATTLE OP BASSANO. 61 
 
 opportunity of freeing themselves for ever from the 
 dominion of Austria. He put forth an edict declaring 
 that the sovereignty of the district was henceforth in 
 the French Republic, and inviting the people themselves 
 to arrange, according to their pleasure, its interior 
 government. 
 
 The French general made a grievous mistake when he 
 supposed that the Tyrolese were divided in their attach- 
 ment to the Imperial government, because he had found 
 the Italian subjects of that crown to be so. The Tyrol, 
 one of the most ancient of the Austrian possessions, had 
 also been one of the best governed ; the people enjoyed 
 all the liberty they wished under a paternal administra- 
 tion. They received with scornful coldnoss the flattering 
 exhortations of one in whom they saw only a cunnino- 
 and rapacious enemy ; and Buonaparte was soon satisfied 
 that it would cost more time than was then at his dis- 
 posal to republicanize those gallant mountaineers. They, 
 in truth, began to arm themselves, and waited but the 
 signal to rise everywhere upon the invaders. 
 
 Wurmser heard with dismay the utter ruin of Davido- 
 wich ; and doubted not that Napoleon would now march 
 onwards into Germany, and, joining Jourdan and Moreau, 
 whose advance he had heard of, and misguessed to have 
 been successful, endeavour to realize the great scheme of 
 Carnot— that of attacking Vienna itself. The old gene- 
 ral saw no chance of converting what remained to him of 
 his army to good purpose, but by abiding in Lombardy, 
 where he thought he might easily excite the people in 
 his emperor's favour, overwhelm the slender garrisons 
 left by Buonaparte, and so cut off, at all events, the 
 French retreat through Italy, in case they should meet 
 with any disaster in the Tyrol or in Germany. Napoleon 
 had intelligence which Wurmser wanted. Wurmser him- 
 self was his mark ; and he returned from Trent to 
 
62 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1796. 
 
 Priruolano, where the Imperialist's vanguard lay, by a 
 forced march of not less than sixty miles performed in 
 two days. The surprise with which this descent was re- 
 ceived may be imagined. The Austrian van was destroyed 
 in a twinkling. The French, pushing everything before 
 them, halted that night at Cismone — where Napoleon 
 was glad to have half a private soldier's ration of bread 
 for his supper. Next day he reached Bassano, where the 
 aged Marshal once more expected the fatal re-encounter. 
 The battle of Bassano (Sept. 8) was a fatal repetition of 
 those that had gone before it. Six thousand men laid 
 down their arms. Quasdonowich, with one division of 
 4000, escaped to Friuli ; while Wurmser himself, retreat- 
 ing to Vicenza, there collected with difficulty a remnant 
 of 16,000 beaten and discomfited soldiers. His situation 
 was most unhappy ; his communication with Austria 
 wholly cut off — his artillery and baggage all lost — the 
 flower of his army no more. Nothing seemed to remain 
 but to throw himself into Mantua, and there hold out to 
 the last extremity, in the hope, however remote, of some 
 succours from Vienna ; and such was the resolution of 
 this often outwitted but never dispirited veteran. 
 
 In order to execute his purpose, it was necessary to 
 force a passage somewhere on the Adige ; and the 
 Austrian, especially as he had lost all his pontoons, 
 would have had great difficulty in doing so, but for a 
 mistake on the part of the French commander at Leg- 
 nago, who, conceiving the attempt was to be made at 
 Verona, marched to reinforce the corps stationed there, 
 and thus left his proper position unguarded. Wurmser, 
 taking advantage of this, passed with his army at Leg- 
 nago, and after a series of bloody skirmishes, in which 
 fortune divided her favours pretty equally, was at length 
 enabled to throw himself into Mantua. Napoleon made 
 another narrow escape, in one of these skirmishes, at 
 
173C.J 
 
 WUEMSER IX MAXTUA. 0-3 
 
 Areola. He was surrounded for a moment, and had just 
 galloped off, when Wnrmser coming np and learning 
 that the prize was so near, gave particular directions to 
 bring him in alive ! 
 
 Buonaparte, after making himself master of some 
 scattered corps which had not been successful in keeping 
 up with Wurmser, re-appeared once more before Mantua. 
 The battle of St. George— so called from one of the 
 suburbs of the city — was fought on the loth of Septem- 
 ber, and after prodigious slaughter, the French remained 
 in possession of all the causeways ; so that the blockade 
 of the city and fortress was thenceforth complete. The 
 garrison, when Wurmser shut himself up, amounted to 
 26,000. Before October was far advanced the pestilen- 
 tial air of the place, and the scarcity and badness ot 
 provisions, had filled his hospitals, and left him hardly 
 half the number in fighting condition. The misery ot 
 the besieged town was extreme ; and if Austria meant In 
 rescue Wurmser, there was no time to be lost 
 
64 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1796. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Affairs o ' Corsicc— Alvinzi assumes the command of the Austnuiis on 
 the Italian frontier — The three Battles of Areola— Retreat o f ' 
 Alvinzi— Battle of Rivoli— Battle of La Favorita— Surrender of 
 Mantua — Victor marches on Aucona — Despair of the Pope — Treaty 
 of Tollentino. 
 
 The French party in Corsica had not contemplated with- 
 out pride and exultation the triumphs of their country- 
 man. His seizure of Leghorn, by cutting off the supplies 
 from England, greatly distressed the opposite party in 
 the island, and an expedition of Corsican exiles, which 
 he now despatched from Tuscany, was successful in 
 finally reconquering the country. To Napoleon this 
 acquisition was due : nor were the directory insensible 
 to its value. He, meanwhile, had heavier business on 
 his hands. 
 
 The Austrian council well knew that Mantua was in 
 excellent keeping ; and being now relieved on the 
 Rhenish frontier, by the failure of Jourdan and Moreau's 
 attempts, were able to form once more a powerful arma- 
 ment on that of Italy. The supreme command was 
 given to Marshal Alvinzi, a veteran of high reputation. 
 He, having made extensive levies in lllyria, appeared at 
 Triuli ; while Davidowich, with the remnant of Quas- 
 donowich's army, amply recruited among the bold 
 peasantry of the Tyrol, and with fresh drafts from the 
 Rhine, took ground above Trent. The marshal had in 
 all 60,000 men under his orders. Buonaj arte had re- 
 ceived only twelve new battalions, to replace all the 
 losses of those terrible campaigns, in which three im- 
 
1796.] PAIGN OF 1LVINZI. 65 
 
 perial armies had already been annihilated. The enemy's 
 
 superiority of numbers was once more sucb, that nothing 
 but tbe most masterly combinations on the part of the 
 French general, could have prevented tbem from sweep- 
 ing everything before tbem in the plains of Lorn hardy . 
 
 Buonaparte beard in tbe beginning of October tbat 
 Alvinzi's columns were in motion ; he bad placed Vau- 
 bois to guard Trent, and Massena at Bassano to check 
 the march of tbe field-marshal ; but neither of these 
 generals was able to bold his ground. The troops of 
 Vaubois were driven from that position of Calliano, tbe 
 strength of which has been already mentioned, under 
 circumstances which Xapoleon considered disgraceful to 
 tbe character of the French soldiery. Massena avoided 
 battle ; but such was the overwhelming superiority of 
 Alvinzi, that he was forced to abandon the position of 
 Bassano. Xapoleon himself hurried forward to sustain 
 Massena ; and a severe rencontre, in which either side 
 claimed the victory, took place at Vicenza. Tbe French, 
 however, retreated, and Buonaparte fixed his head- 
 quarters at Verona. Tbe whole country between the 
 Brenta and tbe Adige was in the enemy's hands ; while 
 the still strong and determined garrison of Mantua in 
 Xapoleon's rear, rendering it indispensable for him to 
 divide his forces, made his position eminently critical. 
 
 His first care was to visit tbe discomfited troops of 
 Vaubois. " You have displeased me," said he, " you 
 have suffered yourselves to be driven from positions 
 where a handful of determined men might have bid an 
 army defiance. You are no longer French soldiers ! 
 You belong not to the army of Italy." At these words, 
 tears streamed down tbe ragged cheeks of the grenadiers. 
 " Place us but once more in the van," cried they, " and 
 you shall judge whether we do not belong to the army 
 of Italy." The general dropped his angry tune ; and in 
 
GQ NAPOLEON DDONAPARTE. [1796. 
 
 the rest of the campaign no troops more distinguished 
 themselves than these. 
 
 Having thus revived the ardour of his soldiery, 
 Buonaparte concentrated his columns on the right of the 
 Adige, while Alvinzi took up a very strong position on 
 the heights of Caldiero, on the left bank, nearly opposite 
 to Verona. In pursuance of the same system which had 
 already so often proved fatal to his opponents, it was the 
 object of Buonaparte to assault Alvinzi, and scatter his 
 forces, ere they could be joined by Davidowich. He 
 lost no time, therefore, in attacking the heights of Cal- 
 diero ; but in spite of all that Massena, who headed the 
 charge, could do, the Austrians, strong in numbers and 
 in position, repelled the assailants with great carnage. 
 A terrible tempest prevailed during the action, and 
 Napoleon, in his despatches, endeavoured to shift the 
 blame to the elements. 
 
 The country behind Caldiero lying open to Davidowich, 
 it became necessary to resort to other means of assault, 
 or permit the dreaded junction to occur. The genius of 
 Buonaparte suggested to him on this occasion a move- 
 ment altogether unexpected. During the night, leaving 
 1,500 men under Kilmaine to guard Verona, he marched 
 for some space rearwards, as if he had meant to retreat 
 on Mantua, which the failure of his recent assault ren- 
 dered not unlikely. But his columns were ere long 
 wheeled again towards the Adige : and finding a bridge 
 ready prepared, were at once placed on the same side of 
 the river with the enemy, — but in the rear altogether of 
 his position, amidst those wide-spreading morasses which 
 cover the country about Areola. This daring movement 
 was devised to place Napoleon between Alvinzi and 
 Davidowich ; but the unsafe nature of the ground, and 
 the narrowness of the dykes, by which alone he could 
 advance on Areola, rendered victory difficult, and re- 
 
1796.] BRIDGE OP AECOLA. 67 
 
 verse most hazardous. He divided his men into thrco 
 columns, and charged at daybreak (Nov. 15) by the 
 three dykes which conduct to Areola. The Austrian, 
 not suspecting that the main body of the French had 
 evacuated Verona, treated this at first as an affair of light 
 troops ; but as day advanced the truth became apparent, 
 and these narrow passages were defended with the most 
 determined gallantry. Augereau headed the first column 
 that reached the bridge of Areola, and was there, after a 
 desperate effort, driven back with great loss. Buona- 
 parte, perceiving the necessity of carrying the point ere 
 Alvinzi could arrive, now threw himself on the bridge. 
 and seizing a standard, urged his grenadiers once more 
 to the charge. 
 
 The fire was tremendous : once more the French gave 
 way. Napoleon himself, lost in the tumult, was borne 
 hark wards, forced over the dyke, and had nearly been 
 smothered in the morass, while some of the advancing 
 Austrians were already between him and his baffled 
 column. His imminent danger was observed; the 
 soldiers caught the alarm, and rushing forwards, with 
 the cry, " save the general," overthrew the Germans 
 with irresistible violence, plucked Napoleon from the 
 bog, and carried the bridge. This was the first battle of 
 Areola. 
 
 This movement revived in the Austrian lines their 
 terror for the name of Buonaparte ; and Alvinzi saw 
 that no time was to be lost if he meant to preserve his 
 communication with Davidowich. He abandoned Cal- 
 diero, and gaining the open country behind Areola, 
 robbed his enemy for the moment of the advantage 
 which his skill had gained. Napoleon, perceiving that} 
 Areola was no longer in the rear of his enemy, but in his 
 front, and fearful lest Vaubois might be overwhelmed 
 by Davidowich, while Alvinzi remained thus between 
 
68 NAPOLEON EUONAPARTE. [1796. 
 
 him and the Brenta, evacuated Areola, and retreated to 
 Ronco. 
 
 Next morning, having ascertained that Davidowicli 
 had not been engaged with Vanbois, Napoleon once 
 more advanced upon Areola. The place was once more 
 defended bravely, and once more it was carried. But 
 this second battle of Areola proved no more decisive 
 than the first ; for Alvinzi still contrived to maintain 
 his main force unbroken in the difficult country behind ; 
 and Buonaparte again retreated to Ronco. 
 
 The third day was decisive. On this occasion also he 
 carried Areola ; and, by two stratagems, was enabled to 
 make his victory effectual. An ambnscade, planted 
 among some willows, suddenly opened fire on a column 
 of Croats, threw theoi into confusion, and, rushing from 
 the concealment, crushed them down into the opposite 
 bog, where most of them died. Napoleon was anxious 
 to follow up this success by charging the Austrian main 
 body on the firm ground behind the marshes. But it 
 Was no easy matter to reach them there. He had, in 
 various quarters, portable bridges ready for crossing tho 
 ditches and canals ; but the enemy stood in good order, 
 and three days' hard fighting had nearly exhausted his 
 own men. In one of his conversations at St. Helena, 
 he thus told the sequel. " At Areola 1 gained the battle 
 with twenty-five horsemen. I perceived tho critical 
 moment of lassitude in either army — when the oldest and 
 bravest would have been glad to be in their tents. All 
 my men had been engaged. Three times I had been 
 obliged to re-establish the battle. There remained to mc 
 but some twenty -five Guides. I sent them round on the 
 flank of the enemy with three trumpets, bidding them 
 blow loud and charge furiously. Here is the French 
 cavalry, was the cry: and they took to flight." . . <t . 
 Tho Austrians doubted not that Marat and all the horse 
 
179G.J AROOLA. 69 
 
 had forced a way through the bogs ; and at that moment 
 Buonaparte commanding a general assault in front, the 
 confusion became hopeless. Alvinzi retreated finally, 
 though in decent order, upon Montebello. 
 
 It was at Areola that Muiron, who ever since the 
 storming of Lit tie Gibraltar had lived on terms of brother- 
 like intimacy with Napoleon, seeing a bomb about to ex- 
 plode, threw himself between it and his general, and thus 
 saved his life at the cost of his own. Napoleon, to the end 
 of his life, remembered and regretted this heroic friend. 
 
 In these three days Buonaparte lost 8000 men : the 
 slaughter among his opponents must have been terrible. 
 Davidowich, in never coming up to join Alvinzi after 
 his success over Vaubois, and Wurmser, in remaining 
 quiet at Mantua, when by advancing with his garrison 
 he might have incommoded the French rear, were guilty 
 of grievous misjudgment or indecision. Once more the 
 rapid combinations of Xapoleon had rendered ail the 
 efforts of the Austrian cabinet abortive. For two months 
 after the last day of Areola, he remained the undisturbed 
 master of Lombardy. All that his enemy could show, 
 in set-off for the slaughter and discomfiture of Alvinzi's 
 campaign, was that they retained possession of Bassano 
 and Trent, thus interrupting Buonaparte's access to the 
 Tyrol and Germany. This advantage was not trivial ; 
 but it had been dearly bought. 
 
 A fourth army had been baffled ; but the resolution of 
 the Imperial Court was indomitable, and new levies were 
 diligently forwarded to reinforce Alvinzi. Once more 
 (January 7, 1797) the Marshal found himself at the heat 1 
 of 60,000 ; once more his superiority over Napoleon's 
 muster-roll was enormous ; and once more he descended 
 from the mountains with the hope of relieving Wurmser 
 and re-conquering Lombardy. The fifth act of the tra- 
 gedy was yet to be performed. 
 
70 NAPOLEON BUOXAPARTE. [1197. 
 
 "We may here pause to notice some civil events of im- 
 portance which occurred ereAlvinzi made his final descent. 
 The success of the French naturally gave new vigour to 
 the Italian party, who, chiefly in the large towns, were 
 hostile to Austria, and desirous to settle their own govern- 
 ment on the republican model. Napoleon had by this 
 time come to be anything but a Jacobin in his political 
 sentiments; his habits of command ; his experience of 
 the narrow and ignorant management of the directory ; 
 his personal intercourse with the ministers of sovereign 
 powers ; his sense, daily strengthened by events, that 
 whatever good was done in Italy proceeded from his own 
 skill and the devotion of his army, — all these circum- 
 stances conspired to make him respect himself and con- 
 temn the government, almost in despite of which he had 
 concmered kingdoms for France. He therefore regarded 
 now with little sympathy the aspirations after republican 
 organization, which he had himself originally stimulated 
 among the northern Italians. He knew, however, that 
 the directory had, by absurd and extravagant demands, 
 provoked the Pope to break off the treaty of Bologna, 
 and to raise his army to the number of 40,000, — that 
 Naples had every disposition to back his Holiness with 
 30,000 soldiers, provided any reverse should befall the 
 French in Lombardy, — and, finally, that Alvinzi was 
 rapidly preparing for another march, with numbers in- 
 finitely superior to what he could himself extort from the 
 o-overnment of Paris ;* and considering these circum- 
 stances, he felt himself compelled to seek strength by 
 gratifying his Italian friends. Two Republics accord- 
 ingly were organized: the Cispadane and the Transpadane 
 — handmaids rather than sisters of the great French de- 
 mocracy. These events took place during the period of 
 
 * Buonaparte, to replace all his losses in the two last campaigns, 
 had received only 7000 recruits. 
 
1797.] NEW REPUBLICS IN ITALY. 71 
 
 military inaction which followed the victories of Areola. 
 The new Republics hastened to repay Napoleon's favour 
 by raising troops, and placed at his disposal a force which 
 he considered as sufficient to keep the Papal army in 
 check during the expected renewal of Alvinzi's efforts. 
 
 Buonaparte at this period practised every art to make 
 himself popular with the Italians ; nor was it of little 
 moment that they in fact regarded him more as their 
 own countryman than a Frenchman ; that their beautiful 
 language was his mother tongue ; that he knew their 
 manners and their literature, and even in his conquering 
 rapacity displayed his esteem for their arts. He was 
 wise enough, too, on farther familiarity with the state of 
 the country, to drop that tone of hostility which he had 
 at first adopted towards the priesthood ; and to cultivate 
 the most influential members of that powerful order by 
 attentions which the directory heard of with wonder, 
 and would have heard of, had he been any other than 
 Napoleon, with scorn and contempt.* Wherever he 
 could have personal intercourse with the priesthood, he 
 seems to have considerably softened their spleen. Mean- 
 while the clergy beyond the Appenines, and the nobility 
 of Fiomagna, were combined in all their efforts to rouse 
 the population against him ; and the Pope, pushed, as 
 we have seen, to despair by the French directory, had no 
 reason to complain that his secular vassals heard such 
 appeals with indifference. 
 
 Alvinzi's preparations were in the meantime rapidly 
 
 * He found among them a wealthy old canon of his own name, 
 who was proud to hail the Corsican as a true descendant of the 
 Tuscan Buonapartes ; who entertained him and his whole staff with 
 much splendour ; amused the general with his anxiety that some 
 interest should he applied to the Pope, in order to procure the 
 canonization of a certain long defunct worthy of the common lineage, 
 by name Buonventara Buonaparte ; and dying shortly afterwards, 
 bequeathed his whole fortune to his new-found kinsman. 
 
72 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. ( [1797. 
 
 advancing. The enthusiasm of the Austrian gentry was 
 effectually stirred by the apprehension of seeing the con- 
 queror of Italy under the walls of Vienna, and volunteer 
 corps were formed everywhere and marched upon the 
 frontier. The gallant peasantry of the Tyrol had already 
 displayed their zeal ; nor did the previous reverses of 
 Alvinzi prevent them from once more crowding to his 
 standard. Napoleon proclaimed that every Tyroleso 
 caught in arms should be shot as a brigand. Alvinzi 
 replied, that for every murdered peasant he would hang 
 a French prisoner of war : Buonaparte rejoined, that the 
 first execution of this threat would be instantly followed 
 by the gibbeting ofAlvinzi's own nephew, who was in 
 his hands. These ferocious threats were laid aside, when 
 time had been given for reflection ; and either general 
 prepared to carry on the war according to the old rules, 
 which are at least sufficiently severe. 
 
 Alvinzi sent a peasant across tbe country to find his 
 way if possible into the beleaguered city of Mantua, and 
 give Wurrnser notice that he was once more ready to 
 attempt his relief. The veteran was commanded to 
 make what diversion he could in favour of the approach- 
 ing army ; and if things came to the worst, to fight his 
 way out of Mantua, retire on Romagna, and put himself 
 at the head of the Papal forces. The spy who carried 
 these tidings was intercepted, and dragged into the pre- 
 sence of Napoleon. The terrified man confessed that he 
 had swallowed the ball of wax in which the despatch was 
 wrapped. His stomach was compelled to surrender its 
 contents ; and Buonaparte prepared to meet his enemy. 
 Leaving Serrurier to keep up the blockade of Mantua, he 
 hastened to resume his central position at Verona, from 
 which he could, according to circumstances, march with 
 convenience on whatever line the Austrian main body 
 might) choose for their advance. 
 
1797.] BATTLE OF RIVOLI. 73 
 
 The Imperialists, as if determined to profit by no les- 
 son, once more descended from the Tyrol upon two 
 different lines of march ; Alvinzi himself choosing that 
 of the Upper Adige ; while Provera headed a second 
 army, with orders to follow the Brenta, and then, striking 
 across to the Lower Adige, join the marshal before the 
 walls of Mantua. Could they have combined their forces 
 there, and delivered Wurmser, there was hardly a doubt 
 that the French must retreat before so vast an army as 
 would then have faced them. But Napoleon was destined 
 once more to dissipate all these victorious dreams. He 
 had posted Joubert at Rivoli, to dispute that important 
 position, should the campaign open with an attempt to 
 force it by Alvinzi; while Augereau's division was to 
 watch the march of Provera. He remained himself at 
 Verona until he could learn with certainty by which of 
 these generals the first grand assault was to be made. On 
 the evening of the loth of January, tidings were brought 
 him that Joubert had all that day been maintaining his 
 ground with difficulty ; and he instantly hastened to 
 what now appeared to be the proper scene of aotion for 
 himself. 
 
 Arriving about two in the morning (by another of his 
 almost incredible forced marches), on the heights of 
 Rivoli, he, the moonlight being clear, could distinguish 
 five separate encampments, with innumerable watch-fires, 
 in the valley below. His lieutenant, confounded by the 
 display of this gigantic force, was in the very act of 
 abandoning the position. Napoleon instantly checked 
 this movement.; and bringing up more battalions, forced 
 the Croats from an eminence which they had already 
 seized on the first symptoms of the French retreat. 
 Napoleon's keen eye, surveying the position of the five 
 encampments below, penetrated the secret of Alvinzi ; 
 namely, that his artillery had not yet arrived, otherwise 
 
74 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1797. 
 
 lie would not hare occupied ground so distant from the 
 object of attack. He concluded that the Austrian did 
 not mean to make his grand assault very early in the 
 morning, and resolved to force him to anticipate that 
 movement. For this purpose he took all possible pains 
 to conceal his own arrival ; and prolonged, by a series 
 of petty manoeuvres, the enemy's belief that he had to 
 do with a mere outpost of the French. Alvinzi swallowed 
 the deceit ; and, instead of advancing on some great and 
 well-arranged system, suffered his several columns to 
 endeavour to force the heights by insulated movements, 
 which the real strength of Napoleon easily enabled him 
 to baffle. It is true that at one moment the bravery of 
 the Germans had nearly overthrown the French on a 
 point of pre-eminent importance ; but Napoleon himself 
 galloping to the spot, roused by his voice and action the 
 division of Massena, who, having marched all night, had 
 lain down to rest in the extreme of weariness, and 
 seconded by them and their gallant general,* swept 
 everything before him. The French artillery was in 
 position : the Austrian (according to Napoleon's shrewd 
 guess) had not yet come up, and this circumstance de- 
 cided the fortune of the day. The cannonade from the 
 heights, backed by successive charges of horse and foot, 
 rendered every attempt to storm the summit abortive ; 
 and the main body of the Imperialists was already in 
 confusion, and, indeed, in flight, before one of their 
 divisions, which had been sent round to outflank Buona- 
 parte and take higher ground in his rear, was able to 
 execute its errand. When accordingly this division 
 (that of Lusignan) at length achieved its destined object 
 — it did so, not to complete the misery of a routed, but 
 to swell the prey of a victorious enemy. Instead of cut- 
 ting off the retreat of Joubert, Lusignan found himself 
 * Hence, in the sequel, Massena's title, " Duke of Rivoli." 
 
1797.] MANTUA. 75 
 
 insulated from Alvinzi, and forced to lay down bis arms 
 to Buonaparte. "Here was a good plan," said Napoleon, 
 "but these Austrians are not apt to calculate tbe value 
 of minutes." Had Lusignan gained tbe rear of the 
 French an hour earlier, while the contest was still hot 
 in front of the heights of Rivoli, he might have made 
 tbe 14th of January one of the darkest, instead of one of 
 the brightest, clays in the military chronicles of Napoleon. 
 
 He who, in the course of this trying day, had had three 
 horses shot under him, hardly waited to see Lusignan 
 surrender, and to entrust his friends, Massena, Mnrat, 
 and Joubert, with the task of pursuing the flying columns 
 of Alvinzi. He had heard during the battle, that Provera 
 had forced his way to the Lago di Guarda,and was already, 
 by means of boats, in communication with Mantua. The 
 force of Augereau having proved insufficient to oppose 
 the march of the Imperialists' second column, it was high 
 time that Napoleon himself should hurry with reinforce- 
 ments to the Lower Adige, and prevent "Wurmser from 
 either housing Provera, or joining him in the open field, 
 and so effecting the escape of his own still formidable 
 garrison, whether to the Tyrol or the Romagna. 
 
 Having marched all night and all next day, Napoleon 
 reached the vicinity of Mantua late on the loth. He 
 found the enemy strongly posted, and Serrurier's situa- 
 tion highly critical. A regiment of Provera's hussars 
 had but a few hours before nearly established themselves 
 in the suburb of St. George. The Austrian corps had 
 clothed in white cloaks, resembling those of a well- 
 known French regiment ; and advancing towards the 
 gate, would certainly have been admitted as friends — 
 but for the sagacity of one serjeant, who could not help 
 fancying that the white cloaks had too much of the gloss 
 of novelty about them, to have stood the tear and wear 
 pf three Bnonapartean campaigns. This danger had 
 
76 NAPOLrTOS BUONAPARTE. [1797. 
 
 been avoided, but the utmost vigilance was necessary. 
 The French general himself passed the night in walking 
 about the outposts, so great was his anxiety. 
 
 At one of these he found a grenadier asleep by the root 
 of a tree ; and taking his gun, without wakening him, 
 performed a sentinel's duty in his place for about half an 
 hour ; when the man, starting from his slumbers, per- 
 ceived with terror and despair the countenance and occu- 
 pation of his general. He fell on his knees before him. 
 "My friend," said Napoleon, "here is your musket. 
 You had fought hard, and marched long, and your 
 sleep is excusable ; but a moment's inattention might at 
 present ruin the army. I happened to be awake, and 
 have held your post for you. You will be more cai'eful 
 another time." 
 
 It is needless to say how the devotion ot his men was 
 nourished by such anecdotes as these flying ever and anon 
 from column to column. Next morning there ensued a 
 hot shirmish, recoi'ded as the battle of St. George. Pro- 
 vera was compelled to retreat, and Wurmser, who had 
 sallied out and seized the causeway and citadel of La 
 Favorita, was fain to retreat within its old walls, in con- 
 sequence of a desperate assault headed by Napoleon in 
 person. 
 
 Proveranow found himself entirely cut off from Alvinzi, 
 and surrounded with the French. He and 5,000 men 
 laid clown their arms on the 16th of January. Various 
 bodies of the Austrian force, scattered over the country 
 between theAdige and the Brenta, followed the example;* 
 and the brave Wurmser, whose provisions were by this 
 time exhausted, found himself at length under the neces- 
 sity of sending an offer of capitulation. 
 
 * Such was the prevailing terror, that one body of 6,000 under 
 Rene surrendered to a French officer who had hardly 500 men with 
 him. 
 
1797.] FALL OF MANTUA. 77 
 
 General Serrurier, as commander of the blockade, 
 received Klenau, the bearer of Wurmser's message, and 
 heard him state, with tbe pardonable artifice usual on 
 such occasions, that his master was still in a condition to 
 hold out considerably longer, unless honourable terms 
 were granted. Napoleon had hitherto been seated in a 
 corner of the tent wrapped in his cloak ; he now advanced 
 to the Austrian, who had no suspicion in whose presence 
 he had been speaking, and taking his pen, wrote down 
 the conditions which he was willing to grant. " These," 
 said he, " are the terms to which your general's bravery 
 entitles him. He may have them to-day ; a week, a 
 month hence, he shall have no worse. Meantime, tell 
 him that General Buonaparte is about to set out for 
 Rome." The envoy now recognised Napoleon ; and on 
 reading the paper perceived that the proposed terms were 
 more liberal than he had dared to hope for. The capitu- 
 lation was forthwith signed. 
 
 On the 2nd of February, Wurmser and his garrison 
 marched out of Mantua ; but when the aged chief was 
 to surrender his sword, he found only Serrurier ready to 
 receive it. Napoleon's generosity, in avoiding being 
 present personally to witness the humiliation of this dis- 
 tinguished veteran, forms one of the most pleasing traits 
 in his story. The directory had urged him to far different 
 conduct. He treated their suggestions with scorn : " I 
 have granted the Austrian," he wrote to them, " such 
 terms as were, in my judgment, due to a brave and 
 irable enemy, and to the dignity of the French 
 Republic." 
 
 The loss of the Austrians at Mantua amounted, first 
 ind last, to not less than -7. 11 '0 men. Besides innumer- 
 able military stores, upwards of 500 brass cannon fell 
 into the hands of the conqueror ; and Augereau was sent 
 to Paris, to present the directory with sixty stand of 
 
78 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1797. 
 
 colours. He was received with tumults of exultation, 
 such as might have been expected, on an occasion so 
 glorious, from a people less vivacious than the French. 
 
 The surrender of Provera and Wurmser, following the 
 total rout of Alvinzi, placed Lombardy wholly in the 
 hands of Napoleon ; and he now found leisure to avenge 
 himself on the Pope for those hostile demonstrations 
 which, as yet, he had been contented to hold in check. 
 The terror with which the priestly court of the Vatican 
 received the tidings of the utter destruction of the Aus- 
 trian army, and of the irresistible conqueror's march 
 .southwards, did not prevent the Papal troops from making 
 some efforts to defend the territories of the Holy See. 
 General Victor, with 4000 French and as many Lom- 
 bards, advanced upon the route of Imola. A Papal 
 force, in numbers about equal, lay encamped on the river 
 Senio, in front of that town. Monks with crucifixes in 
 their haiids, ran through the lines, exciting them to fight 
 bravely for their country and their Faith. The French 
 general, by a rapid movement, threw his horse across 
 the stream a league or two higher up, and then charged 
 with his infantry through the Senio in their front. The 
 resistance Avas brief. The Pope's army, composed mostly 
 of new recruits, retreated in confusion. Faenza was 
 carried by the bayonet. Colli and 3000 more laid down 
 their arms ; and the strong town of Ancona was occu- 
 pied.* On the 10th of February the French entered 
 
 * The priests had an image of the Virgin Mary at this place, 
 which they exhibited to the people in the act of shedding tears, the 
 more to stimulate them against the impious Republicans. On 
 'nt. ring the place, the French were amused with discovering the 
 machinery by which this trick had been performed ; the Madonna's 
 tears were a string of glass beads, flowing by clock-work within a 
 shrine which the worshippers were too respectful to approach very 
 nearly. Little or-molu fountains, which stream on the same prin- 
 ciple, are still common ornaments for the chimney-piece in Paris. 
 
1797.] WAR AGAINST THE POPE. 79 
 
 Loretto, and rifled that celebrated seat of superstition of 
 whatever treasures it still retained; the most valuable 
 articles had already been packed up and sent to Rome 
 for safety.* — Victor then turned westwards from Ancona, 
 with the design to unite with another French column 
 which had advanced into the papal dominion by Perugia. 
 
 The panic which the French advance had by this time 
 spread was such, that the Pope had no hope but in sub- 
 mission. The peasants lately transformed into soldiers 
 abandoned everywhere their arms, and fled in straggling 
 groups to their native villages. The alarm in Rome 
 itself recalled the clays of Alaric. 
 
 The conduct of Buonaparte at this critical moment 
 was worthy of that good sense which formed the original 
 foundation of his successes, and of which the madness of 
 pampered ambition could alone deprive him afterwards. 
 He well know that, of all the inhabitants of the Roman 
 territories, the class who contemplated his approach with 
 the deepest terror were the unfortunate French priests, 
 whom the Revolution had made exiles from their native 
 soil. One of these unhappy gentlemen came forth in his 
 despair, and surrendering himself at the French head- 
 quarters, said lie knew his fate was scaled, and that they 
 might as well lead him at once to the gallows. Buona- 
 parte dismissed this person with courtesy, and issued a 
 proclamation that none of the class should be molested ; 
 on the contrary, allotting to each of them the means of 
 existence in r wherever his arms were or 
 
 should be predominant. 
 
 * The Santa C:isa, or holy house of Loretto, is a little brick 
 biiilding, round which a magnifio nt church has been reared, an i 
 which the Romish calendar states to have been the original dwelling- 
 house of the Virgin Mary in Nazareth, transported through the 
 air to Italy by miracle. This was for ag._s the chief resort of 
 R mish pilgrims, and the riches of the place were once enormous. 
 
80 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1797. 
 
 This conduct, taken together with other circumstances 
 of recent occurrence, was well calculated to nourish in 
 the breast of the Pope, the hope that the victorious 
 general of France had, by this time, discarded the feroci- 
 ous hostility of the revolutionary government against 
 the church of which he was head. He hastened, how- 
 ever, to open a negotiation, and Napoleon received his 
 envoy not merely with civility, but with professions of 
 the profoundest personal reverence for the holy father. 
 The Treaty of Tollentino (12th Feb. 1797) followed. 
 By this the Pope conceded formally (for the first time) 
 his ancient territory of Avignon ; he resigned the lega- 
 tions of Ferrara, Bologna, and Romagna, and the port 
 of Ancona ; agreed to pay about a million and a half 
 sterling, and to execute to the utmost the pi'ovisions of 
 Bologna with respect to works of art. On these terms 
 Pius was to remain nominal master of some shreds of 
 the patrimony of St. Peter. 
 
 The French directory hoard with indignation that any 
 semblance of sovereignty was still left to an enemy 
 whose weakness had been made so manifest. But 
 Buonaparte had now learnt to act for himself. He knew 
 that any formal dethronement of the Pope would be 
 followed by a new spirit of aversion against France, and 
 that Naples would infallibly profit by the first disturb- 
 ances in the north of Italy, to declare war, and march 
 her large army from the south. He believed also — and 
 he ere long knew — that even yet Austria would make 
 other efforts to recover Lombardy ; and was satisfied, 
 on the whole, that he should best secure his ultimate 
 purposes by suffering the Vatican to prolong, for some 
 time further, the shadow of that sovereignty which had 
 in former ages trampled on kings and emperors. 
 
: i i 01 ■ . mce. 81 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 .Y tlr I ( B Taglia 
 
 — R treat of the Archduke — Treat// of Leoben—Wor with V 
 
 — Venice con 2' 
 
 EON was now master of all northern Italy, with 
 the exception of the territories of Venice, which antique 
 government, though no longer qualified to keep equal 
 rank with the first princes of Europe, was still proud 
 and haughty, and not likely to omit any favourable 
 opportunity of aiding Austria in the great and common 
 object of ridding Italy of the French. Buonaparte heard 
 without surprise that the Doge had been raising new 
 levies, and that the senate could command an army of 
 50,000, composed chiefly of fierce and semi-barbarous 
 Sclavonian mercenaries. He demanded what these de- 
 monstrations meant, and was answered that Venice had 
 no desire but to maintain a perfect neutralit}*. 3Iean- 
 time there was not wanting a strong party, throughout 
 the Venetian territories of the mainland, who were 
 anxious to emulate the revolutionary movements of the 
 great cities of Lombard}-, and to emancipate themselves 
 from the yoke of the Venetian oligarchy, as their neigh- 
 bours had done by that of the Austrian crown. Insur- 
 es occurred at Bergamo, Brescia, and elsewhere ; 
 and Buonaparte, though little deposed to give the in- 
 habitants of these places the boon they were in quest of, 
 ted by the opportunity of dividing, by their 
 means, the resources, and shaking the confidence, of the 
 senate. After some negotiation, he told the* Venetian 
 envoy, th it he granted the prayer of his masters. " Bo 
 
82 ftAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [17&?. 
 
 neuter," said be, " but see that your neutrality be indeed 
 sincere and perfect. If any insurrection occur in my 
 rear, to cut off my communications in tbe event of my 
 marching on Germany — if any movement whatever be- 
 tray the disposition of your senate to aid the enemies of 
 France, be sure that vengeance will follow — from that 
 hour the independence of Venice has ceased to be." 
 
 More than a month had now elapsed since Alvinzi's 
 defeat at Rivoli ; in nine days the war with the Pope 
 had reached its close ; and, having left some garrisons 
 in the towns on the Adige, to watch the neutrality of 
 Venice, Napoleon hastened to carry the Avar into the 
 hereditary dominions of the Emperor. Twenty thousand 
 fresh troops had recently joined his victorious standai'd 
 from France ; and, at the head of perhaps a larger force 
 than he had ever before mustered, he proceeded to the 
 frontier of the Frioul, where, according to his informa- 
 tion, the main army of Austria, recruited once more to 
 its original strength, was preparing to open a sixth 
 campaign — under the orders, not of Alvinzi, but of a 
 general young like himself, and hitherto eminently suc- 
 cessful — the same who had already by his combinations 
 baffled two such masters in the art of Avar as Jourdan 
 and Moreau — the Archduke Charles ; a prince on whose 
 high talents the last hopes of the empire seemed to repose. 
 
 To give the details of the sixth campaign, which now 
 commenced, would be to repeat the story which has 
 been already five times told. The Archduke, fettered 
 by the Aulic Council of Vienna, saw himself compelled 
 to execute a plan which he had discrimination enough to 
 condemn. The Austrian army once more commenced 
 operations on a double basis — one great division on the 
 Tyrolese frontier, and a greater under the Arch- 
 duke himself on the Friulesc ; and Napoleon — who had, 
 even when acting on the defensive, been able, by the 
 
1797.] TAGLIAMENTO. 83 
 
 vivacity of his movements, to assume the superiority on 
 whatever point he chose to select — was not likely to 
 strike his blows with less skill and vigour, now that his 
 numbers, and the acquiescence of Italy behind him, per- 
 mitted bim to assume the offensive. 
 
 Buonaparte found the Archduke posted behind the 
 river Tagliamento, in front of the rugged Carinthian 
 mountains, which guard the passage in that quarter from 
 Italy to Germany. Detaching Massena to the Piave, 
 where the Austrian division of Lusignan were in obser- 
 vation, he himself determined to charge the Archduke 
 in front. Massena was successful in driving Lusignan 
 before him as far as Belluno (where a rear guard of 
 500 surrendered), and thus turned the Austrian flank. 
 Buonaparte then attempted and effected the passage of 
 the Tagliamento. After a great and formal display of 
 his forces, which was met by similar demonsh-ations on 
 the Austrian side of the river, he suddenly broke up his 
 line and retreated. The Archduke, knowing that the 
 French had been marching all the night before, con- 
 cluded that the general wished to defer the battle till 
 another day ; and in like manner withdrew to his camp. 
 About two hours after Xapoleon rushed with his whole 
 army, who had merely lain down in ranks, upon the 
 margin of the Tagliamento, no longer adeqnately 
 guarded — and had forded the stream ere the Austrian 
 line of battle could be formed. In the action which 
 followed (March 12) the troops of the Archduke dis- 
 played much gallantry, but every effort to dislodge Na* 
 poleon failed ; at length retreat was judged necessary, 
 The French followed hard behind. They stormed ' 
 disca, where they made 5000 prisoners; and — the 
 Archduke pursuing his retreat — occupied in the ci 
 of a few clays Trieste, Fiume, and every stronghold in 
 Carinthia. In the course of a campaign of twenty day:-, 
 
84 NArOLEON BCOXArARTE. [1797. 
 
 tbo Austriaus fought Buonaparte ten times, but the over- 
 throw on the Tagliamento was never recovered ; and the 
 Archduke, after defending Styria inch by inch as he had 
 Carinthia, at length adopted the resolution of reaching- 
 Vienna by forced marches, there to gather round him 
 whatever force the loyalty of his nation could muster, 
 and make a last stand beneath the Avails of the capital. 
 
 This plan, at first sight the mere dictate of despair, 
 was in truth that of a wise and prudent general. The 
 Archduke had received intelligence from two quarters 
 of events highly unfavourable to the French. General 
 Laudon, the Austrian commander on the Tyrol frontier, 
 had descended thence with forces sufficient to overwhelm 
 Buonaparte's lieutenants on the upper Adige, and was 
 already in possession of the whole Tyrol, and of several 
 of the Lombard towns. Meanwhile the Venetian Senate, 
 on hearing of these Austrian successes, had plucked up 
 courage to throw aside their flimsy neutrality, and not 
 only declared war against France, but encouraged their 
 partizans in Verona to open the contest with an inhuman 
 massacre of the French wounded in the hospitals of that 
 city. The vindictive Italians, wherever the French 
 party was inferior in numbers, resorted to similar atroci- 
 ties. The few troops left in Lombardy by Napoleon 
 were obliged to shut themselves up in garrisons, which 
 the insurgent inhabitants of the neighbouring districts 
 invested. The Venetian army passed the frontier ; and, 
 in effect, Buonaparte's means of deriving supplies of any 
 kind from his rear were for the time wholly cut off. It 
 was not wonderful that the Archduke should, under 
 such circumstances, anticipate great advantage from en- 
 ticing the French army into the heart of Austria ; where, 
 divided by many wide provinces and mighty mountains 
 and rivers from France, and with Italy once more in 
 arms behind them, they should have to abide the encoun- 
 
1797.] LEOBEN. 85 
 
 ter of an. imperial army, animated by all the best motives 
 that can lend vigour to the arm of man ; fighting for 
 their own hearths under the eyes of their own sovereign ; 
 seconded everywhere by the loyalty of the peasants ; and 
 well convinced that, if the}- could compel their enemy fco 
 a retreat, his total ruin must be the consequence. 
 
 The terror of the Aulic Council stept in to prevent 
 the Archduke from reaping either the credit or the dis- 
 grace of this movement. Vienna was panic-struck on 
 hearing that Buonaparte had stormed the passes of the 
 Julian Alps; the imperial family sent their treasure ini i 
 Hungary ; the middle ranks, whose interest is always 
 peace, became clamorous for some termination to a war, 
 ■which during six years had been so unfortunate ; and 
 the Archduke was ordered to avail himself of the first 
 pretence which circumstances might afford for the open- 
 ing of a negotiation. 
 
 That prince had already, acting on his own judgment 
 and feelings, dismissed such an occasion with civility and 
 with coldness. Napoleon had addressed a letter to his 
 Imperial Higness from Clagenfurt, in which he called on 
 him, as a bruther-soldier, to consider the certain miseries 
 and the doubtful successes of war, and put an end to the 
 campaign by a fair and equitable treaty. The Archduke 
 replied, that he regarded with the highest esteem the 
 personal character of his correspondent, but that the 
 Austrian government had committed to his trust the 
 guidance of a particular army, not the diplomatic busi- 
 ness of the empire. The prince, on receiving these new 
 instructions from Vienna, perceived, however reluctantly, 
 that the line of his duty was altered ; and the result was 
 a series of negotiations — which ended in the provisional 
 treaty of Leoben, signed April 18, 17'J7. 
 
 It was here, at Leoben, that Buonaparte's school-fellow, 
 De Bourienne, wdio had been summ »nc 1 to act as secrc- 
 
86 NArOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1797. 
 
 tary to the general, reached head- quarters. He found 
 his old comrade (whom he had not met with since the 
 days of his envying small houses and cabriolets in Paris) 
 in the midst of a splendid staff. " So thou art come at 
 last," cried Napoleon, in the ancient tone of familiarity ; 
 hut Dc Bourienne knew the world, and greeted the gene- 
 ral of the army of Italy with profound and distant respect. 
 When the company were gone, Buonaparte signified that 
 he understood and approved this change of demeanour. 
 
 But to resume — no sooner was the negotiation in a fair 
 train, than Napoleon, abandoning for the moment the 
 details of its management to inferior diplomatists, has- 
 tened to retrace his steps, and pour the full storm of his 
 wrath on the Venetians. The Doge and the senate, 
 whose only hopes had rested on the successes of Austria 
 on the Adige, heard with utter despair th.xt the Archduke 
 had shared the fate of Beaulieu, of Wurmser, and of 
 Alvinzi, and that the preliminaries of peace were actually 
 signed. The rapidity of Buonaparte's return gave them 
 no breathing-time. They hastened to send offers of sub- 
 mission, and their messengers were received with anger 
 and contempt. " French blood has been treacherously 
 shed," said Napoleon ; " if you could offer me the trea- 
 sures of Peru, if you could cover your whole dominion 
 with gold — the atonement would be insufficient — the lion 
 of St. Mark* must lick the dust." These tidings came like 
 a sentence of death upon the devoted Senate. Their de- 
 libei'ations were unceasing ; their schemes innumerable ; 
 their hearts divided and unnerved. Those secret chambers, 
 from which that haughty oligarchy had for so many ages 
 excluded every eye and every voice but their own, were 
 invaded with impunity by strange-faced men, who boldly 
 criticised their measures, and heaped new terrors on their 
 heads, by announcing that the mass of the people had 
 * The armorial bearina - of Venice. 
 
1797.] FALL OP VENICE. 87 
 
 ceased to consider the endurance of their sway as syn- 
 onymous with the prosperity of Venice. Popular tumults 
 filled the streets and canals; universal confusion pre- 
 vailed. The commanders of their troops and fleets 
 received contradictory orders, and the city which 
 
 " had held the gorgeous East in fee," 
 
 seemed ready to yield everything to a ruthless and im- 
 placable enemy, without even striking a blow in defence. 
 
 Buonaparte appeared, while the confusion was at its 
 height, on the opposite coast of the Lagoon. Some of his 
 troops were already in the heart of the city, when (31st 
 May) a hasty message reached him, announcing that the 
 Senate submitted wholly. He exacted severe revenge. 
 The leaders who had aided the Lombard insurgents were 
 delivered to him. The oligarchy ceased to rule, and a 
 democratical government was formed, provisionally, on 
 the model of France. Venice consented to surrender to 
 the victor large territories on the mainland of Italy ; five 
 ships of war ; 3,000,000 francs in gold, and as many 
 more in naval stores ; twenty of the best pictures, and 
 500 manuscripts. Lastly, the troops of the conqueror 
 were to occupy the capital until tranquillity was estab- 
 lished. It will be seen in what that tranquillity was 
 destined to consist. 
 
 Such was the humiliation of this once proud and ener- 
 getic, but now worn-out and enfeebled, oligarchy : so in- 
 capable was that hoary polity of contending with the 
 youthful vigour of Napoleon. 
 
88 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1797. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Pickegru—Tki Directory appeal to Buonaparte — The Wth Fractidor 
 — The Court of Montebello— Josephine— The Treaty of Campo 
 Formio — Buonaparte leaves Italy. 
 
 In their last agony the Venetian Senate made a vain 
 effort to secure the personal protection of the general , by 
 offering him a purse of seven millions of francs. He re- 
 jected this with scorn. He had already treated in the 
 same style a bribe of four millions, tendered on the part 
 of the Duke of Modena, The friend employed to conduct 
 the business reminded him of the proverbial ingratitude 
 of all popular governments, and of the little attention 
 which the Directory had hitherto paid to his personal 
 interests. " That is all true enough," said Napoleon, 
 " but for four millions I will not place myself in the 
 power of this duke." Austria herself, it is said, did not 
 hesitate to tamper in the same manner, though far more 
 magnificently, as became her resources, with his repub- 
 lican virtue. He was offered, if the story be true, an in- 
 dependent German principality for himself and his heirs. 
 "I thank the emperor," he answered, " but if greatness 
 is to be mine, it sball come from France." 
 
 The Venetian Senate were guilty, in their mortal 
 struggle, of another and a more inexcusable piece of 
 meanness. They seized the person of Count D'Entraigues, 
 a French emigrant, who had been living in their city as 
 agent for the exiled house of Bourbon ; and surrendered 
 him and all his papers to the victorious general. Buona- 
 parte discovered among these documents ample evidence 
 that Pichegru, the French general on the Rhine, and 
 
1797. PICHEGRU. 89 
 
 universally honoured as the conqueror of Holland, had 
 some time before this hearkened to the proposals of the 
 Bourbon princes, and, among other efforts in favour of 
 the royal cause, not hesitated even to misconduct his 
 military movements with a view to the downfall of the 
 government which had entrusted him with his command. 
 
 This was a secret, the importance of which Napoleon 
 could well appreciate ;* and he forthwith communicated 
 it to the Directory at Pari-. 
 
 The events of the last twelve months in France had 
 made Pichegru a person of still higher importance than 
 when he commenced his intrigues with the Bourbons as 
 general on the Rhine. Some obscure doubts of his fidelity, 
 or the usual policy of the Directory, which rendered them 
 averse (wherever the}- could help it) to continue anyone 
 general very long at the head of one army, had induced 
 them to displace Pichegru, and appoint Hoche, a tried 
 republican, in his room. Pichegru, on returning to 
 France, became a member of the Council of Five Hun- 
 dred, and (the royalist party having at this season reco- 
 vered all but a preponderance) was, on the meeting of 
 the chambers, called to the chair of that in which he had 
 his place. 
 
 The Five Directors had in truth done everything to 
 undermine their own authority. They were known to be 
 divided in opinion among themselves ; three only of their 
 number adhered heartily to the existing constitution : 
 one was a royalist ; another was a democrat of the Robes- 
 pierre school. One of these new and uncourtly men 
 excited laughter by affecting a princely state and splen- 
 dour of demeanour and equipage. Another disgusted 
 
 * Moreau knew it some months sooner, and said so aftir Napo- 
 leon had communicated it to the Directory. This is a suspicious 
 circumstance when considered along with the sequel of Moreau's 
 history. 
 
90 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1797. 
 
 one set of minds, and annoyed all the rest, by procuring 
 a law for the observation of the tenth day as the day of 
 repose, and declaring it a crime to shut up shops on the 
 Sabbath. A ridiculous ritual of an avowedly heathen 
 worship followed, and was received with partial horror, 
 universal contempt. A tyrannical law about the equali- 
 zation of weights and measures spread confusion through 
 all mercantile transactions, and was especially unpopular 
 in the provinces. A contemptible riot, set on foot by 
 one who called himself Gracchus Barbceuf, for the pur- 
 pose of bringing back the reign of terrorism, was indeed 
 suppressed ; but the mere occurrence of such an attempt 
 recalled too vividly the days of Robespierre, and by so 
 doing tended to strengthen the cause of the royalists in 
 public opinion. The truth is, that a vast number of the 
 emigrants had found their way back again to Paris after 
 the downfall of Robespierre, and that the old sway of 
 elegant manners and enlightened saloons was once more 
 re-establishing itself where it had so long been supreme. 
 The royalist club of Clichy corresponded with the exiled 
 princes, and with the imperial government, and was gain- 
 ing such influence as to fill Buonaparte himself with 
 alarm. Everything indicated that the Directory (the 
 five majesties of the Luxembourg, as they were called in 
 derision) held their thrones by a very uncertain tenure ; 
 and those gentlemen, nothing being left them but a choice 
 among evils, were fain to throw themselves on the pro- 
 tection of the armies which they dreaded, and of Hoche 
 and Buonaparte — which last name in particular had long 
 filled them with jealousy proportioned to its splendour 
 and popularity. 
 
 Napoleon's recent conduct, in more important points 
 than one, had excited powerfully the resentment of the 
 directory, which now appealed to him for aid. He had 
 tnlcen upon himself the whole responsibility of the pre- 
 
1797.] THE DIRECTORY. 91 
 
 liminary treaty of Leoben, although, the French govern- 
 ment had sent General Clarke into Italy for the express 
 purpose of controlling him, and acting as his equal at 
 least in the negotiation. A clause in that treaty, by 
 which Mantua, the strongest fortress in Italy, was to bs 
 surrendered back to Austria, had been judged necessary 
 at the time by the general, in order to obtain from the 
 emperor the boundary of the Rhine and the cession of 
 Belgium. But the Directory thought the conqueror 
 underrated the advantages of his own position and theirs 
 in consenting to it, and but for Carnot would never have 
 ratified it.* At the other side of the Italian Peninsula, 
 again, the victorious general, immediately after the fall 
 of Venice, had to superintend the revolution of Genoa ; 
 in which great city also the democratic party availed 
 themselves of the temper aud events of the time, to 
 emancipate themselves from their hereditaiy oligarchy. 
 They would fain have excluded the nobility from all 
 share in the remodelled government ; and Napoleon 
 rebuked and discountenanced this attempt in terms little 
 likely to be heard with approbation by the " Sires of the 
 Luxembourg." He told the Genoese, that to exclude 
 the nobles was in itself as unjust as unwise, and that 
 t hey ought to be grateful for the means of re-organizing 
 their constitution, without passing, like France, through 
 the terrible ordeal of a revolution. The rulers of France 
 might be excused for asking at this moment — Does the 
 lecturer of the Ligurian Republic mean to be our 
 Washington, our Monk, or our Cromwell ? 
 
 He, however, received with alacrity the call of the 
 trembling directory. He harangued his soldiery, and 
 made himself secure of their readiness to act as he might 
 
 • Mantua, as will appear hereafter, was saved to France under 
 Napoleon's final treaty with Austria ; but the events which 
 tendered this possible, were as yet unknown and unexpected. 
 
 S 
 
92 NArOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1797. 
 
 choose for them. He not only offered large pecuniary 
 supplies, and sent his lieutenant Augereau to Paris to 
 command the national guard for the government, should 
 they find it necessary to appeal immediately to force, 
 hut announced that he was himself prepared to " pass 
 the Rubicon," (an ominous phi*ase) and march to their 
 assistance, with 15,000 of his hest troops. 
 
 The directory, meanwhile, had in their extremity 
 ventured to disregard the law against drawing regular 
 troops within a certain distance of the capital, and sum- 
 moned Hoche to bring a corps of his Rhenish army for 
 their instant protection. 
 
 It was by this means that the new revolution, as it 
 may be called, of the 18th Fructidor was effected. On 
 that da}* (Sept. 4, 1797), the majority of the directory, 
 marching their army into Paris, dethroned their two 
 opposition colleagues. Pichegi u and the other royalists 
 of note in the assemblies, to the number of more than 
 150, were arrested and sent into exile. The govern- 
 ment, for the moment, recovered the semblance of se- 
 curity ; and Buonaparte heard, with little satisfaction, 
 that they had been able to accomplish their immediate 
 object without the intervention of his personal appear- 
 ance on the scene. He remonstrated, moreover, against 
 the manner in which they had followed up their success. 
 According to him, they ought to have executed Pichegru 
 and a few ringleadei*s, and set an example of moderation, 
 by sparing all those whose royalism admitted of any 
 doubt, or, if it was manifest, was of secondary import- 
 portance. It would have been hard for the directory at 
 this time to have pleased Buonaparte, or for Buonaparte 
 to have entirely satisfied them ; but neither party made 
 the effort. 
 
 The fall of Venice, however, gave Napoleon the means, 
 which he was not disposed to neglect, of bringing his 
 
:.lo. Oo 
 
 treaty with Austria to a still more satisfactory conclusion 
 than had been indicated in the preliminaries of Leoben. 
 After settling the affairs of Venice, and establishing 
 the new Ligurian Republic, the general took up his resi- 
 dence at the noble castle of Montebello, near Milan. Hero 
 his wife, who, though they had been married in March, 
 1796, was still a bride, and with whom, during the inter- 
 vening eventful months, he had kept up a correspondence 
 full of the fervour, if not of the delicacy of love,* had at 
 length rejoined him. Josephine's manners were worthy, 
 by universal admission, of the highest rank ; and the 
 elegance with which she did the honours of the castle, 
 filled the ministers and princes, who were continually to 
 be seen in its precincts, with admiration. While Na- 
 poleon conducted his negotiations with as much firmness 
 and decision as had marked him in the field, it was her 
 care that nature and art should lend all their graces to 
 what the Italians soon learnt to call the Court of Monte- 
 bello. Whatever talent Milan contained, was pressed 
 into her service. Music and dance, and festival upon 
 festival, seemed to occupy every hour. The beautiful 
 lakes of Lombardy were covered with gay flotillas ; and 
 the voluptuous retreats around their shores received in 
 succession new life and splendour from the presence of 
 2s";ipuleon, Josephine, and the brilliant circle amidst 
 whom they were rehearsing the imperial parts that 
 destiny had in reserve for them. Montebello was the 
 centre from which Buonaparte, during the greater part 
 of this autumn, negotiated with the emperor, eo.itrolled 
 all Italy, and overawed the Luxembourg. 
 
 * It would be painful to show, as might easily be done, from this 
 pondence, the original want of delicacy in Napoleon's mind. 
 M my of his !■ tt rs are such as no English gentleman would address 
 to a mistress. In others, the language is worthy of a hero's pas- 
 sion. "Wurmser,'' says he, "shall pay dearly for the tears he 
 causes you to shed." 
 
i>4i NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1797. 
 
 The final settlement with the emperor's commissioners 
 Avould have taken place shortly after the fall of Venice, 
 but for the successful intrigues of the Royalist Clichyens, 
 the universal belief that the government of France 
 approached some new crisis, and the Austrians' hope 
 that from such an event their negotiation might derive 
 considerable advantages. Buonaparte well knew the 
 secret motive which induced Cobentzel, the emperor's 
 chief envoy, to protract and multiply discussions of 
 wbicb he by this time was weary. One day, in this 
 ambassador's own chamber, Napoleon suddenly changed 
 his demeanour ; "You refuse to accept our ultimatum," 
 said he, taking in his hands a beautiful vase of porcelain, 
 which stood on the mantlepiece near him. The Austrian 
 bowed. " It is well," said Napoleon, " but mark me — 
 within two months I will shatter Austria like this pot- 
 sherd." So saying, he dashed the vase on the ground 
 in a thousand pieces, and moved towards the door. 
 Cobentzel followed him, and made submissions which 
 induced him once more to resume his negotiations. 
 
 The result was the treaty of Campo-Formio, so called 
 from the village at which it was signed, on the 3rd of 
 October, 1797. By this act the emperor yielded to 
 France, Flanders and the boundary of the Rhine, in- 
 cluding the great fortress of Mentz. The various new 
 republics of Lombardy were united and recognised under 
 the general name of the Cisalpine Republic. To in- 
 demnify Austria for the loss of those territories, the fall 
 of Venice afforded new means — of which Napoleon did 
 not hesitate to propose, nor Austria to accept the use. 
 The French general had indeed conquered Venice, but 
 he had entered into a treaty subsequently, and recog- 
 nised a wholly new government in place of the oligarchy. 
 The emperor, on the other hand, well knew that the 
 Doge and Senate had incurred ruin by rising to his own, 
 
1797.] TREATY OF CAMPO-FORMIO. y."» 
 
 aid. Such considerations weighed little on either side. 
 
 France and Austria agreed to effect a division of the whole 
 territories of the ancient republic. Venice herself, and 
 her Italian provinces, were handed over to the emperor 
 in lieu of his lost Lombardy ; and the French assumed the 
 sovereignty of the Ionian islands and Dalmatia. This un- 
 principled proceeding excited universal disgust through- 
 out Europe. It showed the sincerity of Buonaparte's 
 love for the cause of freedom; and satisfied all the world 
 of the excellent title of the imperial court to complain ot 
 the selfishness and rapacity of the French democracy. 
 
 The emperor set his seal at Campo-Formio to another 
 of Buonaparte's acts of dictatorship, which, though in 
 one point of view even more unjustifiable than this, was 
 not regarded by the world with feelings of the same 
 order. The Italian territory of the Valteline had for 
 ages been subject to the Grison League. The inhabi- 
 tants, roused by the prevailing spirit all around them, 
 demanded Napoleon's intercession with their Swiss 
 masters, to procure their admission to all the political 
 privileges of the other cantons. They refused ; and 
 Napoleon, in the plenitude of his authority, immediately 
 supported the Valteline in throwing off the Grison yoke, 
 and asserting its utter independence. This territory 
 was now annexed to the Cisalpine Republic. A govern- 
 ment, with which France was on terms of alliance and 
 amity, was thus robbed of its richest possession ; but the 
 Valteline belonged by natural position, religion, and 
 language, to Italy, and its annexation to the new Italian 
 republic was regarded as in itself just and proper, how- 
 ever questionable Buonaparte's title to effect that event. 
 He himself said at the time, " It is contrary to tho 
 rights of man that any one people should be subject to 
 another;" a canon on which his after history formed u 
 ineid commentary. 
 
96 NArOLEON BUONAPARTBJ [1797. 
 
 In concluding, and in celebrating the conclusion of 
 his treaty, Napoleon's proud and fiery temperament 
 twice shone out. Cobentzel had set down as the first 
 article, " The Emperor recognises the French Republic." 
 " Efface that," said Napoleon, sternly, " it is as clear as 
 that the sun is in heaven. "Woe to them that cannot 
 distinguish the light of either !" At the Te Deum after 
 the proclamation of the peace, the imperial envoy would 
 have taken the place prepared for Buonaparte, which 
 was the most eminent in the church. The haughty 
 soldier seized his arm and drew him back. " Had your 
 master himself been here," said he, " I should not have 
 forgotten that in my person the dignity of France is 
 represented." 
 
 Various minor arrangements remained to be con- 
 sidered ; and a congress of all the German powers being 
 summoned to meet for that purpose at Rastadt, Na- 
 poleon received the orders of the Directory to appear 
 there, and perfect his work in the character of ambassa- 
 dor of France. He took an affecting leave of his soldiery, 
 published a temperate and manly address to the Cis- 
 alpine Republic, and proceeded, by way of Switzerland 
 (where, in spite of the affair of the Yalteline, he was re- 
 ceived with enthusiasm), to the execution of his duty. 
 He carried with him the unbounded love and devotion of 
 one of the finest armies that ever the world had seen ; 
 and the attachment, hardly less energetic, of all those 
 classes of society throughout Italy, who flattered them- 
 selves with the hope that the Cisalpine Republic, the 
 creature of his hands, would in time prepare the way 
 for, and ultimately merge in a republican constitution 
 common to the whole Italian people. With what hopes 
 or fears as to his future fortunes, he abandoned the scene 
 and the companions of his glory, the reader must form 
 his own opinion. 
 
1798.] NAPOLEON AT RASTADT. 97 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Xapoleon at llastadt—He arrives in Paris— ITis reception by the 
 Directory — His Conduct and Manners — He is appointed to command 
 the. Army for the Invasion of England — He recommends an Expe- 
 dition to Egypt — Re iches Toulon — Embarks. 
 
 Xapoleon was received by the ministers assembled at 
 Rastadt, with the respect due to the extraordinary 
 talents which he had already displayed in negotiation as 
 well as in war. But he stayed among them only two or 
 three days, for he perceived that the multiplicity of 
 minor arrangements to be discussed and settled, must, 
 if he seriously entered upon them, involve the necessity 
 of a long protracted residence at Rastadt ; and he had 
 many reasons for desiring to be quickly in Paris. His 
 personal relations with the directory were of a very 
 doubtful kind, and he earnestly wished to study with his 
 own eyes the position in which the government stood 
 towards the various orders of society in the all-influential 
 capital. Fie abandoned the conduct of the diplomatic 
 business to his colleagues, and reached Paris at tho 
 beginning of December. Nor was he without a feasible 
 pretext for this rapidity. On the 2nd of October, tho 
 directory had announced to the French people their 
 purpose to carry the war with the English into England 
 itself; the Immediate organization of a great invading 
 army ; and their desiern to place it under the command 
 of " Citizen General Buonaparte." 
 
 During his brief stay at btastadt, the dictator of 
 Campo-Formio once more broke out. The Swedish 
 envoy was Count Ferseu, the same nobleman who had 
 
98 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1798. 
 
 distinguished himself in Paris, during the early period 
 of the Revolution, by his devotion to King Louis and 
 Marie-Antoinette. Buonaparte refused peremptorily to 
 enter into any negotiation in which a man, so well 
 known for his hostility to the cause of the Republic, 
 should have any part ; and Fersen instantly withdrew. 
 
 On quitting this congress Napoleon was careful to 
 resume, in every particular, the appearance of a private 
 citizen. Reaching Paris, he took up his residence in 
 the same small modest house that he had occupied before 
 he set out for Italy, in the Rue Chautereine, which, 
 about this time, in compliment to its illustrious inhabi- 
 tant, received from the municipality the new name of 
 Rue de la Victoire. Here he resumed with his plain 
 clothes his favourite studies and pursuits, and, appa- 
 rently contented with the society of his private friends, 
 seemed to avoid, as carefully as others in his situation 
 might have courted, the honours of popular distinction 
 and applause. It was not immediately known that he 
 was in Paris, and when he walked the streets his person 
 was rarely recognised by the multitude. His mode of 
 life was necessarily somewhat different from what it had 
 been when he was both poor and obscure ; his society 
 was courted in the highest circles, and he from time to 
 time appeared in them, and received company at home 
 with the elegance of hospitality over which Josephine 
 was so well qualified to preside. But policy as well as 
 pride moved him to shun notoriety. Before he could 
 act again, he had much to observe ; and he knew him- 
 self too well to be flattered by the stare either of mobs 
 or of saloons. " They have memories for nothing here" 
 — he said at this time to his secretary — " if I remain 
 long without doing anything, I am done. Fame chases 
 fame in this great Babylon. If they had seen me three 
 times at the spectacle, they would no longer look at me." 
 
1793.] PARIS. 99 
 
 Another day Bourienne could not help congratulating 
 him on some noisy demonstration of popular favour. 
 "Bah!" he answered, "they -would rnsh as eagerly 
 about me if I were on my way to the scaffold." 
 
 In his intercourse with society at this period, he was, 
 for the most part, remarkable for the cold reserve of his 
 manners. He had the appearance of one too much 
 occupied with serious designs, to be able to relax at will 
 into the easy play of ordinary conversation. If his eye 
 was on every man, he well knew that every man's eye 
 was upon him ; nor, perhaps, could he have chosen a 
 better method (had that been his sole object) for pro- 
 longing and strengthening the impression his greatness 
 was calculated to create, than this very exhibition of 
 indifference. He did not suffer his person to be fami- 
 liarized out of reverence. When he did appear, it was 
 not the ball or ton mot of the evening before, that he 
 recalled : — he was still, wherever he went, the Buona- 
 parte of Lodi, and Areola, and Rivoli. His military 
 bluntness disdained to disguise itself amidst those circles 
 where a meaner parvenu would have been most ambiti- 
 ous to shine. The celebrated daughter of Necker made 
 many efforts to catch his fancy and enlist him among 
 the votaries of her wit, which then gave law in Paris. 
 " Whom," said she, half wearied with his dullness, "do 
 you consider as the greatest of women?" "Her, 
 madam," he answered, " who has borne the greatest 
 number of children." From this hour he had Madame 
 de Stael for his enemy ; and yet, such are the incon- 
 sistencies of human nature, no man was more sensitive 
 than he to the assaults of a species of enemy whom he 
 thus scorned to conciliate. Throughout his Italian 
 campaigns — as consul — as emperor — and down to the 
 last hour of the exile which terminated his life — Buona- 
 parte suffered himself to be annoyed by sarcasms and 
 
100 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1798. 
 
 pamphlets as keenly and constantly as if he had been a 
 poetaster. 
 
 The haughtiness, for such it was considered, of his 
 behaviour in the society of the capital, was of a piece 
 with what he had already manifested in the camp. In 
 the course of his first campaigns, his officers, even of the 
 highest rank, became sensible, by degrees, to a total 
 change of demeanour. An old acquaintance of the 
 Toulon period, joining the army, was about to throw 
 himself into the general's arms with the warmth of the 
 former familiarity. Napoleon's cold eye checked him ; 
 and he perceived in a moment how he had altered with 
 his elevation. He had always, on the other hand, af- 
 fected much familiarity with the common soldiery. He 
 disdained not on occasion to share the ration or to taste 
 the flask of a sentinel ; and the French private, often as 
 intelligent as those whom fortune has placed above him, 
 used to address the great general with even more frank- 
 ness than his own captain. Napoleon, in one of his 
 Italian despatches, mentions to the directory the pleasui'e 
 which he often derived from the conversation of the 
 men: "But yesterday," says he, "a common trooper 
 addressed me as 1 was riding, and told me he thought 
 he could suggest the movement which ought to be 
 adopted. I listened to him, and heard him detail some 
 operations on which I had actually resolved but a little 
 before." It has been noticed (perhaps by over-nice 
 speculators) as a part of the same system, that Napoleon, 
 on his return to Paris, continued to employ the same 
 tradespeople, however inferior in their several crafts, 
 who had served him in the days of his obscurity.* 
 
 * A silversmith, who had given him credit when he set out to 
 Italy for a dressing-ease worth £50, was rewarded with all tho 
 business which the recommendation of his now illustrious debtor 
 could bring to him ; and, being clever in his trade, became ulti- 
 
1798.] PABIS. 101 
 
 If we may follow M. de Bourienne, Napoleon at this 
 time laboured under intense anxiety of mind. Conscious 
 of the daring heights to which he had ere now accus- 
 tomed his ambitious imagination, he was fearful that 
 others had divined his secret, and was haunted with the 
 perpetual dread that some accident might unite Royalists 
 and Republicans in the work of his personal ruin. 
 
 The first public appearauce of Buonaparte occurred 
 (January 2, 1798) when the treaty of Campo-Formio 
 was to be formally presented to the directory. The great 
 court of the Luxembourg was roofed over with flags ; an 
 immense concourse, including all the members of the 
 government and of the two legislative bodies, expected 
 the victorious negotiator ; and when he appeared, fol- 
 lowed by his staff, and surrounded on all hands with the 
 trophies of his glorious campaigns, the enthusiasm of 
 the mighty multitude, to the for greater part of which 
 his person was, up to the moment, entirely unknown, 
 outleaped all bounds, and filled the already jealous hearts 
 of the directors with dark presentiments. They well 
 knew that the soldiery, returning from Italy, had sun"' 
 and said through every village, that it was high time to 
 get rid of the lawyers, and make tho " little corporal" 
 king. With uneasy hearts did they hear what seemed 
 too like an echo of this cry, from the assembled leaders 
 of opinion in Paris and in France. Anxious curiosity 
 and mutual distrust were written in every face. Tho 
 voice of Napoleon was for the first time heard in an 
 
 mately, under the patronage of tho imperial household, one of tho 
 wealthiest citizens of Paris. A little hatter, and a cobbler, who 
 had served Buonaparte when a subaltern, might have rism in tho 
 same manner, had their skill equalled the silversmith's. Not i v n 
 Napoleon's example could persuade the Parisians to wear ill-sb.ap< d 
 hats and clumsy boots ; but he, in his own person, adhered, to the 
 last, to his original connection with these poor artisans. 
 
102 KATOLEOX BUONAPARTE. [1798. 
 
 energetic speech, ascribing all the glories that had been 
 achieved to the zeal of the French soldiery for " the 
 glorious constitution of the year three" — the same 
 glorious constitution which, in the year eight, was to re- 
 ceive the cowp cle grace from his own hand : and Barras, 
 as presiding director, answering, that " Mature had ex- 
 hausted all her powers in the creation of a Buonaparte," 
 awoke a new thunder of unwelcome applauses. 
 
 Carnot had been exiled after the 18th Fructidor, and 
 was at this time actually believed to be dead. The insti- 
 tute nominated Buonaparte to fill his place ; and he was 
 received by this learned body with enthusiasm not infe- 
 rior to that of the Luxembourg. He thenceforth adopted, 
 on all public occasions, the costume of this academy ; 
 and, laying aside as far as was possible the insignia of 
 his military rank, seemed to desire only the distinction 
 of being classed with those whose scientific attainments 
 had done honour to their country. In all this he acted 
 on calculation. " I well knew," said he at St. Helena, " 
 that there was not a drummer in the army, but would 
 re?pect me the more for believing me to be not a mere 
 soldier." 
 
 Some time before he left Italy, a motion had been made 
 in one of the chambers for rewarding him with a grant 
 of the estate of Chambord, and lost owing solely to the 
 jealousy of the directory. This opposition was on their 
 part unjust and unwise, and extremely unpopular also ; 
 for it was known to all men that the general might easily 
 have enriched himself during his wonderful campaigns, 
 and it was almost as generally believed that he had 
 brought with him to the Rue do la Victoire only 100,000 
 crowns, saved from the fair allowances of his rank. !N"o 
 one who considers the long series of intrigues which had 
 passed between Buonaparte and the party that triumphed 
 in Fructidor, can doubt how he regarded this part of 
 
1798.] PARIS. 103 
 
 their conduct. Every day confirmed them in their jea- 
 lousy : nor did he take much pains on the other hand to 
 conceal his feelings towards them. On many occasions 
 they were willing to make use of him, although they 
 dreaded in so doing to furnish him with new proofs of 
 the vast superioi'ity which he had reached in public 
 opinion above themselves ; and he was, on his part, chary 
 of acceding to any of their proposals. 
 
 On the 21st of January, the anniversary of the death 
 of Louis XVI. was to be celebrated, according to custom, 
 as a great festival of the Republican calendar ; and, con- 
 scious how distasteful the observance had by this time 
 become to all persons capable of reflection, the govern- 
 ment would fain have diverted attention from themselves, 
 by assigning a prominent part in the ceremonial to him, 
 on whom, as they knew, all eyes were sure to be fixed 
 whenever he made his appearance. Napoleon penetrated 
 their motives. He remonstrated against the ceremony 
 altogether, as perpetuating the memory of a deed, perhaps 
 unavoidable, but not the less to be regretted. He told 
 them that it was unworthy of a great Eepublic to triumph, 
 year after year, in the shedding of an individual enemy's 
 blood. They answered by reminding him that the 
 Athenians and Romans of old recorded, in similar 
 festivals, the downfall of the Pisistratidas and the exile of 
 the Tarquins. He might have replied, that it is easier 
 for a nation to renounce Christianity in name, than to 
 obliterate altogether the traces of its humanizing influ- 
 ence. But this view did not as yet occur to Napoleon — 
 or if it had, could not have been promulgated to their 
 conviction. He stood on the impolicy of the barbarous 
 ceremony ; and was at length, with difficulty, persuaded 
 to appear in it as a private member of the institute, along 
 with the rest of that association. His refusal to be there 
 as the great general of the Republic annoyed the timid 
 
104 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1798. 
 
 Directory ; and yet, on his being recognised in his civic 
 dress, and pointed ont to new myriads of observers, the 
 effect which the government had desired to produce was 
 brought about in spite of all Buonaparte's reluctance. 
 The purpose of the assemblage was almost forgotten : 
 the clamours of the people converted it into another fete 
 for Napoleon. 
 
 It has already been said that as early as October, 
 1707, the directory announced then' intention of com- 
 mitting an army, destined for the invasion of England, 
 to the conqueror of Italy. He wholly disapproved of 
 their rashness in breaking off the negotiations of the pre- 
 ceding summer with the English envoy, Lord Malnies- 
 bury, and, above all, of the insolent abruptness of that 
 procedure.* But the die was cast ; and he willingly 
 accepted the appointment now pressed upon him by the 
 government, who, in truth, were anxious about nothing 
 so much as to occupy his mind with the matters of his 
 profession, and so prevent him from taking a prominent 
 part in the civil business of the State. Solely owing to 
 his celebrity, two of his brothers were already distin- 
 guished members of the legislative bodies ; and there 
 could be no doubt that the gates of either would fly 
 open for his own admission, if he chose it, on the next 
 election. 
 
 Whatever views of ulterior ambition might have opened 
 themselves to Napoleon at this period, he well knew that 
 the hour was not yet come, in which he could serve his 
 purpose better than by the pursuit of his military career. 
 According to De Bourienne, he had for some time nat- 
 tered himself that the law, which prevented a person so 
 
 * The directory broke off the negotiation in a most insolent 
 manner, by ordering Lord M ■dinesbury to quit France within 
 twenty-four hours: this they did in their exultation after the ISth 
 liuctidor. 
 
1793.] ARMY OF ENGLAXL". 105 
 
 young as lie from being a director, might be waived in his 
 favour ; not doubting, wo may conclude, that such col- 
 leaguea as Barras and Rewbell would soon sink into the 
 mere ministers of his will : but the opposition to this 
 scheme was so determined that it was never permitted 
 to be proposed openly. The Directory were popular with 
 no party : but there were many parties ; and, numeri- 
 cally, probably the Royalists were the strongest. The 
 pure Republicans were still powerful : the army of Italy 
 was distant and scattered ; that of the Rhine, far more 
 numerous, and equally w r ell disciplined, had its own 
 generals — men not yet in reputation immeasurably in- 
 ferior to himself; and, having been less fortunate than 
 their brethren in Italy, and consequently acquired less 
 wealth, it was no wonder that the soldiery of the Rhino 
 regarded the others, if not their leader, with some littlo 
 jealousy. In Napoleon's own language, " the pear was 
 not yet ripe." 
 
 He proceeded, therefore, to make a regular survey of 
 the French coast opposite to England, with the view of 
 improving its fortifications, and (ostensibly at least) of 
 selecting the best points for embarking an invading force. 
 For this service he was eminently qualified ; and many 
 local improvements of great importance, long afterwards 
 effected, were first suggested by him at this period. But, 
 if he had really thought otherwise beforehand, (which 
 M. de Boorienne denies,) the result of his examination 
 was a perfect conviction that the time was not yet come 
 for invading England. He perceived that extensive and 
 tedious preparations were indispensable ere the French 
 shipping on that coast could be put into a condition for 
 such an attempt; and the burst of loyalty which the 
 threat of invasion called forth in every part of Britain — 
 the devotion with which all classes of the people answered 
 the appeal of the governmeat — the immense extent to 
 
lOo' NAPOLEON BUONAPARIE. [1798. 
 
 wliicli the regular and volunteer forces were increased 
 everywhere — these circumstances produced a strong im- 
 pression on his not less calculating than enterprizing 
 mind. He had himself, in the course of the preceding 
 autumn, suggested to the minister for foreign affairs, the 
 celebrated Talleyrand, the propriety of making an effort 
 against England in another quarter of the world : — of 
 seizing Malta, proceeding to occupy Egypt, and therein 
 gaining at once a territory capable of supplying to France 
 the loss of her West Indian colonies, and the means of 
 annoying Great Britain in her Indian trade and empire. 
 To this scheme he now recurred : the East presented a 
 field of conquest and glory on which his imagination 
 delighted to brood. " Europe," said he, " is but a mole- 
 hill, all the great glories have come from Asia." The 
 injustice of attackingthe dominions of the Grand Seignior, 
 an old ally of France, formed but a trivial obstacle in 
 the eyes of the Directory ; the professional opinion of 
 Buonaparte that the invasion of England, if attempted 
 then, must fail, could not but carry its due weight ; the 
 temptation of plundering Egypt and India was great ; 
 and great, perhaps above all the rest, was the temptation 
 of finding employment for Napoleon at a distance from 
 France. The Egyptian expedition was determined on ; 
 but kept strictly secret. The attention of England was 
 still riveted on the coasts of Normandy and Picardy, 
 between which and Paris Buonaparte studiously divided 
 his presence — while it was on the borders of the Medi- 
 terranean that the ships and the troops really destined 
 for action were assembling. 
 
 Buonaparte, having rifled to such purpose the cabinets 
 and galleries of the Italian princes, was resolved not to 
 lose the opportunity of appropriating some of the rich 
 antiquarian treasures of Egypt ; nor was it it likely that 
 he should undervalue the opportunities which his ex- 
 
1798.^ EGYPTIAN' EXPEDITION. 107 
 
 •pedition might afford, of extending the boundaries of 
 science, by careful observation of natural phenomena. 
 He drew together therefore a body of eminent artists 
 and connoisseurs, under the direction of Monge, who had 
 managed his Italian collections : it was perhaps the first 
 time that a troop of Savans (there were 100 of them) 
 formed part of the staff of an invading army.* 
 
 The various squadrons of the French fleet were now 
 assembled at Toulon ; and everything seemed to bo in 
 readiness. Yet some time elapsed before Napoleon 
 joined the armament : and it is said by Miot that he did 
 all he could to defer joining it as long as possible, in 
 consequence of certain obscure hopes which he had enter- 
 tained of striking a blow at the existing government, 
 and remodelling it, to his own advantage, with the assent, 
 if not assistance, of Austria. This author adds that 
 Barras, having intercepted a letter of Buonaparte to 
 Cobentzel, went to him late one evening, and commanded 
 him to join the fleet instantly, on pain of being announced 
 as the enemy of the government; that the general 
 ordered his horses the same hour, and was on his way 
 to Toulon ere midnight. These circumstances may or 
 may not be truly given. It is not doubtful that the com- 
 mand of the Egyptian expedition was ultimately regarded, 
 both by Napoleon and the Directory, as a species of 
 honourable banishment. On reaching Toulon, Buona- 
 parte called his army together, and harangued them. 
 " Rome," he said, " combated Carthage by bea as well as 
 
 • Before leaving Paris, Buonaparte ordered his Secretary to pre- 
 pare a camp library, of small volumes, arranged under tho different 
 heads of Science, Geography and Travels, History, Poetry, Ro- 
 mance, Politics. The " works on Polities" are six in nuinlvr: — 
 viz., Montesquieu'3 Spiiit of Law^, a compendium of Mythology, 
 the Vedam, the Koraa, aud the Uli and New Testaments— all in 
 French. 
 
 V 
 
108 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [17&S. 
 
 land ; and England was the Carthage of Franco. — He 
 was come to lead them, in the name of the Goddess of 
 Liberty, across mighty seas, and into remote regions, 
 where their valour might achieve such glory and such 
 wealth as could never be looked for beneath tho cold 
 heavens of the west. The meanest of his soldiers should 
 receive seven acres of land ;" — where he mentioned 
 not. His promises had not hitherto been vain. The 
 soldiery heard him with joy, and prepared to obey with 
 alacrity. 
 
 The English government, meanwhile, although they 
 had no suspicion of the real destination of the armament, 
 had not failed to observe what was passing in Toulon. 
 They probably believed that the ships there assembled 
 were meant to take part in the great scheme of the in- 
 vasion of England. However this might have been, 
 they had sent a considerable reinforcement to Nelson, 
 who then commanded on the Mediterranean station ; 
 and he, at the moment when Buonaparte reached Toulon, 
 was cruising within sight of the port. Napoleon well 
 knew that to embark in the presence of Nelson would 
 be to rush into the jaws of ruin ; and waited until some 
 accident should relieve him from this terrible watcher. 
 On the evening of the 19th of May fortune favoured him. 
 A violent gale drove the English off the coast, and dis- 
 abled some ships so much that Nelson was obliged to go 
 into the harbours of Sardinia to have them repaired. 
 The French general instantly commanded the embarka- 
 tion of all his troops ; and as the last of them got on 
 board, the sun rose on the mighty armament : it was 
 one of those dazzling suns which the soldiery delighted 
 afterwards to call " the suns of Napoleon." 
 
 Seldom have the shores of the Mediterranean witnessed 
 a nobler spectacle. That unclouded sun rose on . a semi- 
 circle of vessels, extending in all to not less than six 
 
1798.] EGYPTIAN EXPEDITION. 109 
 
 leagues : thirteen strips of the line and fourteen frigates 
 (under the command of Admiral Brneyes) ; and 400 
 transports. They carried 40,000 picked soldiers, and 
 officers whose names were only inferior to that of tho 
 general-in-chief ; — of tho men, as well as of their 
 leaders, the far greater part already accustomed to follow 
 Napoleon, and to consider his presence as the pledge of 
 victory. 
 
UO EAPOLEON UCOXAPABIB. [1798. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Voyage to Egypt —Malta surrendered — Th: French escape Nelson. 
 
 mid Like Alexandria — The March up the Nile — The Battle of the 
 Pyramids— Cairo surrenders — 27ie Battle of Aboukir. 
 
 The French fleet was reinforced, ere it had proceeded 
 far on its wa}', by General Dessaix, and his division from 
 Italy ; and, having prosperous winds, appeared on the 
 10th of June off Malta. The Knights of St. John were 
 no longer those hardy and devout soldiers of the cross, 
 who for ages iuspired terror among the Mussulmans, and 
 were considered as the heroic outguards of Christendom. 
 Sunk in indolence and pleasure, these inheritors of a 
 glorious name hardly attempted for a moment to defend 
 their all but impregnable island, against the fleet which 
 covered the seas around them. The Parisian authorities 
 had tampered successfully beforehand with some of the 
 French knights. Division of counsels prevailed : and in 
 confusion and panic the gates were thrown open. As 
 Napoleon was entering between the huge rocky barriers 
 of La Valette, Caffarelli said to him : " It is well there 
 was some one within to open the door for us ; had there 
 been no garrison, at all, the business might have been 
 less easy," 
 
 From Malta — where he left a detachment of troops to 
 guard an acquisition which he expected to find eminently 
 useful in his future communications with France —Buona- 
 parte steered eastwards ; but, after some days, ran upon 
 the coast of Candia to take in water and freah provisions, 
 and, by thus casually diverging from his course, escaped 
 imminent danger. For Nelson, sooa returning to Tou- 
 
1798.] JJAPOLEOX AT ALEXANDRIA. Ill 
 
 lori, missed the shipping which had so lately crowded the 
 harbour, and ascertaining that they had not sailed to- 
 wards the Atlantic, divined on the instant that thoir 
 mark must be Egypt. His fleet was inferior in numbers, 
 but he pursued without hesitation ; and taking the 
 straight line, arrived off the Nile before any of the French 
 ships had appeared there. Buonaparte, on hearing off 
 Caudia that the English fleet was already in the Levant, 
 directed Admiral Brueyes to steer not for Alexandria, but 
 for a more northerly point of the coast of Africa. Nelson, 
 on the other hand, not finding the enemy where he had 
 expected, turned back and traversed the sea in quest of 
 him, to Rhodes — and thence to Syracuse. It is supposed 
 that on tho 20th of Juno the fleets almost touched each 
 other ; but that the thicknoss of the haze, and Nelson's 
 want of frigates, prevented an encounter. Napoleon, 
 reconnoitring tho coast, ascertained that there was no 
 longer any fleet off Alexandria, and in effect reached his 
 destination undisturbed on the first of July. At that 
 moment a strange sail appeared on the verge of the 
 horizon. " Fortune," exclaimed he, " I ask but sis hours 
 more — wilt thou refuse them ?" Tho vessel proved not 
 to be English ; and the disembarkation immediately took 
 place, in spite of a violont gale and a tremendous surf. 
 The Admiral Brueyes in vain endeavoured to persuade 
 Buonaparte to remain on board until the weather should 
 be more calm. Ho sternly refused, and landed at 
 Marabout, three leagues to tho eastward of Alexandria, 
 about one in the morning of the 2d July — having lost 
 many by drowning. 
 
 Egypt, a province of tho Ottoman empire, thon at 
 peace with France, was of course wholly unprepared for 
 this invasion. The Turks, however, mustered what forco 
 they could, and, shutting the gates of the city, held out, 
 until a division, headed by Napokon in person, forced 
 
112 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, [1798. 
 
 their way, at three in the morning', through the old 
 crumbling walls, and it was no longer possible to resist 
 at once superior numbers and European discipline. Two 
 hundred French died in the assault ; the Turkish loss 
 was much greater : and, if wo are to believo almost all 
 who have written concerning this part of his history, 
 Buonaparte, after taking possession, abandoned the place 
 for- three hours to the unbridled license of military exe- 
 cution and rapine — an atrocity for which, if it really oc- 
 curred, there could have been only one pretext ; namely, 
 the urgent necessity of striking awe and terror into the 
 hearts of the population, and so preventing them from 
 obeying the call of their military chieftains, to take arms 
 in defence of the soil. De Bourionne and Berthior, how- 
 ever, wholly deny this story. 
 
 If Napoleon's conduct on this occasion was as it has 
 been commonly represented, it was strangely contrasted 
 with tho tenor of his General Order to the army, issued 
 immediately before their disembarkation. " The people," 
 ho then said, " with whom we are about to live, aro 
 Mahometans ; the first article of thoir faith is, Tliere is 
 no God but God, and Mahomet is his Prophet. Do not 
 contradict them : deal with them as you have done with 
 the Jews and tho Italians. Respect their muphtis and 
 imans, as you have done by the rabbis and the bishops 
 elsewhere. . . . The Roman legions protected all religions. 
 You will find here usages different from those of Europo : 
 you must accustom yourselves to them. These people 
 treat their women differently from us ; but in all countries 
 he ivho violates is a monster ; pillage enriches only a few ; 
 ii dishonours us, destroys our resources, and makes those 
 enemies whom it is our interest to have for friends." 
 
 To the people of Egypt, meanwhile, Napoleon ad- 
 dressed a proclamation in these words : — " They will tell 
 you that I come to destroy your i*eligion ; believe them 
 
1795-1 EGYPT. 113 
 
 not :. a::.-", i v that I come to restore your rights, to punish 
 tho usurpers, and that I respect, more than the Mame- 
 lukes ever did, G id, his Prophet, and the Koran. Sheiks 
 and Inians. assure the people that we also aro true Mus- 
 sulmans, lb it not we that have ruined the Popo and" 
 the Knights of Malta ? Thrice happy they who shall bo 
 with us ? Woe (to them that take up arins for the Mame- 
 lukes! they shall perish !*' ;;: 
 
 Buonaparte was a fatalist — so that ouo main articlo 
 of the Mussulman creed pleased him well. He admired 
 Mahomet as one of those rare beings, who, by individual 
 
 • At this period Egypt, though nominally governed by a pacha 
 appointed by the Grand Seignior, was in reality in the hands of 
 the Mamelukes ; a singular body of men, who paid but littl* res- 
 pect to any authority but that of their own chiefs. Of these chiefs 
 or beys there were twenty-four ; each one of whom ruled over a 
 separate district ; who often warred with each other ; and were as 
 often in rebellion against their nominal sovereign. According to 
 the institutions of tho Mamelukes, their body was recruited solely 
 by boys, chiefly of European birth, taken captive, and brought up 
 from their earliest days in all military exercises. These were pro- 
 moted according to their merits ; it being the custom that when a 
 bey died, the bravest of his band succeeded him. The Mamelukes 
 thus formed a separate caste; and they oppressed most cruelly th i 
 population of tho country which had fallen into their keeping. The 
 fellahs, or poor Arabs, who cultivate the soil, being compelled to 
 pay exorbitantly for permission to do so, suffered the extreruo of 
 misery in the midst of great natural wealth. Tho Cbphtt, supposed 
 to be descended from tho ancient Egyptian nation, discharged most 
 civil functions under the Mamelukes, and had the trades and pro- 
 fessions in their hands, but they also were oppressed intolerably by 
 those haughty und ferocious soldiers. 
 
 The Mamelukes were considered by Napoleon to be, individually, 
 the finest cavalry in tho world. They rode the noblest horses of 
 Ajabia, and were armed with the best weapons which tho world 
 could produce ; carbines, pistols, &c. from England, and eabres of 
 the steel of Damascus. Their skill in horsemanship was equal to 
 their fiery valour. With that cavalry and the French infantry, 
 Buonaparte said, it would be easy to conquer the world. 
 
114 NArOLEOS BUONAPARTE. [1798. 
 
 genius find daring, have produced mighty and permanent 
 alterations in tho world. The General's assertion of his 
 own helief in the inspiration of the Arab impostor, was 
 often repeated in the sequel ; and will ever bo appreciated, 
 as it was at tho time by his own soldiery — whom indeed 
 he had addressed but the day before in language suffi- 
 ciently expressive of his real sentiments as to all form* 
 of religion. Rabbi, muphti, and bishop, the Talmud, the 
 Koran, and the Bible, were much on a level in his esti- 
 mation. He was willing to make use of them all as it 
 might serve his purpose ; and, though not by nature 
 cruel, he did not hesitate, when his interest seemed to 
 demand it, to invest his name with every circumstance 
 of terror, that could result from the most merciless viola- 
 tion of those laws of humanity which even his Koran 
 enforces, and which his own address to his army had so 
 recently inculcated. 
 
 Napoleon left Alexandria on the 7th July, being 
 
 anxious to force the Mamelukes to an encounter with tho 
 
 least possible delay. He had a small flotilla on the Nile, 
 
 which served to guard his right flank : the infantry 
 
 marched over burning sand at some distance from the 
 
 river. The miseries of this progress were extreme. The 
 
 air is crowded with pestiferous insects ; the glare of the 
 
 sand weakens most men's eyes, and blinds many ; water 
 
 is scarce and bad : and tho country had been swept clear 
 
 of man, beast, and vegetable. Under this torture even 
 
 the gallant spirits of such mon as Marat and Lannes 
 
 could not sustain themselves : — they trod their cockades 
 
 in the sand. The common soldiers asked, with angry 
 
 murmurs, if it was here the General designed to give 
 
 them their seven acres? He alone was superior to all these 
 
 evils. Such was the happy temperament of his frame, 
 
 that — while others, after having rid them of their usual 
 
 dress, were still suffused in perpetual floods of perspira- 
 
1758.] ECTTT. 115 
 
 tion, and the hardiest found it necessary to giro two or 
 three hours in the middle of the day to sloop— Napoleon 
 altered nothing ; wore his uniform buttoned up as at 
 Paris ; never showed one bead of sweat on his brow, nor 
 thought of repose except to lie down in his cloak the last 
 at night, and start up the first in the morning. It re- 
 quired, however, more than all this example of endurance, 
 and the general influence of Xupoleon's character could 
 do, to prevent the army from breaking into open mutiny. 
 "Once," said he at St. Helena, "I threw myself suddenly 
 amidst a group of generals, and, addressing myself to tho 
 tallest of their number with vehemence, said, You have 
 been talking sedition : take care lest I fulfil my duty : your 
 five feet ten inches would not hinder you from being shot 
 within two hours." 
 
 For some days no enemy appeared ; but at length 
 scattered groups of horsemen began to hover on their 
 flanks ; and the soldier, who quitted tho lino but for a 
 moment, was surrounded and put to death oro his com- 
 rades could rescuo him. The rapidity with which the 
 Mamelukes rode, and their skill as marksmen, were 
 seconded by tho character of tho soil and tho atmos- 
 phere ; the least motion or breath of wind being sufficient 
 to raise a cloud of sand, through which nothing could be 
 discerned accurately, while tho constant glare of tho sun 
 dazzled almost to blindness. It was at Chebrcis that tho 
 Mamelukes first attacked in a considerable body ; and at 
 the same moment the French tlotilla wa3 assaulted. In 
 either case the superiority of European discipline was 
 made manifest, but in cither case also the assailants 
 were able to retreat without much loss. Meantime the 
 hardships of the march continued ; the irregular attacks 
 of the enemy were becoming more and more numerous ; 
 so that the troops, continually halting and forming into 
 sauares to receive the charge of the cavalry by day, and 
 
116 NAPOLEOX BUOXAPAUTE. [1798. 
 
 forced to keep up great watches at night, experienced 
 the extremes of fatigue as well as of privation. In the 
 midst of this misery the common men behold with no 
 friendly eyes the troop of savans mounted on asses, (the 
 common conveyance of the country), with all their instru- 
 ments, books and baggage. They began to suspect that 
 the- -expedition had been undertaken for some merely 
 pcientifie purposes ; and when, on any alarm, they woro 
 ordered to open the square and give the learned party 
 safe footing within, they nsed to receive them with 
 military jeerings : " room for tho asses ; — stand back, 
 here come the savans and tho demi-savans." 
 
 On the 21st of July the army came within sight of the 
 Pyramids, which, but for the regularity of the outline, 
 might have been taken for a distant ridgo of rocky moun- 
 tains. While evory eye was fixed on these hoary monu- 
 ments of the past, they gained the brow of a gentle 
 eminence, and saw at length spread out before them the 
 vast ai*my of the beys, its right posted on an intrenched 
 camp by tho Nilo, its centre and left composed of that 
 brilliant cavalry with which they were by this time 
 acquainted. Napoleon, riding forwards to reconnoitre, 
 perceived (what esnaped the observation of all his staff) 
 that the guns on tho intrenched camp were not provided 
 with carriages ; and instantly decided on his plan of 
 attack. He prepared to throw his force on the left, 
 where the guns could not be available. Mourad Bey, 
 who commanded in chief, speedily penetrated his design ; 
 and tho Mamelukes advanced gallantly to the encounter. 
 " Soldiers," said Napoleon, " from tho summit of yonder 
 pyramids forty ages behold you ;" and tho battle began. 
 
 The French formed into separate squares, and awaited 
 the assault of the Mamelukes. These came on with im- 
 petuous speed and wild cries, and practised every means 
 to force their passage into the serried ranks of their new 
 
1798.] BATTLE OF THE PTTUMIDS. 117 
 
 opponents. They rushed on the lino of bayonets, backed 
 their horses upon them, and at last, maddened by the 
 firmness which the}' could not shake, dashed their pistols 
 and carbines into tho faces of tho men. They who had 
 fallen wounded from their seats, weald crawl along the 
 sand, and hew at the legs of their enemies with thoir 
 ^eymitars. Nothing could more the French : the bayonot 
 and the continued roll of musketry by degrees thinned 
 the host around them : and Buonaparte at last advanced. 
 Such were the confusion and terror of the enemy when 
 he camo near the camp, that they abandoned their works, 
 and fluug themselves by hundreds into tho Nile. The 
 carnage was prodigious. Multitudes more were drownod. 
 Mourad and a remnant of his Mamolukos retreated on 
 Upper Egypt. Cairo surrendered : Lower Egypt was 
 entirely conquered. 
 
 Such were the immediate consequences of the battle 
 of the Pyramids. The name of Buonaparte now spread 
 panic through tho East ; and tho " Sultan Kebir" (or 
 king of fire, as he was called from the deadly effects of 
 the musketry in this engagement), was considered as tho 
 destined scourge of God, whom it was hopeless to resist. 
 
 The French new had recompense for the toils they had 
 undergone. The bodies of the slain and drownod Mame- 
 lukes were rifled, and, it being the custom for thoso war- 
 riors to carry their wealth about them, a single corpse 
 often made a soldier's fortune. In tho deserted harerns 
 of the chiefs at Cairo, and in tho neighbouring villages, 
 men at length found proofs that " eastern luxury" is no 
 empty name. The Bavans ransacked the monuments of 
 antiquity, and formed collections which will 9ver reflect 
 honour on their zeal and skill. Napoleon himself visited 
 the interior of the Groat Pyramid, and on entering the 
 secret chamber, in which, 3(J00 years before, some 
 Pharaoh had been inurned, repeated once more his con* 
 
118 NAPOLEOX BUOXArARTE. [1793. 
 
 fession of faith — " Thoro is no God but God, and 
 Mahomet is his prophot." Tho boarded orientals who 
 accompaniod him, concealed their doubts of his ortho- 
 doxy, and responded very solemnly, " God is merciful. 
 Thou hast spoken like tho most learned of tho prophets." 
 
 "While Napoleon wi.s thus pursuing his career of vic- 
 tory in the interior, Nelson, having scoured the Mediter- 
 ranean in quest of him, once more returned to the coast 
 of Egypt. He arrived within sight of tho towers of 
 Alexandria on the 1st of August — ten days after the 
 battle of the Pyramids had been fought and won — and 
 found Brueyes still at his moorings in the bay of Aboukir. 
 Nothing seems to be more clear than that the French 
 admiral ought to have made tho best of his way 1o Franco, 
 or at least to Malta, the moment the army had taken pos- 
 session of Alexandria. Napoleon constantly asserted that 
 he had urged Brueyes to do so. Brueyes himself lived 
 not to give his testimony ; but Gantheaume, tho vice- 
 admiral, always persisted in stating, in direct contradic- 
 tion to Buonaparte, that tho fleet remained by tho 
 general's express desire. The testimonies being thus 
 balanced, it is necessary to consult other materials of 
 judgment; and it appears extremely difficult to doubt 
 that the French admiral, — who, it is acknowledged on 
 all hands, dreaded tho encounter of Nelson, — remained 
 off Alexandria for the sole purpose of aiding the motions 
 of the army, and in consequence of what he at least con- 
 ceived to be the wish of its general. However this 
 might have been, the results of his delay were terrible. 
 
 The French fleet were moored in a semicircle in tlie 
 bay of Aboukir, so near the shore, that, as their admiral 
 believed, it was impossible for the enemy to come be- 
 tween him and the land. He expected, therefore, to bo 
 attacked on one side only, and thought himself sure that 
 the English could not renew their favourite manoeuvre 
 
1798.] CATTLE OF ADOUKIK. 110 
 
 of breaking tie line,* and so at once dividing the opposed 
 fleet, and placing the ships individually between two 
 tires. Bat Nelson daringly judged that the ships might 
 force a passage between the French and the land, and 
 succeeding in this attempt, instantly brought on the con- 
 flict, in the same dreaded form which Brueyeshad believed 
 impossible. The details of this great sea fiq;ht belong to 
 the history of the English hero.f The battle was obsti- 
 nate — it lasted more than twenty hours, including tho 
 whole night. A solitary pause occurred at midnight, 
 when the French admiral's ship, L'Orient, a superb ves- 
 sel of 120 guns, took fire, and blew up in the heart of 
 the conflicting squadrons, with an explosion that for a 
 moment silenced rage in awe. Tho admiral himself 
 perished. Next morning', two shattered ships, out of all 
 the French fleet, with difficulty made their escape to the 
 open sea. The rest of all that magnificent array had been 
 utterly destroyed, or remained in the hands of the English. 
 
 Such was the battle of Aboukir, in which Nelson 
 achieved, with a force much inferior to the French, what 
 he himself called, " not a victory, but a conquest." 
 Three thousand French seamen reached the shore : a 
 greater number died. Had the English admiral possessed 
 frigates, he must have forced his way into the harbour 
 of Alexandria, and seized the whole stores and transports 
 of the army. As things were, the best fleet of the Re- 
 public had ceased to be ; the blockade of the coast was 
 established ; and the invader, completely isolated from 
 France, must be content to rely on his own arms and tho 
 resources of Egypt. 
 
 * This manoeuvre was first practised on the 12th of August, 17S2, 
 by Lord Rodney's fleet; and, us appears to bo now settled, at tho 
 suggestion of that admiral's captain of tha fleet, the late Sir Charles 
 Douglas, Bart. 
 
 t See the udmirable Life of Kelson, hy So u they ; which now 
 forms one of the numbers oi the Family Library. 
 
120 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. J 1798. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Buonaparte's Administration in Egypt — Armaments of the Porte — 
 Buonaparte at Suez — At El-Arish—Gaza, Jaffa, Acre — Retreat 
 to Egypt — Defeat of the Turks at Aboukir — Napoleon embarks for 
 France. 
 
 Before Nelson's arrival, Buonaparte is said to Lave 
 meditated returning to Franco, for the purpose of ex- 
 torting from the government those supplies of various 
 kinds which, on actual examination, he had perceived to 
 be indispensable to the permanent occupation of Egypt, 
 and which he well knew the Directors would refuse to 
 any voice but his own. He intended, it is also said, to 
 urge on tho Directory the propriety of resuming the 
 project of a descent on England itself, at the moment 
 when the mind of that government might bo supposed 
 to be engrossed with the news of his dazzling successes 
 in Egypt. All those proud visions died with Brueyes. 
 On hearing of the battle of Aboukir a solitary sigh 
 escaped from Napoleon. "To France," said he, "tho 
 fates have decreed the empire of tho land — to England 
 that of the sea." 
 
 He endured this great calamity with the equanimity 
 of a masculine spirit. He gave orders that the seamen 
 landed at Alexandria should be formed into a marine 
 bi'igade, and thus gained a valuable addition to bis army; 
 and proceeded himself to organize a system of govern- 
 ment, under which the great natural resources of the 
 country might be turned to the best advantage. We 
 need not dwell on that vain repetition of his faith in 
 Mahomet, to which Joe would not and could not give 
 
170S-1 ADMIXISTBATIOy OF EGYPT. 121 
 
 effect by openly adopting the rales and ceremonies of 
 the Koran ; which accordingly bnt amnsed his own fol- 
 lowers; and which deceived none of the Mussulman 
 people. This was tlio trick of an'audacious infidel, who 
 wanted wholly that enthusiasm without which no religi- 
 ous impostor can hope to partake the successes of the 
 Prophet of Mecca. Passing over this worthless prelimi- 
 nary, the arrangements of the new administration reflect 
 honour . on the consummate understanding, the clear 
 skill, and the unwearied industry of this extraordinary 
 man. 
 
 He was careful to advance no claim to the sovereignty 
 of Egypt, but asserted, that having rescued it from the 
 Mameluke usurpation, it remained for him to administer 
 law and justice, until the time should come for restoring 
 the province to the dominion of the Grand Seignior. 
 He then established two councils, consisting of natives, 
 principally of Arab chiefs and Moslem of the church and 
 the law, by whose advico all measures wore, nominally, 
 to be regulated. They formed of course a very sub- 
 servient senate. He had no occasion to demand 
 more from the people than they had been used to 
 pay to tho beys; and he lightened tho impost by 
 introducing, as far as he could, tho fairness and exact : 
 ness of a civilized power in the method of levying 
 it. He laboured to make the laws respected., and 
 this so earnestly and rigidly, that no small wonder 
 was. excited among all classes of a population so 
 long accustomed to the license of a barbarian horde of 
 spoilers. On one occasion, one of the Ulemahs could 
 not help smiling at the zeal which he manifested for 
 tracing home the murder of an obscure peasant, to the 
 perpetrator. The Mussulman asked if the dead man 
 were anywise related to the blood of the Sultan Kebir ? 
 " No," answered Napoleon, sternly — " but he was more 
 
122 KATOLEON BCOXAPABTE. [l?<£. 
 
 than that — he was one of a people whose government it 
 has pleased Providence to place in my hands." The 
 measures which he took for the protection of travellers 
 to Mecca, were especially acceptable to the heads of the 
 Moslem establishment, and produced from them a pro- 
 clamation, (in direct contradiction to the Koran,) signi- 
 fying that it was right and lawful to pay tribute to the 
 French. The virtuosi and artists in his train, meanwhile, 
 pursued with indefatigable energy their scientific re- 
 searches ; they ransacked the monuments of Egypt, and 
 laid the foundation, at least, of all the wonderful disco- 
 veries, which have since been made concerning the know- 
 ledge, arts, polity, (and even language) of the ancient 
 nation. Nor were their objects merely those of curiosity. 
 They, under the General's direction, examined into the 
 long-smothered traces of many an ancient device for im- 
 proving the agriculture of the country. Cauals that had 
 been shut up for centuries were re-opened ; the waters of 
 the Nile flowed once more where they had been guided 
 by the skill of the Pharaohs or the Ptolemies. Cultiva- 
 tion was extended ; property secui'ed ; and it cannot be 
 doubted that the signal improvements since introduced 
 in Egypt, are attributable mainly to the wise example of 
 the French administration. At Cairo itself there oc- 
 curred one stormy insurrection, provoked, as may be 
 supposed, by some wantonness on the part of the garri- 
 son ; but, after this was quelled by the same merciless 
 vigour which Napoleon had displayed on similar occa- 
 sions in Italy, the comitry appears to have remained in 
 more quiet, and probably enjoyed, in spite of the presence 
 of an invading army, more prosperity than it had ever 
 done during any period of the same length, since the 
 Saracen government was overthrown b} r the Ottomans. 
 
 In such labours Napoleon passed the autumn of 17U8. 
 " At this period," writes his secretary, " it was his cus- 
 
1799-] EGYPT. 128 
 
 torn to retire early to bod, and it was ray bnsiness to 
 read to him as long as ho remained awake. If I read 
 poetry, he soon fell asleep, but if, as sometimes happened, 
 he called for The Life cf Cromwell, I made up my mind 
 to want reposo for that night." 
 
 General Dessaix, meanwhile, had pursued Mourad 
 Bey into Up >cr Egypt, where tbo Mamelukes hardly 
 made a single stand against him, but contrived, by the 
 excellence of their horses, and their familiarity with the 
 deserts, to avoid any total disruption of their forces. 
 Mourad relumed to the neighbourhood of Cairo on 
 hearing of the insurrection already mentioned; but 
 departed when ho learned its suppression. Those 
 gallant horsemen wore gradually losing numbers in their 
 constant desert marches — they were losing heart rapidly : 
 and everything seemed to promise, that the Upper 
 Egypt, like the Lower, would soon settlo into a peaceful 
 province of the new French colony. 
 
 The General, during this interval of repo?e, received 
 no communication from the French government ; but 
 rumours now began to reach his quarters which might 
 well give him new anxieties. The report of another 
 rupture with Austria gradually met with more credence; 
 and it was before long placed beyond a doubt, that the 
 Ottoman Porte, instead of being tempted into any 
 recognition of the French establishment in Egypt, hud 
 declared war against the Republic, and summoned all 
 the strength of her empire to pour in overwhelming 
 numbers on the isolated army of Buonaparte. 
 
 As yet, however, there was no appearance of an 
 
 enemy; and Napoleon seized the opportunity to explore 
 
 the Isthmus of Suez, where a narrow neck of land 
 
 divides tho Bed Sea from the Mediterranean, partly with 
 
 the view of restoring the communication which in 
 
 *emoto times existed between them, and oartly of pro- 
 
 10 
 
124 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1799. 
 
 viding for the defence of Egypt, should the Ottomans 
 attempt their invasion by the way of Syria. 
 
 He visited the Maronite monks of Mount Sinai, and, 
 as Mahomet had done before him, affixed his name to 
 their charter of privileges ; he examined also the 
 fountain of Moses; and nearly lost his life in exploring, 
 during low water, the sands of the Red Sea, where 
 Pharaoh is supposed to have perished in the pursuit of 
 the Hebrews. " The night overtook us," says Savary in 
 his Memoirs, " the waters began to rise around us, the 
 guard in advance exclaimed that their horses were 
 swimming. Buonaparte saved us all by one of those 
 simple expedients which occur to an imperturbablo 
 mind. Placing himself in the centre, he bade all the rest 
 form a circle around him, and then ride out, each man in 
 a separate direction, and each to halt as soon as ho 
 found his horse swimming. The man whose horse con- 
 tinued to march the last, was sure, he said, to be in the 
 right direction; him accordingly we all followed, and 
 reached Suez at two in the morning in safety, though so 
 rapidly had the tide advanced, that the water was at the 
 poitrcls of our horses ere we made the land. 
 
 On his return to Cairo, the General despatched a 
 trusty messenger into India, inviting Tippoo Saib to 
 inform him exactly of the condition of the English army 
 in that region, and signifying that Egypt was only the 
 first post in a march destined to surpass that of Alex- 
 ander! "He spent whole days," writes his secretary?, 
 " in lying fiat upon the ground stretched upon maps of 
 Asia," 
 
 At length the time for action came. Leaving 15,000 
 in and about Cairo, the division of Dessaix in Upper 
 Egypt, and garrisons in the chief towns — Buonaparte, 
 on the 11th of February, 1799, marched for Syria at 
 the head of 10,000 picked men, with the intention of 
 
1799.] JAFFA. 125 
 
 crushing the Turkish armament in that quarter, before 
 their chief force (which ho now knew was assembling at 
 Rhodes) should have time to reach Egypt by sea. Tra- 
 versing the desert which divides Africa from Asia, ho 
 took possession of the fortress El- Arish (15 Feb.), whose 
 garrison, after a vigorous assault, capitulated on condi- 
 tion that they should be permitted to retreat into Syria, 
 pledging their parole not to serve again during the war. 
 Pursuing his march, he took Gazah (that ancient city of 
 the Philistines) without opposition ; but at Jaffa (the 
 Joppa of holy writ), the Moslem made a resolute defence. 
 The walls were carried by storm, 3000 Turks died with 
 arms in their hands, and the town was given up diiring 
 thrie hours to the fury of the French soldiery — who 
 never, as Xapoleon confessed, availed themselves of the 
 license of war more savagely than on this occasion. 
 
 A part of the garrison — amounting, according to 
 Buonaparte, to 1200 men, but stated by others as nearly 
 3000 in number — held out for some hours longer in the 
 mosques and citadel ; but, at length, seeing no chance of 
 rescue, grounded their arms on the 7th of March. 
 Eugene Beauharnois, who in person accepted their sub- 
 mission, was violently rebuked by Napoleon for having 
 dono so : the soldiery murmured, asking how these bar- 
 barians were to be fed, when they themselves were 
 already suffering severe privations. The General sum- 
 moned his chief officers to council, and, after long dis- 
 cussion, it was resolved that, in this case, necessity loft 
 no room for mercy. On the 10th — three days after 
 their surrender — the prisoners were marched out ot 
 Jaffa, in the centre of a battalion under General Bon. 
 "When they had reached the sand hills, at some distance 
 from the town, they were divided into small parties, and 
 shot or bayoneted to a man. They, like true fatalists, 
 submitted in. silence; and their bodies were gatkerod 
 
126 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1799. 
 
 togother into a pyramid, where, aftor a lapse of thirty 
 years, their bones were still whitening the sand. 
 
 Such was tho massacre of Jaffa, which will ever form 
 one of the darkest stains on the name of Napoleon. He 
 admitted the fact himself, and justified it on the double 
 plea that he oould not afford soldiers to guard so many 
 prisoners, and that he could not grant them the benefit 
 of their parole, because they were tho very men who 
 had already been set free on such terms at El-Arish. 
 To this last defence tho answer is, unfortunately for 
 him, very obvious. He could not possibly have recog- 
 nised in every one of these victims, an individual who 
 had already given and broken his parole. If he did — 
 still that would not avail him — the men surrendered 
 with arms in their hands. No general has a right to 
 cec men abandon the means of defence, and then — after 
 the lapse of threo days too — inflict on them the worst 
 fate that could have befallen them had they held out. 
 The only remaining plea is that of expediency; and it is 
 one upon which many a retail, as well as wholesale 
 murderer, might justify his crime. 
 
 Buonaparte had now ascertained that the Pacha of 
 Syria, Achmci-Djczzar,* was at St. Jean D'Acre (so 
 renowned in the history of the crusades), and determined 
 to defend that place to extremity with the forces which 
 had already been assembled for the invasion of Egypt. 
 He in vain endeavoured to seduce this ferocious chief 
 from his allegiance to the Porte, by holding out the hope 
 of a separate independent government, under the protec- 
 tion of Franco. The first of Napoleon's messengers 
 returned without an answer; the second was put to 
 death ; and tho army moved on Aero in all the zeal of 
 
 * E'j^zzar means butcher ; he had well earned this title by the 
 mcrcilcssTw»»i3 of his administration. 
 
1799.J SIEGE OF ACEE. 127 
 
 revenge, while the necessary apparatus of a siege was 
 ordered to be sent round by sea from Alexandria. 
 
 Sir Sydney Smith was then cruising in the Levant 
 with two British ships of the line, the Tigre and the 
 Theseus ; and, being informed by the Pacha of the ap- 
 proaching storm, hastened to support him in the defence 
 of Acre. Napoleon's vessels, convoying gnnsand stores 
 from Egypt, fell into his hands, and he appeared off the 
 town two days before the French army came in view of 
 it. He had on board his ship Colonel Philippeaux, a 
 French royalist of great talents (formerly Buonaparte's 
 school-fellow at Brienne) ;* and the Pacha willingly 
 permitted the English commodore and this skilful ally, 
 to regulate for him, as far as was possible, the plan of 
 his defence. 
 
 The loss of his own heavy artillery, and the presence 
 of two English 6hips, were inauspicious omens ; yet 
 Buonaparte doubted not that the Turkish garrison would 
 shrink before his onset, and he instantly commenced tho 
 siege. He opened his trenches on the 18th of March. 
 " On that little town," said ho to one of his generals, as 
 they were standing together on an eminence, which still 
 bears the name of Richard Cccur do Lion — "on yonder 
 little town depends the fate of the East. Behold the 
 key of Constantinople, or of India." "Tho moment 
 Acre fails," said he about tho same time to Do Bourienne, 
 "all the Druses will join me; tho Syrians, weary of 
 Djczzar's oppressions, will crowd to my standard. I 
 shall march upon Constantinople with an army to which 
 the Turk can olTer no effectual resistance — and it seems 
 not unlikely that I may return to France by the route of 
 
 * Sir Sydney Smith, having been token prisoner and most un- 
 justifiably confined by the French government in tho dungeons of 
 the Temple, hud made his c icapo through the seal of e^itain of tho 
 royalist party, and chiefly of Pbilijpoaux. 
 
128 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1799. 
 
 Adrianoplo and Vienna — destroying the honse of Austria 
 on my way." 
 
 .From the 18th to the 28th of March, the French 
 laboured hard in their trenches, being exposed to the fire 
 of extensive batteries, arranged by Philippeaux so as to 
 command their approach, and formed chiefly of Buona- 
 parte's own artillery, captured on the voyage from 
 Alexandria. The Turks also were constantly sallying 
 out, and their Pacha personally set the example of the 
 most heroic resolution. Nevertheless, on the 28th, a 
 breach was at last effected, and the French mounted with 
 FLuch fiery zeal that the garrison gave way, until Djezzar 
 appeared on the battlements, and, flinging his own pistols 
 at the heads of the flying men, urged and compelled 
 them to renew the defence. In the end the French re- 
 treated with great loss, and — the Turks, headed by the 
 English seamen, pursuing them to their lines — a great 
 mine, designed to blow up the chief tower of Acre, was 
 explored, and means taken for countermining it. 
 
 Meanwhile a vast Mussulman army had been gathered 
 among the mountains of Samaria, and was preparing to 
 descend upon Acre, and attack the besiegers in concert 
 with the garrison of Djezzar. Junot, with his division, 
 marched to encounter them, and would have been over- 
 whelmed by their numbers, had not Napoleon himselt 
 followed and rescued him (April 8) at Nazareth, where 
 the splendid cavalry of the orientals were, as usual, un- 
 able to resist the solid squares and well-directed mus- 
 ketry of the French. Kleber, with another division, 
 was in like manner endangered, and in like manner 
 rescued by the general-in-chief at Mount Tabor (April 
 15). The Mussulmans dispersed on all hands ; and 
 Napoleon, returning to his siege, pressed it on with 
 desperate assaults, day after day, in which his best 
 soldiers were thinned, before the united efforts of Djez* 
 
X799.] SIEGE OP ACRE. 129 
 
 aar's gallantry, and the skill of Lis allies. At length, 
 however, a party of French succeeded in forcing their 
 way into the great tower, and in establishing themselves 
 in one part of it, in despite of all the resolution that 
 could be opposed to them. At the same critical mo- 
 ment, there appeared in the offing a Turkish fleet, which 
 was known to carry great reinforcements for the Pacha. 
 Everything conspired to prompt Napoleon to finish his 
 enterprise at whatever cost, and he was bravely seconded. 
 
 Sir Sydney Smith, however, was as resolute to hold 
 out until the fleet should arrive, as Xapoleon was eager 
 to anticipate its coming. The English commander re- 
 paired with his handful of seamen to the tower, and after 
 a furious assault, dislodged the occupants. Buonaparte 
 did not renew the attack in that quarter, but succeeded 
 in breaking the wall in another part of the town ; and 
 the heroic Lannes headed a French party who actually 
 entered Aero at that opening. Bnt Djezzar was willing 
 they should enter. Ho suffered them to come in unmo- 
 lested ; and then, before they could form, threw such a 
 crowd of Turks upon them, that discipline was of no 
 avail : it was a mere multitude of duels, and the bravo 
 orientals, with their scimitars and pistols, overpowered 
 their enemies, and put them to death — almost to a man. 
 Lannes himself was with difficulty carried back desper- 
 ately wounded. 
 
 The rage of Buonaparte at these repeated discomfitures 
 may be imagined. Tho whole evil was ascribed, and 
 justly, to the presence of Sir Sydney Smith ; and he 
 spoke of that chivalrous person ever after with the venom 
 of a personal hatred. Sir Sydney, in requital of Buona- 
 parte's proclamation — inviting (as was his usual fashion) 
 the subjects of the Pacha to avoid his yoke, and ally 
 themselves with the invaders — put forth a counter ad- 
 dress to the Druses and other Christian inhabitants of 
 
130 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. |!799. 
 
 Syria, invoking their assistance in the name of their re- 
 ligion, against the blasphemous general of a nation which 
 had renounced Christianity. Napoleon upon this said 
 that Sir Sydney was a madman ; and if his story be 
 true, Sir Sydney challenged him to single combat ; to 
 which he made answer, that he would not come forth to 
 a duel, unless the English could fetch Marlborough from 
 his grave, but that, in the mean time, any one of his 
 grenadiers would willingly give the challenger such sa- 
 tisfaction as he was entitled to demand. Whatever in- 
 accuracy there may be in some of these circumstances, 
 there is no doubt of the fact that Buonaparto and the 
 brave commodoro strove together at Acre, under the 
 highest influence of personal resentment, as well as 
 martial skill and determination. 
 
 21st May.'] The siege had now lasted sixty days. 
 Once more Napoleon commanded an assault, and his 
 officers and soldiery once more obeyed him with devoted 
 and fruitless gallantry. The loss his army had by this 
 time undergone was very great. Caffarelli, and many 
 other officers of the highest importance, were no more. 
 The plague had some time before this appeared in the 
 camp; every day the ranks of his legions were thinned 
 by this pestilence, as well as by the weapons of the de- 
 fenders of Acre. The hearts of all men were quickly sink- 
 ing. The Turkish fleet was at hand to reinforce Djezzar; 
 and upon the utter failure of the attack of the 21st of May, 
 Napoleon yielded to stern necessity, and began his retreat 
 upon Jaffa. 
 
 The plague now raged in the army. The very name 
 of this horrible scourge shook the nerves of the Euro- 
 peans ; its symptoms filled them with indescribable 
 horror. The sick despaired utterly; the healthy 
 trembled to minister to them in their misery. Napoleon 
 went through the hospitals, and at once breathed hope 
 
1799-] JAFFA. 131 
 
 into the stiff r jrs, aad rebuked the cowardice of thoir 
 attendants, hy squeezing and relieving with his own 
 hand the foul ulcers which no one had dared to touch. 
 Pity that this act of true heroism must ever be recorded 
 on the same page that tells the story of the sand hills! 
 
 The name of Jaffa was already sufficiently stained; 
 but fame speedily represented Napoleon as having now 
 made it the scene of another atrocity, not less shocking 
 than that of the massacre of the Turkish prisoners. 
 
 The accusation, which for many years made so much 
 noise throughout Europe, amounts to this: that on the 
 27th of May, when it was necessary for Napoleon to pursuo 
 his march from Jaffa for Egypt, a certain number of the 
 plague-patients in the hospital were found to be in s 
 state that held out no hope whatever of their recoverv , 
 that the general, being unwilling to leave them to tin, 
 tender mercies of the Turks, conceived the notion of 
 administering opium, and so procuring for them at least 
 a speedy and an easy death; and that a number of men 
 were accordingly taken oil' in this method by his com- 
 mand. The story, the circumstances of which were 
 much varied in different accounts, especially as regards 
 the numbers of the poisoned (raised sometimes as high 
 as 500), was first disseminated by Sir Robert Wilson, 
 and was in substance generally believed in England. In 
 each J>ud all of its parts, on the contrary, it was wholly 
 denie 1 by the admirers of Buonaparte, who treated it aa 
 one of the many gross falsehoods which certainly were 
 circulated touching the personal character and conduct 
 of their idol, during the continuance of his power. 
 
 Buonaparte himself, while at St. Helena, referred to 
 the story frequently; and never hesitated to admit that 
 it originated in the following oecurrerce. He sent, ho 
 said, the night before the march was to commence, for 
 Desgeuv-ttes, the ehicf of the medical staff, and proposed 
 
132 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1799. 
 
 to him, under such circumstances as have been described, 
 the propriety of giving opium, in mortal doses, to seven 
 men, adding that had his son been in their situation be 
 would have thought it his duty, as a father, to treat him 
 in the same method; and that, most certainly, had he 
 himself been in that situation, and capable of under- 
 standing it, he would have considered the deadly cup as 
 the best boon that friendship could offer him. M. 
 Desgenettes, however (said the Ex-Emperor), did not 
 consider himself as entitled to interfere in any such 
 method with the lives of bis fellow men; the patients 
 were abandoned; and, at least, one of the number fell 
 alive into the hands of Sir Sydney Smitb, and recovered. 
 
 Such is Napoleon's narrative ; and it is confirmed in 
 all particulars of importance, save tivo, by De Bourienne. 
 Tbat writer states distinctly that he was present when 
 Napoleon, Berthier, and the usual suite, examined the 
 hospital — heard the discussion which followed, and the 
 order given for administering mortal potions to the hope- 
 less patients — in number sixty. He does not assert that 
 he saw the poison administered, but says he has no 
 doubt the order was executed ; and concludes with de- 
 fending the measure by arguments similar to those al- 
 ready quoted from tho lips of his master. 
 
 Whether tho opium was really administered or not — 
 that the audacious proposal to that effect was made by 
 Napoleon, we have his own admission ; and every 
 reader must form his opinion as to the degree of guilt 
 which attaches to tho fact of having meditated and de- 
 signed the deed in question, under the circumstances 
 above detailed. That Buonaparte, accustomed to wit- 
 ness slaughter in every forrn, was in genei'al but a callous 
 calculator when the loss of human life was to be con- 
 sidered, no one can doubt. That his motives, on this 
 occasion, were cruel, no human being, who considers 
 
1799.] JAFTA, 183 
 
 either tbe temper or tho situation of the man, will ever 
 believe. He, doubtless, designed, by shortening those 
 men's lives, to do them the best service in his power. 
 The presumption of thus daring to sport with the laws of 
 God and man, when expedience seemed to recommend 
 such interference, was quite in the character of the 
 young General : cruelty was not ; least of all, cruelty to 
 his own soldiery — the very beings on whose affection all 
 his greatness depended. 
 
 The march onwards was a continued scene of misery ; 
 for the wounded and the sick were many, the heat op- 
 pressive, the thirst intolerable ; and the ferocious Djezzar 
 was hard behind, and the wild Arabs of the desert 
 hovered round them ou every side, so that he who fell 
 behind his company was sure to be slain. How hard 
 and callous the hearts of brave men can become, when 
 every thought is occupied with self, the story of that 
 march presents a fearful picture. When a comrade, after 
 quitting his ranks, being stimulated by the despair of 
 falling into the hands of the Turks or Arabs, yet once 
 again reared himself from the burning sand, and made a 
 last attempt to stagger after the column, his painful and 
 ineffectual efforts furnished matter for military merri- 
 ment. " He is drunk," said one ; " his march will not 
 be a long one," answered another ; and when he once 
 more sank helpless and hopeless, a third remarked, "our 
 friend has at length taken up his quarters." It is not 
 to be omitted, that Xapoleon did, on this occasion, all 
 that became his situation. He issued an order that every 
 horse should be given up to the servico of the sick. A 
 moment afterwards, one of his attendants camo to ask 
 which horse tho General wished to reserve for himself : 
 " Scoundrel !" cried he, " do you not know tho order ? 
 Let every one march on foot — I the first. — Begone." He 
 accordingly, during the rest of the march, walked by the 
 
134 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1709. 
 
 side of the sick, cheering them by his eye and his voice, 
 and exhibiting to all the soldiery the examplo at onoe of 
 endurance and of compassion. 
 
 June 14-.] Having at length accomplished this peril- 
 ous journey, Buonaparte repaired to his old head-quarters 
 at Cairo, and re-entered on his great functions as the 
 establisher of a new government in the state of Egypt 
 But he had not long occupied himself thus ere new 
 rumours concerning the beys on the Upper Nile, who 
 seemed to have some strong and urgent motive for 
 endeavouring to force a passage downwards, began to 
 bo mingled with, and by degrees explained, by tidings 
 daily repeated of some grand disembarkation of the 
 Ottomans, designed to have placo in the neighbour- 
 hood of Alexandria. Leaving Dessaix, therefore, once 
 more in command at Cairo, ho himself descended the 
 Nile, and travelled with all speed to Alexandria, where 
 he found his presence most necessary. For, in effect, 
 the great Turkish fleet had already ran into the bay of 
 Aboukir ; and an army of 18,000, having gained the 
 fortress, were there strengthening themselves, with the 
 view of awaiting the promised descent and junction of 
 the Mamelukes, and then, with overwhelming superiority 
 of numbers, advancing to Alexandria, and completing 
 the ruin of the French invaders. 
 
 Buonaparte, reaching Alexandria on the evening of 
 the 24th of July, found his army already posted in the 
 neighbourhood of Aboukir, and prepared to anticipate 
 the attack of the Turks on the morrow. Surveying 
 their entrenched camp from the heights above with 
 Murat, he said, " Go how it may, the battle of to-morrow 
 will decide the fate of the world:" "Of this army at 
 least," answered Murat; "but the Turks have no cavalry, 
 and, if ever infantry were charged to the teeth by horse, 
 they shall be so by mine." Murat did not penetrate the 
 
1799.] ABOUKIB— CAIRO. 135 
 
 bidden meaning of Napoleon's words, bnt ho made good 
 his own. 
 
 The Turkish outposts were assaulted early next morn- 
 ing, and driven in with great slaughter; but the French, 
 when they advanced, came within the range of tho 
 batteries, and also of the shipping that lay close by the 
 6hore, and were checked. Their retreat might have 
 ended in a rou*;, but for the undisciplined eagerness 
 with which tho Turks engaged in the task of spoiling 
 and maiming those that fell before them, thus giving to 
 Murat the opportunity of charging their main body in 
 flank with his cavalry at the moment when the French 
 infantry, profiting by their disorder and scattered condi- 
 tion, and rallying under the eye of Xapoleon, forced a 
 passage to the entrenchments. From that moment the 
 battle was a massacre. Tho Turks, attacked on all sides, 
 were panic struck; and the sea was covered with tho 
 turbans of men who flung themselves headlong into tho 
 waves, rather than await the fury of Le Beau Sabvcur* 
 or the steady rolling firo of tho Saltan Kebir. Six 
 thousand surrendered at discretion; twelve thousand 
 perished on the field or in the sea. Mustapha Pacha, 
 the general, being brought into tho presence of his 
 victor, was saluted with these words: — "It has been 
 your fate to lose this day, but I will take care to inform 
 the Sultan of the courage with which you have contested 
 it." " Spare thyself that trouble," answered tho proud 
 Pacha, " my master knows me better than thou." 
 
 Napoleon once more returned to Cairo on tho 9th of 
 August ; but it was only to make some parting arrange- 
 ments as to tho administration, civil and military ; for, 
 from the moment of his victory at Aboukir, ho had re- 
 solved to entrust Egypt to other hands, and Admiral 
 
 • The hanieomo swordsman— t ». Murnt 
 
136 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1799. 
 
 Gantheaum© was already preparing in secret the means 
 of his removal to France. 
 
 Buonaparte always asserted, and the Buonapartist 
 writers of his history still maintain, that this resolution 
 was adopted in consequence of a mere accident ;* namely, 
 that Sir Sydney Smith, in the course of some negotia- 
 tions about prisoners, which followed after the battle of 
 Aboukir, sent a file of English newspapers for the amuse- 
 ment of the General. Some say the English Commodore 
 did so out of rnei'e civility : others, that he designed to 
 distract the movements of Napoleon, by showing him the 
 dangerous condition to which, during his absence, the 
 affairs of France, both at home and abroad, had been 
 reduced. It seems, however, to be generally believed, 
 (as, without doubt, it is the more probable case,) that 
 Buonaparte had long ere now received intelligence of 
 the great events in which he was so deeply concerned. 
 He had, assuredly, many friends in Paris, who were 
 watching keenly over his interests, and who must have 
 been singularly ill served — if they never were able to 
 communicate with him during so many months. 
 
 However this might have been, the General succeeded 
 in preventing any suspicion of his projected evasion from 
 arising among the soldiery ; and when he finally turned 
 his back on Cairo, it was universally believed that it was 
 but to make a tour in the Delta. 
 
 Napoleon reached the coast on the 22d August, and 
 was there met by Berthier, Andreossy, Murat, Lannes. 
 Marmont, and the savcms Monge and Berthollet ; none 
 of whom had suspected for what purpose they were suni- 
 moned. Admiral Gantheaum© had by this time two 
 
 • De Bonrienno, whose curious work has appeared since the first 
 edition of t'..lct narrative was published, confirms this statement of 
 Napoleon : but Napoleon, it is obvious, might have received letters 
 which he did not choose to commuoioato to his secretary. 
 
1799.] 
 
 LEAVES EGYPT. 137 
 
 frigates and two smaller vessels (which had been saved 
 in the harbour of Alexandria) ready for sea ; and on the 
 morning of the 23d, the wind having fortunately driven 
 ibe English squadron of blockade off the coast, Buona- 
 parte and his followers embarked at Rosetta. 
 
 The same day, the event was announced to the army 
 by a proclamation which the General left behind him, 
 naming Kleber as his successor in the command. The 
 indignation of the soldiery, who thought themselves de- 
 serted by their chief, was, for a time, violent ; but, by 
 degrees, the great qualities displayed by Kleber softened 
 this feeling, and Buonaparte had left agents well qualified 
 to explain what had happened, in the manner most 
 favourable for himself. 
 
 Kleber received at the same time a parting letter of 
 instructions — one of the most singular pieces that ever 
 proceeded from Napoleon's pen. " I send you," said he, 
 " English gazettes to the 10th of Juno. You will there 
 see that we have lost Italy ; that Mantua, Turin, and 
 Tortona are blockaded. I hope, if fortune smiles on me, 
 to reach Europe before the beginning of October. . . 
 It is the intention of government that General Dessaix 
 should follow me, unless great events interpose them- 
 selves, in the course of November. . . . Thcro is no 
 doubt that, on the arrival of our squadron at Toulon, 
 means will be found of sending you the recruits and 
 munitions necessary for the army of Egypt. The govern- 
 ment will then correspond with you directly ; while I, 
 both in my public and in my private capacity, will take 
 measures to secure for you frequent intelligence." 
 
 Buonaparte proceeds, after thus boldly assuming to 
 himself the right of speaking for the government — 
 and in terms, it will be observed, calculated to loavo no 
 doubt that his own departuro was the result of orders 
 from Paris— to impress upo£ Kleber the necossity c? 
 
138 NAroLEoN BU<mr-AHTE. [1799. 
 
 always considering tho possession of Egypt as a point of 
 the highest importance to France; and, nevertheless, of 
 negotiating as long as possiblo with the Porte, on the 
 basis that the French Republic neither had now, nor ever 
 had had, tho smallest wish to be permanently mistress 
 of that country. He finally authorised Kleber, if not 
 released or recruited by May following, to mako a peace 
 with the Porte, even if the first of its conditions should 
 be the total evacuation of Egypt. 
 
 Then follow directions for the internal administration 
 of Egvpt, in which, among other sufficiently character- 
 istic hints, Kleber is desired to cultivate tho good will 
 of the Christians, but, nevertheless, to avoid carefully 
 giving the Mussulmans any reason to confound the 
 Christians with the French. " Above all," says Napoleon, 
 "gain the Sheiks, who are timid, who cannot fight, and 
 who, like all priests, inspire fanaticism without being 
 fanatics." 
 
 The conclusion is in these words: "The army which 
 I confide to you is composed of my children; in all 
 times, even in the midst of the greatest sufferings, I 
 have received the marks of their attachment ; keep alive 
 in them these sentiments. You owe this to the particu- 
 lar esteem and true attachment which I bear towards 
 yourself." 
 
1799.] EETKOSIECT. 130 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Retrotped— Buonaparte arrives in France— The Revolution of (he tfth 
 Brumaire — The Provisional Consulate. 
 
 We must now pause for a moment to indicate, however 
 briefly and imperfectly, the course of events which had 
 determined Napoleon to abandon the army of Egypt 
 
 While the negotiations at Rasfadt were still in pro- 
 gress, the Directory, on the most flimsy of pretences, 
 marched an army into Switzerland, and, by vast superi- 
 ority of numbers, overwhelmed the defence of tho 
 unprepared mountaineers. The conquered cantons were 
 formed into another republic of the new kind — to wit, 
 " the Helvetian:" nominally a sister and ally, but really 
 a slave of the French. Another force, acting under 
 orders equally unjustifiable, seized Turin, and dethroned 
 the King of Sardinia. Lastly, the Pope, in spite of all 
 his humiliating concessions at Tollentino, saw a republi- 
 can insurrection, roused by French instigation, within 
 his capital. Tumults and bloodshed ensued, and Joseph 
 Buonaparte, the French ambassador, narrowly escaped 
 with his life. A French army forthwith advanced on 
 Rome; the Pope's functions, as a temporal prince, wero 
 terminated; he retired to tho exile of Siena; and another 
 of those feeble phantoms which the Directory delighted 
 to invest with glorious names, appeared under the title 
 of the "Roman Republic." 
 
 These outrages roused anew the indignation — the first, 
 of all true lovers of freedom; the second, of the monarchs 
 whoso representatives were assembled afc Rastadt; and 
 tho third, of the Catholio population throughout Europe. 
 
140 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [179&, 
 
 England was not slow to take advantage of the unprin- 
 cipled rashness of tho Directory, and of the sentiments 
 which it was fitted to inspire; and the result was a new 
 coalition against France, in which the great power of 
 Russia now, for the first time, took a part. The French 
 plenipotentiaries were suddenly ordered to quit Rastadtj 
 and, within a few hours afterwards, they were murdered 
 on their journey by banditti clad in the Austrian uniform, 
 most assuredly not acting under orders from the 
 Austrian government, and now commonly believed to 
 have been set on by certain angry intriguers of the 
 Luxembourg. 
 
 Tho King of Naples had, unfortunately for himself, 
 a greater taste for arms than the nation he governed; 
 and, justly concluding that the conquerors of Rome 
 would make himself their nest object, he rashly pro- 
 claimed war, ere the general measures of -the coalition 
 wei'e arranged. The arrival of Nelson in his hai'bour, 
 bringing the news of the destruction of the French fleet 
 at Aboukir, and the consequent isolation of Napoleon, 
 gave him courage to strike a blow which the officers of 
 his army were little likely to second. The result of his 
 hasty advance to the northwards was not a battle, but a 
 flight; and though the Lazzaroni of Naples, rising in 
 fury, held the capital for some days against the French, 
 their defences were at length overcome ; the King passed 
 over to his Sicilian dominions; and another tributary of 
 France was announced by the name of the Parthenopean 
 Republic. 
 
 Far diffei'ent success attended the better- considered 
 movements by which the great powers of the new coali-. 
 tion re-openod the war. The details of those bloody 
 campaigns by which Holland and Belgium were for a 
 moment rescued from tho grasp of the Republic; Jourdau 
 boaton beyond the Rhino by tho Archduke Charles; , and; 
 
17W.] RETROSPECT. 141 
 
 the north of Italy, the whole of Buonaparte's mighty 
 conquests, recovered by the Austro-Russians under 
 Snwarrow ; as also of the ultimate reverses of the allies 
 in the direction of Holland; of the concentration of 
 then* forces in two great armies, one on the frontier of 
 Switzerland, and another lower down on the Rhine, for 
 the purpose of carrying the war by two inlets into the 
 heart of France; and, finally, of the masterly retreat of 
 Macdonald, by which ho succeeded in leading the army 
 which had occupied Naples quite through Italy into 
 Provence — all these details belong rather to the general 
 history of the period than to the biography of Buona- 
 parte. Neither is it possible that we should here enter 
 upon any minute account of the internal affairs of France 
 during the period of his Egyptian and Syrian campaigns. 
 It must suffice to say that the generally unfortunato 
 course of the war had been accompanied by the growth 
 of popular discontent at home; that the tottering Direc- 
 tory for a moment gathered strength to themselves by 
 associating Sieyes to their number; that the mean and 
 selfish conduct of the rulers soon nullified the results of 
 that partial change; that the Directory at length found 
 it impossible to maintain the favourite system of balanc- 
 ing faction against faction, and so neutralising their 
 efforts; in a word, that the moderates (under which namo 
 the royalists are included) had obtained a decided com- 
 mand in the Conned of Ancients, and the republicans, or 
 democratical party, an equally overpowering majority in 
 the Assembly of the Five Hundred; while the Directors, 
 as a body, had no longer the slightest power to control 
 either. Finally, the Chouans (as the royalists of 
 Bretagne wore called) had been stimulated by the 
 disordered appearance of things at home and abroad, 
 and 40,000 insurgents appeared in arms, withstand- 
 ing, with varied success, tho troops of the Republic, and- 
 
142 NAPOLEON BUOXAPARTE. [1799. 
 
 threatening, by their example, to rokindle a general civil 
 war in Franco. Such was, or had recently been, tho 
 state of affairs when Buonaparte landed at Prejus, and 
 6cnt before him to Paris, to the inexpressible dolight of 
 a nation of late accustomed to hear of nothing but mili- 
 tary disasters, tho intelligence of that splendid victory 
 which had just destroyed the great Turkish armament 
 at Aboukir. Ho arrived at a moment when all men, of 
 all parties, were satisfied that a new revolution was at 
 hand ; and when the leaders of all the contending factions 
 were equally desirous of invoking arms to their support 
 in the inevitable struggle. 
 
 Napoleon's voyage had been ono of constant peril ; for 
 tho Mediterranean was traversed in all directions by 
 English ships of war, in whoso prcsenco resistance would 
 have been hopeless. Ho occupied his time, during this 
 period of general anxiety, in very peaceful studies ; ho 
 read the Bible, the Koran, Homer ; conversed with his 
 savans on the old times and manners of the East ; and 
 solved problems in geometry. Ho also spent many 
 hours in playing at the gamo of vingt-un ; and M. cle Bou- 
 rienne saj-s, that ho never hesitated to play unfairly 
 when it suited his purpose, though ho always returned 
 whatever ho had gained on rising from the table. On 
 tho 30th of September they reached Ajaccio, and he was 
 received with enthusiasm at the place of his birth. But, 
 according to his own phrase, " it rained cousins ;" he 
 was wearied with solicitations, and as soon as the wind 
 proved favourable, on tho 7th of October, the voyage 
 was resumed. Gantheaume, descrying an English 
 squadron off tho French coast, would have persuaded 
 him to take to the long boat, but he refused, saying, 
 " that experiment may be reserved for the last extre- 
 mity." His confidence in fortune was not belied. They 
 passed at midnight, unseon, through the English ships, 
 
1799.] ARRIVAL AT PARIS. 143 
 
 and on the morning of the 9th wcro moored in safety in 
 tho bay of Frejus ; and no sooner was it known that 
 Buonaparte was at hand, than, in spite of all the laws of 
 quarantine, persons of every description, including the 
 chief functionaries, both civil and military, repaired on 
 board to welcome him. He had looked forward with 
 the utmost disgust to a long quarantine ; this dread was 
 dissipated in a moment; the deck was crowded with 
 persons crying aloud, " we prefer the plague to tho 
 Austrians !" His presence alone was considered as the 
 pledge of victory. The story of Aboukir gave new fuel 
 to the fiamo of universal enthusiasm ; and he landed, 
 not so much like a general who had quitted his post 
 without orders, as a victorious prince, who had returned 
 to restore tho lost hearts and fortunes of a pooplo that 
 confided only in him. His progress towards tho capital, 
 wherever his person was recognised, bore all tho appear- 
 ance of a triumphal procession. He reached his own 
 house, in the Hue de la Vic f aire, on the lu'th October. 
 
 The trembling Directory received him, when he pre- 
 sented himself at the Luxembourg, with every demon- 
 stration of joy and 1'espect. Not a question was asked 
 as to his abandonment of his army ; for all dreaded the 
 answer which they had the best reason for anticipating. 
 He was invited to accept of a public dinner, and agreed 
 to do so. The assemblage was magnificent, and his re- 
 ception enthusiastic ; but his demeanour was cold and 
 reserved. After proposing as a toast, " tho union of all 
 parties" — ominous words from those lips — he withdrew 
 at an early hour of the evening. 
 
 • He continued for somo little time to avoid public 
 notice, resuming, apparently, tho same studious and 
 sequestered life which he had led when last in Paris. It 
 was, however, remarked that, when recognised by the 
 populace, he received their salutations with uncommon 
 
144 XAP0LE0S BUONAPARTE. [1799. 
 
 affability ; and that if ho met any old soldier of the array 
 of Italy, ho rarely failed to recollect the man, and take 
 him by tho hand. 
 
 Buonaparte had been tormented when in Egypt by 
 certain rumours concerning the conduct of Josephine in 
 his absence from Paris. She had quitted the capital 
 with the purpose of meeting him on his journey thither, 
 the moment his arrival at Frejus was known ; but taking 
 the road of Burgundy, while he was travelling by that 
 of Lyons, missed him. "When she at length joined him 
 in Paris, he received her with marked coldness ; but, 
 after a few days, the intercessions and explanations of 
 friends restored harmony between them. He felt acutely, 
 says Do Bourienne, the ill effects which a domestic fracas 
 must produce at tho moment when all Franco was ex- 
 pecting him to take the chief part in some great political 
 revolution. 
 
 The universal enthusiasm which waited on his person 
 at this crisis appears to have at length given definite 
 shape to Ins ambition. All parties equally seemed to be 
 weary of the Directory, and to demand the decisive 
 interference of the unrivalled soldier. The members of 
 the tottering government were divided bitterly among 
 themselves ; and the moderates, with the director Sieyes 
 at their head, on the one side, the democrats, under the 
 director Barras, on the other, were equally disposed to 
 invoke his assistance. He received the proposals of both 
 parties ; and at length decided on closing with those of 
 the former, as consisting of a class of men less likely 
 than the others to interfere with his measures — when 
 the new government, which he had determined should 
 bo his, had Leon arranged. His brother Lucieii, recently 
 elected President of the Council of Five Hundred — the 
 acute and spirited Abb6 Sieyes, for whom, as " a man of 
 systems," Buonaparte had formerly manifested great 
 
IWd.) PARIS. 145 
 
 repugnanoe, but who was now recommended effectually 
 by his supposed want of high ambition — and Fouch6, 
 minister of police — these were his chief confidants ; nor 
 eonld any age or country have furnished instruments 
 more admirably qualified for his purpose. Josephine, 
 too, exerted indefatigably in his cause all the arts of 
 address, and contrived to neutralise by flattery many 
 whom promises had failed to gain. Meanwhile his house 
 was frequented by the principal officers who had accom- 
 panied him from Egypt, and by others who had served 
 in his Italian campaigns ; and though no one pretended 
 to say what was about to happen, the impression became 
 universal "throughout Paris that some great and decisive 
 event was at hand, and that it was to be brought about 
 by means of Buonaparte. 
 
 His friends at first busied themselves with schemes 
 for making him one of the directorial body ; but the law, 
 requiring that every candidate for that office should be 
 •forty years of age, still subsisted ; and this presented an 
 obstacle which Napoleon chose rather to avoid than to 
 overcome. The conspirators in his confidence were from 
 <lay to day more numerous, and, before he had been 
 three weeks in Pai-is, audacity reached its height. 
 " During this crisis " (writes Bourienne) "there occurred 
 nothing a whit more elevated, more grand, more noble, 
 than hod been observed in our preceding revolutionary 
 commotions. In these political intrigues, all is so des- 
 picable — so made up of trickery, lying, spying, treachery, 
 and impudence — that for the honour of human nature 
 the details ought to be buried under an eternal veil." 
 
 Sieves governed absolutely one of his colleagues in 
 the Directory, Ducos; and the party of which ho was 
 the chief predominated strongly, as has been mentioned, 
 in the Council of Ancients. It was through the instru- 
 mentality of that council, accordingly, that the conspira- 
 
146 NAPOLEON BUOXAPAETE. [W** 
 
 tors resolved to strike their first blow. And how well 
 their measures had been preconcerted, will sufficiently 
 appear from the most naked statement of the events of 
 the 18th and 19th Bramaire (Nov. 10th and 11th, 1799). 
 in the order of their occurrence. 
 
 As soon as Buonaparte's arrival was known, three 
 regiments of dragoons, forming part of the garrison cf 
 Pari?, petitioned for the honour of being reviewed by 
 him. He had promised to do this, but delayed naming 
 the day. In like manner the forty adjutants of tho 
 National Guard of Paris (which, as we have seen, was 
 remodelled by himself while General of tho Interior) 
 had requested leave to wait upon him and congratulate 
 him on his arrival ; these also had been told that he 
 would soon appoint the time for receiving them. Lastly, 
 the officers of the garrison, and many besides, had sent 
 to beg admittance to Napoleon's presence, that they 
 might tender him the expression of their admiration and 
 attachment; and to them also an answer of the same 
 kind had been given. 
 
 On the evening of the 17th Brnmaire all the officers 
 above-mentioned received separately the General's invi- 
 tation to come to his house in the Hue de la Vichire, at 
 six o'clock the next morning; and the three regiments 
 of dragoons were desired to be mounted for their 
 review at the same early hour in the Champs Ebjsecs. 
 How many of these persons knew the real purpose of the 
 assemblage it is impossible to tell ; but Moreau, Mac- 
 donald, and other generals of the first reputation, 
 avowedly attached to the modcres, were in the number 
 of those who attended, having, it is not to be doubted, 
 received sufficient intimation that the crisis was at 
 hand, though not of the manner in which Buonaparte 
 designed it to terminate. However, at the appointed 
 hour tho dragoons were at their post in the Champs 
 
1799.] lSm OF BEUMAins. 147 
 
 Blyse&i and the ccncotirso of officers at Napoleon's resi- 
 dence was so great that, the house being small, he 
 received them in the court-yard before it, which they 
 entirely filled. 
 
 Among thoso who came thither was Bernadotte; but 
 he certainly came without any precise notion of the pur- 
 poses of his friend Joseph Buonaparte, who invited him. 
 He was, next to Napoleon, the general who possessed the 
 greatest influence at the period in Paris; in fact, the fate 
 of the government depended on whether the one party 
 in the Directory should be the 6rst to summon him to 
 interfere, or the othei'5 to throw themselves on Buona- 
 parte. He came, but, unliko the rest, he came not in 
 uniform, nor on horseback. Being introduced into 
 Napoleon's private chamber, he was informed, with little 
 preface, that a change in the government was necessary, 
 and about to be effected that very day. Bernadotte had 
 already been tampered with by Sieves and Ducos, and 
 he rejected Napoleon's flatteries as he had theirs. It 
 was well known to Buonaparte that, had this great 
 officer's advice been taken, he would, immediately on 
 his arrival from Egypt, have been arrested as a deserter 
 of his post; he in vain endeavoured now to procure his 
 co-operation, and at last suffered him to depart, having 
 with difficulty extorted a promise that he would not, at 
 least, do anything against him as a citizen. It will soon 
 be seen that he could have little reason to apprehend 
 Bernadotte's interference in his military capacit}'. 
 
 In effect tho Council of the Ancients assembled the 
 same morning, in tho Tuilleries, at the early hour of 
 seven ; one of the conspirators forthwith declared that 
 the salvation of the state demanded vigorous measures, 
 and proposed two decrees for their acceptance ; one by 
 which the meetings of the legislative bodies should be 
 instantly transferred to the Cnateau of St. Cloud, some 
 
148 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1799- 
 
 miles from Paris ; and another investing Napoleon with 
 the supreme command of all the troops in and about the 
 capital, including the National Guard. These motions 
 were instantly carried ; and, in the course of a few- 
 minutes, Buonaparte received, in the midst of his martial 
 company, the announcement of his new authority. He 
 instantly mounted and rode to the Tuilleries, where, 
 being introduced into the council, together with all his 
 staff; ho pronounced those memorable -word's— " You 
 are the wisdom of the "nation ; T come, surrounded by 
 the generals of the Republic, to promise you their sup- 
 port. Let us not lose time in looking for precedents. 
 Nothing:: in history resembled the close of the eighteenth 
 century — nothing in the eighteenth century resembled 
 this moment. Your wisdom has devised the necessary 
 measure; our arms shall put it in execution." Care had 
 been taken to send no summons to the members of the 
 council whom the conspirators considered as decidedly 
 hostile to their schemes ; yet several began to murmur 
 loudly at this tone. " I come," resumed Napoleon 
 sternly, " I come accompanied by the God of War and 
 the God of Fortune." His friends were alarmed lest 
 this violence should produce some violent re-action in 
 the assembly, and prevailed on him to withdraw. " Let 
 those that love mc folloiv me" said he, and was immedi- 
 ately on horseback again. " In truth," says De Bouri- 
 enne, " I know not what would have happened, had the 
 President, when he saw the General retiring, exclaimed, 
 Grenadiers, let no one go out: it is my conviction that, 
 instead of sleeping the day after at the Luxembourg, ho 
 would have ended his career on the Place Lie 1% Revolu- 
 tion." 
 
 The command entrusted to Napoleon was forthwith 
 announced to the soldiery ; and they received the intel- 
 ligence with enthusiasm — the mass, of course, little com- 
 
1790,] 18in OF BRUMAIRE. 149 
 
 prebend mg to what, at such a moment, such authority 
 amounted. 
 
 The three directors, meanwhile, who were not in the 
 secret, and who had been much amused with seeing their 
 colleague Sieyes set off on horseback an hour or two 
 earlier from the Luxemboui'g, had begun to understand 
 what that timely exhibition of the Abbe's awkward 
 horsemanship portended. One of them, MouKns, pro- 
 posed to send a battalion to surround Buonaparte's house 
 and arrest him. Their own guard laughed at them. 
 Buonaparte was already in the Tuilleries, with many 
 troops around him ; and the Directorial Guard, being 
 summoned by one of his aides-de-camp, instantly 
 marched thither also, leaving the Luxembourg at his 
 mercy. Barras sent his secretary to expostulate. Na- 
 poleon received him with haughtiness. " What have 
 you done," cried he, " for that fair France which I left 
 you so prosperous ? For peace I find war ; for the 
 wealth of Italy, taxation and misery. Where are the 
 100,000 brave French whom I knew — where are the 
 companions of my glory ? — They aro dead." Barras, 
 who well knew that Buonaparte would never forgive him 
 for having boasted that the conqueror of Italy and Egypt 
 owed everything to his early favour, and whose infamous 
 personal conduct in the articles of bribery and exaction, 
 mado him tremble at the thought of impeachment, re- 
 signed his office : so did his colleagues, Gohier and 
 Moulins. Sieves and Dticos had dono so already. Ber- 
 nadotte, indeed, repaired to the Luxembourg ere Moulins 
 and Gohier had resigned, and offered his sword and in- 
 fluence, provided they would nominate him to the com- 
 mand of the forces jointly with Napoleon. They hesi- 
 tated : his word of honour given to Buonaparte, that he 
 would do nothing as a citizen, l'endered it indispensable 
 that they should take that decisive step ; by doing so, 
 
150 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1799 
 
 they would, at least, have given the soldiery a fair choice 
 — they hesitated — and their powor was at an end. The 
 Luxembourg was immediately guarded by troops in 
 whom Napoleon could place implicit confidence. The 
 Directory was no more. 
 
 Barras, in his letter, said that " he had undertaken 
 his office solely for the purpose of serving the cause of 
 liberty, and that now, seeing the destinies of the Re- 
 public in the hands of her young and invincible general, 
 lie gladly resigned it." By this courtly acquiescence, he 
 purchased indemnity for the past, and the liberty of re- 
 tiring to his country-seat, there to enjoy the vast fortune 
 he had so scandalously accumulated. The other two re- 
 mained for the present under surveillance. 
 
 At ten o'clock on the same morning, the adverse 
 Council of Five Hundred assembled also, and heard, 
 with astonishment and indignation, of the decree by 
 which their sittings were transferred from Paris (the 
 scene of their popular influence) to St. Cloud. They 
 had, however, no means of disputing that point : they 
 parted with cries of " Vive In Republique ! Vive la Con- 
 stitution /" and incited the mob, their allies, to muster 
 next morning on the new scene cf action — where, it was 
 evident, this military revolution must either be turned 
 back, or pushed to consummation. During the rest of 
 the day Napoleon remained at the Tuilleries ; the troops 
 were in arms ; tho population expected with breathless 
 anxiety the coming of the decisivo day. A strong body of 
 soldiery marched to St. Cloud under the orders of Murat. 
 Tho members of both assemblies repaired thither early 
 in the morning of the 19th ; and those of tho opposite 
 party beheld with dismay the militaiy investment of the 
 Chateau. Scattered in groups abont the courts and gar. 
 dens, surrounded with the mob from the city, and 
 watched by Murat and his stern veterans, they awaited 
 
1790.] iOth of bkumaire. 151 
 
 with impatience the opening of the doors ; which, in 
 consequence of some necessary preparations, did not oc- 
 cur until two o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 The Council of Ancients were ushered into the Gallery 
 of Mars, and, the minority having by this time recovored 
 from their surprise, a stormy debate forthwith com- 
 menced touching the events of the preceding day. Buona- 
 parte entered the room, and by permission of the subser- 
 vient president, addressed the assembly. "Citizens," said 
 he, " you stand over a volcano. Let a soldier tell the 
 truth frankly. I was quiet in my homo when this council 
 summoned mo to action. I obeyed : I collected my 
 brave comrades, and placed the arms of my country afe 
 the service of you who are at its head. "Wo are repaid 
 with calumnies — they talk of Cromwell — of Caesar. Had 
 I aspired at power the opportunity sva^ mine ere now. 
 I swear that Fruiitt; iiolda no .nore nevoted patriot. 
 Danger 3 surror;:*) n& Liet us not hazard the advan- 
 uh^c •>->- «"*icu we nave paid so dearly — Liberty and 
 Equality!" — 
 
 — A democratic member, Linglet, added aloud — " and 
 the Constitution" — 
 
 — " The Constitution !" continued Napoleon — " it has 
 been thrice violated already— all parties have invokod 
 it — each in turn has trampled on it ; since that can be 
 preserved no longer, let us, at least, save its foundations 
 — Liberty and Equality. It is on you only that I rely. 
 The Council of Five Hundred would restore the Conven- 
 tion, the popular tumult?, tho scaffolds, the reign of 
 terror. I will save you from such horrors — I and my 
 brave comrades, whoso swords and caps I bco at the 
 door of this hall ; and if any hiroling prater talks of 
 outlawry, to those swords shall I appeal." Tho groat 
 majority woro with him, and ho loft thorn amidst loud 
 ories of " Viva BwmaparU} /" 
 
152 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [iY99. 
 
 A very different scene was passing in the hostile 
 asssembly of the Fire Hundred. When its members at 
 length found their way into the Orangery, tho apart- 
 ment allotted for thorn, a tumultous clamour arose on 
 every 6ide. Live the Constitution! The Constitution or 
 death! Down with the Dictator! — such were the 
 ominous cries. Lucien Buonaparte, the president, in 
 vain attempted to restore order ; the mo lerate orators of 
 the council, with equal success, endeavoured to gain a 
 bearing. A democrat member at length obtained a 
 moment's silence, and proposed that the council should 
 renew, man by man, the oath of fidelity to the Constitu- 
 tion of the year three. This was assented to, and a vain 
 ceremony, for it was no more, occupied time which 
 might have been turned to far different account. Over- 
 powered, however, by the clamour, the best friends of 
 Napoleon, even bio brothe. Lr.cieu ; took the oath. The 
 resignatory letter of Barras wan fhon tiandet! in, and 
 received with a shout of scorn. The moment was come ; 
 Napoleon himself, accompanied by four grenadiers, 
 walked into the chamber — tho doors remained open, and 
 plumes and swords were visible in dense array behind 
 him. His grenadiers halted near tho door, and he 
 advanced alone towards the centre of the gallery. Then 
 arose a fierce outcry — Drawn swords in the sanctuary of 
 tJie laws ! Outlawry! Outlawry! Let him be proclaimed 
 a traitor ! Was it for this you gained so many victones ? 
 Many members rushed upon the intruder, and, if wo 
 may place confidence in his own tale, a Corsican deputy, 
 by name Arena, aimed a dagger at his throat. At all 
 ©vents there was such an appearance of personal danger 
 as fired the grenadiers behind him. They rushed for- . 
 wards, and extricated him almost breathless ; and one of 
 tnerr number (Thom6) was at least rewarded on the score 
 of his having received a wound meant for thp General." 
 
!VS9.] 19TH OF BRUMAIK1. 153 
 
 It seems to be admitted that at this moment the iron 
 nerves of Buonaparte were, for once, shaken. With the 
 dangers of the field he was familiar — in order to depict 
 the perfect coolness of bis demeanour during the greater 
 part of this very day, his secretary says — " he was as calm 
 as at the opening of a great battle;" but he had not 
 been prepared for the manifestations of this civil rage. 
 He came out, staggering and stammering, among the 
 soldiery, and said, "I offered them victory and fame, 
 and they have answered me with daggers." 
 
 Sieyes, an experienced observer of such scenes, was 
 still on horseback in the court, and quickly re-assured 
 him. General Augereau came up but a moment after- 
 wards, and said, " You have brought yourself into a 
 pretty situation." "Augereau," answered Napoleon 
 (once more himself again), " things were worse at 
 Areola. Be quiet ; all this will soon right itself." He 
 then harangued the soldiery. " I have led you to vic- 
 tory, to fame, to glory. Can I count upon you ?" "Yes, 
 yes, we swear it," was the answer that bui'st from every 
 line), " Vive Buonaparte /" 
 
 In the council, meantime, the commotion had increased 
 on the retreat of Napoleon. A general ciy arose for a 
 tcntence of outlawry against him ; and Lucien, the Pre-- 
 fident, in vain appealed to the feelings of nature, de- 
 manding that, instead of being obliged to put that ques- 
 tion to the vote, he might bo heard as the advocate of 
 his brother. He was clamorously refused, and in indig- 
 nation flung off the insignia of his oIEce. Some grena- 
 diers once more entered, and carried him also out of the 
 place. 
 
 Lucien found the soldiery without in a high state of 
 excitement. He immediately got upon horseback, that 
 ho might be seen and hoard the better, and exclaimed : 
 " General' Buonaparte, and you, soldiers of France, the 
 
15-i NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1799. 
 
 President of the Council of Fivo Hundred announces to 
 yon that factions men with daggers intorrupt the delibe- 
 rations of the senate. He authorizes you to employ 
 force. The Assembly of Five Hundred is dissolved." 
 
 Napoleon desired Lo Clerc to execute the orders of 
 the President, and he, with a detachment of grenadiers, 
 forthwith marched into the hall. Amidst the reiterated 
 screams of "Vivo la RepuhUque" which saluted their 
 entrance, an aide-de-camp mounted the tribune, and 
 bade tho assembly disperse. " Such," said he, " are the 
 orders of the General." Some obeyed ; others renewed 
 their shouting. The drums drowned their voices. "For- 
 ward, genadiers," said Le Clerc ; and the men, levelling 
 their pieces as if for the charge, advanced. When tho 
 bristling line of bayonets at length drew near, the de- 
 puties lost heart, and the greater part of them, tearing 
 off their scarfs, made their escape, with very undignified 
 rapidity, by way of the windows. The apartment was 
 cleared. It was thus that Buonaparte, liko Cromwell 
 before him, 
 
 Turn'd out tho members, and made fast the door.* 
 
 Some of his military associates proposed to him, that the 
 unfriendly legislators should be shot, man by man, as 
 they retreated through the gardens ; but to this he would 
 not for a moment listen. 
 
 Lucien Buonaparte now collected tho moderate mem- 
 bers of the Council of Fivo Hundred ; and that small 
 minority, assuming the character of tho asscmbl}-, com- 
 municated with tho Ancients on cuch terms of mutual 
 understanding, that there was no longer any difficulty 
 about giving tho desired colouring to tho events of tho 
 day. It was announced by proclamation, that a sccuc 
 of violenco and uproar, and the daggers and pistols of a 
 band of conspirators, in the Council of Five Hundred, 
 • Ciubbo. 
 
1799.] 19tH OF BKCMAIRE. 155 
 
 ■ had suggested the measures ultimately resorted to. 
 These were — the adjournment of the two councils until 
 the middle of February next ensuing ; and tho deposi- 
 tion, meantime, of the whole authority of the state in a 
 provisional consulate — the consuls being Napoleon Buona- 
 parte, Sieyes, and Ducos. 
 
 Thus terminated the 19th of Brumaire. One of the 
 greatest revolutions on record in the history of the world 
 was accomplished, by means of swords and bayonets un- 
 questionably, but still without any effusion of blood. 
 From that hour the fate of France was determined. The 
 Abbe Sieyes, Talleyrand, and other eminent civilians, 
 who had a hand in this great day's proceedings, had 
 never doubted that, under the new state of things to 
 which it should lead, they were to have the chief man- 
 agement of the civil concerns of France. The ambition 
 of Buonaparte, they questioned not, would be satisfied 
 with the control of the armies and military establish- 
 ments of the Republic. But they reckoned without their 
 host. Next day the three consuls met in Paris ; and a 
 lengthened discussion arose touching the internal condi- 
 tion and foreign relations of France, and the measures 
 not only of war, but of finance and diplomacy, to be re- 
 sorted to. To the astonishment of Sieyes, Napoleon 
 entered readily and largely upon such topics, showed 
 perfect familiarity with them in their minutest details, 
 and suggested resolutions which it was impossible 
 not to approve. " Gentlwmen," said the Abb6, on reach- 
 ing his own bouse, where Talleyrand and the others ex- 
 pected him — and it is easy to ima^ino the sensations 
 with which Sieyes spoke the words, and Talleyrand 
 heard them — " Gentlemen, I perceive that you have got 
 a master. Buonaparte can do, and will do, everything 
 himself. But (he added, after a pause) it is better to 
 
 submit, than to protract dissension for ever." 
 
 12 
 
156 NAPOLEON fiUONAPARTE. [1799. 
 
 Buonaparte sent word next morning to Gohier and 
 Moulins that they were at liberty. These ex-directOrs 
 were in hasto to seclude themselves from public view ; 
 and the new ruler took possession, the same evening, of 
 the palace of the Luxembourg. 
 
1790.] PEOVISIOXAL CONSULATE. 157 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Thz Promnqnel Consulate — Ref rms in France — Pacification of the 
 Chouans — Constitution of the year VIII. — Buonaparte Chief 
 Consul. 
 
 ■Tbe upper population of Paris had watched the stormy 
 days of the 18th and 19th Brumaire with the most 
 anxious fears, lest the end should be anarchy and the 
 re-establishment of the reign of terror. Such, in all 
 likelihood, must have been the result, had Buonaparte 
 failed, after once attempting to strike his blow. His 
 success held out the prospect of victory abroad, and of 
 a firm and stable government at home, tinder which 
 life and property might exist in safety; and wearied 
 utterly with so many revolutions and constitutions, each 
 in turn pretending everything, and ending in nothing 
 but confusion, the immense majority of the nation were 
 Wett'prepare'd to consider any "government as a -blessing, 
 which seemed to rest on a solid basis, and to bid-fair for 
 •endurance. The revolutionary fever had in most bosoms 
 spent its strength ere now ; and Buonaparte' found 
 henceforth littlo opposition to any of his measures, 
 unless in cases where the substantial personal comforts 
 of men — not abstract theories or dogmas — nor even 
 political rights of unquestionable value and importance 
 — were invaded by his administration. 
 
 The two chambers, on breaking up, appointed small 
 committees to take counsel during the recess with the 
 new heads of the executive ; and, in concert with these, 
 Buonaparte and Sieyes entered vigorously on the great 
 task of restoring confidence and peace at homo. The 
 
153 NAPOLEON BU0XAPAET2. [1700- 
 
 eonfhsion of the finances was tho most pressing of many 
 intolerable evils; and tho first day was devoted to 
 them. In lieu of forced loans, by which the Directory 
 had systematically scourged the people, all the regular 
 taxes were at once raised 2o per cent., and the receipt 
 and expenditure of the revenue arranged on a business- 
 like footing. The repeal of the " Law of Hostages" — a 
 tyrannical act, by which the relations of emigrants were 
 made responsible for the behaviour of their exiled kins- 
 men — followed immediately, and was received with 
 universal approbation. A third and a bolder measure 
 was the discarding of the neathen ritual, and re-opening 
 of the churches for Christian worship ; and of thi3 the 
 credit was wholly Napoleon's, who had to oppose the 
 philosophic prejudices of almost all his colleagues. He, 
 in his conversations with them, made no attempt to 
 represent himself as a believer in Christianity, but stood 
 on the necessity of providing the people with the regular 
 means of worship, wherever it is meant to have a state 
 of tranquillity. The priests who chose to take the oath 
 of fidelity to government were re-admitted to their 
 functions ; and this wise measure was followed by the ad- 
 herence of not less than 20,000 of these ministers of 
 religion, who had hitherto languished in the prisons of 
 France. Cambaceres, an excellent lawyer and judge, 
 was of great service to Napoleon in these 6alutary 
 reforms. 
 
 Many other judicious measures might be mentioned 
 in this place. Some emigrants, cast on the shores by 
 shipwreck, had been imprisoned and destined for trial 
 by the Directory. They were at once set free ; and, in 
 like manner, La Fayette and other distinguished revolu- 
 tionists, who had been exiled for not adhering to all the 
 wild notions of the preceding administrations, were at 
 ono« recalled. Carnot was one of tbeeo : Buonaparte 
 
1799.] TUE CHOUASS SUBMIT. T,r»9 
 
 forthwith placed him at tho head of the waT department ; 
 and the reform of the army was prosecuted with the 
 vigour which might have been expected from tho joint 
 skill and talent of the provisional head of tho govern- 
 ment and this practised minister. The confusion which 
 had of late prevailed in that department was extreme. 
 The government did not even know the existence of 
 regiments raised in the provinces ; arms, clothing, 
 discipline in every article, had been neglected. The 
 organisation of the army was very speedily mended. 
 
 Tho insurgent Chouans next claimed attention ; and 
 here tho personal character of Napoleon gave him 
 advantages of the first importance. The leaders of 
 thoso bravo bands were disposed to consider such a 
 soldier as a very different sort of ruler from the Pen- 
 tarchy of tho Luxembourg ; and their admiration for his 
 person prepared thorn to listen to his terms. The first 
 measures of the new government were obviously cal- 
 culated to soothe their prejudices, and the general display 
 of vigour in every branch of the administration to over- 
 awe them. Chatillon, D'Antichamp, Suzannet, and other 
 royalist chiefs, submitted in form. Bernier, a leading 
 clergyman in La Vendee, followed the same course, and 
 was an acquisition of even mure value. Others held out ; 
 but were soon routed in detail, tried, and executed. 
 The appearances of returning tranquillity were general, 
 and most welcome. 
 
 Somo of tho party vanquished on tho 18th Brumaire, 
 however, still lingered in Paris, and were busy in plotting 
 new convulsions. It was, therefore, the advice of all tho 
 ministers to condemn them to exile ; and lists of pro- 
 scription were drawn up and published. But Buonaparte 
 only meant to overawe these persons : no one was ap- 
 prehended : they kept quiet for a season ; and the edict 
 of exile sunk by degrees into oblivion, . -• 
 
160 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [179?. 
 
 Meanwhile, it was necessary that tho government it- 
 self should assume some permanent form, ere the time 
 arrived for the re-assembly of the legislative bodies. 
 Their two committees met in one chamber with the con- 
 suls, and the outline of a new constitution was laid be- 
 fore them by Sieyes ; who enjoyed the reputation of 
 being the greatest of scientific politicians. The Abbe, 
 however, had soon perceived that Napoleon was to be 
 the real creator of whatever should be adopted ; and, in 
 the progress of the ensuing consultations, submitted, 
 step by step, to the laconic dictator, who accepted or 
 discarded propositions, exactly as they happened to co- 
 incide, or be at variance with, his own notions of his own 
 personal interest. He cared little in what manner the 
 structure of the future representative assemblies might 
 be arranged ; but thex'e must be no weakening of the 
 executive power, which he was determined to vest vir- 
 tually in himself alone, and by means of which, he 
 doubted not, it would be easy to neutralise all other in- 
 fluences. 
 
 The metaphysical Abbe proposed a scheme by. far too 
 delicately complicated for the tear and wear of human 
 business and human passions. The absurdity, even of 
 tho parts which Napoleon consented to adopt, became 
 apparent to all when tho machine was set in motion. 
 The two most prominent and peculiar devices — namely, 
 that of placing at the head of the state a sort of mock 
 sovereign, destitute of any effective power, and capable 
 at any time of being degraded by the vote of a single 
 legislative body, under the title of G-raxd Elector;: and, 
 2dly, that of committing the real executive power to 
 two separate Consuls, one for war and one for peace, 
 nominally the inferiors of the Elector, but in influence 
 necessarily quite above him, and almost as necessarily 
 the rivals and enemies of each other ; these ingenious 
 
1709-1 CONSTITUTION OF THE TEAR VIII. 161 
 
 twins wore strangled in the birth by Napoleon's shrewd 
 practical sense. " Who," said be, " would accept an 
 office, the only duties of which were to fatten like a pig 
 on so many millions a year ? And your two Consuls — 
 the one surrounded with churchmen, lawyers, and 
 civilians, the other with soldiers and diplomatists — on 
 what footing would be their intercourse ? tho one 
 demanding money and recruits, the other refusing sup- 
 plies? A government, made up of such heterogeneous 
 and discordant materials, would be the shadow of a 
 state." He added two words, which at once decided 
 the main question— "I, for one, would never be your 
 Grand Elector." 
 
 The constitution actually announced by proclamation 
 on the 11th Decembor, 17dd, presents the following 
 principal features. I. The m.de citizons who ai'e of age, 
 and who pa} r taxes in every commune, shall choose a 
 tenth of their number to bo the notables of the com- 
 mune ; and out of these notables the officers of tho 
 commune shall be appointed. II. The notables of the 
 commune constituting a department shall choose, in like 
 manner, the tenth of their number to bo tho notables of 
 the department ; and out of these tho officers of tho 
 department shall be appointed. III. The notables of all 
 the departments shall, in tho same way, chooso the 
 tenth of their number to be notables of Franco ; and out 
 of these the public functionaries of The State shall be 
 chosen. IV. Three assemblies shall bo composed of 
 persons chosen from tho notables of Franco, viz. — 1, The 
 Conservative Senate, consisting (at first) of twenty-four 
 men, of forty years of age, to hold their places for life, 
 and to receive each a salary equal to 1-2'Jth. of that of 
 the chief consul; 2, The Tribunate, to be composed o'' 
 100 men, of twonty-fivo yoar3 of ago and upwards, of 
 whom 1-oth go out every year, but re-eligible indefi- 
 
162 NArOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1799. 
 
 nitely, the salary of each 15,000 francs (£625) ; and, 
 Sdly, The Legislative Senate, composod of 300 mombors, 
 of thirty years of age, renewable by fifths every year, 
 and having salaries of 10,000 francs (£H6). V. 
 The executive power shall be vested in three con- 
 suls, chosen individually, as chief consul, second, and 
 third ; the two former for ten yoars, the last for 
 five. VI. In order that tho administration of affairs 
 may have time to settle itself, tho tribunate and 
 legislative senate shall remain as first constituted for 
 ten years, without any re-elections. VII. With the 
 same view, of avoiding discussions during the unsettled 
 state of opinion, a majority of the members of the con- 
 servative senate, are, for the present, appointed by the 
 consuls, Sieyes and Ducos, going out of office, and the 
 consuls, Gambaccres and Lebrun, about to come into 
 office ; they shall be held to be duly elected, if tho public 
 acquiesce ; and proceed to fill up their own numbor, and 
 to nominate the members of the tribunate and legislative 
 senate. VIII. The acts of legislation shall be proposed 
 by the consuls : the tribunate shall discuss and propound 
 them to the legislative senate, but not vote : the legisla- 
 tive senate shall hear tho tribunate, and vote, but not 
 debute themselves ; and the act thus discussed and voted, 
 shall become law on being promulgated by tho chief 
 consul. IX. Buonaparte is nominated chief consul, 
 Cambaceres (minister of justice) second, and Lebrun, 
 third consul. 
 
 It would be rash to say that this could never have 
 turned out in practice a free constitution. Circumstances 
 might have modified its arrangements, and given the 
 spirit of freedom to institutions not ex facie favourable 
 to it. But, for the present, it was universally admitted 
 that, under these new forms, the power of the state must 
 be virtually lodged in Buonaparte. He, in fact, named 
 
1799.} 
 
 CON'STIfUTION' OF THE YEAR YITI. 
 
 16S 
 
 himself chief consul. His creatures chose the conserva- 
 tive senate, and the conservative senate woro to choose 
 tho members of the other two assemblies. Tho machinery, 
 thus set in motion, could hardly fail to remain under his 
 control ; and looking at things more largely, the contriv- 
 ances of making the electoral bodies in the departments 
 choose, not their actual representatives, but only the 
 persons from among whom these were to be chosen by 
 th^ conservative senate, and of preventing the legislative 
 senate from debating for themselves on the measures des- 
 tined to pass unto law, appear to have been dovised for 
 the purpose of reducing to a mere nullity the forms of a 
 representative government.* However, the consuls an- 
 nounced their manufacture to tho people in these 
 terms : — " Citizens, the Constitution is grounded on the 
 true principles of a representative government, on the 
 sacred rights of property, of equality, and of liberty. 
 The powers which it institutes will be vigorous and per- 
 manent ; such they should be to secure tho rights of the 
 citizens and the interests of the state. Citizens ! the 
 Revolution is fixed on the principles from which it ori- 
 ginated: it 13 EN'DED." And in effect, books being 
 opened throughout France, tho names of tho citizens 
 who inscribed their acceptance of this new constitution 
 
 * The morning after the constitution was announced, the streets 
 of Paris were placarded with tho following pasquil : — 
 
 POLITICAL SI" BTBACTION. 
 From 5 Directors 
 Take 2 
 
 There remain 3 Consuls 
 From them take 2 
 
 And there remains 1 Bcgxitautb. 
 
 This sufficiently expresses what was considered to be tho essencs 
 of the new constitution. 
 
164 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 amounted to four millions, while but a few votes to tho 
 contrary wero registered — an irrefragiblo proof that the 
 national mind was disposed to think no sacrifice too 
 dear, so tranquillity could be obtained. 
 
 The circumstance, perhaps, which occasioned most 
 surprise on the promulgation of the now constitution, 
 was the non-appearance of tho name of Sieyes in tho 
 list, of permanent consuls. It is probable that tho Abbe 
 made up his mind to retire, so soon as he found that 
 Buonaparte was capable not only of mutilating his ideal 
 republican scheme, but of fulfilling, in his own person, 
 all the functions of a civil ruler of France. Howbeit, tho 
 ingenious metaphysician did not disdain to accept of a 
 large estate (part of the royal domain of Versailles !) and 
 a large pension besides, by way of "public recompense' 1 
 - — when he withdrew to a situation of comparative ob- 
 scurity, as President of the Conservative Senate. 
 
 One of.Buonaparte's first acts was to rcmovo tho seat 
 of government from the Luxembourg to the old Palace 
 of the Tuilleries, "which," he significantly said to his 
 colleagues, " is a good military position." It was on tho 
 19th of February, 1800, that the Chief Consul took pos- 
 session of the usual residence of the French kings. Thoso 
 splendid halls were re-opened with much ceremony, and 
 immediately afterwards Napoleon held a great review in 
 the Place du Carousel. This was the first public act of 
 the Chief Consul. Shortly after, he appeared in his new 
 official costume, a dress of red silk and a black stock. 
 Some one observed to him that this last article was out 
 of keeping with the rest : " No matter," answered he, 
 smiling, " a small remnant of the military character will 
 do us no harm." It was about the same time that 
 Buonaparte heard of the death of Washington. Ho 
 forthwith issued a general order, commanding the French 
 "army to wrap their banners in crape, during ten days, 
 
1800.] 
 
 FIRST CONSUL. 165 
 
 in honour of " a great man who fought against tyranny 
 and consolidated tho liberties of his country." 
 
 Talleyrand, appointed minister of foreign affairs by 
 Buonaparte, was now the chief partner of .his counsels. 
 The Second Consul, Cambaceres, soon learned to con- 
 fine himself to the department of justice, and Lebrun to 
 that of finance. The effective branches of government 
 were, almost from the first, engrossed by Napoleon. 
 Yet, while with equal audacity and craft ho whs rapidly, 
 consolidating the elements of a new monarchy in his 
 own person — the Bourbonists, at home and abroad, had 
 still nourished the hope that his ultimate purpose was 
 the restoration of the rightful king of France. Very 
 shurtly after the 18th Brumaire, one of the foreign am- 
 bassadors resident at Paris had even succeeded in obtain- 
 ing a privato audience for Messienrs Hyde de Neuvillo 
 and Dandigne, two agents of the exiled princes. Buona- 
 parte received them at night in a small closet of the 
 Tuilleries, and requested them to 6peak with frank- 
 ness. ""You, sir," they said, "have now in your 
 hands the power of re-establishing the throne, and re- 
 storing to it its legitimate master. Tell us what are 
 jour intentions ; and, if they accord with ours, we, and 
 all tho Vcndcans, are ready to take your commands." 
 Ho replied, that the return of the Bourbons could not be 
 accomplished without enormous slaughter ; that his wish 
 was to forget the past, and to accept the services of all 
 who were willing henceforth to follow the general will of 
 the nation ; but that he would treat with none who wero 
 not disposed to renounce all correspondence with the 
 Bourbons, and tho foreign enemies of tho country. The 
 conference lasted half an hour ; and the agents with- 
 drew with a fixed sense that Buonaparto would never 
 como over to their sido. Nevertheless, as it will appear 
 hereafter, the Bourbons themselves did not as yet alto- 
 
106 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 gether despair ; and it must bo admittod, tliat various 
 measuros of the provisional government were not un- 
 likely to keep up their delusive hopos. We may notice, 
 in particular, a change in the national oath of allegiance, 
 by which one most important clause was entirely orased : 
 namely, that expressive of hatred to royalty : and an 
 edict, by which the celebration of the day on which Louis 
 XVI. died, was formally abolished. Sieyes, in opposing 
 this last measure, happened to speak of Louis as " the 
 tyrant :" — " Nay, nay," said Napoleon, " he was no 
 tyrant : had ho been one, I should this day have beon a 
 captain of engineers — and you saying mass." The 
 Bourbons wore very right in considering these as monar- 
 chical symptoms ; but shrewd observers perceived clearly 
 in whose favour :;uch changes wore designed to operate. 
 It appears that some of Napoleon's colleagues mado a 
 last effort to circumscribe his power, by urgiug on him 
 the necessity of his immediately placing himself at the 
 head of the armies in the field ; expecting, no doubt, 
 great advantages, could they remove him from the seat 
 of government, at the time when the new machinery was 
 getting into a regular course of motion. He sternly re- 
 sisted all such suggestions. " I am Chief Consul," said 
 he, biting his nails to the quick, " I will remain in Paris." 
 And it was, indeed, most necessary for his success, 
 that he should remain there at this critical epoch ; for, 
 in tho arrangement of every branch of the new govern- 
 ment, ho had systematically sought for his own security 
 in balancing against each other the lovers of opposite 
 sets of principles — men who, by cordially coalescing 
 together, might still have undone him ; or by carrying 
 their animosities to extremity, overturned the whole 
 fabric of his manufacture. It was thus that ho had 
 chosen one consul from the Republican party, and an- 
 other from the Royalist ; either of whom might, in his 
 
1300.] "EST CONSUL. 167 
 
 absence, havo boon tempted to undermine his sway; 
 whereas both Cambac2res and Lebrun, overawed by hi9 
 presence, proved eminently serviceable in drawing over 
 to the interests of the Chief Consul innumerable persons, 
 of their own ways of thinking originally, but no longer 
 such zealous theorists as to resist the arguments of self- 
 interest — those strong springs of hope and fear, of both of 
 which, Napoleon, while at the Tuilleries, held the master- 
 key. It was thus, also, that, in forming his ministry, he 
 grouped together men, each of whom detested or despised 
 the others; but each unquestionably fitted, in the highest 
 degree, for the particular office assigned to him ; and 
 each, therefore, likely to labour in his own department, 
 communicating little with his colleagues, and looking 
 continually to the one hand that had invested him with 
 his share of power. It was in vain that one party 
 objected to the weathercock politics of Talleyrand. " Bo 
 it so," answered the Chief Consul, "but he is the ablest 
 minister for foreign affairs in our choice, and it shall be 
 my care that he exerts his abilities." Carnot, in liku 
 manner, was objected to as a firm Republican. " Repub- 
 lican or not," answered Napoleon, " he is one of the last 
 Frenchmen that would wish to see France dismembered. 
 Let us avail ourselves of his unrivalled talents in the 
 war department, while he is willing to place them at our 
 command." All parties equally cried out against the 
 lalsehood, duplicity, and, in fact, avowed profligacy of 
 Fouche. " Fouche," said Buonaparte, " and Fouch6 
 alone, is able to conduct the ministry of the police ; he 
 alone has a perfect knowledge of all the factions and 
 intrigues which have been spreading misery through 
 France. We cannot create men : we must take such as 
 we find ; and it is easier to modify by circumstances the 
 feelings and conduct of an able servant, than to supply 
 his place." Thus did he eyetematically make on ^f 
 
168 KAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 whoever was willing to be useful — counting on the 
 ambition of one man, the integrity of a second, and the 
 avarice of a third, with equal confidence ; and justified, 
 for the pi'esent time (which was all he was anxious 
 about), by the results of each of the experiments in 
 question. 
 
 It is impossible to refuse the praise of consummate 
 prudence and skill to these, and indeed to all the 
 arrangements of Buonaparte, at this great crisis of his 
 history. The secret of his whole scheme is unfolded in 
 his own memorable words to Sieyes : " We are creating 
 a new era; of the past we must forget the bad, and 
 remember only the good." From the day when the 
 consular government was formed a new epoch was to 
 date. Submit to that government and no man need fear 
 that his former acts, far less opinions, should prove any 
 obstacle to his security — nay, to his advancement. 
 Henceforth the regicide might dismiss all dread of 
 Bourbon revenge; the purchaser of forfeited property 
 of being sacrificed to the returning nobles, provided 
 only they chose to sink their theories and submit. To 
 the royalists, on the other hand, Buonaparte held out 
 the prospect, not indeed of Bourbon restoration, but of 
 the re- establishment of a monarchical form of government, 
 and all the concomitants of a court ; for the churchman 
 the temples were at once opened ; and the rebuilding of 
 the hierarchical fabric, in all its wealth, splendour, and 
 power, was offered in perspective. Meanwhile, the great 
 and crying evil, from which the revolution had really 
 sprung, was forever abolished. The odious distinction 
 of castes was at an end. Political liberty existed, per- 
 haps, no longer; but civil liberty — the equality of all 
 Frenchmen in the eye of the law — was, or seemed to be, 
 established. All men, henceforth, must contribute .to 
 the state in the proportion of their means : all men 
 
1800.] 
 
 FIRST C0KSU1. " 166 
 
 appeal to the samo tribunals ; and no man, however 
 meanly born, had it to say that there was one post of 
 power or dignity in France to which talent and labour 
 never could elevate him. 
 
 Shortly after Xapoleon took possession of the Tuil- 
 leries, Murat, who had long been the lover of his sister 
 Caroline, demanded her hand in marriage. The gal- 
 lantry and military talents of this handsome officer had 
 already raised him to a distinguished rank in the army, 
 and Josephine warmly espoused his interests : but 
 Buonaparte was with difficulty persuaded to give his 
 consent to the match. " Murat i3 the son of an inn- 
 keeper," said he — " in the station to which events have 
 elevated me, I must not mix my blood with his." These 
 objections, however, were overcome by the address of 
 Josephine, who considered Napoleon's own brothers as 
 her enemies, and was anxious, not without reason, to 
 have some additional support in the family. Her influ- 
 ence from this time appears to have remained ixnshakeu, 
 though her extravagance and incurable habit of contract- 
 ing debts gave rise to many unpleasing scenes between 
 her and the most methodical of mankind. 
 
170 KAPOLEON DUONAPAETE. [1800. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 y>.t Chief Consul writes to the King of England — Lord Grenvflle's 
 A?>swer — Napoleon passes the Great St. Bernard— The taking of 
 
 - St. Bard—The Siege of Genoa— The Battle of Montebelh—The 
 Battl; of Marengo— Napoleon returns to Paris — The Infernal 
 Machine — The Battle of Hohenlinden — The Treaty of Luneville. 
 
 Mucn had already been done towards the internal tran* 
 qnillization of France; but it was obvious that the result 
 could not be perfect until the war, which had so long 
 raged on two frontiers of the country, should have found 
 a termination. The fortune of the last two years had 
 been far different from that of the glorious campaigns 
 which ended in the treaty — or armistice, as it might 
 more truly be named — of Campo-Formio. The Austriaus 
 had recovered the north of Italy, and already menaced 
 the Savoy frontier, designing to march into Provence, 
 and there support a new insurrection of the royalists. 
 The force opposed to them in that quarter was much 
 inferior in numbers, and composed of the relics of armies 
 beaten over and over again by Suwarrow. The Austrians 
 and French were more nearly balanced on the Rhine fron- 
 tier ; but even there, there was ample room tor anxiety. 
 On the whole, the grand attitude in which Buonaparte 
 had left the Republic, when he embarked for Elgypt, was 
 exchanged for one of a far humbler description ; and, in 
 fact, as has been intimated, the general disheartening of 
 the nation, by reason of those reverses, had been of 
 signal service to Napoleon's ambition. If a strong hand 
 was wanted at home, the necessity of having a general 
 who could bring back victory to the tricolor banners in 
 the field had been not less deeply felt. And hence the 
 decisive revolution of Brumaire. 
 
1800.] CORRESPONDENCE WITH GEORGE III. 171 
 
 Of the allies of Austria, meanwhile, one had virtually" 
 abandoned her. The emperor Paul, of Russia, resent in** 
 the stylo in which his army under Suwarrow had been 
 supported, withdrew it altogether from the field of its 
 victories ; and that hair-brained autocrat, happening to 
 take up an enthusiastic personal admiration for Buona- 
 parte, was not less likely for the present to be brought 
 back into the Antigallican league. England appeared 
 stedfast to the cause ; but it remained to be proved 
 whether the failure of her expedition to Holland, under 
 the Duke of York, or the signal success of her naval 
 arms in the Mediterranean under Lord Nelson, had had 
 the greater influence on the feelings of the government 
 of St James's. In the former case Napoleon might ex- 
 pect to find his advances towards a negotiation, in his 
 new character of Chief Consul, received with better dis- 
 position than his predecessors of the Directory had ex- 
 tended to the last overtures of the English cabinet 
 tendered by Lord Malmesbury. He resolved to have 
 the credit of making the experiment at lea -t. ere the 
 campaign with the Austrians should open; and, discard- 
 ing, as he had on a former occasion,* the usual etiquettes 
 of diplomatic intercourse, addressed a letter to Kino- 
 George III., in person, almost immediately after the 
 new consulate was established in the Tuilleries, in these 
 terms (Dec. 25, 1799) : 
 
 "French Republic — Sovereignty of the People — Libert// 
 and E'piaUtij. 
 
 "Buonaparte, First Consul of the Republic, to his Majesty 
 the King of Great Britain and Ireland. 
 
 11 Called by the wishes of the French nation to occupy 
 
 • When he wrote from Clagenfurt to the Archduke Charles. 
 13 
 
172 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 the first magistracy of the Republic, I have thought 
 proper, in commencing the discharge of its duties, to 
 communicate the event directly to your Majesty. 
 
 " Must the war, which for eight years has ravaged the 
 four quarters of the world, be eternal ? Is there no 
 room for accommodation ? How can the two most en- 
 lightened nations of Europe, stronger and more powerful 
 than is necessary for their safety and independence, 
 sacrifice commercial advantages, internal prosperity, and 
 domestic happiness, to vain ideas of grandeur? "Whence 
 comes it that they do not feel peace to bo the first of 
 wants as well as of glories ? These sentiments cannot 
 be new to the heart of your Majesty, who rule over a 
 free nation with no other view than to render it happy. 
 Your Majesty will see in this overture only my sincere 
 desire to contribute effectually, for the second time, to a 
 general pacification —by a prompt step taken in confi- 
 dence, and freed from those forms, which, however 
 necessary to disguise the apprehensions of feeble states, 
 only serve to discover in the powerful a mutual wish to 
 deceive. 
 
 "France and England, abusing their strength, may 
 long defer the period of its utter exhaustion ; but I will 
 venture to say, that the fate of all civilised nations is 
 concerned in the termination of a war, the flames of 
 which are raging throughout the whole world. I have 
 the honour to be, frc., &c. " Buonaparte." 
 
 It is manifest that the Chief Consul was wonderfully 
 ignorant of the English constitution, if he really believed 
 lhat the King (whose public acts must all bo done by 
 the hands of responsible ministers) could answer his 
 letter personally. The reply was an official note from 
 Lord Gienvillc, then secretary of state for the depart- 
 ment of foreign affairs, to Talleyrand. It stated " that 
 
1800.] CORRESPONDENCE WITH GEORGE IIL 178 
 
 the King of England bad no object in tbe war bnt the 
 security of bis own dominions, his allies, and Europe in 
 general ; be would seize the first favourable opportunity 
 to make peace — at present he could see none. Tbe same 
 general assertions of pacific intentions had proceeded, 
 successively, from all the revolutionary governments of 
 France ; and they had all persisted in conduct directly 
 and notoriously the opposite of their language. Switzer- 
 land, Italy, Holland, Germany, Egypt, — what country 
 Bad been safe from French aggression ? Tbe war must 
 continue until tbe causes which gavo it birth ceased to 
 exist. Tbe restoration of the exiled royal family would 
 be tbe easiest means of giving confidence to the other 
 powers of Europe. The King of England by no means 
 pretended to dictate anything as to the internal polity of 
 France ; but be was compelled to say, that ho saw 
 nothing in the circumstances under which the new 
 government had been set up, or tbe principles it professed 
 to act upon, which could tend to make foreign powers 
 regard it as cither more stable or more trustworthy than 
 the transitory forms it had supplanted." 
 
 Such was tbe tenor of Lord Grenville's famous note. It 
 gavei'ise toananimated discussion in botbHouses immedi- 
 ately on the meeting of the British Parliament ; and, in 
 both, the conduct of the ministry was approved by very 
 great majorities. "When, however, the financial prepara- 
 tions were brought forward, and it turned out that Russia 
 was no longer to be subsidized — or, in other words, had 
 abandoned the league against France — the prospects of 
 tbe war were generally considered as much less favour- 
 able than they had been during this discussion. In the 
 meantime the French government put forth, by way of 
 commentary on Lord Grenville's state paper, a pretended 
 letter from the unfortunate heir of tbe House of Stuart 
 to George III., demanding from him the throne of Eng- 
 
174 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE [1800- 
 
 land, which, now that the principle of legitimacy seemed 
 to be recognised at St. James's, there could (said the 
 pasquinade) be no fair pretext for refusing. Some other 
 trifles of the same character might be noticed ; but the 
 true answer to Mr. Pitt was the campaign of Marengo. 
 
 Buonaparte rejoiced cordially in the result of his 
 informal negotiation. It was his policy, even more 
 clearly than it had been that of his predecessors, to buy 
 security at home by battle and victory abroad. The 
 national pride had been deeply wounded during his 
 absence ; and something must be done in Europe, worthy 
 of the days of Lodi, and Rivoli, and Tagliamento, ere ho 
 could hope to be seated firmly on his throne. On receiv- 
 ing the answer of the British minister, he said to Talley- 
 rand (rubbing his hands, as was his custom when much 
 pleased), " it could not have been more favourable." 
 On the same day, the 7th of January (just three days 
 after the date of Lord Grenville's note), the First Consul 
 issued his edict for the formation of an army of reserve, 
 consisting of all the veterans who had ever served, and 
 a new levy of 30,000 conscripts. 
 
 At this time France had four armies on her frontiers : 
 that of the North, under Brune, watched the partisans 
 of the House of Orange in Holland, and guarded those 
 coasts against any new invasion from England ; the 
 defeat of the Duke of York had enabled the government 
 to reduce its strength considerably. The second was 
 the army of the Danube, under Jourdan, which, after the 
 defeat at Stockach, had been obliged to repass the 
 Rhine ; the third, under Massena, styled the army of 
 Helvetia, had been compelled in the preceding campaign 
 to evacuate a great part of Switzerland, but, gaining the 
 battle of Zurich against the Russians, now re-occupied 
 the whole of that republic ; the fourth was that broken 
 remnant which still called itself the " army of Italy." 
 
1800.] WARLIKE PREPARATIONS. 175 
 
 After the disastrous conflict of Genola it had rallied in 
 disorder on the Appenines and the heights of Genoa, 
 where the spirit of the troops was already so mueh 
 injured that whole battalions deserted en masse, and 
 retired behind the Var. Their distress, in truth, was 
 extreme ; for they had lost all means of communication 
 with the valley of the Po, and the English fleet effectu- 
 ally blockaded the whole coasts, both of Provence and 
 Liguria ; so that, pent up among barren rocks, they 
 suffered the hardships and privations of a beleaguered 
 garrison. 
 
 The Chief Consul sent Massena to assume the com- 
 mand of the " army of Italy," and issued on that occasion 
 a general order, which had a magical effect on the minds 
 of the soldiery. Massena was highly esteemed amone 
 them; and, after his arrival at Genoa, the deserters 
 flocked back rapidly to their standards. At the same 
 time Buonaparte ordered Moreau to assume the com- 
 mand of the two corps of the Danube and Helvetia, and 
 consolidate them into one great " army of the Rhine." 
 Lastly, the rendezvous of the "army of reserve" was 
 appointed for Dijon — a central position from which 
 either Massena or Moreau might, as circumstances 
 demanded, be supported and reinforced, but which 
 Napoleon really designed to serve for a cloak to his 
 main purpose ; for he had already, in concert with 
 Carnot, sketched the plan of that which is generally 
 considered as at once the most daring and the most 
 masterly of all the campaigns of the war, and which, in 
 so far as the execution depended on himself, turned out 
 also the most dazzlingly successful. 
 
 In placing Moreau at the head of the army of the 
 Rhine, full 150,000 strong, and out of all compariso i 
 the best disciplined as well as largest force of the R - 
 public, Buonaparte exhibited a noble superiority to ail 
 
176 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 feelings of personal jealousy. That general's reputation 
 approached the most nearly to his own ; but his talents 
 justified this reputation, and the Chief Consul thought 
 of nothing but the best means of accomplishing the pur- 
 poses of the joint campaign. Moreau, in the sequel, was 
 severely censured by his master for the manner in which 
 he executed the charge entrusted to him. His orders 
 were to march at once upon Ulm, at the risk of placing 
 the great Austrian army under Kray between him and 
 France ; but ho was also commanded to detach 15,000 
 of his troops for the separate service of passing into 
 Italy by the defiles of St. Gothard ; and given to under- 
 stand that it must be his business to prevent Kray, at 
 all hazards, from opening a communication with Italy by 
 way of the Tyrol. Under such circumstances, it is not 
 wonderful that a general, who had a master, should have 
 proceeded more cautiously than suited the gigantic aspi- 
 rations of the unfettered Napoleon. Moreau, however, 
 it must be admitted, had always the reputation of a pru- 
 dent, rather than a daring, commander. The details of 
 his campaign against Kray must be sought elsewhere. 
 A variety of engagements took place, with a variety of 
 fortune. Moreau, his enemies allow, commenced his 
 operations by crossing the Rhine in the end of April ; 
 and, on the 15th of July, had his head-quarters at Augs- 
 burg, and was in condition either to reinforce the 
 French in Italy, or to march into the hos,rt of the Austrian 
 states, when the success of Buonaparte's own expedition 
 rendered either movement unnecessary. 
 
 The Chief Consul had resolved upon conducting, in 
 person, one of the most adventurous enterprises recorded 
 in the history of war. The formation of the army of 
 reserve at Dijon was a mere deceit. A numerous staff, 
 indeed, assembled in that town ; and the preparation of 
 the munitions of war proceeded there as elsewhere with 
 
1800.] CAMPAIGN OF MARENGO. 177 
 
 the utmost energy; but the troops collected at Dijon 
 were few ; and — it being universally circulated and be- 
 lieved, that they were the force to re-establish the onco 
 glorious army of Italy, by marching" to the head-quarters 
 of Massena, at Genoa — the Austrians received the 
 accounts of their numbers and appearance, not only with 
 indifference, but with derision. Buonaparte, meanwhile, 
 had spent three months in recruiting his armies through- 
 out the interior of France ; and the troops, by means of 
 which it was his purpose to change the face of affairs 
 beyond the Alps, were already marching by different 
 routes, each detachment in total ignorance of the other's 
 destination, upou the territory of Switzerland. To that 
 quarter Buonaparte had already sent forward Berthier, 
 the most confidential of his military friends, and othei 
 officers of the highest skill, with orders to reconnoitre 
 the various passes in the great Alpine chain, and make 
 every other preparation for the movement, of which they 
 alone were, as yet, in the secret. 
 
 The statesmen who ventured, even after Brumaire, to 
 oppose the investiture of Buonaparte with the whole 
 power of the state, had, at first (as wo have seen), at- 
 tempted to confine him to the military department ; or 
 so arrange it that his orders, as to civil affairs, should, 
 at least, not be absolute. Failing in this, they thon pro- 
 posed that the Chief Consul should be incapable of head- 
 ing an army in the field, without abdicating previously 
 his magistracy ; and, to their surprise, Napoleon at onco 
 acceded to a proposition which, it had been expected, 
 would rouse his indignation. It now turned out how 
 much the saving clause in question was worth. The 
 Chief Consul could not, indeed, be general-in-chief of an 
 army ; but he could appoint whom ho pleased to that 
 post ; and there was no law against his being present, in 
 his own person, as a spectator of the campaign. It sig- 
 
178 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 niiicd little that a Berthier should write himself com- 
 mander, when a Napoleon was known to be in the camp. 
 It was now time that the great project should be real- 
 ized. The situation of the " army of Italy" was become 
 most critical. After a variety of petty engagements, its 
 general saw his left wing (under Suchet) wholly cut off 
 from his main body ; and, while Suchet was forced to 
 retire behind the Var, where his troops had the utmost 
 difficulty in presenting any serious opposition to the 
 Austrians, Massena had been compelled to throw himself 
 with the remainder into Genoa. In that city he was 
 speedily blockaded by the Austi-ian general Ott ; while 
 the imperial commander-in-chief, Melas, advanced, with 
 30,000, upon Nice — of which place he took possession on 
 the 11th of May. The Austrians, having shut up Mas- 
 sena, and well knowing the feebleness of Suchet's division, 
 were in a delirium of joy. The gates of France appeared, 
 at length, to be open before them ; and it was not such 
 an army of reserve as had excited the merriment of their 
 spies at Dijon that could hope to withstand them in 
 their long-meditated march on Provence — where Piche- 
 gru, as they supposed, was prepared to assume the 
 command of a numerous body of Royalist insurgents, as 
 soon as he should receive the intelligence of their 
 entrance into France. But they were soon to hear news 
 of another complexion from whence they least expected 
 it — from behind them. 
 
 The Chief Consul remained in Paris until he received 
 Berthier's decisive despatch from Geneva — it was in 
 these words : " I wish to see you here. There are 
 orders to be given by which three armies may act in 
 concert, and you alone can give them in the lines. 
 Measures decided on in Paris are too late." He instantly 
 quitted the capital, and on the 7th of May appeared at 
 Dijon, where he reviewed, in great form, some 7000 or 
 
1800.] THE LITTLE ST. BERNARD. 179 
 
 s II I I raw and halt-clad troops, and committed them to 
 the care of Brune. The spies of Austria reaped new 
 satisfaction from this consular review ; meanwhile Na- 
 poleon had halted but two hours at Dijon, and, travel- 
 ling all night, arrived the next day at Geneva. Here 
 he was met by Marescot, who had been employed in 
 exploring the wild passes of the Great St. Bernard, and 
 received from him an appalling picture of the difficulties 
 of marching an army by that route into Italy. " Is it 
 possible to pass ?" said Napole.on, cutting the engineer's 
 narrativo short. " The thing is barely possible," 
 answered Marescot. " Very well," said the Chief 
 Consul, " en avant — let us proceed." 
 
 "While the Austrians were thinking only of the frontier 
 where Suchet commauded an enfeebled and dispirited 
 division, — destined, as they doubted not, to be reinforced 
 by the army, such as it was, of Dijon, — the Chief Consul 
 had resolved to penetrate into Italy, as Hannibal had 
 done of old, through all the dangers and difficulties of 
 the great Alps themselves. The march on the Var and 
 Genoa might have been executed with comparative ease, 
 and might, in all likelihood, have led to victory ; but 
 mere victory would not suffice. It was urgently neces- 
 sary that the name of Buonaparte should bo surrounded 
 with some blaze of almost supernatural renown ; and his 
 plan for purchasing this splendour was to rush down 
 from the Alps, at whatever hazard, upon the rear of 
 Melas, cut off all his communications with Austria, and 
 then force him to a conflict, in which, Massena and 
 Suchet being on the other side of him, reverse must 
 needs be ruin. 
 
 For the treble purpose of more easily collecting a suf- 
 ficient stock of provisions for the march, of making its 
 accomplishment more rapid, and of perplexing the enemy 
 on its termination, Napoleon determined that his army 
 
180 NAPOLEON BDONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 should pass in four divisions, by as many separate routes. 
 The left wing, under Moncey, consisting of 15,000 de- 
 tached from the army of Moreau, was ordered to debouch 
 by the way of St. Gothard. The corps of Thureau, 5000 
 strong, took the direction of Mount Cenis : that of Cha- 
 bran, of similar strength, moved by the Little St. Ber- 
 nard. Of the main body, consisting of 35,000, the Chict* 
 Consul himself took care ; and he reserved for them tho 
 gigantic task of surmounting, with the artillery, the 
 huge barriers of the Great St. Bernard. Thus, along the 
 Alpine chain — from the sources of the Rhine and the 
 Rhone to Isere and Durance — about 60,000 men, in all, 
 lay prepared for the adventure. It must be added, if 
 we would form a fair conception of the enterprise, that 
 Napoleon well knew not one-third of these men had ever 
 seen a shot fired in earnest. 
 
 The difficulties encountered by Moncey, Thureau, and 
 Chabran, will be sufficiently understood from the narra- 
 tive of Buonaparte's own mai'ch. From the 15th to the 
 18th of May all his columns were put in motion ; Lannes, 
 with the advanced guard, clearing the way before them; 
 the general, Berthier, and the Chief Consul himself 
 superintending the rear guard, which, as having with it 
 the artillery, was the object of highest importance. At 
 St. Pierre all semblance of a road disappeared. Thence- 
 forth an army, horse and foot, laden with all the muni- 
 tions of a campaign, a park of forty field-pieces included, 
 were to be urged up and along airy ridges of rock and 
 eternal snow, whe^o the goatherd, the hunter of tho 
 chamois, and the outlaw-smuggler, are alone accustomed 
 to venture ; amidst precipices where to slip a foot is 
 death ; beneath glaciers from which the percussion of a 
 musket-shot is often sufficient to hurl an avalanche ; 
 across bottomless chasms caked over with frost or snow- 
 drift ; and breathing — ■ 
 
1800.] PASSAGE OF THE GREAT ST. BERNARD. 181 
 
 " The difficult air of the iced mountain top, 
 
 Where the birds d ire not bnild, nor insect's wing 
 Flit o'er the herbless granite."* 
 
 Tho transport of the artillery and ammunition was 
 the most difficult point, and to this, accordingly, the 
 Chief Consul gave his personal superintendence. Tho 
 guns were dismounted, groove! into the trunks of trees 
 hollowed out po as to suit each calibre, and then dragged 
 on by sheer strength of muscle — not less than a hun- 
 dred soldiers bein^r sometimes harnessed to a single 
 cannon. The carriages and wheels, being taken to 
 pieces, were slung on poles, and borne on men's shoulders. 
 The powder and shot, packed into boxes of fir-wood, 
 formed the lading of all the mules that could be collected 
 over a wide range of the Alpine country. These prepa- 
 rations had been made daring the week that elapsed 
 between Buonaparte's ai'rival at Geneva, and the com- 
 mencement of Lannes's march. He himself travelled 
 sometimes on a mule, but mostly on foot, cheering on 
 the soldiers who had the burden of the great guns. Tho 
 fatigue undergone is not to be described. The men in 
 front durst not halt to breathe, because the least stoppage 
 there might have thrown the column behind into confu- 
 sion, on the brink of deadly precipices ; and those in tho 
 rear had to flounder knee deep, through snow and ice 
 trampled into sludge by the feet and hoofs of the preced- 
 ing divisions. Happily, the march of Napoleon was not 
 harassed, like that of Hannibal, by the assaults of living 
 enemies. The mountaineers, on the contrary, flocked in 
 to reap the liberal rewards which ho offbred to all who 
 were willing to lighten the drudgery of his troops. 
 
 On the 16th of May, Xapoleon slept at the convent of 
 St. Maurice ; and, in tho course of the four following 
 
 * Bvron's Manfred. 
 
182 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800- 
 
 days, the whole army passed the Great St. Bernard. It 
 was on the 20th that Buonaparte himself halted an hour 
 at the convent of the Hospitallers, which stands on the 
 summit of this mighty mountain. The good fathers of 
 the monastery had been warned beforehand of the march, 
 and they had furnished every soldier as he passed with 
 a luncheon of bread and cheese, and a glass of wine ; for 
 which seasonable kindness, they now received the warm 
 acknowledgements of the chief.* It was here that he 
 took his leave of a peasant youth, who had walked by 
 him, as his guide, all the way from the convent of St. 
 Maurice. Napoleon conversed freely with the young 
 man, and was much interested with his simplicity. At 
 parting, he asked the guide some particulars about his 
 personal situation ; and, having heard his reply, gave 
 him money, and a billet to the head of the monastery of 
 St. Maurice. The peasant delivered it accordingly, and 
 was surprised to find that, in consequence of a scrap ot 
 writing which he could not read, his worldly comforts 
 were to be permanently increased. The object of this 
 generosity remembered, nevertheless, but little of his 
 conversation with the Consul. He described Napoleon 
 as beino- " a very dai'k man ;" (this was the effect of the 
 Syrian sun,) and having an eye that, notwithstanding 
 his affability, he could not encounter without a sense of 
 fear. The onlv saying of the hero which he treasured in 
 his memory was, " I have spoiled a hat among your 
 mountains : well, I shall find a new one on the other 
 side."— Thus spoke Napoleon, wringing the rain from his 
 
 • The worthy Hospitallers of St. Bernard have stationed them- 
 selves on that wild eminence, for the purpose of alleviating the 
 misery of travellers lost or bewildered amidst the neighbouring de- 
 nies. They maintain a pack of dogs, of extraordinary sagacity, 
 who roam over the hills night and day, and frequently drag to 
 li^ht and safety, pilgrim3 who have been buried in the snow. 
 
1800.] PASSAGE OF THE GREAT ST. BERNARD. 183 
 
 covering, as bo approached the hospice of St. Bernard. 
 — The guide described, however, very strikingly, the 
 effects of Buonaparte's appearance and voice, when any 
 obstacle checked the advance of his soldiery along that 
 fearful wilderness which is called emphatically, " Tho 
 Valley of Desolation." A single look or word was com- 
 monly sufficient to set all in motion again. But if the 
 way presented some new, and apparently insuperably 
 difficulty, the Consul bade tho drums beat and tho 
 trumpets sound, as if for the charge ; and this never 
 failed. Of such gallant temper were the spirits which 
 Napoleon had at command, and with such admirable 
 skill did he wield them ! 
 
 On the 16th the vanguard, under Lannes, reached tho 
 beautiful vale of Aosta, and the other divisions descended 
 rapidly on their footsteps. This part of the progress was 
 not less difficult than the ascent before. The horses, 
 mules, and guns, were to be led down one slippery steep 
 after another — and we may judge with what anxious 
 care, since Napoleon himself was once contented to slide 
 nearly a hundred yards together, seated. 
 
 On the 17th Lannes arrived at Chatillon, where he 
 attacked and defeated a corps of 5000 Austrians — who 
 received the onset of a French division in that quarter, 
 with about as much surprise as if an enemy had dropt on 
 them from the clouds. Every difficulty now seemed to be 
 surmounted, and corps after corps came down into tho 
 plentiful and verdant valley, full of joy. But suddenl v 
 the march of the vanguard was arrested by an obstacle 
 unforeseen, or, at least, grievously under-estimated. 
 Midway between Aosta and Ivrea the Dora flows through 
 a defile, not more than fifty yards in width : the heights 
 on either hand rise precipitous ; and in the midst an 
 abrupt conical rock, crowned with the fortress of St. 
 Bard, entirely commands the river, and a small walled 
 
184 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 town, through the heart of which lies the only passage. 
 Lannes having vainly attempted to force the place by a 
 coup de wain, a panic arose, and, this spreading to the 
 rear, orders were given to stop the descent of the ar- 
 tillery. The Consul had come as far as the town of Aosta 
 when this intelligence reached him. He immediately 
 hastened to St. Bard, where he found the troops in much 
 confusion. 
 
 On occasions like this Napoleon rarely failed to vindi- 
 cate the prestige of his reputation. After hastily sur- 
 veying the localities, he climbed the height of the 
 Albaredo, which rises on the one side above the fort, and 
 satisfied himself that, though the path had hitherto been 
 trodden only by solitary huntsmen, the army who had 
 crossed the St. Bernard might, by similar efforts, find or 
 make their way here also. A single cannon being, with 
 the last difficulty, hoisted to the summit, he planted it 
 so as to play full on the chief bastion of St. Bard. The 
 moment this was arranged the troops began their painful 
 march ; and they accomplished it without considerable 
 loss ; for the Consul's gun was so excellently placed that 
 the main battery of the subjacent castle was, ere long, 
 silenced. The men crept along the brow of the Albaredo 
 in single file, each pausing (says an eye-witness) to gaze 
 for a moment on Napoleon, who, overcome with his exer- 
 tions, had lain down and fallen asleep upon the sum- 
 mit of the rock. Thus passed the main body, slowly, 
 but surely. Meantime Colonel Dufour had been ordered 
 to scale the wall of the town at nightfall ; and his regi- 
 ment (the 58th) performed the service so impetuously 
 that the Austrian troops took refuge in the castle, and 
 the French made good their lodgment in the houses 
 below. For some hours the garrison poured down grape- 
 shot at half-musket distance upon the French, but at 
 last, out of compassion for the inhabitants, the fire 
 
1S0O.] FORT ST. BARD — 1VREA. 1^0 
 
 Blackened ; and ere day broke Buonaparte had effected 
 his main purpose. The .-treets of the town having been 
 strewn with litter to deafen sound, the guns, covered 
 with straw and branches of trees, were dragged through 
 it under the very guns of St. Bard, and without exciting 
 the least suspicion in its garrison. Next morning the 
 Austrian commandant sent on a messenger to Melas, 
 with tidings that a large division of the French had in- 
 deed passed by the goat-tracks of Albaredo, but that 
 most certainly not one great gun was with them. Bnor.a- 
 parte, meantime, was hurrying forwards with horse, foot, 
 and artillery too, upon Ivrea. 
 
 The march of the Consul received no new check until 
 he reached the town of Ivrea, where, after two days' 
 hard fighting, Lannes at length forced an entrance, and 
 the garrison, with severe loss, withdrew. Buonaparte 
 then took the road to Turin, and the vanguard had an- 
 other severe piece of service at the bridge of Chiusilla, 
 where 10,000 Austrians had been very strongly posted. 
 Lannes broke them, and pursuing as far as Orca, 
 cut them off from their magazines at Chevagno, and 
 seized a vast quantity of stores which had been embarked 
 on the Po. The advance was now within one march of 
 Turin, while Murat occupied Vercelli, and the other 
 divisions (those of Moncey, Chabran, and Thureau), 
 having accomplished their several Alpine journeys, were 
 pouring down upon the low country, and gradually con- 
 verging towards the appointed rendezvous on the Ticino. 
 Buonaparte had tins overcome the great difficulties of 
 his preparation, and was ready with his wholo army to 
 open the campaign in good earnest against Melas. 
 
 The blockade of Genoa had been kept up all this time-, 
 while Suchet resolutely maintained the last line of de- 
 fence on the old frontier of France. On the 22d of May 
 sperate effort to force the passage ot 
 
186 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 the Var, but failed ; and immediately received bis first 
 intelligence of tbe movements of Buonaparte, and tbe 
 defeat of bis own detachment at tbe bridge of Cbiusilla. 
 He perceived tbat it was high time to leave Suchet to 
 inferior hands, and set off to oppose in person " the army 
 of reserve." Suchet, on his part, was not slow to profit 
 by the departure of the Austrian commander-in-chief: 
 he, being informed of Buonaparte's descent, forthwith 
 resumed the offensive, re-crossed the Var, and carried 
 Vintimiglia at tbe point of the bayonet. Pursuing his 
 advantage, Suchet obtained the mastery, first of the 
 defile of Brans, and then of that of Tende, and at length 
 re-occupied his old position at Melagno, whence his ad- 
 vanced guard pushed on as far as Savona. 
 
 The garrison of Genoa, meantime, had been holding 
 out gallantly. Massena for some time kept possession 
 of the semi-circular chain of heights on the land side, 
 and was thus enabled to obtain provisions, despite the 
 40,000 Austrians under General Ott who lay watching 
 him, and the English fleet under Lord Keith which com- 
 pletely blockaded the shore. A great effort made to 
 dislodge him from the heights on the 3d of April failed. 
 But by degrees the superiority of numbers proved too 
 much for him, and being shut at last within the walls — 
 where, to increase all his difficulties, a great part of tbe 
 population was violently hostile to the French cause — his 
 sufferings from want of provisions, and the necessity of 
 constant watchfulness and daily skirmishes, began to be 
 severe. In his sorties, Massena had for tbe most part tbe 
 advantage ; and never in the whole war was the heroism 
 of the French soldiery more brilliantly displayed than 
 during this siege.* The news of the expedition of 
 
 • The following anecdote is given by Duma: :—" On one of 
 these occasions, when a desperate attack was led on by Soult, thero 
 occurred a circumstance as honourable as it was characteristic of 
 
1800.] SIEGE OF GENOA. 187 
 
 Xapoleon at length penetrated to the beleaguered garri- 
 son, and the expectation of relief gave them from day to 
 day new courage to hold out. But day passed after day 
 without any deliverer making his appearance, and the 
 scarcity of food rendered it almost impossible to keep 
 the inhabitants from rising en masse to throw open the 
 gates. The English, meanwhile, anchored closer to the 
 city, and, having cut out the vessels which guarded the 
 entrance of the harbour, were bombarding the French 
 (quarters at their pleasure. Everything eatable, not ex- 
 cepting the shoes and knapsacks of the soldiers, hr.d 
 been devoured, ere Massena at length listened to tbe 
 proposal of a conference with General Ott and Lord 
 Keitb. If the French general's necessities were urgent, 
 the English admiral's desire to get possession of Genoa, 
 ere Buonaparte could make further progress, was not 
 less vehement. Lord Keith frankly told Massena that 
 his gallantry had been such that no terms could be too 
 good for him. The word capitulation was omitted ; the 
 French marched out of the town with arms and baggage, 
 
 the spirit which animated the French. The soldiers of two 
 regiments, or demi-brigades, of the army of Italy — namely, the 
 25th Light, and the 24th of the Line, had sworn eternal enmity 
 against one another, because that, previous to the opening of the 
 campaign, when desertion and all the evils of insubordination pre- 
 vailed in that army, disorganised by suffering, the former, in 
 which discipline had been maintained, wa3 employed to disarm the 
 latter. The utmost care had been taken to keep them separate i 
 but it so happened that these two corps found themselves ono day 
 made rivals as it were in valour, the ono before the eyes of the 
 other. The same dangers, the same thirst of glory, the same 
 eagerness to maintain themselves, at once renewed in all hearts 
 generous sentiments ; the soldiers became instantly intermingled ; 
 they embraced in the midst of the fire, and one-half of the one 
 corps passing into the ranks of the other, they renewed the com- 
 bat, after the exchange, with double ardour." 
 
 14 
 
188 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 and wove allowed to pvoceed to Suchet's head-quarters ; 
 and, on tbe 5th of Jane, Ott occupied Genoa. 
 
 Geneval Ott,notwithstandingtbis success,had beenvciy 
 ill-employed in lingering befove Genoa while Napoleon 
 was so vapidly advancing; and Melas, uttevly pevplexed 
 between Suehet on the one side and tbe Consul on the 
 otbev, had in fact lain still, and done nothing. Buona- 
 pavte, between the 1st and 4th of June, crossed tho 
 Ticino with his whole army. Muvat carried Tuvbigo on 
 tbe 5th, the very day that Genoa fell ; and on the 2d, tho 
 Cbief Consul himself once move enteved Milan, where he 
 was veceived with enthusiasm. Lannes, after vaviou3 
 conflicts, occupied Pavia. Cbapon and Tbuveau threat- 
 ened Turin by two different voutes ; and Melas, at last 
 voused to a sense of his imminent dangev, abandoned the 
 open country of Piedmont, took up his head-quavtevs at 
 Alessandvia, and began to draw together his widely sepa- 
 rated columns, and concent vate them for the inevitable 
 battle which must decide the fate of Italy. 
 
 Buonaparte, meanwhile, was ignorant of the fall of 
 Genoa. He supposed, thevefove, that the avmy of Ott 
 was still at a wide distance from that of the Austrian 
 commander-in-chief, and meditated to pass the Po sud- 
 denly, and either attack Ott and relieve Genoa, eve 
 Melas knew that he was in that neighbourhood, or, if ho 
 should find this more practicable, force Melas himself to 
 accept battle unsupported by Ott. Lannes and the van, 
 accordingly, pushed on as far as Montebello, where, to theii 
 surprise, they found the Austrians in strength. Early 
 in the morning of the 9th of June, Lannes was attacked 
 by a force which he had much difficulty in resisting. 
 The Austvians weve greatly superior in cavalry, and the 
 ground was favouvable for that ai'm. But at length 
 Victor's division came up, and, aftev a severe struggle, 
 turned tho tide. Tho battle was a most obstinate one. 
 
1800.] MON'TEBELLO — DESSAIX. 189 
 
 The fields being covered with very tall crops of rye, 
 the hostile battalions were often almost within bayonet's 
 length ere they were aware of each other's presence ; 
 and the same circumstances prevented the generals, 
 on either side, from displaying much science in their 
 manoeuvres. It was a conflict of man against man, 
 and determined at a dear cost of blood. The field 
 was strewn with dead, and the retiring Austrians left 
 oOOO prisoners in the hands of Lannes —who, in memory 
 of this day of slaughter, was created afterwards Dnko 
 of Montebello. It was from the prisoners taken here 
 that the Consul learned the fate of Genoa. He imme- 
 diately concluded that Melas had concentrated his army; 
 and, having sent messengers to Suchet, urging him to 
 cross the mountains by the Col di Cadibona, and march 
 on the Scrivia (which would place him in the rear of the 
 enemy), halted his whole line upon the strong position 
 of Stradella. 
 
 It was on the evening after Montebello, that General 
 Dessaix, whom Napoleon considered as second only to 
 himself in military genius, arrived at head- quarters. 
 Buonaparte had, as we have seen, on leaving Egypt 
 ordered Kleber to send Dessaix to France in the course 
 of November. Ho had accordingly landed at Frejus 
 shortly after the establishment of the new government, 
 where he found letters from the Chief Consul, urgiug 
 him to join him without delay. In these letters there 
 were some melancholy phrases, and Dessaix, who really 
 loved Napoleon, was heard to say, " He has gained all, 
 and yet he is not satisfied." A hundred obstacles rose 
 up to keep Dessaix from joining his friend so speedilv 
 as both wished. He was yet in France when the new. j 
 of St. Bernard came thither, and exclaiming, " He will 
 leave us nothing to do," travelled night and day until 
 he was able to throw himself into his arms, Napolooc 
 
190 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 immediately gave him the command of a division ; and 
 they spent the night together in conversing about the 
 affairs of Egypt. 
 
 The First Consul was anxious to tempt Melas to at- 
 tack him at Stradella, where the ground was unfavour- 
 able to cavalry movements ; but, after lying there un- 
 molested for three days, he began to fear that the 
 Austrian had resolved, either on moving to the left flank, 
 crossing the Ticino, occupying Milan, and so re-opening 
 his communications with Vienna ; — or, on falling back 
 to Genoa, overwhelming Suchet, and taking up a posi- 
 tion where the British fleet could supply him with pro- 
 visions — or even, in case of necessity, embark his army, 
 carry it round to the other side of Italy, and by that 
 means place him once more between his enemy and the 
 German States. Buonaparte, being perplexed with 
 these apprehensions, at last descended into the great 
 plain of Marengo, on which he had, not without reason, 
 fi--ii od to abide the onset of Melas and the Austrian horse. 
 Ho \vas at Volghera on the 11th, and the next day at St. 
 Juliano, in the very centre of the plain ; but still no 
 enemy appeared. On the 13th, he advanced to the 
 village of Marengo itself, and finding nothing even there 
 but a scanty out-post, which retreated before him, con- 
 cluded certainly that Melas had given him the slip, and 
 marched either to the left on the Ticino, or to the right 
 on Genoa. In great anxiety, he detached one division 
 under Dessaix to watch the road to Genoa, and another 
 under Murat towards the Scrivia. Dessaix was already 
 half-a-day's journey from head- quarters, when Napoleon 
 received intelligence which made him hastily recall all 
 his detachments. The Austrian general, after a long 
 hesitation, had, at length, resolved to let a fair field de- 
 cide once more the fate of Italy. On the evening of the 
 13th, his whole army mustered in front of Alessandria, 
 
1800.] BATTLE OF MAREXGO. 191 
 
 having only the river Borrnida between them and tho 
 plain of Marengo ; and early in the following morning, 
 they passed the stream at three several points, and ad- 
 vanced towards the French position in as many columns. 
 The Austrians were full 40,000 strong ; while, in the 
 absence of Dessaix and the reserve, Napoleon coald, at 
 most, oppose to them 20,000, of whom only 2500 were 
 cavalry. He had, however, no hesitation about accept- 
 ing the battle. His advance, under Gardanne, occupied 
 the small hamlet of Padre Bona, a little in front of Ma- 
 rengo. At that village, which overlooks a narrow ravine, 
 the channel of a rivulet, Napoleon stationed Victor with 
 the main body of his first line — the extreme right of it 
 resting on Castel Ceriolo, another hamlet almost parallel 
 with Marengo ; Kellerman with a brigade of cavalry, was 
 posted immediately behind Victor for the protection of 
 his flanks. A thousand yards in the rear of Victor was 
 the second line, under Lannes, protected in like fashion 
 by the cavalry of Champeaux. At about an equal dis- 
 tance, again, behind Lannes, was the third line, consist- 
 ing of the division of St. Cyr, and the consular guard, 
 under Napoleon in person. The Austrian heavy infantry, 
 on reaching the open field, formed into two lines, the 
 first, under General Haddick, considerably in advance 
 before the other, which Melas himself commanded, with 
 General Zach for his second. These moved steadily to- 
 wards Marengo ; while the light infantry and cavalry, 
 under General Elsnitz, made a detour round Castel 
 Ceriolo with the purpose of outflanking the French right. 
 Such was the posture of the two armies when this 
 great battle began. Gardanne was unable to withstand 
 the shock, and abandoning Padre Bona, fell back to 
 strengthen Victor. A furious cannonade along the whole 
 front of that position ensued ; the tirailleurs of either 
 army posted themselves along the margins of the ravine, 
 
192 KAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 and fired incessantly at each other, their pieces almost 
 touching. Cannon and musketry spread devastation 
 everywhere — for the armies were but a few toises apart. 
 For more than two hours Victor withstood singly the 
 vigorous assaults of a far superior force ; Marengo had 
 been taken and retaken sevei'al times, ere Lannes re- 
 ceived orders to reinforce him. The second line at 
 length advanced, but they found the first in retreat, and 
 the two corps took up a second lino of defence consider- 
 ably to the rear of Marengo. Here they were, again, 
 charged furiously — and again, after obstinate resistance, 
 gave way. General Elsnitz, meantime, having effected 
 liia purpose, and fairly marched round Castel Ceriolo, 
 appeared on the right flank with his splendid cavalry, 
 and began to pour his squadrons upon the retreating 
 columns of Lannes. That gallant chief formed his troops 
 en echelon, and retired in admirable order — but the re- 
 treat was now genei'al ; and, had Melas pursued the 
 advantage with all his reserve, the battle was won. But 
 that aged general (ho was eighty-four years old) doubted 
 not that he had won it already ; and, at this critical 
 moment, being quite worn out with fatigue, withdrew to 
 the rear, leaving Zach to continue what he considered as 
 now a mere pursuit. 
 
 At the moment when the Austrian horse were about 
 to rush on Lannes' retreating corps, the reserve under 
 Dessaix appeared on the outskirts of the field. Dessaix 
 himself, riding up to the First Consul, said, " I think 
 this is a battle lost." "I think it is a battle won," 
 answered Napoleon. "Do you push on, and I will 
 speedily rally the line behind you." — And, in effect, tho 
 timely arrival of this reserve turned the fortune of the 
 day. 
 
 Napoleon in person drew up the whole of his army on 
 a third line of battle, and rode along the, front, saying, 
 
1800.] MARKNGO. 193 
 
 '• Soldiers, wc have retired far enough. Let us now ad- 
 vance. You know it is my custom to sleep on the field 
 of battle." The enthusiasm of the troops appeared to bo 
 revived, and Dessaix prepared to act on the offensive ; 
 he led a fresh column of 5OU0 grenadiers to meet and 
 cheek the advance of Zach. The brave Dessaix fell dead 
 at the first fire, shot through tho head. " Alas ! it is 
 not pei'mitted to me to weep," said Napoleon ; and the 
 fall of that beloved chief redoubled the fury of his fol- 
 lowers. The first line of the Austrian infantry charged, 
 however, with equal resolution. At that moment Kel- 
 lerman's horse came on them in flank ; and being, by 
 that unexpected assault, broken, they were, after a vain 
 struggle, compelled to surrender : — General Zach him- 
 self was hei*e made prisoner. The Austrian columns be- 
 hind, being flushed with victory, were advancing too 
 carelessly, and proved unable to resist the general assault 
 of the whole French line, which now pressed onwards 
 under the immediate command of Napoleon. Post after 
 post was carried. The noble cavalry of Elsiritz, perceiv- 
 ing the infantry broken and retiring, lost heart ; and, 
 instead of forming to protect their retreat, turned their 
 horses' heads, and galloped over tho plain, trampling 
 down every thing in their way. When the routed army 
 reached, at length, tho Tiormida, the confusion was in- 
 describable. Hundreds were drowned — the river rolled 
 red amidst the corpses of horse and men. Whole corps, 
 being unable to effect tho passage, surrendered : and at 
 ten at night, the Austrian commander with difficult v 
 rallied the remnant of that magnificent array on the very 
 ground which they had left tho same morning in all the 
 confidence of victory. 
 
 It is not to bo denied that Napoleon was saved on 
 this occasion by tho arrival of the reserve under Dessaix, 
 and the timely charge of Kellerman. On the other 
 
104 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 hand, ib is impossible not to condemn the rashness 
 with which the Austrian generals advanced after their 
 first successes. 
 
 The discomfiture of the Imperialists was so great, that 
 rather than stand the consequences of another battle, 
 while Suchet was coming on their rear, they next day 
 entered into a negotiation. Melas offered to abandon 
 Genoa and all the stroug places in Piedmont, Lombardy, 
 and the Legations — provided Buonaparte would allow 
 him to march the remains of his army unmolested to the 
 rear of Mantua. Napoleon accepted this offer. By one 
 battle he had regained nearly all that the French had 
 lost in the unhappy Italian campaign of 1799 : at all 
 events he had done enough to crown his own name with 
 um-ivalled splendour, and to show that the French troops 
 were once more what they had used to be, when ho was 
 in the field to command them. He had another motive 
 for closing with the propositions of General Melas. It 
 was of urgent importance to regain Genoa, ere an Eng- 
 lish army, which he knew was on its voyage to that port, 
 could reach its destination. 
 
 On the 17th of June Napoleon returned in triumph to 
 Milan, where he formally re-established the Cisalpine 
 Republic, and was present at a festival of high state and 
 map-nificence. He then gave the command of the army 
 of Italy to Massena; and appointed Jourdan French 
 minister in Piedmont — in other words, governor of that 
 dominion ; and set out on his journey to Paris. He 
 halted at Lyons to lay the first stone of the new Place de 
 Bellecour, erected on the ruins of a great square destroyed 
 by the Jacobins during the revolutionary madness ; and 
 reached the Tuilleries on the 2d of July. He had set 
 out for Switzerland on the 6th of May. Two months 
 had not elapsed, and in that brief space what wonders 
 had been accomplished ! The enthusiasm of the Parisians 
 
1800.] 
 
 ARRIVAL IN PARIS. 195 
 
 exceeded all that has been recorded of any triumphal 
 entry. Night after night every house was illuminated ; 
 and day following day the people stood in crowds around 
 the palace, contented if they could but catch one glimpse 
 of the preserver of France. 
 
 The effusion of joy was the greater — because the talo 
 of victory came on a people prepared for other tidings. 
 About noontide on the 14th of June, when the French 
 had been driven out of Marengo, and were apparently 
 in full and disastrous retreat, a commercial traveller left 
 the field, and arriving after a rapid journey in Paris, 
 announced that Buonaparte had been utterly defeated by 
 Melas. It is said that the ill-wishers of the First Consul 
 immediately set on foot an intrigue for removing him 
 from the government, and investing Carnot with the 
 chief authority. It is not doubtful that many schemes 
 of hostility had been agitated during Napoleon's absence; 
 or that, amidst all the clamour and splendour of his 
 triumphant reception in Paris, he wore a gloomy brow ; 
 nor has any one disputed that, from this time, he regarded 
 the person of Carnot with jealousy and aversion. 
 
 The tidings of the great battle, meanwhile, kindled 
 the emulation of the Rhenish army ; and they burned 
 with the earnest desire to do something worthy of being 
 recorded in the same page with Marengo. But the 
 Chief Consul, when he granted the armistice to Melas, 
 had extended it to the armies on the German frontier 
 likewise ; and Moreau, consequently, could not at once 
 avail himself of the cagorness of his troops. The nego- 
 tiations which ensued, however, were unsuccessful. The 
 Emperor, subsidized as he had been, must have found it 
 very difficult to resist the remonstrances of England 
 against the ratification of any peace in which she should 
 not be included ; and it is natural to suppose, that the 
 proud spirit of the Austrian cabinet revolted from setting 
 
19(3 NAFOLEOK BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 the seal to an act of humiliation, not yet, as the English 
 government insisted, absolutely necessary. News, mean- 
 time, were received of the surrender of Malta to an 
 English expedition, under Lord Keith and Sir Ralph 
 Abcrcrombie; 1 * and this timely piece of good fortune 
 ! breathed fresh spirit into the Antigallican league. In 
 fine, insincerity and suspicion protracted, from day to 
 day, a negotiation not destined to be concluded until 
 more blood had been shed. 
 
 During this armistice, which lasted from the 15th of 
 June to the 10th of November, the exiled princes of the 
 Ilouse of Bourbon made some more ineffectual endeavours 
 to induce the Chief Consul to be the Monk of France. 
 The Abb6 do Montesquiou, secret agent for the Count 
 de Lille (afterwards Louis XVIII.), prevailed on the 
 third jconsul, Le Brnn, to lay before Buonaparte a letter 
 addressed to him by that prince — in these terms : — 
 " You are very tardy about 1'estoring my throne to me : 
 it is to be feai'ed that you may let the favourable moment 
 slip. You cannot establish the happiness of France with- 
 out me ; and T, on the other hand, can do nothing for 
 France without you. Make haste, then, and point out, 
 yourself, the posts and dignities which will satisfy you 
 and your friends." The First Consul answered thus : — 
 " I have received your Royal Highness's letter. I have 
 always taken a lively interest in your misfortunes and 
 those of your family. You must not think of appearing 
 in France — you could not do so without marching over 
 five hundred thousand corpses. For the rest, I shall 
 always be zealous to do whatever lies within my power 
 towards softening your Royal Highness's destinies, and 
 making you forget, if possible, your misfortunes." The 
 Comto D' Artois (afterwai'ds Charles X. of France) took a 
 more delicate method of negotiating. He sent a very 
 • Sept. 5, 1800. 
 
1800.] KEGOTIATIONS. 197 
 
 beautiful and charming lady, the Duchess do Guiche, to 
 Paris; she without difficulty gained access to Josephine, 
 and shone, for a time, the most brilliant ornament of the 
 consular court. But the moment Napoleon discovered 
 the fair lady's errand, she was ordered to quit the capi- 
 tal within a few hours. These intrigues, however, could 
 not fail to transpire ; and there is no doubt that, at this 
 epoch, the hopes of the royalists were in a high state of 
 excitement. 
 
 Meantime, among the meaner orders of both the great 
 parties, who regarded with aversion the sovereign autho- 
 rity of the Chief Consul, there wanted not hearts wicked 
 enough, nor hands sufficiently desperate, for attempts 
 far different from these. The lawfulness, nay, the merit 
 and the glory of tyrannicide, were ideas familiar to the 
 Jacobins of every degree; and, during the years of 
 miserable convulsion which followed the imprisonment 
 and murder of Louis XVI., the royalist bands had often 
 been joined, and sometimes guided, by persons in whom 
 a naturally fanatical spirit, goaded by the sense of in- 
 tolerable wrongs, dared to think of revenge — no matter 
 how accomplished — as the last and noblest of duties ; 
 nor is it wonderful that, amidst a long protracted civil 
 war, when scenes of battle and slaughter were relieved 
 only by the hardships of skulking in woods and the fears 
 of famine, the character of others, originally both pure 
 and gentle, had come to be degraded into a callous in- 
 difference or dark sulienness of temper, fit preparatives 
 for deeds, the thought of which, in earlier and better 
 days, would have been horror and loathing. 
 
 It was among the Jacobins, who had formerly wor- 
 shipped Buonaparte as the " child and champion" of 
 their creed, that the first schemes of assassination were 
 agitated. An Italian sculptor, by name Cerrachi, who 
 had modelled the bust of Napoleon, while he held his 
 
198 NAPOLEON BUONAPAim:. [1800. 
 
 court lit Moutebello, arrived in Paris, and, under pre- 
 tence of retouching his work, solicited admission to tlio 
 presence of the new Caesar, whose Brutus he had resolved 
 to be. The occupations of the Consul did not permit of 
 this, and the Italian, having opened his purpose to 
 Topineau, Lebrun, a painter, the adjutant-general Arena, 
 Damerville, and others of kindred sentiments, arranged 
 a plan bj which Buonaparte was to have been sur- 
 rounded and stabbed in the lobby of the opera-house. 
 But one of the accomplices betrayed the conspiracy ; 
 and Cerrachi and his associates were arrested in the 
 theatre, at the moment when they were expecting their 
 victim. 
 
 This occurred towards the middle of August ; and it 
 has been said that the Jacobin conspirators, being thrown 
 into the same prison with some desperadoes of the Chouan 
 faction, gave to these last the outline of another scheme 
 of assassination, which had more nearly proved success- 
 ful. This was the plot of the infernal machine. A cart 
 was prepared to contain a barrel of gunpowder, strongly 
 fastened in the midst of a quantity of grape-shot, which, 
 being set on fire by a slow match, was to explode at the 
 moment when Buonaparte was passing through some 
 narrow street, and scatter destruction in every direction 
 around it. The night selected was that of the 10th of 
 October, when the Chief Consul was expected to visit 
 the opera, and the machine was planted in the Rue St. 
 Nicaise, through which he must pass in his way thither 
 from the Tuilleries. Napoleon told his friends at St. 
 Helena, that having laboured hard all day, he felt him- 
 self overpowered with sleep after dinner, and that 
 Josephine, who was anxious to be at the opera, had 
 much difficulty in at last rousing and persuading him 
 to go. " I fell fast asleep again" (he said), " after I was 
 in my carriage : and at the moment when the explosion 
 
ISOO.j THE INFERNAL MACHINE. 199 
 
 took place, I was dreaming of the danger I had under- 
 gone some years before in crossing the Tagliamento at 
 midnight, by the light of torches, during a flood." He 
 awoke, and exclaimed to Lannes and Bessieres, who 
 were with him in the coach, " "We are blown up." The 
 attendants would have stopped the carriage, but, with 
 great presence of mind, he bade them drive as fast as 
 they could to the theatre, which he alone of all the 
 part}' entered with an unruffled countenance. He had 
 escaped most nai'rowly. The coachman, happening to 
 be intoxicated, drove more rapidly than was his custom.* 
 The engine exploded half a minute after the carriage 
 Lad passed it — killing twenty persons, wounding fifty- 
 three (among whom was St. Regent, the assassin who 
 fired the train), and shattering the windows of several 
 houses on both sides of the street. 
 
 The audience in the opera-house, when the news was 
 divulged, testified their feelings with enthusiasm. The 
 atrocity of the conspiracy roused universal horror and 
 indignation, and invested the person of the Chief Consul 
 with a new species of interest. The assassins were tried 
 fairly, and executed, glorying in their crime: and, in the 
 momentary exaltation of all men's minds, an edict of the 
 senate, condemning to perpetual exile 130 of the most 
 notorious leaders of the Terrorists, was received with 
 applause. But Napoleon himself despised utterly the 
 relics of that odious party ; and the arbitrary decree in 
 question was never put into execution. 
 
 The Chief Consul, nevertheless, was not slow to avail 
 himself of the state of the public mind, in a manner more 
 consistent with his prudence and far-sightedness. It 
 was at this moment that the erection of a new tribunal, 
 called the Special Commission, consisting of eight judges, 
 
 * The man took the noise for that of a salute. 
 
200 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTB [1SO0. 
 
 without jury, and without revision or appeal, was pro- 
 posed to the legislative bodies. To their honour the 
 proposal was carried by very narrow majorities ; for 
 after that judicature was established, the Chief Con- 
 sul had, in effect, the means of disposing of all who 
 were suspected of political offences, according to his 
 own pleasure. Another law which soon succeeded, and 
 which authorized the chief magistrate to banish disaf- 
 fected persons, as "enemies of the state," from Paris or 
 from France, whenever such steps should seem proper, 
 without the intervention of any tribunal whatever, com- 
 pleted (if it was yet incomplete) the despotic range of 
 his power: and the police, managed as that fearful 
 engine was by Fouche, presented him with tho most 
 perfect means of carrying his purposes into execution. 
 
 A singular anecdote belongs to this time (December, 
 1800). During the effervescence of public opinion con- 
 sequent on the affair of the infernal machine, there 
 appeared a pamphlet, entitled, " Parallel between Caesar, 
 Cromwell, Monk, and Bonaparte"* — a production evi- 
 dently designed to favour tho assumption of regal 
 dignity by the Consul. Appearing at such a moment, it 
 could not fail to excite a vivid sensation ; the confidential 
 friends of Napoleon assured him, in one voice, that the 
 publication was likely to injure him. He sent for 
 Fouche, and reproached him violently for suffering such 
 a pamphlet to appear'. Tho minister of police heard 
 him with perfect coolness, and replied that he had not 
 chosen to interfere, because he had traced the manuscript 
 to the hotel of his brother Lucien. " And why not 
 denounce Lucien ?" cried Napoleon ; " he ought to havo 
 been arrested instantly, and confined in the Temple." 
 The Consul having spoken thus, quitted the apartment, 
 
 * " Napoleon dropped the u in his surname after his first cam- 
 paign in Italy," — Bourienne. 
 
1800.] BATTLE OF HOHENLI-\DEN\ 201 
 
 shutting the door with violence. Fouche smiled, and 
 whispered to Dc Bourienne — " Confine the author in tho 
 Temple! I/acien showed me the manuscript; I found 
 it full of corrections in the handwriting of — the First. 
 Consul!" Lucien, informed of his brother's wrath, 
 came foithwith to the Tuilleries, and complained that 
 "he had been made a puppet and abandoned." " The 
 fault is your own," answered Napoleon; " it was your 
 business not to be detected, Fouche has shown himself 
 more dexterous — so much the worse for you." Lucien 
 resigned forthwith the office which he held in the minis- 
 
 o 
 
 try, and proceeded as ambassador to Spain. 
 
 How far these disturbances in the French capital 
 might have contributed to the indecision of the Austrian 
 cabinet during this autumn, we know not. Five months 
 had now elapsed since the armistice after Marengo ; and 
 the First Consul, utterly disgusted with the delay, deter- 
 mined to resume arms, and to be first in the field. Be- 
 tween the 17th and the 27th of November his generals 
 received orders to set all their troops once more in 
 motion. Everywhere the French arms had splendid 
 success. Bruno defeated the Austrians on the Mincio, 
 and advanced within a few miles of Venice. Macdonald 
 occupied the mountains of the Tyrol, and was prepared 
 to reinforce either the army of Italy or that of the Rhine, 
 as might be desired. Morcau, finally, advanced into tho 
 heart of Germany, and was met by the Archduke John 
 of Austria, who obtained considerable advantages in an 
 affair at Haag. The Archduke, elated by this success, 
 determined on a general engagement, and appeared in 
 front of the French on the evening of the 2d December, 
 at Hohenlinden, between the Inn and the Iser.* At 
 
 • Tho poet Campbell has vividly painted the opening of tho 
 great battle which followed : — 
 
202 NArOLKON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 seven, on the morning of the 3d, the contiict began. 
 The deep snow had obliterated the tracks of roads ; 
 several Austrian columns were bewildered ; and either 
 came not at all into their positions, or came too late. 
 Yet the battle was obstinate and severe ; 10,000 Imperi- 
 alists were left dead on the field ; and Moreau, improv- 
 ing his success, marched on immediate! y, and occupied 
 Salzburg. 
 
 The Austrian capital now lay exposed to the march of 
 thi*ee victorious armies ; and the Emperor was at last 
 compelled to release himself from Lis English obligations, 
 and negotiate in sincerity for a separate peace. Mr. 
 Pitt himself considered the prosecution of the continental 
 war, as for the time, hopeless. On reading the bulletin 
 of Marengo, he said, " Fold up that map" (the map of 
 Europe) ; " it will not be wanted for these twenty 
 years." 
 
 A definitive treaty was signed at Luneville, on the 9th 
 February, 1801 ; by which the Emperor, not only astho 
 head of the Austrian monarchy, but also in his quality 
 of Chief of the German Empire, guaranteed to France 
 the boundary of the Rhine ; thereby sacrificing certain 
 possessions of Prussia and other subordinate princes of 
 the Empire, as well as his own. Another article, ex- 
 tremely distasteful to Austria, yielded Tuscany ; which 
 Napoleon resolved to transfer to a prince of the House oi 
 Parma, in requital of the good offices of Spain during the 
 
 " On Linden, when the sun was low, 
 All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, 
 And dark as winter was tho flow 
 Of Iser rolling rapidly : 
 
 " But Linden saw another sight 
 When the drums beat at dead of night, 
 Commanding fires of death to light 
 
 The darkness of her scenery," &c 
 
] 800.1 TREATY AT LUNEVILLE. 203 
 
 war. The Emperor recognised the- union of the Bata- 
 vian Republic with the French ; and acknowledged the 
 Cisalpino and Ligurian Commonwealths ; both virtually 
 provinces of the great Empire, over which the authority 
 of the First Consul seemed now to be permanently 
 established. 
 
204 NArOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1801. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Affairs of Naples and of the Pope — The Emperor Paul of Russia — 
 Northern confederacy against England — Battle of Copenhagen — 
 Nelson's Victory — Death of Paul — Expedition to Egypt under 
 Sir Ralph Abercrombie — Battle of Alexandria — Conquest of Egppt 
 — The Flotilla of Boulogne — Negotiations icith England — Peace 
 of Amiens. 
 
 England alone remained stedfast in Lev hostility ; and, 
 as we shall presently see, the Chief Consul was even 
 able to secure for himself the alliance against her of 
 some of the principal powers in Europe ; but before we 
 proceed to the eventful year of 1801, there are some 
 incidents of a minor order which must be briefly men- 
 tioned. 
 
 It has been already said that the half-crazy Emperor 
 of Russia had taken up a violent personal admiration 
 for Buonaparte, and, under the influence of that feeling, 
 rirtually abandoned Austria before the campaign of 
 Marengo. Napoleon took every means to flatter the 
 Autocrat and secui'o him in his interests. Paul had 
 been pleased to appoint himself Grand Master of the 
 ruined Order of the Knights of St. John. It was his 
 not idle ambition to obtain, in this character, possession 
 of the Island of Malta ; and Buonaparte represented the 
 refusal of the English government to give up that strong- 
 hold as a pei-soual insult to Paul. Some 10,000 
 Russian prisoners of war were not ouly sent back in 
 safety, but new clothed and equipped at the expense oi 
 France ; and the Autocrat was led to contrast this 
 favourably with some alleged neglect of these troops on 
 the part of Austria, when arranging the treaty of Lune- 
 
J 601.] RETROSPECT. 205 
 
 ville. Lastly, the Queen of Naples, sister to the German 
 Emperor, being satisfied that, after the battle of Marengo, 
 nothing could save her husband's Italian dominions 
 from falling back into the hands of France (out of 
 which they had been rescued, during Napoleon's Egyp- 
 tian campaign, by the English, under Lord Nelson), 
 took up the resolution of travelling in person to St. 
 Petersburg in the heart of the winter, and soliciting the 
 intercession of Paul. The Czar, egregiously flattered 
 with being invoked in this fashion, did not hesitate to 
 apply in the Queen's behalf to Buonaparte ; and the 
 Chief Consul, well calculating the gain and the loss, con- 
 sented to spare Naples for the present, thereby complet- 
 ing the blind attachment of that weak-minded despot. 
 
 At the same time when Nelson delivered Naples from 
 the French, a party of English seamen, under Commo- 
 dore Trowbridge, had landed at the mouth of the Tiber, 
 marched to Rome, and restored the Pope. The French 
 army, after the great victory which gave them back 
 Lombardy and Piedmont, doubted not that the re-estab- 
 lishment of " the Roman Republic" would be one of its 
 next consecpiences. But Buonaparte, avIio had in the 
 interim re-opened the churches of Frame, was now dis- 
 posed to consider the affairs of the Pope with very 
 different eyes. In a word, he had already resolved to 
 make use of the Holy Father in the consolidation of his 
 own power as a monarch ; and, as the first step to this 
 object, the government of the Pope was now suffered to 
 continue — not a little to the astonishment of the French 
 soldiery, and to the confusion, it may bo added, and 
 regret, of various powers of Europe. 
 
 The First Consul, meanwhile, proceeded to turn the 
 friendship of the Russian Emperor to solid account. It has 
 never, in truth, been difficult to excite angry and jealous 
 feelings, among tho minor maritime powers, with regard 
 
206 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1801. 
 
 to the naval sovereignty of England. The claim of the 
 right of searching neutral ships, and her doctrine on 
 the subject of blockades, had indeed been recognised in 
 many treaties by Russia, and by every maritime govern- 
 ment in Europe. Nevertheless, the old grudge remained ; 
 and Buonaparte now artfully employed every engine of 
 diplomacy to awaken a spirit of hostility against Eng- 
 land, first, in the well-prepared mind of the Czar, and 
 then in the cabinets of Prussia, Denmark, and Sweden. 
 The result was, in effect, a coalition of these powers 
 against the mistress of the seas ; and, at the opening of 
 the nineteenth century, England had to contemplate 
 the necessity of encountering single-handed the colossal 
 military force of France, and the combined fleets of 
 Europe. To deepen the shadows of her prospects at 
 that great crisis of her history, the people suffered 
 severely under a scarcity of food, in consequence of bad 
 harvests ; and the efforts which England made, under 
 such an accumulation of adverse circumstances, must 
 ever be treasured among the proudest of her national 
 recollections. 
 
 In January 1801, the first Imperial Parliament of 
 Great Britain and Ireland assembled; and, shortly after- 
 wards, in consequence of a difference of opinion, touch- 
 ing the Roman Catholic Question, between Geoi'ge III. 
 and Mr. Pitt, that great minister resigned his office, and 
 a new cabinet was formed, with Mr. Addington (after- 
 wards Viscount Sidmouth) at its head. These changes 
 were a new source of embarrassment ; yet the prosecu- 
 tion of the war was urged with undiminished vigour. 
 
 Early in March, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and Vice- 
 Admiral Lord Nelson conducted a fleet into the Baltic, 
 with a view of attacking the northern powers in their own 
 harbours, ere they could effect their meditated junction 
 with the fleets of France and Holland. The English passed 
 
1801.] BATTLE OF COPENHAGEN'. 207 
 
 the Sound on the 13th of March, and reconnoitred the 
 road of Copenhagen, where the Crown-Prince, Regent of 
 Denmark, had made formidable preparations to receive 
 them. It was on the 2d of April that Nelson, who had 
 volunteered to lead the assault, having at length obtained 
 a favourable wind, advanced with twelve ships of the 
 line, besides frigates and fire-ships, upon the Danish 
 armament, which consisted of sis sail of the line, eleven 
 floating batteries, and an enormous array of small craft, 
 all chained to each other and to the ground, and pro- 
 tected by the Crown-batteries, mounting eighty-eight 
 guns, and the fortifications of the isle of Amack. The 
 battle lasted for four hours, and ended in a signal vic- 
 tory. Some few schooners and bomb-vessels fled early, 
 and escaped ; the whole Danish fleet besides were sunk, 
 burnt, or taken. The Prince Regent, to save the capital 
 from destruction, was compelled to enter into a negotia- 
 tion, which ended in the abandonment of the French 
 alliance by Denmark. Lord Nelson then reconnoitred 
 Stockholm ; but, being unwilling to inflict unnecessary 
 suffering, did not injure the city, on discovering that 
 the Swedish fleet had already put to sea. Meantime, 
 news arrived that Paul had been assassinated in his 
 palace at St. Petersburg; and that the policy which he had 
 adopted, to the displeasure of the Russian nobility, was 
 likely to find no favour with his successor. The moving 
 spirit of the northern confederacy was, in effect, no more, 
 and a brief negotiation ended in its total disrupture.* 
 
 * For the details of the battle of Copenhagen see Southey's Lii'e 
 of Kelson, (No. XII. of the Family Library.) That conflict has 
 been celebrated, in a noble lyric, by Campbell — 
 
 " Of Nelson and the North 
 
 Sing the glorious day's renown, 
 When to battle fierce came forth 
 All the might of Denniaik'a crown,' &c 
 
208 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1801. 
 
 In the same month of March, the British arms were 
 crowned with a more pleasing triumph in a more distant 
 region. From the time when Buonaparte landed in 
 Egypt, the occupation of that country by a French army, 
 and its possible consecpiences to our empire in the East, 
 had formed a subject of anxious solicitude in the cabinet 
 of St. James's ; and the means for attacking the army 
 which Napoleon had entrusted to Kleber, had at length 
 been combined and set in motion, in opposition to tho 
 sentiments both of the King and Mr. Pitt, by the bold 
 spirit of Lord Melville, then at the head of the Indian 
 Board of Control. The fleet of Lord Keith, carrying Sir 
 Ralph Abercrombie and his army, were already in pos- 
 session of Malta ; another army of 7000, composed partly 
 of English troops, and partly of sepoys, had been de- 
 spatched from India, and approached Egypt by the way 
 of tho Red Sea ; and, lastly, the Ottoman Porto was pre- 
 pared to co-operate with General Abercrombie, when- 
 over he should effect a landing in the neighbourhood ot 
 Alexandria. That event occurred on the 13th of March, 
 the British troops disembarking in the face of the French, 
 who were very strongly posted, and, at length, driving 
 them from the shoi'e. On the 21st, a general engage- 
 ment took place in front of Alexandria ; and Sir Ralph 
 Abercrombie fell, mortally wounded, in tho moment of 
 victory. General Hutchinson, (afterwards Earl of 
 Donoughmore) on whom the command devolved, pursued 
 I he advantage. Kleber, who by his excellent adminis- 
 tration, had earned the title of the Just Sultan, had been 
 assassinated by an obscure fanatic, on the same day when 
 Dcssaix died gloriously at Marengo ; and Menou, who 
 succeeded to the command of the French army in Egypt, 
 was found wholly incapable of conducting either the civil 
 or the military business of tho colony to advantage. He 
 shut himself up in Alexandria with the relics of the army 
 
1S01.] BRITISH EXPEDITION TO EGYPT. 209 
 
 defeated on the 21st. The English, forthwith, let the 
 sea into the lake Mareotis : the capital was thus made 
 an island, and all communication with the country cut. 
 off. Hutchinson was now joined by the Turkish Capitan- 
 paeha and 6000 men ; and intelligence reached him that 
 the Indian reinforcement, under General Baird, had 
 landed at Cossire. Rosetta was soon captured ; and, 
 after various skirmishes, Cairo was invested. On the 
 28th of June, General Belliard and a garrison of 13,000 
 surrendered, on condition that they should be transported 
 in safety to France : and Menou, perceiving that defence 
 was hopeless, and famine at hand, followed, ere long, the 
 same example. Thus, in one brief campaign, was Egypt 
 entirely rescued from the arms of France. But even 
 that great advantage was a trifle, when compared with 
 the stimulus afforded to national confidence at home, by 
 this timely re-assertion of the character of the English 
 irmy. At sea we had never feared an enemy ; but the 
 victories of Abercrombie destroyed a fatal prejudice 
 which had, of recent days, gained ground, — that the 
 military of Great Britain were unfit to cope with those 
 of revolutionary France. Nor should it be forgotten, 
 that if Abercrombie had the glory of first leading English 
 soldiers to victory over the self-styled Invindbles of 
 Buonaparte, he owed the means of his success to the 
 admirable exertions of the Duke of York, in reforming 
 the discipline of the service as commander-in-chief. 
 
 On learning the fato of Egypt, Buonaparte exclaimed, 
 " Well, there remains only the descent on Britain ;" and, 
 in the course of a few weeks, not less than 100,000 troops 
 were assembled on the coasts of France. An immense 
 flotilla of flat-bottomed boats was prepared to carry them 
 across the Channel, whenever, by any favourable accident, 
 it should be clear of the English fleets ; and both the 
 soldierv and the seamen of the invading armament were 
 
^10 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1801. 
 
 i rained and practised incessantly, in every exercise and 
 manoeuvre likely to be of avail when that long-looked-for 
 day should arrive. These preparations were met, as 
 might have been expected, on the part of the English 
 government and nation. Nelson was placed in command 
 of the Channel fleet ; and the regular army was rein- 
 forced on shore by a multitude of new and enthusiastic 
 volunteers ; men of all parties and ranks joining heart 
 and hand in the great and sacred cause. Lord Nelson, 
 more than once, reconnoitered the flotilla assembled at 
 Boulogne, and, at length, attempted the daring move- 
 ment of cutting out the vessels, in the teeth of all the 
 batteries. The boats being chained to the shore, crowded 
 with soldiery, and placed immediately under the fortifi- 
 cations, the attempt was unsuccessful ; but the gallantry 
 with which it was conducted, struck new terror into the 
 hearts of the French marine, and, Nelson continuing to 
 watch the Channel with unsleeping vigilance, the hopes 
 of the First Consul ere long sunk. 
 
 The successes of the English in the Baltic and in Egypt 
 were well calculated to dispose Napoleon for negotiation : 
 and the retirement of Mr. Pitt, who was considered 
 throughout Europe as the author and very soul of the 
 anti-revolutionary war, was not without its influence. 
 On the other hand, Napoleon's mighty successes against 
 the German emperor, had been followed up this same 
 year by the march of a French and Spanish army into 
 Portugal, in consequence of which that last ally of Eng- 
 land had been compelled to submit to the general fate 
 of the continent. On both sides there existed the 
 strongest motives for accommodation ; and, in effect, 
 after a tedious negotiation, the pi*eliminaries of peace 
 were signed, on the ]0th of October, at Amiens. By 
 this treaty, England surrendered all the conquests which 
 she had made during the war, except Ceylon and Trini- 
 
1802.] PEACE OF AMIENS. 211 
 
 dad. France, on the other hand, restored what she had 
 taken from Portugal, and guaranteed the independence 
 of the Ionian Islands. Malta was to be restored to the 
 Knights of St. John, and declared a free port : neither 
 England nor France was to have any representatives in 
 the order ; and the garrison was to consist of the troopi 
 of a neutral power. This article was that which cost the 
 greatest difficulty — and Malta was destined to form the 
 pretext, at least, for the re- opening of the war at no 
 distant date. 
 
 Meantime, except by a small party, who thought that 
 England should never make peace unless the Bourbon 
 family were restored to the throne of France, this news 
 was received with universal satisfaction throughout 
 Great Britain. " It was," as Mr. Sheridan summed up 
 the matter, " a peace which all men were glad of, and of 
 which no man could be proud." The definitive treaty 
 was signed on the 25th of March, 1802 : and nothing 
 could surpass the demonstrations of joy on this occasion, 
 both in London and in Paris — or the enthusiastic display 
 of good-will with which the populace of either capital 
 welcomed the plenipotentiaries. 
 
NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. ["1802. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Peace of Amiens — The Concordat — The Legion of Honour — Buona- 
 parte President of the Cisalpine Republic— First Consul or Life 
 — Grand Mediator of the Helvetic Confederacy — St. Domingo — 
 Toussaint L'Ouvertui-e — Dissatisfaction of England — Trial of 
 Peltier— Lord ~\Yhitworth— Rupture of the Faice of Amiens — 
 Detention of English Travellers in France. 
 
 The peace of Amiens, like that of Campo-Formio, turned 
 out a mere armistice. It was signed in the midst of 
 mutual suspicion ; and the audacious ambition of the 
 French government, from the very day of its ratification, 
 accumulated the elements of an inevitable rupture. The 
 continent, however, had been virtually shut against the 
 English for ten years ; and now, in the first eagerness of 
 cuinosity, travellers of all ranks, ages, and sexes poured 
 across the Channel, to contemplate, with their own eyes, 
 the scenes and effects of the many wonderful deeds and 
 changes which had been wrought since the outbreaking 
 of the French Revolution. The chief object of curiosity 
 was Napoleon himself; and English statesmen, of tho 
 highest class, were among those who now thronged the 
 levees of the Tuilleries. Mr. Fox, in particular, seems 
 to have been courted and caressed by the Chief Consul ; 
 and these two great men parted with feelings of mutual 
 admiration. Our countrymen, in general, were received 
 in Paris with extraordinary attentions and civilities ; 
 and for a brief space the establishment of friendly feel- 
 ings between the two nations was confidently expected. 
 The English were agreeably disappointed with the 
 condition of Paris. To their great surprise they found 
 the consular court already arranged, in many particulars, 
 
1S02.] COURT OF THE CONSUL. 213 
 
 upon the old model of the monarchy, and daily approxi- 
 mating to that example step by step. Josephine had 
 restored, titles alone excepted, the old language of polite 
 intercourse; Ciioyenne had been replaced by Madame i 
 and Citoijcu was preparing to make way for Monsieur. 
 The emigrant nobility had flocked back in great num- 
 bers ; and Buonaparte, dispensing with the awkward 
 services of his aides-de-camp in the intei'ior of the 
 palace, was now attended by chamberlains and other 
 officers of state — chosen for the most part from the 
 highest families of the monarchy, and who studiously 
 conducted themselves towards the Chief Consul exactly 
 as if the crown of Louis XVI. had descended to him by 
 the ordinary laws of inheritance. Napoleon himself, if 
 wo may believe Madame de Stael, had the weakness to 
 affect, in many trivial matters, a close imitation of what 
 his new attendants reported to have been the personal 
 demeanour of the Bourbon princes. His behaviour as 
 the holder of a court was never graceful. He could not, 
 or would not, control the natural vehemence of his 
 temper, and ever and anon confounded the old race of 
 courtiers by ebullitions which were better suited to the 
 camp than the saloons of the Tuillerics. But whenever 
 lie thought fit to converse with a man capable of under- 
 standing him, tho Consul failed not to create a very 
 lively feeling in his own favour; and meantime Josephine 
 was admirably adapted to supply his deficiencies in the 
 management of circles and festivals. 
 
 Tho labour which Napoleon underwent at this period, 
 when he was consolidating the administration through- 
 out France (in every department of which intolerable 
 confusion had arisen during the wars and tumults of the 
 preceding years), excited tho astonishment of all who 
 had access to his privacy. Ho exausted the energies of 
 secretary after secretary; seemed hardly to feel the 
 
214 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1802 
 
 want of sleep; and yet sustained the unparalleled 
 fatigue without having recourse to any stimulus stronger 
 than lemonade. Of the many great measures adopted 
 and perfected duriug this short-lived peace we may 
 notice in particular the following : — 
 
 A decree of the senate, dated 26th April, 1802, 
 allowed all emigrants to return to France, provided they 
 chose to do so within a certain space of time, and to 
 pledge allegiance to the consular government; and 
 offered to restore to such persons whatever property of 
 theirs, having been confiscated during the Revolution, 
 still remained at the disposal of the state. From this 
 amnesty about 500 persons, however, were excepted ; 
 these were arranged under five heads, viz. : those who 
 had headed bodies of royalist insurgents; who had 
 served in the armies of the allies ; who had belonged to 
 the household of the Bourbons during their exile ; who 
 had been agents in stirring up foreign or domestic war ; 
 and, lastly, generals, admirals, representatives of the 
 people, who had been banished for treason to the Re- 
 public ; together with bishops who were obstinate in 
 refusing to accept of the conditions on which the exercise 
 of ecclesiastical functions had been sanctioned by the 
 consuls. The event in a great measure justified the 
 prudence of this merciful edict. The far greater part of 
 the emigrants returned, and became peaceful subjects of 
 Napoleon — even although the restoration of forfeited 
 property never took place to anything like the promised 
 extent. He, having yielded back a few princely estates 
 to their rightful lords, was, it is said, made aware, by 
 sufficiently significant behaviour on their parts, that 
 they had now obtained all they wished, and would not 
 in future trouble themselves to merit his favour. Some 
 instances of haughty ingratitude may, very probably, 
 have occurred ; but the Consul, in breaking his word 
 
1802.] THE CONCORDAT. 215 
 
 with tho despoiled emigrants as a body, was preparing 
 for himself dangers gi-eater tban those he removed by 
 permitting their return to France. 
 
 A still more important measure was that by which tho 
 Romish religion was finally re-established as the national 
 faith. The sparing of the Papal dominion after Marengo, 
 and the re-opening of the churches in France, were the 
 preliminaries of the peace, which was, at length, signed 
 on the 18th of September, 1802, between the Pope and 
 the revolutionary government. This famous concordat 
 was the work of [Napoleon himself, who seems to have 
 met with more opposition, whenever he touched the 
 matter of religion, than the men of the Revolution, with 
 whom he consulted, thought fit to exhibit on any other 
 occasions whatever. The question was argued one 
 evening, at great length, on the terrace of the garden at 
 Buonaparte's favourite villa of Malmaison. The Chiet 
 Consul avowed himself to be no believer in Christianity ; 
 " But religion," said he, " is a principle which cannot be 
 eradicated from the heart of man." "Who made all 
 that?" he continued, looking up to the heaven, which 
 was clear and starry. " But last Sunday evening 1 
 was walking here alone when the church bells of the 
 village of Ruel rung at sunset. I was strongly moved, 
 bo vividly did the image of early days come back with 
 that sound. If it be thus with me, what must it be with 
 others ? — In re-establishing the church, I consult tho 
 wishes of the great majority of my people." 
 
 Volney, the celebrated traveller, was present : — " You 
 speak of the majority of tho people," said he, " if that 
 is to be the rule, recall the Bourbons to-morrow." Na- 
 poleon never conversed with this bold infidel afterwards. 
 
 The concordat gave no satisfaction to the high Catholic 
 party, who considered it as comprehending arrange- 
 ments wholly unworthy of the dignity of the Pope, an 1 
 
216 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1802. 
 
 destructive of tho authority of the church. The great 
 majority of the nation, however, were wise enough to he 
 contented with conditions which the Vatican had found 
 it necessary to admit. The chief articles were these — 1. 
 The Roman Catholic religion is recognised as the national 
 faith. 2. The Pope, in concert with the French govern- 
 ment, shall make a new division of dioceses, requiring, 
 if necessary, the resignation of any existing prelate. 3. 
 Vacant sees now and henceforth shall be filled by the 
 Pope on nominations by the government. 4. No bishops 
 shall hold their sees unless they swear allegiance to the 
 government, and adopt a ritual in which prayers are 
 offered up for tbe Consuls. 5. The church livings shall 
 be, like the dioceses, rearranged ; and the cure.3 be 
 appoiuted by the bishop, but not without the approba- 
 tion of the government. 0. The French government 
 shall make provision for tho prelates and clergy, and 
 tho Pope renouncevS for ever all right to challenge the 
 distribution of church property consequent on the events 
 of the revolutionary period. 
 
 The Pope, in acceding to these terms, submitted to 
 " the exigence of the time — which," said his Holiness in 
 the deed itself, " lays its violence even upon us." The 
 most bitter point of execution was that which regarded 
 the bishops — the great majority of whom were yet in 
 exile. These prelates were summoned to send in, each 
 separately, and within fifteen days, his acceptance of the 
 terms of the concordat or his resignation of his see. 
 Thus taken by surprise, having no means of consulta- 
 tion, and considering tho concordat as fatal to the rights 
 of the church, and the Pope's assent as extorted by mere 
 necessity, almost all of them, to their honour be it said, 
 declined complying with either of these demands. That 
 these bishops should prefer poverty and exile to sub- 
 mission, was not likely to increase the popularity of the 
 
1802.] THE CONCORDAT. 217 
 
 concordat with the more devout part of the nation. 
 Meantime, the self-called philosophers looked on with 
 scorn ; and tho Republicans, of every sect, regarded 
 with anger and indignation a course of policy which, as 
 they justly apprehended, provided for the re-establish- 
 ment of the church, solely because that was considered 
 as the likeliest means of re-establishing the monai'chy 
 — in a new dynasty indeed, but with all, or more than 
 all, the old powers. 
 
 In moments of spleen Napoleon -is known to have 
 sometimes expressed his regret that he should ever have 
 had recourse to this concordat ; but at St. Helena, when 
 looking back calmly, he said that it was so needful a 
 measure that had there been no Pope, one ought to have 
 been created for the occasion. 
 
 The name of the First Consul was now introduced 
 into the church service at least as often as that of the 
 king had used to be. The cathedral of Notre Dame was 
 prepared for the solemn reception of the concordat. 
 Napoleon appeared there with the state and retinue of 
 a monarch ; and in every part of the ceremonial the 
 ancient rules were studiously attended to. The prelate 
 who presided was the same Archbishop of Aix who had 
 preached the coronation sermon of Louis XVI. 
 
 It was not easy, however, to procure the attendance 
 of some of the revolutionary generals of the true repub- 
 lican race. Berthier had invited a large party of them 
 long beforehand to breakfast ; he carried them from 
 thence to the levee of the Chief Consul, and they found 
 it impossible not to join in the procession. Buonaparte 
 asked one of these persons, after the ceremony was over, 
 what ho thought of it? "It was a true Capucinade," 
 was the answer. To another of these, whom he thought 
 less sincere, he said with a smile, " things, you see, are 
 returning to the ok 1 order." " Yes," the veteran ropliod, 
 
218 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1802. 
 
 " all returns — all but the two millions of Frenchmen 
 who have died for the sake of destroying the very system 
 which you are now rebuilding." These officers are said 
 to have paid dearly for their uncourtly language. Moreau 
 was not to be tampered with by Berthier. The Chief 
 Consul personally invited him to be present at the Te 
 Deum in Notre Dame, to attend afterwards at the conse- 
 cration of some colours, and, lastly, to dine at the Tuil- 
 leries. Moreau answered, " I accept the last part of 
 your invitation." 
 
 A third great measure, adopted about the same period, 
 was received with unqualified applause. This was the 
 establishment of a national system of education, the 
 necessity of which had been much felt, since the old 
 universities and schools under the management of the 
 clergy had been broken up amidst the first violence ot 
 the Revolution. The Polytechnic School, established 
 under the direction of Monge, dates from this epoch ; 
 and furnished France, in the sequel, with a long train of 
 eminent men for every department of the public service. 
 
 It was now also that the Chief Consul commenced the 
 great task of providing France with an uniform code of 
 laws. He himself took constantly an earnest share in 
 the deliberations of the jurists who were employed in 
 this gigantic undertaking, and astonished them by the 
 admirable observations which his native sagacity sug- 
 gested, in relation to matters commonly considered as 
 wholly out of the reach of unprofessional persons. But 
 of the new code we shall have occasion to speak here- 
 after. 
 
 Buonaparte at this period devised, and began to put 
 into execution innumerable public works, of the highest 
 utility. The inland navigation of Languedoc was to be 
 made complete ; a great canal between the Yonne and 
 the Saonne was begun, for the purpose of creating a 
 
1801] t.EGtON Of HONOUR. 219 
 
 perfect water communication quite across the republican 
 dominion — from Marseilles to Amsterdam. Numberless 
 bridges, roads, museums, were planned ; and the vain 
 were flattered with rising monuments of magnificence, 
 while the wise recognised in every such display the 
 depth and forecast of a genius made for empire. 
 
 Thus far the measures of the Consulate may be said 
 to have carried with them the approbation of all but a 
 few individuals. They were accompanied or followed 
 by proceedings, some of which roused, or strengthened 
 and confirmed, sentiments of a very different description 
 among various important classes of the French com- 
 munity ; while others were well calculated to revive the 
 suspicion of all the neighbouring nations. 
 
 It is said that the first idea of the Legion of Honour 
 arose in the breast of Napoleon, on witnessing one day, 
 from a window in the Tuilleries, the admiration with 
 which the crowd before the palace regarded the stars 
 and crosses worn by the Marquis Lucchesini, ambassador 
 of Prussia, as he descended from his carriage. The re- 
 publican members of the senate could not be persuaded 
 that the institution of an order, with insignia, was any- 
 thing but the first step to the creation of a new body of 
 nobility ; and they resisted the proposed measure with 
 considerable pertinacity. On this head, as on that of 
 the concordat with the Pope, the Consul condescended 
 to enter personally into discussion with the chief persons 
 who differed from his opinion, or suspected his inten- 
 tions : and if any, who heard his language on this occa- 
 sion, doubted that both nobility and monarchy were 
 designed to follow hard behind the Legion of Honour, 
 they must have been singularly slow of understanding. 
 Berthier had called ribbons and crosses " the playthings 
 of monarchy," and cited the Romans of old as " having 
 
 no system of honorary rewards." " They are always 
 
 16 
 
220 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [ 1802 - 
 
 talking to us of the Romans," said Buonaparte. " The 
 Romans had patricians, knights, citizens, and slaves : — 
 for each class different dresses and different manners — 
 honorary recompenses for every species of merit — mural 
 crowns — civic crowns — ovations — triumphs — titles. 
 When the nohle band of patricians lost its influence, 
 Rome fell to pieces — the people were vile rabble. It 
 was then that you saw the fury of Marius, the proscrip- 
 tions of Sylla, and afterwards of the emperors. In like 
 manner Brutus is talked of as the enemy of tyrants : he 
 was an aristocrat, who stabbed Caesar, because Ceesar 
 wished to lower the authority of the noble senate. Yon 
 talk of child's rattles — be it so: it is with such rattles 
 that men are led. I would not say that to the multi- 
 tude ; but in a council of statesmen one may speak the 
 truth. I do not believe that the French people love 
 liberty and equality. Their character has not been changed 
 in ten years: they are still what their ancestors, the 
 Gauls, were — vain and light. They are susceptible but 
 of one sentiment — honour. It is right to afford nourish- 
 ment to this sentiment, and to allow of distinctions. 
 Observe how the people bow before the decorations of 
 foreigners. Voltaire calls the common soldiers Alex- 
 anders at five sous a day. He is right : it is just so. 
 Do you imagine that you can make men fight by rea- 
 soning ? Never. You must bribe them with glory, 
 distinctions, rewards. To come to the point : during 
 ten years there has been a talk of institutions. Where 
 are they ? All has been overturned : our business is to 
 build up. There is a government with certain powers ; 
 as to all the rest of the nation, what is it but grains of 
 sand ? Before the Republic can be definitely established, 
 we must, as a foundation, cast some blocks of granite on 
 the soil of France. In fine, it is agreed that we have 
 need of some kind of institutions. If this Legion of 
 
1802.] 
 
 LEGION OF HONOUR. 221 
 
 Honour is not approved, let some other be suggested. 
 I do not pretend that it alone -will save the state ; but it 
 will do its part." Such were the words of Napoleon 
 when the scheme was in preparation. Many years after- 
 wards, in his exile at St. Helena, he thus spoke of his 
 Order : — " It was the reversion of every one who was 
 an honour to his country, stood at the head of his pro- 
 fession, and contributed to the national prosperity and 
 glory. Some were dissatisfied because the decoration 
 was alike for officers and soldiers ; others because it was 
 given to civil and military merit indiscriminately. But 
 if ever it cease to be the recompense of the brave private, 
 or be confined to soldiers alone, it will cease to be the 
 Legion of Honour." 
 
 On the loth of May, 1802, the Legion of Honour was 
 formally instituted; large national domains were set 
 apart for its maintenance ; and crosses (each of which 
 entitled the bearer to certain precedence and a pension) 
 widely distributed among the soldiery, and among 
 citizens of almost all professions. 
 
 The personal authority of the future emperor, mean- 
 time, was daily widening and strengthening. After the 
 Consulate was established in France, some correspond- 
 ing change in the government of the Cisalpine Republic 
 was judged necessary, and Napoleon took care that it 
 should be so conlucted as to givo himself not only per- 
 manent, but wholly independent, power beyond the 
 Alps. A convention of 450 Italian deputies was sum- 
 moned to meet at Lyons; and there Talleyrand was 
 ready to dictate the terms of a new constitution, by 
 which the executive functions were to be lodged in a 
 president and vice-president, the legislative in a council 
 chosen from three electoral colleges. It was next pro- 
 posed that Buonaparte should be invited to take on hi in 
 the office of president — Buonaparte, it was studiously 
 
222 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1802. 
 
 explained, not as Chief Consul of France, but in his own 
 individual capacity. He repaired (o Lyons in person, 
 and having harangued the convention in the Italian 
 tongue, assumed the dignity thus conferred on him on 
 the 2d of January, 1802. 
 
 The next step was to prolong the period of his French 
 Consulate. Chabot de L'Allier, his creature, moved in 
 the Tribunate that the Conservative Senate should be 
 requested to mark the national feelings of gratitude by 
 conferring some new honour on Napoleon. The Senate 
 proposed accordingly that he should be declared Consul 
 for a second period of ten years, to commence on the 
 expiration of his present magistracy. He thanked them; 
 but said he could not accept of any such prolongation 
 of his power except from the suffrages of the people. To 
 the people the matter was to be referred ; but the Second 
 and Third Consuls, in preparing the edict of the Senate 
 for public inspection and ratification, were instructed by 
 their master-colleague to introduce an important change 
 in its terms. The question which they sent down was, 
 " Shall Buonaparte be Chief Consul for life ?" No men- 
 tion was made of ten years. Books were opened as on 
 a former occasion ; the officers of government in the de- 
 partments well knew in what method to conduct the 
 business, and the voice of the nation was declared to be 
 in favour of the decree. Some few hundreds of sturdy 
 republicans alone recorded their opposition; and Carnot, 
 who headed them, said he well knew he was signing his 
 own sentence of exile. But Napoleon was strong enough 
 to dispense with any such severities ; Carnot remained 
 in safety, but out of office, until, many years afterwards, 
 his services were tendered and accepted on the entrance 
 of foreign invaders into France. Buonaparte was pro- 
 claimed Consul for life on the 2d of August. 
 
 Shortly afterwards, in the committee occupied with 
 
1802.J CONSUL FOR LIFE. 2'2o 
 
 the Code, Napoleon entered upon a loug disquisition in 
 favour of the Roman law of adoption ; urging with in- 
 trepid logic, that an heir so chosen ought to be even 
 dearer than a son. The object of this harangue was not 
 difficult of detection. Xapoleon had no longer any hope 
 of having children by Josephine ; and meditated the 
 adoption of one of his brothers' sons as his heir. In the 
 course of the autumn a simple edict of the Conservative 
 Senate authorized him to appoint his successor in the 
 consulate by a testamentaiy deed. By this act (Aug. 
 -kh, 18'J2) a new dynasty was called to the throne of 
 France. The farce of opening books in the departments 
 was dispensed with. Henceforth the words, " Libert*/, 
 Equality, Sovereignty of the People," disappeared from 
 the state papers and official documents of the govern- 
 men t — nor did the change attract much notice. The 
 nation had a master, and sate by, indifferent spectators ; 
 while he, under whose sway life and property were con- 
 sidered safe, disposed of political rights and privileges 
 according to his pleasure.* 
 
 This year was distinguished by events of another 
 order, and not likely to be contemplated with indiffer- 
 
 • See Wordsworth's verses, "written at Calais the loth August, 
 1S02," in which the indifference of the people is contrasted with 
 their enthusiasm in the early days of the Revolution. 
 
 " Festivals have I seen that were not names:— 
 This is young Buonaparte's natal day ; 
 And his is henceforth an established sway, 
 Consul for life. With worship Franco proclaims 
 Her approbation, and with pomps and games. 
 Heaven grant that other cities may be gay ! 
 Calais is not: and I have bent my way 
 To the sea coast, noting that each man fiames 
 His business as he likes. Another time 
 That was, when I was here long years ago. 
 The senselessness of joy wns then sublime'.'' &c. 
 
224) NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1802. 
 
 en co by the powers of Europe. After the peace of 
 Amiens was ratified, certain treaties which the Chief 
 Consul had concluded with Turkey, Spain, and Portugal, 
 and hitherto kept profoundly secret, were made known. 
 The Porte, it now appeared, had yielded to France all 
 the privileges of commerce which that government had 
 ever conceded to the most favoured nations. Spain had 
 agreed that Parma, after the death of the reigning 
 prince, should he added to the dominions of Franco : 
 and Portugal had actually ceded her province in Guyana. 
 In every quarter of the world the grasping ambition of 
 Buonaparte seemed to have found some prey. 
 
 Nearer him, in the meantime, he had been preparing 
 to strike a blow at the independence of Switzerland, and 
 virtually unite that country also to his empire. The 
 contracting parties in the treaty of Luneville had 
 guaranteed the independence of the Helvetic Republic, 
 and the unquestionable right of the Swiss to settle their 
 government in what form they pleased. There were 
 two parties there as elsewhere — one who desired the 
 full re-establishment of the old federative constitution, 
 another who preferred the model of the French Repub- 
 lic " one and indivisible." To the former party the 
 small mountain cantons adhered, the wealthier and 
 aristocratic cantons to the latter. Their disputes at last 
 swelled into civil war, and the party who preferred the 
 old constitution, being headed by the gallant Aloys 
 Reding, were generally successful. Napoleon, who had 
 fomented their quarrel, now, unasked and unexpected, 
 assumed to himself the character of arbiter between the 
 contending parties. He addressed a letter to the 
 eighteen cantons, in which these words occur : — " Your 
 history shows that your intestine wars cannot be termi- 
 nated, except through the intervention of France. I 
 had, it is true, resolved not to intermeddle in your 
 
1802.] ST. DOMINGO. 2 2 5 
 
 affairs, but I cannot remain insensible to the distress of 
 which I see you the prey; I recall my resolution of 
 neutrality; I consent to be the mediator in your differ- 
 ences." Rapp, adjutant-general, was the bearer of this 
 insolent manifesto. To cut short all discussion, X , 
 entered Switzerland at the head of 4<">,0 r, tro 
 Resistance was hopeless. Aloys Reding dismissed his 
 brave followers, was arrested, and imprisoned in the 
 castle of Aarburg. The government was arranged 
 according to the good pleasure of Napoleon, who, hence- 
 forth, added to his other titles that of " Grand Med! 
 of the Helvetic Republic." Switzerland was, in effect, 
 degraded into a province of France, and became bound 
 to maintain an army of 16,000 men, who were to be at 
 the disposal, whenever it should please him to require 
 their aid, of the Grand Mediator. England sent an 
 envoy to remonstrate against this signal and unprovoked 
 rapacity, but the other powers suffered it to pass with- 
 out any formal opposition. The sufferings, however, of 
 Aloys Reding and his brave associates, and this audaci- 
 ous crushing-down of the old spirit of Swiss freedom and 
 independence, were heard of throughout all Europe with 
 deep indignation. 
 
 Feelings of the same kind were nourished everywhere 
 by the results of an expedition which Buonaparte sent. 
 before the close of 1801, to St. Domingo, for the purpose 
 of reconquering that island to France. The black and 
 coloured population had risen, at the revolutionary 
 period, upon their white masters, and after scenes of 
 terrible slaughter and devastation, emancipated them- 
 selves. The chief authority was, by degrees, vested in 
 Toussaint L'Ouverture, a negro, who, during the war, 
 displayed the ferocity of a barbarian, but after its con- 
 clusion, won the applause and admiration of all men by 
 the wisdom and humanitv of his administration. C 
 
220 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1802. 
 
 scious that, whenever peace should be restored in Europe, 
 France would make efforts to recover her richest colony, 
 Tonssaint adopted measures likely to conciliate the exiled 
 planters and the government of the mother country. A 
 constitution on the consular model was established, 
 Toussaint being its Buonaparte ; the supremacy of 
 France was to be acknowledged to a certain extent ; and 
 the white proprietors were to receive half the produce 
 of the lands of which the insurgents had taken possession. 
 But Napoleon heard of all these arrangements with dis- 
 pleasure and contempt. He fitted out a numerous fleet, 
 carrying an army full 20,000 strong, under the orders of 
 General Leclerc, the husband of his own favourite sister 
 Pauline. It has often been said, and without contra- 
 diction, that the soldiers sent on this errand were chieflv 
 from the army of the Rhine, whose good-will to the 
 Consul was to be doubted. Leclerc summoned Toussaint 
 (Jan. 2, 1802) to surrender, in a letter which conveyed 
 expressions of much personal respect from Buonaparte. 
 The negro chief, justly apprehending insincerity, stood 
 out and defended himself gallantly for a brief space : but 
 stronghold after stronghold yielded to numbers and dis- 
 cipline ; and at length he too submitted, on condition 
 that he should be permitted to retire in safety to his 
 plantation. Some obscure rumours of insurrection were 
 soon made the pretext for arresting him ; and he, being 
 put on board ship, and sent to France, was shut up 
 in a dungeon, where either the midnight cord or dagger, 
 or the wasting influence of confinement and hopeless 
 misery, ere long put an end to his life. His mysterious 
 fate, both before and after its consummation, excited 
 great interest.* The atrocious cruelty of the French 
 
 * Witness, among other evidences, the noble sonnet of Words- 
 worth : — 
 
i<Mj2.] ST. DOMINGO. 227 
 
 soldiery, in their subjugation of S f . Domingo, equalled 
 (it could not have surpassed) that of the barbarous 
 negroes whom they opposed ; but was heard of with 
 disgust and horror, such as no excesses of mere savage.i 
 could have excited. As if Heaven had been moved by 
 these bloody deeds of vengeance, disease broke out in 
 the camp ; thousands, and among them Leclerc himself, 
 died. For the time, however, the French armament 
 triumphed — and, in the exultation of victory, the 
 government at home had the extreme and seemingly 
 purposeless ungenerosity to publish an edict banishing 
 all of the negro race from their European dominions.* 
 
 " Toussaint, the most unhappy Man of Men ! 
 Whether the all-cheering sun be free to shed 
 His beams around thee or thou rest thy head 
 Pillow'd in some dark dungeon's noisome den — 
 O, miserable chieftain ! where and when 
 Wilt thcu find patience ? — Yet die not; do thou 
 Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow : 
 Though fallen Thyself, never to rise again, 
 Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind 
 Powers that will work for thee — Air, Earth, and Skies ; 
 There's not a breathing of the common Wind 
 That will forget thee ; thou hast great Allies ; 
 Thy friends are Exultations, Agonie3, 
 And Love, and Man's unconquerable Mind." 
 
 • See Wordsworth's sonnet, " 22d Sept. 1802." 
 " We had a fellow-passenger who came 
 From Calais with us, gaudy in array,— 
 A Negro Woman like a Lady gay, 
 Yet silent as a woman fearing blame; 
 Dejected, meek, yet pitiably tame, 
 She sate, from notice turning not away, 
 But on our proffered kindness still did lay 
 A weight of languid speech, or at tho same 
 Was silent, motionless in eyes and face. 
 She was a Negro Woman, driven from France — 
 
228 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1802. 
 
 But the yellow fever was already rapidly consuming the 
 French army in Sb, Domingo ; and its feeble remnant, 
 under Rochambeau, having been at length expelled, in 
 November, 1 803, the independence of Ilayti was formally 
 proclaimed on the l<t of January, 1804. 
 
 The course of Napoleon's conduct, in and out of 
 Europe, was calculated to fill all independent neighbours 
 with new or aggravated suspicion ; and in England, 
 where public opinion possesses the largest means of 
 making itself heard, and consequently the greatest 
 power, the prevalence of such feelings became from day 
 to day more marked. The British envoy's reclamation 
 against the oppression of Switzerland, was but one of 
 many drops which were soon to cause the cup of bitter- 
 ness to overflow. As in most quarrels, there was some- 
 thing both of right and of wrong on either side. When 
 the English government remonstrated against any of 
 those daring invasions of the rights of independent 
 nations, or crafty enlargements, through diplomatic 
 means, of the power of France, by which this period of 
 peace was distinguished, the Chief Consul could always 
 reply that the cabinet of St. James's, on their part, had 
 not yet fulfilled one article of the treaty of Amiens, by 
 placing Malta in the keeping of some power which had 
 been neutral in the preceding war. The rejoinder was 
 obvious : to wit, that Napoleon was every day taking 
 measures wholly inconsistent with that balance of power 
 which the treaty of Amiens contemplated. It is not to 
 be denied that he, in his audaciously ambitious move- 
 ments, had contrived to keep within the strict terms ot 
 the treaty; and it can as little be disputed that the 
 
 Rejected, like all others of that race, 
 Not ono of whom may now find footing thero ; 
 Thus the poor outcast did to us declare, 
 Nor murmured at the unfeeling Ordinance" 
 
1802.] TRIAL OF PELTIEK. 229 
 
 English cabinet bad equity with them, although they 
 yiolated the letter of the law in their retention of the 
 inheritance of the worthless and self-betrayed Knights 
 of St. John. 
 
 The feelings of the rival nations, however, were soon 
 kindled into rage; ami, on either side of the Channel, 
 the language of the public prints assumed a complexion 
 of even more bitter violence than had been observable 
 during the war. The English journalists resorted to 
 foul, and often false and even absurd, personal crimina- 
 tions of the Chief Consul ; and the Parisian newspapers 
 replied in language equally indefensible on the score of 
 truth and decency, but with this most essential differ- 
 ence, that, whereas the press of England was free, that 
 of France being entirely under the control of Fouch6 
 and the police, could not, as all men knew, put forth 
 any such calamnies otherwise than with the consent of 
 the consular government. "When Napoleon complained 
 to the English ministers, their answer was obvious : — 
 " Our courts of law are open ; we are ourselves accus- 
 tomed to be abused as you are, and in them we, like 
 you, have our only resource." The paragraphs in the 
 Moniteur, on the other hand, were, it is impossible to 
 denv, virtually so many manifestos of the Tuilleries. 
 
 Of all the popular engines which moved the spleen ot* 
 Napoleon, the most offensive was a nevrsp&per(L'Ambigii) 
 published in the French language, in London, by one 
 Peltier, a royalist emigrant; and, in spite of all the 
 advice which could be offered, he at length condescended 
 to prosecute the author in the English courts of law. 
 M. Peltier had the good fortune to retain, as his counsel, 
 Mr. Mackintosh,* an advocate of most brilliant talents, 
 and, moreover, especially distinguished for his support 
 
 . forwards Sir Jam'js. 
 
230 NAPOLEON 3U0NAPARTE. [1802. 
 
 of the original principles of the French Revolution. On 
 the trial whick ensued, this orator, in defence of his 
 client, delivered a philippic against the personal charac- 
 ter and ambitious measures of Napoleon, immeasurably 
 more calculated to injure the Chief Consul in public 
 opinion throughout Europe, than all the efforts of a 
 thousand newspapers ; and, though the jury found 
 Peltier guilty of libel, the result was, on the whole, a 
 signal triumph to the party of whom he had been the 
 organ. 
 
 This was a most imprudent, as well as an undignified 
 proceeding ; but ere the defendant, Peltier, could bo 
 called up for judgment, the doubtful relations of the 
 Chief Consul and the cabinet of St. James's were to 
 ussume a different appearence. The truce of St. Amiens 
 already approached its close. Buonaparte had, perhaps, 
 .some right to complain of the unbridled abuse of the 
 British press ; but the British government had a far 
 more serious cause of reclamation against him. Under 
 pretence of establishing French consuls for the protec- 
 tion of commerce, he sent persons, chiefly of the military 
 profession, who carried orders to make exact plans of all 
 the harbours and coasts of the United Kingdom. These 
 gentlemen endeavoured to execute their commission 
 with all possible privacy ; but the discovery of their 
 occupation was soon made ; they were sent back to 
 France without ceremony ; and this treacherous measure 
 of their government was openly denounced as a violation 
 of every rule of international law, and a plain symptom 
 of warlike preparation. 
 
 Ere hostilities were renewed, Buonaparte employed 
 M. Meyer, president of the regency of Warsaw, to open 
 a negotiation with the head of the House of Bourbon, 
 then resident in Poland. He proposed that Louis should 
 execute a formal deed, resigning for himself and bis 
 
1S02.} NEGOTIATIONS WITH LOUIS XVII I Col 
 
 family all pretensions to the throne of France, and 
 offei'ed in return to put the Bourbon princes in posses- 
 sion of independent dominions in Italy. The heir of 
 the French kings answered in language worthy of his 
 birth. " I do not confound Monsieur Buonaparte," said 
 he, " with those who have preceded him. I esteem his 
 bravery and military genius, and I owe him good-will 
 for many of the acts of his government — for benefits done 
 to my people I will always consider as done to me. But 
 he is mistaken if he supposes that my rights can ever 
 be made the subject of bargain and compromise. Could 
 they have been called in question, this very application 
 would have established them. What the designs of Gocl 
 may be for me and my house I know not ; but of the 
 duties imposed on me by the rank in which it was His 
 pleasure I should be born, I am not wholly ignorant. 
 As a Christian, I will perform those duties while life 
 remains. As a descendant of St. Louis, I will know how 
 to respect myself, were I in fetters. As the successor 
 of Francis the First, I will, at least, say with him — ' all 
 is lost except honour.' " 
 
 Such is the account of the Bourbon princes. Buona- 
 parte utterly denied having given any authority for such 
 a negotiation ; and added, that in doing so he should 
 have played the part of a madman, since any application 
 to Louis must have been an admission that his own 
 authority in France was imperfect in title. It is obvious 
 that the Consul would have acted most imprudently in 
 avowing such an attempt — after it had proved unsuc- 
 cessful ; but the veracity of the exiled king lies under 
 no suspicion ; nor is it easy to believe that Meyer would 
 have dared to open such a negotiation without sufficient 
 authority from Napoleon. Hitherto he had betrayed no 
 symptom of personal malevolence towards the House of 
 Bourbon — but henceforth the autocrat, insulted as he 
 
232 NAPOLEON BUONAPA11TE. [1802. 
 
 thought in the style of "Monsieur Buonaparte," appears 
 to have meditated some signal act of revenge. 
 
 He resented the refusal of Louis the more because he 
 doubted not that that prince well understood how little 
 the great powers of Europe were disposed to regard, 
 with favourable eyes, the establishment of the Buona- 
 partes as a new dynasty in France. He suspected, in a 
 word, that his recent disputes with the cabinet of St. 
 James's had inspired new hopes into the breasts of the 
 exiled family. 
 
 It was at this period that Napoleon published, in the 
 Moniteur, a long memorial, drawn up by General Sebas- 
 tiani, who had just returned from a mission to the 
 Levant, abounding in statements, and clothed in language 
 such as could have had no other object but to inflame 
 the government of England to extremity. Sebastiani 
 detailed the incidents of his journey at great leugth, 
 representing himself as having been everywhere received 
 with honour, and even with enthusiasm, as the envoy of 
 Napoleon. Such, he said, were the dispositions of the 
 Mussulmans, that C000 French would now suffice to re- 
 store Egypt to the Republic ; and it was in vain that 
 General Stuart, who represented the English king in 
 that country, had endeavoured to excite the Turkish 
 government to assassinate him, Sebastiani. Lastly, the 
 report asserted, that the Ionian Islands would, on the 
 first favourable occasion, declare themselves French. 
 
 The English government reclaimed against this publi- 
 cation, as at once a confession of the dangerous ambition 
 of Buonaparte, and a studied insult to them, whose repre- 
 sentative's character and honour one of its chief state- 
 ments must have been designed to destroy, at a wilful 
 sacrifice of truth. The French minister replied, that 
 the Chief Consul had as much right to complain of the 
 recent publication of Sir Robert Wilson's Narrative of 
 
1803.] SEBASTIANl's REPORT. 233 
 
 the English Expedition to Egypt, which contained state- 
 ments in the highest degree injurious to his character 
 and honour;* and had, nevertheless, been dedicated by 
 permission to the Duke of York. The obvious answer, 
 namely, that Sir Robert "Wilson's book was the work of 
 a private individual, and published solely on his own 
 responsibility, whereas Sebastiani's was a public docu- 
 ment set forth by an official organ, was treated as a 
 wanton and insolent evasion. Meanwhile the language 
 of the press on either side became from day to day more 
 offensive; and various members of the British Parlia- 
 ment, of opposite parties, and of the highest eminence, 
 did not hesitate to rival the newspapers in their broad 
 denunciations of the restless and insatiable ambition of 
 the Chief Consul. — " Buonaparte," said Mr.Wyndham, 
 " is the Hannibal who has sworn to devote his life to 
 the destruction of England. War can not be far off, 
 and I believe it would be much safer to anticipate the 
 blow than to expect it. I would advise ministers to 
 appeal to the high-minded and proud of heart — whether 
 they succeed or not, we shall not then go down like the 
 Augustuli." " The destruction of tins country," said 
 Mr. Sheridan, " is the first vision that breaks on the 
 French Consul through the gleam of the morning: this 
 is his last pra}-er at night, to whatever deity he may 
 address it, whether to Jupiter or to Mahomet, to the 
 Goddess of Battles or the Goddess of Reason. Look at 
 the map of Europe, from which France was said to be 
 expunged, and now see nothing but France. If the 
 ambition of Buonaparto be immeasurable, there are 
 abundant reasons why it should bo progressive." 
 
 * It was by this book that the two dark stories of Jaffa wero 
 first promulgated through Europe ; and it is proper to add, that 
 Sir It. Wilson publicly presented a copy to George III. at his 
 
 k'VCC. 
 
23 t NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1803. 
 
 Stung to the quick by these continual invective.-, 
 Napoleon so far descended from his dignity as to make 
 them the subject of personal complaint and reproach to 
 the English Ambassador. He obtruded himself on the 
 department of Talleyrand, and attempted to shake the 
 resolution of the ambassador, Lord Whitworth, by a 
 display of rude violence, such as had, indeed, succeeded 
 with the Austrian envoy at Campo-Formio, but which 
 produced no effect whatever in the case of this calm and 
 high-spirited nobleman. The first of their conferences 
 took place in February, when the Consul harangued 
 Lord Whitworth for nearly two hours, hardty permitting 
 him to interpose a word on the other side of the question. 
 " Every gale that blows from England is burdened with 
 enmity," said he ; " your government countenances 
 Georges, Pichegru, and other infamous men, Avho have 
 sworn to assassinate me. Your journals slander me, and 
 the redress I am offered is but adding mockery to insult. 
 I could make myself master of Egypt to-morrow, if I 
 pleased. Egypt, indeed, must, sooner or later, belong to 
 France; but I have no wish to go to war for such a 
 trivial object. What could I gain by war ? Invasion 
 would be my only means of annoying you ; and inva- 
 sion you shall have, if war be forced on me — but I con- 
 fess the chances would be an hundred to one against mo 
 in such an attempt. In ten years I could not hope to 
 have a fleet able to dispute the seas with you ; but, on 
 the other hand, the army of France could be recimited 
 in a few weeks to 480,000 men. United, we might 
 govern the world — Why can we not understand each 
 other?" Lord Whitworth could not but observe the 
 meaning of these hints, and answered, as became him, 
 that the King of England had no wish but to preserve 
 his own rights, and scorned the thought of becoming a 
 partner with France in a general scheme of spoliation 
 
1803.] iotcd wnrrwoitTH. 235 
 
 and oppression. They parted with cold civility, and 
 negotiations were resumed in the usual manner ; but 
 Eugland stood firm in the refusal to give up Malta — at 
 least for ten years to come. The aggressions of Napoleon 
 had wholly changed the arrangement of territory and 
 power contemplated when the treaty of Amiens was 
 drawn up ; what security could there be for the reten- 
 tion of Malta by Naples, or any such minor power, if 
 Buonaparte wished to have it ? To surrender it would, 
 in fact, be to yield an impregnable harbour and citadel 
 in the beart of the Levant to a government which had 
 gone on trampling down the independence of state after 
 state in the west. Meantime, the English government 
 openly announced, in Parliament, that the position of 
 affairs seemed to be full of alarm — that the French were 
 manning fleets and recruiting their aftnies, and that it 
 was necessary to have recourse to similar measures ; 
 and, accordingly, a considerable addition to the military 
 establishment was agreed to. 
 
 Thus stood matters on the 13th of March, when Lord 
 Whitworth made his appearance at the levee of the 
 Chief Consul, in company with all the rest of the diplo- 
 matic body. Napoleon no sooner entered than, fixing 
 his eve on the English Ambassador, he exclaimed aioud 
 and fiercely, in presence of tbe circle, " You are then 
 determined on war!" Lord Whitworth denied the 
 charge, but the Consul drowned his voice, and pursued 
 thus : — " We have been at war for fifteen years ; you are 
 resolved to Lave fifteen years more of it ; you force me 
 to it." He tben turned to the other ministers, and said, 
 in the same violent tone, "the English wish for war; 
 but if they draw the sword first, I will be the last to 
 sheath it again. They do not respect treaties, hence- 
 forth we must cover them with black crape." Then, 
 turning again to Whitworth, "to what purpose.'* be 
 
 17 
 
236 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1803. 
 
 cried, " arc these armaments ? It' you arm, I will arm 
 too ; if you fight, I can fight also. You may destroy 
 France, but you cannot intimidate her." " We desire 
 neither to injure nor to alarm her, but to live on terms 
 of good intelligence," said Lord Whitworth. " Respect 
 treaties, then," said Napoleon ; " woe to those by whom 
 they are not respected ! — they shall be responsible to 
 Eui-ope for the result." He repeated these last words 
 sternly, and immediately quitted the apartment, leaving 
 the assembled ministers utterly confounded by this 
 indecent display of violence. 
 
 Some persons who knew Buonaparte well have always 
 asserted that this undignified scene was got up with 
 calm pi*emeditation, and that the ferocity of passion on 
 the occasion was a mere piece of acting. Lord Whit- 
 worth, however, was an excellent judge of men and 
 manners, and he never doubted that the haughty soldier 
 yielded to the uncontrollable vehemence of wrath. The 
 cautious Talleyrand made various efforts to explain away 
 the intemperate words of his master ; but they, and the 
 tone in which they had been uttered, went far to increase 
 the jealousy and animosity of the English government 
 and nation, and to revive or confirm the suspicions with 
 which the other powers of Europe had had but too much 
 reason to regard the career of revolutionaiy France. 
 
 On the 18th of May Great Britain declared war. 
 Orders had previously been given for seizing French 
 shipping wherever it could be found, and it is said that 
 200 vessels, containing property to the amount of three 
 millions sterling, had been laid hold of accordingly, ere 
 the proclamation of hostilities reached Paris. Whether 
 the practice of thus unceremoniously seizing private 
 property, under such circumstances, be right on abstract 
 principle, or wrong, there can be no doubt that the cus- 
 tom had been long established, acted upon by England 
 
1803.] WAR PROCLAIMED. 237 
 
 on all similar occasions, and of course considered, after 
 the lapse of ages, and the acquiescence of innumerable 
 treaties, as part and parcel of the European system of 
 warfare. This was not denied by Napoleon ; but be 
 -aw the opportunity, and determined to profit by it, of 
 exciting the jealousy of other governments, by reclaim- 
 ing against the exercise, on the part of England, of a 
 species of assault which England, from her maritime 
 predominance, has more temptations and better means 
 to adopt than any other power. He resolved, therefore, 
 to retaliate by a wholly unprecedented outrage. The 
 very night that the resolution of the cabinet of St. 
 James's reached Paris, orders were given for arresting 
 the persons of all English subjects residing or travelling 
 within the dominion of France. 
 
 Not less than 10,000 persons, chiefly of course of the 
 higher classes of societ}-, thus found themselves con- 
 demned to captivity in a hostile land. Had Napoleon 
 adopted less violent measures, his reclamations against 
 the English government might have been favourably 
 attended to throughout Europe. But this despotic and 
 unparalleled infliction of exile and misery on a host of 
 innocent private individuals, was productive of far 
 different effects. It moved universal sympathy, indig- 
 nation, and disgust 
 
238 NAPOLEON BUONAPAKTE. [1808. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Recommencement of the War — French seize Hanover and Naples — the 
 English seize various French colonics — Scheme of invading England 
 resumed — Moreau — Pichegru — Georges Cadoudal — Captain Wright 
 — Murder of the Bake D'Enghien— Napoleon Emperor of France — 
 King of Italy — Genoa united to the Empire. 
 
 The war was re-opened vigorously on both sides. The 
 English fleets rapidly reconquered various colonies sur- 
 rendered back to France by the treaty of Amiens, and 
 assisted in compelling the dwindled army which Leclerc 
 Lad commanded to evacuate St. Domingo. Buonaparte, 
 on the other hand, despised utterly the distinction be- 
 tween the British Empire and Hanover — a possession 
 indeed of the same prince, but totally unconnected with 
 the English Constitution, and, as belonging to the Ger- 
 manic Empire, entitled, if it chose, to remain neutral — 
 and having first marched an army into Holland, ordered 
 Mortier, its chief, to advance without ceremony and 
 seize the Electorate. At the same time, and with the 
 same pretext, French troops poured into the South of 
 Italy, and occupied Naples. 
 
 General Mortier's appearance on the Hanoverian 
 frontier was such as to satisfy the Duke of Cambridge, 
 governor for the elector, that resistance was hopeless. 
 He entered into a negotiation (May, 1803), by which the 
 territory was to be surrendered, provided his army were 
 permitted to retire unbroken behind the Elbe, pledging 
 themselves not to take the field again against France 
 during this war. But the ministers of George III. advised 
 him not to ratify this treaty. Mortier demanded of Gene- 
 ral Walmsloden, commander-in-chief of the Hanoverian 
 army, to surrender his arms — or abide ihe consequences 
 
1803.] MORTIER SEIZES HANOVEB. 239 
 
 of being attacked beyond the Elbe — and that fine body 
 of men was accordingly disarmed and disbanded. The 
 cavalry, being ordered to dismount and yield their horses 
 to tbe French, there ensued a scene which moved the 
 sympathy of the invading soldiery themselves. The 
 strong attachment between the German dragoon and 
 his horse is well known ; and this parting was more 
 like that of dear kindred than of man and beast. 
 
 The Emperor, whose duty it was, as head of the Ger- 
 man body, to reclaim against this invasion of its terri- 
 tory, was obliged to put up with the Consul's explana- 
 tion, viz., that he had no wish to make the conquest of 
 Hanover, but merely to hold it until England should see 
 the necessity of fulfilling the Maltese article in the 
 treaty of Amiens. Prussia, alarmed by the near neigh- 
 bourhood of Morfcier, hardly dared to remonstrate. 
 Denmark aloue showed any symptom of active resent- 
 ment. She marched 30,000 men into her German pro- 
 vinces ; but finding that Austria and Prussia were 
 resolved to be quiescent, was fain to offer explanations, 
 and recall her troops. The French General, meantime, 
 scourged Hanover by his exactions, and even, without 
 the shadow of a pretext, levied heavy contributions in 
 Bremen, Hamburg, and the other Hanse towns in the 
 vicinity of the Electorate. 
 
 These successes enabled Xapoleon to feed great bodies 
 of his army at the expense of others, and to cripple the 
 commerce of England, by shutting up her communica- 
 tion with many of the best markets on the continent. 
 But he now recurred to his favourite scheme, that of 
 invading the island itself, and so striking the fatal blow 
 at the heart of his last and greatest enemy. Troops to 
 the amount of 160,000, were mustered in camps along 
 the French and "Dutch coasts, and vast flotillas, meant 
 to convey thorn across the Channel, were formed and 
 
240 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1803. 
 
 constantly manoeuvred in various ports, that of Boulogne 
 being the chief station. 
 
 The spirit of England, on the other hand, was effectu- 
 ally stirred. Her fleets, to the amount of not less than 
 500 ships of war, traversed the seas in all directions, 
 blockaded the harbours of the countries in which the 
 power of the Consul was predominant, and from time to 
 time made .inroads into the French ports, cutting out 
 and destroying the shipping, and crippling the flotillas. 
 At home the army, both regular and irregular, was re- 
 cruited and strengthened to an unexampled extent. 
 Camps were formed along the English coasts opposite 
 to France, and the King in person was continually to 
 be seen in the middle of them. By night beacons blazed 
 on every hill-top throughout the island ; and the high 
 resolution of the citizen-soldiery was attested, on num- 
 berless occasions of false alarm, by the alacrity with 
 which they marched on the points of supposed danger.* 
 
 * To this period belongs Sir W. Scott's Song to the Edinburgh 
 Volunteers: — 
 
 '■' If ever breath of British gale 
 
 Shall fan the tricolor, 
 Or footstep of invader rude, 
 "With rapine foul and red with blood, 
 
 Pollute our happy shore — 
 Then farewell home ! and farewell friends ! 
 
 Adieu, each tender tie ! 
 Resolved, we mingle in the tide 
 Where charging squadrons furious ride, 
 To conquer or to die," &c. 
 And various sonnets of Mr. Wordsworth, such as— 
 " It is not to be thought of that the flood 
 
 Of British freedom," &c. 
 " Vanguard of liberty ! ye men of Kent, 
 Ye children of a soil that doth advance 
 Its haughty brow agaiust the coast of France, 
 Now is the time to prove your hardiment ! " &c 
 
': l-\\.\ ! NGLAND. 2 11 
 
 There never was a time in which (lie national enthusiasm 
 lore ardent and concentrated ; and the return of Pitt 
 t i the prime-ministry (March, ISO!) was considered as 
 the la-t and bestpledge that the councils of the sovereign 
 were to exhibit vigour commensurate with the nature 
 of the crisis. The regular army in Britain amounted, 
 ere long, to 100,000 ; the militia, to 80,000 ; and of volun- 
 teer troops there were not less than 350,000 in arms. 
 
 Soult, Ney, Davoust, and Victor were in command of 
 the army designed to invade England, and the Chief 
 Consul personally repaired to Boulogne, and inspected 
 both the troops and the flotilla. He constantly gave out 
 that it was his fixed purpose to make his attempt by 
 means of the flotilla alone ; but while he thus endeav- 
 oured to inspire his enemy with false security (for Nelson 
 had declared this scheme of a boat invasion to be mad, 
 and staked his whole reputation on its miserable and im- 
 mediate failure, if attempted), the Consul was in fact 
 providing indefatigably a fleet of men-of-war, designed 
 to protect and cover the vo}'age. These ships wore 
 repairing in different ports of France and Spain to the 
 number of fifty ; Buonaparte intended them to steal out 
 i" sea individually or in small squadrons, rendezvous at 
 Martinico, and returning thence in a body, sweep the 
 Channel free of the English lor such a space of 
 at least as might suffice for the execution of his 
 great purpose. Th ns, however, were from day 
 
 to day thwarted by the watchful zeal of Nelsou and the 
 other English admirals, who observed Bre t, Toulon, 
 G moa, and the harbours of Spain so closely, that no 
 squadron, nor hardly a single vessel, could force a pas- 
 sage to the Atlantic. 
 
 Napoleon persisted to the end of his life in asserting 
 his belief that the invasion of England was prevented 
 merely by a few unforeseen accidents, and that, had his 
 
- 1=2 . NAPOLEON BUONAPAKTE. [.1803. 
 
 generals passed the sea, they must have been successful. 
 The accidents to which he attributed so much influence, 
 were, it is to be supposed, the presence and zeal of Nel- 
 son, Pellew, Cornwallis, and their respective fleets of 
 observation. As for the results of the expedition, if 
 the channel had once been crossed, Napoleon never 
 seemed to doubt that a single great battle would have 
 sufficed to place London in his hands. Once arrived in 
 the capital, he would, he said, have summoned a con- 
 vention, restored the mass of the English people to 
 their proper share of political power, — in a word, 
 banished the King, and revolutionized England on the 
 model of France : the meaning of all which is — reduced 
 this island to be a province of the French empire, and yet 
 bestowed upon its people all those rights and liberties of 
 which he had already removed the last shadow, wherever 
 his own power was established on the continent. 
 
 There can be little doubt that Napoleon egregiously 
 under-rated the resistance which would have been op- 
 posed to his army, had it effected the vo} r age in safety, 
 by the spirit of the British people, and the great natural 
 difficulties of the country through which the invaders 
 must have marched. Nevertheless, it is not to be denied 
 that, had the attempt been made instantly on the rup- 
 ture of the peace, the chances of success might have 
 been considerable — of success, temporary and short- 
 lived indeed, but still sufficient to inflict a terrible injury 
 upon this country — to bathe her soil in blood — to give 
 her capital to the flames — and not impossibly to shako 
 some of her institutions. The enemy himself was, in all 
 likelihood, unprepai^ed to make the attempt, until Eng- 
 land had had time to make adequate preparation for its 
 encounter. It was otherwise ordered of God's pro- 
 vidence, than that the last bulwark of liberty should 
 have to sustain the shock of battle at its own gates. 
 
1803.] INVASION OF ENGLAND. 243 
 
 The invasion of England was the great object of 
 attention throughout Europe during the autumn and 
 winter of 1803. Early in the succeeding year Paris 
 itself became the theatre of a series of transactions 
 which for a time engrossed the public mind. 
 
 Even before Buonaparte proclaimed himself Consul 
 for life, it appears that, throughout a considerable part 
 of the French army, strong symptoms of jealousy had 
 been excited by the rapidity of his advance to sovereign 
 power. After the monarchy of France was in effect re- 
 established in him and his dynasty, by the decrees of the 
 2d and 4th of August, 1802, this spirit of dissatisfaction 
 showed itself much more openly ; and ere long it was 
 generally believed that the republican party in the army 
 looked up to Moreau as their head, and awaited only 
 some favourable opportunity for rising in arms against 
 Napoleon's tyranny. Moreau was known to have treated 
 both the Concordat and the Legion of Honour with un- 
 disguised contempt ; and Buonaparte's strictures on his 
 conduct of the campaign of 1801 were not likely to have 
 nourished feelings of personal good- will in the bosom of 
 him whom all considered as second only to the Chief 
 Consul himself in military genius. It has already been 
 intimated that the army of the Rhine had been all along 
 suspected of regarding Napoleon with little favour. He 
 had never been their general ; neither they nor their 
 chiefs had partaken in the plunder of Italy, or in the 
 glory of the battles by which it was won. It was from 
 their ranks that the unhappy expedition under Leclerc 
 had been chiefly furnished, and they considered their 
 employment in that unwholesome climate as dictated 
 more by the Consul's doubts of their fidelity to himself, 
 than his high appreciation of their discipline and 
 gallantry. How far Pichegru, while corresponding with 
 the Bourbons as head of the army of the Rhine, had 
 
2-44 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1804. 
 
 intrigued among his own soldiery, no evidence has as 
 yet appeared. But after Pichegru's banishment, Moreau 
 possessed the chief sway over the minds of one great 
 division of the armed force of the great Republic. 
 
 Carnot, meantime, and other genuine republicans in 
 the legislative bodies, had been occupied with the endeav- 
 our, since they could not prevent Napoleon from sitting 
 on the throne of France, to organise at least something 
 like a constitutional opposition (such as exists in the 
 Parliament of England), whereby the measures of his 
 government might be, to a certain extent, controlled and 
 modified. The creation of the Legion of Honour, the 
 decree enabling Buonaparte to appoint his successor, 
 and other leading measures, had accordingly been 
 carried through far less triumphantly than could be 
 agreeable to the self-love of the autocrat. 
 
 On the other hand, the return of so many emigrants 
 (a great part of whom, not receiving back the property 
 promised to them, were disappointed and aggrieved 
 anew) could not fail to strengthen the influence of the 
 royalists in the piivate society of Paris ; and by degrees, 
 as has often happened in the history of pai'ties, the 
 leaders of the republicans and those of the Bourbonists 
 came together, sinking for the time the peculiar prin- 
 ciples of either side, in the common feeling of hatred to 
 Napoleon. 
 
 Pichegru returned from his exile at Cayenne, and 
 after spending some time in England, where he, no 
 doubt, communicated with the Bourbon princes, and 
 with some members of Mr. Addington's government, 
 passed over secretly into Prance. Georges Cadoudal 
 and other Chouan chiefs were busy in stirring up their 
 old adherents, and communicated with Pichegru on his 
 arrival in Paris. 
 
 Suddenly, on the 12th of February, Paris was sur- 
 
1804.] PICHEGRU — CADOUDAL, &c. 2 t"> 
 
 prised with the announcement, that a new conspiracy 
 against the life of the Chief Consul had hcen discovered 
 by the confession of an accomplice; that 150 men had 
 meant to assemble at Malmaison in the uniform of the 
 consular guard, and seize Buonaparte while hunting ; 
 that Georges, the Chouan, had escaped by a quarter of 
 an horn' — but that Maim, La Jollais, and other leaders 
 of the conspiracy, had been taken ; finally, that Moreau 
 had held various conferences with Georges, La Jollais, 
 and Pichegru, and that he also was under arrest. 
 
 It is said that Georges Cadoudal had once actually 
 penetrated into the chamber of Xapoleon at the Tuilleries, 
 and been prevented by the merest accident from assassi- 
 nating him ; others of the conspirators had approached 
 his person very nearly on pretext of presenting petitions. 
 Buonaparte attributed his escape chiefly to the irregular 
 mode of living which his multifarious occupations in- 
 volved ; he seldom dined two days following at the same 
 hour, hardly ever stirred out of the palace except with 
 his attendants about him for some review or public 
 ceremony, and, perhaps, never appeared unguarded 
 except where his appearance must have been totally 
 unexpected. The officer who betrayed Cadoudal and his 
 associates, was, it seems, a violent republican, and as 
 such desired the downfall of the Consul; but he had 
 also served under ISapoleon, and learning at a late hour 
 that the life of his old leader was to be sacrificed, remon- 
 strated vehemently, and rather than be accessary to 
 such extremities, gave the necessary information at the 
 Tuilleries. Moreau was forthwith arrested, but Pichegru 
 larked undiscovered in the heart of Paris until the 28th ; 
 <-ix gens d'armes then came upon his privacy so abruptly 
 that he could not use either his dagger or pistols, though 
 both were on his table. He wrestled for a moment, and 
 then attempted to move compassion, but was immediately 
 
246 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1804. 
 
 fettered. Shortly after Cadoudal himself, who had for 
 days traversed Paris in cabriolets, not knowing where to 
 lay his head, was detected while attempting to pass one 
 of the barriers. Captain Wright, an English naval 
 officer, who had distinguished himself under Sir Sydney 
 Smith at Acre, and from whose vessel Pichegru was 
 known to have disembarked on the coast of France, 
 happened about the same time to encounter a French 
 ship of much superior strength, and become a prisoner 
 of war. On pretext that this gentleman had acted as 
 an accomplice in a scheme of assassination, he also was 
 immediately placed in solitary confinement in a dungeon 
 of the Temple. 
 
 It was now openly circulated that England and the 
 exiled Bourbons had been detected in a base plot for 
 murdering the Chief Consul; that the proof of their 
 guilt was in the hands of the government, and would 
 soon be made public. The Duke de Berri himself, it 
 was added, had been prepared to land on the west coast 
 of France, whenever Pichegru or Cadoudal should inform 
 him that the time was come ; while another of the royal 
 exiles lay watching the event, and in readiness to profit 
 by it, on the other side, immediately behind the Rhine. 
 
 The name of this last prince, the heir of Conde, well 
 known for the brilliant gallantry of his conduct while 
 commanding the van of his grandfather's little army of 
 exiles, and beloved for many traits of amiable and 
 generous character, had hardly been mentioned in con- 
 nection with these rumours, ere the inhabitants of Paris 
 heard, in one breath, with surprise and horror, that the 
 Duke d'Enghien had been arrested at Ettenheim, and 
 tried and executed within sight of their own houses at 
 Vincennes. This story will ever form the darkest 
 chapter in the history of Napoleon. 
 
 The duke had his residence at a castle in the Duchy 
 
1804.] THE DUKE d'eXGHIEN. 247 
 
 of Baden, where, attended by a few noble friends, the 
 partakers of his exile, he was chiefly occupied with the 
 diversions of the chase. On the evening of the 14th of 
 March, a troop of French soldiers and gens d'armes, 
 under Colonel Ordonner (who derived his orders from 
 Caulaincourt), suddenly passed the frontier into the 
 independent territory of Baden, surrounded the Castle* 
 of Ettenheim, rushed into the apartment of the prince, 
 and seized him and all his company. He would have 
 used his arms, but his attendants, representing the over- 
 powering number of the assailants, persuaded him to 
 yield without resistance. He was forthwith conveyed 
 to the citadel of Strasburg, and separated from all his 
 friends except one aide-de-camp, the Baron de St. Jaques, 
 and allowed no communication with any one else. After 
 being here confined three days, he was called up at 
 midnight on the 18th, and informed that he must pre- 
 pare for a journey. He desired to have the assistance 
 of his valet-de-chambre, and was refused ; they per- 
 mitted him to pack up two shirts, and the journey 
 immediately began. 
 
 The duke reached Paris early on the 20th ; and, after 
 lying a few hours in the Temple, was removed to the 
 neighboring castle of Yincennes, used for ages as a 
 state pi'ison. Being much fatigued he fell asleep, but 
 was presently roused, and his examination forthwith 
 commenced. "Weary and wholly unprepared as he must 
 have been, the unfortunate prince conducted himself 
 throughout in such a manner as to command the respect 
 of his inquisitors. He at once avowed his name and his 
 services in the army of Conde, but utterly denied all 
 knowledge of Pichegru and his designs. To this the 
 whole of his evidence (and there was no evidence but 
 his own) amounted ; and, having given it, he earnestly 
 demanded an audience of the Consul. " My name," 
 
248 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1804. 
 
 said he, "my rank, my sentiments, and the peculiar 
 distress of my situation, lead mo to hope that this re- 
 quest will not be refused." 
 
 At midnight the duke was again called from his bed, 
 to attend the court which had been constituted for his 
 trial. It consisted of eight military officers, appointed 
 by Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, then governor of 
 Paris. General Hullin, president of the military com- 
 mission, commanded him to listen to the charges on 
 which he was to be tried ; of having fought against 
 France ; of being in the pay of England ; and of plot- 
 ting with England against the internal and external 
 safety of the Republic. The duke was again examined, 
 and the second interrogatory was a mere repetition of 
 the first, with this addition, that the prisoner avowed 
 his readiness to take part again in the hostilities against 
 France, if the opportunity should present itself. No 
 other evidence whatever was adduced, except the written 
 report of a spy of the police, who testified that the duko 
 received many emigrants at his table at Ettenheim, and 
 occasionally left the castle for several days together, 
 without the spy's being able to trace where he was, 
 a circumstance sufficiently explained by the duke's cus- 
 tom of hunting in the Black Forest. 
 
 General Hullin, in his account of the proceedings,* 
 says, " He uniformly maintained that ' he had only sus- 
 tained the rights of his family, and that a Conde could 
 never enter France but with arms in his hands. My 
 birth,' said he, ' and my opinions must ever render me 
 inflexible on this point.' " — " The firmness of his 
 answers," continues Hullin, " reduced the judges to des- 
 pair. Ten times we gave him an opening to retract his 
 declarations, but he persisted in them immoveably. ' I 
 
 * This account was published more than tivent// years afterwards, 
 in consequence of a pamphlet by Savary (Duke of Rovigo). 
 
1804.] THE DUKE d'eXGHIEN. 249 
 
 - , he said, ' the honourable intentions of the commis- 
 sioner?, but I cannot resort to the means of safety which 
 they indicate.' Being- informed that the military com- 
 mission judged without appeal, ' I know it,' answered 
 he, ' nor do I disguise to myself the danger which I 
 incur. My only desire is to have an interview with the 
 First Consul.'" 
 
 The irregularities of all this procedme were monstrous. 
 In the first place, the duke owed no allegiance to the 
 existing goveimment of France ; 2dly, the seizure of his 
 person was wholly illegal — it took place by means of a 
 violation of an independent territory, an outrage for 
 which it was impossible to offer the smallest excuse ; 
 3dly, had the arrest been ever so regular, the trial of a 
 prisoner accused of a political conspiracy was totally 
 beyond the jurisdiction of a court-martial ; 4thly, it was 
 against the laws of France to hold any trial at midnight ; 
 othly, the interrogatory was not read over to the 
 prisoner, which the law imperatively demanded ; and, 
 • 'rlily, no defender was assigned to him — an indulgence 
 which the French code refuses not to the meanest or 
 most atrocious criminal, by what tribunal soever he may 
 be tried. 
 
 But to proceed — the judges were moved by the con- 
 duct of the prisoner, and inclined to listen to his request 
 of an audience of the Chief Consul. But Savary, then 
 minister of police, had by this time introduced himself 
 into the chamber, and watched the course of procedure 
 from behind the chair of the president. He now leaned 
 forward, and whispered into Hullin's ear, " this would 
 be inopportune." — These significant words were obeyed. 
 The court pronounced the duke guilty of the capital 
 crimes of having fought against the Republic ; of having 
 intrigued with England ; of having maintained intelli- 
 gence with Strasburg, with the view of seizing that 
 
250 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1804. 
 
 place ; and of having conspired against the life of the 
 Chief Consul. The prisoner, being remanded to his con- 
 finement, the report was instantly forwarded to Buona- 
 parte, with a request that his further pleasure might be 
 made known. 
 
 The court remained sitting until their messenger 
 returned ; he brought back their own letter with these 
 words inscribed on it, " condemned to death." The 
 prisoner being called in again, heard his sentence with 
 perfect composm*e. He requested the attendance of a 
 confessor, and was answered — "would you die like a 
 monk?" "Without noticing this brutality he knelt for 
 a moment, as in prayer, and rising, said, " Let us go." 
 
 He was immediately led down a winding stair by 
 torchlight ; and, conceiving that he was descending into 
 some subterraneous dungeon, said to one of the soldiers 
 of the escort, " Am I to be immured in an oubliette ?" 
 " Monseigneur," the man replied, sobbing, " be tranquil 
 on that point," They emerged from a postern into the 
 ditch of the castle, where a party of gens d'armes d'elite 
 were drawn up, Savary, their master, standing on the 
 parapet over them. It was now sis o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, and the gray light of the dawn was mingled with 
 the gleam of torches. The prince refused to have his 
 eyes bandaged — the word was given, and he fell. The 
 body, dressed as it was, was immediately thrown into a 
 grave which had been prepared before-hand ; at least, so 
 say all the witnesses, except M. Savary. 
 
 To resume our notice of the mere informalities of the 
 procedure : — 1 . The sentence was altogether unsupported 
 by the evidence, except as to the mere fact of d'Enghien's 
 having borne arms against France ; but this could be no 
 crime in him ; he owed no allegiance to the French 
 government ; on the contrary, he and all his family had 
 been expressly excepted from every act of amnesty to 
 
1804.] MURDER OF THE DUKE D'EXGHIEN. 251 
 
 emigrants, and thereby constituted aliens, 2. The 
 execution took place immediately after the sentence was 
 pronounced ; this is contrary to the laws of all civilized 
 nations, and in direct contradiction to an article in the 
 French code then in force, which gave twenty-four hours 
 to every prisoner convicted by a court-martial, that he 
 might, if he chose, appeal from their sentence. But, 
 3dly, the publications (long afterwards extorted) of 
 Savary and Hullin, prove that the court, perplexed with 
 the difficulty of making their sentence appear to have 
 any conformity with the charge and the evidence, drew 
 up, in fact, two different sentences — one before the duke 
 was executed, which bore the article, "immediate 
 execution ;" the other a more careful document, intended 
 alone to meet the public eye, in which not a word about 
 immediate execution occurs. The duke was not executed, 
 therefore, at six in the morning of the 21st of March, 
 upon that sentence which was made public at the time, 
 as the authority for his death. 
 
 Every circumstance in the dismal tale, from the quan- 
 tity of linen packed up at Strasburg, to the preparation 
 of the grave in the ditch of Vincennes, attests the fact 
 that the fate of the unfortunate young man (for he was 
 but thirty-two years old when he fell) had been deter- 
 mined on, to the minutest particular, long before he was 
 summoned to a mock trial, before an incompetent tribunal. 
 If ever man was murdered, it was the Duke d'Enghien. 
 
 Such was the fate of the gallant and generous youth, 
 who, by his fiery courage, won the battle of Bertsheim ; 
 and who, when his followers, to whom the republicans 
 had so often refused quarter, seemed disposed to reta- 
 liate in the hour of victory, threw himself between them 
 and their discomfited countrymen, exclaiming, " They 
 are French — they are unfortunate ; I place them under 
 the guardianship of your honour," 
 
252 NArOLEON BUONAPAKTE. [1804. 
 
 The horror with which this remorseless tragedy was 
 heard of in Paris, soon spread throughout all Europe ; 
 and from that day the name of Buonaparte was irre- 
 mediably associated with the ideas of sullen revenge 
 and tyrannic cruelty. The massacre of Jaffa had been 
 perpetrated in a remote land, and many listened with 
 incredulity to a tale told by the avowed enemies of the 
 homicide. But this bloody deed was done at home, and 
 almost in the sight of all Paris. Of the fact there could 
 be no doubt ; and of the pretexts set forth by the organs 
 of the French government, there were few men of any 
 party who affected not to perceive the futility. Hitherto 
 Napoleon had been the fortunate heir of a revolution, in 
 whose civil excesses he had scarcely participated — 
 henceforth he was the legitimate representative and 
 symbol of all its atrocities. 
 
 In so far as Buonapai"te had the power to suppress all 
 mention of this catastrophe, it was, at the time, sup- 
 pressed. But in after-days, at St. Helena, when dictat- 
 ing the apology of his life to the companions of his 
 exile, he not only spoke openly of the death of the Duke 
 d'Enghien, but appears to have dwelt upon it often and 
 long. Well aware that this was generally regarded as 
 the darkest trait in his history, he displayed a feverish 
 anxiety to explain it away. But the sultan Akber wore 
 a signet, inscribed, "I never knew any one that lost his 
 way in a straight road ;" and he that is conscious of 
 innocence can have no temptation to multiply the lines 
 of his defence. Buonaparte, according to the mood of 
 the moment, or the companion whom he addressed, 
 adopted different methods of vindicating himself. They 
 were inconsistent as well as diverse ; and even Las Cases 
 seems to have blushed for his hero when he recorded 
 them. 
 
 At one time Napoleon represents himself as having 
 
1804.] MUBDEB OF THE DUKE D'EXCIIir.X. 253 
 
 been taken by surprise ; — his ministers come on bim 
 when be is alone, at midnight, and inform bim that the 
 Bourbons have conspired to assassinate him — that the 
 proofs are in their hands — that the Duke d'Enghien has 
 already been more than once in Paris, and is lying close 
 to the frontier, expecting the signal to return and head 
 the conspirators in person. In the first flush of indigna- 
 tion he gives the order for arresting the duke — ever}' 
 artifice is adopted to prevent him from interfering after- 
 wards — everything is arranged by Talleyrand — the duke 
 addresses a letter to him from Strasburg — that letter 
 Talleyrand suppresses until the tragedy is over — had it 
 been delivered in time, the life of the unhappy prince 
 had been saved. 
 
 Unfortunately for Buonaparte, eight days elapsed be- 
 tween the order for the arrest and the order for the 
 execution, a much longer period than was ever necessary 
 for restoring the composure of his strong understanding. 
 Further, the Duke d'Enghien kept a diary during his 
 imprisonment, in which the minutest incidents are care- 
 fully recorded ; it contains no hint of the letter to Napo- 
 leon ; and the Baron de St. Jaques, who never quitted his 
 master's chamber while he remained at Strasburg, bears 
 distinct testimony that no such letter was written there. 
 Moreover, neither Talle}-rand, nor any other individual in 
 the world, except Buonaparte, could have had the slight- 
 est motive for desiring the death of d'Enghien. On the 
 contrary, every motive that has weight with mankind in 
 general, must have swayed the other way with Talley- 
 rand ; a member of one of the noblest families in France ; 
 a man unstained by participation in any of the butcheries 
 of the revolution ; and, above all, a man whose consum- 
 mate skill has through life steadily pursued one object, 
 namely, his own personal interest, and who must havo 
 been mad to perpetrate a gratuitous murder. And, lastly, 
 
254 NAPOLEON BUONArARTE. [1804. 
 
 Talleyrand was minister for foreign affairs. A letter 
 written at Strasburg could by no accident nave been 
 forwarded through his department in the government ; 
 and, in fact, there is perfect proof that the whole business 
 was done by the police, whose chief, Savary, communi- 
 cated directly with the Chief Consul, and the military, 
 who acted under the orders either of Buonaparte's aide- 
 de-camp, Caulaincourt (afterwards Duke of Vicenza), 
 or of his brother-in-law, Murat, the governor of Paris. 
 It is needless to observe that Napoleon's accusation of 
 Talleyi'and dates after that politician had exerted all his 
 talents and influence in the work of procuring his own 
 downfall, and the restoration of the House of Bourbon. 
 But in truth whether Talleyrand, or Savary, or Caulain- 
 court, had the chief hand in the death of the Duke 
 d'Enghien, is a controversy about which posterity will 
 feel little interest. It is obvious to all men, that not 
 one of them durst have stirred a finger to bring about a 
 catastrophe of such fearful importance without the 
 express orders of Napoleon. 
 
 At other times the exile of St. Helena told a shorter 
 and a plainer tale. " I was assailed," said he, " on all 
 hands by the enemies whom the Bourbons had raised uo 
 against me : threatened with air-guns, infernal machines, 
 and stratagems of every kind. There 'was no tribunal to 
 which I could appeal for protection ; therefore I had a 
 right to protect myself. By putting to death one of 
 those whose followers threatened my life, I was entitled 
 to strike a salutary terror into all the rest." 
 
 The princes of the House of Bourbon, so far from 
 stimulating assassins to take off the usurper of their 
 throne, never failed, when such schemes were suggested, 
 to denounce them as atrocities hateful in the sight of 
 God and man. As to chis part of their conduct the 
 proofs are abundant, clear, and irrefragable. But it is 
 
1S04.] DEATH OF PICHEGBU. 2oo 
 
 very possible that Buonaparte entertained tlic foul sus- 
 picion on which he justifies his violence. And, indeed, 
 it is only by supposing him to have sincerely believed 
 that the Bourbons were plotting against his life, that we 
 can at all account for the shedding of d'Enghien's 
 blood. Unless Josephine spake untruly, or her conver- 
 sation has been wilfully misrepresented, she strenuously 
 exerted her influence to procure mercy for the royal 
 victim ; and so, unquestionably, did his venerable 
 mother. But it demanded neither affection for Napoleon's 
 person, nor regard for his interest, nor compassion for the 
 vouth and innocence of the Duke d'Enghien, to perceive 
 the imprudence, as well as wickedness, of the proceeding. 
 The remark of the callous Eouche has passed into a pro- 
 verb, " It was worse than a crime — it was a blunder." 
 
 A few days after the execution of the Duke d'Enghien 
 (on the morning of the 7th of April), General Pichegru 
 was found dead in prison ; a black handkerchief was 
 tied round his neck, and tightened by the twisting of a 
 short stick, like a tourniquet. It could not appear 
 probable that he should have terminated his own life by 
 such means ; and, accordingly, the rumour spread that 
 he had been taken off in the night by some of the satel- 
 lites of Savaty ; or, according to others, by some Mame- 
 lukes whom Napoleon had brought with him from the 
 East, and now retained near his person as an interior 
 body-guard of the palace. This is a mystery which has 
 never been penetrated. The recent fate of d'Enghien 
 had prepared men to receive any story of this dark 
 nature ; and it was argued that Buonaparte had feared 
 to bring Pichegru, a bold and dauntless man, into an 
 open court, where he might have said many things well 
 calculated to injure the Consul in public opinion.* 
 
 * About a year afterwards Captain Wright was found dead in 
 faia dungeon in the Temple, with his throat cut from ear to ear. 
 
256 NAPOLEON BUONAPAUTE. [1804. 
 
 The other prisoners were now brought to trial. There 
 was not a shadow of evidence against General Moreau, 
 except the fact, admitted bj himself, that he had been 
 twice in company with Pichegru since his return to 
 Paris. He in vain protested that he had rejected the 
 proposals of Pichegru to take part in a royalist insurrec- 
 tion ; and, as for the murderous designs of Georges 
 Cadoudal, that he had never even heard of them. He 
 was sentenced to two years' confinement ; but, on the 
 intercession of his wife with Josephine, or rather on 
 finding that a great part of the soldiery considered so 
 eminent a commander as hardly used, the Chief Consul, 
 ere long, commuted this punishment for two years of 
 exile. 
 
 Moreau was innocent ; by his side, on the day of trial, 
 appeared men who would have scorned to be so. Georges 
 Cadoudal appeared in court with the miniature of Louis 
 XVI. suspended round his neck, and gloi'ied in the 
 avowal of his resolution to make war personally on the 
 usurper of the throne. The presiding judge, Thuriot, 
 had been one of those who condemned the king to death. 
 Georges punned on his name, and addressed him as 
 " Monsieur Tue-Roi."* When called up for sentence, 
 the judge missed the miniature and asked him what he 
 had done with it ? " And you," answered the prisoner, 
 " what have you done with the original ?" — a retort 
 which nothing could prevent the audience from applaud- 
 ing. Georges and eighteen more were condemned to 
 death ; and he, and eleven besides, suffered the penalty 
 
 This mystery has hitherto remained in equal darkness; but 
 Buonaparte was far from Paris at the period of Wright's death, 
 and, under all the circumstances of the case, there seems to he no 
 reason for supposing that he could have had any concern in that 
 tragedy. 
 
 * i. e. Kill-king. 
 
1804.1 DUKE D EXGHIEN. 257 
 
 with heroic firmness. Of the rest, among whom were 
 two sons of the nohle house of Polignac, some were per- 
 mitted to escape, on condition of perpetual banishment ; 
 others bad their punishment commuted to imprisonment. 
 
 With what indignation the death of the Duke 
 d'Engbien had been heard of throughout Europe, now 
 began to appear. The Emperor of Russia and the 
 Kings of Sweden and Denmark put their courts into 
 mourning, and made severe remonstrances through their 
 diplomatic agents; and the correspondence which ensued 
 laid the train for another general burst of war. Austria 
 was humbled for the time, and durst not speak out ; 
 Prussia could hardly be expected to break her long neu- 
 trality on such an occasion ; but wherever the story 
 went, it prepared the minds of princes as of subjects, to 
 take advantage of the first favourable opportunity for 
 rising against the tyranny of France. 
 
 A conspiracy suppressed never fails to strengthen the 
 power it was meant to destroy ; and Buonaparte, after 
 the tragedies of d'Engbien and Pichegru, beheld the 
 French royalists reduced everywhere to the silence and 
 the inaction of terror. Well understanding the national 
 temper, he gave orders that henceforth the name of the 
 exiled family should be as much as possible kept out of 
 view ; and, accordingly, after this time it was hardly 
 ever alluded to in the productions of the enslaved press 
 of Paris. The adherents of the Bourbons were com- 
 pelled to content themselves with muttering their resent- 
 ment in private saloons, where, however, the Chief 
 Consul commonly had spies — who reported to him, or to 
 his Savarys and Fouches, the jests and the caricatures in 
 which the depressed and hopeless party endeavoured to 
 find some consolation. 
 
 In order to check the hostile feeling excited among 
 the sovereigns of the continent by the murder of the 
 
258 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1804. 
 
 Bourbon Prince, the French government were now in- 
 defatigable in their efforts to connect the conspiracy of 
 Georges Catloudal with the cabinet of England. The 
 agents of the police transformed themselves into num- 
 berless disguises, with the view of drawing the British 
 ministers resident at various courts of Germany into 
 some correspondence capable of being misrepresented, 
 so as to suit the purpose of their master. Mr. Drake, 
 envoy at Munich, and Mr. Spencer Smith, at Stuttgard, 
 were deceived in this fashion ; and some letters of theirs, 
 egregiously misinterpreted, furnished Buonaparte with 
 a pretext for complaining, to the sovereigns to whom 
 they were accredited, that they had stained the honour 
 of the diplomatic body by leaguing themselves with the 
 schemes of the Chouan conspirators. The subservient 
 princes were forced to dismiss these gentlemen from 
 their residences ; but the English ministry made such 
 explanations in open Parliament as effectually vindicated 
 the name of their country. Lord Elgin, British ambas- 
 sador at Constantinople, had been one of those travellers 
 detained at the out-breaking of the war, and was now 
 resident on his parole in the south of France. He was, 
 on some frivolous pretext, confined in a solitary castle 
 among the Pyrenees ; and there every device was prac- 
 tised, to induce him to, at least, receive letters calculated, 
 if discovered in his possession, to compromise him. But 
 this nobleman, sagaciously penetrating the design, baffled 
 it by his reserve. Being liberated from confinement 
 shortly after, he communicated what had happened to a 
 friend, a member of the French Senate, who traced the 
 matter home to some of Fouche's creatures, and con- 
 gratulated Lord Elgin on having avoided very narrowly 
 the fate of Pichegru. 
 
 Sir George Rumbold, the British minister at Ham- 
 burg, escaped that consummation still more narrowly. 
 
1804.] EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH. 259 
 
 During the night of the 23d October, a party of French 
 soldiers passed the Elbe, as Ordonner and his gang had 
 crossed the Rhine on the 1-ith of March, and boldly- 
 seized Rumbold within the territory of an independent 
 and friendly state. He was hurried to Paris, and con- 
 fined in the fated dungeons of the Temple ; but none of 
 his papers afforded any plausible pretext for resisting 
 the powerful remonstrances which the King of Prussia 
 thought fit to make against an outrage perpetrated 
 almost within sight of his dominions ; and, after a few 
 days, Sir George was set at liberty. 
 
 Meantime, while all the princes of Europe regarded 
 with indignation (though few of them, indeed, dared to 
 express the feeling openly), the cruel tragedies which 
 had been acted in France, the death of Pichegru had 
 suppressed effectually the hopes of the royalists in that 
 country, and the exile of Moreau deprived the republi- 
 cans of the only leader under whom there was any like- 
 lihood of their taking arms against the Chief Consul. 
 He resolved to profit by the favourable moment for com- 
 pleting a purpose which he had long meditated; and, on 
 the 30th of April, little more than a month after the 
 Duke d'Enghieu died, one Curee was employed to move, 
 in the Tribunate, " that it was time to bid adieu to poli- 
 tical illusions — that victory had brought back tranquil- 
 lity — the finances of the country had been restored, and 
 the laws renovated — and that it was a matter of duty to 
 secure those blessings to the nation in future, by render- 
 ing the supreme power hereditary in the person and 
 family of Napoleon." — "Such," he said, "was the 
 universal desire of the army and of the people. The 
 title of Emperor, in his opinion, was that by which Na- 
 poleon should be hailed, as best corresponding to the 
 dignity of the nation." 
 
 This motion was carried in the Tribunate, with one 
 
260 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1804. 
 
 dissenting voice, that of Carnot ; who, in a speech of 
 great eloquence, resisted the principle of hereditary 
 monarchy altogether. He admitted the merits in war 
 and in policy of the Chief Consul — he was at present the 
 Dictator of the Republic, and, as such, had saved it. — 
 " Fabius, Camillus, Cincinnatus were dictators also. 
 Why should not Buonaparte, like them, lay down des- 
 potic power, after the holding of it had ceased to be ne- 
 cessary to the general good ? Let the services of a 
 citizen be what they might, was there to be no limit to 
 the gratitude of the nation ? But at all events, even 
 granting that Buonaparte himself could not be too highly 
 rewarded, or too largely trusted, why commit the fortunes 
 of posterity to chance ? Why forget that Vespasian was 
 the father of Domitian, Germanicus of Caligula, Marcus 
 Aurelius of Commodus ?" In effect, Carnot, colleague 
 as he had been of Robespierre, and stained as he was 
 with the blood of Louis XVI., was a sincere republican ; 
 and, after his own fashion, a sincere patriot. He was 
 alone in the Tribunate — the rest of whose members pro- 
 longed, during three whole days, a series of fulsome 
 harangues, every one of which terminated in the same 
 implicit agreement to the proposal of Cur6e. 
 
 The legislative body, without hesitation, adopted it ; 
 and a senatus-consultum forthwith appeared, by which 
 Napoleon Buonaparte was declared Emperor of the 
 French : the empire to descend in the male line of his 
 body : in case of having no son, Napoleon might adopt 
 any son or grandson of his brothers as his heir : in de- 
 fault of such adoption, Joseph and Louis Buonaparte 
 were named as the next heirs of the crown ( Lucien and 
 Jerome being passed over, as they had both given offence 
 to Napoleon by their marriages). The members of 
 Napoleon's family were declared princes of the blood of 
 Fi ance. 
 
1804.] EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH. 261 
 
 This decree was sent down to the departments : and 
 the people received it with indifference. The Prefects 
 reported, on the 1st of December, that between three 
 and four millions of citizens had subscribed their assent 
 to the proposed measure, while not many more than 
 three thousand voted in opposition to it. This result 
 indicated, as these functionaries chose to say, the una- 
 nimous approbation of the French people. That nation, 
 however, consisted at the time of more than thirty 
 millions ! 
 
 But Napoleon did not wait for this authority, such as 
 it proved to be. On the 18th of May (more than six 
 months ere the report reached him) he openly assumed 
 the imperial title and dignity. On the same day he no- 
 minated his late colleagues in the Consulate, Cambaceres 
 and Le Brun, the former to be Arch- Chancellor, the 
 latter Arch-Treasurer of the Empire. The offices of 
 High- Constable, Grand Admiral, &c, wei*e revived, and 
 bestowed on his brothers, and others of his immediate 
 connections. Seventeen generals (viz., Berthier, Marat, 
 Moncey, Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, 
 Brune, Lannes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust, Bessieres, Keller- 
 man, Lefebre, Perignon, Semirier) were named Marshals 
 of the Empire ; Duroc, Grand Marshal of the Palace ; 
 Caulaincourt, Master of the Horse ; Berthier, Grand 
 Huntsman ; and Count Segur, a nobleman of the ancient 
 regime. Master of the Ceremonies. It was in vain at- 
 tempted to excite popular enthusiasm. " It appeared," 
 says an eye-witness, " as if the shades of d'Enghien and 
 Pichegru had hovered over the scene, and spread cold- 
 ness on all that was meant for the manifestation of joy." 
 It was not so with the soldiery. Napoleon, with his 
 Empress, visited the camps at Boulogne, and was received 
 with the excess of military applause and devotion. He 
 made a progress to Aix-la-Cliapelle, and along the 
 
2G2 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, [1804. 
 
 Rhenish frontier, flattered and extolled at every station. 
 Except Russia, Sweden, and England, every crown in 
 Europe sent to congratulate him on his enrolment in the 
 body of hereditary monarchs. Nay, not a few of the 
 smaller German potentates came in person to swell, 
 on this great occasion, the state and magnificence of the 
 new imperial court. 
 
 In assuming the title of Emperor, not of King, it 
 escaped not observation that Napoleon's object was to 
 carry back the minds of the French to a period antece- 
 dent tu Ihe rule of the recently dethroned dynasty — to 
 the days of Charlemagne, who, with the monarchy of 
 France, combined both a wider dominion and a loftier 
 style. As that great conqueror had caused himself to be 
 crowned by Pope Leo, so Napoleon now determined 
 that his own inauguration should take place under the 
 auspices of Pius VII. ; nay, that the more to illustrate 
 his power, the head of the Catholic church should repair 
 to Paris for this purpose. It may be doubted whether, 
 in this measure, he regarded more the mere gratification 
 of his pride, or the chance of conferring a character of 
 greater solemnity on the installation of the new dynasty, 
 in the eyes of the Catholic population of France. On 
 the 5th of November, however; the unresisting Pope left 
 Rome, and, having been received throughout his pro- 
 gress with every mark of respect and veneration, arrived 
 in Paris to bear his part in the great pageant. On the 
 2d of December Buonaparte and Josephine appeared, 
 amidst all that was splendid and illustrious in their 
 capital, and were crowned in Notre-Dame. The Pope 
 blessed them and consecrated the diadems ; but these 
 were not placed on their heads by his hand. That office, 
 in either case, Napoleon himself performed. Through- 
 out the ceremonial his aspect was thoughtful ; it was on 
 a stern and gloomy brow that he with his own hands 
 
1804.] THE CORONATION. 263 
 
 planted the symbol of successful ambition and uneasy 
 power, and the shouts of the deputies present, carefully- 
 selected for the purpose, sounded faint and hollow 
 amidst the silence of the people. 
 
 As a necessary sequel to these proceedings in Paris, 
 the senators of the Italian republic now sent in their 
 humble petition, that their president might be pleased 
 to do them also the favour to be crowned as their king 
 at Milan. The Emperor proceeded to that city accord- 
 ingly, and, in like fashion, on the 26th of May, 1805, 
 placed on his own head the old iron crown of the Lom- 
 bard kings, uttering the words which, according to tra- 
 dition, they were accustomed to use on such occasions, 
 " God hath given it me. Beiuare icho touches it." Na- 
 poleon henceforth styled himself Emperor of the French 
 and King of Italy, but announced that the two crowns 
 should not be held by the same person after his death. 
 
 It was not, however, for mere purposes of ceremonial 
 that he had once more passed the Alps. The Ligurian 
 republic sent the Doge to Milan, to congratulate the 
 King of Italy, and also to offer their territories for the 
 formation of another department of the French empire. 
 But this was a step of his ambition which led to serious 
 results. 
 
 Meantime, Eugene Beauharnois, son to Josephine, 
 was left Viceroy at Milan, and the imperial pair returned 
 to Paris. 
 
264 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1805. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Ne>v Coalition against France — Sweden — Russia — Austria joins the 
 Alliance— Napoleon heads the Army in Germany — Ulm sur~ 
 rendered by Mack — Vienna taken— Naval Operations— Battle of 
 Trafalgar — Battle of Austerlitz — Treaty of Fresburg — Joseph 
 Buonaparte King of Naples — Louis Buonaparte King of Holland 
 — Confederation of the Rhine— New Nobility in France. 
 
 On the 27th of January, 1805, Napoleon, in his new 
 character of Emperor, addressed a letter (as he had done 
 before at the commencement of his Consulate) to King 
 George III. in person ; and was answered, as before, by 
 the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The 
 new Emperor's letter contained many well-turned sen- 
 tences about the blessings of peace, but no distinct pro- 
 position of any kind — least of all, any hint that he was 
 willing to concede Malta. The English minister, how- 
 ever, answered simply, that in the present state of 
 relations between the cabinet of St. James's and that of 
 St. Petersburg, it was impossible for the former to open 
 any negotiation without the consent of the latter. 
 
 This sufficiently indicated a fact of which Napoleon 
 had just suspicion some time before. The murder of the 
 Duke d'Enghien had been regarded with horror by the 
 young Emperor of Russia ; ho had remonstrated vigor- 
 ously, and his reclamations had been treated with 
 indifference. The King of Sweden, immediately after he 
 heard of the catastrophe of Vincennes, had made known 
 his sentiments to the Czar — a strict alliance had been 
 signed between those two courts about a fortnight 
 before Napoleon wrote to the King of England ; and it 
 was obvious that the northern powers had resolved to take 
 part with Great Britain in her struggle against France. 
 
1805.] 
 
 NEW COALITION 1 AGAINST FRANCE. 265 
 
 The Consul now made the Monti w the vehicle of con- 
 tinual abuse against the sovereigns of Russia and 
 Sweden ; and the latter caused a note to be handed to 
 the French minister at Stockholm, complaining of the 
 " indecent and ridiculous insolence which Monsieur 
 Buonaparte had permitted to be inserted" in that official 
 journal. 
 
 The cabinets of London, Petersburg, and Stockholm 
 were parties in a league which had avowedly the follow- 
 ing objects : to restore the independence of Holland and 
 Switzerland; to free the north of Germany from the 
 presence of French troops ; to procure the restoration of 
 Piedmont to the King of Sardinia; and, finally, the 
 evacuation of Italy by Napoleon. Until, by the attain- 
 ment of these objects, the sway of France should be 
 reduced to limits compatible with the independence of 
 the other European states, no peace was to be signed by 
 any of the contracting powers; and, during several 
 months, every means was adopted to procure the asso- 
 ciation of Austria and Prussia, But the latter of these 
 sovereigns had the misfortune at this time to have a 
 strong French party in his council, and, though person- 
 ally hostile to Napoleon, could not as yet count on being 
 supported in a war against him by the hearty goodwill 
 of an undivided people. Austria, on the other hand, 
 had been greviously weakened by the campaign of Mar- 
 engo, and hesitated, on prudential grounds, to commit 
 herself once more to the hazard of arms. 
 
 Alexander repaired in person to Bei-lin, for the pur- 
 pose of stimulating the King of Prussia. The two 
 sovereigns met in the vault where the great Frederick 
 lies buried, and swore solemnly, over his remains, to 
 effect the liberation of Germany. But though thus 
 pledged to the Czar, the King of Prussia did not hastily 
 rush into hostilities. He did not even follow the 
 
266 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1805. 
 
 example of Austria, whose forbearance was at length 
 wholly exhausted by the news of the coronation at 
 Milan, and the annexation of Genoa to the empire of 
 France. 
 
 The government of Vienna no sooner heard of this 
 new aggrandizement, than it commenced warlike pre- 
 parations, rashly and precipitately, without making sure 
 of the co-operation of Berlin, or even waiting until the 
 troops of Russia could perform the march into Germany. 
 But this great fault was not the greatest. The Emperor 
 hauebtily demanded that the Elector of Bavaria should 
 take the field also ; nay, that he should suffer his army 
 to be entirely incorporated with the Austrian, and com- 
 manded by its chiefs. The Elector, who had a son 
 travelling in France, resisted anxiously and strenuously. 
 " On my knees," he wrote to the Emperor, " I beg of 
 you that I may be permitted to remain neutral." This 
 appeal was disregarded. The Austrian troops advanced 
 into Bavaria, where they appear to have conducted 
 themselves as in an enemy's country ; and the indignant 
 Elector withdrew his army into Franconia, where he 
 expected the advance of the French as liberators. 
 
 This unjustifiable behaviour was destined to be severely 
 punished. No sooner did Napoleon understand that war 
 was inevitable, than he broke up his great army on the 
 coast opposite to England, and directed its march upon 
 the German frontier ; while Massena received orders to 
 assume, also, the offensive in Italy, and force his way, if 
 possible, into the hereditary states of Austria. The 
 favourite scbeme of Carnot was thus revived, and two 
 French armies, one crossing the Rhine, and the other 
 pushing through the Tyrolese, looked forward to a junc- 
 tion before the walls of Vienna. 
 
 The rashness which had characterised the conduct of 
 the Cabinet of Vienna, was fatally followed out in that 
 
1805.] GENERAL MACK. 207 
 
 of its general, Mack : instead of occupying the line of 
 the River Inn, which, extending from the Tyrol to the 
 Danube at Passan, affords a strong defence to the Aus- 
 trian territory, and on which he might have expected, in 
 comparative safety, the arrival of the Russians — this 
 unworthy favourite of the Emperor left the Inn behind 
 him, and established his head-quarters on the western 
 frontier of Bavaria, at Ulm. 
 
 Napoleon hastened to profit by this unpardonable 
 error. Bernadotte advanced from Hanover, with the 
 troops which had occupied that electorate, towards 
 ^Yurtzburg, where the Bavarian army lay ready to join 
 its strength to his ; five divisions of the great force 
 lately assembled on the coasts of Normandy, under the 
 orders of Davoust, Key, Soult, Marmont, and Vandamme, 
 crossed the Rhine at different points, all to the north- 
 ward of Mack's position ; while a sixth, under Murat, 
 passing at Kehl, manoeuvred in such a manner as to 
 withdraw the Austrian's attention from these movements, 
 and to strengthen him in his belief that Napoleon and 
 all his army were coming against him through the Black 
 Forest in his front. 
 
 The consequence of Buonaparte's combinations was, 
 that while Mack lay expecting to be assaulted in front 
 of Ulm, the great body of the French army advanced 
 into the heart of Germany, by the left side of the 
 Danube, aud then, throwing themselves across that 
 river, took ground in his rear, interrupting his commu- 
 nication with Vienna, aud isolating him. In order thac 
 Bernadotte and the Bavarians might have a part in this 
 great manoeuvre, it was necessary that they should dis- 
 regard the neutrality of the Prussian territories of 
 Anspach and Bareuth ; and Napoleon, well aware of the 
 real sentiments of the court of Berlin, did not hesitate 
 to adopt this course. Prussia remonstrated indignantlv, 
 
 10 
 
268 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1805. 
 
 but still held back from proclaiming war ; and Napoleon 
 cared little for such impediments as mere diplomacy- 
 could throw in the way of his campaign. He did not, 
 however, effect his purpose of taking up a position in 
 the rear of Mack without resistance. On the contrary, 
 at various places, at Wertenghen, Guntzburg, Memingen, 
 and Elchingen, severe skirmishes occurred with different 
 divisions of the Austrian army, in all of which the French 
 had the advantage. General Spangenburg and 500 J 
 men laid down their arms at Memingen ; and, in all, 
 not less than 20,000 prisoners fell into the hands of the 
 French between the 20th of September, when they 
 crossed the Rhine, and the ] 3th of October, when they 
 were in full possession of Bavaria and Swabia, holding 
 Mack cooped up behind them in Uim — as Wurmser had 
 been in Mantua, during the campaign of Alvinzi. 
 
 But Mack was no Wurmser. Napoleon's recent 
 movements had perplexed utterly the counsels of the 
 Austrians, whose generals, adopting different views of 
 the state of the campaign, no longer acted in unison. 
 Schwartzenberg, and the Archduke Ferdinand, consider- 
 ing further resistance in Bavaria as hopeless, cut their 
 way, at the head of large bodies of cavalry, into Bohemia, 
 and began to rouse the inhabitants of that kingdom to 
 a levy en masse. The French Emperor, perceiving that 
 they had for the present escaped him, drew back upon 
 Ulm, invested that town on every side, and summoned 
 Mack to surrender. 
 
 The gai-rison consisted of full 20,000 good troops; the 
 place was amply victualled and stored ; the advance of 
 the great Russian army could not be distant ; the decla- 
 ration of war against Napoleon by Berlin was hourly to 
 be expected ; and the armies of Austria, though scattered 
 for the present, would be sure to rally and make every 
 effort for the relief of Ulm. Under circumstances com- 
 
1805.] SURRENDER OF ULM. 269 
 
 paratively hopeless tlie brave Wurmser held Mantua to 
 extremity. But in spite of example or argument, in 
 terror or in treacheiy, General Mack capitulated with- 
 out hazarding a blow. 
 
 On the 16th be publisbed a proclamation, urging his 
 troops to prepare for the utmost pertinacity of defence, 
 and forbidding, on pain of death, the very word mrrffnde)' 
 to be breathed within the walls of Ulm. On the 17th 
 he signed articles by which hostilities were immediately 
 to cease, and he and all his men to surrender themselves 
 prisoners of war within ten days, unless some Austrian 
 or Russian force should appear in the interval, and at- 
 tempt to raise the blockade. After signing this docu- 
 ment, Mack visited, in person, the head-quarters of Na- 
 poleon ; and, whatever the nature of their conversation 
 may have been, the result was, a revision of the treaty 
 on the 19th, and the formal evacuation of Ulm on the 
 20th. Twenty thousand soldiers filed off, and laid down 
 their arms before Napoleon and his staff. Eighteen 
 generals were dismissed on parole ; an immense quantity 
 of ammunition of all sorts fell into the hands of the 
 victor ; and a waggon filled with Austrian standards 
 was sent to gratify the vanity of the Parisians. 
 
 The catastrophe of Ulm, striking new terror into the 
 Prussian counsels, prevented the violation of the terri- 
 tory of Anspach from being immediately followed by the 
 declaration of war, for which Buonaparte must have 
 made up his mind when he hazarded that measure. 
 Meantime success had attended Massena in his ad- 
 vance from Lombardy towards the Venetian states, 
 where the Archduke Charles commanded an army of 
 »00 men for Austria. The Archduke, after sustaining 
 various reverses, was forced to abandon Italy; and re- 
 treated, though slowly and leisurely, before Massena, 
 through the strong passes of the Cariuthian mountains. 
 
270 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1805. 
 
 Nor had Marshal Ney, whom Napoleon had detached 
 from his own main army with orders to advance in the 
 Tyrol, been less successful than Massena. The Arch- 
 duke John, who commanded in that province, was 
 beaten like his brother ; and the outposts of the army of 
 Massena from Italy, and that of Ney from the Upper 
 Rhine, at length met and saluted in triumph at Clagen- 
 furt. The Archduke Charles, understanding how Ney 
 was prospering in the Tyrol, had given up the design of 
 retreating by that way into Germany, and proceeded 
 through the Carinthian Mountains towards Hungary. 
 Prince John now followed his brother's example ; and, 
 the remains of those two armies thus coalescing in a 
 distant region, the divisions of Ney and Massena came 
 to be at the immediate disposal of Napoleon, who was 
 now concentrating his force for the purpose of attacking 
 Vienna. 
 
 While the victorious corps of Ney thus secured his 
 right, Murat, on his left, watched the Austrians who 
 had made their way into Bohemia ; and Augereau, who 
 had now advanced at the head of a large reserve from 
 France, remained behind him in Swabia, to guard the 
 passes from the Voralberg, in case of any hostile move- 
 ment from that mountainous province, and, at the same 
 time, to be ready for action against the Prussians, 
 should that army at length receive orders to take part 
 in the war, and cross the Danube. Thus guarded, as he 
 judged, against any chance of having his communications 
 intercepted in the rear or flanks, Napoleon himself, with 
 the main body, now moved on the capital of the German 
 Emperor. Austrian and Russian troops, to the number 
 of 45,000, had been thrown together with the view of 
 relieving Ulm, and advanced considerably for that pur- 
 pose ere they heard of the treacherous capitulation of 
 Mack. They now retired again before the movement of 
 
1805.] VIENNA TAKEN. 271 
 
 Napoleon, halting, indeed, occasionally, and assuming the 
 aspect of determination ; but, whenever the outposts 
 met, losing heart, and continuing their progress towards 
 Moravia — for there, at length, the Czar, with his princi- 
 pal army, had made his appearance ; and there, around 
 that standard, every disposable force was now to be 
 rallied. The Emperor Francis himself, perceiving that 
 Vienna was incapable of defence, quitted his capital on 
 the 7th of November, and proceeded to Brunn, in 
 Moravia, the head-quarters of Alexander. 
 
 On the same evening Count Giulay reached Napoleon's 
 head-quarters at Lintz, with proposals for an immediate 
 armistice and negotiation. Buonaparte refused to pause 
 unless the Tyrol and Venice were instantly ceded to 
 him. These were terms to which the Austrian envoy 
 had no authority to submit. On the 13th of November, 
 accordingly, the French entered Vienna, and Napoleon 
 took up Ids residence at the Castle of Schoenbrun, the 
 proud palace of the Austrian Caesars. General Clarke 
 was appointed governor of the city ; and the Elector of 
 Bavaria was gratified with a large share of the military 
 stores and equipments found in its arsenal. 
 
 But the intoxication of this success was to be sobered 
 by a cup of bitterness — and from a hand which had 
 already dashed more than one of Napoleon's proudest 
 triumphs. 
 
 When Buonaparte took up arms again, and devoted 
 every energy of his mind to the descent upon England, 
 Spain, the next maritime power after France, professed, 
 indeed, neutrality — but, by some of her proceedings, 
 raised the suspicion that her fleet was really destined to 
 act along with that of the invader. The English govern- 
 ment resolved to bring this matter to the test : and a 
 squadron of four ships demanded a similar force of the 
 Spaniards to yield themselves into their keeping as a 
 
272 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1805. 
 
 pledge of neutrality. The British squadron sent on such 
 an errand ought, on every principle of policy and 
 humanity, to have been much stronger than that which 
 Commodore Moore commanded on this occasion. The 
 Castilian pride took fire at the idea of striking to an 
 equal foe ; and, unhappily, an action took place, in which 
 three of the Spanish ships were captured, and one blown 
 up. This catastrophe determined, as might have been 
 expected, the wavering counsels of Madrid. Spain de- 
 clared war against England, and placed her fleets at the 
 command of the French Emperor. 
 
 Two of his own squadrons, meantime, had, in pursu- 
 ance of the great scheme traced for the ruin of England, 
 escaped early in this year out of Rochefort and Toulon. 
 The former, passing into the West Indies, effected some 
 trivial services, and returned in safety to their original 
 port. The latter, under Villeneuve, had like fortune ; 
 and, venturing on a second sortie, joined the great 
 Spanish fleet under Gravina at Cadiz. The combined 
 fleets then crossed the Atlantic, where they captured an 
 insignificant island, and once more returned towards 
 Europe. Nelson had spent the summer in chasing these 
 squadrons across the seas — and on this occasion they 
 once more eluded his grasp : but on approaching Cape 
 Finisterre, (22d July) another English squadron of 
 fifteen sail of the line and two frigates, under Sir Robert 
 Calder, came in view : and the allied admirals, having 
 twenty sail of the line, three fifty gun ships, and four 
 frigates, did not avoid the encounter. They were 
 worsted, notwithstanding their superiority of strength, 
 and Calder captured two of their best ships. But that 
 they escaped from an English fleet, howsoever inferior 
 in numbers, without sustaining severer loss than this, 
 was considered as a disgrace by the British public. — 
 Calder, being tried by a court-martial, was actually 
 
1805.] TRAFALGAR 273 
 
 censured for not having improved his success more 
 signally ; a striking example of the height to which con- 
 fidence in the naval superiority of the English had been 
 raised, at the very time when no arm appeared capable 
 of thwarting the career of French victory by land. 
 
 Villeneuve and Gravina now made their way to Vigo, 
 and thence finally to Cadiz : while Nelson, having at 
 length received accurate intelligence of their motions, 
 took the command in the Mediterranean, and lay watch- 
 ing for the moment in which they should be tempted to 
 hazard another egress. The coasts of Spain being 
 strictly blockaded, some difficulty began to be felt about 
 providing necessaries for the numerous crews of the 
 allied fleets ; but the circumstance which had most in- 
 fluence in leading them to quit, once more, their place of 
 safety, was, according to general admission, the im- 
 patience of Villeneuve under some unmerited reproaches 
 with which Napoleon visited the results of the battle off 
 Cape Finisterre. Villeneuve, a man of dauntless gal- 
 lantry and the highest spirit, smarting under this in- 
 jury, was anxious to take the noble revenge of victory. 
 And, in truth, had numbers been to decide the adven- 
 ture, he ran little risk; for Nelson commanded only 
 twenty-seven sail of the line, and three frigates, manned 
 in the ordinary manner ; whereas the fleet in Cadiz 
 mustered thirty-three ships of the line and seven frigates ; 
 and, besides the usual crews, carried 4,000 troops, chiefly 
 riflemen. The result was the most glorious day in the 
 proud annals of the English Marine. The combined 
 fleets sailed from Cadiz on the 19th of October, and on 
 the morning of the 21st — the very day after Mack sur- 
 rendered at Ulm — they came in sight of the English 
 Admiral, off Cape Trafalgar. 
 
 The reader is referred to the historian of Lord Nelson 
 for the particulars of this great action. The French and 
 
274 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1805. 
 
 Spaniards awaited the attack in a doable line. Nelson 
 hoisted the famous signal " England expects every man 
 to do his duty ;" charged in two columns, and broke 
 their array at the first onset. The battle, nevertheless, 
 was sternly contested. In the end nineteen ships of the 
 line were taken ; and of those Spanish vessels which 
 escaped into Cadiz, seven had been rendered wholly un- 
 serviceable. Four French ships of the line, under Com- 
 modore Dumanoir, made way for the Straits, and were 
 captured a few days after by Sir Richard Strachan, 
 commander of the English squadron off Rochefort. The 
 fleets of France and Spain were annihilated ; yet, great 
 as was the triumph, glorious and unrivalled, it was 
 dearly purchased — for Nelson fell, mortally wounded, 
 early in the action. The hero lived just long enough to 
 hear the cheer of consummated victory ; and then 
 breathed out his noble spirit, in words worthy of his 
 life, "Thank God ! I have done my duty."* 
 
 * " Lamented hero ! when to Britain's shoro 
 Exulting Fame those awful tidings bore, 
 Joy's bursting shout in whelming grief was drowned 
 And Victory's self unwilling audience found ; 
 On every brow the cloud of sadness hung ; 
 The sounds of triumph died on every tongue. 
 Yet not the vows thy weeping country pays ; 
 Not that high meed, thy mourning sovereign's prahe, 
 Not that the great, the beauteous, and the brave 
 Bend in mute reverence o'er thy closing grave ; 
 That with such grief as bathes a kindred bier 
 Collective nations mourn a death so dear ; 
 Not these alone shall soothe thy sainted shade, 
 And consecrate the spot where thou art laid — 
 Not these alone!— but bursting thro' the gloom, 
 With radiant glory from thy trophied tomb, 
 The sacred splendour of thy deathless name 
 Shall grace and guard thy country's martial fame; 
 Far seen shall blaze the unextinguished ray, 
 
1805.] TRAFALGAR. 275 
 
 The French and Spaniards had fought together 
 against Nelson ; but not in the same spirit. The 
 former were determined and malignant enemies ; the 
 latter generous friends, hurried, by the excitement 
 of temporary and pardonable passion, into hostilities 
 against the only power which could afford their country 
 any chance of avoiding that political slavery, under 
 which it was now the settled purpose of Napoleon's am- 
 bition to crush every nation of Europe. But the 
 unprincipled conduct of Dumanoir, who escaped from 
 Nelson to be captured shortly after, as has been men- 
 tioned, by Strachan, at once brought out the different 
 feelings under which the two allied fleets had been acting. 
 This French officer, retreating with his four ships, which 
 had no part in the battle, discharged his broadsides, as 
 he passed, into English vessels no longer capable of 
 pursuit, — conduct which, as the victory was complete, 
 could have no object but that of carnage. Nay, such 
 was the ruffian nature of this man's soul, he fired into 
 the Spanish ships which had yielded to the English, 
 thus, for the sake of trivially injuring his enemy, sacri- 
 ficing without scruple the blood of his own unfortunate 
 friends. The Spanish prisoners, in their indignation at 
 this brutality, asked their English captors to permit them 
 to man their guns against the retreating French ; and 
 such was the earnestness of their intreaty, and the con- 
 fidence of Englishmen in the honour of Spaniards, that 
 these men actually were permitted to do as they had 
 requested. A mutual interchange of good offices ensued. 
 In the evening after the battle a gale sprung up, and 
 some of the captured vessels drifting on shore, a number 
 
 A mighty beacon lighting glory's way — 
 \Yith living lustre this proud land adorn, 
 And shine, and save, thro' ages yet unborn." * 
 
 • Ulm and Trafalgar, a poem, bv the night Hon. George Canning. 
 
276 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1805. 
 
 of British seamen fell into tlie hands of the garrison of 
 Cadiz. They were received as friends : for the accom- 
 modation of their wounded the Spanish soldiers gave up 
 their own beds. Collingwood, who suceeded to Nelson's 
 command, sent all the wounded Spaniards on shore to 
 be cured in their own country, merely taking their pa- 
 role that they would not serve again during the war ; 
 and tbe governor of Cadiz, with still more romantic 
 generosity, offered his hospitals for the use of Colling- 
 wood's wounded seamen, pledging the honour of the 
 Spanish name that they should be cared for like his own 
 men, and sent back to their admiral whenever they had 
 recovered. It will appear, hereafter, what illustrious 
 consequences the kindly feelings thus manifested were 
 destined to produce. 
 
 Buonaparte, when he heard of this mighty discom- 
 fiture, which for ever put an end to all his visions of 
 invading England, is said to have lost that possession of 
 himself, which he certainly maintained when the catas- 
 trophe of Aboukir was announced to him at Cairo. Yet 
 arrogance mingled strangely in his expressions of sor- 
 row. — " I cannot be everywhere," said he to the mes- 
 senger of the evil tidings — as if Napoleon could have 
 had any more chance of producing victory by his pre- 
 sence at Trafalgar, than Nelson would have dreamed of 
 having by appearing on horseback at Marengo. In his 
 newspapers, and even in his formal messages to the 
 senate at Paris, Buonaparte always persisted in denying 
 that there had been a great defeat at Trafalgar, or even 
 a great battle. But how well he appreciated the facts of 
 the case was well known to the unfortunate Admiral 
 Villeneuve. That brave officer, after spending a short 
 time in England, was permitted to return to France 
 on his parole. He died almost immediately afterwards at 
 Rennes : whether by his own hand, in the agony of de- 
 
1805.] AUSTERLITZ. 277 
 
 spair, as the French Gazette asserted, or assassinated, as 
 was commonly believed at the time, by some of the 
 blood-hardened minions of Fouche's police, is a mystery 
 not yet cleared np ; and, perhaps, never destined to bo 
 so until the day comes in which nothing shall be hid. 
 
 The tidings of Trafalgar, after the first moment, served 
 but as a new stimulus to the fire of Napoleon's energy. 
 He quitted Vienna, and put himself at the head of his 
 columns, which, passing the Danube into Moravia, soon 
 found themselves within reach of the forces of Russia 
 and Austria, at length combined, and prepared for action, 
 under the eyes of their respective emperors. These 
 princes, on the approach of the French, drew back as far 
 as Olmutz, in order that a reserve of Russians, under 
 Bexhowden, might join them before the decisive struggle 
 took place. Napoleon fixed his head-quarters at Brunn, 
 and, riding over the plain between Brunn and Austerlitz, 
 (a village about two miles from that town) said to his 
 generals, " study this field — we shall, ere long, have to 
 contest it." 
 
 Buonaparte has been much criticised by strategists for 
 the rashness of thus passing the Danube into Moravia, 
 while the Archduke Ferdinand was organizing the 
 Bohemians on his left, the Archdukes Charles and John 
 in Hungary, with still formidable and daily increasing 
 forces on his right, the population of Vienna and the 
 surrounding territories ready to rise, in case of any 
 disaster, in his rear ; and Prussia as decidedly hostile 
 in heart, as she was wavering in policy. The French 
 leader did not disguise from himself the risk of his ad- 
 venture ; but he considered it better to run all that risk, 
 than to linger in Vienna until the armies in Hungary 
 and Bohemia should have had time to reinforce the two 
 emperors. 
 
 Nnpoleon's preparations were as follows : — his left, 
 
278 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1805. 
 
 under Lannes, lay at Santon, a strongly fortified position : 
 Soult commanded the right wing : the centre, under 
 Bernadotte, had with them Murat and all the cavalry. 
 Behind the line lay the reserve, consisting of 20,000, 
 10,000 of whom were of the Imperial guard, under 
 Oudenot : and here Napoleon himself took his station. 
 But besides these open demonstrations, Davoust, with a 
 division of horse and another of foot, lay behind the con- 
 vent of Raygern, considerably in the rear of the French 
 right — being there placed by the Emperor, in consequence 
 of a false movement, into which he, with a seer-like 
 sagacity, foresaw the enemy might, in all likelihood, be 
 tempted ; and to which he lured them on accordingly by 
 every engine of his craft. 
 
 Buonaparte, on learning that the Emperor Alexander 
 was personally in the hostile camp, sent Savary to pre- 
 sent his compliments to that sovereign ; but really, a3 
 we may suppose, to observe as much as he could of the 
 numbers and condition of the troops. Savary, on his 
 return, informed his master that the Russian prince was 
 surrounded by a set of young coxcombs, whose every 
 look and gesture expressed overweening confidence in 
 themselves, and contempt for their opponents. All the 
 reverses of the previous campaign were, as they took 
 care to signify, the result of unpardonable cowardice 
 among the Austrians, whose spirit had been quite broken 
 by the wars in Italy : but they were the countrymen of 
 the same Suwarrow who had beaten the French out of 
 all Buonaparte's Lombard conquests, and the first ge- 
 neral battle would show what sort of enemies the Rus- 
 sians were. How much of this statement is true we 
 know not : it was openly made at the time in one of 
 Buonaparte's bulletins — and, what is of more moment, 
 he appears to have acted on the belief that Savary told 
 the truth. Having, ere he received it, advanced several 
 
1805.] AUSTBRLITZ. 279 
 
 leagues beyond the chosen field of battle, near Austerlitz, 
 he forthwith retreated on that position, with a studied 
 semblance of confusion. The Czar sent a young aide-de- 
 camp to return the compliment carried by Savary ; 
 and this messenger found the French soldiery actively 
 engaged in fortifying their position — the very position 
 which their Emperor had all along determined to occupy. 
 The account of what the young Russian saw in the 
 French lines gave, as Napoleon wished, a new stimulus 
 to the presumption of his enemy ; and, having made the 
 preparations above described, he calmly expected the 
 consequences of their rashness and inexperience. 
 
 On the 1st of December he beheld the commencement 
 of those false movements which he had desired and anti- 
 cipated. On seeing the Russians begin to descend from 
 the heights, on which they might have lain in safety 
 until the Archdukes could come to swell their array 
 with the forces in Bohemia and Hungary, Napoleon did 
 not repress his rapturous joy : " In twenty-four hours," 
 said he, " that army is m i ne." 
 
 Shortly afterwards there arrived Count Haugwitz, an 
 envoy from the King of Prussia, who, being introduced 
 into the Emperor's presence, signified that he was the 
 bearer of an important communication. " Count," said 
 Napoleon, " you may see that the outposts of the armies 
 are almost meeting ; there will be a battle to-morrow ; 
 return to Vienna, and deliver your message when it is 
 over." The envoy did not require two biddings. Na- 
 poleon had all this year been protracting the indecision 
 of the Prussian counsels by holding out the delusive 
 hope, that, were Austria effectually humbled, the 
 imperial crown of Germany might be transferred to the 
 house of Brandenburg. The old jealousies, thus artfully 
 awakened, had been sufficient to prevent a declaration 
 of war from immediately following on the violation of 
 
280 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1805. 
 
 the temtory of Anspach and Bareuth. Tbe interven- 
 tion of tbe Czar bad, it is not to be doubted, at length 
 determined tbe Court of Berlin to close tbeir unworthy 
 neutrality — but Haugwitz had no Prussian army in bis 
 train ; and, seeing what was before him, be certainly 
 did prudently to defer that which had been so unwisely 
 as well as ungenerously put off from month to month, 
 for one day more. 
 
 At one o'clock in the morning of the 2d of December, 
 Napoleon, having slept for an hour by a watch-fire, got 
 on horseback, and proceeded to reconnoitre tbe front of 
 his position. He wished to do so without being recog- 
 nised, but tbe soldiery penetrated the secret, and, light- 
 ing great fires of straw all along the line, received him 
 from post to post with shouts of enthusiasm. Tbey 
 reminded him that this was the anniversary of his coro- 
 nation, and assured bim that they would celebrate tbe 
 day in a manner worthy of its glory. " Only promise 
 ns," cried an old grenadier, " that you will keep your- 
 self out of the fire." " I will do so," answered Na- 
 poleon ; " I shall bo with the reserve until you need us." 
 This pledge, which so completely ascertains the mutual 
 confidence of the leader and his soldiers, he repeated in 
 a proclamation issued at daybreak. The sun rose with 
 uncommon brilliancy ; on many an after-day tbe French 
 soldiery hailed a similar dawn with exultation as the 
 sure omen of victory, and " the Sun of Austerlitz " has 
 passed into a proverb. 
 
 Tbe Russian General-in-Chief, Kutusoff, fell into the 
 snare laid for him, and sent a large division of his army 
 to turn the right of the French. The troops detached 
 for this purpose met with unexpected resistance from 
 Davoust, and were held in check at Raygern. Napoleon 
 immediately seized the opportunity. They had left a 
 deep gap in the line, and upon that space Soult forth- 
 
1805.] AUSTERLITZ. 281 
 
 with poured a force, which entirely destroyed the com- 
 munication between the Russian centre and left. The 
 Czar perceived the fatal consequences of this movement, 
 and his guards rushed to beat back Soult. It was on an 
 eminence called the Hill of Pratzen that the encounter 
 took place. The Russians drove the French infantry 
 before them. Napoleon ordered Bessieres to hurry with 
 the imperial guard to their rescue. The Russians were 
 in some disorder from the impatience of victory. They 
 resisted sternly, but were finally broken, and fled. The 
 Grand Duke Constantine, who had led them gallantly, 
 escaped by the fleetness of his horse. 
 
 The French centre now advanced, and the charges of 
 its cavalry under Murat were decisive. The Emperors 
 of Russia and Germany beheld from the heights of 
 Austerlitz the total ruin of their centre, as they had 
 already of their left. Their right wing had hitherto 
 contested well against all the impetuosity of Lannes ; 
 but Napoleon could now gather round them on all sides, 
 and, his artillery plunging incessant fire on them from 
 the heights, they at length found it impossible to hold 
 their ground. They were forced down into a hollow, 
 where some small frozen lakes offered the only means of 
 escape from the closing cannonade. The French broke 
 the ice about them by a storm of shot, and nearly 20,000 
 men died on the spot, some swept away by the artillery, 
 the greater part drowned. Buonaparte, in his bulletin, 
 compares the horrid spectacle of this ruin to the catas- 
 trophe of the Turks at Aboukir, when " the sea was 
 covered with turbans." It was with great difficulty 
 that the two emperors rallied some fragments of their 
 armies around them, and effected their retreat. Twenty 
 thousand prisoners, forty pieces of artillery, and all the 
 standards of the imperial guard of Russia, remained 
 with the concjueror. Such was the battle of Austerlitz ; 
 
282 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1805. 
 
 or, as the French soldiery delighted to call it, " the 
 battle of the emperors." 
 
 The Prussian envoy now returned, and presented to 
 Napoleon his master's congratulations on the victory 
 thus achieved. The Emperor whispered to Haugwitz, 
 " Here is a message, of which circumstances have altered 
 the address." Frederick- William, however, had 1 50,000 
 men under arms, and it by no means suited Napoleon's 
 views to provoke him to extremities at this moment. He 
 entered into a treaty with Haugwitz ; and Prussia was 
 bribed to remain quiescent, by a temptation which she 
 wanted virtue to resist. The French Emperor offered 
 her Hanover, provided she would oppose no obstacle 
 to any other arrangements which he might find it neces- 
 sary to form ; and the House of Brandenburg did not 
 blush to accept at his hands the paternal inheritance of 
 the royal family of England. 
 
 The Austrian, understanding how Prussia was dis- 
 posed of, perceived too clearly that further resistance 
 was hopeless ; and negotiations immediately began. 
 
 The haughty Emperor of Germany repaired to the 
 French head-quarters. He was received at the door of 
 a miserable hut. " Such," said Buonaparte, " are the 
 palaces you have compelled me to occupy for these two 
 months." " You have made such use of them," answered 
 Francis, " that you ought not to complain of their accom- 
 modation." 
 
 The humiliated sovereign, having ere this obtained 
 an armistice for himself, demanded of Napoleon that the 
 Czar might be permitted to withdraw in safety to his 
 own states. To this the conqueror assented ; and on the 
 6th of December the Russians commenced their retreat. 
 
 The definitive treaty with Francis was signed at Pres- 
 burg on the 15th of December, another with Prussia on 
 the 2Gth, at Vienna — and the terms of both, arranged, 
 
1805.] TREATIES OF PRESBURG AND VIENNA. 283 
 
 on Napoleon's side, by Talleyrand, corresponded with 
 the signal and decisive events of the campaign. 
 
 Austria yielded the Venetian territories to the king- 
 dom of Italy ; her ancient possessions of the Tyrol and 
 Voralberg were transferred to Bavaria, to remunerate 
 that elector for the part he had taken in the war ; Wir- 
 temberg, having also adopted the French side, received 
 recompense of the same kind, at the expense of the same 
 power ; and both of these electors were advanced to the 
 dignity of kings. Bavaria received Anspach and Bareuth 
 from Prussia, and, in return, ceded Berg, which was 
 erected into a grand duchy, and conferred, in sovereignty, 
 on Napoleon's brother-in-law, Marat. Finally, Prussia 
 added Hanover to her dominions, in return for the 
 cession of Anspach and Bareuth, and acquiescence in the 
 other arrangements above-mentioned. 
 
 Eugene Beauharnois, son of Josephine, and Viceroy 
 of Italy, received in marriage the eldest daughter of the 
 new king of Bavaria ; this being the first occasion on 
 which Napoleon manifested openly his desire to connect 
 his family with the old sovereign houses of Europe. It 
 was announced at the same time, that in case the 
 Emperor should die without male issue, the crown of 
 Italy would descend to Eugene. 
 
 Other events of the same character now crowded on 
 the scene. The king, or rather the queen of Naples, 
 had not failed, during the recent campaign, to manifest 
 the old aversion to the French cause. St. Cyr's army, 
 which on the first rupture of the peace of Amiens had 
 occupied the seaports of that kingdom, being called 
 into the north of Italy to reinforce Massena against the 
 Archduke Charles, an Anglo-Russian expedition soon 
 landed in Naples, and were welcomed cordially by the 
 court. Napoleon, immediately after the battle of Aus- 
 terlitz, issued a proclamation, declaring that " the royal 
 
284 NAPOLEON BUONAPAKTE. [1805. 
 
 house of Naples had ceased to reign for eoer." On hear- 
 
 of the decisive battle, and the retreat of the Czar, the 
 English and Russians evacuated the Neapolitan territo- 
 ries on the mainland of Italy. Joseph Buonaparte con- 
 ducted a French army towards the frontier ; the court 
 passed over into Sicily ; and Joseph was proclaimed 
 King- of Naples. 
 
 The King of Sweden, rushing as hastily and inconsi- 
 derately as he of Naples into the war of 1805, landed 
 with a small army in Germany, and besieged Hamelen, 
 a fortress of Hanover, where Bernadotte had left a strong 
 garrison. This movement, had Prassia broken her 
 neutrality, might have been of high importance to the 
 general cause ; as events turned out, it was fruitless. 
 The Swedes raised their siege in confusion, on receiving 
 the news of Austerlitz ; and Napoleon from that hour 
 meditated the dethronement of the dynasty of Gustavus 
 — but this object was not yet within reach. 
 
 The Principalities of Lucca, Massa- Carrara, and Gar- 
 fagnana, were now conferred on Napoleon's sister, Eliza 
 (Madame Bacciochi) ; on Pauline, the younger sister, 
 who, after the death of General Leclerc, had married the 
 Prince Borghese, the sovereignty of Guastalla was in 
 like manner bestowed. 
 
 The Batavian republic had for years been in effect 
 enslaved by France. On pretence that her leading men, 
 however, still yearned after the alliance of England, and 
 thwarted him in his designs on the commerce of that 
 great enemy, Napoleon now resolved to take a^ay even 
 the shadow of Dutch independence. The Batavian Senate 
 were commanded to aisk Louis Buonaparte for their 
 king ; and these republicans submitted with the better 
 grace, because the personal character of Louis was 
 amiable, and since Holland must be an appendage to 
 France, it seemed probable that the connection might 
 
1806.] M5W NOBILITY. 285 
 
 be rendered the less galling, in many circumstances, 
 
 were a prince of Napoleon's own blood constituted Lev 
 natural guardian. Louis bad married tbe beautiful 
 Hortense-Fanny de Beaubarnois, daughter of Josephine 
 — so that, by this act, two members of the imperial 
 house were at once elevated to royalty. They began 
 their reign at the Hague in May, 1806. 
 
 Another great consequence of Austerlitz remains to 
 be mentioned. The Kings of Wirternberg and Bavaria, 
 tbe Grand Duke of Berg, and otber sovereigns of the 
 West of Germany, were now associated together in a 
 close alliance under the style of the Confederation of the 
 Rhine. Napoleon added to his other titles that of Pro- 
 tector of this confederacy ; and the princes of the league 
 were bound to place 60,000 soldiers at his command. 
 
 Finally, it was on his return from the triumph of 
 Austerlitz, that Napoleon trampled down the last traces 
 of the revolutionary organization in France, by creating 
 a new order of nobility. Talleyrand became Prince of 
 Benevento, Bernadotte of Ponte Corvo, Berthier of 
 Neufehatel ; the most distinguished of the Marshals re- 
 ceived the title of Duke, and a long array of Counts of 
 the Empire filled the lower steps of the throne. 
 
 These princedoms and dukedoms were accompanied 
 with grants of extensive estates in the countries which 
 the French arms had conquered ; and the great feuda- 
 tories of the new empire accordingly bore titles not 
 domestic, but foreign. In everything it was the plan of 
 Napoleon to sink the memory of the Bourbon monarchy, 
 and revive the image of Charlemagne, Emperor of the 
 West. 
 
286 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1806. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Discontent of Prussia — Death of Pitt — Negotiation of Lords Yar- 
 mouth and Lauderdale — broken off — Murder of Palm, the book- 
 seller — Prussia declares War — Buonaparte heads the Army — 
 Naumburg taken — Battle of Jena— Napoleon enters Berlin — Fall 
 of Magd-burg, §c. — Humiliation of Prussia — Buonaparte's cruelty 
 to the Duke of Brunswick— hit: rapacity and oppression in Prussia. 
 
 Tiie establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine 
 rendered Napoleon, in effect, sovereign of a large part 
 of Germany, and seemed to have so totally revolutionized 
 Central Europe, that Francis of Austria declared the 
 Imperial Constitution at an end. He retained the title 
 of Emperor as sovereign of his own hereditary dominions; 
 but " The Holy Roman Empire," having lasted full one 
 thousand years, was declared to be no more ; and of its 
 ancient influence the representative was to be sought for 
 not at Vienna, but at Paris. 
 
 The vacillating court of Berlin heard with much ap- 
 prehension of the formation of the Rhenish confederacy.* 
 and with deep resentment of its immediate consequence, 
 the dissolution of the Germanic Empire. The house of 
 Brandenburg had consented to the humiliation of Francis 
 in the hope of succeeding, at the next election, to the 
 imperial crown so long worn by the princes of Austria; 
 and now, not only was that long-cherished hope for ever 
 dispelled, but it appeared that Napoleon had laid the 
 foundation of a new sj'stem, under which the influence 
 of the house of Brandenburg must, in all probability, be 
 overruled far more effectually than it ever had been, of 
 recent times, by the imperial prerogative of Austria. 
 
 • Published 27th July, 1806. 
 
1806.] DISCONTENT OF PRUSSIA. 287 
 
 The only method of counteracting the consolidation of 
 French power all over Germany, seemed to be that o( 
 creating another confederacy in the northern circles, 
 capable of balancing the league of the Rhine. The 
 elector of Saxony, however, perceived that Napoleon 
 was not likely to acquiesce in the realisation of this 
 scheme ; and his Minister at Berlin continued to decline 
 acceding to the Northern alliance. The Prince of Hesse 
 Cassel took a similar view of the case ; but acted with a 
 degree of vacillation worthy of the late conduct of 
 Prussia herself, refusing on the one hand to embrace the 
 confederation proposed by the Cabinet of Berlin, and 
 yet declining, on the other, to form part of the Rhenish 
 league, to which effect Buonaparte had frequently and 
 urgently invited this elector. In the reluctance, how- 
 ever, of these princes, Prussia saw nothing but the 
 determination of Napoleon to suppress, in the beginning, 
 any such confederation of the Northern German States 
 as had been contemplated ; and irritation and jealousy 
 from day to day increased. 
 
 The relations of France and Prussia continued in this 
 dubious state, until the Cabinet of Berlin learned some 
 particulars of a negotiation between Napoleon and the 
 English Government, which took place in the summer 
 of 1806. 
 
 Mr. Pitt, who despaired of opposing Buonaparte on 
 the continent after Marengo, did not long survive 
 the disastrous intelligence of Austerlitz. "Worn out 
 and broken by the endless anxieties of his situation, not 
 even the glorious tidings of Trafalgar could revive the 
 sinking spirit of this great minister. He died on the 
 23d of January, 180G, and -was succeeded in the govern- 
 ment by Mr. Fox, the same statesmen who had, through- 
 out every variety of fortune, arraigned his conduct of 
 the war as imbecile and absurd, and who all along pro- 
 
288 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1806. 
 
 fessed his belief that in the original quarrel between 
 Great Britain and revolutionized France, the blame lay 
 with his own country, and above all with Mr. Pitt. 
 
 The personal intercourse which took place between 
 Fox and Napoleon, during" the peace of Amiens, has 
 already been alluded to. It was calculated to make all 
 men regard the chances of a solid peace between France 
 and England as increased by the event which transferred 
 the reins of government, in the latter country, into the 
 Lands of the illustrious opponent of Mr. Pitt. But the 
 peculiar feelings of English politicians have seldom been 
 understood by foreigners — never more widely misunder- 
 stood than by Buonaparte. When Fox visited him, as 
 First Consul, at the Tuilleries, he complained that the 
 English Government countenanced the assassins who 
 were plotting against his life. Mr. Fox, forgetting all 
 his party prejudice when the honour of his country was 
 assailed, answered in terms such as Napoleon's own 
 military blnntness could not have surpassed — " Clear 
 your head of that nonsense." And now, in like manner, 
 Mr. Fox, once placed in the responsible management of 
 his country's interests, was found, not a little to the sur- 
 prise and disappointment of Napoleon, about as close 
 and watchful a negotiator as he could have had to deal 
 within Pitt himself. The English minister employed on 
 this occasion, first, Lord Yarmouth, one of the detenu* 
 of 1803, and afterwards Lord Lauderdale. For sorno 
 time strong hopes of a satisfactory conclusion wer& 
 entertained ; but, in the end, the negotiation broke up, 
 on the absolute refusal of Napoleon to concede Malta to 
 England, unless England would permit him to conquer 
 Sicily from the unfortunate Sovereign whose Italian 
 kingdom had already been transferred to his brother 
 Joseph. Mr. Fox was lost to his country in September, 
 180G ; and Napoleon ever afterwards maintained that, 
 
1806.] DISCONTENT OF PRUSSIA. 289 
 
 had that great statesman lived, the negotiation would 
 have been resumed, and pushed to a successful close. 
 Meantime, however, the diplomatic intercourse of the 
 Tnilleries and St. James's was at an end, and the course 
 which the negotiation had taken transpired necessarily 
 in Parliament. 
 
 It then came out that the article of Hanover had not 
 formed one of the chief difficulties ; in a word, Napoleon 
 had signified that, although the Electorate had been ceded 
 by him to Prussia under the treaty of Vienna, at the 
 close of 1S05, Prussia yielding to him in return the 
 principalities of Anspach, Bareuth, and Nenfchatel, still, 
 if the English Government would agree to abandon 
 Sicily, he, on his part, would offer no opposition to the 
 resumption of Hanover by its rightful sovereign, George 
 III. This contemptuous treachery being ascertained at 
 Berlin, the ill-smothered rage of the court and nation at 
 length burst into a flame. The beautiful Queen of 
 Prussia, and Prince Louis, brother to the king, two 
 characters whose high and romantic qualities rendered 
 them the delight, and pride of the nation, were foremost. 
 to nourish and kindle the popular indignation. The 
 young nobility and gentry rose in tumult, broke the 
 windows of the ministers who were supposed to lean to 
 the French interest, and openly whetted their sabres on 
 the threshold-stone of Napoleon's ambassador. The 
 lovel}" Queen appeared in the uniform of the regiment 
 which bore her name, and rode at its head. The enthu- 
 siasm of the people thus roused might be directed, but 
 could hardly bo repressed. 
 
 Nor was it in Prussia alone that such sentiments pre- 
 vailed. Split as Germany has for ages been into many 
 independent states, there has always, nevertheless, been 
 felt and acknowledged a certain national unity of heart 
 as well as head among all that speak the German 
 
290 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1806. 
 
 language ; the dissolution of the empire was felt all over 
 the land as a common wrong and injury ; Napoleon's 
 insulting treatment of Prussia was resented as indica- 
 tive of his resolution to reduce that power also (the only 
 German power now capable of opposing any resistance 
 to French aggression) to a pitch of humiliation as low- 
 as that in which Austria was already sunk ; and, lastly, 
 another atrocious deed of the French Emperor — a deed 
 as darkly unpardonable as the murder of d'Enghien— 
 was perpetrated at this very crisis, and arrayed against 
 him, throughout all Germany, every feeling, moral and 
 political, which could be touched either by the crimes or 
 the contumelies of a foreign tyrant. 
 
 Palm, a bookseller of the free city of Naumburg, hav- 
 ing published a pamphlet in which the ambition of 
 Napoleon was arraigned, a party of French gens d'armes 
 passed the frontier, and seized the unsuspecting citizen, 
 exactly as the Duke d'Enghien had been arrested at 
 Ettingen, and Sir George Rumbold at Hamburg, the 
 year before. The bookseller was tried for a libel against 
 Napoleon, at Braunau, before a French Court Martial ; 
 found guilty, condemned to death, and shot immediately, 
 in pursuance of his sentence. It is needless to dwell 
 npon this outrage : the death of d'Enghien has found 
 advocates or palliators — this mean murder of a humble 
 tradesman, who neither was nor never had been a sub- 
 ject either of France or Buonaparte, has been less for- 
 tunate. 
 
 The Emperor of Russia once more visited Berlin, 
 when the feelings of Prussia, and indeed of all the neigh- 
 bouring states, were in this fever of excitement. He 
 again urged Frederick William to take up arms in the 
 common cause, and offered to back him with all the 
 forces of his own great empire. The English Govern- 
 ment, taking advantage of the same crisis, sent Lord 
 
1806.] WAR WITH PRUSSIA. 291 
 
 Morpeth* to Berlin, with offers of pecuniary supplies — 
 about the acceptance of which, however, the anxiety of 
 Prussia on the subject of Hanover created some diffi- 
 culty. Lastly, Buonaparte, well informed of what was 
 passing in Berlin, and desirous, since war must be, to 
 hurry Frederick into the field ere the ai*mies of the Czar 
 could be joined with his, now poured out in the Moniteur 
 such abuse on the persons and characters of the Queen, 
 Prince Louis, and every illustrious patriot throughout 
 Prussia, that the general wrath could no longer be held 
 in check. Warlike preparations of every kind filled the 
 kingdom during August and September. On the first 
 of October the Prussian minister at Paris presented a 
 note to Talleyrand, demanding, among other things, 
 that the formation of a Confederacy in the North of 
 Germany should no longer be thwarted by French inter- 
 ference, and that the French troops within the territories 
 of the Rhenish League should recross the Rhine into 
 France by the 8th of the same month of October. 
 
 But Napoleon was already in person on the German 
 side of the Rhine ; and his answer to the Prussian note 
 saw a general order to his own ti'oops, in which he 
 called on them to observe in what manner a German 
 sovereign still dared to insult the soldiers of Austerlitz. 
 The conduct of Prussia, in thus rushing into hostilities, 
 without waiting for the advance of the Russians, was as 
 rash as her holding back from Austria, during the cam- 
 paign of Austerlitz, had been cowardly. As if deter- 
 mined to profit by no lesson, the Prussian council also 
 directed their army to advance towards the French, 
 instead of lying on their own frontier — a repetition of 
 the great leading blunder of the Austrians in the pre- 
 ceding year. The Prussian army accordingly invaded 
 
 • The late Earl of Carlisle. 
 
202 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1800. 
 
 the Saxon provinces, and the Elector, seeing his count ry 
 treated as rudely as that of Bavaria had been on a 
 similar occasion by the Austrians, and wanting the 
 means to withdraw his own troops as the Bavarian had 
 succeeded in doing under like provocation, was com- 
 pelled to accept the alliance which the Cabinet of Berlin 
 urged on him, and to join his troops with those of the 
 power by which he had been thus insulted and wronged. 
 No sooner did Napoleon know that the Prussians had 
 advanced into the heart of S ixony, than he formed the 
 plan of his campaign; and they, persisting in their ad- 
 vance, and taking up their position finally on the Saale, 
 afforded him, as if studiously, the means of repeating, at 
 their expense, the very manoeuvres which had ruined 
 the Austrians in the preceding campaign. In a word, 
 he perceived that the Prussian army was extended upon 
 too wide a line, and the consequent possibility of des- 
 troying it in detail. He farther discovered that the 
 enemy had all his principal stores and magazines at 
 Naumburg, to the rearward, not of his centre, but of his 
 extreme right; and resolved to commence operations by 
 an attempt to turn the flank, and seize those magazines, 
 ere the main body of the Prussians, lying at Weimar, 
 could be aware of his movement. The French came 
 forwards in three great divisions ; the corps of Sonlt 
 and Ney, in the direction of Hof ; Mnrat, Bernadotte, 
 and Davoust, towards Saalburg and Schleitz ; and 
 Lannes and Augereau upon Coburg and Saalfield. These 
 last generals were opposed sternly, at Saalfield, by the 
 corps of Prince Louis of Prussia. This brave young 
 officer imprudently abandoned the bridge over the Saale, 
 which he might have defended with success, and came 
 out into the open plain, where his troops were over- 
 powered by the French impetuosity. He himself, fight- 
 ing hand to hand with a subaltern, was desired to sur- 
 
1806.] naumbukc; taken 293 
 
 render, and replying by a sabre cut, was immediately 
 struck down with a mortal thrust. The Prussians fled ; 
 the bridge, which ought to have been defended, gave the 
 French access to the country behind the Saale. The 
 flank of the Prussian position was turned ; the French 
 army passed entirely round them ; Napoleon seized 
 Xaumburg, and blew up the magazines there — announc- 
 ing, for the first time, by this explosion, to the King of 
 Prussia and his Generalissimo, the Duke of Brunswick, 
 that he was in their rear. 
 
 Prom this moment the Prussians were isolated, and 
 cut off from all their resources, as completely as the 
 army of Mack was at Ulrn, when the French had passed 
 the Danube and overrun Swabia. The Duke of Bruns- 
 wick hastily endeavoured to concentrate his forces for 
 the purpose of cutting his way back again to the frontier 
 which he had so rashly abandoned. Napoleon, mean- 
 time, had posted his divisions so as to watch the chief 
 passages of the Saale, and expected, in confidence, the 
 assault of his outwitted opponent. It was now that he 
 found leisure to answer the manifesto of Frederick "Wil- 
 liam, which had reached Paris a day or two after he 
 himself quitted that capital for the camp. Tlis letter, 
 dated at Gera, is written in the most elaborate style of 
 insult. The King of Prussia (said he,) had sent him a 
 silly pamphlet of twenty pages, in very bad French — 
 such a pamphlet as the English ministry were in the 
 habit of commanding their hireling scribblers to put 
 forth — but he acquitted the King of having read this per- 
 formance. He was extremely anxious to live on the most 
 friendly terms with his " good brother," and begged 
 him, as the first token of equal good will, to dismiss 
 the counsellors who had hurried him into the present 
 unjust and uuequal war. Such was the language of this 
 famous note. Napoleon, now sure of his prey, desired 
 
294 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1806. 
 
 his own generals to observe bow accurately be bad 
 already complied witb one of the requests of tbe Prus- 
 sian Manifesto — " The French army," said he, " has done 
 as it was bidden. This is the 8th of October, and we 
 have evacuated the territories of the Confederation of the 
 Rhine." 
 
 The Prussian King understood well, on learning the 
 fall of Naumburg, the imminent danger of his position : 
 and his army was forthwith set in motion, in two great 
 masses ; the former, where he was in person pi'esent, 
 advancing towards Naumburg ; the latter attempting, 
 in like manner, to force their passage through the 
 French line in the neighbourhood of Jena. The King's 
 march was arrested at Auerstadt by Davoust, who, after 
 a severely contested action, at length repelled the assail- 
 ant. Napoleon himself, meanwhile, was engaged with 
 the other great body of the Prussians. Arriving on the 
 evening of the 13th October at Jena, he perceived that 
 the enemy were ready to attempt the advance next 
 morning, while his own heavy train were still six-and- 
 thirty hours' march in his rear. Not discouraged with 
 this adverse circumstance, the Emperor laboured all 
 night in directing and encouraging his soldiery to cut a 
 road through the rocks, and drew up by that means such 
 light guns as he had at command to a position, on a 
 lofty plateau in front of Jena, where no man could have 
 expected beforehand that any artillery whatever should 
 be planted, aud where, accordingly, the effect even of a 
 small park proved more decisive than that of a much 
 larger one might have been under other circumstances. 
 Buonaparte spent all the night among the men, offering 
 large sums of gold for every piece that should be dragged 
 to the position, and continually reminding his followers 
 that the Prussians were about to fight not for honour, 
 but for safety, - that they were already isolated as com- 
 
1806.] 
 
 BATTLE OF JENA. 295 
 
 pletcly as Mack's army bad been at Ulm, and on stern 
 resistance must needs submit to tbe fate of tbe Austrians. 
 Lannes commanded the centre ; Augereau tbe right ; 
 Soult tbe left ; and Murat tbe reserve and cavalry. 
 
 Soult had to sustain tbe first assault of tbe Prussians, 
 which was violent — and sudden; for tbe mist lay so 
 thick on the field that the armies -were -within half gun- 
 shot of each other ere tbe sun and wind rose and dis- 
 covered them ; and on that instant Mollendorf charged. 
 The battle was contested well for some time on this point; 
 but at length Ney appeared in the rear of the Emperor 
 with a fresh division ; and then the French centre 
 advanced to a general charge, before which the Prus- 
 sians were forced to retire. They moved for some 
 space in good order ; but Murat now ponred bis masses 
 of cavalry on them, storm after storm, with such rapidity 
 and vehemence, that their rout became inevitable. It 
 ended in the complete breaking up of the ax*my — horse 
 and foot all flying together, in the confusion of panic, 
 upon the road to Weimar. At that point, the fugitives 
 met and mingled with their brethren flying, as confusedly 
 as themselves, from Auerstadt. In the course of this 
 disastrous day 20,000 Prussians were killed or taken ; 
 300 guns, twenty generals, and sixty standards. The 
 Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Brunswick, being 
 wounded in the face with a grape-shot, was carried 
 early off the field, never to recover. The loss of superior 
 officers on the Prussian side was so great, that of an 
 army which, on the evening of the 13th of October, 
 mustered not less than 150,000, but a few regiments 
 were ever able to act in concert for some time after the 
 14th. The various routed divisions roamed about the 
 country, seeking separately the means of escape : they 
 were, in consequence, destined to fall an easy prey. 
 Mollcndorf and the Prince of Orange-Fulda laid down 
 
296 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1806. 
 
 their arms at Eri'urt. General Kalkreuth's corps was 
 overtaken and surrounded among the Hartz Mountains : 
 Prince Eugene of Wirtemburg, and 16,000 men, sur- 
 rendered to Bernadotte at Halle. The Prince of 
 Hohenlohe at length drew together not less than 50,000 
 of these wandering soldiers, and threw himself, at theii 
 head, into Magdeburg. But it turned out that thai 
 great fortress had been stripped of all its stores for the 
 service of the Duke of Brunswick's army before Jena. 
 Hohenlohe, therefore, was compelled to retreat towards 
 the Oder. He was defeated in a variety of skirmishes ; 
 and, at length, finding himself devoid of ammunition or 
 provisions, laid down his arms at Prenzlow ; 20,000 
 surrendered with the Prince. His rear, consisting of 
 about 10,000, under the command of the celebrated 
 General Blucher, were so far behind, as to render it 
 possible for them to attempt escape. Their heroic 
 leader traversed the country with them for some time 
 unbroken, and sustained a variety of assaults, from far 
 superior numbers, with the most obstinate resolution. 
 By degrees, however, the French, under Soult, hemmed 
 him in on one side, Murat on the other, and Bernadotte 
 appeared close behind him. He was thus forced to throw 
 himself into Lubeck, where a severe action was fought 
 in the streets of the town, on the 6th of November. 
 The Prussian, in this battle, lost 4000 prisoners, besides 
 the slain and wounded : he retreated to Schwerta, and 
 there, it being impossible for him to go farther without 
 violating the neutrality of Denmark, on the morning of 
 the 7th, Blucher at length laid down his arms — having 
 exhibited a specimen of conduct and valour such as 
 certainly had not been displayed by any of his superiors 
 in the campaign. 
 
 The strong fortresses of the Prussian monarchy made 
 as ineffectual resistance as the armies in the field. In 
 
1806.] PRUSSI.'i COKQITERED. ?97 
 
 how far the charge of actual treachery, brought then, 
 and ^t ill continued, against the commanders of those 
 places, he just, we know not: hut the fact is certain 
 that the Governors of Spandan, Stettin, Gastrin, Hame- 
 
 len, ami Magdeburg itself, yielded successively to the 
 French Generals, under circumstances which roused the 
 indignant suspicion of the Prussian people, as well as 
 the soldiery and their unfortunate King. Buonaparte, 
 in person, entered Berlin on the 25th of October: and 
 e the end of November, except Konigsberg — where 
 the King himself had found refuge, and gathered round 
 him a few thousand troops, the sad relics of an army 
 which had been considered as not unable to withstand 
 the whole power of France — and a few less important 
 fortresses, the whole of the German possessions of the 
 house of Brandenburg were in the hands of the con- 
 queror. Louis Buonaparte, King of Holland, mean- 
 while, had advanced into Westphalia, and occupied that 
 territory also, with great part of Hanover, East Fries- 
 land, Einbden, and the dominions of Hesse-Cassel. 
 
 Thus in the course of a few short weeks, was the 
 proud fabric of the Prussian monarchy levelled with the 
 ground. The government being of a strictly military 
 character, when the army, the pride and strength of the 
 nation, disappeared, every bond of union among the 
 various provinces of the crown seemed to be at once 
 dissolved. To account for the unexampled rapidity of 
 such a downfall, it must be remembered, first, that the 
 Prussian states, many of them the fruits of recent mili- 
 tary conquest, were held together by little but the name 
 of the great Frederick, and the terror of the highly dis- 
 ciplined force which he had bequeathed to his succes- 
 sors ; that, in a word, they had not yet had time to bo 
 blended and melted thoroughly into a national whole ; 
 secondly, that PruBsia had rushed into this war not only 
 
208 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1806. 
 
 with imprudent rashness, but with the staiu of dishonour 
 on her hands. The acceptance of Hanover, as a bribe, 
 from the French despot, and the hard and brazen reluc- 
 tance to part with that ill-gotten spoil, even when the 
 preservation of peace with France seemed hopeless — 
 these circumstances, together with the mean desertion 
 of Austria during the preceding campaign of Austerlitz 
 — had, in effect, injured the government deeply and 
 degradingly in the opinion of its own subjects, as well 
 as of other nations ; but, thirdly, the imbecile conduct of 
 the chief Prussian officers, in the campaign of Jena, was 
 as little likely to have been foreseen or expected, as the 
 pusillanimous, if not treacherous, baseness of those who, 
 after the army was defeated, abandoned so easily a chain 
 of the best fortresses in Europe. 
 
 The personal character of King Frederick-William 
 was never calumniated, even when the measures of his 
 government were most generally and most justly ex- 
 posed to suspicion and scorn. On the contrary, the 
 misfortunes of this virtuous sovereign and his family 
 were heard of with unmixed regret and compassion. 
 
 These sentiments, and all sentiments likely in their 
 consequences to be injurious to the cause of Napoleon, 
 the conduct of the Conqueror in Prussia, at this time of 
 national humiliation and sorrow, was well calculated to 
 strengthen and confirm. The Duke of Brunswick, re- 
 tiring wounded from Jena to the capital of his own 
 hereditary principality, addressed a letter from thence 
 to Napoleon, requesting that the territory of Brunswick 
 might not be confounded with that of Prussia, although 
 he, as an individual, had appeared in Prussian uniform 
 against him. Buonaparte answered with insolence as 
 well as harshness. He styled the Duke " General 
 Brunswick," and said he was determined to destroy his 
 city, and displace his family for ever. The brave, 
 
1P06.] THE DUKE OF BRUNSWICK. 299 
 
 though unfortunate Duke, retired on this to Altona, a 
 Danish town, from which he meant to emhark for 
 England; but his wound being inflammed by these 
 antimely movements, he died ere a vessel could be pre- 
 pared for him. His son, considering him as murdered, 
 vowed eternal revenge — and how he kept his vow, we 
 shall see hereafter. The Prussian nobility and gentry 
 were treated on almost every occasion with like brutality. 
 The great Conqueror did not hesitate to come down from 
 his dignity for the petty pleasure of personally insulting 
 gentlemen, who had done him no injury except that of 
 being loyal to their own prince. The exactions of the 
 victorious military were beyond all former example of 
 license, and studied contempt was everywhere mingled 
 with their rapacity. It was now that the French laid 
 the foundation of that universal hatred with which the 
 Prussian nation, in the sequel, regarded them, and which 
 assumed everywhere the virulence of a private and per- 
 sonal passion. 
 
 In justice to Buonaparte, a solitary instance of gener- 
 ous conduct, which occurred ere he had been long in 
 Berlin, must be noticed. The Prince of Hatzfield, con- 
 tinuing to reside in Berlin under his protection, corres- 
 ponded, nevertheless, with Hohenlohe, then in the field, 
 and sent information of the state and movements of the 
 French army. One of his letters fell into the hands of 
 the French ; the Prince was arrested, his wife gained 
 access to the Emperor, and, ignorant of her husband's 
 conduct, spoke with the boldness of innocence in his 
 favour. He handed to her the Prince's letter, and, con- 
 founded with the clearness of that evidence, she fell on 
 her knees in silence. " Put the paper in the fire, 
 madam," said Napoleon, " and there will then be no 
 proof." 
 
 Perhaps no part of Buonaparte's conduct at this time 
 
300 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1806u 
 
 gave more general disgust than his meannoss in robbing 
 the funeral monument of Frederick the Great, of his 
 sword and orders. These unworthy trophies he trans- 
 mitted to Paris, along with the best statues and pictures 
 of the galleries of Berlin and Potsdam, thus dealt with 
 according to the example of Lombardy and Venice. 
 
1806 J THE DECKEE3 OF BEKLDT. 301 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 TKe Decrees of Berlin — Xapoleon renews the campaign — Warsaw 
 taken — Enthusiasm of the Poles — Retreat of the Russians — Battle 
 of Pultusk — The French go into winter quarters — Battle of Preuss 
 Eylau— Taking of Dantzic — Battle of Friedland — Armistice — 
 Expeditions of the English to Calabria, Constantinojile, Egypt, and 
 Buenos Ay res— Peace of Tilsit. 
 
 Napoleon had achieved the total humiliation of the 
 Prussian monarchy in a campaign of a week's duration : 
 yet severe as the exertions of his army had been, and 
 splendid his success, and late as the season was now ad- 
 vanced, there ensued no pause of inaction : the Emperor 
 himself remained but a few days in Berlin. 
 
 This brief residence, however, was distinguished by 
 the issue of the famous Decrees of Berlin ; those extra- 
 ordinary edicts by which Buonaparte hoped to sap tho 
 foundations of the power of England — the ono power 
 which he had no means of assailing by his apparently 
 irresistible arms. 
 
 Napoleon declared the British Islands to be in a state 
 of blockade : any intercourse with that country was 
 henceforth to be a crime ; all her citizens found in any 
 country in alliance with France to be prisoners ; every 
 article of English produce or manufacture, wherever 
 discovered, to be confiscated. In a word, wherever 
 France hr.d power, the slightest communication with 
 England was henceforth to be treason against the majesty 
 of Napoleon ; and every coast of Europe was to be lined 
 with new armies of douaniers and gens-d'armes, for the 
 purpose of carrying into effect what he called " the con- 
 tinental system." 
 ■ r-— . 
 
302 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1805. 
 
 He had long meditated the organization of this system, 
 and embraced, as a favourable opportunity for its pro- 
 mulgation, the moment which saw him at length predomi- 
 nant in the North of Germany, and thus, in effect, master 
 of the whole coasts of Europe from the mouth of the 
 Oder round to the Adriatic Gulf. The system, however, 
 could not be carried into effect, because from long habit 
 the manufactured goods and colonial produce of Britain 
 had come to be necessaries of life among every civilized 
 people of the world ; and, consequently, every private 
 citizen found his own domestic comforts invaded by the 
 decree, which avowedly aimed only at the revenues of 
 the English crown. Every man, therefore, was under 
 continual temptation, each in his own sphere and method, 
 to violate the Decrees of Berlin. The custom-house 
 officers were exposed to bribes which their virtue could 
 not resist. Even the most attached of Napoleon's own 
 functionaries connived at the universal spirit of evasion 
 — his brothers themselves, in their respective dominions, 
 could not help sympathizing with their subjects, and 
 winking at the methods of relief to which they were led 
 by necessity, the mother of invention. The sevei'e police, 
 however, which was formed everywhere as a necessary 
 part of the machinery for caiTying these edicts into 
 execution — the insolence of the innumerable spies and 
 informers whom they set in motion — and the actual de- 
 privation of usual comforts, in so far as it existed — all 
 these circumstances conspired to render the name of the 
 Berlin Decrees odious throughout Europe and in France 
 itself. It may be added that the original conception of 
 Napoleon was grounded on a mistaken opinion, to which, 
 however, he always clung — namely, that England de- 
 rives all her strength from her foreign commerce. Great 
 as that commerce was, and great as, in spite of him, it 
 continued to be, it never was anything but a trifle when 
 
1806.] DECREES OF BERLIN'. 303 
 
 compared with the internal traffic and resources of Great 
 Britain — a country not less distinguished above other 
 nations for its agricultural industry, than for its com- 
 mercial. 
 
 Napoleon received at Berlin a deputation of his Senate, 
 sent from Paris to congratulate him on the successes of 
 his campaign. To them he announced these celebrated, 
 decrees : he made them the bearers of the trophies of his 
 recent victories, and, moi'eover, of a demand for the 
 immediate levying of 80,000 men, being the first con- 
 scription for the year 1808 — that for the year 1807 
 having been already anticipated. The subservient 
 Senate recorded and granted whatever their master 
 pleased to dictate ; but the cost of human life which 
 Napoleon's ambition demanded had begun, ere this time, 
 to be seriously thought of in France. He, meanwhile, 
 prepared, without further delay, to extinguish the feeble 
 spark of resistance which still lingered in a few garrisons 
 of the Prussian Monarchy, beyond the Oder; and to 
 meet, before they could reach the soil of Germany, those 
 Russian legions which were now advancing, too late, to 
 the assistance of Frederick-William. That unfortunate 
 Prince sent Lucchesini to Berlin, to open, if possible, a 
 negotiation with the victorious occupant of his capital 
 and palace ; but Buonaparte demanded Dantzic, and 
 two other fortified towns, as the price of even the briefest 
 armistice ; and the Italian env03 r returned to inform the 
 King, that no hope remained for him except in the ar- 
 rival of the Russians. 
 
 Napoleon held in his hands the means of opening his 
 campaign with those allies of Prussia, under circumstan- 
 ces involving his enemy in a new, and probably endless, 
 train of difficulties. The partition of Poland — that great 
 political crime, for wln>h every power that had a part in 
 it has since been severely, though none of them ade- 
 
30-1- NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1806. 
 
 quately, punished — bad left the population of what had 
 once been a great and powerful kingdom, in a Btato 
 of discontent and irritation, of which, had Napoleon 
 been willing to make full use of it, the fruit might bave 
 been more dangerous for the Czar than any campaign 
 against any foreign enemy. Tbe French Emperor had 
 but to announce distinctly that his purpose was the 
 restoration of Poland as an independent state, and the 
 wbole mass of an eminently gallant and warlike popu- 
 lation would have risen instantly at his call. But 
 Buonaparte was withheld from resorting to this effectual 
 means of annoyance by various considerations : of wbich 
 the cbief were these : first, ho could not emancipate 
 Poland without depriving Austria of a rich and impor- 
 tant province, and consequently provoking her once 
 more into the field ; and, secondly, he foresaw that the 
 Russian Emperor, if threatened with the destruction of 
 his Polish territory and authority, would urge the war 
 in a very different manner from that which he was 
 likely to adopt wbile acting only as the ally of Prussia. 
 In a word, Napoleon was well aware of the extent of 
 the Czar's resources, and had no wish at this time to 
 give a character of irremediable bitterness to their 
 quarrel. 
 
 Though, however, ho for these and other reasons 
 refrained from openly appealing in his own person to 
 the Poles as a nation, Buonaparte had no scruple about 
 permitting others to tamper, in his behalf, with the 
 justly indignant feelings of the people. Some of the 
 heroic leaders of the Poles, in the struggles for their 
 expiring independence, had long been exiles in France 
 — not a few of them had taken service in her armies. 
 These men wero allowed and encouraged to address 
 themselves to the body of their countrymen in language 
 which could hardly fail to draw eager and enthusiastic 
 
1806.] THE VOLES. CO J 
 
 recruits to the French standard, and increase mightily 
 the perplexities of the Russian counsels. Nor did Na- 
 poleon scruple to authorise the circulation of an appeal 
 of like tendency, bearing falsely* the venerated signature 
 of Kosciusko. "Dear countrymen and friends," said 
 the forgery, " arise ! the Great Nation is before you — 
 Napoleon expects, and Kosciusko calls on you. We are 
 under the iEgis of the Monarch who vanquishes diffi- 
 culties as if by miracles, and the re-animation of Poland 
 is too glorious an achievement not to have been re- 
 served for him by the Eternal." Dombrouski and 
 Wibicki, two Polish officers in Buonaparte's own army, 
 sent forward from Berlin, on the 8th of the same month, 
 a proclamation, which commenced in these words : — 
 " Poles ! Napoleon — the Great, the Invincible, enters 
 Poland with an army of 300,000 men. "Without wishing 
 to fathom the mystery of his views, let us strive to merit 
 his magnanimity. I mil see (he has said to us) v:7iether 
 you deserve to be a nation, Poles ! it depends then on 
 yourselves to exert a national spirit, and possess a 
 country. Tour avenger, your restorer, is here. Crowd 
 from all quarters to his presence, as children in tear? 
 hasten to behold a succouring father. Present to him 
 your hearts, your arms. Rise to a man, and prove that 
 you do not grudge your blood to your country!" 
 Lastly, in one of Napoleon's own bulletins, the following 
 ominous sentences were permitted to appear : — "Shall 
 the Polish throne be re-established, and shall the Great 
 Nation secure for it respect and independence? Shall 
 hhe recal it to life from the grave ? God only, who 
 directs all human affairs, can resolve this great mystery!" 
 These appeals produced various eager addresses from 
 
 * Kosciusko himself subsequently disavowed any knowledge oi 
 the production. 
 
306 KAPOLE02T BUONAPARTE. [180G. 
 
 Poland — and Buonaparte prepared to visit that country, 
 though not as her liberator. 
 
 Before . re-opening the great campaign, Buonaparte 
 received the submission and explanation of the Elector 
 of Saxony, who truly stated that Prussia had forced him 
 to take part in the war. The apology was accepted, and 
 from this time the Elector adhered to the League of the 
 Rhine, and was a faithful ally of Napoleon. The Land- 
 grave of Hesse- Cassel had worse fortune. The answer 
 to all his applications was, that he had ceased to reign. 
 What use the Conqueror designed to make of the terri- 
 tories thus confiscated, we shall presently see. The 
 Saxon army, and that of Hesse- Cassel, were both, how- 
 ever, at his disposal, and they both accordingly were 
 marched forwards, and blended with the forces occupy- 
 ing Prussia. 
 
 The French, having invested Glogau, Breslau, and 
 Graudentz, and left detachments to urge these sieges, 
 moved towai'ds the Polish frontier. General Bennigsen, 
 with a considerable Russian army, had advanced to 
 overawe the dissatisfied population, and was now at 
 Warsaw. But the march of the French van, under 
 Murat, soon alarmed him in these quarters. After some 
 skirmishes of little moment the Russians retired behind 
 the Vistula, and Marat took possession of the Polish 
 metropolis on the 28th of November. On the 2-5tL Na- 
 poleon himself had reached Posen, and found himself 
 surrounded by a population in a high state of excite- 
 ment and enthusiasm. The ancient national dress 
 reappeared ; hope and exultation beamed in every 
 countenance ; the old nobles, quitting the solitary castles 
 in which they had been lamenting over the downfall of 
 Poland, crowded the levees of the Victor, and addressed 
 him in language which recalled the half-oriental charac- 
 ter and manners of their nation. " We adore you," 
 
1806.] B-WTLE OP PULTDSK. 307 
 
 said the Palatine of Gncsna, ' ; and with confidence 
 repose in you all our hopes, as upon him who raises 
 empires and destroys them, and humbles the proud — the 
 regenerator of our country, the legislator of the uni- 
 verse." " Already," said the President of the Council 
 of Justice, " already our country is saved, for we adore 
 in your person the most just and the most profound 
 Solon. We commit our fate into your hands, and 
 implore the protection of the most august Caesar." 
 
 Having largely recruited his armies with brave Poles, 
 who fancied him both a Solon and Caesar, Napoleon now 
 moved forwards. General Bennigsen found himself 
 under the necessity of abandoning first the line of the 
 Vistula, and then that of the Bug, and, the French still 
 advancing in numbers not to be resisted by his division, 
 at length threw himself behind the river Wkra, where 
 Kaminskoy, the Russian commander-in-chief, and three 
 other divisions of the army, had by this time taken their 
 ground. On the 23d of December Napoleon reached 
 and crossed the Wkra, and Kaminskoy ordered his whole 
 army to fall back upon the line of the Niemen. Bennig- 
 sen accordingly retired towards Pultusk, Galitzin upon 
 Golymin, both followed by great bodies of the French, 
 and both sustaining with imperturbable patience and 
 gallantry the severity of a march through probably the 
 very worst roads in Europe, and of frequent skirmishes 
 with their pursuers. But the minor divisions of 
 D'Anrep and Bexhouden retreated without keeping up 
 the requisite communications with either Bennigsen or 
 Galitzin, and consequently suffered considerably, though 
 the matter was grossly exaggerated in the French 
 bulletins. 
 
 Bennigsen, in spite of Kaminskoy's orders to retreat 
 at all hazards, made a stand, and a most gallant one, at 
 Pultusk. Having his left in that town, and his right on 
 
80S NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1806. 
 
 a wood; the general conceived his position to be tc > 
 favourable for speedy abandonment, and on the 2Gth of 
 December expected the onset of Lanues, Davoust, and 
 the imperial guard of France. They charged with their 
 usual impetuosity, and drove the Russian right wing, 
 under General Barclay de Tolly, out of the wood ; but 
 Bennigsen skilfully availed himself of this occurrence ; 
 by his orders Barclay de Tolly retired much farther than 
 was necessaiy for his own safety, and the French, ad- 
 vancing unguardedly, found themselves confronted on 
 very unfavourable ground with the Russian main body, 
 which had now been arranged on a new line of battle, 
 and of a battery of 120 guns, placed so a? to command 
 their march with terrible efficacy. The result was that 
 the Russians lost 5000 in killed and wounded, the French 
 8000 — one of their wounded being Marshal Lannes 
 himself; and the French drew back from the hardly 
 contested field with such haste, that all next day the 
 advancing Cossacks sought in vain for their rear-guard. 
 On the same day, and with nearly as much success, 
 Prince Galitzin halted also, and awaited and repelled his 
 pursuers at Golymin ; and had either Bennigsen' or 
 Galitzin been supported by the other divisions which 
 were doing nothing within a few miles of their respec- 
 tive marches, these events might have been improved so 
 as to involve the French army in great and immediate 
 perplexity. But, in truth, the total want of plan and 
 combination on the part of Kaminskoy was by this time 
 apparent to the veriest tyro in his camp. Symptoms of 
 actual insanity appeared shortly afterwards, and the 
 chief command was transferred, with universal approba- 
 tion, to Bennigsen. 
 
 The affairs of Pultusk and Golymin, however, were 
 productive of excellent effects. They raised to a high 
 pitch the spirits of the Russian soldiery; and they 
 
1807.] GENERAL BENNIGSEF. 309 
 
 afforded Napoleon such a specimen of the character of 
 his new enemy, that instead of pursuing the campaign, 
 as he had announced in his bulletins, he thought fit to 
 retire, and place his troops in winter quarters. He him- 
 self tock up his residence at Warsaw, and the army 
 occupied cantonments in various towns to the eastward. 
 
 But General Bennigsen, having proved at Pultusk 
 what Russian troops could do when under a determined 
 commander, no sooner found himself at the head of an 
 army of nearly 100,000 mew, than he resolved to disturb 
 the French in their quarters, and at all events give them 
 such occupation as might enable the King of Prussia to 
 revictual Konigsberg, where the few troops, gathered 
 round that unfortunate sovereign, were already begin- 
 ning to suffer many privations. With this view Ben- 
 nigsen advanced as far as Mohrungen, where the French 
 sustained considerable damage in a skirmish, and from 
 whence his Cossacks spread themselves abroad over the 
 country — creating such confusion, that the leaguer of 
 Konigsberg being for the moment relaxed, the Prussian 
 garrison received welcome supplies of all kinds, and 
 Napoleon himself perceived the necessity of breaking tip 
 his cantonments, and once more concentrating the army 
 for active war. 
 
 His design was to occupy "Willensberg, to the rear of 
 the great Russian camp at Mohrungen ; thus cutting off 
 the new enemy's communications with his own means 
 of resource, in the same manner which had proved so 
 fatal to the Anstrians at Dim, and the Prussians at Jena. 
 But Bennigsen, having learnt the plan from an inter- 
 cepted despatch, immediately couutermai'ched his army 
 with masterly skill, and thus involved Napoleon in a 
 long series of manoeuvres, not to be executed in such a 
 country, at that dismal season, without the extremity of 
 hardship. The Russians themselves, inured as they 
 
310 .NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, [1807. 
 
 were to northern climates, and incapable of even dream- 
 ing that a soldier could seek safety in flight, were re- 
 duced to the border of phrenzy by the privations of 
 these long marches. Their commissariat was wretched : 
 the soldiers had often no food, except such frozen roots 
 as they could dig out of the ground ; and, tortured with 
 toil and famine, they at length demanded battle so ve- 
 hemently, that, against his own judgment, General 
 Bennigsen consented to grant the prayer. He selected 
 the town of Preuss-Ejdau, and a strong position behind 
 it, as his field of battle ; and — after two skirmishes, one 
 at Landsberg, the other nearer the chosen ground, in 
 the former of which the French, in the latter, the Rus- 
 sians, had the advantage — the whole army reached 
 Preuss-Eylau on the 7th of February. 
 
 In the confusion of so great a movement* a division 
 designed by Bennigsen to occupy the town itself, mis- 
 understood the order, and evacuated it at the approach 
 of the enemy's van. The French took possession of the 
 place accordingly, and — General Bennigsen commanding 
 it to be regained, as soon as he learned the mistake that 
 had occurred — the whole day was spent in severe fight- 
 ing within the town, which was taken and retaken se- 
 veral times, and at the fall of night remained in the 
 hands of the French. On either side the loss had been 
 very great, and Napoleon coming up in person, per- 
 ceived that the contest must needs be renewed at day- 
 break. The night was clear, and he could trace the 
 enemy's line darkening the whole of an admirably se- 
 lected position, between which and the dearly contested 
 town, a level space covered with snow, and two or three 
 small frozen lakes, glittered in the mingled light of an 
 unclouded moon, and innumerable watch-fires. 
 
 The great battle of Peeuss-Etlau was fought on the 
 8th of February. At dawn of day the French charged 
 
1^07.] PREUSS-ETLAU. 311 
 
 at two different points in strong columns, and were un- 
 able to shake the iron steadiness of the infantry, while 
 the Russian horse, and especially the Cossacks under 
 their gallant Hetman Platoff, made fearful execution on 
 each division, as successively they drew back from their 
 vain attempt. A fierce storm arose at mid-day : the 
 snow drifted right in the eyes of the Russians ; the 
 village of Serpallen, on their left, caught fire, and the 
 smoke also rolled dense upon them. Davoust skilfully 
 availed himself of the opportunity, and turned their 
 flank so rapidly, that Serpallen was lost, and the left 
 wing compelled to wheel backwards so as to form almost 
 at right angles with the rest of the line. The Prussian 
 corps of L'Estocq, a small but determined fragment of 
 the campaign of Jena, appeared at this critical moment 
 in the rear of the Russian left ; and, charging with such 
 gallantry as had in former times been expected from the 
 soldiery of the Great Frederick, drov^ back Davoust and 
 restored the Russian line. The action continued for 
 many hours along the whole line — the French attacked 
 boldly, the Russians driving them back with unfailing 
 resolution. Ney, and a fresh division, at length came 
 up, and succeeded in occupying the village of Scblodit- 
 ten, on the road to Konigsberg. To regain this, and 
 thereby recover the means of communicating with the 
 King of Prussia, was deemed necessary ; and it was 
 carried accordingly at the point of the bayonet. This 
 was at ten o'clock at night. So ended the longest and 
 by far the severest battle in which Buonaparte had as 
 yet been engaged. The French are supposed to have 
 had 90,000 men under arms at its commencement ; tho 
 Russians not more than 60,000. After fourteen hours 
 of fighting, either army occupied the same position as in 
 the morning. Twelve of Napoleon's eagles were in the 
 handi of Benni^sen, and tho field between was covered 
 
312 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807. 
 
 with 50,000 corpses, of whom at least half were 
 French. 
 
 Either leader claimed the victory; Benuigsen exhi- 
 biting as proof of his success the twelve eagles which 
 his army, admitted to be inferior in numbers, bore off 
 the field ; Buonaparte, that he kept possession of the 
 field, while the enemy retired, the very night after the 
 battle, from Eylau towards Konigsberg. It was, in 
 truth, a drawn battle ; and to have found an equal was 
 sufficient bitterness to Napoleon. The Russian general- 
 in-chief had retreated, in opposition to the opinion of 
 most of his council, out of anxiety for the personal safety 
 of the King of Prussia at Konigsberg, and desire to 
 recruit his army ere another great action should be 
 hazarded. The French, triumphant as was the language 
 of their bulletins, made no effort to pursue. Benuigsen 
 conducted his army in perfect order to Konigsberg, and 
 the Cossacks issuing from that city, continued for more 
 than a week to waste the country, accordiug to their 
 pleasure, without any show of opposition from the 
 French. But the best proof how severely Napoleon had 
 felt the struggle of Preuss- Eylau, is to bo found in a 
 communication which he made to Frederick- William, 
 on the 13th of February, five days after the battle, 
 offering him, in effect, the complete, or nearly complete 
 restoration of his dominions, provided he would accept 
 of a separate peace ; with the king's answer, namely, 
 that it was impossible for him to enter on any treaty 
 unless the Czar were a party in it. Finally, on the 19th 
 of February, Napoleon left Eylau, and retreated with 
 his whole army on the Vistula, — satisfied that it would 
 be fatal rashness to engage in another campaign in 
 Poland, while several fortified towns, and, above all, 
 Dantzic, held out in his rear ; and determined to have 
 possession of these places, and to summon new forces 
 
1807.] FALL 01 DANTZIC. 313 
 
 from France, ere he should again meet in the field such 
 an enemy as the Russian had proved to be. 
 
 Dantzic was defended with the more desperate reso- 
 lution, because it was expected that, as soon as the season 
 permitted, an English fleet and army would certainly be 
 sent to its relief. But the besiegers having a prodigious 
 superiority of numbers, and conducting the siege with 
 every advantage of skill, the place was at length compelled 
 to surrender on the 7th of May; after which event, Napo- 
 leon's extraordinary exertions in hurrying supplies from 
 France, Switzerland, and the Rhine country, and the ad- 
 dition of the division of 25,000, which had captured 
 Dantzic, enabled him to take the field again at the head 
 of not less than 280,000 men. The Russian general 
 also had done what was in his power to recruit his army 
 during this interval ; but his utmost zeal could effect no 
 more than bringing his muster up again to its original 
 point — 90,000 ; the chief blame lying, as it was alleged, 
 with the coldness of the English cabinet, who, instead 
 of lavishing gold on the Emperor of Russia, as had been 
 done in other similar cases, were with difficulty per- 
 suaded to grant him at this critical time, so small a 
 supply as £80,000. Russia has men to any amount at 
 her command ; but the poverty of the national purse 
 renders it at all times very difficult for her to maintain 
 a large army in a distant contest. 
 
 Bennigsen, nevertheless, was the first to reappear in 
 the field. In the beginning of June he attacked Ney's 
 division stationed at Gustadt, and pursued them to 
 Deppen, where, on the 8th, a smart action took place, 
 and Napoleon arrived in person to support his troops. 
 The Russians were then forced to retire towards Heils- 
 berg, where they halted, and maintained their position, 
 during a whole day, in the face of an enemy prodigiously 
 superior in numbers. The carnage on both sides was 
 
314 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807. 
 
 tearful ; and Bennigscn, continuing Lis retreat, placed 
 the river Aller between him and Napoleon. 
 
 The French Emperor now exerted all his art to draw 
 the Russian into a general action ; the resistance he had 
 met with had surprised and enraged him, and he was 
 eager to overpower and extinguish Bennigsen before 
 further supplies of these hardy Muscovites should come 
 up to swel'i his ranks. The Russian general was on the 
 eastern bank of the Aller, opposite to the town of Fried- 
 land, when Buonaparte once more came up with him on 
 the loth of June. There was a long and narrow wooden 
 bridge over the river, close by, which might have been 
 destroyed if not defended ; and Napoleon's object was to 
 induce Bennigsen, instead of abiding by his position, to 
 abandon its advantages, pass over to the westei'n bank, 
 and accept battle with the town and river in his rear. 
 His crafty management outwitted the Russian, who, 
 being persuaded that the troops which appeared in front 
 of him were only a small division of the French army, 
 was tempted to send some regiments over the river for 
 the purpose of chastising them. The French, sometimes 
 retreating, and then again returning to the combat, the 
 Russians were by degrees induced to cross in greater 
 numbers ; until at length Bennigsen found himself and 
 his whole army on the western bank, with the town and 
 bridge in their rear — thus completely entrapped in the 
 snare laid for him by his enemy. 
 
 On the 14th of June, under circumstances thus disad- 
 vantageous, the Russian general was compelled to accept 
 battle. His army occupied open ground ; the intricate 
 and narrow streets of the town of Friedland, and the 
 bridge behind it, appeared to be his only means of 
 retreat in case of misadventure ; and in front, and on 
 either flank, extended those woods which had covered 
 Buonaparte's stratagems of the preceding day, and 
 
1S07.] BATTLE OP FIUEDlAXP. 315 
 
 which now afforded complete shelter to the Imperial 
 army — the means of attacking from whatever point they 
 might select — and of retiring with safety as often as it 
 might be found advisable. 
 
 The battle commenced at ten in the morning, and the 
 Russians stood their ground with unbroken resolution 
 until between four and five in the evening ; sustaining 
 numberless charges of foot and horse, and exposed all 
 the while to a murderous cannonade. At length Napo- 
 leon put himself at the head of the French line, and 
 commanded a general assault of all arms, which was 
 executed with overpowering effect. Having lost full 
 12,000 men, General Bennigsen was at last compelled 
 to attempt a retreat ; the French poured after him into 
 the town : the first Russian division which forced the 
 passage of the river destroyed the bridge behind them 
 in their terror ; and the rest of the army escaped by 
 means of deep and dangerous fords, which, desperate as 
 the resource they afforded was, had been discovered 
 only in the moment of necessity. Nevertheless, such 
 were the coolness and determination of the Russians, 
 that they saved all their baggage, and lost only seven- 
 teen cannon ; and such was the impression which their 
 obstinate valour left on the enemy, that their retreat 
 towards the Niemen was performed without any show 
 of molestation. 
 
 The results of the battle of Friedland were, however, 
 as great as could have been expected from any victory. 
 On the retreat of Bennigsen towards the Niemen, the 
 unfortunate King of Prussia, evacuating Konigsberg, 
 where he now perceived it must be impossible to main- 
 tain himself, sought a last and precarious shelter in the 
 seaport of Memel ; and the Emperor Alexander, over- 
 awed by the genius of Napoleon, which had triumphed 
 over troops more resolute than had over before opposed 
 
316 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807. 
 
 him, and alarmed for the consequence of some decisivo 
 measure towards the re-organization of the Poles as a 
 nation, began to think seriously of peace. Buonaparte, 
 on his part also, had many reasons for being anxious to 
 bring hostilities to a close. The Swedish king was in 
 Pomcrania, besieging Stralsund, and hourly expecting 
 reinforcements from England, which might have ended 
 in a formidable diversion in the rear of the French army. 
 Schill, an able partizan, was in arms in Prussia, where 
 the general discontent was such, that nothing but ojmor- 
 tunity seemed wanting for a national insurrection against 
 the conquerors. The further advance of the French 
 towards the north could hardly have failed to afford such 
 an opportunity. Neither could this be executed, to all 
 appearance, without involving the necessity of proclaim- 
 ing the independence of Poland ; thereby giving a cha- 
 racter of mortal rancour to the war with Russia, and, in 
 all likelihood, calling Austria once more into the field. 
 Under such circumstances, the minds of Napoleon and 
 Alexander were equally disposed towards negotiation : 
 General Bennigsen sent, on the 21st of June, to demand 
 an armistice ; and to this proposal the victor of Fried- 
 land yielded immediate assent. 
 
 In truth, over and above the parsimony of the court 
 of St. James's in regard to subsidies, the recent conduct 
 of the war on the part of England had been so ill-judged, 
 and on the whole so unfortunate, that the Czar might be 
 excused for desiring to escape from that alliance. Al- 
 most the only occasion on which the character of the 
 British arms had been gloriously maintained, was the 
 battle of Maida, in Calabria, fought July the 4th, 1806 
 — when Sir John Stuart and 7000 English soldiers en- 
 countered a superior French force under General Regnier, 
 and drove them from the field with great loss. This 
 was one of those rare occasions on which French and 
 
1807.] BRITISH EXPEDITION.-. 317 
 
 English troops have actually crossed bayonets — the 
 steadiness of the latter inspired the former with panic', 
 and they fled in confusion. But this occurrence, except 
 for its moral influence on the English soldiery, was of 
 small importance. General Stuart had been sent to 
 support the Calabrian peasantry in an insurrection 
 against Joseph Buonaparte ; the insurgents were on the 
 whole unable to stand their ground against the regular 
 army of the intrusive king ; and the English, soon after 
 their fruitless victory, altogether withdrew. The British 
 had indeed taken possession of Curacoa, and of the 
 Cape of Good Hope (this last an acquisition of the 
 highest moment to the Indian empire) ; but, on the 
 whole, the ill success of our measures had been answei'- 
 able to the narrow and shallow system of policy in 
 which they originated — the system of frittering away 
 blood and gold upon detached objects, instead of rally- 
 ing the whole resources of the empire around some one 
 great leader for some one great purpose. The British 
 expeditions of this period to the Turkish dominions and 
 to Spanish America were especially distinguished for 
 narrowness of design, imbecility of execution, and con- 
 sequent misadventure. 
 
 On the assumption of the Imperial dignity by Napo- 
 leon, the Ottoman Porte, dazzled by the apparently 
 irresistible splendour of his fate, sent an embassy to 
 congratulate him ; and, in effect, the ancient allianco 
 between France and Turkey was re-established. Napo- 
 leon consequently had little difficulty in procuring from 
 Constantinople a declaration of war against Russia, the 
 great hereditary enemy of the Turk, at the time when 
 he was about to encounter the armies of the Czar in 
 Poland. The Dardanelles were shut against Ru.<-i;iu 
 vessels ; and the English government, considering this 
 as sufficient evidence that the Grand Seignior was 
 
318 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807. 
 
 attaching himself to the Antibrltannic Confederacy, 
 despatched a squadron of ships under Admiral Duck- 
 worth, in February, 1807, with orders to force tho 
 passage of the Dardanelles, present themselves before 
 Constantinople, and demand from the Porte the custody 
 pro tempore of all her ships of war. The Turks nego- 
 tiated for a week upon this proposal, but in the mean- 
 time increased and manned their fortifications, under 
 the direction of French engineers, with such skill, that 
 the English admiral began to be seriously alarmed for 
 his own safety; and at length, on the 1st ©f March, 
 effected his retreat through the Straits with considerable 
 loss — this disgrace being the only result of his expedi- 
 tion. On the 20th of the same month (of March, 1807), 
 another English expedition, under General Fraser, hav- 
 ing sailed from Sicily to Egypt, took possession of Alex- 
 andria. But every subsequent step they took proved 
 unfortunate ; after severe loss, the English were com- 
 pelled to enter into a convention with the Turks, and 
 wholly evacuate Egypt on the 20th of September. 
 
 In January, 1807, an English expedition landed near 
 Monte Video, and carried that city by assault. Sir 
 Home Popham, the admiral, was recalled, and tried by 
 a court-martial, on the ground that he had undertaken 
 this warfare without due authority ; but he escaped with 
 a reprimand, and new reinforcements were sent out, first 
 under General Crawford, and secondly, under General 
 Whitelocke. The last-named officer invested Buenos 
 Ay res, and commanded a general assault of that town 
 on the 5th of July ; on which occasion, notwithstanding 
 the excellent behaviour of the soldiery, he was repulsed 
 with a loss of 2000 killed, wounded, and prisoners ; and 
 reduced to such extremity, that he was soon afterwards 
 glad to enter into a convention, and wholly withdraw 
 the armament. The timid and incompetent "Whitelocke 
 
1807.] THE RAFT OF TILSIT. 319 
 
 was tried and cashiered. Some of these disasters were 
 unknown at the time when Bennigsen demanded an 
 armistice ; but the general ill success of the British ex- 
 peditions was notorious, and produced, without doubt, 
 a very serious impression on the mind of Alexander. 
 
 The armistice was ratified on the 23d of June, and on 
 the 25th, the Emperors of France and Russia met per- 
 sonally, eaoh accompanied by a few attendants, on a 
 raft moored on the river Niemen, near the town of Tilsit. 
 The sovereigns embraced each other, and retiring under 
 a canopy, had a long conversation, to which no one was 
 a witness. At its termination, the appearances of mutual 
 good will and confidence were marked : immediately 
 afterwards the town of Tilsit was neutralised, and the 
 two Emperors established their courts there, and lived 
 together, in the midst of the lately hostile armies, more 
 like old friends who had met on a party of pleasure, than 
 enemies and rivals attempting by diplomatic means, the 
 arrangement of differences which had for years been de- 
 luging Europe with blood. Whatever flatteries could bo 
 suggested by the consummate genius and mature expe- 
 rience of Napoleon, were lavished, and produced their 
 natural effects, on the mind of a young autocrat, of great 
 ambition, and as great vanity. The intercourse of the 
 Emperors assumed, by degrees, the appearance of a 
 brotherlike intimacy. They spent their mornings in re- 
 viewing each other's troops, or in unattended rides ; their 
 evenings seemed to be devoted to the pleasures of the 
 table, the spectacle, music, dancing, and gallantly. 
 Meantime, the terms of a future alliance were, in effect, 
 discussed, and settled much more rapidly than could 
 have been expected from any of the usual apparatus of 
 diplomatic negotiation. 
 
 The unfortunate King of Prussia was invited to appear 
 at Tilsit ; but, complying with this invitation, was ad- 
 
320 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [180Y. 
 
 mitted to no shai*e of the intimacy of Napoleon. The 
 conqueror studiously, and on every occasion, marked tho 
 difference between his sentiments respecting this prince 
 and the young and powerful sovereign, for whose sake 
 alone any shadow of royalty was to be conceded to the 
 fallen house of Brandenburg. The beautiful and fasci- 
 nating queen also arrived at Tilsit ; but she was treated 
 even more coldly and harshly than her husband. In- 
 voluntary tears rushed from her eyes as she submitted 
 to the contemptuous civilities of Napoleon. His beha- 
 viour to this admirable person rekindled with new fer- 
 vour the wrath and hatred of every Prussian bosom ; 
 and her death, following soon afterwards, and universally 
 attributed to the cruel laceration which all her feelings 
 as a woman and a queen had undergone, was treasured 
 as a last injury, demanding, at whatever hazard, a terrible 
 expiation. 
 
 The Treaty of Tilsit, to which, as the document itself 
 bore testimony, the King of Prussia was admitted as a 
 party solely by reason of Napoleon's " esteem for the 
 Emperor of Russia," was ratified on the 7th July. 
 Napoleon restored, by this act, to Frederick William, 
 ancient Prussia, and the French conquests in Upper 
 Saxony — the King agreeing to adopt " the continental 
 system," in other words, to be henceforth the vassal of 
 the conqueror. The Polish provinces of Prussia were 
 erected into a sepai*ate principality, styled " the Grand 
 Duchy of "Warsaw," and bestowed on the Elector of 
 Saxony ; with the exception, however, of some territories 
 assigned to Russia, and of Dantzic, which was declared 
 a free city, to be garrisoned by French troops until the 
 ratification of a maritime peace. The Prussian dominions 
 in Lower Saxony and on tho Rhine, with Hanover, 
 Hesse-Cassel, and various other small states, formed 
 a new kingdom of Westphalia, of which Jerome 
 
1807.] PEACE OF TILSIT. 321 
 
 Buonaparte, Napoleon's youngest brother, was recog- 
 nised as King ; Jerome Laving at length made his peace 
 with his brother by repudiating his wife, an American 
 lady of tho name of Patterson, and consenting to a new 
 alliance, more consonant with the views of the Emperor, 
 with a daughter of the King of Wirtemberg. The 
 Elector of Saxony was recognised as another King of 
 Napoleon's creation; Joseph Buonaparte as King of 
 Naples ; and Louis, of Holland. Finally, Russia accepted 
 the mediation of France for a peace with Turkey, and 
 France that of Russia for a peace with England. 
 
 Such were the public articles of the peace of Tilsit ; 
 but it contained secret articles besides ; and of these the 
 English government were, ere long, fortunate enough to 
 ascertain the import. 
 
 The British cabinet had undergone a complete change 
 in March, 1807 — the management of affairs passing from 
 the friends and heirs of Mr. Fox into the hands of Mr. 
 Perceval and other statesmen of the school of Pitt. Tho 
 unhappy conduct of the war had rendered the preceding 
 government eminently unpopular ; and the measures of 
 the new one assumed from the beginning a character of 
 greater energy. But the orders which had been given 
 must be fulfilled; and the councils of 180G bequeathed 
 a fatal legacy in the disastrous expeditions of 1807. 
 Lord Granville Leveson Gower (the minister at St. 
 Petersburg) was ere this time prepared to offer to the 
 Czar such subsidies as ho had in vain expected when 
 preparing for the campaign of Poland ; but it was too 
 late to retrieve the error of the preceding cabinet; and 
 the English ambassador, being unablo to break off tho 
 negotiations at Tilsit, was compelled to bestow all his 
 efforts on penetrating the secrets of the compact wherein 
 they ended. 
 
 The result of his exertions was the complete assurancu 
 
322 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807. 
 
 of the government of St. James's, that the Emperor of 
 Russia had adopted the alliance of Napoleon to an ex- 
 tent far heyond what appeared on the face of the treaty 
 of the 7th July ; that he had agreed not only to lay 
 English commerce, in case his mediation for a peace 
 should fail, under the same ban with that of the Decrees 
 of Berlin, but to place himself at the head of a general 
 confederation of the Northern Maritime Powers against 
 the naval supremacy of England — in other wcrds, resign 
 his own fleets, with those of Denmark, to the service of 
 Napoleon. In requital of this obligation the French 
 Emperor unquestionably agreed to permit the Czar to 
 conquer Finland from Sweden — thereby adding im- 
 measurably to the security of St. Petersburg. On the 
 other hand it is almost as impossible to doubt that 
 Alexander pledged himself not to interfere with those 
 ambitious designs as to the Spanish Peninsnla, which 
 Napoleon was ere long to develope, and which were 
 destined ultimately to work his ruin. 
 
 In a word, there seems to be little doubt that Napo- 
 leon broached at Tilsit the dazzling scheme of dividing 
 the European world virtually between the two great 
 monarchs of France and Russia ; and that the Czar, 
 provided he were willing to look on, while his Imperial 
 brother of the West subjected Spain, Portugal and 
 England to his yoke, was induced to count on equal for- 
 bearance, whatever schemes he might venture on for his 
 own aggrandisement, at the expense of the smaller states 
 of the North of Europe, and, above all, of the Ottoman 
 Porte. 
 
1807.] BRITISH EXPEDITION TO COPENHAGEN. 323 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 British Expedition to Copenhagen— Coalition of France, Austria, 
 Prussia, and Russia, against English Commerce — Internal affairs 
 of France — The Administration of Napoleon— his Council of State 
 _ Court— Code— Public Works— Manufactures— Taxes— Military 
 Organisation — The Conscription. 
 
 Napoleon, having left strong gai*risons in the maritime 
 cities of Poland and Northern Germany, returned to 
 Paris in August, and was received by the Senate and 
 other public bodies with all the triumph and excess of 
 adulation. The Swedish King abandoned Pomerania 
 immediately on hearing of the treaty of Tilsit. In effect, 
 the authority of the Emperor appeared now to be conso- 
 lidated over the whole continent of Europe. He had 
 reached indeed the pinnacle of his power and pride — 
 henceforth he was to descend : urged downwards, step 
 by step, by the reckless audacity of ambition and the 
 gathering weight of guilt. 
 
 The English government, being satisfied that the 
 naval force of Denmark was about to be employed for 
 the purposes of Napoleon, determined to anticipate him, 
 while it was yet time, and to send into the Baltic such 
 a fleet as should at ouce convince the court of Copen- 
 hagen that resistance must be vain, and so bring 
 about the surrender of the vessels of war (to be retained 
 by England, not in property, but in pledge, until the 
 conclusion of a general peace), without any loss of life 
 or compromise of honour. Twenty-seven sail of the 
 line, carrying a considerable body of troops under the 
 orders of Earl Cathcart, appeared before the capital of 
 Denmark in the middle of August, and found the go. 
 
324 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807. 
 
 vernnicnt wholly unprepared for defence. The high 
 spirit of the Crown Prince, however, revolted against 
 yielding to a demand which imperious necessity alone 
 could have rendered justifiable on the part of England ; 
 nor, unfortunately, were these scruples overcome until 
 the Danish troops had suffered severely in an action 
 against the British, and the capital itself had been bom- 
 barded during three days, in which many public build- 
 ings, churches, and libraries perished, and the private 
 population sustained heavy loss both of life and property. 
 The fleet being at length surrendered, the English with- 
 drew with it in safety ; and the rage of Napoleon — ill 
 disguised in lofty philippics about the violations of the 
 rights and privileges of independent nations — betrayed 
 how completely he had calculated on the use of this 
 marine, and how little he had anticipated a movement 
 of such vigour from the cabinet of St. James's. 
 
 The Emperor of Russia is said to have signified, 
 through a confidential channel, that, though for the 
 present he found himself compelled to temporise, he 
 approved and admired the procedure of the English 
 government. If this be true, however, his public and 
 open conduct bore a very different appearance. The 
 British ambassador was dismissed from St. Petersburg, 
 and a general coalition of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and 
 Denmark against the commerce of England being 
 speedily afterwards formed, the Decrees of Berlin — still 
 further strengthened by other decrees, issued by Na- 
 poleon on the 7th Decembei*, 1806, at Milan — were in 
 fact announced as part and parcel of the universal law 
 of the continent. Alexander of Russia marched a large 
 army into Finland, and took possession of that great 
 Swedish province — the promised booty of Tilsit. His 
 fleet in the Mediterranean gained a signal victory over 
 the Turks, and tei-ms of amity between the courts of St. 
 
1807.] GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE. 325 
 
 Petersburg and Constantinople were at length arranged 
 under the mediation or dictation of Napoleon. Every 
 thing seemed to point to a state of universal tranquillity 
 or submission throughout the continent, and to a steady 
 devotion of all the resources of the European monarchies 
 to the service of the French Emperor, and the destruc- 
 tion of his last and greatest enemy. 
 
 That enemy was ere long, in consequence of a new 
 and unforeseen explosion of guilty ambition, to possess 
 the means of rekindling the continental war, of distract- 
 ing the alliances of Napoleon, and ultimately of ruining 
 the power which, for the present, appeared irresistible. 
 But a short interval of tranquillity ensued : and we may 
 avail ourselves of the opportunity to recur for a mo- 
 ment to the internal administration of French affairs 
 under the Imperial Government, as now finally or- 
 ganised. 
 
 Buonaparte, shortly after the peace of Tilsit, abolished 
 the Tribunate; and there remained, as the last shadows 
 of assemblies having any political influence, the Legisla- 
 tive Senate and the Council of State. The former of 
 these bodies was early reduced to a mere instrument for 
 recording the imperial decrees ; the latter consisted of 
 such persons as Napoleon chose to invest for the timo 
 with the privilege of being summoned to the palace, 
 when it pleased him to hear the opinions of others as to 
 measures originating in his own mind, or suggested to 
 him by his ministers. He appears to have, on many 
 occasions, permitted these counsellors to speak their 
 sentiments frankly and fully, although differing from 
 himself; but there were looks and gestures which suffi- 
 ciently indicated the limits of this toleration, and which 
 persons, owing their lucrative appointment to his mere 
 pleasure, and liable to lose it at his nod, were not likely 
 to transgress. They spoke openly and honestly only on 
 
326 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTK. [1807. 
 
 topics in which their master's feelings were not much 
 concerned. 
 
 His favourite saying during the continuance of his 
 power was, " I am the State ;" and in the exile of St. 
 Helena he constantly talked of himself as having been, 
 from necessity, the Dictator of France. In effect, no 
 despotism within many degrees so complete and rigid, 
 was ever before established in a civilized and Christian 
 country. The whole territory was divided into prefectures 
 — each prefect being appointed by Napoleon — carefully 
 selected for a province with which he had no domestic 
 relations — largely paid — and entrusted with such a com- 
 plete delegation of power that, in Napoleon's own lan- 
 guage, each was in his department au Empereiir & petit 
 2)ied. Each of these officers had under his entire control 
 inferior local magistrates, holding power from him as he 
 did from the Emperor : each had his instructions direct 
 from Paris : each was bound by every motive of interest 
 to serve, to the utmost of his ability, the government, 
 from which all things were derived, to be hoped for, and 
 to be dreaded. Wherever the Emperor was, in the 
 midst of his hottest campaigns, he examined the details 
 of administration at home more closely than, perhaps, 
 any other sovereign of half so great an empire did during 
 the profoundest peace. It was said of him that his 
 dearest amusement, when he had nothing else to do, was 
 to solve problems in algebra or geometry. He carried 
 this passion into every department of affairs ; and having, 
 with his own eye, detected some errors of importance in 
 the public accounts, shortly after his administration 
 began, there prevailed thenceforth, in all the financial 
 records of the state, such clearness and accuracy as are 
 not often exemplified in those of a large private fortune. 
 Nothing was below his attention, and he found time for 
 everything. The humblest functionary discharged his 
 
1807.] GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE. 327 
 
 duty under a lively sense of the Emperor's personal 
 superintendence ; and the omnipresence of his police 
 came in lieu, wherever politics were not touched upon, 
 of the guarding powers of a free press, a free senate, and 
 public opinion. Except in political cases the trial by 
 jury was the right of every citizen. The Code Napoleon, 
 that elaborate system of jurisprudence, in the formation 
 of which the Emperor laboured personally along with 
 the most eminent lawyers and enlightened men of the 
 time, was a boon of inestimable value to France. " I 
 shall go down to posterity (said he, with just -pride) with 
 the Code in my hand." It was the first uniform sys- 
 tem of laws which the French Monarchy had ever pos- 
 sessed : and being drawn up with consummate skill and 
 wisdom, it at this day forms the code not only of France, 
 but of a great portion of Europe besides. Justice, as 
 between man and man, was administered on sound and 
 fixed principles, and by unimpeached tribunals. The 
 arbitrary Commission Courts of Napoleon interfered 
 with nothing but offences, real or alleged, against his 
 authority. 
 
 The Clergy were, as we have seen, appointed uni- 
 versally under the direction of Government : they were 
 also its direct stipendiaries ; hence nothing could be 
 more complete than their subjection to its pleasure. 
 Education became a part of the regular business of the 
 state ; all the schools and colleges being placed under 
 the immediate care of one of Napoleon's ministers — all 
 prizes and bursaries bestowed by the government — and 
 the whole system so arranged, that it was hardly pos- 
 sible for any youth who exhibited remarkable talents, to 
 avoid the temptations to a military career, which on 
 every side surrounded him. The chief distinctions and 
 emoluments were everywhere reserved for those who 
 excelled in accomplishment* likely to be serviceable in 
 
328 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807. 
 
 war ; and the Lyceums, or schools set expressly apart for 
 military students, were invested with numberless attrac- 
 tions, scarcely to be resisted by a young imagination. 
 The army, as it was the sole basis of Napoleon's power, 
 was also, at all times, the primary object of his thoughts. 
 Every institution of the state was subservient and ad- 
 ministered to it, and none more efficaciously than the 
 imperial system of education. 
 
 The ranks of the army, however, were filled during 
 the whole reign of Napoleon by comjndsion. The con- 
 scription-law of 1798 acquired under him the character 
 of a settled and regular part of the national system ; and 
 its oppressive influence was such as never before ex- 
 hausted, through a long term of years, the best energies of 
 a great and civilised people. Every male in France, under 
 the age of twenty-five, was liable to be called on to serve 
 in the ranks ; and the regulations as to the procuring of 
 substitutes were so narrow, that young men of the best 
 families were continually forced to comply, in their own 
 persons, with the stern requisition. The first conscrip- 
 tion-list for the year included all under the age of 
 twenty-one ; and the result of the ballot within this 
 class amounted to nearly 80,000 names. These were 
 first called on ; but if the service of the Emperor de- 
 manded further supply, the lists of those aged twenty- 
 two, twenty-three, twenty-four, and twenty-five, were 
 successively resorted to. There was no exemption for 
 any one who seemed able to bear arms. The only child 
 of his parents, the young husband and father, were 
 forced, like any others, to abandon fire-side, profession, 
 all the ties and all the hopes of life, at a moment's 
 notice ; and there is nothing in the history of modem 
 Europe so remarkable, as that the French people should 
 have submitted, during sixteen years, to the constant 
 operation of a despotic law, which thus sapped all the 
 
1807.] GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE. 320 
 
 foundations of social happiness, and condemned the 
 rising hopes of the nation to bleed and die by millions 
 in distant wars, undertaken solely for the gratification 
 of one man's insatiable ambition. On the other hand, 
 it is not to be denied that the great majority of the 
 conscripts, with whatever reluctance they might enter 
 the ranks, were soon reconciled to their fate. The 
 avenues to promotion, distinction, wealth, honour, no- 
 bility, even royal dignity, were all open before the 
 devoted and successful soldiers of Napoleon ; and the 
 presence of so many youths of good condition and edu- 
 cation, among the ranks of the private soldiery, could 
 not fail, first, to render the situation immeasurably less 
 irksome than it otherwise could have been to each indi- 
 vidual of the class, and, secondly, to elevate the standard 
 of manners and acquirements among the soldiery gene- 
 rally. There never was an army in whose ranks intelli- 
 gence so largely abounded, nor in which so many officers 
 of the highest rank had originally carried a musket. 
 
 The taxation rendered necessary by the constant wars 
 of Napoleon was great ; and the utter destruction of the 
 foreign commerce and marine of France, which the naval 
 supremacy of England effected, made the burden the more 
 intolerable for various important classes of the com- 
 munity. On the other hand the taxes were levied fairly 
 on the whole population, which presented a blessed con- 
 trast to the system of the old regime; and the vast 
 extension and improvement of agriculture consequent 
 on the division of tho great estates at the Revolution, 
 enabled the nation at large to meet the calls of the 
 government with much less difficulty than could have 
 been anticipated at any former period of French histor} r . 
 Napoleon's great public works, too, though undertaken 
 chiefly for the purpose of gratifying his own vanity and 
 that of the nation, could not be executed without fur- 
 
330 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807. 
 
 nishing subsistence to vast bodies of the labouring poor, 
 and wei'e thus serviceable to more important ends. 
 From his vain attempts to supply the want of English 
 manufactured goods and colonial produce, by new estab- 
 lishments and inventions (such especially as that of 
 manufacturing a substitute for sugar out of beet root), 
 partial good, in like manner, resulted. 
 
 The evils of the conscription, of a heavy taxation, of 
 an inquisitorial police, and of a totally enslaved press — 
 these, and all other evils attendant on this elaborate 
 system of military despotism, were endured for so 
 many years chiefly in consequence of the skill with 
 which Napoleon, according to his own favourite language, 
 knew how " to play on the imagination," and gratify the 
 vanity of the French people. In the splendour of his 
 victories, in the magnificence of his roads, bridges, 
 aqueducts, and other monuments, in the general pre- 
 eminence to which the nation seemed to be raised 
 through the genius of its chief, compensation was found 
 for all financial burdens, consolations for domestic cala- 
 mities, and an equivalent for that liberty in whose name 
 the Tyrant had achieved his first glories. But it must 
 not be omitted that Napoleon, in every department of 
 his government, made it his first rule to employ the 
 men best fitted, in his mind, to do honour to his service 
 by their talents and diligence ; and that he thus attached 
 to himself, throughout the whole of his empire as well as 
 in his army, the hopes and the influence of those whose 
 personal voices were most likely to control the opinions 
 of society. 
 
 He gratified the French nation by adorning the 
 capital, and by displaying in the Tuilleries a court as 
 elaborately magnificent as that of Louis XIV. himself. 
 The old nobility, returning from their exile, mingled in 
 those proud halls with the heroes of the revolutionary 
 
1807.] GOVERNMENT OT FRANCE. Sol 
 
 campaigns; and over all the ceremonial of these stately 
 festivities Josephine presided with the grace and elegance 
 of one born to be a queen. In the midst of the pomp 
 and splendour of a court, in whose ante-chambers kings 
 jostled each other, Napoleon himself preserved the 
 soldier-like simplicity of his original dress and manners. 
 The great Emperor continued throughout to labour 
 more diligently than any subaltern in office. He devoted 
 himself wholly to the ambition to which he compelled 
 all others to contribute. 
 
 Napoleon, as Emperor, had little time for social plea- 
 sures. His personal friends were few ; his days were 
 given to labour, and his nights to study. If he was not 
 with his army in the field, he traversed the provinces, 
 examining with his own eyes into the minutest details 
 of local arrangement ; and even from the centre of his 
 camp he was continually issuing edicts which showed 
 the accurac}' of his observation during these journeys, 
 and his anxiety to promote, by any means consistent 
 with his great purpose, the welfare of some French dis- 
 trict, town, or even village. 
 
 The manners of the Court were at least decent. 
 Napoleon occasionally indulged himself in amours un- 
 worthy of his chai'acter and tormenting to his wife ; but 
 he never suffered any other female to possess influence 
 over his mind, nor insulted public opinion by any 
 approach to that system of unveiled debauchery which 
 had, during whole ages, disgraced the Bourbon Court, 
 and undermined their throne. 
 
3"; 2 *Ui>OLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Relations of Napoleon with Spain — Treaty of Fontainebleau — Junot 
 marches to Portugal— Flight of the Braganzas to Brazil — French 
 troops proceed into Spain — Dissensions in the Court — Both parties 
 appeal to Napoleon — Marat occupies Madrid — Charles and Ferdi- 
 nand abdicate at Bayonne — Joseph Buonaparte crowned King of 
 Spain. 
 
 After the ratification of the treaty of Tilsit, Napoleon, 
 returning as we have seen to Paris, devoted all his 
 energies to the perfect establishment of " the continental 
 system." Something has already been said as to the 
 difficulties which this attempt involved : in truth, it was 
 a contest between the despotic will of Buonaparte, and 
 the interests and habits, not only of every sovereign in 
 bis alliance, but of every private individual on the con- 
 tinent ; and it was therefore actually impossible that the 
 imperial policy should not be baffled. The Russian 
 government was never, probably, friendly to a system 
 which, from the nature of the national produce and 
 resources, must, if persisted in for any considerable 
 time, have inflicted irreparable injury on the finances of 
 the landholders, reduced the public establishments, and 
 sunk the effective power of the state. In that quarter, 
 therefore, Napoleon soon found that, notwithstanding 
 all the professionG of personal devotion which the young 
 Czar continued, perhaps sincerely, to make, his favourite 
 scheme was systematically violated : but the distance 
 and strength of Russia prevented him from, for the pre- 
 sent, pushing his complaints to extremity. The Spanish 
 peninsula lay nearer him, and the vast extent to which 
 the prohibited mamifactures and colonial produce of 
 
ISO?.] SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 833 
 
 England found their way into every district of that 
 country, and especially of Portugal, and thence, through 
 the hands of whole legions of audacious smugglers, into 
 France itself, ere long fixed his attention and resent- 
 ment. In truth, a proclamation issued at Madrid shortly 
 before the battle of Jena, and suddenly recalled on the 
 intelligence of that great victory, had prepared the Em- 
 peror to regard with keen suspicion the conduct of the 
 Spanish Court, and to trace every violation of his system 
 to its deliberate and hostile connivance. 
 
 The court presented in itself the lively image of a 
 divided and degraded nation. The King, old and al- 
 most incredibly imhecile, was ruled absolutely by his 
 Queen, a woman audaciously unprincipled, whose strong 
 and wicked passions again were entirely under the in- 
 fluence of Manuel Godoy, " Prince of the Peace," raised 
 by her guilty love, from the station of a private guards- 
 man, to precedence above all the grandees of Spain, a 
 matrimonial connection with the royal house, and the 
 supreme conduct of affairs. She, her paramour, and the 
 degraded King, were held in contempt and hatred by a 
 powerful party, at the head of whom were the canon 
 Escoiquiz, the Duke del Infantado, and Ferdinand, 
 Prince of Austurias, heir of the throne. The scenes of 
 dissension which filled tho palace and court were scan- 
 dalous beyond all contcmporaiy example ; and, the 
 strength of the two parties vibrating in the scale, 
 according as corrupt calculators looked to the extont of 
 Godoy's present power, or to the probability of Fer- 
 dinand's accession, the eyes of both were turned to the 
 hazardous facility of striking a balance by calling in 
 support from the Tuilleries. Napoleon, on his part, 
 regarding the rivnl factions with equal scorn, flat- 
 tered himself that, in their common fears and base- 
 ness, he should find the means of ultimately reducing 
 
33-i KAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807. 
 
 the whole Peninsula to complete submission uuder his 
 own yoke. 
 
 The secret history of the intrigues of 1807, between 
 the French Court and the rival parties in Spain, has not 
 yet been clearly exposed ; nor was it likely to be so while 
 most of the chief agents survived. According to Napoleon 
 the first proposal for conquering Portugal by the united 
 arms of France and Spain, and dividing that monarchy 
 into three separate prizes, of which one should fall to 
 the disposition of France, a second to the Spanish King, 
 and a third reward the personal exertions of Godoy, 
 came not from him, but from the Spanish minister. It 
 was unlikely that Napoleon should have given any other 
 account of the matter. The suggestion has been attri- 
 buted, by every Spanish authority, to the Emperor ; and 
 it is difficult to doubt that such was the fact. The 
 treaty in which the unprincipled design took complete 
 form, was ratified at Fontainebleau on the 29th October, 
 1807, and accompanied by a convention, which provided 
 for the immediate invasion of Portugal by a force of 
 28,000 French soldiers, under the orders of Junot, and 
 of 27,000 Spaniards ; while a reserve of 40,000 French 
 troops were to be assembled at Bayonne, ready to take 
 the field by the end of November, in case England 
 should land an army for the defence of Portugal, or the 
 people of that devoted country presume to meet Junot 
 by a national insurrection. 
 
 Junot forthwith commenced his march through Spain, 
 where the French soldiery were received everywhere 
 with coldness and suspicion, but nowhere by any hostile 
 movement of the people. He would have halted at 
 Salamanca to organize his army, which consisted mostly 
 of young conscripts, but Napoleon's policy outmarched 
 his General's schemes, and the troops were, in con- 
 sequence of a peremptory order from Paris, poured into 
 
1807.] PORTUGAL. 335 
 
 Portugal in the latter part of November. Godoy's con- 
 tingent of Spaniards appeared there also, and placed 
 themselves under Junot's command. Their numbers 
 overawed the population, and they advanced, unopposed, 
 towards the capital — Junot's most eager desire being to 
 secure the persons of the Prince Regent and the royal 
 family. The feeble government, meantime, having 
 made, one by one, every degrading submission which 
 France dictated, having expelled the British factory and 
 the British minister, confiscated all English property, 
 and shut the ports against all English vessels, became 
 convinced, at length, that no measures of subserviency 
 could avert the doom which Napoleon had fulminated. 
 A iloniteur, proclaiming that " the House of Braganza 
 had ceased to reign," reached Lisbon. The Prince 
 Regent re-opened his communication with the English 
 admiral off the Tagus (Sir Sydney Smith) and the lately 
 expelled ambassador (Lord Strangford) and being as- 
 sured of their protection, embarked on the 27th of No- 
 vember, and sailed for the Brazils on the 29th, only a 
 few hours before Junot made his appearance at the gates 
 of Lisbon. The disgust with which the Portuguese 
 people regarded this flight, the cowardly termination, as 
 they might not unnaturally regard it, of a long course of 
 meanness, was eminently useful to the invader. With 
 the exception of one trivial insurrection, when the inso- 
 lent conqueror took down the Portuguese arms, and set 
 up those of Napoleon in their place, several months 
 passed in apparent tranquillity ; and these were skilfully 
 employed by the General in perfecting the discipline of 
 his conscripts, improving the fortifications of the coast, 
 and making such a disposal of his force as might best 
 guard the country from any military demonstration on 
 the part of England. 
 
 Napoleon thus saw Portugal in his grasp ; but that he 
 
336 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. L 1S °7. 
 
 had all along considered as a point of minor importance, 
 and lie had accordingly availed himself of the utmost 
 concessions of the treaty of Fontainebleau, without wait- 
 ing for any insurrection of the Portuguese, or English 
 debarkation on their territory. His army of reserve, in 
 number far exceeding the 40,000 men named in the 
 treaty, had already passed the Pyrenees, in two bodies, 
 under Dupont and Moncey, and were advancing slowly, 
 but steadily, into the heart of Spain. Nay, without even 
 the pretext of being mentioned in the treaty, another 
 French army of 12,000, under Duhesme, had penetrated 
 through the eastern Pyrenees, and being received as 
 friends among the unsuspecting gai'risons, obtained pos- 
 session of Barcelona, Pampeluna, and St Sebastian, and 
 the other fortified places in the north of Spain, by a suc- 
 cession of treacherous artifices, to which the history of 
 civilized nations presents no parallel. The armies then 
 pushed forwards, and the chief roads leading from the 
 French frontiers to Madrid were entirely in their pos- 
 session. 
 
 It seems impossible that such daring movements 
 should not have awakened the darkest suspicions at 
 Madrid ; yet the royal family, overlooking the common 
 danger about to overwhelm them and their country, 
 continued, during three eventful months, to waste what 
 energies they possessed in petty conspiracies, domestic 
 broils, and, incredible as the tale will hereafter appear, 
 in the meanest diplomatic intrigues with the court of 
 France. The Prince of Asturias solicited the honour of 
 a wife from the House of Napoleon. The old king, or 
 rather Godoy, invoked anew the assistance of the Em- 
 peror against the treasonable — nay (for to such extremi- 
 ties went their mutual accusations), the parricidal plots 
 of the heir apparent. Buonaparte listened to both 
 parties, vouchsafed no direct answer to either, and con- 
 
180S.] SPAIN. 337 
 
 tinned to direct the onward movement of those stern 
 arbiters who were ere long to decide the question. A 
 sudden panic at length seized the King or his minister, 
 and the court, then at Aranjuez, prepared to retire to 
 Seville, and, sailing from thence to America, seek 
 safet}-, after the example of the House of Braganza, in 
 the work of whose European ruin they had so lately 
 been accomplices. The servants of the Prince of Astu- 
 rias, on perceiving the preparations for this flight, com- 
 menced a tumult, in which the populace of Aranjuez 
 readily joined, and which was only pacified (for the 
 moment) by a royal declaration that no flight was con- 
 templated. On the 18th of March, 1808, the day 
 following, a scene of like violence took place in the 
 capital itself. The house of Godoy in Madrid was 
 sacked. The favourite himself was assaulted at Aran- 
 juez, on the 10th ; with great difficulty saved his life by 
 the intervention of the royal guards ; and was placed 
 under arrest. Terrified by what he saw at Aranjuez, 
 and heard from Madrid, Charles TV. abdicated the 
 throne ; and on the 20th, Ferdinand, his son, was pro- 
 claimed King at Madrid, amidst a tumult of popular 
 applause. Murat, Grand Duke of Berg, had before this 
 assumed the chief command of all tlie French troops in 
 Spain; and hearing of the extremities to which the 
 court factions had gone, he now moved rapidly on 
 Madrid, surrounded that capital with 30,000 men, and 
 took possession of it in person, at the head of 10,000 
 more, on the 23d of March. Charles IV. meantime 
 dispatched messengers both to Napoleon and Murat, 
 asserting that his abdication had been involuntary, and 
 invoking their assistance against his son. Ferdinand, 
 entering Madrid on the 24tb, found the French general 
 in possession of the capital, and in vain claimed his re- 
 cognition asking. Murat accepted the sword of Francis I., 
 
338 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808. 
 
 which, amidst other adulations, Ferdinand offered to 
 him ; but pertinaciously declined taking any part in the 
 decision of the great cpiestion, which demanded, as ho 
 said, the fiat of Napoleon. 
 
 The Emperor heard with much regret of the precipi- 
 tancy with which his lieutenant had occupied Madrid — for 
 his clear mind had foreseen ere now the imminent hazard 
 of trampling too rudely on the jealous pride of the 
 Spaniards; and the events of the 17th, 18th, and 19th 
 March were well qualified to confirm his impression, 
 that although all sense of dignity and decorum might 
 he extinguished in the court, the ancient elements of 
 national honour still remained, ready to be called into 
 action, among the body of the people. He, therefore, 
 sent Savary, in whose practised cunning and duplicity 
 he hoped to find a remedy for the military rashness of 
 Murat, to assume the chief direction of affairs at Madrid; 
 and the rumour was actively spread, that the Emperor 
 was about to appear there in person without delay. 
 
 Madrid occupied and begirt by 40,000 armed 
 strangers, his title unrecognised by Murat, his weak 
 understanding and tumultuous passions worked upon 
 incessantly by the malicious craft of Savarj'-, Ferdinand 
 was at length persuaded that his best chance of securing 
 the aid and protection of Napoleon lay in advancing to 
 meet him on his way to the capital, and striving to gain 
 his ear before the emissaries of Godoy should be able to 
 fill it with their reclamations. Savary eagerly offered 
 to accompany him on this fatal journey, which began on 
 tho 10th of April. The infatuated Ferdinand had been 
 taught to believe that he should find Buonaparte at 
 Burgos ; not meeting him there, he was tempted to pur- 
 sue his journey as far as Vittoria ; and from thence, in 
 spite of the populace, who, more sagacious than their 
 prince, cut the traces of his carriage, he was, by a repe- 
 
1808.] BATONNB. 839 
 
 titiou of the same treacherous arguments, induced to 
 proceed stage by stage, and at length to pass the frontier 
 and present himself at Bayonne, where the arbiter of 
 his fate lay anxiously expecting this consummation of 
 his almost incredible folly. He arrived there on the 
 20th of April — was received by Napoleon with courtesy, 
 entertained at dinner at the imperial table, and the 
 same evening informed by Savary that his doom was 
 sealed — that the Bourbon dynasty had ceased to reign 
 in Spain, and that his personal safety must depend on 
 the readiness with which he should resign all his preten- 
 sions into the hands of Buonaparte. 
 
 He, meanwhile, as soon as he was aware that Ferdi- 
 nand had actually set out from Madrid, had ordered 
 Murat to find the means of causing the old King, the 
 Queen, and Godoy to repair also to Bayonne ; nor does 
 it appear that his lieutenant had any difficulty in per- 
 suading these personages that such was the course of 
 conduct most in accordance with their interests. They 
 reached Bayonne on the 4th of May, and Napoleon, con- 
 fronting the parents and the son on the 5th, witnessed 
 a scene in which the profligate rancour of their domestic 
 feuds reached extremities hardly to have been contem- 
 plated by the wildest imagination. The flagitious Queen 
 did not, it is said and believed, hesitate to signify to her 
 son that the King was not his father — and this in the 
 presence of that King and of Napoleon. Could crime 
 justify crime — could the fiendish lusts and hatreds of a 
 degenerate race offer any excuse for the deliberate guilt 
 of a masculine genius, the conduct of this abject court 
 might have apologised for the policy which it perhaps 
 perhaps tempted tho pampered ambition of Napoleon to 
 commence, and which it now encouraged him to con- 
 summate by an act of suicidal violence. 
 
 Charles IV. resigned the Crown of Spain for himself 
 
310 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808. 
 
 and Lis heirs, .accepting in return from the bands of 
 Napoleon a safe retreat in Italy, and a large pension. 
 Godoy, who had entered into the fatal negotiation of 
 Fontainebleau, with the hope and the promise of an in- 
 dependent sovereignty carved out of the Portuguese 
 dominions, was pensioned off in like manner, and ordered 
 to partake the Italian exile of his patrons. A few days 
 afterwards, Ferdinand VII., being desired to choose at 
 length between compliance and death, followed the ex- 
 ample of his father, and executed a similar act of resig- 
 nation. Napoleon congratulated himself on having 
 added Spain and the Indies to his empire, without any 
 cost either of blood or of treasure ; and the French 
 people, dazzled by the apparent splendour of the acqui- 
 sition, overlooked, if there be any faith in public 
 addresses and festivals, the enormous guilt by which 
 it had been achieved. But ere the ink with which the 
 Spanish Bourbons signed away their birthright was 
 dry, there came tidings to Bayonue which might well 
 disturb the proud day-dreams of the spoliator, and the 
 confidence of his worshippers. 
 
 Not that Napoleon had failed to measure from the 
 beginning the mighty dangers which surrounded his 
 audacious design. He had been warned of them in the 
 strongest manner by Talleyrand, and even by Fouche ; 
 nay, he had himself written to rebuke the headlong 
 haste of Murat in occupying the Spanish capital — to 
 urge on him the necessity of conciliating the people, by 
 preserving the show of respect for their national authori- 
 ties and institutions — to represent the imminent hazard 
 of permitting the Duke del Infantado to strengthen and 
 extend his party in Madi-id — and concluding with those 
 ominous words : Remember, if war breaks out, all is lost, 
 
 Ferdinand, before he left Madrid, invested a council 
 of regency with the sovereign power, his uncle, Don 
 
1808.J 
 
 MASSACRE OF MADRID. 8il 
 
 Antonio, being president, and Murat one of the members. 
 Marat's assumption of tbe authority thus conferred, the 
 departure of Ferdinand, the liberation and departure of 
 the detested Godoy, the flight of the old King— these 
 occurrences produced their natural effects on the popu- 
 lar mind. A dark suspicion that France meditated the 
 destruction of the national independence began to spread, 
 and on the 2d of May, -when it transpired that prepara- 
 tions were making for the journey of Don Antonio also, 
 the general rage at last burst out. A crowd collected 
 around the carriage meant, as they concluded, to convey 
 the last of the royal family out of Spain ; the traces 
 were cut; the imprecations against the French were 
 fnrious. Colonel La Grange, Murat's aide-de-camp, 
 happening to appear on the spot, was cruelly maltreated. 
 In a moment the whole capital was in an uproar ; the 
 French soldiery were assaulted everywhere — about 700 
 were slain. The mob attacked the hospital — the sick 
 and their attendants rushed out and defended it. The 
 French cavalry, hearing the tumult, entered the city by 
 the gate of Alcala — a column of 3000 infantry from the 
 other side by the street Ancha de Bernardo. Some 
 Spanibh officers headed the mob, and fired on the 
 soldiery in the streets of Muravalles ; a bloody massacre 
 ensued ; many hundreds were made prisoners ; the 
 troops, sweeping the streets from end to end, released 
 their comrades; and, to all appearance, tranquillity was 
 re.-tored ere nightfall. During the darkness, however, 
 the peasantry flocked in armed from the neighbouring 
 country ; and, being met at the gates by the irritated 
 soldiery, not a few more were killed, wounded, and 
 made prisoners. Murat ordered all the prisoners to bo 
 tried by a military commission, -which doomed them to 
 instant death. It is disputed whether the more deliberate 
 guilt of carrying the sentence into execution lies with 
 
342 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808. 
 
 the Commander-in-Chief himself, or with Grouchy ; it ia 
 certain that a considerable number of Spaniards — the 
 English authority most friendly to the French cause 
 admits ninety-five* — were butchered in cold blood on 
 the 3d of May. 
 
 This commotion had been preceded by a brief insur- 
 rection, easily suppressed and not unlikely to be soon 
 forgotten, on the 23d of April, at Toledo. The events 
 in the capital were of a more decisive character, and the 
 amount of the bloodshed, in itself great, was much 
 exaggerated in the reports which flew, like wildfire, 
 throughout the Peninsula — for the French were as eager 
 to overawe the provincial Spaniards, by conveying an 
 overcharged impression of the consequences of resistance, 
 as their enemies in Madrid were to rouse the general 
 indignation, by heightened details of the ferocity of the 
 invaders, and the sternness of their own devotion. In 
 almost every town of Spain, and almost simultaneously, 
 the flame of patriotic resentment broke out in the 
 terrible form of assassination. The French residents 
 were slaughtered without mercy ; the supposed partisans 
 of Napoleon and Godoy (not a few men of worth being 
 causelessly confounded in their fate) were sacrificed in 
 the first tumult of popular rage. At Cadiz, Seville, 
 Carthagena, above all in Valencia, the streets ran red 
 with blood. The dark and vindictive temper of the 
 Spaniards covered the land with scenes, on the details 
 of which it is shocking to dwell. Tho French soldiery, 
 hemmed in, insulted, and wherever they could be found 
 separately, sacrificed — often with every circumstance of 
 savage torture — retorted by equal barbarity whenever 
 they had the means. Popular bodies (juntas) assumed 
 the conduct of affairs in most of the cities and provinces, 
 renounced the yoke of France, reproclaimed Ferdinand 
 * Colonel Napier, p. 25. 
 
1808.] ffiSDfcfcECTtON OF SPAIN. 3i3 
 
 king, and at the maritime stations of chief importance 
 entered into communication with the English fleets, 
 from whom they failed not to receive pecuniary supplies, 
 and every encouragement to proceed in their measures. 
 Deputies were sent to England without delay, and 
 welcomed there with the utmost enthusiasm of sympathy 
 and admiration. England could both speak and act 
 openly. Throughout the whole of the enslaved conti- 
 nent the news of the Spanish insurrection was brooded 
 over with a sullen joy. 
 
 Napoleon received the intelligence with alarm ; but 
 he had already gone too far to retract without distm-bing 
 the magical influence of his reputation. He, moreover, 
 was willing to flatter himself that the lower population 
 of Spain alone took an active part in these transactions ; 
 that the nobility, whose degradation he could hai'dly 
 over-estimate, would abide by his voice ; in a word, that 
 with 80,000 troops in Spain, besides Junot's army in 
 Portugal, he possessed the means of suppressing the 
 tumult, after the first effervescence should have escaped. 
 He proceeded, therefore, to act precisely as if no insur- 
 rection had occurred. Tranquillity being re-established 
 in Madrid, the Council of Castile were convoked, and 
 commanded to elect a new sovereign : their choice had, 
 of course, been settled beforehand : it fell on Joseph 
 Buonaparte, King of Naples ; and ere it was announced, 
 that personage was already on his way to Bayonne. 
 Ninety-five Notables of Spain met him in that town ; 
 and swore fealty to him and a new Constitution, the 
 manufacture, of course, of Napoleon. Joseph, on enter- 
 ing Spain, was met by unequivocal symptoms of scorn 
 and hatred : — nay, one great battle had already been 
 fought between the French and the patriots : — but, the 
 main road being strongly occupied throughout with his 
 brother's troops, he reached Madrid in safety. 
 
344 NAPOLEOK BUONAPARTE. [1808. 
 
 Lncicn Buonaparte, it is understood, received the first 
 offer of this crown ; but he did not envy the condition of 
 his brother's royal vassals, and declined the dangerous 
 honour. Murat had expected it, and much resented his 
 disappointment; but Napoleon did not consider him as 
 possessed of tho requisite prudence, and he was forced 
 
 accept the succession to the vacant throne of Naples. 
 
 Joseph had become not unpopular in Naples, and 
 being a peaceful man, would gladly have remained in 
 that humbler kingdom ; but Napoleon no more consulted 
 the private wishes of his subaltern princes on such oc- 
 casions, than he did those of his generals in the arrange- 
 ments of a campaign. 
 
 On the 24th of July, (says Colonel Napier) " Joseph 
 was proclaimed King of Spain and the Indies, with all 
 the solemnities usual upon such occasions ; not hesitat- 
 ing to declare himself the enemy of eleven millions of 
 people, the object of a whole nation's hatred ; calling, 
 with a strange accent, from the midst of foreign bands, 
 upon that fierce and haughty race to accept of a consti- 
 tution which they did not understand, and which few of 
 them had even heard of; his only hope of success rest- 
 ing on the strength of his brother's arms ; his claims on 
 the consent of an imbecile monarch, and the weakness 
 of a few pusillanimous nobles, in contempt of the rights 
 of millions now arming to oppose him." 
 
1808.1 PRANCE AND ENGLAND. 345 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Insurrection of the Spaniards and Portuguese — Their alliance with 
 
 England — Bottle of Riosecco — Joseph enters Madrid — First Siege 
 
 of Saragossa—Dupont's March into Andalusia — The Battle of 
 
 ■ en — Dupont surrenders— Joseph quits Madrid —Situation of 
 
 J •mot— Arrival of Sir Arthur Wellesleg — Battle of Rorica — 
 Battle of Yimiero — Convention of Cintra. 
 
 On the 4th of July the King of England addressed his 
 parliament on the subject which then fixed the universal 
 enthusiasm of his people. " I view," said he, " with 
 the liveliest interest the loyal and determined spirit 
 manifested in resisting the violence and perfidy with 
 which the clearest rights of the Spanish nation have 
 been assailed. The kingdom thus nobly struggling 
 against the usurpation and tyranny of France, can no 
 longer be considered as the enemy of Great Britain, but 
 is recognised by me as a natural friend and ally." It 
 has been already mentioned that the British commanders 
 in the neighbourhood of Spain did not wait for orders 
 from home to espouse openly the cause of the insurgent 
 nation. The Spanish prisoners of war were forthwith 
 released, clothed, equipped, and sent back to their coun- 
 try. Supplies of arms and money were liberally trans- 
 mitted thither ; and, Portugal catching the flame and 
 bursting into general insurrection also, a formal treaty 
 of alliance, offensive and defensive, was soon concluded 
 between England and the two kingdoms of the Penin- 
 sula. 
 
 This insurrection furnished Great Britain with what 
 she had not yet possessed during the war, a favourable 
 tbo^rg whereon to oppose the full strength of her 
 
o46 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808. 
 
 empire to the arms of Napoleon ; and the opportunity 
 was embraced with zeal, though for some time but little 
 skill appeared in the manner of using it. The Emperor, 
 on the other hand, observed with surprise and rage the 
 energy of the Spaniards, and not doubting that England 
 would hasten to their aid, bent every effort to consum- 
 mate his flagitious purpose. " Thus," says a distinguished 
 writer, " the two leading nations of the world were 
 brought into contact at a moment when both were dis- 
 turbed by angry passions, eager for great events, and 
 possessed of surprising power."* 
 
 Napoleon, from the extent and population of his 
 empire, under the operation of the Conscription Code, 
 was enabled to maintain an army 500,000 strong ; but 
 his relations with those powers on the continent whom 
 he had not entirely subdued were of the most unstable 
 character, and even the states which he had formally 
 united to France were, without exception, pregnant with 
 the elements of disaffection. It was, therefore, impos- 
 sible for him to concentrate the whole of his gigantic 
 strength on the soil of Spain. His troops, moreover, 
 being drawn from a multitude of different countries and 
 tongues, could not be united in heart or in discipline 
 like the soldiers of a purely national army. On the 
 other hand, the military genius at his command has 
 never been surpassed in any age or country ; his officers 
 were accustomed to victory, and his own reputation 
 exerted a magical influence over both friends and foes. 
 The pecuniary resources of the vast empire were great, 
 and they were managed so skilfully by Buonaparte that 
 the supplies were raised within the year, and in a 
 metallic currency. 
 
 His ancient enemy was omnipotent at sea ; and if the 
 
 * Col, Napier, chap. i. 
 
1808.] FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 347 
 
 character of her armies stood at the moment much lower 
 both at home and abroad than, it ever deserved to do, 
 this was a mistake which one well-organised campaign 
 was likely to extinguish. England possessed at thi3 
 time a population of twenty millions, united in the spirit 
 of loyalty, and regarding the Spanish cause as just, noble, 
 and sacred : a standing army of 200,000 of the best 
 troops in the world, an immense recruiting establish- 
 ment, and a system of militia which enabled her to swell 
 her muster to any limit. Her colonies occupied a large 
 share of this army ; but there remained at her immediate 
 command a force at least equal to that with which 
 Buonaparte had conquered Austria and Prussia. Her 
 credit was unbounded ; and her commerce not only 
 supplied means of information altogether unrivalled, but 
 secured for her the secret goodwill of w r hole classes in 
 every country. England possessed Generals worthy to 
 cope with the best of Buonaparte's Marshals, and in the 
 hour of need discovered that she possessed one capable 
 of confronting, and of conquering, the great Emperor 
 himself. Finally, she possessed the incalculable advant- 
 age of warring on the side of justice and freedom, against 
 an usurper, whose crimes were on the same gigantic 
 scale with his genius. The remembrance of their leader's 
 perfidy weighed heavily on the moral strength of the 
 French army throughout the approaching contest ; whilo 
 a proud conviction that their cause was the right, sus- 
 tained the hearts of the English. 
 
 Upon them, ultimately, the chief burden and the chief 
 glory of the war devolved : yet justice will ever be done 
 to the virtuous exertions of their allies of the Peninsula. 
 At the moment when the insurrection occurred, 20,000 
 Spanish troops were in Portugal, under the orders of 
 Junot ; 15,000 more, under the Marquess de Romana, 
 were serving Napoleon in Holstein. There remained 
 
348 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808. 
 
 40,000 Spanish regulars, 11,000 Swiss, and 30,000 
 militia ; but of the best of these the discipline, when 
 compared with French or English armies, was con- 
 temptible. The nobility, to whose order the chief officers 
 belonged, were divided in their sentiments — perhaps the 
 greater number inclined to the interests of Joseph. 
 Above all, the troops were scattered, in small sections, 
 over the face of the whole country, and there was no 
 probability that any one regular army should be able to 
 muster so strong as to withstand the efforts of a mere 
 fragment of the French force already established within 
 the kingdom. The fleets of Spain had been destroyed in 
 the war with England : her commerce and revenues had 
 been mortally wounded by the alliance with France and 
 the maladministration of Godoy. Ferdinand was de- 
 tained a prisoner in France. There was no natural 
 leader or chief around whom the whole energies of the 
 nation might be expected to rally. It was amidst such 
 adverse circumstances that the Spanish people rose 
 everywhere, smarting under intolerable wrongs, against 
 a French army, already 80,000 strong, in possession of 
 half the fortresses of the country, and in perfect com- 
 munication with the mighty i*esources of Napoleon. 
 
 There are authors who still delight to undervalue the 
 motives of this great national movement ; according to 
 whom the commercial classes rose chiefly, if not solely, 
 from their resentment of the pecuniary losses inflicted 
 on them by Godoy's alliance with the author of the 
 continental system ; the priesthood, because Godoy had 
 impoverished the church, and they feared that a Buona- 
 partean government would pursue the same course to a 
 much greater extent; the peasantry, because their priests 
 commanded them. All these influences unquestionably 
 operated, and all strongly ; but who can believe, in the 
 absence of others infinitely above these, and common to 
 
1808.] kiosecco. 349 
 
 all the Spaniards who, during six years, fought and 
 bled, and saw their towns ruined and their soil a waste, 
 that they might vindicate then* birthright, the indepen- 
 dence of their nation ? Nor can similar praise be refused 
 to the great majority of the Portuguese. Napoleon 
 summoned a body of the nobles of that kingdom also to 
 meet him early in the year at Bayonne ; they obeyed, 
 and being addressed by the haughty usurper in person, 
 resisted all his efforts to cajole them into an imitation 
 of the Spanish Notables who, at the same time and 
 place, accepted Joseph for tbeir king. They were, in 
 consequence, retained as prisoners in France during 
 the war which followed ; but their fate operated as a 
 new stimulus upon tbe general feeling of their country- 
 men at home, already well prepared for insurrection by 
 the brutal oppression of Junot. 
 
 The Spanish arms were at first exposed to many re- 
 verses ; the rawness of their levies, and the insulated 
 nature of their movements, being disadvantages of which 
 it was not difficult for the experienced generals and 
 overpowering numbers of the French to reap a full and 
 bloody harvest. After various petty skirmishes, in 
 which the insurgents of Arragon were worsted by Le- 
 febre Desnouettes, and those of Navarre and Biscay by 
 Bessieres, the latter officer came upon the united armies 
 of Castile, Leon, and Gallicia, commanded by the Gene- 
 rals Cuesta and Blako, on the 14th of July, at Riosccco, 
 and defeated them in a desperate action, in which not 
 less than 20,000 Spaniards died. This calamitous battle 
 it was which opened the gates of Madrid to the intrusive 
 king — whose arrival in that capital on the 20th of the 
 same month has already been mentioned. 
 
 But Joseph was not destined to remain long in Madrid ; 
 the fortune of war, after the great day of Riosecco, was 
 everywhere on the side of the patriots. Duhesmc, who 
 
350 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808. 
 
 bad so treacherously possessed himself of Barcelona and 
 Figueras, found himself surrounded by the Catalonian 
 mountaineers, who, after various affairs, in which much 
 blood was shed on both sides, compelled him to shut 
 himself up in Barcelona. Marshal Moncey conducted 
 another large division of the French towards Valencia, 
 and was to have been further reinforced by a detach- 
 ment from Duhesme. The course of events in Catalonia 
 prevented Duhesme from affording any such assistance ; 
 and the inhabitants of Valencia, male and female, rising 
 en masse, and headed by their clergy, manned their 
 walls with such determined resolution, that the French 
 marshal was at length compelled to retreat. He fell 
 back upon the main body, under Bessicres, but did not 
 effect a conjunction with them until his troops had suf- 
 fered miserably in their march through an extensive 
 district, in which every inhabitant was a watchful 
 enemy. 
 
 A far more signal catastrophe had befallen another 
 powerful corps d'armee, under General Dupont, which 
 marched from Madrid towards the south, with the view 
 of suppressing all symptoms of insurrection in that 
 quarter, and, especially, of securing the great naval sta- 
 tion of Cadiz, where a French squadron lay, watched, as 
 usual, by the English. Dupont's force was increased as 
 he advanced, till it amounted to 20,000 men; and with 
 these he took possession of Baylen and La Carolina, in 
 Andalusia, and stormed Jaen. But before he could make 
 these acquisitions, the citizens of Cadiz had universally 
 taken the patriot side ; the commander of the French 
 vessels had been forced to surrender them; and the 
 place, having opened a communication with the English 
 fleet, assumed a posture of determined defence. General 
 Castafios, the Spanish commander in that province, 
 meanwhile, having been held back from battle until hia 
 
1808.] BAYLEN. 3-M 
 
 raw troops suoukl have bad time to be disciplined, 
 began at length to threaten the position of the French. 
 Jaen was attacked by him with such vigour, that Dupont 
 was fain to evacuate it, and fall back to Baylen, where his 
 troops soon suffered severe privations, the peasantry being 
 in arms all around them, and the supply of food becom- 
 ing from day to day more difficult. On the 16th of July, 
 Dupont was attacked at Baylen by Castanos, who knew 
 from an intercepted despatch the extent of his enemy's 
 distress ; the French were beaten, and driven as far as 
 Menjibar. They returned on the 18th, and attempted 
 to recover Baylen; but, after a long and desperate battle, 
 in which 3000 of the French were killed, Dupont, per- 
 ceiving that the Spaniai'ds were gathering all around in 
 numbers not to be resisted, proposed to capitulate. In 
 effect, he and 20,000 soldiers laid down their arms at 
 Baylen, on condition that they should be transported in 
 safety into France. The Spaniards broke this conven- 
 tion, and detained them as prisoners — thus, foolishly as 
 well as wickedly, imitating the perfidy of ^Napoleon's 
 own conduct to Spain. This battle and capitulation of 
 Baylen were termed by the Emperor himself the Gaudine 
 forks of the French army. He attributed the disaster to 
 treachery on the part of Dupont : it was the result of the 
 rashness of the expedition, aud the incompetency of the 
 conductor. The richest part of Spain was freed wholly 
 of the invaders ; the light troops of Castanos pushed on, 
 and swept the country before them ; and within ten days, 
 Kinu r Joseph perceived the necessity of quitting Madrid, 
 and removed his head-quarters to Yittoria. 
 
 In the meantime Lefebre Desnouettes, whose early 
 success in Arragon has been alluded to, was occupied 
 with the siege of Sai'agossa, the inhabitants of which 
 city had risen in the first outbreak, and prepared to 
 defend their walle to the last extremitv. Don Jose 
 
352 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. ("1808. 
 
 Palafox, a young nobleman of no great talents, who had 
 made his escape from Bayonne, was invested with the 
 command ; but the real leaders were tho priests and 
 some of the private citizens, who selected him for tho 
 prominent place as belonging to a family of eminent 
 distinction in their kingdom, but in effect considered 
 and used him as their tool. Some Spanish and Walloon 
 regiments, who had formed the garrisons of strong 
 places treacherously seized by the enemy before the 
 war commenced, had united with Palafox, and various 
 bloody skirmishes had occurred, ere the French general 
 was enabled to shut them up in Saragossa and form the 
 siege. The importance of success in this enterprise was 
 momentous, especially after the failure of Moncey at 
 Valencia. Napoleon himself early saw that if tho 
 Valencians should be able to form a union with the 
 Arragonese at Saragossa, the situation of the Cataloniau 
 insurgents on the one side would be prodigiously 
 strengthened ; while, on the other hand, the armies of 
 Leon and Galicia (whose coasts offei'ed the means of 
 continual communication with England) would conduct 
 their operations in the immediate vicinity of the only 
 great road left open between Madrid and Bayonne — 
 the route by Burgos. He therefore had instructed 
 Savary to consider Saragossa as an object of the very 
 highest importance ; but the corps of Lefebre was not 
 strengthened as the Emperor would have wished it to 
 be, ere ho sat down before Saragossa. The siege was 
 pressed with the utmost vigour, but the immortal hero- 
 ism of the citizens baffled all the valour of tho French. 
 There were no regular works worthy of notice but the 
 old Moorish walls, not above eight or ten feet in height, 
 and some extensive monastic buildings in the outskirts 
 of the city, being manned by crowds of determined 
 men, whose wives and daughters looked on, — nay, 
 
ISO?.] STR ABTHT'R WELLBSLBT. 353 
 
 mingled boldly in their defence ; the besiegers wero 
 held at bay week after week, and saw their ranks 
 thinned in continual assaults without being able to 
 secure any adequate advantage. Famine came, and 
 disease in its train, to aggravate the sufferings of the 
 townspeople ; but they would listen to no suggestions 
 but those of the same proud spirit in which they had 
 begun. The French at length gained possession of the 
 great convent of St. Engracia, and thus established 
 themselves within the town itself; their general then 
 sent to Palafox this brief summons : " Head-quarters, 
 Santa Engracia — Capitulation ;" but he received for 
 answer, " Head- quarters, Saragossa — "War to the knife." 
 The battle was maintained literally from street to street, 
 from house to house, and from chamber to chamber. 
 Men and women fought side by side, amidst flames and 
 carnage, until Lefebre received the news of Baylen, and 
 having wasted two months in his enterprise, abandoned 
 it abruptly, lest he should find himself insulated amidst 
 the general retreat of the French armies. Such was the 
 first of the two famous sieges of Saragossa. 
 
 The English government meanwhile had begun their 
 preparations for interfering effectually in the affairs of 
 the Peninsula. They had despatched one body of troops 
 to the support of Castanos in Andalusia ; but these did 
 not reach the south of Spain until their assistance was 
 rendered unnecessary by the surrender of Dupont at 
 Baylen. A more considerable force, amounting to 
 10,000, sailed early in June, from Cork, for Corunna, 
 under the command of the Honourable Sir Arthur 
 "Welleslcy. This armament, originally designed to co- 
 operate with another from India in a great attack on 
 Mexico, had its destination altered the moment the Span- 
 ish insurrection was announced. Sir Arthur, being per- 
 mitted to land at what point of the Peninsula he should 
 
354 XAI'JLEOX BUONAPARTE. [1808. 
 
 judge most advantageous for the general cause, was soon 
 satisfied that Portugal ought to bo the first scene of his 
 operations, and accordingly lost no time in opening a 
 communication with the patriots, who had taken pos- 
 session of Oporto. Here the troops which had been 
 designed to aid Castanos joined him. Thus strengthened, 
 and well informed of the state of the French armies in 
 Spain, Sir Arthur resolved to effect a landing and at- 
 tack Junot while circumstances seemed to indicate no 
 chance of his being reinforced by Bessieres. 
 
 It is, perhaps, an evil unavoidable in the institutions 
 of an old and settled government, that men rarely, very 
 rarely, unless they possess the advantages of illustrious 
 birth and connection, can hope to be placed in situations 
 of the highest importance until they have passed the 
 prime vigour of their days. Sir Arthur Wellesley, for- 
 tunately for England and for Europe, commenced life 
 under circumstances eminently favourable for the early 
 development and recognition of his great talents. To 
 his brother the Marquis of Wellesley's rank as Gover- 
 nor-General of India, he owed the opportunity of con- 
 ducting our armies in the East at a time of life when, if 
 of inferior birth, he could hardly have commanded a 
 battalion ; and the magnificent campaign of Assaye so 
 established his reputation that shortly after his return to 
 Europe he was entrusted, without hesitation, with the 
 armament assembled at Cork. 
 
 It was on the 8th of August, 1808 — a day ever memor- 
 able in the history of Britain — that Sir Arthur Wellesley 
 effected his debarkation in the bay of Mondego. He 
 immediately commenced his march towards Lisbon, and 
 on the 17th came up with the enemy under General 
 Laborde, strongly posted on an eminence near Rorica. 
 The French contested their ground gallantly, but were 
 driven from it at the point of the bayonet, and com- 
 
1808.] HMIEEA— CIKTRA. 355 
 
 polled to retreat. The British General, having hardly 
 any cavalry, was unable to pursue them so closely as he 
 otherwise would have done ; and Laborde succeeded in 
 joining his shattered division to the rest of the French 
 forces in Portugal. Junot (recently created Duke of 
 Abrantes) now took the command in person; and find- 
 ing himself at the head of full 24,000 troops, while the 
 English army were greatly inferior in numbers, and 
 miserably supplied with cavalry and artillery, he did not 
 hesitate to assume the offensive. On the 21st of August 
 he attacked Sir Arthur at Yimiera. In the language of 
 the English General's despatch, "a most desperate con- 
 test ensued," and the result was "a signal defeat." 
 Junot, having lost thirteen cannon and more than two 
 thousand men, immediately fell back upon Lisbon, where 
 his position was protected by the strong defile of the 
 Torres Yedras. 
 
 This retreat would not have been accomplished with- 
 out much more fighting, had Sir Arthur Wellesley been 
 permitted to follow up his victory, according to the dic- 
 tates of his own understanding, and the enthusiastic 
 wishes of his army. But just as the battle was about to 
 begin, Sir Harry Burrard, an old officer of superior rank, 
 unfortunately entitled to assume the chief command, ar- 
 rived on the field. Finding that Sir Arthur had made 
 all his dispositions, General Burrard handsomely declined 
 interfering until the fortune of the day should be de- 
 cided ; but he took the command as soon as the victory 
 was won, and more cautiously than wisely, prevented 
 the army from instantly advancing, as Sir Arthur Wel- 
 lesley proposed, upon the coast road towards Mafra, 
 and thus endeavouring to intercept the retreat of Junot 
 upon Lisbon. Sir Harry, having made this unhappy 
 use of his command, was, the very next day, superseded 
 in his turn by Sir Hew Dalrymple, the Governor of 
 
356 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, [1808. 
 
 Gibraltar ; another veteran more disposed to imitato tho 
 prudence of Burrard than the daring of "Wellesley, 
 
 Shortly after the third general had taken the com- 
 mand, Junot sent Kellerman to demand a truce, and 
 propose a convention for the evacuation of Portugal by 
 the troops under his orders. Dalryinple received Kel- 
 lerman with more eagerness of civility than became the 
 chief of a victorious army, and forthwith granted the 
 desired armistice. Junot offered to surrender his maga- 
 zines, stores, and armed vessels, provided the British 
 would disembark his soldiers, with their arms, at any 
 French port between Rochefort and L'Orient, and per- 
 mit them to take with them their private property ; and 
 Dalrymple did not hesitate to agree to these terms, 
 although Sir John Moore arrived off the coast with a 
 reinforcement of 10,000 men during the progress of the 
 negotiation. The famous " Convention of Cintra " (most 
 absurdly so named, as it was in fact concluded thirty 
 miles from Cintra) was signed accordingly on the 30th 
 of August; and the French army wholly evacuated 
 Portugal in the manner provided for. The English 
 people heard with indignation that the spoilers of Por- 
 tugal had been suffered to escape on such terms ; and 
 the article concerning private property gave especial 
 offence, as under that cover the French removed with 
 them a large share of the plunder which they had 
 amassed by merciless violence and rapacity during their 
 occupation of the Portuguese territories. A parlia- 
 mentary investigation was followed by a court-martial, 
 which acquitted Dalrymple. In truth it seems now to 
 be admitted, by competent judges, that after Burrard 
 had interfered so as to prevent Wellesley from instantly 
 following up the success of Vimiera, and so enabled 
 Junot to re-occupy Lisbon and secure the pass of tho 
 Torres Vedras, it would have been impimdent to decline 
 
1808.] MISCONDUCT OF THE PENINSULARS. 357 
 
 the terms proffered by a repelled, but still powerful, 
 enemy — who, if driven to extremities, could hardly fail 
 to prolong the war, until Napoleon should be able to 
 send him additional forces from Spain. Meanwhile 
 Portugal was free from the presence of her enemies ; 
 England had obtained a permanent footing within the 
 Peninsula ; what was of still higher moment, the cha- 
 racter of tbe British army was raised not only abroad, 
 but at home ; and had the two insurgent nations availed 
 themselves, as they ought to have done, of the resources 
 which tbeir great ally placed at their command, and 
 conducted their own affairs with unity and strength of 
 purpose, tbe deliverance of the whole peninsula might 
 have been achieved years before that consummation 
 actually took place. 
 
 The Portuguese, however, split into factions — under 
 leaders whose primary objects were selfish, who rivalled 
 each other in tbeir absurd jealousy of England, afforded 
 to her troops no such supplies and facilities as they bad 
 tbe best title to demand and expect, and wasted their 
 time in petty political intrigues, instead of devoting 
 every energy to the organisation of an efficient army, 
 and improving the defences of their naturally strong 
 frontier. Tbe Spaniards conducted themselves with 
 even more signal imprudence. For months each pro- 
 vincial junta seemed to prefer tbe continuance of its 
 own authority to tbe obvious necessity of merging all 
 tbeir powers in some central body, capable of controlling 
 and directing the whole force of tbe nation ; and after a 
 supreme junta was at last established in Madrid, its 
 orders were continually disputed and disobeyed — so 
 that in effect there was no national government. Equallv 
 disgraceful jealousies among the generals prevented the 
 armies from being placed under one supreme chief, re- 
 sponsible for the combination of all tbeir movements. 
 
358 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808. 
 
 In place of tills it was with difficulty that the various 
 independent generals could be prevailed on even to meet 
 at Madrid, and agree to the outline of a joint campaign; 
 and that outline seemed to have no recommendation 
 except that its gross military defects held out to each 
 member of the Council the prospect of being able to act 
 without communication, for good or for evil, with any 
 of the others. The consequences of these shameful follies 
 wei'e calamitous ; and but for events which could not 
 have been foreseen, must have proved fatal : for the 
 gigantic resources of the common enemy were about to 
 be set in motion by Napoleon himself ; who, on hearing 
 of the reverses of Dupont, Lefebre, and Junot, perceived 
 too clearly that the affairs of the Peninsula demanded a 
 keener eye and a firmer hand than his brother's. 
 
1808.] SPANISH BLUNDERS. 359 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Napoleon at Erfurt — at Paris— arrives at Vittoria — Disposition of 
 the French and Spanish Armies Successes of Soult — Passage of 
 the Somositrra — Surrender of Madrid — Sir John Moore's Cam- 
 paign — his retreat — Battle of Corunna — Death of Moore — Na- 
 poleon leaves Spain. 
 
 Teree Spanish armies, each unfortunately under an 
 independent chief, were at length in motion ; their 
 nominal strength was 130,000 men, in reality they never 
 exceeded 100,000. Had they been combined under an 
 able general they might have assaulted the French 
 army, now not exceeding 60,000, with every likelihood 
 of success, for the position first taken up by King 
 Joseph, after his retreat into the north, was very defec- 
 tive ; but the Spaniards chose their basis of operations 
 so absurdly, and were so dilatory afterwards, that 
 Napoleon had time both to rectify Joseph's blunders 
 and to reinforce his legions effectually, before they were 
 able to achieve any considerable advantage. 
 
 Blake, who commanded on the west, extended his line 
 from Burgos to Bilboa ; Palafox, on the east, lay between 
 Saragossa and Sanguessa ; Castauos, general of the 
 central army, had his head-quarters at Soria. Tho 
 three armies thus lny in a long and feeble crescent, of 
 which the horns were pushed towards the French 
 frontier ; while the enemy, resting on three strong 
 fortresses, remained on the defensive until the Emperor 
 should pour new forces through the passes of tho 
 Pyrenees. It was expected that the English army in 
 Portugal would forthwith advance, and put themselves 
 in communication either with Blake or with Castanos ; 
 
360 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808. 
 
 and had this junction occurred soon after the battle of 
 Vimiera, the result might have been decisive ; but 
 Wellesley was recalled to London to bear witness on the 
 trial of Dalrymple; and Sir John Moore, who then 
 assumed the command, received neither such supplies as 
 were necessary for any great movement, nor any clear 
 and authentic intelligence from the authorities of Madrid, 
 nor finally any distinct orders from his own government 
 — until the favourable moment had gone by. In effect, 
 Napoleon's gigantic reinforcements had begun to show 
 themselves within the Spanish frontier a week before 
 the English general was in a condition to commence his 
 march. 
 
 The Emperor, enraged at the first positive disgraces 
 which had ever befallen his arms, and foreseeing that 
 unless the Spanish insurrection were crushed ere the 
 Patriots had time to form a regular government and to 
 organise their armies, the succours of England, and the 
 growing discontent of Germany, might invest the task 
 with insurmountable difficulties, determined to cross 
 the Pyrenees in person, at the head of a force capable of 
 sweeping the whole Peninsula clear before him " at one 
 fell swoop." Hitherto no mention of the unfortunate 
 occurrences in Spain had been made in any public act 
 of his government, or suffered to transpire in any of the 
 French journals. It was now necessary to break this 
 haughty silence. The Emperor announced, accordingly, 
 that the peasants of Spain had rebelled against their 
 King ; that treachery had caused the ruin of one corps 
 of his army ; and that another had been forced, by the 
 English, to evacuate Portugal: demanding two new 
 conscriptions, each of 80,000 men — which were of course 
 granted without hesitation. Recruiting his camps on 
 the German side, and in Italy, with these new levies, 
 he now ordered his veteran troops, to the amount of 
 
1808.] CONFERENCE OF ERFURT. 361 
 
 200,000, including a vast and brilliant cavalry, and a 
 large body of the Imperial Guards, to be drafted from 
 those frontiers, and marched through France towards 
 Spain. As these warlike columns passed through Paris, 
 Napoleon addressed to them one of those orations which 
 never failed to swell the resolution and pride of his 
 soldiery on the eve of some great enterprise. " Com- 
 rades," said he, " after triumphing on the banks of the 
 Danube and the Vistula, with rapid steps you have 
 passed through Germany. This day, without a moment 
 of repose, I command you to traverse France. Soldiei's, 
 I have need of you. The hideous presence of the leopard 
 contaminates the peninsula of Spain and Portugal. In 
 terror he must fly before you. Let us bear our trium- 
 phant eagles to the Pillars of Hercules : there also we 
 have injuries to avenge. Soldiers, you have surpassed 
 the renown of modern armies ; but have you yet equalled 
 the glory of those Romans who, in one and the same 
 campaign, were victorious on the Rhine and the Eu- 
 phrates, in Illyria and on the Tagus ? A long peace, a 
 lasting prosperity, shall be the reward of your labours. 
 A real Frenchman could not, should not, rest, until the 
 seas are freo and open to all. Soldiers, what you have 
 done, and what you are about to do, for the happinoss 
 of the French peoplo and for my glory, shall be eternal 
 in my heart !" 
 
 Having thus dismissed his troops on their way, Buona- 
 parte himself travelled rapidly to Erfurt, where he had 
 invited the Emperor Alexander to confer with him. It 
 was most needful that before ho went to Spain himself, 
 he should ascertain the safety of his empire on the othor 
 side : and there was much in the state of Germany that 
 might well give rise to serious apprehensions. Austria 
 was strengthening her military establishment to a vast 
 extent, and had, by a recent law, acquired the means of 
 
362 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808. 
 
 drawing on her population unlimitedly, after the method 
 of Napoleon's own conscription-code. She professed 
 pacific intentions towards France, and intimated that 
 her preparations were designed for the protection of her 
 Turkish frontier; but the Emperor Francis positively 
 declined to acknowledge Joseph Buonaparte as King of 
 Spain ; and this refusal was quite sufficient for Napoleon. 
 In Prussia, meantime, and indeed all over Germany, a 
 spirit of deep and settled enmity was manifesting itself 
 in the shape of patriotic clubs (the chief being called the 
 Tugencl-bund, or Alliance of Virtue), which included the 
 young and the daring of every class, and threatened, at 
 no distant period, to convulse the whole fabric of society 
 with the one purpose of clearing the national soil of its 
 foreign oppressors. Napoleon affected to deride, but 
 secretly estimated at its true importance, the danger of 
 such associations, if permitted to take firm root among 
 a people so numerous, so enthusiastic, and so gallant. 
 Lastly, there is every reason to believe that, cordial as 
 the Czar's friendship had seemed to be at Tilsit, Buona- 
 parte appreciated the unpopularity of his " Continental 
 System" in Eussia, and the power of the aristocracy 
 there, far too accurately, not to entertain some suspicion 
 that Alexander himself might be compelled to take the 
 field against him, should England succeed in persuading 
 Austria and Germany to rise in arms during his own 
 absence in Spain. For these reasons he had requested 
 the Czar's presence at Erfurt ; and this conference was 
 apparently as satisfactory to either as that of Tilsit had 
 been. They addressed a joint letter to the King of 
 England, proposing once more a general peace ; but as 
 they both refused to acknowledge any authority in Spain 
 save that of King Joseph, the answer was of course in 
 the negative. Buonaparte, however, had obtained his 
 object when he thus exhibited the Czar and himself as 
 
1808.] CONFERENCE OF EBFl'ET. 363 
 
 firmly allied. He perceived clearly that Austria was 
 determined on another campaign ; gave orders for con- 
 centrating and increasing his own armies accordingly, 
 both in Germany and Italy ; and — hmsting to the deci- 
 sion and rapidity of his own movements, and the com- 
 parative slowness of his ancient enemy — dared to judge 
 that he might still bring matters to an issue in Spain, 
 before his presence should be absolutely necessary be- 
 yond the Rhine. 
 
 On the 14th of October the conferences of Erfurt 
 terminated ; on the 24th Napoleon was present at the 
 opening of the Legislative Session in Paris; two days 
 after he left that capital, and reached Bayonne on the 
 3d of November, where he remained, directing the 
 movements of the last columns of his advancing army, 
 until the morning of the 8th. He arrived at Yittoria 
 the same evening : the civil and military authorities 
 met him at the gates of the town, and would have con- 
 ducted him to a house prepared for his reception, but he 
 leapt from his horse, entered the first inn that he ob- 
 served, and calling for maps and a detailed report of the 
 position of all the armies, French and Spanish, proceeded 
 instantly to draw up his plan for the prosecution of the 
 war. Within two hours he had completed his task. 
 Soult, who had accompanied him from Paris, and whom 
 he ordered to take the command of Bessieres' corps, set 
 off on the instant, reached Briviesca, where its head- 
 quarters were, at daybreak on the 9th, and within a few 
 hours the whole machinery was once more in motion. 
 
 Napoleon had, early in October, signified to Joseph 
 that the French cause in Spain would always be favoured 
 by acting on the offensive, and his disapproval of the 
 extent to which the King had retreated had not been 
 heard in vain. General Blake's army had already been 
 brought to action, and defeated disastrously by Moncey, 
 
364 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808. 
 
 at Espmosa ; from which point Blake had most injudi- 
 ciously retreated towards Reynosa, instead of Burgos, 
 where another army, meant to support his right, had 
 assembled under the orders of the Count de Bel- 
 vedere. 
 
 Soult now poured down his columns on the plains of 
 Burgos. Belvedere was defeated by him at Gomenal 
 even more easily than Blake had been at Espinosa. The 
 latter, again defeated by the indefatigable Soult, at 
 Reynosa, was obliged to take refuge, with what hardly 
 could be called even the skeleton of an army, in the sea- 
 port of St. Ander. Thus the whole of the Spanish left 
 was dissipated ; and the French right remained at liberty 
 to march onwards at their pleasure. 
 
 Palafox meanwhile had effected at length a junction 
 with CastaS os ; and the combined Spanish armies of the 
 centre and the east awaited the French attack, on the 
 22d of November, at Tudela. The disaster here was 
 still more complete. Castanos and Palafox separated in 
 the moment of overthrow ; the former escaping to Cala- 
 tayud with the wreck of his troops, while the latter made 
 his way once more to Saragossa. 
 
 Napoleon now saw the main way to Madrid open 
 before him — except that some forces were said to be 
 posted at the strong defile of the Somosierra, within ten 
 miles of the capital ; while Soult, continuing his march 
 by Carrion and Valladolid, could at once keep in check 
 the English, in case they were still so daring as to ad- 
 vance from Portugal, and outflank the Somosierra, in 
 case the mountains should be so defended as to bar the 
 Emperor's approach in that direction to Madrid. Pala- 
 fox was pursued, and soon shut up in Saragossa by 
 Lannes. That heroic city on the east, the British army 
 on the west, and Madrid in front, were the only far- 
 separated points on which any show of opposition was 
 
IbUb.j MARCH ON MADRID. 365 
 
 still to be traced — from the frontiers of France to those 
 of Portugal, from the sea coast to the Tagus. 
 
 Napoleon, with his guards and the first division, 
 marched towards Madrid. His vanguard reached the 
 foot of the Somosierra chain on the 30th of November, 
 and found that a corps of 12,000 men had been assem- 
 bled for the defence of the pass, under General St. Juan. 
 Xo stronger position could well be fancied than that of 
 the Spaniards; the defile was narrow, and excessively 
 steep, and the road completely swept by sixteen pieces 
 of artillery. At daybreak, on the 1 st of December, the 
 French began their attempt to turn the flanks of St. 
 Juan ; three battalions scattered themselves over the 
 opposite sides of the defile, and a warm skirmishing fire 
 had begun. At this moment Buonaparte came up. He 
 rode into the mouth of the pass, surveyed the scene for 
 an instant, perceived that his infantry were making no 
 progress, and at once conceived the daring idea of caus- 
 ing his Polish lancers to charge right up the causeway 
 in face of the battery. The smoke of the skirmishers 
 on the hill-sides mingled with the thick fogs and 
 vapours of the morning, and under this veil the brave 
 Krazinski led his troopers impetuously up the ascent. 
 The Spanish infantry fired as they passed them, threw 
 down their arms, abandoned their intrenchments, and 
 fled. The Poles speared the gunners, and took posses- 
 sion of the cannon. The Spaniards continued their 
 flight in such disorder that they were at last fain to quit 
 the road to Madrid, and escape in the direction, some of 
 Segovia, others of Talavera. On the morning of the 
 2d, three divisions of French cavalry made their appear- 
 ance on the high ground to the north-west of the capital. 
 
 During eight days the inhabitants had been preparing 
 the means of resistance. A local and military junta had 
 been invested with authority to conduct the defence. 
 
3G6 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1S08. 
 
 Six thousand regular troops were in the town, and 
 crowds of the citizens and of the peasantry of the adjoin- 
 ing country were in arms along with them. The pave- 
 ment had been taken up, the streets barricadoed, the 
 houses on the outskirts loopholed, and the Retiro, a 
 large but weak edifice, occupied by a strong garrison. 
 Terrible violence prevailed — many persons suspected of 
 adhering to the side of the French were assassinated ; 
 the bells of churches and convents rang incessantly ; 
 ferocious bands paraded the streets day and night ; and 
 at the moment when the enemy's cavalry appeared, 
 the universal uproar seemed to announce that he was 
 about to find a new and a greater Saragossa in 
 Madrid. 
 
 The town was summoned at noon ; and the officer 
 employed would have been massacred by the mob but 
 for the interference of the Spanish regulars. Napoleon 
 waited until his infantry and artillery came up in the 
 evening, and then the place was invested on one side. 
 "The night was clear and bright," (says Napier,) "the 
 French camp was silent and watchful ; but the noise of 
 tumult was heard from every quarter of the city, as if 
 some mighty beast was struggling and howling in the 
 toils." At midnight the city was again summoned ; and 
 the answer being still defiance, the battei'ies began to 
 open. In the course of the day the Retiro was stormed, 
 and the immense palace of the Dukes of Medina Celi, 
 which commanded one side of the town, seized also. 
 Terror now began to prevail within ; and shortly after 
 the city was summoned, for the third time, Don Thomas 
 Morla, the governor, came out to demand a suspen- 
 sion of arms. Napoleon received him with anger, and 
 rebuked him for the violation of the capitulation at 
 Baylen. " Injustice and bad faith," said he, " always 
 recoil on those who are gniltyof them." Manyan honeater 
 
180?.] SIEGE OF MADRID. 367 
 
 Spaniard was obliged to listen in silence to such words 
 from the negotiator of Fontaineblean and Bayonne. 
 
 Morla was a coward, and there is no doubt a ti-aitor 
 also. On returning to the town he urged the necessity 
 of instantly capitulating ; and most of those in authority 
 took a similar part, except Castellas, the commander of 
 the regular troops. The peasantry and citizens kept 
 tiring on the French outposts during the night ; but 
 Castellas, perceiving that the civil rulers were all against 
 further resistance, withdrew his troops and sixteen 
 cannon in safety. At eight in tho morning of the 4th, 
 Madrid surrendered. The Spaniards were disarmed, 
 and the town filled with the French army. Napoleon 
 took up his residence at Chamartin, a country house 
 four miles off. In a few days tranquillity seemed com- 
 pletely re-established. The French soldiery observed 
 excellent discipline ; the shops were re-opened, and the 
 theatres frequented as usual. Such is in most cases the 
 enthusiasm of a givat city ! 
 
 Napoleon now exercised all the rights of a conqueror. 
 He issued edicts abolishing the Inquisition, all feudal 
 rights, and all particular jurisdictions; regulating the 
 number of monks ; increasing, at the expense of the 
 monastic establishments, the stipends of the parochial 
 clergy ; and proclaiming a general amnesty, with only 
 ten exceptions. He received a deputation of the chief 
 inhabitants, who came to signify their desire to see 
 Joseph among them again. His answer was, that Spain 
 was his own by right of conquest; that he could easily 
 rule it by viceroys ; but that if they chose to assemble 
 in their churches, priests and people, and swear allegi- 
 ance to Joseph, he was not indisposed to listen to their 
 request. 
 
 This was a secondary matter; meantime the Emperor 
 was making his dispositions for the completion of his 
 
368 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808. 
 
 conquest. His plan was to invade forthwith Andalusia, 
 Valencia, and Galicia, by his lieutenants, and to march 
 in person to Lisbon. Nor was this vast plan beyond bis 
 means ; for he had at that moment 255,000 men, 50,000 
 horses, and 100 pieces of field artillery, actually ready 
 for immediate service in Spain ; while 80,000 men and 
 100 cannon, besides, were in reserve, all on tbe south 
 side of the Pyrenees. To oppose this gigantic force 
 there were a few poor defeated corps of Spaniards, 
 widely separated from each other, and flying already 
 before mere detachments : Seville, whose local junta had 
 once more assumed the nominal sovereignty, and guarded 
 in front by a feeble corps in the Sierra Morena; Valencia, 
 without a regular garrison ; Saragossa, closely invested, 
 and resisting once more with heroic determination ; and 
 the British army under Sir John Moore. The moment 
 Napoleon was informed that Moore had advanced into 
 Spain, he abandoned every other consideration, and re- 
 solved in person to march and overwhelm him. 
 
 The English general had, as we have already seen, 
 been prevented, by circumstances over which he could 
 have no control, from commencing his campaign so early 
 as he desired, and as the situation of the Spanish armies, 
 whom he was meant to support, demanded. At length, 
 however, he put his troops, 20,000 in number, into 
 motion, and advanced in the direction of Salamanca; 
 while a separate British corps of 13,000, under Sir 
 David Baird, recently landed at Corunna, had orders to 
 march through Gallicia, and effect a junction with 
 Moore either at Salamanca or Valladolid. The object 
 of the British was of course to support the Spanish 
 armies of Blake and Belvedere in their defence ; but 
 owing to the delays and blundering intelligence already 
 alluded to, these armies were in a hopeless condition 
 before Sir John Moore's march be^an. 
 
i-'-.J MARCHES AGAINST SIR JOHN MOORE. 369 
 
 The news of the decisive defeat of Castafios at Tudela 
 satisfied Moore that the original purpose of his march 
 was now out of the question; bat, having at length 
 effected a junction with Baird, he felt extreme unwilling- 
 ness to retreat without attempting something. He 
 continued to receive from Madrid the most solemn 
 assurances that the resistance of the capital would be 
 desperate ; and, with more generosity than prudence, 
 resolved to attack Soult, then posted behind the Carrion. 
 In doing so he fancied it possible that he should defeat 
 an important branch of the enemy's force, intercept the 
 communications of the Emperor's left flank, give Romana 
 time to re-organise an army in Gallicia, create a formid- 
 able diversion in favour of the south of Spain, if not of 
 Madrid, aud, at worst, secure for himself a safe retreat 
 upon Corunna ; from which port his troops might be 
 sent round without difficulty to Seville, to take part in 
 the defence of that part of the Peninsula which was yet 
 unbroken, and the seat of the actual government. 
 
 But Buonaparte, hearing on the 20th of December of 
 the advance of Moore, instantly put himself at the head 
 of 50,000 men, and marched with incredible rapidity, 
 with the view of intercepting his communications with 
 Portugal, and in short hemming him in between himself 
 and Soult. Moore no sooner heard that Xapoleon was 
 approaching, than he perceived the necessity of an 
 immediate retreat ; and he commenced accordingly a 
 most calamitous one through the naked mountains of 
 Gallicia, in which his troops maintained their character 
 for bravery, rallying with zed whenever the French 
 threatened their rear, but displayed a lamentable want 
 of discipline in all other parts of their conduct. The 
 weather was tempestuous; the roads miserable; the 
 commissariat utterly defective ; and the very notion of 
 retreat broke the high spirits of the soldiery. They ill- 
 
370 NAPOLEON BDONAPAUTE. [1809. 
 
 treated the inhabitants, drank whatever strong liquors 
 they could obtain, straggled from their ranks, and in 
 short lost tbe appearance of an army except when, tbe 
 trumpet warned tbem tbat they might expect the French 
 charge. Soult hung close on tbeir rear until they 
 reached Corunna, and Moore perceived that it would be 
 impossible to embark without either a convention or a 
 battle. He chose the braver alternative. The French 
 were repelled gallantly, and the British were permitted 
 to embark without further molestation. In the moment 
 of victory (January 16th, 1809) Sir John Moore fell, 
 mortally wounded by a cannon-shot ; his men buried 
 him in his cloak ; and the French, in testimony of their 
 admiration of his gallantry, erected a monument over 
 his remains. 
 
 Napoleon came np with the troops in pursuit of 
 Moore at Benevente, on the 29th of December, and 
 enjoyed for a moment the spectacle of an English army 
 in full retreat. He saw that Moore was no longer 
 worthy of his own attention, and entrusted the consum- 
 mation of his ruin to Soult. 
 
 It excited universal surprise that the Emperor did 
 not immediately return from Benevente to Madrid, to 
 complete and consolidate his Spanish conquest. He, 
 however, proceeded, not towards Madrid, but Paris ; 
 and this with his upmost speed — riding on post-horses, 
 on one occasion, not less than seventy-five English miles 
 in five hours and a half. The cause of this sudden 
 change of purpose and extraordinary haste was a suffi- 
 cient one, and ere long it transpired. 
 
iSC9.] AUSTELA DECLARES WAR. 371 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Austria declares War— Napoleon heads his army in Germany— Battles 
 of Landshut mid Echnuhl — Ratisbonne taken— Napoleon in Vienna 
 — Hostilities in Italy, Hungary. Poland, the North of Germany, and 
 the Tyrol— Battle of Raab— Battle of Wagram— Armistice with 
 
 Austria Progress of the War in the Peninsula, Battle of 
 
 Talavera— Battle of Ocana— English Expedition to Walcheren 
 
 Seizure of Rome and arrest of the Tope Treaty 
 
 of Schoenbrunn. 
 
 Napoleon had foreseen that Austria, hardly dissembling 
 her aversion to the "continental system," and openly 
 refusing to acknowledge Joseph as King of Spain, would 
 avail herself of the insurrection of that country, neces- 
 sarily followed by the march of a great French army 
 across the Pyrenees, as affording a favourable opportu- 
 nity for once more taking arms, in the hope of recover- 
 ing what she had lost in the campaign of Austerlitz. 
 His minister, Talleyrand, had, during his absence, made 
 every effort to conciliate the Emperor Francis ; but the 
 warlike preparations throughout the Austrian dominions 
 proceeded with increasing vigour — and Napoleon re- 
 ceived such intelligence ere he witnessed the retreat of 
 Moore, that he immediately countermanded the march 
 of such of his troops as had not yet reached the Pyrenees 
 — wrote (from Valladolid) to the princes of the Rhenish 
 league, ordering them to hold their contingents in readi- 
 ness—and travelled to Paris with extraordinary haste. 
 He reached his capital on the 22d of January ; renewed 
 the negotiations with Vienna; and, in the meantime, 
 recruited and concentrated his armies on the German 
 side — thus adjourning, and as it turned out for ever, the 
 completion of the Spanish conquest. 
 
372 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1809. 
 
 On the Gtli of April, Austria declared war ; and on 
 the 9th, the Archduke Charles, generalissimo of armies 
 which are said to have been recruited, at this period, to 
 the amount of nearly 500,000 men, crossed the Inn at 
 the head of six corps, each consisting of 30,000 ; while 
 the Archduke John marched with two other divisions 
 towards Italy, by the way of Carinthia; and the Arch- 
 duke Ferdinand assumed the command of a ninth corps 
 in Galicia, to make head against Russia, in case that 
 power should be forced or tempted by Napoleon to take 
 part in the struggle. Napoleon, having so great an 
 army in Spain, could not hope to oppose numbers such 
 as these to the Austrians ; but he trusted to the rapid 
 combinations which had so often enabled him to baffle 
 the same enemy; and the instant that he ascertained 
 that Bavaria was invaded by the Archduke Charles, he 
 proceeded — without guards, without equipage, accom- 
 panied solely by the faithful Josephine — to Frankfort, 
 and thence to Strasbourg. He assumed the command 
 on the 13th, and immediately formed the plan of his 
 campaign. 
 
 He found the two wings of his army — the one under 
 Massena, the other under Davoust — at such a distance 
 from the centre that, if the Austrians had seized the op- 
 portunity, the consequences might have been fatal. On 
 the 17th of April, he commanded Davoust and Massena 
 to march simultaneously towards a position in front, and 
 then pushed forward the centre, in person, to the same 
 point. The Archduke Lewis, who commanded two 
 Austrian divisions in advance, was thus hemmed in un- 
 expectedly by three armies, moving at once from three 
 different points ; defeated and driven back, at Abens- 
 berg, on the 20th ; and utterly routed, at Landshut, on 
 the 21st. Here the Archduke lost 9000 men, thirty 
 guns, and all his stores. 
 
1809.] BATTLE OF ECKMUHL. 373 
 
 Next day, Buonaparte executed a variety of move- 
 ments, considered as among the most admirable displays 
 of his science, by means of which he brought his whole 
 force, by different routes, at one and the same moment, 
 upon the position of the Archduke Charles. That prince 
 was strongly posted at Eckmiihl, with full 100,000 men. 
 Xapoleon charged him at two in the afternoon ; the 
 battle was stern, and lasted till nightfall, but it ended in 
 a complete overthrow. The Austrians, besides their 
 loss in the field, left in Napoleon's hands 20,000 prisoners, 
 fifteen colours, and the greater part of their artillery ; 
 and retreated in utter disorder upon Ratisbonne. The 
 Archduke made an attempt to rally his troops and de- 
 fend that city, on the 23d ; but the French stormed the 
 walls, and drove the Austrians through the streets : and 
 their genei'al immediately retreated into Bohemia : thus, 
 in effect, abandoning Vienna to the mercy of his con- 
 queror. 
 
 Napoleon was wounded in the foot during the storm- 
 ing of Ratisbonne, and for a moment the troops crowded 
 round him in great alarm ; but he scarcely waited to 
 have his wound dressed, threw himself again on horse- 
 back, and restored confidence by riding along the lines. 
 Thus, in five days, in spite of inferiority of numbers, 
 and of the unfavourable manner in which his lieutenants 
 had distributed an inferior force, by the sole energy of 
 his genius did the Emperor triumph over the main forco 
 of his opponent. 
 
 He reviewed his army on the 24th, distributing re- 
 wards of all sorts with a lavish hand, and, among others, 
 bestowing the title of Duke of Eckmiihl on Davoust : 
 and forthwith commenced his march upon Vienna. The 
 corps defeated at Landshut, had retreated in that direc- 
 tion, and being considerably recruited, made some show 
 of obstructing his progress ; but they were defeated 
 
374 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1809 
 
 again, and totally broken at Ehrensberg, on the 3d of 
 May, by Massena, and on the 9th Napoleon appeared 
 before the walls of the capital. The Emperor had al- 
 ready quitted it, with all his family, except his daughter, 
 the Archduchess Maria Louisa, who was confined to her 
 chamber by illness. The Archduke Maximilian, with 
 the regular garrison of 10,000 men, evacuated it on 
 Napoleon's approach ; and though the inhabitants had 
 prepared for a vigorous resistance, the bombardment 
 soon convinced them that it was hopeless. It perhaps 
 deserves to be mentioned, that on learning the situation 
 of the sick princess, Buonaparte instantly commanded 
 that no fire should be directed towards that part of the 
 town. On the 10th, a capitulation was signed, the 
 Erench troops took possession of the city, and Napoleon 
 once more established his head-quarters in the imperial 
 palace of Schoenbrunn. 
 
 In the meantime the Archduke Ferdinand had com- 
 menced the war in Poland, and obtaining the advantage 
 in several affairs, taken possession of Warsaw ; but the 
 news of Eckmiihl recalled this division to the support 
 of the main army, under tho Archduke Charles ; and 
 the Russian troops not only retook Warsaw, but occu- 
 pied the whole of the Austro- Polish provinces. Alex- 
 ander, however, showed no disposition to push the war 
 with vigour, or to advance into Germany for the support 
 of Napoleon. In Italy, in like manner, the Archduke 
 John had at first been successful. But after defeating 
 Eugene Beauharnois, Napoleon's viceroy, and taking 
 possession of Padua and Viccnza, this prince also was 
 summoned to retrace his steps, in consequence of the 
 catastrophe at Eckmiihl. Eugene pursued him into 
 Hungary, and defeated him in a great battle at Raab. 
 Colonel Schill, the Prussian partisan already mentioned, 
 had availed himself of the concentration of Napoleon's 
 
1809.] thz ryaoLESE. 375 
 
 troops for the Austrian campaign, to take up arms, 
 though -without any authority from his sovereign, in the 
 hope that the national resentment would burst out in an 
 universal insurrection ; and the Duke of Brunswick, son 
 to him who was mortally wounded at Jena, had also 
 appeared in Lusatia, and invited all true Germans to 
 imitate the heroic conduct of the Spaniards. These 
 occurrences threatened a general burst of war wherever 
 the Tugen-bund and other patriotic associations had for 
 some time been strongly influencing the popular mind. 
 The battle of Eckmiihl, however, diffused new awe all 
 over the north of Germany. The troops of Saxony 
 checked the Duke of Brunswick's progress, and Schill's 
 heroic band were at last shut up in Stralsund, where 
 their leader perished in a sortie ; thus, and only thus, 
 escaping the vengeance of Napoleon. 
 
 Among the mountains of the Tyrol, the native zeal of 
 a few hardy peasants achieved more than all the mighty 
 population of Germany. This ancient province of the 
 house of Austria had been, in sinful violation of all the 
 rights of mankind, transferred to the hated yoke of Ba- 
 varia, by the treaty of Presburg. The mountaineers no 
 sooner heard that their rightful sovereign was once more 
 in arms against Napoleon, than they rose (early in 
 April), under the guidance of Hofer, a gallant peasant, 
 seized the strong passes of their country, and, in the 
 course of four days, made every French and Bavarian 
 soldier quartered among them a prisoner — with the ex- 
 ception of the garrison of the fortress of Kufstein. 
 Napoleon caused Lefevre to march into the country with 
 his division ; but Hofer posted his followers on the edge 
 of precipices, from which they tired on the French 
 columns with the skill of practised marksmen, and rolled 
 down torrents of stones with such effect, that Lefevre was 
 compelled to retreat. Austria, however, having enough 
 
376 XAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1809 
 
 of woi'k at home, could not afford to sustain the efforts 
 of these heroic peasants by any detachment of regular 
 troops. On the retirement of Lefevre, they issued from 
 their hills and wasted the neighbouring territory of Ba- 
 varia ; but the general issue of the campaign left them 
 at the mercy of Napoleon, who suppressed the insurrec- 
 tion, finally, by overwhelming numbers, and avenged it 
 by massacring Hofer and all who had taken a prominent 
 part in the cause of freedom. 
 
 These popular movements, however, could not be 
 regarded with indifference by him who had witnessed 
 and appreciated the character of the Spanish insurrec- 
 tion. Napoleon well knew, that unless he concluded 
 the main contest soon, the spirit of Schill and Hofer 
 would kindle a general flame from the Rhine to the 
 Elbe ; and he therefore desired fervently that the 
 Austria!, generalissimo might be tempted to quit the 
 fastnesses of Bohemia, and try once more the fortune of 
 a battle. 
 
 The Archduke, having re-established the order and 
 recruited the numbers of his army, had anticipated these 
 wishes of his enemy, and was already posted on the 
 opposite bank of the Danube, which river, being greatly 
 swollen, and all the bridges destroyed, seemed to divide 
 the two camps, as by an impassable barrier. 
 
 Napoleon determined to pass it ; and after an unsuc- 
 cessful attempt at Nussdorff, met with better fortune at 
 Ebersdorff, where the river is bi'oad and intersected by 
 a number of low and woody islands, the largest of which 
 bears the name of Lobau. On these islands Napoleon 
 established the greater part of his army, on the 19th of 
 May, and on the following day made good his passage, 
 by means of a bridge of boats, to the left bank of the 
 Danube, where he took possession of the villages of 
 Asperne and Essling, with so little show of opposition, 
 
1800.] 
 
 ASPERNE AND ESSL1NO. 377 
 
 that it became evident the Archduke wished the inevi- 
 table battle to take place with the river between his 
 enemy and Vienna. 
 
 On the 21st, at day-break, the Archduke appeared on 
 a rising ground, separated from the French position by 
 an extensive plain ; his whole force divided into five 
 heavy columns, and protected by not less than 200 pieces 
 of artillery. The battle began at four P.M., with a furious 
 assault on the village of Asperne ; which was taken and 
 re-taken several times, and remained at nightfall in the 
 occupation, partly of the French, and partly of the assail- 
 ants, who had established themselves in the church and 
 churchyard. Essling sustained three attacks also ; but 
 there the French remained in complete possession. Night 
 interrupted the action ; the Austrians exulting in their 
 partial success ; Napoleon surprised that he should not 
 have been wholly victorious. On either side the carnage 
 had been terrible, and the pathways of the villages were 
 literally choked with the dead. 
 
 Next morning the battle recommenced with equal 
 fnry ; the French recovered the church of Asperne ; but 
 the Austrian right wing renewed their assaults on that 
 point with more and more vigour, and in such numbers, 
 that Napoleon guessed the centre and left had been 
 weakened for the purpose of strengthening the right. 
 Upon this he instantly moved such masses, en echellov, 
 on the Austrian centre, that the Archduke's line was 
 shaken ; and for a moment it seemed as if victory was 
 secure. 
 
 At this critical moment, by means of Austrian fire- 
 ships suddenly sent down the swollen and rapid river, 
 the bridge connecting the island of Lobau with the right 
 bank was wholly swept away. Buonaparte perceived 
 that if he wished to preserve his communications with 
 the right of the Danube, where his reserve still lay, he 
 
378 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1809. 
 
 must instantly fall back on Lobau ; and no sooner did 
 his troops commence their backward movement, than 
 the Austrians recovered their order and zeal, charged in 
 turn, and finally made themselves masters of Asperne. 
 Essling, where Massena commanded, held firm, and 
 under the protection of that village and numerous bat- 
 teries erected near it, Napoleon succeeded in withdraw- 
 ing his whole force during the night. On the morning 
 of the 23d the French were cooped up in Lobau and the 
 adjacent islands — Asperne, Essling, the whole left bank 
 of tne river, remaining in possession of the Austrians. 
 On either side a great victory was claimed ; and with 
 equal injustice. But the situation of the French Emperor 
 was imminently hazardous : he was separated from 
 Davoust and his reserve ; and had the enemy either 
 attacked him in the islands, or passed the river higher 
 up, and so overwhelmed Davoust and relieved Vienna, 
 the results might have been fatal. But the Archduke's 
 loss in these two days had been great ; and, in place of 
 risking any offensive movement, he contented himself 
 with strengthening the position of Asperne and Essling, 
 and awaiting quietly the moment when his enemy should 
 choose to attempt once more the passage to the left 
 bank, and the re-occupation of these hardly-contested 
 villages. 
 
 Napoleon availed himself of this pause with his usual 
 skill. That he had been checked was true, and that the 
 news would be heard with enthusiasm throughout 
 Germany he well knew. It was necessary to revive the 
 tarnished magic of his name by another decisive battle ; 
 and he made every exertion to prepare for it. Some 
 weeks, however, elapsed ere he ventured to resume the 
 offensive. On the 4th of July he had at last re-estab- 
 lished thoroughly his communications with the right 
 bank, and arranged the means of passing to the left at a 
 
1809.] BATTLE OF WAGBAM. 379 
 
 point where the Archduke had made hardly any pre- 
 paration for receiving him. The Austrians, having 
 rashly calculated that Asperne and Essling must needs 
 be the objects of the next contest as of the preceding, 
 were taken almost unawares by his appearance in another 
 quarter. They changed their line on the instant ; and 
 occupied a position, the centre and key of which was 
 the little town of Wagram. 
 
 Here, on the 6th of July, the final and decisive battle 
 was fought. The Archduke had extended his line over 
 too wide a space ; and this old error enabled Napoleon 
 to rain him by his old device of pouring the full shock 
 of his strength on the centre. The action was long and 
 bloody ; at its close there remained 20,000 prisoners, 
 besides all the artillery and baggage, in the hands of 
 Napoleon. The Archduke fled in great confusion as far 
 as Znaim, in Moravia. The Imperial Council perceived 
 that further resistance was vain; an armistice was 
 agreed to at Znaim ; and Napoleon, returning to Schoen- 
 brnnn, continued occupied with the negotiation until 
 October. 
 
 In this fierce campaign none more distinguished him- 
 self than Lannes, Duke of Montebello. At Ratisbonne 
 he headed in person the storming party, exclaiming, 
 " Soldiers, your general has not forgotten that he was 
 once a grenadier." At the battle of Asperne his exer- 
 tions were extraordinary. He was struck, towards the 
 close of the day, by a cannon-shot, which carried off both 
 his legs. The surgeons, on examining the wound, de- 
 clared it mortal. He answered them with angry impre- 
 cations, and called with frantic vehemence for the 
 Emperor. Napoleon came up, and witnessed the agonies 
 of the d}*ing marshal, who blasphemed heaven and earth 
 thai ho should be denied to see the end of the campaign. 
 Thus fell Lannes, whom, for his romantic valour, the 
 
380 NAPOLEON Bl'OX.U'AklE. [ifi0&. 
 
 French soldiery delighted to call the Roland of the 
 camp. 
 
 The war, meanwhile, had been pursued with mixed 
 fortune in the Peninsula. Saragossa, after sustaining 
 another siege with fortitude not unworthy of the first, 
 was at length compelled to surrender in the month of 
 February. Sir Arthur Wellesley, being restored to the 
 command of the British army in Portugal, landed at 
 Lisbon on the 22d of April, and immediately marched 
 upon Oporto, which Soult had occupied early in the 
 year. Soult was defeated under the walls of the town, 
 and forthwith ber^an his retreat towards Galicia, which 
 be effected under circumstances as miserable as had at- 
 tended Sir John Moore's march on Corunna in the pre- 
 ceding campaign. Sir Arthur was prevented from 
 urging the pursuit of Soult by the intelligence that 
 Marshal Victor was laying Andalusia waste, being op- 
 posed only by Cuesta, a bigoted old general, and an army 
 which had lost heart b}* repeated disasters. The English 
 leader perceived that if he marched into Galicia, Victor 
 must possess the means of instantly re-occupying Portu- 
 gal ; and resolved, in place of following Soult, to advance 
 towards this more formidable enemy. He effected a junc- 
 tion with Cuesta at Oropesa, on the 20th of July, and 
 marched along the Tagus towards the position of Victor. 
 He, however, having a force at least double that of 
 Wellesley, assumed the offensive, and attacked the allies, 
 on the 28th, at Talavcra de la Reyna. The battle ended 
 in the total defeat and repulsion of Victor ; but Wellesley 
 found it impossible to advance further into Spain, because 
 N"ey, Soult, and Mortier were assembling their divisions, 
 with the view of coming between him and Portugal. 
 The English retired, therefore, to Badajos, and thence to 
 the Portuguese frontier. 
 
 On the eastern side of the Peninsula, Blake, advancing 
 
1809.] TAL.WERA — WALCHEREN. 1 
 
 with the view of recovering Saragossa, was met on tlio 
 19th of June, by Marshal Suchet, Duke of Albufera, and 
 totally routed. The central Spanish army, under 
 Ariezaga, attempted, with equal ill-fortune, to relieve 
 Madrid. King Joseph, accompanied by Soult, Victor, 
 and Mortier, met them at Ocana on the 19th November, 
 and broke them utterly. In December, Girona surren- 
 dered to Augereau ; and the intrusive Kiug appeared to 
 be in possession of far the greater part of Spain. But 
 his command extended no further than the actual pre- 
 sence of his brother's legions. "Wherever they were 
 posted, all was submission ; beyond their lines the country 
 remained as hostile as ever. The soldiery of the defeated 
 armies dispersed themselves in small bands, watching 
 every opportunity to surprise detachments and cut off 
 supplies ; and, in spite of all their victories, the situation 
 of the invaders became every hour more embarrassing. 
 In Portugal, meanwhile, the English general (created 
 Lord "Wellington after the battle of Talavera) was 
 gradually organising a native force not unworthy of 
 acting under his banners ; and on that side it was ob- 
 vious that, unless Napoleon made some extraordinary 
 exertions, the French cause was wholly undone. 
 
 Portugal was safe ; and the character of the British 
 army had been raised by another splendid victory in 
 Spain ; but these were trivial advantages compared with 
 what Lord Wellington might have achieved, had his 
 government placed him, as they could easily have done, 
 at the head of an army of 80,000 or 100,000 men, while 
 Napoleon was occupied with the campaign of Essling 
 and Wagram. Instead of strengthening Wellington's 
 hands in an efficient manner, the English cabinet sent 
 40,000 troops, under the command of the Earl of Chat- 
 ham, an indolent or incompetent general, to seize the 
 isle of "Walcheren, and destroy the shipping and works 
 
382 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [i«09. 
 
 at the mouth of the Scheie! ; nor was this ill-judged ex- 
 pedition dispatched from Britain until the first of August, 
 three -weeks after the decisive battle of "VVagram had 
 been fought and won. Lord Chatham took Flushing, 
 and fixed his head-quarters at Middleburg ; but Berna- 
 dotte (Prince of Ponte Corvo) put Antwerp into such a 
 state of defence that the plan of besieging that city was, 
 ere long, abandoned. A pestilence, meantime, raged 
 among the marches of TValcheren ; the English soldiers 
 were dying by thousands. The news of the armistice 
 of Znaim arrived ; and Lord Chatham abandoned his 
 conquests. A mere skeleton of his army returned to 
 their own country, from the most disastrous expedition 
 which England had undertaken since that of Carthagena, 
 seventy years before. 
 
 The announcement of the armistice with Austria put 
 an end, in effect, to all hostile demonstrations on the 
 continent, the Peninsula alone excepted. The bravo 
 Schill (as has already been said) was happy enough to 
 fall in the field : his followers, being at last compelled to 
 surrender at Stralsund, were treated as rebels, and died 
 with the constancy of patriots. The Duke of Bruns- 
 wick, who had by this time obtained considerable 
 successes in Franconia, found himself abandoned, in like 
 manner, to the undivided strength of Napoleon. At 
 the head of a few regiments, whose black uniform an- 
 nounced their devotion to the one purpose of avenging 
 their former sovereign, the Duke succeeded in cutting 
 his way to the Baltic, where some English vessels re- 
 ceived him. Germany, in apparent tranquillity, awaited 
 the result of the negotiations of Vienna. 
 
 Napoleon, a few days after he returned from Moravia 
 to Schoenbrunn, escaped narrowly the dagger of a young 
 man, who rushed upon him in the midst of all his staff, 
 at a grand review of the Imperial Guard. Berthier and 
 
1809.] QUAKREL WITH THE TOPE. 383 
 
 Bapp threw themselves upon him, and disarmed him at 
 the moment when his knife was about to enter the Em- 
 peror's body. Napoleon demanded what motive had 
 actuated the assassin. " "What injury," said he, "have I 
 done to you?" " To me, personally, none," answered 
 the youth, "but you are the oppressor of my country, 
 the tyrant of the world ; and to have put you to death 
 would have been the highest glory of a man of honour." 
 This enthusiastic youth, by name Stabbs, son of a clergy- 
 man of Erfurt, was — justly, no doubt — condemned to 
 death, and he suffered with the calmness of a martyr. 
 
 Buonaparte led at Schoenbrunn nearly the same course 
 of life to which he was accustomed at the Tuilleries ; sel- 
 dom appearing in public ; occupied incessantly with his 
 ministers and generals. The length to which the nego- 
 tiations with Austria were protracted excited much 
 wonder ; but he had other business on hand besides his 
 treat}' with the Emperor Francis, and that treaty had 
 taken a very unexpected shape. 
 
 It was during his residence at Schoenbrunn that a 
 quarrel, of no short standing, with the Pope reached its 
 crisis. The very language of the Consular Concordat 
 sufficiently indicated the reluctance and pain with which 
 the head of the Romish church acquiesced in the 
 arrangements devised by Buonaparte, for the ecclesias- 
 tical settlement of France ; and the subsequent course of 
 events, but especially in Italy and in Spain, could hardly 
 fail to aggravate those unpleasant feelings. In Spain 
 and in Portugal the resistance to French treachery and 
 violence was mainly conducted by the priesthood ; and 
 the Pope could not contemplate their exertions without 
 sympathy and favour. In Italy, meantime, the French 
 Emperor had made himself master of Naples, and of all 
 the territories lying to the north of the Papal states ; in 
 a word, the whole of that peninsula was his, excepting 
 
384 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, [1809. 
 
 only that narrow central stripe which still acknowledged 
 the temporal sovereignty of the Roman Pontiff. This 
 state of things was necessarily followed by incessant 
 efforts on the part of Napoleon to procure from the Pope 
 a hearty acquiescence in the system of the Berlin and 
 Milan decrees, and thus far he at length prevailed. But 
 when he went on to demand that his holiness should 
 take an active part in the war against England, he was 
 met by a steady refusal. Irritated by this opposition, 
 and, perhaps, still more by his suspicion that the patriots 
 of the Spanish Peninsula received secret support from 
 the Vatican, Buonaparte did not hesitate to issue a 
 decree in the following words : " Whereas the temporal 
 sovereign of Rome has refused to make war against 
 England, and the interests of the two kingdoms of Italy 
 and Naples ought not to be intercepted by a hostile 
 power; and whereas the donation of Charlemagne, our 
 illustrious predecessor, of the countries which form the 
 Holy See, was for the good of Christianity, and not for 
 that of the enemies of our holy religion; we, therefore, 
 decree that the duchies of Urbino, Ancona, Macerata, 
 and Camarino, be for ever united to the kingdom of 
 Italy." 
 
 The sea-ports of the Papal territory were forthwith 
 occupied by French troops, but Pius remained for some 
 time in undisturbed possession of Rome itself. On his 
 return from Spain, however, Napoleon determined to 
 complete his work in Italy, ere he should begin the 
 inevitable campaign with Austria. General Miollis, 
 therefore, took military possession of Rome in February, 
 1809, the Pope, however, still remaining in the Vatican, 
 and attended there as usual by his own guards. 
 
 On the 17th of May, Napoleon issued, from Vienna, 
 his final decree, declaring the temporal sovereignty of 
 the Pope to be wholly at an end, incorporating Rome 
 
1809.] ARREST OF THE POPE. 385 
 
 with the French empire, and declaring it to be 7^- second 
 city ; settling a pension on the holy father in his spiritual 
 capacity — and appointing a committee of administration 
 for the civil government of Rome. The Pope, on re- 
 ceiving the Parisian senatus-consultum, ratifying this 
 imperial rescript, instantly fulminated a bull of excom- 
 munication against Napoleon. Shortly after, some un- 
 authentic news from Germany inspired new hopes into 
 the adherents of the Pontiff; and, disturbances breaking 
 out, Miollis, on pretence that a life sacred in the eyes of 
 all Christians might be endangered, arrested Pius in his 
 palace at midnight, and forthwith dispatched him under 
 a strong escort to Savona. 
 
 The intelligence of this decisive step reached Napoleon 
 soon after the battle of Wagram, and he was inclined to 
 disapprove of the conduct of Miollis as too precipitate. 
 It was now, however, impossible to recede ; the Pope 
 was ordered to be conveyed across the Alps to Grenoble. 
 But his reception there was more reverential than Napo- 
 leon had anticipated, and he was soon reconducted to 
 Savona. 
 
 This business would, in any other period, have been 
 sufficient to set all Catholic Europe in a flame ; and 
 even now Buonaparte well knew that his conduct could 
 not fail to nourish and support the feelings arrayed 
 against him openly in Spain and in Southern German)-, 
 and suppressed, not extinguished, in the breasts of a 
 great party of the French clergy at home. He made, 
 therefore, many efforts to procure from the Pope some 
 formal relinquishment of his temporal claims — but Pius 
 VII. remained unshaken ; and the negotiation at length 
 terminated in the removal of His Holiness to Fontaine- 
 bleau, where he continued a prisoner, though treated 
 personally with respect, and even magnificence, during 
 more than three years — until, in the general darkening 
 
386 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1809. 
 
 of his own fortunes, the imperial jailer was compelled 
 to adopt another line of conduct. 
 
 The treaty with Austria was at last signed at Schoen- 
 brunn on the 14th of October. The Emperor Francis 
 purchased peace by the cession of Salzburg, and a part 
 of Upper Austria, to the Confederation of the Rhine ; 
 of part of Bohemia to the King of Saxony, and of Cra- 
 cow and western Galicia to the same prince, as Grand 
 Duke of Warsaw ; of part of eastern Galicia to the Czar ; 
 and, to France herself, of Trieste, Carniola, Friuli, 
 Villach, and some part of Croatia and Dalmatia. By 
 this act Austria gave up in all territory to the amount 
 of 45,000 square miles, with a population of neaidy four 
 millions ; and Napoleon, besides gratifying his vassals 
 and allies, had completed the connection of the kingdom 
 of Italy with his Illyrian possessions, obtained the whole 
 coasts of the Adriatic, and deprived Austria of her last 
 sea-port. Yet, when compared with the signal triumphs 
 of the campaign of Wagram, the terms on which the 
 conqueror signed the peace were universally looked upon 
 as remarkable for moderation ; and he claimed merit 
 with the Emperor of Russia on the score of having spared 
 Austria in deference to his personal intercession. 
 
 Buonaparte quitted Vienna on the 16th of October ; 
 was congratulated by the public bodies of Paris, on the 
 14th of November, as " the greatest of heroes, who never 
 achieved victories but for the happiness of the world;" 
 and soon after, by one of the most extraordinary steps 
 of his personal history, furnishod abundant explanation 
 of the motives which had guided his diplomacy at 
 Sehoenbrunn. 
 
1809.] NAroLEOfl pyrnrcr- josephihb. 337 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 .V ■ , dh> wees J a phine — Marries the Archduchess Maria Louis i 
 
 — Deposes Louis Buonaparte — Annexes Holland and the wl 
 Coast of Germany 1 1 Franc — Revolution in Sweden — Bernadotts 
 
 elected Crown Prince o' Sweden — Progress of the War in the /' 
 ii, suit — Battle of Bus xco— Lord Wellington retreats to the Lines 
 of Torres Vedras. 
 
 The treacherous invasion of Spain, and the imprison- 
 ment of the Pope, were but the first of a series of grand 
 political errors, destined to sap the foundations of tins 
 apparently irresistible power. On his return to Paris, 
 Napoleon proudly proclaimed to his senate, that no 
 enemy opposed him throughout the continent of Europe 
 — except only a few fugitive bands of Spanish rebels, 
 and ,; the English leopard"* in Portugal, whom ere long 
 he would cau.--e to be chased into the sea. In the mean- 
 time, the Peninsula was too insignificant an object to 
 demand either his own presence, or much of their con- 
 cern ; the general welfare of the empire called on them 
 to fix their attention on a subject of a very different 
 nature ; namely, the situation of the imperial family. 
 " I and my house," said Napoleon, " will ever be found 
 ready to sacrifice everything, even our own dearest ties 
 and feelings, to the welfare of the French people." 
 
 This was the first public intimation of a measure 
 which had for a considerable period occupied much of 
 Napoleon's thoughts, and which, regarded at the time 
 (almost universally) as the very master-stroke of his 
 policy, proved in the issue no mean element of his ruin. 
 
 * The leopards had been changed into lions in the English 
 Bhield five hundreds years before this! To such small matters 
 could Buonaparte'? rancour st< 
 
39S NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1809. 
 
 Josephine had loved Napoleon, and been beloved pas- 
 sionately by him in his youth. She had shared his 
 humbler fortune ; by her connections in Paris, and espe- 
 cially by her skilful conduct daring his Egyptian ex- 
 pedition, and immediately afterwards, she had most 
 materially assisted him in the attainment of the sovereign 
 dignity; she had subsecraently adorned his court, and 
 gratified his pride, by the elegance of her manners, and 
 won to herself the attachment of his people, by her sin- 
 cere good nature and active benevolence. Her power 
 over him was known to be great, and no one ever 
 doubted but that it had uniformly been exerted on the 
 side of mercy. She was considered as the good angel 
 who, more frequently aud effectually than any influ- 
 ence besides, interfered to soothe the fierce passions, 
 and temper the violent acts of her lord. Her devotion 
 to him was perfect ; she partook his labours as far as he 
 would permit her to do so, submitted to all his caprices, 
 and, with a dark presentiment that his ambition would 
 one day cast her aside, continued to centre the whole of 
 her existence to the contemplation of his glory. 
 
 Long before Napoleon assumed the imperial title, his 
 hopes of offspring from this union were at an end ; and, 
 at least from the hour in which his authority was declared 
 to be hereditary, Josephine must have begun to suspect 
 that, in his case also, the ties of domestic life might be 
 sacrificed to those views of political advantage which 
 had so often dissolved the marriages of princes. For a 
 moment she seems to have flattered herself that Napo- 
 leon would be contented to adopt her son ; and Eugene, 
 as we have seen, was indeed announced, at the period 
 of his alliance with the royal family of Bavaria, as the 
 successor to the throne of Italy, in case his father-in- 
 law should leave no second son to inherit it. Louis 
 Buonaparte afterwards wedded Hortense de Beauharnois, 
 
1809.] DIVORCE OF JOSEPHINE. 330 
 
 and an infant son, the only pledge of their ill-assorted 
 nnion, became so much the favourite of Napoleon, that 
 Josephine, as well as others, regarded this boy as the 
 heir of France. But the child died early ; and the Em- 
 peror began to familiarise himself with the idea of dis- 
 solving his own marriage. 
 
 There is now no doubt that, as early as the confer- 
 ences of Tilsit, the scheme of such a connection with the 
 imperial family of Russia was broached; and as little 
 that Alexander treated the proposal with coldness, in 
 consequence of the insuperable aversion with which the 
 Empress-mother (a princess whose influence was always 
 commanding) persisted in regarding the character of 
 Buonaparte. At Erfurt this matter was once more 
 touched upon ; and a second rejection of his personal 
 alliance was probably the chief of not a few incidents at 
 that meeting, which satisfied Napoleon as to the uncer- 
 tain condition of his relations with the Russian court. 
 Then, however, he had abundant reasons for dissembling 
 his displeasure; and the pretext of difficulties arising 
 from difference of religion was permitted to pass. 
 
 Fouche was one of the first to penetrate the secret 
 thoughts of Buonaparte : and he, with audacity equal to 
 his cunning, ventured to take on himself the dangerous 
 office of sounding the Empress as to this most delicate 
 of all subjects. One evening, before Napoleon left Paris 
 on his unhallowed expedition to Spain, the minister of 
 police drew Josephine aside into a corner of her saloon, 
 and, after a preface of abundant common-places, touch- 
 ing the necessities of the empire, and the painful position 
 of the Emperor, asked her in plain terms whether she 
 were not capable of sacrificing all private feelings to 
 these ? Josephine heard him with at least the appear- 
 ance of utter surprise, ordered him to quit her presence, 
 and went immediately to demand of Napoleon whether 
 
390 NAPOLEON BUONAPAKTE. [1809. 
 
 the minister had had any authority for this proceeding. 
 The Emperor answered in the negative, and with high 
 demonstrations of displeasure : but when Josephine went 
 on to ask the dismissal of Fouche, as the only fit punish- 
 ment for so gi'eat an outrage, he refused to comply. He 
 remained steadfast, in spite of the urgencies and lamen- 
 tations of an insulted woman ; and from that hour 
 Josephine must have felt that her fate was fixed. 
 
 The apartments of Napoleon and those of his wife, 
 which were immediately over them, at the Tuilleries, 
 had communication by means of a private staircase ; and 
 it was the custom of the Emperor himself to signify, by 
 a tap on the door of Josephine's sitting-room, his desire 
 to converse with her in his cabinet below. In the days 
 of their cordial union the signal w r as often made, most 
 commonly in the evening, and it was not unusual for 
 them to remain shut up together in conversation for 
 hours. Soon after his return from Schoenbrunn, the 
 ladies in attendance began to remark that the Emperor's 
 knock was heard more frequently than it had ever used 
 to be, that their mistress seemed to listen for it at certain 
 hours with a new and painful anxiety, and that she did 
 not obey the sigual with her accustomed alacrity. One 
 evening Napoleon surprised them by carrying Josephine 
 into the midst of them, pale, apparently lifeless. She 
 was but awaking from a long swoon, into which she had 
 fallen on hearing him at last pronounce the decree which 
 terminated their connection. 
 
 This was on the 5th of December. On the 15th the 
 Emperor summoned his council, and announced to them, 
 that at the expense of all his personal feelings, he, de- 
 voted wholly to the welfare of the state, had resolved to 
 separate himself from his most dear consort. Josephine 
 then appeared among them, and, not without tears, ex- 
 pressed her acquiescence in the decree. The council, 
 
1810.] 
 
 MAfcRIES MAUIA LOUISA. 301 
 
 after haranguing the imperial spouses on tlie nobleness 
 of their mutual sacrifice, accepted and ratified the dis- 
 solution of the marriage. The title of Empress was to 
 continue with Josephine for life, and a pension of 
 two millions of francs, (to which Napoleon afterwards 
 added a third million from his privy purse,) was allotted 
 to her. She retired from the Tuilleries, residing thence- 
 forth mostly at the villa of Malmaison ; and in the course 
 of a few weeks it was signified that Xapoleon had de- 
 manded the hand of the Archduchess Maria Louisa, 
 daughter to the Emperor Francis, the same youthful 
 princess who has been mentioned as remaining in Vienna, 
 on account of illness, during the second occupation of 
 that capital. 
 
 Having given her hand, at Vienna, to Berthier, who 
 had the honour to represent the person of his master, 
 the young archduchess came into France in March, 1810. 
 On the 28th, as her carriage was proceeding towards 
 Soissons, Napoleon rode up to it, in a plain dress, alto- 
 gether unattended ; and, at once breaking through all 
 the etiquettes of such occasions, introduced himself to 
 his bride. She had never seen his person till then, and 
 it is said that her first exclamation was, " Your majesty's 
 pictures have not done you justice." Buonaparte was 
 at this time forty years of age ; his countenance had 
 acquired a certain fulness, and that statue-like calmness 
 of expression with which posterity will always be 
 familiar; but his figure betrayed as yet nothing more 
 than a tendency towards corpulence. He was consi- 
 dered as a handsomer man at this period than he had 
 been in his earlier days. They spent the evening at the 
 chateau of Compiegne, and were re-married, on the 2d 
 of April, at Paris, amidst every circumstance of splen- 
 dour. Among other imperial gallantries, Xapoleon had 
 provided a set of apartments at the Tnillcrics in which, 
 
392 NAPOLLON HI ONAl'AKlE. [1810. 
 
 down to the minutest article of furniture, Maria Louisa 
 found a fac-simile of those which she had hcen accus- 
 tomed to occupy in her father's palace of Schoenbrunn. 
 For some time he seemed to devote himself, like a mere 
 lover, to the society of his new partner ; and was really, 
 according to his own account at St. Helena, enchanted 
 with the contrast which her youthful simplicity of cha- 
 racter and manners presented to the finished and elabo- 
 rate graces of Josephine. Of the uniform attachment 
 and affection of both his wives, he spoke afterwards 
 with equal praises. But he in vain endeavoured to pre- 
 vail on Maria Louisa to make a personal acquaintance 
 with her predecessor ; and, at length, found it necessary 
 to give up his own visits to Malmaison, which for a 
 time were not unfrequent. 
 
 Napoleon, in his exile, said that " the Spanish ulcer " 
 and the Austrian match were the two main causes of his 
 ruin ; and they both contributed to it largely, though 
 by no means equally. His alliance with the haughtiest 
 of the old sovereign houses gave deep offence indeed to 
 that great party in France, who, though willing to sub- 
 mit to a Dictator, still loathed the name of hereditary 
 monarchy. Nothing, perhaps, could have shocked those 
 men more grievously than to see the victorious heir and 
 representative of their revolution seeking to mix his 
 blood with that of its inveterate enemies, and making 
 himself free, as it were, of what they had been accus- 
 tomed to call the old established "corporation of tyrants." 
 Another, and, it is to be hoped, as large a class of his 
 subjects, were disgusted with his abandonment of the 
 wife of his youth, for the sake of gratifying his vanity 
 and ambition. There were also, we may easily believe, 
 not a few royalists of the old school who had hitherto 
 acquiesced in his sway the more easily, because he seemed 
 destined to die childless, and in a contest for the throne 
 
IslO.J Al FAtBS 01 HOLLAND. 
 
 of France, they flattered themselves the legitimate heir 
 of the monarchy might outweigh any of his remoter 
 kindred. And, lastly, it is not improbable that some of 
 Napoleon's marshals had accustomed themselves to 
 dream of events such as occurred on the death of 
 Alexander the Great. But making all allowance for 
 these exceptions, it is hardly possible to doubt that a 
 vast proportion of the upper classes of society in France 
 must have been disposed to hail the Emperor's alliance 
 with the house of Austria as a pledge of his desire to 
 adopt, henceforth, a more moderate line of policy as to 
 his foreign relations ; or that his throne must have been 
 strengthened in the eyes of the nation at large by the 
 prospect — soon realized — of a son of his own blood to 
 fill it after him. Napoleon's own opinion was, that the 
 error lay, not in seeking a bi'ide of imperial birth, but in 
 choosing her at Vienna. Had he persisted in his de- 
 mands, the Czar, he doubted not, would have granted 
 him his sister ; the proud dreams of Tilsit would have 
 been realized, and Paris and St. Petersburg become the 
 only two capitals of Europe. 
 
 The Emperor's new marriage was speedily followed 
 by another event, which showed how little the ordinary 
 ties and feelings of domestic life now weighed with him 
 in the scale against ambition. His brother Louis, a 
 weak but benevolent man, had in vain been cautioned 
 by Napoleon, on his promotion to the Dutch throne, 
 that, in his administration of this subaltern monarchy, 
 " the first object of his care must ever be the Errmeror, 
 the second France, and the third Holland" Louis, sur- 
 rounded by native ministers, men of great talents and 
 experience, and enlightened lovers of their country, had 
 his s}-mpathies ere long enlisted on the side of those 
 whom he might be pardoned for wishing to consider as 
 really his subjects. His rmeen, on the other hand, the 
 
394 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1810. 
 
 daughter of Josephine, and the favourite of Napoleon, 
 made her court, as far as she could, a French one, and 
 was popularly regarded as heading the party who looked 
 in all things to the Tuilleries. The meek-spirited Louis, 
 thwarted by this intriguing woman, and grossly insulted 
 by his brother, struggled for some time with the diffi- 
 culties of his situation; but his patience availed nothing: 
 his supposed connivance at the violations of the Berlin 
 and Milan decrees, in the same proportion as it tended 
 to raise him more and more in the affections of the 
 Dutch, fixed and heightened the displeasure of Napoleon. 
 He was at length summoned to Paris, and without a 
 moment's hesitation obeyed. On arriving there he took 
 up his residence in the house of his mother, and next 
 morning found himself a prisoner. Having abdicated 
 his throne, Louis retired to Gratz, in Styria, and to that 
 private mode of life for which his character fitted him ; 
 his name continues to be affectionately remembered in 
 Holland. His beautiful wife, despite the fall of her 
 mother, chose to fix her residence in Paris, where she 
 once more shone the brightest ornament of the court. 
 On the 9th of July, 1810, the kingdom of Holland was 
 formally annexed to the French empire ; Amsterdam 
 taking rank amons; the cities next after Rome. 
 
 In pursuance of the same stern resolution to allow no 
 consideration to interfere with the complete and effectual 
 establishment of the Continental System, Buonaparte 
 shortly afterwards annexed the Hanse towns, Oldenburg, 
 and the whole sea coast of Germany, from the frontier of 
 Holland to that of Denmark, to the French empire. Tne 
 king of Prussia was as yet in no condition to remonstrate 
 against this new act of rapacity ; opposition from any 
 other German state was wholly out of the question. 
 
 In truth there had been, for several years, but one 
 power in the North of Europe at once decidedly adverse 
 
1810.] AFFAIRS OF SWEDEN. 305 
 
 in spirit, and in any degree independent ; and now, to 
 all appearance, this last exception also was removed. 
 Gustavus IY., King of Sweden, bad persisted in Lis 
 original hatred of the French Revolution, and of Buona- 
 parte, in opposition to a powerful party in that country, 
 who considered the conduct of their sovereign, in stand- 
 ing out against so gigantic an enemy, as mere obstinacy 
 — in fact as insane. In consequence of his pertinacious 
 refusal to submit to the supreme will of Napoleon, the 
 Pomeranian provinces and Finland had been lost to the 
 kingdom. The monarch's personal behaviour unfortu- 
 nately was so extravagant as to furnish some grounds 
 for suspecting him of mental aberration. He was arrested 
 in his palace, and, an act of abdication for himself and 
 his children being extorted, deposed : his uncle, the Duke 
 of Sudermania, was called to the throne in his room, as 
 Charles XIII. ; and, amicable relations being soon estab- 
 lished between the Courts of Stockholm and the Tuil- 
 leries, Pomerania was restored, and the English flag and 
 commerce banished from the ports of Sweden in Decem- 
 ber, 1809. 
 
 In May, 1810, the Prince of Augustenburg, who had 
 been recognised as heir to Charles XIIL, died suddenly ; 
 and the choice of a successor was, according to the 
 constitution of Sweden, to depend on the vote of the 
 Diet, which assembled accordingly at Orebro, in the 
 month of Ausrust following. 
 
 The royal house (except the immediate line of tho 
 deposed king) being extinct, many candidates were pro- 
 posed ; and among others the King of Denmark and 
 Norway, upon whom, in true policy, the choice should 
 have fallen, as in that case a state capable of balancing 
 the power of Russia on the Baltic might have been con- 
 solidated. But the eyes of men were turned almost 
 exclusively at this time to Xnpoleon ; and in the hope of 
 
oOG NAPOLEON BUONAPA1 [1810. 
 
 securing his friendship and protection, tbe succession 
 was at last proposed to Marshal Bernadotte, Prince of 
 Ponte Corvo, and brother-in-law to Joseph Buonaparte, 
 as married to that Mademoiselle Cleiy, who in early 
 • lays had received Napoleon's own addresses. The 
 Marshal had gained good-will by his moderation and 
 justice, when entrusted witb tbe government of Hanover 
 and Swedish Pomerania, after tbese countries fell into 
 tbe bands of the French in consequence of the campaign 
 of 1806-7. His military reputation was high ; there 
 was no stain on his private character ; and there was 
 one circumstance especially in his favour, that he bad 
 been bred a Protestant, and might therefore be expected 
 to conform, Avitbout scruple, to the established church of 
 Sweden. But the chief recommendation was, without 
 doubt, tbe belief of tbe Swedish Diet that Bernadotte 
 stood in the first rank of Napoleon's favour. 
 
 Napoleon, however, had never forgiven Bernadotte 
 for his refusal to act on his side on the 18th Brumaire. 
 He thenceforth considered this great soldier of the Re- 
 public as one who might serve the Emperor well, because 
 in doing so be served France, but who looked to himself 
 with none of those feelings of personal devotion which 
 could alone entitle a subject to his favour. Bernadotte 
 had been distinguished in the army before Napoleon 
 himself appeared on tbe great theatre of events ; he 
 ,ould never be classed with those who had earned all 
 their distinction and pre-eminence under the banners of 
 the Emperor ; he had an existence separate and bis 
 own ; be bad stood aloof at the great and decisive crisis 
 of Napoleon's fate ; he might be entrusted and employed 
 afterwards — be could never be loved. The proposal of 
 tbe Diet, therefore, was the reverse of agreeable to him 
 whose favour it was expressly designed to conciliate. 
 Bernadotte, however, was powerful in the esteem of a 
 
1810.] BERNAD01IE CROWN PRINCE OF SWEDEN. 397 
 
 gi'eat party in the French arnry, as well as among the 
 old republicans of the state : to have interfered against 
 him would have been to kindle high wrath and hatred 
 among all those officers who belonged to the ante-Buona- 
 partean period ; and, on the other hand, to oppose the 
 free-will of the Swedes would have appeared extraordi- 
 nary conduct indeed on the part of a sovereign who 
 studiously represented himself as owing everything to 
 the free-will of the French. Sweden, finally, was still 
 an independent state ; and the events of the Peninsula 
 were likely to impress the Emperor with a lively sense 
 of the dangers of exciting a spirit of national aversion 
 at the other extremity of Europe. Napoleon consented 
 to the acceptance of the proffered dignity by Bernadotte. 
 The Marshal was called on to sign a declaration, before 
 he left Paris, that he would never bear arms against 
 France. He rejected this condition as incompatible 
 with the connection which Napoleon himself had just 
 sanctioned him in forming with another state, and said 
 he was sure the suggestion came not from the Emperor, 
 who knew what were the duties of a sovereign, but from 
 some lawyer. Napoleon frowned darkly, and answered 
 with an air of embarrassment, " Go ; our destinies are 
 about to be fulfilled." Bernadotte said he had not 
 heard his words distinctly : Napoleon repeated them ; 
 and they parted. Bernadotte was received with an 
 enthusiastic welcome in Stockholm ; and, notwith- 
 standing the unpleasant circumstances under which 
 Napoleon had dismissed him, the French alliance con- 
 tinued to be maintained. The private history of 
 the transaction was not likely to be divulged at the 
 time ; and the natural as well as universal notion 
 was, that Sweden, governed in effect by Marshal 
 Bernadotte as crown-prince, had become almost as mere a 
 dependence of France, as Naples under King Joachim 
 
39S NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1810. 
 
 Marat, or Westphalia under King Jerome Buona- 
 parte. 
 
 The war, meanwhile, continued without interruption 
 in the Peninsula; whither, but for his marriage, Na- 
 poleon would certainly have repaired in person after the 
 peace of Schoenbrunn left him at ease on his German 
 frontier. Although the new alliance had charms enough 
 to detain him in France, it by no means withdrew his 
 attention from the state of that fair kingdom which still 
 mocked Joseph with the shadow of a crown. In the 
 open field, indeed, the French appealed everywhere 
 triumphant, except only where the British force from 
 Portugal interfered, and in almost every district of 
 Spain the fortresses were in their hands ; yet the spirit 
 of the people remained wholly unsubdued. The invaders 
 could not count an inch of soil their own beyond their 
 outposts. Their troops continued to be harassed and 
 thinned by the indomitable guerillas or partisan com- 
 panies ; and, even in the immediate neighbourhood of 
 their strongest garrisons, the people assembled to vote 
 for representatives in the Cortes, which had at last been 
 summoned to meet at Cadiz, there to settle the national 
 government, during the King's absence, on a regular 
 footing. 
 
 The battle of Ocana left the central part of Spain 
 wholly undefended; and Soult, Victor, and Mortier, 
 forcing the passes of the Sierra Morena, made them- 
 selves masters, early in the year, of Jaen, Cordova, 
 Grenada, Malaga, and Seville itself. Cadiz, to which 
 the Central Junta had ere this retired, was now gar- 
 risoned by a large Spanish force, including the army of 
 Estremadura, under the Duke d'Albuquerque, and a 
 considerable detachment of English troops from Gibral- 
 tar; and Soult sat down before the place in form. 
 Could he have taken Cadiz, no fortress of importance 
 
1810.] STATE OF THE PENINSULA. 390 
 
 ■would have remained with the patriots in the south of 
 Spain: but the strength of the situation and the ready 
 access to the sea and Gibraltar, rendered all his efforts 
 vain. 
 
 On the eastern side of Spain Suchet defeated the 
 Spanish General O'Donncll under the walls of Ostalric, 
 and took afterwards that town, Lerida, Mequineza, and 
 Tortosa. But Valencia once more repelled the invaders. 
 After a bloody sally of the inhabitants Suchet withdrew 
 from before the walls. 
 
 It was on the Portuguese side, however, that the 
 events of most importance occurred. It was there 
 that the disgraces of Vimiera and Talavera must be 
 avenged ; and there accordingly Napoleon had directed 
 his chief force to be set in motion. Massena (Prince of 
 Essling), second only to himself in reputation, took the 
 command, early in the season, of "the army of Portugal," 
 at least 100,000 strong, and whose commission it was to 
 drive the English leopards and the Sepoy General (as, 
 ignorant of the future, Buonaparte at this time called 
 Wellington) into the sea. To this gigantic army that 
 leader could oppose at most 20,000 British troops ; but 
 30,000 Portuguese had by this time been so well trained 
 by General Beresford, that they were held not unworthy 
 of fighting by the side of Englishmen. Still Lord 
 Wellington's whole force was barely half that of Massena ; 
 and his operations were necessarily confined to the 
 defensive. He had no means to prevent the French 
 Marshal from taking Oviedo and Ciudad Rodrigo — 
 almost in his sight; but commenced his retreat, and 
 conducted it with a coolness and precision which not a 
 little disconcerted the pursuers. They at length ventured 
 to attack the English on their march. On the 27th 
 September, 1810, they charged in five columns, on the 
 heights of Busaco, and were driven back with such 
 
400 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1810. 
 
 terrible carnage that no further assault was threatened. 
 Massena kept advancing, step by step, as Wellington 
 withdrew, not doubting that his enemy would embark 
 as soon as he reached Lisbon, and leave him in quiet 
 possession of that capital and the rich country around. 
 His surprise was great when Lord Wellington at last 
 halted on the lines of the Torres Vedras, which had by this 
 time been so strengthened, that even in inferior hands 
 they might have been considered impregnable. 
 
 This formidable position, extending about twelve 
 leagues between the sea and the Tagus, placed the port 
 of Lisbon and the adjacent territory in the secure pos- 
 session of the English general. Massena might flatter 
 his master with the announcement that he was besieg- 
 ing Lisbon ; but in reality his own army very soon 
 suffered all the inconveniences and privations of a 
 besieged garrison. The country around him had been 
 laid waste : every Portuguese peasant was a deadly 
 enemy. To advance was impossible, and there was 
 infinite difficulty in keeping his communications open 
 behind. Thus, during many months, the two armies lay 
 face to face in inaction. 
 
1511.] 
 
 KING OF ROME BORN. 401 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Events of the year 1811— Birth of the King of Rome— Disgrace of 
 Fouchi— Discontents in France— Relations with Russia— License 
 Sgstem—Xapoleon prepares for War with Russia — The Campaign 
 in the Peninsula— Massena's Retreat— Battle of Fuentes d'Onor— 
 Lord Wellington blockades Ciudacl Rodrigo— Retreats— Joseph 
 wishes to abdicate. 
 
 Ox the 20th of April, 1811, Napoleon's wishes were 
 crowned by the birth of a son. The birth was a difficult 
 one, and the nerves of the medical attendant were 
 shaken. " She is but a woman," said the Emperor, who 
 was present ; " treat her as you would a Bourrjeoise of 
 the Eue St. Denis." The accoucheur at a subsequent 
 moment withdrew Napoleon from the couch, and de^ 
 manded whether, in case one life must be sacrificed, he 
 should prefer the mother's or the child's. "The mother's," 
 he answered ; " it is her right ! " At length the child 
 appeared, but without any sign of life. After the lapse 
 of some minutes a feeble cry was heard, and Napoleon 
 entering the ante-chamber in which the high function- 
 aries of the state were assembled, announced the event 
 in these words : " It is a King of Rome." 
 
 The birth of the heir of Napoleon was received with 
 as many demonstrations of loyal enthusiasm as had ever 
 attended that of a Dauphin ; yet, from what has been 
 said as to the light in which various parties of men in 
 France from the beginning viewed the Austrian alliance, 
 it may be sufficiently inferred that the joy on this occa- 
 sion was far from universal. The royalists considered 
 the event as fatal to the last hopes of the Bourbons ; tho 
 ambitious generals despaired of any future dismember- 
 
402 NAPOLEON' BUONAPARTE. [1811. 
 
 merit of the empire ; the old republicans, who had en- 
 dured Buonaparte's despotic power as the progeny of 
 the revolution, looked forward with deep disgust to the 
 rule of a dynasty proud of sharing the blood of the 
 haughtiest of all the royal houses of Europe, and conse- 
 quently more likely to make common cause with the 
 little band of hereditary sovereigns than with the people- 
 Finally, the title, " King of Rome," put an end to the 
 fond hopes of the Italians, who had been taught by Na- 
 poleon to expect that, after his death, their country 
 should possess a government separate from France ; nor 
 could the same title fail to excite some bitter feelings in 
 the Austrian court, whose heir-apparent under the old 
 empire had been styled commonly " The King of the 
 Romans." For the present, however, both at home and 
 abroad, the event was naturally looked on as adding 
 much strength to the throne of Napoleon. 
 
 He, thus called on to review with new seriousness the 
 whole condition and prospects of his empire, appears to 
 have felt very distinctly that neither could be secure 
 unless an end were, by some means, put to the war with 
 England. However he might permit himself to sneer 
 at his great enemy in his public addresses from the 
 throne, and in his bulletins, Napoleon had too much 
 strength of mind not to despise those who, in any of their 
 private communications, had the meanness to affect 
 acquiescence in such views. When Denon brought him, 
 after the battle of Wagram, the design of a medal re- 
 presenting an eagle strangling a leopard, Buonaparte 
 rebuked and dismissed the flatterer. " What," said he, 
 " strangling the leopard ! There is not a spot of the 
 sea on which the eagle dares show himself. This is base 
 adulation. It would have been nearer the truth to 
 i*epresent the eagle as choked by the leopard." 
 
 He sent a private messenger to London to ascertain 
 
1811] NEGOTIATION WITH ENGLAND BAFFLED. 403 
 
 from personal communication with the Marquess "Wel- 
 lesley, then minister for foreign affairs, on what terms 
 the English government would consent to open a formal 
 negotiation ; but this attempt was baffled by a singular 
 circumstance. Fouche, having derived new audacity 
 from the results of his extraordinary conversation with 
 Josephine, on the subject of the divorce, had ventured 
 to send a dependent of his own to London, for the pur- 
 pose of sounding Lord "Wellesley on the question of 
 preliminaries ; not doubting that could he give distinct 
 information on this head to his master, without having 
 in any degree compromised the imperial dignity, the 
 service would be considered as most valuable. But Lord 
 Wellesley, beset, at the same time, and on the same very 
 delicate topic, by two different persons, neither of whom 
 produced any proper credentials, and who denied all 
 knowledge of each other, conceived, very naturally, that 
 they were mere adventurers if not spies, and at once 
 broke off his communications with both. Napoleon, on 
 discovering this intrigue, summoned Fouche to his pre- 
 sence. " So, sir," said he, " I find 3 r ou make peace and 
 war without consulting me." He was dismissed from 
 the ministry of police, and sent into an honourable ban- 
 ishment as Governor of Rome. Fouche's presumption 
 had been great : but long ere now Napoleon was weary, 
 not of him only, but of Talleyrand, and indeed of all 
 those ministers who, having reached eminent stations 
 before he himself acquired the supreme power, preserved, 
 in their manner of transacting business, and especially 
 of offering advice, any traces of that period in which 
 Frenchmen flattered themselves they were free. The 
 warnings which he had received when about to com- 
 mence his atrocious proceedings against Spain, were 
 remembered with the higher resentment, as the course 
 of events in that country, month after month, and }-ear 
 
404 NAPOLEON BUOXAPAIU'E. [1811. 
 
 after year, confirmed the accuracy of the foresight which 
 he had contemned. This haughty spirit could not endure 
 the presence of the man who could be supposed to fancy 
 that, even on one point, he had the better of his master. 
 The disgrace of Fouehe was certainly a very unpopu- 
 lar measure. The immediate cause of it could not be 
 divulged, and the minister was considered as having 
 fallen a sacrifice to the honesty of his remonstrances on 
 the Spanish invasion, and the increased rigour of the 
 Emperor's domestic administration. It was about this 
 time that, in addition to the castle of Yincennes, nine 
 new state-prisons were established in France ; and the 
 number of persons confined in these receptacles, on war- 
 rants signed by the Emperor and his slavish privy 
 council, far exceeded those condemned to similar usage 
 in any recent period of the Bourbon monarchy, under the 
 lettres de cachet of the sovereign. These were proofs, not 
 to be mistaken, of the growth of political disaffection. 
 In truth, the continental system, the terrible waste of 
 life occasioned by the late campaigns in Poland and 
 Austria, and the constant demands, both on the treasure 
 and the blood of France, rendered necessary by the ap- 
 parently interminable war in the Peninsula — these were 
 evils which could not exist without alienating the hearts 
 of the people. The police filled the ears of the Emperor 
 with reports of men's private conversation. Citizens 
 were daily removed from their families, and buried in 
 remote and inaccessible dungeons, for no reason but that 
 they had dared to speak what the immense majority of 
 their neighbours thought. His quarrels with Lucien, 
 who had contracted a marriage unsuitable, in the Em- 
 peror's opinion, to his rank, were so indecently violent, 
 that that ablest of his brothers at length sought a refuge 
 in England, where he remained during several years. 
 The total slavery of the press, itrs audacious lies, and 
 
1811.] RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA. 405 
 
 more audacious silence, insulted the common sense of 
 all men. Disaffection was secretly, but rapidly, eating 
 into the heart of his power ; and yet, as if blinded to all 
 consequences by some angry infliction of heaven, the in- 
 satiable ambition of Napoleon was already tempting 
 another great foreign enemy into the field. 
 
 "When the Emperor of Russia was informed of Buona- 
 parte's approaching nuptials with the Austrian princess, 
 his first exclamation was, " Then the next thing will be 
 to drive us back into our forests." In truth, the con- 
 ferences of Erfurt had but skinned over a wound, which 
 nothing could have cured but a total alteration of 
 Napoleon's policy. The Russian nation suffered so much 
 from the continental system, that the sovereign soon 
 found himself compelled to relax the decrees drawn up 
 at Tilsit, in the spirit of those of Berlin and Milan. 
 Certain harbours were opened partially for the admission 
 of colonial produce, and the export of native productions ; 
 and there ensued a series of indignant reclamations on 
 the part of Napoleon, and haughty evasions on that of 
 the Czar, which, ere long, satisfied all near observers 
 that Russia would not be slow to avail herself of any 
 favourable opportunity of once more appealing to arms. 
 The Spanish insurrection, backed by the victories of 
 Lord "Wellington, must have roused alike the hope and 
 the pride of a young and ambitious prince, placed at the 
 head of so great a nation ; the inference naturally drawr_ 
 from Napoleon's marriage into the house of Austria was, 
 that the whole power of that monarchy would, hence- 
 forth, act in unison with his views — in other words, that 
 were the Peninsula once thoroughly subdued, the whole 
 of "Western Europe would be at his command, for any 
 service he might please to dictate. It would have been 
 astonishing if, under such circumstances, the ministers 
 of Alexander had not desired to bring their disputes 
 
406 NATOLEO-V BUONAPARTE. [1811. 
 
 with Paris to a close, before Napoleon should have 
 leisure to consummate the conquest of Spain. 
 
 During the summer of 1811, then, the relations of 
 these two governments were becoming every day more 
 dubious ; and when, towards the close of it, the Emperor 
 of Austria published a rescript, granting a free passage 
 through his territories to the troops of his son-in-law, 
 England, ever watchful of the movements of her great 
 enemy, perceived clearly that she was about to have an 
 ally. 
 
 From the moment in which the Russian government 
 began to reclaim seriously against certain parts of his 
 conduct, Buonaparte increased, by degrees, his military 
 force in the north of Germany and the Grand Duchy of 
 Warsaw, and advanced considerable bodies of troops 
 nearer and nearer to the Czar's Polish frontier. These 
 preparations were met by some similar movements on 
 the other side ; yet, during many months, the hope of 
 terminating the differences by negotiation was not 
 abandoned. The Russian complaints, at length, as- 
 sumed a regular shape, and embraced three distinct 
 heads, viz. : — 
 
 First, the extension of the territories of the Duchy of 
 Warsaw, under the treaty of Schoenbrunn. This alarmed 
 the court of St. Petersburg, by reviving the notion of 
 Polish independence, and Buonaparte was in vain urged 
 to give his public guarantee that no national govern- 
 ment should be re-established in the dismembered king- 
 dom : 
 
 Second, the annexation of the Duchy of Oldenburg to 
 the French empire, by that edict of Napoleon which 
 proclaimed his seizure of the whole sea coast of Germany, 
 between Holland and the Baltic. Oldenburg, the here- 
 ditary territory of the Emperor Alexander's brother-in- 
 law, had been expressly guaranteed to that prince by 
 
1811.] DISPUTES WITH RUSSIA. 407 
 
 the treaty of Tilsit. Napoleon was asked to indemnify 
 the ejected dnke by the cession of Dantzic, or some other 
 territory in the neighbourhood of the Grand Duchy of 
 Warsaw ; but this he declined, though he pi*ofessed his 
 willingness to give some compensation elsewhere : 
 
 Thirdly, the Czar alleged, and most truly, that the 
 state of his country made it altogether necessary that 
 the regulations of the continental system should be dis- 
 pensed with in his instance, and declared that he could 
 no longer submit to see the commerce of an independent 
 empire trammelled for the purpose of serving the policy 
 of a foreign power. Buonaparte admitted that it might 
 be necessary to modify the system complained of, and 
 expressed his belief that it would be found possible to 
 devise some middle course, by which the commercial 
 interests of France and Russia might be reconciled. 
 His meaning probably was, that, if their other differences 
 could be arranged, this part of the dispute might bo 
 settled by admitting the Czar to adopt, to a certain ex- 
 tent, in the north of Europe, a device which he himself 
 had already had recourse to on a large scale, for coun- 
 teracting the baneful effects of his own favourite system, 
 in his own immediate territories. Napoleon had soon 
 discovered that, to exclude English goods and colonial 
 produce entirely, was actually impossible ; and seeing 
 that, either with or without his assent, the decrees of 
 Berlip and Milan would, in one way or other, continue 
 to be violated, it occurred to him that he might at least 
 engross the greater part of the profits of the forbidden 
 traffic himself. This he accomplished by the establish- 
 ment of a system of custom-house regulations, under 
 which persons desirous to import English produce into 
 France might purchase the imperial license for so doing. 
 A very considerable relaxation in the pernicious in- 
 fluence of the Berlin code was the result of this device ; 
 
408 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. L 1 * 11 - 
 
 and a proportional increase of the Emperor's revenue 
 attended it. In after-days, however, he always spoke of 
 this license-system as one of the few great mistakes of 
 his administration. Some petty riots among the manu- 
 facturing population of the county of Derby were mag- 
 nified in his eyes into symptoms of an approaching revo- 
 lution in England ; the consequence, as he flattered 
 himself, of the misery inflicted on his great enemy by 
 the " continental system ;" and to the end he continued 
 to think that, had he resisted the temptation to enrich 
 his own exchequer by the produce of licenses, such must 
 have been the ultimate issue of his original scheme. It 
 was, however, by admitting Alexander to a share in the 
 pecuniary advantages of the license-system, that he 
 seems to have thought the commercial part of his dis- 
 pute with Russia might be accommodated. 
 
 And, indeed, had there been no cause of quarrel 
 between these powers, except what appeared on the face 
 of their negotiations, it is hardly to be doubted that an 
 accommodation might have been effected. The simple 
 truth was, that the Czar, from the hour of Maria Louisa's 
 marriage, felt a perfect conviction that the diminution 
 of the Russian power in the north of Europe would form 
 the next great object of Napoleon's ambition. His sub- 
 sequent proceedings, in regard to Holland, Oldenburg, 
 and other territories, and the distribution of his troops 
 in Pomerania and Poland, could not fail to strengthen 
 Alexander in this view of the case ; and if war must 
 come, there could be no question as to the policy of 
 bringing it on before Austria had entirely recovered 
 from the effects of the campaign of Wagram, and, above 
 all, while the Peninsula continued to occupy 200,000 of 
 Buonaparte's troops. 
 
 Before we return to the war in Portugal (the details 
 of which belong to the history of Wellington, rather 
 
1811.] AITA1RS OF SPAIN. 409 
 
 than of Napoleon), we may here notice very briefly one 
 or two circumstances connected with the exiled family 
 of Spain. It affords a melancholy picture of the degra- 
 dation of the old king and queen, that these personages 
 voluntarily travelled to Paris for the purpose of mingling 
 in the crowd of courtiers congratulating their deceiver 
 and spoiler on the birth of the king of Rome. Their 
 daughter, the Queen of Etruria, appears to have been 
 the least degenerate of the race ; and she accordingly 
 met with the cruellest treatment from the hand which 
 lier parents were thus mean enough to kiss. She had 
 been deprived of her kingdom at the period of the 
 shameful scenes of Bayonne in 1807, on the pretext that 
 that kingdom would afford the most suitable indemnifi- 
 cation for her brother Ferdinand on his cession to Buona- 
 parte of his rights in Spain, and with the promise of 
 being provided for elsewhere. This promise to the sister 
 was no more thought of afterwards than the original 
 scheme for the indemnification of the brother. Tuscany 
 became a French department. Ferdinand was sent a 
 prisoner to tbo castle of Valencay — a seat of Talleyrand 
 — and she, after remaining for some time with her 
 parents, took up her residence, as a private person, under 
 surveillance, at Nice. Alarmed by the severity with 
 which the police watched her, the queen at length made 
 an attempt to escape to England. Her agents were dis- 
 covered, tried by a military commission, and shot; and 
 the unfortunate lady herself confined in a Roman 
 monastery. A plan for the liberation of Ferdinand was 
 about the same time detected by the emissaries of the 
 French police; the real agent being arrested, a pretender, 
 assuming his name and credentials, made his way into 
 Valenr.iy, but Ferdinand was either too cunning, or too 
 timid to incur this danger ; revealing to his jailers the 
 proposals of the stranger, he escaped the snare laid for 
 
410 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [18tl. 
 
 him, and thus cheated Napoleon of a pretext for remov- 
 ing him also to some Italian cell. 
 
 During four months after Wellington's famous re- 
 treat terminated in his occupation of the lines of Torres 
 Vedras, Massena lay encamped before that position, in 
 vain practising every artifice which consummate skill 
 could suggest for the purpose of drawing the British 
 army back into the field. He attempted to turn first 
 the one flank of the position and then the other ; but at 
 either point he found his antagonist's preparations per- 
 fect. Meantime his communication with Spain was 
 becoming every day more and more difficult, and the 
 enmity of the peasantry was so inveterate that his troops 
 began to suffer much from the want of provisions. 
 Massena at length found himself compelled to retreat ; 
 and, if he executed the military movement with masterly 
 ability, he for ever disgraced his name by the horrible 
 license which he permitted to his soldiery. Every crime 
 of which man is capable — every brutality which can 
 dishonour rational beings — mast be recorded in the 
 narrative of that fearful march. Age, rank, sex, charac- 
 ter, were alike contemned ; it seemed as if, maddened 
 with a devilish rage, these ferocious bauds were resolved 
 to ruin the country which they could not possess, and to 
 exterminate, as far as was in their power, the population 
 which they could neither conciliate nor subdue. 
 
 Lord "Wellington followed hard on their footsteps 
 until they were beyond the Portuguese frontier ; within 
 it they had left only one garrison — at Almeida, and 
 of this town the siege was immediately formed ; while 
 the British general himself invested the strong Spanish 
 city and fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo. But Massena, on 
 regaining communication with the French armies in 
 Castile* swelled his numbers so much, that he ventured 
 to resume the offensive. Lord Wellington could not 
 
1S11.J FUENTJES D'OKOR — BADAJO; — BAROSSA. 411 
 
 maintain the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in the face of 
 such an army as Massena had now assembled ; but when 
 the Marshal indicated his wishes to bring on battle, he 
 disdained to decline the invitation. Tho ai'mies met at 
 Fuentes d'Onor, on the 5th May, 1811, and the French 
 were once more defeated. The garrison of Almeida con- 
 trived to escape across the frontier, before the siege, 
 which had been interrupted, could be renewed. Portu- 
 gal remained in a miserable state of exhaustion indeed, 
 but altogether delivered of her invaders ; and Napoleon, 
 as if resolved that each of his marshals in succession 
 should have the opportunity of measuring himself against 
 Wellington, now sent Marmont to displace Massena. 
 
 Soult meanwhile had advanced on the southern fron- 
 tier of Portugal from Estremadura, and obtained pos- 
 session of Badajos, under circumstances which Lord 
 Wellington considered as highly disgraceful to the 
 Spanish garrison of that important place, and the armies 
 which ought to have been ready to cover it. On the 
 other hand, an English corps, under General Graham, 
 sallied out of Cadiz, and were victorious in a brilliant 
 affair on the heights of Barossa, in front of that besieged 
 city. 
 
 As concerned the Spanish armies, the superiority of 
 the French had been abundantly maintained during this 
 campaign; and it might still be said that King Joseph 
 was in military possession of all but some fragments of 
 his kingdom. But the influence of the English victories 
 was by no means limited to the Portuguese, whose 
 territory they had delivered. They breathed new 
 ardocr into the Spanish people ; the guerilla warfare, 
 trampled down in one spot only to start up in fifty 
 others, raged more and more widely, as well as tiercel v, 
 over the surface of the country : the French troops lost 
 more lives in this incessant struggle, wherein no glory 
 
412 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1811. 
 
 could be achieved, than in any similar period spent in a 
 regular campaign ; and Joseph Buonaparte, while the 
 question of peace or war with Russia was yet undecided ) 
 became so weary of his situation, that he earnestly 
 entreated Napoleon to place the crown of Spain on some 
 other head. 
 
 Such were the circumstances under which the event- 
 ful year 1812 began. 
 
1812.] CAPTURE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO. 413 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo—and of Badajos— Battle of Salamanca- 
 State of Napoleon's Foreign Relations— His military nsources 
 
 Napoleon at Dresden— Rupture with Russia— Napoleon's conduct 
 to the Poles— Distribution of the Armies— Passage of the Niemen 
 — Napoleon at Wilna. 
 
 Lord "Wellixgtox had row complete possession of 
 Portugal; and lay on the frontiers of that kingdom, 
 ready to act on the offensive within Spain, whenever 
 the distribution of the French armies should seem to 
 offer a fit opportunity. Learning that Marmont had 
 sent considerable reinforcements to Suchet, in Valencia, 
 he resolved to advance and once more besiege Ciudad 
 Rodrigo. He re-appeared before that strong fortress 
 on the 8th of January, 1812, and carried it by storm on 
 the 19th, four days before Marmont could collect a force 
 adequate for its relief. He instantly repaired the forti- 
 fications, entrusted the place to a Spanish garrison, and 
 repaired in person to the southern part of the Portuguese 
 frontier, which required his attention in consequence of 
 that miserable misconduct of the Spaniards, which had 
 enabled the French to make themselves masters of 
 Badajos in the preceding year. He appeared before 
 that city on the lGth March, and in twenty days took 
 it also. The loss of life on both sides, in these rapid 
 sieges, was very great ; but they were gained by a gene- 
 ral at the head of at most 50,000 mer., in despito of an 
 enemy mustering fully 80,000 ; and the results were of 
 the first importance to the English cause. Marmont on 
 hearing of the fall of the second fortress, immediatcly 
 retreated from the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrio-o, 
 which he had made a vain attempt to regain ; and Soult, 
 
414 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 who had arrived from before Cadiz just in time to see 
 the British flag mounted on the towers of Badajos, re- 
 tired in like manner. The English general hastened to 
 make the best use of his advantage, by breaking up the 
 only bridge by which Marmont and Soult could now 
 communicate; and, having effected this object early in 
 May, inarched in June to Salamanca, took the forts 
 there, and 800 prisoners, and, Marmont retiring as he 
 advanced, hung on his rear until he reached the Douro. 
 Marmont was now joined by Bonnet's army from 
 Austurias, and thus once more i*ecovered a decided 
 superiority in numbers. Wellington accordingly retired 
 in his turn ; and for some days the two hostile armies 
 moved in parallel lines, often within half-cannon shot, 
 each waiting for some mistake of which advantage might 
 be taken. The weather was all the while intensely hot ; 
 numbers fainted on the march ; and when any rivulet 
 was in view, it was difficult to keep the men in their 
 ranks. On the evening of the 21st of July, Wellington 
 and Marmont lay in full view of each other, on two 
 opposite l'ising grounds near Salamanca ; a great storm 
 of thunder and rain came on, and during the whole night 
 the sky was bright with lightning. Wellington was at 
 table when he received intelligence that his adversary 
 was extending his left — with the purpose of coming be- 
 tween him and Ciudad Bodrigo. He rose in haste, 
 exclaiming " Marmont' s good genius has forsaken him," 
 and was instantly on horseback. The great battle of 
 Salamanca was fought on the 22d of July. The French 
 were attacked on tho point which Marmont's movement 
 leftwards had weakened, and sustained a signal defeat. 
 The commander-in-chief himself lost an arm; 7,000 
 prisoners, eleven guns, and two eagles were taken ; and 
 it was only the coming on of night that saved the army 
 from utter destruction. Wellington pursued the flying 
 
1812.] PROGRESS OF THE WAR IX SPAIN. 415 
 
 enemy as far as Valladolid, and then, re-crossing the 
 Douro, marched npon Madrid. King Joseph fled once 
 more at his approach, and the English were received 
 with enthusiasm in the capital of Spain. 
 
 Lord Wellington had thus ventured to place himself 
 in the heart of Spain, with, at most, 60,000 men, well 
 knowing that the French armies in the Peninsula still 
 mustered at the least 1-j0,000, in the expectation that so 
 spirited a movement, coming after the glorious successes 
 of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajos, and Salamanca, would 
 effectually stimulate the Spanish generals. Ballasteros, 
 in particular, he doubted not, would at least take care 
 to occupy all the attention of Soult, and prevent that 
 able leader from advancing out of the south. But the 
 Spaniard's egregious pride took fire at the notion of 
 being directed by an Englishman, and he suffered Soult 
 to break up the siege of Cadiz, and retire with all his 
 army undisturbed towards the Sierra Morena. Lord 
 "Wellington, incensed at this folly, was constrained to 
 divide his army. Leaving half at Madrid under Sir R. 
 Hill, to check Soult, he himself marched with the other 
 for Burgos, by taking which great city he judged he 
 should have it in his power to overawe effectually the 
 remains of the army of Marmont. He invested Burgos 
 accordingly on the 19th of September, and continued 
 the siege during five weeks, until Soult, with a superior 
 force, began to threaten Hill, and (Marmont's successor) 
 Clausel, having also received great reinforcements, ap- 
 peared ready to resume the offensive. Lord Wellington 
 then abandoned the siege of Burgos, and commenced hia 
 retreat. He was joined in the course of it by Hill, and 
 Soult and Clausel then effected their junction also, in 
 his rear — their troops being nearly double his numbers 
 He retired leisurely and deliberately as far as Ciudad 
 Rodrigo — and thus closed the Peninsular campaign of 
 
41 G NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 1812. But in sketching its progress we have lost sight 
 for a moment of the still mightier movements in which 
 Napoleon was personally engaged upon another scene of 
 action. 
 
 It has already been mentioned, that before the year 
 1811 reached its close, the approach of a rupture with 
 Russia was sufficiently indicated in an edict of the Em- 
 peror of Austria, granting a free passage through his 
 territories to the armies of his son-in-law. However, 
 during several months following, the negotiations be- 
 tween the Czar and Napoleon continued ; and more than 
 once there appeai'ed considerable likelihood of their 
 finding an amicable termination. The tidings of Lord 
 Wellington's successes at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos 
 were calculated to temper the ardour of Buonaparte's 
 presumption ; and for a moment he seems to have felt 
 the necessity of bringing the affairs of the Peninsula to 
 a point, ere he should venture to involve himself in an- 
 other warfare. He, in effect, opened a communication 
 with the English government, when the fall of Badajos 
 was announced to him ; but before the negotiation had 
 proceeded many steps, his pride returned on him in its 
 original obstinacy, and the renewed demand that Joseph 
 should be recognised as King of Spain abruptly closed 
 the intercourse of the diplomatists. 
 
 Such being the state of the Peninsula, and all hope of 
 an accommodation with England at an end, it might 
 have been expected that Napoleon would have spared 
 no effort to accommodate his differences with Russia, or, 
 if a struggle must come, to prepare for it, by placing his 
 relations with the other powers, capable of interfering 
 on one side or the other, on a footing favourable to him- 
 self. But here also the haughty temper, which adver- 
 sity itself could never bend, formed an insurmountable 
 and fatal obstacle. To gain the cordial friendship of 
 
1812.] AFFAIBS OF THE NORTH. 417 
 
 Sweden was obviously, from the geographical position of 
 that country, and the high military talents of Bernadotte, 
 an object of the most urgent importance ; yet the Crown 
 Prince, instead of being treated with as the head of an 
 independent state, was personally insulted by the French 
 ambassador resident at Stockholm, who, in Bernadotte's 
 own language, " demeaned himself on every occasion as 
 if be had been a Roman proconsul, dictating absolutely 
 in a province." In his anxiety to avoid a rupture, 
 Bernadotte at length agreed to enforce the " continental 
 system,'' and to proclaim war against England. But 
 these concessions, instead of producing hearty good-will, 
 had p directly contrary effect. England, considering 
 Sweden as an involuntaiw enemy, disdained to make any 
 attempt against her ; and the adoption of the anti-com- 
 mercial edicts of Napoleon was followed by a multiplicity 
 of collisions between the Swedish coasters and the Im- 
 perial douaniers, out of which arose legal questions with- 
 out number. These, in most cases, were terminated at 
 Paris with summary injustice, and the provocations and 
 reclamations of Bernadotte multiplied daily. Amazed 
 that one who had served under his banners should dare 
 to dispute his will, Napoleon suffered himself to speak 
 openly of causing Bernadotte to finish his Swedish 
 studies in Vincennes. Nay, he condescended to organise 
 a conspiracy for the purpose of putting this threat into 
 execution. The Crown Prince escaped, through the 
 zeal of a private friend at Paris, the imminent danger of 
 being carried off after the fashion of the d'Enghiens and 
 the Rumbolds : and thenceforth his part was fixed. 
 
 On the other flank of the Czar's dominion — his hei'e- 
 ditary enemy, tlie Grand Signior, was at this time 
 actually at war with him. Napoleon had neglected his 
 relations with Constantinople for some years past ; but 
 he now perceived the importance of keeping this quarrel 
 
418 NAPOLEON BUOXAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 alive, and employed his agents to stimulate the Grand 
 Signior to take the field in person at the head of 100,000 
 men, for the purpose of co-operating with himself in a 
 general invasion of the Russian empire. But here he 
 encountered a new and an unforeseen difficulty. Lord 
 Castlereagh, the English minister for foreign affairs, 
 succeeded in convincing the Porte that, if Russia were 
 once subdued, there would remain no power in Europe 
 capable of shielding her against the universal ambition 
 of Napoleon. And wisely considering this prospective 
 danger as immeasurably more important than any im- 
 mediate advantage which she could possibly reap from 
 the humiliation of her old rival, the Porte commenced a 
 negotiation, which, exactly at the most critical moment, 
 (as we shall see hereafter) ended in a peace with 
 Russia. 
 
 The whole forces of Italy, Switzerland, Bavaria, and 
 the princes of the Rhenish League — including the Elec- 
 tor of Saxony — were at Napoleon's disposal. Denmark 
 hated England too much to have leisure for fear of him. 
 Prussia, surrounded and studded with French garrisons, 
 was more than ever hostile to France ; and the King 
 was willing, in spite of all that he had suffered, to throw 
 himself at once into the arms of Russia. But this must 
 have inferred his immediate and total ruin, unless the 
 Czar chose to march at once into Germany. Such a 
 movement was wholly inconsistent with the plan of 
 operations contemplated, in case of a war with Buona- 
 parte, by the military advisers of Alexander ; and Frede- 
 rick-William saw himself compelled to place 20,000 
 troops, the poor relics of his arm} r , at the disposal of 
 the common oppressor. 
 
 Austria was bound by treaty to assist Napoleon with 
 30,000 men, whenever he chose to demand them ; but 
 this same treaty included Buonaparte's guarantee of 
 
1812.] MIIITARY PREPARATIONS. 419 
 
 Austria's Polish provinces. Could he have got rid of 
 this pledge, he distinctly perceived the advantages which 
 he might derive from the enthusiasm of the Poles ; to 
 proclaim their independence would have been, he well 
 knew, to array a whole gallant nation under his banners ; 
 and of such objections to their independence as might 
 be started by his own creature, the Grand Duke of 
 "Warsaw, he made little account. But Austria would 
 not consent to give up his guarantee of Galicia, unless 
 be consented to yield back the Illyrian territory which 
 she had lost at Schoenbrunn ; and this was a condition 
 to which Napoleon would not for a moment listen. H& 
 would take whatever he could gain by force or by art ; 
 but he would sacrifice nothing. The evil consequences 
 of this piece of obstinacy were twofold. Austria remained 
 an ally indeed, but at best a cold one ; and the opportu- 
 nity of placing the whole of Poland in insurrection, 
 between him and the Czar, was for ever lost. 
 
 But if Napoleon, in the fulness of his presumptior. 
 thus neglected or scorned the timely conciliation of 
 foreign powers — some of whom he might have arrayed 
 heartily on his side, and others at least retained neutral 
 — he certainly omitted nothing as to the preparation of 
 the military forces of his own empire. Before yet all 
 hopes of an accommodation with St. Petersburg were 
 at an end, he demanded and obtained two new con- 
 scriptions in France ; and moreover established a 
 law by which he was enabled to call out 100,000 men 
 at a time, of those whom the conscriptions had spared, 
 for service at home. This limitation of their service he 
 soon disregarded ; and in effect the new system — that ot 
 the Ban, as he affected to call it — became a mere exten- 
 sion of the old scheme. The amount of the French army 
 at the period in question (exclusive of the Ban) is calcu- 
 lated at 8-50,000 men ; the anny of the kingdom of Italy 
 
420 KAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 mustered 50,000 ; that of Naples 30,000 ; that of the 
 Grand Duchy of Warsaw 60,000 ; the Bavarian 40,000 ; 
 the Westphalian 30,000; the Saxon 30,000; Wirtem- 
 berg ] 5,000 ; Baden 9000 ; and the minor powers of the 
 Rhenish League 23,000. Of these armies Napoleon had 
 tlie entire control. In addition, Austria was bound to 
 furnish him with 30,000, and Prussia with 20,000 
 auxiliaries. The sum total is 1,187,000. Deducting 
 387,000 — a large allowance for hospitals, furloughs, and 
 incomplete regiments — there remained 800,000 effective 
 men at his immediate command. The Spanish peninsula 
 might perhaps occupy, even now, 150,000 ; but still 
 Napoleon could bring into the field against Russia, in 
 case all negotiation failed, an army of 650,000 men ; 
 numbers such as Alexander could have no chance of 
 equalling — numbers such as had never before followed 
 a European banner. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this display of military strength, 
 the French statesmen who had in former days possessed 
 the highest place in the Emperor's confidence, and who 
 had been shaken in his favour by their bold prophecies 
 of the result of his attempts on Spain and Portugal, did 
 not hesitate to come forward on this new occasion, and 
 offer warnings, for which the course of events in the 
 Peninsula might have been expected to procure a patient 
 hearing. Talleyrand, still in office, exhausted all his 
 efforts in vain. Fouche, who on pretence of ill health 
 had thrown up his Roman government, and was now 
 resident at his country seat near Paris, drew up a 
 memorial, in which the probable consequences of a 
 march into Russia were detailed with masterly skill and 
 eloquence ; and demanded an audience of the Emperor, 
 that he might present it in person. Napoleon, whose 
 police now watched no one so closely as their former 
 chief, was prepared for this. He received Fouche' with 
 
1812.] REMONSTRANCES AGAINST INVADING RUSSIA. 421 
 
 an air of cool indifference. " I am no stranger to your 
 errand," said be. " The war with Russia pleases you as 
 little as that of Spain." Fouche answered, that he 
 hoped to be pardoned for haying drawn up some reflec- 
 tions on so important a crisis. " It is no crisis at all," 
 resumed Buonaparte, "but a mere war of politics. 
 Spain falls whenever I have destroyed the English 
 influence at St. Petersburg. I have 800,000 soldiers in 
 readiness : with such an army I consider Europe as an 
 old prostitute, who must obey my pleasure. Did not 
 you yourself once tell me that the word impossible is not 
 French ? You grandees are now too rich, and though 
 you pretend to be anxious about my interests, you are 
 only thinking of what might happen to yourselves in 
 case of my death and the dismemberment of my empire. 
 I regulate my conduct much more by the sentiments of 
 my army than by yours. Is it my fault that the height 
 of power which I have attained compels me to ascend to 
 the dictatorship of the world ? My destiny is not yet 
 accomplished — the picture exists as yet only in outline. 
 There must be one code, one court of appeal, and one 
 coinage for all Europe. The states of Europe must be 
 melted into one nation, and Paria be its capital." It 
 deserves to be mentioned that neither the statesman 
 thus contemptuously dismissed, nor any of his brethren, 
 ever even alluded to the injustice of making war on 
 Russia for the mere gratification of ambition. Their 
 arguments were all drawn from the extent of Alexander's 
 resources— his 400,000 regulars, and 50,000 Cossacks, 
 already known to be in arms — and the enormous- popu- 
 lation on which he had the means of drawing for 
 recruits ; the enthusiastic national feelings of the Mus- 
 covites; the distance of their country; the severity ot 
 their climate ; the oppoi-tunity which such a war would 
 afford to England of urging her successes in Spain ; and 
 
422 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 tbe chance of Germany rising in insurrection in case of 
 any reverses ! 
 
 There was, however, one person who appealed to the 
 Emperor on other grounds. His uncle, the Cardinal 
 Fesch, had been greatly afflicted by the treatment of the 
 Pope, and he contemplated this new war with dread, as 
 likely to bring down the vengeance of heaven on the 
 head of one who had dared to trample on its vicegerent. 
 He besought Napoleon not to provoke at once the wrath 
 of man and the fury of the elements ; and expressed his 
 belief that he must one day sink under the weight of 
 that universal hatred with which his actions were sur- 
 rounding his throne. Buonaparte led the churchman 
 to the window, opened it, and, pointing upwards, said, 
 "Do you see yonder star?" "No, sire," replied the 
 Cardinal. " But I see it," answered Napoleon ; and 
 abruptly dismissed him. 
 
 Trusting to this star, on which one spot of fatal dim- 
 ness had already gathered, Napoleon, without waiting 
 for any formal rupture with the Russian diplomatists at 
 Faris, now directed the march of very great bodies of 
 troops into Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. 
 Alexander's minister was ordered, in the beginning of 
 April, to demand the withdrawal of these troop?, together 
 with the evacuation of the fortresses in Pomerania, in 
 case the French government still entertained a wish to 
 negotiate. Buonaparte instantly replied that he was 
 not accustomed to regulate the distribution of his forces 
 by the suggestions of a foreign power. The ambassador 
 demanded his passports, and quitted Paris. 
 
 On the 9th of May, Napoleon left Paris with his 
 Empress, and arrived on the 16th at Dresden, where the 
 Emperor of Austria, the Kings of Prussia, Naples, Wir- 
 tembere:, and Westphalia, and almost every German 
 sovereign of inferior rank, had been invited, or com- 
 
1812.] ""AR PROCLAIMED ArtAIXST RUSSIA. 423 
 
 manded, to meet him. He had sent to request tha Czar 
 also to appear in this brilliant assemblage, as affording 
 a last chance of an amicable arrangement ; but the 
 messenger could not obtain admission to Alexander's 
 presence. 
 
 Buonaparte continued for some days to play the part 
 of undisputed master amidst this congregation of royal- 
 ties. He at once assumed for himself and his wife 
 precedence over the Emperor and Empress of Austria ; 
 and, in the blaze of successive festivals, the King of 
 Saxony appeared but as some chamberlain, or master of 
 the ceremonies, to his imperious guest. 
 
 Having sufficiently indicated to his allies and vassals 
 the conduct which they were respectively to adopt, in 
 case the war should break out, Napoleon, already weary 
 of his splendid idleness, sent on the Abbe de Pradt to 
 Warsaw, to prepare for his reception among the Poles, 
 dismissed Maria Louisa on her return to Paris, and 
 broke up the Court in which he had, for the last timc\ 
 figured as " the King of Kings." Marshal Ney, with one 
 great division of the army, had alreadypassed the Vistula; 
 Junot, with another, occupied both sides of the Oder. 
 The Czar was known to be at Wilna, his Lithuanian 
 capital, there collecting the forces of bis immense empire, 
 and entrusting the general arrangements of the approach- 
 ing campaign to Marshal Barclay de Tolly.* The 
 season was advancing ; and it was time thai the question 
 of peace or war should be forced to a decision. 
 
 Napoleon arrived at Dantzic on the 7th of June ; and 
 during the fortnight which ensued, it was known that 
 the final communications between him and Alexander 
 were taking place. The attention of mankind was never 
 
 • This officer had been born and educated in Germany. He 
 was descended from an ancient Scottish family, exiled for adher- 
 ence to the StuaTt^, in 1715. 
 
424 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 more entirely fixed on one spot than it was, during these 
 fourteen days, upon Dantzic. On the 22d, Buonaparte 
 broke silence in a bulletin. " Soldiers," said he, 
 " Russia is dragged on by her fate : her destiny must be 
 accomplished. Let us march ; let us cross the Niemen ; 
 let us carry war into her territories. Our second cam- 
 paign of Poland will be as glorious as our first, but our 
 second peace shall carry with it its own guarantee ; it 
 shall put an end for ever to that haughty influence 
 which Russia has exercised for fifty years on the affairs 
 of Europe." The address, in which the Czar announced 
 the termination of his negotiations, was in a far different 
 tone. After stating the innumerable efforts he had 
 made to preserve peace, without losing for Russia the 
 chai*acter of an independent state, he invoked the aid of 
 Almighty Providence as "the witness and the defender of 
 the true cause;" and concluded in these words — " Sol- 
 diers, you fight for your religion, your liberty, and your 
 native land. Your Emperor is amongst you ; and God 
 is the enemy of the aggressor." 
 
 Buonaparte reviewed the greater part of his troops on 
 the field of Friedland ; and having assured them of still 
 more splendid victories over the same enemy, issued his 
 final orders to the chief officers of his vast army. Hither- 
 to the Poles had had no certain intelligence of the object 
 which Napoleon proposed to himself. As soon as no 
 doubt remained on that score, the Diet at Warsaw sent 
 both to him and to the King of Saxony, to announce 
 their resolution to seize this opportunity of re-establishing 
 the ancient national independence of their dismembered 
 country. We have already mentioned the circumstance 
 which compelled the Emperor to receive this message 
 with coldness. He was forced to acknowledge that he 
 had guaranteed to Austria the whole of her Polish pro- 
 vinces. It was therefore impossible for him to take 
 
1812.] ARRANGEMENT OF THE ARMIES. 425 
 
 part in the re-establishment of Old Poland : — " Never- 
 less," added he, with audacious craft, " I admire your 
 efforts ; I even authorise them. Persist ; and it is to be 
 hoped your wishes will be crowned with success." 
 
 This answer effectually damped the ardour of the 
 Poles ; and thenceforth, with a few exceptions, the 
 eminent and influential men of the nation wei'e mere 
 observers of the war. If any doubt as to Napoleon's 
 treachery could have remained after his answer to the 
 Diet, it must have been wholly removed when the plan 
 of his campaign transpired, and the Austrian auxiliaries 
 were known to be stationed on the right of his whole 
 line. On them, as it seemed, the march through 
 Volhynia thus devolved, and no clearer proof could 
 have been afforded that it was Napoleon's desire to 
 repress every symptom of a national insurrection in 
 Lithuania. The inhabitants, had French soldiers come 
 amongst them, might have been expected to rise in en- 
 thusiasm ; the white uniform of Austria was known to 
 be hateful in their eyes, in the same degree, and for 
 precisely the same reason, as the Russian green. 
 
 The disposition of the French army when the campaign 
 commenced was as follows : — The left wing, commanded 
 by Macdonald, and amounting to 30,000 men, had orders 
 to march through Courland, with the view of, if possible, 
 outflanking the Russian right, and gaining possession of 
 the sea coast in the direction of Riga. The right wing, 
 composed almost wholly of the Austrians, 30,000 in 
 number, and commanded by Schwartzenberg, were sta- 
 tioned, as has been already mentioned, on the Volhynian 
 frontier. Between these moved the various corps form- 
 ing the grand central army, under the general superin- 
 tendence of Napoleon himself, viz., those of Davoust, 
 Ney, the King of "Westphalia, the Viceroy of Italy, 
 Poniatowski, Junot, and Victor : and in numbers not 
 
426 NAPOLEON BUOXAPAKTE. [1812. 
 
 falling below 250,000. The communication of the centre 
 and left was maintained by the corps of Oudinot, and 
 that of the centre and extreme right by the corps of 
 Regnier, who had with him the Saxon auxiliaries and 
 the Polish legion of Dombrowski. The chief command 
 of the whole cavalry of the host was assigned to Murat, 
 King of Naples ; but he was in person at the head- 
 quarters of the Emperor, having immediately under his 
 orders three divisions of horse, those of Grouchy, Mont- 
 brun, and Nansouty. Augereau, with his division, was 
 to remain in the north of Germany, to overawe Berlin 
 and protect the communications with France. 
 
 A glance at the map will show that Napoleon's base 
 of operations extended over full one hundred leagues ; 
 and that the heads of his various columns were so dis- 
 tributed, that the Russians could not guess whether St. 
 Petersburg or Moscow formed the main object of his 
 march. 
 
 The Russian main army, under Barclay de Tolly him- 
 self, had its head-quarters at Wilna ; and consisted, at 
 the opening of the campaign, of 120,000. Considerably 
 to the left lay " the second army," as it was called, of 
 80,000, under Bagrathion, with whom were Platoff and 
 12,000 of his Cossacks; while, at the extreme of that 
 wing, " the army of Volhynia," 20,000 strong, com- 
 manded by Tormazoff, watched Schwartzenberg. On 
 the right of Barclay de Tolly was Witgenstein with 
 30,000, and between these again and the sea, the corps 
 of Essen, not more than 10,000 strong. Behind the whole 
 line two armies of reserve were rapidly forming at Novo- 
 gorod and Smolensko ; each, probably, of about 20,000 
 men. The Russians actually on the field at the opening 
 of the campaign were, then, as nearly as can be com- 
 puted, in number 260,000 ; while Napoleon was prepared 
 to cross the Niemen at the head of at least 470,000 men. 
 
1812.] ARRANGEMENT OF THE ARMIES. 427 
 
 On the Russian side the plan of the campaign had 
 been settled ere now ; it was entirely defensive. Taught 
 by the events of the former war in Poland, and of that 
 which had already fixed the reputation of Wellington in 
 the Peninsula, the Czar was resolved, from the beginning, 
 to draw Buonaparte if possible into the heart of his own 
 country ere he gave him battle. The various divisions 
 of tbe Russian force had orders to fall back leisurely as 
 the enemy advanced, destroying whatever they could 
 not remove along with them, and halting only at certain 
 points, where intrenched camps had already been formed 
 for their reception. The difficulty of feeding half a 
 million of men in a country deliberately wasted before- 
 hand, and separated by so great a space from Germany, 
 to say nothing of France, was sure to increase with 
 every honr and every step ; and Alexander's great object 
 was to husband his own strength until the Polar winter 
 should set in around the strangers, and bring the miseries 
 which he thus foresaw to a crisis. Napoleon, on tbe 
 other hand, had calculated on being met by the Russians 
 at, or even in advance of, their own frontier (as he had 
 been by the Austrians in the campaigns of Austerlitz 
 and Wagram, and by the Prussians in that of Jena) ; of 
 gaining a great battle ; marching immediately either to 
 St. Petersburg or to Moscow — and dictating a peace, 
 after the fashion of Presburg or Schoenbrunn, within the 
 walls of one of the Czar's own palaces. 
 
 On the 24th of Jane, the grand imperial army, conso- 
 lidated into three masses, began their passage of the 
 Niemen — the King of Westphalia at Grodno ; the Vice- 
 roy Eugene atPilony, and Xapoleon himself near Kov.no. 
 The Emperor rode on in front of his army to reconnoitre 
 the banks ; his horse stumbled, and he fell to the ground. 
 "A bad omen — a Roman would return," exclaimed some 
 one ; it is not certain whether Buonaparte himself or one 
 
428 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE [1812. 
 
 of his attendants. The first parry that crossed were 
 challenged by a single Cossack. " For what purpose," 
 said he, "do you enter the Russian country?" "To 
 beat you and take Wilna," answered the advanced guard. 
 The sentinel struck spurs to his horse, and disappeared 
 in the forest. There came on at the same moment a 
 tremendous thunder storm. Thus began the fatal in- 
 vasion. 
 
 Wo opposition awaited these enormous hosts as they 
 traversed the plains of Lithuania. Alexander withdrew 
 his armies deliberately as they advanced. The capital 
 itself, Wilna, was evacuated two days before they came 
 in sight of it ; and Napoleon took up his quarters there 
 on the 28th of June. But it was found that all the 
 magazines, which Buonaparte had counted on seizing, 
 had been burnt before the Russians withdrew, and the 
 imperial bulletins began already to denounce the " bar- 
 barous method" in which the enemy seemed resolved to 
 conduct his defence. 
 
 It was noticed in an early part of this narrative that 
 Napoleon's plan of warfare could hardly have been 
 carried into execution on a great scale, unless by per- 
 mitting the troops to subsist on plunder ; and we have 
 seen through how many campaigns the marauding sys- 
 tem was adopted without producing any serious incon- 
 venience to the French. Buonaparte, however, had 
 learned from Spain and Portugal how difficult it is for 
 soldiers to find food in these ways, provided the popula- 
 tion around them be really united in hostility against 
 thorn. He had further considered the vast distance at 
 which a Avar with Russia must needs be carried on, and 
 the natural poverty of most of the Czar's provinces, and 
 came to the resolution of departing on this occasion from 
 his old system. In a word, months before he left Paris, 
 he had given orders for preparing immense quantities of 
 
1812.] wiia'a. 429 
 
 provisions of all kinds, to bo conveyed along with his 
 gigantic host, and render him independent of the 
 countries which might form the theatre of his operations. 
 The destruction of the magazines at Wilna was a suffi- 
 cient indication that the Emperor had judged well in 
 ordering his commissariat to be placed on an efficient 
 footing ; and his attention was naturally directed to as- 
 certaining, ere he advanced further, in how much his 
 directions as to this matter had been fulfilled. He re- 
 mained twenty days at "Wilna — a pause altogether ex- 
 traordinary in a Bnonapartean campaign, and which can 
 only be accounted for by his anxiety on this head. The 
 result of his inquiries was most unsatisfactory. The 
 prodigious extent of the contracts into which his war 
 minister had entered was adequate to the occasion ; but 
 the movement of such enormous trains of cattle and 
 waggons as these contracts provided for must, under 
 any circumstances, have been tedious, and in some de- 
 gree uncertain. In this case they were entered into 
 either by French traders, who, in consequence of Buona- 
 parte's own practice in preceding campaigns, could have 
 slender experience of the method of supplying a great 
 army in the field ; by Germans, who regarded the French 
 Emperor as the enemy of the world, and served him ac- 
 cordingly with reluctance ; or finally, by Polish Jews — 
 a race of inveterate smugglers, and consequently of in- 
 veterate swindlers. 
 
 The result was, that after spending three weeks at 
 Wilna, the Emperor found himself under the necessity, 
 either of laying aside his invasion for another year, or of 
 urging it in the face of every difficulty which he had 
 foreseen, and, moreover, of that presented by a com- 
 missariat less effective by two-thirds than he had cal- 
 culated on. 
 
430 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Russia makes Teace with England, with Sweden, and icith Turkey— 
 Internal preparations — Napoleon leaves Wilna — The Dtoina— 
 Bagrathion s Movements — Battle of Smolensko — Battle of Boro- 
 dino — Napoleon enters Moscow — Constancy and enthusiasm of 
 the Russians — Conduct of Rostophchin — The burning of Moscow — 
 Kutusojf refuses to retreat. 
 
 While Napoleon was detained in the capital of Lithuania 
 by the confusion and slowness which marked almost 
 every department of his commissariat at this great crisis, 
 the enemy employed the unexpected pause to the best 
 advantage. The Czar signed treaties of strict alliance 
 with England, Sweden, and the Spanish Cortes, in the 
 middle of July ; and the negotiation with Turkey was 
 urged, under the mediation of England, so effectually, 
 that a peace with that power also was proclaimed early 
 in August. By these means Alexander was enabled to 
 withdraw whatever troops he had been maintaining on 
 the two flanks of his European dominions, and bring 
 them all to the assistance of his main army. Admiral 
 Tchichagoff, at the head of 50,000 soldiers, hitherto 
 opposed to the Turks on the side of Moldavia, marched 
 towards the left wing of Barclay de Tolly's force ; and 
 the right, which had gradually retired until it reached 
 a strong camp formed on the river Dwina, was rein- 
 forced from Finland, though not so largely. The enthu- 
 siasm of the Russian nation appeared in the extraordinary 
 rapidity with which supplies of eveiy kind were poured 
 at the feet of the Czar. From every quarter he received 
 voluntary offers of men, of money, of whatever might 
 assist in the prosecution of the war. The Grand Duchess, 
 
1812.] INTERNAL ARRANGEMENTS. 431 
 
 whose hand Napoleon had solicited, set the example by 
 raisins: a regiment on her estate. Moscow offered to 
 equip and arm 80,000 men. Platoff, the veteran hetman 
 of the Cossacks, promised his only daughter and 200,000 
 roubles to the man by whose hand Buonaparte should 
 fall. Noblemen everywhere raised troops, and displayed 
 their patriotism by serving in the ranks themselves, and 
 entrusting the command to experienced officers, chosen 
 by the government. The peasantry participated in the 
 general enthusiasm, and nocked in from every province, 
 demanding arms and training. Two hundred thousand 
 militia-men were called out, and in separate divisions 
 began their march upon the camp. 
 
 Napoleon, having done whatever lay in his power to 
 remedy the disorders of his commissariat — and this, 
 after all, does not appear to have been much — at length 
 re-appeared in the held. He had now determined to 
 make St. Petersburg his mark : he counted much on the 
 effects which a triumphal entry into the capital would 
 produce throughout the country ; and the fleet at Cron- 
 stadt was in itself a prize of the utmost importance. 
 He directed, therefore, all his efforts towards the Dwina, 
 where the Russian Commander-in-Chief had now halted 
 on extensive intrenchinents, and Riga. This town, 
 however, was now defended, not only by Essen, but by 
 the English sailors of Admiral Martin's fleet, and 
 resisted effectually ; and, to the confusion of Napoleon, 
 he was repelled in three successive attempts to force 
 Barclay's camp at Dunaburg. 
 
 He upon this changed his plan of operations, and re- 
 solving to march, not for St. Petersburg, but for Moscow, 
 threw forward the centre of his army, under Davoust, 
 with the view of turning Barclay's position, and cutting 
 off his communications with Bagratl.h i . That general 
 was compelled by this movement to ] ass the Dnieper 
 
432 NAPOLEON BUONAPAUTE. [1812. 
 
 (or Borysthcnes) ; and Barclay, on perceiving the object 
 of Davoust's march, broke up from the camp on the 
 Dwina, and retired upon Vitcpslc, where he hoped to be 
 joined by Bagrathion. Davoust, however, brought Ba- 
 grathion to action near Mohilow, on the 23d of July ; 
 and as the French remained in possession of that town 
 at the end of the day, the Russians found themselves 
 under the necessity of altering the line of their retreat. 
 Bagrathion informed Barclay that he was now marching, 
 not on Vitepsk, bat on Smolensko, and the commander- 
 in-chief felt the necessity of abandoning Vitepsk also. 
 During three days (the 25th, 26th, and 27th of July), 
 his troops were engaged with the French at Vitepsk ; 
 and, though Napoleon's bulletins announced three 
 splendid victories, the result was that the Russians left 
 their position in admirable order, and retired altogether 
 unmolested on the proposed point of junction. Mean- 
 time Regnier, on the right wing, and Oudinot, on the 
 left, were defeated ; the former by Tormazoff, the latter 
 by Witgenstein, both with severe loss. The Emperor 
 halted at Vitepsk for several clays ; " his troops," as the 
 bulletins admitted, "recpiiring refreshment." The Rus- 
 sian plan of defence was already ascertained, and alarm- 
 ing. The country was laid utterly desolate wherever 
 they retired ; every village was burnt ere they quitted 
 it : the enthusiastic peasantry withdrew with the army, 
 and swelled its ranks. 
 
 Napoleon quitted Vitepsk on the 8th of August, and 
 after a partial engagement at Krasnoi on the 14th, came 
 in sight of Smolensko on the 16th. The first and second 
 armies of the Czar (Bagrathion having at length effected 
 his junction with Barclay), lay behind the river which 
 flows at the back of this town ; but it was occupied in 
 great force. Three times did Buonaparte attack it, and 
 three times he was repulsed. During the night the 
 
1812.] KOTUSOFF COMMANDEE-IN- CHIEF. 433 
 
 garrison withdrew, and joined the army across the 
 river — but before they went they committed the city to 
 the dames, and, the buildings being chiefly of wood, the 
 conflagration, according to the French bulletin, "resem- 
 bled in its fury an eruption of Vesuvius." "Never" 
 I innes the same bulletin) " was war conducted with 
 such inhumanity : the Russians treat their own country 
 as if it were that of an enemy." Such was indeed their 
 resolution. They had no desire that the invader should 
 establish himself in winter quarters at Smolensko. With 
 the exception of some trivial skirmishes, they retreated 
 unmolested from Smolensko to Dorogobuz, and thence 
 on Viasma ; halting at each of these towns, and deliber- 
 ately burning them in the face of the enemy. 
 
 It now, however, began to be difficult in the extreme 
 to prevail on the Russian soldiery to continue their 
 retreat. They had consented to retire in the beginning 
 solely because they were assured that such was the will 
 of their Father — as they affectionately call their sove- 
 reign ; but reinforcements were now joining them daily 
 from the interior, and the skirmishes which had occurred 
 had so inflamed their spirits, that it seemed impossible 
 to restrain them much longer. At this period also, 
 Barclay was appointed to the war-ministry of St. Peters- 
 burg, and Kutusoff, who assumed the command in his 
 stead, was supposed to doubt whether the system of re- 
 treat had not been far enough persisted in. The new 
 general at length resolved to comply with the clamorous 
 entreaties of his troops, and fixed on a strong position 
 between Borodino and Moskwa, on the high-road to 
 Moscow, where he was determined to await the attack 
 of Napoleon. It was at Gjatz that the Emperor was 
 informed of Kutusoff s arrival, and of the universal belief 
 that the Czar had at length consented to run the hazard 
 of a great battle. A little further on a Russian officer, 
 
434 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 on some pretext, appeared with a flag of truce ; his real 
 errand being, no doubt, to witness the state of the in- 
 vader's camp. Being brought into Napoleon's presence, 
 this man was asked, " What he should find between 
 Viasma and Moscow ? " He answered, " Pultowa." 
 
 On the 5th of September, Napoleon came in sight of 
 the position of Kutusoff, and succeeded in carrying a 
 redoubt in front of it. All the 6th the two armies lay 
 in presence of each other, preparing for the contest. 
 The Russians were posted on an elevated plain ; having a 
 wood on their right flank, their left on one of the villages, 
 and a deep ravine, the bed of a small stream, in their 
 front. Extensive field-works covered every more acces- 
 sible point of this naturally very strong ground ; and in 
 the centre of the whole line, a gentle eminence was 
 crowned by an enormous battery, serving as a species of 
 citadel. The Russian army were 120,000 in numbers ; 
 nor had Napoleon a greater force in readiness for his 
 attack. In artillery also the armies were equal. It is 
 supposed that each had 500 guns in the field. Buona- 
 parte addressed his troops in his usual style of language : 
 " Soldiers ! here is the battle you have longed for ; it is 
 necessary, for it brings us plenty, good winter-quarters, 
 and a safe return to France. Behave yourselves so that 
 posterity may say of each of you, Me was in that great 
 battle beneath the walls of Moscow." 
 
 In the Russian camp, meanwhile, the clergy appeared 
 in their richest vestments, and displaying their holiest 
 images, called on the men to merit Paradise by devoting 
 themselves in the cause of their country. The soldiers 
 answered with shouts which were audible throughout 
 all the enemy's lines. 
 
 At four o'clock in the morning of the 7th, the French 
 advanced under cover of a thick fog, and assaulted at 
 once the centre, the right, and the left of the position. 
 
1812.] BATTLE OF BORODINO (OR MOSKVA). 435 
 
 Such was the impetuosity of the charge that they drove 
 the Russians from their redoubts ; but this was but for 
 a moment. They rallied under the very line of their 
 enemy's fire, and instantly re-advanced. Peasants who, 
 till that hour, had never seen war, and who still wore 
 their usual rustic dress, distinguished only by a cross 
 sewed on it in front, threw themselves into the thickest 
 of the combat. As they fell, others rushed on and filled 
 then* places. Some idea may be formed of the obstinacy 
 of the contest from the fact, that of one division of the 
 Russians which mustered 30,000 in the morning, only 
 8000 survived. These men had fought in close order, 
 and unshaken, under the fire of eighty pieces of artillery. 
 The result of this terrible day was, that Buonaparte 
 withdrew his troops and abandoned all hope of forcing 
 his way through the Russians. In no contest by many 
 degrees so desperate had he hitherto been engaged. 
 Night found either army on the ground they had occu- 
 pied at daybreak. The number of guns and prisoners 
 taken by the French and the Russians was about equal ; 
 and of either host there had fallen not less than 40,000 
 men. Some accounts raise the gross number of the 
 slain to 100,000. Such was the victory in honour of 
 which Napoleon created Marshal Ney Prince of Moshwa. 
 Buonaparte, when advised by his generals, towards 
 the conclusion of the day, to bring forward his own 
 guard and hazard one final attack at their bead, answered, 
 " And if my guard fail, what means should I have for 
 renewing the battle to-morrow P" The Russian com- 
 mander, on the other hand, appears to have spared 
 nothing to prolong the contest. During the night after, 
 his cavalry made several attempts to break into the 
 enemy's lines ; and it was only on receiving the reports 
 of his regimental officers in the morning, that Kutusoff 
 perceived the necessity of retiring until he should be 
 
436 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 farther recruited. His army was the mainstay of his 
 country : on its utter dissolution his master might have 
 found it very difficult to form another ; but while it re- 
 mained perfect in its organization, the patriotic popula- 
 tion of the empire were sure to fill up readily every 
 vacancy in its ranks. Having ascertained then the ex- 
 tent of his loss, and buried his dead (among whom was 
 the gallant Bagrathion) with great solemnity — the Rus- 
 sian slowly and calmly withdrew from his intrenchments, 
 and marched on Mojaisk. Napoleon was so fortunate as 
 to be joined exactly at this time by two fresh divisions 
 from Smolensko, which nearly restored his muster to 
 what it had been when the battle began ; and, thus re- 
 inforced, commanded the pursuit to be vigorously urged. 
 On the 9th, the French van came in sight of the Rus- 
 sian rear again, and Buonaparte prepared for battle. 
 But next morning Kutusoff had masked his march so 
 effectually, by scattering clouds of Cossacks in every 
 direction around the French, that down to the 12th the 
 invader remained uncertain whether he had retreated 
 on Kalouga, or directly to the capital. The latter he, 
 at length, found to be the case ; and on the 14th of Sep- 
 tember Napoleon reached the Hill of Salvation : so 
 named because from that eminence the Russian traveller 
 obtains his first view of the ancient metropolis, affec- 
 tionately called " Mother Moscow," and hardly less 
 sacred in his eyes than Jerusalem. The soldiery beheld 
 with joy and exultation the magnificent extent of the 
 place ; its mixture of Gothic steeples and Oriental domes; 
 the vast and splendid mansions of the haughty boyards, 
 embosomed in trees; and, high over all the rest, the 
 huge towers of the Kremlin, at once the palace and the 
 citadel of the old Czars. The cry of " Moscow ! Mos- 
 cow !" ran through the lines. Napoleon himself reined 
 in his horse and exclaimed, "Behold at last that cele« 
 
1812.] ENTERS MOSCOW. 437 
 
 bra ted city !" He added, after a brief pause, " it was 
 time." 
 
 Buonaparte had not gazed long on this great capital 
 ere it struck him as something remarkable that no smoke 
 issued from the chimneys. Xeither appeared there any 
 military on the battlements of the old walls and towers. 
 There reached him neither message of defiance, nor any 
 deputation of citizens to present the keys of their town, 
 and recommend it and themselves to his protection. He 
 was yet marvelling what these strange circumstances 
 could mean, when Murat, who commanded in the van, 
 and had pushed on to the gates, came back and informed 
 him that he had held a parley with Milarodowitch, the 
 general of the Russian rear-guard, and that, unless two 
 hours were granted for the safe withdrawing of his 
 troops, he would at once set fire to Moscow. Xupoleon 
 immediately granted the armistice. The two hours 
 elapsed, and still no procession of nobles or magistrates 
 made its appearance. 
 
 On entering the city the French found it deserted by 
 all but the very lowest and most wretched of its vast 
 population. They soon spread themselves over its in- 
 numerable streets, and commenced the work of pillage. 
 The magnificent palaces of the Russian boyards, the 
 bazaars of the merchants, churches and convents, and 
 public buildings of every description, swarmed with 
 their numbers. The meanest soldier clothed himself in 
 silk and furs, and drank at his pleasure the costliest 
 wines. Napoleon, perplexed at the abandonment of so 
 great a city, had some difficulty in keeping together 
 30,000 men under Murat, who followed Milarodowitch, 
 and watched the walls on that side. 
 
 The Emperoi-, who had retired to rest in a suburban 
 palace, was awakened at midnight by the ciy of fire. 
 The chief market-place was in flames ; and some hours 
 
438 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 elapsed before they could bo extinguished by the exer- 
 tions of the soldiery. While the fire still blazed, Napo- 
 leon established his quarters in the Kremlin, and wrote, 
 by that fatal light, a letter to the Czar, containing pro- 
 posals for peace. The letter was committed to a prisoner 
 of rank ; no answer ever reached Buonaparte. 
 
 Next morning found the fire extinguished, and the 
 French officers were busied throughout the day in select- 
 ing houses for their residence. The flames, however, 
 burst out again as night set in, and under circumstances 
 which might well fill the mind of the invaders with 
 astonishment and alarm. Various detached parts of the 
 city appeared to be at once on fire ; combustibles and 
 matches were discovered in different places as laid deli- 
 berately ; the water-pipes were cut ; the wind changed 
 three times in the course of the night, and the flames 
 always broke out again with new vigour in the quarter 
 from which the prevailing breeze blew right on the 
 Kremlin. It was sufficiently plain that Rostophchin, 
 governor of Moscow, had adopted the same plan of re- 
 sistance in which Smolensko had already been sacrificed ; 
 and his agents, whenever they fell into the hands of the 
 French, were massacred without mercy. 
 
 A French adventurer, who had been resident for some 
 time in Moscow, gave an account of Rostopbchin's con- 
 duct in quitting the city, which might have prepared 
 Napoleon for some such catastrophe. This person, on 
 hearing of the approach of his countrymen, had used 
 some expressions which entitled him to a place in the 
 prisons of Moscow. The day before Buonaparte entered 
 it, Rostophchin held a last court of justice. This 
 Frenchman, and a disaffected Russian, were brought 
 before him. The latter's guilt having been clearly 
 proved, tho governor, understanding his father was in 
 court, said he granted some minutes to the old man to 
 
[1812. THE BURNING OF MOSCOW. 439 
 
 converso with, and bless his son. " Shall I give my 
 blessing to a rebel ?" cried the aged parent — " I hereby 
 give him my curse." Rostophchin ordered the culprit 
 to be executed, and then, turning to the Frenchman, 
 paid, " Your preference of your own people was natural. 
 Take your liberty. There was but one Russian traitor, 
 and you have witnessed his death." The governor then 
 set all the malefactors in the numerous jails of Moscow 
 at liberty, ami, abandoning the city to them, withdrew 
 at the head of the inhabitants, who had for some time 
 been preparing the means of retreat at his suggestion. 
 
 Such was the story of the Frenchman ; and every 
 hour brought some new confirmation of the relentless 
 determination of Rostophchin's countrymen. Some 
 peasants, brought in from the neighbouring country, 
 were branded on the arm with the letter N. One of 
 them understanding that this marked him as the pro- 
 perty and adherent of Napoleon, instantly seized an axe 
 and chopped off his limb. Twelve slaves of Count 
 "Woronzow were taken together and commanded to 
 enlist in the French service, or suffer death ; four of the 
 men folded their arms in silence, and so died. The 
 French officer in command spared the rest. Such were 
 the anecdotes which reached Napoleon as he surveyed, 
 from the battlements of the Kremlin, the raging sea of 
 fire which now swept the capital, cast, west, north, and 
 south. During four days the conflagration endured, 
 and four-fifths of the city were wholly consumed. 
 "Palaces and temples," says the Russian author, 
 Karamsin, " monuments of art and miracles of luxury, 
 the remains of ages long since past, and the ci'eations of 
 yesterday, the tombs of ancestors, and the cradles of 
 children, were indiscriminately destroyed. Nothing 
 was left of Moscow save the memory of her people, and 
 their deep resolution to avenge her fall." 
 
440 HAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 
 
 [1812. 
 
 During two days Napoleon witnessed from the Krem- 
 lin the spread of this fearful devastation, and, in spite of 
 continual showers of sparks and brands, refused to 
 listen to those who counselled retreat. On the third 
 night, the equinoctial gale rose, the Kremlin itself took 
 fire, and it became doubtful whether it would be possible 
 for him to withdraw in safety ; and then he at length 
 rode out of Moscow, through streets in many parts 
 arched over with flames, and buried, where this was not 
 the case, in one dense mantle of smoke. " These are, 
 indeed, Scythians," said Napoleon. He halted, and 
 fixed his head-quarters at Petrowsky, a country palace 
 of the Czar, about a league distant. But he could not 
 withdraw his eyes from the rueful spectacle which the 
 burning city presented, and from time to time repeated 
 the same words : " This bodes great misfortune." 
 
 On the 20th, the flames being at length subdued or 
 exhausted, Napoleon returned to the Kremlin, well 
 aware how mighty a calamity had befallen him, but still 
 flattering himself that the resolution of the enemy would 
 give way on learning the destruction of their ancient 
 and sacred metropolis. The poor remains of the enor- 
 mous city still furnished tolerable lodgings for his army : 
 of provisions there was as yet abundance ; and the in- 
 vaders, like true Frenchmen, fitted up a theatre, and 
 witnessed plays acted by performers sent from France ; 
 while the Emperor himself exhibited his equanimity by 
 dating a decree, regulating the affairs of the Theatre 
 Francais at Paris, from " the imperial head-quarters in 
 the Kremlin." His anxiety to show the French that, 
 even during his hottest campaigns, his mind continued 
 to be occupied with them and their domestic adminis- 
 tration has already been alluded to. There was auda- 
 cious quackery in a stage rescript from Moscow. 
 
 Day passed after day, and still thei-e came no answer 
 
1812.] MOSCOW. 441 
 
 from Alexander : Buonaparte's situation was becoming 
 hourly more difficult. The news of the great battle of 
 Salamanca had- already reached him : the rumour of 
 some distant disaster could not be prevented from 
 spreading among the soldiery. Nearer him, the two 
 flanks of his mighty host had been alike unsuccessful. 
 The united army of Tormagoff and Tchichagoff, on the 
 south, and that of Witgenstein, on the north, had ob- 
 tained decided advantages over the French generals 
 respectively opposed to them, and now threatened to 
 close in between Napoleon's central columns and the 
 magazines in Poland. Witzingerode was at the head 
 of a formidable force on the road to St. Petersbui'g ; and 
 to the south-west of Moscow lay Kutusoff, on a very 
 strong position, with an army to which every hour 
 brought whole bands of enthusiastic recruits. On every 
 side there was danger; the whole forces of Russia ap- 
 peared to be gathering round him. Meantime the season 
 was far advanced ; the stern winter of the north was at 
 hand; and the determined hostility of the peasantry 
 prevented the smallest supplies of provision from being 
 introduced into the capital. Had the citizens remained 
 there, the means of subsistence would of course have 
 continued to be forwarded in the usual methods from 
 the provinces ; but neither boat nor sledge was put in 
 motion after it was known that Moscow contained no 
 population but the French. The stores, at first sight so 
 ample, within the city itself, had already begun to fail; 
 the common soldiers had rich wines and liqueurs in 
 abundance, but no meat except horse-flesh, and no bread. 
 Darn gave the Emperor what the latter called " a lion's 
 counsel;" to draw in all his detachments, convert Mos- 
 cow into an entrenched camp, kill and salt every horse, 
 and trust to foraging parties for the rest — in a word, to 
 la}- aside all thoughts of keeping up communication with 
 
442 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 France, or Germany, or even Poland; and issue forth 
 from Moscow, with his army entire and refreshed, in 
 the commencement of the spring. But Napoleon had 
 excellent reasons for suspecting that were he and his 
 army cut oif from all communication, during six months, 
 with what they had left behind them., the Prussians, the 
 Austrians, his Rhenish vassals themselves, might throw 
 off the yoke ; while, on the other hand, the Russians 
 could hardly fail, in the course of so many months, to 
 accumulate, in their own country, a force before which 
 his isolated army, on re-issuing from their winter quar- 
 ters, would appear a mere speck. 
 
 Napoleon at length sent Count Lauriston to the head- 
 quarters of KutusofF, with another letter to Alexander, 
 which the Count was to deliver in person. Kutusofi 
 received the Frenchman in the midst of all his generals, 
 and answered with such civility that the envoy doubted 
 not of success. The end, however, was that the Russian 
 professed himself altogether unable to entertain any 
 negotiation, or even to sanction the journey of any 
 French messenger — such being, as he said, the last and 
 most express orders of his Prince. He offered to send 
 on Napoleon's letter to St. Petersburg by one of his 
 own aides-de-camp ; and to this Lauriston was obliged 
 to agree. This interview occurred on the 6th of Octo- 
 ber : no answer from St. Petersburg could be expected 
 sooner than the 26th. There had already been one 
 fall of snow. To retreat after having a second time 
 written to the Czai', would appear like the confession 
 of inability to remain. The difficulties and dangers 
 attendant on a longer sojourn in the ruined capital 
 have already been mentioned ; and they were increasing 
 with fearful rapidity every hour. It was under such 
 circumstances that Napoleon lingered on in the Kremlin 
 until the 19th of October ; and it seems probable that he 
 
1812.] MOSCOW. 443 
 
 would Lave lingered even more days there, had he not 
 received the tidings of a new reverse, near at hand, and 
 wbich effectually stirred him. His attendants have not 
 hesitated to say that, from the time when he entered 
 Russia, his mind had seemed to be in a state of inde- 
 cision and lethargy, when compared with what they had 
 been accustomed to witness in previous campaigns. 
 From this hour his decision and activity (if indeed 
 they had ever been obscured) appear to have been dis- 
 played abundantly. 
 
 Murat had, without Napoleon's command, and indeed 
 in opposition to his wishes, established a strange species 
 of armistice with Kutusoff, under articles which pro- 
 vided that three hours' notice must precede any regular 
 affair between the two armies confronted to each other, 
 but allowed the petty warfare of the Cossacks and other 
 light troops to proceed without interruption on either 
 flank. Tbis suited Kutusoff's purpose ; for it in effect 
 left him in full possession of the means to avoid a gene- 
 ral action until he chose to hazard one, and yet offered 
 no interruption to the measures by which he and his 
 nation were deliberately and systematically straitening 
 the supplies of the invader. Napoleon alleged that 
 Murat had entered on the compact from the desire of 
 gratifying his own vanity, by galloping about on a 
 neutral ground, and attracting the admiration of both 
 armies, but especially of the Cossacks, by his horseman- 
 ship, and the brilliant, if not fantastic, dresses in wbich 
 it was at all times his delight to exhibit his fine person. 
 But King Joachim never displayed his foppery so wil- 
 lingly as on the field of battle ; he committed only, on a 
 smaller scale, the same error which detained his master 
 in the Kremlin. 
 
 30 
 
4r44 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [181: 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Xapoleon quits Moscow — Battles of Vincouo and Malo-Yaraslovetz — 
 Retreat on Verreia—and Smolensko — Repeated Defeats and 
 Sufferings of the French — Smolensko — Krasnoi — Passage of the 
 Beresina — Smorgonie — Napoleon quits the Army — his arrival at 
 Warsaiv — at Dresden — in Paris, 
 
 The armistice, such as it was, between Joachim and 
 Kutusoff, was broken through so soon as the latter had 
 sufficiently disciplined the new recruits who had crowded 
 to his standard from every region of the empire. Murat 
 then received considerable reinforcements from Moscow, 
 together with Napoleon's commands to gain possession, 
 if possible, of one of the roads leading to Kalouga. 
 There, and at Toula, the chief magazines of the Russian 
 army were known to be established ; and, moreover, by 
 retiring in that direction towards Poland (should a 
 retreat finally be found necessary), Napoleon counted 
 on the additional and far greater advantage of travers- 
 ing a country hitherto unwasted. 
 
 The King of Naples, accordingly, pushed his light 
 troops over a new district ; and had the mortification to 
 find the Russian system of defence persevered in where- 
 ever he advanced. The splendid country house of 
 Rostophchin was burnt to the ground, ere the French 
 reached it ; and the following letter, affixed to its gates, 
 breathed the same spirit which had dared to sacrifice 
 Moscow : — " I have for eight years embellished this 
 residence, and lived happily in it with my family. The 
 inhabitants of the estate, in number 1720, quitted it at 
 your approach ; and I set fire to my house, that it may 
 not be polluted with your presence." 
 
1812.] LEAYKS MOSCOW. 415 
 
 Kutnsoffwas no longer disposed to witness in inaction 
 the progress of Marat. He divined that Napoleon must 
 at last be convinced of the necessity of abandoning 
 Moscow, and determined that at all events he should 
 not make his retreat in the direction of Kalouga. Gene- 
 ral Bennigsen was ordered to attack Mnrat, on the 18th 
 October, at Vincovo : and the result was decidedly in 
 favour of the Russians, in whose hands there remained 
 nearly 3000 prisoners, and forty pieces of artillery. The 
 cannonade was heard at the Kremlin ; and no sooner 
 did the issue of the day reach Napoleon, than he made 
 up his mind to march his whole army to the support of 
 the King of Naples. That same evening, several divi- 
 sions were put in motion ; he himself, at the head of 
 others, left Moscow on the 19th; and the metropolis 
 was wholly evacuated on the morning of the 2 2d. 
 Russian troops entered it immediately afterwards, in time 
 to preserve the Kremlin, which had been undermined 
 and attempted to be blown up in a last access of rage ; 
 and within a few hours, so completely had the patriotic 
 peasants baffled Napoleon, the town swarmed with 
 people, and all the market places were crowded witli 
 every species of provision. The Emperor's bulletins 
 announced that " Moscow had been found not to be a 
 good military position" — that it was " necessary for the 
 army to breathe on a wider space." The precipitancy, 
 however, with which the French retired was such that 
 they left their sick and wounded to the mercy of the 
 Russians ; and yet thousands of waggons, laden with 
 the spoil of Moscow, attended and encumbered their 
 march. 
 
 Kutusoff now perceived that he had to expect the 
 attack of a greater than Murat. The Russian general 
 occupied a position at Taroutino, on the old road to 
 Kalouga (the central one of three nearly parallel routes), 
 
446 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 so strong by nature, and so improved by art, that Na- 
 poleon judged it hopeless to attack him there. He 
 therefore made a lateral movement, and pushed on by 
 the western road — meaning, after he had passed Tarou- 
 tino, to strike back again into the central one, and so 
 interpose himself between Kutusoff and Kalouga. The 
 old Russian, however, penetrated this plan; and in- 
 stantly, by a manoeuvre of precisely the same kind — 
 marching to the eastward, and thence back to the centre 
 again — baffled it. The French van, having executed 
 the first part of their orders, and regained the middle 
 road in the rear of Taroutino, advanced without opposi- 
 tion as far as Malo-Yaraslovetz, and occupied that town. 
 But at midnight they were assaulted furiously without 
 it, and driven back across the river Louja, where the 
 leading divisions of the army bivouacked. Early in the 
 mornino- the French retook Malo-Yaraslovetz at the 
 point of the bayonet, and the greater part of the day 
 was spent in a succession of obstinate contests, in the 
 course of which the town five times changed masters. 
 In the evening, Napoleon came up with his main body. 
 He found his troops, indeed, in possession of the place ; 
 but beyond it, his generals informed him, Kutusoff and 
 his whole army were now posted, and this on a position 
 at least as strong as that of Taroutino, which he himself 
 had considered unassailable. 
 
 The Emperor's head-quarters were in the wretched 
 and filthy hut of a poor weaver, and here an angry de- 
 bate ensued between Murat and Davoust ; the former of 
 whom urged the necessity of instantly attacking the 
 Russian, while the latter pronounced such an attempt 
 to be worthy of a madman. The Emperor heard them 
 in gloomy silence, and declared that he would judge for 
 himself in the morning. He dismissed them all, and, if 
 Segur may be believed, spent the night in great agita- 
 
1812.] 3ETBBAT ON VERREIA. 447 
 
 tion ; now rising, now lying down again — incessantly 
 calling out — yet refusing to admit any one within a 
 temporary screen of cloth which concealed his person 
 from the eyes of his attendants. This was the first occa- 
 sion on which Buonaparte betrayed in his demeanour 
 that dark presentiment which had settled on his mind 
 ever since he beheld the flames of Moscow. 
 
 At daybreak he passed the Louja with a few attend - 
 ants, for the purpose of reconnoitring Kutusoff's position, 
 lie had scarcely crossed the bridge, when a party of 
 Platoff's Cossacks, galloping furiously, and sweeping 
 some scattered companies of the French before them, 
 came full upon the Emperor and his suite. Napoleon 
 was urged to seek safety in flight ; but he drew his 
 sword and took post on the bank by the way-side. The 
 wild spearmen, intent on booty, plunged on immediately 
 below him, and, after stripping some soldiers, retired 
 again at full speed to their Pulk, without having ob- 
 served the inestimable prize. The Emperor watched 
 their retreat, and continued his reconnoissance. It satis- 
 fied him that Davotist had judged rightly. 
 
 He made another effort to force a passage southwards 
 at Medyn : but here also he was repelled, and forced to 
 abandon the attempt. Meantime the army which had 
 occupied Moscow began to send forth its Cossacks on 
 his rear. In a word, it became apparent that if the 
 retreat were to be urged, it must now be in the direction 
 of Verreia and Smolensko ; that is, through the same 
 provinces which had been entirely wasted in the earlier 
 part of the campaign. 
 
 Kutusofi", whether merely overpowered for the mo- 
 ment with that vague sentiment which Buonaparte's 
 name had hitherto been accustomed to inspire, or that 
 he knew of a still better position nearer Kalouga, was, 
 in fact, retiring from his strong ground behind Malo-. 
 
448 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 Yai'aslovetz, at the moment when the French began to 
 break up from the Louja. No sooner, however, was 
 that movement known, than the Russian penetrated the 
 extent of his adversary's embarrassments ; and Platoff, 
 with the Cossacks, received orders to hang close on the 
 French rear — while Milarodo witch, with 18,000 men, 
 pushed directly on Viasma ; and the main army taking 
 a parallel, and a shorter, though less practicable route, 
 marched also with the view of watching the retreat on 
 Smolensko. 
 
 As Buonaparte was about to leave Verreia, General 
 Witzingerode was brought a prisoner into his presence. 
 This officer had advanced to the Kremlin, ere it was 
 abandoned, with a flag of truce, for the purpose of enter- 
 ing into some arrangements concerning the French 
 wounded ; and it is to be supposed, of dissuading the 
 departing garrison from destroying the citadel. He 
 was, however, placed instantly under arrest, and hurried 
 away with the enemy's march. Napoleon, whose temper 
 was by this time embittered into ungovernable rage, 
 charged the General with being the leader of the Cos- 
 sacks, and threatened to have him shot, on the instant, 
 as a brigand. Witzingerode replied, that " he com- 
 manded not the Cossacks, but a part of the regular 
 army ; and that, in the character of a Russian soldier, 
 he was at all times prepared for a French bullet." Na- 
 poleon, now ascertaining the name, country, and rank 
 of his prisoner, pursued in these angry ejaculations : 
 " Who are you ? A man without a country — you have 
 ever been my enemy — you were in the Austrian's ranks 
 at Austerlitz — I now find you in the Russian ! Never- 
 theless, you are a native of the Confederation of the 
 Rhine — therefore my subject — and a rebel. Seize him, 
 gens d'armes ! Let the traitor be brought to trial." 
 The Emperor's attendants were wise enough to foresee 
 
1812.] RETREAT OF THE FRENCH. 449 
 
 the effects of such violence, if persisted in : they inter- 
 posed, and Witzingerode was sent on as a prisoner of 
 war towards Smolensko.* 
 
 On the 28th of October, Napoleon himself, with 6000 
 chosen horse, began his journey towards Smolensko ; 
 the care of bringing up the main body being given to 
 Beauharnois, while Ney commanded the rear. From 
 the commencement of this march, hardly a day elapsed 
 in which some new calamity did not befall those hitherto 
 invincible legions. The Cossacks of Platoff came on one 
 division at Kolotsk, near Borodino, on the 1st of Novem- 
 ber, and gave them a total defeat. A second division 
 was attacked on the day after, and with nearly equal 
 success, by the irregular troops of Count Orloff Denizoff. 
 On the 3d, Milai'odowitck reached the main road near 
 Viasma, and after routing Ney, Davoust, and Beauhar- 
 nois, drove tbem through the town, which he entered 
 with drums beating and colours flying, and making a 
 passage for the rest of the army over the dead bodies of 
 the enemy. Beauharnois, after this, separated his divi- 
 sion from the rest, and endeavoured to push for Yitepsk, 
 by the way of Douchowtchina, and Platoff followed him, 
 while Milarodowitch continued the pursuit on the main 
 road. The separation of troops so pressed, is a sufficient 
 proof that they were already suffering severely for want 
 of food ; but their miseries were about to be heightened 
 by the arrival of a new enemy. On the 6th of Novem- 
 ber, the Russian winter fairly set in ; and thenceforth, 
 between the heavy columns of regular troops which on 
 every side watched and threatened them, the continued 
 assaults of the Cossacks who hung around them in 
 clouds by day and by night, rushing on (very dot 
 party, 'i : every bivouac, breaking up bridges 
 
 * lie was rescued in Poland by a party of Cossacks. 
 
450 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 before, and destroying every straggler behind them, and 
 the terrible severity of the climate, the frost, the snow, 
 the wind — the sufferings of this once magnificent army 
 were such as to baffle all description. 
 
 The accounts of the Russian authorities, of the French 
 eye-witnesses who have since told this story, and, it 
 must be added, of the Emperor's own celebrated "twenty- 
 ninth bulletin," are in harmony with each other. The 
 enormous train of artillery which Napoleon had insisted 
 on bringing away from Moscow was soon diminished ; 
 and the roads were blocked up with the spoils of the 
 city, abandoned of necessity as the means of transport 
 failed. The horses, having been ill fed for months, were 
 altogether unable to resist the united effects of cold and 
 fatigue. They sank and stiffened by hundreds and by 
 thousands. The starving soldiery slew others of these 
 animals, that they might drink their warm blood, and 
 wrap themselves in their yet reeking skins. The dis- 
 cipline of these miserable bands vanished. ISTey was 
 indeed able to keep together some battalions of the rear 
 guard, and present a bold aspect to the pursuers — the 
 Marshal himself not disdaining to bear a firelock, and 
 share the meanest fatigues of his followers ; but else- 
 where there remained hardly the shadow of military 
 order. Small and detached bodies of men moved, like 
 soldiers, on the highway — the immense majority dis- 
 persed themselves over the ice and snow which equalised 
 the surface of the fields on either side, and there sustained 
 from time to time the rapid and merciless charges of the 
 Cossacks. 
 
 Beauharnois, meantime, discovered before he had 
 advanced far on his separate route, that "Witgenstein, 
 having defeated successively St. Cyr and Victor on the 
 Dwina, was already in possession of Vitepsk. The 
 viceroy, therefore, was compelled to turn back towards 
 
1812.] EETEEAT OF THE FRENCH. 451 
 
 the Smolensko road. Platoff turned with him, and 
 brought him once more to action, " killing many," said 
 the Hetman's despatch, "but making few prisoners." 
 The army of Italy, if it could still be called an army, 
 mingled with the few troops who still preserved some 
 show of order under Ney, before they came in sight of 
 Smolensko, and communicated to them their own terror 
 and confusion. 
 
 Meanwhile the Russian "army of Volhynia," after it 
 was strengthened by the arrival of Tehiehagoff from the 
 Danube, had been able (as we have already hinted) to 
 bear down all the opposition of Schwartzenberg and 
 Regnier; had driven their horses before them, and 
 taken possession of Napoleon's great depot, Minsk, from 
 which they might hope ere long to communicate with 
 Witgenstein. The armies of "Witgenstein and Tehieha- 
 goff", then, were about to be in communication with each 
 other, and in possession of those points at which Na- 
 poleon was most likely to attempt his escape from 
 Smolensko into Poland; while the main army itself, 
 having advanced side by side with the French, was now 
 med in the south-west of Smolensko, in readiness 
 to break the enemy's march whenever Kutusoff should 
 choose; Milarodowitcb, finally, and Platoff, were hang- 
 ing close behind, and thinning every hour the miserable 
 bands who had no longer heart, nor, for the most part, 
 arms of any kind wherewith to resist them. But the 
 whole extent of these misfortunes was not known to any 
 one of the French generals, nor even to Napoleon him- 
 self, at the time when Beauharnois and Ney at length 
 entered Smolensko. 
 
 The name of that town had hitherto been the only 
 Bpell that preserved an}- hope within the soldiers of the 
 retreat. There, they had been told, they should find 
 food, clothing, and supplies of all sorts: and there, 
 
452 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 1812.] 
 
 being once more assembled under the eye of the Emperor, 
 speedily re-assume an aspect, such as none of the northern 
 barbarians would dare to brave. 
 
 But these expectations were cruelly belied. Smolensko 
 had been, as we have seen, almost entirely destroyed by 
 the Kussians, in the early part of the campaign. Its 
 ruined walls afforded only a scanty shelter to the fam- 
 ishing and shivering fugitives ; and the provisions as- 
 sembled there was so inadequate to the demands of the 
 case, that after the lapse of a few days, Buonaparte felt 
 himself under the necessity of once more renewing his 
 disastrous march. He had, as yet, received no intelli- 
 gence of the capture of Minsk by Tchichagoff. It was 
 in that direction, accordingly, that he resolved to force 
 his passage into Poland. 
 
 Although the grand army had mustered 120,000 when 
 it left Moscow, and the fragments of various divisions 
 besides had met the Emperor at Smolensko, it was with 
 great difficulty that 40,000 men could now be brought 
 together in anything like fighting condition. These 
 Napoleon divided into four columns, nearly equal in 
 numbers : of the first, which included 6000 of the 
 imperial guard, he himself took the command, and 
 marched with it towards Krasnoi, the first town on the 
 way to Minsk ; the second corps was that of Eugene 
 Beauharnois ; the third, Davoust's ; and the fourth, des- 
 tined for the perilous service of the rear, and accordingly 
 strengthened with 3000 of the guard, was entrusted to 
 the heroic guidance of Ney. The Emperor left Smo- 
 lensko on the 13th of November, having ordered that the 
 other corps should follow him on the 14th, 15th, and 
 lGth, respectively ; thus interposing a day's march be- 
 tween every two divisions. 
 
 It is not to be questioned that Napoleon, in thus 
 arranging his march, was influenced by the pressing 
 
1812.] RETREAT OF THE FRENCH. 453 
 
 difficulty of finding provisions, and also by the enfeebled 
 condition of the greater part of bis remaining troops. 
 The division of bis force, however, was so complete, 
 that bad he been opposed by a general adequate to the 
 occasion, his total and immediate ruin could hardly 
 have been avoided. But Kutusoff appears to have ex- 
 hausted the better part of bis daring at Borodino, and 
 thenceforth to have adbered to the plan of avoiding 
 battle — originally wise and necessaiw — with a pertina- 
 city savouring of superstition. It must be admitted, 
 that hitherto, in suffering the climate to waste his 
 enemy's numbers, and merely heightening the misery 
 of the elemental war by his clouds of Cossacks, and 
 occasional assaults of other light troops, he had reaped 
 almost every advantage which could have resulted from 
 another course. But the army of Napoleon had been 
 already reduced to a very small fragment of its original 
 strength ; and even that fragment was now split into 
 four divisions, against any one of which it would have 
 been easy to concentrate a force overwhelmingly supe- 
 rior. It seems to be generally accepted that the name 
 of Napoleon saved whatever part of his host finally 
 escaped from the territory of Russia ; in a word, that 
 had Kutusoff been able to shake off that awe which had 
 been the growth of a hundred victories, the Emperor 
 himself must have cither died on some bloody field be- 
 tween Smolensko and the Beresiua, or revisited, as a 
 prisoner, the interior of the country which, three months 
 before, he had invaded at the head of half a million of 
 warriors. 
 
 He himself, with his column, reached Krasnoi un- 
 molested, although the whole of the Russian army. 
 moving on a parallel road, were in full observation of 
 his march. Eugene, who followed him, was, however, 
 intercepted on his way by Milarodowitch, and after sus- 
 
454 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 tainkig the contest gallantly against very dispropor- 
 tionate numbers and a terrible cannonade, was at length 
 saved only by the fall of night. During the darkness, 
 the Viceroy executed a long and hazardous detour, and 
 joined the Emperor in Krasnoi, on the 17th. On this 
 night-march they fell in with the videttes of another of 
 Kutusoff's columns, and owed their preservation to the 
 quickness of a Polish soldier, who answei'ed the chal- 
 lenge in Russian. The loss, however, had been severe ; 
 the two leading divisions now united in Krasnoi mus- 
 tered scarcely 15,000. 
 
 Napoleon was most anxious to secure the passage of 
 the Dnieper at Liady, and immediately gave Eugene 
 the command of the van, with orders to march on this 
 point ; but he was warned by the losses which his son- 
 in-law had undergone, of the absolute necessity of wait- 
 ing at Krasnoi until Davoust and Key should be able to 
 come up with him. He determined, therefore, to abide, 
 with 6000 of the guard, and another corps of 5000, 
 whatever numbers Kutnsoff might please to bring against 
 him. He drew his sword, and said, " I have long enough 
 played the Emperor — I must be the general once more." 
 
 In vain was Kutusotf urged to seize this opportunity 
 of pouring an irresistible force on the French position. 
 The veteran commanded a cannonade — and, as he had 
 100 pieces of artillery well placed, the ranks of the 
 enemy were thinned considerably. But, excepting one 
 or two isolated charges of cavalry, he adventured on no 
 closer collision ; and Napoleon held his ground, in face 
 of all that host, until nightfall, when Davoust's division, 
 surrounded and pursued by innumerable Cossacks, at 
 length were enabled to rally once more around his head- 
 quarters. 
 
 He had the mortification to learn, however, that Ney 
 was probably still in Smolcnsko, and that a Russian 
 
1812.] RETREAT OF THE FRENCH. 455 
 
 force bad marched on towards Liady, witli the design 
 of again intercepting Eugene. The Emperor, therefore, 
 once more divided his numbers — pushed on in person to 
 support Beauharnois and secure Liady — and left Davoust 
 and Mortier to hold out as long as possible at Krasnoi, 
 in the hope of being there joined by Key. Long, how- 
 ever, before that gallant chief could reach this point, the 
 Russians, as if the absence of Xapoleon had at once re- 
 stored all their energy, rushed down, and forced on 
 Davoust and Mortier the battle which the Emperor had 
 in vain solicited. On that fatal field the French left 
 forty-five cannon and 6000 prisoners, besides the slain 
 and the wounded. The remainder with difficulty effected 
 their escape to Liady, where Napoleon once more re- 
 ceived them, and crossed the Dnieper. 
 
 Ney, meanwhile, having in execution of his master's 
 parting injunctions blown up whatever remained of the 
 walls and towers of Smolensko, at length set his rear- 
 guard in motion, and advanced to Krasnoi, without 
 being harassed by any except PlatofF, whose Cossacks 
 entered Smolensko ere he could wholly abandon it. The 
 field strewn with many thousand corpses, informed him 
 sufficiently that a new disaster had befallen the fated 
 army. Yet he continued to advance on the footsteps of 
 those who had thus shattered Davoust and Mortier, and 
 met with no considerable interruption until he reached 
 the ravine in which the rivulet Losmina has its channel. 
 A thick mist lay on the ground, and Key was almost on 
 the brink of the ravine, before he perceived that it was 
 manned throughout by Russians, while the opposite 
 banks displayed a long line of batteries deliberately 
 arranged, and all the hills behind were covered with 
 troops. 
 
 A Russian officer appeared and summoned Ney to 
 capitulate. " A niareschal of France never surrenders," 
 
456 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 was his intrepid answer ; and immediately the batteries, 
 distant only 2-50 yards, opened a tremendous storm of 
 grape shot. Ney, nevertheless, had the hardihood to 
 plunge into the ravine, clear a passage over the stream, 
 and charge the Russians at their guns. His small band 
 were repelled with fearful slaughter ; but he renewed 
 his efforts from time to time during the day, and at 
 night, though with numbers much diminished, still 
 occupied his original position in the face of a whole 
 army interposed between him and Napoleon. 
 
 The Emperor had by this time given up all hope of 
 ever again seeing anything of his rear- column. But 
 during the ensuing night, Key effected his escape ; nor 
 does the history of war present many such examples of 
 apparently insuperable difficulties overcome by the union 
 of skill and valour. The marshal broke up his bivouac 
 at midnight, and marched back from the Losmina, until 
 he came on another stream, which he concluded must 
 flow also into the Dnieper. He followed this guide, and 
 at length reached the great river at a place where it was 
 frozen over, though so thinly, that the ice bent and 
 crackled beneath the feet of the men, who crossed it in 
 single files. The waggons laden with the wounded, and 
 what great guns were still with Ney, were too heavy for 
 this frail bridge. They attempted the passage at differ- 
 ent points, and one after another went down, amidst the 
 shrieks of the dying and the groans of the on-lookers. 
 The Cossacks had by this time gathered hard behind, 
 and swept up many stragglers, besides the sick. But 
 Ney had achieved his great object : and on the 20th, he, 
 with his small and devoted band, joined the Emperor 
 once more at Orcsa. Napoleon received him in his 
 arms, hailed him as " the bravest of the brave," and de- 
 clared that he would have given all his treasures to be 
 assured of his safety. 
 
1812.] PASS PHB BERESINA. 457 
 
 The Emperor was once more at the head of his united 
 " grand army ;'' but the name was ere now become a 
 jest. Between Smolensko and the Dnieper the Russians 
 had taken 228 guns, and 20,000 prisoners ; and, in a 
 word, having mustered 40,000 effective men at leaving 
 Smolensko, Napoleon could count only 12,000, after Ney 
 joined him at Orcsa. Of these there were but 150 
 cavalry ; and, to remedy this defect, officers still in pos- 
 session of horses, to the number of 500, were now 
 formed into a " sacred band," as it was called, for im- 
 mediate attendance on the Emperor's person. The 
 small fragment of his once gigantic force had no sooner 
 recovered something like the order of discipline, than it 
 was again set in motion. 
 
 But scarcely had the Emperor passed the Dnieper, when 
 he received the tidings of the fall of Minsk, and the sub- 
 sequent retreat of Schwartzenberg towards Warsaw. It 
 was, therefore, necessary to alter his plan, and force a 
 passage into Poland to the northward of that great 
 depot. It was necessary, moreover, to do this without 
 loss of time, for the Emperor well knew that Witgen- 
 stein had been as successful on his right flank as Tchi- 
 chagoff on his left ; and that these generals might soon 
 be, if they already were not, in communication with 
 each other, and ready to unite all their forces for the 
 defence of the next great river on his route — the Beresina. 
 
 Xapoleon had hardly resolved to attempt the passage 
 of this river at BorizofF, ere, to renew all his perplexities, 
 he received intelligence that Witgenstein had defeated 
 Dombrowski there, and retained possession of the town 
 and bridge, Victor and Oudinot, indeed, advanced 
 immediately to succour Dombrowski, and re-took Bori- 
 zofF; but Witgenstein burnt the bridge before he re- 
 crossed the Beresina. Imperfect as Victor's success 
 was, Xapoleon did not hear of it immediately. He de- 
 
458 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1S12. 
 
 termined to pass the Beresina higher up, at Studzianska, 
 and forthwith threw himself into the huge forests which 
 border that river, adopting every stratagem by which 
 his enemies could be puzzled as to the immediate object 
 of his march. 
 
 His 12,000 men, brave and determined, but no longer 
 preserving in their dress, nor, unless when the trumpet 
 blew, in their demeanour, a soldier-like appearance, 
 were winding their way amidst these dark woods, when 
 suddenly the air around them was filled with sounds 
 which could only proceed from the march of some far 
 greater host. They were preparing for the worst, when 
 they found themselves in presence of the advanced guard 
 of the united army of Victor and Oudinot, who had, 
 indeed, been defeated by Witgenstein, but still mustered 
 50,000 men, completely equipped and hardly shaken in 
 discipline. With what feelings must these troops have 
 surveyed the miserable half-starved and half-clad re- 
 mains of that " grand army," their own detachment 
 from whose banners had, some few short months before, 
 filled every bosom among them with regret ! 
 
 Having melted the poor relics of his Moscow army 
 into these battalions, Napoleon now continued his march 
 on Studzianska ; employing, howevei", all his wit to con- 
 firm Tchichagoff in the notion that he meant to pass the 
 Beresina at a different place — and this with so much 
 success, that Tchaplitz, with the Russian rear-guard, 
 abandoned a strong position, commanding the river, 
 during the very night which preceded his appearance 
 there. Two bridges were erected, and Oudinot had 
 passed over before Tchaplitz perceived his mistake, and 
 returned again toward Studzianska. 
 
 Discovering that the passage had already begun, and 
 that in consequence of the narrowness of the only two 
 bridges, it must needs proceed slowly, Tchichagoff and 
 
1812.] PASSAGE OF THE BERESINA. 459 
 
 Witgeustein now arranged a joint plan of attack. Tho 
 latter once more passed to the eastern bank of the liver, 
 and, having wholly cut off one division of 7000, tinder 
 Partonneaux, not far from Borizoff, proceeded towards 
 Studzianska. Platoff and his indefatigable Cossacks 
 joined Witgenstein on this march, and they arrived long 
 before the rear-guard of Napoleon could pass the river. 
 But the operations on the other side of the Beresina 
 were far less zealously or skilfully conducted. Tchicha- 
 goff was in vain urged to support effectually Tchaplitz ; 
 who attacked the French that had passed, and being 
 repelled by Oudinot, left them in unmolested possession, 
 not only of the bridges on the Beresina, but of a long 
 train of wooden causeways, extending for miles beyond 
 the river, over deep and dangerous morasses, and which 
 being composed of old dry timber, would have required, 
 says Segur, "to destroy them utterly, but a few sparks 
 from the Cossacks' tobacco pipes." 
 
 In spite of this neglect, and of the altogether extra- 
 ordinary conduct of Kutusoff, who still persisted in 
 marching on a line parallel with Napoleon, and refusing 
 to hazard any more assaults, the passage of the Beresina 
 was one of the most fearful scenes recorded in the annals 
 of war. Victor, with the rear-division, consisting of 
 8000 men, was still on the eastern side — when "Witgen- 
 stein and Platoff appeared on the heights above. The 
 still numerous retainers of the camp, crowds of sick, 
 wounded, and women, and the greater part of the artil- 
 lery, were in the same situation. When the Russian 
 cannon began to open upon this multitude, crammed 
 together near the bank, and each anxiously expecting 
 the turn to pass, a shriek of utter terror ran through 
 them, and men. women, horses, and waggons rushed at 
 once, pell-mell, upon the bridges. The larger of theso 
 intended solely for waggons and cannon, ere long broko 
 
4G0 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 down, precipitating all that were upon it into the dark 
 and half-frozen stream. The scream that rose at this 
 moment, says one that heard it, <; did not leave my ears 
 for weeks ; it was heard clear and loud over the hurrahs 
 of the Cossacks, and all the roar of artillery." The 
 remaining bridge was now the only resoui*ce, and all 
 indiscriminately endeavoured to gain a footing on it. 
 Squeezed, trampled, forced over the ledges, cat down by 
 each other, and torn by the incessant shower of Russian 
 cannonade, they fell and died in thousands. Victor 
 stood his ground braveby until late in the evening, and 
 then conducted his division over the bridge. There 
 still remained behind a great number of the irregular 
 attendants, besides those soldiers who had been wounded 
 during the battle, and guns and baggage-carts enough 
 to cover a large meadow. The French now fired the 
 bridge, and all these were abandoned to their fate. The 
 Russian account states, that when the Beresina thawed 
 after that winter's frost, 36,000 bodies were found in its 
 bed. 
 
 Tchaplitz was soon joined in his pursuit of the sur- 
 vivors by Witgenstein and Platoff, and nothing could 
 have saved Napoleon but the unexpected arrival of a 
 fresh division under Maison, sent forwards from Poland 
 by Maret, Duke of Bassano. 
 
 But the severity of the winter began now to be intense, 
 and the sufferings of the army thus recruited were such, 
 that discipline ere long disappeared, except among a few 
 thousands of hardy veterans, over whose spirits the 
 Emperor and Ney preserved some influence. The as- 
 saults of the Cossacks continued as before; the troops 
 often performed their march by night, by the light of 
 torches, in the hope of escaping their merciless pursuers. 
 When they halted, they fell asleep in hundreds to wake 
 no more. Their enemies found them frozen to death 
 
1812.] QUITS HIS ARJIT. 461 
 
 around the ashes of their watch-fires. It is said, among 
 other horrors, that more than once they found poor 
 famished wretches endeavouring to broil the flesh of 
 their dead comrades. On scenes so fearful the veil must 
 not be entirely dropt. Such is the price at which ambi- 
 tion does not hesitate to purchase even the chance of 
 svhat the world has not yet ceased to call glory ! 
 
 The haughty and imperious spirit of Xapoleon sank 
 not under all these miseries. He affected, in so far as 
 was possible, not to see them. He still issued his orders 
 as if his army, in all its divisions, were entire, and sent 
 bulletins to Paris announcing a succession of victories. 
 When his officers came to inform him of some new cala- 
 mity, he dismissed them abruptly, saying, " Why will 
 you disturb my tranquillity ? I desire to know no par- 
 ticulars. "Why will you deprive me of my tranquillity?" 
 
 On the 3d of December he reached Malodeczno, and 
 announced to his marshals that the news he had received 
 from Paris, and the uncertain nature of his relations 
 with some of his allies, rendered it indispensable for him 
 to quit his army without further delay. They were now, 
 he said, almost within sight of Poland ; they would find 
 plenty of everything at Wilna. It was his business to 
 prepare at home the means of opening the next campaign 
 in a manner worthy of the great nation. At Smorgoni, 
 on the 5tli, the garrison of Wilna met him; and then, 
 having entrusted to these fresh troops the protection of 
 the rear, and given the chief command to Murat, he 
 finally bade adieu to the relics of his host. He set 
 set off at midnight in a traineau, accompanied by Caul- 
 aincourt, whose name he assumed ; two other vehicles 
 of the same kind followed, containing two officers of 
 rank, Rustan, the Emperor's favourite Mameluke, and 
 one domestic besides. 
 
 Having narrowly escaped being taken by a party of 
 
462 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [18ll 
 
 irregular Russians at Youpranoni, Napoleon readied 
 "Warsaw at nightfall, on the 10th of December. His 
 ambassador there, the Abbe De Pradt, who had as yet 
 heard no distinct accounts of the progress of events, was 
 unexpectedly visited by Caulaincourt, who abruptly in- 
 formed him that the grand army was no more. The 
 Abbe accompanied Caulaincourt to an obscure inn, 
 where the Emperor, wrapped in a fur cloak, was walk- 
 ing up and down rapidly, beside a newly-lit fire. He 
 was received with an air of gaiety, which for a moment 
 disconcerted him; and proceeded to mention that the 
 inhabitants of the Grand Duchy were beginning to show 
 symptoms of disaffection, and even of a desire to recon- 
 cile themselves with the Prussians, under whose yoke 
 they feared they were destined to return. The Abbe 
 expressed his own satisfaction that the Emperor had 
 escaped from so many dangers. " Dangers !" cried Na- 
 poleon, " there were none — I have beat the Russians in 
 every battle — I live but in dangers — it is for kings of 
 Cockaigne to sit at home at ease. My army is in a 
 superb condition still — it will be recruited at leisure at 
 Wilna, and I go to bring up 800,000 men more from 
 France. I quit my army with regret, but I must watch 
 Austria and Prussia, and I have more weight on my 
 throne than at head-quarters. The Russians will be 
 rendered fool-hardy by their successes — I shall beat 
 them in a battle or two on the Oder, and be on the 
 Niemen again within a month." This harangue, utterly 
 contradictory throughout, he began and ended with a 
 favourite phrase — " Monsieur LAmbassadeur, from the 
 sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step." 
 
 Resuming his incognito and his journey, Napoleon 
 reached Dresden on the evening of the 14th December, 
 where the King of Saxony visited him secretly at his 
 inn, and renewed his assurances of fidelity. He arrived 
 
1812.] ARRIVES IX TARIS. 463 
 
 at the Tuilleries on the 18th, late at night, after the 
 Empress had retired to rest. He entered the ante- 
 chamber, to the confusion of her attendants, who at 
 length recognised him with a cry that roused Maria 
 Louisa from her slumbers ; and Xapoleon was welcomed 
 with all the warmth of undiminished affection. 
 
 The army, whom its chief had thus abandoned, pur- 
 sued meanwhile that miserable march, of which every 
 day augmented the disorder. The garrison of Wilna 
 and liaison's corps, united to those who escaped across 
 the Beresina, might number in all 80,000. Before 
 Murat reached "Wilna, 40,000 of these had either died or 
 fallen alive into the hands of their unrelenting pursuers. 
 In that city there were abundant magazines of every 
 kind, and the few who had as }-et preserved some appear- 
 ance of order, together with the multitudes of broken 
 stragglers, rushed in confusion into the place, in the 
 hope of at length resting from their toils, and eating and 
 drinking, for at least one day, in peace. Strong men 
 were observed weeping with joy at the sight of a loaf of 
 bread. But scarcely had they received their rations, ere 
 the well-known hurrah of Platoff rung once more in 
 their ears. They fled once more, with such of their 
 baggage as could be most easily got into motion ; but 
 many fell beneath the spears of the Cossacks, and not a 
 few, it is said, were butchered deliberately in the moment 
 of their perplexity by their Lithuanian hosts, the same 
 Polish Jews who had already inflicted such irreparable 
 injury on the whole army, by their non-observance of 
 their contracts. Shortly after, a waggon laden with coin 
 was overturned on the road, and the soldiers, laving 
 aside all attention to their officers, began to plunder the 
 rich spoil. The Cossacks came up — but there was 
 enough for all, and friend and foe pillaged the imperial 
 treasure, in company, for once, without strife. It de- 
 
464 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 serves to be recorded that some soldiers of the imperial 
 guard restored the money which fell to their share on 
 this occasion, when the weary march at length reached 
 its end. 
 
 They passed the Niemen at Kowno ; and the Russians 
 did not pursue them into the Prussian territory. At the 
 time when they escaped finally from Poland, there were 
 about 1000 in arms, and perhaps 20,000 more, utterly 
 broken, dispersed, and demoralized. 
 
 Sckwartzenburg, the general of the Austrian auxili- 
 aries, on learning the departure of Napoleon, formed an 
 armistice with the Russians, and retired by degrees into 
 his own prince's territory. These allies had shown little 
 zeal in any part of the campaign ; and their conduct 
 seems to have been appreciated by the Russians accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 In Courland, on the left flank of the French retreat, 
 there remained the separate corps of Macdonald, who 
 had with him 20,000 Prussians, and 10,000 Bavarians 
 and other Germans. These Prussians had been sent on 
 this detached seiwice in just apprehension of their cold- 
 ness to the invader's cause. Macdonald, on learning 
 the utter ruin of the main army, commenced his march 
 upon Tilsit. On reaching that place, D'York, the com- 
 mander of the Prussians, refused any longer to obey the 
 marshal's orders, and separated his men entirely — thus 
 taking on himself the responsibility of disobeying the 
 letter of his sovereign's commands, and anticipating 
 that general burst of national hatred which, as all men 
 perceived, could not much longer be deferred. 
 
 To the great honour, however, of the Prussian people, 
 the wearied relics of Napoleon's grand army were 
 received in the country which, in the days of their 
 prospeiaty, they had so wantonly insulted, if not with 
 friendship, at least with compassion. They took up 
 
1812.] " CONCLUSION OF THE RUSSIAN EXPEDITION. 4G5 
 
 their quarters, and remained for a time unmolested, in 
 and near Konigsberg. 
 
 Thus ended the invasion of Russia. There had been 
 slain in battle, on the side of Napoleon, 125,000 men. 
 Fatigue, hunger, and cold, had caused the death of 
 132,000 ; and the Russians had taken of prisoners 
 193,000 — including 48 generals, and 3000 regimental 
 officers. The total loss was, therefore, 4-50,000 men. 
 The eagles and standards left in the enemy's hands were 
 seventy-five in number, and the pieces of cannon nearly 
 one thousand. 
 
 Exclusive of the Austrian and Prussian auxiliaries, 
 there remained of all the enormous host of Napoleon set 
 in motion in August about 40,000 men ; and of these 
 not 10,000 were of the French nation. 
 
46*6 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Conspiracy of Mallet — Napoleon's reception in Paris — h>'s Military 
 Preparations — Prussia declares war — Austria negotiates with Na- 
 poleon — Bernadotte appears in Germany — The Russians advance 
 into Silesia — Napoleon he ids his Army in Saxony — Battle of 
 Lutzen — Battle of Bautzen. 
 
 Some allusion has already been made to the news of a 
 political disturbance in Paris, which reached Napoleon 
 daring his retreat from Moscow, and quickened his final 
 abandonment of the armj r . The occurrence in question 
 was the daring conspiracy headed by General Mallet. 
 This officer, one of the ancient noblesse, had been placed 
 in confinement in 1808, in consequence of his connection 
 with a society called the Philadelphes, which seems to 
 have sprung up within the French army, at the time 
 when Napoleon seized the supreme power, and which 
 had for its immediate object his deposition — while some 
 of the members contemplated the restoration of a repub- 
 lican government, and others, of whom Mallet was one, 
 the recall of the royal family of Bourbon. The people of 
 Paris had for some weeks received no official intelligence 
 from the grand army, and rumours of some awful catas- 
 trophe were rife among all classes, when Mallet conceived 
 tbedaring project of forging a senatus-constiltum, announc- 
 ing the fall of Napoleon in a great battle in Russia, and 
 appointing a provisional government. Having executed 
 this forgery, the general escaped from his prison, and 
 appeared in full uniform, attended by a corporal dressed 
 as an aide-de-camp, at midnight, on the 22d of October, 
 1812, at the gates of the Mimis-barracks, then tenanted 
 by some new and raw levies. The audacity with which 
 he claimed the obedience of these men to the senatorial 
 
1812.] CONSPIRACY OF MALLET. 4:67 
 
 decree overawed them. He assumed the command, and 
 on the instant arrested by their means Savary, minister 
 of police, and some others of the principal functionaries 
 in the capital. General Hullin, the military governor, 
 was summoned, and hesitated ; at that moment the officer 
 of police from whose keeping Mallet had escaped recog- 
 nised him, and he was immediately arrested, disarmed, 
 and confined. The whole affair was over in the course of 
 a few hours, but the fact that so wild a scheme should 
 have been so nearly successful was sufficiently alarming. 
 The ease and indifference with which a considerable 
 body of armed men, in the very heart of Paris, had 
 transferred their services to a new authority, proclaimed 
 by a stranger, made Napoleon consider with suspicion 
 the basis of his power. And ignorant to what extent 
 the conspiracy had actually gone, he heard with addi- 
 tional alarm, that no fewer than twenty-four persons, 
 including the leader, had been condemned to death. Of 
 so many he was willing to believe that some at least had 
 been mere dupes, and apprehended that so much blood- 
 shed might create a violent revulsion of public feeling. 
 The Parisians beheld the execution of these men with as 
 much indifference as their bold attempt ; but of this 
 Napoleon was ignorant until he reached the Tuilleries. 
 His arrival, preceded as it had been by the twenty- 
 ninth bulletin, in which the veil was at last lifted from 
 the fatal events of the campaign, restored for the mo- 
 ment the appearances of composure, amidst a population 
 of which almost every family had lost a son or a brother. 
 Such was the influenco that still clung to his name. 
 The Emperor was safe. However great the present 
 calamity, hope remained. The elements, as they were 
 taught to believe, had not merely quickened and in- 
 creased, but wholly occasioned the reverses of the army. 
 The Russian winter was the only enemy that had been 
 
468 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1813. 
 
 able to triumph over his genius, and the valour of 
 Frenchmen. The senate, the magistrates, all those 
 public bodies and functionaries who had the means of 
 approaching the throne, now crowded to its footsteps 
 with addresses full of adulation, yet more audacious than 
 they had ever before ventured on. The voice of applause, 
 congratulation, and confidence, re-echoed from every 
 quarter, drowned the whispers of suspicion, resentment, 
 and natural sorrow. Every department of the public 
 service appeared to be animated with a spirit of tenfold 
 activity. New conscriptions were called for and yielded. 
 Regiments arrived from Spain and from Italy. Every 
 arsenal resounded with the preparation of new artillery 
 — thousands of horses were impressed in every province. 
 Ere many weeks had elapsed, Napoleon found himself 
 once more in a condition to take the field with not less 
 than 350,000 soldiers. Such was the effect of his new 
 appeal to the national feelings of this great and gallant 
 people. 
 
 Meanwhile the French garrisons dispersed over the 
 Prussian territory were wholly incompetent to overawe 
 that oppressed and insulted nation, now burning with 
 the settled thirst and the long-deferred hope of venge- 
 ance. The king interposed, indeed, his authority to 
 protect the soldiers of Napoleon from popular violence ; 
 but it presently became manifest that their safety must 
 depend on their concentrating themselves in a small 
 number of fortified places ; and that even if Frederick- 
 William had been cordially anxious to preserve his 
 alliance with France, it would soon be impossible for 
 him to resist the unanimous wishes of his people. 
 Murat was already weary of his command. He found 
 himself thwarted and controlled by the other generals, 
 none of whom respected his authority; and one of 
 whom, when he happened to speak of himself in the 
 
1813.] PRUSSIA DECLARES WAR. 4G9 
 
 same breath with the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia, 
 answered without ceremony, " You must rememher that 
 these are kings by the grace of God, by descent, and by 
 custom ; whereas you are only a king by the grace of 
 Napoleon, and through the expenditure of French blood." 
 Murat was, moreover, jealous of the extent to which his 
 queen was understood to be playing the sovereign in 
 Naples, and he threw up his command ; being succeeded 
 by Eugene Beauharnois, and insulted anew by Napoleon 
 himself, in a general order which announced this change, 
 and alleged as its causes, the superior military skill of the 
 viceroy, and his possession of " the full confidence of the 
 Emperor." Eugene succeeded to the command at the 
 moment when it was obvious that Frederick-William 
 could no longer, even if he would, repress the universal 
 enthusiasm of his people. On the 31st of January, the 
 King made his escape to Breslau, in which neighbour- 
 hood no French were garrisoned, erected his standard, 
 and called on the nation to rise in arms. Whereon 
 Eugene retired to Magdeburg, and shut himself up in 
 that great fortress, with as many troops as he could 
 assemble to the west of the Elbe. 
 
 Six years had elapsed since the fatal day of Jena ; 
 and, in spite of all the watchfulness of Napoleon's 
 tyranny, the Prussian nation had recovered in a great 
 measure its energies. The people now answered the 
 call of their beloved prince, as with the heart and voice 
 of one man. Youths of all ranks, the highest and the 
 lowest, flocked indiscriminately to the standard: the 
 students of the universities formed themselves into 
 battalions, at the head of which, in many instances, 
 their teachers marched. The women flung their trinkets 
 into the king's treasure — the gentlemen melted their 
 plate — England poured in her gold with a lavish hand. 
 The rapidity with which disc-inline was established 
 
470 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1813. 
 
 among the great levies thus assembled, excited universal 
 astonishment. It spoke the intense and perfect zeal 
 with which a people, naturally warlike, had devoted 
 themselves to the sacred cause of independence. The 
 Emperor of Russia was no sooner aware of this great 
 movement, than he resolved to advance into Silesia. 
 Having masked several French garrisons in Prussian 
 Poland, and taken others, he pushed on with his main 
 army to support Frederick- William. There was some 
 risk in leaving a considerable number of hostile fortresses 
 behind him, and his own frontier ; bnt this he encoun- 
 tered cheerfully, rather than permit the Prussians to 
 stand alone the first onset of Napoleon, of whose exten- 
 sive preparations all Europe was well aware. The two 
 sovereigns, long attached to each other by the warmest 
 feelings of personal friendship, though of late compelled 
 by the iron force of circumstances to put on the disguise 
 of hostility, met at Breslau on the 15th of March. 
 Tears rushed down the cheeks of Frederick- William, as 
 he fell into the arms of Alexander — " Wipe them," said 
 the Czar ; " they are the last that Napoleon shall ever 
 cause you to shed. " 
 
 The aged Kutusoff having died, the command of the 
 Russian army was now given to Witgenstein ; while 
 that of the Prussians was entrusted to a leader whose 
 name was hailed as the sure pledge of unremitting 
 activity and indomitable perseverance. This was 
 Blucher, an officer originally trained under the great 
 Frederick, whose exemplary conduct after the battle ot 
 Jena has already been mentioned. The brave old man 
 had, since that catastrophe, lived in utter retirement. 
 The soldiery had long before bestowed on him the nom 
 da guerre of Marshal Forwards, and they heard of his 
 appointment with universal delight. Addicted to drink- 
 ing, smoking, and gambling, and little conversant with 
 
1913.] BLCCHER. 471 
 
 the higher branches of war as an art, Blucher was at 
 first despised by Napoleon. But bis technical deficien- 
 cies were abundantly supplied by the skill of Scharn- 
 forst, and afterwards of Gneisenau; and he himself 
 possessed such influence over the minds of his men in 
 the day of action, and was sure to rally them so rapidly 
 after defeat, and to urge them on so keenly when fortune 
 was more favourable, that ere long the Emperor was 
 forced to confess that no one gave him so much trouble 
 as that " debauched old dragoon." Blucher hated the 
 very names of France and Buonaparte with a perfect 
 hatred ; and, once more permitted to draw his sword, 
 he swore never to sheathe it until the revenge of Prussia 
 was complete. 
 
 The Crown Prince of Sweden landed with 35,000 men 
 at Stralsund, and advanced through Mecklenburg, while 
 the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia were concentrating 
 their armies in Silesia. It was announced and expected 
 that German troops would join Bernadotte, so as to en- 
 able him to open the campaign on the lower Elbe with a 
 separate army of 100,000. Lord Wellington was about 
 to advance once more into Spain, with his victorious 
 veterans. Three great armies, two of which might easily 
 communicate with each other, were thus taking the field 
 against him at once ; and yet, such was Napoleon's pride 
 or obstinacy, that he would make no sacrifice whatever 
 to secure the assistance of Austria. He still adhered to 
 his resolution of entering into no general peace which 
 should not recognize Joseph as King of Spain ; and re- 
 fused absolutely to listen to any proposals which included 
 the cession either of Blyria or the Tyrol. Ere he once 
 more left Paris, he named Maria Louisa Regent in his 
 absence ; but this was a circumstance not likely to have 
 much weight with the wavering counsels of the Austrian. 
 While Napoleon's military preparations were in pro* 
 
472 NAPOLEON BUONAPAKTE. [1813. 
 
 gress, he made an effort to conciliate that large party of 
 Iris subjects, who had hitherto looked on him with cold- 
 ness as the oppressor of the head of the Catholic Church . 
 During his absence in Russia, the Pope had been re- 
 moved once more to Fontainebleau, where he now oc- 
 cupied apartments in the palace, under strict surveillance 
 of the police. The Emperor presented himself suddenly 
 in his hunter's dress, before the holy father, on the 13 th 
 of January ; and exerted his talents with such success, 
 that preliminary articles of a new concordat Avere at 
 length drawn up. But in his eagerness to produce a 
 favourable impression on the Catholic public, Napoleon 
 published these preliminary articles, as if they had formed 
 a definite and ratified treaty ; and Pius, indignant at 
 this conduct, which he considered as equally false and 
 irreverent, immediately announced his resolution to carry 
 the negotiation no further. 
 
 'The Pope, however, was the only man in France who 
 as yet durst openly confront the rage of Buonaparte. As 
 the time when he was expected to assume once more the 
 command of his army in the field drew near, the ad- 
 dresses of his apparently devoted subjects increased in 
 numbers, and still more in the extravagance of their 
 adulations. 
 
 Napoleon quitted Paris in the middle of April, and on 
 the 18th reached the banks of the Saale ; where the 
 troops he had been mustering and organising in France 
 had now been joined by Eugene Beauharnois and the 
 garrison of Magdeburg. The Czar and his Prussian 
 ally were known to be at Dresden ; and it soon ap- 
 peared that, while they meditated a march westwards 
 on Leipzig, the French intended to move eastwards 
 with the view of securing the possession of that great 
 city. Of the armies thus about to meet each other's 
 shock in the heart of Saxony, there is no doubt that 
 
1813.] CAMPAIGN OF SAXONY BEGINS. 473 
 
 Buonaparte's was considerably the more numerous. His 
 activity had been worthy of his reputation ; and a host 
 nearly 200,000 strong was already concentrated for 
 action, while reserves to nearly a similar extent were 
 gradually foi'ming behind him on the Rhine. The Rus- 
 sians had not as yet pushed forward more than half their 
 disposable troops beyond the Vistula — wherever the 
 blame lay, such was the fact ; the Prussians, unanimous 
 as their patriotism was, had had only three months to 
 re-organize their establishments. Under such circum- 
 stances, the advance of the allies beyond the Elbe, could 
 only have proceeded from their ardent wish to stimulate 
 the spirit of insurrection in the kingdom of Saxony and 
 the? neighbouring states. It was obviously Napoleon's 
 interest to bring them to action while their numbers 
 were thus unequal, and ere the sole object of their 
 hazardous advance could be realized. 
 
 The armies met sooner than he had ventured to hope, 
 on the first of May, near the town of Lutzen, celebrated 
 already as the scene of the battle in which King Gustavus 
 Adolphus died. The allies crossed the Elster suddenly, 
 under the cover of a thick morning fog, and attacked the 
 left flank of the French, who had been advancing in 
 column, and who thus commenced the action under heavy 
 disadvantages. But the Emperor so skilfully altered the 
 arrangement of his army, that, ere the day closed, the 
 allies were more afraid of being enclosed to their ruin 
 within his two wings, than hopeful of being able to cut 
 through and destroy that part of his force which they 
 had originally charged and weakened, and which had 
 aow become his centre. Night interrupted the conflict. 
 They retreated next morning, leaving Napoleon in pos- 
 session of the field. But here the advantage stopped. 
 The slain of the one army were not more numerous than 
 those of the other ; and the allies, convinced of their 
 
474 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1813. 
 
 mistake, but neither broken nor discouraged, fell back 
 leisurely on Leipzig, thence ou Dresden, and finally 
 across the Elbe to Bautzen, without leaving either pri- 
 soners or guns in the hands of the French. The victory 
 of Lutzen was blazoned abroad, as having restored all 
 its glory to the eagle of Napoleon ; but he clearly per- 
 ceived that the days were no more in which a single 
 battle determined the fate of a campaign, and an empire. 
 It was at Lutzen that Marshal Bessieres died. 
 
 Napoleon entered Dresden on the 6th, and on the 12th 
 was joined there by the King of Saxony, who certainly 
 had been individually a gainer by his alliance, and who 
 still adhered to it, in opposition to the wishes both of his 
 people and his army. The Saxon troops, who had been 
 wavering, once more submitted to act in concert with 
 the French ; and Hamburg, which city had partaken in 
 the movement of Prussia, and all the country to the left 
 of the Elbe, fell back, for the moment, into their hands. 
 The cruelty with which the defection of Hamburg, in 
 particular, was now revenged on the inhabitants by 
 Marshal Davoust, has consigned to lasting abhorrence 
 the name of that able but heartless satellite of Napoleon. 
 All the atrocities of Junot and Massena, in Portugal, in 
 1808 and 1809, were equalled on the banks of the Elbe, 
 by Davoust, in the summer of 1813. 
 
 While the Emperor paused at Dresden, Ney made 
 various demonstrations in the direction of Berlin, with 
 the view of inducing the allies to quit Bautzen ; but it 
 soon became manifest that they had resolved to sacrifice 
 the Prussian capital, if it were necessary, rather than 
 forego their position ; by adhering to which they well 
 knew Buonaparte must ultimately be compelled to carry 
 his main force into a difficult and mountainous country, 
 in place of acting on the open plains of Saxony and 
 Brandenburg. They were, moreover, desirous to remain 
 
1813.] BAUTZEN. 475 
 
 in the neighbourhood of Bohemia for another reason. 
 The Austrian Emperor had again renewed his negotia- 
 tion with Napoleon ; urging him to accept his mediation 
 for the conclusion of a general peace, and at the same 
 time giving him to understand that such a peace could 
 not he obtained, unless he would consent to be satisfied 
 •with the frontier of the Rhine, and restore effectively 
 the independence of the German nation. Napoleon's 
 conferences with Bubna, the Austrian envoy, were fre- 
 quent and long ; but they ended where they began. He 
 was well aware, however, that the Emperor Francis was 
 increasing his military establishment largely, and that a 
 great body of troops was already concentrated behind 
 the mountainous frontier of Bohemia. He could not but 
 see that Austria regarded herself as enabled and entitled 
 to turn the scale on whichsoever side she might choose ; 
 and he determined to crush the army which had retreated 
 from Lutzen, ere the ceremonious cabinet of Vienna 
 should have time to come to a distinct understanding 
 with the head-quarters of Alexander and Frederick- 
 William. Victory, he clearly saw, could alone serve his 
 interests with the Austrian. 
 
 Having replaced by wood-work some arches of the 
 magnificent bridge over the Elbe, at Dresden, which the 
 allies had blown up on their retreat, Napoleon now 
 moved towards Bautzen, and came in sight of the posi- 
 tion on the morning of the 21st of May. Its strength 
 was i hviously great. In their front was the river Spree ; 
 wooded hills supported their right, and eminences well 
 fortified their left. The action began with an attempt 
 to turn their left, but Barclay dc Tolly anticipated this 
 movement, and repelled it with such vigour, that a 
 whole column of 7000 disponed and fled into the hills 
 of Bohemia for safety. The Emperor then determined 
 to pass the Spree in front of the enemy, and they per- 
 
 32 
 
476 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1813. 
 
 mitted liim to do so, rather than come down from their 
 position. lie took up his quarters in the town of Baut- 
 zen, and his whole army bivouacked in presence of the 
 allies. The battle was resumed at day-break on the 
 22d ; when Ney on the right, and Oudinot on the left, 
 attempted simultaneously to turn the flanks of the posi- 
 tion ; while Soult and Napoleon himself directed charge 
 after charge on the centre. During four hours tho 
 struggle was maintained with unflinching obstinacy ; the 
 wooded heights, where Blucher commanded, had been 
 taken and retaken several times — the bloodshed, on either 
 side, had been terrible — ei'e, the situation of both flanks 
 being apparent, the allies perceived the necessity either of 
 retiring, or of continuing the fight against superior num- 
 bers on disadvantageous ground. They withdrew accord- 
 ingly ; but still with all the deliberate coolness of a pa- 
 rade : halting at every favourable spot, and renewing their 
 cannonade. " What," exclaimed Napoleon, "no results! 
 not a gun ! not a prisoner ! — these people will not leave 
 me so much as a nail." During the whole day he urged 
 the pursuit with impetuous rage, reproaching even his 
 chosen generals as " creeping scoundrels," and exposing 
 his own person in the very hottest of the fire. By his 
 side was Duroc, the grand master of the palace, his 
 dearest — many said, ere now, his only friend. Bruyeres, 
 another old associate of the Italian wars, was struck 
 down in their view. "Duroc," whispered Napoleon, 
 "fortune has a spite at us this day." A few minutes 
 afterwards, Duroc himself was mortally wounded. The 
 Emperor instantly ordered a halt, and remained all the 
 afternoon in front of his tent, surrounded by the guard, 
 who did not witness his affliction without tears. From 
 this time he would listen to no reports or suggestions. 
 — " Every thing to-morrow," was his invariable answer. 
 He stood by Duroc while he died ; drew up with his 
 
1813.] RATTLE OF BAUTZEN*. 477 
 
 own hand an epitaph to be placed over his remains by 
 the pastor of the place, who received 200 napoleons to 
 defray the expense of a fitting monument ; and issued 
 also a decree in favour of his departed friend's children. 
 Thus closed the 22d. The allies being strongly posted 
 dui'ing most of the day, had suffered less than the 
 French ; the latter had lost 15,000, the former 10,000 
 men. 
 
 They continued their retreat into Upper Silesia ; and 
 Buonaparte advanced to Breslau, and released the gar- 
 rison of Glogau. Meanwhile the Austrian, having 
 watched these indecisive though bloody fields, once 
 more renewed his offers of mediation. The sovereigns 
 of Russia and Prussia expressed great willingness to 
 accept it ; and Kapoleon also appears to have been sin- 
 cerely desirous for the moment of bringing his disputes 
 to a peaceful termination. He agreed to an armistice, 
 and in arranging its conditions agreed to fall back out 
 of Silesia ; thus enabling the allied princes to re-open 
 communications with Bei'lin. The lines of country to 
 be occupied by the armies, respectively, during the 
 truce, were at length settled, and it was signed on the 
 1st of June. The French Emperor then returned to 
 Dresden, and a general congress of diplomatists pre- 
 pared to meet at Prague. 
 
478 NAPOLEON BUONAFAKTE. [1818. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 Napoleon's interview with Metternich — Advice of his Ministers and 
 Generals— Intelligence from Spai?i — Battle of Vittoria — Congress 
 of Prague dissolved — Austria declares War — Battle of Dresden — 
 Death of Moreau —Battle of Culm — Surrender of Vandamme — 
 Battles of Grossbeeren, Wahlstadt, and Dcnnewitz — Napoleon 
 retires from the Elbe — The Battle of Leipzig — The Battle of Hanau 
 — The A llies on the Rhine. 
 
 England alone refused to send any representative to 
 Prague, alleging that Buonaparte had as yet signified 
 no disposition to recede from his pretensions on Spain, 
 and that he had consented to the armistice with the sole 
 view of gaining time for political intrigue, and further 
 military preparation. It may be doubted whether any 
 of the allied powers who took part in the Congress did 
 so with much hope that the disputes with Napoleon 
 could find a peaceful end. His recent successes were to 
 the general view dazzling, however in reality unproduc- 
 tive, and must have been supposed to quicken the flame 
 of his pride. But it was of the utmost importance to 
 gain time for the advance of Bernadotte ; for the arrival 
 of new reinforcements from Russia ; for the completion 
 of the Prussian organisation ; and, above all, for deter- 
 mining the policy of Vienna. 
 
 Metternich, the Austrian minister, repaired in person 
 to Dresden ; and, while inferior diplomatists wasted 
 time in endless discussions at Prague, one interview 
 between him and Napoleon brought the whole question 
 to a definite issue. The Emperor had hitherto seen in 
 Metternich only a smooth and elegant courtier, and he 
 expected to bear him down by military violence and 
 rudeness. He assumed at once that Austria had no 
 
1813.] NAPOLBOK'fl INTERVIEW WITH METTERNICII. 4/9 
 
 wish but to drive a good bargain for herself, and asked 
 broadly, Wltat is your price ? Will Illyria satisfy you ? 
 I only wish you to he neutral — 1 can deal with these 
 Jxussians and Prussians single-handed. Metternich 
 stated plainly that the time in which Austria could be 
 neutral was past ; that the situation of Europe at large 
 must be considered. Napoleon insinuated that he would 
 be happy to dismember Prussia, and give half her terri- 
 tories to Austria. Metternich replied that his govern- 
 ment was resolved to be gainers by no share in the spoils 
 of others ; that events had proved the impossibility of a 
 steadfast peace, unless the sovereigns of the continent 
 were restored to the rank of independence ; in a word, 
 that the Rhenish Confederacy must be broken up ; that 
 France must be contented with the boundary of the 
 Rhine ; and pretend no longer to maintain her usurped 
 and unnatural influence in Germany. Napoleon replied 
 by a gross personal insult : Come, Metternich, said he, 
 tell me honestly how much the English have given you to 
 take their part against me? 
 
 The Austrian court at length sent a formal document, 
 containing its ultimatum ; the tenor of which Metternich 
 had sufficiently indicated in this conversation. Talley- 
 rand and Fouche, who had now arrived from Paris, 
 urged the Emperor to accede to the proffered terms. 
 They represented to him the madness of rousing all 
 Europe to conspire for his destruction, and insinuated 
 that the progress of discontent was rapid in France 
 itself. Their arguments were backed by intelligence of 
 the most diastrous character from Spain. Wellington, 
 on perceiving that Napoleon had somewhat weakened 
 his armies in that country, when preparing for his Saxon 
 campaign, had once more advanced from the Portuguese 
 frontier. He was now in possession of the supreme 
 authority over the Spanish armies, as well as the Portu- 
 
480 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1813. 
 
 giiese and English, and had appeared in greater force 
 than ever. The French line of defences on the Douro 
 had been turned and abandoned ; their armies had con- 
 centi'ated to withstand him at Vittoria, and there, on 
 the 21st of June, Joseph and Marshal Jourdan had sus- 
 tained a total defeat. The " Intrusive King" was now 
 retreating towards the Pyrenees, chased from post to 
 post by an enemy who, as it seemed, bade fair to termi- 
 nate his campaign by an invasion of the south-western 
 provinces of France. Napoleon was urged by his mili- 
 tary, as well as political advisers, to appreciate duly the 
 crisis which his affairs had reached. Berthier, and in- 
 deed almost all the generals on whose opinions he had 
 been accustomed to place reliance, concurred in ju'essing 
 him either to make peace on the terms proposed, or to 
 draw in his garrisons on the Oder and Elbe, whereby he 
 would strengthen his army with 50,000 veterans, and 
 retire to the Rhine. There, they said, with such a force 
 assembled on such a river, and with all the resources of 
 France behind him, he might bid defiance to the united 
 armies of Europe, and, at worst, obtain a peace that 
 would leave him in secure tenure of a nobler dominion 
 than any of the kings, his predecessors, had ever hoped 
 to possess. Ten lost battles, said he, would not sink me 
 lower than you icould have me to place myself by my own 
 voluntary act; but one battle gained enables me to seize 
 Berlin and Breslau, and malce peace on terms compatible 
 with my glory. He proceeded to insult both ministers 
 and generals by insinuations that they were actuated by 
 selfish motives ; complained haughtily that they seemed 
 disposed to draw distinctions between the country and 
 the sovereign ; and ended by announcing that he did 
 not wish for any plans of theirs, but their service in the 
 execution of his. 
 
 Thus blinded by arrogance and self-confidence, and 
 
1813.] AUSTRIA DECLARES WAB. 481 
 
 incapable of weighing any other considerations against 
 what he considered as the essence of his personal glory, 
 Napoleon refused to abate one iota of his pretensions — 
 until it was too late. Then, indeed, whether more accu- 
 rate intelligence from Spain had reached him, or the. 
 accounts of those who had been watching the unremit- 
 ting preparations of the allies in his neighbourhood, had 
 at length found due weight — then, indeed, he did show 
 some symptoms of concession. A courier arrived at 
 Prague with a note, in which he signified his willingness 
 to accede to a considerable number of the Austrian 
 stipulations. But this was on the 11th of August. The 
 day preceding was that on which, by the agreement, 
 the armistice was to end. On that day Austria had to 
 sign an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Russia 
 and Prussia. On the night between the 10th and 11th, 
 rockets answering rockets, from height to height along 
 the frontiers of Bohemia and Silesia, had announced to 
 all the armies of the allies this accession of strength, 
 and the immediate recommencement of hostilities. 
 
 On neither side had the pending negotiation been per- 
 mitted for a moment to interrupt or slacken military 
 preparation. Napoleon had sent Beauharnois into Italy, 
 to be ready in case of any Austrian demonstration in that 
 quarter; and General Wrede, with the Bavarian arm)-, 
 guarded his rear. An Austrian army, 00,000 strong, was 
 now ready to pass the Alps; and, to watch Wrede, another 
 corps of 40,000, under the Prince of Reuss, had taken 
 their station. These were minor arrangements. The 
 forces now assembled around Napoleon himself were full 
 250,000 in number, and disposed as follows : Macdonald 
 lay with 100,000 at Buntzlaw, on the border of Silesia ; 
 another corps of 50,000 had their head-quarters at 
 Zittau, in Lusatia ; St. Cyr, with 20,000, was at Pirna, 
 on the great pass from Bohemia; Oudinot at Leipzig, 
 
482 NAPOLEON BDONAPAETE. [1813. 
 
 with 60,000 ; while with the Emperor himself at Dres- 
 den remained 25,000 of the imperial guard, the flower of 
 France. The reader, on referring to the map, will per- 
 ceive that these corps were so distributed as to present 
 a formidable front on every point where it was likely 
 the allies should hazard an attack, and, moreover, so 
 that Napoleon could speedily reinforce any threatened 
 position with his reserve from Dresden. For the armies 
 to be opposed were thus situated : — Behind the Erzge- 
 birge, or Metallic Mountains, and having their hcad- 
 cpiarters at Prague, lay The Grand Army of the Allies 
 (consisting of 120,000 Austriaus and 80,000 Russians 
 and Prussians), commanded in chief by the Austrian 
 general Schwartzenberg. The French corps at Zittan 
 and Pirua were prepared to encounter these, should 
 they attempt to force their way into Saxony, either on 
 the right or the left of the Elbe. The Second Army of 
 the Allies (consisting of 80,000 Russians and Prussians), 
 called the Army of Silesia, and commanded by Blncher, 
 lay in advance at Breslau. The French corps at Zittau 
 and Buntzlau were in communicatiou, and could con- 
 front Blucher wherever he might attempt to approach 
 the Elbe. Lastly, the Crown Prince of Sweden was at 
 Berlin, with 30,000 of his own troops, and 60,000 
 Russians and Prussians. Oudinot and Macdonald were 
 so stationed that he could not approach the upper 
 valley of the Elbe without encountering one or other of 
 them, and they also had the means of mutual communi- 
 cation and support. The French had garrisons at 
 Wittemberg, Magdeburg, and elsewhere on the Elbe ; 
 and between the main armies of the Allies were various 
 flying corps of Russian and Prussian light troops. 
 
 On the whole, Dresden formed the centre of a com- 
 paratively small circle, completely occupied by the 
 French ; while the Allies might be considered as lying 
 
1813.] PLAN OF THE CAMPAIGN — ilOREAU. 483 
 
 on part of a much wider circle beyond them. Napoleon 
 had evidently arranged his troops with the view of pro- 
 voking his enemies to make isolated assaults, and so 
 beating them in detail. But he was now opposed by 
 generals well acquainted with his system of tactics, and 
 who had accordingly prepared a counter-scheme ex- 
 pressly calculated to baffle the plan of arrangements on 
 which be had reckoned. The commanders of the three 
 allied armies agreed — that whosover of them should be 
 first assailed or pressed by the French, should on no 
 account accept battle, but retreat ; thus tempting Na- 
 poleon in person to follow, leaving Dresden open to the 
 assault of some other great branch of the confederacy, 
 and so enabling them at once to seize all his magazines, 
 to break the communications between the remaining divi- 
 sions of his army, and interpose a hostile force in the 
 rear of them all — between the Elbe and the Rhine. 
 The plan of the Allies is supposed to have been drawn 
 up bv two generals who thoroughly understood the 
 military system of Napoleon — Bernadotte, the Crown 
 Prince of Sweden, and Moreau, who had some time ere 
 this accepted the invitation of the Emperor Alexander, 
 and returned from his American exile, to take part in 
 the war — which now, in the opinion of many French- 
 men, had for its object the emancipation of France itself, 
 as well as of the other countries of Europe. The con- 
 duct of Moreau, in placing himself in the ranks of the 
 Allies, will be praised or condemned, according as men 
 judge him to have been swayed by patriotic motives, or 
 by those of personal resentment and ambition. There 
 can be no question that his arrival brought a great 
 accession of military skill to their counsels. 
 
 Blucher made the first movement ; and no sooner did 
 Napoleon understand that he was threatening the posi- 
 tion of Macdonald, than he quitted Dresden (loth 
 
484 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1813. 
 
 August) with his guard and a powerful force of cavalry, 
 and proceeded to the support of his lieutenant. The 
 Prussian adhered faithfully to the general plan, and re- 
 tired across the Katshach, in the face of his enemies. 
 Napoleon was still pursuing him in the direction of the 
 Neiss and Breslau, when he was informed that Sell war t- 
 zenberg had rushed down from the Bohemian hills. He 
 instantly abandoned Blucher to the care of Maodonald, 
 and sent his guards back to Dresden, whither he himself 
 also began his journey early on the 23d. 
 
 Having driven St. Cyr, and his 20,000 men, before 
 him, Schwartzenberg (with whom were the Sovereigns 
 of Russia and Prussia in person) made his appeai'ance 
 on the heights to the south of the Saxon capital, on the 
 25th. The army of St. Cyr had thrown themselves into 
 the city, and it was now surrounded with fortifications 
 of considerable strength. Yet, had this vast force at- 
 tacked it at once, there is every reason to believe it must 
 have fallen before Napoleon could have returned from 
 Silesia. They delayed, for whatever reason, until daj- 
 break on the 26th ; and then assailed Dresden in six 
 columns, each more numerous than its garrison. St. 
 Cyr already began to despair, when the imperial guard 
 made their appearance, crossing the bridge from the 
 Eastern side of the Elbe, and in the midst of them 
 Napoleon. A German author* says, " It was then that, 
 for the first time, I beheld his face. He came on, with 
 the eye of a tyrant, and the voice of a lion, urging his 
 breathless and eager soldiers." Two sallies were on the 
 instant executed by these troops, hot as they were from 
 their long and toilsome march. The Allies were driven 
 back for some space. Night set in, and the two armies 
 remained in presence till the morning. Then, amidst a 
 
 • Hoffman's Account of his own Life. 
 
1813.] BATTLE OF DRESDEN. 485 
 
 fierce storm of wind and rain, Napoleon renewed the 
 battle. 200,000 men (such had been the rapid decision 
 of bis orders to his various generals) were now gathered 
 round him, and be poured them out with such skill, on 
 eitber flank of the enemy's line, that ere the close of the 
 day, they were forced to withdraw altogether from their 
 attempt. Ney and Marat on the left flank, and Van- 
 damme on the right (at Pirna), had taken possession of 
 the two chief roads into Bohemia, and, in consequence, 
 they were compelled to retreat by the comparatively 
 difficult country paths between. On either side 8000 
 men had been slain or wounded ; but with the French 
 there remained from 15,000 to 20,000 prisoners, and 
 twenty-six cannon ; and the ablest of all the enemy's 
 generals had fallen. 
 
 Early in the day Buonaparte himself ordered some 
 half-dozen cannon to be fired at once upon a group, 
 apparently of reconnoitring officers, and this was fol- 
 lowed by a movement which was thought to indicate 
 that some personage of importance bad been wounded. 
 A peasant came in the evening, and brought with him a 
 bloody boot and a greyhound, both the property, he 
 said, of the great man who was no more : the name on 
 the collar was Moreau. Both his legs had been shot off. 
 He continued to smoke a cigar while they were ampu- 
 tated and dressed, in the presence of Alexander, and 
 died shortly after ; thus, if he had erred, paying the 
 early forfeit of his errors. 
 
 But Fortune had only revisited the banners of her 
 ancient favourite with a momentary gleam of sunshine. 
 The fatigues he had undcrgoue between the 15th and 
 28th of August would have broken any other frame, 
 and they, for the time, weakened his. It is said that a 
 mess of mutton and garlic, the only food he tasted on 
 the 26th, had besides deranged his stomach. Unable to 
 
486 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1813. 
 
 remain with the columns in the rear of Schwartzenberg, 
 he returned to Dresden weary and sick ; and thenceforth 
 evil tidings awaited him. 
 
 Yandamme continued the pursuit on the Pirna road. 
 Seduced by the enormous prize which lay before him at 
 Tceplitz, where the chief magazines of the Allies had 
 been established, and on which all their broken columns 
 were now endeavouring to reassemble, this rude and 
 hot-headed soldier incautiously advanced beyond the 
 wooded heights of Peterswald into the valley of Culm. 
 A Russian corps suddenly turned on him, and formed in 
 line of battle. Their General, Count D'Osterman, as- 
 sured them that the life of " their Father" depended on 
 their steadfastness ; and no effort could shake them. The 
 battle continued till night, when Yandamme ought un- 
 doubtedly to have retired to Peterswald. He lingered 
 till the morning of the 30th ; when behind him, on those 
 very heights, appeared the Prussian corps of Kleist, 
 who had been wandering and lost tbeir way amidst the 
 forests. The French rushed up the hill in despair, 
 thinking they were intercepted by design. The Prus- 
 sians, on their part, doubted not that some other division 
 of Napoleon's force was hard behind them, and rushed 
 down — with the same fear, and the same impetuosity. 
 The Russians advanced and completed the disarray. 
 The field was covered with dead ; Yandamme and nearly 
 8000 men laid down their arms. Many eagles were 
 taken — the rest of the army dispersed in utter confusion 
 among the hills. 
 
 This news reached Napoleon still sick at Dresden. 
 "Such," said he to Murat, "is the fortune of war — 
 high in the morning — low ere night. Between triumph 
 and ruin there intervenes but a step." A map lay 
 stretched on the table before him ; he took his com- 
 passes, and measuring distances on it with an idle 
 
1813.] BATTLE OF WAHLSTADT. 487 
 
 hand, repeated the lines of one of his favourite 
 poets : — 
 
 " J'ai servi, commande, vaincn quarante anniSes; 
 Du raonde, entre mes mains, j'ai vu les destinees; 
 Et j'ai toujours connu qu'en chaque evenement 
 Le destin des etats dependait d'un moment." 
 
 Hard on the tidings of Culm, followed others of the 
 same complexion. No sooner did Blucher perceive that 
 Napoleon had retired from Silesia, than he resumed the 
 offensive, and descended from the position he had taken 
 up at Jauer. He encountered Macdonald, who was by 
 no means prepared for this boldness, on the plains be- 
 tween "Wablstadt and the river Katsbach, on the 26th 
 of August, and after a hard fought day gained a com- 
 plete victory.* The French lost 15,000 men and 100 
 guns, and fell back on Dresden. Oudinot, meanwhile, 
 had advanced from Leipzig towards Berlin, with the 
 view of preventing Bernadotte from effecting a junction 
 with Blucher, or overwhelming the French garrisons 
 lower down the Elbe. The Crown Prince, however, met 
 and defeated him at Gross-Beeren, on the 23d of August ; 
 took Luckau, where 1000 men were in garrison, on the 
 28th ; and continued to advance towards Wittemberg, 
 under the walls of which city Oudinot at length concen- 
 trated all his forces. Napoleon, perceiving the import- 
 ance of this point, sent Ney with new troops, and gave 
 him the chief command, with strict orders to force his 
 way to Berlin ; so placing Bernadotte between the Leip- 
 zig army and himself at Dresden. Ney endeavoured to 
 pass the Swedes without a battle, but failed in this 
 attempt. A general action was forced on him on the 
 7th of September, at Dennewitz. He also was wholly 
 defeated ; 10,000 prisoners and forty-six guns remained 
 
 * Blucher was created Prince of Wablstadt 
 
488 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1813. 
 
 in the bands of Bcrnadofcte ; and Ney retreated in confu- 
 sion upon Torgau. 
 
 Napoleon had now recovered his health and activity ; 
 and the exertions which he made at this period were 
 never surpassed, even by himself. On the 3d of Sep- 
 tember he was in quest of Blucher, who had now 
 advanced near to the Elbe ; but the Prussians retired 
 and baffled him as before. Returning to Dresden he 
 received the news of Dennewitz, and immediately after- 
 wards heard that Witgenstein had a second time de- 
 scended towards Pirna. He flew thither on the instant • 
 the Russian also gave way, according to the general plan 
 of the campaign ; and Buonaparte once more returned 
 to Dresden on the 12th. Again he was told that Blucher, 
 on the one side, and Witgenstein, on the other, were 
 availing themselves of his absence, and advancing. He 
 once more returned to Pirna ; a third time the Russian 
 retired. Napoleon followed him as far as Peterswald, 
 and, having contemplated with his own eyes the scene 
 of Vandamme's catastrophe, once more retaimed to his 
 centre-point. 
 
 Not all Ney's exertions could prevent Bernadotte and 
 Blucher from at length effecting their junction to the 
 west of the Elbe. The Marshal, having witnessed the 
 combination of these armies, retreated to Leipzig. Na- 
 poleon ordered Regnier and Bertrand to march suddenly 
 from Dresden on Berlin, in the hope of recalling Blucher; 
 but the veteran persisted. Meantime Schwartzenberg 
 was found to be skirting round the hills to the west- 
 ward, as if for the purpose of joining Blucher and 
 Bernadotte, in the neighbourhood of Leipzig. It be- 
 came manifest to all that Dresden had ceased to be the 
 key of Napoleon's defence ; yet he clung to the Elbe, as 
 he had done to the Kremlin. 
 
 He ling'ered at Dresden at least three weeks after all 
 
1813.] LEIPZIG. 489 
 
 rational hope of holding that river was gone; and even 
 at the last, when he perceived the necessity of transferring 
 his person to Leipzig, he could not he persuaded to call 
 in his garrisons scattered down the valley, which he 
 still hoped some turn of events would enable him to re- 
 visit in triumph. 
 
 Towards Leipzig, however, as on a common centre, 
 the forces of France, and all her enemies, were now at 
 length converging. Napoleon reached that venerable 
 city on the 15th of October, and almost immediately the 
 heads of Schwartzenberg's columns began to appear 
 towards the south. It was necessary to prepare on the 
 northern side also, in case Bernadotte and Blucher should 
 appear ere the grand army was disposed of; and, lastly, 
 it was necessary to secure efTectually the ground to the 
 west of Leipzig — a series of marshy meadows, interfused 
 with the numerous branches of the Pleisse and the Elster, 
 through which lies the only road to France. Napoleon, 
 having made all his preparations, reconnoitred every out- 
 post in person, and distributed eagles, in great form, to 
 some new regiments which had just joined him. The 
 ceremonial was splendid : the soldiers knelt before the 
 Emperor, and, in presence of all the line, military mass 
 was performed, and the young warriors swore to die 
 rather than witness the dishonour of France. Upon 
 this scene the sun descended ; and with it the star of 
 Napoleon went down for ever. 
 
 At midnight three rockets, emitting a brilliant white 
 light, sprang into the heavens to the south of the city ; 
 these marked the position on which Schwartzeuberg 
 (having now with him the Emperor of Austria, as well 
 as Alexander and Frederick- William), had fixed his 
 head-quarters. They were answered by four rockets of 
 a deep red colour, ascending on the instant from the 
 northern horizon; and Napoleon doubted not that he 
 
490 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1813. 
 
 was to sustain on the morrow the assault of Blucher and 
 Bernadotte, as well as of the grand army of the Allies. 
 Blucher was indeed ready to co-operate with Schwart- 
 zenherg ; and though the Crown Prince had not yet 
 reached his ground, the numerical superiority of the 
 enemy was very great. Buonaparte had with him, to 
 defend the line of villages to the south and north of 
 Leipzig, 186,000 men; while, even in the absence of 
 Bernadotte, who might he hourly looked for, the Allies 
 mustered not less than 230,000. 
 
 The battle commenced on the southern side, at daybreak 
 of the 16th. The Allies charged the French line there 
 sis times in succession, and were as often repelled. Napo- 
 leon then charged in his turn, and with such effect, that 
 Murat's cavalry were at one time in possession of a great 
 gap between the two wings of the enemy. The Cossacks 
 of the Russian imperial guard, however, encountered the 
 French horse, and pushed them back again. The com- 
 bat raged without intermission until nightfall : three 
 cannon shots, discharged at the extremity of either line, 
 then marked, as if preconcertedl}*, the pause of battle ; 
 and both armies bivouacked exactly where the morning 
 light had found them. Such was the issue on the south, 
 where Napoleon himself commanded. Marmont, his 
 lieutenant on the northern side, had been less fortunate. 
 Blucher attacked him with a vast superiority of num- 
 bers : nothing could be more obstinate than his defence ; 
 but he lost many prisoners and guns, was driven from 
 his original ground, and occupied, when the day closed, 
 a new line of positions, much nearer the walls of the 
 city. 
 
 Gallant as the behaviour of his troops had been, the 
 result satisfied Napoleon that he must finally retreat 
 from Leipzig ; and he now made a sincere effort to obtain 
 peace. General Mehrfeldt, the same Austrian officer 
 
1813.] BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 491 
 
 who had como to his head- quarters after the battle of 
 Austerlitz, to pray for an armistice on the part of the 
 Emperor Francis, had heen made prisoner in the course 
 of the day, and Napoleon resolved to employ him as bis 
 messenger. Mehrfeldt informed him that the King of 
 Bavaria had at length acceded to the alliance. This 
 intelligence added to his perplexities, already sufficiently 
 great, the prospect of finding a new enemy stationed on 
 the line of his march to France. He entreated the 
 Austrian to request for him the personal intercession of 
 Francis. " I will renounce Poland and Illyria," said he, 
 " Holland, the Hanse Towns, and Spain. I will consent 
 to lose the sovereignty of the kingdom of Italy, provided 
 that state remain as an independent one — and I will 
 evacuate all Germany. Adieu ! Count Mehrfeldt, when 
 on my part you name the word armistice to the two 
 Emperors, I doubt not the sound will awaken many 
 recollections." 
 
 It was now too late : the Allied Princes had sworn to 
 each other to entertain no treaty while one French 
 soldier remained on the eastern side of the Rhine. Na- 
 poleon received no answer to his message ; and prepared 
 for the difficult task of retreating with 100,000 men, 
 through a crowded town, in presence of an enemy 
 already twice as numerous, and in hourly expectation of 
 being joined by a third great and victorious army. 
 
 During the 17th the battle was not renewed, except 
 by a distant and partial cannonade. The Allies were 
 resolved to have the support of Bernadotte in tho 
 decisive contest. 
 
 At eight in the morning of the 18th it began, and 
 continued until nightfall without intermission. Buona- 
 parte had contracted on the south, as well as on tho 
 north, the circuit of his defence ; and never was his 
 generalship, or the gallantry of his troops, more brilliantly 
 
492 "NAPOLEON BUONAPABTE. [1813. 
 
 displayed than throughout this terrible day. Calm and 
 collected, the Emperor again presided in person on the 
 southern side, and again, where he was present, in spite 
 of the vast superiority of the enemy's numbers, the 
 French maintained their ground to the end. On the 
 north, the arrival of Bernadotte enabled Blucher to push, 
 his advantages with irresistible effect ; and the situation 
 of Marmont and Ney (now also stationed on that side) 
 was further perplexed by the shameful defection of 
 10,000 Saxons, who went over with all their artillery 
 to the enemy, in the very midst of the battle. The two 
 marshals, therefore, were compelled to retire from point 
 to point, and at nightfall lay almost close to the walls 
 of Leipzig. Three cannon shot, as before, marked the 
 general termination of the battle. 
 
 The loss on either side had been great. Napoleon's 
 army consisted chiefly of very young men — many were 
 merely boys — the produce of his forestalled conscrip- 
 tions : yet they fought as bravely as the guard. The 
 behaviour of the Germans, on the other hand, at length 
 considering their freedom and independence as hanging 
 on the fortune of a single field, had been answerable to 
 the deep enthusiasm of that thoughtful people. The 
 burghers of Leipzig surveyed from their towers and 
 steeples one of the longest, sternest, and bloodiest of 
 battles : and the situation of the King of Saxony, who 
 remained all the while in the heart of his ancient city, 
 may be imagined. 
 
 Napoleon gave orders at midnight for the commence- 
 ment of the inevitable retreat ; and while the darkness 
 lasted, the troops continued to file through the town, 
 and across the two bridges, over the Pleisse, beyond its 
 walls. One of these bridges was a temporary fabric, 
 and it broke down ere daylight came to show to the 
 enemy the movement of the French. The confusion 
 
1818.] RETREAT FROM LEIPZIG. 493 
 
 necessarily accompanying the march of a whole army 
 through narrow streets, and upon a single bridge, was 
 fearful. The Allies stormed at the gates on either side, 
 and, but for the heroism of Macdonald and Poniatowski, 
 to whom Napoleon entrusted the defence of the suburbs, 
 it is doubted whether he himself could have escaped in 
 Bafety. At nine in the morning of the 10th, he bade 
 farewell for ever to the King of Saxony, who remained 
 to make what terms he could with the allied sove- 
 reigns. The battle was ere then raging all round the 
 walls. 
 
 At eleven o'clock the Allies had gathered close to the 
 bridge from either wing ; and the walls over against it 
 had been entrusted to Saxons, who now, like their 
 brethren of the day before, turned their fire on the 
 French. The officer to whom Xapoleon had committed 
 the task of blowing up the bridge when the advance of 
 the enemy should render this necessary, conceived that 
 the time was come, and set fire to his train. The crowd 
 of men, urging each other on the point of safety, could 
 not at once be stopped. Soldiers and horses, cannons 
 and wains, rolled headlong into the deep though narrow 
 river ; which renewed, though on a smaller scale, the 
 horrors of the Beresina. Marshal Macdonald swam the 
 stream in safety : the gallant Poniatowski, the hope and 
 pride of Poland, had been twice wounded ere he plunged 
 his horse into the current, and he sank to rise no more. 
 Twenty-five thousand Frenchmen, the means of escape 
 entirely cut off, laid down their arms within the city. 
 Four Princes, each entering at the head of his own vic- 
 torious army, met at noon in the great market-place at 
 Leipzig ; and all the exultation of that solemn hour 
 would have been partaken by the inhabitants, but for the 
 fete of their own sovereign, personally esteemed and be- 
 loved, who now vainly entreated to be admitted to tli© 
 
494 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1813. 
 
 presence of the conquerors, and was sent forthwith as a 
 prisoner of war to Berlin. 
 
 Napoleon, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, lost at 
 Leipzig at least 50,000 men. 
 
 The retreat of the French through Saxony was accom- 
 panied with every disaster which a hostile peasantry, 
 narrowness of supplies, and the persevering pursuit of 
 the Cossacks and other light troops, could inflict on a 
 disordered and disheartened mass of men. The soldiers 
 moved on, while under the eye of Napoleon, in gloomy 
 silence ; wherever he was not present, they set every 
 rule of discipline at nought, and were guilty of the most 
 frightful excesses. The Emperor conducted himself as 
 became a great mind amidst great misfortunes. He 
 appeared at all times calm and self-possessed ; receiving, 
 every day that he advanced, new tidings of evil. 
 
 He halted for two days at Erfurt, where extensive 
 magazines had been established, employing all his ener- 
 gies in the restoration of discipline ; and would have 
 remained longer, had he not learned that the victors of 
 Leipzig were making progress on either flank of his 
 march, while the Bavarians (so recently his allies), re- 
 inforced by some Austrian divisions, were moving 
 rapidly to take post between him and the Rhine. He 
 resumed his march, therefore, on the 25th. It was here 
 that Murat quitted the army. Notwithstanding the un- 
 pleasant circumstances under which he had retired to 
 Naples in January, Joachim had reappeared when the 
 Emperor fixed his head-quarters at Dresden in the 
 summer, and served with his usual gallantry throughout 
 the rest of the campaign. The state of Italy now de- 
 manded his presence ; and the two brothers-in-law, after 
 all their differences, embraced each other warmly and 
 repeatedly at parting — as if under a mutual presentiment 
 that they were parting to meet no more. 
 
1813.] THE FRENCH CROSS THE RHINE. 495 
 
 The Austro-Bavarians had taken up a position amidst 
 the woods near Hanau before the Emperor approached 
 the Mayne. He came up with them in the morning of 
 the 80th, and his troops charged on the instant with the 
 fury of desperation. Buonaparte cut his way through 
 ere nightfall ; and Marmont, with the rear, had equal 
 success on the 31st. In these actions there fell GO0O of 
 the French; hut the enemy had 10,000 killed or wounded, 
 and lost 4000 prisoners ; and these losses would have 
 been far greater but for the ready wit of a patriotic 
 miller, who, watching the tide of battle, suddenly let 
 the water into his mill-stream, and thus interposed a 
 seasonable obstacle between the French cavalry and 
 some German infantry, whom they had been driving 
 before them — a service which the King of Prussia sub- 
 sequently rewarded with munificence. 
 
 The pursuit on the road which Napoleon adopted had 
 been entrusted to the Austrians, who urged it with far 
 less vigour than the Prussians under the fiery guidance 
 of Blucher would probably have exerted. No conside- 
 rable annoyance, therefore, succeeded to the battle of 
 Hanau. The relics of the French host at length passed 
 the Rhine ; and the Emperor having quitted them at 
 Mentz, arrived in Paris on the 9th of November. 
 
 The armies of Austria and Prussia at length halted on 
 the Rhine. To the Germans of every age this great 
 river has been the object of an affection and reverence 
 scarcely inferior to that with which an Egyptian con- 
 templates the Nile, or the Indian his Ganges. When 
 these brave bands, having achieved the rescue of their 
 native soil, came in sight of this its ancient landmark, 
 the burden of an hundred songs, they knelt, and 
 shouted the Rhine! the Rhine! as with the heart and 
 voice of one man. They that were behind rushed on, 
 hearing the cry, in expectation of another battle. 
 
490 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 Declaration of the Allies at Frankfurt — Revolution of Holland — 
 Liberation of the Pope and Ferdinand VII. — Obstinacy of Na- 
 poleon — His Military Preparations — Dissolution of the Legisla- 
 tive Senate. 
 
 Of the events which crowded upon each other in the 
 space of a few weeks after the overthrow of Leipzig, 
 any one would in times less extraordinary have been 
 sufficient to form, an epoch in history. Having once 
 reached the summit of his greatness, the long-favoured 
 child of fortune was destined to sink even more rapidly 
 than he had ascended. Every day added some new 
 alliance to the camp of his foreign enemies ; and every 
 hour that passed brought with it clearer indications 
 that the French nation (considered apart from the 
 army) were weary utterly of the very names of "War, 
 and Ambition, and Napoleon. 
 
 The fabric of his German empire crumbled into 
 nothing, as at the spell of a magician. Hanover returned 
 to the dominion of its rightful sovereign immediately. 
 Brunswick, Hesse, and the other states which had 
 formed Jerome's kingdom of Westphalia, followed the 
 same example. The Confederation of the Rhine was 
 dissolved for ever ; and the princes who had adhered to 
 that league were permitted to expiate their, in most 
 cases involuntary, error, by now bringing a year's 
 revenue and a double conscription to the banner of the 
 Allies. Bernadotte turned from Leipzig to reduce the 
 garrisons which Napoleon, in the rashness of his pre- 
 sumption, had disdained to call in, even when compelled 
 to evacuate Dresden ; and one by one they fell, though 
 
1814.] AFFAIRS OF GERMANY AND DENMARK. 411/ 
 
 in most cases — particularly at Dantzic, "Wirtemberg, and 
 Hamburg — the resistance was obstinate and long. The 
 Crown Prince — having witnessed the reduction of some 
 of these fortresses, and entrusted the siege of the others 
 to his lieutenants — invaded Denmark, and the govern- 
 ment of that country perceived the necessity of acceding 
 ro the European alliance, by whatever fine its long ad- 
 hesion to Napoleon might be expiated. The treaty was 
 concluded at Kiel, on the 14th of January, 1814. Sweden 
 yielded Pomerania to Denmark ; Denmark gave up Nor- 
 way to Sweden ; and 10,000 Danish troops having joined 
 his standard, Bernadotte then turned his face towards 
 the Netherlands. 
 
 In Holland, no sooner had the story of Leipzig reached 
 it than a complete, though bloodless, revolution was 
 effected. The cry of orange boven — " up with the orange" 
 — burst simultaneously from every part of the country ; 
 the French governors, yielding to a power which they 
 perceived the absurdity of attempting to resist, retired 
 on the instant, and the long-exiled Stadtholder, the 
 Prince of Orange, returning in triumph from England, 
 assumed the administration of affairs in November, 
 1813. A few French garrisons remained shut up in 
 strong places, of which the most important was Bergen- 
 op-Zoom ; and Bernadotte now co-operated with the 
 Russian corps of Witzingerode, the Prussians of Bulow, 
 and a British force of 10,000, under Sir T. Graham, 
 with the view of completing the deliverance of Holland ; 
 which was ere long effected, with the exception of Ber- 
 gen-op-Zoom, from whose walls the English were re- 
 pulsed with dreadful slaughter. 
 
 On the side of Italy the aspect of affairs was almost 
 as dark. General Hiller, having conducted an Austrian 
 army through the Tyrol, as soon as the decision of his 
 government was taken, had defeated Eugene Beauhar- 
 
498 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814 
 
 nois, and driven him behind the Adige. The Croats, the 
 Tyrolcsc, all the lllyrians were rising, and — so far from 
 giving aid in the defence of the French soil — it was 
 manifest that the Viceroy could hardly hope to maintain 
 himself much longer in Lombardy. An English naval 
 force had already taken Trieste ; the Adriatic was free ; 
 nd, to complete Napoleon's perplexity as to this quarter, 
 it was no longer a secret that Murat, his brother-in-law, 
 his creature, was negotiating with Austria, and willing, 
 provided Naples were guaranteed to him, to array the 
 force of that state also on the side of the confederacy. 
 
 As little comfort could Buonaparte derive if he turned 
 to the Pyrenees. He had sent Soult thither from Dres- 
 den, to retrieve if possible the fortunes of the army 
 defeated in June at Vittoria ; and that most able general, 
 with considerable reinforcements, had entered Spain, 
 and attempted to relieve the siege of Pampeluna — of 
 which strong place, as well as St. Sebastian, Lord Wel- 
 lington had resolved to be master before he should pass 
 the French frontier with his victorious army. But Soult 
 also had been twice defeated ; the fortresses had fallen ; 
 except a detached, and now useless, force under Suchet 
 in Catalonia, there remained no longer a single French 
 soldier in Spain. The Peninsula had at length been 
 delivered by the genius of Wellington ; and his army 
 were cantoned within the territory of France ere the 
 close of the campaign. Such were the tidings which 
 reached Napoleon from his Italian and Spanish frontiers, 
 at the very moment when it was necessary for him to 
 make head against the Russians, the Austrians, and the 
 Germans, chiefly armed and supplied at the expense of 
 England, and now rapidly concentrating in three great 
 masses on different points of the Valley of the Rhine. 
 
 Nor were even these the worst tidings. Two parties, 
 of which one had not of late }-ears attracted much public 
 
1614.] DISCONTENT IX FRANCE. 499 
 
 notice, and the other had as long wanted efficient leaders, 
 were well known ere now to be labouring throughout 
 France, though not as yet in conjunction, for one common 
 purpose — the deposition of Buonaparte. The royalists 
 had recovered a great share of their ancient influence in 
 the society of Paris, even before the disasters of the 
 Russian expedition. The exiled Bourbon had found 
 means to distribute proclamations early in 1813 ; his 
 agents had ever since been exerting themselves indefati- 
 gable, both in Paris and in the provinces, especially in 
 those of the west. The Mayor of Bourdeaux (Lynch) 
 was at the head of a lo}-al association comprehending 
 the chief inhabitants of that great city, and already in 
 communication with the Marquess of Wellington, who, 
 however, felt it his duty to check them on this occasion, 
 lest the progress of events should render their efforts 
 fruitless to Louis, and fatal to themselves. La Roche 
 Jacquelein (a name already so illustrious in La Vendee) 
 had once more prepared that faithful province for insur- 
 rection. Saintonge had been organised by the Abbe 
 Jaqualt ; Perigord by Messieurs de la Roche Aymon ; 
 and in the countries about Nantes, Angers, and Orleans, 
 great bands, consisting partly of Buonaparte's own re- 
 fractory conscripts, were in training under the Counts 
 De L'Orge, D'Antichamp, and Suzannet. The royalist 
 gentlemen of Touraine, to the number of 1000, were 
 headed by the Bake of Doras ; those of Brittany were 
 mustering around Count Yitrray, and various chieftains 
 of the old Chouans ; and Cadoudal, brother to Georges, 
 was among the peasantry of Yarnes. These names, 
 most of them well known in the early period of the 
 Revolution, are of themselves sufficient to show how 
 ineffectually the Buonapartean government had endeav- 
 oured, during thirteen years, to extinguish the old fire 
 of loyalty. It had all the while glowed under the ashes. 
 
500 NAPOLEOX BUOXAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 and was now ready to burst forth shining and bright. 
 The Bourbon princes watched the course of events with 
 eager hope. The Duke of Berri was already in Jersey, 
 Monsieur (afterwards Charles X.) in the Netherlands, 
 and the Duke D'Angouleme about to make his appear- 
 ance at the head-cpiarters of Wellington, in Beam, the 
 cradle of his race. The republicans, meanwhile — 
 those enthusiasts of the Revolution who had in the 
 beginning considered Buonaparte's consulate as a dic- 
 tatorship forced on France by the necessities of the 
 time, and to be got rid of as soon as opportunity should 
 serve — and who had long since been wholly alienated 
 from him, by his assumption of the imperial dignity, his 
 creation of orders and nobles, his alliance ••vith the 
 House of Austria, and the complete despotism of his 
 internal government — these men had observed, with 
 hardly less delight than the royalists, that succession of 
 reverses which darkens the story of the two last cam- 
 paigns. Finally, not a few of Napoleon's own ministers 
 and generals, irritated by his personal violence, and 
 hopeless of breathing in peace while that fierce and 
 insatiable spirit continued at the head of affairs, were 
 well prepared to take a part in his overthrow ; nor was 
 it long ere all these internal enemies, at whatever dis- 
 tance their principles and motives might have seemed 
 to place them from each other, were content to overlook 
 their differences and woi'k together. Talleyrand, there 
 can be little doubt, and others only second to him in 
 influence, were in communication with the Bourbons, 
 before the Allies crossed the Rhine. Ere then, said Na- 
 poleon at St. Helena, I felt the reins slipping from my 
 hands. 
 
 The allied princes issued, at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 
 a manifesto, the firm and temperate language of which 
 was calculated to make a strong impression in France, 
 
1814.] NEGOTIATIONS AT MAXIIEIM. .SOi 
 
 as well as elsewhere. The sovereigns announced their 
 belief that it was for the interest of Europe that France 
 should continue to be a powerful state, and their willing- 
 ness to concede to her, even now, greater extent of terri- 
 tory than the Bourbon Kings had ever claimed — the 
 boundaries, namely, of the Rhine, the Alps, and the 
 Pyrenees. Their sole object in invading France was to 
 put an end to the authority which Napoleon had usurped 
 over other nations. They disclaimed any wish to inter- 
 fere with the internal government — it was the right of 
 the nation to arrange that as they pleased ; the hostility 
 of Europe was against, not France, but Napoleon — and 
 even as to Napoleon, against not his person, but his 
 system. The same terms were tendered to Napoleon 
 himself, through M. de St. Aignan, one of his own 
 ministers, who happened to have fallen into the hands 
 of the Allies at Weimar ; and his answer was such that 
 diplomatists from all the belligerent powers forthwith 
 assembled at Manheim; Lord Aberdeen appearing on 
 the part of the government of England, a circumstance of 
 'sufficient to give to these new conferences a character 
 of greater promise than had attended any of recent date. 
 But although Napoleon authorised Caulaincourt to 
 commence this negotiation on his behalf, it was very 
 soon manifest that he did so merely, as before, for the 
 purpose of gaining time. His military preparations 
 were urged with unremitting energy. New conscrip- 
 tions were called for, and granted : every arsenal 
 resounded with the fabrication of arms : and all the 
 taxes were at once doubled by an imperial decree. The 
 enslaved press proclaimed that the national ardour was 
 thoroughly stirred, and with its thousand voices re- 
 minded the Allies of the effects of the Duke of Bruns- 
 wick's proclamation when about to touch the sacred soil 
 of France in 1793. 
 
502 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 Bat the enthusiasm of the revolutionary period was 
 long since gone by. In vain did Napoleon send special 
 agents through the departments, calling on Frenchmen 
 of all classes to rise in arms for the protection of the 
 soil. Coldness, languor, distrust, met them almost 
 everywhere. The numerical results even of the con- 
 scription-levy were far under what they should have 
 been ; and of those who did enrol themselves, multitudes 
 daily deserted, and not a few took part with those 
 royalist bands who were, as we have already seen, mus- 
 tering and training zealously in almost every district 
 that was either strong by nature, or remote from the 
 great military establishments of Buonaparte. Nay, even 
 the Legislative Senate, so long the silent and submissive 
 slaves of all his imperial mandates, now dared to testify 
 some sympathy with the feelings of the people, whom, 
 in theory at least, they were supposed to represent. This 
 was a novelty for which Napoleon had not been prepared, 
 and he received it in a manner little likely to conciliate 
 the attachment of wavering men. They ventured to hint 
 that ancient France would remain to him, even if he 
 accepted the proposals of the Allies, and that Louis XIV., 
 Avhen he desired to rouse the French people in his behalf 
 in a moment of somewhat similar disaster, had not dis- 
 dained to detail openly the sincere efforts which he had 
 made to obtain an honourable peace. " Shame on you !" 
 cried the Emperor, " Wellington has entered the south, 
 the Russians menace the northern frontier, the Prussians, 
 Austrians, and Bavarians, the eastern. Shame ! Wel- 
 lington is in France, and we have not risen en masse to 
 drive him back ! All my allies have deserted — the Ba- 
 varian has betrayed me. No peace till we have burned 
 Munich ! I demand a levy of 300,000 men — with this 
 and what I already have, I shall see a million in arms. 
 I will form a camp of 100,000 at Bourdeaux ; another 
 
1814.] THE LEGISLATIVE SENATE DISSOLVED. 503 
 
 at Mentz ; a third at Lyons. But I must have grown 
 men — these boys serve only to encumber the hospitals 
 and the road sides. . . . Abandon Holland ! sooner 
 yield it back to the sea ! Senators, an impulse must be 
 given — all must march — you are fathers of families — the 
 heads of the nation — you must set the example. Peace ! 
 I hear of nothing but peace when all around should echo 
 to the cry of war." The senate, nevertheless, drew up 
 and presented a report which renewed his wrath. He 
 reproached them openly with desiring to purchase inglo- 
 rions ease for themselves at the expense of his honour. 
 I am the date, said he, repeating a favourite expression : 
 What is the throne? — a bit of wood gilded, and covered 
 with velvet — I am the state — / alone am here the represen- 
 tative of the people. Even if I had done wrong you should 
 ■not have reproached me in public — people wash their dirty 
 linen at home. France has more need of me than I of 
 France. 
 
 Having uttered these furious words, ISTapoleon repaired 
 to his council of state, and there denounced the legisla- 
 tive senate, as composed of one part of traitors and 
 eleven of dupes. In place of assisting, said he, they im- 
 pede me. Our attitude alone could have repelled the enemy 
 — they invite him. We should have presented a front of 
 brass — they lay open wounds to his view. I will not suffer 
 their report to be printed. They have not done their duty, 
 but I will do mine — I dissolve the Legislative Senate. And 
 the Emperor did accordingly issue his decree, proroguing 
 indefinitely that assembly, the last feeble shadow of 
 popular representation in France. 
 
 The greatest confusion already began to pervade almost 
 every department of the public service. The orders of 
 the government were more peremptory than ever, and 
 they were hourly more neglected. Whole bands of con- 
 scripts, guilty of endeavouring to escape, were tried by 
 
504 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814 
 
 military commissions and decimated. Even close to the 
 barriers of Pai'is such executions were constantly going 
 on ; and all in vain. The general feeling was that of 
 sullen indifference. Hireling musicians paraded the 
 streets, singing fire-new ballads in honour of the Emperor, 
 to the long-forgotten tune of ga ira ; the passengers 
 gathered round them, and drowned the strains in hooting 
 and laughter. In every saloon discussions such as the 
 police had long suppressed, were urged without cere- 
 mony. This will not continue ; the cord is too much 
 stretched — it will soon be over ; such was the universal 
 language. Talleyrand, hearing an officer express his 
 alarm and astonishment, made answer in words which 
 have passed into a proverb : — It is the beginning of the 
 end. 
 
 During this uneasy pause, Napoleon at last dismissed 
 his venerable prisoner of Fontainebleau. It is not un- 
 likely that, in the altered state of Italy, he thought the 
 arrival of the Pope might tend to produce some dissen- 
 sion among his enemies in that quarter ; and, in effect, 
 when Pius reached Rome, he found the capital of the 
 Catholic world in the hands of Murat, who had, ere then, 
 concluded his treaty with Francis, and was advancing 
 into the north of Italy, in the view of co-operating in 
 the campaign against Beauharnois, with the Austrians 
 on the one side, and on the other, with an English force 
 recently landed at Leghorn, under Lord William 
 Bentinck. 
 
 He also unlocked the gates of Valencay on Ferdinand 
 of Spain ; and, without doubt, the letter in which he 
 announced this intention to his injured victim, will ever 
 be recorded among the prime instances of his audacity. 
 He informed Ferdinand that the English were spreading 
 Jacobin principles in Spain, and attacking the foundations 
 of the throne, the aristocracy, and the church ; and that 
 
1814.1 THE ALLIES ENTEB EBAHCE. 505 
 
 he, therefore, was anxious to see him at the head of 
 affairs in the kingdom, provided he would expel the 
 English, and re-establish its relations with France, on 
 the footing of the peace which gave Godoy his title. 
 Ferdinand durst not execute any treaty without consult- 
 ing the Cortes. They disdained to treat at all with 
 Napoleon. He then liberated the King unconditionally ; 
 and, after five years' captivity, Ferdinand re-entered 
 Spain, amidst the all but universal acclamations of a 
 nation who had bled at every pore in his cause, and 
 whom his government was destined ere long to satisfy 
 that they had bled in vain. Napoleon, no doubt, under- 
 stood well what sort of a present he was conferring on 
 the Spaniards when he restored Ferdinand, and probably 
 calculated that his arrival would fill the country with 
 civil tumults, sufficient to paralyse its arms for foreign 
 war. And — had the King returned but a year earlier — 
 such, in all likelihood, would have been the consequences. 
 Once more Napoleon was too late in doing good that evil 
 might follow. 
 
 For some time, thanks to the slavery of the Parisian 
 press, the population of the capital remained in igno- 
 rance as to the proceedings of the Allies on the Rhine. 
 Indeed — such was still the influence of the Emperor's 
 military reputation — the inhabitants of the French pro- 
 vinces on that frontier, continued to believe it impos- 
 sible that any foreign army should dare to invade their 
 soil, until they that had ears to hear, and eyes to see, 
 were perforce undeceived. Schwartzenberg, with the 
 Grand Army, at length crossed the Rhine, between 
 Basle and Schaffhausen, on the 20th of December, and 
 disregarding the claim of the Swiss to preserve neutral- 
 ity, advanced through that territory unopposed, and 
 began to show themselves in Franche-Comte, in Bur- 
 gundy, even to the gates of Dijon. On the 1st of 
 
50G NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 January, 1814, the Silesian Army, under Blucher, crossed 
 the river at various points between Rastadt and Cob- 
 lentz ; and shortly after, the Army of the North, com- 
 manded by Witzingerode and Bulow (for Bernadotte 
 declined having any part in the actual invasion of 
 France), began to penetrate the frontier of the Nether- 
 lands. The wealthier inhabitants of the invaded pro- 
 vinces escaped to Paris, bearing with them these tidings : 
 the English detenus of Verdun were seen traversing the 
 capital on their route to more distant quarters ; the 
 state prisoners of Vincennes itself, under the walls of 
 Paris, were removed. The secret, in a word, could no 
 longer be kept. It was known to every one that the 
 Pyrenees had been crossed by Wellington, and the 
 Rhine by three mighty hosts, amounting together to 
 300,000 men, and including representatives of every 
 tongue and tribe, from the Germans of Westphalia to 
 the wildest barbarians of Tartary. Persons of condition 
 despatched their plate and valuables to places at a dis- 
 tance from the capital ; many whole families removed 
 daily ; and the citizens of Paris were openly engaged in 
 laying up stores of flour and salted provisions, in con- 
 templation of a siege. 
 
 The violation of the Swiss territory was in itself 
 indefensible ; but he who had so often disdained all rules 
 of that kind in his own pei^son, who had seized d'Enghien, 
 who had traversed Bareuth, could hardly hope to bo 
 listened to when he complained of Schwartzenberg's 
 proceeding. The allied generals, moreover, proclaimed 
 everywhere as they advanced, that they came as the 
 friends, not the enemies, of the French nation, and that 
 any of the peasantry who took up arms to oppose them 
 must be content to abide the treatment of brigands. 
 This assuredly was a flagrant outrage against the most 
 sacred *»*\d inalienable rights of mankind : but Napoleon 
 
1814.] INVASION OF FRANCE. 50? 
 
 had set the fatal example himself in Lombardy, and 
 followed it without a blush, in Egypt, in Germany, in 
 Spain, in Portugal, and but yesterday in Russia. Here 
 also, therefore, his reclamations moved no feeling favour- 
 able to himself; and the time was gone by when the 
 French people would have been ready to take fire at so 
 lawless an aggression upon their national rights : these 
 Napoleon's tyranny had trampled down ere strangers 
 dared to insult them. There were some few scattered 
 instances of resistance ; but in general, the first advance 
 of the Allies was regarded with indifference ; and it was 
 only at a later period, when the invading generals were 
 no longer able to maintain strict discipline among their 
 barbarous hordes of horsemen, then scattered over a 
 wide extent of country, that the sense of individual 
 suffering afforded even a glimpse of hope to Napoleon, 
 and those who, like him, were eager to oppose a national 
 insurrection to the allied march. 
 
 Meantime, nearer and nearer every day the torrent of 
 invasion rolled on — sweeping before it, from post to 
 post, the various corps which had been left to watch the 
 Rhine. Marmont, Mortier, Victor, and Ney, command- 
 ing in all about 50,000 men, retired of necessity before 
 the enemy. It had been considered as certain that much 
 time must be occupied with tbe besieging of the great 
 fortresses on the Rhenish frontier. But it was now 
 apparent that the Allies had resolved to carry the war 
 into the interior, without waiting for the reduction of 
 these formidable outworks. Their numbers were such 
 that they could afford to mask them, and still pass on 
 with hosts overwhelmingly superior to all those of Napo- 
 leon's lieutenants. These withdrew, and with them, 
 and behind them, came crowds of the rustic population 
 possessing any means of transport. Carts and waggons, 
 
 crammed with terrified women and children, thronged 
 •J I 
 
508 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 every avenue to the capital. It was at last necessary 
 that the Emperor should break silence to the Parisians, 
 and re-appear in the field. 
 
 The invasion of France, however, rallied around Na- 
 poleon some persons of eminence who had long hung 
 aloof from him. Caruot in particular, who, ever since 
 he opposed the assumption of the imperial title, had re- 
 mained in retirement, came forward to offer his sword 
 in what he now considered as the cause of his country. 
 Nor did Buonaparte fail to receive such proposals as 
 they deserved. He immediately sent his old enemy to 
 command the great city and fortress of Antwerp ; and 
 similar instances of manly confidence might be mentioned 
 to bis honour 
 
 On the 2 2d of January the first official news of 
 the invasion appeared ; the Moniteur announced that 
 Schwartzenberg had entered Switzerland on the 20th 
 of December, and that. Blucher also had crossed the 
 Rhine on the first day of the year ; thus confessing 
 openly the deliberate deceit of its previous silence. The 
 next morning, being Sunday, the officers of the National 
 Guard were summoned to the Tuilleries. They lined 
 the Saloon of the Marshals, to the number of 900, alto- 
 gether ignorant of the purpose for which they had been 
 convoked. The Emperor took his station in the centre 
 of the hall ; and immediately afterwards the Empress, 
 with the King of Rome (carried in the arms of Countess 
 Montesquiou), appeared at his side. " Gentlemen," said 
 Napoleon, " France is invaded : I go to put myself at 
 the head of my troops, and, with God's help aud their 
 valour, I hope soon to drive the enemy beyond the fron- 
 tier." Here he took Maria Louisa in one hand and her 
 son in the other, and continued — " But if they should 
 approach the capital, I confide to the National Guard 
 the Empress and the King of Rome" — then coi'recting 
 
1811.] INVASION OF FRANCE. 509 
 
 himself, he said in a tone of strong emotion — " my wife 
 and my child." Several officers stepped from their places 
 and approached him; and tears were visible on the 
 cheeks even of those who were known to be no wor- 
 shippers of the Emperor, or hearty supporters of his 
 cause. 
 
 A Frenchman can rarely resist a scene ; and such this 
 was considered, and laughed at accordingly, ere next 
 morning. It is, nevertheless, difficult to refuse sympathy 
 to the chief actor. Buonaparte was sincerely attached 
 to Maria Louisa, though he treated her rather with a 
 parental tenderness than like a lover ; and his affection 
 for his son was the warmest passion in his heart, unless, 
 indeed, we must except his pride and his ambition, both 
 of which may be well supposed to have merged for a 
 moment in the feeling which shook his voice. 
 
510 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 The Campaign of France — Battles of Brienne and La Rothiere — Ex- 
 pedition of the Marne — Battles of Nangis and Montcreau—Schwart- 
 zenbirg retreats — Napoleon again marches against Blucher — Attacks 
 Soisso/.s and is repulsed — Battles of Craonne and Laon — Napo- 
 leon at Rheims — His perplexities — He marches to St. Dizier. 
 
 Napoleon spent part of the 24th of January in reviewing 
 troops in the court-yard of the Tuilleries, in the midst 
 of a fall of snow, which must have called up ominous 
 recollections, and at three in the morning of the 25th, 
 once more left his capital. He had again appointed 
 Maria Louisa regent, placed his brother Joseph at the 
 head of her council, and given orders for raising military 
 defences around Paris, and for converting many public 
 buildings into hospitals. He set off in visible dejection ; 
 but recovered all his energy on reaching once more the 
 congenial atmosphere of arms. 
 
 He arrived at Chalons ere midnight ; and found that 
 Schwartzenberg and Blucher, having severally passed 
 through Franche-Comte" and Lorraine, were now occu- 
 pying — the former with 97,000 men, the latter with 
 40,000 — an almost complete line between the Marne 
 and the Seine. Blucher was in his own neighbourhood, 
 and he immediately resolved to attack the right of the 
 Silesian army, which was pushing down the valley ot 
 the Marne, while its centre kept the parallel course of 
 the Aube, ere the Prussian marshal could concentrate 
 all his own strength, far less be adequately supported 
 from the side of Schwartzenberg, who was advancing 
 down the Seine towards Bar. A sharp skirmish took 
 place accordingly on the 27th, at St. Dizier ; and Blucher, 
 
1814.] BATTLE OF BRIENNC. 511 
 
 warned of Napoleon's arrival, lost no time in calling in 
 his detachments, and taking a post of defence at Brienne- 
 le-Chateau on the Aube — the same town where Buona- 
 parte had received his military education. Could 
 Napoleon force him from the Aube, it was evident that 
 the French would be enabled to interpose themselves 
 effectually between the two armies of the allies : and it 
 was most necessary to divide the enemy's strength, for 
 after all his exertions, Napoleon, had been able to add 
 only 20,000 good troops to the 50,000 who had been 
 retiring before the allied columns from the course of the 
 Rhine. 
 
 Napoleon, therefore, marched through a thick forest 
 upon the scene of his youthful studies, and appeared 
 there on the 20th, having moved so rapidly that Blucher 
 was at dinner in the chateau, when the French thundered 
 at his gates, and with difficulty escaped to the rear 
 through a postern — actually leading his horse down a 
 stair. The Russians, however, under Alsusieff, main- 
 tained their place in the town courageously ; and, some 
 Cossacks throwing themselves upon the rear of tho 
 French, the Emperor himself was involved in the mel6e, 
 drew his sword, and fought like a private dragoon. 
 General Gourgaud shot a Cossack when in the act of 
 thrusting his spear at Napoleon's back. The town of 
 Brienne was burnt to the ground ; Alsusieff was made 
 j risoner ; Lefevre Desnouettes died ; and there was con- 
 siderable slaughter on both sides ; but the affair had no 
 re suit of importance. Blucher retired but a little further 
 up the Aube, and posted himself at La Rothieiv, where 
 Schwartzenberg, warned by tho cannonade, hastened to 
 co-operate with him. 
 
 Napoleon said at St. Helena, that during the charge 
 of the Cossacks at Brienne, he recognised a particular 
 tree, under which, when a boy, he used to sit and read 
 
512 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 the Jeimsalem Delivered of Tasso. The field had been, 
 in those days, part of the exercise ground of the students, 
 and the chateau, whence Blucher escaped so narrowly, 
 their lodging. How strange must have been the feel- 
 ings of the man who, having but yesterday planted his 
 eagles on the Kremlin, now opened his fifteenth cam- 
 paign amidst the scenes of his own earliest recollections 
 — of the days in which he had never dreamt of empire ! 
 On the 1st of February Blucher, in his turn, assumed 
 the offensive, assaulting the French position in his front 
 at once on three several points. The battle lasted all 
 day, and ended in the defeat of the French, who, with 
 the loss of 4000 prisoners and seventy-three guns, 
 escaped from the field in such disorder, that, according 
 to Napoleon's own avowal at St. Helena, he had serious 
 thoughts of putting an end to the war by voluntarily 
 i*esigning the crown to the heir of the Bourbons. How- 
 ever this may have been, while the division of Marmont 
 retired down the Anbe before Blucher, Napoleon himself 
 struck across the country to Troyes, which there was 
 every reason to fear must be immediately occupied by 
 Schwartzenberg ; and was there joined by a considerable 
 body of his own guard, in high order and spirits, whose 
 appearance restored, in a great measure, the confidence 
 of the troops beaten at La Rothiere. 
 
 On the 3d, he received at Troyes a despatch from 
 Caulaincourt, informing him that Lord Castlereagh, the 
 English Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, had 
 arrived at the head-quarters of the Allies— that negotia- 
 tions were to be resumed the morning after at Chatillon 
 — now in the rear of the armies — and beseeching him 
 to intimate distinctly at what price he was now willing 
 to purchase peace. Napoleon replied, by granting Cau^ 
 laincourt full powers to do everything necessary " to 
 keep the negotiation alive, and save the capital." But 
 
 
1814.] BLUNDER OF THE ALII' 513 
 
 the Duke of Yicenza durst not act immediately on a 
 document so loosely worded, and sent back once more 
 to beg for a specific detail of the Emperor's purposes. 
 Napoleon bad bis head-quarters at Nbgent, on the Seine, 
 some leagues below Troyes, when the despatch reached 
 him, on the evening of the 8th of February ; and his 
 counsellors unanimously urged him to make use of 
 this, probably last, opportunity. They at length pre- 
 vailed on him to agree to abandon Belgium, the left of 
 the Rhine, Italy, and Piedmont. But in the night after 
 the consultation, and before the ultimatum received his 
 signature, Napoleon received information which quite 
 altered his views. He learned that Blucher, instead of 
 continuing his march down the Aube, and in communi- 
 cation with Schwartzenberg on the Seine, had trans- 
 ferred his whole army to the Marne, and was now 
 advancing towards Paris by the Montmiraii road. That 
 the Allies, after experiencing the effects of disunion at 
 Brienne, and those of conjunction at La Rothiere, should 
 have almost in the moment of victory again resolved 
 on separating their forces, is a circumstance which no 
 writer has as yet explained in any satisfactory manner. 
 The blunder was great ; ye* in the end its consequences 
 were disastrous, not to those who committed, but to him 
 whose eagle-eye detected it, and who could not resist 
 the temptation which it presented to make one warlike 
 effort more. Buonaparte, in a word, refused to sign the 
 despatch on the morning of the 9th ; and having left 
 Bourmont at Nogent, with a small force to defend the 
 bridge over the Seine, and Oudinot with another, for 
 the same purpose, at the next bridge in descending the 
 river, namely, that of Bray, immediately commenced 
 his march with the main body of his army upon Sezanne. 
 It was the depth of winter ; the cross-roads on which 
 they moved were in the most frightful condition, inso- 
 
514 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 much that had not the zealous Mayor of Barbonne col- 
 lected 500 horses, and come to their assistance, they 
 must have been forced to leave all their artillery in a 
 slough near that town ; yet this determined band 
 marched nearly forty miles ere they halted with the 
 dark. Next morning they proceeded with equal alacrity, 
 and at length debouched on the road by which Blucher's 
 army was advancing, at Champaubert. AlsusiefF and the 
 central division were passing, when Napoleon unexpect- 
 edly appeared at this point, and were altogether unable to 
 resist his onset. They dispersed in confusion Avith great 
 loss, and fled towards the Marne. Meantime the van of 
 the same army, commanded by Sacken, who were ad- 
 vancing on La Ferte, and the division of D'York, already 
 in sight of Meaux, turned on hearing the cannonade of 
 Champaubert, and countermarched with the view of 
 supporting Alsusieff. They shai-ed the fate of the centre, 
 and having been severely handled atMontmirail, escaped 
 across the Marne at Chateau-Tierry ; thus leaving Blucher 
 and the rear division alone to abide the attack of Napo- 
 leon's entire force between the Marne and the Aube. 
 The Prussian marshal, advancing rapidly in consequence 
 of the firing of these battles, found himself all at once 
 in presence of an army flushed with victory, vastly supe- 
 rior in numbers, and well provided with cavalry, of 
 which he had almost none. He retired in alternate 
 squares, sustaining all day the charges of the French, 
 with much loss of life, but with no disorder; and at 
 length cut his way, at Etoges, through a column of 
 heavy horse, sent round to intercept him, and drawn up 
 on the causeway. Blucher himself was, in the course of 
 this day, obliged to fight hand to hand like a private 
 soldier. His retreat was masterly, and he finally crossed 
 the Marne at Chalons. 
 
 Such was Napoleon's celebrated " Expedition of the 
 
1814.] THE ALLIES AT FOUNTAIN EBLBAU. 515 
 
 Marne." In five days bis arms had been three times 
 successful. He had shattered and dispersed (as he 
 thought effectually) the Silesiau army, and, above all, 
 recovered the spirits of his own soldiery. A column of 
 7000 Prussian prisoners, with a considerable number of 
 guns and standards, at length satisfied the Parisians 
 that Victory had not entirely forsworn her old favourite. 
 Thus far all was well ; and had Napoleon, from the field 
 which thus raised the courage of his troops, and revived 
 the confidence of his capital, despatched authority to 
 Caulaincourt to conclude the treaty on the terms before 
 described, the victor of Montmirail might have kept the 
 throne of France. But his own presumption was re- 
 kindled by the same success which dazzled inferior eyes; 
 and Napoleon wrote on the instant to his representative 
 at Chatillon that he might now assume " an attitude less 
 humble." This error proved fatal. 
 
 Scarcely had the Parisians seen the prisoners from 
 Montmirail marched along their boulevards, before they 
 heard that the Cossacks were in possession of Fontaine- 
 bleau. Napoleon had left, as was mentioned, small 
 divisions of his army to guard the bridges over the Seine 
 at Nogent and Bray. The enemy, however, soon dis- 
 covered that the Emperor and his chief force were no 
 longer in that quarter, and — while he was beating 
 Alsusieff, Sacken, and Blucher — had made good the 
 passage of the Seine, at three different points, at Nogent, 
 at Bray, and still further down, at Montercau, driving 
 the discomfited guardians of these important places 
 before them. Schwartzenberg had already his head- 
 quarters at Nangis, and was obviously resolved to reach 
 Paris, if possible, while Napoleon was on the Marne. 
 The light troops of the grand allied army were scatter- 
 ing confusion on both sides of the Seine ; and one party 
 of them were so near the capital as Fontainebleau. 
 
516 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 Buonaparte instantly committed to Marmont and 
 Mortier the care of watching the Chalons road and tho 
 remains of Blucher's army, and marched with his main 
 body on Meanx, where he received (15th February) the 
 welcome reinforcement of 20,000 veterans from Spain, 
 commanded by Grouchy. On the 16th, Victor and 
 Oudinot were engaged with the van of Schwartzenberg, 
 on the plains of Guignes, when the Emperor arrived to 
 their assistance. The enemy immediately drew back, 
 and concentrated his strength at Nangis. Napoleon 
 attacked that position on the morning of the 17th, and 
 with such effect, that the allies retreated after consider- 
 able loss, though not in disorder, on the bridges in their 
 rear. 
 
 They halted, however, at Montereau, and Victor, who 
 commanded the pursuers on that route, failed in dis- 
 lodging them. Napoleon resented this as a heinous 
 error, and coming up on the morning of the 18th, 
 rebuked him in terms of violent wrath, and formally 
 dismissed him from the service. The Marshal, tears 
 streaming down his face, declared that though he had 
 ceased to be an officer, he must still be a soldier, and 
 would serve once more in the ranks, from which he had 
 originally risen. The old man's son-in-law, General 
 Chateau, had been slain the same morning. Napoleon 
 extended his hand to him, and said he could not give 
 him back the command of his corps d'armee, which had 
 already been assigned to another, but that he was wel- 
 come to place himself at the head of a brigade of the 
 guard. The attack then commenced with fury, and the 
 bridge and town of Montereau were carried. The 
 defence was, however, long and stern, and Napoleon 
 was seen pointing cannon with his own hand, under tho 
 heaviest of the fire. The artilleiymen, delighted with wit- 
 nessing this resumption of his ancient trade, were, 
 
1814.] NEGOTIATIONS AT CHATILLON. 517 
 
 nevertheless, alarmed at the exposure of liis person, and 
 entreated him to withdraw. He persisted in his work, 
 answering gaily, " My children ! the hullet that shall kill 
 me is not yet east." Pursuing his advantage, Napoleon 
 saw the grand army continue their retreat in the direc- 
 tion of Troyes, and on the morning of the 22d arrived 
 before Mery. 
 
 The astonishment of the Emperor was great, when he 
 found this town occupied, not by a feeble rear-guard of 
 Schwartzenberg, but by a powerful division of Russians, 
 commanded by Sacken, and, therefore, belonging to the 
 apparently indestructible army of Blucher. These un- 
 expected enemies were charged in the streets, and at 
 length retired out of the town (which was burnt to the 
 ground in the struggle), and thence beyond the Aube — 
 which, in that quarter, runs nearly parallel with, and at 
 no great distance from, the Siene. The Emperor then 
 halted, and spent the night in a wheelwright's cottage at 
 Chatres. 
 
 All this while the semblance, at least, of negotiation 
 had been kept up at Chatillon. Caulaincourt, receiving 
 no answer to that important despatch which reached 
 Buonaparte (as has been mentioned) at Nogent, on the 
 8th of February, proceeded to act on the instructions 
 dated at Troyes, on the 3d ; and, in effect, accepted tho 
 basis of the Allies. When Schwartzenberg was attacked 
 at Nangis on the 17th, he had just received the intelli- 
 gence of Caulaincourt' s having signed the preliminary 
 articles ; and he, therefore, sent a messenger to ask why 
 the Emperor, if aware of his ambassador's act, persisted 
 in hostilities r" Napoleon had ere then, as we have 
 seen, desired Caulaincourt to assume " a less humble 
 attitude," and instead of ratifying, as he was bound on 
 every principle of honour and law to do, the signature 
 which his ambassador had had full powers to affix, he 
 
518 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 returned no answer whatever to Schwartzenberg, but 
 despatched a private letter to the Emperor of Austria, 
 once more endeavouring to seduce him from the Euro- 
 pean league. The Emperor's reply to this despatch 
 reached Napoleon at this hovel in Cbatres : it announced 
 his resolution on no account to abandon the general 
 cause ; but, at the same time, intimated that Francis 
 lent no support to the Bourbonists (who were now arm- 
 ing in Franche-Comte around Monsieur), and urged 
 Napoleon to avert by concession, ere it was yet too late 
 total ruin from himself and his House. Buonaparte, 
 flushed with a succession of victories, was in no temper 
 to listen to such advice, and the Austrian envoy left his 
 head-quarters with a not"?, signifying that now he would 
 not even consent to a day's armistice, unless the Allies 
 would fall back so as to leave Antwerp in their front. 
 
 The same evening there came news from Paris, which 
 might have been expected to distm*b the pride of these 
 imaginations. The Council of State had discussed de- 
 liberately the proposals of the Allied Powers, and, with 
 only one dissenting voice, now entreated the Emperor 
 to accept them. They announced to him that — while 
 he had been driving the Austrians up the Seine — the 
 Army of the North, the third great force of the Allies, had 
 at length effected their juncture with Blucher ; who was 
 now, therefore, at the head of a much greater army than 
 he had as yet commanded, and was manifestly resolved 
 to descend directly on Paris from Chalons. Napoleon 
 was urged anew by those about his person, to send to 
 Chatillon and accept the basis to which Caulaincourt 
 had agreed. He answered that he had sworn at his 
 coronation to preserve the territory of the Republic 
 entire, and that he could not sign this treaty without 
 violating his oath I — and dismissed his counsellors, say- 
 ing haughtily, " If I am to be scourged, let the whip at 
 
1814.] tkoyeS. 519 
 
 least come on me of necessity, and not through any 
 voluntary stooping of my own.'' 
 
 Instead, therefore, of sending messengers of peace to 
 Chatillon, Napoleon now thought only of the means of 
 at once holding Schwartzenberg in check on the Seine, 
 and returning once more to confront Blucher on the 
 Marne. He pushed on, however, as far as Troyes, in 
 the expectation of still terrifying the allied princes into 
 some compromise. In this city he found that certain 
 gentlemen had openly assumed the white cockade, the 
 mark of the Bourbonists, during its occupation by the 
 enemy, though without any countenance from the sove- 
 reigns. One of these gentlemen was so unfortunate as 
 to fall into his hands, and was immediately executed. 
 
 The Emperor in vain expected new proposals from 
 Cliatillon ; none such reached him at Troyes — and he 
 recurred to his scheme of a second " Expedition of the 
 Marne." He desired Oudinot and Macdonald, with their 
 divisions, to manoeuvre in the direction of Schwartzen- 
 berg, and these generals commanded their troops to 
 shout "Vive l'Empereur" whenever they were within 
 hearing of the enemy, which for a little time kept up 
 the notion that Napoleon bimsclf was still advancing on 
 the road to Bar. Meanwhile he was once more march- 
 ing rapidly across the country to Sezanne ; at which 
 point he received intelligence that Mortier and Marmont 
 had been driven from Ferte-sous-Jouarre by Blucher, 
 and were in full retreat to Meaux. Means he considered 
 as almost a suburb of Paris, and quickened his speed 
 accordingly. Hurrying on, at Ferte-Goucher. he was 
 at once met and overtaken by evil tidings. Schwart- 
 zenberg, having discovered the Emperor's absence, had 
 immediately resumed the offensive, defeated Oudinot 
 and Macdonald at Bar, and driven them before him as 
 far as Troyes ; and Augcrcau, who commanded in the 
 
520 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 neighbourhood of Lyons, announced the arrival of a 
 new and great army of the Allies in that quarter. Na- 
 poleon resumed, however, his march, and having been 
 detained some time at Ferte, in consequence of the de- 
 struction of the bridge, took the direction of Chateau- 
 Thierry and Soissons, while Mortier and Marmont 
 received his orders to resume the offensive in front of 
 Meaux. He hoped, in this manner, to throw himself 
 on the flank of Blucher's march, as he had done before 
 at Champaubert. But the Prussian received intelligence 
 this time of his approach ; and, drawing his troops to- 
 gether, retired to Soissons in perfect order. 
 
 Napoleon proceeded with alacrity in the direction of 
 Soissons, not doubting that the French garrison en- 
 trusted with the care of that town, and its bridge over 
 the Marne, were still in possession of it, and eager, 
 therefore, to force Blucher into action with this formid- 
 able obstacle in his rear. But Soissons had been taken 
 by a Russian corps, retaken by a French one, and fallen 
 once more into the hands of the enemy, ere the Emperor 
 came in sight of it. The Muscovite Black Eagle, float- 
 ing on the towers, gave him the first intimation of this 
 misfortune. He assaulted the place impetuously; the 
 Russians repelled the attack; and Napoleon, learning 
 that Blucher had filed his main body through the town, 
 and posted himself behind the Marne, marched up the 
 left bank of that rivei', and crossed it also at Bery. 
 
 A few leagues in front of this place, on the heights of 
 Craonne, two Russian corps, those of Sacken and Wit- 
 zingerode, were already in position ; and the Emperor 
 lost no time in charging them there, in the hope of 
 destroying them ere they could unite with Blucher. 
 The battle of Craonne began at eleven a.m. on the 7th 
 of March, and lasted till four in the afternoon. The 
 Russians had clown to this hour withstood the utmost 
 
1814.1 BATTLES OF CKAOXM: AND LAON. 521 
 
 exertions of Ney on their right, of Victor on their left, 
 and of Napoleon himself on their centre. The loss in 
 slain and wounded had been about equal on both sides ; 
 no cannon, and hardly a prisoner, had been taken. The 
 Emperor, enraged with this obstinate resistance, was 
 preparing for a final effort, when suddenly the Russians 
 began to retreat. He followed them ; but they withdrew 
 with the deliberation and impunity of a parade. They 
 had been ordered to fall back on the plateau of Laon, in 
 order to form there on the same line with Blucher, who 
 was once more in presence, and eager to concentrate all 
 his force for a decisive conflict. 
 
 It took place on the 9th. Napoleon found his enemy 
 strongl} 7- posted along an elevated ridge, covered with 
 wood, and further protected in front by a succession of 
 terrace walls, the enclosures of vineyards. There was 
 a heavy mist on the lower ground, and the French were 
 advancing up the hill ere their movement Avas dis- 
 covered. They were met by a storm of cannonade 
 which utterly broke their centre. On either flank of 
 the enemy's position they then charged in succession, 
 and with like results. On all points they were repelled, 
 except only at the village of Athies, where Marmont 
 had obtained some advantage. Night interrupted the 
 contest, and the armies bivouacked in full view of each 
 other. The Allies, in consequence of their well-covered 
 position, had suffered comparatively little ; of the French 
 some thousands had died — and all in vain. Napoleon 
 was, however, resolved to renew the attack, and mounted 
 his horse accordingly at four in the morning of the 10th. 
 At that moment news came that Marmont's corps had 
 just been assaulted at Athies, and so thoroughly dis- 
 comfited that they were now flying in confusion towards 
 Corbery. Notwithstanding this ominous opening, tho 
 battle in front of Laon was continued all the day. 
 
•522 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. fl8l4. 
 
 the tide of fortune had turned, and could not be resisted. 
 On the 11th, Napoleon commenced his retreat, having 
 lost thirty cannon and 10,000 men. 
 
 Soissons had been evacuated by the Allies when con- 
 centrating themselves for the battle of Laon. Napoleon 
 threw himself, therefore, into that town, and was making 
 his best efforts to strengthen it, in expectation of the 
 Prussian advance, when once more a messenger of evil 
 tidings reached him. A detached Russian corps, com- 
 manded by St. Priest, a French emigrant, had seized 
 Rheirus by a coujp-de-main. The possession of this city 
 (as a glance at any good map will show) could hardly 
 fail to re-establish Blucher's communications with 
 Schwartzenberg — and Napoleon instantly marched 
 thither in person, leaving Marmont to hold out as well 
 as he could at Soissons, in case that should be the direc- 
 tion of Blucher's march. Buonaparte, moving with his 
 usual rapidity, came unexpectedly on Rheims, and took 
 the place by assault at midnight. St. Priest had fallen ; 
 and the bulletin announced that he met his fate by a 
 ball from the same cannon which killed Moreau. If it 
 were so, no one could have ascertained the fact ; but 
 Napoleon's imagination was always ready to welcome a 
 tale that savoured of fatality. 
 
 From Rheims, where he remained for three days to 
 refresh his unfortunate followers, he despatched at 
 length full powers to Caulaincourt to conclude any 
 treaty, which should secure the immediate evacuation of 
 the old French territory, and a mutual restoration of 
 prisoners. Maret (Duke of Bassano), however, wrote 
 — by the same messenger — at much greater length ; 
 informing the plenipotentiary that the Emperor would 
 refuse to ratify any treaty whatever — if, in the interim, 
 events should have taken a turn in his favour. It is to 
 be doubted whether Caulaincourt would have ventured 
 
1814.] RHEIMS. 523 
 
 to ac(, on instructions thus qualified, with the decision 
 which the emergency required. But he was not put to 
 the proof. The Allies had determined to negotiate no 
 more, ere the despatch at Rheims reached him. 
 
 Throughout this crisis of his history, it is im ossible 
 to survey the rapid energy of Napoleon — his alert tran- 
 sitions from enemy to enemy, his fearless assaults on 
 vastly superior numbers, his unwearied resolution, and 
 exhaustless invention — without the highest admiration 
 which can attend on a master of warfare. Bu it is 
 equally impossible to suppress astonishment and indig- 
 nation in following, or rather attempting to follow, the 
 threads of obstinacy, duplicity, pride, and perfidy, which, 
 during the same period, complicated, without strengthen- 
 ing the tissue of his negotiations. It is only when we 
 fix our eyes on the battles and marches of this wonder- 
 ful campaign, that we can hesitate to echo the adage : — 
 Whom God hath doomed to destruction, he firs^ deprives of 
 reason. 
 
 To complete our notion of the energies of Kapoleon — 
 he had all through this, the most extraordinary of his 
 campaigns, continued to conduct, from his perpetually 
 changing head-quarters, the civil business of his empire 
 He occupied himself largely with such matters during 
 his stay at Rheims ; but it was there that the las de- 
 spatches from the home department at Paris wer 
 destined to reach him ; and, before he could return his 
 answer, there came couriers upon couriers — with tidings 
 which would have unmanned any other mind, and which 
 filled his with perplexity. On the one side, Bluche had 
 profited by his departure, crushed down the feeble op- 
 position of the corps left at Soissons, and re-passed the 
 Marne. On the other hand, Schwartzenburg had de- 
 tected, almost as soon as it took place, his mai'ch on 
 
 Sezanne, and instantly resumed the offensive. Oudinof; 
 
 '3J 
 
524 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 and Girard had been forced to give way before the im- 
 measurably superior numbers of the Grand Army. They 
 had been defeated with great slaughter at Bar on the 
 Aube ; and the Austrian was once more at Troyes. The 
 Allies were, therefore, to all appearance, in fall march 
 upon Paris, both by the valley of the Marne, and by that 
 of the Seine, at the moment when Napoleon had thought 
 to paralyse all their movements by taking up a position 
 between them at Rheims. 
 
 He still counted largely on the magic of his name ; 
 and even now he had hardly over-reckoned. When 
 Schwartzcnberg understood that Napoleon was at Rheims, 
 the old terror returned, and the Austrian instantly pro- 
 posed to fall back from Troyes. Bat there was by this 
 time, in the camp of the allied powers, one, who though 
 not a soldier, appreciated, far better than all those about 
 him, that had grown grey in arms, the circumstances of 
 the time, and the conduct which these demanded. Lord 
 Castlereagh took upon himself the responsiblity of sig- 
 nifying, that the Grand Army might retire if the sove- 
 reigns pleased, but that, if such a movement took place, 
 the subsidies of England must be considered as at an 
 end. This bold word determined the debate. Schwart- 
 zenberg's columns instantly resumed their march down 
 the Seine. 
 
 Napoleon, meanwhile, had been struggling with him- 
 self; whatever line of action he might adopt was at best 
 hazardous in the extreme. Should he hasten after 
 Blucher on the Marne, what was to prevent Schwart- 
 zenbeg from reaching Paris, ere the Silesian army, 
 already victorious at Laon, could be once more brought 
 to action by an inferior force ? Should he throw him- 
 self on the march of Schwartzcnberg, would not the 
 fiery Prussian be at the Tuilleries, long before the 
 Austrian could ~? checked on the Seine? There re- 
 
1814.3 RHEIMS. 525 
 
 niained a third course — namely, to push at once into- the 
 country in the rear of the Grand Army ; and to this 
 there were sundry inducements. By doing so he might 
 possibly — such were still the Emperor's conceptions as to 
 the influence of his name — strike the advancing Allies, 
 both the Austrian and the Prussian, with terror, and 
 paralyse their movements. Were they likely to persist 
 in their Hurrah on Paris (at this period the Cossack 
 vocabulary was in vogue), when they knew Napoleon to 
 be posting himself between them and their own resources, 
 and at the same time relieving and rallying around him 
 all the garrisons of the great fortresses of the Rhine ? 
 Would not such conduct be considered as entirely out 
 of the question by superstitious adherents to the ancient 
 technicalities of war F "Would not Schwartzenberg at 
 least abandon the advance and turn to follow him, who 
 still fancied that no one could dream of conquering 
 France without having ruined Napoleon? But — even 
 supposing that the allied powers should resist all these 
 suggestions and proceed upon the capital — would not 
 that great city, with Marinont and Mortier, and the 
 national guard, be able to hold the enemy at bay for 
 some considerable space ; and, during that space, could 
 the Emperor fail to release his garrisons on the Rhine, 
 and so place himself once more at the head of an army 
 capable, under his unrivalled guidance, of relieving 
 France and ruining her invaders, by a great battle under 
 the walls of Paris % 
 
 it must be added, in reference to Napoleon's choice 
 among these difficulties, that ere now the continuance 
 of the warfare had much exacerbated the feelings of the 
 peasantry, who, for the most part, regarded its com- 
 mencement with indifference. The perpetual marches 
 and counter-marches of the armies, the assaults and 
 burnings of town and villages, the fierce demeanour of 
 
526 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 the justly embittered Prussians, and the native barbar- 
 ism of the Russians, had spread devastation and horror 
 through some of the fairest provinces of France. The 
 desolation was such that wolves and other beasts of prey 
 appeared, in numbers which recalled the ages of the 
 unbroken forest, amidst the vineyards and gardens of 
 Champagne. All who could command the means of 
 llight had escaped ; of those that remained there were 
 few who had not, during three months, suffered painful 
 privations, seen their cottages occupied by savage 
 strangers, and their streams running red with the blood 
 of their countrymen. The consequence was that the 
 peasantry on the theatre of war, and behind it, were 
 now in a state of high excitement. Might not the 
 Emperor, by throwing iiirnself and his sorely diminished, 
 but still formidable, band of veterans among them, give 
 the finishing impulse, and realise at length his fond hope 
 of a national insurrection ? 
 
 While Napoleon was thus tossed in anxiety by what 
 means to avert, if it were yet possible, from Paris, the 
 visitation of those mighty armies, against whom energies, 
 such as he alone possessed, had been exerted in vain — 
 the capital showed small symptoms of sympathising with 
 him. The newspapers had announced nothing but vic- 
 tories ; but the truth could not fail to penetrate, in spite 
 of all this treachery. The streets were daily traversed 
 by new crowds of provincialists, driven or terrified from 
 their dwellings. Every hospital, and many public 
 buildings besides, were crammed with wounded soldiersi 
 and the number of dead bodies, continually floating 
 down the Seine, was so great, that the meanest of the 
 populace durst no longer make use of the water. As 
 one conclusive token of the universal distrust, it may be 
 mentioned that, whereas in usual times the amount of 
 taxes paid daily into the exchequer at Paris is about 
 
1814.1 WELLINGTON' IX FEANGB. 527 
 
 £3000, the average, after the 1st of March, did not ex- 
 ceed £1-5. It was Savary's business to despatch a fall 
 account of the state of the city every night to head- 
 quarters ; and he did not hesitate to inform the Emperor 
 that the machinery of government was clogged in every 
 wheel, and that the necessity of purchasing peace, by 
 abandoning him, was the common burden of conver- 
 sation. 
 
 Meantime, to swell the cup of his anxieties, there 
 reached him new intelligence of the most alarming cha- 
 racter from the south-western provinces, invaded by 
 Lord "Wellington. That victorious general had driven 
 Soult before him through the Pays de Gaves (the tract 
 of strong country broken by the torrents descending 
 from the Pyrenees) ; defeated him in another great battle 
 at Orthes, and was now pursuing him in the direction 
 of Thoulouse. Nor was even this the worst; the Eng- 
 lish had been received more like friends than enemies 
 by the French; their camp was far better served with 
 provisions than that of Soult ; and, lastly, Bourdeaux 
 had risen openly in the cause of Louis. The white flag 
 was floating on every tower of the third city in France, 
 and the Duke D'Angouleme was administering all the 
 offices of government, in the midst of a population who 
 had welcomed him with the enthusiasm of old loyalty. 
 
 It was amidst such circumstances that Xapoleon at 
 length decided on throwing himself upon the rear of the 
 Allies. They were for some time quite uncertain of his 
 movements after he quitted Rheims, until an intercepted 
 letter to Maria Louisa informed them that he was at 
 Si. Dizicr. 
 
528 NAPOLEON BUONAPAKT1. [1814. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 The Allies approach Paris — Maria Louisa retires to Blois — Marmont 
 and Mortier occupy the Heights of Montmartre — They are defeated 
 — King Joseph i scapes — Marmont capitulates — the Allies enter 
 Paris — NapoUon at Fontainebleau — His Abdication. 
 
 Napoleon continued for several days to manoeuvre on 
 the country beyond St. Dizier. Having thus seized the 
 roads by which the Grand Army had advanced, he took 
 prisoners many persons of distinction on their way to its 
 head-quarters — and at one time the Emperor of Austria 
 himself escaped most narrowly a party of French hussars. 
 Meanwhile, petty skirmishes were ever and anon occur- 
 ring between Napoleon's rear-guard and Austrians, 
 whom he took for the van-guard of Schwartzenberg. 
 They were, however, detached troops, chiefly horse, left 
 expressly to hang on his march, and cheat him into this 
 belief. The Grand Army was proceeding rapidly down 
 the Seine ; while Blucher, having repeatedly -beaten 
 Marmont and Mortier, was already within sight of 
 Meaux. 
 
 It has been mentioned that Napoleon, ere he com- 
 menced his campaign, directed some fortifications to be 
 thrown up on the side of Paris nearest to the invading 
 armies. His brother Joseph, however, was, as Spain 
 had witnessed, neither an active nor a skilful soldier ; 
 and the civil government of this tempestuous capital ap- 
 pears to have been more than enough to employ what 
 energies he possessed. The outworks executed during 
 the campaign were few and inconsiderable ; and to oc- 
 cupy them, there were now but 8000 fresh regulars, the 
 discomfited divisions of Marmont and Mortier, and the 
 
1814.] THE ALLIES APPROACH PAEIS, 529 
 
 National Guard of the metropolis. This last corps Lad 
 30,000 names on its roll : but such had been the mani- 
 festations of public feeling, that the Emperor's lieutenants 
 had not dared to furnish more than a third of these with 
 lire-arms : the others had only pikes : and every hour 
 increased the doubts of the Regency-council whether any 
 considerable portion of these men — who were chiefly, in 
 fact, the shopkeepers of Paris — would consent to shed 
 their blood in this cause. 
 
 Meanwhile the royalists within the city had been 
 watching the progress of events with eagerness and 
 exultation. Talleyrand was ere now in close communi- 
 cation with them, and employing all the resources of his 
 taleuts to prevail on them to couple their demand for 
 the heir of the Bourbons, with such assertions of their 
 belief that that dynasty ought never to here-established 
 otherwise than on a constitutional basis, as might draw 
 over to their side the more moderate of the republicans. 
 Nor had these efforts been unsuccessful. Various de- 
 putations from the royalists had found their way to the 
 head-quarters, both of Blucher and Schwartzenberg, 
 before the middle of March, and expressed sentiments of 
 this nature. As yet, however, nono of the Allies had 
 ventured to encourage directly the hopes of the Bom-bon 
 party. They persisted in asserting their resolution to 
 let the French nation judge for themselves under what 
 government they should live; and to take no part in 
 their civil feuds. Talleyrand himself was in correspond- 
 ence with the Czar; but, in his letters, he, as far as is 
 known, confined himself to urging the advance of the 
 armies. A billet from him was delivered to Alexandei 
 just before the final rush on Paris began : it was in 
 these words — "You venture nothing, when you may 
 safely venture every thing — venture once more." 
 
 Dc Pradt, and many oth^r of those statesmen whom 
 
530 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 Napoleon, in latter days, had disgraced or disobliged, 
 were, ere this time, labouring diligently in the same 
 service. It must be admitted that he, like the falling 
 Persian y was 
 
 " Deserted in his utmost need 
 By those his former bounty fed ;" 
 
 but he had brought himself to this extremity by his 
 scorn of their counsels ; nor even at the eleventh hour 
 did his proud heart dream of recalling confidence, by 
 the confession of error. 
 
 On the 26th of March, the distant roaring of artillery 
 was heard at intervals on the boulevards of Paris ; and 
 the alarm began to be violent. On the 27th (Sunday) 
 Joseph Buonaparte held a review in the Place Carousel ; 
 and the day being fine, and the uniforms mostly new, 
 the confidence of the spectators rose, and the newspapers 
 expressed their wishes that the enemy could but behold 
 what forces were ready to meet and destroy them. That 
 same evening the Allies passed the Marne at various 
 points ; at three in the morning of the 28th, they took 
 Meaux ; and at daybreak, " the terrified population of 
 the country between Meaux and Paris came pouring 
 into the capital," says an eye-witness, " with their aged, 
 infirm, children, cats, dogs, live-stock, corn, bay, and 
 household goods of every description. The boulevards 
 were crowded with waggons, carts, and carriages thus 
 laden, to which cattle were tied, and the whole sur- 
 rounded with women." The regular troops now marched 
 out of the town, leaving all the barriers in charge of the 
 National Guard. The confusion that prevailed every- 
 where was indescribable. 
 
 On the 29th, the Empress, her son, and most of the 
 members of the Council of State, set off, attended by 
 700 soldiers, for Rambouillet — from which they con- 
 
1814.] THE ALLIES APPKOACH PAEIS. 531 
 
 tinued their journey to Blois — and in their train went 
 fifteen waggons laden "with, plate and coin from the 
 vaults of the Tuilleries. The spectators looked on their 
 departure in gloomy silence ; and King Joseph published 
 the following proclamation : — " Citizens of Paris ! A 
 hostile column has descended on Meaux. It advances ; 
 but the Emperor follows close behind, at the head of a 
 victorious army. The Council of Regency has provided 
 for the safety of the Empress and the King of Rome. I 
 remain with you. Let us arm ourselves to defend this 
 city, its monuments, its riches, our wives, our children 
 — all that is dear to us. Let this vast capital become a 
 camp for some moments ; and let the enemy find his 
 shame under the walls which he hopes to overleap in 
 triumph. The Emperor marches to our succour. Se- 
 cond him by a short and vigorous resistance, and pre- 
 serve the honour of France." No feeling favourable to 
 Napoleon was stirred by this appeal. The boulevards 
 continued to be thronged with multitudes of people ; but 
 the most part received the proclamation with indifference 
 — not a few with murmurs. Some officers urged Savary 
 to have the streets unpaved, and persuade the people to 
 arm themselves with the stones, and prepare for a de- 
 fence such as that of Saragossa. He answered, shaking 
 his head, " the thing cannot be done." 
 
 All day, waggons of biscuit and ammunition were 
 rolling through the town ; wounded soldiers came limp- 
 ing to the barriers ; and the Seine heaved thicker and 
 thicker with the cai'cases of horses and men. That 
 night, for once, the theatres were deserted. 
 
 On the 30th, the Allies fought and won the final 
 battle. The French occupied the whole range of heights 
 from the Marne at Charenton, to the Seine beyond St. 
 Denis ; and the Austrians began the attack about eleven 
 o'clock, towards the former of these points, while nearly 
 
532 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 in the midst between them, a charge was made by the 
 Russians on Pantin and Belleville. The Prussians, who 
 were posted over against the heights of Montmartre, did 
 not come into action so early in the day. The French 
 troops of the line were stationed everywhere in the 
 front, and commanded by Marmont and Mortier. Those 
 battalions of the National Guard, whose spirit could be 
 trusted, and who were adequately armed, took their 
 orders from Moncey, and formed a second line of 
 defence. The scholars of the Polytechnic School volun- 
 teered to serve at the great guns, and the artillery was, 
 though not numerous, well arranged, and in gallant 
 hands. 
 
 The French defence, in spite of all the previous 
 disasters, and of the enormous superiority of the enemy's 
 numbers, was most brave : but by two o'clock the Allies 
 had completely beaten them at all points, except only at 
 Montmartre, where they were rapidly making progress. 
 Marmont then sent several aides-de-camp to request an 
 armistice, and offer a capitulation. One only of his 
 messengers appears to have reached the head-quarters 
 of the sovereigns — and both the Czar and King of 
 Prussia immediately professed their willingness to spare 
 the city, provided the regular troops would evacuate it. 
 Blucher, meanwhile, continued pressing on at Mont- 
 martre, and shortly after four, the victory being com- 
 pleted in that direction, the French cannon were turned 
 on the city, and shot and shells began to spread destruc- 
 tion within its walls. The capitulation was drawn up 
 at five o'clock, close to the barrier St. Denis. 
 
 King Joseph showed himself on horseback among the 
 troops early in the morning, but was not visible after 
 the attack began. At one o'clock he received a message 
 from Marmont, requesting reinforcements. " Where 
 am I to find them?" answered he — ''is your horse a 
 
1814.] FALL OF PARIS. 533 
 
 good one ?" The aide-de-canip answered in the affirma- 
 tive. "Then follow me," said Joseph; and withont 
 further ceremony began his journey to Blois.* 
 
 We must now turn to ^Napoleon. It was not until 
 the 27th that he distinctly ascertained the fact of both 
 the allied armies having marched directly on Paris. He 
 instantly resolved to hasten after them, in hopes to 
 arrive on their rear, ere yet they had mastered the 
 heights of Montmartre ; nor did his troops refuse to 
 rush forward once more at his bidding. He had to go 
 round by Doulevent and Troyes, because the direct route 
 was utterly wasted, and could not furnish food for his 
 men. At Doulevent he received a billet from La Val- 
 lette, his Post-Master General, in these terms : " The 
 partisans of the stranger are making head, seconded by 
 secret intrigues. The presence of the Emperor is indis- 
 pensable — if he desires to prevent his capital from being 
 delivered to the enemy. There is not a moment to be 
 lost." Urging his advance accordingly with renewed 
 eagerness, Buonaparte reached Troyes on the night of 
 the 29th — his men having marched fifteen leagues since 
 
 * An English detenu, who was then in Paris, says: "During 
 the battle, the Boulevard dea Italiens and the Gate Tortoni were 
 thronged with fashionable loungers of both sexes, fitting as usual 
 on the chairs placed there, and appearing almost uninterested 
 spectators of the number of wounded French brought in. The 
 officers were carried on mattn sses. About two o'clock a general 
 cry of tauve qui peut was heard on the boulevards, from the Porte 
 St. Martin to Les Italiens ; this caused a general and confused 
 flight, which spread like the undulations of a wave, even beyond 
 the Pont Neuf. . During the whole of the battle wounded 
 
 soldiers crawled into tl . and lay down to die on the pave- 
 
 ment. . . The Moniteur of this day was a full sheet ; but no 
 notice was taken of the war, or the army. Four columns were 
 occupied by an article on the dram ttic works "t Denis, in< three 
 
 with a dissertation on the existent t Troy." — Memorable Event* 
 
 in T \iris in 1814, p. 93. 
 
534 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 the daybreak. On the 30tli, Macdonald in vain at- 
 tempted to convince him that the fate of Paris must 
 have been decided ere he could roach it, and advised him 
 to march without further delay so as to form a conjunc- 
 tion with Augei*eau. " In that case," said the marshal, 
 "we may unite and repose our troops, and yet give the 
 enemy battle on a chosen field. If Providence has de- 
 creed our last hour, we shall, at least, die with honour, 
 instead of being dispersed, pillaged, and slaughtered by 
 Cossacks." Napoleon was deaf to all such counsel. He 
 continued to advance. Finding the road beyond Troyes 
 quite clear, he threw himself into a postchaise, and tra- 
 velled on before his army at full speed, with hardly any 
 attendance. At Villeneuve L'Archeveque he mounted 
 on horseback, and galloping' without a pause, reached 
 Fontainebleau late in the night. He there ordered a 
 carriage, and taking Canlaincourt and Berthier into it, 
 drove on towards Paris. Nothing could shake his belief 
 that he was yet in time, until, while he was changing 
 horses at La Cour de France, but a few miles from Paris, 
 General Belliard came up, at the head of a column of 
 cavalry — weary and dejected men — marching towards 
 Fontainebleau, in consequence of the provisions of Mar- 
 mont's capitulation, from the fatal field of Montmartre. 
 
 Even then Napoleon refused to halt. Leaping from 
 his carriage, ho began : " What means this ? Why here 
 with your cavalry, Belliard ? And where are the 
 enemy ? Where are my wife and my boy P Where 
 Marmont ? Where Mortier ? " Belliard, walking by his 
 side, told him the events of the day. He called out for 
 his carriage — and insisted on continuing his journey. 
 The general in vain informed him that there was no 
 longer an army in Paris ; that the regulars were all 
 coming behind, and that neither they nor he himself, 
 having left the city in consequence of a convention, 
 
1814.] 
 
 REACHES FOi"xiAi:\'i:r.LLAr. 53-; 
 
 could possibly return to it. The Emperor still demanded 
 his carriage, and bade Belliard turn with the cavalry 
 and follow him. " Come," said he, " we must to Paris 
 — nothing goes aright when I am away — they do nothing 
 but blunder." He strode on, crying, "you should have 
 held out longer— you should have raised Paris — they 
 cannot like the Cossacks — they would surely have de- 
 fended their walls. — Go ! go ! I see every one has lost 
 his senses. This comes of employing fools and cowards." 
 "With such exclamations Buonaparte hurried onwards, 
 dragging Belliard with him, until they were met, a mile 
 from La Cour de France, by the first of the retreating in- 
 fantry. Their commander, General Curial, gave the same 
 answers as Belliard. " In proceeding to Paris," said he, 
 "you rush on death or captivity." Perceiving at length 
 that the hand of necessity was on him, the Emperor then 
 abandoned his design. He sunk at once into perfect 
 composure ; gave orders that the troops, as they arrived, 
 should draw up behind the little river Essonne ; des- 
 patched Caulaincourt to Paris, with authority to accept 
 whatever terms the Allied Sovereigns might be pleased 
 to offer ; and turned again towards Fontainebleau. 
 
 It was still dark when Xapoleon reached once more 
 that venerable castle. He retired to rest immediately ; 
 not, however, in any of the state-rooms which he had 
 been accustomed to occup}-, but in a smaller apartment, 
 in a different and more sequestered part of the building. 
 The Duke of Vicenza reached the Czar's quarters at 
 Pantin early in the morning of the 31st, while he was 
 yet asleep ; and recognised, amidst the crowd in the 
 ante-chamber, a deputation from the municipality of 
 Paris, who were waiting to present the keys of the city, 
 and invoke the protection of the conqueror. As soon as 
 Alexander awoke, these functionaries were admitted to 
 his presence, and experienced a most courteous reception. 
 
KAPuLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 The Czar repeated his favourite expression, that he had 
 but one enemy in France : and promised that the capi- 
 tal, and all within it, should be treated with perfect con- 
 sideration. Caulaincourt then found his way to Alex- 
 ander — but he was dismissed immediately. The 
 countenance of the envoy announced, as he came out, 
 that he considered the fate of his master as decided ; 
 nor, if he had preserved any hope, could it have failed 
 to expire when he learned that Alexander had already 
 sent to Talleyrand, requesting him on no account to quit 
 the capital, and proposing to take up his own residence 
 in his hotel. Nesselrode, the Russian minister, who re- 
 ceived the municipal deputation ere the Czar awoke, 
 entered freely into conversation with the gentleman at 
 their head, M. Laborde. That person, being questioned 
 as to the state of public feeling, answered that there 
 were three parties : the army, who still adhered to 
 Buonaparte ; the republicans, who wished for his depo- 
 sition, but would not object to the King of Home being 
 recognised as Emperor, provided a liberal constitution 
 were established, and the regency placed in fit hands ; 
 and finally, the old nobility and the saloons of Paris, who 
 were united in desiring the restoration of the Bourbons. 
 " But at the Prince of Benevento's," said Laborde, " the 
 Emperor will best acquire a knowledge of all this — it 
 is there that our chief statesmen assemble habitually." 
 This conversation is supposed to have fixed Alexander's 
 choice of a residence ; and as we have already seen that 
 Talleyrand was ere now committed in the cause of Louis, 
 the result of this choice may be anticipated. 
 
 The history of what La Vallette had called " the 
 secret intrigues with the stranger" has not yet been 
 cleared up — nor is it likely to be so for some time. If 
 there was one of the Allied Princes on whose disposition 
 to spare himself, or at least his family, Napoleon might 
 
1S14.J oCtiAMATlofl "i mi: alliks. 537 
 
 have been supposed to count, it must have been the 
 Emperor of Austria ; and yet, at daybreak this very 
 morning, a proclamation was tossed in thousands over 
 the barriers of Paris, in which several phrases occurred, 
 not to be reconciled with any other notion than that he 
 and all the Allies agreed in favouring the restoration of 
 the Bourbons, ere any part of their forces entered the 
 capital. This document spoke of the anxiety of " the 
 sovereigns" to see the establishment of " a salutary 
 authority in France ;" of the opportunity offered to the 
 Parisians of "accelerating the peace of the world;" of 
 the " conduct of Bordeaux" as affording " an example of 
 the method in which foreign war and civil discord might 
 find a common termination." It concluded thus : "It 
 is in these sentiments that Europe in arms before your 
 walls addresses herself to you. Hasten then to respond 
 to the confidence which she reposes in your love for 
 your country, and in your wisdom ;" and was signed 
 SCHWARTZEN'BEKG, Commander- la- Chief of the Allied 
 Armies." 
 
 There was a circumstance of another kind which 
 assisted in stimulating the hopes and swelling the ad- 
 herents of the royal cause. The Allies had, in the early 
 part of the campaign, experienced evil from the multi- 
 plicity of uniforms worn among the troops of so many 
 nations and tongues, and the likeness which some of the 
 dresses, the Germans especially, bore to those of the 
 French. The invading soldiers had latterly adopted 
 the practice of binding pieces of white linen round their 
 left arms ; and this token, though possibly meant only 
 to enable the strangers to recognise each other, was not 
 likely to be observed with indifference by the Parisians, 
 among whom the Bouiboni.-t. I hud already begun to 
 wear openly the white cockade. 
 
 Finally, a vivid sensation was excited in Paris at this 
 
538 KATOLEON CUOXAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 critical moment by tbe publication of Chateaubi'iand's 
 celebrated tract, entitled " Of Buonaparte and of tbe 
 Bourbons." The first symptom of freedom in the long 
 enslaved press of Paris was not likely, whatever it 
 might be, to meet with an unfriendly reception ; but 
 this effusion of one of the most popular writers of the 
 time (though composed in a style not suited to sober 
 English tastes) was admirably adapted to produce a 
 powerful effect, at such a moment of doubt and hesita- 
 tion, on the people to whom it was addressed. 
 
 The agents of Buonaparte had not been idle during 
 the 30th : they had appealed to the passions of those 
 wretched classes of society who had been the willing 
 instruments of all the horrible violence of the revolution, 
 and among whom the name of Bourbon was still de- 
 tested ; nor without considerable effect. The crowds of 
 filthy outcasts who emerged from their lanes and cellars, 
 and thronged some of the public places during the 
 battle, were regarded with equal alarm by all the decent 
 part of the population, however divided in political senti- 
 ments. But the battle ended ere they could be brought 
 to venture on any combined movement ; and when the 
 defeated soldiery began to file in silence and dejection 
 through the streets, the mob lost courage, and retreated 
 also in dismay to the obscure abodes of their misery and 
 vice. 
 
 The royalists welcomed with exultation the dawn of 
 the 31st. Together with the proclamation of Schwart- 
 zenberg, they circulated one of Monsieur, and another 
 of Louis XVIII. himself; and some of the leading 
 gentlemen of the party, the Montmorencj'S, the Noailles, 
 the Rohans, the Rochefoucalds, the Polignacs, the 
 Chateaubriands, were early on horseback in the streets ; 
 which they paraded without interruption from any, 
 either of tbe civil authorities, or of the National Guard, 
 
1814.] 
 
 THE ALLIES ENTER PARIS. 530 
 
 decorated with the symbols of their cause, and appealing 
 with eloquence to the feelings of the onlookers. As yet, 
 however, they were only listened to. The mass of the 
 people were altogether uncertain what the end was to 
 be ; and, in the language of the chief orator himself, M. 
 Sosthenes de Rochefoucald, " the silence was most dis- 
 mal." At noon the first of the Allied troops began to 
 pass the barrier and enter the city. The royalist cava- 
 liers met them; bnt though many officers observing the 
 white cockade exclaimed "la belle decoration!" the 
 generals refused to say anything which might commit 
 their sovereigns. Some ladies of rank, however, now 
 appeared to take their part in the scene; and when 
 these fair hands were seen tearing their dresses to make 
 white cockades, the flame of their enthusiasm began to 
 spread. Various pickets of the National Guard had 
 plucked the tri-colour badge from their caps, and 
 assumed the white, ere many of the Allies passed the 
 gates. 
 
 At noon, as has been mentioned, this triumphal pro- 
 cession began, and it lasted for several hours. The 
 show was splendid ; 50,000 troops, horse, foot, and artil- 
 lerv, all in the highest order and condition, marched 
 along the boulevards; and in the midst appeared the 
 youthful Czar and the King of Prussia, followed by a 
 dazzling suite of princes, ambassadors, and generals. 
 The crowd was so great that their motion, always slow, 
 was sometimes suspended. The courteous looks and 
 manners of all the strangers — but especially the affable 
 and condescending air of Alexander, were observed at 
 first with surprise ; as the cavalcade passed on, and the 
 crowd thickened, the feelings of the populace rose from 
 wonder to delight, and ended in contagious and irresis- 
 tible rapture. No sovereigns enteriug their native 
 capitals were ever received with more enthusiastic 
 
540 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 plaudits; and still, at every step, the shouts of Vivo 
 L'Empercur Alexandre! — Vive le Hoi de Prusse! were 
 more and more loudly mingled with the long- forgotten 
 echoes of Vive le Eoi! — Vive Louis XVIII. — Vivent les 
 Bourbons ! 
 
 The monarchs at last halted, dismissed their soldiers 
 to quarters in the city, saw Platoff and his Cossacks 
 establish their bivouack in the Champs Elysees, and 
 retired to the residences prepared for them ; that of 
 Alexander being, as we have mentioned above, in the 
 hotel of Talleyrand. 
 
 While the Czar was discussing with this wily veteran, 
 and a few other French statesmen of the first class, 
 summoned at his request, the state of public opinion, 
 and the strength of the contending parties — the popula- 
 tion of Paris contimied lost in surprise and admiration, 
 at the sudden march of events, the altogether unex- 
 pected amount of the troops of the Allies — (for they 
 that had figured in the triumphal procession were, it now 
 appeared, from the occupation of all the environs, but 
 a fragment of the whole) — and above all, pei'haps — such 
 is the theatric taste of this people — the countless varieties 
 of lineament and costume observable among the warlike 
 bands lounging and parading about their streets and 
 gardens. The capital wore the semblance of some enor- 
 mous masquerade. Circassian noblemen in complete 
 mail, and wild Bashkirs with bows and arrows, were 
 there. All ages, as well as countries, seemed to have 
 sent their representatives, to stalk as victors amidst the 
 nation which but yesterday had claimed glory above the 
 dreams of antiquity, and the undisputed mastery of 
 the European world. 
 
 The council at the hotel of Talleyrand did not protract 
 its sitting. Alexander and Frederick- William, urged by 
 all their assessors to re-establish the House of Bourbon, 
 
18H.] CONFERENCES IX PARIS. 541 
 
 still hesitated. " It is but a few days ago," said the Czar, 
 "since a column of 5000 or 6000 new troops suffered them- 
 selves to be cut in pieces before my eyes, when a single 
 cry of Vive le Boi would have saved them." De Pradt 
 answered, " Such things will go on as long as you con- 
 tinue to treat with Buonaparte — even although at this 
 moment he has a halter round his neck." The Czar did 
 not understand this last allusion ; it was explained to 
 him that the Parisians were busy in pulling down Na- 
 poleon's statue from the top of the great pillar in the 
 Place Vendome. Talleyrand now suggested that the 
 Conservative Senate should be convoked, and required 
 to nominate a provisional government, the members of 
 which should have power to arrange a constitution. 
 And to this the sovereigns assented. Alexander signed 
 forthwith a proclamation asserting the resolution of the 
 Allies to "treat no more with Napoleon Buonaparte, or 
 any of his family." Talleyrand had a printer in wait- 
 in 0- , and the document was immediately published, with 
 this significant affix, "Michaud, Printer to the King." 
 If any doubt could have remained after this, it must be 
 supposed to have ceased at nine the same evening, when 
 the royalist gentiy once more assembled, sent a second 
 deputation to Alexander, and were (the Czar himself 
 having retired to rest) received, and answered in these 
 words, by his minister Nesselrode : — "I have just left 
 the Emperor, and it is in his name that I speak. Return 
 to vour assembly, and announce to all the French, that, 
 touched with the cries he has heard this morning, and 
 the wishes since so earnestly expressed to him, his Ma- 
 jesty is about to restore the crown to him to whom alone 
 it belongs. Louis XVIII. will immediately ascend his 
 throne." 
 
 And yet it is by no means clear that even at the time 
 when this apparently most solemn declaration was 
 
542 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 uttered, the resolution of the Allies had been unalterably 
 taken. Nesselrode personally inclined to a regency, and 
 preserving the crown to the King of Rome ; nor is it to 
 be doubted that that scheme, if at all practicable, would 
 have been preferred by the Emperor of Austria. But 
 the Frenchmen who had once committed themselves 
 against Napoleon could not be persuaded but that his 
 his influence would revive, to their own ruin, under any 
 Buonapartean administration ; and the events of the 
 two succeeding days were decisive. The Municipal 
 Council met, and proclaimed that the throne was empty. 
 This bold act is supposed to have determined the Con- 
 servative Senate. On the 1st of April that body also 
 assembled, and named a provisional government, with 
 Talleyrand for its head. The deposition of Napoleon 
 was forthwith put to the vote, and carried without even 
 one dissentient voice. On the 2d the Legislative Senate, 
 angrily dispersed in January, were in like manner con- 
 voked ; and they too ratified the decrees proposed by 
 the Conservative. On the 3d the senatus-consultum 
 was published, and myriads of hands were busy in every 
 corner of the city pulling down the statues and pictures, 
 and effacing the arms and initials of Napoleon. Mean- 
 time the Allied Princes appointed military governors of 
 Paris, were visible daily at processions and festivals, 
 and received, night after night, in the theatres, the 
 tumultuous applause of the most inconstant of peoples. 
 
 It was in the night between the 2d and the 3d that 
 Caulaincourt returned from his mission to Fontainebleau, 
 and informed Napoleon of the events which he had wit- 
 nessed ; he added, that the Allies had not yet, in his 
 opinion, made up their minds to resist the scheme of a 
 regency, but that he was commissioned to say nothing 
 could be arranged, as to ulterior questions, until he, the 
 Emperor, had formally abdicated his throne. The Mar- 
 
1814.] FONTAINEBLEAU. 543 
 
 sbals assembled at Fontainebleau seem, on hearing this 
 intelligence, to have resolved unanimously that they 
 would take no further part in the war ; but Napoleon 
 himself was not yet prepai'ed to give up all without a 
 struggle. The next day, the 4th of April, he reviewed 
 some of his troops, harangued them on " the treasonable 
 proceedings in the capital," announced his intention of 
 instantly marching thither, and was answered by enthu- 
 siastic shouts of " Paris ! Paris !" He, on this, con- 
 ceiving himself to be secure of the attachment of his 
 soldiery, gave orders for advancing head-quarters to 
 Essonne. With the troops which had filed through 
 Paris, under Marrnont's convention, and those which 
 had followed himself from Troyes, nearly 50,000 men 
 were once more assembled around Fontainebleau ; and 
 with such support Napoleon was not yet so humbled as 
 to fear hazarding a blow, despite all the numerical supe- 
 riority of the Allies. 
 
 When, however, he retired to the chateau, after the 
 review, he was followed by his Marshals, and respect- 
 fully, but firmly, informed, that if he refused to nego- 
 tiate on the basis of his personal abdication, and persisted 
 in risking an attack on Paris, they would not accompany 
 him. He paused for a moment in silence — and a long 
 debate ensued. The statements and arguments which 
 he heard finally prevailed ; and Napoleon drew up, and 
 signed, in language worthy of the solemn occasion, this 
 act : — 
 
 The Allied powers having proclaimed that the Emperor 
 Napoleon is the sole obstacle to the re-establishment of 
 peace in Europe, he, faithful to his oath, declares that he is 
 ready to descend from the throne, to quit France, and even 
 to relinquish life, for the good of his country ; which is 
 inseparable from the right* of his Son, from those of tin- 
 "Regency in the person of the Empress, and from the main- 
 
544 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 tenance of ihh I&ijob of the Empire. Done at our Palace of 
 Fontainebleau, April the 4>th, 1814. NAPOLEON. 
 
 Buonaparte appointed Caulaincourt to bear this docu- 
 ment to Paris en his behalf ; and the Marshals proposed 
 that Ney should accompany him as their representa- 
 tive. It was suggested that Marmont also should form 
 part of the deputation ; but he was in command of the 
 advanced division at Essonne, and Macdonald was 
 named in his stead. These officers now desired to 
 know on what stipulations, as concerned the Emperor 
 personally, they were to insist. " On none," he answered ; 
 fi obtain the best terms you can for France — for myself 
 I ask nothing." 
 
 Hitherto nothing could be more composed or dig- 
 nified than his demeanour. He now threw himself on a 
 fcofa, hid his countenance for some minutes, and then 
 starting up with that smile which had so often kindled 
 every heart around him into the flame of onset, exclaimed 
 - — " Let us march, my comrades ; let us take the field 
 once more." 
 
 The answer was silence, and some tears ; and he, 
 also in silence, dismissed the messengers and the 
 Assemblage. 
 
 Caulaincourt, Key, and Macdonald immediately com- 
 menced their journey ; and on reaching Essonne received 
 intelligence which cmickened their speed. Victor, and 
 many other officers of the first rank, not admitted to the 
 council at Fontainebleau, and considering the events of 
 the two preceding clays in the capital as decisive, had 
 already sent in their adhesion to the provisional govern- 
 ment; and Marmont, the commander of Napoleon's 
 division in advance, had not only taken the same step 
 for himself personally, but entered into a separate con- 
 vention the night before, under which it had been 
 settled that he should forthwith march his troops within 
 
1814.] FONTAINEBLEAtT. 545 
 
 the lines of the allied armies. The Marshals of the 
 mission entreated Marmont to suspend his purpose, and 
 repair with themselves to Paris. He complied ; and on 
 arriving in the capital they found themselves surrounded 
 on all sides with the shout s of Vive le Hoi .' Such sounds 
 accompanied them to the Hotel Talleyrand, where they 
 were forthwith admitted to the presence of the Czar. 
 The act of abdication was produced ; and Alexander 
 expressed his surprise that it should have contained no 
 stipulations for ^Napoleon personally ; " But I have been 
 his friend," said he, " and I will willingly be his advo- 
 I propose that he should retain his imperial title, 
 with the sovereignty of Elba, or some other island." 
 
 When Buonaparte's envoys retired from the Autoerc fc's 
 presence, it still remained doubtful whether the abdica- 
 tion would be accepted in its present form, or the Allies 
 would insist on an unconditional surrender. There 
 came tidings almost on the instant, which determined 
 the question. Napoleon had, shortly after the mission 
 left him, sent orders to General Souham, who commanded 
 at Essonne in the absence of Marmont, to repair to his 
 presence at Fontainebleau. Souham, who, like all the 
 other up] er - of Marmont's corps (with but two 
 
 exceptii ns) approved of the convention of the 3d, was 
 alarmed on receiving this message. His brethren, 1 
 summoned to council, par icipated in his fears ; and the 
 resolution was taken to put the convention at once in 
 execution. The troops were wholly ignorant of what 
 was intended, when they commenced their march at five 
 in the morning of the 5th ; and for the first time sus- 
 pected the secret views of their chiefs, when they found 
 themselves in the midst of the allied lines, and watched 
 on all sides by overwhelming numbers, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Versailles. A violent commotion ensued ; 
 Borne blood was shed ; but the necessity of submission 
 
546 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 was so obvious, that ere long they resumed the appear- 
 ance of order, and were cantoned in quiet in the midst 
 of the sti'angers. 
 
 This piece of intelligence was followed by more of the 
 like complexion. Officers of all ranks began to abandon 
 the camp at Fontainebleau, and present themselves to 
 swear allegiance to the new government. Talleyrand 
 said wittily, when some one called Marmont a traitor, 
 "his watch only went a little faster than the others." 
 
 At length the allied princes signified their resolution 
 to accept of nothing but an unconditional abdication ; 
 making the Marshals, however, the bearers of their 
 unanimous accession to the proposals of Alexander in 
 favour of Napoleon and his House ; which, as finally 
 shaped, were these : — ■ 
 
 1st, The imperial title to be preserved by Napoleon, 
 with the free sovereignty of Elba, guards, and a navy 
 suitable to the extent of that island, a pension from 
 France, of six millions of francs annually : 2d, The 
 Duchies of Parma, Placentia and Guastalla to be granted 
 in sovereignty to Maria Louisa and her heirs : and 3d, 
 Two millions and a half of francs annually to be paid, by 
 the French government, in pensions to Josephine and 
 the other members of the Buonaparte family. 
 
 Napoleon, on hearing the consequences of Marmont's 
 defection, exclaimed, " Ungrateful man ! but I pity him 
 more than myself." Every hour thenceforth he was de- 
 stined to meet similar mortifications. Berthier, his 
 chosen and trusted friend, asked leave to go on private 
 business to Paris, adding that he would return in a few 
 hours. The Emperor consented ; and, as he left the 
 apartment, whispered with a smile, " He will return no 
 more." What Napoleon felt even more painfully was 
 the unceremonious departure of his Mameluke, Rustan. 
 
 Ere the Marshals returned from Paris he reviewed his 
 
1814.] 
 
 ■UU'ICATES AT FONTAIHEBLEAIT. 547 
 
 guard again ; and it was obvious to those about bim that 
 he still hankered after the chances of another field. Wo 
 may imagine that his thoughts were like those of the 
 Scottish usurper : — 
 
 " I have lived long enough : my May of life 
 
 Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf .... 
 
 Come, put mine armour on ; give me my staff. 
 
 The Thanes fly from me." 
 
 He sometimes meditated a march southwards, collecting 
 on his way the armies of Augereau and Soult, and re- 
 opening the campaign as circumstances might recom- 
 mend, behind either the Loire or the Alps. At other 
 times the chance of yet rousing the population of Paris 
 recurred to his imagination. Amidst these dreams, ot 
 which every minute more clearly showed the vanity, 
 Napoleon received the ultimatum of the invading powers. 
 He hesitated and pondered long ere he would sign his 
 acceptance of it. The group of his personal followers 
 had been sorely thinned ; and the armies of the Allies, 
 gradually pushing forward from Paris, had nearly sur- 
 rounded Fontainebleau, when he at length (on the 11th 
 of April) abandoned all hope, and executed an instru- 
 ment, formally " renouncing for himself and his heirs 
 the thrones of France and of Italy." 
 
 Even after signing this document, and delivering it 
 to Canlainconrt, he made a last effort to rouse the spirits 
 of the chief officers still around his person. They, as 
 the Marshals had done on the 4th, heard his appeals in 
 silence; and the Duke of Vicenza, though repeatedly 
 commanded to give him back the act of abdication, re- 
 fused to do so. It is generally believed that, during the 
 night which ensued, Napoleon's meditations were, once 
 more, like those of the falling Macbeth : — 
 
 " There is no flying hence, nor tarrying her©. 
 I 'gin to be weary o' the sun." — 
 
548 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 Whether the story, very circumstantially told, of his 
 having swallowed poison on that night, he true, we have 
 no means of deciding. It is certain that he underwent 
 a violent paroxysm of illness, sunk into a death-like 
 stupor, and awoke in extreme feebleness, lassitude, and 
 dejection ; in which condition several days were passed. 
 
 Napoleon remained long enough at Fontainebleau to 
 hear of the restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy, and 
 the triumphant entrance of the Count d'Artois (after- 
 wards Charles X.) into Paris, as Lieutenant fcr his 
 brother, Louis XVIII. ; and of another event, which 
 ought to have given him greater affliction. Immediately 
 on the formation of the provisional government, mes- 
 sengers had been sent from Paris to arrest the progress 
 of hostilities between Soult and Wellington. But, 
 wherever the blame of intercepting and holding back 
 these tidings may have lain, the English General received 
 no intelligence of the kind until, pursuing his career of 
 success, he had fought another great and bloody battle, 
 and achieved another glorious victory, beneath the walls 
 of Thoulouse. This unfortunate, because utterly needless, 
 battle, occurred on the 11th of April. On the 14th the 
 news of the fall of Paris reached Lord Wellington ; and, 
 Soult soon afterwards signifying his adhesion to the new 
 government, his conqueror proceeded to take part in the 
 final negotiations of the Allies at Paris. 
 
 It was on the 20th of April that Napoleon once more 
 called his officers about him, and signified that they were 
 summoned to receive his last adieus. Several of the 
 marshals and others, who had some time before sworn 
 fealty to the king, were present. " Louis," said he, 
 " has talents and means : he is old and infirm ; and 
 will not, I think, choose to give a bad name to his 
 reign. If he is wise, he will occupy my bed, and only 
 change the sheets. But he must treat the army well, 
 
1814.] LEAVES FONTAINEBLEAU. 549 
 
 and take care not to look back on the past, or his time 
 will be brief. For you, gentlemen, I am no longer to be 
 with yon — you have another government ; and it will 
 become you to attach yourselves to it frankly, and serve 
 it as faithfully as you have served me." 
 
 He now desired that the relics of his imperial guard 
 might be drawn tip in the court yard of the castle. He 
 advanced to them on horseback ; and tears dropped 
 from his eyes as he dismounted in the midst. " All 
 Europe," said Napoleon, " has armed against me. 
 France herself has deserted me, and chosen another 
 dynasty. I might, with my soldiers, have maintained a 
 civil war for years — but it would have rendered France 
 unhappy. Bo faithful to the new sovereign whom your 
 country has chosen. Do not lament my fate : I shall 
 always be happy while I know that 3-ou are so. I could 
 have died — nothing was easier — but I will always follow 
 the path of honour. I will record with my pen the 
 deeds wo have done together. I cannot embrace you 
 all," he continued, taking the commanding officer in his 
 arms, " but I embrace your general. Bring hither the 
 eagle. Beloved eagle ! may the kisses I bestow on you 
 long resound in the hearts of the brave : Farewell, my 
 children — farewell, my brave companions — surround me 
 once more — farewell !" 
 
 Amidst the silent but profound grief of these brave 
 men, submitting like himself to the irresistible force of 
 events, Napoleon placed himself in his carriage, and 
 drove rapidly from Fontainebleau. 
 
 Of all that lamented the fall of this extraordinary 
 man, no one shed bitterer tears than the neglected wife 
 of his youth. Josephine had fled from Paris on the 
 approach of the Allies ; but being assured of the friendly 
 protection of Alexander, returned to Malmaison ere Na- 
 poleon quitted Fontainebleau. The Czar visited her 
 
550 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 frequently, and endeavoui'ed to soothe her affliction. 
 But the ruin of "her Achilles," "her Cid" (as she now 
 once more, in the day of misery, called Buonaparte), had 
 entered deep into her heart. She sickened and died 
 before the Allies left France. 
 
 Maria Louisa, meanwhile, and her son, were taken 
 under the personal protection of the Emperor of Austria, 
 and had begun their journey to Vienna some time before 
 the fallen " Child of Destiny" reached Elba. 
 
1SH.] JOURNEY TO FREJUS, *>51 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 Napoleon's Journey to Frejus— Voyage to Elba — His conduct and oc- 
 cupations there — Discontents in France — Return of Prisoners of 
 War— Jealousy of the Army— Union of the Jacobins and Buona- 
 partists— Their intrigues— Napoleon e capes from Elba. 
 
 Four commissioners, one from each of the great Allied 
 Powers, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and England, accom- 
 panied Buonaparte on his journey. He was attended by 
 Bertrand, Grand Master of the Palace, and some other 
 attached friends and servants ; and while fourteen 
 carriages were conveying him and his immediate suite 
 towards Elba, 700 infantry and about 150 cavalry of the 
 Imperial Guard, (all picked men, and all volunteers,) 
 marched in the same direction, to take on them the mili- 
 tary duties of the exiled court. 
 
 During the earlier part of his progress Napoleon con- 
 tinued to be received respectfully by the civil functionaries 
 of the different towns and departments, and with many 
 tokens of sympathy on the part of the people ; and his 
 personal demeanour was such as it had been wont to 
 appear in his better days. At Valance he met Augereau, 
 whose conduct during the campaign had moved his 
 bitterest displeasure ; the interview was short — the re- 
 criminations mutual, and, for the first time perhaps, the 
 fallen Emperor beard himself addressed in tbat tone of 
 equality and indifference to which, for so many years, he 
 had been a stranger. Thenceforth the course of his 
 journey carried him more and more deeply into the 
 provinces wherein his name had never been popular, and 
 contemptuous hootings began by degrees to be succeeded 
 by clamours of fierce resentment. On more tlu>~ one 
 
552 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 occasion the crowd had threatened personal violence 
 when the horses were changing, and he appears to have 
 exhibited alarm such as could hardly have been expected 
 in one so familiar with all the dangers of warfare. But 
 civil commotions, as we have seen in the case of the re- 
 volution of Brumaire, were not contemplated by Napo- 
 leon so calmly as the tumults of the field. At this time, 
 besides, he was suffering under a bodily illness, the fruit 
 of debauchery, which acts severely on the stoutest nerves. 
 It is admitted on all hands that he showed more of un- 
 easiness and anxiety than accords with the notion of a 
 heroic character. At length he disguised himself, and 
 sometimes appearing in an Austrian uniform, at others 
 riding on before the carriages in the garb of a courier, 
 reached in safety the place of embarkation. 
 
 A French vessel had been sent round from Toulon to 
 Cannes, for the purpose of conveying him to Elba ; but 
 there happened to be an English frigate also in the 
 roads, and he pi-eferred sailing under any flag rather 
 than the Bourbon. His equanimity seemed perfectly 
 re-established from the moment when he set his foot on 
 the British deck. He conversed affably with Captain 
 Usher and the officers ; and by the ease and plainness 
 of his manners, his intelligent curiosity as to the arrange- 
 ments of the ship, and the warm eulogies which he con- 
 tinued to pronounce on them, and on the character of 
 the English nation at large, he succeeded in making a 
 very favourable impression on all the crew — with the 
 exception of Hinton, a shrewd old boatswain, who, un- 
 moved by all the imperial blandishments, growled, at 
 the close of every fine speech, the same homely comment, 
 " humbug." Saving this hard veteran, the usual lan- 
 guage of the forecastle was, that " Buonaparte was a 
 very good fellow after all ;" and when, on finally leaving 
 the " Undaunted," he caused some 200 Napoleons to be 
 
1814.] ARRIVAL IN ELBA. 653 
 
 distributed among the sailors, they " wished his honour 
 long life, and better luck the next time." 
 
 He came within view of his new dominions on the 
 afternoon of the 4th of May, and went ashore in disguise 
 the same evening, in order to ascertain for himself 
 whether the feelings of the Elbese at all resembled those 
 of the Provencals. Finding that, on the contrary, the 
 people considered his residence as likely to increase in 
 every way the consequence and prosperity of their 
 island, he returned on board the ship, and at noon, the 
 day after, made his public entrauce into the town of 
 Porto Ferraio, amidst all possible demonstrations of 
 welcome and respect. 
 
 The Kussian and Prussian Commissioners did not 
 accompany him beyond the coast of Provence : the 
 Austrian Baron Kholer, and the English Sir Neil 
 Campbell, landed with Napoleon, and took up their 
 residence at Ferraio. He continued for some time to 
 treat both of these gentlemen with every mark of dis- 
 tinction, and even cordiality : made them the companions 
 of his table and excursions ; and conversed with ap- 
 parent openness and candour on the past, the present, 
 and the future. " There is but one people in the world," 
 said he to Colonel Campbell — " the English — the rest 
 are only so many populaces. I tried to raise the French 
 to 3'our level of sentiment, and, failing to do so, fell of 
 course. I am now politically dead to Europe. Let me 
 do what I can for Elba. ... It must be confessed," 
 said he, having climbed the hill above Ferraio, from 
 whence he could look down on the whole of his territory, 
 as on a map — " it must be confessed," said tho Emperor, 
 smiling, " that my island is very small." 
 
 The island, however, was his ; and, as on the eye 
 itself a very small object near at hand fills a much 
 greater space than the largest which is distant, so, in 
 
554 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 the mind of Napoleon, that was always of most impor- 
 tance in which his personal interests happened for the 
 time to be most concerned. The island — mountainous 
 and rocky, for the most part barren, and of a circum- 
 ference not beyond sixty miles — was his ; and the 
 Emperor forthwith devoted to Elba the same anxious 
 care and industry which had sufficed for the whole 
 affairs of France, and the superintendence and control 
 of half Europe besides. He, in less than three weeks, 
 had explored every corner of the island, and projected 
 more improvements of all sorts than would have occu- 
 pied a long life-time to complete. He even extended 
 his empire by sending some dozen or two of his soldiers 
 to take possession of a small adjacent islet, hitherto left 
 unoccupied for fear of corsairs. He established four 
 different residences at different corners of Elba, and was 
 continually in motion from one to another of them. 
 Wherever he was, in houses neither so large nor so well 
 furnished as many English gentlemen are used to inhabit, 
 all the etiquettes of the Tuilleries were, as far as possible, 
 adhered to ; and Napoleon's eight or nine hundred veter- 
 ans were l-eviewed as frequently and formally as if they 
 had been the army of Austerlitz or of Moscow. His 
 presence gave a new stimulus to the trade and industry 
 of the islanders ; the small port of Ferraio was crowded 
 with vessels from the opposite coasts of Italy ; and, such 
 was still the power of his name, that the new flag of 
 Elba (covered with Napoleon's bees), traversed with im- 
 punity the seas most infested with the Moorish pirates. 
 Buonaparte's eagerness as to architectural and other 
 improvements was, ere long, however, checked in a 
 manner sufficiently new to him — namely, by the want 
 of money. The taxes of the island were summarily in- 
 creased ; but this gave rise to discontent among the 
 Elbese, without replenishing at all adequately the Em- 
 
1814.] 
 
 AT ELBi. 00-5 
 
 peror's exchequer. Had the French go\^rnment paid 
 his pension in advance, or at least quarterly, as it fell 
 due, even that would have borne a slender proportion to 
 the demands of his magnificent imagination. But Na- 
 poleon received no money whatever from the Bourbon 
 court ; and his complaints on this head were unjustly 
 and unwisely neglected. These new troubles embittered 
 the spirit of the fallen Chief; and, the first excitement 
 of novelty being over, he sank into a state of compara- 
 tive indolence, and apparently of listless dejection ; from 
 which, however, he was, ere long, to be roused effect- 
 uallv, by the course of events in that great kingdom, 
 almost in sight of whose shores he had been most inju- 
 diciously permitted to preserve the shadow of sovereign 
 state. 
 
 Louis XYIIT., advanced in years, gross and infirm in 
 person, and devoted to the luxuries of the table, was, in 
 spite of considerable talents and accomplishments, and 
 a sincere desire to conciliate the affections by promoting 
 the interests, of all orders of his people, but ill adapted 
 for occupying, in such trying times, the throne which, 
 even amidst all the blaze of genius and victory, Napoleon 
 had at best found uneasy and insecure.* The King 
 himself was, perhaps, less unpopular than almost any 
 other member of his family ; but it was his fatal misfor- 
 tune, that while, on the whole, every day increased the 
 bitterness of those who had never been sincerely his 
 friends, it tended to chill the affections of the royalists 
 who had partaken his exile, or laboured, ere success was 
 probable, for his return. 
 
 * When the King first came to Paris, there appeared a carica- 
 ture representing an eagle flying away from the Tuilleries, and a 
 brood of porkers entering the gate ; and his Majesty was commonly 
 called by the rabble, not Louia dixhuit, but Louis Cochon (the pi;r) 
 or Louis dfs huitrei (of the oystt i 
 
 37 
 
556 NAPOLEON EUOXAPAKTE. [1814. 
 
 Louis had been called to the throne by the French 
 senate, in a decree which at the same time declared the 
 legislative constitution, as composed of a hereditary 
 sovereign and two houses of assembly, to be fixed and 
 unchangeable ; which confirmed the rights of all who had 
 obtained property in consequence of the events of the 
 Revolution, and the titles and orders conferred by Buona- 
 parte: in a word, which summoned the Bourbon to ascend 
 the throne of Napoleon — on condition that he should 
 preserve that political system which Napoleon had vio- 
 lated. Louis, however, though he proceeded to France 
 on this invitation, did not hesitate to date his first act 
 in the twentieth year of his reign; and though he 
 issued a charter, conferring, as from his own free will, 
 every privilege which the senate claimed for themselves 
 and the nation, this mode of commencement could not 
 fail to give deep offence to those, not originally of his 
 party, who had consented to his recall. These men 
 saw, in such assumptions, the traces of those old doc- 
 trines of divine right, which they had through life ab- 
 horred and combated ; and asked why, if all their privi- 
 leges were but the gifts of the King, they might not, on 
 any tempting opportunity, be withdrawn by the same 
 authoritv ? They, whose possessions and titles had all 
 been won since the death of Louis XVI., were startled 
 when they found, that, according to the ro}-al doctrine, 
 there had been no legitimate government all that time 
 in France. The exiled nobles, meanwhile, were natu- 
 rally the personal friends and companions of the restored 
 princes : their illustrious names, and, we must add, their 
 superior manners, could not fail to excite unpleasant 
 feelings among the new made dukes and counts of 
 Bnonanarte. Among themselves it was no wonder that 
 expectations were cherished, and even avowed, of recover- 
 ing gradually, if not rapidly, the estates of which the 
 
1814.] DISCONTENTS IX FRANOB. 557 
 
 Revolution had deprived them. The churchmen, who 
 had never gone heartily into Napoleon's ecclesiastical 
 arrangements, sided of course with these impoverished 
 and haughty lords ; and, in a word, the first tumult of 
 the restoration heing over, the troops of the Allies 
 withdrawn, and the memory of recent sufferings and 
 disasters beginning to wax dim amidst the vainest and 
 most volatile of nations, there were ahundant elements 
 of discontent afloat among all those classes who had 
 originallv approved of, or profited by, the revolution of 
 1792. 
 
 Of these the most powerful and dangerous remains to 
 be noticed ; and, indeed, had the Bourbons adopted 
 judicious measures concerning the army, it is very pro- 
 bable that the alarms of the other classes now alluded 
 to might have subsided. The Allies, in the moment of 
 universal delight and conciliation, restored at once, and 
 without stipulation, the whole of the prisoners who had 
 fallen into their hands during the war. At least 150,000 
 veteran soldiers of Buonaparte were thus poured into 
 France ere Louis was well seated on the throne ; men, 
 the greater part of whom had witnessed nothing of the 
 last disastrous campaigns ; who had sustained them- 
 selves in their exile by brooding over the earlier vic- 
 tories in which they themselves had had a part ; and who 
 now, returning fresh and vigorous to their native soil, 
 had but one answer to every tale of misfortune which 
 met them : " These things could never have happened 
 had we been here." 
 
 The conquerors, in their anxiety to procure for Louis 
 XVIII. a warm reception among the French, had been 
 led into other mistakes, which all tended to the same 
 issue. They had (with some exceptions on the part of 
 Prussia) left the pictures and statues, the trophies of 
 Kapoloon's battles, untouched in the Louvre — they had 
 
558 NAFOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 not even distui'bcd the monuments erected in commemo- 
 ration of their own disgraces. These instances of for- 
 hearance were now attributed by the fierce and haughty 
 soldiery of Buonaparte, to the lingering influence of that 
 terror which their own arms under his guidance had 
 been accustomed to inspire. Lastly, the concessions to 
 Napoleon himself of his imperial title, and an indepen- 
 dent sovereignty almost within view of France, were 
 interpreted in the same fashion by these habitual 
 worshippers of his renown. The restored King, on his 
 part, was anxious about nothing so much as to conciliate 
 the affections of the army. With this view he kept 
 together bands which, long accustomed to all the 
 licence of warfare, would hardly have submitted to 
 peace even under Napoleon himself. Even the Imperial 
 Guard, those chosen and devoted children of the Em- 
 peror, were maintained entire on their own establish- 
 ment ; the Legion of Honour was continued as before ; 
 the war ministiy was given to Soult, the ablest, in com- 
 mon estimation, of Buonaparte's surviving marshals ; 
 and the other officers of that high rank were loaded 
 with every mark of royal consideration. But these 
 arrangements only swelled the presumption of those 
 whose attachment they were meant to secure. It was 
 hardly possible that the King of France should have 
 given no military appointments among the nobles who 
 had partaken his exile. He gave them so few, that 
 the}', as a body, began to murmur ere the reign was a 
 month old : but he gave enough to call up insolent re- 
 clamations among those proud legionaries, who, in every 
 royalist, beheld an emblem of the temporary humiliation 
 of their own caste. When, without dissolving or weak- 
 ening the Imperial (now Royal) Guard, he formed a 
 body of household troops, composed of gentlemen, and 
 entrusted them with the immediate attendance on his 
 
1S14.] DISCONTENTS IN FRANCE. 559 
 
 person and court, this was considered as a heinous in- 
 sult ; and when the King bestowed the cross of the 
 Legion of Honour on persons who would have much 
 preferred that of St. Louis, the only comment that ob- 
 tained among the warriors of Austerlitz and Friedland 
 was that which ascribed to the Bourbons a settled 
 design of degrading the decoration which they had pur- 
 chased with their blood. 
 
 In a word, the French soldiery remained cantoned in 
 the country in a temper stern, gloomy, and sullen ; 
 jealous of the Prince whose bread they were eating ; 
 eager to wipe out the memory of recent disasters in new 
 victories ; and cherishing more and more deeply the 
 notion (not perhaps unfounded) that had Napoleon not 
 been betrayed at home, no foreigners could ever have 
 hurled him from his throne. Nor could such sentiments 
 fail to be partaken, more or less, by the officers of every 
 rank who had served under Buonaparte. They felt, 
 almost universally, that it must be the policy of the 
 Bourbons to promote, as far as possible, others rather 
 than themselves. And even as to those of the very 
 highest class — could any peaceful honours compensate, 
 to such spirits as Ney and Soult, for a revolution, that 
 for ever shrouded in darkness the glittering prizes on 
 which Napoleon had encouraged them to speculate ? 
 Were the comrades of Murat and Bernadotte to sit down 
 in contentment as peers of France, among the Mont- 
 morencies and the Rohans, who considered them at the 
 best as lowborn intruders, and scorned, in private 
 society, to acknowledge them as members of their order ? 
 If we take into account the numerous personal adherents 
 whom the Imperial government, with all the faults of 
 its chief, must have possessed — and the political humi- 
 liation of France, in the eyes of all Europe, as well as of 
 the French people themoelves, immediately connected 
 
5G0 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1814. 
 
 with the disappearance of Napoleon — we shall have 
 some faint conception of that mass of multifarious griefs 
 and resentments, in the midst of which the unwieldy 
 and inactive Louis occupied, ere long, a most unenviable 
 throne — and on which the eagle-eyed Exile of Elba 
 gazed with reviving hope even before the summer of 
 1814 had reached its close. 
 
 Ere then, as we have seen, the demeanour and con- 
 duct of Napoleon were very different from what they 
 had been when he first took possession of his mimic 
 empire. Ere then his mother, his sister Pauline, (a 
 woman, whose talents for intrigue equalled her personal 
 charms,) and not a few ancient and attached servants, 
 both of his civil government and of his army, had found 
 their way to Elba, and figured in "his little senate." 
 Pauline made repeated voyages to Italy, and returned 
 again. New and busy faces appeared in the circle of Porto 
 Ferraio, and disappeared forthwith ; no one knew whence 
 they had come or whither they went ; an air of bustle and 
 of mystery pervaded the atmosphere of the place. Sir 
 Neil Campbell found it more and more difficult to obtain 
 access to the presence of Buonaparte — which the refusal 
 of the English government to acknowledge the Imperial 
 title, and this officer's consequent want of any very de- 
 finite character at Elba, left him no better means of 
 overcoming, than to undertake journeys and voyages, 
 thereby gaining a pretext for paying his respects at every 
 departure and return. Sir Neil early suspected that 
 some evil was hatching, and repeatedly remarked on the 
 absurdity of withholding Napoleon's pension, thereby 
 tempting him, as it were, to violence. But neither the 
 reports nor the reclamations of this gentleman appear to 
 have received that attention which they merited. 
 
 What persons in France were actually in communica- 
 tion on political subjects with the turbulent court of 
 
1814.] PREPARES TO INVADE FRANCE. 561 
 
 Elba, during that autumn and the following winter, is 
 likely to remain a secret: that they were neither few, 
 nor inactive, nor unskilful, the event will sufficiently 
 prove. The chiefs of the police and of the post-office 
 had been removed by Louis ; but the whole inferior 
 machinery of these establishments remained untouched ; 
 and it is generally believed, that both were early and 
 sedulously employed in the service of the new conspiracy. 
 "We have seen that Soult was commander-in-chief of the 
 army ; and it is very difficult, on considering the sub- 
 sequent course of events, to doubt that he also made a 
 systematic use of his authority with the same views, 
 distributing and arranging the troops according to far 
 other rules than the interests of his royal master. 
 
 Ere the autumn closed, Buonaparte granted furloughs, 
 on various pretexts, to about 200 of his guardsmen ; and 
 these were forthwith scattered over France, actively 
 disseminating the praises of their chief, and, though 
 probably not aware how soon such an attempt was 
 meditated, preparing the minds of their ancient comrades 
 for considering it by no means unlikely that he would 
 yet once more appear in the midst of them. It is certain 
 that a notion soon prevailed that Napoleon w r ould revisit 
 the soil of France in the spring of the coming year. He 
 was toasted among the soldiery, and elsewhere also, 
 under the soubriquet of Corporal Violet. That early 
 flower, or a ribbon of its colour, was the symbol of 
 rebellion, and worn openly, in the sight of the unsuspect- 
 ing Bourbons. 
 
 Their security was as profound as hollow ; nor was 
 it confined to them. The representatives of all the 
 European princes had met in Vienna, to settle finally a 
 number of questions left undecided at the termination of 
 the war. Talleyrand was there for France, and Welling- 
 ton for England ; and yet it is on all hands admitted, 
 
506 NAPOI.KOX IlUO.VAt'AlUK. [1815. 
 
 that no surprise was over more sudden, complete, and 
 universal than theirs, when on the 11th of March, 1815, 
 a courier arrived among them with the intelligence 
 that Napoleon Buonaparte had reared his standard in 
 Provence.* 
 
 * The Emperor Alexander alone preserved perfect self-posses- 
 sion ; and, turning to the Duke of Wellington, exclaimed, "Eh 
 bien, "Wellington, e'est a vous encore une fois sauver le monde." 
 
1815.] LEAVES ELBA. 563 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 Xapoleon lands at Can.es — his proyrest to Grenoble — Lyons — 
 Fontainebleau — Treason o ' Labedoyere and Xey — Louis X VIII. 
 retires to Ghent, and Xapoleon arrives in Paris. 
 
 The evening before Napoleon sailed (February the 20th), 
 his sister Pauline gave a ball, to which all the officers of 
 the Elbese army were invited. A brig, the "Inconstant," 
 and sis small craft, had meanwhile been prepared for 
 the voyage, and at dead of night, without apparently 
 any previous intimation, the soldiery were mustered by 
 tuck of drum, and found themselves on board ere they 
 could ask for what purpose. When the day broke they 
 perceived that all the officers and the Emperor himself 
 were with them, and that they were steering for the coast 
 of France ; and it could no longer be doubtful that the 
 scheme which had for months formed the darling object 
 of all their hopes and dreams was about to be realised. 
 
 Sir Neil Campbell, who had been absent on an excur- 
 sion to Leghorn, happened to return to Porto Ferraio 
 almost as soon as the flotilla had quitted it. The mother 
 and sister of Buonaparte in vain endeavoured to per- 
 Buade the English officer that he had steered toward the 
 coast of Barbary. He pursued instantly towards Pro- 
 vence, in the "Partridge," which attended his orders, and 
 came in si<_rht of the fugitive armament exactly when it 
 was too late. Ere then Napoleon had encountered 
 almost an equal hazard. A French ship of war had 
 crossed bis path ; but the Emperor made all his soldiery 
 lie flat on the decks, and the steersman of the "It 
 stent," who happened to be well acquainted with the 
 commanding officer, had received and answered the 
 
564 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1816, 
 
 usual challenge without exciting any suspicion. TIiuf 
 narrowly escaped the flotilla which carried " Caesar anc 
 his fortune." 
 
 On the 1st of March he was once more off Cannes— 
 the same spot which had received him from Egypt, and 
 at which he had embarked ten months before for Elba. 
 There was no force whatever to oppose his landing ; and 
 his handful of men — 500 grenadiers of the guard, 200 
 dragoons, and 100 Polish lancers, these last without 
 horses, and carrying their saddles on their backs — were 
 immediately put in motion on the road to Paris. Twenty- 
 five grenadiers which he detached to summon Antibes, 
 wei-e arrested on the instant by the governor of that 
 place; but he despised this omen, and proceeded with- 
 out a pause. He bivouacked that night in a plantation 
 of olives, with all his men about him. As soon as the 
 moon rose, the reveille sounded. A labourer going 
 thus early afield, recognised the Emperor's person, and, 
 with a cry of joy, said he had served in the army of 
 Italy, and would join the march. " Here is already a 
 reinforcement," said Napoleon ; and the march re-com- 
 menced. Early in the morning they passed through the 
 town of Grasse, and halted on the height beyond it — 
 where the whole population of the place forthwith sur- 
 rounded them, some cheering, the great majority looking 
 on in perfect silence, but none offering any show of op- 
 position. The roads were so bad in this neighbourhood, 
 that the pieces of cannon which they had with them were 
 obliged to be abandoned in the course of the day, but 
 they had marched full twenty leagues ere they halted for 
 the night at Cerenon. On the 5th, Napoleon reached 
 Gap. He was now in Dauphiny, called " The cradle of 
 the Revolution," and the sullen silence of the Provencals 
 was succeeded by popular acclamations ; but still no 
 troops had joined him — and his anxiety was great. 
 
1810.] PROCLAMATION' TO THE ARMY. 5t>5 
 
 It was at Gap that he published his first proclama- 
 tions ; one ,: To the army," another " To the French 
 people," both, no doubt, prepared at Elba, though dated 
 "March 1st, Gulf of Juan." The former, ami more im- 
 portant of the two, ran in these words — " Soldiers ! we 
 have not been beaten. Two men, raised from our 
 ranks,* betrayed our laurels, their country, their prince, 
 their benefactor. In my exile I have heard your voice. 
 I have arrived once more among you, despite all obstacles, 
 and all perils. We ought to forget that we have been 
 the masters of the world ; but we ought never to suffer 
 foreign interference in our affairs. Who dares pretend 
 to be master over us ? Take again the eagles which 
 you followed at Ulm, at Austerlitz, at Jena, at Montmi- 
 rail. Come and range yourselves under the banners of 
 your old chief. Victory shall march at the charging 
 step. The Eagle, with the national colours, shall fly 
 from steeple to steeple — on to the towers of Notre 
 Dame ! In your old age, surrounded and honoured by 
 your fellow citizens, you shall be heard with respect 
 when you recount your high deeds. You shall then say 
 with pride — I also was one of that great army which 
 entered twice within the walls of Vienna, which took 
 Rome, and Berlin, and Madrid, and Moscow — and which 
 delivered Paris from the stain printed on it by domestic 
 treason, and the occupation of strangers." 
 
 It was between Mure and Vizele that Cambronne, 
 who commanded his advanced guard of forty grenadiers, 
 met suddenly a battalion sent forwards from Grenoble 
 to arrest the march. The colonel refused to parley with 
 Cambronne ; either party halted until Napoleon himself 
 tame up. He did not hesitate for a moment. He dis- 
 
 * The allusion is to Marmont'a conduct at Essonne, and 
 Augereau's hasty abandonment of Lyons when the Austrians ap- 
 proached it in March, 1814. 
 
566 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 mounted, and advanced alone ; some paces behind him 
 came a hundred of his guard, with their arms reversed. 
 There was perfect silence on all sides until he was 
 within a few yards of the men. He then halted, threw 
 open his surtout so as to show the star of the Legion of 
 Honour, and exclaimed, " If there be among you a 
 soldier who desires to kill his general — his Emperor — 
 let him do it now. Here I am." The old cry of Vive 
 V Empcreur burst instantaneously from every lip. Na- 
 poleon threw himself among them, and taking a veteran 
 private, covered with cheverons and medals, by the 
 whisker, said, " Speak honestly, old Moustache, couldst 
 thou have had the heart to kill thy Emperor?" The 
 man dropped his ramrod into his piece to show that it 
 was uncharged, and answered, " Judge if I could have 
 done thee much harm — all the rest are the same." Na- 
 poleon gave the word, and the old adherents, and the 
 new, marched together on Grenoble. 
 
 Some space ere they reached that town, Colonel 
 Labedoyere, an officer of noble family, and who had 
 been promoted by Louis XVIII. appeared on the road 
 before them, at the head of his regiment, the seventh of 
 the line. These men, and the Emperor's little column, 
 on coming within view of each other, rushed simul- 
 taneously from their i*anks, and embraced with mutual 
 shouts of Live Nupoleoii I Live the Guard! Live the 
 Seventh ! Labedoyere produced an eagle, which he had 
 kept concealed about his person, and broke open a drum 
 which was found to be filled with tricolor cockades ; 
 these ancient ensigns were received with redoubled 
 enthusiasm. This was the first instance of an officer ot 
 superior rank voluntarily espousing the side of the in- 
 vader. The impulse thus afforded was decisive : in spite 
 of all the efforts of General Marchand, Commandant 
 of Grenoble, the whole of that garrison, when he ap- 
 
1815. J LYONS. b^>7 
 
 proached the walls, exclaimed Vive V Empereur ! Their 
 conduct, however, exhibited a singular spectacle. 
 Though thus welcoming Napoleon with their voices, 
 they would not so for disobey the governor as to throw 
 open tbe gates. On the other hand, no argument could 
 prevail on them to fire on the advancing party. In the 
 teeth of all the batteries, Buonaparte calmly planted a 
 howitzer or two, and blew the gates open, and then, as 
 if tbe spell of discipline were at once dissolved, the gar- 
 rison broke from their lines, and he in an instant found 
 himself dragged from his horse, and borne aloft on these 
 men's shoulders towards the principal inn of the place, 
 amidst the clamours of enthusiastic and delirious joy. 
 Marchand remained faithful to his oath ; and was dis- 
 missed without injury. Next morning the authorities ot 
 Grenoble waited on Napoleon, and tendered their 
 homage. He reviewed his troops, now about 7,000 in 
 numbers, and on the 9th recommenced his march. 
 
 On the 10th, Buonaparte came within sight of Lyons, 
 and was informed that Monsieur and Marshal Macdonald 
 had arrived to take the command, barricaded the bridge 
 of Guillotierre, and posted themselves at the head of a 
 large force to dispute the entrance of the town. Nothing 
 daunted with this intelligence, the column moved on, 
 and at the bridge of Lyons, as at the gates of Grenoble, 
 all opposition vanished when his person was recognised 
 by the soldiery. The Prince and Macdonald were forced 
 to retire, and Napoleon entered the second city of France 
 in triumph. A guard of mounted gentlemen had been 
 formed among the citizens to attend on the person of 
 Monsieur. These were among the foremost to offer 
 their services to the Emperor, after he reached his hotel. 
 Surrounded by his own soldiery, and by a manufactur- 
 ing population, whom the comparatively free admission 
 of English goods after the peace of Paris had filled with 
 
568 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 fear and discontent, and who now welcomed the great 
 enemy of England with rapturous acclamations, Na- 
 poleon could afford to reject the assistance of these 
 faithless cavaliers. He dismissed them with contempt ; 
 but finding that one of their number had followed 
 Monsieur until his person was out of all danger, im- 
 mediately sent to that individual the cross of the Legion 
 of Honour. 
 
 This revolution had been proceeding during more 
 than a week, ei*e the gazettes of Paris ventured to make 
 any allusion to its existence. There then appeared a 
 roj'al ordonnance, proclaiming Napoleon Buonaparte an 
 outlaw, and convoking on the instant the two chambers. 
 Next day the Moniteur announced that, surrounded on 
 all hands by faithful garrisons and a loyal population, 
 this outlaw was already stript of most of his followers, 
 wandering in despair among the hills, and certain to be 
 a prisoner within two or three days at the utmost. The 
 Moniteur, however, was no very decisive authority in 
 1815, any more than in 1814 ; and the public mind con- 
 tinued full of uncertainty, as to the motives and every 
 circumstance of this unparalleled adventure. Monsieur, 
 meanwhile, had departed, we have seen with what 
 success, to Lyons ; the Duke of Angouleme was already 
 at Marseilles, organising the loyal Provencals, and pre- 
 paring to throw himself on Grenoble and cut off the 
 retreat of Buonaparte ; and Louis continued to receive 
 addresses full of loyalty and devotion from the public 
 bodies of Paris, from towns, and departments, and, 
 above all, from the marshals, generals, and regiments 
 who happened to be near the capital. 
 
 This while, however, the partizans of Napoleon in 
 Paris were far more active than the royalists. They 
 gave out everywhere that, as the proclamation from the 
 Gulf of Juan had stated, Buonaparte was come back 
 
I815.J ADVANCES TOWARDS PARIS. 500 
 
 thoroughly cured of that ambition which had armed 
 Europe against his throne ; that he considered his act of 
 abdication void, because the Bourbons had not accepted 
 the crown on the terms on which it was offered, and had 
 used their authority in a spirit, and for purposes, at 
 variance with the feelings and the interests of the 
 French people ; that he was come to be no longer the 
 dictator of a military despotism, but the first citizen of 
 a nation which he had resolved to make the freest of the 
 free ; that the royal government wished to extinguish 
 by degrees all memory of the revolution — that he was 
 returning to consecrate once more the principles of 
 liberty and equality, ever hateful in the eyes of the old 
 nobility of France, and to secure the proprietors of for- 
 feited estates against all the machinations of that domi- 
 nant faction ; in a word, that he was fully sensible to 
 the extent of his past errors, both of domestic adminis- 
 tration and of military ambition, and desirous of nothing 
 but the opportunity of devoting, to the true welfare of 
 peaceful France, those unrivalled talents and energies 
 which he had been rash enough to abuse in former days. 
 With these suggestions they mingled statements perhaps 
 still more audacious. According to them, Xapoleon had 
 landed with the hearty approbation of the Austrian 
 court, and would be instantly rejoined by the Empress 
 and his son. The Czar also was friendly ; even England 
 had been sounded ere the adventure began, and showed 
 no disposition to hazard another war for the sake of the 
 Bourbons. The King of Prussia, indeed, remained 
 hostile — but France was not sunk so low as to dread 
 that state single handed. It was no secret, ere this 
 time, that some disputes of considerable importance had 
 sprung up among the great powers whose representa- 
 tives were assembled at Vienna ; and such was the rash 
 credulity of the Parisians, that the most extravagant 
 
570 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 exaggerations and inventions which issued from the 
 saloon of the Duchess de St. Leu (under which name 
 Hortense Beauharnois, wife of Louis Buonaparte, had 
 continued to reside in Paris) — and from other circles of 
 the same character, found, to a certain extent, credence. 
 There was one tale which rung louder and louder from 
 the tongue of every Buonapartist, and which royalist 
 and republican found, day after day, new reason to be- 
 lieve ; namely, that the army were, high and low, on 
 the side of Napoleon ; that every detachment sent to 
 intercept him, would but swell his force ; in a word, 
 that — unless the people were to rise en masse — nothing 
 could prevent the- outlaw from taking possession of the 
 Tuilleries ere a fortnight more had passed over the head 
 of Louis. 
 
 It was at Lyons, where Napoleon remained from the 
 10th to the 13th, that he formally resumed the functions 
 of civil government. He published various decrees at 
 this place ; one, commanding justice to be administered 
 everywhere in his name after the loth ; another abolish- 
 ing the Chambers of the Peers and the Deputies, and 
 summoning all the electoral colleges to meet in Paris at 
 a Champ-de-Mai,* there to witness the coronation of 
 Maria Louisa and of her son, and settle definitively the 
 constitution of the state ; a third, ordering into banish- 
 ment all whose names had not been erased from the list 
 of emigrants prior to the abdication of Fontainebleau ; 
 a fourth, depriving all strangers and emigrants of their 
 commissions in the army ; a fifth, abolishing the order 
 of St. Louis, and bestowing all its revenues on the 
 Legion of Honour ; and a sixth, restoring to their autho- 
 rity all magistrates who had been displaced by the 
 
 • Napoleon took the idea and name of this assemhly from the 
 history of the early Gauls. 
 
1816.J TCKASOX OV XhV. 571 
 
 Bourbon government. These proclamations could not 
 be prevented from reaching Paris ; and the Court, 
 abandoning their system of denying or extenuating tbe 
 extent of the impending danger, began to adopt more 
 energetic means for its suppression. 
 
 It was now that Marshal Ney volunteered his services 
 to take the command of a large body of troops, whose 
 fidelity was considered sure, and who were about to be 
 sent to Lons-le-Saunier, there to intercept and arrest 
 the invader. Well aware of this great officer's influence 
 in the army, Louis did not hesitate to accept his proffered 
 assistance ; and Ney, on kissing his hand at parting, 
 swore that in the course of a week he would bring 
 Buonaparte to his majesty's feet in a cage, like a wild 
 beast. 
 
 On reaching Lons-le-Saunier, Ney received a letter 
 from Napoleon, summoning him to join his standard as 
 " The bravest of the brave." In how far he guided or 
 followed the sentiments of his soldiery we know not, but 
 the fact is certain, that he and they put themselves in 
 motion forthwith, and joined the march of Buonaparte 
 on the 17th at Auxerre. Ney, in the sequel, did not 
 hesitate to avow that he had chosen the part of Napoleon 
 long ere he pledged his oath to Louis ; adding that the 
 greater number of the marshals were, like himself, ori- 
 ginal members of the Elbese conspiracy. Of the latter 
 of these assertions no other proof has hitherto been pro- 
 duced ; and the former continues to be generally as well 
 as mercifully discredited. 
 
 In and about the capital there still remained troops 
 far more than sufficient in numbers to overwhelm the 
 advancing column, and drag its chief to the feet of Louis. 
 He entrusted the command of these battalions to one 
 whose personal honour was as clear as his military re- 
 putation was splendid — Marshal Mucdonald ; and this 
 
 33 
 
572 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 gentleman proceeded to take post at Melun, in good 
 hope, notwithstanding all that happened, of being duly 
 supported in the discharge of his commission. 
 
 On the 19th, Napoleon slept once more in the chateau 
 of Fontainebleau ; on the morning of the 20th he ad- 
 vanced through the forestinfull knowledge of Macdonald's 
 arrangements — and he advanced alone. It was about 
 noon that the marshal's troops, who had for some time 
 been under arms on an eminence beyond the wood, 
 listening, apparently with delight, to the loyal strains of 
 Vive Henri Quatre and La Belle Gabrielle, perceived 
 suddenly a single open carriage coming at full speed 
 towards them from among the trees. A handful of 
 Polish horsemen, with their lances reversed, followed 
 the equipage. The little flat cocked-hat — the grey 
 surtout — the person of Napoleon was recognised. In an 
 instant the men burst from their ranks, surrounded him 
 with the cries of Vive V Emjpereur, and trampled their 
 white cockades in the dust. 
 
 Macdonald escaped to Paris ; but his master had not 
 awaited the issue of the last stand at Melun. Amidst 
 the tears and lamentations of the loyal burghers of the 
 capital, and the respectful silence of those who really 
 wished for the success of his rival, Louis had set off from 
 the Tuilleries in the middle of the preceding night. 
 Macdonald overtook him, and accompanied him to the 
 frontier of the Netherlands, which he reached in safety. 
 There had been a plan organised by Generals Lallemand 
 and Lefevre for seizing the roads between Paris and 
 Belgium, and intercepting the flight of the King ; but 
 Marshal Mortier had been successful in detecting and 
 suppressing this movement. 
 
 On the evening of the 20th of March, Napoleon once 
 more entered Paris. He came preceded and followed 
 by the soldiery, on whom alone he had relied, and who, 
 
1815.] RE-ENTERS PARIS. 573 
 
 by whatever sacrifices, had justified his confidence. The 
 streets were silent as the travel-worn cavalcade passed 
 along ; but all that loved the name or the cause of Napo- 
 ieon were ready to receive him in the Tuilleries ; and 
 he was almost stifled by the pressure of those enthusias- 
 tic adherents, who, the moment he stopped, mounted 
 him on their shoulders, and carried him so in triumph 
 up the great staircase of the palace. He found, in the 
 apartments which the King had just vacated, a brilliant 
 assemblage of those who had in former times filled the 
 most prominent places in his own councils and court : 
 among the rest was Fouche. This personage was not 
 the only one present who had recently intrigued with 
 the Bourbons against Buonaparte — with as much ap- 
 parent ardour, and perhaps with about as much honesty, 
 as in other times he had ever brought to the service of 
 the Emperor. " Gentlemen," said Napoleon, as he 
 walked round the circle, " It is disinterested people who 
 have brought me back to my capital. It is the subalterns 
 and the soldiers that have done it all. I owe every 
 thing to the people and the army." 
 
574 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, [181; 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 The Hundred Days — Declaration of the Congress at Vienna — Na- 
 poleon prepares for War — Capitulation of the Duke d'Angouleme 
 — Insurrection of La Vendee — Marat advances from Naples — is 
 defeated — and takes refuge in France — The Champ-de-Mai — Dis- 
 satisfaction of the Constitutionalists. 
 
 The reports so zealously circulated by the Buonapartists, 
 that some at least of the great European powers were 
 aware, and approved, of the meditated debarkation at 
 Cannes — and the hopes thus nourished among the 
 French people, that the new revolution would not dis- 
 turb the peace of the world — were very speedily at an 
 end. The instant that the news of Napoleon's daring 
 movement reached Vienna, the Congress published a 
 proclamation in these words : — " By breaking the con- 
 vention which established him in Elba, Buonaparte 
 destroys the only legal title on which his existence 
 depended. By appearing again in France, with projects 
 of confusion and disorder, he has deprived himself of 
 the protection of the law, and manifested to the universe 
 that there can be neither peace nor truce with him. The 
 powers consequently declare that Napoleon Buonaparte 
 has placed himself without the pale of civil and social 
 relations, and that, as an enemy and distui'ber of the 
 tranquillity of the world, he has rendered himself liable 
 to public vengeance." These sentiments underwent no 
 change in consequence of the apparently triumphant 
 course of Napoleon's adventure. All Europe prepared 
 once more for war. It was evident that the usurper 
 owed everything to the French soldiery — that body to 
 which the treaty of Paris had at once restored 150*000 
 
1815.] PREPARES FOR WAR. 575 
 
 veterans, idle, and indisposed for ordinary labour — and 
 that until this ferocious military were effectually humbled, 
 there could be no peace for the world. 
 
 A formal treaty was forthwith entered into, by which 
 the four great powers bound themselves to maintain 
 each of them at least 150,000 troops in arms, until 
 Buonaparte should either be dethroned, or reduced so low 
 as no longer to endanger the peace of Europe. The other 
 states of the continent were to be invited to join the 
 alliance, furnishing contingents adequate to their respec- 
 tive resources. The King of France was to be requested 
 to sign the treat)' also ; but with reference to this article 
 an explanatory note was affixed, by the representatives 
 of the Prince Regent of England, denying, on the part 
 of his royal highness, any wish to force a particular 
 government on the people of France : and it was further 
 stipulated that in case Britain should not furnish all the 
 men agreed on, she should compensate by paying at the 
 rate of £30 per annum for every cavalry soldier, and 
 £20 per annum for every foot soldier under the full 
 number. Such was the treaty of Vienna ; but the zeal 
 of the contracting parties went far be}*ond the prepara- 
 tions indicated in its terms. Napoleon was hardly re- 
 seated on his throne ere he learned that he must in all 
 likelihood maintain it against 300,000 Austrians, 225,000 
 Russians, 230,000 Prussians, an army of 150,000 men 
 furnished by the minor states of Germany, 50,000 con- 
 tributed by the government of the ^Netherlands, and 
 50,000 English, commanded by the Duke of Wellington 
 — in all one million eleven thousand soldiers. 
 
 His preparations to meet this gigantic confederacy 
 began from the moment when he re-established himself 
 in the Tuilleries. Carnot became once more minister of 
 war ; and what Napoleon and he, when labouring to- 
 gether in the re-organisation of an army, could effect, 
 
576 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 had been abundantly manifested at the commencement 
 of the consulate. The army cantoned in France, when 
 Buonaparte landed at Cannes, numbered 175,000 ; the 
 cavalry had been greatly reduced ; and the disasters of 
 1812, 1813, and 1811, were visible in the miserable de- 
 ficiency of military stores and arms, especially of artil- 
 lery. By incredible exertions, notwithstanding the 
 pressure of innumerable cares and anxieties of all kinds, 
 and although the temper of the nation prevented him 
 from having recourse to the old method of conscription 
 — the Emperor, ere May was over, had 375,000 men in 
 arms — including an imperial guard of 40,000 chosen 
 veterans, in the most splendid state of equipment and 
 discipline, a large and brilliant force of cavalry, and a 
 train of artillery of proportional extent and excellence. 
 
 Napoleon, however, made sundry attempts to open a 
 negotiation with the Allies — nor wanted there statesmen, 
 even in England, to lend their best support to his recla- 
 mations. He urged three arguments in defence of his 
 breach of the convention by which he had become 
 sovereign of Elba : 1st, The detention of his wife and 
 son by the court of Austria — an affair with which the 
 king whose dominions he had invaded could have had 
 nothing to do : 2d, Tbe non-payment of his pension — a 
 grievance which might have furnished a legitimate 
 ground of complaining to the powers that guaranteed 
 its punctual discharge, and which, if so complained of 
 at the Congress of Vienna, there is no reason to doubt 
 would have been redressed : and 3dly, The voice of the 
 French nation, which he, according to his own state- 
 ment, had but heard and obeyed. But the state of 
 public feeling in France could not be effectually mis- 
 represented now : and the answer that met him from 
 every quarter was one and the same — namely, that he 
 had ascended the throne of Louis in consequence of the 
 
THE HUNDRED DATS. 577 
 
 treason of the army, and the intrigues of a faction, in 
 direct opposition to the wishes of almost all the upper 
 classes of society throughout France, and, as regarded 
 the mass of the nation, amidst profound indifference. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Royalists at home had failed in all 
 their endeavours to prevent his authority from being re- 
 cognised all over France. The Duke d'Angouleme was 
 soon surrounded by the superior numbers of General 
 Gilly, and capitulated — on condition of being permitted 
 to disband his followers, and embark at Cette for Spain 
 — a convention which Napoleon did not hesitate to ratify. 
 The Duchess of Angouleme, daughter of Louis XVL, 
 displayed at Bourdeaux such heroism as drew from 
 Napoleon himself the sarcastic eulogy, " She is the only 
 man of her race ;" but in spite of the loyalty of the in- 
 habitants, all her efforts were vain. The garrison was 
 strong ; they had caught the general flame ; and the 
 Princess was at length compelled to take refuge in an 
 English frigate. The Duke of Berri repaired, on the 
 first alarm, to La Vendee : but the regular troops in 
 that faithful province were, thanks to the previous care 
 of King Louis's war-minister, so numerous and so well 
 posted, that this effort failed also, and the Duke escaped 
 to England. Before March had ended, the tricolor flag 
 was displayed on every tower in France. 
 
 Having discovered that there was no chance — if 
 indeed he had ever contemplated one — of persuading 
 the Emperor of Austria to restore his wife and son to 
 him, Napoleon, ere he had been many days at the 
 Tuilleries, set on foot a scheme for carrying them off 
 from Vienna, by a mixture of stratagem and force. 
 There were French people in the suite of Maria Louisa 
 who easily embarked in this plot ; and forged passports, 
 relays of horses, and all other appliances had been so 
 well provided, that but for a single individual, who 
 
578 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 betrayed the design, there seems to have been a con- 
 siderable probability of its success. On discovering this 
 affair the Emperor of Austria dismissed the French 
 attendants of his daughter, and caused her to discon- 
 tinue the use of the arms and liveries of Napoleon, 
 which she had hitherto retained — nay, even the imperial 
 title itself, resuming those of her own family, and origi- 
 nal rank as archduchess. This procedm-e could not be 
 concealed at Paris, and completed the conviction of all 
 men, that there was no hope whatever of avoiding 
 another European war ; and almost at the same time a 
 rash expedition of Murat, which, if successful, might 
 have materially influenced the conduct of Austria, 
 reached its end. 
 
 Napoleon, when at St. Helena, always persisted in 
 denying any participation in this design of his brother- 
 in-law ; but, however this may have been, it is certain 
 that much intercourse subsisted, during his stay at 
 Elba, between the Queen of Naples and the female 
 branches of the family at Porto Ferraio ; nor can any 
 one doubt that either Murat had received some pretty 
 distinct intimation of Napoleon's intended descent in 
 France — or that he ventured on his movement in the 
 confidence that this and the Emperor's would lend to 
 each other much moral support — or that, if Joachim 
 had prospered, Napoleon would have considered what 
 he did as the best service that could have been rendered 
 to himself. 
 
 Among the subjects which, prior to Buonaparte's re- 
 appearance, occupied the Congress of Vienna, one of 
 the chief was the conduct of Murat during the campaign 
 of 1814. Talleyrand charged him with having, through- 
 out, been a traitor to the cause of the Allies ; and exhi- 
 bited a scries of intercepted letters, from him to Napoleon, 
 in proof of this allegation. The Duke of "Wellington, 
 
1815.] MURAT. 579 
 
 on the other hand, considered these documents as prov- 
 ing no more than that Murat had reluctantly lifted his 
 banner against the author of his fortunes. Talley- 
 rand had always hated Murat and despised him — 
 (the father of the King of Naples had originally 
 been steward in the household of the Perigords) — and 
 persisted on urging on the Congress the danger of suffer- 
 ing a sovereign of Buonaparte's family and creation to 
 sit on the throne which belonged of ri^M to the King 
 of the Sicilies. The affair was still under discussion, to 
 the mortal annoyance of the person whose interests were 
 at stake, when Napoleon landed at Cannes. Murat re- 
 solved to rival his brother's daring ; and, without further 
 pause, marched, at the head of 50,000 men, to Rome, 
 from which the Pope and cardinals fled precipitately at 
 his approach. The Neapolitans then advanced into the 
 North of Italy, scattering proclamations by which 
 Joachim invited all true Italians to rally round him, and 
 assist in the erection of their country into one free and 
 independent state, with him at its head. The Austrian 
 commander in Lombardy forthwith put his troops in 
 motion to meet Murat. The rencontre took place at 
 Occhiobello. The Neapolitans fled in confusion almost 
 at the sight of the enemy ; and Murat, unable to rally 
 thcra, sought personal safety in a fishing vessel, which 
 landed him near Toulon, about the end of May. Napo- 
 leon was in vain entreated to receive him at Paris. He 
 refused, asking with bitter scorn — if the war between 
 France and Naples, which subsisted in 1814, had ever 
 been terminated by treaty ? Murat lingered for some 
 time in obscurity near Toulon; and, relanding on the 
 coast of Naples after the King of the Two Sicilies 
 had been re-established on that throne, in the vain hope 
 of exciting an insurrection and recovering what he had 
 lost, was seized, tried, and executed. This vain but 
 
580 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 high-spirited man met his fate with heroic fortitude ; 
 and Napoleon, at St. Helena, often said that the fortune 
 of the world might have been changed had there been a 
 Marat to head the French cavalry at Waterloo. 
 
 The result of this rash expedition enabled Austria to 
 concentrate all her Italian forces also for the meditated 
 re-invasion of France. The Spanish army began to 
 muster towards the passes of the Pyrenees ; the Rus- 
 sians, Swedes, and Danes were already advancing from 
 the north ; the main armies of Austria, Bavaria, and the 
 Rhenish princes were rapidly consolidating themselves 
 along the Upper Rhine. Blucher was once more in 
 command of the Prussians, in the Netherlands ; and 
 Wellington, commanding in chief the British, Hano- 
 verians, and Belgians, had also established his head- 
 quarters at Brussels by the end of May. Every hour 
 the clouds were thickening apace, and it became evident, 
 that, if Napoleon remained much longer in Paris, the 
 war would burst simultaneously on every frontier on his 
 empire. 
 
 He had no intention to abide at home the onset of his 
 enemies ; but the situation of civil affairs was such as to 
 embarrass him, in the prospect of departure, with diffi- 
 culties which, in former days, were not used to perplex 
 the opening of his campaigns. 
 
 Hard, indeed, was his task from the beginning — to 
 conciliate to himself heartily the political faction who 
 detested, and had assisted in overthrowing the govern- 
 ment of the Bourbons, and this without chilling the 
 attachment of the military, who despised these coad- 
 jutors, both as theorists and as civilians, and had 
 welcomed Napoleon only as the certain harbinger of 
 war, revenge, and plunder. How little his soldiery 
 were disposed to consider him as owing anything to a 
 civil revolution, appeared almost from the commence- 
 
1816.] THE HUNDRED DAYS. 581 
 
 merit of his march from Cannes. It was observed that 
 these haughty bands moved on in contemptuons silence 
 whenever the populace cheered his approach, and 
 shouted Vive VEmpereur only when there were no 
 pequiyi* voices to mingle in the clamour. Every act of 
 Napoleon after he reached Paris, that was meant to 
 conciliate the common people of the capital, was the 
 theme of angry comment among these martial circles. 
 Such measures as he adopted in deference to the pre- 
 judices of the old republican party, were heard of with 
 equal contempt. The pacific language of his first pro- 
 clamations was considered as a fair stratagem — and no 
 more. To them the man was nothing but as the type 
 of the system : they desired to hear of nothing in France 
 but the great Caesar, and the legions to whom he owed 
 his greatness, and who had the same right to a new 
 career of battles, as he to his Imperial crown, at once 
 the prize of past, and the pledge of future victories. 
 
 With the views of these spirits, eager for blood and 
 plunder, and scornful of all liberty but the license of the 
 camp, Napoleon was engaged in the endeavour to re- 
 concile the principles and prejudices of men who had 
 assisted in rebuilding his throne, only because they put 
 faith in the assertions of himself and his friends, that he 
 had thoroughly repented of the despotic system on which 
 he had formerly ruled France — that ten months of exile 
 and reflection had convinced him how much better it 
 was to be the first citizen of a free state, than the undis- 
 puted tyrant of half the world — in a word, that his only 
 
 * By this contemptuous name his soldiery designated all who 
 had never borne arms. The word dropt once from the lips of one 
 of Napoleon's marshals in the hearing of Talleyrand, who asked 
 its meaning. " Nous nommons pequiyi," answered tlio rudo 
 soldier, "tout ce qui n'est pas militaire." — "Ah!" said the. cool 
 Talleyrand — " comme nous nommons militaire tout co qui n'est pas 
 civil." 
 
582 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 remaining ambition was to atone for the violence of his 
 first reign by the mildness of his second. As a first 
 step to fasten the good will of these eas}*- believers, he, 
 immediately on arriving in Paris, proclaimed the free- 
 dom of the press ; bat he soon repented of this conces- 
 sion. In spite of all the watchfulness, and all the 
 briberies of his police, he could never bend to his own 
 service the whole of this power. The pure republicans 
 — even the pure royalists — continued to have their 
 organs ; and the daily appeals of either to the reason 
 and the passions of a people so long strange to the exer- 
 cise of such influence, otherwise than in subservience to 
 the government of the time, whatever that might be, 
 produced such effects, that, almost from the time in 
 which he bestowed the boon, he was occupied with de- 
 vising pretexts for its recall. He ere long caused, per- 
 haps, more resentment by some efforts to thwart the 
 conduct of the press, than would have resulted from the 
 absolute prolongation of its slavery. Some even of the 
 decrees of Lyons were hard to be reconciled with tho 
 professions of one who disclaimed any wish to interfere 
 with the sacred right of the nation to frame its consti- 
 tution for itself. But in almost eveiy act of his govern- 
 ment after he reached Paris, he furnished additional 
 evidence how imperfectly his mind had divested itself of 
 the ancient maxims. Even the edict, emancipating the 
 press from all control, was an assumption on his part of 
 the complete power of legislation. The same might be 
 said of another decree, abolishing negro slavery and the 
 slave trade, which he published shortly after ; but this 
 second measure exposed him to other comments. Who 
 could seriously believe that at that moment of tumult, 
 ere France was even in semblance entirely his, and 
 while all Europe was openly arming against him, he had 
 leisure for the affairs of the negroes ? This display of, 
 
1815.] THE HDNDBED DAYS. 583 
 
 philanthropy was set down universally lor a stage trick ; 
 and men quickened their eyes, lest such unsubstantial 
 shows in the distant horizon might be designed to with- 
 draw their attention from the foreground. 
 
 The great assemblage of Champ-de-Mai had been ori- 
 ginally announced for the 10th of May ; and its princi- 
 pal business was the formation of a new constitution. 
 The meeting did not take place so earhy, and the task of 
 proposing a constitutional scheme for its consideration, 
 proved far more difficult than the Emperor had contem- 
 plated. He had the assistance, in this labour, of Carnot 
 and Sieyes, whose names would have carried great 
 weight with the republican party — had not both of these 
 old jacobins and regicides accepted, on entering the 
 Emperor's service, high rank in his peerage — a proceed- 
 ing in direct violation of all the professions of their lives. 
 He was further favoured with the aid of his brother 
 Lucien, who, in spite of all previous misunderstandings, 
 returned on this occasion to Paris ; influenced, probably, 
 by the same egregious vanity which made him fancy 
 himself a poet, and hoping, under existing circumstances, 
 to impress Napoleon with such a sense of his value as 
 might secure him henceforth a commanding influence in 
 the government of France. The Abbe Sieyes, and 
 Lucien also, had had some experience ere now of Napo- 
 leon in the character of a constitution-maker. He was 
 no longer so powerful as he had been when they for- 
 merly toiled together upon such a task : disputes arose ; 
 and the Emperor, to cut these short, and give a decisive 
 proof of his regard for freedom of debate, soon broke up 
 the discussion, retired from the Tuilleries to the small 
 palace called the Elysee, and there drew up the scheme 
 which pleased himself, and which was forthwith pub- 
 lished under the title of " Act Additional to the Consti- 
 tutions of the Empire." 
 
584 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 This title gave great offence, because it seemed to re- 
 cognise many anterior enactments wholly irreconcilable 
 with the tenor of the document itself ; and the mode of 
 its promulgation furnished even more serious ground of 
 objection. This constitution was, on the face of it, not 
 a compact between the prince and the people, but the 
 record of boons conceded by the former to the latter. In 
 a word, all they that bad condemned Louis XVIII. for 
 his royal charter, were compelled to acknowledge that 
 their own imperial champion of freedom was beginning 
 his new career by a precisely similar display of presump- 
 tion. 
 
 The substance of the " Additional Act " disappointed 
 all those who hankered after the formal exposition of 
 first principles ; but it must be allowed that its provi- 
 sions seem to include whatever is needful for the arrange- 
 ment of a free representative constitution ; hereditary 
 monarchy ; a hereditary peerage ; a house of represen- 
 tatives, chosen by the people, at least once within every 
 five years ; yearly taxes, levied only by the whole legis- 
 lature ; responsible ministers ; irremovable judges ; and, 
 in all criminal cases whatever, the trial by jury. The 
 act, however, was published ; the electoral colleges ac- 
 cepted of it, as they had done of all its predecessors ; 
 and it by degrees came out that the business of the 
 ChamjJ-de-Mai was to be — not even the discussion of 
 the imperial scheme, but only to swear submission to its 
 regulations, and witness a solemn distribution of eagle3 
 to those haughty bands w r ho acknowledged no law but 
 that of the sword. 
 
 This promised assemblage was preceded by one of the 
 rabble of Paris, convoked in front of the Tuilleries on 
 the 17th of May, and there feasted and harangued by 
 Napoleon — a condescension which excited lively dis- 
 pleasure among his soldiery. He himself looked and 
 
1815.] TIIE HUNDRED DATS. 585 
 
 spoke as one thoroughly ashamed of what he had done 
 and was doing. It had been his desire to stimulate 
 among these people something of the old zeal of the re- 
 volutionary period, in case Paris should be once more 
 threatened by a foreign enemy ; but he had the double 
 mortification to find that the army considered their touch 
 as contamination, and that among themselves the name 
 of Louis was almost as popular as his own. Even the 
 Dames des halles, so conspicuous in the revolutionary 
 tumults, screamed royalist ditties in his ear as they 
 drank his wine ; and the only hearty cheers were those 
 of the day-labourei's, who had profited by his resumption 
 of some great public works suspended by the King's 
 government. 
 
 The Champ-de-Mai itself, which, despite its name, fell 
 on the 1st of June, turned out hardly a more successful 
 exhibition. Napoleon, his brothers, and the great civil 
 functionaries, appeared in theatric dresses, in the midst 
 of an enormous amphitheatre, where the deputies, sent 
 from the departments to swear allegiance to the Emperor 
 and the " Additional Act," were almost lost in the mili- 
 tary among whom the eagles were to be distributed. 
 The enthusiasm was confined to these. The same 
 ominous silence which prevailed at the coronation of 
 1804, was preserved among the people. The sun shone 
 bright, and the roar of cannon filled every pause of the 
 martial music. It was a brilliant spectacle ; but Napo- 
 leon retired from it in visible dejection. 
 
 Three days after, the two houses met; and while that 
 of the peers, composed of persons who all owed their 
 rank, and most of them much besides, to Napoleon, 
 showed every disposition to regulate their conduct by 
 his pleasure, there appeared from the beginning a marked 
 spirit of independence in a considerable proportion of 
 the representative body. The Emperor's address to both 
 
586 NAI'OLEON BUONAPARTE. [1813. 
 
 was moderate and manly. He requested their support 
 in the war, which circumstances had rendered unavoid- 
 able, and professed his desire that they should consider 
 the "Additional Act" and all other subjects of national 
 interest, and suggest whatever alterations might appear 
 to them improvements. Some debates, by no means 
 gratifying to Napoleon, ensued ; but be had no leisui'e 
 for witnessing much of their proceedings. It was now 
 needful that he should appear once more in his own 
 element. 
 
1815/] HEAT'S DIS ARMY IN" BELGIUM. 587 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 Sajyoleon heads his army on the Belgian frontier — peases the Sambre 
 at Charleroi — de eats Blucher at Ligny— Battle of Qualre-bras — 
 The English fall back on a position previously selected by Welling- 
 ton — The Battle of Waterloo — Napoleon returns to Paris. 
 
 Napoleon had now, among other preparations, strongly 
 
 fortified Paris and all the positions in advance of it on 
 
 the Seine, the Marne, and the Aube, and among the 
 
 passes of the Vosgesian hills, Lyons also had been 
 
 guarded by very formidable outworks. Massena, at 
 
 Metz, and Suchet, on the Swiss frontier, commanded 
 
 divisions which the Emperor judged sufficient to restrain 
 
 Schwartzenberg for some time on the Upper Rhine : 
 
 should he drive them in, the fortresses behind could 
 
 hardly fail to detain him much longer. Meantime the 
 
 Emperor himself had resolved to attack the most alert 
 
 of his enemies, the Prussians and the English, beyond 
 
 the Sambre — while the Austrians were thus held in 
 
 check on the Upper Rhine, and ere the armies of the 
 
 North could debouch upon Manheim, to co-operate by 
 
 their right with Wellington and Blucher, and by their 
 
 left with Schwartzenberg. Of the Belgian army, and 
 
 even of the Belgian people, he believed himself to possess 
 
 the secret goodwill, and that one victory would place 
 
 the Allies in a hostile country. By some daring battle, 
 
 and some such splendid success, he yet hoped to shatter 
 
 the confidence of the European confederacy ; nor — even 
 
 had he entertained little hope of this kind — was the 
 
 situation of affairs in Paris such as to recommend 
 
 another protracted and defensive warfare within France. 
 
 The fatal example of I s5 14 wns too near : it behoved Na- 
 
 39 
 
588 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 poleon to recommence operations in the stylo which had 
 characterised his happier campaigns. 
 
 He left Paris on the evening of the 11th of June, 
 exclaming, as he entered his carriage, " I go to measure 
 myself against Wellington." He arrived at Vervins on 
 the 12th, and assembled and reviewed at Beaumont, on 
 the 14th, the whole of the army which had been pre- 
 pared to act immediately under his own orders. They 
 had been carefully selected, and formed, perhaps, the 
 most perfect force, though far from the most numerous, 
 with which he had ever taken the field. Buonaparte 
 saw before him 25,000 of his imperial guard, 25,000 
 cavalry in the highest condition, 800 pieces of artillery 
 admirably served, and infantry of the line, almost all 
 veterans, sufficient to swell his muster to at least 135,000 
 men. He reminded them that this was the anniversary 
 of Marengo and of Friedland, and asked, " Are they and 
 we no longer the same men? The madmen !" he con- 
 tinued, " a moment of prosperity has blinded them. 
 The oppression and humiliation of the French people is 
 beyond their power. If they enter France they will 
 there find their tomb. Soldiers ! we have forced 
 marches, battles, and dangers before us. For every 
 Frenchman who has a heart the moment is arrived to 
 conquer or to perish!" Such was his oration: and 
 never was army more thoroughly imbued with the spirit 
 of its chief. 
 
 Blucher's army numbered at this time about 100,000 
 men, and, extending along the line of the Sambre and 
 the Meuse, occupied Charleroi, Namur, Givet, and Liege. 
 They communicated on their right with the left of the 
 Anglo-Belgian army, under Wellington, whose head- 
 quarters were at Brussels. This army was not com- 
 posed, like Blucher's or Napoleon's, of troops of the 
 same nation. The Duke had less than 35,000 English ; 
 
1815.] THE CAMPAIGN OF WATERLOO. 589 
 
 and of these but few were veterans — tbe flower of his 
 Peninsular Army having been despatched to America, 
 to conclude a war into which the United States had 
 forced England, on very trivial pretences, during the 
 season of her greatest difficulties and dangers, in 1812. 
 The King's German Legion, 8000 strong, was, however, 
 equal to the best British force of like amount ; and there 
 were 5000 Brunswickers, headed by their gallant Duke, 
 and worthy of his guidance. The Hanoverians, exclu- 
 sive of the Legion, numbered 15,000 ; of Nassau troops, 
 Dutch and Belgian, commanded by the Prince of Orange, 
 son to the sovereign of the Netherlands, there might be 
 17,000 ; but the spirit of the Belgian part of this army 
 was, not without reason, suspected on all sides. The 
 Duke of "Wellington's motley host amounted, then, in 
 all, to 75,000 men. His first division occupied Enghien, 
 Brain-lc-Comte and Nivelles, communicating with the 
 Prussian right at Charlei*oi. The second division (Lord 
 Hill's) was cantoned in Halle, Oudenard, and Gramont, 
 where was most of the cavalry. The reserve (Sir 
 Thomas Picton's) were at Brussels and Ghent. The 
 English and Prussian commanders had thus arranged 
 their troops, with the view of being able to support each 
 other, wherever the French might hazard their assault. 
 It could not be ascertained beforehand whether Napo- 
 leon's mark was Ghent or Brussels ; even had the Allied 
 Generals known that it was the latter city, who could 
 inform them by which of the three great routes, of 
 Namur, of Charleroi, or of Mons, he designed to force 
 his passage thither ? Fouche, indeed, doubly and trebly 
 dyed in treason, had, when accepting office under Napo- 
 leon, continued to maintain his correspondence with 
 Louis at Ghent, and promised to furnish the Allies with 
 the outline of tbe Emperor's plan of the campaign ere it 
 began. But the minister of police took care that this 
 
390 NAPOLEON BUONAPARI!. [1815. 
 
 document should not arrive until the campaign was 
 decided. 
 
 At daybreak on Thursday, the loih, the French drove 
 in all the outposts on the west bank of the Sambre, and 
 at length assaulted Charleroi ; thus revealing the pur- 
 pose of the Emperor— namely, to crush Blucher ere ho 
 could concentrate all his own strength, far less bo 
 supported by the advance of Wellington, and then rush 
 at once upon Brussels. Ziethen, however, held out, 
 though with severe loss, at Charleroi so long, that tlio 
 alarm spread along the whole Prussian line ; and then 
 fell back in good order on a position between Ligny atid 
 Armand ; where Blucher now awaited Napoleon's attack 
 —at the head of the whole of his army, except the 
 division of Bulow, which had not yet come up from 
 Lie^e. The scheme of beating the Prussian divisions in 
 detail had therefore failed ; but the second part of the 
 pl an — namely, that of separating them wholly from 
 Wellington, might still succeed. With this view, while 
 Blucher was concentrating his force about Ligny, the 
 French held on the main road to Brussels from Char- 
 leroi, beating in some Nassau troops at Frasnes, and fol- 
 lowed them as far as Quatre-bras, a farm-house, so 
 called because it is there that the roads from Charleroi 
 to Brussels, and from Nivelles to Namur, cross each 
 other. 
 
 At half-part one o'clock p.m., of the same day (Thurs- 
 day the 15th), a Prussian officer* of high rank arrived 
 at Wellington's head-quarters in Brussels, with the 
 
 * The fiction of the Duke of Wellington having been surprised 
 on this great occasion, maintained its place in almost all narra- 
 tives of the war for fifteen years. The Duke's magnanimous 
 silence under such tieatment for so leng a period will be appreci- 
 ated by posterity. The facts of the case are now given from the 
 most unquestionable authority. 
 
1815.] THE CAMPAIGN OF WATERLOO. 591 
 
 intelligence of Napoleon's decisive operations. By two 
 o'clock orders were despatched to all the cantonments 
 of the Duke's army, for the divisions to break up, and 
 concentrate on the left at Quatre-bras ; his Grace's 
 design being that his whole force should be assembled 
 there by eleven o'clock on the next night, Friday the 
 16th. 
 
 It was first intended to put off a ball announced for 
 the evening of Thursday, at the Duchess of Richmond's 
 hotel in Brussels ; but on reflection it seemed highly 
 important that the population of that city should bo 
 kept as far as possible in ignorance as to the course of 
 events, and the Duke of Wellington desired that the 
 ball should proceed accordingly; nay, the general officers 
 received his commands to appear in the ball-room — each 
 taking care to quit the apartment as quietly as possible, 
 at ten o'clock, and proceed to join his respective division 
 ■ mte. This arrangement was carried into strict 
 execution. The Duke himself retired at twelve o'clock, 
 and left Brussels at six o'clock next morning for Quatre- 
 bras. The reserve quitted Brussels in the night with 
 the most perfect silence and regularity, unnoticed by the 
 inhabitants; and the events which had occurred were 
 almost wholly unknown in that city, except to the mili- 
 tary authorities, until the next day. 
 
 The Duke of "Wellington conversed at the ball with 
 various persons on the movements which had occurred; 
 stated his calculation of the French force directed against 
 his left, and expressed his confidence that his whole 
 army would be up at Quatre-bras by eleven o'clock the 
 next night. This most extraordinary and rapid con- 
 centration of force was effected ; the various divisions of 
 the army, previously cantoned over an extent of fifty 
 miles, were collected at Quatre-bras, within the short 
 space of twenty-four hours. 
 
5?.'2 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 Napoleon, on coming up from Charleroi, about noon 
 on the 16th, hesitated for a time whether Biucher at 
 Ligny, or the English at Quatre-bras, ought to form the 
 main object of his attack. The Anglo-Belgian army was 
 not yet concentrated — the Prussian, with the exception 
 of one division, was : and he at length resolved to give 
 his own personal attention to the latter. "With the main 
 strength of his army, therefore, he assaulted Biucher at 
 three in the afternoon ; and about the same time Ney, 
 with 45,000 men, commenced seriously (for there had 
 been skirmishes ever since daybreak) the subordinate 
 attack on the positions of Wellington. 
 
 The English General had held a conference with 
 Biucher this morning at Bry ; and settled with him the 
 ultimate measures to be adopted under whatever course 
 the events of the day might assume ; and he now awaited 
 the assault of Ney under many disadvantages. His 
 troops were vastly inferior in numbers, and all, except 
 a few Belgians, that were now on the field, had been 
 marching since midnight. The enemy were compara- 
 tively fresh ; and they were posted among growing corn, 
 as high as the tallest man's shoulders, which, with an 
 inequality of ground, enabled them to draw up a strong 
 body of cuirassiers close to the English, and yet entirely 
 out of their view. The 79th and 42d regiments were 
 thus taken by surprise, and the former would have been 
 destroyed but for the coming up of the latter. The 
 42d, formed into a square, was repeatedly broken, and 
 as often recovered, though with terrible loss of life : for 
 out of 800 that went into the action, only ninety-six 
 privates and four officers returned unhurt. The divi- 
 sions of Alten, Halket, Cooke, Mai tl and, and Byng suc- 
 cessively arrived ; and night found the English General, 
 after a severe and bloody day, in possession of Quatre- 
 bras. The gallant Duke of Brunswick, fighting in the 
 
J 815.] BLUCHER RETREATS ON WAVRE. 593 
 
 front of the line, fell almost in the beginning of the 
 battle. The killed and wounded on the side of the 
 Allies were 5000, and the French loss could not have 
 been less. 
 
 Bluchcr fought as stern a battle, but with worse for- 
 tune. With 80,000 men he had to sustain the assault 
 of 90,000, headed by Napoleon ; and the villages of 
 Amand and Ligny were many times taken and re-taken 
 in the course of the clay. It is said, that two of the 
 French corps hoisted the black flag : it is certain 
 that little quarter was either asked or given. The 
 hatred of the French and Prussians was inflamed to 
 the same mortal vehemence. It is said that the loss on 
 Blucher's side was 20,000 men — and on the other 15,000 
 — numbers, when we consider the amount of the troops 
 engaged, all but unparalleled. However, the non-arrival 
 of Bulow, and the successive charges of fresh divisions 
 of the enemy, at length forced Blucher to retire. In the 
 course of the day the brave old man had his horse shot 
 under him in heading a charge of cavalry, and was 
 ridden over undetected, by both his own men and the 
 French. He now retreated on the river Dyle, in the 
 direction of Wavre ; but contrived to mask his move- 
 ments so skilfully, that Napoleon knew not until noon 
 on the 17th what way he had taken. 
 
 The bulletins of the Emperor announced two victories 
 of the most dazzling description as the work of the lGth. 
 Blucher would be heard of no more, they said ; and 
 "Wellington, confounded and amazed, was already within 
 the jaws of ruin. 
 
 Napoleon, having ascertained the retreat of the Prus- 
 sian, now committed the pursuit of him to Marshal 
 Grouchy, and a corps of 32,000 men — and turned in 
 person to Quatre-bras, in the hope of pouring his main 
 force, as well as Ney's, on Wellington, in a situation 
 
594 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815 
 
 where it was altogether improbable he should receive 
 any assistance from Blucher. But no sooner was the 
 Duke aware of Blucher's march on Wavre, than he, in 
 adherence to the common plan of the campaign, gave 
 orders for falling back from Qnatre-bras. He had before 
 now been heard to say, that if ever it were his business 
 to defend Brussels, he would choose to give battle on 
 t lie field of Waterloo, in advance of the forest of Soignies ; 
 and he now retired thither — in the confidence of being 
 joined there in the morning, ere the decisive contest 
 should begin, by Blucher. The day was rainy, the roads 
 were covei'ed deep with mud, and the English soldiery 
 are of all others most discouraged by the command to 
 retreat. Their spirits, however, rose gallantly when, on 
 reaching the destined field, they became aware of their 
 leader's purpose ; and, having taken up their allotted 
 stations, they bivouacked under the storm in the sure 
 hope of battle. 
 
 All his arrangements having been effected early in the 
 evening of the 17th, the Duke of Wellington rode across 
 the country to Blucher, to inform him personally that 
 he had thus far effected the plan agreed on at Bry, and 
 express his hope to be supported on the morrow by two 
 Prussian divisions. The veteran replied, that he would 
 leave a single corps to hold Grouchy at bay as well as 
 they could, and march himself with the rest of his army 
 upon Waterloo ; and Wellington immediately returned 
 to his post.* The cross roads between Wavre and Mont 
 St. Jean were in a horrid condition ; the rain fell in 
 torrents, and Grouchy had 32,000 men to attack Thiel- 
 man's single division, left at Wavre. Blucher's march, 
 
 * The fact of Wellington and Blucher having met between the 
 battles of Ligny and Waterloo was well known to man}' of the supe- 
 rior officers then in the Netherlands ; but the writer of this com* 
 penJium never happened to see it mentioned in print 
 
1815."; WATERLOO. oO." 
 
 however, began ; acd if it occupied longer time than 
 had been anticipated, the fault was none of his. 
 
 The position of the Duke of Wellington was before 
 the village of Mont St. Jean, about a mile and a balf in 
 advance of the small town of Waterloo, on a rising 
 ground, having a gentle and regular declivity before it 
 — beyond this a plain of about a mile in breadth — and 
 then the opposite heights of La Belle Alliance, on which 
 the enemy would of course form their line. The Duke 
 had now with him about 75,000 men in all ; of whom 
 about 30,000 were English. He formed his first line of 
 the troops on which he could most surely rely — the 
 greater part of the British foot — the men of Brunswick 
 and Nassau, and three corps of Hanoverians and Bel- 
 gians. Behind this the ground sinks and then rises 
 again. The second line, formed in rear of the first, was 
 composed of the troops whose spirit and discipline were 
 more doubtful — or who had suffered most in the action 
 of Quatre-Bras ; and behind these lay all the horse. 
 The position crosses the two highways from Nivelles 
 and Charleroi to Brussels, nearly where they unite : 
 these roads gave every facility for movements from front 
 to rear during the action ; and two country roads, run- 
 ning behind and parallel with the first and second lines, 
 favoured equally movements from wing to wing. The 
 line was formed convex, dropping back towards the 
 forest at either extremity ; the right to Mark Braine, 
 near Braine-la-Leude ; the left to Ter-la-Haye. The 
 chateau and gardens of Hougomont, and the farm- 
 house and enclosures of La Haye Sainte, about 1500 
 yards apart, on the slope of the declivity, were strongly 
 occupied, and formed the impo "tant out- works of de- 
 fence. The opening of the country road leading directly 
 from Wavre to Mont St. Jean, through the wood of 
 Chain, was guarded by the British lef f while those 
 
506 NAPOLEON BUOXArARTE. [1815. 
 
 running through Souhain and Frichemont, further in 
 advance, might be expected to bring the first of the 
 Prussians on the right flank of the French, during their 
 expected attack. 
 
 The field was open and fair : and in case the enemy 
 should force the Duke from his position, the village of 
 Mont St. Jean behind, still further back the town of 
 "Waterloo, and lastly, the great forest of Soignies — offered 
 successively the means of renewing his defence, and pro- 
 tecting his retreat. The British front extended, in all, 
 over about a mile. It was Wellington's business to 
 hold the enemy at bay, until the Prussian advance 
 should enable him to charge them with superior num- 
 bers : it was Napoleon's to beat the English ere Blucher 
 could disengage himself from Grouchy, and come out of 
 the woods of Ohain ; which being accomplished, he 
 doubted not to have easy work with the Prussians 
 amidst that difficult country. He had in the field 
 75,000 men ; all French veterans — each of whom was, 
 in his own estimation, worth one Englishman, and two 
 Prussians, Dutch, or Belgians. But on the other hand, 
 "Wellington's men, all in position over-night, had had, 
 notwithstanding the severe weather, some hours to 
 repose and refresh themselves : whereas the army of 
 Napoleon had been on the march all through the hours 
 of tempestuous darkness, and the greater part of them 
 reached not the heights of Belle Alliance until the 
 morning of the 18th was considerably advanced. The 
 Emperor himself, however, had feared nothing so much 
 as that "Wellington would continue his retreat on 
 Brussels and Antwerp — thus deferring the great battle 
 until the Russians should approach the valley of the 
 Rhine ; and when, on reaching the eminence of La 
 Belle Alliance, he beheld the army drawn up on the 
 opposite side, his joy was great. " At last, then," 
 
1815.] WATERLOO. 597 
 
 he exclaimed, " at last, then, I have these English in 
 my grasp." 
 
 The tempest abated in the morning— but the weather 
 all day long was gusty, and the sky lowering. It was 
 about noon that the French opened their cannonade, 
 and Jerome Buonaparte, under cover of its fire, charged 
 impetuously on Hougomont. The Nassau men in the 
 wood about the house were driven before the French ; 
 but a party of English guards maintained themselves in 
 the chateau and garden, despite the desperate impetuosity 
 of many repeated assaults. Jerome, masking the post 
 thus resolutely hold, pushed on his cavalry and artillery 
 against "Wellington's right. The English formed in 
 squares, and defied all their efforts. For some time 
 both parties opposed each other here, without either 
 gaining or losing a foot of ground. At length the 
 English fire forced back the French — and the garrison 
 of Hougomont were relieved aud strengthened. 
 
 The next attempt was made on the centre of the 
 British line, by a great force of cuirassiers and four 
 columns of infantry. The horse, coming boldly along 
 the causeway of Genappe, were met in the path by the 
 English heavy cavalry, where the road has been cut 
 down deep, leaving high banks on either side. Their 
 meeting was stern : they fought for some time at sword's 
 length ; at last the cuirassiers gave way, and fled for 
 the protection of their artillery. The English followed 
 them too far, got amidst the French infantry, and were 
 there charged by fresh cavalry and driven back with 
 much loss. — It was here that Picton died. Meanwhile 
 the infantry of this movement had pushed on beyond 
 La Haye Sainte, and dispersed some Belgian regiments ; 
 but being then charged in turn, iu front by Pack's 
 brigade of foot, and in flank by a brigade of heavy 
 Euglish horse, were totally routed — losing, besides the 
 
598 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 slain and wounded, 2000 prisoners and two eagles. The 
 only favourable result of this second grand attempt was 
 the occupation of the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte, 
 which had been garrisoned by Hanoverians. And 
 scarcely had the charge of Pack proved successful, ere 
 the French were again compelled by shells and cannon 
 to evacuate this prize. 
 
 The third assault was levelled again on the British 
 ,-i<rht — where the infantry awaited it, formed in a double 
 line of squares, placed chequerwise, and protected in 
 front by a battery of thirty field pieces. The French 
 cuirassiers charged the artillerymen and drove them 
 from their guns ; and then rode fiercely on the squares 
 behind. These remained steadfast until the enemy were 
 within ten yards of them, and then fired with deadly 
 effect. The cavalry gave back — rallied again, and 
 renewed their charge : this they did several times — and 
 always with the like result. Sometimes they even rode 
 between the squares, and charged those of the second 
 line. At length protracted exposure to such cross fire 
 completed the ruin of these fearless cavaliers. The far 
 greater part of this magnificent force was annihilated in 
 this part of the battle. 
 
 When the relics of the cuirassiers withdrew, the 
 French cannonade opened once more furiously all along 
 the line ; and the English were commanded to lie flat on 
 the ground for some space, in order to diminish its 
 effects. Lord Wellington had by this time lost 10,000, 
 Buonaparte at least 15,000 men. It was now half-past 
 six o'clock. The heads of Prussian columns began to 
 be discerned among the woods to the right of the 
 French. It was obvious, that unless a last and decisive 
 onset should drive Wellington from the post which he 
 had continued to hold during near seven hours of un- 
 iutermitting battle, his allies would come fully into the 
 
1815.] WATERLOO. 599 
 
 field, and give him a vast superiority of numbers where- 
 with to close the work of the day. Napoleon prepared, 
 therefore, for his final struggle. Hitherto he had kept 
 his guard, the flower of his fine army, out of the fray. 
 He now formed them into two columns, desired them to 
 charge boldly, for that the Prussians, whom they saw in 
 the wood, were flying before Grouchy— and they doubted 
 not that the Emperor was about to charge in person at 
 their head. He, however, looked on, as they put them- 
 selves in motion, and committed them to the guidance 
 of Xey, " the bravest of the brave," whose consciousness 
 of recent treason must have prepared him, even had his 
 temper been less gallant, to set all upon the cast. Four 
 battalions of the Old Guard only remained as a reserve; 
 and were formed in squares to protect the march of the 
 columns. 
 
 The English front by this time presented not a convex 
 line, but a concave, either wing having gradually ad- 
 vanced a little in consequence of the repeated repulses 
 of the enemy. The\* were now formed in an unbroken 
 array, four deep, and poured on the approaching 
 columns (each man firing as often as he could reload), 
 a shower which never intermitted. The wings kept 
 moving on all the while ; and when the heads of the 
 French columns approached, they were exposed to such 
 a storm of musketry in front and on either flank, that 
 they in vain endeavoured to deploy into line for the 
 attack. They stopped to make this attempt, reeled, lost 
 order, and fled at last in one mass of confusion. 
 
 The Duke of "Wellington now dismounted, placed 
 himself at the head of his line, and led them, no longer 
 held to defence, against the four battalions of the Old 
 Guard — the only unbroken troops remaining — behind 
 whom Xey was striving to rally his fugitives. 
 
 The Marshal, at Wellington's approach, took post 
 
GOO NAPOLEON PCONAPARTE. 11816. 
 
 once more in tho van, sword in hand, and on foot. But 
 nothing- could withstand the impetuous assault of the 
 victorious British. The Old Guard also were shaken. 
 Napoleon had hitherto maintained his usual serenity of 
 aspect on the heights of La Belle Alliance. He watched 
 the English onset with his spy-glass — became suddenly 
 pale as death — exclaimed, " They are mingled togethei 
 — all is lost for the present!" and rode off the field, 
 never stopping for a moment until he reached Charleroi. 
 
 Hardly had the English advanced for this fatal charge, 
 when Blucher's columns, emerging from the woods, 
 were at length seen forming on the right of the French, 
 and preparing to take part in the battle. Their cannon- 
 ade played on the flank of the Old Guard, while the 
 British attack in front was overwhelming them. The 
 fatal cry of sauve qui peut was heard everywhere : tho 
 French were now flying pellmell in the most woful con- 
 fusion. Blucher and Wellington met at length at the 
 farm-house of La Belle Alliance ; and the Prussian 
 eagerly undertook to continue the pursuit during the 
 nio-ht, while the English General halted to refresh his 
 weary men. 
 
 The loss of Wellington's army on this great day was 
 terrible : 100 officers slain (many of the first distinc- 
 tion), and 500 wounded, very many mortally ; and of 
 rank and file killed and wounded, 15,000. The Duke 
 himself had been, all through the day, wherever the 
 danger was greatest ; and he alone, and one gentleman 
 besides, of all a very numerous staff, came off the ground 
 unhurt. 
 
 Of the 75,000 men whom Napoleon conducted to this 
 last and severest of his fields, what with the slain and 
 the wounded, and those who, losing heart and hope, de- 
 serted, and fled separately to their homes, not more than 
 30,000 were ever again collected in arms. The Prussians 
 
1816.] WATERLOO. 601 
 
 followed bard on the miserable fugitives, and in every 
 hamlet and village, for many miles beyond La Bello 
 Alliance, cut down the lingerers without mercy. 
 
 Napoleon at length halted at Philippeville ; from which 
 point ho designed to turn towards Grouchy, and take in 
 person the command of that remaining division, leaving 
 Soult to re-assemble and rally, at Avesnes, the relics of 
 Waterloo. But hearing that Blucher was already at 
 Charleroi (which was true), and that Grouchy had been 
 overtaken and made prisoner (which was false), the 
 Emperor abandoned his purpose, and continued his 
 journey, travelling post, to Paris. 
 
 On the 19th, the capital had been greeted with the 
 news of three great victories, at Charleroi, at Ligny, and 
 at Quatre-bras — 100 cannon fired in honour of the Em- 
 peror's successes — his partizans proclaimed that the 
 glory of France was secured — and dejection filled the 
 hearts of the royalists. On the morning of the 21st, it 
 transpired that Napoleon had arrived the night before, 
 alone, at the Elysee. The secret could no longer bo 
 kept, A great, a decisive field had been fought ; — and 
 the French army was no more. 
 
602 NArOLEOX BUONAPAKTE. [1815. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 Napoleon appeals in vain to the Chambers — Abdicates for the second 
 time — Is sent to Malmaison — Aid then to Jloch?fort — Negotiates 
 icith Captain Maitland — Embarks in l.'i • " Bellerophon" — Arrives 
 at Torbay — Decision of the English Government— Interview with 
 Lord Keith, ^c. — Napoleon on board the "Northumberland" — 
 Sails for St. Helena. 
 
 On how sandy a foundation the exile of Elba bad re- 
 built tbe semblance of bis ancient authority, a kw hours 
 of adversity were more than sufficient to show. He was 
 still consulting with his ministers (even they were not 
 all his friends,) on the morning of the 21st, in what 
 manner he ought to inform the Chambers of his great 
 misfortune, and what assistance he should demand, when 
 the news reached the Ely see, that both the assemblies 
 had met as soon as the story of Waterloo transpired, 
 and passed a series of resolutions ; one of which de- 
 clared the state to be in danger — and another, their 
 sittings permanent; in other words, proclaiming his 
 reign to be at an end. If any thing could have been 
 wanted to complete Napoleon's conviction that the 
 army had elevated him in opposition to the nation — it 
 must have been found in the fact that the funds rose 
 rapidly from the moment in which it was known in 
 Paris that the army was ruined. They went on to tell 
 him that the Chambers were debating on the means of 
 defending Paris. " Ah," said he — deeply feeling in what 
 loss all had been lost to him — " Ah, could they but de- 
 fend them like my Old Guard." 
 
 If Napoleon had listened to the advice of his brother 
 Lucien, and the few who really considered their own 
 fortunes as irrevocably bound up with his, he would 
 have instantly put himself at the head of 6,000 of the 
 
i;Sl5.] ABDICATES AGAIN. 003 
 
 Imperial Guard, who were then in the capital, and dis- 
 solved the unfriendly senate of Paris, on the 21st of 
 Jnne, as unceremoniously as he had that of St. Cloud on 
 llic 19th of Brumaire. Lucien said ever after, that "the 
 smoke of Mont St. Jean had turned his brain." He 
 certainly gave what remained of the day to vacillation. 
 Late in the evening he held a council, to which the 
 presidents and vice-presidents of both Chambers were 
 admitted. In their presence La Fayette signified that 
 nothing could be done until a great sacrifice had been 
 made. Maret answered with fierceness ; called for 
 severe measures against the royalists and the disaffected: 
 " Had such been resorted to earlier," cried he, " one who 
 hears me would not be smiling at the misfortunes of 
 France, and Wellington would not be marching on 
 Paris." This strong allusion to Fouche suited not the 
 temper of the moment. Maret was murmured down ; 
 and Carnot himself is said to have shed tears when ho 
 perceived that the abdication was judged necessary. 
 That ancient democrat tad indeed just consented to bo 
 a count; but he enjoys apparently the credit of having 
 acted on this occasion as a good Frenchman. He saw, 
 say even the anti-Buonapartist historians, that France 
 was invaded, and the same feelings which made him 
 ofl'er his own sword in Deceiuber, 1813, urged him now 
 to oppose any measure which must deprive his country 
 of the military talents of Xapoleon. The Emperor heard 
 all in silence — and broke up the meeting without having 
 come to any decision. 
 
 Early next morning the Chambers again met, and the 
 necessity of the Emperor's abdication was on the point 
 of being put to the vote — when Fouche appeared, and 
 saved them that trouble by producing the following 
 proclamation " To the French people" : — 
 
 Frenchmen! In commencing war for the maintenance 
 ■.'(I 
 
604 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 of the national independence, I relied on the union of all 
 efforts, all ivills, and all authorities. I had reason to 
 hope for siiccess, and I braved all the declarations of the 
 powers against me. Circumstances appear to be changed. 
 I offer myself as a sacrifice to the hatred of the enemies of 
 France. May they prove sin-cere in their declarations, and 
 to have aimed only at me ! My political life is ended ; 
 and I -proclaim my son, Napoleon II, Emperor of the 
 French. Unite for the public safety, if you would remain 
 an independent nation. — Done at the palace Ely see, June 
 the 22d, 1815. — Napoleon. 
 
 The debate which, followed the production of this act 
 in either house, but especially in that of the Peers, was 
 violent. In the latter, Carnot, having received some 
 grossly exaggerated accounts of the force and success of 
 Grouchy, endeavoured to persuade the assembly, that 
 that marshal must have ere then added 60,000 men at 
 Laon to Soult and the relics of Waterloo, and so formed 
 an army capable, under fit guidance, of even yet effectu- 
 ally retrieving the affairs of France. But Ney had 
 arrived in Paris the same morning, and this speech 
 called up the man who, if any single energies could have 
 done so, would have saved the day at Waterloo. 
 " Grouchy," said he, " cannot have more than 20,000 — 
 at most 25,000 — men; and as to Soult — I myself com- 
 manded the guard in the last assault — I did not leave 
 the field until they were exterminated. Be assured 
 there is but one course — negotiate, and recall the Bour- 
 bons. In their return I see nothing but the certainty 
 of being shot as a deserter. I shall seek all I have 
 henceforth to hope for in America. Take you the only 
 course that remains for France." 
 
 Napoleon, in his bulletins, did not scruple to throw 
 the blame of his discomfiture on the misconduct of his 
 chief officers — particularly of Grouchy — and even of 
 
1815.] SENT TO MALMA1SON. 605 
 
 Ney himself; nor wanted there devoted men, such as 
 Labedoyere, to sustain these most unfounded charges, 
 and all other arguments anywise favouring the cause of 
 the Emperor, in either chamber. But the truth was 
 great, and prevailed. The Senate, no more than the 
 people, could be deceived now ; and though a deputa- 
 tion waited on him at the Elysee, and in most respect- 
 ful terms thanked him for the sacrifice he had made, he 
 in vain endeavoured to extort any direct avowal that, 
 in accepting his abdication, they considered that act 
 as necessarily accompanied with the immediate procla- 
 mation of Napoleon II. The Emperor, for the last time 
 clothed in the imperial garb, and surrounded with his 
 great officers of state, received the deputation with 
 calmness and dignity, and dismissed them with courtesy. 
 He perceived clearly that there was no hope for his son. 
 
 Thus terminated the second reign — the hundred days 
 of Napoleon. 
 
 By this time, however, Labedoyere's violent language 
 in the Senate — his repeated protestations that, unless 
 Napoleon II. were recognised, the abdication of his 
 father was null, and that the country which could hesi- 
 tate about such an act of justice was worthy of nothing 
 but slavery — began to produce a powerful effect among 
 the regular soldiery of Paris. The Senate called on 
 Napoleon himself to signify to the army that he no 
 longer claimed any authority over them ; and he com- 
 plied, though not without mingling many expressions 
 highly offensive to those whose mandate he obeyed. A 
 provisional government, however, consisting of Fouchg, 
 Carnot, and three more, was forthwith proclaimed ; and 
 when the first of these persons conceived that Napoleon's 
 continued presence in the capital might produce distur- 
 bances, and accordingly requested him to withdraw to 
 Malmaison, he found himself obliged to do so. This was 
 
606 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1816. 
 
 on tlie 24th; and no sooner was he established in this 
 villa, than it became obvious to himself that he was in 
 fact a prisoner. Fouche's police surrounded him on all 
 sides ; and the military duties about Malmaison were 
 discharged by a party of the national guard, attached to 
 Louis XVIII., and commanded by General Beker, 
 an officer well known to be personally hostile to the 
 fallen sovereign. We have seen how the Parisians 
 veered from side to side at every former crisis of his 
 history, according as the wind of fortune happened to 
 blow. To finish the picture it remains to be told that, 
 ere Napoleon had been two days at Malmaison, he was, 
 to all appearance, as much forgotten in the neighbouring 
 capital, as if he had never returned from Elba. 
 
 The relics of Waterloo, and Grouchy's division, having 
 at length been gathered together under Soult, at Laon, 
 were now marching towards Paris, and followed hard 
 behind by Wellington and Blucher. The provisional 
 government began to be seriously alarmed lest Buona- 
 parte should, by some desperate effort, escape from 
 Malmaison, and once more place himself at the head of 
 a considerable armed force. He himself, indeed, was 
 continually sending to them, requesting permission to 
 take the field as General for Napoleon II. ; and one of 
 the government, Carnot, was heartily desirous that this 
 prayer should be granted. Under such circumstances, 
 Fouche, who had, throughout, corresponded with, and 
 1 dotted against, all parties, now employed every art to 
 persuade the fallen chief that the only course, whether 
 of safety or of dignity, that remained for him, was to fly 
 immediately to the United States of America ; and, that 
 nothing may be wanting to show how the great and the 
 little were perpetually intermingled in the fortunes of 
 Buonaparte, one of the means adopted by this intriguer, 
 and not the least effectual, was that of stimulating the 
 
1815.] LEAVES MALMAISON. GO) 
 
 personal creditors of the dethroned Emperor and Lis 
 family to repair incessantly to Malmaison, and torment 
 him with demands of payment. Meantime Fouch6 sent 
 to the Duke of "Wellington, announcing that Napoleon 
 had made up his mind to repair to America, and request- 
 ing a safe-conduct for him across the Atlantic. The 
 Duke replied, that he had no authority to grant any 
 passports to Napoleon Buonaparte ; and the only con- 
 sequence (as Fouche had perhaps anticipated) was, that 
 the English Admiralty quickened their diligence, and 
 stationed no less than thirty cruisers along the western 
 coasts of France, for the purpose of intercepting the dis- 
 turber of the world in his meditated flight. 
 
 Fouche, in communicating to Napoleon the refusal of 
 Wellington, took care to signify urgent fears that the 
 English government might adopt such measures as 
 these, and to build on this a new argument for the 
 hastening of his departure from the neighbourhood of 
 Paris. He informed him that two frigates and some 
 smaller vessels awaited his orders at Rochefort, and as- 
 sured him, that if he repaired thither on the instant, he 
 would still be in time. 
 
 Napoleon hesitated at Malmaison, as he had done be- 
 fore at the Kremlin — at Dresden — and at Fontainebleau. 
 The cry of the approaching soldiery of Soult was already 
 in his car, inviting him to be once more their Emperor. 
 On the other hand, it was now too obvious that the army 
 alone retained any reverence for him ; and, lastly, what 
 after all could he hope to effect with, at most, 60,000 
 men, against the victorious hosts of Wellington and 
 Blucher, backed, as they were about to be, by great re- 
 inforcements from England and Prussia, and by the 
 whole armies of Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, and the 
 Czar ? Napoleon well knew that ere six weeks more 
 elapsed, 800,000 foreigners would be cantoned within 
 
608 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 the boundaries of France. He at length yielded ; and 
 on the 29th of June left Malmaison, accompanied by 
 Savary, Bertrand, Las Casas, and others of his attached 
 servants, and attended by a considerable guard. 
 
 Napoleon reached Rochefort on the 3d of July ; and 
 took up his residence in the prefect's house, with the 
 view of embarking immediately ; but he forthwith was 
 informed, that a British line-of-battle ship (the " Belle- 
 rophon," Captain Maitland) and some smaller vessels of 
 war were off the roads, and given to understand that 
 the commanders of the squadron at his own disposal 
 showed no disposition to attempt the passage out in face 
 of these watchers. A Danish merchant-ship was then 
 hired, and the Emperor occupied himself with various 
 devices for concealing his person in the hold of this 
 vessel. But the Danish captain convinced him ere long 
 that the British searchers would not be likely to pass him 
 undetected, and this plan too was abandoned. Some 
 young French midshipmen then gallantly offered to act 
 as the crew of a small- flat coasting vessel, a chausse- 
 marree, and attempt the escape in this way under cloud 
 of night. But all experienced seamen concurring in 
 representing the imminent hazard of exposing such a 
 vessel to the Atlantic, as well as the numberless chances 
 of its also being detected by the English cruisers. 
 " Wherever wood can swim," said Napoleon, " there I 
 am sure to find this flag of England." 
 
 Meanwhile time passed on, and it became known that 
 the French army had once more retired from before the 
 walls of Paris under a convention : that Wellington and 
 Blucher were about to enter the city, and reseat Louis 
 on his throne ; that the royalists were everywhere 
 assuming the decided advantage — that the white flag 
 was already hoisted in the neighbouring town of Rochelle 
 — and that it would be so at Rochefo--t itself on the 
 
1815.] ROCHEFORT. 609 
 
 instant, were his person removed. Under such circum- 
 stances, to attempt a journey into the interior of Franco, 
 with the view of rejoining Soult, now marching on the 
 Loire, or with any other purpose, must needs expose 
 Napoleon to every chance of falling into the hands of 
 the Bourbons ; and at length, since it was impossible to 
 sail out of Rochefort without the consent of the English, 
 it was resolved to open a negotiation with their com- 
 mander. 
 
 On the 10th of July, Savary and Count Las Casas 
 came off with a flag of truce, and began their conversa- 
 tion by stating that the Emperor had been promised a 
 safe-conduct for America, and asking if the document 
 were in Captain Maitlaud's hands ? No safe-conduct of 
 any kind had been promised or contemplated by any 
 English authority whatever ; and the captain could only 
 answer that, as far as concerned himself, his orders 
 were to make every effort to prevent Buonaparte from 
 escaping, and if so fortunate as to obtain possession of 
 his person, to sail at once with him for England. Savary 
 and Las Casas made great efforts to persuade Maitland 
 that Napoleon's removal from France was a matter of 
 pure voluntary choice ; but this the British officer con- 
 sidered as a question wherewith he had nothing to do. 
 The utmost the Frenchmen could extract from him was, 
 that he, as a private individual, had no reason to doubt 
 but that Buonapai-te, if he sailed for England in the 
 " Bellerophon," would be well ti'eated there. 
 
 The same personages returned on the 14th, and an- 
 other conversation, longer, but to the same purpose, 
 was held by them with Maitland, in the presence of 
 Captain Sartorius and Captain Gambler, both of the 
 royal navy. These gentlemen have corroborated com- 
 pletely the statement of Maitland, that he, on the second 
 as on the first interview, continued to guard the French- 
 
010 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1816. 
 
 men against the remotest conception of his being en- 
 titled to offer any pledge whatever to Napoleon, except 
 that he would convey him in safety off the English 
 coast, there to abide the determination of the English 
 government. Savary and Las Casas, on the contrary, 
 persisted in asserting that Maitland, on the 14th Jul}-, 
 gave a pledge that Napoleon, if he came on board the 
 " Bellerophon," should be received there not as a 
 prisoner of war, but as a voluntary guest, and that it 
 was solely in consequence of this pledge that Napoleon 
 finally resolved to embark. But there is one piece of 
 evidence in contradiction of this stoiy, of which even 
 themselves could hardly dispute the Aveight — to wit, the 
 date of the following letter to the Prince Regent of 
 England, which General Gourgaud brought out the 
 same evening to the " Bellerophon," and which clearly 
 proves that what Napoleon ultimately did on the 15th, 
 depended in nowise on anything that Maitland said on 
 the 14th. 
 
 "Rochefort, July the 18th, 1815. 
 
 "Royal Highness, 
 
 " A victim to the factions which divide my 
 country, and to the hostility of the greatest Poivers of 
 Europe, I have terminated my political career, and come, 
 like Themistocles, to seat myself on the hearth of the British 
 people. I put myself under the protection of their laws, 
 which I claim from your Royal Highness as the most 
 ■powerful, the most constant, and the most generous of my 
 enemies. Napoleon." 
 
 Maitland sent on Gourgaud m the " Slaney" with 
 this letter; and having once more addressed Las Casas 
 in these words — " You will recollect that I am not 
 authorised to stipulate as to the reception of Buonaparte 
 in England, but that he must consider himself as 
 entirely at the disposal of His Royal Highness the 
 
1815.] ARRIVES OFF THE ENGLISH COAST. 611 
 
 Prince Regent" — prepared bis ship for the reception of 
 the fallen Emperor. 
 
 On the loth the "Epervier" brig brought him out of 
 the Aix roads ; but wind and tide being unfavourable. 
 Maitland sent the barge of the " Bellerophon" to trans- 
 port him to the ship. The officers and most of the crew 
 of the "Epervier" saw him depart, with tears in their 
 eye?, and continued to cheer him as long as their voices 
 could be heard. Captain Maitland received him re- 
 spectfully, but without any salute or distinguished 
 honours. Napoleon uncovered himself on reaching the 
 quarter-deck, and said in a firm tone of voice, " I come 
 to place myself under the protection of your prince and 
 laws." 
 
 On board the "Bellerophon," as before in the "Un- 
 daunted," Buonaparte made himself very popular among 
 both officers and crew. He examined every thing — 
 praised every thing — extolled the English nation — above 
 all, the English navy — and even admitted that the Duke 
 of "Wellington, " equal to himself in all other military 
 qualities, was superior in prudence." On the 23d they 
 passed Ushant, and Xapoleon gazed long and mourn- 
 fully, and for the last time, on the coast of France. On 
 the 24th the " Bellerophon " entered Torbay, and Mait- 
 land was instantly admonished to permit no communi- 
 cation of any kind between his ship and the coast. On 
 the 26th MaitlaDd was ordered round to Plymouth 
 Sound : and the arrival of Buonaparte having by this 
 time transpired, the ship was instantly surrounded by 
 swarms of boats, filled with pei'sons whose curiosity 
 nothing could repress. There was considerable diffi- 
 culty in keeping the ship itself clear of these eager 
 multitudes. Xapoleon appeared on the deck, was greeted 
 with huzzas, and bowed and smiled in return. 
 
 On the 31st of July, Sir H. Bnnbnry, Under-Secretary 
 
612 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 of State, and Lord Keith, Admiral of the Channel Fleet, 
 repaired on board the " Bellerophon," and announced 
 the final resolution of the British Government : namely, 
 1st, That General Buonaparte should not be landed in 
 England, but removed forthwith to St. Helena, as being 
 the situation in which, more than any other at their 
 command, the government thought security against a 
 second escape, and the indulgence to himself of personal 
 freedom and exercise, might be reconciled ; 2dly, That, 
 with the exception of Savary and Lallemand, he might 
 take with him any three officers he chose, as also his 
 surgeon, and twelve domestics. 
 
 This letter was read in French by Sir Henry Bunbury. 
 Napoleon listened without look or gesture of impatience 
 or surprise. Being then asked if he had anything to 
 reply, he, with perfect calmness of voice and manner, 
 protested against the orders to which he had been listen- 
 ing, and against the right claimed by the English Go- 
 vernment to dispose of him as a prisoner of war. " I 
 2ame into your ship," said he, " as I would into one of 
 your villages. If I had been told I was to be a prisoner, 
 I would not have come." He then expatiated at great 
 length on the title given him — General Buonaparte — 
 and on tho right which he had to be considered as a 
 sovereign prince ; he was, he said, three months before, 
 as much Emperor of Elba, as Louis was King of France, 
 and, by invading another monarch's dominions, could 
 not have forfeited his own rank as a monarch. He next 
 adverted to the ignoble attitude in which England would 
 place herself in the e} T es of the world by abusing his 
 confidence — hinted that either his father-in-law or the 
 Czar would have treated him far differently — and con- 
 cluded by expressing his belief that the climate and 
 confinement of St. Helena would kill him, and his re- 
 solution, therefore, not to go to St. Helena. By what 
 
1815.] EXILED TO ST. HELENA, 613 
 
 means he designed to resist the command of the English 
 Government, Napoleon did not say : there can be no 
 doubt he meant Lord Keith and Sir H. Bunbury to 
 understand, that, rather than submit to the voyage in 
 question, he would commit suicide ; and what he thus 
 hinted, was soon expressed distinctly, with all the ac- 
 companiments of tears and passion, by two French ladies 
 on board the " Bellerophon" — Madame Bertrand and 
 Madame Montholon. But all this appears to have been 
 set down, from the beginning, exactly for what it was 
 worth. He who had chosen to outlive Krasnoi, and 
 Leipsic, and Montmartre, and "Waterloo, was not likely 
 to die by his own hand in the " Bellerophon." "We 
 desire not to be considered as insinuating, according to 
 the custom of many, that Napoleon ought to have 
 rushed voluntarily on some English bayonet, when the 
 fate of the 18th of June could no longer be doubtful. 
 Laying all religious and moral obligations out of view 
 (as probably he did), Napoleon himself said truly, that 
 " if Marius had fallen on his sword amidst the marshes 
 of Minturna?, he would never have enjoyed his 7th con- 
 sulate." No man ever more heartily than Napoleon 
 approved the old maxim, that while there is life there is 
 hope ; and, far from thinking seriously at any time of 
 putting an end to his own days, we must doubt if, 
 between his abdication at the Elysee and the time 
 wherein he felt the immediate approach of death, there 
 occurred one day, or even one hour, in which some hope 
 or scheme of recovering his fortunes did not agitate his 
 mind. 
 
 "With regard to Napoleon's reclamations against the 
 decision of the English government, it may probably 
 suffice now to observe — 1st, that that government had 
 never, at any period, acknowledged him as Emperor ol 
 France, and that it refused to be a party to the treaty 
 
614 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. (1815. 
 
 under which he retired to Elba, simply because it was 
 resolved not to acknowledge him as Emperor of Elba. 
 These things Napoleon well knew ; and as to his recent 
 re-exercise of imperial functions in France, he well knew 
 that the English government had continued to acknow- 
 ledge Louis XVIII. as King all through the hundred 
 clays. Upon no principle, therefore, could he have 
 expected beforehand to be treated as Emperor by the 
 ministers of the Prince Regent ; nor, even if he had 
 been born a legitimate prince, would it have been in the 
 usual course of things for him, under existing circum- 
 stances, to persist in the open retention of his imperial 
 style. By assuming some incognito, as sovereigns when 
 travelling out of their own dominions are accustomed to 
 do, Napoleon might have cut the root away from one 
 long series of his subsequent disputes with the English 
 government and authorities. But in doing as he did, he 
 acted on calculation. He never laid aside the hopes of 
 escape and of empire. It was bi3 business to have com- 
 plaints. If everything went on quietly and smoothly 
 about him, what was to ensure the keeping up of a 
 lively interest in his fortunes among the faction, to 
 which he still looked as inclined to befriend him, and 
 above all, among the soldiery, of whose personal devo- 
 tion, even after the fatal catastrophe of Waterloo, he had 
 no reason to doubt ? Buonaparte, in his days of success, 
 always attached more importance to etiquette, than a 
 prince born to the purple, and not quite a fool, would 
 have been likely to do : but in the obstinacy with which, 
 after his total downfall, he clung to the airy sound of 
 majesty, and such pigmy toys of observance as could be 
 obtained under his circumstances, we cannot persuade 
 ourselves to behold more than the sickly vanity of a 
 parvenu. The English government acknowledged him 
 by the highest military rank he had held at that time 
 
1815.] EXILED TO ST. HELENA. 615 
 
 when the treaty of Ameins was concluded with him as 
 First Consul ; and the sound of General Buonaparte, 
 now so hateful in his ears, who had under that style 
 wielded the destinies of the world, might have been lost, 
 if Napoleon himself had chosen, in some factitious style. 
 To come to the more serious charges. Napoleon, 
 driven to extremity in 1814 by the united armies of 
 Europe, abdicated his throne, that abdication being the 
 price of peace to France, and to soothe his personal suf- 
 ferings, obtained the sovereignty of Elba. When he 
 violated the treaty by returning in arms to Provence, 
 the other provisions, which gave peace to France and 
 Elba to him, were annulled of course. When the for- 
 tune of Waterloo compelled him to take refuge in the 
 " Bellerophon " — what was to be done ? To replace in 
 Elba or any similar situation, under some new treaty, 
 the man who had just broken a most solemn one, was 
 out of the question. To let him remain at large in the 
 midst of a country close to France, wherein the press 
 is free to licentiousness, and the popular mind liable to 
 extravagant agitations, would have been to hazard the 
 domestic tranquillity of England, and throw a thou- 
 sand new difficulties in the way of every attempt to 
 consolidate the social and political system of the French 
 monarchy. In most other times the bullet or the axe 
 would have been the gentlest treatment to be expected 
 by one who had risen so high, and fallen so fatally. 
 This his surrender to Captain Maitland — to say nothing 
 of the temper of the times — put out of the question. It 
 remained to place him in a situation wherein his per- 
 sonal comfort might as far as possible be united with 
 security to the peace of the world ; and no one has as 
 yet pretended to point out a situation preferable in this 
 point of view to that remote and rocky island of the 
 Atlantic, on wbinh it was the fortune of the great 
 
616 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 Napoleon to close his earthly career. The reader cannot 
 require to be reminded that tbe personage, whose rele- 
 gation to St. Helena has formed the topic of so many- 
 indignant appeals and contemptuous commentaries, was, 
 after all, the same man, who, by an act of utterly 
 wanton and unnecessary violence, seized Pius VII. and 
 detained him a prisoner for nearly four years, and who, 
 having entrapped Ferdinand VII. to Bayonne, and ex- 
 torted his abdication by the threat of murder, concluded 
 by locking him up during five years at Valencay. 
 
 The hints and threats of suicide having failed in pro- 
 ducing the desired effect — and a most ridiculous attempt 
 on the part of some crazy persons in England to get 
 possession of Napoleon's person, by citing him to appear 
 as a witness on a case of libel, having been baffled, more 
 formally than was necessary, by the swift sailing of the 
 Bellerophon for the Start — the fallen Emperor at length 
 received in quiet the intimation, that Admiral Sir George 
 Cockburn was ready to receive him on board the Nor- 
 thumberland, and convey him to St. Helena. Savary 
 and Lallemand were among the few persons omitted 
 by name in King Louis's amnesty on his second 
 restoration, and they were extremely alarmed when 
 they found that the retreat of St. Helena was barred on 
 them by the English government. They even threat- 
 ened violence — but consulting Sir Samuel Romilly, 
 and thus ascertaining that the government had no 
 thoughts of surrendering them to Louis XVIII., sub- 
 mitted at length with a good grace to the inevitable se- 
 paration. Napoleon's suite, as finally arranged, con- 
 sisted of Count Bertrand (grand master of the palace), 
 Count Montholon (one of his council of state), Count 
 Las Casas, General Gourgaud (his aide-de-camp), and 
 Dr. O'Meara, an Irish naval surgeon, whom he had 
 found in the " Bellerophon," and who was now, by his 
 
1815] EXILED TO ST. HELENA. 617 
 
 desire, transferred to the "Northumberland." Bertrand 
 and Montholon were accompanied by their respective 
 countesses and some children; and twelve upper domestics 
 of the imperial household followed their master's fortune. 
 Of the money which Napoleon had with him, to the 
 amount of some £4000, the British Government took pos- 
 session, pro tempore, announcing that they charged them- 
 selves with providing regularly for all the expenditure 
 of his establishment ; but his plate, chiefly gold, and of 
 much value, was permitted to remain untouched. 
 
 On the 8th of August the " Northumberland" sailed 
 for St. Helena, and the exile had his first view of his 
 destined retreat on the 15th of October, 1815. During 
 the voyage, Sir George Cockburn departed from some 
 observances of respect into which Captain Maitland had 
 very naturally fallen, under very different circumstances. 
 The Admiral, in a word, did not permit Napoleon to as- 
 sume the first place on board the " Northumberland." 
 He did the honours of the table himself; nor did ho 
 think it necessary to break up his company immediately 
 after dinner, because the ex-Emperor chose to rise then 
 — in adherence to the custom of French society : neither 
 did he man his yards nor fire salutes on any occasion, as 
 is done in the case of crowned heads, nor follow the 
 example of the French suite in remaining at all times 
 uncovered in the presence of Napoleon. With these 
 exceptions, General Buonaparte was treated with all the 
 respect which great genius and great misfortunes could 
 claim from a generous mind ; nor was he on the whole 
 insensible to the excellent conduct either of Maitland or 
 of Cockburn. Cruelly and most unjustly attacked, as 
 the former had been, by Las Casas and Savary — and by 
 Napoleon — when the captain of the "Bellerophon" comes 
 to record his final sentiments towards his prisoner, it ia 
 in these affecting words — " It may appear surprising 
 
01- NAPOLfiON BUONAPARTE. [181 o. 
 
 that a possibility should exist of a British officer being 
 prejudiced in favour of one who had caused so many 
 calamities to his country ; but to such an extent did he 
 possess the power of pleasing, that there are few people 
 wh j could have sat at the same table with him for nearly 
 a month, as I did, without feeling a sensation of pity, 
 perhaps allied to regret, that a man possessed of so many 
 fascinating qualities, and who had held so high a station 
 in life, should be reduced to the situation in which I saw 
 him." 
 
 To the extraordinary power of fascination which 
 Napoleon had at command, a still more striking testimony 
 occurs in an anecdote, apparently well authenticated, of 
 Lord Keith. "When some one alluded in this old Admiral's 
 hearing to Buonaparte's repeated request of a personal 
 interview with the Prince Regent, " On my conscience," 
 said Lord Keith, " I believe, if you consent to that, they 
 will be excellent friends within half an hour." 
 
ISli] AT ST. HELENA. C19 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 Napoleon at St. Helena — The Briars — Longwood — Charge* against 
 
 the English Government respecting his accommodation and treat- 
 ment at St. Helena — Charges against the Governor, Sir Hudson 
 >e— Napoleon's mode of life at Longwood — his Health Jails off 
 — his Death and Funeral — Conclusion. 
 
 Napoleon was weary of shipboard, and, therefore, landed 
 immediately. Finding the curiosity of the people trouble- 
 some, he took up his quarters at The Briars, a small 
 cottage about half a mile from James's Town, during 
 the interval which must needs elapse before the admiral 
 could provide suitable accommodation for his permanent 
 residence. For that purpose Longwood, a villa about 
 six miles from James's Town, was, after an examination 
 of all that the island afforded, determined on ; except 
 Plantation House, the country residence of the governor, 
 there was no superior house in St. Helena; and two 
 months having been employed diligently in some addi- 
 tions and repairs, the fallen Emperor took possession of 
 his appointed abode on the 10th of December. The 
 very limited accommodation of The Briars (where 
 indeed, Napoleon merely occupied a pavilion of tu i 
 chambers in the garden of a Mr. Balcombe,) had hither- 
 to prevented him from having all his little suite of 
 attendants under the same roof with him. They wer 
 dow re-assembled at Longwood, with the exception of 
 M. and Mine. Montholon, who occupied a separate bonse 
 at Borne little distance from it. While at The Briars, 
 Napoleon made himself eminently agreeable to the 
 family of the Balcombes, particularly the vonng ladies 
 and children, and submitted <>n jrhole with temper 
 
 1 1 
 
320 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 and grace to the inconveniences of narrow accommoda- 
 tion in-doors, and an almost total want of exercise 
 abroad — this last evil occasioned wholly by his own 
 reluctance to ride oat in the neighbourhood of the town. 
 He continued also to live on terms of perfect civility 
 with Sir George Cockburn ; and, notwithstanding some 
 occasional ebullitions of violence, there seemed to be no 
 reason for doubting that, when fairly established with his 
 suite about him, he would gradually reconcile himself to 
 the situation in which he was likely to remain, and turn 
 his powerful faculties upon some study or pursuit 
 worthy of their energy, and capable of cheating cap- 
 tivity of half its bitterness. These anticipations were 
 not realised. 
 
 The accusations brought by the prisoner and his in- 
 struments against the government of England, in regard 
 to the accommodations at Longwood, the arrangements 
 concerning the household establishment, and the regula- 
 tions adopted with a view to the security of his person, 
 have been so often answered iu detail, that we may spare 
 ourselves the pain of dwelling on transactions little 
 worthy of filling a large space in the story of Napoleon. 
 It being granted that it was necessary to provide 
 against the evasion of Buonaparte ; that the protracted 
 separation from him of his wife and son (not, at any 
 rate, the act of England, but of Austria), was in it- 
 self justified by obvious political considerations ; and 
 that England would have given good reason of offence 
 to the King of France, had she complied with Napo- 
 leon's repeated demands, to be styled and treated as 
 Emperor — if these things be granted, we do not see how 
 even the shadow of blame can attach to the much-abused 
 ministers, on whom fortune threw one of the most deli- 
 cate and thankless of all offices. His house was, save 
 one (that of the governor), the best on the island ; from 
 
1815.] LOXGWOOD. 021 
 
 the beginning it was signified tbat any alterations or 
 additions, suggested by Napoleon, would be immediately 
 attended to ; and the framework of many apartments 
 was actually prepared in England, to be sent out and 
 distributed according to his pleasure. As it was, Napo- 
 leon bad for bis own immediate personal accommodation, 
 a suite of rooms, consisting of a saloon, an eating room, 
 a library, a billiard room, a small study, a bed room, 
 and a bath room ; and various English gentlemen, accus- 
 tomed to all the appliances of modern luxury, who 
 visited the exile of Longwood, concur in stating that 
 the accommodations around him appeared to them every 
 way complete and unobjectionable. He had a good 
 collection of books, and the means of adding to these as 
 much as he chose. His suite consisted in all of five 
 gentlemen and two ladies ; the superior French and 
 Italian domestics about, his own person were never 
 fewer than eleven ; and the sum allowed for his domes- 
 tic expenditure was £12,000 per annum — the governor 
 of St. Helena, moreover, having authority to draw on 
 the Treasury for any larger sum, in case he should con- 
 sider £12,000 as insufficient. When we consider that 
 wines, and most other articles heavily taxed in England, 
 go duty-free to St. Helena, it is really intolerable to be 
 told that this income was not adequate — nay, tbat it 
 was not munificent — for a person in Napoleon's situa- 
 tion. It was a larger income than is allotted to the 
 i nor of any English colony whatever, except the 
 governor-general of India. It was twice as large as the 
 official income of a British secretary of state has ever 
 been. We decline entering at all into the minor chi 
 connected with this humiliating subj. ■ ingle 
 
 example may serve. One of the Loudest complaints 
 about the deficiency and inferior quality of wine; on 
 examination it appeared, that Napoleon's upper domes- 
 
622 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1815. 
 
 tics wort 1 allowed each day, per man, a bottle of claret, 
 costing £6 per dozen (without duty), and the lowest 
 menial employed at Lorigwood a bottle of good Teneriffe 
 wine daily. That the table of the fallen Emperor him- 
 self was always served in a style at least answerable to 
 the dignity of a general officer in the British service— 
 this was never even denied. Passing from the interior, 
 we conceive that we cannot do better than quote the 
 language of one of his casual and impartial visitors, Mr. 
 Ellis. " There never, perhaps" (says this gentleman), 
 " was a pi'isoner, so much requiring to be watched and 
 guarded, to whom so much liberty and range for exer- 
 cise was allowed. With an officer he may go over any 
 part of the island ; wholly unobserved, his limits extend 
 four miles — partially observed, eight — and overlooked 
 twelve. At night the sentinels certainly close round 
 Longwood itself. It indeed appears impossible to 
 conceive of a prisoner more liberally treated in all these 
 respects. There remains the constantly repeated vitu- 
 peration of the climate of St. Helena. It appears, how- 
 ever, by tables kept and published by Dr Arnott, that 
 the sick list of a regiment, stationed close to Buonaparte's 
 residence during his stay, rarely contained more than 
 one name out of forty-five— a proportion which must be 
 admitted to be most remarkably small. In effect, the 
 house of Lorigwood stands 2000 feet above the level of 
 the sea ; the ocean breezes purify the air continually ; 
 and within the tropics there is probably no healthier 
 situation whatever. If it be said that Napoleon should 
 not have been confined within the tropics at all — it is 
 answered that it was necessary to remove him from the 
 neighbourhood of the countries in which his name was 
 the watchword of rebellion and discord — and that, after 
 all, Napoleon was a native of Corsica, one of the hottest 
 climates in Europe, and was, at all times, constitution- 
 
is 16.] loxgwood. 623 
 
 all}-, able to endure the extremes of beat mucb better 
 than of cold — witness Egypt and Russia. 
 
 There was a rule that Napoleon's correspondence 
 should all pass through the hands of the governor of St. 
 Helena — and this Sir "Walter Scott condemns. Had 
 the English government acted on the Buonapartean 
 model, they would have made no such regulation, but 
 taken the liberty of privately examining his letters, and 
 repealing them, after the fashion of the post-office under 
 Lavalette. It diminishes our regret when we learn 
 from Sir "Walter Scott's next page, that, in spite of all 
 laws and severities on this score, Napoleon and the 
 companions of his exile contrived, from the beginning 
 to the end, to communicate with their friends in Europe, 
 without the supervision of any English authorities 
 whatever. 
 
 The finishing touch is put to the pictui'e of unworthy 
 duplicity by one of Napoleon's own followers, and most 
 noisy champions, General Gourgaud. This gentleman 
 himself informed the English government, that at the 
 time when Napoleon, in order to create the notion that 
 his supplies were restricted beyond all endurance, sent 
 some plate to James's Town to be broken up and sold, 
 he, Napoleon, had in his strong box at Longwood at 
 least £10,000 in gold coin. 
 
 There is one name which will descend to posterity- 
 laden with a tenfold portion of the abuse which Napo- 
 leon and his associates lavished on all persons connected 
 in any degree with the superintendence and control of 
 his captive condition — that of Sir Hudson Lowe, ! 
 neral ofheer in the English army, who became governor 
 of St. Helena in May, 1816, and continued to hold that 
 situation down to the period of the ex-Emperor's death 
 in 1821. The vanity of Napoleon appears to have been 
 wounded from the beginning by this appointment. Ac- 
 
624 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1816. 
 
 cording to him, no person ought in decency to have 
 heen entrusted with the permanent care of his detention, 
 but some English nobleman of the highest rank. The 
 answer is very plain, that the situation was not likely 
 to find favour in the eyes of any such person ; and 
 when one considers what the birth and manners of 
 by far the greater number of Buonaparte's own courtiers, 
 peers and princes included, were, it is difficult to repress 
 wonder in listening to this particular subject of complaint. 
 Passing over this original quarrel — it appears that, ac- 
 cording to Buonaparte's own admission, Sir H. Lowe 
 endeavoured, when he took his thankless office upon 
 him, to place the intercourse between himself and his 
 prisoner on a footing as gracious as could well be looked 
 for under all the circumstances of the case ; and that he, 
 the ex-Emperor, ere the governor had been a week at 
 St. Helena, condescended to insult him to his face by 
 language so extravagantly, intolerably, and vulgarly 
 offensive, as never ought, under any circumstances what- 
 ever, to have stained the lips of one who made any pre- 
 tension to the character of a gentleman. Granting that 
 Sir Hudson Lowe was not an officer of the first distinc- 
 tion — it must be admitted that he did no wrong in ac- 
 cepting a duty offered to him by his Government ; and 
 that Napoleon was guilty, not only of indecorum, but ot 
 meanness, in reproaching a man so situated, as he did 
 almost at their first interview, with the circumstances — 
 of which at worst it could but be said that they were 
 not splendid — of his previous life. But this is far too 
 little. Granting that Sir Hudson Lowe had been, in 
 history and in conduct, both before he came to St. 
 Helena, and during his stay there, all that the most 
 ferocious libels of the Buonapartists have ever dared to 
 say or insinuate — it would still remain a theme of un- 
 mixed wonder and regret, that Napoleon Buonaparte 
 
1816.] StK OUDS03 LOWE. 625 
 
 should have stooped to visit on his head the wrongs which, 
 if they were wrongs, proceeded not from the governor of 
 St. Helena, hut from the English ministry, whose servant 
 he was. " I can only account," says Mr. Ellis, " for his 
 petulance and unfounded complaints from one of two mo- 
 tive — cither he wishes by these means to keep alive an 
 interest in Europe, and more especially in England, where 
 lie flatters himself he has a party ; or his troubled mind 
 finds an occupation in the tracasseries which his present 
 conduct gives to the governor. If the latter be the case, 
 it is in vain for any governor to unite being on good 
 terms with him to the performance of his duty." 
 
 Xapoleon did everything he could to irritate this un- 
 fortunate governor. He called him scrivener, thieftaker, 
 liar, hangman; rejected all his civilities as insults; 
 encouraged his attendants to rival in these particulars 
 the audacity of his own language and conduct ; refused 
 by degrees to take the exercise which his health re- 
 quired, on pretext that it did him more harm than good 
 when he knew himself to be riding within view of Eng- 
 lish sentinels (which was not necessary at all within 
 four miles of Longwood), or attended by an English 
 officer — which was not necessary unless at the distance 
 of twelve miles from Longwood ; above all, opposed 
 every obstacle to the enforcement of that most proper 
 regulation which made it necessary that his person 
 should, once in every twenty-four hours, be visible to 
 some British officer. In a word, Xapoleon Buonaparte 
 bent the whole energies of his mighty intellect to the 
 ignoble task of tormenting Sir Hudson Lowe ; and th" 
 extremities of degradation to which these efforts occa- 
 sionally reduced himself, in the eyes of his own attend- 
 ants, arc such as we dare not particularise, and as will 
 be guessed by no one who has not read the memoir of 
 his Italian doctor, Antoinmarchi. 
 
626 NAPOLEON BUOXAI'AKIE. [1816. 
 
 Meantime, the great object was effectually attained. 
 The wrongs of Napoleon, the cold cruelty of the English 
 government, and the pestilent petty tyranny of Sir 
 Hudson Lowe, were the perpetual themes of table- talk 
 all over Europe. There were statesmen of high rank in 
 either house of the British parliament, who periodically 
 descanted on these topics — and the answers as often 
 elicited from the ministers of the crown, only silenced 
 such declamations for the moment, that they might lie 
 renewed with increased violence after time had elapsed 
 sufficient to allow the news to come back to England 
 with the comments of Longwood. The utter impossibi- 
 lity of an escape from St. Helena was assumed on all such 
 occasions, with the obvious infereuce that there could be 
 no use for sentinels and domiciliary visitations at Long- 
 wood, except for the gratification of malignant power. 
 But it is now ascertained, that, throughout the whole 
 period of the detention, schemes of evasion were in agi- 
 tation at St. Helena, and that agents were busy, some- 
 times in London, more frequently in North America, 
 with preparations which had no other object in view. 
 A steam-ship, halting just beyond the line of sight, 
 might undoubtedly have received Napoleon at certain 
 seasons of the year without difficulty, could he only 
 contrive to elude the nocturnal vigilance of the sentinels 
 about the house of Longwood : and that this was im- 
 possible, or even difficult, General Gourgaud himself 
 does not hesitate to deny. The rumours of these plots 
 reached from time to time Sir Hudson Lowe ; and, 
 quickening of course his fears and his circumspection, 
 kept the wounds of iealousy and distrust continually 
 open and angry. 
 
 There were moments, however, in which Napoleon 
 appeared, to pei'sons likely to influence public feeling in 
 Europe by their reports, in attitudes of a far different 
 
1817.] LONGWOOD. 627 
 
 description. "Whcu strangers of eminence (generally 
 officers on their way to or from India), baiting at St. 
 Helena, requested and obtained permission to pay tlieir 
 respects at Longwood, Xapoleon received them, for the 
 most part, with the ease and dignity of a man superior 
 to adversity. It was by these worthier exhibitions that 
 the falku Emperor earned the lofty eulogy of Byron: — 
 
 " N\"t 11 thy soul hath brooked the turning tide, 
 With that untaught innate philosophy, 
 "Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, 
 I- g ill and wormwood to an enemy. 
 When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, 
 To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled 
 With a sedate and all-enduring eyi ; 
 When Fortune fled her spoiled and favourite child. 
 He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled." 
 
 Among the visitors now alluded to was Captain Basil 
 Hall : and he has, perhaps, presented the world with 
 the most graphic sketch of Napoleon as he appeared on 
 Buch occasions at Longwocd. "Buonaparte/' says this 
 traveller, " struck me (Aug. 13, 1817) as differing con- 
 siderably from all the pictures and busts I had seen of 
 him. His face and figure looked much broader and 
 more square — larger, indeed, in every way, than any 
 representation I had met with. His corpulency, at 
 this time reported to be excessive, was by no means 
 remarkable. His flesh looked, on the contrary, firm 
 and muscular. There was not the least trace of colour 
 in his cheeks ; in fact, his skin was more like marble 
 than ordinary flesh. Not the smallest wrinkle was dis- 
 cernible on his brow, nor an approach to a furrow on 
 any part of his countenance. His health and spirits, 
 judging from appearances, were excellent ; though, at 
 this period, it was generally believed in England that 
 he was fast sinking under a complication of dis«- 
 
028 KAl'OLEON BUONAPARTE [1817. 
 
 and that his spirits were entirely gone. His manner of 
 speaking was rather slow than otherwise, and perfectly 
 distinct: and he waited with great patience and kind- 
 ness for my answers to his questions. The brilliant 
 and sometimes dazzling expression of his eye could not 
 be overlooked. It was not, however, a permanent 
 lustre, for it was only remarkable when he was excited 
 by some point of particular interest. It is impossible to 
 imagine an expression of more entire mildness, I may 
 almost call it of benignity and kindliness, than that 
 which played over his features during the whole inter- 
 view. If, therefore, he was at this time out of health 
 and in low spirits, his power of self-command must have 
 been even more extraordinary than is generally sup- 
 posed; for his whole deportment, his conversation, and 
 the expression of his face, indicated a frame in perfect 
 health, and a mind at ease." 
 
 These favourable reports from seemingly impartial 
 witnesses, lent new wings to the tale of Sir Hudson 
 Lowe's oppression ; and perhaps the exile of St. Helena 
 continued to fill a larger space in the eye of the world 
 at lai'ge, than had ever before fallen to the lot of one 
 removed for ever, to all appearance, from the great 
 theatre of human passions. It was then that Lord Byron 
 thus apostrophised him : — 
 
 " Conqueror and Captive of the Earth art thou ! 
 She trembles at thee still — and thy -wild name 
 Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now 
 That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, 
 "Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and became 
 The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert 
 A god unto thyself — nor less the same 
 To the astounded kingdoms all inert, 
 Who deemed thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert." 
 
 And it was then that an English nobleman of high rank, 
 who throughout manifested especial interest in the for- 
 
1817.] LONGWOOD. 629 
 
 tunes of Napoleon, inscribed his statue (in the gardens 
 of Holland House) with the lines of Homer : — 
 
 Ov 7«/> ~a' TeOtnjicev tV/ yOori S?os Obvaaevs^ 
 
 AW ctj -ic £wos KarepvKejai evpe'i —oi-nr 
 
 Nnaui iv apXfiipVTn' \(t\e—ot ce uiv avSpes svovaiv* 
 
 In ordinaty times, the course of Napoleon's life at 
 Longwood appears to have been as follows : — He rose 
 early, and, as soon as he was out of bed, either mounted 
 on horseback, or began to dictate some part of the 
 history of his life to Aloutholon or Gourgaud. He break- 
 fasted a la fourchette, sometimes alone, sometimes with 
 his suite, between ten and eleven o'clock ; read or dic- 
 tated until between two and three, when he received 
 such visitors as he chose to admit. He then rode out, 
 cither on horseback or in his carriage, for a couple of 
 hours, attended generally by all his suite ; then read or 
 dictated again until near eight, at which hour dinner 
 was served. He preferred plain food, and ate plentifully. 
 A few glasses of claret, less than an English pint, were 
 taken during dinner ; and a cup of coffee concluded the 
 second and last meal of the day, as the first. A single 
 glass of Champagne, or any stronger wine, was sufficient 
 to call the blood into his cheek. His constitutional 
 delicacy of stomach, indeed, is said to have been such, 
 that it was at all times actually impossible for him to 
 indu'L of the coarser appetites of our nature to 
 
 exec--. II '•"->!;, however, great quantities of snuff. A 
 game of chess, a French tragedy read aloud, or conver- 
 i, closed the evening. The habits of his life had 
 taught him to need but little sleep, and to take this by 
 
 * " The godlike Ulysses is not yet dead upon the earth ; 
 He still lingers a living captive within the breadth of ocean, 
 In Borne unapproachable island, where savage men detain him." 
 
 Odyss. book i. vcr. 195. 
 
6oO KATOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1817. 
 
 starts ; and he generally had some one to read to him 
 after he went to bed at night, as is common with those 
 whose pillows are pressed by anxious heads. 
 
 Napoleon was elaborately cai-eful of his person. He 
 loved the bath, and took it at least once every day. His 
 dress at St. Helena was generally the same which he 
 had worn at the Tuilleries as Emperor — viz., the green 
 uniform, faced with red, of the chasseurs of the guard, 
 with the star and cordon of the Legion of Honour. His 
 suite to the last continued to maintain around him, as far 
 as was possible, the style and circumstance of his court. 
 
 As early as the battle of "Waterloo, reports were pre- 
 valent in France that Napoleon's health was declining; 
 yet we have already seen that, so late as April, 181", 
 no symptom of bodily illness could be traced in his 
 external appearance. From this time, however, his at- 
 tendants continued to urge, with increasing vehemence, 
 the necessity of granting more indulgence, in conse- 
 quence of the shattered condition of his constitution; 
 and, although such suggestions were, for obvious reasons, 
 listened to at first with considerable suspicion, there 
 can be little doubt now, that in this matter the fame of 
 Longwood spake truth. 
 
 Dr. Arnott, an English physician, already referred to, 
 who attended on Napoleon's death-bed, has informed us 
 that he himself frequently reverted to the fact, that his 
 father died of scirrhus of the pjdorus. "We have high 
 authority" (says this writer), " that this affection of the 
 stomach cannot be produced without a considerable 
 predisposition of the parts to disease. If, then, it should 
 be admitted that a previous disposition of the parts to 
 this disease did exist, might not the depressing passions 
 of the mind act as an exciting cause ? It is more than 
 probable that Napoleon Buonaparte's mental sufferings 
 in St. Helena were very poignant. By a man of such 
 
1818.] 
 
 LONGWOOD. 631 
 
 unbounded ambition, and who had once aimed at uni- 
 versal dominion, captivity must have been severely felt. 
 I can safely assert, that any one of temperate habit-. 
 who is not exposed to much bodily exertion, night air, 
 and atmospherical changes, may have as much immu- 
 nity from disease in St. Helena as in Eui'ope ; and I 
 may, therefore, further assert, that the disease of which 
 Buonaparte died was not the effect of climate." — It is 
 added, that out of all Napoleon's family, which, includ- 
 ing English and Chinese servants, amounted to fifty 
 persons, only one individual died during the five years 
 of their stay in St. Helena, and this man, an Italian 
 major-domo, had brought the seeds of consumption with 
 him from Europe. 
 
 In March, 1817, Lord Holland made a solemn appeal 
 to the British parliament on the subject of Napoleon's 
 treatment, and was answered by Lord Bathurst — in 
 such a manner that not one could be found to second 
 him. The intelligence of this appears to have exerted a 
 powerful influence on the spirits of the captive. It was 
 about the 25th of September, 1818, that his health began 
 to be affected in a manner sufficient to excite alarm in 
 Dr. O'Meara, who informed him, that unless he took 
 regular exercise out of doors (which of late he had 
 seldom done), the progress of the evil would be rapid. 
 Napoleon declared, in answer, that he would never more 
 take exercise while exposed to the challenge of sentinels. 
 The physician stated, that if he persisted, the end would 
 1x3 fatal. "I shall have this consolation at least," 
 answered he, "that my death will be an eternal dis- 
 honour to the English nation, who sent me to this 
 
 climate to die under the hands of ." O'Meara 
 
 again repi'esented the consequences of his obstinacy. 
 "That which is written, is written," said Napoleon, 
 looking up, " our days are reckoned." 
 
632 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1820. 
 
 Shortly after this, O'Meara — being detected in a sus- 
 picious correspondence with one Holmes, Napoleon's 
 pecuniary agent in London — was sent home by Sir 
 Hudson Lowe ; and, Napoleon declining to receive any 
 physician of the governor's nomination instead, an 
 Italian, by name Antommarchi, was sent out by his 
 sister Pauline. With this doctor there came also two 
 Italian priests, whose presence Napoleon himself had 
 solicited, and selected by his uncle, Cardinal Fesch. , 
 
 His obstinate refusal to take bodily exercise might 
 have sprung in some measure from internal and inde- 
 scribable sensations. To all Antommarchi's medical 
 prescriptions, he opposed the like determination. 
 "Doctor," he said (14th October, 1820), "no physick- 
 ing ; we are a machine made to live ; we are organised 
 for that purpose, and such is our nature ; do not 
 counteract the living principle — let it alone — leave it 
 the liberty of self-defence — it will do better than your 
 drugs. Our body is a watch, intended to go for a given 
 time. The watchmaker cannot open it, and must woi'k 
 at random For once that he relieves or assists it by 
 his crooked instruments, he injures it ten times, and at 
 last destroys it." 
 
 With the heaHL^ui Napoleon his mind sunk also. 
 Some fishes in a pond in the garden at Longwood had 
 attracted his notice ; a deleterious substance happened 
 to mix with the water — they sickened and died. " Every 
 thing I love," said Napoleon, " every thing that belongs 
 to me — is stricken. Heaven and mankind unite to 
 afflict me." Fits of long silence and profound melan- 
 choly were now frequent. " In those days," he once 
 said aloud, in a reverie, " in those days I was Napoleon. 
 Now I am nothing — my strength, my faculties forsake 
 me — I no longer live, I only exist." 
 
 When Sir Hudson Lowe was made aware of the con- 
 
1821.] LONGWOOD. 633 
 
 dition of the captive, lie informed the Government at 
 home ; and by His Majesty's desire, authority was im- 
 mediately given for removing to St. Helena from the 
 Cape, any medical officer on whom Napoleon's choice 
 might fall. This despatch did not, however, reach St. 
 Helena, until Napoleon had breathed his last. 
 
 About the middle of April, 1821, the disease assumed 
 such an appearance, that Dr. Antommarchi became very 
 anxious to have the advice of some English physician, 
 and the patient at length consented to admit the visits 
 of Dr. Arnott, already referred to. But this gentleman 
 also was heard in vain urging the necessity of medical 
 applications. " Quod scriptum scriptum," once more 
 answered Napoleon ; — " Our hour is marked, and no one 
 can claim a moment of life beyond what fate has pre- 
 destined." 
 
 From the 15th to the 25th of April, Napoleon occupied 
 himself with drawing up his last will — in which he be- 
 queathed his orders, and a specimen of every article in 
 his wardrobe, to his son. On the 18th he gave direc- 
 tions for opening his body after death, expressing a 
 special desire that his stomach should be scrutinized, and 
 its appearances communicated to his son. " The vomit- 
 ings," he said, " which succeed one another without in- 
 terruption, seem to show that of all my organs the 
 stomach is the most diseased. I am inclined to believe 
 it is attacked with the disorder which killed my father 
 — a scirrhus in the pylorous — the physicians of Mont- 
 pelier prophesied it would be hereditary in our family." 
 He also gave directions to the priest Vignali as to the 
 manner in which he wished his body to be laid out in a 
 chanibre ardent (a state room lighted with torches). 
 " I am neither an atheist," said Napoleon, " nor a ra- 
 tionalist ; I believe in God, and am of the religion of 
 my lather. I was born a Catholic, and will fulfil all the 
 
G34 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1821. 
 
 duties of that Church, and receive the assistance which 
 she administers." 
 
 On the 3d of May it became evident that the scene 
 was near its close. The attendants would fain have 
 called in more medical men ; but they durst not, know- 
 ing his feelings on this head : " Even had he been 
 speechless," said one of them, " we could not have 
 brooked his eye." The last sacraments of the Church 
 were now administered by Vignali. He lingered on 
 thenceforth in a delirious stupor. On the 4th the island 
 was swept by a tremendous storm, which tore up almost 
 all the trees about Longwood by the roots. The 5th 
 was another day of tempests ; and about six in the even- 
 ing, Napoleon, having pronounced the words " Tete 
 d'armee," passed for ever from the dreams of battle. 
 
 On the 6th of May, the body being opened by Antom- 
 marchi, in the presence of five British medical men, and 
 a number of the military officers of the garrison, as well 
 as Bertrand and Montholon, the cause of death was 
 sufficiently manifest. A cancerous ulcer occupied almost 
 the whole of the stomach. 
 
 Napoleon desired in his will, that his body should be 
 buried " on the banks of the Seine, among the French 
 people, whom he had loved so well." Sir Hudson Lowe 
 could not, of course, expect the King of France to per- 
 mit this to take place ; and a grave was prepared among 
 some weeping willows beside a fountain, in a small 
 valley called Slane's, very near to Longwood. It was 
 under the shade of these willows that the Exile had had 
 his favourite evening seat ; and it was there he had been 
 heard to sa}-, that if he must be interred in St. Helena, 
 he would prefer to lie. 
 
 The body of the Emperor, clad in his usual uniform, 
 was now exposed to the public view, and visited accord- 
 ingly by all the population of the island. The soldiers 
 
1821.] BUKIED AT L0NGW00D. Go"i 
 
 of the garrison passed tbe couch slowly, in single hie ; 
 each officer pausing, in his turn, to press respectfully 
 tbe frozen hand of the dead. On the 8th, his household, 
 the governor, the admiral, and all the civil and military 
 authorities of the place, attended him to the grave — the 
 pall spread over his coffin being the military cloak 
 which he wore at Marengo. The road not being pass- 
 able for carriages, a party of English grenadiers bore 
 Xapoleon to his tomb. The admiral's ship fired 
 minute guns, while Yignali read the service of his 
 church. The coffin then descended amidst a discharge 
 of three volleys from fifteen camion ; and a huge 
 stone was lowered over the remains of one who needs 
 no epitaph. 
 
 Napoleon confessed more than once at Longwood that 
 he owed his downfall to nothing but the extravagance 
 of his own errors. "It must be owned," said he, " that 
 fortune spoiled me. Ere I was thirty years of age, I 
 found myself invested with great power, and the mover 
 of great events." No one, indeed, can hope to judge 
 him fairly, either in the brilliancy of his day, cr the 
 troubled darkness of his evening, who does not task 
 imagination to conceive the natural effects, on a tem- 
 perament and genius so fiery and daring, of that almost 
 instantaneous transition from poverty and obscurity to 
 the summit of fame, fortune, and power. The blaze 
 which dazzled other men's eyes had a fatal influence on 
 Jus. He began to believe that there was something 
 superhuman in his own facnlties, and that he was privi- 
 leged to deny that any laws were made for him. Obli- 
 gations by which he expected all besides to be fettered, 
 he considered himself entitled to snap and trample. He 
 became a deity to himself; and expected mankind not 
 
 42 
 
G36 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 
 
 merely to submit to, but to admire and reverence, the 
 actions of a demon. Well says the Poet, 
 
 " Oh ! more or less than man — in high or low, 
 Battling with nations, flying from the field ; 
 Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now 
 More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield ; 
 An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, 
 But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, 
 However deeply in men's spirits skilled, 
 Look through thine own — nor curb the lust of war, 
 Nor learn that tempted fate will leave the loftiest star." 
 
 His heart was naturally cold. His school-companion, 
 who was afterwards his secretary, confesses that, even 
 in the spring of youth, he was very little disposed to 
 form friendships.* To say that he was incapable of 
 such feelings, or that he really never had a friend, would 
 be to deny to him any part in the nature and destiny of 
 his species. No one ever dared to be altogether alone in 
 the world. But we doubt if any man ever passed 
 through life, sympathising so slightly with mankind; 
 and the most wonderful part of his story is, the intensity 
 of sway which he exerted over the minds of those in 
 whom he so seldom permitted himself to contemplate 
 anything more than the tools of his own ambition. So 
 great a spirit must have had glimpses of whatever 
 adorns and dignifies the character of man. But with 
 him the feelings which bind love played only on the 
 surface — leaving the abyss of selfishness untouched. 
 His one instrument of power was genius; hence his 
 influence was greatest among those who had little access 
 to observe, closely and leisurely, the minutiae of his per- 
 sonal character and demeanour. The exceptions to this 
 rule were very few. 
 
 Pride and vanity were strangely mingled in his com- 
 
 * Ties peu aimant. 
 
N A POLEO N B D N A PA RT £ . 6 o / 
 
 position. Who does not pity the noble chamberlain that 
 confesses his blood to have run cold when he heard Na- 
 poleon — seated at dinner at Dresden among a circle of 
 crowned heads — begin his story with, When I teas a 
 lieutenant in the regiment of La Fere? Who does not 
 pity Xapoleon when he is heard speaking of some deco- 
 rations in the Tuilleries, as having taken place " in the 
 time of the king, my uncle ?"* 
 
 This last weakness was the main engine of his over- 
 throw. When he condescended to mimic all the estab- 
 lished etiquettes of feudal monarchy — when he coined 
 titles and lavished stars, and sought to melt his family 
 into the small circle of hereditary princes — he adopted 
 the surest means which could have been devised for 
 alienating from himself the affections of all the men of 
 the revolution, the army alone excepted, and for re-ani- 
 mating the hopes and exertions of the Bourbonists. It 
 is clear that thenceforth he leaned almost wholly on the 
 soldiery. Xo civil changes could after this affect his 
 real position. Oaths and vows, charters and concessions, 
 all were alike in vain. When the army was humbled 
 and weakened in 1814, he fell from his throne, without 
 one voice being lifted up in his favour. The army was 
 no sooner strengthened, and re-encouraged, than it 
 recalled him. He re-ascended the giddy height, with 
 the daring step of a hero, and professed his desire to 
 scatter from it nothing but justice and mercy. But no 
 man trusted his words. His army was ruined at 
 "Waterloo ; and the brief day of the second reign passed, 
 without a twilight, into midnight. 
 
 AVe arc not yet far enough from Buonaparte to esti- 
 mate the effects of his career. He recast the art of war; 
 and was conquered in the end by men who had caught 
 
 * Louit XVI.t — married to the aunt of Maria Louisu. — S C o 
 Bourieim..-. 
 
638 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 
 
 wisdom and inspiration from bis own campaigns. He 
 gave both permanency and breadth to the influence of 
 the French Revolution. His reign, short as it was, was 
 sufficient to make it impossible that the offensive 
 privileges of caste should ever be revived in France ; 
 and, this iniquity being once removed, there could be 
 little doubt that such a nation would gradually acquire 
 possession of a body of institutions worthy of its intelli- 
 gence. Napoleon was as essentially, and irreclaimably, a 
 despot, as a warrior; but his successor, whether a Bour- 
 bon or a Buonaparte, was likely to be a constitutional 
 sovereign. The tyranny of a meaner hand would not 
 have been endured after that precedent. 
 
 On Europe at large he has left traces of his empire, 
 not less marked or important. He broke down the 
 barriers everywhere of custom and prejudice; and revo- 
 lutionised the spirit of the Continent. His successes, 
 and his double downfal, taught absolute princes their 
 weakness, and injured nations their strength. Such 
 hurricanes of passion as the French Revolution — such 
 sweeping scourges of mankind as Napoleon Buonaparte, 
 are not permitted but as the avengers of great evils, 
 and the harbingers of great good. Of the influence of 
 both, as regards the Continent, it may be safely said — 
 that even now we have seen only " the beginning of the 
 end." The reigning sovereigns of Europe are, with 
 rare exceptions, benevolent and humane men ; and their 
 subjects, no less than they, ought to remember the 
 lesson of all history — that violent and sudden changes, 
 in the structure of social and political order, have never 
 yet occurred without inflicting utter misery upon at least 
 one generation. 
 
 It was England that fought the great battle through- 
 out, on the same principle, without flinching; and, but 
 for her perseverance, all the rest would have struggled 
 
NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 639 
 
 in vain. Ii is to be hoped that the British nation will 
 continue to see, and to reverence, in the contesl and in 
 its result, the immeasurable advantages which the sober 
 strength of a free but fixed constitution possesses over 
 the mad energies of anarchy on the one hand, and, on 
 the other, over all that despotic selfishness can effect, 
 even under the guidance of the most consummate 
 genius. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 LEON, in his will, had desired thai his body "might 
 on the hanks of the Seine, among the people lie had 
 loved so well." 
 
 It was not till 1810 that his wish was granted. In 
 the spring- of that year, Louis Philippe, for the purpose 
 of conciliating the French people, and to make political 
 capital, obtained from the British Government permission 
 to remove his remains. In thus granting it, Her 
 Majesty, through her Secretary for Foreign Affairs — 
 Lord Palmerston — expressed her desire that the prompti- 
 tude shown in complicity with the request should be 
 considered as a proof of her wish that the last trace 
 of the national animosities, which, during the life of the 
 Emperor, had armed both nations against each o 
 should be effaced. 
 
 The Belle Poule frigate was accordingly dispatched 
 to St. Helena, and, after a favourable passage, reached 
 the island, where her officers and crew were received 
 with the greatest kindness by the authorities. 
 
 Xapolcon's tomb under the willow tree was opened 
 with due solemnity, and so perfectly had the body 1" en 
 embalmed that the features were undecayed, even a 
 smile was on the lips. 
 
 pried first on a hearse, and thence to the shore on 
 
C4.2 appendix. 
 
 the shoulders of British Grenadiers, amidst the discharge 
 of artillery from the vessels and batteries, the body was 
 conveyed to the frigate, which reached Havre early in 
 December, and the interment was fixed for the loth of 
 the same month. 
 
 At ten in the morning of that date, the coffin, which 
 had been placed on a gigantic funeral car, commenced 
 its mai*ch from Courbevoie, escorted by a great and 
 splendid body of the army, and amidst a concourse of 
 fix hundred thousand spectators. At the Church of the 
 Invalides it was met by the King, the whole of the 
 members of the Royal Family, and the Archbishop and 
 ( )lergy of Paris. 
 
 The King received the body from the custody of the 
 Prince de Joinville, and commanded General Bertrand 
 " to place the sword of the Emperor on his coffin." The 
 coffin was then placed on a magnificent altar in the 
 centre of the Church ; the funeral service was performed 
 with the utmost pomp and grandeur characteristic of 
 the Romish ritual, and amidst the sublime chant of the 
 Dies Itcp, and the falling tears of the thousands assembled, 
 the body of Napoleon was deposited in its final resting 
 place, "among the people he had loved so well." 
 
I ]N T T) E T. 
 
 Aberdeen, Earl of, 6 1 
 Aboukir, b.ittle of. 111) 
 
 Nupoleou's observations ou, 120 
 
 defeat of the Turks at, 135 
 Acre, siege of, 127 
 
 retreat of the French from, 130 
 Alexander, Emperor of Russia, re- 
 sents the murder of the Due 
 d'Enghien, 261 
 
 stimulates Kin? of Prussia against 
 Napoleon, 265 
 
 meets the King of Prussia in the 
 vault of Frederick the Great, 2G5 
 
 hi3 interview with Napoleon at 
 Tilsit, 319 
 Alexandria taken by the French, 112 
 
 abandoned to the soldiery, 112 
 
 battle of, 208 
 Allies approach P:iris, S2S 
 
 their proclamation, 537 
 
 enter Paris, 5o9 
 
 resolve to restore Louis XVIII. , 
 541 
 
 refuse to treat with Napoleon, 512 
 Aloys Reding, 225 
 Alps, passage of the, 1S1 
 Alvinzl, Marshal, 64 
 Amiens, peace of, 21 1 
 
 rupture of the treaty of, 236 
 Anrona occupied by the French, 7-; 
 Andalusia, Uupont's march into, 350 
 Andreossi, Generii! 
 Antommarchi, Dr., 632 
 Areola, Buonaparte's narrow escape 
 at, 63 
 
 first battle of. 67 
 
 second battle of, 68 
 
 third battle of, 68 
 
 Buonaparte's account of, c% 
 Arnott, Dr., •;-'-', 630, 63 ■ 
 A-perne, battle of, 377 
 Augereau, Uenerui, 57 
 Austerlitz, battle > :". 
 Austria declares war against France, 
 372, 4-1 
 
 Badajos taken by Lord Wellington. 
 
 413 
 Bagrathion, General, 431 
 Barclay de Tolly, 423 
 
 Ilarras, appoints Buonaparte to the 
 
 command of the army, 26 
 Bassano, battle of, 61 
 Battle of T1796.] 
 
 Monte Notte Apr. 12 35 
 
 Millesimo 14 36 
 
 Mondovi 15 37 
 
 Fombio May 8 40 
 
 Bridge of Lodi .... 10 1 > 
 
 Lonato Aug. 2 57 
 
 Castiglione 3 58 
 
 Roveredo Sept. 4 60 
 
 Primolano 7 62 
 
 Bassano 8 62 
 
 St. George 13 63 
 
 Areola Nor. 15 C7 
 
 [1797.] 
 
 Rivoli Jan. 14 74 
 
 Tagliamento Mar. 12 83 
 
 [179*.] 
 
 The Pyramids July 21. ...116 
 
 Aboukir Axig. I. ...118 
 
 [1800.] 
 
 Montebello June 9.. ..188 
 
 Marengo 14....191 
 
 Hohenlinden Dec. 3. ...201 
 
 [1801.] 
 
 Copenhagen .4pr. 2. ...207 
 
 Alexandria Mar. 21....20S 
 
 [1805.] 
 
 Trafalgar (let. 2). ...27.: 
 
 Austerlitz Dec. 2... 280 
 
 [1806.] 
 
 Jena Oct. 14.. ..295 
 
 Pultusk Dec. "'■■ 
 
 [1807.] 
 
 Preuss-Eyh.u Feb. 8... .510 
 
 Friedland Tune 1 1....314 
 
 [1808.] 
 
 Riosccco 'July 14... 'il'i 
 
 Baylen ' 18.. ..351 
 
 Korica lug. 17. ...351 
 
 Vimiera 2] ... 
 
 1-'.'. 
 
 Corunna /,;,,. 1. 
 
 Landahnt ipr, 2: . 
 
 Ranb Hay 21.. ..:i74 
 
 Essling " 21.. ..377 
 
 Asperuc 22. ...377 
 
 Wagram July o....;7y 
 
G44 
 
 lTvDEX. 
 
 Tattle of 'l"(0. 
 
 Talavera July 28.. ..380 
 
 Oeana Nov. 19.. ..381 
 
 [1810.] 
 
 Busaco Si'pt.27....399 
 
 [1811.] 
 Fuentes d Onor....3/<iy 5. ...411 
 [1812.] 
 
 Salamanca Jv.bj 22.. ..4 14 
 
 Smolensko Aug. 17.. ..432 
 
 Borodino, or ^ „ , „ .„, 
 
 Moskwa...J ,btpt - 7 -- 4d * 
 
 Vincovo Oct. 18. ...445 
 
 Malo-Yaraslovetz. 24... .440 
 
 [1813.] 
 
 IiUtzen May 1....473 
 
 Bautzen 21... 17". 
 
 Vittoria June 21. ...48 I 
 
 Dresden Aug. 26. ...484 
 
 Culm ' 30....486 
 
 Wahlstadt 2G....4S7 
 
 Gross-Beeren 23.. ..4*7 
 
 Dennewitz Sept, 7.. ..487 
 
 Leipzig Oct. 16.. ..490 
 
 llanau 30.. ..495 
 
 [1814.] 
 
 Bnenne Jan. 29.. ..oil 
 
 La Rothiere Feb. 1....512 
 
 Nangis 17. ...516 
 
 Montereau 18.. ..516 
 
 Craonne Mar. 7. ...520 
 
 Laon 9.... 52 1 
 
 Montmartre 30.. ..531 
 
 Thoulouse .4pr. 11. ...548 
 
 [1815.] 
 
 Quatre-bras June 16.. ..592 
 
 Licrny 16. ...592 
 
 ■Waterloo 18.. ..594 
 
 Bavaria, Elector of, created King, 2S3 
 Bautzen, battle of, 475 
 Bfiylen, battle of, 351 
 Beauharnois, Josephine, her first in- 
 terview with Buonaparte, 29 
 marriage with him, 30 
 influence over him, and attachment 
 
 to, 30, 388 
 her court at Montebello, 93 
 her extravagance, 169 
 divorced from Napokcn. 390 
 her character, 391 
 her death, 550 
 Beauharnois, Eugene, his first inter- 
 view with Buonaparte, 29 
 appointed Viceroy of Italy. 263 
 marries the daughter of the King of 
 Bavaria, 283 
 Beauharnois, Hortense, married to 
 Louis Buonaparte, 38S 
 her intrigues, 394 
 Beresina, passage of the, 459 
 Berlin decrees, 301 
 
 Bernadotte, his conduct on the lSth 
 Brumaire, 147 
 created Friiice of Ponte Corvo, 2S5 
 
 Bernadotte— 
 elected Crown Prince of Sweden, 
 
 396 
 his character, 396 
 conduct of Napoleon towards, 417 
 lands in Germany, 471 
 Berri, Duke of, 577 
 Berthier, created Prince of Nenf- 
 
 chatel, 285 
 Bertraad, General, 551 
 Bessieres, Marshal, death of, 474 
 Blucher, General, his character, 471 
 Bordietto, passage of the Mincio at, 
 
 48 
 Borodino, battle of, 404 
 Boulogne, flotilla of, 210 
 Bourbons, restoration of the, "is 
 Bourienne, De, 4, 9, 85, L32 
 Brasanzas, flight of the, to Brazil, 
 
 335 
 Brienue, battle of, 511 
 Brueyes, Admiral, 111 
 Brumaire, revolution of the lSth, 14<". 
 Buonaparte, Charles, father of Napo- 
 leon, 1 
 Buonaparte, Joseph, made King of 
 Naples, 2S4 
 made King of Spain and the Indies, 
 
 344 
 quits Madrid, 351 
 civil commander of Paris, 528 
 his proclamation, 531 
 flight from Paris, 532 
 
 BUONAPARTE, NAPOLEON— 
 
 born 15th Aug. 1769, 1 
 his parentage, 1 
 his boyish days, 2 
 education at Brienne, 4 
 character while a school-boy, 4 
 
 [1783.] 
 
 admitted into the Royal Military 
 
 School, 6 
 character at this period, 6 
 his early predilections, 6 
 
 [178-5.] 
 
 made second lieutenant of artil- 
 lery, 7 
 
 death of his father, 7 
 
 competes for the Eayntd prize 
 question, and gains it, 7 
 
 [1792.] 
 
 made captain of artillery, 8 
 witnesses at Paris the events of 
 
 the 20th June, 8 
 and of the 10th of August, 8 
 his mode of life described by De 
 
 Bourienne, 9 
 
IN'DEX. 
 
 645 
 
 B'-'->NMPir:TE, Napoleck— 
 [1793.] 
 
 his first military service at Corsica, 
 LO 
 
 commands the artillery at Toulon. 
 13 
 
 writes a pamphlet called the "Sup- 
 per of Heaucaire," 13 
 
 wounded at siege of Toulon, 16 
 
 surveys fortifications on the Medi- 
 terranean coast, 18 
 
 [1794.] 
 
 appointed to join the army of 
 Italy, 20 
 
 made chief of battalion, 20 
 
 is superseded and retires to Mar- 
 seilles. 2o 
 
 in love with Mile. Clery, 21 
 
 [1795 
 
 at Paris to solicit employment. UL 
 refuses to go to La Vendue, 21 
 his name erased from the list of 
 
 officers, 21 
 his acquaintance with Talma, 22 
 solicits to be sent to Turkey, --' 
 nominated to the command of a 
 
 brigade of artillery. 22 
 conduct on 13th Vendemaire, 27 
 second in command of army of the 
 
 interior, 28 
 commander-in-chief of the army of 
 
 the interior, 28 
 reorganises the national guard, 28 
 
 ["1796.1 
 
 first interview with Jospphine, ! ft 
 
 (Mar. ;< i — his marriage with her, 30 
 
 strong tendency to fatalism, 30 
 
 commands army of Italy, 30 
 
 address to his army, 32 
 
 his military tactics, 33 
 
 [Apr. 12)— battle of Monte Notte, 
 
 ! 
 battle of Millesimo, 36 
 battle of Mondovi, :J7 
 
 ■res peace to Sardinia, 37 
 is to his an 
 i May ')- crosses the Po, SO 
 (10J— at the bridge of Lodi, 11 
 (14)— enters Milan. 13 
 levies heavy contributions, 43 
 seizes works of art. I ; 
 suspected by Directory, !■; 
 resigns, and resumes, the coin- 
 man 
 —crosses tbe Miucio. 47 
 narrow escape at Vallcggio, 48 
 besieges Mantua. 18 
 conduct toward- Venice, 50 
 
 B i ' X A !■'. I : I E, NAFOIiEOB— 
 
 returns to Milan. 
 peace with Sicily, 51 
 grants respite to the Pope, 51 
 seizes Leghorn, 52 
 enters Florence, 52 
 revolutionises northern Italy, 52 
 
 J) — battle of Lonato, 57 
 narrow escape at Lonato, . r 'S 
 defeats Wurmser, 58 
 - Mantua, "• 1| 
 
 . —battle of Roveredo, 00 
 (7)— battle of Primolauo, 62 
 (8)— battle of Bassauo, 62 
 narrow escape at Areola, 62 
 (13)— battle of St. George, 63 
 sends au expedition to Corsica, 
 
 which reconquers that country, 
 
 64 
 address to Vanbois troops, 65 
 I Nov. 15) — bridge of Areola, 67 
 battles of Areola, 67 
 hi< life Bared by Muiron, 60 
 
 [1797.] 
 
 forms new republics in Italy, 70 
 
 ID— battle of Rivoli, 74 
 surrender of Mantua, 77 
 treatment of exiled French priests, 
 
 79 
 
 Ft . 12 —treaty of Tollentino, 80 
 address to Venetian envoy, 82 
 (Mar. 12)— battle of Tagliamento, 
 
 83 
 (Apr. 18)— treaty of Leoben, 85 
 speech to the Venetian messengers, 
 
 86 
 (May 31)— conquers Venice, 87. 
 offered a bribe by the Venetian 
 
 senat 
 and by the Duke of ICoden 
 and by Austria, 88 
 detects Picheirru's intrigues, 89 
 his court at Mo 
 his correspondence wit li Josephine, 
 
 93 
 (Oct. 3)— treaty of Campo Formio, 
 
 94 
 joius Congress at TJastadt, 07 
 arrives in Paris, 97 
 reception by the Directory, 07 
 
 [1703.] 
 
 conduct at Paris, 98 
 opinion of popular favour, Ps 
 reply to Madame de Steel, 99 
 annoyed by the press, 99 
 member of Institute, 102 
 commands army of England, 101 
 surveys French con- 
 opinion of invasion of England, 106 
 suggests seizure of Malta, lot) 
 
(un 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bl'OKAPARTE, NaFCLKON — 
 
 recommends expedition to Egypt, 
 106 
 
 collects a troop of Savans, 107 
 
 his camp library, 107 
 
 harangues army «t Toulon, lo7 
 
 (Mail 10)— embarks for Egypt, 108 
 
 (Jwie 10)— takes Malta, llu 
 
 escapes Nelson, 111 
 
 (July 2)— takes Alexandria, 112 
 
 abandons it to the soldiery, 112 
 
 general order on landing, 112 
 
 proclamation to the Egyptians, 112 
 
 inarch up the Nile, 114 
 
 (il)— battle of the Pyramids, 110 
 
 enters Grand Cairo, 117 
 
 visits Great Pyramid, 117 
 
 his administration in Egypt, 1 
 
 remarks on battle of Aboukir, 120 
 
 [1799.] 
 
 quells insurrection at Cairo, 122 
 mode of living in Egypt, 122 
 explores isthmus of Suez, 123 
 visits mount Sinai, 124 
 examines fountain of Moses, 124 
 explores Red Sea, 124 
 marches for Syria, 124 
 (Feb. 15)— takes El Arish and Ga- 
 
 zah, 125 
 takes Jaffa by storm, 125 
 orders garrison to be massacred, 
 
 125 
 (Mar. 18)— siege of Acre, 127 
 (Apr. 8)— rescues Junot at Naza- 
 reth, 128 
 (15) — and Kleher at Mount Tabor, 
 
 128 
 (May 21)— retreats tipon Jaffa, 131 
 poisoning of French sick at Jaffa, 
 
 131 
 retreats to Egypt, 13? 
 (Julii 24)— reaches Alexandria, 134 
 defeats Turks at Aboukir, 135 
 (Aug. 23)— embarks for France, 137 
 instructions to Kleber, 137 
 reasons for leaving Egypt, 139 
 occupations during voyage, 142 
 iSeiit. 30) — reaches A.jaccio, 142 
 Oct. 91 — hinds at Frejus, 141 
 (10)— reaches Paris, 143 
 reception by the Directory, 1 13 
 his jealousy of Josephine, 141 
 {Nov. 10)— conduct on ISth Bru- 
 
 maire, 147 
 commands the troops in Pari?, 1 l v 
 speech to the Council of Ancients, 
 
 151 
 enters Council of Five Hundred, 
 
 152 
 a dagger aimed at him, 152 
 dissolves Council of Five Hundred, 
 
 154 
 
 BDOH APAItTE, NaPOLEOH— 
 
 establishes a provisional consulate, 
 
 155 
 occupies the Luxembourg, 156 
 regulates the finances, 158 
 repeals " Law of Hostages," 158 
 abolishes the heathen ritual, 15>> 
 re-opens the churches, 158 
 recalls Carnot, 158 
 (Dec. 14) -made Chief Consul, 102 
 occupies the Tuilleries, 164 
 (25) — letter to King of England, 171 
 
 [1800.] 
 leaves Paris fur Dijon, 178 
 (Feb.) — passes the Great St. Ber- 
 nard, 181 
 takes St Hard, 1?4 
 enters Milan, 188 
 (June 14) — battle of Marengo, 191 
 (17)— returns to Milan, 194 
 establishes Cisalpine Republic, 194 
 (July 2) — reaches Paris, 194 
 letter from Louis XVIIL, 190 
 his answer thereto, 196 
 (Oct. 10)— plan for his assassination, 
 
 197 
 conduct towards the Pope, 205 
 
 [1801.] 
 
 prepares to invade England, 209 
 negotiates for peace with, 210 
 
 [1802.] 
 
 his court, 212 
 
 consolidates the administration, 
 
 213 
 allows emigrant? to return, 214 
 re-establishes Catholic faith, 215 
 concordat with the Pope, 215 
 disbelief in Christianity, 215 
 system of education. 218 
 Legion of Honour, 219 
 (Aug. 2) — made first Consul for 
 
 life, 222 
 letter to Swiss cantons, 224 
 Grand Mediator of Helvetic Re- 
 public, 225 
 expedition to St, Domingo, 225 
 banishes the negro race. 227 
 negotiates with the Bourbons, 230 
 
 [1803.] 
 conference with Lord Whitworth, 
 
 235 
 detains English travellers, 237 
 seizes Hanover and Naples, - 18 
 prepares to invade England, 2 '•'.) 
 suspects Moreau, 243 
 
 [1S04.] 
 conspiracy against him. 245 
 
IltDEX. 
 
 G4? 
 
 BL'ONArARTL', NaFOLEON — 
 
 murder of the Due d'Eughien, 25 > 
 [May 18) — made Emperor of tlic 
 
 Freucli, 260 
 visits the camp at Boulogne, '-'il 
 progress to Aix-la-Chapelle, 2 11 
 {Dec. 2}— crowned in Notre Dame. 
 
 262 
 
 [1805.] 
 
 crowned at Milan, 263 
 (Jan. 27)— letter to King of Eng- 
 land, 264 
 heads the army in Germany, 266 
 
 V . 13) — enters Vienna, 271 
 i Dec. 2)— battle of Austerlitz. 280 
 offers Hanover to Prussia, 282 
 (15) — treaty of Presburg, 282 
 interview with Kmperor of Ger- 
 many, 282 
 
 [1806.] 
 
 confers crowns and principalities 
 
 on his relations, 281 
 creates new order of nobility, 285 
 [Oct 14)— battle of Jena, 295 
 liis cruelty to the Duke of Bruns- 
 
 wick, 298 
 his exactions in Prussia, 290 
 robs monument of Frederick the 
 
 Great, 800 
 issues the Berlin decrees, 301 
 
 [1807.] 
 
 takes Warsaw, 306 
 
 (Feb. 8)— battle of Preuss-Eyla 
 
 (June 25)— interview with Emperor 
 
 of Russia at Tilsit, 319 
 treatment of Queen of Prussia, 820 
 abo!ishez the 'Iribunate, 825 
 view of his administration, 32G 
 his occasional amours, 331 
 
 [1808.] 
 
 relations with Spain, 333 
 (Oct. 2l)-at Erfurt, 361 
 
 - —at Vittoria, 36 '• 
 [Dte. i)— at pass of Somosierra, SC5 
 ( I -takes Madrid, 367 
 abolishes the Inquisition, 307 
 
 [1809.] 
 
 leaves Spain, 370 
 
 (.I/'.-. 13 — heads ariuv iii I . 
 
 .".72 
 (22)— battle of Eckmuhl, 878 
 wounded at Ratisbonne, 37.". 
 [May 10)— takes Vienna, 874 
 (July 6,— battle of Wagram, 379 
 attempt to assassinate him, 382 
 decree against the Pope, - 1 
 
 BtJONAPABTE, NAPOLEOH— 
 
 (Oct. 11) — concludes peace with 
 Austria, 386 
 
 (Dec. 15)— divorces Josephine, 39 I 
 
 [1810.] 
 
 demands the hand of Maria Louisa, 
 
 391 
 his interview with her, 391 
 ( lpr.2) — marries Maria Louisa, 391 
 deposes his brother Louis, 391 
 (Jtihy 9) — annexes Holland to 
 
 Prance, 394 
 
 [1811.] 
 
 (Apr. 20)— birth ofhis son, 101 
 
 prepares for war with Russia, 106 
 
 [1812.] 
 
 speech to Pouehe thereon, 421 
 (May 10)— at Dresden, 422 
 (June 7 » — at Dantzic, 42:; 
 a ! dress to his army, 42 1 
 conduct to the Poles, 12 • 
 (24) — passes the Niemeu, 127 
 (28 —at Wilna, 128 
 marches for Moscow, 431 
 (Sept. 14) — enters Moscow, 1..7 
 lira l-quarters in the Kremlin, I j 
 his indecision and lethargy, 143 
 (Oct. 19 —quits Moscow, in 
 head-quarters In a weaver's hul, 
 
 Hi; 
 betrays great agitation <■!' min I, 147 
 
 - the Cossacks, 4 17 
 retreats on Verreia, H7 
 ii Smolensko, 44'.i 
 Bufferings oi his army. t". i 
 passes the Beresina, i~' v 
 (Deo. 3)— quits his tinny, 461 
 (10) — reaches Warsaw. Ii;.' 
 speech to De Pradt, 462 
 (14)— reaches Dresden. 162 
 (18)— ar>"ves at Paris, 403 
 
 [1813.] 
 
 reception at Pari-. IG7 
 military preparations, 40-! 
 (Apr. 18)— heads bis army in S 
 
 ony, 472 
 {May 1)— battle of Lutzen, 17 I 
 
 iters Dresden, 171 
 (2i)— battle of Bautzen, 11 • 
 (June 1)— agrees to an armistice, 
 
 177 
 intei view with Metteruich, 178 
 advice of his ministers and fccne- 
 
 rals, 480 
 i I".;. 27 —battle of Dresden, i-i 
 (Oct, 16)— battle of Leipzi • 
 (30)— battle ofHanau, 497j 
 (Sov. 9)— returns to Paris, 4'Ja 
 his obstinacy, 602 
 
618 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 BtTONAPAKTE, Xai'uI.LOX— 
 
 [1814.] 
 military preparations, 503 
 dissolves legislative senate, 503 
 liberates the Pope, 504 
 and Ferdinand XLL, 504 
 (Jan. 21)— announces invasion of 
 
 France, 508 
 (•25)— leaves Paris, 510 
 (29)— battle of Brienne, 511 
 life saved bv Gourgaud, 5U 
 (Feb. 1)— battle of La Rothiere, 512 
 expedition to the Maine, 513 
 (17)— battle of Nangis, 510 
 dismisses Victor, 516 
 (18) — battle of Montereau. 516 
 refuses to ratify preliminaries of 
 
 peace, 517 
 rejects advice of the Err.psror of 
 
 Austria, 518 
 pushes on to Troyes, 519 
 repulsed at ^oissons, 520 
 i Mar. 7)— battle of Craoune, 520 
 (9)— battle of Laon, 521 
 takes Rheims, 522 
 his energies, 523 
 bis perplexities, 524 
 distrust of him at Paris, 527 
 marches to St. Dizier, 527 
 deserted by his parasites, 530 
 Maedonald's counsel to him, 534 
 (30)— reaches Fontainebleau, 534 
 speech to Belliard, 534 
 his throne proclaimed empty, 542 
 (.lj><\ 4)— reviews his troops, 543 
 resolves to march to Paris, 513 
 draws up his abdication, 543 
 his abdication accepted, 546 
 defection of Marmont, Bertl.ier, 
 
 and his Mameluke Kustan, 516 
 (11)— signs his abdication, 547 
 paroxysm of illness, 548 
 (20)— takes leave of his officers, 54S 
 and of his imperial guard, 519 
 leaves Fontainebleau, 549 
 journey to Frejus, 551 
 meets Augereau at Valance, 551 
 conduct during the voyage, 552 
 (Man 4)— reaches Elba] 55 _! 
 conduct and occupations there, 554 
 projects sundry improvements, 554 
 
 [1815.] 
 intrigues of his friends, 561 
 (Feb. 20)— escapes from Elba, 563 
 (Mar. 1)— lands at Cannes, 564 
 (5)— reaches Gap, 564 
 proclamation to the army, 565 
 and to the French nation, 565 
 progress to Grenoble, 566 
 (10)— enters Lyons, 567 
 resumes functions of civil govern- 
 ment, 570 
 
 Buonapaute, Napoleon— 
 issues sundry decrees, 570 
 (19)— reaches Fontainebleau, 572 
 (20)— enters Paris, 572 
 his reception there, 573 
 prepares for war, 575 
 scheme for carrying off his wife 
 
 and son from Vienna, 577 
 his perplexities, 580 
 publishes " Additional Act to the 
 
 Constitution," 583 
 (May 17)— harangues the populace, 
 
 (June 1)— at Champ-de-Mai, 583 
 
 (11)— leaves Paris, 088 
 (14)— reviews the troops at Beau- 
 mont, 588 
 his address to them, 588 
 (15) -passes the sambre, 590 
 (16)— battle of Quat re-bras, 59 J 
 defeats Blucher at Ligny, 592 
 ( 18)— battle of Waterloo, 594 
 escapes to Charleroi, 600 
 (20)— returns to Paris, 601 
 (21)— second abdication, 603 
 (24)— sent to Malmaison, 605 
 (29)— sets out for Rochefort, 6u-> 
 (July 10)— negotiates with Captain 
 
 Maitland, 609 
 (13)— letter to Prince Regent of 
 
 Eugland, 610 
 (15)— embarks in the " Bellero- 
 
 phon," 611 
 (24)— arrives at Torbay, 611 
 (31)- interview with Lord Keith, 
 
 612 
 ordered to be sent to St. Helena, 
 
 612 
 his protest thereon, 612 
 on board the " Northumberland," 
 
 616 
 his suite, 616 
 
 (Aug. S)— sails for St. Helena, 617 
 conduct on the voyage, 617 
 (Oct. 15)— arrives at St. Helena 
 
 617 
 arrives at the Briars, 619 
 at Longwood, 619 
 
 [1816.] 
 
 his complaints against the English 
 
 government, 620 
 and against 8ir Hudson. Lowe, 623 
 
 [1817.] 
 
 mode of life at Longwood, 629 
 (Sept.)— his health declines, 631 
 
 [1820.] 
 
 refuses to take exercise and medi- 
 cine, 631,632 
 
INDEX. 
 
 6J9 
 
 BCONAPAUTE, NaPOLEON- 
 
 [1821.] 
 
 draws up Lis will, 6! 3 
 
 (il'.vj 5; — his death, 634 
 
 Bui naparte, Lucien, president of 
 
 Council of Five Hundred, 144 
 
 conduct on the 19th Brumaire, 
 
 153 
 writes "Parallel between C 
 
 Cromwell, and Buonaparte," 200 
 ambassador to Spain, 201 
 quits France for England, KM 
 Buonaparte, Louis, male King ol 
 Holland, 284 
 deposed by Napoleon, 391 
 his characbi r, 394 
 retires to Gratz. 
 Buonaparte, Jerome, made King of 
 Westphalia, 321 
 conduct at Waterloo, 597 
 Buonaparte, Eliza, made Princess of 
 
 Lucca, 28 1 
 Buonaparte, Pauline, marries Trince 
 Borghese, 284 
 her intrigues at Elba, 56 I 
 Buonapartes, the, banished from 
 
 Corsica, 10 
 Burrard, Sir Harry, 355 
 Busaco, battle of, 399 
 
 Cairo, surrender of, 117 
 Calder, Sir Uobert, 272 
 Cambaceres, 158 
 Camp library, Napoleon's, 107 
 Campo Formio, treaty of, 94 
 Campbell, Mr. The, quoted, 202, 207 
 Campbell, Sir Neil, 553, 560 
 Canning, Mr., his " Ulm and Trafal- 
 gar" quoted, 274 
 Carnot made minister of war, 158 
 his character, by Napoleon, 167 
 organizes an opposition to Napo- 
 leon, 244 
 opposes his being made emperor, 
 
 260 
 governor of Antwerp, 508 
 minister of war, 575 
 
 the Champ-de-Mai, 
 regret at Napoleon's abdication, 
 
 Cartaux, 13 
 
 i los, General 
 Castli reagh, 1 I, "-ji 
 ( tastiglione, batl le of, 68 
 "Caudine Forks" of the French army, 
 
 361 
 Caulaincom ,542 
 
 Ceracchi, his pis (nation 
 
 of Napoleon, 197 
 Champ-dc-M 
 Charles, Archduke of Austria, 32 
 
 Charles IV. of Spain, abdicates at 
 Bayonne, 339 
 
 Chateaubriand, his Tract "of Buona- 
 parte and of the Bourbons,'' 538 
 
 Cherasco, armistice of, 38 
 
 Chouans, submit to Napoleon, 159 
 
 I intra, Convention of, 856 
 
 Cisalpine Republic, 221 
 
 Ciudad Kodrigo, blockade of, 410 
 capture of, 413 
 
 Clery, Mademoiselle, 21 
 
 Clichy, Royalist Club v\\ 9 I 
 
 Coalition against France, 265 
 
 Coalition against English commerce, 
 32 1 
 
 Cobentzel, his submission to Napo- 
 leon, 94 
 
 Code Napoleon, projected, 218 
 characterized, 327 
 
 Col diTende, 20 
 
 Collingwood, Admiral, 276 
 
 Concordat, the, 215 
 rejected by the bishops, 216 
 
 Confederation of tlie Rhine, 285 
 
 Congress at Rastadt, 97 
 
 Conscription, 328 
 
 Constitution of the year VIII., 161 
 
 " Continental System," 301 
 
 Convention of Cintra 
 
 Copenhagen, battle of, 207 
 British expedition to, 323 
 
 Corsica, 9, 10, 64 
 
 Corunna, battle of, 370 
 
 Cossacks, 117 
 
 Craoune, battle of, 520 
 
 Culm, battle of, 4S6 
 
 Dalrymple, Sir Hew, 3 i i 
 
 D'Angouleme, Luke, his capitula- 
 tion, -"i77 
 
 D'Angouleme, Duchess, her heroic 
 conduct at Bonrdeaux, 577 
 
 Danican, General, 25 
 
 Dantzic taken by I he IV IN li, 313 
 
 D'Artois, Count, 196 
 
 Uavoust, Marshal, his cruelties at 
 Hamburg, 471 
 
 Day of the Sections, 27 
 
 Dennewitz, battle of, 487 
 
 D'Enghien, Duke, bis arrest, liis trial 
 ami murder, 250 
 reflections thereon, 261 
 
 D'Entraigues, Count, seized by Ve- 
 Benate, and surrendered 
 to Napoleon, 88 
 
 DePradt, Abbe\ 462, 541 
 
 Desgenettes, 131 
 
 Dessaix, General, Napoleon's cha- 
 racter of, 189 
 i • t nrns from Egypt, and joins army 
 
 of Italy, 189 
 killed at Marengo, 193 
 
 Detention ol travellers in 
 
 Fram 
 
r,.„, 
 
 lS'Ptx. 
 
 directory, tlic, appeal to Napoleon 
 for aid, 90 
 their jealousy of liiui, 101 
 oppose the grunt of an estate to 
 him, 102 
 Doppet, his cowardice at Toulon, 16 
 Drake, Mr., '258 
 Dresden, battle of, 484 
 Dubois, his death at battle of Rove- 
 redo, 60 
 Dugemmier, General, 16 
 Dupont, his inarch into Andalusia, 
 350 
 surrender at Baylen, 351 
 Duroc, his death at battleof Bautzen, 
 476 
 
 Eekmuhl, battle of, 373 
 
 Education under Napoleon, 328 
 
 Egypt, French Expedition to, 106 
 Napoleon's administration in, 121 
 English Expedition to, 208 
 conquered from France, vol) 
 
 El Arish, taken by the French, 123 
 
 Elba, Napoleon at, 553 
 
 Elgin, Eord, 258 
 
 Ellis, Mr., quoted, 622, 625 
 
 Emigrants suffered to return to 
 France, 214 
 
 England, Napoleon's letter to the 
 King of, 171 
 treaty of peace with, 210 
 rupture of, 237 
 
 Erfurt, conferences at, 361 
 
 Essling, battle of, 377 
 
 Etruria, Queen of, Napoleon's treat- 
 ment of, 409 
 
 Fatalism, tendency of Buonaparte 
 
 to, 30 
 Fayette, La, his recall, 158 
 Ferdinand VIE, abdicates at Bay- 
 on ne, 340 
 sent prisoner to Valencay, 409 
 set at liberty, 504 
 re-enters Spain, 505 
 Ferrara, Archbishop of, his submis- 
 sion to Buonaparte, 59 
 Fersen, Count, conduct of Buona- 
 parte towards, 98 
 Fesch, Cardinal, remonstrances with 
 Napoleon against the war with 
 Russia, 422 
 Flotilla of Boulogne, 209, 240 
 Fombio, battle of, 40 
 Fontainebleau, treaty of, 334 
 Fox, Mr., courted by Buouaiiaite 
 212 
 interview v ; th him, 288 
 Foucbe\ his character by Buona- 
 parte, 167 
 Josephine demands h * dismissal 
 
 390 
 In disgrace, 403 
 
 Fouche — 
 made governor of Borne, 403 
 his memorial against the war with 
 
 Russia, 420 
 interview with Napoleon thereon. 
 
 421 
 joins Napoleon on his return from 
 
 Elba, 573 
 corresponds with Louis XVIII. at 
 
 Ghent, 5^9 
 recommends Napoleon to escape to 
 America, 606 
 Frankfort, declaration of Allies at, 
 
 500 
 Francis, Emperor of Germany, his 
 
 interview with Napoleon, 382 
 Friedland, battle of, 314 
 Fructidor, revolution of the 18th, 92 
 Fuentes d'Onor, battle of, 411 
 
 Gazah taken by Buonaparte, 125 
 Genoa, revolution of, 91 
 
 siege of, 186 
 Georges Cadoudal, his conspiracy 
 against the life of Buonaparte, 
 245 
 
 tried and condemned to death, 256 
 Godoy, Manuel, his intrigues, 333 
 
 placed under arrest. 337 
 Gourgaud, General. 623 
 Grenvtlle, Lord, 172 
 G niche, Duchess of, 197 
 
 Hall, Captain Basil, 627 
 
 Hamburg, Davoust's cruelties at. 
 474 
 
 Hanau, battle of, 495 
 
 Hanover, seized by the French, 238 
 
 llaugwitz, Count, 279, 282 
 
 Helvetic Republic, 224 
 
 Hesse Cassel, Landgrave of, 306 
 
 Ilofer and his followers, massacred 
 by order of Napoleon, 376 
 
 Hohenlinden, battle of, 201 
 
 Holland annexed to France, 394 
 revolution of, 497 
 
 Holland, Lord, 631 
 
 Hospitallers of St. Bernard, Buona- 
 parte's visit to, 182 
 
 Hundred Days, the, 574 
 
 Huliiu, General, 248 
 
 Jaffa, taken by storm, 125 
 given up to the soldiery, 125 
 garrison massacred, 125 
 poisoning of French sick at, 131 
 reflections on, 132 
 
 Jena, battle of, 295 
 
 Infernal machine, 198 
 
 Inquisition, abolished by Napoleon. 
 367 
 
 Invasion of England, scheme for, 239 
 
 Josephine, sec Beauharnois 
 
INDEX. 
 
 651 
 
 Kleber, General, rescued by Buona- 
 parte at Mount Tabor, 128 
 left in command of the army of 
 
 Egypt] l J7 
 Buonaparte's instructions to, 137 
 called the "Just Sultan," 203 
 assassinated, 20S 
 Kosciusko, General, 305 
 Kutusoff, General, 43:;, 14. > 
 
 Labedoyere, Colonel, 566, 605 
 Lannes, at the passage of the To, 34 
 
 at the siege of Acre, 129 
 
 his death at the battle of Asperne, 
 379 
 Landshut, battle of, 372 
 Laon, battle of, 521 
 La Rothiere, battle of, 512 
 Lauderdale, Lord, 288 
 Law of Hostages repealed, 153 
 Le Clerc, General, 154, 226 
 Lefebre Desuouettes, 351 
 Leghorn, seized on by Buonaparte, 52 
 Legion of Honour, 219 
 Leipzig, battle of, 490 
 Leoben, treaty of, 85 
 License System, 407 
 Ligny, battle of, 592 
 Lodi, passage of the bridge of, 40 
 Lonato, battle of, 57 
 Loretto, entrance of the French into, 
 79 
 
 image of the Virgin at, 79 
 
 Holy House at, 79 
 Louvre, Gallery of the, 44 
 Louis XVIIL, his letter to Buona- 
 parte, 196 
 
 Napoleon's proposition to, 230 
 
 his character, 555 
 
 conduct on his restoration, 556 
 
 quits Paris, 572 
 
 retires to Ghent, 572 
 Louis Buonaparte, Me Buonaparte 
 Lowe, Sir Hudson, 623 
 Lucien Buonaparte, see Buonaparte 
 Luneville, treaty of, 202 
 Lutzen, battle of, 473 
 
 Macdonald, General, 571, ",72 
 Mack, General, his surrender of I'hu, 
 
 269 
 Mackintosh, Mr. (afterwards Sir 
 James), his speech on the trial of 
 Peltier, 229 
 Madrid, occupied by Murat, S37 
 massacre of. 
 surrender ol 
 Mahomet, Napoleon's admiration of, 
 
 113 
 Maitland, Captain, 009 
 M ilta, Buonaparte suggests the seiz- 
 ure of, 106 
 surrenders to the French, 110 
 surrenders to the English, 19G 
 
 Mallet, conspiracy of, 166 
 Malo-Taraslovetz, battle of, 44,j 
 Mamelukes described, 113 
 Mantua, siege of, 48 
 
 invested by Buonaparte, 59 
 
 surrender of, 77 
 Marengo, battle of, 191 
 Maria-Louisa, Archduchess of Aus- 
 tria, married to Napoleon, 391 
 
 quits Paris, 530 
 
 retires to Blois, 531 
 " Marshal Forwards," noin de guerre 
 
 of Blucher, 470 
 Massena, General, commands army 
 of Italy, 175 
 
 his character, 175 
 
 his retreat from Portugal, 410 
 Mehrfeldt, Count, 490 
 Menou, General, 26, 20S 
 Metternieh, Prince, bis interview 
 
 with Napoleon, 478 
 Milan, occupied by the French, 13 
 
 decrees against English commerce, 
 324 
 Millesimo, battle of, 36 
 Mincio, passage of the, 47 
 Miollis, Genera], occupies Home, 384 
 Modena, Duke of, offers bribe to 
 
 Buonaparte, 88 
 Mondovi, battle of, 37 
 Montebello, battle of, 1<3 
 Monte Notte, battle of, 35 
 Montmartre, battle of, 531 
 Moore, Sir John, commands army in 
 Portugal, 360 
 
 advances into Spain, 368 
 
 it treat, and death, 370 
 Moreau, his retreat through the Black 
 Forest, 55 
 
 Napoleon's suspicions of, 248 
 
 arrested, 245 
 
 tried and exiled, 256 
 
 returns from exile. 1^; 
 
 joins the Allies, 4S3 
 
 death of, 485 
 Morla, Governor of Madrid, 366 
 Mortier, seizes on Hanover, 238 
 Moscow, entered by the French, 437 
 
 burning of, 438 
 
 evacuated by the French, II". 
 Muiron, at the siege of Toulon, 16 
 
 saves life of Buonaparte at Areola, 
 69 
 Murat, his conduct on the Day of 
 Die Sections, 27 
 
 marries Caroline Buonaparte, 169 
 
 occupies Madrid. 
 
 created King of Naples, 34 1 
 
 his rash expedition, 578 
 
 takes refuge in France, 579 
 
 seized and executed, 579 
 
 Napier, Colonel, quoted, 312, 344, 
 
662 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Naples, seized by the French, 238 
 
 queen of, her journey t.o Russia, 'Jo, - ) 
 Napoleon, see Buonaparte 
 Napoleon, removal of the body of, 
 
 from St. Helena, 64-1 
 " Napoleon's Grotto," 3 
 Negroes, banished from France, 227 
 Nelson, Lord, lit Alexandria, 118 
 
 battle of Aboukir, 118 
 
 battle of Copenhagen, 2P7 
 
 battle of Trafalgar, 273 
 Key, Marshal, at battle of Moskwa, 
 435 
 
 retreat from Smolensko, 45) 
 
 " the bravest of the brave," 456 
 
 his treason, 571 
 
 at Waterloo, 599 
 
 at Paris, 604 
 Kieinen, passage of the, 427 
 Nile, march of the French, army up 
 
 the, 114 
 Northern confederacy against Eng- 
 land, 206 
 
 Ocam, battle of, 381 
 
 O'Meara, Ur., 631, 632 
 
 Ossian, Napoleon's favourite poet, 6 
 
 1'alafox, General, 352 
 
 Palm, the bookseller, his murder, 290 
 
 Paoli, General, 9 
 
 " Parallel between Caesar, Cromwell, 
 
 and Buonaparte," 200 
 Passage of the Po, 39 
 
 of thcMiucio, 47 
 1'avia, insurrection of, 46 
 Paul Emperor of Russia, 204, 207 
 Peltier, trial of, 229 
 " Philadelphes," Society of, 466 
 Pichegru, the monitor of Buonaparte 
 at school, 5 
 listens to proposals from the Bour- 
 bons, 89 
 arrested by the Directory, and sent 
 
 into exile, 92 
 returns from exile, 244 
 arrested at Paris, 243 
 found dead in prison, 255 
 Platoff and his Cossacks, 431 
 Po, passage of the, 39 
 Poles, Buonaparte's conduct towards, 
 
 425 
 Polytechnic School, 218 
 Pope, the, buys a respite of Buona- 
 parte, 51 
 in despair at his successes, 7'. 1 
 opens a negotiation with him, 80 
 concludes treaty of Tollentino, SO 
 restored by the English, 20i 
 arrest of, by Miollis, 384 
 sent to Fontainebleau, 385 
 set at liberty. 504 
 1 rague, congress at, 477 
 Presburg, treaty of, 282 
 
 Tress, Napoleon's sensibility to the 
 
 attacks of, 99 
 Preuss-Eylau, battle of, 310 
 Primolauo, battle of, 62 
 " Prince of the Peace," 333 
 Prussia makes peace with Puoha- 
 parte. 282 
 accepts Hanover from Napoleon, 
 
 282 
 declares war against France, 291, 
 
 409 
 Queen of, Napoleon's treatment of, 
 320 
 Public works, under Napoleon, 329 
 Pultusk, battle of, 307 
 Pyramids, battle of the, 116 
 
 Quatre-bras, battle of, 592 
 
 BHab, battle of, 374 
 Bastadt, congress of, 97 
 
 French commissioners at, mur- 
 dered. 140 
 Ratisbonne taken by the French, 373 
 Red Sea, Buonaparte explores, 124 
 Revolution of 18th Fructidor, 92 
 Rhine, confederation of the, 285 
 liiosecco, battle of, 319 
 Rivoli, battle of, 74 
 Robespierre, fall of, 29 
 Reign of Terror, 12 
 Rome, seizure of, by Miollis, 384 
 Rome, King of, 401 
 Bostophchin, burns Moscow, 438 
 Roveredo, battle of, 60 
 Bumbold, sir George, 258 
 Russia, French relations with, 103 
 
 invasion of, by the French, 427 
 
 " Savans," a troop of, accompany the 
 
 army of Egypt. 107, 116, 117, 122 
 " Sacred Band," the, 25, 457 
 Salamanca, battle of, 414 
 Saorgio, surrender of, 20 
 Saragossa, sieses of, 352, 380 
 Savary, at trial of the Hue d'Enghien, 
 
 249 
 Schill, Colonel, 374 
 Schoenbrunn, treaty of, 3S6 
 Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 53, 240, 
 
 623 
 Sebastiani, his memorial, 232 
 Sections, Day of the, 27 
 Sheridan, Mr., his philippic against 
 
 Buonaparte. 233 
 Sieves, Abbe, 141, 160, 164, 168, 583 
 Smith, Sir Sydney, at Acre, 127 
 Buonaparte's hatred of, 129 
 Smith, Mr Spencer, 258 
 Smolensko, battle of, 432 
 Somosierra, passage of the, 363 
 Soult, Marshal, his successes in Spain, 
 
 364 
 St. Bard, taking of, 184 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ■;, 
 
 St. Foruanl, passage of the I 
 
 1S1 
 St. Domingo, French expedition to, 
 
 225 
 SI Gi orge, 1. ittle of, 63 
 SI Selena, Napoleon at, 617 
 t>t i.t'1, Madame, origin of her enmity 
 
 to Napoleon, 99 
 Stnbbs, bis attempt to assassinate 
 
 Napoleon, 382 
 Suez, Huonaparte explores isthmus 
 
 of. 123 
 "Supper of Beaucaire," a pamphlet 
 
 by Buonapa 
 "Sun of Ansterlitz," 280 
 " Suns of Napoleon," 108 
 Sweden, revolution in, 1-93 
 ^«.-- Cantons, Buonaparte's letter 
 
 to, 22 1 
 
 Tacitus, Napoleon's chosen air - 
 Tactics, military, of Buonaparte 
 
 Taglnunento, bat! 1 s 
 Tulavera, battle of, 
 
 Talleyrand, liis character by Buona- 
 parte, 167 
 created 1'rince of Eei. - 
 communicates with tbe Boui 
 
 529 
 his billet to Alexander of Russia, 
 
 Talma, enly associate of Buona- 
 parte, --' 
 Taxation, under Napoleon 
 Thoulouse, bat*'..' of, ~<ii 
 Tilsit, treaty of, 319 
 Tollentino, treaty of, 8D 
 Toulon, siege of, 12 
 Toussaint 1 Ouvertnre, 223 
 Trafal.'nr, la tie 1 f, 273 
 Treaty of Tolleutiuo, SJ 
 
 Loebeu. S> 
 
 fonnio, 94 
 
 Luneville, 202 
 
 Amiens, 211 
 
 Pn -1 ■■.: ■-. 282 
 
 Tilsil 
 
 FontaineUeau, 334 
 
 Schoeiibruun, 386 
 Tngeid-bund, tbe 
 
 rim, surrendered by Macl 
 " L lin and Trafalgar," a poeiu by 
 Mr. < tanning, quoted, 27 I 
 
 Usher, Captain, 532 
 
 mine, surrendi r of, is ; 
 > inaire, 13th of, 27 
 
 Vcnit . I by Buonaparte, 50 
 
 neutrality of, si 
 con |uered by Buonapari 
 handed over to Austria, 95 
 
 i taken by the French, '.'71,374 
 
 Vienna, congri ss of, 574 
 uve, Admiral, 276 
 
 Vimiera, battle of. 353 
 
 Vincovo, battle of, 4 1 > 
 
 Vittoria, battle of, 18 I 
 
 Volney, 215 
 
 Wagram, battle of. • 79 
 Wahlstadt, b ttle of, 487 
 Walcheren, expedition to, 3S1 
 Warsaw taken by tbe French, 3u6 
 
 Grand Duchy of. 
 Waterloo, battle of, 594 
 Wellesley, Sir Arthur, commands 
 British army of the Peninsula, 
 S53 
 
 debarks in Mbndeeo Bay. ""it 
 
 defeats French at Rorica, 354 
 
 defeats Junot at Vimiera, .; 5 
 
 lands at Lisbon. 380 
 
 defeats Soul! - 
 
 battle ofTalaveru, 3S0 
 
 created Lord Wellington, 38! 
 Wellington, Lord, retreats to lines 
 of Torres Yedras 1 
 
 battle of Fuentes d'Onor, 411 
 
 captures Ciudad Bodrigo, 413 
 
 takes Badajos, 413 
 
 battle of Salamanca, ill 
 
 battle of Vittoria, 4fc0 
 
 battle of Thoulouse, 518 
 
 fiction of bis being surprised at 
 Waterloo disprovi 
 
 interview with Bit 
 
 battle of Waterloo. 591 
 Westphalia, new kingdom of, 320 
 Whitworth, Lord, bis conferences 
 
 with Buonaparte, 234 
 Wilna, ' • , 4;8 
 
 Wilson, Sir Robert, 131, 232 
 Windham, 3Ir.. his philippic against 
 
 Buonaparte, 233 
 Wirtemberg, Elector of, created 
 
 King, 28 I 
 Witzingen de I sonrr, I '8 
 
 interview with Bnonapartt*, lis 
 Wordsworth, Mr., quoted, 2.23, 227, 
 
 240 
 Wright, Captain, 2 1 1 2 i5 
 Wurinser, Ucneral, 57, o'L 
 
 Yarmouth. Lord, - v -- 
 
 Znaim, armistice of, .;79 
 
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 7. Waterloo. 
 *8. Illustrious Dr. Matheus 
 
 DO UBLE VOL UMES. Crown 8vo, picture boards, 2s. each. 
 
 1. Under Fire. (" Madame Therese," and " The Blockade.") 
 
 2. Two Years a Soldier. ("The Conscript," and " Waterloo.") 
 
 3. The Story of a Peasant, 1789-1792. (" The States-General," 
 
 and " The Country in Danger.") 
 
 4. The Story of a Peasant, 1793-1815. (" Year One of the Re- 
 
 public," and "Citizen Bonaparte.") 
 
 5. The Mysterious Doctor. ("Dr. Matheus," and "Friend Fritz.") 
 
 6. The Buried Treasure. (" Stories of the Rhine," and "Clarionet 
 
 Player.") 
 
 7. The Old Schoolmaster. ("The Alsatian Schoolmaster," and 
 
 "Campaign in Kabylia.") 
 
 8. Weird Tales of the Woods. ("The Man Wolf," and "The 
 
 Wild Huntsman.") 
 
 In new and handsome binding, cloth gilt, gilt top, price 5$. each. 
 The Story of a Peasant, 1789-1792. Containing "The States- 
 General," and "The Country in Danger." With 57 full-page Engravings. 
 
 The Story of a Peasant, 1793-1815. Containing "Year One of 
 the Republic," and " Citizen Bonaparte." With 60 full-page Ei.gravings. 
 
 Lotidon : WARD, LOCK &* CO., Salisbury Square, E.C. 
 

14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
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