THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Ifyron M. Winslaw
 
 Kai'oijcon at Mal.maison.
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 
 
 By P. C. HEADLEY 
 
 Author of "LIFE OF THE MARQUIS DE LAFA- 
 YETTE," "LIFE OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS," 
 "LIFE OF KOSSUTH," etc., etc. ^« ^< >< 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 By G. mercer ADAM 
 
 A. L. BURT COMPANY, j* ^ ^ ^ 
 ^ ^ ^ PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
 
 Copyright, 1903, 
 By E. a. BRAINERD,
 
 1 
 
 1^ 
 
 TO 
 
 B. C. CLARKE, ESQ., 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MERCHANT, 
 AND THE ELOQUENT ADVOCATE OF HUMAN FREEDOM, 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, 
 
 AS AN EXPRESSION OF SINCERE REGARD 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In presenting the public with this new biography of 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, the author did not expect to add 
 new facts, or modify those with which the world is fa- 
 miliar, in his career. We have quoted often from well- 
 known authors the mere statement of stereotyped facts, 
 and have endeavored, in the great condensation of matter 
 necessary in a volume no larger than this biography, 
 to embrace all the illustrative and stirring scenes in 
 Napoleon's history. The authors chiefly referred to are 
 Bourrienne, The Berkley Men, Lockhart, Von Eotteck, 
 Encyclopedia Americana, Confidential Correspondence 
 with Joseph, and Abbott's Napoleon. A striking fact, 
 omitted entirely by the latter, the invasion of St. Do- 
 mingo, is given at length, from documents furnished 
 by B. C. Clarke, Esq., of Boston, ex-Consul at Hayti, 
 from which, by his permission, extracts are freely 
 made. With but little comment generally, the convinc- 
 ing testimony of the recently published Confidential 
 Correspondence, upon some of the darkest deeds of Na- 
 poleon, is furnished by the insertion of interesting letters. 
 The views expressed on these pages are neither those of 
 unqualified and bitter condemnation, which distinguish 
 Scott and Lockhart ; nor the equally extreme and more 
 dangerous sentiments of boundless admiration and ful- 
 some praise, which glow in the language, and on every 
 
 ?
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 page of the more attrac tive volumes of Mr. Abbott. We 
 caunot, we confess, comprehend the apparent sincerity 
 of this author, in the delineation of Napoleon as a re- 
 j^ublican philanthropist ; a faithful husband ; a warrior 
 who grieved over the necessity of shedding blood ; and 
 finally, a martyr saint on the rocks of St. Helena. He 
 was not a monster of unalleviated depravity ; nor was 
 he a truly j)hilanthropic and good man. He loved his 
 chosen profession of arms ; he began his career a repub- 
 lican ; he grew in frame and ambition, until he believed 
 himself appointed to rule and redeem- a continent. In 
 the pursuit of liis object, like the unjust judge, " he 
 neither feared God, nor regarded man." 
 
 The King of kings hung a dark cloud over his "star 
 of destiny," when the cruel blow fell on the exiled wife, 
 whose only crime was that heaven had written her to 
 him childless. That cloud expanded till it darkened all 
 the sky ; and bolt after bolt came down upon his lofty 
 brow, and laid it low on a captive's pillow within the 
 confines of a rocky island, where, Prometheus-like, he 
 was compelled to feel the wasting power of burning 
 memories and awakened conscience, nntil death removed 
 him to a more righteous adjudication. 
 
 We quote, in conclusion, from an editorial in a leading 
 paj^er of the daily press, the name of whose author is to 
 us unknown ; but whose summary of character and re- 
 salts must command the assent of the impartial reader 
 of history : 
 
 " No pirate ever more foully decoyed, by the use of a 
 false flag, a merchantman into his clutches, than Napo- 
 leon possessed himself of Spain, so far as he ever did pos- 
 sess it. There was absolutely no French, no Bonapart- 
 ean party among the Spanish i)oople from first to last — 
 barely a little handful of titled office-seekers, and noth- 
 ing more. The greatest mistake of Napoleon's career.
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 because tlie most flagrant crime, was that which trans- 
 I'ormed the SjDanish nation from serviceable allies into 
 annoying, wasting, exhausting, if not formidable foes. 
 A true history of Xapoleon would show that, whereas 
 the good deeds of his career were abundantly prospered 
 and recompensed, and the enemies who wantonly con- 
 spired to overthrow him were always defeated and hum- 
 bled, so, when he began wantonly to tramjile on the 
 necks of nations, he sowed dragon's teeth, whence arose 
 in due time the foes who crushed him. His Italian, Aus- 
 trian, Prussian, Polish campaigns were generally success- 
 ful, because ho had right on his side ; while his Egyptian, 
 Spanish, Russian forays, though promising success at the 
 outset, proved disastrous, and finally ruinous, because 
 they were impelled by rapacity and founded in wrong. 
 * * * Let it never be forgotten that the kings were 
 impotent against the Man of Destiny, until the people 
 rallied to his overthrow — until German and Spaniard 
 went with Puss and Hun to compass his downfall. The 
 monarchs afterward betrayed the masses, and snatched 
 most of the fruits of the common conquest ; for which let 
 them be held to the sternest reckoning; but let not this 
 obscure the great truth that Napoleon fell because he 
 betrayed the sacred cause of the inalienable rights of man, 
 and leagued himself with the jDCople's hereditary oppress- 
 ors, divorcing his noble and faithful wife, to intermarry 
 with them, laboring personally to eradicate from the 
 mind of Alexander his liberal impulses, reducing France 
 to a state of Asiatic despotism, and the surrounding 
 nations to that of her conquest, professing an intense 
 horror of 'Jacobins,' by which term he designated all 
 earnest republicans, though he had himself been a pro- 
 fessor not merely of republicanism, but of Jacobism, in 
 his obscure and powerless youth. "When Napoleon's true 
 character shall be inscribed on his tomb, the awed mil-
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 lions shall gather before it and read — ' Here lies the 
 thunderbolt, the idol, the spoiled child of democracy, 
 who betrayed her to make himself an emperor, and died 
 a fettered and heart-broken exile. Let all who may 
 hereafter be tempted to betray the cause of Human 
 Liberty be warned by his example. *'
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Napoieon's birthplace.— The Bonaparte family.— The mother's character. 
 —Napoleon's boyhood. — Enters the Military School at Brienne. — Incid- 
 ents while there. — Revisits Corsica and meets General Paoli. — He is pro- 
 moted to a place in the Royal Military Academy of Paris.— His fraternal 
 interest. — Receives a Lieutenant's commissiou. — Falls in love. — Life at 
 Valence.— His appearance at M. Neckar's party. — Is present at the 
 storming of the King's palace by the populace. — France and Napoleon.— 
 Again visits Corsica.— Is arrested. — The flight of the Bonaparte family. — 
 The siege of Toulon.— Junot.— The general assault.— The victory.- The 
 slaughter.— Napoleon appointed on the Coast Survey.— Appointed Chief 
 of Battalion. — Another love-affair.— Family destitution. — Letters. — The 
 Convention and Napoleon. — The insurrections of the Sections. — The de- 
 feat. — Eugene and his father's sword.— Napoleon and Josephine. Page 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Napoleon is appointed to the chief command. — His youth.— Leaves Paris 
 for Nice. — Visits his mother. — The contending armies. — The character 
 of Napoleon. — His new tactics. — His address to the soldiers. — The objects 
 of the campaign. — The route of passing the Alps. — The conflict. — The 
 victory.— The pursuit of the Austrians. — Reaches Cherasco, near Turin. 
 — Dictates terms of peace to the king of Sardinia. — Again addresses the 
 army. — His knowledge of men. — Morals. — Crosses the Po.— Battle of 
 Lodi — Napoleon at Jlilan. — Letter to Joseph. — Treaty with the dukes of 
 Parma and Modena. — Address to the army.— Jealousy of the Directory. 
 — Napoleon pursues the Austrians. — Insurrection in Lombardy. — Treaty 
 with the Vatican. — Wurmzer appointed to the command. — ^The Austrians 
 advance. — Battle of Lonato. — Napoleon's peril. — Incidents.^ — Letter to 
 Joseph. — Castiglione. — Retreat of Wurmzer. — Mantua besieged. — Alvinzi 
 sent into Italy. —The battles of Areola.— Alvinzi routed. — Battle of Rivoli. 
 — Mantua surrenders. — Letter to Josephine.— Napoleon's success. Page 35 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Napoleon and the Pope.— Venice.— Archduke Charles.— Battle of Taglia- 
 mento. — Incidents.— Retreat of Charles. — Negotiations. — Pichegru. — The 
 Directory.- Treaty of Campo Formio.— Court of Milan. — Josephine.— 
 Napoleon at Eastadt.— He reaches Paris.— His reception.— Life at the 
 
 ix
 
 t CONTENTS, 
 
 Capital. — Napoleon and England. -He is appointed to command an In- 
 vasion of England. — He urges an expedition to Egypt.— Embarkation. — 
 Malta taken. — Letter to Joseph. — He arrives at Alexandria. — Addresses 
 the Army and the Egyptians. — March up the Nile. — The Mauielukes.^ — 
 Battle of the Pyramids.— Cairo taken.— Letter to Joseph. — Battle of 
 Aboukir.— Napoleon's Power. — Expedition to the Red Sea. — Siege of 
 Acre.— The Plague. — Napoleon retreats to Egypt. — Scenes in the March. 
 — The Turks defeated at Aboukir.— Napoleon returns to France. — Rea- 
 sons.— The Domestic Sorrow.— The Reconciliation.— The Crisis. Page V4 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Napoleon in Paris.— The 18th Brviraire. — Napoleon at St. Cloud. — The 
 consular government.— The motives of Napoleon. — Reforms. — The new 
 constitution. — Napoleon at the Tuilleries.— Josephine.— Personal appear- 
 ance of the first consul. — News of Washington's death.— The Bourbons. 
 — Napoleon's policy. — Propositions of peace with England. — Correspond- 
 ence.— Causes of war.— Movements of the armies.— Capitulation of 
 Genoa.— Napoleon at Marengo. —The battle.— The results.- -Napoleon at 
 Milan.— Renewed hopes of the Bourbons. — A new campaign.— Battle of 
 Hohenlinden.— The emperor sues for peace.— Napoleon returns. — His 
 work of reform of national advancement.— The infernal machine.— The 
 spring of 1801.— The battle of Copenhagen.— The English take Egypt.— 
 Invasion of England.— Peace of Amiens.— Letters.— Napoleon's designs 
 of reform.— Treaty with the Pope.— Legion of honor.— Consulate for 
 life. — Colonial conquests.— Napoleon and the invasion of Hayti. Page 115 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Omens of discord between England and France. — Violations of treaty. — 
 Abuse of Napoleon.— Remonstrance.— Interview of the First Consul with 
 Lord Whitworth.— Declaration of war.— Successes.— Descent upon Eng- 
 land.— Conspiracy.— Pichegru.— Duke d'Enghien.— Napoleon emperor. 
 —The coronation.— Napoleon's sway.— Coronation at Milan.— Napoleon 
 hastens to Paris.— Omens of war.— New coalition against France.— Na- 
 poleon desires peace. — The conflict openj.- Napoleon is victorious. — Ad- 
 dress to the soldiers.— Marches toward Vienna.— Correspondence. —Aus- 
 terlitz.— Letters.- Treaty of peace at Presburg.— Death of Pitt.— Royal 
 plans.-Letters.— Naples seized.— Sub-kingdoms.— Napoleon and Mr. Fox. 
 —Letters.— Another campaign.— Prussia enters the field.— Battle of Jena 
 and Auerstadt.— Napoleon enters Berlin.— Letters.— Pardons Prince 
 Hatzfleld Page 165 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The position of the hostile parties.— The Berlin decrees.— The war goes 
 on.— Battle of Eylau.— Letter to Josephine.— Offers of peace rejected.— 
 Preparations for another campaign.-- -Battle of Friedland.— The peace of 
 Tilsit.— Friendship of Napoleon and Alexander.- Correspondence.— Na-
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 pwleon's magnificent plans. — Code Napoleon.— Designs upon Spain and 
 Portugal.— Letters. — Tour to Italy. — Disagreement with Lucien.— Por- 
 tugal taken.— Invasion of Spain. — Letters.— The abdication.— Joseph 
 designated for the vacant throne.— His reluctant and unquiet reign.— The 
 meeting of the emperors at Erfurth. — Josephine's divorce suggested. — 
 Revolution in Spain.— Victories.-Letters.— Joseph again enthroned. — 
 His complaint of Napoleon.— Intelligence of an Austrian campaign. — 
 Battles of Eckmuhl and Wagram. — Quarrel with the Pope.— Peace. — 
 Divorce of Josephine Page 318 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The choice of a new empress. — Josephine's experience.— Napoleon's power 
 shaken. — The birth of a prince.- Propositions of peace with England.— 
 War with Russia. — His progress to Dresden. — He reaches Dantzic. — The 
 Grand Army cross the Niemen. — Tlie Poles hail the presence of the em- 
 peror with hope. — The Russian method of destruction to the enemy. — 
 Napoleon enters Moscow. — He occupies the Kremlin. — Letter to Alex- 
 ander.— Conflagration of Moscow.— The retreat.— The march to Smolensk. 
 — Conspiracy in Paris. — Marshal Ney. — His supposed deatti — His rescue. 
 — The wasting army reach the Beresina. — The tragical crossing of the 
 river Wilna.— Napoleon returns to Paris.— Reaches the palace at night.— 
 The rear-guard of the Grand Army Page 280 
 
 CHAPTER Vm. 
 
 Napoleon's reception after the defeat in Russia— His character. — The new 
 coalition— Battle of Lutzen.— Entrance into Dresden.— Battle of Bautzen. 
 — Negotiations.— Metternich.— The plan of campaign. — Siege of Dresden. 
 —Disasters.— Napoleon's desperate courage.- Battle of Leipsic. — Murat 
 abandons the Emperor's cause.— Treachery of the Allies.— The Senate 
 of France falter in their support. — Napoleon's rebuke. — Correspondence 
 with Joseph.— Napoleon at the Tuilleries. — He enters on the final strug- 
 gle.— Battle of Brienne. — Letters.— Want of arms.— Letters.— The prog- 
 ress of the Allies.— Napoleon's expedition on the Marne. — His victories. 
 — Letters from Joseph on the condition of Paris. — Negotiations for 
 Peace.— Napoleon's account of the crisis in his affairs. — His policy in his 
 extremity. — Battle of Leon.— Rheims. — Letters to Joseph. — The last 
 struggle.— The Allies advance toward Paris. — The flight of the Court. — 
 The capitulation Page 309 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Caulaincourt secures an interview with the Czar of Russia. — Scenes in 
 the capital. — Correspondence between Napoleon and Joseph. — The ab- 
 dication. — The royal debate upon the disposal of the fallen emperor.— 
 Marmont's treachery.— The conditions of the allies.— Joseph urges 
 peace.— Napoleon's anguish.— Attempts suicide. — Adieu to his army. — 
 Josephine and Maria Louise.— Napoleon embarks for Elba.— The return
 
 Xii CONTENTS. 
 
 of Louis XVIII.— His reign.— Napoleon at Elba.— His return to France.— 
 The tidings reach Talleyrand on the eve of a ball. — Vain attempt to 
 regain the empress and her son. — Letters.— The exile again on the 
 throne. — The allies enter the field. — Napoleon leads the French army. — 
 The plan of the campaign. — The battles of Ligny and Quatre-Bras. — 
 Waterloo.— The charge of the Old Guard.— The victory of Wellington. — 
 The flight of Napoleon.— He reaches the Elysee.— The meeting of the 
 Chambers.— The Debates. — The abdication Page 863 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The second abdication. — The indecision and distress of Napoleon.— He 
 resolves to take refuge in the United States.— He leaves Malmaison 
 for Rochef ort. — Letter from Bertrand to Joseph. — Negotiations vv'ith 
 England for passports. — These are denied. — Napoleon throvv's himself 
 upon the mercy of England. — The reception, and voyage to the 
 English coast. — The decision respecting the emperor's fate. — He con- 
 templates suicide. — The departure for St. Helena.— Arrival at the 
 island.— Napoleon's residence. — His treatment in exile.— His habits. — 
 Progress of disease. — His religious character. — His last hou rs. — General 
 Bertrand's account of the emperor's death. — His burial. — The re- 
 moval of his remains to France Page 389
 
 Iiq'TRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 Unexampled is the career of I^apoleon, " the Man 
 of Destiny," who, though he intoxicated France for 
 well nigh twenty years and deluged Europe with 
 blood, yet for a time seemed to lay the world at his 
 feet, and by his transcendent genius and phenomenal 
 military qualities performed prodigies of valor, and 
 stands out on the canvas the peer of the great cap- 
 tains, warriors, and strategists of history. With 
 Caesar and Alexander, with Conde, Marlborough, and 
 the Great Erederick, he is ranked, by reason of his 
 splendid personal daring and dazzling military 
 achievements, as well as by his dauntlessness when re- 
 verses came upon him, by the marvellous resources 
 of his mind, and the vigor and force of his indomita- 
 ble will. Though the niche he fills is large among the 
 great personages of history, we cannot forget that his 
 was an untoward force in Europe in his time, ad- 
 verse alike to peace and civilization, or that he earned 
 for himself the hateful epithets of despot and usurper. 
 His career thus affords impressive lessons for all time, 
 and teaches us that the kingdom of Heaven is not ad- 
 vanced or the millennial era furthered by the lust 
 of conquest and the love, for its own sake, of military 
 glory. 
 
 The famous Corsican, as all know, was born at 
 
 xiii
 
 xiv INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 Ajaccio in 1769, and died a prisoner in exile on St. 
 Helena in 1821. Between these periods he had a 
 phenomenal career, and though the fortunes of war 
 were at times hostile to him, and his defeats were 
 many and often terrible in their consequences, his 
 victories were as often magnificent and his triumphs 
 dazzling, though not lasting. To take up and study 
 Mr. P. C. Headley's " Life of ISTapoleon," which we 
 here introduce, is to recall many momentous events in 
 the Napoleonic drama, and to give one's-self the de- 
 light of reading an entertaining as well as an instruc- 
 tive volume. The work has deserved the popularity it 
 has earned, for it has taken high rank among the 
 many biographies of the great Emperor, while it is 
 free alike from excessive hero-worship and from that 
 spirit of detraction which has characterized so many 
 studies of N^apoleon. The work is compendious, 
 rather than tediously detailed and exhaustive. It 
 deals, however, with all the chief incidents in the 
 great warrior's career, and shows us his vaulting am- 
 bition and its remarkable results ; and w^e follow, 
 often with breathless interest, the narrative of the 
 many and arduous campaigns he engaged in, from the 
 outset of his career in Italy to its close on the san- 
 guinary field of Waterloo, with its sequel of surrender 
 to the British and six years of enforced exile on St. 
 Helena. The story is told with animation and effec- 
 tiveness, especially when w^e enter upon the incidents 
 of the conquest of Egypt and the subjugation of 
 Syria, through the account of Napoleon's operations 
 in Spain, the invasion of Austria, the crushing of the 
 Prussian army at Jena, his seizure of Portugal and
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. XV 
 
 entry into Lisbon, the annexation of Holland and the 
 Papal States, the disastrous war with Russia and its 
 direful consequences, down to the defiance of all the 
 allied Powers of Europe and the bitter end at Water- 
 loo, with the flight to Paris and final abdication. The 
 storj on every page is replete with interest, as it is 
 crowded with incident, and compact in its presenta- 
 tion of every fact of importance in the heroic though 
 tragic life of the great Emperor. 
 
 G. jMekcee Adam.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPAETE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Napoleon's birthplace.— The Bonaparte family.— The mother's character. 
 —Napoleon's boyhood. — Enters the Military School at Brienne.— Incid- 
 ents while there. — Revisits Corsica and meets General Paoli.— He is pro- 
 moted to a place in the Royal Military Academy of Paris. — His fraternal 
 interest. — Receives a Lieutenant's commission. — Falls in love. — Life at 
 Valence.— His appearance at M. Neckar's party. — Is present at the 
 storming of the King's palace by the populace.— France and Napoleon.— 
 Again visits Corsica. — Is arrested. — The flight of the Bonaparte family. — 
 The siege of Toulon.— Junot.— The general assault. — The victory.— The 
 slaughter.— Napoleon appointed on the Coast Survey. — Appointed Chief 
 of Battalion. — Another love-affair.— Family destitution. — Letters. — The 
 Convention and Napoleon. — The insurrection of the Sections. — The de- 
 feat.— Eugene and his father's sword.— Napoleon and Josephine. 
 
 Corsica, the third iu extent, among the Italian 
 islands, lies in the blue waters of the Mediterranean 
 sea, one hundred miles from France, and fifty from 
 Tuscany. It contains nearly four thousand square 
 miles, and one hundred and eighty thousand inhabitants. 
 Its scenery is varied. Traversed by ranges of moun- 
 tains, whose summits are covered with perpetual snow, 
 veined with rivers, and abounding in fruitful valleys, 
 the island presents wild and beautiful landscapes. 
 Successively under the sway of the Carthaginians, 
 Romans, Vandals, Greeks, G-oths and Genoese, in 1769 
 it nominally submitted to the French, though partisan 
 warfare continued many years. The population, chiefly 
 Italians in origin and customs, never developed the re- 
 sources of their productive soil. Multitudes lived on
 
 2 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 chestnuts ; but cherished the love of freedom and in- 
 dependence, indomitable valor, and unrelenting revenge 
 of a wrong. 
 
 August 15, 17G9, at Ajaccio, two months after the 
 subjugation of Corsica b}- the French, Letitia Bonaparte 
 gave birth to her, second son, Napoleon. His father 
 was of ancient and honorable descent. He was a suc- 
 cessful lawyer, but when the French army landed, he 
 enlisted under the command of General Paoli, to fight 
 the battles of his brave countrymen. 
 
 His noble wife was from the distinguished family of 
 Kamolini, and Avas regarded one of the most beautiful 
 maidens of Corsica. She was married at the age of 
 sixteen, and became a widow at thirty-five, with eight 
 living children, and three among the dead. The family 
 group, whose names have been so conspicuous in the 
 annals of France, were Joseph, Napoleon, Lucien, Louis, 
 Jerome, Eliza, Pauline, and Caroline. 
 
 Of Napoleon's mother he has given a brief but sug- 
 gestive sketch : 'SShe had the head of a man on the 
 shoulders of a Avoman. Left Avithout a guide or pro- 
 tector, she was obliged to assume the management of 
 affairs ; but the burden did not overcome her. She 
 administered everything Avitli a degree of sagacity not 
 to be expected from her age and sex. Her tenderness 
 Avas joined with severity : she punished, rcAvarded, all 
 alike ; the good, the bad, nothing escajacd her. Losses, 
 lu'ivations, fatigue, had no effect upon her ; she en- 
 dured all, braved all. Ah! what a AVoman ! Where 
 look for her equal ? " 
 
 She bore within her graceful form the future Emperor, 
 amid the stormy scenes of revolution : and returned 
 from an expedition among the mountains, Avhither she 
 had folloAved her husband, to give the world the gifted 
 child. If these facts had nothing to do with the Intel-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 3 
 
 lectual power and bias of the son, they were significant 
 of his marvelous career npon the battle-field of a hemi- 
 sphere. Sixteen years later, in 1785, Charles Bonaparte, 
 the father, died at Montpelier, in France, of cancer in 
 the stomach ; an hereditary disease, transmitted to the 
 illustrious son. 
 
 Besides the city residence, Madame Bonaparte's 
 brother had a beautiful villa on the sea-shore. Massive 
 rocks stood around it, and the solitude was undisturbed, 
 excepting by the murmur of the waves breaking gently 
 npon the beach, and the merry voices of childhood. 
 Neither the mother, her brother, nor the hajipy chil- 
 dren, dreamed that the delicate feet, whose impression 
 on the sand the advancing tides effaced, were to shake 
 thrones in their march of power, and echo in the palace- 
 halls of many kingdoms. 
 
 The ruins of this romantic retreat still bear the name 
 of " Napoleon^s Grotto," and stories are told of his 
 solitary reveries under the shadow of the leaning granite, 
 and on the margin of the sea ; of his young love for an 
 Italian girl, Giacominetta ; which, on account of his 
 careless attire, was the subject of a couplet shouted 
 after him in his pastimes at school : 
 
 " Napoleon di mezza calgetta, 
 Faramore 3, Giacominetta." * 
 
 He was not an attractive, though remarkable boy. 
 His reserve, and an irritability, which D'Israeli would 
 call " the irritability of genius," repelled familiarity, 
 and even made his brothers and sisters distant, while 
 they recognized his intellectual superiority. A vener- 
 able uncle, Lucien Bonaparte, when dying, called the 
 children to his side, and said to Joseph, '* You, Joseph, 
 are the eldest ; but N'apoleon is the head of the family. 
 Take care to remember my words." 
 
 * '* Napoleon with his stockings half off. 
 Makes love to Giacominetta."
 
 4 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPAETB. 
 
 Napoleon's favorite sport was mimic battle with his 
 miniature brass cannon, displaying the almost invaria- 
 ble fact in the early history of eminent talent ; the drift 
 of the mental powers ; the direction, under occult and 
 forming influences, of the greatest efficiency and suc- 
 cess of a mind which has a work to do, and which but 
 few men, if any other one, could perform. Various 
 incidents disclosed his self-reliance and pride of char- 
 acter. 
 
 He was once accused of a fault committed by an 
 associate ; but scorning to declare his innocence, he 
 suffered without a complaint the unmerited punishment. 
 At anotlier time, when detected regaling his api)etite 
 on figs in an orchai'd near his home, the proprietor 
 threatened to reveal his guilt to his mother. This was 
 more than he could endure in silence ; for he both 
 feared and loved the maternal guide of his youth. 
 With simple eloquence, he pleaded his cause, and 
 gained his suit. Napoleon had heard much of the 
 French invasions and fierce conflicts ; and he cordially 
 hated the people who afterward adored him, and to 
 whom he gave his warmest affection. January, 1779, 
 Napoleon, then ten years of age, accompanied his 
 father, who was a member of the deputation represent- 
 ing the Corsican noblesse, to the Court of Louis XVI., 
 and entered the military school at Brienne, where 
 Count Marbeuf had obtained for him admission. The 
 parting with his mother was so touching, the impression 
 remained fresh upon his mind during all the years of his 
 stormy life. 
 
 The exciting scenes of travel, and the splendor of 
 Paris, were new and strange to the young islander, whose 
 existence dawned and deepened into rosy morning among 
 the ancient dwellings and secluded retreats of the land 
 he cherished. At Brienne, he exjcountered an unex-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 5 
 
 pected embarrassment, which stung his proud spirit. 
 lie was au Italian, with limited means of support. 
 Around him were sons of the aristocracy, speaking the 
 language of France, and without disguise, revealing a 
 bitter scorn of his humbler position. His hatred of the 
 French was made intense ; and with a threat of revenge 
 for the insult, he withdrew from the associations of the 
 gay scions of a waning nobility, and devoted himself to 
 the severest studies of the institution. In general liter- 
 ature he was not ambitious of excellence, but in the 
 branches which directly told upon the soldier's complete 
 preparation for the field of action, he rapidly rose above 
 all rivals, and stood at the head of the aspiring candi- 
 dates for military honors. To the students were allowed 
 plots of land, to be used for profit or pleasure according 
 to the choice of each. Napoleon approjjriated liis 
 portion to solitary study, adding shrubbery and flowers 
 to increase its shade and beauty. Here, as at all times, 
 he nourished that thirst for military glory, which death 
 only quenched, freezing upon his silent lips the shout 
 of conflict, " Tote d' armee ! '*' 
 
 During the remarkable winter of 1784, when snow lay 
 in heaps around Brienne, Napoleon rallied the students 
 under his command, to erect, on scientific principles, an 
 immense fortification from the frost-quarry nature had 
 bountifully furnished. The completed fort was the 
 wonder and admiration of thousands. The general of 
 both the besieged and besieging forces, he displayed sur- 
 prising skill in the frequent sham-fights which occurred 
 before the white walls of the bastions, while the brief 
 winter campaign continued. 
 
 Napoleon seriously scarred a comrade's forehead, and 
 amply repaid him in after life, when royal gifts were at 
 his disposal. 
 
 His vacations were spent on his native island ; and
 
 6 LIFE OP NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 often in company with the brave and restless Paoli, ha 
 Nvas urged by him to enlist in the cause of tlie patriots. 
 The compliment the Italian gave Napoleon, alluding to 
 his familiar study of Plutarch's Lives, was designed to 
 win the youthful cadet to his banner. He said to him 
 with enthusiasm, " Oh, Napoleon ! you do not at all 
 resemble the moderns. You belong to the heroes of 
 Plutarch." 
 
 With some allowance made for the romantic coloring 
 and interest thrown over the youth of transcendent 
 genius, it is still apparent that Napoleon made an un- 
 usually deep impression on all who knew him. With a 
 frail form, a large head, a clear, penetrating eye, and 
 rare powers of conversation, he gave sure token of pre- 
 eminence among men. In his fifteenth year, he became 
 one of the three students selected annually from the 
 cadets, for promotion to the Eoyal Military School in 
 the splendid capital of France. The following note 
 from the papers of the War Department, shows the 
 rank and prospects of the Corsican npon his entrance 
 into the Parisian Academy : 
 
 " State of the king's scholars eligible to enter into 
 service, or to pass to the school at Paris : Monsieur de 
 Bonaparte (Napoleon), born 15th August, 1769 ; in 
 height five feet six and a half inches ; has finished his 
 fourth season ; of a good constitution, health excellent, 
 character mild, honest, and grateful ; conduct exem- 
 plary ; has always distinguished himself by application 
 to mathematics, understands history and geography 
 tolerably well ; is indifferently skilled in merely orna- 
 mental studies, and in Latin, in whicli he has only 
 finished his fourth course ; would make an excellent 
 sailor ; deserves to be passed to the school at Paris.'^ 
 
 In his new and aristocratic halls. Napoleon kept his 
 object steadily in view. Turning with contempt from
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 7 
 
 tlie means of present display and indulgence, like all 
 great men whose eye has been on an eminence in tlio 
 future, unseen by common minds, he studied, thought, 
 and dreamed alone of a brilliant and undisputed success 
 in the profession of arms. Though imbued with re- 
 publican sentiments which notunfrequently gave offense 
 to the loyal subjects of the monarch, and possessed of 
 manly and generous traits of character, yet was he a de- 
 votee most ardent of Mars, the deity of his panting am- 
 bition. Through all the history of his youth, we do 
 not discover any indications of religious feeling, or 
 sense of moral obligation. The spirit of the age, which 
 was military glory, regardless of the sacrifice of human 
 life in its attainment, fired the unfolding genius of 
 Napoleon. He was not cruel and heartless ; but the 
 grandeur of extended conquest, and the jDrosperity of 
 France, filled his mind with gorgeous visions of his san- 
 guinary career. He displayed his fraternal regard in 
 the attention he now gave to the education of his brother 
 Louis, who in his " Eeponse a Sir AY alter Scott," refers 
 to it with great affection. Up to this time, he nourished 
 a dislike of the French. The gradual transfer of his 
 interests from Corsica to the land of his adoption, was 
 doubtless effected by the power of new associations, the 
 hopeless struggles of his isolated people, and the mag- 
 nificent field opening before him in the unquiet realm 
 of Louis XVI., where j^rinciples in harmony with his 
 own political bias, were to be the mighty forces of civil 
 commotion. 
 
 In Seistember, 1785, when only sixteen years of age. 
 Napoleon appeared before the board of examination, on 
 trial for his first appointment in the royal army. In 
 mathematics, the distinguished astronomer. La Place, 
 was the intellectual inquisitor of the anxious cadets. 
 Bonaparte sustained himself with honor, and so fa
 
 8 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 miliar was he with the pages of history, that Keruglion, 
 who conducted the examination in this depurtment, 
 made the following significant and prophetic memo- 
 randum opposite his name : " A Corsican by character 
 and by birth ; this young man Avill distinguish himself 
 in the world, if favored by fortune." 
 
 He immediately received the commission to lieutenant 
 in the regiment of artillery Le Fere, and no subsequent 
 promotion thrilled his whole being with more intense 
 delight than this signal of his future destiny. 
 
 Soon after, he became interested in his second romance 
 of love, giving evidence of a nature attractively sus- 
 ceptible to the charms of female society, and the fas- 
 cination of beautiful women. He frequented, among 
 other cultivated families, the house of Madame du 
 Colombier, whose daughter threw over his restless heart 
 the spell of a strong, though transitory attachment. 
 AVhen in after life he alluded to it, he remarks, '• We 
 were the most innocent creatures imaginable. We 
 contrived short interviews together. I well remem- 
 ber one which took place on a midsummer's morn- 
 ing, just as the light began to dawn. It will scarcely 
 be credited that all our felicity consisted in eating 
 cherries together." Napoleon's post was at this time 
 at Valence, from which his regiment was removed to 
 Lyons. Embarrassed for want of means to support the 
 rank of even a subordinate officer, he was taken sick, 
 and found, as ever, in the favor his impressive presence 
 won from woman, the most generous attention in the 
 care of a German lady, who was not forgotten when he 
 commanded the resources of a kingdom. He entered 
 the lists as competitor for a prize offered for the best 
 essay upon ''the institutions most likely to contribute 
 to human happiness," and received the award. 
 
 An Italian gentleman gives an entertaining account
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 9 
 
 of Napoleon, iu a splendid evening party at M. Neckar's. 
 The Bastile had fallen, and the murmurs of an excited 
 populace rose with ominous distinctness around the 
 throne of the king — the first undertone of that revolu- 
 tionary earthquake, soon to overthrow the entire order 
 of things, and startle the world. Alfieri, Lafayette, 
 Mirabeau, La Grange, and other distinguished French- 
 men, were in the brilliant saloon. Madame de Stael 
 and Josephine adorned the intellectual assemblage. 
 Xapoleon, who was introduced by Abbe Eaynal, at- 
 tracted attention by his extraordinary conversational 
 powers. 
 
 Allusion was made to the refusal of the soldiers to fire 
 upon the lawless multitude, when he replied in language 
 which is entirely characteristic, and descriptive of his 
 subsequent plan of action : " Excuse me, my lord, if I 
 venture to interrupt you ; but as I am an officer, I 
 must claim the privilege of expressing my sentiments. 
 It is true that I am very young, and it may ajopear pre- 
 sumptuous in me to address so many distinguished men; 
 but during the last three years I have paid intense at- 
 tention to our political troubles. I see with sorrow the 
 state of our country, and I will incur censure rather 
 than pass unnoticed principles which are not only un- 
 sound, but which are subversive of all government. As 
 much 9.2 any one I desire to see all abuses, antiquated priv- 
 ileges, and usurped rights annulled. Kay ! as I am at 
 the commencement of my career, it will be my best 
 policy as well as my duty, to support the progress of 
 popular institutions, and to promote reform in every 
 branch of the public administration. But as iu the 
 last twelve months I have witnessed repeated alarming 
 popular disturbances, and have seen our best men 
 divided into factions, which threaten to be irreconcil- 
 able, I sincerely believe that now, more than, ever, a
 
 10 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 a trie t discipline in the army is absolutely necessary for 
 the safety of onr constitutional government, iind for 
 the maintenance of order. Nay ! if our troops are not 
 compelled unhesitatingly to obey the commands of the 
 executive, we shall be exposed to the blind fury of 
 democratic passions, which will render France the most 
 miserable country on the globe. The ministry may bo 
 assured that, if the daily increasing arrogance of the 
 Parisian mob is not repressed by a strong arm, and 
 social order rigidly maintained, we shall see not only 
 this cajDital, but every other city in France, thrown into 
 a state of indescribable anarchy, Avhile the real friends 
 of liberty, the enlightened patriots, now working for 
 the best good of onr country, will sink beneatli a set of 
 demagogues, who with louder outcries for freedom on 
 their tongues, will be, in reality, but a horde of sav- 
 ages, worse than the Neros of old." 
 
 His next elevation in military rank was the first 
 lieutenancy, conferred upon him the same year. 
 
 He was in Paris the 20th of June, 1793, when the mob 
 went surging through the streets, toward the Tuilleries ; 
 and he hastened to the scene of action. He saw it all : 
 the royal garden thronged with exasperated men bran- 
 dishing their various weapons, and the trembling mon- 
 arch in the balcony of his palace wearing the Jacobin's 
 red cap. 
 
 His indignation was kindled toward the masses gov- 
 erned by passion, and blindly bent on regicide, and his 
 scornful pity awakened in behalf of the yielding mon- 
 arch, unequal to the nation's crisis. Turning to Bour- 
 rienne, with whom he was walking, he exclaimed, 
 'MVhat madness ! he should have blown four or five 
 hundred of them into the air, and the rest would have 
 taken to their heels." His conscious power found ex- 
 pression in a letter to the king, offering to save his
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE H' 
 
 reeling throne, and command the troops which should 
 quiet the insurgents. But no reply was made to the 
 unknown writer. Seven months later, the monarch's 
 head rolled upon the guillotine in front of his palace, 
 amid the roll of drums, and the frantic cry of myriads, 
 " Vive la Republique I " There is the liability among 
 the common people to imjDulsive, fruitless, and even 
 disastrous outbreaks of feeling, just in proportion as 
 there is a want of intellectual culture combined with a 
 fixed and lively sense of moral obligation. Enthusiasm 
 is a natural element of the soul, and healthful, if there 
 be these guiding elements of power. x\nd there is no 
 evidence that an excitement, which rocks a nation, is 
 injurious, unless it appear without the vitality of truth 
 and uncontrolled by the mandate of reason, and the 
 acknowledged principles of religious responsibility. 
 The American Revolution was a sublime illustration of 
 this law of mind, and Washington the individual rep- 
 resentative of the balance of powers — the mental and 
 moral harmony — which is so rare among even great men. 
 His entire being obeyed the established laws designed 
 to govern it, with the beautiful uniformity Avith 
 which the tides ebb and flow, under the attractive force 
 of the moon. His patriotic fervor and sleepless energies 
 from his boyhood, were always within the confines of 
 sober reason, and enlightened conscience. TheFrent'h 
 revolutionists were fatally deficient in both the safe- 
 guards of a popular movement ; and Bonaparte, intel- 
 lectually vastly superior to Washington, with a majestic 
 self-reliance, by early education and national character 
 Avas made of different mold. In the one, self 
 merged in the highest good of the people ; in the other, 
 self maintained its supremacy through all the noblest 
 plans and fiercest battles for France. 
 
 At this awakening period, he regarded the populace
 
 12 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 as of little worth, unfit for freedom, and himself as the 
 stern disciplinarian, who could teach them subjection, 
 and gathering into his hands the reins of authority, 
 cover the flag of his country, and his own ample brow 
 with glory. 
 
 He revisited Corsica. General Paoli, whose residence, 
 since the last ineffectual struggle of the island for free- 
 dom, had been in England, was reanimated with hope 
 when the wheels of revolution began to roll ; and 
 after a flattering welcome in Paris, was appointed the 
 governor of his people. He soon discovered the rapid 
 development of licentious liberty and lawlessness in 
 France, and declared his aversion to the demoniac 
 spirit and principles of the Jacobins. He came under 
 the a' athema of the National Assembly, and a detach- 
 ment of troops under the command of La Combe, 
 Micbel, and Salicetti, sailed for Corsica, to remove 
 him from office. Napoleon, who had been on furlough 
 for several months under the maternal roof, was 
 quie-ly enjoying his attic, which he had furnished for 
 solidary study, when the landing of the invading force 
 startled the island from the repose of Paoli's peaceful 
 reign to the wild commotion of civil war. He refused 
 the Italian's repeated and complimentary proposals to 
 join his standard and strike for independence, and 
 offered his aid to Salicetti. 
 
 But his unreserved hatred of the Jacobin excesses 
 Bxposed him to the suspicion and disliiie of that officer, 
 who seems to have been of the Machiavellian school, 
 and Najioleon was arrested, taken to Paris, and tri- 
 umphantly acquitted. Meanwhile, instigated by the 
 venerable chief Paoli, tlie people declared against the 
 sanguinary republic. Ajaccio was the only town that 
 had refused, at the command of Paoli, to lower the tri- 
 color. Paoli and his followers, in 1793, marched on
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 13 
 
 Ajaccio ; the three Bonaparte brothers were absent at 
 this critical time; but the heroic Letitia was fully 
 equal to the task of providing for the safety of herself 
 and children. She despatched messengers to Joseph 
 and Napoleon by sea and land ; and gave notice that 
 they would soon arrive in the port with the represent- 
 atives of the people. She thus succeeded in paralyz- 
 ing the partisans of Paoli in the town. 
 
 While waiting for the French fleet, Signora Letitia 
 was on the point of falling into the hands of her ene- 
 mies. Eoused suddenly at midnight, she found her 
 chamber filled with armed mountaineers. She at first 
 thought herself surprised by the partisans of Paoli ; 
 but by the light of a torch she saw the countenance 
 of the chief, and felt reassured. It was Costa of Bas- 
 telica, the most devoted of the partisans of France. 
 "Quick, make haste, Signora Letitia," he exclaimed; 
 " Paoli's men are close on us. There is not a moment 
 to lose ; but I am here with my men. We Avill serve 
 you or perish." 
 
 Bastelica, one of the most populous villages of 
 Corsica, lies at the foot of Monte d'Oro. Its inhabit- 
 ants are renowned for their courage and loyalty. One 
 of the villagers had encountered a numerous body of 
 the followers of Paoli descending on Ajaccio. He 
 had learned that this troop had orders to take all the 
 Bonaparte family, dead or alive. He returned to the 
 village and roused their friends, who to the number 
 of three hundred, armed, and preceded their enemies 
 by a forced march to Ajaccio. Signora Letitia and 
 her children rose from their beds, and in the center of 
 the column left the town in silence, the inhabitants 
 being still asleep. They penetrated the deepest recesses 
 of the mountains, and at daybreak halted in a forest 
 in sight of the sea. Several times the fugitives heard,
 
 14 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 from their eucampment, the troops of the enemy in the 
 neighboring valley, but they escaped the risk of an 
 encounter. The same day the flames rising in dense 
 columns from the town, attracted attention. ''That 
 is your house now burning," said one of her friends to 
 Letitia. "Ah! never mind," she replied, "we will 
 build it up again much better. Vive la Fiance ! " After 
 two nights' march, the fugitives descrieU a French 
 frigate. Letitia took leave of her brave defenders, and 
 joined Joseph and Na2)olcon, who were on board the 
 vessel at Calvi with the French deputies who had been 
 sent on a mission to Corsica. The frigate turned her 
 prow toward Marseilles, where she landed the family 
 of exiles, destitute of resources, but in health and full 
 of courage. 
 
 The Eevolntion was now "glutting the public with 
 seas of blood." The murder of the king had aroused 
 the monarchs of Europe in defense of royal honor, and 
 united them in the common cause of hostility to the 
 Republican movement. In France herself, there had 
 come a reaction, and Marseilles led in the rebellion 
 against the Jacobins ; Lyons and other cities followed. 
 At Toulon, whose citizens for the most part sympa- 
 thized with the monarchists, were gathered many 
 thousands of fugitives to find protection in the strong- 
 hold of disaffection, under the expected shadow of the 
 British and Spanish fleets, riding outside of the har- 
 bor. The invitation to garrison the city was imme- 
 diately accepted, and the twenty-five ships of the line 
 with nearly as many frigates, entered the bay, and pre- 
 pared, with the munitions of war on board, to fortify 
 the town. This was no timid show of opposition to 
 tlie leaders of the Revolution, and startled amid the 
 madness of epidemic terror and conflicting passions, 
 they sent forward two armies, to besiege and capture
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 15 
 
 Toulon. Cartaux, a self-conceited officer, who ex- 
 changed the painter's easel for the sword, commanded 
 the expedition. 
 
 Accompanying the regular force, were prominent 
 men, among whom was the younger Robes2:iicrre, sent 
 out to watch the movements of the army and rci)ort to 
 the central government. 
 
 These representatives of tlic people only embarrassed 
 the inefficient commander, and after protracted delay 
 and repeated disasters, which consumed three months, 
 Napoleon, with the commission to assume the com- 
 mand of the artillery, arrived on the field of action, 
 AVhether any other influence than his general character 
 as cadet, and brief experience in the regiment Le Fere, 
 had set aside objection on the ground of his youth, and 
 secured the promotion, is unknown. He saw at a glance 
 the causes of failure. The batteries were too remote 
 for more than a partial effect, and the whole numeuver- 
 ing without precision, and concentration of force upon 
 the undisturbed ranks of the enemy. The allies had 
 strengthened the fortress called Little Gibraltar, the 
 main defense of the harbor and town. It received the 
 name from its sujDposed impregnability. Cartaux 
 looked with jealous contempt upon the Corsican, and 
 shining in the profusion of official decorations, gave 
 him to understand that he was not needed, but might 
 share in the glory of the enterprise. The vain chief 
 was superseded by Doppet, a plmician, and greater 
 coward than himself. Xext came General Dugommier, 
 a man of energy and intelligence, who entered at once 
 into Napoleon's comprehensive and decisive plans. 
 Subordinate officers were chosen by Bonaparte, and his 
 train, of two hundred guns, prepared for assault. His 
 design was simple and perfect in outline. To the inter- 
 ference of the deputies, on espionage, who suggested
 
 16 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 an improvement, he replied, '"' Do you attend to your 
 duty as National Commissioners, and I will answer for 
 mine with my head." His eye was on Little Gibraltar, 
 the possession of whose promontory, he assured the 
 general-in-chief, would give them the sweeping fire of 
 the harbor, and compel the naval force to retire. A 
 few weeks earlier the stronghold would have been taken 
 Avith easy conquest. But now it frowned upon them 
 Avith solid walls, and lines of silent cannon, behind 
 which were brave men from the invading armies, con- 
 fident of victory. At one extremity of the town was 
 the small fort . Malbosquet, in a plantation of olives, 
 behind which Bonaparte, unobserved by the enemy, 
 erected a battery, from which he determined to open a 
 fire, to divert attention from the grand assault. With 
 sleepless energy, snatching a short repose at night, 
 wrapped in his cloak beside his guns, he multijDlied 
 batteries toward the fortress. One day during the prog- 
 ress of the siege, the deputies performing their accus- 
 tomed survey of the works, discovered the battery near 
 Malbosquet, and when told it had been ready for action 
 eight days, ordered an immediate cannonade. It had 
 not entered their minds, that a prospective and not a 
 present use was the reason for inactioii. The English 
 made an effective onset, and spiked the guns. Napo- 
 leon hastened to the scene of conflict. " On his arrival 
 on the eminence behind, he perceived a long, deep 
 ditch, fringed with brambles and willows, whicli he 
 thought might be turned to advantage. He caused 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 com- 
 mander, mistook them when they appeared for some 
 of his own allies, and rushing out to give tliem some 
 orders, was wounded and made prisoner. Tiie English
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 17 
 
 were dispirited when they lost their general ; they re- 
 treated ; 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 
 the thigh, and fell into the arms of Mniron, who carried 
 him off the field. Such was the commencement of their 
 brotherly friendship." 
 
 It was after this slaughter that Napoleon is said to 
 have remarked to Louis, his brother, who visited him 
 in camp, " All these men have been needlessly sacrificed. 
 Had intelligence commanded here, none of these lives 
 need have been lost. Learn from this how indispensable 
 it is that those should possess knowledge who aspire to 
 assume command over others." While constructing a 
 battery under the fire of the allies, he had a despatch 
 to prepare, and called for a soldier who could write. 
 A youthful sergeant sprang out of the ranks and leaning 
 n|)on the breast-works, wrote at the dictation of Napo- 
 leon. As he made the last stroke of the pen, a ball 
 struck the ground so near, the dust fell in a cloud upon 
 him and the paper. With a laugh, he exclaimed, 
 "Good, this time we shall do without sand." This 
 pleasantry indicating the greatest coolness and self-com- 
 mand arrested the attention of Napoleon. The amanu- 
 ensis was Junot, soon afterward promoted to command, 
 and subsequently I>uke of Abrantes ; and who profanely 
 said, " I love Napoleon as my God. To him I am in- 
 debted for all that I am." 
 
 At another time a cavalcade of carriages arrived at 
 Toulon, bringing more than fifty men, dressed in 
 flaunting uniform, who desired an interview with the 
 general. When admitted to his presence, one of the 
 company presented this address : " Citizen-general, we 
 come from Paris. The patriots are indignant at your 
 inactivity and delay. The soil of the republic has been
 
 18 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 violated. She trembles to think that the insnlt is still 
 unavenged. Slie asks why is Toulon not taken ? Why 
 is the English fleet not yet destroyed ? In her indig- 
 nation she lias appealed to her brave sons. We have 
 obeyed her summons, and burn with imj^atience to ful- 
 fil her expectations. AYe are volunteer gunners from 
 Paris. Furnish us with arms. To-morrow we will 
 march against the enemy." 
 
 Napoleon aside, said to Dugommier, ''' Turn those 
 gentlemen over to me, I will take care of thein ! " 
 
 He gave them the control of a park of artillery near 
 the sea-shore, and bade them sink an English frigate 
 whose swarming decks lay within range of the guns. 
 Suddenly a broadside came like a hail-storm about their 
 heads. The recruits fled, and trouble Avitli them was 
 over. 
 
 Then came the decisive day ; the 10th of December, 
 1793, when the general assault was ordered ; and the 
 terrific conflict opened. Najioleon, in accordance with 
 his original tactics, poured a storm of shells on different 
 23oints of the fortress, to confuse the enemy, while 
 they fell incessantly also upon the devoted city. In an 
 astonishingly brief time, eight thousand bombshells 
 had exploded in the enemy's works, and laid them in 
 a heap of ruins. The soldiers rushed throngh the 
 storm of rain and fire into the embrasures, and cut 
 down the garrison with the sword. The streets of 
 Toulon ran blood, when the tricolor waved on the 
 shattered ramparts, and Napoleon said to General 
 Dugommier, " Go and sleep. We have taken Toulon." 
 It was taken, but with carnage, through which the 
 name of Bonaparte rose toward the zenith of that glory 
 wliich flooded a hundred battle-fields, of Avhich Toulon 
 was the sanguinary sample. 
 
 The blow was struck which decided the conflict ; but
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 19 
 
 conflagratioa and slaughter continned. Lord Howe, 
 tlie English commander, saw that the city must follow 
 tlie surrender of the fortress, and prepared to abandon 
 it to the foe. When the inhabitants beheld the lonsr 
 l)rocessions of the sick and wounded moving toward 
 the shii:)s, they knew their doom was sealed. The 
 Vessels which could not be employed with safety, were 
 collected and a fire-ship sent among them. Beneath 
 the lurid flames of their burning, the explosion of shells 
 and magazines, and the shrieks of the dying, Avhose 
 homes were pierced by the ceaseless cannonade, twenty 
 thousand of the royalists gathered on the shore implor- 
 ing deliverance from the exasperated enemy. 
 
 The fleet at length moved out of harbor, and the 
 Eepublicans rushed into Toulon. A double vengeance 
 burned in their bosoms ; rage because of the rebellion 
 against Jacobin reign, and revenge for having invited 
 a foreign alliance to strengthen and shield their revolt. 
 A hundred and fifty poor working men were summoned 
 together under the impression that they were to be 
 employed in repairing the demolished forts, when a 
 volley of musketry cut them down. A wealthy old 
 merchant was executed to obtain his millions. For 
 these excesses, neither Dugommier nor Kapoleon was 
 responsible. Their authority was in vain, while the 
 madness of vengeance and lust ruled the hour. By 
 this victory insurrection was quelled, and the control 
 of the army secured. 
 
 Bonaparte, whose agency in the achievement was 
 concealed as far as possible by the jealous representa- 
 tives of the people, made an impression that reached 
 the government ; and he was appointed to survey and 
 put in order of defense the entire coast of France, 
 lying on the Mediterranean Sea. With characteristic 
 energy he accomplished in a few weeks his responsible
 
 2G LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 and extensive work, and immediately joined the army 
 at Nice, with an additional promotion to the post of 
 chief of battalion. He infused his enthusiasm and 
 self-reliance into the army of Italy, and soon General 
 Dumerbion with Massena and Xapoleon was leading 
 the troops to conquest. 
 
 Possession of tlie maritime Alps was gained, and the 
 way prepared for advancing into Italy. Still was the 
 genius of Napoleon kept in comparative obscurity by 
 the silence of his superior officers, who assumed the 
 honors of victory. He was superseded in command, 
 and soon after, July 28, 1794, arrested upon the charge 
 of interest in measures hostile to the policy of the 
 dominant party, which hud taken the reins of govern- 
 ment from the bloody hands of that 2)rince of homi- 
 cides, Eobespierre. 
 
 Albitti and Salicetti, who succeeded the terrorists 
 as representatives of the people, influenced by the mis- 
 representations of his enemies, or jealous of the young 
 Corsican, whose rapid advancement astonished them, 
 ordered the arrest. Had it occurred a few weeks 
 earlier, it would doubtless have added him to the 
 myriads despatched by the guillotine. He made his 
 statement, affirming his innocence, and was immediately 
 released from confinement. Tlio officer who opened 
 his prison door, found him intensely engaged with the 
 map of Lombardy, evidently conscious of work yet to 
 do on the pictured plains, whence came to his fancy's 
 car the tramp of moving battalions. The prejudice 
 attending this unjust incarceration, was manifest in the 
 attempt to change his rank in the army ; and he in- 
 dignantly resigned his position, and returned to tlie 
 family residence in Marseilles. The resources of the 
 Bonapartes were small, and destitution cast its shadows 
 about their home. But while there, he again fell in
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 21 
 
 love. Eugenie Desiree Clery, an attractive and ac- 
 complished yonng lady, a mercliaut's daughter, became 
 the object of reciprocated affection. But circumstances 
 did not i^ermit him to marry, and the affair was broken 
 off. She subsequently became the wife of Bernadotte, 
 and was the queen of Sweden ; her sister married 
 Joseph, the brother of Napoleon. 
 
 The youthful soldier seems to have been honorable 
 in all matters of friendship, and without the vices of 
 the times. He had raised his aspirations above the 
 effeminate pleasures of sensual indulgence, and the 
 destructive vortex of atheistical debauchery. 
 
 After a brief enjoyment of his attachment, he turned 
 away from the seclusion of his destitute dwelling, and 
 went to Paris to seek employment. Referring to these 
 months of inactivity, in the last years of his life, he 
 gives us a glimpse of the darkness which eclipsed the 
 rising sun of his glory, and well-nigh quenched its 
 light: 
 
 ''I was at this period, on one occasion, suffering 
 from that extreme depression of spirit which suspends 
 the faculties of the brain, and renders life a burden 
 too heavy to be borne. I had just received a letter 
 from my mother revealing to me the utter destitution 
 into which she was plunged. She had been com- 
 pelled to flee from the war with which Corsica was 
 desolated, and was then at Marseilles, with no means 
 of subsistence, and having naught but her heroic 
 virtues to defend the honor of her daughters against 
 the misery and corruption of all kinds existing in the 
 manners of the epoch of social chaos. I also, deprived 
 of my salary, and v/ith exhausted resources, had but 
 one single dollar in my pocket. Urged by animal in- 
 stinct to escape from prospects so gloomy, and from 
 sorrows so unendurable, I wandered along the bankft
 
 22 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 of the river, feeling that it was unmanly to commit 
 snicide, and yet unable to resist the temptation to do 
 so. In a few more moments I should have thrown 
 myself into the water, when I ran against an individual 
 dressed like a simple mechanic, who, recognizing 
 me, threw himself upon my neck, and cried, 'Is it 
 you. Napoleon ? How glad I am to see you again.' 
 It was Demasis, an old friend and former comrade of 
 mine in the artillery regiment. He had emigrated, 
 and afterward had returned to France in disguise, to 
 see his aged mother. He was about to leave me, when 
 stopping, he exclaimed, * But what is the matter, Na- 
 poleon ? You do not listen to me ! You do not seem 
 glad to see me. What misfortune threatens you ? 
 You look to me like a madman about to kill himself. 
 This direct appeal to the feelings which had seized 
 upon me produced such an effect upon my mind, that 
 without hesitation I revealed to him everything. *Is 
 that all ? " said he, unbuttoning his coarse waistcoat 
 and detaching a belt which he placed in my hands. 
 ' Here are six thousand dollars in gold, which I can 
 spare without any inconvenience. Take them and 
 relieve your mother.' I cannot to this day explain 
 how I could have been willing to receive the money, 
 but I seized the gold as by a convulsive movement, 
 and I ran to send it to my distressed mother/ 
 
 The deed was scarcely done before Napoleon rej)ented, 
 and tried to find the generous Demasis, but in vain. 
 He was afterward repaid with a royal gift of sixty 
 thousand dollars, and an office worth six thousand 
 more. 
 
 Napoleon was disappointed in his efforts to obtain 
 honorable activity. When Anbury, the president of 
 the military committee, objected to his youth, when 
 his request for an appointment was presented, Na-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 2?> 
 
 poleou re])lie(.l, " Presence in tlie field of battle might 
 he re(!kuiie(l in pluce of years." The flash of inde- 
 pendence was resented as an insult, and increased the 
 diftlculties between him and his desired position in the 
 ai-ni}'. 
 
 A few of his letters written about this time, will 
 possess great interest, because they are the confidential 
 expressions of his experience and plans. 
 
 XAPOLEOX TO JOSEPH. 
 
 Paris, June 25, 1795. 
 
 *' I will execute your wife's commissions immediately. 
 Desiree asks me for your portrait ; 1 am going to 
 have it painted ; you will give it to her if she still 
 wishes for it; if not, keep it for j'ourself. In whatever 
 circumstances you may be placed by fortune, you 
 know well, my friend, that yon cannot have a better 
 or a dearer friend than myself, or one who wishes more 
 sincerely for your happiness. Life is a flimsy dream, 
 soon to be over. If you are going away, and you 
 think that it may be for some time, send me your 
 portrait ; we have lived together for so many years, 
 so closely united, that our hearts have become one, 
 and you know best how entirely mine belongs to you. 
 While I write these lines I feel an emotion which I 
 have seldom experienced. I fear it will be long before 
 we see each other again, and I can write no more.'' 
 
 We have here evidences of deep despondency, and 
 warm affections toward his family friends. In the 
 next communication quoted, the scene is changed. 
 
 ifAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 July 25, 1795. 
 
 "I am appointed General in the Army of the West ; 
 but uiy illness keeps me here. I expect more detailed
 
 24 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 accounts from you. I suppose that you purposely avoid 
 telling me any thing of Desiree ; I do not know whether 
 she is still alive. 
 
 *' All goes on well here. In the south alone there 
 has been a little disturbance, got up by the young 
 people ; it is mere childish folly. 
 
 " On the 15th the Committee of Public Safety is to be 
 partially renewed ; I hope that they will choose good 
 people. Reinforcements are being sent to the Army of 
 Italy ; would you like me to go there ? 
 
 " Your letters are very dry : you are so prudent and 
 laconic that you tell me nothing. When will you 
 return ? I do not think that your affairs need keep 
 you away beyond the month of Thermidor. 
 
 *'It is not certain that Lanjuinais' motion will pass ; 
 it is possible that no change may be made with respect 
 to the retrospective effect. It would be committing 
 the same fault in principle. I sent to you at the time, 
 Lanjuinais' report.* Good-by, my dear friend ; health, 
 gaiety, happiness, and pleasure to you." 
 
 Soon after, he closed a letter with these words of 
 lively hope, and kindling ambition for distinction : 
 
 '' Good-by, my dear friend ; be cautious as to the 
 future, and satisfied witli the present ; be gay, and 
 learn to amuse yourself. As for me I am happy. I 
 only want to find myself on the battle-field ; a soldier 
 must either win laurels or perish gloriously." 
 
 Again he writes, '^ Fesch seems to wish to return to 
 Corsica after the peace ; he is always the same, living 
 in the future, sending me letters of six pages about 
 
 ♦ The motion and the report of Lanjuinais were in favor of tlie repeal of 
 the law of the 17th Nivose, which applied the rule of equal partition to all 
 successions which had occurred since the 1 1th July, 1T80, without regard to 
 any Intermediate acts or settlements. Lanjuinais denounced the injus- 
 tice of this retrospective legislation. His report here alluded to is to be 
 found in the Moniteur of the 7th August, 1795. 
 
 i
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 2.") 
 
 some subtlety, no broader thau a needle's point ; the 
 present no more to him than the jjast, the future is 
 everything. As for me, little attached to life, con- 
 templating it without much solicitude, constantly in 
 the state of mind in which one is on the day before 
 battle, feeling that, while death is always amongst us 
 to put an end to all, anxiety is folly — everything joins 
 to make me defy fortune and fate ; in time I shall not 
 get out of the way when a carriage comes. I sometimes 
 wonder at my own state of mind. It is the result of 
 what I have seen, and what I have risked." 
 
 Sadness will rest upon the contemplative reader, in 
 view of the total absence of religious feeling ; that fine 
 sense of moral responsibility, which subdues within the 
 limits of pure and elevated action, the loftiest intellect, 
 and invests the life and the death of the humblest in- 
 dividual with solemn interest. He afterward alludes 
 to the expedition, respecting which he is said to have 
 remarked jestingly to a friend, " How singular it 
 would be if a little Corsican officer were to become 
 king of Jerusalem." 
 
 NAPOLEO^f TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Paris, August 20, 1795. 
 
 " I am attached for the present to the topographical 
 board of the Committee of Public Safety for the direc- 
 tion of the armies ; I replace Carnot. If I ask for it, 
 I can be sent to Turkey as general of artillery, com- 
 missioned by the Government to organize the Grand 
 Seignior's artillery, with a good salary and a very flatter- 
 ing diplomatic title. I would have you appointed 
 consul, and Villeneuve * accompany me as engineer ; 
 you say that Danthoine is tliere already ; therefore, 
 
 • M. Villeneuve was Postmaster-General under the Empire, and brother 
 io-law to Tfitig Joseph, having married one of the demoiselles Clery.
 
 20 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 before a month is over I should arrive in Genoa ; we 
 should go together to Leghorn, where we sliould em- 
 Lark : considering all this, will you purchase an 
 estate ? 
 
 " We are quiet here, but perhaps storms may be 
 brewing ; the primary assemblies Avill meet in a few 
 days. I shall take Avith me five or six officers ; I will 
 write to you more in detail to-morrow. 
 
 " Vado will soon be retaken. 
 
 '' The resolutions of the Committee of Public Safety 
 appointing me director of the armies, and of the jalans 
 of the campaign, have been so flattering to me, that I 
 fear that they will not let me go to Turkey ; we shall 
 see. I am to look at a villa to-day. I embrace you. 
 Continue to write to me as if I were going to Turkey." 
 
 The abandonment of a foreign field of action, with 
 a hint at the spell which love threw over his restless 
 heart, are given in the subjoined letter : 
 
 NAPOLEON" TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Paris, September 5, 1795. 
 
 " The Committee have decided that it is impossible 
 ior me to leave France during the war. I am to be 
 reappointed to tlio artillery, and I shall probably con- 
 tinue to attend the Committee. The elections and the 
 primary assemblies take place on the day after to- 
 morrow : the peace witli Ilesse-Cassel is concluded. 
 
 " National property and emigrants' estates are not 
 dear, but those belonging to individuals go for extrav- 
 agant prices. 
 
 "If I stay here it is possible that I may be fool 
 enough to marry ; I wish for a few words from you on
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 27 
 
 Mie subject. Perhaps it would be well to speak to 
 Eugenie's brother. Let me kuow the result, and all 
 shall be settled. 
 
 *' Chauvet, who is goiug to Nice in ten days, will 
 take you the books which you asked for. 
 
 "The celebrated Bishop of Autun* and General 
 Montesquieu are allowed to return ; they are struck 
 out of the list of emigrants." 
 
 Bonaparte's career up to this time, had prepared him 
 for his mission. In Corsica, he was cradled in tho 
 midst of political agitation ; and hostile from his boy- 
 hood to the subjugation of the island, he became medi- 
 tative and reserved, nourishing that self-reliance and 
 independence of character, which made him at Brienne 
 a sullen solitaire, and target of raillery to his fellow- 
 students. While this strengthened his sublime decision, 
 and quickened his keen observation of human nature, 
 it gave him that appearance of severity and contempt 
 for man, which distinguished his manner when min- 
 gling with promiscuous societ}'. 
 
 He was at this date, twenty-six. The dark complex- 
 ion of early years had worn off under the mild sky of 
 France ; but a contagious disease he had taken at Tou- 
 lon, from a soldier, and which penetrated his system 
 with malignant power, so reduced his frame that his 
 flashing eye seemed set in the sockets of a skeleton. 
 He was soon to be an actor in the drama of European 
 revolutions. 
 
 The Convention had lost favor with the multitude, 
 and a new step was demanded in the march of revolution. 
 A constitution was formed, securing a Directory of five, 
 the executive ; a Council of five hundred, the House 
 of Commons ; and the Council of Ancients, answering 
 
 •TaUeyrand.
 
 28 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 to the Euglish Peers. The Convention, unwilling to 
 part with authority, made it a condition of acceptance, 
 that the second division should include two thirds of 
 their niemhers. This excited the Parisians, especially 
 the superior classes, who were indignant because it dis- 
 closed an arbitrary and selfish tenacity of power. The 
 city was divided into ninety-six sections or wards, forty- 
 eight of which were in favor of the constitution, 
 and the other half rejected it, including the Royalists 
 and Jacobins. The extremes thus made common 
 cause against the new order of things. 
 
 With these insurrectionary sections, the National 
 Guard united, and the forces prepared to attack the 
 Tuilleries, and compel the assembly to meet the wishes 
 of the majority, and change their measures. With five 
 hundred regular troops, and the remnant of Robespierre's 
 ruffian army, the Convention prepared to resist the 
 onset. Menou assumed the command, and failed to fill 
 the perilous position. While his indecision alarmed the 
 body still in session, Barras exclaimed, as if a sudden 
 revelation had aroused him, " I have the man whom you 
 want : it is a little Corsican officer, who tvill not stand 
 iipon ceremony.^* This expression determined the 
 destiny of Napoleon. He was soon in command, and 
 the 13tli Vendemaire (October 5th), planted his cannon 
 at the cross-streets and bridges, sweeping with his hail 
 of death the advancing columns of the insurgents, till 
 the pavements were covered with the slain, and the 
 flame of rebellion extinguished in blood. The new 
 order of things was established, and Barras, the presid- 
 ing spirit, obtained for Bonaparte the generalship of the 
 Army of the Interior, and the office of commandant of 
 Paris. He was now no longer a unit among the many, 
 but the military chieftain of a kingdom. 
 
 He thus communicates the intelligence to Joseph :
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 29 
 
 NAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 Paris, night of the 13-14 Veudemaire, 3 in 
 the morning [October 6], 179G. 
 
 "At last all is over. My first impulse is to think of 
 yon, and to tell yon my news. The royalists, organized 
 in their sections, became every day more insolent. The 
 Convention ordered the section Lepelletier to be dis- 
 armed. It repulsed the troops. Menou, who was 
 in command, is said to have betrayed us. He was in- 
 stantly superseded. The Convention appointed Barras 
 to command the military force ; the committees ap- 
 pointed me second in command. We made our dispo- 
 sitions ; the enemy marched to attack us in the Tuil- 
 leries. "We killed many of them ; they killed thirty 
 of our men, and wounded sixty. We have disarmed 
 the factions, and all is quiet. As usual, I was not 
 wounded. 
 
 ** P. S. Fortune favors me. My respects to Eugenie 
 and to Julie." 
 
 Charged with the v.^ork of disarming the conquered 
 citizens, he obtained the sword of the Viscount De 
 Beauharnais, a blade its moklering possessor never 
 dishonored. Eugene, in his boyish enthusiasm, re- 
 solved to have the weapon wielded by a father he loved 
 and lamented. Presenting himself to Napoleon he 
 made his request — the general was struck with his 
 earnestness and manly bearing, and restored the relic, 
 which he bore away bathed with tears. The next 
 day Josephine called at the commandant's head-quar- 
 ters, to thank him in person for his kindness. This 
 increased the interest Napoleon had entertained for her 
 since through the Triendship of Barras he formed her 
 acquaintance in the social circles of Paris. It is related 
 that before he indulged serious intentions of marrying
 
 30 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Madame Beanharnais he offered himself to Madame De 
 Permon, an old family friend, and an interesting widow, 
 but was rejected. However this may be, he was deeply 
 smitten with the charms of the lovely woman, whose son 
 had given assurance of her excellent qualities in his own 
 admirable behavior. The increasing attachment was 
 every way favorable to Napoleon's plans and advance- 
 ment, but a subject of painful solicitude to her, which 
 is well expressed in a letter of some length, affording 
 also further insight into a heart cultivated no less than 
 her genius : 
 
 " My dear friend, I am urged to marry again ; my 
 friends counsel the measure, my aunt almost lays her 
 injunctions to the same effect, and my children entreat 
 my compliance. Why are you not here to give me 
 your advice in this important conjuncture ? to persuade 
 me that I ought to consent to a union which must put 
 an end to the irksomeness of my present position ? Your 
 friendship, in which I have already experienced so 
 much to praise, would render you clear-sighted for my 
 interests ; and I should decide without hesitation as 
 soon as you had spoken. You have met General Bona- 
 parte in my house. Well ! — he it is who would supply 
 a father's place to the orphans of Alexander de Beau- 
 harnais, and a husband's to his widow. 
 
 ** * Do you love him ? ' youwill ask. Not exactly. ' You 
 then dislike him?' Not quite so bad; but I find 
 myself in that state of indifference which is anything 
 but agreeable, and which to devotees in religion gives 
 more trouble than all their other peccadilloes. Love, 
 being a species of worship, also requires that one feel 
 very differently from all this; and hence the need I 
 have of your advice, which might fix the perpetual 
 irresolution of my feeble character. To assume a 
 determination has ever appeared fatiguing to my Creole
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 31 
 
 snpineness, which finds it infinitely more convenient to 
 follow the will of others. 
 
 "I admire the general's courage, the extent of liis 
 information — for on all subjects he talks equally well 
 — and the quickness of his judgment, which enables 
 him to seize the thoughts of others almost before they 
 are expressed ; but, I confess it, I shrink from the 
 despotism he seems desirous of exercising over all who 
 ajiproach him. His searching glance has something 
 singular and inexi:)licable, which imposes even on our 
 Directors : judge if it may not intimidate a woman I 
 Even, what ought to please me, the force of a passion, 
 described with an energy that leaves not a doubt of his 
 sincerity, is precisely the cause which arrests the con- 
 sent I am often on the point of pronouncing. 
 
 " Being now past the heyday of youth, can I hope 
 long to preserve that ardor of attachment which, in 
 the general resembles a fit of delirium ? If, after our 
 union, he should cease to love me, will he not reproach 
 me with what he will have sacrificed for my sake ? — 
 will he not regret a more brilliant marriage which he 
 might have contracted ? What shall I then reply ? — 
 what shall I do ? I shall weep. Excellent resource ! 
 you will say. Good heavens ! I know that all this 
 can serve no end; but it has ever been thus ; tears are 
 the only resources left me when this poor heart, so 
 easily chilled, has suffered. Write quickly, and do 
 not fear to scold me, should you judge that I am wrong. 
 You know that whatever comes from your pen will be 
 taken in good part. 
 
 " Barras gives assurance, that if I marry the general, 
 he will so contrive as to have him appointed to the com- 
 mand of the army of Italy. Yesterday, Bonaparte, speak- 
 ing of this favor, which already excites murmuring 
 among his fellow-soldiers, though it be as yet only a
 
 32 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 promise, said to me, ' Think they then, I have need of 
 their protection to arrive at power ? Egregious mis- 
 take ! They will all be but too happy one day shouM I 
 condescend to grant them mine. My sword is by my 
 side, and with it I will go far.' 
 
 *' What say you to this security of success ? Is it not 
 a proof of confidence springing from an excess of vanity ? 
 A general of brigade protect tlie heads of government! 
 That, truly, is an event highly probable ! I know 
 not how it is, but sometimes this waywardness gains 
 upon me to such a degree, that almost I believe possible 
 whatever this singular man may take it into his head 
 to attempt ; and with his imagination, who can calculate 
 what he will not undertake ? 
 
 '* Here, we all regret you and console ourselves for your 
 prolonged absence only by thinking of you every 
 minute, and by endeavoring to follow you step by step 
 through the beautiful country you are now traversing. 
 Were I sure of meeting you in Italy, I would get mar- 
 ried to-morrow, upon condition of following the gen- 
 eral ; but we might perhaps cross each other on the 
 route ; thus I deem it more prudent to wait for your 
 reply before taking my determination. Speed, then, 
 your answer — and your return still more. 
 
 " Madame Tallien gives me in commission to tell you, 
 that she loves you tenderly. She is always beautiful 
 and good ; employing her immense influence only to 
 obtain pardon for the unfortunate who address them- 
 selves to her ; and adding to her acquiescence an air of 
 satisfaction, which gives her the appearance of being 
 the person obliged. Her friendship for me is ingenuous 
 and affectionate. I assure you that the love I bear to- 
 ward her resembles my affection for you. This will 
 give you an idea of the attachment I feel for 
 her. Hortense becomes more and more amiable ; her
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 33 
 
 charming fignre develops itself : and I should have 
 fitting occasion, if so inclined, to make troublesome 
 reflections upon villainous Time, which merely adorns 
 one at the expense of another. Happily, I have got 
 quite a different crotchet in my head at present, and 
 skip all dismals in order to occupy my thoughts solely 
 with a future which promises to he hapj)y, since we 
 shall soon be reunited, never again to be separated. 
 Were it not for this marriage, which puts me out, I 
 should, despite of all, be gay ; but while it remains to 
 be disposed of, I shall torment myself ; once concluded, 
 come wliat may, I shall be resigned. I am habituated 
 to suffering ; and if destined to fresh sorrows, I think 
 I can endure them, provided my children, my aunt, 
 and you were spared me. "We have agreed to cut short 
 the conclusions of our letters, so adieu, my friend." 
 
 It is very apparent, that Josephine was more deeply 
 interested in her admirer than she would have her 
 friend believe ; and asking counsel was only declaring 
 both her passion and intention to marry. The months 
 departed, and Napoleon, though environed with duties 
 which attended his appointment, retired at evening to 
 the mansion of Madame Beauharnais, to hear the mel- 
 ody of her voice, and enjoy an interlude for romantic 
 pleasure, amid the stormy scenes that opened before 
 his feet the path of glory. With a few select friends, 
 among whom Madame Tallien was conspicuous, there 
 were frequent meetings of the parties, and brilliant 
 entertainments, which extended the friendship and in- 
 fluence of the commander-in-chief, among the very class 
 the most available in carrying forward his ambitious 
 schemes, already towering above Alpine summits, and 
 embracing thrones which had withstood the flow of 
 centuries. 
 
 Josephine has left her testimony respecting the fine 
 3
 
 34 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 conversational powers of her lover — which is proof of his 
 ability in this department, whenever he chose to indulge 
 tlie abandon of wit, and compliment in the society of 
 women, for whom, it is well known, he entertained but 
 a light opinion ; owing doubtless to the frivolous 
 character and easy virtue of the majority of those he met 
 in the gay society of the metropolis. 
 
 The spring-time S2:)read beauty again over the valleys 
 of unha^jpy France, wliile the tocsin of war fell on the 
 eager ear of Xapoleon. How the waving foliage nour- 
 ished by the decaying dead, the bending sky, and the 
 harmonies of nature filling it, mocked the mournful 
 dwellings and breaking hearts, whose tramj)led vine- 
 yards were a symbol of what madness had wrought, 
 and an index of future desolation by the shock of 
 contending armies ! But Napoleon listened only to 
 the ravishing tones of love, and the sweeter notes of 
 fame's shrill trumpet ; for his jDulse jiever beat so wildly 
 with hope and enthusiasm before. 
 
 He led Josephine to the altar according to revolu- 
 tionary form, which was a simple presentation before 
 the proper magistrate, March 9th, 179G. Barras and 
 Tallien witnessed the ceremony, and signed with Le- 
 marois, an aid-de-camp, and Calmelet, a lawyer, the 
 act recorded in the state register of Paris. 
 
 Twelve days later he bade adieu to his bride and was 
 on his way to the plains of Italy — a parting that blended 
 in one tide of strong emotion, the afPection of an ardent, 
 impetuous spirit, and the glowing desire to encircle his 
 brow with laurels, that 
 
 " would burn 
 
 And rend his temples in return "
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEUN BONAPARTE. 35 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Napoluon is appointed to the chief oomniand.— His youth.— Leaves Paris 
 for Nice. — Visits his mother. — Tlie contending armies. — The character 
 of Napoleon. — His new tactics.— His address to the soldiers. — The objects 
 of the campaign. — The route of passing the Alps. — The conflict. — The 
 victory.— The pursuit of the Austriaus.— Reaches Cherasco, near Turin. 
 — Dictates terms of peace to the king of Sardinia. — Again addresses the 
 army.— His knowledge of men. — florals.— Crosses the Po.— Battle of 
 Lodi.— Napoleon at Milan. — Letter to Joseph. — Treaty with the dukes of 
 Parma and Modena. — .Vddress to the army. — Jealousy of the Directory. 
 — Napoleon pursues the Austrians.— Insurrection in Lombardy. — Treaty 
 with the Vatican.— Wurmzer appointed to the command.— The Austrians 
 advance. — Battle of Lonato. — Napoleon's peril — Incidents.— Letter to 
 Joseph. — Castiglione. — Retreat of Wurmzer. — Mantua besieged. — Alvinzi 
 sent into Italy.— The battles of Areola.— Alvinzi routed. — Battle of Rivoli. 
 — Mantua surrenders. — Letter to Josephine.— Napoleon's success. 
 
 A FORTNIGHT before his marriage, Napoleon was 
 appointed commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. 
 The quiet in the capital, directed the attention of the 
 government to the condition of the troops. The dis- 
 sijKited general, whose place had been given to Xapoleon, 
 left the army, numbering fifty thousand men, destitute, 
 and exposed to a powerful enemy. Cavalry and food 
 were wanting ; clothing was insufficient, and the very 
 sinews of war were weakening every day, while the 
 dangers were augmenting. Of the new general, Barras 
 said to the Directory, ''^Advance this man, or he will 
 advance himself v/ithout you." And when one of 
 them remarked, " You are rather young to assume re- 
 sponsibilities so weighty, and to take command of our 
 veteran generals,^' he replied, '' In one year I shall 
 either be old or dead." Three days after the marriage 
 ceiemonies, he hastened toward the headquarters of his 
 baiialions.
 
 ^6 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 At Marseilles, he stopped to see liis mother, for whom 
 he always manifested a noble filial affection. It was a 
 splendid summit of distinction for her son, who had 
 passed the line of minority but five years before ; and 
 we may believe that this interview and the adieu, were 
 fraught with materjial tenderness and pride. The 
 Corsican fugitives were already on the grand arena of 
 European revolutions, to which the anxious eyes of the 
 world were turning. A regicide people were forming 
 institutions hostile to the peace and stability of sur- 
 rounding thrones, and " the kings of the earth took 
 counsel together" against the republic. 
 
 There is nothing marvelous in the contest. France, 
 without either political or moral elements of govern- 
 ment and growth after the example of our own, awak- 
 ened the fears of those who undoubtingly "believed in 
 the divine right of kings. Nor does the general view 
 affect decisively the question of Napoleon's motives and 
 character, tried by the standard of a pure philanthropy, 
 patriotism, and Christian ethics. 
 
 The letters already quoted, and the subsequent his- 
 tory, will prove him to have been ambitious in the 
 highest degree of personal, family, and national glory. 
 Gifted, generous in his impulses, and correct in morals, 
 he identified himself with the destiny of France, with 
 her, and through her to carve a way to the most daz- 
 zling eminence of renown from which youthful or 
 maturest footsteps ever sent down their echoes to 
 applauding millions. 
 
 Such was Napoleon when he arrived at Nice. Ram- 
 pon, one of the officers, volunteered some words of 
 counsel. He resented the impertinence with his own 
 matchless expression of superiority, adding with spirit, 
 " Gentlemen, the art of war is in its infancy. The 
 time has passed in which enemies are mutually to
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 37 
 
 appoint tlie phice of combat, advance, hat in hand, and 
 say, ' Gentlenien, io ill you have the goodness to firef 
 We most cut the enemy in pieces, precipitate ourselves 
 like a torrent upon their battalions, and grind them to 
 powder. Experienced generals conduct the troops 
 opposed to us ! So much the better — so much the 
 better. It is not their experience which will avail 
 them against ine. Mark my words, they will soon 
 burn their books on tactics, and know not what to do. 
 Yes, gentlemen I the first onset of the Italian army 
 will give birth to a new epoch in military affairs. As 
 for us, we must hurl ourselves on the foe like a thunder- 
 bolt, and smite like it. Disconcerted by our tactics, 
 and not daring to put them into execution, they will 
 fly before us as the shades of night before the uprising 
 sun." It was this sublimeh^ bold utterance, which 
 drew from Augereau the remark, " We have here a 
 man who will cut out some work for government, I 
 think." 
 
 His first address to the army was brief but effective, 
 thrilling upon their weary hearts like unearthly music. 
 " Soldiers," said he, "yon are hungry and naked ; the 
 republic owes you much, but she has not the means to 
 pay her debts. I am come to lead you into the most 
 fertile plains 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 ?" 
 
 There was a wonderful breadth of thought — a com- 
 prehensive insight into military affairs, in the tactics 
 of this officer, which astonished the veterans in com- 
 mand who surrounded him. Napoleon saw at a glance, 
 that his troops with the cumbrous, measured modes 
 of warfare, to which tlie outnumbering, disciplined 
 armies of Europe adhered, would have a faint prospect
 
 38 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 of great success. Abaudoniug ull the f'ml)arrassiug 
 L'omforts of the campaign — depending for hhelter and 
 stores on the conquered territory ; his policy was to 
 move down like the apparently lawless, and unheralded 
 toriuido, upon his enemies. The plan was original, 
 daring, and magnificent in outline and aim. He meant 
 to make the most of a demoniac system, concerning 
 which he said, "War is the science of barbarians; as 
 he who has the heaviest battalions will conquer.'" 
 
 " The objects of the a|)proaching 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 aban- 
 don the alliance of Austria ; secondly, to compel Aus- 
 tria, by a bold invasion of her rich Italian provinces, to 
 make such exertions in that quarter as might weaken 
 those armies which had so long hovered on the French 
 frontier of the Rhine ; and, if possible, to stir up the 
 Italian subjects of that crown to adopt the revolution- 
 ary system and emancipate themselves forever from its 
 yoke. The third object, though more distant, was not 
 less important. The Directory had taken umbrage 
 against the Roman Church, regarding it as the secret 
 support of royalism in France ; and to reduce the Vati- 
 can into insignificance, or at least force it to submission 
 and quiescence, appeared indispensable to the internal 
 tranquillity of the French nation.'" 
 
 The Austrian General Beaulieu, anticipating the 
 designs of Napoleon on Italy, arranged his immense 
 force to cover Genoa, and guard the Alpine passes. 
 He took a position at Voltri, ten miles from Genoa ; 
 D'Argenteau was at Monte Notte, a summit further 
 west ; while the Sardinian troops commanded by Colli. 
 were stationed at Ceva, completing the right wing of 
 the allied armies, and presenting a threatening barrier
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 39 
 
 of disuipliued soldiers, more formidable than the 
 trowning Alps to the advance of the French. To op- 
 pose and rout this overwhelming force. Napoleon 
 must rely upon the untried power of his novel plan 
 of attack,, of whicli his enemy had no intimation. To 
 cross the Alps, his design was also his own. Instead 
 of attempting any of the usual paths over the fearful 
 summits, he had decided to march along the slope be- 
 tween the precipitous ranges and the Mediterranean 
 Sea, where the Alps sink into the depression Avhich 
 divides them from the Apennines. Toward this point, 
 both armies mustered their strength, and there the 
 inferior, weakened regiments of the Directory, were 
 to encounter the splendid columns of the Austrian 
 commander. 
 
 April 11th, 179G, tlirough a pelting storm and the 
 yielding soil, he moved with incredible rapidity toward 
 Monte Notte, the strong center of the entire army. 
 When he gained the heights, he beheld before hijn 
 the encampment and the valley, where soon the die 
 would be cast ; his first great victory won, or his hopes 
 quenched in blood. The pause was brief ; the order to 
 fall on the foe was given, and the smoke of bloody con- 
 flict rolled upward from the plain, D'Argenteau finding 
 himself surrounded, was compelled to retreat, leaving 
 three thousand dead and wounded on the field. The 
 new method of attack was no longer an experiment : 
 and Bonaparte was a conqueror, and the terror of Eu- 
 rope's select battalions. 
 
 The Austrians fled to Dego ; the Sardinian wing fell 
 back to Millesimo ; and D'Argenteau endeavored to rally 
 his disheartened detachments, and form again in order 
 of battle. The next day, before the expected rein- 
 forcements from Lombardy could arrive to strengthen 
 the allies, who hoped in their new position to save Milan
 
 40 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 and Turin, Napoleon marched upon the Austrian line. 
 Augereau was sent toward Millesimo, Massena to Dego, 
 and Laharpe turned the leftflank of the commander-in- 
 chief. Each did his work well. At Dego, where 
 Beaulieu had intrenched himself, theAustrians were de- 
 feated, the general driven from his position, and three 
 thousand j)risoners taken. The Sardinians at Millesimo 
 surrendered, numbering fifteen hundred ; a disaster 
 which reduced them to a wreck, and wiped out their 
 name from the list of boastful allies. Napoleon now 
 moved on like an Alpine avalanche toward Turin the 
 capital of Sardinia. On the heights of Zeamolo, he be- 
 held, as did the crusaders the city of David from en- 
 circling hills, the glorious prize for which he fought — 
 the verdant river-veined and fertile plains of lovely Italy. 
 His troops poured down upon the promised land with de- 
 light. At Ceva he met the foe, eight thousand strong, 
 and after an indecisive conflict, overtook them again 
 near the torrent Carsuglia ; where a desperate battle 
 was fought, and the bridge crossed. Napoleon marched 
 on to Cherasco, within ten miles of Turin, where he en- 
 camped, to dictate the terms on which the king could 
 hold his throne, and the government in form and name 
 continue. He demanded, before measures for an ar- 
 mistice were considered, the surrender of Coni, Tortona, 
 and Alexandria, fortresses which bore the name of 
 " the keys of the Alps." When he discovered hesitation, 
 he sternly added, " Listen to the laws I impose upon 
 you in the name of my country, and obey, or to-morrow 
 my batteries are erected, and Turin is in flames." Thus 
 all of consequence but Turin itself was in his hands, and 
 an ambassador on his way to Paris, to conclude the treaty 
 with the kingdom, leaving his way unobstructed to carry 
 on tlie war against Austria. In less than a month the 
 young Corsican liad conquered in three grand battles.
 
 T.IFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 4| 
 
 killed, wounded and captured tweiUy-Jive iUouaand iiieii ; 
 taken eighty guns, and twenty-one standards ; and 
 that too with an army inferior in numbers, and in all 
 the appendages of the battle-field, and with compara- 
 tively an insignificant loss of men. Never before was 
 such dazzling and sanguinary conflict witnessed, and 
 the wisdom of the wise in t'he science of human slaughter 
 so utterly confounded. 
 
 Prepared to move forward to his greater enterprise, 
 he cast his eye upward to the majestic peaks that glit- 
 tered in the sunlight, and exclaimed : " Hannibal forced 
 the Alps, and we have turned them."" He then ad- 
 dressed, Avith stirring eloquence, his troops : 
 
 "■ Hitherto you have been fighting for barren rocks, 
 memorable for your valor, but useless to your country ; 
 but now your exploits equal those of the armies of Hol- 
 land and the Ehine. You were utterly destitute and you 
 have supplied all your wants. You have gained battles 
 without cannon, passed rivers without bridges, per- 
 formed forced marches without shoes, bivouacked with- 
 out strong liquors, and often without bread. None 
 but republican phalanxes, soldiers of liberty, could have 
 endured such things. Thanks for your perseverance ! 
 But, soldiers, you have done nothing — for there remains 
 much to do. Milan is not yet yours. The ashes of the 
 conquerors of Tarquin are still trampled by the assassins 
 of Basseville." 
 
 Xapoleon's consummate knowledge of human nature 
 was visible in his every act. He knew how to reach 
 the soldiers sympathy and inflame his enthusiasm. His 
 system of warfare, and his modest style of announcing 
 his successes, were all marked with the same profound 
 insight of the secret of power over the minds of men. 
 This marvelous quality of character he expressed, when 
 he remarked: *'My extreme youth when I took com-
 
 42 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Tiiaiul of the army of Italy, rendered it iiorossa,ry that 
 I should evince great reserve of manners, and the 
 utmost severity of morals. This was indispensable to 
 enable me to sustain authority over men so greatly my 
 superiors in age and experience. I pursued a line of 
 conduct in the highest degree irreproachable and ex- 
 emplary. In spotless morality I was a Cato, and must 
 have appeared such to all. I was a philosopher and a 
 sage. My supremacy could be retained only by proving 
 myself a better man than any other man in the army. 
 Had I yielded to human weaknesses, I should have lost 
 my power." 
 
 While the motive revealed cannot claim the name of 
 virtue, the morality it secured shed luster uj)on his 
 name. His position at this period in his history was 
 sublime, and his fame the admiration of the world. 
 
 The kingdom of Sardinia, comprised Nice, Savoy, 
 Montferrat, and Piedmont ; of the latter Napoleon 
 was now the undisputed master. He sent messages of 
 affection to Josephine, who in her unselfish devotion 
 rejoiced more than himself, in every conquest of his 
 battalions, and pressed on to overtake Beaulieu, who 
 had retreated behind the Po. By artful maneuvering 
 he made the Austrian general believe that he designed 
 to cross the river at Valenza, while under cover of night 
 he marched, with unequaled rapidity, eighty miles down 
 the stream in thirty-six hours, sweeping Avith him every 
 boat upon its banks. On the 7th of May, he crossed in 
 ferry boats, without the loss of a single man, in the 
 face of two reconnoitering squadrons of the enemy, who 
 gazed with bewildering amazement on the scene, and 
 he was on the plains of Lombardy. Beaulieu, upon 
 learning the successful stratagem, marclied forward, 
 hoping to give the French battle with the Po behind 
 them, to make the advantage to him as great as pos-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 43 
 
 Bible. Napoleon anticipated him in this design, ami 
 pressed on to Fombio, where the advanced divisions of 
 the two armies met on the 8th of May. The Anstrians 
 occupied the steeples, the windows, and roofs of the 
 houses, and poured down their fire on the enemy 
 crowding the streets. Before the impetuous charge of 
 the French, a third of their men fell, and the remainder 
 fled ; leaving their cannon behind. On the banks of 
 the Adda, Beaulieu drew up his army, defending every 
 passage, especially the bridge of Lodi, across which 
 he justly thought Napoleon would attempt to force a 
 transit. 
 
 The wooden bridge of Lodi formed the scene of one 
 of the most celebrated actions of the war. It was a 
 great neglect in Beaulieu to leave it standing when he 
 removed his headquarters to the east bank of the Adda ; 
 his outposts were driven rapidly through the old strag- 
 gling town of Lodi on the lOtli ; and the Frencli, 
 sheltering themselves behind the walls and the houses, 
 lay ready to attempt the passage of the bridge. Beau- 
 lieu 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 of a whole army drawn up 
 behind, is one of the most daring on record. 
 
 Bonaparte's first care was to place as many guns as he 
 could get in order, in direct opposition to this Aus^- 
 trian battery, A furious cannonade on his side of the 
 river also now commenced. The general himself ap- 
 peared 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 byAvhich they could have 
 advanced to undermine the bridge ; and it was on this 
 occasion that the soldiery, delighted with his daunt- 
 less exposure of his person, conferred on him his hon- 
 orary nickname of Tlte Little Corporal. In the mean
 
 J.J, LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 time, 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 ap- 
 pear on the enemy's flank. When that took place, Beau- 
 lieu's line, of course, showed some confusion, and 
 Napoleon instantly gave the word. A column of gren- 
 adiers, whom he had kept ready drawn up close to the 
 bridge, but under shelter of the houses, were in a mo- 
 ment wheeled to the left, and their leading files placed 
 on the bridge. They rushed on, shouting Vive la Ee- 
 publiqne ! but the storm of grape-shot for a moment 
 checked them. Bonaparte, Lannes, Berthier, and 
 Lallemagne, hurried to the front, and rallied and 
 cheered the men. The column dashed across the bridge 
 in despite of the tempest of fire that thinned them. 
 The brave Lannes was the first who reached the other 
 side, Napoleon himself the second. The Austrian ar- 
 tillery-men were bayoneted at their guns, ere the other 
 troops whom Beaulieu had removed too far back, in his 
 anxiety to avoid the French battery, could come to their 
 assistance. Beaumont pressed gallantly with his horse 
 upon the flank, and Napoleon's infantry formed rapidly 
 as they passed the bridge, and cluirged on the instant ; 
 the Austrian line became involved in inextricable confu- 
 sion, broke up and fled. The slaughter on their side 
 was great ; on the French side, there fell only tw^o 
 hundred men. With such rapidity, and consequently 
 with so little loss, did Bonaparte execute this dazzling 
 adventure — " the terrible passage," as he himself called 
 i.t, " of the bridge of Lodi." 
 
 It was, indeed, terrible to the enemy. It deprived 
 them of another excellent line of defense ; and raised 
 the enthusiasm of tlie French soldiery to a pitch of 
 irresistible daring. Beaulieu, nevertheless, contrived to
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 45 
 
 withdraw his troops in much better style than Bona- 
 parte had anticipated. He gatliered the scattered 
 fragments of his force together, and soon threw the line 
 of the Mincio, a tributary of tlie Po, between himself 
 and his enemy. The great object, however, had been 
 attained : and no obstacle remained between the victo- 
 rious invader and the rich and noble capital of Lom- 
 bardy. The garrison of Pizzighitone, seeing tliemselves 
 effectually cut off from the Austrian army, capitulated. 
 The French cavalry pursued Beaulieu as far as Cre- 
 mona, which town they seized ; and Bonaparte himself 
 prepared to march upon Milan. It was after one of 
 these affairs that an old Hungarian officer was brought 
 prisoner to Bonaparte, who entered into conversation 
 with him, and among other matters questioned him 
 "what he thought of the state of the Avar?" 
 " Nothing," replied the old gentleman, who did not 
 know he was addressing the general-in-chief, '^ nothijig 
 can be worse. Here is a young man who knows abso- 
 lutely 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 jjrinciples of the art of 
 war are intolerable ! " 
 
 The charming and fruitful plains of Lombardy, 
 which, conquered by Austria, Avere ruled by the Arch- 
 duke Ferdinand, was now in the hands of Napoleon. 
 While the Austrians withdrew into the Tyrol, Fer- 
 dinand and the duchess, sadly retired from the j^alace 
 of Milan. In the very ranks of the retreating troops, 
 the revolutionary party secretly existing here, as well 
 as elsewhere beneath the Austrian flag, displayed 
 openly the tri-color cockade, and the municipal author- 
 ities waited with a cordial welcome upon the victorious 
 Corsican. A month after the decisive blow at Monte 
 Notte, and four days after the bloody affair at Lodi,
 
 40 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BON7VPARTE. 
 
 Napoleon entered the capital of the Lombard kings in 
 complete and splendid triumph. He there Avrote the 
 following brief note to his brother, in which both a 
 royal dictation in family plans, and love for Josephine 
 are disclosed : 
 
 XAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Milan, May 14,* 179fi. 
 
 " All goes on well. Pray arrange Paulette's affairs. 
 I do not intend Freron to marry her. Tell her so, and 
 let him know it too. 
 
 *' We are masters of all Lombardy. 
 
 " Adieu, my dear Joseph ; give me news of my wife. 
 I liear that she .is ill, which Avrings my heart." 
 
 Of the Italian powers, Naples alone remained hostile 
 and unconquered. 
 
 jSTapoleoii's intention to humble Eonie, however, he 
 did not conceal, whenever the i)rovocation or oppor- 
 tunity came. Persuaded that all the princes of the 
 invaded peninsula were opposed to his progress, he re- 
 solved to make thorough work of the conquest, and 
 regard those who were not with him as against him. 
 The Dukes of Parma and Modena, possessed of great 
 wealth but with small defense, submitted to his terms 
 of tribute money, and a contribution of fine old paint- 
 ings for the galleries of Paris. He then issued another 
 thrilling address to his army, already flushed with 
 victory, and impatient to follow their deified general. 
 
 " Soldiers ! you have descended like a torrent from 
 the Apennines. You have overwhelmed everything 
 M'hich opposed your progress. Piedmont is delivered 
 from the tyranny of Austria, Milan is in your haiuls, 
 
 ♦This date is erroneous. Napoleon entered Milan the 26th Floreal, or 
 the 15th of May.— Tr.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 47 
 
 and the republican standards wave over the whole of 
 Lombardy. The Dukes of Parma and Modena owe 
 their existence to your generosity. The army which 
 menaced you with so much pride, can no longer find 
 a bai-rier to protect itself against your arms. The Po, 
 the Ticino, the Adda, have not been able to stop you 
 u single day. These boasted bulwarks of Italy have 
 l)roved as nugatory as the Alps. Such a career of 
 success has carried joy into the bosom of your country. 
 Fetes in honor of your victories have been ordered in 
 all the communes of the Eepublic. There your parents, 
 your Avives, your sisters, your lovers, rejoice in your 
 achievements, and boast with pride that you belong to 
 them. Yes, soldiers ! yon have indeed done much, but 
 much remains still to be done. Shall jiosterity say that 
 we knew how to conquer, but knew not how to improve 
 victory ? Shall we find a Capua in Lombardy ? We 
 have forced marches to make, enemies to subdue, 
 Liurels to gather, injuries to revenge. Let those who 
 have whetted the daggers of civil war in France, who 
 have assassinated our ministers, who have burned our 
 ships at Toulon, let these tremble — the hour of venge- 
 ance has struck ! But let not the people be alarmed. 
 We are the friends of the people everywhere ; partic- 
 ularly of the Brutuses, the Scipios, and the great men 
 we have taken for our models. To re-establish the 
 Capitol ; to replace the statues of the heroes who 
 rendered it illustrious ; to rouse the Romans, stupefied 
 by centuries of slavery — such will be the fruit of your 
 victories. They will form an epoch with posterity. 
 To you 'will pertain the immortal glory of changing the 
 face of the finest portion of Europe. The French 
 people, free and respected by the whole world, Avill give 
 to Europe a glorious peace. You will then return to 
 your homes, and your fellow-citizens will say, jiointing
 
 4S LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 to you, ' He belonged to the army of Italy ! * " What 
 chord of a soldier's heart was not touched in this burst 
 of eloquence. Exultation over the past success, the 
 admiring gratitude of country and friends, the glory 
 and revenge of the future, were all concentrated in the 
 brilliant harangue. Tlien, while robbing the conquered 
 of treasures to support tlie army, and pictures as sou- 
 venirs of his conquest, he persuaded them that he was 
 the devoted friend of the common people. 
 
 Upon the sixth day after his magnificent entrance 
 into the palace of Ferdinand, ISTapoleon left its splendid 
 apartments, in pursuit of the Austrian general. 
 
 A detachment remained to blockade the citadel, 
 which had not surrendered to the conqueror. Beau- 
 lieu was intrenched on the banks of the Mincio, Avith 
 Mantua, " the citadel of Italy," on the left, and Pes- 
 chiera, a Venetian fortress he had taken, on the right. 
 The Lago di Guarda spread its Avaters towaM the 
 Tyrolese Alps, extending the area of defense, and keep- 
 ins: unobstructed a channel of communication with 
 Vienna. To this stronghold of a disciplined army. 
 Napoleon moved rapidly, expecting nothing less than 
 a complete defeat of his equally sanguiue foe. At this 
 juncture, the Directory were in the trepidation of fear 
 at the ^spreading glory and commanding influence of 
 their youthful hero, and they decided at once to check 
 his royal march to renown. Their plan was to divide 
 the command, and Kellerman, a distinguished and 
 veteran ofHcer, was appointed his associate, to pursue 
 the Austrians, leaving Napoleon to march upon the 
 Papal dominions. But his reply Avas characteristic of 
 the man, lie immediately tendered his resignation, 
 and added briefly his reason : " One-half of the army 
 of Italy cannot suffice to finish the matter with the 
 Austrians. It is only by keeping my force entire that
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 49 
 
 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 were vanquished, and left the com- 
 mander-in-chief in undisputed direction of the troops — 
 the last effort to restrain or guide his unexanij)led 
 career. And here another unexpected delay occurred 
 in the progress toward Mantua, An insurrection had 
 arisen in Lombardy, fanned by the heavy tribute de- 
 manded by the French, and the irreverent disregard of 
 their churches and clergy. A rumored advance of Aus- 
 trian levies gave strength to the rebellion, until thirty 
 thousand men were ready for conflict. They drove the 
 French garrison before them at Pavia. Then com- 
 menced the tragical policy of Xapoleon, indicated in his 
 slaughter of the sections in Paris. Lannes was ordered 
 to chastise the insurgents by burniugBenaseo, and put- 
 ting the inhabitants to the sword, while Napoleon 
 marched on Pavia, swept the gates like cobwebs from 
 his path, and executed the leaders of the insurrection. 
 
 At Lugo, where a squadron of the republican army 
 had been defeated, he massacred without pity the entire 
 population. The remedy was effective — the rebellion 
 was drowned in blood. It is idle to apologize for the 
 lawless destruction of life, on the ground of necessary 
 chastisement. For there can be no excuse for so mur- 
 derous and exterminating carnage, when the people 
 rose to defend their invaded soil. One such scene in 
 the history of Washington would have darkened his 
 fair fame forever. The truth is, Xapoleon valued human 
 life no more in questions of conquest and glory, than 
 he did the fruitage of the plains over which he swept, 
 like conflagration and pestilence conspiring to destroy 
 both the proprietors of the soil and its vegetation. 
 
 The versatility of Napoleon's imperial genius, waa 
 4
 
 50 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 seen in his familiarit}^ with every department of human 
 progress, and perfect self-possession on all occasions. 
 At Pavia, amid the excitements of his conquering 
 presence, he entered its celebrated university, and passed 
 from class to class with the rapidity of untamed enthu- 
 siasm, and. with the jDrecision and directness of a 
 philosoj)her. 
 
 Napoleon, having subdued the Austrian and Catho- 
 lic revolutionists, pressed forward toward the Mincio, 
 Beaulieii was again deceived by the strategy of his 
 enemy. He thought Napoleon would cross the river at 
 Peschiera, while he was preparing to make the passage 
 further down at Borghetto. The Austrian garrison 
 demolished an arch of the bridge, which he soon sup- 
 plied with planks, and in an hour was on the opposite 
 laank. Eegarding the immediate work accomplished, 
 he was refreshing himself, and about to dine in the inn 
 of which he took possession, when his attendants rushed 
 into his presence, shouting, ''To arms!" Bonaparte 
 )nounted a charger, and through a retired gateway made 
 his escape. A detachment of the Austrian force, 
 stationed below ]\Iincio, hearing the cannonade, had 
 hastened to assist their comrades ; but arriving too late, 
 came near capturing the head and soul of the French 
 army, while quietly resting in the rear of the marching 
 columns of the pursued and the pursuing. Napoleon 
 from this startling hint, formed a corps of picked men 
 called guides to guard, his person. 
 
 From this affair at Valleggio, sprang the Imperial 
 Guard of Napoleon, whose fame will be indissolubly as- 
 sociated with that of their chief. Napoleon now laid 
 siege u|)on Mantua, into which Beaulieu had poured 
 fifteen thousand soldiers, and whose walls frowned de- 
 fiantly upon tlie hitherto resistless enemy. The Austrian 
 general waited for further reinforcements to garrison
 
 lAFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 51 
 
 this fortress, around which the hopes of millions 
 gathered, while Napoleon beleaguered it without delay. 
 The city and fortress is situated on an island, from 
 whicli diverge five causeways, theonly avenues of access, 
 and these were guarded with intrenched camps, gates, 
 drawbridges and batteries. With his usual precipitate 
 and well directed action, Bonaparte secured immediately 
 by storm, four of the causeways, leaving the Austrians 
 in possession of one, but that the most impregnable, 
 called La Favor ita, after a grand palace near it. To 
 strengthen his position, he determined further, regard- 
 less of the rule of neutrality, to conquer the domain of 
 Venice, stretching away from Mantua. Embracing the 
 pretext of a reluctant refusal by Venice to let the Count 
 of Provence, brother of Louis XVI., find a refuge in 
 her territory — an act of inhosjDitality demanded by the 
 Directory — he sent garrisons to Verona and similar 
 points of defense. He raised the tricolor at the Tyro- 
 lese passes, and returned to Milan to finish his work 
 there. Serrurier remained at Mantua. Naples was 
 under the reign of an inefficient Bourbon, who was an 
 ally of the English in the siege of Toulon, and now of 
 the Austrians in the same cause. He Avas amazed and 
 terrified with the victories of Napoleon, and sent pro- 
 posals of peace. Napoleon was glad to consider them, 
 both because he had other employment for his troops 
 than war upon Naples, and a treaty would divert a 
 strong force from the Austrian ranks. An armistice 
 Avas soon succeeded by peace, which virtually placed in 
 tlie power of the French the King of the Sicilies. 
 I'he path toward the Vatican was now cleared, and the 
 Pope himself trembled before the young Napoleon, who 
 occupied Bologna and Ferrara, including four hundred 
 prisoners in the latter town, and the cardinal who com- 
 manded the troops. The Pope in haste sent an ambas'
 
 52 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 sador to Bologna, to arrange the terms of an armistice. 
 With the surrender of the two cities already seized, and 
 Ancona, Napoleon demanded a million of pounds ster- 
 ling, a hundred paintings and statues, and five hundred 
 ancient manuscripts for the museum of Paris. For a 
 more definite treaty, he referred the Pontiff to the 
 Directory. Tuscany, whose Duke had remained neutral 
 in the contest with France, and even recognized cordially 
 the Republic, next arrested the attention of Napoleon. 
 At Leghorn, English vessels were riding in harbor under 
 the eye of the governor. He was taken prisoner by 
 Napoleon, and sent to the Grand Duke, on the charge 
 of violating the neutrality. The prince was brother of 
 the Emperor of Austria, and this was evidence against 
 his sincerity to the mind of the French commander, 
 who consulted, under every pretext, the consummation 
 of his stupendous plans. Eeferring to these abuses of 
 power, he once remarked with apologetic truthfulness : 
 *' It is a sad case when the dwarf comes into the embrace 
 of the giant, he is like enough to be suffocated ; but it 
 is the giant's nature to squeeze hard." 
 
 Thus Napoleon, setting aside even the wishes of the 
 central government, which was imbued with the most 
 fiery re23ublicanism, instead of forming with revolu- 
 tionary rapidity, i-epublics of the submissive kingdoms, 
 more wisely preferred to use them under the safer in- 
 fluence of the established order of things. There is a 
 strange and fascinating pre-eminence in a mind, not 
 in the maturity of manhood, treating with sublime in- 
 difference the opinions and scepters of a continent, and 
 crowning all by an independence, Avhich dared to act 
 without the approval of the authority which gave him 
 his high command. 
 
 "The cabinet of Vienna had at last resolved upon 
 sending efficient aid to the Italian frontier. Beaulieu
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 53 
 
 had been too often unfortunate to be trusted longer. 
 Wurniser, who enjoyed a reputation of the highest 
 class, was sent to replace him : thirty thousand men 
 were drafted from the armies on the Rhine to accom- 
 pany the new general ; and he carried orders to 
 strengthen himself further on his march, by what- 
 ever recruits he could raise among the warlike and 
 loyal population of the Tyrol. 
 
 "Wurniser's army when he fixed his headquarters 
 at Trent, mustered in all eighty thousand ; while Bona- 
 parte had but thirty thousand to hold a wide coun- 
 try 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 inspii'iting character of 
 mvader. He awaited the result with calmness. 
 
 " Wurmser might have learned from the successes of 
 Bonaparte the advantages of compact movement ; yet 
 he was unwise 3nough to divide his great force into 
 three separate '"olumns, and to place one of these upon 
 a line of mar h which entirely separated it from the 
 support of thv. others. He himself with his center, 
 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 his right wing, under 
 Quasdanovich, was ordered to keep down the valley 
 of the Chiese, in the direction of Brescia, and so to 
 cut off the retreat of Bonajoarte 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 escaj)e the eagle eye 
 of Xapoleon. 
 
 " He immediately determined to march against Quag-
 
 54 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 danovich, and fight him where he conld not be sup- 
 ported by the other two columns. This could not be 
 done without abandoning for the time the blockade of 
 Mantua, which was accordingly done. The guns were 
 buried iu the trenches during the night of the 31st 
 July, and the French quitted the place with a precipi- 
 tation which the advancing Austrians considered as 
 the result of terror. 
 
 '* Napoleon, meanwhile, rushed against Quasdano- 
 vicli, who had already come near the bottom of the 
 lake of Guarda. At Salo, close to the lake, and fur- 
 ther 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 Quasdanovich 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 
 toward the Mincio. 
 
 " In the mean time Wurmser had forced their rear- 
 guards from their posts, and flushed with these suc- 
 cesses, he now resolved to throw his whole force upon 
 the French, and resume at the point of the bayonet his 
 communication with the scattered column of Quasda- 
 novich. He was so fortunate as to defeat a French di- 
 vision at Lonato, and to occupy that town. But this 
 new su-ccess was fatal to him. In the exultation of vic- 
 tory he extended his line too much toward the right ; 
 and this over-anxiety to open the communication with 
 Quasdanovich had the effect of so weakening his cen- 
 ter, that Massena, boldly and skilfully seizing the op- 
 portunity, poured two strong columns on Lonato and
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 55 
 
 regained the position ; whereon the Austrian, perceiv- 
 ing 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 wlio liad already de- 
 feated Qnasdanovicli in that quarter, and obliged to 
 surrender : the most retreated in great disorder. At 
 Castiglioue alone a brave stand was made ; but this 
 position was at length forced by Augereau. Such was 
 the battle of Lonato. Thenceforth nothing could sur- 
 pass the discomfiture and disarray of the Austrians. 
 They fled in all directions upon the Mincio, where 
 Wurmser himself, meanwhile, had been employed in 
 revictualing Mantua. 
 
 " A mere accident had once almost saved them. One 
 of the many defeated divisions of the army, wandering 
 about in anxiety to find some means of reaching the 
 Mincio, came suddenly on Lonato, the scene of the 
 late battle, at a moment when Napoleon was there with 
 only his staff and guards about him. He knew not 
 that any considerable body of Austrians remained to- 
 gether in the neighborhood ; 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 ; his enemy was able to turn even a blunder into 
 an advantage. The officer sent to demand the surren- 
 der of the town was brought blindfolded, as is the cus- 
 tom, to his headquarters ; Bonaparte, 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 : ' AVliat means this insolence ? 
 Do you beard the French general in the middle of his 
 army ?' The German recognized the person of Na- 
 poleon, and retreated stammering and blushing. Ho 
 assured his commander that Lonato was occupied by 
 the French in numbers that made resistance impossi-
 
 56 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 ble ; 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 remain- 
 ing force, and advanced to meet the conqueror. He, 
 meanwhile, had himself determined on the assault, and 
 was hastening to the encounter. They met between 
 Lonato and Castiglione. Wurmser was totally defeat- 
 ed, and narrowly escaped being a prisoner ; nor did he 
 without great difficulty regain Trent and Roveredo, 
 those frontier joositions from which his noble army had 
 so recently descended with all the confidence of con- 
 querors. In this disastrous campaign the Austrians 
 lost forty thousand men ; Bonaparte probably under- 
 stated his own loss at seven thousand. During the 
 seven days which the campaign occupied, he never 
 took off his boots, nor slept except by starts. The ex- 
 ertions which so rapidly achieved this signal triumph 
 were such as to demand some repose ; yet Napoleon 
 did not pause until he saw Mantua once more com- 
 pletely invested. The reinforcement and revictualing 
 of that garrison were all that Wurmser could show, in 
 requital of his lost artillery, stores, and forty thousand 
 men." 
 
 Napoleon was fond of incidents that tested or de- 
 veloped character. Not a few officers in his army 
 owed their elevation to events which occurred, natu- 
 rally enough, among the varieties of life in the camp 
 and field ; but to his observant eye, revealed the 
 character and capacity of the men. One night he went 
 the rounds of the sentinels in disguise, to see if they 
 were acting with fidelity in the hour of peril. Encoun- 
 tering a soldier, whose post was at the junction of two 
 roads, he was ordered back at the point of the ba3'onet. 
 Napoleon replied, " I am a general officer going the
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 57 
 
 rounds to ascertain if all is safe." *•' I care not/' said 
 the sentinel, '' my commands are to let no one go by, 
 and if you were the little corporal himself, you should 
 not pass." Napoleon retired, and soon after gave tlie 
 faithful soldier an officer's epaulet. 
 
 He wrote a letter about this date to Joseph, which 
 is a brief outline of his position, an evidence of an 
 interest still lingering around the place of his birth, to 
 which he had despatched a force, to aid in the struggle 
 against English dominion. 
 
 '' I have your letter of the 30th, without any details 
 from Corsica. You will find with this letter my answer 
 to one from the administrators of the Department du 
 Liamone. Such being the law, the organization of the 
 two departments must be retained. 
 
 " We have made peace with Xaples, and a treaty with 
 Genoa, and we are going to enter into an alliance, of- 
 fensive and defensive, with Prussia. 
 
 " Things are somewhat better on the Rhine. Moreau 
 has gained a victory. Kleber replaces Beurnonville. 
 All looks well. 
 
 "I am anxious for regular news from Corsica, and to 
 know the state of Ajaccio. My health is fair ; noth- 
 ing new in the army." 
 
 In the beginning of September the Austrian troops 
 were again moving toward Mantua. Wurmser, with 
 national defiance ab disaster, determined to save Man- 
 tua, and reconquer Lombardy. 
 
 He had now an army of thirty thousand ; and David- 
 owich at Eoveredo, twenty thousand more, to protect 
 the Tyrol. Of these, twenty thousand Avere fresh 
 troops. Napoleon was delighted with this division of 
 an immense force, a fact, to his comprehensive view of 
 the campaign, portending another ruinous defeat. And
 
 5S LIFE OF NAPOLEOX HOXAPARTE. 
 
 no sooner had Wurniscr reached Bassauo, entirely 
 separated from Davidowich, than he turned his force 
 with the celerity of a tempest upon Roveredo. The 
 intreiichments of the enemy were strong, and in their 
 rear stood the castle of Galliano, on the brow of a preci- 
 pice leaning over the Adige, whose waters flowed 
 between shattered mountains ; a fortress which seemed 
 to scorn the roar of artillery, and the clash of arms. 
 September 4th, with burning ardor, the French rushed 
 upon the foe. The Austrians wavered and fell back ; 
 height after height was swept by the impetuous battal- 
 ions, until the victorious tricolor waved over the ruins, 
 the dying and the dead. Fifteen field-pieces, and 
 seven thousand prisoners, were iu the hands of the 
 French. The victory, for rapidity and precision in the 
 assault, the fearless impetuosity of the soldiers, and the 
 decisive results, was one of the most brilliant in Napo- 
 leon's career, and was so regarded by him. 
 
 The following day he marched into Trent. Issuing 
 a proclamation to the Tyrolese, declaring himself their 
 friend, who came to lift from their necks the heavy 
 yoke of Austrian oppression, he pressed forward 
 through the defiles of Brenta, to fall upon Wurmser's 
 division. This general had heard with dismay of 
 Davidowich's overthrow, but prepared with thirty 
 thousand men to meet Napoleon with twenty thousand 
 elated troops, who was impatient to deal a final blow 
 upon the scattered army of Austria. A march of sixty 
 miles, from Trent to Primolano, was accomplished in 
 the incredibly short' period of two days. At dawn of 
 day, AA^u miser was aroused by Napoleon's cannon, and 
 on September 8th, was fought the bloody battle of 
 Bassauo. Six thousand Austrians laid down their 
 arms ; Quasdanovich escaped with four thousand 
 soldiers to Friuli ; while AVurraser with but sixteen
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 59 
 
 thousand of his grand army, retreated toward Man- 
 tua, the stronghold of security and hope, till Vienna 
 might send reinforcements for their deliverance. 
 
 " To reach that fortress 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 ou 
 the part of the French commander at Legnago, who, 
 conceiving the attempt was to be made at Verona, 
 marched to reinforce the corps stationed there, and so 
 left his own position unguarded. Wurmser, taking 
 advantage of this, passed with his army at Legnago, 
 and after a series of bloody skirmishes, in which for- 
 tune divided her favors pretty equally, at length was 
 enabled to throw himself into Mantua. Napoleon 
 made another narrow escape, in one. of these skirmishes, 
 at Areola. He was surrounded for a moment, and had 
 just galloped off, when AVurmser, coming up, and learn- 
 ing that the prize was so near, gave particular direc- 
 tions to bring him in alive ! '' 
 
 Napoleon's impromptu rejslies, when they were de- 
 manded, and action when needed, w^ere so timely and 
 often sublime, that the camp continually rang with the 
 enthusiastic repetition of them. When at this period 
 a soldier in the discontented ranks of the scantily 
 supplied arm}^, pointing to his tattered apparel, said, 
 " Notwithstanding our victories we are clothed with 
 rags;" Napoleon answered, "You forget, my brave 
 friend, that with a new coat, your honorable scars 
 would no longer be visible." These words satisfied the 
 man, and went from rank to rank of his comrades. 
 Another incident after the battle of Bassano, is re- 
 lated, which illustrated the moral defects in Napoleon's 
 character, and the cool contempt of life, with all the 
 manly sympathies and impulses of his nature.
 
 60 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Riding over the ensanguined plain amid heaps of 
 the ghastly sleepers, beneath the moonlight of the mid- 
 night hour, he was startled by the piteous howls of a 
 dog, watching the bloody corpse of his master. He 
 silently paused on his steed, and his meditations he 
 afterward thus expressed : "I know not how it was, 
 but no incident upon any field of battle ever produced 
 so deep an impression upon my feelings. This man, 
 thought 1, must have had among his comrades friends, 
 yet here he lies forsaken by all except his faithful dog. 
 What a strange being is man ! How mysterious are 
 his impressions ! I had, without emotion, ordered 
 battles which had decided the fate of armies. I had, 
 with tearless eye, beheld the execution of these orders, 
 in which thousands of my countrymen were slain, and 
 yet here my sympathies were most deeply and resist- 
 lessly moved by the mournful howling of a dog I Cer- 
 tainly at that moment I should have been unable to 
 refuse any request of a suppliant enemy." 
 
 Napoleon now wrote most appealingly to the Direc- 
 tory for promised recruits. *' Troops," he exclaimed, 
 " or Italy is lost ! " He at the same time animated 
 his battalions, and prepared for conflict with the calm 
 confidence of easy victory. "After making himself 
 master of some scattered corps which had not been 
 successful in keeping up with AYurmser, he reappeared 
 once more before Mantua. The battle of St. George — 
 BO called from one of the suburbs of the city — was 
 fought on the 13th of September ; and after a prodig- 
 ious 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 twenty- 
 six thousand : ere October was far advanced, the pes- 
 tilential air of the place, and the scarcity and badness
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 61 
 
 of provisions had filled his hospitals, and left him 
 hardly half the number in fighting condition. The 
 misery of the besieged town was extreme ; and if 
 Austria meant to rescue Wurmser, there was no time 
 to be lost." 
 
 With characteristic energy, another, the fourth great 
 army was raised, and Alvinzi, an experienced and able 
 general, placed at its head. With only twelve new 
 battalions. Napoleon prepared to meet these sixty 
 thousand troops, fresh from barracks and quiet homes. 
 General Vaubois at Trent, and Massena at Bassano, 
 were compelled to yield to the advancing enemy. 
 Napoleon marched to the aid of Massena, and met the 
 Austrians at Vicenza in a short, fierce, and indecisive 
 battle ; both armies claimed the victory. The con- 
 dition of the French was becoming critical. 
 
 The extensive region between Brenta and the Adige 
 was in the hands of Alvinzi, and Mantua was still the 
 mighty bulwark of defense. Napoleon saw the neces- 
 sity of rousing at once the courage of the defeated 
 troops of Vaubois, and guard against a future disaster 
 of a similar kind. He api^eared before them surround- 
 ed by his staff, with imposing severity of command, 
 and thus addressed them : '• Soldiers ! I am displeased 
 with you. You have evinced neither discipline nor 
 valor. You have allowed yourselves to be driven from 
 positions where a handful of resolute men might have 
 arrested an army. You are no longer French soldiers ! 
 Chief of the staff, cause it to be written on their stand- 
 ards, ' ^iey are no longer of the army of Italy I*'* 
 This rebuke had its intended effect. The proudest 
 veterans wept, and begged for another opportunity to 
 test their heroism. They were restored to favor, and 
 became his most daring soldiers. Napoleon now 
 directed his forces toward the heights of Caldiero,
 
 62 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 where Alvinzi was intrenched, designing to fall like 
 a descending bolt npon his division before it conld unite 
 with the troops of Davidowicii. 
 
 The armies met. A storm of rain, succeeded by 
 wind and sleet, beat upon the desperate combatants, 
 through which was poured the fire-sheet and leaden hail 
 of battle. On the furrowed earth, reddened with blood, 
 soon lay four thousand of the dying and dead, when 
 without decisive victory, the exhausted foes retired 
 from the arena of conflict. Napoleon, with disheart- 
 ened ranks, fell back to Verona. Nearly forty thou- 
 sand men were now sweeping their extending lines 
 around the French, numbering not more than fifteen 
 thousand. A bold and immediate blow must be given, 
 or the republican army would disappear like the snow 
 that melted along their path. Leaving fifteen hun- 
 dred men to protect Verona, he emerged at dead of 
 night from its walls, and with no intelligence breathed 
 to the anxious troops of his purpose, he moved toward 
 Mantua, where the blockade continued, as if to aban- 
 don the unequal strife. But suddenly he wheeled into 
 a road leading toward the Adige, and crossed directly 
 in the rear of the enemy. Between here and Areola, 
 and around it, lay the wide morasses, across which nar- 
 row dykes only furnished highways. Areola must be 
 reached and taken before he could rush between the 
 great divisions of the Austrian army, and strike fatally 
 with his comparatively inferior force. By daybreak, 
 in three columns ho charged upon the same number of 
 dykes leading to Areola. Like the struggling light of 
 morning, the truth broke upon the minds of the aston- 
 ished Austrians, that Napoleon with his tried troops 
 was again upon them. Augereau first stood upon the 
 narrow bridge on which they must pass. The deadly 
 tempest of iron and lead drove his brave column back.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 63 
 
 Napoleon saw that, if ever, Areola must be taken be- 
 fore Alviuzi arrived ; and seizing a standard, he dashed 
 on to the bridge, exclaiming, ** Conquerors of Lodi ! 
 follow your general ! '' The heroic grenadiers swept 
 into the hurricane of battle, and again gave way ; Na- 
 poleon was himself carried on the tide of combat to the 
 very feet of the Austrians to the morass, and well-nigh 
 smothered, while the soldiers of the enemy closed be- 
 tween him and his troops. "^Forward to save your 
 general I" rang over the tumult, and like the falling 
 Hood of a cataract, the columns under the tricolor, 
 dashed over the trembling bridge, rescued their com- 
 mander, and carried the passage. This was the battle 
 and victory of Areola. 
 
 '' This movement revived in the Austrian lines their 
 terror for the name of Bonaparte ; 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 over- 
 whelmed by Davidowich, while Alvinzi remained thus 
 between him and the Brenta, evacuated Areola, and 
 retreated to Ronco. 
 
 "Next morning, having ascertained that Davidowich 
 had not been engaged with Vaubois, Napoleon once 
 more advanced upon Areola. The place was defended 
 bravely, and again 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 Bona- 
 parte once more retreated to Eonco. 
 ■ ^' The third day was decisive. On this occasion also
 
 64 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 he carried Areola ; and, by employing two stratagems, 
 was enabled to make his victory effectual. Au ambus- 
 cade, planted among some willows, suddenly opened 
 fire on a column of Croats, threw them into confusion, 
 and, rushing from the concealment, crushed them 
 down in the opposite bog, where most of them died. 
 Napoleon was anxious to follow up this success by 
 charging the Austrian main body on the firm ground 
 behind the marshes. But it was no easy matter to reach 
 them there. He had, in various quarters, portable 
 bridges ready for crossing the ditches and canals ; but 
 the enemy stood in good order, and three days' hard 
 fighting had nearly exhausted his own men. In one of 
 his conversations at St. Helena, he thus told the story. 
 * At Areola, I gained the battle with twenty-five horse- 
 men. I perceived the critical moment of lassitude in 
 either army — when the oldest and bravest would have 
 been glad to be in their tents. All my men had been 
 engaged. Three times I had been obliged to re-estab- 
 lish the battle. There remained to me but some twenty- 
 five guides. I sent them round on the flank of the 
 enemy with three trumj)ets, bidding them blow loud 
 and charge furiously. Here is the French cavalry, was 
 the cry ; and they took to flight.' The Austrians 
 doubted not that Murat and all the horse had forced a 
 way through the bogs ; and at that moment Bonaparte 
 commanding a general assault in front, the confusion 
 became hopeless. Alvinzi retreated finally, thougli in 
 decent order, upon Montebello. 
 
 '' In these three days Bonaparte lost eight thousand 
 men ; the slaughter among his opponents must have 
 been terrible. Once more the rapid combinations of 
 Napoleon had rendered all the efforts of the Austrian 
 cabinet abortive. For two montlis after the last day 
 of Areola, he remained the undisturbed master of Lom-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. C,T> 
 
 bardy. All that his enemy could show,, iu set-off for 
 the slaughter and discomfiture of Alvinzi's campaign, 
 was that they retained possession of Bassano and Trent, 
 thus interrupting Bonaparte's access to the Tyrol, and 
 Germany. This advantage was not trivial ; hut it had 
 been dearly bonght. 
 
 ** A fourth army had been baffled; but the resolu- 
 tion of the imperial court was indomitable, and new 
 levies were diligently forwarded to reinforce Alvinzi. 
 Once more (January 7, 179T) the marshal found him- 
 self at the head of sixty thousand ; once more his su- 
 periority over Napoleon's muster-roll was enormous ; 
 and once more he descended from the mountains with 
 the hope of relieving Wurmser and reconquering Lom- 
 bardy. The fifth act of the tragedy was yet to be j^er- 
 formed. 
 
 " We may here jDause, to notice some civil events of 
 importance which occurred ere Alvinzi made his final 
 descent. The success of the French naturally gave 
 new vigor to the Italian party who, chiefly in the large 
 towns, were hostile to Austria, and desirous to settle 
 their own government on the republican model. Na- 
 poleon had by this time come to be anything but a 
 Jacobin in his political sentiments ; his habits of com- 
 mand ; 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 was owing to his own skill and the devotion 
 of his army — all these circumstances conspired to make 
 him respect himself and contemn the government, 
 almost in despite of which he had conquered kingdoms 
 for France. He therefore regarded now with little 
 sympathy the aspirations after republican organi- 
 zation, which he had himself originally stimulated 
 5
 
 66 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 among the northern Italians. He knew, however, 
 that the Directory had, by absurd and extravagant de- 
 mands, provoked the Pope to break off the treaty of 
 Bologna, and to raise his army to the number of forty 
 thousand — that Naples had every disposition to back 
 his holiness with tliirty thousand soldiers, provided 
 any reverse should befall the French in Lombardy — 
 and, finally, that Alvinzi was rapidly preparing for 
 another march, with numbers infinitely superior to 
 what he could himself extort from the government of 
 Paris;* and considering these circumstances, he felt 
 liimself compelled to seek strength by gratifying his 
 Italian friends. Two republics accordingly 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 
 military inaction which followed the victories of Areola. 
 Tlie new republics hastened to repay Napoleon's favor 
 by raising troojDS, and placed at his disposal a force 
 which he considered as sufficient to keep the papal 
 army in check during the expected renewal of the Aus- 
 trian campaign." 
 
 He wrote to his brother, who was in Corsica, revealing 
 that wonderful capacity which embraced, without ap- 
 parent effort or confusion, the most magnificent schemes 
 of conquest, and the minutest details of domestic ar- 
 rangement ; the improvement of the dwelling in which 
 he passed his boyhood. 
 
 NAPOLEON" TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Milan, December 10, 1796. 
 
 " We have made peace with Parma. I expect every 
 day to hear that you are the minister there. Come 
 
 * Bonaparte, to replace all his losses In the last two campaigns, had re- 
 ceived only seven thousand recruits.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 67 
 
 back as soon as 3'ou can. 'Mix yourself up little, or not 
 at all, with Corsican politics. Arrange our domestic 
 affairs. Let our house be in a habitable state, such as 
 it was, adding to it the apartment of Ignazio, and do 
 little things that are necessary to improve the street. 
 
 " I expect Fesch and Paulette at Milan in a fortnight. 
 As you return by Milan, settle the San-Miniato* busi- 
 ness. Miot goes to Turin ; Cacault to Florence." 
 
 "With the dawn of a new year (1T97) Alvinzi was 
 mustering a fifth army for another campaign against 
 the French. The gentry and the peasantry emulated 
 each other in enthusiastic devotion to the common 
 cause, and even the women wrought banners, and ani- 
 mated the troops in their preparation for the harvest 
 of death. NajDoleon, to prevent the enlistment of the 
 Tyrolese, proclaimed that every man found in arms 
 should be shot. The haughty Austrian replied that for 
 every slain peasant he would hang a French prisoner of 
 Avar. These murderous threats were ended in Xapo- 
 leon's assurance to Alvinzi, that the execution of a 
 Frenchman would secure the gibbeting of his nephew, 
 who had been taken captive. 
 
 The Austrian general sent a spy toward Mantua, to 
 convey if possible to Wurmser his proximity, and readi- 
 ness to afford relief. The peasant wandered over the 
 country in the plainest guise; but nothing escaped N'apo- 
 leon's vigilance. He was arrested and brought before 
 the commander-in-chief, when in alarm he confessed 
 that the ball of wax containing the message was in his 
 stomach ; he had swallowed it. The means were im- 
 mediately applied to recover the despatch, and soon the 
 surrender was made, and Napoleon possessed of the in- 
 telligence which decided his line of march. 
 
 • Bonaparte property.
 
 68 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Upon the tempestuous 12tli of January, at nightfall, 
 the tidings came to the French camp, that Alvinzi was 
 moving down upon their battalions from the Tyrol, 
 in two different directions. Napoleon was at Verona 
 watching the movements ; Joubert was stationed at 
 Rivoli, and Augereau's division ordered to look after 
 Provera, whose troops were following the Brenta, to 
 form a junction with the force before the walls of 
 Mantua. The plan was to unite the Austrian strength 
 by separate inarches, in the rescue of AVurmser, which, 
 if successful, would have rendered the position of the 
 French one of great peril. On the 13th, word was 
 sent to Napoleon tliat Joubert had with difficulty re- 
 sisted the superior force which was wasting his ranks. 
 With another astonishingly rapid movement. Napoleon 
 reached, at two o'clock in the morning, the heights of 
 Rivoli, and in the clear, still moonlight, surveyed the 
 slumbering host, many of whom were enjoying their 
 last repose. 
 
 '* Napoleon's keen eye, observing the position of the 
 five encampments below, penetrated the secret of Al- 
 vinzi ; namely, that his artillery could not yet have 
 arrived, otherwise he would not have occupied ground 
 so distant from the object of attack. Pie 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 jDctty maneuvers, 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 endeavor to 
 force the heights by insulated movements, whicli the 
 real strength of Napoleon easily enabled him to baffle.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 69 
 
 It is true tliut at one moment the bravery of the Ger- 
 mans had nearly overthrown the French on a point of 
 pre-eminent importance ; but Napoleon himself, gallop- 
 ing to the spot, roused by his voice and action the di- 
 vision of Massena, who, having marched all niglit, had 
 lain down to rest in the extreme of weariness, and 
 seconded by them and their gallant general, swept every- 
 thing before him. The French artillery was in posi- 
 tion ; 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 tlie summit abortive ; 
 and the main body of the imperialists was already in 
 confusion, and, indeed, in flight, ere one of their divis- 
 ions, which had been sent round to outflank Bonaparte, 
 and take higher ground in his rear, was able to execute 
 its errand. When, accordingly, Lusignan's division 
 at length achieved its destined object — it did so, not to 
 complete the misery of a routed, but to swell the prey of 
 a victorious, enemy. Instead of cutting ofl; the retreat 
 of Joubert, Lusignan found himself insulated from Al- 
 vinzi, and forced to lay down his arms to Bonaparte. 
 * Here was a good plan,' said Napoleon, ' but these 
 Austrians are not apt to calculate the value of minutes.* 
 Ilad Lusignan gained the rear of the French an hour 
 earlier, while the contest was still hot in front of the 
 heights of Eivoli, he might have made the 14th of Jan- 
 uary one of the darkest, instead of one of the bright- 
 est, days in the military chronicles of Naj)oleon. 
 
 " He, who in the course of this trying day had had 
 three horses shot under him, hardly waited to see Lu- 
 signan surrender, and to intrust his friends, Massena, 
 Murat, and Joubert, with the task of pursuing the fly- 
 ing columns of Alviuzi. He had heard, during the
 
 70 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 battle^ that Provera had forced his way to the Lago di- 
 Gnarda, and was already, by means of bouLs, in com- 
 mnnication with Mantua. The force of Augereaa 
 having proved insufficient to oppose the march of the 
 imperialists' second column, it was high time that Na- 
 poleon himself should hurry with reinforcements to the 
 lower Adige, and prevent AVurmser from either hous- 
 ing 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 Eomagna. 
 
 " Having marched all night and all next day, Na- 
 poleon reached the vicinity of Mantua late on the 15th. 
 He found the enemy strongly posted, and Serrurier's 
 situation highly critical. A regiment of Provera's 
 hussars had but a few hours before nearly established 
 themselves in the suburb of St. George. This danger 
 had been avoided, but the utmost vigilance was nec- 
 essary. 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, 
 j)erceived with terror and despair the countenance and 
 occupation of his general. He fell on his knees before 
 him. *My friend,' said Napoleon, 'here is your 
 musket. You had fought hard, and marched long, and 
 your sleep is excusable ; but a moment's inattention 
 might at present ruin the army. I happened to be 
 awake, and have held your post for you. You will bo 
 more careful anotlier time.' 
 
 "It is needless to say how tlie devotion of his men 
 was nourished by such anecdotes as these flying ever 
 and anou from column to column. Next morning
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. ^1 
 
 tliere ensued a hot skirmisli, recorded as the battle of 
 .St. George. Provera was compelled to retreat ; and 
 Wurmser, who had sallied out and seized the causeway 
 and citadel of La Favorita, was fain to retreat within 
 his old walls, in consequence of a desperate assault headed 
 by Napoleon in person. 
 
 " Provera now found himself entirely cut off from 
 Alvinzi, and surrounded with the army of the French. 
 He and five thousand men laid down their arms. 
 Various bodies of the Austrian force, scattered over the 
 country between the Adige and the Brenta, followed 
 the example ; and the brave Wurmser, whose provi- 
 sions were by this time exhausted, found himself at 
 length under the necessity of sending an offer of capit- 
 ulation." 
 
 The Austrian general was now in extremity. His 
 garrison Avas reduced one half, the salted horseflesh 
 gone, and famine stalSed before his anxious mind. 
 Klenau, the bearer of despatches, entered the tent of 
 General Serrurier, and with a flourish of deceptive 
 words, conveyed tlie impression that Wurmser could 
 hold the citadel for several days longer, but would yield 
 upon honorable conditions of surrender. Napoleon 
 started up from a corner of the tent, and presenting 
 tlirough the folds of his cloak, his calm face and pierc- 
 ing eye, glanced upon the aid-de-camj^, and then rap- 
 idly wrote a few lines, which he handed to the astonished 
 messenger, saying, " These are the terms to which your 
 general's bravery entitles him. He may have them to- 
 day ; a week, a mouth hence, he shall have no worse. 
 Meantime, tell him that General Bonaparte is about to 
 set out for Rome.*' February 2d, Mantua was evacuated. 
 Napoleon, to spare the heroic Wurmser's feelings, dele- 
 gated Serrurier to receive the veteran's sword ; a deli- 
 cate and beautiful expression of generosity, which
 
 12 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 greatly affected the Austrian commander. Besides 
 sparing liini the humiliation of being present at the ca 
 pitulation. Napoleon allowed him to retire with two 
 hundred horse and five hundred men, unmolested to 
 Austria. When the Directory remonstrated against 
 sucli lenit}^, he replied indignantly, *'I have granted 
 tlie Austrian such terms as were, in my Judgment, due 
 to a brave and honorable enemy, and to the dignity of 
 the French republic." 
 
 During all these scenes Napoleon's heart was true to 
 Josephine, and he turned from the shouts of victory;, 
 and the applause of millions, to M'in the smile of her 
 approval. Of the correspondence which passed at that 
 period, but little that is authentic is preserved. Ex- 
 travagant letters are attributed to him, and their au- 
 thenticity doubted by the best historians. But it were 
 not strange if at twenty-six, with a distant bride he 
 had left so qnickly, and covered with glory that would 
 bewilder an aged conqueror, he did pour his raptures 
 in language whose ardor seems now the fond ravings 
 of a happy lunatic, rather than the utterance of an in- 
 tellect well poised as it was creative and mighty. 
 
 Eugene joined his father-in-law, in the campaign, 
 and won distinction for himself, grateful to Napoleon 
 as it was flattering to the young soldier. This will 
 appear in the subjoined note originally furnished by 
 Josephine : 
 
 NAPOLEOI^r TO JOSEPHINE. 
 
 " My Beloved Friekd — My first laurel is due to 
 my country ; my second shall be yours. While press- 
 ing Alvinzi, I thouglit of France ; when he was 
 beaten, I thought of you. Your son will send you a 
 scarf surrendered to him by Colonel Morback, whom 
 he took prisoner with his own hand. You see, madam.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 7^ 
 
 that onr Eugene is worthy of his fatlier. Do not deem 
 me altogether undeserving of having succeeded to tluit 
 brave and unfortunate general, under whom I should 
 have felt honored to have learned to conquer. I em- 
 brace you. 
 
 *' BOITAPARTE." 
 
 Alvinzi thus completely routed, Wurmser and Provera 
 surrendering, left the spreading plains and swelling 
 slopes of Lombardy under the banner of the republic, 
 and threw around the name of Napoleon, a dazzling 
 halo of premature glory, which, with comparatively 
 small abatement, was yet the merited reward of un- 
 exampled military wisdom, and exhaustless activity on 
 the field of darius; and heroic deeds.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEO:? BOXAPABTE. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Napoleon and the Pope.— Venice.— Archduke Charles.— Battle of Taglia- 
 mento.— Incidents.— Retreat of Charles.— Negotiations.— Plchegru.— The 
 Directory.— Treaty of Campo Formio.— Court of Milan.— Josephine.— 
 Napoleon at Rastadt.— He reaches Paris. — His reception.— Life at the 
 Capital.— Napoleon and England.— He is appointed to command an In- 
 vasion of England.— He urges an expedition to Egypt.— Embarkation.— 
 Malta taken.— Letter to Joseph.— He arrives at Alexandria. — Addresses 
 the Army and the Egyptians.— March up the Nile.— The Blamelukes.— 
 Battle of the Pyramids.— Cairo taken.— Letter to Joseph.— Battle of 
 Aboukir. — Napoleon's Power. — Expedition to the Red Sea. — Siege of 
 Acre.— The Plague.— Napoleon retreats to Egypt. — Scenes in the March. 
 — The Turks defeated at Aboukir.— Napoleon returns to France. — Rea- 
 sons. — The Domestic Sorrow.- The Reconciliation.— The Crisis. 
 
 NAPOLEOisr HOW tnrned his attention to the Pope, 
 whose army of forty thousand men had hovered around 
 the French, waiting only for the opportunity to strike 
 with effect in the lioly war for his tremhUng throne. 
 The intelligence of the surrender of Mantua, and the 
 routing of the Austrian troops, whose splendid array of 
 two hundred thousand soldiers since the war began, 
 had melted away before the republican forces, spread 
 terror through the Vatican. But it was decided to 
 offer resistance to the victorious foe. Pope, cardinals, 
 and monks, a2:)pealed to every motive of a religious and 
 political nature, to rouse the zeal and heroism of the 
 battalions. In every hamlet the tocsin tolled, and un- 
 ceasing prayers were offered. Victor, with four thou- 
 sand French, and an equal number of Italians, ad- 
 vanced toward Imola, where, on the banks of the Senio, 
 were encamped eight thousand of the enemy. The 
 commander. Cardinal liui'oa, unused to the weapons 
 and rules of carnal warfare, sent a flag of truce to
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 75 
 
 Napoleon, assuring him if he continued to advance lie 
 should tire upon him — an announcement wliich sent a 
 shout of laughter along the ranks of the elated victors, 
 Bonaparte, by a rapid march, threw his horse across 
 the river under cover of darkness, to cut off retreat, 
 and then, with the morning, opened the conflict, which 
 in an hour drove all but the dead and captured in 
 confusion from the field. He jjressed forward to 
 Faenza, whose closed gates and defiant walls, soon gave 
 way, and the unpitied populace were swept before the 
 crimson bayonets like autumnal leaves in the tempest. 
 Three thousand, with Colli, surrendered, and Ancona 
 was entered. 
 
 *' The priests had an image of the Virgin Mary p,t 
 this place, which they exhibited to the jieople in tlio 
 act of shedding tears, the more to stimulate them 
 against the impious republicans. On entering tlie 
 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 which 
 flowed by clock work, within a shrine which the wor- 
 shipers were too respectful to approach very nearly."' 
 
 Napoleon exposed the trick ; and by his lenity to 
 the prisoners, acquired immediately great influence ovor 
 tlie people who had dreaded his jDresence as that of a 
 lawless demon. February 10th, he marched into 
 Loretto, and seized its treasures. 
 
 The Directory, with the sanguinary spirit of the 
 revolutionary movement, desired Napoleon to treat 
 with unsparing severity the hostile parties in the con- 
 quered realms, especially the despotic hierarchy of 
 Eome. He, on the contrary, with respectful attention, 
 promised the priests in exile in the papal states pro- 
 tection and food within the monasteries wliich came 
 beneath his banner. This unexpected mercy em-
 
 76 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 boldened the Pope to send an envoy to open a treaty 
 with Napoleon, which was consummated the 13th of 
 February, 1797. Avignon was formally ceded ; Fer- 
 rara, Bologna, and Eomagna, with Ancona, abandoned ; 
 the works of art, before pledged, presented ; and a 
 million and a half pounds sterling paid into the treasury. 
 The pontiff was left in possession of a crown which 
 was, after all, the mockery of royal authority — his 
 holiness, swelled the vassal-train of the Corsican. 
 Venice alone remained unsubdued, and disputing the 
 claim of the conqueror to universal mastery of north- 
 ern Italy. "With more than fifty thousand troops, that 
 government demanded the right of neutrality, while 
 Napoleon urged an alliance with France. These 
 soldiers were the wild Sclavonians ; the defense of a 
 people discordant and revolutionary. Bonaparte in 
 view of their condition, and his own immediate work, 
 consented to their proud demand, and said, " Be neu- 
 tral then ; but remember, that if you violate your 
 neutrality, if you harass my troops, if you cut off my 
 supplies, I will take ample vengeance." 
 
 Nine days had passed since the conflict began with 
 the Pope, whose consecrated scepter had made kings 
 kiss the dust of his feet, and the youthful general of 
 France was greater than he. Napoleon now turned 
 to his discomfited, brave, and unyielding enemy. 
 His face was toward Vienna, the capital of Austria. 
 Under Archduke Charles, a talented prince in the 
 prime of manhood, a sixth campaign was opened. Of 
 the French force, ten thousand men remained to guard 
 the Venetian neutrality, while he took up headquar- 
 ters at Bussano. Again he addressed an army, rein- 
 forced by twenty thousand troops ; making in all fifty 
 thousand, with which to oppose nearly double the 
 number that would pour into the arena of a combat,
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 77 
 
 on which the civilized world looked with alisorbiiig 
 interest. These were his eloquent words : " Soldiers ! 
 the campaign just ended has given you imperishable 
 renown. You have been victorious in your fourteen 
 pitched battles and seventy actions. You have taken 
 more than a hundred thousand prisoners, five hundred 
 field-pieces, two thousand heavy guns, and four pon- 
 toon trains. You have maintained the army during 
 the whole campaign. In addition to this, you have 
 sent six million of dollars to the public treasury, and 
 have enriched the Xational Museum with three hun- 
 dred master-pieces of the arts of ancient and modern 
 Italy, which it has required thirty centuries to produce. 
 You have conquered the finest countries in Europe. 
 The French flag waves for the first time upon the 
 Adriatic, opposite to Macedon, the native country of 
 Alexander. Still higher destinies await you. I know 
 that you will not prove unworthy of them. Of all the 
 foes that conspired to stifle the republic in its birth, 
 the Austrian emperor alone remains before you. To 
 obtain peace, we must seek it in the heart of his heredi- 
 tary state. You will there find a brave people, whose 
 religion and customs you will respect, and whose prop- 
 erty you will hold sacred. Remember that it is liberty 
 you carry to the brave Hungarian nation.^' 
 
 To give the details of the sixth campaign, which 
 now commenced, would be to rejieat the story which 
 has been already five times told. The archduke, fet- 
 tered by the aulic council of Vienna, saw himself com- 
 pelled to execute a plan which he had discrimination 
 enough to condemn. The Austrian army once more 
 commenced operations on a double basis — one great 
 division on the Tyrolese frontier, and a greater under 
 the archduke himself on the Friulese ; and Napoleon 
 —who had, even when acting on the defensive, been
 
 YS WFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 able, by the vivacity of his movements, to assume the 
 superiority on whatever point he chose to select — was 
 not likely to strike his blows with less skill and vigor, 
 now that his numbers, and the quiescence of Italy 
 behind him, permitted him to assume the offensive. 
 
 The Austrians lay along the banks of the Taglia- 
 mento, with the mountain-barriers separating Italy 
 from Germany in their front. Napoleon reached the 
 dividing-stream, and after a flourish of his battalions, 
 retired to encam]^, as if from weariness, and to seek 
 repose. The stratagem was not detected by Prince 
 Charles, whose ranks also withdrew to their tents for the 
 night. Two hours vanished, and the trumpet ssounded. 
 The French dashed into the river, and before the Aus- 
 trians could recover self-possession, were half way over. 
 Upon the unformed lines, the confident columns of 
 Napoleon rushed with resistless impetuosity. 
 
 This was on the 12th of March. The archduke 
 retreated, and the French pursued, storming Gradisca, 
 and taking five thousand prisoners. Through the 
 strongholds of Trieste and Fiume, and over mountain 
 passes, left crimson with the blood of foemen, they 
 followed the thinning ranks of the gallant Austrians. 
 Meanwhile General Laudon had descended upon the 
 Tyrol and gained possession of the defended points. 
 The Venetians, encouraged by this success, raised the 
 flag of open hostility, and their frieiids, wherever in 
 the ascendant, commenced a brutal slaughter of French 
 prisoners in the hospitals of the insurrectionary cities. 
 AVith these advantages behind the French, Charles 
 tliought to push his way to Vienna, and leading his 
 enemy into the center of the German territory, and 
 under the walls of the capital, meet the valor of the 
 empire where it would glow most intensely, and make 
 a decisive display on the field of glory.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPAKTE. YO 
 
 At this crisis came orders from the court of Vienna 
 to close the wasting conflict of six years, and embrace 
 tlie earliest opportunity for negotiating a treaty of 
 peace. A few days before, Charles had refused the 
 appeal of Napoleon to terminate the desolating war, 
 which he maintained alone, and which ravaged the 
 land, with no prospective benefit to his country, or 
 honor to his arms. Till now, he had no choice but 
 to command the splendid battalions, already sadly 
 invaded by the fire of as heroic, and more successful 
 warriors. Terror reigned at Vienna. Princes and 
 royal treasures were already across the Hungarian 
 boundary, and all hearts longed for cessation of hostili- 
 ties, which as yet gave the laurel of conquest to " the 
 man of destiny." The result was the treaty of Leoben, 
 April 18, 1797. The preliminary expressions recogniz- 
 ing the French RepuWic, Xapoleon ordered stricken 
 out, evidently with his marvelous foresight, anticipating 
 a change in the government, which might require un- 
 fettered action, Avhen he should lay aside the sword 
 for the reins of authority. Without waiting to watch 
 the completion of the negotiation, he gave it to safe 
 hands, and like the lion coming down ujoon his help- 
 less prey, marched toward the treacherous Venetians, 
 who, trembling with alarm, sought terms of submission. 
 Xapoleon re^Dlied, '* French blood has been treacher- 
 ously shed ; if you could offer me the treasures of Peru, 
 if you cover your whole dominion with gold, the atone- 
 ment would be insufficient : the lion of St. Mark must 
 bite the dust." His scornful allusion to the armo- 
 rial bearing of Venice, conveying the assurance 
 of merciless vengeance, spread fear over the city. 
 Amid the chaos of conflicting interests and emotions 
 in the city, Xapoleon appeared on the coast of the 
 Lagoon.
 
 80 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 May 31st, intelligence was received that the Senate 
 made no further resistance. But it was his time for 
 revenge ; and he began the work. The chiefs in the in- 
 surrections of Lombardy were demanded ; a democratic 
 government formed ; Italian lands ceded ; five ships of 
 war, and three million francs in gold, and the same 
 amount in naval stores, were claimed ; and added to 
 all, he selected twenty pictures and five hundred valu- 
 able manuscripts. Then, with the air of Europe's 
 master, he made Venice his rendezvous till the elements 
 there also Avere calmed beneath his eagle eye, and 
 kingly command. 
 
 The Senate, like Austria before them, tried the power 
 of a magnificent bribe of seven millions of francs, to 
 secure his clemency. He scorned in this, as in every 
 instance, the test of his republican principles. His 
 reply to the Austrian offer of a German principality, 
 *' I thank the emperor, but if greatness is to be mine, 
 it shall come from France," revealed the identity of 
 his greatness with that of his adopted country. France 
 was to be the splendid pyramid hung with trophies of 
 war, and adorned with art, on whose summit he had 
 resolved to stand. 
 
 Among the papers of the Count D'Entraigues, an 
 exiled agent of the Bourbons, whom the unfaithful 
 Venetians delivered to Napoleon, he found undoubted 
 proof of the criminal negotiations of General Pichegru 
 on the Khine, witli the Bourbon princes, and his dis- 
 guised action on the field against the republic. The 
 facts were sent immediately to Paris. Pichegru, dis- 
 placed by Hoche, returned to the capital, became a 
 member of the council of five hundred, and on the 
 meeting of the chambers, took the presidency of that 
 royalist assembly. 
 
 At this juncture, the troubled, jealous Directory,
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 81 
 
 Bent for Napoleon. He had assumed responsibility 
 never before attempted by an officer under command. 
 When General Clarke apj^eared in behalf of the govern- 
 ment at Leoben, to dictate the terms of treaty, he set 
 him aside with perfect coolness and decision. And in 
 the pending cause with Austria, he disregarded the 
 wishes of the republican rulers, and surrendered back 
 Mantua. At this time, he likewise laid his hand on 
 the revolution in Genoa, and gave them their form of 
 government. It is not strange that the central power 
 of France should inquire, " Does the lecturer of the 
 Ligurian republic mean to be our Washington, our 
 Monk, or our Cromwell ?" Napoleon despatched Au- 
 gereau to Paris at the head of the national guard, and 
 assured the Directory he was prepared to aid them with 
 fifteen thousand men, in the threatened collision with 
 the royalists. Meanwhile, Hoc he was ordered there by 
 the government with his Rhenish troops ; and September 
 4, 1797, the minority of the Directory were subdued, 
 and Pichegru with one hundred and fifty others, sent 
 into exile. Bonaparte was displeased with the move- 
 ment independent of himself, and the lenity shown 
 Pichegru. 
 
 He wrote about this date several letters to Joseph, 
 one of which we give, affording a pleasant view of his 
 versatile talent, taste, and tact ; while it does honor to 
 his heart. 
 
 KAPOLEOISr TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " October 16, 1797. 
 
 " I request yon. Citizen Minister,* to make known 
 to the composers in the Cisalpine Eepublic, and gen- 
 erally in Italy, that I offer, by competition, for the 
 best march, overture, etc., on the death of General 
 Hoche, a medal worth sixty sequins. The pieces must 
 * Joseph had been appointed French ambassador at Rome.
 
 82 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 be received by the 30th Brumaire [20th November], 
 You will have tlie kindness to name three artists or 
 amateurs as adjudicators, and to charge yourself with 
 the other details." 
 
 After arranging his affairs in Italy, he was joined by 
 Josephine, at the fine old castle of Montebello, near 
 Milan, where he fixed his miniature court ; a delight- 
 ful country-seat six miles from the city. Here Jose- 
 phine began to enjoy what circumstances hitherto had 
 denied her since her second marriage — the tranquillity 
 and joy of lioine. She won the affection and homage of 
 the gay Milanese ; many lavished upon her attentions 
 expressive of gratitude to the victor, whom they re- 
 garded as their liberator. Thus from pure admiration 
 or motives of j^olicy, all classes sought with enthusiasm 
 to honor the wife of Napoleon, and enhance the pleas- 
 ures of her sojourn among the romantic scenery of that 
 country, whose southern boundary was beautiful and 
 fallen Italy. 
 
 But she soon became weary of the pomp and cere- 
 mony of what was to her, except in name, a splendid 
 court. Balls and the drama, fetes and concerts, which 
 she felt obliged to grace with her presence, Avere to her 
 imaginative and sensitive nature the tiresome whirl of 
 a dazzling panorama of vanishing views, and she longed 
 for more elevated communion. She therefore went 
 forth, and, nnder a sky which bent lovingly over her 
 as when she was the charming Creole of Martinique, 
 looked upon the glorious summits, and the unrivaled 
 lakes that slept in their embrace. Her excursions to 
 the Apennines, Lake Como, and especially to Lake 
 3iIaggiore, afforded her refreshment of spirit and of 
 frame. On the latter clear expanse, repose the Borro- 
 mean Islands, celebrated by Tasso and Ariosto, in glow-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 83 
 
 ing language. These lie in a gulf, ornameDted with 
 tasteful dwellings, and terraced gardens, with the 
 orange, citron, and myrtle, to lend shade and beauty 
 to the esplanade. In the distance the Alps lift their 
 solemn brows into the azure, girdled with cultivated 
 fields, mantling foliage, and glittering with ice-plains, 
 that flash in the sunlight like a motionless sea of 
 diamonds. On the other side is the open country, 
 covered with vineyards, dotted with villages and cities, 
 and presenting all the variety of picturesque landscape 
 so attractive to the traveler in Southern Europe. 
 Josephine stood here entranced, like the Peri of this 
 jDaradise. At her feet lay the crystal waters, reflecting 
 the green slopes, the mansions of wealth, and the 
 wandering clouds ; Avhile the white wings of distant 
 sail-boats passed each other on the bright undulations. 
 Napoleon loved this resort, where the grand and beau- 
 tiful encircled him, invested with associations of the 
 glory of a former agOo His expanding genius, and 
 soaring ambition, were pleased with scenes that em- 
 bellished the majestic heights guarding the land of his 
 victories, and which were silent exponents of his own 
 dawning greatness. Even in his social intercourse he 
 manifested a consciousness of superiority — an isolation 
 of character, in avoiding a disclosure of his purposes 
 and feelings, while his penetrating glance and admi- 
 rable tact drew from others their every shade of chang- 
 ing thought. Josephine complains of this restless in- 
 dependence and distrust, which withheld from her the 
 unrestrained intercourse of confiding aifection. There 
 was in her a transparent candor and lively sympathy, 
 Xapoleon doubtless feared ; for secrecy he well knew 
 was his only security while his movements, which had 
 the stamp of destiny, were under the inspection of a 
 legion of powerful foes. And there is always ecu-
 
 84 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 nected with great genius an egoism, as the Germans 
 terra this self-reliance and irritability, which are nn- 
 favorable either to friendship or domestic felicity. But 
 far as any object besides the scepter of Europe could 
 reign over his heart, Josephine had control, and was 
 cherished in moments of rest from his stupendous 
 plans, with the fondness of early attachment. He was 
 exceedingly kind to her son and daughter, both in cor- 
 respondence, and projecting their advancement and hap- 
 piness, in proportion to his own exaltation and resources 
 of usefulness to friends. He was not destitute of deep 
 emotion — nor a stranger to the better feelings of our 
 nature ; and yet there was ever a conflict between these 
 and the attainment of his chief good — the unquestioned 
 pre-eminence of power which should overshadow a 
 continent — a principle of action that, in its legitimate 
 result, would, if possible map out the hoavens, and 
 give away to his favorites, the stars. 
 
 One little incident illustrates his regard for his wife 
 amid the stirring events that heralded his name, and 
 betrays the same superstitious faith in omens she 
 cherished. Isaby, a celebrated artist, painted a minia- 
 ture of Josephine at the time of her marriage, which 
 he constantly Avore near his heart, in the feverish re- 
 pose of his tent, and in the smoke of battle. AYhen 
 the war-cloud rolled away from the bed of the slain, and 
 the shout of victory drowned the groans of the dying, 
 with the pause of joy that succeeded to the conflict, he 
 not unfrequently drew forth this talisman of his purest 
 hopes and most rational delight, and then hastened to 
 communicate the tidings of conquest to the original ; 
 in which the expression once occurs, " In the contest 1 
 think of France, afterward of you." By some accident 
 it happened that the glass covering the picture was 
 broken, and immediately the presentiment awakened
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPAKTE. 85 
 
 that Josephine was dead — a solicitude which was 
 calmed only with the return of a courier sent to learn 
 if she were among the living. 
 
 The final settlement with the emperor's commission- 
 ers, though long delayed, was at length completed, 
 and the treaty of Carapo-Formio was signed on the 3d 
 of October, 1797. By this act the emperor yielded to 
 France Flanders and the boundary of the Ehine, in- 
 cluding the great fortress of Mentz. The various new 
 republics of Lombardy were united, and recognized un- 
 der the general name of the Cisalpine Eepublic. To 
 indemnify Austria for the loss of those territories, tho 
 fall of Venice afforded new means — of which Napoleon 
 did not hesitate to propose, nor Austria to accept the 
 use. 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. 
 
 At the Te Del'm, after the proclamation of the 
 peace, the imperial envoy would have taken the place 
 prepared for Bonaparte, which was the most eminent 
 in the church. The haughty soldier seized his arm 
 and drew him back. " Had your imperial master him- 
 self been here, " said he, '' I should not have forgotten 
 that in my person the dignity of France is represented." 
 
 "When about quitting Milan for Eastadt, he presented 
 a fltig to the Directory by General Joubert, the mes- 
 senger appointed for the occasion, on one side of v/hicli 
 was the inscription, " To the army of Italy, the grate- 
 ful country ; " on the other a condensed, yet ambitious 
 bulletin of his campaign : " One hundred and fifteen 
 thousand prisoners ; one hundred and seventy stand- 
 ard* ; five hundred and fifty pieces of battering can-
 
 SG LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 non ; six hundred pieces of field artillery ; five bridge 
 equipages ; nine sixty-four gun ships ; twelve thirty- 
 two gun frigates ; twelve corvettes ; eighteen galleys ; 
 armistice with the King of Sardinia ; convention with 
 Genoa ; armistice with the Duke of Parma ; armistice 
 with the King of Naples ; armistice with the Pope ; 
 preliminaries of Leoben ; convention of Montebello 
 with the republic of Genoa ; treaty of peace with the 
 Emperor at Campo-Formio. 
 
 " Liberty given to the people of Bologna, Ferrara, 
 Modena, Massa- Carrara, La Romagna, Lombardy, Bres- 
 sera, Bormio, the Vallentina, the Genoese, the Impe- 
 rial Fiefs, the people of the departments of Coreigra, 
 of the ^gean Sea, and of Ithaca. ' Sent to Paris all 
 the master-pieces of Michael Angelo, of Genercino, of 
 Titian, of Paul Veronese, of Correggio, of Albano, of 
 Carracei, of Raphael, and of Leonardo da Vinci/ " 
 
 But the Directory were, in return for his' success, 
 envious of his popularity, which with the word Liberty, 
 was traversing the valleys, and echoing among the 
 snow-crowned tops of the Alps and Apennines ; and 
 they annoyed both himself and Josephine by the subtle 
 vigilance of spies, whose presence failed to obtain from 
 either, treasonable or unlawful aspirations, with which 
 to check, by the interposition of authority, the splen- 
 did course of this hero, whose youthful promise was 
 that of bearing at lengtli the prize alone in the Olym- 
 pic games of blood, "whose honors kings and generals 
 had struggled for, and alternately lost and won. 
 
 Leaving Josephine and her family at Milan, he 
 reached Mantua, celebrated the funeral of General 
 Iloche, attended to the erection of a monument to the 
 memory of Virgil, then amid the acclamations of the 
 people, marched toward Ilastadt. In addition to the 
 portrait given incidentally in the preceding narration
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 87 
 
 of Napoleoii'rf personal uppeuranco, an additional ex- 
 tract from a letter written at this time by au observer 
 of the triumphal jarocession, is interesting, and has an 
 air of tidelitj in tiie description : 
 
 '•' I beheld with deep interest and extreme attention 
 that extraordinary man who has performed such great 
 deeds, and about whom there is something which 
 seems to indicate that his career is not yet terminated. 
 I found him very like his portrait, small in stature, 
 thin, pale, with the air of fatigue, but not in ill health 
 as has been reported. He appeared to me to listen 
 with more abstraction than interest, as if occupied 
 rather with what he was thinking of, than with what 
 was said to him. There is great intelligence in his 
 countenance, along with au expression of habitual medi- 
 tation which reveals nothing of what is passing within. 
 In that thinking head, in that daring mind, it is im- 
 possible not to suppose that some designs are engender- 
 ing which shall have their influence on the destinies of 
 Surope." 
 
 With the ardent affection of a noble army, who still 
 svept over his farewell ; the enthusiastic admiration of 
 thousands in the Cisalpine Republic which he created, 
 who hoped for a future grand Italian union under a 
 democratic constitution ; and attended in his rapid 
 course through the hamlets of Switzerland and the 
 cities of the plains, with the homage of the people ; he 
 reached Rastadt, and ajjpeared before the assembled 
 congress of "the German powers. 
 
 As only minor points divided the princes, Xapoleon, 
 after a few days, hastened to Paris. This congress con- 
 tinued its sessions from December 9th, 1797, to April 
 7th, 1799, while Xapoleon was on a broader field of in- 
 tellectual, civil and military display. For a while, he 
 lived in obscurity, waiting the opportunity for another
 
 88 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 evolution in the march of events, to unfold his own 
 stupendous plans. He pursued his studies — visited 
 with a select few — and passed with Josephine the quiet 
 hours. The Parisians marveled at the invisibility of 
 their idol. But policy and taste both kept him from 
 the public gaze, in the residence which he occupied be- 
 fore he went to Italy, and which was named in honor 
 of the illustrious tenant. Rue cle la Victoire. Upon 
 one of the social occasions, Avhen genius and beauty 
 shone around his greater intellect, Madame de Stael, 
 the distinguished daughter of M. Neckar, inquired, 
 " Whom do you consider the greatest of women ? " 
 Napoleon replied, " Her, madame, who has borne the 
 greatest number of children." From this cutting rebuke 
 to her vanity, she became his bitter enemy until death. 
 
 He was sensitive to the opinions of others, but his 
 conscious superiority and natural independence, made 
 him regardless of it, if personal plans or inclination led 
 him in conflict with the pride and the views of the 
 meanest or the most gifted minds. He became with 
 advancing greatness, more formal and reserved in his 
 intercourse with officers and friends, but maintained a 
 familiar converse Avith the common soldiery. He knew 
 that from the former, he must keep himself apart, if 
 he would control them and awe the multitude ; Avhile 
 in the absence of encroachment upon his realm of in- 
 fluence from the adoring soldier, his freedom with them 
 had an air of sympathy and condescension which won 
 the deeper love of the troops, and the admiration of 
 all. In his elevation, he remembered the jewelers, 
 barbers, and the humblest peasant, who had done him 
 service when in the army. 
 
 '' A silversmith, who had given him credit when he 
 set out to Italy, for a dressing-case worth fifty pounds 
 was rewarded with all the business which the recom-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BOXAPARTE. 81) 
 
 mendation of his now illustrious debtor could bring to 
 him ; and, being clever in his trade, became ultimately, 
 under the patronage of the imperial household, one of 
 the wealthiest citizens of Paris, A little hatter, and 
 a cobbler, who had served Bonaparte when a subaltern, 
 might have risen in the same manner, had their skill 
 equaled the silversmitli's. 'Not even Napoleon's ex- 
 amj^le could persuade the Parisians to wear ill-shaped 
 hats and clumsy boots ; but he, in his own person, ad- 
 hered, to the last, to his original connection with these 
 poor artisans," 
 
 January 2d, 1798, Xapoleon left his retirement for 
 the great court of Luxembourg, The treaty of Campo- 
 Formio was in his hands, and the hour of public pre- 
 sentation to the Directory had been appointed. The 
 open area was hung like a gorgeous tent, with ban- 
 ners, and both the rulers and the people waited impa- 
 tiently for his ap|iearing. And Avhen he came, "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 far greater part of 
 which his person was, up to the moment, entirely 
 unknown, outleaped all bounds, and filled the already 
 jealous hearts of tlie directors with dark i^reseutiments. 
 They well knew that the soldiery returning from Italy 
 had sung and said through every village, that it was 
 high time to get rid of the lawyers, and make ' the 
 little corporal ' king. "With uneasy hearts did they hear 
 what seemed too like an echo of this cry, from the as- 
 sembled leaders of opinion in Paris and in France. 
 The voice of Napoleon was for the first time heard in 
 an energetic speech, ascribing all the glories that had 
 been achieved to the zeal of the French soldiery — for 
 ' the glorious constitution of the year three ' — the 
 lame glorious constitution which, in the year eight, was
 
 90 LIFE OF NAPOLEOX BONAPARTE. 
 
 to receive the w«^ de grace from liis own liauJ ; and 
 Barras, as presiding director, answering that * Nature 
 had exhausted all her powers in the creation of a 
 Bonaparte/ awoke a new thunder of apjilause." 
 
 Talleyrand introduced him, and both his address and 
 that of Napoleon were brief and brilliant. When the 
 hero ceased, the concourse shouted wildly, " Vive 
 Napoleon, the conqueror of Italy, the pacificator of 
 Europe, the saviour of France." This splendid scene of 
 delirious Joy was the homage of the people, and the 
 government keenly felt it. He was elected member 
 of the Institute, the distinguished literary establish- 
 ment of the capital, in place of Carnot, exiled, and it 
 was believed dead, and welcomed with similar demon- 
 strations of honor and delight, by the cultivated con- 
 stellation of minds gathered within its spacious halls. 
 Thenceforth he put on the plain citizen's dress ; and 
 years afterward thus referred to the j)olicy involved in 
 the position and manners he then assumed : " Man- 
 kind are in the end always governed by superiority of 
 intellectual qualities, and none are more sensible of 
 this than the military profession. When, on my re- 
 turn from Italy, I assumed the dress of the Institute, 
 and associated with men of science, I knew what I Avas 
 doing ; I was sure of not being misunderstood by the 
 lowest drummer in the army." Napoleon's econoni}'' 
 personally was a singular quality of his character. 
 He might have amassed wealth by millions, but limited 
 himself to a moderate allowance. This fact made the 
 meanness and jealousy of the Directory the more con- 
 spicuous and significant to liim, when the motion was 
 lost in the Chambei-s, to grant him the estate of 
 Chambord. But when the government could use his 
 name or presence, they were very willing to concede 
 his eminence. On the contrary, he wished to have aa
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 91 
 
 little to do with them as possible, and secretly despised 
 their authority. It was with this mutual distrust ripeu- 
 ing, that Napoleon refused the invitation to cele- 
 brate, with the republican leaders, the 21st of January, 
 the anniversary of tlie violent death of Louis XVI. He 
 at last yielded to the urgency of the Directory, and 
 appeared, greatly to their annoyance, in citizen's dress, 
 instead of the general's uniform with which to grace 
 and sanction the ceremony he condemned, as the com- 
 memoration of a lamentable, if indeed a necessary 
 tragedy. His presence was discovered, and the festival 
 of death became a triumphal fete to Napoleon. The 
 air was rent with shouts, and the populace bowed to 
 him, as the forest bends before the wind. 
 
 The next grand scene in the Napoleonic drama, was 
 the proposed invasion of England ; the only great 
 power openly hostile to the new republic. He disap- 
 proved the abrupt termination of negotiations with 
 Lord Malmesbury the year before, by the government, 
 but Avas ready to accept the command of the amply re- 
 cruited army, and undertake another enterprise, equal 
 in grandeur and difficulty to his genius. In company 
 with a few of his ablest generals, he immediately com- 
 menced a survey of the coast opposite England. The 
 result was the decision not to venture upon the doubt- 
 ful, and if unsuccessful, fatal invasion of a might}' and 
 patriotic army on their own soil. To Bourrienne, who 
 inquired if the plan was possible, he replied, "No ! it 
 is too hazardous. I will not undertake it. I will not 
 risk un such a stake our beautiful France." 
 
 He then turned his thoughts to an indirect blow 
 iipon his haughty foe, by a campaign to Egypt, which 
 would, if victorious, atone for the loss of colonies in the 
 "West Indies, and embarrass England iu her trade with 
 southern Asia.
 
 92 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 The exepdition to Egypt was finally decided upon by 
 the Directoiy, who were willing to place the envied 
 general in a command that would remove him to a 
 dangerous climate, and perhaps rid them altogether of 
 his dreaded pre-eminence He received his appoint- 
 ment April 12th, 1798, and with a troop of a hundred 
 savans, to gather antiquarian embellishments for the 
 gallery of the Louvre, which he had already adorned 
 by his contributions from the cabinets of Italy, and 
 also to make scientific researches, he hastened to 
 Toulon to join his assembled army and magnificent 
 fleet. 
 
 His own ambitious views are finely expressed in his 
 own words : ''They do not long preserve at Paris the 
 remembrance of anything. If I remain long unem- 
 ployed, I am undone. The renown of one in this great 
 Babylon speedily supplants that of another. If I am 
 seen three times at the opera, I shall no longer be an 
 object of curiosity. I am determined not to remain in 
 Paris. There is nothing here to be accomplished. 
 Everything here passes away. My glory is declining. 
 The little corner of Europe is too small to supply it. 
 "We must go to the East. All great men of the world 
 have there acquired their celebrity." He also said, 
 " Europe presents no field for glorious exploits ; no 
 great empires or revolutions are found but in the East, 
 where there are six hundred millions of men.'' 
 
 Who can question the inspiration of an insatiate am- 
 bition in the heart that uttered such motives of con- 
 quest ? To feel this suggestion, we have only to im- 
 agine them falling from the lips of Washington ! It is 
 true. Napoleon loved France ; but clearly he regarded 
 her fame inseparable from his own, and no sacrifice too 
 great to secure both. A battalion of brave soldiers, or 
 a single loving heart, oli'ered no barrier to success ; he
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 03 
 
 would sooner drain a goblet of tears he made to flow, 
 than swerve from a jjurpose involving his glory. This 
 conflict of powers on the war-plain of the liuman soul, 
 i? discernible in every phase of his histo-y. 
 
 *' The attention of England was stil riveted on the 
 coasts of Normandy and Picardy, betw:cn which and 
 Paris Bonaparte studiously divided ". ij presence — while 
 it was on the borders of the Medit rrr^nean that the 
 ships and the troops really destined for action were 
 assembling. 
 
 "Bonaparte, having rifled the cabinets and galleries 
 of the Italian princes, was resolved not to lose tlie op- 
 portunity of appropriating some of the richest anti- 
 quarian treasures of Egypt ; nor was it likely that he 
 should undervalue the opportunities which his expe- 
 dition 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 Avere one 
 hundred of them) formed part of tlie staff of an invad- 
 ing army. 
 
 "The various squadrons of the French fleet were 
 now assembled at Toulon in readiness for departure. 
 As soon as Bonaparte arrived he called his army to- 
 gether and harangued them, ' Eome,' he said, * com- 
 bated Carthage by sea as well as land , and England 
 was the Carthage of Franco. — He was come to lead 
 them, in the name of tlie goddess of Liberty across 
 mighty seas, and into remote regions, where their valor 
 might achieve such glory and such wealth as could 
 never be looked for beneath the cold heavens of the 
 West. The meanest of his soldiers should receive seven 
 acres of land j ' — where he mentioned not. His prom-
 
 94 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAFABTE. 
 
 ises had not hitherto been vain. The soldiery heard 
 him with joy, and prepared to obey with alacrity. 
 
 " The English government, meanwhile, although they 
 liad no suspicion of the real destination of the arma- 
 ment, had not' failed to observe what was passing in 
 Toulon. They had sent a considerable reinforcement 
 to Nelson, who then commanded on the Mediterranean 
 station ; and he, at the moment wiien Bonaparte 
 reached Toulon, was cruising within sight of the port. 
 Xapoleon 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 Avatcher. On the evening of the 19th 
 May, fortune favored him. A violent gale drove the 
 English off the coast, and disabled some ships so much 
 that Nelson was obliged to go into the harbors of Sar- 
 dinia to have them repaired. The French General in- 
 stantly commanded the embarkation of all his troops ; 
 and as the last of them got on board, the sun rose on 
 the mighty armament : it was one of those dazzling 
 suns which the soldiery delighted afterward to call 
 * the suns of Napoleon.* " 
 
 For six leagues along the Mediterranean shore, the 
 grand armament in the form of a semicircle, unfurled 
 its thousand snowy wings, and threw upon the breeze 
 its gay streamers ; while the uniform of forty thousand 
 ''picked soldiers," reflected the unclouded beams of 
 the ascending orb. Josephine, who accompanied the 
 General-in-chief to Toulon, extorting a promise of 
 permission to follow soon his fortunes in the East, 
 gazed with a full heart upon the dazzling pageant. 
 Amid all the magnificence of tlie spectacle, her eye 
 followed alone the I'Orient, which bore a husband and 
 son, whose farewell embrace still thrilled her sensitive 
 frame, till its tall mast bccnme a speck in the distance,
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 95 
 
 and vanished like departing hope from her tearful 
 gaze, beneath the horizon's rnin. Yet there was the 
 possibility of meeting her husband in accordance with 
 the assurance given, among the ruins of Memphis and 
 Thebes, which restored the dreams of a calmer, brighter 
 future. She had a soul that soared like the skylark 
 when the storm is jDast, and breathed the gentlest 
 music of love, in the ear of whoever would listen. 
 
 She retired to Plombieres, celel)ruted for its springs, 
 whose waters it was thought might give that tone of 
 perfect health to her system. Napoleon ambitiously 
 desired for the transmission of his accumulating honors, 
 and which she sought ardently for his sake. It was 
 arranged that she should remain there until the arrival 
 of the frigate from Egypt to convey her thither. 
 
 June 14th, the fleet reached the island of Malta. The 
 once brave knights of St. John, soon yielded to the 
 ordnance of Xapoleon, and opened the gates of the re- 
 nowned fortress. Napoleon with his usually laconic 
 style, wrote to Joseph after the event : 
 
 I^APOLEOX TO JOSEPH. 
 
 "Headquarters, Malta, May, 29, 1798. 
 
 *' General Baraguay d'Hillicrs is going to Paris. He 
 was unwell. I nse him to carry parcels and flags. I 
 hear nothing from you about Eire or Burgund3^* I 
 write to my wife to come out to me. Be kind to her 
 if she is near you. My health is good. Malta cost 
 us a cannonade of two days ; it is the strongest place 
 in Europe. I leave Vaubois there. I did not touch 
 Corsica. I have had no French news for a month. 
 We write by ship of war." 
 
 lu the eastward sailing of the invading army, they 
 
 * Estates he wished Joseph to piirchasa
 
 96 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 
 
 tonclied at Candia. to obtain supplies ; and by the cir- 
 cuitous route, escaped the pursuit of Nelson, who miss- 
 ing the French fleet in the harbor of Toulon, had 
 taken the direct course toward Alexandria, where he 
 suspected Napoleon might next display his troops. 
 Heari)ig of Nelson's design, he determined to change 
 his course to another port. But the English admiral, 
 finding no vessels in the bay of Alexandria, immediately 
 sailed to Rhodes, and thence to Syracuse, if possible to 
 intercept his enemy. 
 
 July 1st, the French vessels were in the destined 
 harbor, tossing amid the waves of a tremendous gale. 
 Just then a sail appeared in the haze of distance. 
 Napoleon exclaimed, " Fortune, 1 ask but six hours 
 more — wilt thou refuse them ?" It was a false alarm, 
 and the troops disembarked ; the noble horses swim- 
 ming to the shore, while many a jjoor soldier went down 
 to sleep beneath the waters. 
 
 Egypt was taken by surprise. Her two hundred 
 thousand Copts, or descendants of the ancient race of 
 the land, the Arabs who were the dominant people in 
 numbers, the Janizaries or Turks, and the wild, fierce 
 Mamelukes, composed the two and a half millions to be 
 conquered. They were at peace with France, but their 
 alliance with England, and the blessings of conquest by 
 French arms, were the pretext of this expedition. While 
 the battalions of Napoleon formed in the order of at- 
 tack, at Marabout, a mile and a half from Alexandria, 
 where they landed, the intelligence preceded their 
 march, and the Turks rallied in haste for the defense of 
 their city. The gates were closed, and a desperate con- 
 flict began. The walls Avere scaled, and the French 
 rushed impetuously and unsparingly upon the furious 
 Mamelukes. With a short and terrific carnage, in which 
 the French loss was small, Napoleon planted the tri-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 97 
 
 color on tl\<3 crnrabling walls of the city. His apology- 
 for the merciless havoc of this first conflict, as in other 
 instances of sanguinary conquest, was the necessity of 
 making at the outset an impression of his resistless 
 force, which should spread a panic among his foes. 
 His ordinary rule of action, it is true, was more noble ; 
 and is disclosed in the general order to the army, which 
 at the same time declares his own unsettled and latitu- 
 dinarian views of religious truth and obligation : 
 
 " The people with whom we are about to live, are 
 Mahometans : the first article of their faith is. There is 
 no God hit God, and Mahomet is his inophet. Do not 
 contradict them : deal with them as you have done 
 with the Jews and the Italians. Kespect their muftis 
 and imans, as you have done by the rabbins and the 
 bishops elsewhere, * * * The Eoman legions protected 
 all religions. You will find here usages different from 
 those of Europe : you must accustom yourselves to 
 them. These people treat their women differently 
 from us ; but in all countries, he who violates is a mon- 
 ster ; pillage enriches only a few ; it dishonors us, de- 
 stroys our resources, and makes those enemies whom it 
 is our interest to have for friends.'" 
 
 To the people of Egypt he said : " They will tell you 
 that I am come to destroy your religion ; believe them 
 not : answer that I am come to restore your rights, to 
 punish the usurpers, and that I respect, more than the 
 Mamelukes ever did, God, his prophet, and the Koran. 
 Sheiks and imans, assure the people that we also arc 
 true Mussulmans. Is it not we that have ruined the 
 Pope and the knights of Malta ? Thrice happy they 
 who shall be with us I Wo to them that take up arms 
 for the Mamelukes ! they shall perish I " Leaving three 
 thousand men to hold Alexandria, he despatched a 
 flotilla on the Nile, with the munitions of war, to meet 
 7
 
 9S LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 the main army at a point fifty miles from Cairo, be- 
 tween which and himself, lay sixty miles of burning 
 sands. 
 
 On the 6th of July, the regiments filed away into the 
 arid desert, whose furnace heat was filled with torment- 
 ing insects, and on whose glowing plain sparkled no 
 cooling fountains. Murat and Lannes dashed their cock- 
 ades beneath their blistering feet, and many a poor 
 soldier laid him down to gasp and die. The nnmoist- 
 ened brow, unshrinking glance of a seer, and the ma- 
 jestic step of a king, which marked the leader of that 
 feverish host, alone kept the reeling ranks unbroken. 
 
 Flying groups of Arab horsemen picked up the linger- 
 ing soldier, and him who left the line of march for a 
 moment. 
 
 After a skirmish at Chebreis, and an attack on the 
 flotilla, July 21, the Pyramids rose upon their strain- 
 ing vision. " While every eye was fixed on these hoary 
 monuments of the past, they gained the brow of a gen- 
 tle eminence, and saw at length spread out before them 
 tlie vast army of the beys, their riglit posted on an in- 
 trenched camp by the Nile, their center and left com- 
 posed of that brilliant cavalry with which they were by 
 this time acquainted. Napoleon, riding forward to rec- 
 onnoiter, perceived that the guns on the intrenched 
 camp were not provided with carriages ; and instantly 
 decided on his plan of attack. lie prepared to throw 
 his force on the left, where the guns could not be avail- 
 able. Mourad Bey, who commanded in chief, sueedily 
 penetrated his design ; and the Mamelukes advanced 
 gallantly to the encounter. * Soldiers,^ said Napoleon, 
 ' from the summit of yonder pyramids forty ages be- 
 iiold you ;' and the battle began. 
 
 " The French formed into separate squares, and await- 
 ed the assault of the Mamelukes. These came on with
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 99 
 
 impetuons speed and wild cries, and practised every 
 means to force their passage into the serried ranks of 
 their new opponents. The}^ rushed on the line of bay- 
 •^nets, backed their horses upon them, and at last mad- 
 dened by the firmness Avhich they could, not shake, 
 dashed their pistols and carabines into the faces of the 
 men. Nothing could move the French : the bayonet 
 rtud the continued roll of musketry by degrees thinned 
 the host around them ; and Bonaparte at last advanced. 
 Such were the confusion and terror of the enemy when 
 he came near the camp, that they abandoned their 
 works, and flung themselves by hundreds into the Kile. 
 The carnage was prodigious. Multitudes more Avere 
 drowned. Mourad and a remnant of his IMamelukes 
 retreated on Upper Egypt. Cairo surrendered : Lower 
 Egypt was conquered." 
 
 Such was the battle of the Pyramids. It smote with 
 fear the tribes and nations that surrounded and spread 
 away from the Egyptian capital, even beyond the 
 boundaries of Africa. 
 
 Kapoleon, who had won by the fiery onset of his 
 troops, the title of Sultan Kebir, or King of Fire, and 
 in less than a month had gained the sovereignty of 
 Egypt, was an unhappy man. False rumors of the in- 
 fidelity of Josephine had reached him. He was be- 
 coming weary of the conqueror's laurels, and evidently 
 had hours of despondency amid the grand and awful 
 game of destiny his youthful hand was playing. He 
 thus wrote emotions known to not one of all his 
 legions, in the correspondence with his elder brother : 
 
 NAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 Cairo, July 25, 1798. 
 
 ' • You will see in the newspapers the result of our 
 battles and the conquest of Egypt, where we found
 
 100 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 resistance enough to add a leaf to the laurels of this 
 army. Egypt is the richest country in tlie world for 
 wheat, rice., pulse, and meal. Nothing can be more 
 barbarous. There is no money, even to pay the 
 troops. I ma}'^ be in France in two months. J recom- 
 mend my interests to you. I have much domestic 
 distress. Your friendship is very dear to me. To 
 become a misanthropist I have only to lose it, and find 
 that you betray me. That every different feeling to- 
 wards the same person should be united in one heart 
 is very painful.* 
 
 ** Let me have on my arrival a villa near Paris or 
 in Burgundy. 1 intend to shut myself up there for 
 the winter. I am tired of human nature. 1 want soli- 
 tude and isolation. Greatness fatigues me ; feeling is 
 dried up. At twenty-nine glory has become flat. I 
 have exhausted everything. I have no refuge but pure 
 selfishness. 1 shall retain my house, and let no one 
 else occupy it. 1 have not more than enough to live 
 on. Adieu, my only friend. 1 have never been unjust 
 to you, as you must admit, though 1 may have wished 
 to be so. You understand me. Love to your wife and 
 to J6r6me." 
 
 The soldiers of the conqueror, whose heart was cor- 
 roded with ennui, meanwhile rioted on the splendid 
 spoils of the slain Mamelukes, and the gathered luxu- 
 ries in the deserted harems and gardens of the chiefs. 
 The savans did not forget their mission among the 
 pyramids and other monuments of antiquity. Mapo- 
 leon entered upon extensive plans of improvement to 
 the country. Canals were opened, which neglect had 
 
 * The suspicions of Josephine's honor, hinted at In this remarkable 
 letter, disturbed Napoleon during the whole of liis Egyptian campaign. 
 Bourrienno describes his distress and his plans of divnrce six monthl 
 afterwards, in consequence of some information from Jimot.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. IQl 
 
 closed, and means devised to develop the resources of 
 Egypt. 
 
 During these events, Nelson had returned from his 
 search, to the coast, where lay at anchor the hunted 
 fleet. And on the 1st of August, ten days after the 
 victory under the shadow of the pyramids, the English 
 directed their prows toward the curve of water between 
 the enemy and the shore — a mode of attack Admiral 
 Brucyes deemed impossible, on account of his prox- 
 imity to the land. Nelson's plan was a great stroke of 
 naval science ; it was to bring his adversary between 
 his lines of cannonade, and embrace them in his 
 divided fleet, whose greeting would be the volcanic 
 fires of death. For twenty-four hours the battle raged, 
 with one awful interlude at midnight, when the 
 rOrient blew up, shaking like a subterranean earth- 
 quake, the land and sea. Brueyes perished ; three 
 thousand men were slain, and five thousand taken 
 prisoners ; and two riddled ships alone escaped to pro- 
 claim the defeat of Aboukir. 
 
 The French fleet was annihilated ; and with a few 
 more frigates. Nelson might have entered the harbor 
 of Alexandria and taken from the enemy their stores. 
 As it was, he blockaded the coast, and made Napoleou 
 an involuntary exile — with no resources but his arms, 
 and the savage country he had invaded. When the 
 intelligence reached him, it extorted a sigh, and with 
 unruffled dignity and composure, he remarked, "To 
 France the fates have decreed the empire of the land 
 — to England that of the sea." He then commenced 
 the reconstruction of the government — established 
 councils — maintained law, order, and justice ; and soon 
 commanded the homage, respect, and admiration of 
 the Moslem. That a new impulse was given to agri- 
 culture, education, and internal improvements, is un
 
 102 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 deniable. It alleviates the horrors of devastating 
 conquest, to know that Napoleon always attempted the 
 elevation and progress of a conquered people. But 
 this pleasant view of his triumphs, does not change 
 the motives he avowed in the beginning of the Egyp- 
 tian campaign — the pursuit of glory — the attainment of 
 unrivaled power and renown. 
 
 He was not a monster of cruelty — a ruthless invader 
 — against whom the kings of a continent conspired in 
 righteous warefore of self-defense ; nor was he a Chris- 
 tian hero — a republican patriot, who regarded human 
 life and destiny for two worlds, with sacred interest 
 and philanthropic sympathy. He was as often the 
 assailed as the aggressor, and monarchs who opposed 
 him, cared more for their crowns and empire, than for 
 the peace and freedom of Europe. This was apparent 
 in the joy that spread over the despotic realms, when 
 the tidings of the " Battle of the Nile " fell on the ears 
 of the haughty rulers of the servile masses. 
 
 Though the country was virtually conquered, the 
 Mamelukes were not all submissive. Mourad Bey, 
 with thousands of his horsemen, was in upper Egypt. 
 Dessaix went there, and with bloody defeats subdued 
 them ; while Napoleon was planning in thought, and 
 preparing his strength to beat back the threatened 
 armies of England and Turkey. 
 
 Meanwhile he made an excursion to the Red Sea, to 
 survey the route of a proposed canal to connect the 
 Mediterranean with its waters, and provide a defen'?e 
 on that boundary of Egypt against the Ottomans. 
 Upon one occasion, with a select company, he ventured 
 at low tide upon tlie sand-flats spreading toward the 
 shores of Asia, where, tradition has it, the Hebrews 
 passed over in their exodus from Egypt. Savary, who 
 was one of the company, relates the result :
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 103 
 
 " The night overtook us ; the waters began to rise 
 around us ; the guard in advance exclaimed that their 
 horses were swimming. Bonaparte saved us all by one 
 of those simple expedients which occur to an imperturb- 
 able miud. Placing himself in the center, he bade all 
 the rest form a circle round him, and then ride on, each 
 man in a separate direction, and each man to halt as 
 soon as he found his horse swimming. The man whose 
 horse continued to march the last, was sure, he said, 
 to be in the right direction : him accordingly we all 
 followed, and reached Suez at two in the morning in 
 safety, though so rapidly had the tide advanced, that 
 the water was at the poitrels of our horses ere we made 
 the land." 
 
 Napoleon, upon his return to Cairo, with intelligence 
 confirming the tidings of the allied forces sweeping 
 through the Bosphorus and the Straits of Gibraltar, 
 to concentrate their power upon the African coast, 
 marched with ten thousand picked soldiers toward 
 Syria, to attack the Turkish armament there, before 
 the fleet should arrive to strengthen their arms. He 
 crossed the intervening desert, and, " took possession 
 of the fortress El-Arish, in February, whose garrison, 
 after a vigorous assault, capitulated on condition that 
 they should be permitted to retreat into Syria, pledging 
 their parole not to serve again during the war. Pur- 
 suing his march, he took Gazah, that ancient city of 
 the Philistines without opposition ; but at Jaffa, the 
 Joppa of holy writ, the Turks made a resolute defense. 
 The walls were carried by storm ; three thousand Turks 
 died with arms in their hands, and the town was given 
 up during three hours to the fury of the French soldiery 
 — who never, as Napoleon confessed, availed themselves 
 of the license of war more savagely than on this oc- 
 casion."
 
 104 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Twelve liundred of these desperate men, who poured 
 down their fire from every window of a large edifice, 
 in which they had taken shelter, Avere the last to sur- 
 render. They proved to be the Turks who were re- 
 leased at El-Arish, and had been faithless to their 
 pledge of neutrality. These, after consultation, and 
 repeated murmurs of the enraged troops at the delay, 
 were led forth under General Bon among the sand-hills, 
 and formed into squares. The blazing musketry soon 
 mowed them down, and their bones whiten the sands 
 where tliey fell. Much has been said of this slaughter, 
 in condemnation of Napoleon. It was a fearful ex- 
 termination, but under the circumstances, only an 
 incident in the general warfare of invasion. The 
 'murder of a few savage soldiers, when to leave a guard 
 for their safekeeping was impossible, and their faith- 
 lessness rendered any other disposal of them perilous, 
 while an indignant army demanded the sacrifice, was 
 comparatively a trivial affair. The question is the 
 right and justice of the general havoc of this war of 
 conquest, which in all the forms of fiercest carnage 
 and suffering, lined the path of victory with heaps of 
 the dead. To anticipate providence, and force reform, 
 or cripple an allied enemy by such an awful waste of 
 human life, and unrecorded agonies, is a kind of phi- 
 lanthropy and patriotism, which the splendor of genius 
 cannot elevate above the range of an ambition, that 
 disguises under the name of war, the wholesale murder 
 of mankind. 
 
 At this date, the middle of March, 1798, the plague 
 broke out in the French army in all its horrors. The 
 sufferers grew despairing — the healthy shrunk from the 
 couch of pain — and Najioleon himself went to the 
 relief of the grateful soldier. lie M^alked without an 
 emotion, or at least sign of fear among the dying and
 
 LIFE OF XAi'ULEON BONAPARTE. 105 
 
 the dead in the hospitals, and encouraged the victims 
 to hope on, and be of good courage. Such scenes ex- 
 hibit the manly nature of Bonaparte, whose apparent 
 cruelty was the unflinching, iron will, which without 
 religious control, and devoted to military glory, did 
 not turn aside for a barrier of snowy summits, nor 
 when the price of victory was a hecatomb of dead men. 
 
 A formidable resistance, it was known, would be 
 made by the ferocious Achmet, pasha of Syria, at 
 Acre, renowned in the annals of the crusades. This 
 bold chief spurned all inducements offered by Napo- 
 leon, to abandon the Porte, and form an independent 
 province under the protection of France ; and sent 
 back the first messenger from the republican invader. 
 The second soldier despatched to Achmet, was slain. 
 Napoleon prepared to lead his exasperated troops 
 against the fortified city, before which. Sir Sidney 
 Smith, to whom, while cruising in the Levant, the 
 pasha had applied for aid, appeared v/ith two British 
 ships of the line. He unexpectedly captured on the 
 passage, at Mount Carmel, the French flotilla, with the 
 weapons of siege — a most serious loss to Napoleon. 
 In addition to these unpromising events. Colonel Phil- 
 lippeaux, a classmate at Brienne, but a royalist, con- 
 ducted with skill and energy the plan of defense. 
 
 March 18th, Napoleon opened the trenches. For 
 ten days he continued the inefi:ectual assault, when a 
 breach was made, into which the French rushed. The 
 garrison, who rallied after a momentary defeat which 
 so enraged the daring Djezzar, who commanded, that 
 he hurled his pistols at the heads of his swaying columns, 
 swept the besiegers back. 
 
 Then darkened on the horizon an army of thirty 
 thousand Mussulmans, from the mountains of Samaria, 
 to complete the defense of Acre. At Mount Tabor,
 
 106 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 April 16tli, Kleber looked suddenly down upon the 
 Turkish army, encamped on the plains of ralestine. 
 In the unclouded sunrise, it was a splendid pageant. 
 A shout of rage and defiance rose from the Turkish 
 battalions. After a bloody conflict, threatening tlio 
 extinction of Kleber's band, Napoleon appeared to tlie 
 rescue, and soon the turbaned Turks on their flying 
 chargers were hastening from the ensanguined fleld. 
 The dashing Murat, ever conspicuous and ostentatious 
 in his unrivaled bravery, was there, his white plume 
 streaming through the thickest cloud of battle. And 
 it is not strange, that his romantic spirit cauglit the 
 influence of the sacred place, beneath the shadow of 
 a mount whereon had bowed the prophet and the Son 
 of God. He said afterward, " In the hottest of tliis 
 terrible fight I thought of Christ, and of liis transfigu- 
 ration upon this very spot, two thousand years ago, 
 and the reflection inspired me with tenfold courage 
 and strength." Napoleon returned to the siege of 
 Acre, on the issue of whieli hinged the success of liis 
 expedition. He said to Bourrienne, " The fate of tlje 
 East depends upon the capture of Acre. That is the 
 key of Constantinople or of India. If wo succeed in 
 taking this paltry town, I shall obtain the treasures 
 of tlie pasha, and arms for three hundred thousand 
 men." Day after day, the murderous work went on ; 
 and explosions, putrefaction, and disease, added their 
 terrors to the 2)rotracted conflict. Sir Sidney Smith 
 displayed skill and courage in the unyielding strength 
 of his resistance. Wlien sixty days had passed, mak- 
 ing a charnel-liouse and hospital of fortress and tent, 
 the repeated assaults, and momentary promise of vic- 
 tory, were followed l:>y retreat, leaving the noblest 
 officers and men in the T'l-cnch battalions gliastly forma 
 of blackened corruption. Just then a Turkish fleet
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 107 
 
 with twelve thousand men, appeared in the seaward 
 horizon, moving down upon Acre, to reinforce the ex- 
 ulting Djezzar. Xapoleon saw the case was hopeless. 
 ]{(,' must yield to that destiny which he worshiped as 
 a blind, resistless force bearing him onward, whether 
 to victory or defeat, and for the first time abandon 
 by retreat the crimson field of war. May 21st, 1799, 
 keeping up the fire of assault to deceive his foes, he 
 led his army toward Jaffa. The following was his ad- 
 dress to the troops : " Soldiers ! you have traversed 
 the desert which separates Asia from Africa, with the 
 rapidit}^ of an Arab force. The army which Avas on 
 its way to invade Egypt is destroyed. You have taken 
 its general, its field artillery, camels, and baggage. 
 You have captured all the fortified posts which secni-e 
 the wells of the desert. You have dispersed at Mount 
 Tabor, those swarms of brigands collected irom all 
 parts of Asia, hoping to share the plunder of Egyj)t. 
 The thirty ships which, twelve days ago, you saw en- 
 ter the port of Acre, were destined for an attack upon 
 Alexandria. But you compelled them to hasten to 
 the relief of Acre. Several of their standards Avill con- 
 tribute to adorn your triumphal entry into Egyi)t. 
 After having maintained the war, with a handful of 
 men, during three months in the heart of Syria, taken 
 forty pieces of cannon, fifty stands of colors, six thou- 
 sand prisoners, and captured or destroyed the fortifica- 
 tions of Gaza, Jaffa, and Acre, we prepare to returii 
 to Egypt, where, by a threatened invasion, our pres- 
 ence is imperiously demanded. A few days longer 
 might give you the hope of taking the pasha in his 
 palace; but at this season, the castle of Acre is not 
 worth the loss of three days, nor the loss of those brave 
 soldiers who would consequently fall, and who are 
 necessary for more essential service. Soldiers ! we
 
 108 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 have yet a toilsome and a perilous task to perform. 
 After having by this campaign secured ourselves from 
 attacks from the eastward, it will perhaps be necessary 
 to repel efforts winch may be made from the west." 
 
 From Jaffa, Napoleon marched directly to Egypt. 
 The sickening scenes of suffering and death, before de- 
 scribed, in their passage over the desert-sands, were 
 renewed. And no exhibition of the Satanic and brutal 
 elements of war, besides the murderous strife, was ever 
 more shocking than that transit across the burning 
 plain. 
 
 *' When a comrade, after quitting his ranks, being 
 stimulated by the despair of falling into the hands of 
 the Turks or Arabs, yet once again reared himself from 
 the burning sand, and made a last attempt to stagger 
 after the column, his painful and ineffectual efforts 
 furnished matter for military merriment. ' He is 
 drunk,' said one ; 'his march will not be a long one,' 
 answered another ; and when he once more sank help- 
 less and hopeless, a third remarked, ' Our friend has at 
 length taken up his quarters.' It is not to be omitted, 
 that Napoleon did, on this occasion, all that became 
 his situation. lie yielded his last horse to the service 
 of the moving hospital ; and walked on foot, by the 
 side of the sick, cheering them by his eye and his voice, 
 and exhibiting to all the soldiery, the example at once 
 of endurance and of compassion." 
 
 Reaching Cairo, he again gave his attention to the 
 political interests of the conquered land of the an- 
 cient Pharaohs. But while his capacious mind was 
 planning governmental bases for the new order of 
 things, rumors arose of the descent of the hej^s of the 
 Upper Nile, and of the foreign allies upon the coast at or 
 near Alexandria. The oriental sky thus darkened bove 
 him, and his anxious thoughts turned toward Franco,
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 100 
 
 from which for several months lie had received no 
 tidings. 
 
 It was an evening in July, when walkiiig beneath 
 the shadow of the Pyramids, lie descried a liorseman 
 flying over the plain. He proved to be an Arab, witli 
 despatches from Alexandria. Eighteen thousand Turks 
 had. landed there ; the combined, fleets of Russia, 
 Turkey, and England, were in the bay, and Mourad 
 Bey with a JMameluke force from Upper Egypt, was 
 on the march thither. Leaving Dessaix in command 
 of Cairo, he descended the Nile with rapid flight, 
 and on the 2oth of July, at nightfall, reached the 
 enemy, already in possession of Aboukir, Looking 
 toward the extended camp of his foes, Napoleon re- 
 marked to Murat, " Go how it will, the battle to- 
 morrow will decide the fate of the world !" **0f this 
 army, at least," replied Murat; ''but the Turks have 
 no cavalry, and if ever infantry were charged to the 
 teeth by horse, they shall be so by mine." 
 
 The morning dawned, and the strife began. The 
 outposts yielded to the valor of the French, but the 
 batteries and cannonade of the ships near tlie shore 
 checked their advance. Eout might have followed but 
 for the eagerness of the Turks to despoil and maim tlie 
 troops that fell before them. Murat improved tlie 
 moment, and charging their main body in flank with 
 his furious and fearless cavalry, spread disorder in their 
 ranks, while Napoleon swept with his infantry through 
 the intrenchments. Then the unsparing massacre be- 
 came universal. It was personal combat, till the ter- 
 rified Turks turned from the storm of death, which 
 the more rapid fire of the French poured upon their 
 decimated ranks. They plunged by thousands head- 
 long into the sea, until the waters were covered with 
 floating turbans, and red with blood. Six thousand
 
 110 LIFE OF NAPOLEON liONAPARTE. 
 
 surrendered unconditionally^, and twelve thousand per- 
 ished on laud and in the waters of the Mediterranean. 
 AV'hen the daring Murat, who dashed into the Turkish 
 camp, and with a stroke of his sword disabled Mus- 
 tapha Pacha, the general, brought the haughty Turk 
 to Napoleon, the victor snid, *' It has been your fate to 
 lose this day ; but I will take care to inform the Sultan 
 of the courage with which you have contested it." 
 " Spare thyself that trouble," answered the proud 
 pacha, " my master knows me better than thou." 
 
 The defeat was complete, and the triumph one of 
 the most wonderful in the annals of war. Napoleon, 
 on the 10th of August, was again in Cairo. His pur- 
 pose of leaving Egypt in the care of subordinates, and 
 embarking for France, was maturing. Sir Sidney 
 Smith, either as an act of courtesy or to annoy his ad- 
 versary, sent Napoleon a file of English papers. He 
 learned from them the loss of Italy — the uprising in 
 Eome, which threatened the life of Joseph — the inva- 
 sions, under the imbecile Directory, of Switzerland and 
 Sardinia, to establish republics after their model — 
 arousing the indignation of the more intelligent repub- 
 licans, the royalists, and Catholics. These with many 
 other discordant elements, and imminent perils to 
 France, decided Napoleon to hasten to its coast. His 
 plan was communicated only to Bourrienne, Berthier, 
 and Gantheaume; the latter immediately got ready 
 the frigates, and two smaller vessels at Alexandria. 
 Departing from Cairo, with the pretext of an exjilora- 
 tion down the Nile, with his selected band of friends, 
 he crossed the desert, and arrived at Alexaiulria, Au- 
 gust 22d. Then he apprised the company of his de- 
 sign to return to France ; and with acclamation they 
 received the announcement. Soon after, tlie little 
 fleet, the flying representative of the gallant scpuul
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. HI 
 
 ron which a few months before sailed toward that 
 shore, was gliding over the blue waves of the same 
 unchanging sea. The usual converse — the intellec- 
 tual entertainments the master spirit always gave — - 
 and other incidents of a voyage — transpired. "We 
 glance onward to the gorgeous capital to which Xa- 
 poleon's restless thoughts were ever turning, from the 
 deck of his fugitive ship. 
 
 Gohier, President of the Directory, on the Dth of 
 October, 1799, gave a splendid levee, embracing the 
 noble and the beautiful of the capital. Josephine was 
 a guest, though more a spectator than participant in 
 the festivity of the brilliant occasion. The gifted be- 
 ing to whom her tides of feeling in their deepest chan- 
 nel, however dark or shining their surface — however 
 black or beaming the skies above — were as obedient, 
 as the sea to the changeful moon, was a wanderer 
 among the dead and dying of his unrivaled army, or 
 perhaps gazing in vain upon the wide waters for a 
 friendly bark to bear him away. The am])le enter- 
 tainment went forward — the viands disappeared, and 
 the wine-cup became the inspiration of wit, and the 
 pledge of affection. But while the converse of excited 
 genius rang out in sparkling repartee, and beauty 
 smiled, suddenly the eye of Gohier was arrested by a 
 telegraphic line which checked his gaiety, and held 
 the throng in suspense. With a serious air, he re- 
 peated the announcement — ^'^ Bonaparte landed fJiis 
 morning at Frejus." The strange silence of that star- 
 tled assembly, was no less marked than when the first 
 peal of a rising storm and its shadows cast before, 
 hushes into stillness the amphitheater of nature, which 
 rang with the music and glee of spring-time. 
 
 There was a blending of vague apprehension, and 
 wonder, and ]wpe. The multitude, during his former
 
 112 LIFE OF NA.POLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 campaigns, had begun to regard the rapid and almost 
 miraculons exertions of that intellect, embodied in ac- 
 tion that dwarfed all the great of antiquity into com- 
 mon men, with mysterious awe ; and his unexpected 
 appearance on the theater he seemed to have deserted 
 and lost, sent a wave of surprise and agitation over 
 these rejoicing hearts, and with the morning light over 
 millions more. 
 
 Josephine rose upon hearing tlie intelligence, and 
 with suppressed emotion whispered an adieu to those 
 about her, and retired. Her design was instantly 
 formed of meeting him on his way to Paris ; not only 
 to hail his return, but efface from liis mind a doubt of 
 her iidelity, before it was graven more deeply by the 
 enmity of those who envied her influence, and would 
 rob her of her honors. Accompanied by Hortense, or 
 as is affirmed by some writers, Louis Bonaparte, she 
 hastened with the speed of a courier, toward Lyons. 
 But the General had avoided the direct route she 
 traveled, and passed lier of course without the knowl- 
 edge of either. Alarmed, she flew with all possible 
 speed to the metropolis ; but she was too late — the hour 
 of midnight which brought her to their city residence 
 was one of desolating sorrow. Napoleon had found 
 his home a solitude, and the impression this unac- 
 countable desertion, relieved only by the gathering 
 members of the Bonaparte family, made upon his spirit 
 stained with jealousy, and worn by the sufferings of 
 his sad adventures, was fearful, and never forgotten. 
 It is not strange the sobbing wife was sent without rec- 
 ognition to her apartmeut, to weep away the night in 
 agony. There nuiy be some apology for him in the 
 fact that society in decay had weakened his faitli in the 
 morality of the elite, and his thorough knowledge of 
 men rendered him skeptical whenever self-interest was
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 113 
 
 tlie stake, with regard to apparent innocence, or cir- 
 cumstantial evidence against deeds which his own ex- 
 perience assured hira might tarnish the escutcheon of 
 the renowned. His estimate therefore of human nature 
 was not high, for he found it a pliable tiling beneath 
 his molding hand, and the multitude were his crea- 
 tures, playing their part in his elevation to disguised 
 royalty ; which like a distant summit robed with cloud, 
 was mistaken for something that they admired, and 
 toward which they were impatiently struggling, to 
 find protection and repose. 
 
 He sternly refused to see Josephine, who, with a 
 bosom bleeding, waited the result of her children's elo- 
 quence and tears. Two long, dreary days wore away 
 — the wrathful deep of a mighty mind was tranquil 
 again — and the gentle words of Hortense, and her 
 swimming eye, with the manly yet touching entreaty 
 of Eugene, restored the wonted tenderness of his bet- 
 ter moods. He stole into her room, and found the wife 
 of his youth in the attitude of inconsolable grief. 
 Leaning upon tlie table, her face was buried in her 
 hands — the warm tears were dropping from her deli- 
 cate fingers upon the letters he had written in the ful- 
 ness of affection, while convulsive sobs alone disturbed 
 the stillness. He gazed a moment, and with quivering 
 lip, murmured " Josephine f' She looked up with her 
 soul in the expression, and reading in his pale counte- 
 nance the evidence of a milder frame, said sweetly, 
 " mo)i ami ! " — the familiar language of love. He 
 silently extended his hand, and she was once more wel- 
 comed to the embrace and confidence of Napoleon. 
 
 He now lived for the most part in retirement ; di- 
 viding the honrs between domestic society, and that 
 profound contemplation with which he always matured 
 his magnificent schemes. He valued, and cheerfully
 
 114 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 acknowledged the discriminating judgment and obser- 
 vation of Josephine, both during his absence in Egypt, 
 and while enjoying tliat prelude to the eventful changes 
 which soon after paved his way to a throne. 
 
 He found France retrograding in every respect. 
 The Congress of Rastadt had resulted in the assassina- 
 tion of French plenipotentiaries, and open war. Su- 
 warrow with his battalions had overswept Italy, and 
 taken from him his miniature republics. On nearly 
 all of the national boundaries the foe hung menacingly, 
 glorying over the spoils of victory, and to complete the 
 discord and danger, the Directory, distracted by the 
 conflict of royalty with extreme republicanism, was the 
 centralization of anarchy and imbecility rather than of 
 power and dignity. There was necessarily almost uni- 
 versal discontent, and poor France turned with disgust 
 from that substitute for appalling terrorism — the op- 
 pressive mockery of a republic.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 115 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Napoleon in Paris.— The 18th Brumaire. — Napoleon at St. Cloud. — ^The 
 consular government. — The motives of Napoleon. — Reforms. — The new 
 constitution. — Napoleon at the Tuilleries.— Josephine. — Personal appear- 
 ance of the first consul. — News of Washington's death.— The Bourbons. 
 — Napoleon's policy. — Propositions of peace with England. — Correspond- 
 ence. — Causes of war. — Movements of the armies. — Capitulation of 
 Genoa.— Napoleon at Marengo. — The battle. — The results. — Napoleon at 
 Milan.— Renewed hopes of the Bourbons. — A new campaign.- Battle of 
 Hohenlinden. — The emperor sues for peace.— Napoleon returns. — His 
 work of reform of national advancement. — The infernal machine. — The 
 spring of 1801.— The battle of Copenhagen.— The English take Egypt.— 
 Invasion of England.— Peace of Amiens. — Letters.— Napoleon's designs 
 of reform.— Treaty with the Pope. — Legion of honor.-- -Consulate for 
 life. — Colonial conquests.- -Napoleon and the invasion of Haj'ti. 
 
 Xapoleon retired again to liis quiet dwelling in the 
 Rue de la Vidoire, to contemplate the events of the 
 i:)ast, and wait for the moment in the future, -when the 
 reins of government might be safely seized. He was 
 conscious of the capacity to govern France, and of the 
 sympathies of the people. His purpose, which had for 
 many years been unfolding in his gigantic mind, was 
 now matured. Yet was there iircliminary work to be 
 done, before the decisive blow was given, which should 
 crash the Directory, and sweep away the Council of 
 the Ancients and of the Five Hundred. Besides, Ber- 
 nadotte was opposed to him, and Moreau was likely to 
 resist his power. In a conversation with Moreau, Xa- 
 poleon used language which briefly explains his mar- 
 vels of military prowess, and shows his unsurpassed 
 knowledge of the universal principles of human ac- 
 tion. '*' It was always the inferior force which was 
 defeated by the superior. When with a small body 
 of men I was in the presence of a large one, collecting
 
 n6 LIFii OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 my little band, I fell like lightning on tlie wings of 
 the hostile army, and defeated it. Profiting by the 
 disorder which such an event never failed to occasion 
 in their whole line, I repeated the attack, with similar 
 success, in anotlier quarter, still with my whole force. 
 Thus I beat it in detail. The general victory which 
 was the result, was still an example of the truth of the 
 principle, that the greater force defeats the lesser." 
 When he appeared first at Louxembourg, he was wel- 
 comed with enthusiastic expressions of devotion. Not 
 a murmur arose over his flight from Egypt. His 
 studied and mysterious reserve did not cool the ardor 
 of the people. He accepted an invitation to a public 
 dinner, gave a toast — " The union of all parties" — and 
 retired. The parties, besides the subdued royalists, 
 were the Jacobins, under Barras, and the moderates, or 
 republicans, led by Sieyes ;"both of which sought an 
 alliance with Napoleon, whose influence would be a 
 tower of strength. He chose the latter, as better suited 
 to his grand design. His brotlier Lucien was presi- 
 dent of the Council of Five Hundred, uho, with the 
 shrewd and unprincipled Talleyrand, was his confix 
 dential friend. The 17th Brumaire (November 8th, 
 1799) came, and witli it the distinct and ominous to- 
 kens of civil commotion. Tlie dragoons, the oflficers 
 of the national guard, and of the garrison, who had re- 
 quested an interview with Napoleon, on the evening of 
 that day were astir with excitement ; Napoleon had 
 named the next morning for tlieir reception at the Eue 
 de la Yictoirc. The ISth Brumaire dawned ; and at 
 six o'clock the military bands were moving toward the 
 humble residence of Napoleon, marching to the strains 
 of martial music, which drew the populace in throngs 
 along the streets. Bcrnadotte was there in cif.izen's 
 dress. Having desired Napoleon's arrest as a deserter
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 117 
 
 upon his arrival from Egypt, he refnsed all the proposals 
 to join the new piirty, and left the splendid cavalcade 
 around the man who had little cause to fear his hos- 
 tility, with the promise, that as a citizen he would do 
 nothing against him. The Council of the Ancients 
 assembled at the Tuilleries, at seven o'clock in the 
 morning, and the president declared the necessity of 
 bold measures to save the republic ; and announced 
 two decrees for immediate adoption. One was to re- 
 move their sittings to the chateau of St. Cloud, a few 
 miles from the capital ; and the other conferred upon 
 Xapoleon the supreme command of all the military 
 force in and around Paris. The motions j^assed, and 
 the tidings were carried to Napoleon. Mounting a 
 steed he rode off to the Tuilleries, to finish the victory 
 so nearly won. He addressed the Council in these 
 words : " You are the wisdom of the nation ; I come, 
 surrounded by the generals of the republic, to promise 
 you their support. Let us not lose time in looking for 
 precedents. Nothing in history resembled the close of 
 the eighteenth century — nothing in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury resembled this moment. Your wisdom has de- 
 vised the necessary measure ; our arms shall put it 
 in execntion." 
 
 While these scenes were transpiring at the Rue de la 
 Victoire and St. Cloud, the three Directors, who were 
 not dreaming of a revolution, awoke as from a deep 
 sleep to the crisis. Moulins suggested that they send 
 a battalion of troops, surround Xapoleon's house, and 
 take him prisoner. But he was already in the palace, 
 encircled by devoted and brave men in arms. Barras 
 sent his secretar}- »v^itli an appeal to Xapoleon, and re- 
 ceived the haughty reply : " What have you done for 
 that fair France which I left you so prosperous ? For 
 peace, I find war ; for the wealth of Italy, taxation and
 
 llg LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 misery. Where are the one hundred thousand brave 
 French whom I knew — where are the companions of my 
 glory? — They are dead." Sieyes and Ducos had re- 
 signed, and now Barras, dreading the exposure of his 
 corruption and bribery, followed. 
 
 Bernadotte, whose pledge did not allow of active hos- 
 tility as a citizen, offered his command to the opposition, 
 urging that would give the troops a choice of leaders. 
 The offer was rejected, and the Directory of France 
 passed away before the advancing power of Napoleon. 
 The Council of Five Hundred only remained. When 
 they heard of the decree which changed their place of 
 meeting to St. Cloud, they separated, indignantly shout- 
 ing, ''Vive la Ee2n(bh'qne ! " "Vive la Constitu- 
 tion!" Next morning, attended by all who sympa- 
 thized with them, they repaired for a final struggle to 
 St. Cloud. Napoleon was in the Tuilleries, the soldiers 
 ready for action, and the people anxiously waiting the 
 issue of these far-reaching events. Murat led a for- 
 midable force to the arena of civil strife. On the 19th 
 Brumairo, the assemblies gathered to their chambers. 
 
 " The Council of Ancients were ushered into the 
 Gallery of Mars, and, the minority having by this time 
 recovered from their surprise, a stormy debate forth- 
 with commenced, touching the events of the preceding 
 day. Bonajiarte entered the room, and, by permission 
 of the subservient president, addx-essed 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 me to action. I obeyed : 
 I collected my brave comrades, and placed the arms of 
 my country at the service of you who are its head. We 
 are repaid witli calumnies — they talk of Cromwell — of 
 Caesar. Had 1 aspired at power the opportunity was 
 mine ere now. I swear that France holds no more
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 119 
 
 devoted patriot. Dangers surround us. Let us not 
 hazard the advantages for which we have paid so dear- 
 ly — Liberty and Equality!' A democratic member, 
 Jjinglet, added aloud, * And the Constitution.' * The 
 C'onstitution ! ' continued Napoleon — ' it has been thrice 
 violated already — all parties have invoked it — each in 
 turn has trampled on it : since that can be preserved 
 no longer, let us, at least, save its foundations — Liberty 
 and Equality. It is on you only that I rely. The 
 Council of Five Hundred would restore the Convention, 
 the popular tumults, the scaffolds, the reign of terror. 
 I will save you from such horroi's — I and my brave 
 comrades, whose swords and caps I see at the door of 
 this hall ; and if any liireling prater talks of outlawry, 
 to those swords shall I appeal.' The great majority 
 were with him, and he left them amid loud cries of 
 * Vive Bonaparte ! ^ 
 
 " A far different scene was passing in the hostile as- 
 sembly of the Five Hundred. When its members at 
 length found their way into the Orangery, the apart- 
 ment allotted for them, a tumultuous clamor arose on 
 every side. Live the Constitution! — Tlie Constitution 
 or death! — Down ivith the Dictator f^SiWch. were the 
 ominous cries. Lucien Bonaparte, the president, in 
 vain attempted to restore order : the moderate orators 
 of the Council wath equal ill success endeavored to gain 
 a hearing. In the midst of the tumult Napoleon him- 
 self, accompanied by four grenadiers, walked into the 
 chamber — the doors remained open, and plumes and 
 swords were visible in dense array behind him. His 
 grenadiers halted near the door, and he advanced alone 
 toward the center of the gallery. Then arose a fierce 
 outcry — Draion sioords in the sanctuarij of the laws! — 
 Oiitlaiury! — Outlaiory ! — Let liim be proclaimed a trai- 
 tor! — Was it for tills you gained so many victories?
 
 320 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Many members rushed npon the intruder, and, if we 
 may place confidence in his own tale, a Corsican 
 deputy, by name Arena, aimed a dagger at his throat. 
 At all events, there was sucii an appearance of per- 
 sonal danger as fired the grenadiers behind him. They 
 ri«hed forward, and extricated him almost breathless ; 
 and one of their number (Thome) was at least rewarded 
 on the score of his having received a wound meant for 
 the general. 
 
 "It seems to be admitted, that at this moment, the 
 iron nerves of Bonaparte were, for once, shaken. With 
 the dangers of the field he was familiar — 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 reas- 
 sured him. General Augereau came up but a moment 
 afterward, and said — * You have brought yourself into 
 a pretty situation.' • Augereau,' ansvrered Napoleon, 
 
 * things were worse at Areola. Be quiet ; all tliis will 
 soon right itself.' He then harangued the soldiery — 
 
 * 1 have led you to victory, to fame, to glory. Can I 
 count upon you ? ' * Yes, yes, we swear it,' was the 
 answer that burst from every line — * Vive Bona- 
 parte ! ' 
 
 ** In the Council, meantime, the commotion had in- 
 creased on the retreat of Napoleon. A general cry 
 arose for a sentence of outlawry against him ; and 
 Lucien, the president, in vain appealed to tlie feelings 
 of nature, demanding that, instead of being obliged to 
 put that question to the vote, lie might bo heard as the 
 advocate of his brother. He was clamorously refused, 
 and in indignation flung off tlie insignia of his office.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 121 
 
 Some grenadiers once more entered, and carried him 
 also out of the place. 
 
 "The president found the soldiery without in a high 
 state of excitement. lie immediately got upon horse- 
 back, tliat he might be seen and heard the better, and 
 exclaimed : ' General Bonaparte, and you, soldiers of 
 France, the president of the Council of Five Hundred 
 announces to you that factious men with daggers in- 
 terrupt the deliberations of the senate. lie authorizes 
 you to employ force. The assembly of Five Hundred 
 is dissolved.' 
 
 " Xapoleon desired Le Clerc to execute the orders of 
 the president ; and he, with a detachment of grenadiers, 
 forthwith marched into the hall. Amid the reiterated 
 screams of ' Vive la Repiihlique,' which saluted their 
 entrance, an aid-de-camp mounted the tribune, and 
 bade the assembly disperse. ' Such,' said he, 'are the 
 orders of the general.' Some obeyed ; others renewed 
 their shouting, T'he drums drowned their voices. 
 'Forward, grenadiers,* said Le Clerc; and the men 
 leveling their pieces as if for the charge, advanced. 
 When the bristling line of bayonets at length drew 
 near, the deputies lost heart, and the greater part of 
 them, tearing off their scarfs, made their escape, with 
 very nndignified rapidity, by way of the windows. 
 The apartment was cleared. It was thus that Bona- 
 parte, like Cromwell before him, 
 
 " ' Tiu'n'd out the 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. 
 
 **Luclen Bonaparte now collected the wio^^era^d mem-
 
 122 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 bers of the Council of Five Hundred ; and that small 
 minority, assuming the character of the assembly, com- 
 municated with the Ancients on such terms of mutual 
 understanding, that there was no longer any diflRculty 
 about giving the desired coloring to the events of the 
 day. It was announced, by proclamation, that a scene 
 of violence and uproar, and the daggers and pistols of a 
 band of conspirators, in the Council of Five Hundred, 
 had suggested the measures ultimately resorted to. 
 These were — the adjournment of the two Councils until 
 the middle of February next ensuing ; and the depo- 
 sition meantime, of the whole authority of the state in 
 a provisional consulate — the consuls being Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, 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 bay- 
 onets unquestionably, but still without any effusion of 
 blood. From that hour the fate of France was deter- 
 mined." 
 
 Napoleon immediately returned to Paris, and com- 
 municated to the waiting, anxious Josephine the tidings 
 of that day's decisive scenes ; the convulsive throes in 
 which a monarchy was born of a monster republic. 
 After a cordial embrace, he said to her triumphantly, 
 *' Good night, my Josephine ! To-morrow we sleep in 
 the palace of the Louxembourg." 
 
 The next morning, the consuls met in council. 
 Napoleon displayed his versatile talent, by the superi- 
 ority of his knowledge on all questions of governmental, 
 civil, and social reform. And the words of Sieyes, 
 when he returned to his house, where Talleyrand and 
 others were assembled, fell like a knell ujion their ears ; 
 and their ambition to divide the power with Napoleon 
 vanished forever. '' Gentlemen,'' he exclaimed, " 1
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEOX BONAPARTE, 123 
 
 perceive that you have got a master. Bonaparte can do, 
 and will do everything himself." Then thoughtfully 
 pausing a few moments, he added, " But it is better to 
 submit than to jjrotract dissension forever. '* 
 
 This stride of the Corsican General, not yet tliirty 
 years old, toward the summit of absolute rule, has been 
 the theme of bitterest condemnation, aud is one of the 
 most difficult questions to rightly consider and justly 
 settle, in all his surprising career. That France was 
 not prepared for the rational construction and enjoy- 
 ment of a republic like our own, cannot be denied. 
 And further, that w'earied with ten years of successive 
 revolutions, and new constitutions the masses were ready 
 for any form of stable authority, under the disguise of 
 freedom, is equally clear. On the other hand Napoleon 
 was ambitious, and without an effort to mold into form 
 and durability the elements of democratic government, 
 he dissolved the legislative assemblies, and by a resort to 
 arms, which if opposed might have ended in sanguinary 
 civil war, crushed out every germ of a republican state ; 
 and sat down upon a throne, which the populace did 
 not at first behold, because obscured bj' the satellites 
 he kept in servile evolutions between it and those w^ho 
 bowed before their idol. 
 
 Dizzy and dazzled with his own premature greatness, 
 Xapoleon doubtless believed he was doing the best for 
 France, while bringing her under the undisjouted sway of 
 his transcendent genius. But he was responsible for the 
 absence of those moral qualities, that enlightened con- 
 science, and regard to man as possessed of inalienable 
 rights, and sighing the world over for freedom, w'hich 
 gave the world a Washington. How great the temp- 
 tation to the Father of American liberty at one crisis in 
 the great struggle, to become a king ; and how indig- 
 nantly he spurned it, aud would rather have been a bleed-
 
 124 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 mg sacrifice upon the demolished altar of freedom, than 
 grace a throne of willing subjects. Napoleon has been 
 maligned by English historians, but " no sorcery of 
 words," nor admiration of the biographer, can make 
 him compare, only in glaring contrast, with the youth- 
 ful chieftain of Valley Forge, and the sage of Mount 
 Vernon. 
 
 Napoleon, with no opposition but the hatred of the 
 powerless Jacobins, set about the reorganization of the 
 empire, and the administration of its chaotic affairs. 
 The first act of the consuls was to arrange the finances 
 of the nation, which were in a disordered and burden- 
 some condition. Twenty-five per cent, was added to 
 the regular taxes, and the revenue fixed on a systematic 
 basis of income and expenditure. The " Law of Hos- 
 tages " which confined multitudes of innocent people 
 in jirison, on account of the real or imagined crimes of 
 their exiled friends, was wiped out of the statute book, 
 and the captives ushered into the light of day. The 
 humane deed spread joy over France, and increased the 
 l^opularity of Napoleon. The next and most honorable 
 stroke of policy, was the reopening of the Christian 
 temples for religious worship, in the face of that 
 skeptical, materialistic philosophy which has ever been 
 the curse of the nation, and was imported into the 
 heritage of the noble pilgrims, from that fair land, 
 during the revolutionary Avar. Without a belief in 
 the personality, holiness, and power of God, and the 
 spiritual worship and religious institutions which attend 
 it, a republic never did long, and never can permanently 
 exist. Napoleon understood this want among a people, 
 although he was not a Christian. He carried the meas- 
 ure, restoring nominally Christianity on the ground 
 of its utility — the necessity of it in the progress and 
 control of a great nation, lie secured immediately the
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 125 
 
 devoted fidelity of not less than twenty thousand of 
 the clergy who had pined for months or years in prison. 
 Shipwrecked exiles were set free. Lafayette and 
 other conspicuous revolutionists v/ho had been banished, 
 were recalled — of whom Carnot was made secretary of 
 war, and soon showed the wisdom of tlie choice by his 
 reforms in the army, which the neglect of the Directory 
 had weakened and divided. The time had arrived for 
 tlie formation and announcement of a new government 
 for the people. Sieyes presented a plan to Xapoleon, 
 in which the chief magistrate was to be styled grand 
 Elector — having a splendid salary but only the form 
 of authority. N'apoleon, with contempt, rejected the 
 proposal, and the following constitution in substance 
 was accepted December 14, 1799: 
 
 " Three assemblies shall be composed of persons 
 chosen from the notables of France, viz. — 1. The 
 Conservative Senate, consisting (at first) of twenty-four 
 men, of forty years of age, to hold their places for life, 
 and receive, each, a salary equal to one-twentieth of 
 that of the chief consul : 2. The Tnhnnate, to be com- 
 posed of one hundred men, of twenty-five years of age 
 and upwards, of whom one-fifth go out every year, but 
 re-eligible indefinitely ; the salary of each, 15,000 
 francs : and, 3dly, Tlie Legislative Senate, composed of 
 three hundred members, of thirty years of age, renew- 
 able by fifths every year, and having salaries of 10,000 
 francs. The executive power shall be vested in three 
 consuls, chosen individually, as chief consul, second, 
 and third ; the two former for ten years, the last for 
 five. In order that the administration of affairs may 
 have time to settle itself, the tribunate and legislative 
 senate shall remain as first constituted for ten years, 
 without any re-elections. "With the same view of 
 avoiding discussions during the unsettled state of
 
 126 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 opinion, a majority of the members of the conservative 
 senate are for the present appointed b}^ the consuls, 
 Sieyes and Ducos, going out of office, and the consuls, 
 Canibaceres and Lebrun, about to come into office ; 
 they shall be held to be duly elected, if the public 
 acquiesce; and proceed to fill up their own number 
 and to nominate the members of the tribunate and 
 legislative senate. The acts of legislation shall be pro- 
 posed by the consuls : the tribunate shall discuss and 
 propound them to the legislative senate, but not vote: 
 the legislative senate shall hear the tribunate, and vote, 
 but not clehate themselves ; and the act thus discussed 
 and voted shall become law on being promulgated by 
 the chief consul. Bonaparte is nominated chief consul, 
 Cambaceres (minister of justice) second, and Lebrun 
 third consul." 
 
 The first consul was virtually sole regent, Avhose 
 authority, by the confirmation of the legislative body, 
 was nearly dictatorial. He was elected for ten years, 
 and was re-eligible, lie was also irresponsible, and 
 appointed all the employes of peace and war. He was 
 tlie head of the army. By the organ of the council of 
 state, and of the ministry, who were entirely dej)end- 
 ent on him, he had the right of proposing laws. He 
 controlled the finance, police, war, peace and alliances. 
 Indeed the checks upon suin'eme rule were rather ap- 
 parent than real. 
 
 Finding his republican residence too small for his 
 court and ambition, he obtained a removal of the con- 
 sular domicil to the Tuilleries, altliough the very 
 center of kingly associations, and of that hated pomp 
 which the people had trodden in the dust with the 
 blood of their monarch. Everything opposed to the 
 leveling democracy was proposed and carried forward 
 under disguise. The ancient halls of royalty were
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 127 
 
 named tjie Government Palace, and given into the 
 hands of rulers whose chief wore in place of a crown 
 a conqueror's cockade, and for a scepter a sword which 
 he grasped with more devotion than ever did a despot 
 the symbol of power. 
 
 The occasioii of this transfer was one of great splendor 
 — resembling an English coronation in the ceremony and 
 jubilant festivity of the scene. The consul's tried and 
 brave companions in arms were many of them in the 
 train which delighted to do him honor. The troops 
 dashed proudly along the streets, the banners were 
 flung out on the breath of departing winter — and the 
 swell of martial music led on the excited cavalcade to 
 the silent apartments made desolate by the Reign of 
 Terror. Upon their walls was engraved in golden let- 
 ters, the word Repnhlic — completing the deception 
 Avhich calmed the fears of the masses unconsciously 
 rendering homage to Jupiter, while, as they supposed, 
 bowing to the goddess of liberty. 
 
 The evening of this memorable day brought the arena 
 of Josephine's glory. The spacious drawing-rooms oc- 
 cupied by her were crowded by eight o'clock with the 
 beauty and chivalry of France. Foreign ambassadors 
 in decorations that were indices of the courts that they 
 represented, veteran officers, and the remnant of an 
 ancient nobility, all assembled to congratulate the hero 
 of Egypt and Italy, upon his accession to the guardian- 
 sHip^rtheir beloved France. Beautiful women in rich 
 apparel and with jeweled brows, shed the light of their 
 admiring eyes upon the flashing star, coronet, and 
 plume, that were the attractive insignia of greatness in 
 that gay assembly. The horrors of civil war which for 
 ten years had agitated and ravaged the realm were 
 forgotten — the dead slumbered in the covered caves of 
 their hurried burial — the guillotine had ceased to haunt
 
 128 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPAETE. 
 
 the ear with the ominous echo of its frequent stroke, 
 and the nation's heart beat once more freely beneath 
 the protecting £egis of that single arm, which had hewn 
 down the riotous mob, annihilated armies, then over- 
 throwing a miserable government, in the name of a 
 citizen had taken the reins of supreme dictation over 
 a submissive and delighted jieople. 
 
 The illusion was successful that met their observa- 
 tion in all this outward parade. The fine talents of 
 untitled heroes, and the sjjlendor that outshone the 
 gaudy machine of Bourbon oppression, pleased ex- 
 ceedingly the multitude, who seemed to be in the as- 
 cendant — while the royalists read with hope in this 
 returning grandeur, the indications of a full restoration 
 of monarchy. 
 
 Guests from every class of citizens, therefore, par- 
 ticipated in this magnificent entertainment, with tin- 
 usual joy. Josephine, attended by Talleyrand, the 
 minister of foreign affairs, entered the saloon greeted 
 with the murmur of universal admiration. Her dress was 
 simple, and her manner, then as always indeed, per- 
 fectly graceful. The white muslin of her apparel like 
 a vestal robe, was both entirely becoming and an 
 emblem of her unstained innocence of action. The 
 tresses of her hair fell negligently upon her neck, 
 around which a simple ornament of pearls threw their 
 luster, and her features beaming with benignity made 
 her a charming contrast with the unfortunate wife of 
 Louis, her admired predecessor. She received the 
 presentation of ambassadors with quiet dignity, and 
 passed through the thronged apartments, smiling on 
 the company with the sympathy and affection of an 
 ingenuous spirit beneath the unaffected majesty of a 
 queen. She was now thirty-six, but retained to a re- 
 markable degree the freshness and buoyancy of her
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 129 
 
 youth. Her tasteful and unostentatious attire, and the 
 sparkling sweetness of her conversation, contributed 
 much to the manifold attractions she possessed. 
 
 ** Josephine was rather above than below the middle 
 size, hers being exactly that perfection of stature 
 which is neither too tall for tlio delicacy of feminine 
 proportion, nor so diminutive as to detract from dig- 
 nity. Her person, in its individual forms, exhibited 
 faultless symmetry ; and the whole frame, animated by 
 lightness and elasticity of movemen.t, seemed like 
 something aerial in its perfectly graceful carriage. 
 This harmonious ease of action contributed yet more 
 to the dignified, though still youthful air so remarkable 
 in Josephine's appeaj'ance. Her features were small 
 and finely modeled, the curves tending rather to ful- 
 ness, and the profile inclining to Grecian, but without 
 any statuelike coldness of outline. The habitual 
 character of her countenance was a placid sweetness, 
 within whose influence there were few who would not 
 have felt interested in a being so gentle. Perhaps the 
 first impression might have left a feeling that there 
 wanted energy ; but this could have been for an in- 
 stant only, for the real charm of this mild countenance 
 resided in its power of varied expression, changing 
 with each vicissitude of thought and sentiment. 
 'Never,' says a very honest admirer, * did any woman 
 better justify the saying, '* The eyes are the mirror of 
 the soul." ' Josephine's were of a deep blue, clear and 
 brilliant, even imposing in their expression, when 
 turned fully upon any one ; but in her usual manner 
 they lay half concealed beneath their long and silky 
 eyelashes. She had a habit of looking thus with a mild, 
 subdued glance upon those whom she loved, throwing 
 into her regard such winning tenderness as might not 
 easily be resisted, and, even in his darkest moods, Na- 
 9
 
 130 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 poleon confessed its tranqnilizing power. Realizing 
 exactly the fiue descriptiou of the old poet, Josephine's 
 
 " * Long hair was glossy chestnut brown,' 
 
 whose sunny richness harmonized delightfully with a 
 clear and transparent complexion, and neck of almost 
 dazzling whiteness. Her eyebrows were a shade 
 darker, arching regularly, and penciled with extreme 
 delicacy. The perfect modulation of her voice has al- 
 ready been mentioned ; it constituted one of her most 
 pleasing attractions, and rendered her conversation, 
 though not sparkling with wit nor remarkable for 
 strength, but flowing on in easy elegance and perfect 
 good-nature, the most captivating that can easily be 
 conceived ; on the whole, Josephine, perhaps, might 
 not exactly have pretensions to be what is termed a 
 fine woman, but hers was that style of beauty which 
 awakens in the heart a fur deeper sentiment than mere 
 admiration." 
 
 Napoleon, on the occasion described, appeared in 
 2)lain uniform, decorated only with the tri-colored sash, 
 a simple and beautiful badge worn with no less j)olicy 
 than taste. A glow of satisfaction played upon his 
 pale features — his noble forehead hung like a battle- 
 ment over the restless orbs, whose fire flashed witli the 
 rapidity of lightning, revealing the hue of thought, but 
 not its secret, mighty workings — and upon his coun- 
 tenance, meditation as a mysterious presence was al- 
 ways visible. His figure was rather diminutive, as 
 before described, and he stooped in walking carelessly 
 with his friends. His hands were symmetrical, of 
 which it is said he was particularly vain. Among the 
 eccentricities of his deportment, which were merely 
 the peculiarities of genius engaged in profound eon-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 131 
 
 templation, he had a convulsive shrng of his right 
 slionlder, moving at the same instant his mouth in that 
 direction. 
 
 Bonaparte turned away with weariness at times from 
 the cares and pleasures of tlie Tuilleries, and sought 
 with Josephine the tranquil scenes of Malmaison. 
 
 The tenth day of the decade, and after the restora- 
 tion of the hebdomadal calendar, every Saturday and 
 Sabbath were passed at their charming villa. 
 
 The death of Washington, December 14th, 1799, 
 reached France ; and Xapoleon expressed his admira- 
 tion of the illustrious patriot, and increased the decep- 
 tive halo of freedom, concealing his throne of royalty, 
 by issuing the following order to the army: ^'Wash- 
 ington is dead ! That great man fought against 
 tyraimy. He established the liberty of his country. 
 Ills memory will be ever dear to the freemen of both 
 hemispheres, and especially to the French soldiers, who 
 like him and the American troops, have fought for lib- 
 erty and equality. As a mark of resjiect, the First Con- 
 sul orders that, for ten days, black crape be suspended 
 from all the banners and standards of the republic.'" 
 
 The absence of truthfulness in this language is ap- 
 parent. Liberty was not secured, and France no more 
 a republic than the empire of Eussia is to-day. 
 
 Meanwhile the scattered Bourbons and their friends, 
 within and beyond the confines of France, who saw 
 the proportions of a new monarchy appearing through 
 the illusion before the minds of the masses, began to 
 hope that when the preparatory Avork was completed, 
 the dethroned dynasty would be restored to the 
 sovereignty of the nation. An audience, at night, 
 w{!^ granted to the agents of the exiled princes, when 
 Xapoleon assured them that the attempt would be 
 sanguinary ; and refused all negotiation with any who
 
 132 T^iFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 adhered to the policy of the Bourbons. He qnelled 
 the civil war of the royalists in the populous province 
 of La Vendee, and won the principal chiefs to his ad- 
 vancing interest. His rule of action at this period, was 
 expressed in the remark to Sieyes : " We are creating 
 a new era — of the past, we must forget the bad, and 
 remember only the good." He carried out the prin- 
 ciple in the consolidation of power with his own sur- 
 passing skill and prophetic eye on the future. He 
 selected one consul from the republicans, another from 
 the royalists — opposite in principles, and yet the 
 creatures of his will — and prevented by their relation 
 to each other, from conspiring against him ; and when 
 the unreliable character of Talleyrand was urged as 
 an objection to his elevated position, Napoleon replied, 
 "Be it so, but he is the ablest minister for foreign 
 affairs in our choice, and it shall be my care that he 
 exerts his abilities.'* Carnot, in like manner, was 
 objected to as a firm republican. "Eepublican or 
 not," answered Napoleon, " he is one of the last 
 Frenchmen that would wish to see France dismem- 
 bered. Let us avail ourselves of his unrivaled talents 
 in the war department, while he is willing to place them 
 at our command.'^ All parties equally cried out 
 against the falsehood, duplicity, and, in fact, avowed 
 profligacy of Fouche. " Fouche," said Bonaparte, 
 "^and Fouche 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 Ave find ; and it is easier to m.odify 
 by circumstances the feelings and conduct of an able 
 servant than to supply his place.'* 
 
 Civil liberty was enjoyed, although political liberty 
 ^yas not secured. There was equality in tlie presence
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 133 
 
 of law, for all Frenchmen. The same forms of trial 
 were decreed for the people, and the highest position 
 in the realm, possible for the worthy and aspiring citizen, 
 except the consular throne. 
 
 With a tranquil kingdom at his feet, Napoleon's next 
 and serious care was the menacing attitude of Austria 
 and England, Russia had abandoned the alliance, and 
 the autocrat seemed to have been suddenly smitten 
 with admiration for Napoleon. Austria, in his absence 
 during the Egyptian campaign, had invaded northern 
 Italy, and England, with Nelson's victories to revive 
 her courage, was unchanged in her attitude toward 
 France. The consul hoping, however, that by ad- 
 vances from himself, peace might be secured, he dis- 
 regarded the etiquette of diplomacy, and directed the 
 following letter to George the Third. 
 
 •* French Republic— Sovereignty of the People- 
 Liberty and Equality." 
 
 ** Bonaimrte, First Consul of the Republic, to his Maj- 
 esty the King of Great Britain and Ireland : 
 
 ** Called by the wishes of the French nation to occupy 
 the first magistracy of the republic, I have thought 
 proper, in commencing the discharge of its duties, to 
 communicate the event directly to your majesty. 
 
 " Must the war, which for eight years has ravaged 
 the four quarters of the world, be eternal ? Is there 
 no room for accommodation ? How can the two 
 most enliglitened nations of Europe, stronger and more 
 powerful than is necessary for their safety and inde- 
 pendence, sacrifice commercial advantages, internal 
 prosperity, and domestic happiness, to vain ideas of 
 grandeur ? Whence comes it that they do not feel 
 peace to be the first of wants as well as of glories ? 
 These sentiments cannot be new to the heart of jour
 
 134 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 majesty, who rule over a free nation witli no oilier 
 view than to render it happy. Yoar majesty will see 
 iu this overture only my sincere desire to contribute 
 effectually, for the second time, to a general pacifica- 
 tion — by a prompt step taken in confidence, and freed 
 from those forms, which however necessary to disguise 
 the apprehensions of feeble states, only serve to dis- 
 cover 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 civilized nations 
 is concerned in the termination of a war, the flames of 
 which are raging throughout the whole world. I have 
 the honor to be, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 "BOISTAPAKTE.'* 
 
 In accordance with the constitution of England, 
 the response was made through the ministry ; and 
 Lord Grenville, Secretary of State, thus wrote to 
 Talleyrand : 
 
 "The King of England had no object in the war 
 but the security of his own dominions, his allies, and 
 Europe in general. He would seize the first favorable 
 opportunity to make peace — at present he could see 
 none. The same general assertions of pacific intentions 
 had proceeded, successively, from all the revolutionary 
 governments of France ; and they had all persisted in 
 conduct directly and notoriously the opposite of their 
 language — Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Germany. 
 Egypt, what country had been safe from French aggres- 
 sion ? The war must continue till the causes which 
 gave it birth ceased to exist. The restoration of the 
 exiled royal family would bo the easiest means of giving 
 confidence to the powers of Europe. The King of 
 England pretended by no means to dictate anything as
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 135 
 
 to the internal policy of France ; but he was compelled 
 to say, that he saw nothing in the circumstances under 
 which the new government had been set up, or the 
 principles it professed to act upon, which tend to make 
 foreign powers regard it as either more stable, or more 
 trustworthy than the transitory forms it had sup- 
 planted." 
 
 It is evident that England, Avith justice, felt that 
 the sanguinary revolutions, whose last phase was the 
 elevation of Napoleon to supreme command of the 
 restless masses, offered no basis of pacific negotiations. 
 Nothing had transpired in all the career of the first 
 consul, to inspire confidence in his future reign. The 
 cabinet knew that he loved war, and policy only kept 
 his legions from the gates of London. It is also true, 
 that England was determined to have peace only on the 
 ground of protection to the monarchs whose thrones 
 had trembled before the tramp of Napoleon's bat- 
 talions. 
 
 The king was too haughty and exacting : the first 
 consul flushed with conquest, ready, if his terms of 
 amity were not accejitod, to open again the sluices of 
 human blood. 
 
 And who that surveys the awful excesses and blas- 
 phemies of the French nation up to this period, can 
 marvel at the suspicions of England, especially when 
 her own preeminently superior institutions and gen- 
 eral progress, were to her view safe only under the gegis 
 of the limited moiuirchy she boasted. The spirit with 
 ■which Napoleon negotiated, and saw the result, is ex- 
 pressed in his own emphatic language : " The answer 
 filled me with satisfaction. It could not have been 
 more favorable. England wants war. She shall have 
 it. Yes I yes ! war to the death ! " 
 
 On the other hand, the extravagant demands of the
 
 136 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 British government were rebuked by a letter pui-]oort- 
 ing to be from the heir of the House of Stuart, claim- 
 ing from the hand of George the Third, the throne of 
 the realm over which his ancestors had held the scep- 
 ter. England was not anxious to close the war with 
 France, nor was Napoleon grieved at the fact ; and he 
 did not long wait to declare it. He had the casits belli, 
 in British intervention and arrogance, which he em- 
 braced with his cherished enthusiasm for glory on the 
 field of Mars. 
 
 It was desirable that France should rest from con- 
 flict, and the sagacious consul knew, and therefore de- 
 sired it. Had England been more just and generous, 
 disentangled from alliance with corrupt and tottering 
 thrones of despotic power, peace would have stopped 
 the slaughter of men, and the sufferings it spread in 
 the homes of Europe. 
 
 Three days after the date of Lord Grenville's letter, 
 January 7th, Najjoleon's edict was published, creating 
 an army of reserve, comprising the veterans of former 
 service, strengthened by the addition of thirty thou- 
 sand recruits. 
 
 Bonaparte again addressed the troops in his stirring 
 style of appeal, v/hich kindled into a flame the zeal of 
 the nation : '' Frenchmen ! you have been anxious for 
 peace. Your government has desired it with still 
 greater ardor. Its first efforts, its most constant efforts, 
 have been for its attainment. The English ministry 
 has exposed the secret of its iniquitous policy. It 
 wishes to dismember France, to destroy, and either to 
 erase it from the map of Europe, or to degrade it to a 
 secondary power. England is willing to embroil all 
 the nations of the continent in hostility with each 
 other, that she may enrich herself with their spoils, 
 and gain possession of the trade of the world. For the
 
 LIFE OF NAl'OLEON BONAPARTE. 1^7 
 
 attainment of this object she scatters lier gold, becomes 
 prodigal other j^romises, and multiplies her intrigues." 
 
 The preparations for a mighty struggle now went 
 forward with the energy which attended all the grand 
 designs of the pervading genius. 
 
 *' The chief consul sent Massena to assume the com- 
 mand of the * army of Italy' ; and issued, on that oc- 
 casion, a general order, which had a magical effect on 
 the minds of the soldiery. Massena was highly es- 
 teemed among them ; and, after his arrival at Genoa, 
 the deserters flocked back rapidly to their standards. 
 At the same time, Bonaparte ordered Moreau to assume 
 the command of the two corps of the Danube and Hel- 
 vetia, and consolidate them into one great 'army of 
 the Ehine.' Lastly, the rendezvous of the * army of 
 reserve,' was appointed for Dijon : a central position, 
 from which either Massena or Moreau might, as cir- 
 cumstances 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 gener- 
 ally considered as at once the most daring and the most 
 masterly of all the campaigns of the war. In placing 
 Moreau at the head of the army of the Ehine, full one 
 hundred and fifty thousand strong, and out of all com- 
 parison the best disciplined as well as largest force of 
 the republic, Bonaparte exhibited a noble superiority 
 to all feelings of personal jealousy. That general's 
 reputation api:)roached the most nearly to his own ; 
 but his talents justified this reputation, and the chief 
 consul thought of nothing but the best means of accom- 
 plishing the purposes of the joint campaign. While 
 this service was given to jMoreau, the chief consul was 
 not without a daring plan for his own action." 
 
 Moreau, though gifted, was not able fully to grasp
 
 138 T-TFE OF NAPOLEON BO^sAPARIE. 
 
 Xapoleon's bold outline of the campaign, and modified 
 it to suit his more moderate action. The consul yielded 
 to individual law of mind, and j)urposed himself to 
 lead an army into the field. The movements at Dijon 
 were only a disguise in which to cheat the enemy, and 
 conceal his greater design. "While Austria supposed 
 he was there preparing to rally the army of Italy, and 
 march to Genoa, his troops were pouring from every 
 l^art of France, into the valleys of Switzerland, neither 
 detachment apprised of the destination of any other. 
 On the 4tli of May he left Malmaison, and embrac- 
 ing Josephine upon his departure, bade her adieu with 
 these words : " Courage, my good Josephine ! I shall 
 not forget thee, nor Avill my absence be long/' Two 
 days after, he was reviewing the vanguard of the army 
 of reserve at Lausanne, consisting of six tried regiments 
 of his best troops under Lannes. Immediately orders 
 were given for the Avhole force, led by Victor, Murat, 
 and other brave commanders, amounting to thirty-six 
 thousand men, to move forward to St. Pierre, a hamlet 
 at the foot of St. Bernard. From this village to St. 
 Renii, over that gigantic crest of the Aljis, Great St. 
 Bernard, the route is environed with difficulties appar- 
 ently insurmountable, and which frown upon the 
 daring adventurer with hopeless terror. A survey of 
 the fearful ascent resulted in the decision of a bare 
 possibility of success ; upon which Napoleon said 
 confidently, ''Let us forward then I" The mighty 
 cavalcade went steadily up the rugged heights— over 
 precipices well-nigh perpendicular, dragging the heavy 
 artillery upon the trunks li trees after tliem, while 
 martial music was poui'ed in tlirilling ecliocs on the 
 ear of the mountain solitude, and the occasional inter- 
 lude of a charge was beaten, to revive tiie courage of 
 the struggling host. The eagle left his eyrie to look
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 139 
 
 on a scene that his flashing ove had never witnessed 
 before, and sent down to the duric defiles the cry of 
 alarm ; while the wild goat paused in his flight to watch 
 tlie tortuous advance of the vast Hydra which hung 
 upon the snow-clad declivity, from its base to its 
 cloud-covered brow. 
 
 The wondrous marches under the shadow of frown- 
 ing fortresses, and along the ridges of majestic perilous 
 cliffs, on which Napoleon would lie down and snatch a 
 brief repose — the almost unearthly daring of the troops, 
 and mysterious charm of their leader's voice — cannot 
 be portrayed with pen or pencil. The chieftain sent 
 back his youthful guide, from whom he had learned a 
 tale of love and penury, with a scrap of writing, whicii 
 the bearer could not read, conferring on him a pleasant 
 home ; in this he soon introduced the maiden he led to 
 the altar, where he died many years after Napoleon had 
 ceased to live even in exile. 
 
 The consul descended the glittering glaciers in a 
 sledge, and on the 2d of June entered Milan amid the 
 shouts of the populace, who supposed he was sleeping 
 beneath the waters of the Red Sea. 
 
 ]\Ioanwhile, Genoa, which had been in blockade by 
 forty thousand Austrians under General Ott, and the 
 English fleet nnder Lord Keith, on the coast, was com- 
 pelled to surrender; and Massena, on account of his 
 unrivaled bravery amid famine and threatened insur- 
 rection of the inhabitants, was allowed to march his 
 troops to the headquarters of Suchet, on the frontier 
 of France, holding the last line of defense on that 
 boundary. General Ott, by his delay at Genoa, gave 
 Napoleon the advantage of rapid advance. Melas, per- 
 plexed with the movements of the consul, while Suchet 
 demanded attention for a time, accomplished nothing. 
 But the Austrian commander at length saw his peril
 
 140 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 and moved on toward Marengo ; General Ott was also 
 in motion. Napoleon, who had not heard of the fall of 
 Genoa, was contemplating its relief as a surprise to 
 Meias, when on the 9th of June, Lannes, who had ad- 
 vanced to Mon*-ebello, suddenly came on the Austrian 
 army. At eleven o'clock the battle opened. The Aus- 
 trians from the surrounding slopes swept the plain with 
 their batteries. The field of carnage was a waving har- 
 vest-field of tall rye, which so concealed the opposing 
 battalions, that often before they knew their proximity 
 the hostile bayonets met. Lannes fought like a demon, 
 piled around with the dead, and breasting the tide of 
 battle, till Victor's division could arrive. It came, and 
 the conflict raged afresh. Lannes said of this horrid 
 slaughter beneath the amphitheater of batteries, " 7 
 could hear the bones crash in my division like glass in a 
 hail storm." 
 
 At nightfall the roar of combat died away, and five 
 thousand prisoners were in the hands of the French, 
 and the bloody field was won. When Napoleon rode 
 np, lie contemplated proudly the blackened hero amid 
 the ghastly forms of the slain ; and immediately gave 
 him the title of Duke of Montebello, in honor of his 
 bravery. The victory fanned the enthusiasm of the 
 French, and roused the desperate courage of the Aus- 
 trians. The dariag Dcssaix, who followed Na^joleon 
 from Egypt, a few months later, found upon landing 
 the consul's request to join him in the new campaign. 
 He is said to have remarked of his beloved commander, 
 "He has gained all, and yet he is not satisfied." He 
 hastened toward the scene of action, to fight under the 
 banner which had streamed in the smoke of battle be- 
 neath the shadow of the pyramids. Napoleon moved 
 onward to the village of Marengo, and finding no traces 
 of the enemy, sent Dessaix to watch the road toward
 
 UFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 141 
 
 Genoa, and Mnrat toward Scrivia. On the 14th, Mehid 
 with forty thousand men, entered the pLiin of Marengo, 
 before the dawn kindled on his forest of burnished 
 bayonets. Napoleon liad twenty thousand troops ; 
 Dessaix, with six thousand more, was thirty miles from 
 Marengo. When the conflict began, he caught the 
 sound of the heavy cannonade coming like the roar of 
 thunder to his ear, and springing to his steed, hurried 
 his division forward. Napoleon sent successive couriers 
 to urge the rushing ranks, on whose timely aid hung 
 the fortunes of the terrible day. The tempest of fire 
 was too wasting to be resisted. The battalions began 
 to reel, fall back, and retreat. While Napoleon with 
 his falling columns slowly yielded to the living masses 
 of exulting Austrians, Melas, confident of victory, re- 
 tired to his tent, and prepared for swift messengers, 
 the tidings of the grand event. At this critical mo- 
 ment. Napoleon's restless eye caught the outline of 
 Dessaix's division sweeping into the field. The bravo 
 commander dashed onward to salute the first consul ; 
 and beholding the flight on every hand, exclaimed, " I 
 see the battle is lost." Napoleon replied, *'The battle, 
 I trust, is gained. Charge with your column. The 
 disordered troops will rally in your rear." Dessaix 
 turned, and met the tide of fiery devastation, as a wall 
 of granite meets the angry billows. 
 
 Kellerman was ordered to charge in flank, while 
 Napoleon's voice rang along the lines, reassuring his 
 men, and giving with his own miraculous rapidity of 
 action, a new aspect to the crimson plain of Marengo. 
 The Austrian army was compelled to halt, and receive 
 the onset of Dessaix. The fire was answered, and the 
 hero fell pierced through the heart, declaring his only 
 regret to be, that he died before his fame was secure — a 
 transit to eternity, no devout mind can contemplate
 
 142 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 with pleasure. The enraged troops poured a fresh 
 storm of bullets upon the enemy ; and Napoleon, who 
 greatly admired Dessaix, said, " Why is it not permitted 
 me to weep ? Victory at such a price is dear." The 
 day declined, and the last smile of the sun, after the 
 twelve hours' carnage on whose beginning it rose, 
 flashed over twenty thousand men, mangled and bleed- 
 ing ; the dead and dying, in hideous chaos among the 
 pools of yet warm life-blood. 
 
 The tricolor again waved over the triumphajit con- 
 sul, and unnumbered living hearts were breaking be- 
 neath the swelling shout of conquest. 
 
 The next day, Melas opened a negotiation, whose 
 terms ^Napoleon accepted. The Austrians abandoned 
 Genoa, Piedmont, Lombardy, and the Legations, and 
 were allowed to leave the field undisturbed, and gain 
 the rear of Mantua. 
 
 Napoleon then entered Milan, a conqueror with the 
 mysterious greatness of a military prodigy, and the 
 boundless enthusiasm of the people of France. Four 
 days after the affair of Marengo, he Avrote to his asso- 
 ciates in office, at the capital : " To-day, whatever our 
 atheists may say to it, I go in great state to the Te 
 Deitm, \yh\ch. is to be chanted in the cathedral of Milan ; '* 
 an expression indicating that external regard to forms 
 of religious worshij), which his convictions of the Di- 
 vine sovereignty, and sagacious policy in governing 
 men, approved. 
 
 Massena received the command of the army of Italy. 
 Jourdan was minister at Piedmont. The first consul 
 started for Paris. His journey was the march of a na- 
 tion's idol, to whom their wildest and most sounding 
 homage was paid. July 2d he arrived at the Tuilleries, 
 and the Parisians seemed frantic with joy. Illuminations 
 nightly made the city flash and glow like a magnificent
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. I43 
 
 temple, whose dome was the bending sky, filled with 
 acclamations. 
 
 During the month of Angnst, the Jacobins, who 
 hated as bitterly the royalist, as they had ardently 
 admired their republican leader before his apostacy, 
 plotted Lis assassination. Ccracchi, a sculptor, who 
 modeled a bust of Napoleon, came from Italy to aid in 
 the design. The plan was to surround Napoleon in 
 the entrance of the theater, and stab him. But a con- 
 spirator betrayed his comrades, and they were arrested 
 at the moment the consul was expected, and quietly 
 given into the hands of justice. 
 
 September 5th, Malta surrendered to the English 
 under Lord Keith, which increased the indisposition to 
 close the war witli France, on the part of England ; 
 whose goyernment had bound Austria to her consent, 
 before a treaty could be definitely signed, 
 
 •' During the armistice, which lasted from the 15th of 
 June to the 17th of November, the exiled princes of 
 the house of Bourbon made some more ineffectual en- 
 deavors to induce the chief consul to be the Monk of 
 France. The Abbe de Montesquieu, secret agent for 
 the Count de Lille, afterward Louis XVIIL, prevailed 
 on the third consul, Le Brun, to lay before Bonaparte a 
 letter addressed to him by that prince — in these terms : 
 ' You are very tardy about restoring my throne to me : 
 it is to be feared that you may let the favorable mo- 
 ment slip. You cannot establish the happiness of 
 France without me; and I, on the other hand, can do 
 nothing for France without you. Make haste, then, 
 and point out, yourself, the posts and dignities which 
 will satisfy yon and your friends.' The first consul 
 answered thus : ' I have received your royal highness'g 
 letter, i have always taken a lively interest in your 
 tnisfortunes and those of your family. You must not
 
 144 LIFE OF NAFOLEON BONAFARTE. 
 
 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 
 higliness's destinies, and making you forget, if possible, 
 your misfortunes.' The Comte D'Artois, afterward 
 Charles X. of France, took a more delicate method of 
 negotiating. He sent a very beautiful and charming 
 lady, the Duchesse de Guiche, to Paris. She without 
 difficulty gained access to Josephine, and shone, for a 
 time, the most brilliant ornament of the consular court. 
 But the moment Kapoleon discovered the fair lady's 
 errand, she was ordered to quit the capital within a few 
 hours. These intrigues, however, could not fail to 
 transpire; and there is no doubt that, at this epoch, 
 the hopes of the royalists were in a high state of excite- 
 ment." 
 
 AVhen the armistice expired, Austria, having emj)loyed 
 the time in mustering her forces for war, put her 
 splendid army under tlie command of Archduke John. 
 Kapoleon was also ready for the contest. General 
 Bmne marched against the enemy on the plains of 
 Italy, with Vienna in view ; General Macdonald was 
 among the Alps, with victory attending his progress 
 over the fields of snow ; and Moreau with twenty thou- 
 sand men was on the Ehine. December 3d he Avas in the 
 dismal forest between the Iser and the Inn, when at 
 midnight, in a howling, wintry storm, he met the arch- 
 duke with seventy thousand troops. The roads, which 
 were covered with snow, were lost ; the Austrians were 
 bewildered, and the combatants came together not un- 
 frequently, column against column. The cannon balls 
 cut down trees, whose crash added a faint echo to the 
 sounds of carnage and death, which rose through that 
 horrible midnight. The tri-color again waved over the
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 145 
 
 field of battle, and with ten thousand dead, the exult- 
 ing army of the Khine pursued the retreating Austrians, 
 whose loss in killed and wounded, was not less than 
 fifteen thousand. 
 
 Contemplating such scenes, the mind cannot fail to 
 wonder at the fascination of war over the common 
 soldiery, with the certainty of this havoc in their ranks, 
 and an unlamented, ghastly bed of death ; and often 
 without knowing or caring for the cause of contest, 
 rushing, like sheep driven to the slaughter, at the bid- 
 ding of ambitious kings, into the leaden tempest of 
 battle. The capital of Austria was threatened by three 
 proud armies, and the emperor was in extremity. He 
 must let England go, or fall himself into the hands of 
 the French. He despatched a messenger of peace, and 
 the result was the treaty at Luneville, February 9th, 
 1801. The Rhine was acknowledged to be the bound- 
 ary of France, which gave to the nation Austrian and 
 Prussian territory ; Tuscany was given up, which the 
 consul purposed to offer the House of Parma as a royal 
 reward for Spanish services in the war ; the new re- 
 publics were secured against intervention ; the Italian 
 prisoners released from Austrian dungeons ; and France 
 at peace with Europe, England excepted. The terms of 
 this memorable treaty were not immoderate ; and they 
 left without excuse the king and cabinet of the British 
 Empire, whose isolated position and their conquering 
 navy, were the sources of security, and of injury to the 
 French. In the pause of the open hostilities which 
 succeeded the treaty, Xapoleon, with characteristic 
 power, transferred his inspiring presence again to the 
 peaceful arena of national glory. Revenues, roads, and 
 bridges, appeared with magical rapidity ; and the legal 
 code was cast into the crucible of his molding, creative 
 mind, where everything connected with personal and 
 
 lO
 
 146 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 public interest was fused under its glowing activity, 
 and went forth bearing indelibly the stamp. Napoleon. 
 
 Attempts to assassinate the first consul were repeat- 
 edly made. The boldest and most nearly successful, 
 Avas the explosion of the infernal macJiine, December 
 24th. A cart was prepared containing a barrel with 
 gunpowder and grape shot, to be fired by a slow match. 
 The terrible engine of destruction was designed for 
 Napoleon, at the moment his carriage passed on the 
 way to the opera from the Tuilleries. He reached the 
 Rue St. Nicaise, and was startled from slumber by the 
 thunder of the report, and the jar of the carriage, ex- 
 claiming to Lannesand Bessieres, " We are blown up." 
 The terrified attendants were halting, when he quickly 
 ordered them to drive on with all speed to the theater. 
 The coachman, excited with wine, had driven faster 
 tban usual, and saved the consul's life. Half a minute 
 earlier, and Napoleon's career would have closed sud- 
 denly and tragically as did Ctesar's, the sijlendor of 
 whose military fame he admired. 
 
 Twenty persons were killed, among them the assas- 
 sin who sprung the mine ; and the windows near were 
 shattered to fragments. When the tidings spread 
 through the assembly in the theater, shouts of enthu- 
 siastic congratulation greeted him ; and the escape 
 gave a new and almost unearthly interest to their idol. 
 The conspirators were discovered and beheaded. Such 
 is the greatness of royalty ; the adulation of the throng 
 rises over the smothered embers of hate, whose con- 
 flagration at any momeiit may consume the dazzling 
 pageant, and leave behind the brief epitaph : 
 
 Our morning's envy, and our evening's sigh. 
 
 It is an argument supporting the principle of demo- 
 cratic government, that nowhere is greatness so secure
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 147 
 
 — sovereignty so qniet aud unguarded by force, as in 
 au enlightened republic. 
 
 The spring of 1801 opened, with a new aspect of 
 continental affairs, favorable to the interests of France. 
 A treaty had been formed with the United States ; 
 Pope Pius VI. had died, and was succeeded by the 
 Bisliop of Imola, a favorite of Napoleon ; and at the 
 request of the Emperor of Russia, to whom the Queen 
 of Naples went in mid-winter to implore his media- 
 tion, peace was made with that kingdom March 28th. 
 Thus instead of reestablishing the " Roman Republic," 
 upon the second conquest of Italy, the papal reign was 
 continued, as more subservient to the consolidation of 
 the consul's power, than his removal would be. It 
 was no longer diflBcult to enlist Paul of Russia in the 
 plans of Napoleon. His vanity was flattered ; and the 
 Russian prisoners sent home, equipped and clothed at 
 the expense of the state. England claimed the right 
 of a general blockade of France, and to search mer- 
 chant vessels of every nation. She was the undisputed 
 mistress of the seas. The neutral powers, it is true, 
 had consented to the principle of blockade and search ; 
 but when Russia revived the opposition felt at first to 
 this exercise of authority, Prussia, Denmark, and 
 Sweden soon followed, and. united their powers in an 
 alliance against England. Meanwhile, the British 
 fleet, under Lord Nelson, had passed the Sound, to 
 secure an engagement with those allieS; before the 
 forces of France and Holland should be added to them. 
 April 2d, with a favoring wind. Nelson advanced 
 with twelve ships of the line, beside frigates and fire- 
 8hips, upon the Danish armament, which included six 
 ships of the line, eleven floating batteries, and an im- 
 mense number of smaller vessels chained together and 
 to the shore, and covered by crown batteries and the
 
 148 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 fortifications of Amack. The terrible battle opened 
 and raged with fiendish fury. For four hours limbs 
 fell like autumnal leaves — the brains flew on every 
 hand, and blood ran in streams upon the decks. An- 
 other complete victory was gained by the naval power 
 of England, and at so fearful a sacrifice, that Nelson 
 said, "1 have been in above a hundred engagements, 
 but that of Copenhagen was the most terrible of them 
 all.'' The prince-regent of Denmark was compelled 
 to abandon the alliance with France. A few days be- 
 fore this event, the Emperor of Eussia was assassinated 
 in his ^palace, and was succeeded by Alexander, who 
 consulted the wishes of the nobility in a change of 
 policy toward Napoleon. The intelligence was more 
 melancholy to the consul than the defeat in the Baltic. 
 He exclaimed, " Mou Dieu !" and immediately wrote 
 the following brief note to Joseph, evidently not aware 
 of the real cause of his death. 
 
 NAPOLEON" TO JOSEPH. 
 
 "Paris, April 11, 1801. 
 
 *' The Emperor of Eussia died on the night of the 
 24th of March, of a stroke of apoplexy. 1 am so deeply 
 afflicted by the death of a prince whom I highly es- 
 teemed, that I can enter into no more details. He is 
 succeeded by his eldest son, who has received the oaths 
 of the army and of the capital." 
 
 Malta had surrendered to British arms, and now came 
 the loss of Egypt, while Napoleon was preparing to 
 send reinforcements thither. The brave Kleber was 
 killed by a Turkish assassin, and Menou, his successor, 
 ■was unpopular. At this crisis, the English under 
 Lord Keith, on the sea, and Abercrombie on land, 
 made the descent March 8th, at Aboukir. The French
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 149 
 
 were beaten in a single campaign, and the remnant of 
 the splendid army which sailed under Napoleon two 
 years before, was transported free in English vessels 
 home again. 
 
 Upon hearing of the fate of his dearly purchased 
 colony, he remarked, ** Well, there remains only the 
 descent on Britain." An army of one hundred thou- 
 sand men was rapidly concentrated on the coast of the 
 English channel, and flat-bottomed boats were ready 
 to convey the troops across the Rubicon, whenever the 
 possibility of avoiding the English fleet should occur. 
 Lord Nelson was again the formidable and watchful 
 commander of the opposing naval force, and after re- 
 peated surveys of the French preparations for invasion, 
 at length determined to move down upon the flotilla, 
 under the fire of the batteries, and cut away the boats 
 of the enemy. August 4th, before dawn, the bold at- 
 tempt was made. But the boats were chained to each 
 other, and to the land ; and after a brief and furious 
 fire. Nelson retired, without any show of success. A 
 more desperate assault was made August 16th, with 
 more decided defeat. Everything now conspired to 
 urge measures for peace. Ireland was restless, and 
 combustible material of a serious kind was accumulated 
 in England. The increase of taxation to meet the 
 enormous expenses of prolonged conflict, was oppres- 
 sive, and corruption prevailed in Parliament. The 
 probabilities of a victorious descent upon British soil 
 were becoming daily less, and Napoleon also desired a 
 cessation of hostilities. Pitt, the champion of the anti- 
 revolutionary party, who was too obstinate to yield to 
 any pressure but that of self-preservation, retired from 
 oflfice, and was succeeded by Addington. Lord Hawkes- 
 bury, the new secretary of foreign affairs, expressed 
 immediately the king's willingness to make peace.
 
 150 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 The congress met at Amiens, midway between Lon- 
 don and Paris. Lord Cornwallis, who was conspicuous 
 in the American Revohition, was the English minister, 
 and Joseph Bonaparte the ambassador of the court of 
 France. About this time Louis Bonaparte was mar- 
 ried to Hortense, the daughter of Josephine, and the 
 mother of the present Emperor of France. 
 
 Letters to Joseph, during the negotiations at Amiens, 
 shed light upon that conference, and on his manifold 
 ambitious plans. 
 
 NAPOLEON TO JOSEPH, 
 
 " Paris, January 6. 1808. 
 
 " I am to set off to-morrow, at midnight, for Lyons.* 
 I shall stay there only eleven or twelve days. 
 
 '' I believe that General Bernadotte has gone to 
 Amiens. Whether he be there or not, I wish him to 
 let you know if he would like to go to Guadaloupe as 
 captain-general. The island is in a high state of pros- 
 perity and of cultivation ; but Lacrosse made himself 
 unpopular ; and as he had only five hundred whites 
 in his service, he was driven out, and a mulatto has 
 set himself at the head of the colony. The peace with 
 England was not then expected. Three ships, four 
 frigates, and three thousand good infantry, have been 
 sent to disarm the blacks, and to maintain tranquillity. 
 It is an agreeable and important mission in every re- 
 spect. Some reputation is to be gained, and a great 
 service done to tlie republic, by tranquilizing forever 
 this colony. From thence ho nuiy perhaps go to take 
 possession of Louisiana, and even of Martinique and 
 of St. Lucia. 
 
 • The objects of Napoleon's visit to Lyons were to arrange the details or 
 the Constitution of the Cisalpine llepublio, and to be received as Its 
 President.— Tb.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 151 
 
 " If this tempts Bernadotte's ambition, as it appears 
 to do, you must immediately let me know ; for the ex- 
 jsedition will set oft' in the month of Pluviose [January — 
 February], and missions to the colonies are desired by 
 the most distinguished generals. I shall wait for the 
 courier's return before I appoint to this post." 
 
 A few days later, he wrote more fully his views upon 
 the difficulties before the congress, and gave another 
 exhibition of his thirst for conquest, in his designs 
 upon Hayti ; a fact which fixes an indelible blot on the 
 character of the first consul, and which we shall expose 
 more at length in another place. 
 
 NAPOLEOIf TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Paris, March 21, 1802. 
 
 •* Your last letter has been shown to me. I approve 
 of your conduct, and especially of your reserve. 
 
 " It seems that to-day we are again approaching an 
 agreement. As to the prisoners. Otto tells me that 
 the English ministers admit that France should be 
 allowed in account what the prisoners taken from the 
 allies of England have cost her. This seems right. 
 
 '* With regard to Malta, there can be no harm in de- 
 claring, since it is a fact, that the post of Grand Master 
 is vacant ; as one of the ai'ticles provides that there 
 shall be no longer an English or a French nation,* a 
 Frenchman cannot be appointed. This stipulation has 
 been made chiefly on account of the Bourbons, because 
 it has been said that England wishes to appoint a 
 Bourbon Grand Master. We hold that the French 
 emigrants are not eligible, as there is no longer a 
 French nation, and, although the emigrants are in 
 exile, they retain their nationality. 
 
 * The knights were divided into seven Langues or nations. Tr.
 
 152 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 '* The words ' forming part of the Xeapolitau army,' 
 which they want to substitute for tlie term * native,' 
 are rather important if their secret wish is to introduce 
 French emigrants or Englishmen ; if this be not the 
 motive for the change of words, it is of less importance. 
 
 " What relates to the Prince of Orange may stand if 
 the words ' patrimonial estates ' are added. 
 
 " What is very important is that no mention should 
 be made of nobility as regards Malta ; our system of 
 government is opposed to it. It would be absurd if 
 we were made to say that a man must be noble in order 
 to enter the order of Malta : the middle course, and 
 the right one, is not to allude to the subject. This 
 matter is the most important in the Maltese questions. 
 
 *'It is also important to put the article on Turkey 
 last, and to cancel the words ' allies of England ; ' 
 otherwise you would likewise have to insert * former 
 allies of France, allies of Eussia, and of the emperor ; ' 
 but the better plan is to suppress the words ' allies of 
 Great Britain.' This is a very important article, be- 
 cause these words, standing alone, would give to Eng- 
 land a species of supremacy which would not suit us. 
 
 " I have just received letters from St. Domingo, 
 dated the 20tli February ; they contain good news. 
 Port Republican has been taken, with all its forts, 
 without burning anything. They have taken Tous- 
 saint's military chest ; it contained two million five 
 hundred thousand francs. The Port de la Paix and 
 St. Domingo are occupied. The Spanish party has 
 submitted, and on the 29th General Leclerc had gone 
 to attack Toussaint, who held out with seven or eight 
 thousand men. 
 
 " You will find enclosed a letter to Jerdme." 
 
 March 27, the treaty was concluded and hailed with
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 153 
 
 joy and festivity by botli nations. England restored 
 all her conquests, excepting Ceylon and Trinidad, ceded 
 to her by the Batavian republic and Spain. Egypt 
 was to be restored to the Porte ; Malta given again to 
 the knights of St. Jolm, and declared a free port. 
 Neither nation was to have any representatives in the 
 Order, and the garrison was to be troops of a neutral 
 power. This article which occasioned much discus- 
 sion, was subsequently the pretext of another hostile 
 struggle. With tranquillity, came a ceaseless flow of 
 travel from Britain to France, where, amid the new 
 order of things, Napoleon was the great object of curi- 
 osity to the distinguished visitors who resorted to the 
 Tuilleries. Fox and the Consul parted with the most 
 friendly regard. The aristocracy were pleased with 
 the regal order of the consular court. 
 
 The treaties of Luneville and Amiens, which thus 
 gave fresh grandeur, and the promise of abiding great- 
 ness to the new dynasty, afforded Napoleon the oppor- 
 tunity of prosecuting his vast designs — " vast indeed, 
 for he aspired to nothing less than making France the 
 world-swaying state, and himself its unlimited lord. 
 The measures which he conceived and executed to ar- 
 rive at this result, were prudent, energetic, persever- 
 ing, for the most part salutary in their more imme- 
 diate effects, but also frequently uprincipled, unjust, 
 criminal, and in respect to their ultimate object, alto- 
 gether execrable. It was necessary, in the first place, 
 to heal the yet bleeding wounds which France had re- 
 ceived in the Revolution, and to gain the confidence 
 and the gratitude of the people for the first consul. 
 He therefore first tranquilized and subjected all parties, 
 in showing to all equal favor, without giving himself 
 up to any. Then an active life that corresponded with 
 the progress of politics, and especially with the inter-
 
 154 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 ests of national economy, came into all branches of the 
 administration. Roads were laid out, canals dug, har- 
 bors, dikes, and bridges constructed, everywheie ways 
 of intercourse made or facilitated, the spirit of inven- 
 tion encouraged by honors and rewards, and even the 
 genius of foreign countries rendered subservient to the 
 French interest. Such establishments and institutions 
 in France itself, and in its vassal states, mark the whole 
 period of Bonaparte's power, and — however many are 
 his faults and his iniquities — the half of Europe is full 
 of those monuments of his creative genius and his 
 gi-eatness as a regent. 
 
 But besides such praiseworthy works, the most artful 
 maneuvers of despotism, and the most insatiable ambi- 
 tion were early displayed. To be the venerated and loved 
 head of a great and free jieople did not satisfy his 
 selfishness. He would be despot and sole ruler, in 
 short, all in all. No other independent power was per- 
 mitted to stand beside his, and he thought he had 
 nothing unless all. 
 
 *'In the first place, he put the press in chains. But 
 he who does not allow the word of complaint challenges 
 the hostile deed. Only a system of terror can then 
 protect him. Bonaparte had recourse to the last. 
 Fouche, his minister of i:)olice, organized an omnipo- 
 tent army of Arguses and police servants, which soon 
 mastered the domain of thought itself. At the same 
 time the first consul established special triMmals 
 through the whole kingdom, composed of judges whom 
 the consul appointed, chiefly officers, truly revohffiou- 
 ary tribunals now in the service of the monarch." * 
 
 By a decree of the senate, April 2Gth, the emigrants 
 were allowed to return to France upon taking the oath 
 of allegiance. But a greater measure soon followed in 
 
 • Von Rotteck-Iiistory of the World.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 155 
 
 the concordat, or peace between the consul and the 
 Pope. This restored the Roman Catholic religion to 
 its supremacy in France, but shorn of its power b\' the 
 overshadowing authority of Napoleon. Ecclesiasticnl 
 ordinances, the consecration of priests, and festivals, 
 were all celebrated only with the permission of the gov- 
 ernment. A special ministry Avas appointed for the 
 purpose, and* but one liturgy and catechism were per- 
 mitted in the kingdom. In notliing, however, did 
 Napoleon encounter more opposition, than when the 
 church was the object of regard. The atheism born 
 of a corrupt, despotic system of Christianity, was roused 
 in the minds of the revolutionary leaders into hostility, 
 at the mention of religion. "While Napoleon never 
 identified himself with the church, he defended it, as 
 necessary to the preservation of the state. In one of 
 his conversations at Malmaison, he said : 
 
 "But religion is a principle which cannot be eradi- 
 cated from the heart of man." " Who made all that ? " 
 said Napoleon, looking up to the heaven, which was clear 
 and starry. " But last Sunday evening," he continued, 
 ** I was walking here alone when the church bells of 
 the village of Ruel rung at sunset. I was strongly 
 moved, so vividly did the image of early days come 
 back with that sound. If it be thus with me, wliat 
 must it be with others ? lureestablisliing the church," 
 he added, "I consult the wishes of the great majority 
 of my people." 
 
 The concordat dissatisfied the high Catholic party, 
 and the bishops made trouble for the consul in their 
 reluctant assent to its practical workings, yet it was rat- 
 ified by the people as the best that could be done in 
 the emergency. It was celebrated in the cathedral of 
 Notre Dame, where Napoleon appeared in state. 
 
 A national system of education, as a substitute for
 
 l56 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 the institutions of learning which disappeared with tha 
 influence and position of the clergy was adopted ; and 
 the Polytechnic school established under Monge — an 
 institute which furnished France with gifted men dur- 
 ing the succeeding years of its prosperity. The deliber- 
 ations concerning the nmu civil code were opened, but 
 awoke so much opposition from those jealous of his ex- 
 tending power, that he withdrew, for the time, his pro- 
 jected reform. Then came the splendid link in the 
 lengthening chain which v/ould gather the people with- 
 in its folds to his throne which he called the legion of 
 honor. 
 
 The proposition to form this order, met with violent 
 hostility. The idea was evidently suggested by the 
 idolatrous admiration the crowd paid to the insignia of 
 royalty which glittered on the forms of foreign am- 
 bassadors, who appeared at the Tuilleries. But repub- 
 lican senators saw in it a stride toward monarchy. 
 Napoleon expressed himself freely to them on the sub- 
 ject, in the following words, in which he alluded to 
 Berthier's remark, that ribbons and crosses were the 
 playthings of monarchy, unknown among the Romans : 
 
 " They are always talking to us of the Romans. The 
 Romans had patricians, knights, citizens, and slaves : — 
 for each class different dresses and different manners 
 — honorary recompenses for every species of merit — 
 mural crowns — civic crowns — ovations — triumphs — 
 titles. • When the noble band of patricians lost its in- 
 fluence, Rome fell to jneces — the j^eop^e were vile 
 rabble. It was then that you saw the fury of Marius, 
 the proscriptions of Sylla, and afterward of the emperors. 
 In like manner, Brutus is talked of as the enemy of 
 tyrants : he was an aristocrat, who stabbed Caesar be- 
 cause Caesar wished to lower the authority of the noble 
 senate. You talk oicJdld's rattles — bo it so; it is with
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 157 
 
 Bucli rattles that men are led. I would not say that to 
 the multitude; but in a council of statesmen one may 
 speak the truth. I do not believe that the French 
 people love Uherfy 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 — Iwnor. It isriglit to 
 afford nourishment to this sentiment, and to allow of 
 distinctions. Observe how tlie people bow before the 
 decorations of foreigners. Voltaire calls the common 
 soldiers Alexanders at five sous a day. He was right : 
 it is just so. Do you imagine that you can make men 
 fight by reasoning ? Never. You must bribe them 
 with glory, distinctions, rewards. To come to the point ; 
 during ten years there has been a talk of institutions. 
 Where are they ? All has been overturned: our busi- 
 ness 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 honor is Jiot approved, let some other be 
 suggested. I do not pretend tliat it alone will save the 
 state ; but it will do its part." 
 
 The law which created the legion of honor, was 
 passed by a small majority, and in the face of great 
 opposition, in the spring of 1803. Merit and not birth, 
 it is true, was the ground of distinction ; but still it 
 was a reward which amounted simply to a mark of 
 favor from the prince — a regal smile upon the loyal 
 subject, whose eminent services M'ere deemed worthy of 
 reward. 
 
 ]S("apoleon, with great display and public demonstra- 
 tion, had accepted the office of President of the Cisal-
 
 158 LIFE -OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 pine republic, at the hands of the four hundred and 
 hity deputies, at Lyons, in January ; and the next bold 
 step in taking the reins of absolute rule to himself, was 
 the consulate for life. 
 
 The peace of Amiens suggested to the tribune the 
 presentation of some signal expression of national re- 
 gard. Cambaceres proposed that Napoleon be created 
 first consul without further limitation ; the measure 
 was carried, and the statesman repaired immediately 
 to Malmaison, and laid the question before him. He 
 had anticipated the event, and with expressions of 
 devotion to the glory of France, accepted the prosj^ect- 
 ive honor. The polls were opened throughout the 
 kingdom, and the prefects with other officials, were 
 busy in behalf of their future emperor. It was a diffi- 
 cult, and even dangerous thing to say " no ! " Carnot 
 alone ventured to enter his protest in the council of 
 state. There were three million five hundred and 
 seventy-seven thousand three hundred and seventy- 
 nine votes cast, of which eleven thousand only were 
 in the negative. Lafayette recorded his enlightened 
 patriotism in these words, '' I caniiot vote for such a 
 magistracy until public freedom is sufficiently guar- 
 antied. When that is done, I give my voice to Na- 
 poleon Bonaparte.'* 
 
 Napoleon was declared consul for life, August 2d, 
 1802. The proposition was also made, to include in 
 the enthronement of the nation's idol, the power of 
 appointing a successor ; the last act in the creation of 
 an hereditary imperial scepter. This was wisely re- 
 fused, or rather deferred for a while, by Napoleon. 
 Bat the words '' Liherty, Equality, Sovereignty of the 
 People " were effaced from the governmental papers, 
 without exciting alarm among a people whose unsta- 
 ble character, whose vanity and enthusiasm, rendered
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 159 
 
 the yoke of a brilliant dynasty easy, and the throne, 
 reared by their hands, a fascinating substitute for the 
 simpler sovereignty of a republic. The monarchists 
 were in ecstasies, and the consul well jjleased with the 
 change. 
 
 The unfitness of the French for the unfettered free- 
 dom enjoyed in the United States, was palpable, but 
 no more so than the boundless desire for unquestioned 
 sway, including in his view, the glory of his family 
 and the nation, on the part of TsTapoleon. lie made 
 no effort to do anything less than become supreme 
 disposer of Frtince, and if this march of power does 
 not separate him from Washington beyond an outline 
 of similarity, then never were republicans and royal- 
 ists — presidents and kings — the world over, more de- 
 luded, and stupid in their judgment and verdict upon 
 two of the most conspicuous and renowned actors on 
 the world's arena, since time began. 
 
 Meanwhile, Najjoleon, like England before him, 
 Avas extending his scepter over colonies, near and 
 remote, fast as the work could be securely accom- 
 plished. 
 
 " Spain had agreed that Parma, after the death of 
 the reigning prince, should be added to the dominions 
 of France : and Portugal had actually ceded her prov- 
 ince in Guyana. 
 
 " Nearer him, he had been preparing to strike a 
 blow at the independence of Switzerland, and virtually 
 united that country also to his empire. The contract- 
 ing parties in the treaty of Luneville had guarantied 
 the indej^endence of the Helvetic re2)ublic, and the 
 unquestionable right of the Swiss to model their 
 government in what form they pleased. Thei'e were 
 two parties there as elsewhere — one who desired the 
 full reestablishment of the old federative constitution
 
 IGO LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 — another who preferred the model of the French re- 
 public ' 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 
 Eeding, 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 Avhich these words occur : ' Your 
 history shows that your intestine wars cannot be ter- 
 minated, except through the intervention of France. 
 I had, it is true, resolved not to intermeddle in your 
 affairs — but I cannot remain insensible to the distress 
 of which I see you the prey : — I recall my resolution 
 of neutrality — I consent to be the mediator in your 
 differences.' Rapp, adjutant-general, was the bearer 
 of this insolent manifesto. To cut short all discussion, 
 Ney entered Switzerland at the head of forty thousand 
 troops. Resistance was hopeless. Aloys Reding dis- 
 missed his brave followers, was arrested, and im- 
 prisoned in the castle of Aarburg. The government 
 was arranged according to the good pleasure of Na- 
 2)oleon, who henceforth added to his other titles that 
 of * grand mediator of the Helvetic republic* Swit- 
 zerland was, in effect, degraded into a jirovince of 
 France ; and became bound to maintain an army of 
 sixteen thousand men, wlio were to be at the disposal, 
 whenever it should please him to require their aid, or 
 the grand mediator." 
 
 And here we may properly glance again at the con- 
 duct of Napoleon toward Ilayti. 
 
 Eight years after the government of France had, in 
 accordance with the demands of her citizens, abolished
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. Id 
 
 slavery forever in the French territory of St. Domingo, 
 and after the bhicks of thut colony had manfully and 
 sucessfully battled with tlie fleets and armies of Eng- 
 land, and saved the colony to France, the first consul 
 sought to reward them by reinstating the system of 
 slavery. His deputy, M. Vincent, who had newly ar- 
 rived from the Island with favorable impressions of 
 the blacks, advised him to desist, hinting at the same 
 time, that even the conquerors of Europe might fail 
 to gather laurels in such an enterprise. 
 
 For this suggestion, M. Vincent was banished to 
 Elba, and the first consul, to make assurance doubly 
 sure, despatched an immense fleet with twenty-five 
 thousand troops under the command of his brother- 
 in-law. General Leclerc, to reestablish the ^'ancient 
 system" in St. Domingo. 
 
 This force was in every sense, of a most imposing 
 character. There were the troops of the Ehine, of 
 Egypt, of the Alps, and of Italy ; — the very flower of 
 the victorious armies of France ; — well tried and gal- 
 lant soldiers — worthy of a better master and a higher 
 cause. 
 
 Whether this splendid armament was really sent 
 forth for the glory of France, or whether the first 
 consul was seeking the aggrandizement of his house, 
 by giving to the husband of his sister the **' heathen 
 for an inheritance," cannot be known ; but, whatever 
 might have been the motive, the result of the expedi- 
 tion was disastrous in the extreme. 
 
 On the arrival of the fleet off the Cape rran9ois. 
 General Leclerc despatched messengers to the com- 
 mandant of the town to indicate his intentions, and 
 also to suggest that he had splendid marks of favor for 
 him from the consular government. But the officer, 
 acting under the instructions of Toussaint, affected to 
 II
 
 162 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 believe that the ships could not be from France upon 
 snch an errand, and forbade the landing of a single 
 man. Finding, however, that the force was over- 
 whelming, and that its commander was resolute, he 
 cleared the place of the women and children, and in- 
 formed the messenger that upon tlie entrance of a 
 single ship, the town would be given to the flames. 
 JSTotwithstanding the hopeless chance of resistance, 
 the outer fort expended its last shot upon the ap- 
 proaching ships ; and as soon as the first vessel had 
 passed the outer reef, the Cape was in a blaze — so that 
 in less than six hours this miniature Paris was a mass 
 of ruins. 
 
 At every point the ajiproacli of the French troops 
 was the signal for conflagration ; thus towns, villages 
 and hamlets were reduced to ashes in rapid succession. 
 Consequent upon the peculiarity of the climate, the 
 exposed situation of the French, and the harassing 
 guerrilla warfare of the blacks, the invaders became 
 disjiirited and perplexed. Pestilence and famine were 
 soon added to the horrors of war, and in an incredibly 
 short time, out of all the French troops, twenty-four 
 thousand were dead, and one half of those who re- 
 mained Avere in the hospital. 
 
 The position of General Loclcrc became one of un- 
 mixed anguish. The only ray of light which gleamed 
 upon his gloomy path flashed from the desperate hope 
 of ridding the couritry of Toussaint, whose name alone 
 was stronger than an ''army with banners." To elfect 
 this great end fairly and openly, ho felt to be impossi- 
 Me ; for in reply to an invitation to make a voyage to 
 France in a French frigate, the wary chief replied, 
 " when that tree (pointing to a small sapling) will 
 build a big enough ship to carry me, I intend to go.'' 
 
 This manifestation of distrust, satisfied Leclerc that
 
 LIFE OF XAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 163 
 
 Toussaint was no stranger to his wishes, and conse- 
 quently that he would not easily be entrapped ; but 
 the French commander soon found that Toussaint had 
 not acquired even the first rudiments in political de- 
 pravity ; for npon receiving an invitation to a friendly 
 conference (in relation to the welfare of a part of the 
 French Army which was in distress), the black chief, 
 in good faith, repaired to the isolated spot (near the 
 sea coast) which had been named ; in this wild place 
 he was seized, manacled, and sent to France. 
 
 On his arrival at Brest, he was hastily transferred 
 to an ice-bound dungeon in the mountains of Switzer- 
 laiul, where, after a close confinement of ten months, 
 he died. 
 
 That the black chief * aimed at supremacy in St. Do- 
 mingo is quite probable ; in defense of this design it 
 may be urged that the freedom of his race could not 
 liave been safely intrusted to other hands. It was true 
 that France had given them freedom, but she had 
 given them only what she had no longer the power to 
 withhold, and having been impelled by necessity, or 
 at best by a selfish policy, the blacks looked to the 
 future with feelings of distrust, which were greatly 
 strengthened by a knowledge of the fact that the 
 colonists had never ceased for a moment to importune 
 both France and England to aid them in the reestablish- 
 ment of slavery. 
 
 The extensive preparations which were going on in 
 France for the restoration of the ancient system of 
 slavery were early known to Toussaint. Had he chosen 
 
 *" It is an interestinpT fact, conflrminsthe view already given of the con- 
 sul's oppressive and fatal treatment of the Haytien chief, that the French 
 government, after Napoleon's fall, granted to the son of Toussaint a 
 ha'-. Isome pension for life. This income he freely gave to charity ; and 
 rec'^ntly died in Paris, unknown to fame, but honored and loved by the 
 grateful poor.
 
 164 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 to cooperate with tlie first consul, he could have se- 
 cured for himself everything short of sovereignty in 
 the country, while resistance was sure to bring upon 
 him condemiiution as an outlaw, and probably death 
 in lingering torments — but it is not 2:)retended that he 
 ever compromised or sought to compromise the free- 
 dom of his race. Before the overwhelming armament 
 appeared he had prepared himself for the worst, and 
 when it came, the blazing batteries of the fifty-four 
 ships backed by twenty-five thousand troops failed to 
 change his purpose.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 165 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Omens of discord between England and France.— Violations of treaty.— 
 Abuse of Napoleon.— Remonstrance. — Interview of the First Consul with 
 Lord Whit worth.— Declaration of war.— Successes.— Descent upon Eng- 
 land.— Conspiracy. — Pichegru.— Dulce d'Enghien. — Napoleon emperor. 
 — The coronation.— Napoleon's sway.— Coronation at Milan.— Napoleoa 
 hastens to Paris.— Omens of war.— New coalition against France.— Na- 
 poleon desires peace. — The conflict opens.— Napoleon is victorious. — Ad- 
 dress to the soldiers.— Marches toward Vienna. — Correspondence. — Aus- 
 terlitz.— Letters. — Treaty of peace at Presburg.- Death of Pitt. — Royal 
 plans. — Letters.— Naples seized.— Sub-kingdoms.— Napoleon and Mr. Fox. 
 — Letters.— Another campaign. — Prussia enters the field.— Battle of Jena 
 and Auerstadt.— Napoleon enters Berlin.— Letters.— Pardons Prince 
 Hatzfield. 
 
 The year 1803 brought with it omens of a rupture 
 between France and Enghind. The subjection of 
 Switzerland to the consulate, and the rapid enlarge- 
 ment of the empire by diplomatic means, and as we 
 have seen, daring invasions of independent nations, 
 aroused the fears of England. Sheridan expressed the 
 jealousy and hate of the Pitt party, when he said 
 *' The destruction of this country, is the first vision 
 that breaks on the French consul through the gleam 
 of the morning ; this is his last prayer at night, to 
 whatever deity he may address it, whether to Jupiter 
 or to Mohammed, to the goddess of battle or the god- 
 dess 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 Bonaparte be immeas- 
 urable, there are abundant reasons why it should be 
 progressive." 
 
 On the other hand, Fox, who represented the con- 
 servative minds of the nation, used the following Ian-
 
 lee LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 guage : *' France, now accused of interferkig with the 
 concerns of others, we invaded, for the purpose oi! forc- 
 ing upon her a government to which she would not 
 submit, and of obliging her to accept the family of 
 Bourbons, whose yoke she spurned. * * * No 
 doubt France is great, much greater than a good Eng- 
 lishman ought to wish, but that ought not to be a 
 motive for violating solemn treaties." 
 
 England refused to surrender Malta, the fortress of 
 the Mediterranean, according to the treaty of Amiens. 
 The public prints on both sides of the channel exas- 
 perated popular feeling with passionate and bitter 
 articles upon the causes of discontent. Especially did 
 English newspapers assail the character of Xapoleon. 
 He remonstrated, and received in reply from the 
 ministry, the cool assurance that, 
 
 " Our courts of law are open — we are ourselves ac- 
 customed to be abused as you are, and in them we, 
 like you, have our only recourse." The paragraphs 
 in the Moniteur, on the other hand, were, it was im- 
 possible to deny, virtually so many manifestoes of the 
 Tuilleries. 
 
 " Of all the popular engines which moved the spleen 
 of Napoleon, the most offensive was a newspaper 
 {UAmbigu) published in the French language, hi 
 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 for- 
 tune to retain, as his counsel, Sir James Mackintosh, an 
 advocate of most brilliant talents, and, moreover, espe- 
 cially distinguished for his support of the original prin- 
 ciples of the French Pte volution. On the trial which 
 ensued, this orator, in defense of his client, delivered a 
 philippic against the i)crsonal character and ambitious
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 1(;7 
 
 measures of Kapoleon, immeasuraly more calculated 
 to injure the chief consul in public opinion through- 
 out Europe^ than all the eilorts of a thousand news- 
 papers ; and, though the jury found Peltier guilty of 
 libel, the result was, on the whole, a signal triumph to 
 the party of whom he had been the organ. 
 
 " This was a most imprudent, as well as undignified 
 proceeding ; but ere the defendant Peltier could be 
 called up for judgment, the doubtful relations of the 
 chief consul and the cabinet of St. James were to as- 
 sume a dilferent appearance. The truce of Amiens 
 already approached its close." 
 
 England stubbornly refused to yield Malta to the 
 protection of a neutral power, and thus clearly, per- 
 severingly violated the most solemn pledge. What- 
 ever infringement of the spirit of the treaty, Britain 
 may have discovered in the spreading power of France, 
 the letter of the engagement she treated with unblush- 
 ing contempt. Justice demands the indictment, in 
 this re-opening of bloody conflict. In an interview 
 with Lord Whitworth, Napoleon, with great earnest- 
 ness, not unmixed with a dictatorial tone, and at con- 
 siderable length, declaimed against the conduct of Eng- 
 land. Among other things, he said : 
 
 ''Every gale that blows from England is burdened 
 with enmity ; your government countenances Georges, 
 Pichegru, and other infamous men, who have sworn 
 to assassinate me. Your journals slander me, and the 
 redress I am offered is but adding mockery to insult. 
 I could make myself master of Egypt to-morrow, if I 
 pleased. Ecjypt, indeed, must sooner or later, helong 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 1
 
 108 ^FE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 confess the chances would be a hundred to one against 
 me in such an attempt. In ten years I could not ho);e 
 to have a fleet able to dispute the seas with you ; but, 
 on the other hand, the army of France could be re- 
 cruited in a few weeks to four hundred and eighty 
 thousand men. United we might govern the world — 
 why can we not understand each other ?" 
 
 At a levee in the palace of the Tuilleries, March 13th, 
 Napoleon exclaimed to Lord Whitwortli with much 
 warmth, "'You are then determined on war. We 
 have been at war for fifteen years. You are resolved 
 to have fifteen years more of it ; you force me to it." 
 And turning to other members of the ministry, he 
 added : " The English wish for war ; but if they draw 
 the sword first, I will be the last to sheath it again. 
 They do not respect treaties — henceforth we must cover 
 them with crape. " 
 
 May 18th, England declared war. Before the proc- 
 lamation reached Paris, orders were given to seize 
 French vessels wherever found ; and Napoleon retal- 
 iated as soon as the fact was known, by issuing com. 
 mands to arrest all the British subjects residing or 
 traveling in his dominions. Several thousands, includ- 
 ing eminent citizens, were thus made exiles in a hostile 
 realm. 
 
 The English prosecuted the war Avitli energy, recap- 
 turing French territory ; while Bonaparte sent Mortier 
 with twenty thousand men into the Electorate of Han- 
 over, belonging to the patrimonial possessions of the 
 King of England. 
 
 The mighty contest, affecting the destinies of the 
 world, had no longer the interest of former campaigns 
 of tlie republic. Pi'inciples ceased to be the spirit of 
 conflict, and the war became the dc^speratc struggle of 
 kings for tlieir regal rights, and the stability of their
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 1^9 
 
 thrones. Liberty had plainly disappeared from the 
 arena of prizes for which the nations were contending. 
 
 Within ten days after the opening of the conflict by 
 the enemy, the army of the consul had taken sixteen 
 thousand troojis, four hundred cannon, thirty thousand 
 muskets, and three thousand five hundred horses of 
 the finest mold, from which the gallant riders j)arted, 
 like the Hungarians more recently, with tears. Na- 
 poleon assured the Emperor of Austria, and cabinet of 
 England, that in this conquest, ''he had only in view 
 to obtain pledges for the evacuation of Malta, and to 
 secure the execution of the treaty of Amiens." 
 
 " 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 
 communication with many of the best markets on the 
 continent. But he now recurred to his favorite 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 one hundred and sixty thou- 
 sand were mustered in camps along the French and 
 Dutch coasts, and vast flotillas, meant to convey them 
 across the channel, were formed and constantly man- 
 euvered in various ports, that of Boulogne being the 
 chief station. 
 
 ''The spirit of England,on the other hand, was effec- 
 tually stirred. Her fleets to the amount of not less 
 than five hundred shij^s of war, traversed the seas in 
 all directions, blockaded the harbors 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 regu- 
 lar and irregular, was recruited and strengthened to an 
 unexampled extent. Camps were formed along the
 
 lYO LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 English coasts opposite to France, and tlic king in 
 person was continually to be seen in the middle of 
 them. B}' night, beacons blazed on every hill-top 
 throughout the island ; and the high resolution of the 
 citizen soldiery was attested on numberless occasions of 
 false alarm, by the alacrity with which they marched 
 on the points of su2;)posed danger. There never was a 
 time in which the national enthusiasm was more ardent 
 and concentrated ; and the return of Pitt to the prime 
 ministry was considered as the last and best pledge that 
 the councils of the sovereign were to exhibit vigor com- 
 mensurate with the nature of the crisis. The regular 
 army in Britain amounted, ere long, to one hundred 
 thousand ; the militia to eighty thousand ; and of vol- 
 unteer troops there were not less than three hundred 
 and fifty thousand in arms. 
 
 ** Soult, Ney, Davoust, and Victor were in command 
 of the army designed to invade England, niid 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- 
 ored to inspire his enemy with false security, for Xel- 
 son had declared this scheme of a boat invasion to be 
 mad, and staked his whole reputation on its miserable 
 and immediate failure, if attempted, the consul was 
 in fact providing indefatigably a fleet of men of war, 
 designed to protect and cover the voyage. These ships 
 were preparing in difl'erent ports of France and Sjiain, 
 to the number of fifty : Bonaparte intended them to 
 steal out to sea individually or in small squadrons, ren- 
 dezvous at Martinico, and, returning thence in a body, 
 sweep the channel free of the English, for such, a space 
 of time at least as might sufiice for the OAecution of 
 his great purpose. These designs, liowe\ er, were from
 
 LIFE OF ^"APOLEON BONAI'AIITE. 171 
 
 (lay to day thwarted by the watchful zeal of Xclson, 
 and the other English admirals ; who observed Brest, 
 Toulon, Genoa, and the harbors of Spain so closely, 
 that no squadron nor hardly a single vessel could force 
 a passage into the Atlantic/* 
 
 Still the consul hoped to take advantage of the fre- 
 quent calms in the channel, which would leave British 
 ships motionless, while his flat-bottomed boats could 
 be rowed rapidly across ; or if all other means failed, 
 he purposed to watch the recurrence of a tempest, 
 which should compel the English vessels to stand out 
 to sea, and then attempt the transit when it subsided, 
 and before the foe could return. In the most favoi- 
 able condition of things, the truth of Xapoleon's remark 
 to Lord Whitworth, was apparent: "It is an awfrJ 
 temerity, my lord, to attempt the invasion of Eng- 
 land." Meanwhile, another great conspiracy was 
 formed against the first consul. The theater of it was 
 London, and the leader Count d'Artois, with whom 
 were combined French royalists in the English capi- 
 tal. More than a hundred daring men, under Georges 
 Cadoudal, were to reach France secretly, and lying in 
 wait near Malmaison, assassinate the first consul when 
 leaving or returning to his mansion. To insure suc- 
 cess in the plot to restore the Bourbon dynasty, the 
 aid of the army was indisj^ensable. This object was 
 sought through Moreau, the hero of Hohenlinden, 
 who, jealous of Napoleon, had become hostile and 
 revengeful. General Pichegru, who escaped from 
 banishment in Cayenne, and reached London, a man 
 of popular talent, and still a favorite with many of the 
 people, was selected to confer with Moreau. Early in 
 1804, Napoleon suspected some grand movement was 
 in progress to undermine his throne. At this crisis, a 
 spy who had been arrested, and was on the way to ex-
 
 172 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 ecution, confessed that he was one of Cadoudal's men, 
 and revealed the whole conspiracy. In February, 
 Moreau was arrested. General Pichegrn, who eluded 
 pursuit a few weeks longer, Avhile asleep, with his weap- 
 ons by his side, was suddenly taken by the gens'- 
 darmes, who, rushing upon him, bound the struggling 
 assassin. Of the Bourbon princes who were suspected 
 of being involved in the deeply laid plot, was the Duke 
 d'Enghien, grandson of the Prince of Conde, a promis- 
 ing scion of royalty, who was at Ettenheim, near Stras- 
 burg. Circumstances connected with the plan of des- 
 troying the consul made it strongly probable that he was 
 acquainted with it. Orders were issued for a body of 
 dragoons to cross the Eliine into the German territory, 
 press on to Ettenheim, arrest the duke, and remove 
 him to Strasburg. An apology was sent to the Grand 
 Duke of Baden, for the entrance upon his territory. 
 The prince was seized in bed and hurried away. lie 
 denied any sympathies with the conspirators, but 
 avowed his adherence to the former monarchy, and 
 enmity towards N"apoleon. "When arraigned, he ear- 
 nestly pleaded for an interview with the consul. This 
 was refused, and before M. Eeal, counselor of state, 
 commissioned to examine him in NajDoleon's behalf, 
 arrived, he was led forth by torch light, and his career 
 finished by a discharge of musketry, from a file of 
 soldiers awaiting his appearance. 
 
 The death of this gallant young Bourbon went over 
 Europe with electric power. Tlie Emperor of Kussia, 
 and the Kings of Denmark and Sweden, hung their 
 courts in mourning, and through their diplomatic rep- 
 resentatives remonstrated against the tragical deed. 
 With all the reasons, suggested by the perils around 
 the first consul, for summary justice, the execution of 
 tho duke will be regarded as a sanguinary deed of a
 
 LIFE OF XAFOLEON BONAPARTE. I73 
 
 revolutionary period, for which Xapoleon was respon- 
 sible ; but there is not evidence satisfactory to the un- 
 biassed mind, that he had decided to execute the duke, 
 or knew,, until too late, tiiat such would be the prompt 
 action of the court. Retaliation was, however, the law 
 of Napoleon's dealings Avith his foes, and his blows fell 
 when and where they would be most deeply felt. 
 
 Chateaubriand, who was then high in favor with 
 Napoleon, and had just been appointed minister pleni- 
 potentiary to the Yallais, instantly resigned his ap- 
 pointment on hearing of the duke's death. This was 
 a strong rebuke to Bonaparte, for as Bourrienne re- 
 marks, " It said plainly, ' You have committed a crime, 
 and I will not serve a government which is stained 
 with the blood of a Bourbon !''* In England, Bona- 
 parte Avas constantly styled in some of the leading 
 journals, "the assassin of the Duke d'Eughien." On 
 the fatal morning of the 21st of March, before he had 
 finished his toilet, Josephine rushed into the room 
 from her own distant apartments, with her counte- 
 nance bathed in tears, and every personal care neglected, 
 crying, "The Duke d'Enghien is dead ! oh, my friend, 
 what hast thou done ?'' and threw herself on his bosom. 
 Napoleon is said to have shown extraordinary emotion, 
 and to have exclaimed, "The wretches! they have 
 been too hasty!" Napoleon was not naturally cruel; 
 he pardoned many of his guilty enemies ; but Ire-ueg— 
 lected nothing which advanced his lofty aims ; and 
 without the shadow of doubt, desired the death of a 
 Bourbon, to strike terror to the hearts of the royal assas- 
 sins, who thirsted for his blood. 
 
 A few days later, Pichegru was found dead in 
 prison, with a handkerchief around his neck ; whether 
 a suicide or a murdered man is unknown, but probably 
 the former.
 
 174 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Moreau was trieJ, and condemned to two years of 
 exile ; and Georges Cadoudal followed in the public 
 trial, and with eighteen others was condemned to die. 
 The defeated consj^iracy confirmed Napoleon's author- 
 ity, and prepared the way for the last stride toward 
 royalty — the right of succession to the crown in the 
 Bonaparte family. April 30th, a month after the 
 Duke d'Enghieu was sliot, Curee j^roposed to the 
 Tiibune, " that it was time to bid adieu to political 
 illusions — that victory had brought back tranquillity 
 — the finances 6f the country had been restored, and 
 tlie laws renovated — and that it was a matter of duty 
 to secure those blessings to the nation in future, by 
 rendering the supreme power hereditary in the person 
 and family of Napoleon. Such was the universal desire 
 of the army and of the people. The title of emperor, 
 in his opinion, was that by which Napoleon should be 
 li ailed, as best corresponding to the dignity of the 
 nation." 
 
 Carnot, as before, when the question of the con- 
 sulate was under discussion, alone dissented. He ad- 
 mitted the greatness of Napoleon, and his indispensable 
 power ; but added : '' Fabius, Camillus, Ciucinnatus 
 were dictators also. Why should not Bonaparte, like 
 them, lay down despotic power, after the holding of it 
 had ceased to be necessary to the general good ? Let 
 the services of a citizen be what they might, was there 
 to be no limit to the gratitude of the nation ? But at 
 all events, even granting that Bonaparte himself could 
 not be too highly rewarded or too largely trusted, why 
 commit the fortunes of posterity to chance ? AViiy for- 
 get that Vespasian was the father of Domitian, German- 
 iiais of Caligula, Marcus Aurelius of Commodus ?" 
 
 Tlie senate passed unanimously the decree, and May
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 175 
 
 LSth, 1804, 2:)roceedecl in a body to present it to Xapo- 
 leon, and salute him Ein^ieror of France. 
 
 The decree immediately appeared, published in the 
 name of " Napoleon, by the grace of God, and by the 
 constitutions of the Kepublic, Emperor of the French," 
 and was sent down to the departments, and Avas rati- 
 fied by a majority of the pojnilar vote, although but a 
 small 2)art of the nation was represented at the ballot- 
 box. The empire was to descend in the male line ; 
 and in case of having no son, NajJoleon might adopt any 
 son or grandson of his brothers ; but in the failure 
 of such provision, Josej)h and Louis Bonaparte Averc 
 named as next in order of succession. Lucien and 
 Jerome were omitted, because the emperor was dis- 
 pleased with their matrimonial affairs, and not in this 
 slight alone made them feel his anger. The members 
 of the Bonaparte family were declared princes royal of 
 France. The senate was the servant of the emperor, 
 over whose decision to the contrary he had the right to 
 publish a law as constitutional ; the legislative branch, 
 whose president he appointed, was entirely dependent 
 upon the royal will ; and the liberty of the press was 
 annihilated. 
 
 May 18, 1804, Napoleon displayed the imperial in- 
 signia, and named Cambaceres, his former colleague. 
 Chancellor, and Le Brun Treasurer of the Empire. 
 His group of splendid generals were created marshals. 
 The theater of enthusiasm was not now in the Avalks 
 of the people, but at Boulogne, in the camps of the 
 soldiers. There on a magnificent throne on the mar- 
 gin of the ocean, he distributed the crosses of the Le- 
 gion of Honor, amid the shouts of his great army. 
 Congratulations poured in from the kings of Europe, 
 excepting Eussia, Sweden, and England. 
 
 Napoleon, to complete his claim to hereditary power.
 
 176 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Bent a request to Pius VII. to repair to Paris and crown 
 him — even in this proud act, subordinating the Church 
 of Eorne to his scepter. The unwilling Pojie obeyed, 
 and December 2d tlie coronation was performed. 
 
 It surpassed in magnificence all that had ever pre- 
 ceded it. The dress of the empress was in itself ele- 
 gant, and arranged with that taste in which she ex- 
 celled all the ladies of her time, the effect must have 
 been unequaled. A drapery of Avhite satin, embroi- 
 dered on the skirt with gold, and on the breast with 
 diamonds ; a mantle of the richest crimson velvet lined 
 with ermine and satin, embroidered with gold ; a girdle 
 of gold so pure as to be quite elastic, and set with large 
 diamonds, formed her dress ; and on her head she wore 
 a splendid diadem of pearls and diamonds, the work- 
 manship of which had emjjloyed the first artists of the 
 capital. How her thoughts must have reverted to her 
 first marriage, when, as she used to relate with great 
 simplicity, she carried the few trinkets given her by 
 Beauharnais for some days in her pocket to exhibit to 
 admiring acquaintances. 
 
 Bonaparte's dress was quite as gorgeous, and must 
 have reminded him that he had indeed assumed the 
 weight of empire, for the mantle alone is said to have 
 weighed eighty pounds. Indeed, he was by no means 
 elated with this display of finery, but submitted to it 
 as part of the system of personal aggrandizement, to 
 which he adhered at whatever sacrifice of comfort. 
 We can readily imagine that the hardy soldier must 
 have been much less at his ease, in his white silk stock- 
 insrs, and white buskins laced and embroidered with 
 gold, than when shortly afterward he appeared on the 
 plain of Marengo, on the anniversary of his great vic- 
 tory there, in the identical cap and cloak pierced with 
 bullet-holes which he had worn in that battle, and
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 177 
 
 there, surrounded b}- thirt}^ thousand of his troops dis- 
 tributed the decoriitions of the Legion of Honor. 
 
 The imperial carriage, paneled with mirrors, and 
 drawn by eight horses like the ancient regal coaches 
 of the empire, attended by horsemen to the number 
 of ten thousand, and double lines of infantry a mile 
 and a half in length, and gazed at by four hundred 
 thousand spectators, proceeded to the church of Xotre 
 Dame, which had been magnificently embellished for 
 the occasion. The incessant thunder of artillery rolled 
 over that tumultuous sea of humanity, whose shouts 
 rose in one loud acclamation. While the grand pro- 
 cession was slowly moving forward, the clouds which 
 had hung darkly over the city suddenly parted, and 
 the clear sunlight fell upon the gay uniform, golden 
 trappings, and burnished arms, till the reflection was 
 a blended brightness that gave the finishing halo of 
 glory to this regal march. Arriving at the archie- 
 piscopal palace, the cortege paused, while beneath a 
 high archway, from which floated the banners of the 
 Legion of Honor, the royal group entered the cathe- 
 dral, where a throne was prej)ared for the most influen- 
 tial and remarkable sovereign of Europe. It was placed 
 opposite the princijial entrance, on a platform whose 
 elevation was reached by twenty-two semi-circular 
 steps, richly carpeted and gleaming with golden bees. 
 Here were standing the high officers of the realm in 
 solemn state. The drapery of the throne was crimson 
 velvet, under a canopy of which appeared Napoleon 
 and Josephine, attended by his brothers, and the mem- 
 bers of the imperial family. Four hours were con- 
 sumed in the religious services by a choir of three hun- 
 dred, and martial airs from a band whose number was 
 still greater, filling the wide arches of that temple with 
 a tide of harmony such as never before was poured over 
 
 12
 
 178 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 a silent throng within its consecrated walls. At length 
 Napoleon arose, and taking the diadem of wrought 
 gold, calmly placed it upon his brow. Eesolved to 
 impress the people from the commencement of his reign, 
 that he ruled in his own right, the lionian See was per- 
 mitted to do no more than consecrate the bauble that 
 made him king — Napoleon calmly placed the crown 
 upon his own ample brow. Then raising the crown 
 designed for Josephine to his head, he passed it to her 
 own. Josephine, always natural, and therefore always 
 interesting, with folded arms kneeled gracefully before 
 him, then rising fixed upon him a look of tenderness 
 and gratitude, while tears fell from her eyes — the 
 lovely queen and devoted sacrifice, soon to pass from 
 the throne to the altar of ambition. The Bible was 
 laid upon the throne ; Xapoleon placed his hand upon 
 it, and in a voice which was distinctly heard through- 
 out the immense edifice, pronounced the customary 
 oaths of office. A simultaneous shout broke from all 
 the vast assembly, which was echoed by the crowds with- 
 out ; while the thunders of artillery proclaimed to more 
 distant places that Bonaparte was Emperor of France. 
 Napoleon, ten years before, was a captain in the service 
 of the republic ; he had shaken a continent Avith his 
 armies ; and at length sat down upon the throne of an 
 empire. Within the fifth part of man's allotted age, 
 the Corsican youth, hating warmly the French, had 
 become a devoted rei^ublican — adopted the despised na- 
 tion as his own — risen from a lieutenant's position in the 
 army to its head — conquered the fairest jjart of Europe 
 — and now swayed over all a monarch's scepter, receiv- 
 ing the willing homage of the millions who so recently 
 shouted frantically, " Vive la Rcjnihliqnc / " 
 
 The marvelous history is without a parallel in the 
 auuals of time. It must be conceded, that the royalty
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 179 
 
 of Xapoleon was vastly superior to that of the Bour- 
 bons. The privileged classes — the nobility — the cor- 
 rupt officials, and priesthood — were no longer the fa- 
 vorites of a voluptuous king. Personal security from op- 
 pi-ession among the masses — religious toleration — and 
 equitable taxation — were secured. It is also true, that 
 France was unprepared for the unfettered freedom we 
 enjoy. But all this does not alter the fact, that Napo- 
 leon made no efforts, either to prepare the peojjle for 
 republican institutions, or retain a vestige of the brief 
 republic. By decrees, and intermarriage of his family 
 — and every act — his purpose, as he expressed it, to rule 
 the world with or without England, was clearly declared. 
 Tlien again, he did not Jinow how soon after his death, 
 a worse tlian Louis XVII. Avould ascend the throne. 
 There was a forceful view given of the emperor's ambi- 
 tion and betrayal of humanity in Carnot's question : 
 ** Why forget that Vespasian was the father of Domi- 
 tian, Germanicus of Caligula, Marcus Aurelius of Com- 
 modus ? " 
 
 The coronation at Paris was followed, very naturally, 
 by a petition from the Italian senators, that Napoleon 
 accept the iron crown of Charlemagne, worn by the 
 Lombard kings. He immediately set out for Milan, ac- 
 companied with Josephine. 
 
 It was decided to cross the Alps by Mont Cenis, and 
 for tlie adventure two elegant sedans were forwarded 
 from Turin. There was no grand highway, as soon 
 afterward, bridging the chasms, and the traveler, like 
 the wild goat, had often to climb the perilous steep in 
 a path untrodden before. Josephine avoided the 
 beautiful conveyance ordered expressly for her, and 
 preferred, whenever possible, to advance by her elastic 
 gtep ; to walk beside Napoleon, breathe the bracing air, 
 and behold with kindling eye the sea of glittering sum-
 
 180 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 mits, the gorges and their foaming torrents, and the 
 ice-fields stretching away in cold and majestic desola- 
 tion. That passage was a novel and sublime spectacle. 
 The sovereign of an empire, with his charming queen, 
 toiling up the heights over which he had led conquering 
 armies — his thoughts busy with those mighty scenes — • 
 hers wandering over the waste of wonders, and above 
 them through eternity, of which the solemn peaks 
 seemed silent yet eloquent witnesses. 
 
 From Turin the tourists' next place of rendezvous was 
 Alessandria, near the plain of Marengo ; and he could 
 not resist the inducement to stand once more upon that 
 field which had rocked to one of the world's decisive 
 battles, and sent his name like a spell-word around the 
 globe. He ordered from Paris the old uniform and 
 hat which he had worn on the day of conflict amid the 
 smoke of the terrible struggle, and, then, while in 
 fancy he saw again the meeting battalions, as when he 
 wrung from the outnumbering foe victories that as- 
 tonished the heroes of every realm, he reviewed with 
 imperial dignity the national troops in Italy. Eeach- 
 ing Milan, May 3G, 1805, the ancient crown was brought 
 from seclusion, and the dust in which it had been en- 
 tombed removed from the neglected symbol of royalty. 
 In the grand cathedral of the city, the second in mag- 
 nificence to St. Peter's, Najioleon receiving the crown 
 from the archbishoj^'s hand, jjlaced it, as on a former 
 occasion, upon his own head. 
 
 lie repeated during the ceremony, in Italian, these 
 words — '' God has given it — woe to the gain say er ; " 
 raising the iron circlet also to the brow of Josephine. 
 The assemblage of nobility and beauty dispersed ; Na- 
 poleon calmly received their display of loyalty, and the 
 gay ]\rilanese again, with wonted hilarity, thronged the 
 market-place and busy streets of the capital.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. ISl 
 
 Napoleon's title was now Emperor of the French and 
 King- of Italy. 
 
 The Ligurian republic sent the doge to Milan to of- 
 fer congratulations, and desire the addition of their 
 territory to the empire of France. This was granted, 
 and became a serious affair in the subsequent course 
 of events. Eugene Beauharnois, Josephine's son, was 
 ai)pointed viceroy at Milan. 
 
 Here the first intimations of threatening dissatisfac- 
 tion, on the part of Austria and Russia, reached the 
 emperor. Although he continued his tour through the 
 peninsula, so rich in picturesque scenery and historic 
 recollections — in everything that awakens thought 
 and kindles the imagination — his mind was occupied 
 with coming events, whose foreshadowing he beheld in 
 the blackening horizon of the north. Arriving at 
 Genoa, the tidings of a coalition were confirmed, based 
 in part at least, it was aj^parent, upon the coronation in 
 Milan. The departure Avas impetuous, for the eagle eye 
 of Napoleon saw clearly the hastening tempest, and he 
 caught in fancy the thunders of its terrible shock. 
 The imperial carriage glided like a sjiirit along the 
 highway, and the lash fell with increasing rapidity upon 
 the foaming steeds. When for a moment there was a 
 halt to change the horses, water was dashed on the 
 smoking axle, and again the wheels revolved, till they 
 seemed self-moving, while their low hum only broke 
 the silence, except the occasional shout of Napoleon, 
 *' On ! On ! we do not move ! " 
 
 He reached Paris, and on the 29th of January, 1805, 
 in his new character of emj)eror, addressed a letter to 
 King George III., in person, and was answered, as 
 before, by the British Secretary of State for for- 
 eign affairs ; who said that in the present state of 
 relations between the cabinet of St. James and that of
 
 183 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 St. Petersburg, it was impossible for the former to 
 open any iiegotiatiou 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 Eussia ; he had remonstrated 
 vigorously, and his reclamations had been treated with 
 iiuiifference. The King of Sweden, immediately after 
 lie heard of the catastrophe at Vincennes, had made 
 known his sentiments to the czar : a strict alliance had 
 been signed between those two courts about a fort- 
 night ere Xnpoleon wrote to the King of England ; 
 and it was obvious that the northern powers had, in 
 effect, resolved to take part with Great Britain in her 
 struggle against France. 
 
 The cabinets of London, Petersburg, and Stockholm 
 were now parties in a league which had avowedly the 
 following objects : — To restore the independence of 
 Holland and Switzerland ; to free the north of Ger- 
 many from the presence of French troops ; to procure 
 the restoration of Piedmont to the King of Sardinia ; 
 and, finally, the evacuation of Italy by Napoleon. 
 Until, by the attainment of these objects, the sway of 
 France should be reduced to limits compatible with the 
 independence of the other European states, no peace 
 was to be signed by any of the contracting powers ; 
 and, during several months, every means was adopted 
 to procure the association of Austria and Prussia. But 
 the latter of these sovereigns had a strong French 
 l')arty in his council, and though personally hostile to 
 Napoleon, could not as yet count on being supported 
 in a war against France by the hearty good-will of an 
 undivided people. Austria, on the other hand, had 
 been grievously weakened by the campaign of Marengo,
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 1S3 
 
 and hesitated, on prudential orouiids, to commit her- 
 self once more to the hazard of arms. 
 
 The czar visited Berlin ; and the two sovereigns 
 repaired to the vault of Frederic the Great, and there 
 swore over his ashes, to strike for the independence of 
 Germany. Austria, upon hearing of the scenes at 
 Milan, yielded to the policy of England, and suddenly 
 entered, with eighty thousand troops, the field of strife 
 — an opening campaign of carnage — for which the 
 British king and cabinet were chiefly responsible. 
 The combined armies swept over Bavaria, an ally of 
 France, and while the elector begged to be let alone 
 in his neutrality, endeavored to compel him to join 
 the allies. He withdrew into Frauconia ; and the 
 enemy taking possession of Munich and Ulm, pene- 
 trated the Black Forest, and fortified their position by 
 commanding the outposts bordering on the valley of 
 the Ehine. 
 
 Napoleon was not, as anticipated, taken by surprise, 
 and overwhelmed in the weakness of unavailable 
 strength. He had issued orders to the commanders 
 of the army of invasion, to be ready, upon the first 
 hostile movement of Austria, to advance against her. 
 His vast arrangements went forward with usual pre- 
 cision and haste — the army went wild with enthusiasm 
 in view of the campaign ; and the marvelous activity 
 of their leader made him their Avonder and their idol. 
 Twenty thousand carriages conveyed the battalions, as 
 if by a magical flight, from Boulogne to the beautiful 
 Rhine, upon whose green banks a hecatomb of youth- 
 ful soldiers, who had impatiently waited for the con- 
 flict, were trodden in gore beneath the iron hoof. 
 
 When Napoleon appeared before his army, and the 
 shouts of the welcome had subsided, he made this stir- 
 ring address : •* Soldiers ! the campaign of the third
 
 184 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 coalition has commeuced. Austria Las passed the luu, 
 violated its engagements, attacked and chased our ally 
 from his capital. We will not again make peace with- 
 out sufficient guaranties. You are but the advance- 
 guard of the great people. You have forced marches 
 to undergo, fatigues and privations to endure. But, 
 whatever obstacles we may encounter, we shall over- 
 come them, and never taste of reijose till we have placed 
 our eagles on the territory of our enemies." 
 
 Mack, the iVustrian general, was not equal in mili- 
 tary skill to those who preceded him in command. 
 While he was anticipating an assault in front of 
 the Ulm, the main body of the French troops entered 
 the German dominions, and crossing the Danube, aj)- 
 peared in his rear, and cut off his communication with 
 Vienna. 
 
 *' Napoleon's gigantic plan was completely .success- 
 ful. The Austrians were surrounded beyond all hope 
 of escape. In twenty days, without a single pitched 
 battle, by a series of marches and a few skirmishes, 
 the Austrian army of eighty thousand men was utterly 
 destroyed. A few thousand only, in fugitive bands 
 eluded the grasp of the victor, and fled through the 
 defiles of the mountains. The masterly maneuvers 
 of the French columns had already secured thirty 
 thousand prisoners almost without bloodshed. Thirty- 
 six thousand were shut up in Ulm. Their doom was 
 sealed." 
 
 The emperor summoned the Austrian commander 
 to surrender. Notwithstanding the expected reinforce- 
 ments by the advance of the Russian army, and a full 
 supply of stores for the garrison. Mack, who, on the 
 IGth of October, prepared for desperate defense, over- 
 come with his fears, upon the 17th signed articles of 
 capitulation. Prince Maurice was sent to the French
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEOX BONAPARTE. 185 
 
 camp to offer the evacuation of Ulrn, ii' the troops 
 would be allowed to retire into Austria. 
 
 Napoleon, with a smile, assured the envoy that such 
 a sacrifice would be absurd, when a week would secure 
 the surrender without conditions. The 20th of Oc- 
 tober poured its cold and cloudless splendor upon the 
 more than thirty thousand soldiers, who, marching- 
 through the gates of Ulm, laid down their glittering 
 arms at the feet of Napoleon. Turning to the impos- 
 ing array of captive officers, he said, " Gentlemen, war 
 has its chances. Often victorious, you must expect 
 sometimes to be vanquished. Your master wages 
 against me an unjust war. I say it candidly, I know 
 not for what I am fighting. I know not what he re- 
 quires of me. He has wished to remind me that I was 
 once a soldier. I trust he will find that I have not for- 
 gotten my original avocation. I want nothing on the 
 continent. I desire ships, colonies, and commerce. 
 Their acquisition would be as advantageous to you as 
 to me." 
 
 This splendid campaign spread unutterable joy over 
 the army and nation. Like the summary of successes 
 on the flag sent to the Directory after the Corsican's 
 first triumph, Napoleon gave an eloquent outline of 
 his victories in an address which was a tocsin of thrill- 
 ing import to Europe : 
 
 " Soldiers of the Graxd Army — In fifteen days 
 we have finished our campaign. "What we proposed 
 to do has been done. We have chased the Austrian 
 troops from Bavaria, and restored our ally to the 
 sovereignty of his dominions, 
 
 " That army which with so much presumption and 
 imprudence marched upon-our frontiers, is annihil- 
 ated. 
 
 *' But what does this signify to England ? She has
 
 ISf, LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 gained her object. We are no longer at Boulogne, 
 and her subsidies will not be the less great. 
 
 ''Of a hundred thousand men who composed tliat 
 army, sixty thousand are prisoners ; but they will sup- 
 ply our conscripts in the labor of husbandry. 
 
 *'Two hundred pieces of cannon, ninety flags, and 
 •all their generals are in our power. Not more than 
 fifteen thousand men have escaped. 
 
 ''Soldiers! I announced to yon a great battle; but 
 thanks to the ill-devised combinations of the enemy, j 
 was able to secure the desired result without any dan- 
 ger ; and, what is unexampled in the history of na- 
 tions, these results have been gained at the loss of 
 scarcely fifteen hundred men, killed and wounded. 
 
 " Soldiers ! this success is due to your entire confi- 
 dence in your emperor, to your patience in siqoport- 
 ing fatigue and privations of every kind, and to your 
 remarkable intrepidity. 
 
 "But we will not stop here. You are impatient to 
 commence a second campaign. 
 
 " The Eussian army which the gold of England has 
 brought from the extremity of the world, we have to 
 serve in the same manner. 
 
 " In the conflict in which we are now to be engaged, 
 the honor of the French infantry is especially con- 
 cerned. We shall then see decided, for the second 
 time, that question which has already been decided 
 in Switzerland and Holland ; namely, whether the 
 French infantry is the first or second in Europe ? 
 
 "There are no generals among them, in contend- 
 ing against whom I can acquire any glory. All I 
 wish is to obtain the victory with the least possible 
 bloodshed. . }*ly^ss)]dwvsjirejsi^i.Si}]:^ ren . " 
 
 When advancing into the heiirnTf"'Germany, the 
 neutral territory of Anspach, belonging to Prussia,
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 1S7 
 
 was violated, tlireatening immediate war with that 
 power ; but this grand result hushed the tones of in- 
 dignation, and kept the king in dread of the avenger. 
 Ney, on the I'ight of Napoleon, was successful in the 
 Tyrol ; and Murat, on his left, had watched the Austri- 
 ans retreating to Bohemia ; and both rejoined ISTapo- 
 leon, with Augereau's fresh reserve from France, who 
 guarded the mountain passes at Yoralberg. He was 
 thus prepared to march toward the German capital. 
 Meanwhile, the Czar of Eussia, with one hundred and 
 sixteen thousand troops, had advanced to Moravia, 
 and gathered around the hostile standard the avail- 
 able force of Austria. England sent thirt}'' thousand 
 men to Hanover to press on to the field of conflict. 
 
 The French army, amid the astonishment of kings, 
 fired Avith their leader's sj^irit, swept forward to- 
 w^ard Vienna. November 7th, Francis fled from his 
 defenseless capital, and repaired to the headquarters 
 of the czar. A general panic seized the nation. On 
 the 13th of November, the exultant army of Napoleon 
 entered the capital, and took possession of the rich sup- 
 ply of stores and arms in the arsenals of the empire. 
 Here he heard of the terrible defeat of the united naval 
 force of France and Spain. The tidings added fuel to 
 the flame of determined vengeance upon his combined 
 enemies. Although he was many hundred miles from 
 Paris, on the verge of winter, instead of halting to 
 fortify a position of defense, he gave orders to march 
 onwai'd to meet tlie enemy. He has been severely 
 condemned for " the rashness of thus passing the 
 Danube into Moravia, w'hile 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 h'is right, the population 
 of Vienna and the surrounding territories ready to
 
 188 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 rise, in case of any disaster, in liis rear ; and Prussia 
 as decidedly hostile in heart as she was wavering in 
 policy. The French leader did not disguise from 
 himself the risk of his adventure ; but he considered it 
 better to run all that risk, than to linger in Vienna 
 until the armies in Hungary and Bohemia should have 
 had time to reinforce the two emperors." 
 
 His correspondence affords an interesting survey 
 of his movements, an estimate of his marshals, and of 
 his own unaided genius : 
 
 3S"AP0LE0X TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Schonbrunn, November 15, 1805. 
 
 '* My Brothek — The bulletin has told you all that 
 [ found in Vienna.* I maneuver to-day against the 
 Eussian army, and have not been satisfied with Ber- 
 nadotte ;f perhaps the fault is in his health. 
 
 " When I let him enter Munich and Salzbourg, and 
 enjoy the glory of these great expeditions without his 
 having to fire a gun, or to endure any of the fatiguing 
 services of the army, I had a right to expect that he 
 would want neither activity nor zeal. He has lost me 
 a day, and on a day may depend the destin}'' of the 
 world. Not a man would have escaped from me. I 
 hojDC that he will re]iair his fault to-morrow, by a more 
 active movement. I want Juiiot. Every day con- 
 vinces me more and more that the men whom I have 
 formed are incomparably the best. I continue to be 
 j)leased with Murat, Lannes, Davoust, Soult, Ney, and 
 Marmont. I hear nothing of Augereau's march. 
 Massena has behaved himself indifferently. He made 
 bad dispositions, and got himself beaten at Caldiero. 
 
 *An immense arsenal, containing one hundred thousand muskets, 
 two thousand pieces of cannon, and vast stores of ainiuunition, was 
 found tliere. — Tr, 
 
 t Joseph's brother-in-law. — Ta.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 189 
 
 Prince Charles army is advancing on me. The Vene- 
 tian country must by this time be evacuated. It may 
 be as well if you let him know, through our common 
 friends, that I am not very well pleased, I will not say 
 with his courage, but with the ability which he has 
 shown. This will rouse his zeal, and may stop the 
 disorder which is beginning in his army. I know 
 that a contribution of 400,000 francs has been imjjosed 
 on the Austrian portion of Verona. I intend to make 
 the generals and officers who serve me well, so rich 
 that they will have no pretext for dishonoring by their 
 cupidity the noblest of all professions, and losing the 
 respect of their soldiers. General Dejean is absurd 
 about arming Ancoua : his reasons are contemptible. 
 Support the Constable.* All the arguments that De- 
 jean uses are good for nothing. It is a habit of en- 
 gineer officers to wish to show their clearness ; I choose 
 it to be armed, and that is enough. The Emperor of 
 Germany writes beautiful letters to me ; but though 
 he has allowed me to occupy his capital, he has not 
 yet shaken off the influence of Kussia. Just now he 
 is supposed to be Avith the Emperor Alexander, but 
 some day or other he must make up his mind." 
 
 A few days later, he reports progress, and dictates 
 despatches to appear in the official paper. 
 
 NAPOLEOX TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Brunn, November 24, 1805. 
 
 *' Mt Brother — I inform you tliat the Emjjeror 
 of Germany has just sent to me M. de Stadion his 
 minister in Russia, and Lieutenant-General Comte 
 de Giulay, with full powers to negotiate, conclude, 
 and sign a definite peace between France and Aus- 
 
 * Prince Louis Bonaparte.
 
 190 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 tria. I have given similar powers to M. de Talley- 
 rand. Yon M'ill state this in the Moniteur, and add 
 this paragrapli : ' It is to be hoped that the nego- 
 tiation will produce peace, but this hope must not 
 slacken the zeal of our administrators : on the con- 
 trary, it is an additional motive for hastening the 
 conscripts on their march, according to the old prov- 
 erb, Si vis pacem, ijara helium. His Majesty recom- 
 mends the Ministers of War and of the Interior to press 
 on their preparations.' 
 
 "You will insert as news from Vienna, 'Negotia- 
 tions have begun. It is said that the Emperor of the 
 French is going to Italy. It is also said that he in- 
 tends to appear in Paris when least expected there. 
 We have not yet seen him.* " 
 
 The French continued to advance. 
 
 ''T^apoleon's preparations were as follows : his left, 
 under Lannes, lay at Santon, a strongly fortified posi- 
 tion ; Soult commanded the right wing ; the center, 
 under Bernadotte, had with them Murat and all the 
 cavalry. Behind the line lay the reserve, consisting 
 of twenty thousand, ten thousand of whom were of 
 the imperial guard, under Oudenot ; and here Napo- 
 leon himself took his station. But besides these open 
 demonstrations, I~)avoust, with a division of horse and 
 another of foot, lay behind the convent of Raygern, 
 considerably in the rear of the French right — being 
 there placed by the emperor, in consequence of a false 
 movement, into which he, with a seer-like sagacity, 
 foresaw the enemy might, in all likelihood, be tempted." 
 Napoleon was on the field of Austerlitz, confronting 
 the superior, confident army of the allied enemy. It 
 was December 1st ; and no sooner had he discerned 
 their plan of attack, than he exclaimed, with delight.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 191 
 
 '* To-morrow before nightfall, that army shall be my 
 own."'' The day was devoted to untiring preparation 
 for the carnage at hand. Amid the gloom of night, as 
 he rode over the field of encampment, a sudden shout, 
 and torch-light illuminations greeted him. It was the 
 anniversary of his imperial honors — the first celebra- 
 tion of his coronation. The enthusiastic soldiers as- 
 sured him the dawning day should be one of glorious 
 commemoration. *' Only promise us," cried a veteran 
 grenadier, "that you will keep yourself out of the fire." 
 
 He replied, in language repeated in the proclama- 
 tion immediately issued to the army : " I will do so ; 
 I shall be with the reserve vntil yon need us." This 
 entire confidence between Xapoleon and his vast armies, 
 Avas sublime, and without a similar instance of devotion 
 in the annals of war. 
 
 The unclouded sunrise was hailed with rapture, and 
 ever after called '" the sun of Austerlitz." Soon the 
 advancing columns of the czar disclosed the certainty 
 that they had been taken in the snare, and were mak- 
 ing an onset upon the right, to which the emperor had 
 hoped to direct their attention. Davoust sustained 
 the shock, while 8oult rushed into the gap made by 
 the regiments which had left the heights in the very 
 center of the allied host. Napoleon exclaimed, " Sol- 
 diers ! the enemy has imprudently exposed himself to 
 your blows. We shall finish this war with a clap of 
 thunder !" It was on the hill of Pratzen, that the sec- 
 ond army, which for a moment beat back the French, 
 lost the day. The right wing gave way, and then tbe 
 victors poured the tide of slaughter upon the left, till 
 in ghastly confusion of the dead, the dying, and the 
 flying, the mighty struggle closed, and another stu- 
 pendous triumph shed its fearful glory uj)on the arms 
 of Napoleon. A grand division of the foe were making
 
 192 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPxVRTE. 
 
 their escape across a frozen lake which swayed to their 
 tramp, when the batteries of the conqueror thundered, 
 and the balls and shells falling among the fugitives, 
 tore in fragments the surface of ice, engulfing, as the 
 Eed Sea did the Egyptians, the entire throng, with 
 their heavy ordnance and neighing steeds. The follow- 
 ing letter gives Napoleon's account of the affair : 
 
 NAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 AusTEBLiTZ, December 3, 1805, 
 
 My Brother, — I hope that by the time this courier 
 reaches you my aide-de-camp Lebrun, whom I sent off 
 from the field of battle, will have got to Paris. After 
 some days of maneuvers, I had yesterday a decisive 
 battle. I put to flight the allied army, commanded by 
 the two Emperors of Germany and Russia in person. 
 It consisted of eighty thousand Russians and thirty 
 thousand Austrians. I have taken about forty thou- 
 sand prisoners, among whom are twenty Russian gen- 
 erals, forty colors, one hundred pieces of cannon, and 
 all the standards of the Russian imperial guards. The 
 whole army has covered itself with glory. 
 
 The enemy has left at least from twelve to fifteen 
 thousand men on the field. I do not yet know my 
 own loss. I estimate it at eight or nine hundred 
 killed, and twice as many wounded. A whole column 
 of the enemy threw itself into a lake, and the greater 
 part of them were drowned. I fancy that I still hear 
 the cries of these wretches wJioni it ivas impossible to 
 save.'* The two emperors are in a bad situation. You 
 
 * This is a remarkable passage. The inference which Napoleon intended 
 Joseph to draw is, that he would have saved the Russians from being 
 drowned, if he had been able. But, in fact, they were drowned intention- 
 ally, and by his orders. 
 
 This is the account of the transaction by M. Thiers :— "The flying Rus- 
 sians threw themselves on the frozen lakes. The ice gave way in some 
 places, but was firm in others, and afforded an asylum to a crowd of fugi- 
 tives. Napoleon, from the hill of Pratzen, overlooking the lakes, saw tho
 
 LIFE OF NAPOIiEON BONAPARTE 193 
 
 may print the substance of this, but not as extracted 
 from a letter of mine : it would not be suitable. You 
 will receive the bulletin to-morrow. Though I have 
 been sleeping for the last week in the open air, my 
 health is good. To-night I sleep in a bed in the fine 
 country house of M. de Kaunitz, near Austerlitz, and 
 I have put on a clean shirt, which I have not done for 
 a week. The guard of tlie Emperor of Russia was 
 demolished. Prince Eepnin, who commanded it, was 
 taken, with a part of his men, and all his standards 
 and artillery. 
 
 *'The Emperor of Germany, this morning, sent to me 
 Prince Lichtenstein to ask for an interview. It is pos- 
 sible that peace may soon follow. On the field of bat- 
 tle my army was smaller than his, but the enemy was 
 caught in a false position while he was maneuvering.*' 
 
 The emperor, with considerable severity, reproves 
 his brother for announcing at the theaters that the 
 German monarch had sent Stadion and Giulay to 
 negotiate peace ; and permitting the guns of the In- 
 valides to be fired in honor of the anniversary of his 
 coronation. 
 
 KAPOLEO]Sr TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " ScHoNBRUNN, December 13, 1805. 
 
 ** My Brother, — You need not have announced so 
 
 disaster. He ordered the battery of his guard to fire round shot on the 
 parts of tlie ice wiiicli regained unbroken, and thus to complete the de- 
 struction of the wretches wlio liad taken refuge there. Nearly two thou- 
 sand persons were thus drowned among the broken ice." — Consulat et Eni' 
 pire, liv"e xxiii., p. 326. 
 
 A person, not an eye-witness himself, but who had carefully collected 
 information respecting this battle from eye-witnesses, described to me the 
 scene. The French batteries fired, by Napoleon's orders, first, not on the 
 Russians, but on the parts of the ice nearest to the shore. When these 
 were broken, the Russians were on a sort of i.sland of ice. They all fell on 
 their knees. The batteries then flred on them and on the ice on which 
 they stood, until the last man was killed or drowned. My informant com- 
 puted the number thus destroyed at six thousand. — Tr.
 
 194 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 pompoasly that the enemy had sent plenipotentiaries, 
 or have fired the gnus. It was the way to throw cold 
 water on the zeal of the nation, and to give foreigners 
 a false impression as to our affairs at home. Crying 
 out for peace is not the means of getting it. I did not 
 think it worth putting into a bulletin, still less did it 
 deserve to be mentioned in the theatei's. The mere 
 word peace means nothing ; wluit we want is a glorious 
 peace. Nothing could be more ill-conceived or more 
 impolitic than what has just been done in Paris." 
 
 The next letter is a further discipline of Joseph, and 
 strong utterance of the absolute power he designed to 
 wield, whatever reasons of public good were assigned 
 for the boundless ambition. 
 
 KAPOLEOX TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " ScnoNBRUNN, December 15, 1805. 
 
 " My Brother, — I have got your letter of the 7th.* 
 I am not accustomed to let my policy be governed by 
 the gossip of Paris, and I am sorry that you attach so 
 much importance to it. My people, under all circum- 
 stances, have found it good to trust everything to me, 
 and the present question is too complicated to be un- 
 derstood by a Parisian citizen. I mentioned to you my 
 disajoprobation of the importance which you gave to 
 the arrival of the two Austrian plenipotentiaries. I 
 disapprove equally of the articles which the Journal 
 lie Paris keeps on publishing. Nothing can be more 
 .silly or in worse taste. I shall make peace when I 
 think it the interest of my people to do so; and the 
 outcries of a few intriguers will not hasten or delay it 
 by a single hour. My people will always be of one 
 
 * In this letter Joseph had dwelt on the general wish in Paris for peace. 
 — Ta.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 195 
 
 opinion when it knows that I am pleased, because that 
 proves that its interests have been protected. The 
 time when it deliberated in its sections has passed. 
 The battle of Austerlitz has shown how ridiculous was 
 tlic importance Avhich, without my orders, you gave to 
 the mission of the 2)lenipotentiaries. I will fight, if it 
 be necessary, more tiian one battle more to arrive at a 
 peace with securities. I trust notliing to chance ; but 
 what I say I do, or I die. You will see that the peace, 
 advantageous as T shall make it, will be thought disad- 
 vantageous by those who are now clamoring for it, be- 
 cause they are fools and blocklieads, who know noth- 
 ing about it. It is ridiculous to hear them always 
 repeating that we want peace, as if the mere fact of 
 peace was anything ; ail depends on the conditions. 
 I have read the extract from Fesch's letter. He does 
 uot know what he is talking about, nor M. Alquier any 
 more, when they speak of a disembarkation of eight 
 tliousand Austrian cavalry — as if eight thousand cavalry 
 could be so easily embarked." 
 
 The morning succeeding the battle, Francis, Em- 
 peror of Germany, rode with his escort to the head- 
 quarters of Napoleon. Partially sheltered by a mill, 
 and standing in the chill breath of the winter winds, 
 he saluted the monarch, saying to his majesty, *' I re- 
 ceive you in the only palace which I have inhabited for 
 the last two months. '' 
 
 Francis replied, "You have made such use of it, 
 that you ought not to complain of the accommoda- 
 tions.'' For two hours the kings conversed ; and Na- 
 poleon said to the charge of injustice on the part of 
 England, ''The English are a nation of merchants. 
 In order to secure for themselves the commerce of the 
 World, they are willing to set the continent in flames.'*
 
 196 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPAETE. 
 
 A remark of much truth, so fur as the policy and 
 power of Pitt were concerned. Having agreed upon 
 an armistice with Germany, Francis proposed to in- 
 chide Russia, on the condition tliat Alexander and his 
 army might withdraw to his dominions. Napoleon im- 
 mediately agreed to the terms, and sent an envoy to 
 the headquarters of the emperor, to obtain his pledge 
 that he would cease to fight against France. December 
 15th the treaty was signed with Francis at Presburg, 
 and on the 26th at Vienna with Prussia. 
 
 Austria paid the expenses of the campaign. She 
 also "yielded the Venetian territories to the kingdom 
 of Italy : her ancient possessions of the Tyrol and 
 Voralberg were transferred to Bavaria, to remunerate 
 that elector for the part he had taken in the war ; 
 Wirtemberg, having also adopted the French side, 
 received recompense of the same kind at the expense 
 of the same power ; and both of these electors were 
 advanced to the dignity of kings. Bavaria received 
 Anspach and Bareuth from Prussia, and, in return, 
 ceded Berg, which was erected into a grand duchy, 
 and conferred, in an independent sovereignty, on Xa- 
 poleon's brother-in-law, Murat. Finally, Prussia added 
 Hanover to her dominions, in return for the cession of 
 Anspach and Bareuth, and acquiescence in the other 
 arrangements above mentioned." 
 
 Pitt was astonished and greatly depressed by the 
 tidings of the terrible defeat of the allies at Austerlitz. 
 His health, which had declined, now rapidly failed, and 
 January 23, 1806, he expired, with the sad exclamation, 
 *' Alas, my country I " on his dying lips. He was no 
 more jealous of England's glory than Napoleon of the 
 honor of France ; and he cordially hated the revolu- 
 tionary reinihlicanimi of his enemy, and equally so, the 
 gigantic iuflueuce it gave to the enthroned Corsican,
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 197 
 
 who rose from u Jacobin officer, to the proudest throne in 
 Europe. While this scene was transpiring in Enghmd, 
 Napoleon was concluding a peace with all the hostile 
 nations except " the sea-girdled isle." His communi- 
 cations now reveal his new designs of seizing the an- 
 cient monarchies of Europe, and forming of them sub- 
 kingdoms for his family — a stroke of ambition which 
 ultimately reached the base of his own throne, rend- 
 ing his empire — opening both the path of unrighteous 
 dominion, and of ultimate ruin. At this date the inter- 
 marriage of near relations with princes and potentates, 
 is also declared. 
 
 NAPOLEOX TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Munich, December 31, 1805. 
 
 '* My Brother — I am at Munich. I shall remain 
 here a few days to receive the ratification of the treaty, 
 and to give to the army its last orders. 
 
 " I intend to take possession of the kingdom of 
 Naj)les. Marshal Massena and General Saint-Cyr are 
 marching on that kingdom with two corps-d'armee. 
 
 " I have named you my lieutenant commanding-in- 
 chief the army of Naples. 
 
 ** Set off for Eome forty hours after the receipt of 
 this letter, and let your first despatch inform me that 
 you have entered Xaples, driven out the treacherous 
 Court, and subjected that part of Italy to our authority. 
 
 *' You will find at the headquarters of the army the 
 decrees and instructions relating to your mission. 
 
 "You will wear the uniform of a general of division. 
 As my lieutenant, you have all the marshals under 
 your orders. Your command does not extend beyond 
 the army and the Xeapolitan territory. If my presence 
 were not necessary in Paris I would march myself on 
 Kaples ; but with the generals whom you have, and the
 
 lyS LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 iustruetiuns which you will receive, yon will do all that 
 I could do. Do not say whither you are going, except 
 to the Arch-Chancellor ; let it be known only by your 
 letters from the army." 
 
 KAPOLEON" TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Munich, December 81, 1805. 
 
 " My Brother — I have demanded in marriage for 
 Prince Eugene, Princess Augusta, daughter of the 
 Elector of Bavaria, and a very pretty person. Tliis 
 marriage has been agreed on ; I have demanded an- 
 other princess for Jerome. As you have seen him last 
 tell me if I can reckon on the young man's consent. 
 I have also arranged a marriage for your eldest 
 daughter with a small prince, who in time will become 
 a great prince. As this last marriage cannot take 
 place for some months, I shall have time to talk to 
 3^ou about it. Tell mamma, as from me, about the 
 marriage of Prince Eugene with Princess Augusta. 
 I do not wish it to be mentioned publicly." 
 
 NAPOLEOJSr to princess JOSEPH. 
 
 " Munich, January 9, 1806. 
 
 *' Madame my Sister-in"-law — I settled some time 
 ago the marriage of my son. Prince Eugene, with the 
 Princess Augusta, daughter of the King of Bavaria. 
 The Elector of Eatisbon marries them at Munich on 
 the 15th of January. I am detained, therefore, for a 
 few days longer in this town. 
 
 " The Princess Augusta is one of the handsomest 
 and most accomplished persons of her sex. It would 
 be proper, I think, that you should make her a present 
 costing from 15,000, to 20,000 francs. She will set 
 off for Italy on the 20th of January. The King of 
 Bavaria will write to you to announce the marriage.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON EOXAPART]:. 1<)U 
 
 Whereupou 1 pray God, madame, my sister-in-law, to 
 keep you in his holy aud worthy protection." 
 
 The immediate provocation to invade Naples, was 
 tlie unprincipled disregard of that kingdom, which was 
 under the scepter of a Bourbon, of her pledge of neutral- 
 ity, and upon the withdrawal of St. Cyr's army from 
 her ports to join the emperor's campaign, inviting 
 the English fleet into her harbors, and then turning 
 her battalions against France. The truth is, Naples 
 was terrified into a submission which was scorned as 
 soon as there was hope of deliverance from Napoleonic 
 power. It was dishonorable, and an occasion for hos- 
 tility. Having now the miglit, the emperor resolved to 
 dethrone the reigning sovereign, and confiscate the 
 realm for his brother. 
 
 NAPOLEOX TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Stuttgardt, January 19, 180C. 
 
 " My Brother — I wish you to enter the kingdom 
 of Naples in the first days of February, and I wish to 
 hear from you in the course of Februar}' that our flag 
 is flying on the walls of that capital. You will make 
 no truce ; you will hear of no capitulation ; my will is 
 that the Bourbons shall have ceased to reign at Naples. 
 I intend to seat on the throne a prince of my own 
 house. In the first place, you, if it suits you ; if not, 
 another. 
 
 ** I repeat it, do not divide your forces ; let your 
 army pass the Apennines, and let your three corps 
 march on Naples, so disposed as to be able to join in 
 one day on one field of battle. Leave a general, some 
 depots, some stores, and some artillerymen at Ancona 
 for its defense, Naples once taken, the distant parts 
 of the kingdom will fall of themselves. The enemj'
 
 200 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 m the Abruzzi will be taken iu the rear, and you will 
 send a division to Taranto, and another toward Sicily 
 to conquer that kingdom. I intend to leave under 
 your orders in the kingdom of Naples all this year and 
 afterward, until I make some new disposition, fourteen 
 regiments of French cavalry on a full war establish- 
 ment. Tlie country must find provisions, clothes, re- 
 mounts, and all that is necessary for your army, so 
 that it may not cost me a farthing." 
 
 Napoleon began his marches slowly toward France, 
 making all possible provision for the wounded which 
 were left behind till the warmer air of spring. He 
 hastened to the capital, and prevented a grand recep- 
 tion by entering the city at dead of night. He im- 
 mediately commenced a scrutiny of the disordered 
 bank of the kingdom, and surveyed at a glance the 
 details of finance, and magnificent plans of internal 
 improvement. 
 
 He addressed a note of approbation to Joseph for his 
 management, as his representative in the capital, and 
 presented him an elegant snuff-box with the emperor's 
 portrait. A few extracts from his further correspond- 
 ence will continue the history of his invasion of Naples. 
 
 NAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Paris, January 27, 1806. 
 
 '* My Beother — I hear that the court of Naples 
 sends Cardinal RufCo to me with propositions of peace. 
 My orders are that he be not allowed to come to Paris. 
 You must immediately commence hostilities, and make 
 all your arrangements for taking immediate possession 
 of the kingdom of Naples, without listening to any 
 propositions for peace, armistice, or suspension of 
 arms — reject them all indiscriminately."
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 201 
 
 NAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Paris, January 30, 1806. 
 
 ** My Brother — I suppose that by the time you 
 receive this letter you will be master of Naples. I can 
 only repeat to you my former instructions and my de- 
 cided intention to conquer the kingdom of Naples and 
 Sicily. As soon as you are master of Naples you will 
 send two corps, one toward Taranto, the other toward 
 the coast opposite Sicily. You will affirm in the 
 strongest manner that the King of Najsles will never sifc 
 again on that throne ; that his removal is necessary to 
 the peace of the continent, which he has troubled twice." 
 
 napoleon to JOSEPH. 
 
 " Paris, January 31, 1806. 
 
 *' My Brother — It is supposed that the Prince Eoyal 
 remains in Naples ; if so, seize him and send him to 
 France, with a sufficient and trustworthy escort. This 
 is my express order. I leave you no discretion. 
 
 £<* * * If any of the great people or others are 
 troublesome, send them to France, and say that you do 
 it by my order. No half measures, no weakness. I 
 intend my blood to reign in Naples as long as it does 
 in France : the kingdom of Naples is necessary tome." 
 
 NAPOLEON to JOSEPH. 
 
 " Paris, February 7, 1806. 
 
 '* My Brother — I have received your letter of the 
 28th of January. I thoroughly approve your answer 
 to the Prince Eoyal of Naples ; a stop must be put to 
 all such absurdities.* Your drafts on Paris will be 
 regularly paid. I am surprised at the bad state of 
 your artillery, and at your general want of supplies. 
 
 * The king and queen offered to abdicate in favor of the prince Joseph 
 answered that it was too late ; that he came to execute Napoleon's orders^ 
 Dot to treat.— Te.
 
 202 LTFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 This comes of generals who think only oT robbing; 
 keep a strict hand over them. I ask from you only 
 one thing — be master. I am anxious to hear tliat you 
 are at Naples. I approve of your delaying for a few 
 days ; everything requires time ; I agree with you 
 that it is better to begin a day or two later and go 
 straightforward. March on boldly. In your endeavors 
 to improve the condition of your army on their way to 
 Xaples, you will be doing what I wish. You cannot 
 have too many staff-officers. When you enter Naples, 
 proclaim that you will suffer no private contributions 
 to be raised, that the whole army will be rewarded, 
 and that it is not right that only a few individuals 
 should be enriched by the exertions of all. 
 
 ic* * * Do not lose a day or an hour in trying to 
 seize Sicily : many things will be easy in the first 
 moment, and difficult afterward. 
 
 ''When you have taken Naples, and all looks settled, 
 1 will communicate to yon my plans for getting yoa 
 acknowledged King of Naples. 
 
 # # # * 4: 4: 
 
 " I am well pleased with my affairs here. It gave me 
 great trouble to bring them into order, and to force a 
 dozen rogues, at whose head is Ourard, to refund. I 
 had made up my mind to have them shot without trial. 
 Thank God I have been repaid. This has put me 
 somewhat out of humor. I tell you about it that you 
 may see how dishonest men are. You, who are now at 
 the head of a groat army and will soon be at that of a 
 great administration, ought to be aware of this. Kog- 
 uery has been the cause of all the misfortunes of France. 
 
 ''* * * I take the greatest interest in your 
 prosperity, ami particularly in your gl<n-y ; in your 
 position it is the first of wants ; without it life can 
 luive no charm."
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPAIiTE. 203 
 
 Napoleon's absorbing love of niilitavj life is force- 
 fiilly expressed in other passages : 
 
 " The returns of my armies form the most agreeable 
 portion of my library. They are the volumes which I 
 read with the greatest pleasure in my moments of 
 relaxation. 
 
 ff * * * Take pleasure, if you can, in reading 
 your returns. The good condition of my armies is 
 owing to my devoting to them two or three hours in 
 every day. When the monthly returns of my armies 
 and of my fleets, which form twenty thick volume?, 
 are sent to me, I give up every other occupation in 
 order to read them in detail, and to observe the difference 
 between one monthly return and another. No young 
 girl enjoys her novel so much as I do these returns." 
 
 The English and the Eussians having abandoned 
 the Neapolitan territory, Joseph led his army on the 
 frontiers ; at which point Napoleon wrote him, with 
 the request to drop the family name. 
 
 If APOLEO^S" TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Paris, February 18, 1806. 
 
 *' My Brother — Your letter of the 8th of February 
 has reached me. You must have received my procla- 
 mation to my army at Schonbruun, which I had kept 
 in reserve. Caution is no longer necessary. You are 
 already master of Naples, and on the point of taking 
 Sicily by surprise ; this is your chief aim. The Nea- 
 politan arrangements are already approved by Prussia. 
 You should entitle your acts ' Joseph Napoleon ' ; you 
 need not add * Bonaparte.' " * 
 
 The court passed over into Sicilv, and Josejjh was 
 
 * From this time the family changed tlieir name to Napoleon.
 
 20J: LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 proclaimed King of Naples. Napoleon gave him royal 
 counsel respecting the securities of his throne, and ab- 
 solute dictation. 
 
 ]srAPOLEO]sr to Joseph. 
 
 " Paris, March 3, 1806. 
 
 " My Brother — You are too cautious. Naples can 
 well give you four or five millions. Announce my 
 speedy arrival at Naples. It is so far off that I do nob 
 dare to promise you that I shall go, but there is no 
 harm in announcing it, both for the sake of the army 
 and the people. 
 
 ** Your troubles are wliat always occur. Never go 
 out without guards. * * * In all your calculations 
 assume tliis ; that a fortnight sooner or a fortnight later 
 you will have an insurrection. It is an event of uniform 
 occurrence in a conquered country. * * * Whatever 
 you do the mere force of opinion [Joseph had written 
 — ' This town appears to me more populous than Paris. 
 I can maintain my position only by the assistance of 
 public opinion '] will not maintain you in a city like 
 Naples. Take care that there are mortars in the forts 
 and troops in reserve to punish speedily an insurrection. 
 Disarm, and do it quickly. * * * I presume that you 
 have cannon in your palaces, and take all proper pre- 
 cautions for your safety. You cannot watch too nar- 
 rowly those about you. The presumjjtion and careless- 
 ness of the French are unequaled. 
 
 "All the troubles under which you are suffering 
 belong to your position. Disarm, disarm, keep order 
 in that immense city. Keep your artillery in positions 
 where tlie mob cannot seize them. Reckon on a riot 
 or a small insurrection. I wish that I could give you 
 the benefit of my experience in these matters." 
 
 Four days later he added :
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 205 
 
 ** Let the lazzaroni who use the dagger be shot witli- 
 out mercy. It is only by a salutary terror that you will 
 keep in awe an Italian populace. The least that the 
 conquest of Naples must do for you is to afford supplies 
 to your army of forty thousand men. Lay a contribu- 
 tion of thirty millions on the whole kingdom. Your 
 conduct wants decision. Your soldiers and your gen- 
 erals ought to live in plenty. Of course, you will call 
 together the priests and declare thom responsible for 
 any disorder. The lazzaroni must have chiefs ; they 
 must answer for the rest. Whatever you do, you will 
 have an insurrection. Disarm. You say nothing 
 about the forts. If necessary, do as I did in Cairo : 
 prepare three or four batteries, whose shells shall reach 
 every part of Xaples. You may not use them, but their 
 mere existence will strike terror. The kingdom of 
 Naples is not exhausted. You can always get money ; 
 since there are royal fiefs, and taxes which have been 
 given away. Every alienation of the royal domains or 
 of the taxes — though its existence may be immemorial 
 — must be annulled, and a system of taxation, equal 
 and severe, must be established. * * * You have no 
 money, but you have a good army and a good country 
 to supply you. Prepare for the siege of Gaeta. You 
 speak of the insufficiency of your military force. Two 
 regiments of cavalry, two battalions of light infantry, 
 and a company of artillery, would put to flight all the 
 mob of Naples. But the first of all things is to have 
 money, and yon can get it only in Naples. A contri- 
 bution of thirty millions will provide for everything, 
 and put you at your ease. Tell me something about 
 the forts. I presume that they command the town, 
 and that you have put provisional commandants into 
 them. You must set about organizing a gendarmerie. 
 Yon feel, on entering Xaples, as every one feels on
 
 206 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 entering a conquered country. Naples is richer than 
 Vienna, and not so exhausted. Milan itself, when I 
 entered it, had not a farthing. Once more, expect no 
 money from me. The five hundred thousand francs in 
 gold, which I sent to you, are tlie last I shall send to 
 Naples. I care not so much about t])ree or four mil- 
 lions, as about the principle. Raise thirty millions, pay 
 your army, treat well your generals and commanders, 
 put your material in order." 
 
 The purpose to make the people pay the invading 
 army ; the establishment of nobility, and all the sup- 
 ports of a sjolendid monarcliy, are apparent in a subse- 
 quent letter to Joseph, who was an amiable, kind- 
 hearted man, and too yielding and symj)athizing to 
 suit his younger, but imperial brother : 
 
 NAPOLEOX TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Paris, March 8, 1806. 
 
 *'My Brother — I see that by one of your procla- 
 mations you promise to impose no war contribution, 
 and that you forbid your soldiers to require those who 
 lodge them to feed them. It seems to me that your 
 measures are too narrow. It is not by being civil to 
 j)eople that you obtain a hold on them. This is not 
 the way to get the means to reward your army prop- 
 erly. Raise thirty millions from the kingdom of 
 Naples. Pay well your army ; remount well your 
 cavalry and your trains ; have shoes and clothes made. 
 This cannot be done without money. As for me it 
 Avould be too absurd if the conquest of Naples did not 
 put my army at its ease. It is impossible that you 
 should keep within the bounds wliicli you profess. 
 Back yourself, if you like, by an order of mine. 
 
 * * * * :i: * 
 
 ** You must establisli in the kingdom of Naplea a
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 207 
 
 certain number of French families, holding fiefs either 
 carved out of domains of the crown, or taken from 
 tlieir present possessors, or from the monks by dimin- 
 isliing the number of convents. In my opinion your 
 throne will have no solidity unless you surround it with 
 a hundred generals, colonels, and others attached to 
 your house, possessing great fiefs of the kingdom of 
 Naples and Sicily. Bernadotte and Massena should, 
 I think, be fixed in Naples, with the title of princes, 
 and with large revenues. Enable them to found great 
 families : 1 do this in Piedmont, the kingdom of Italy, 
 and Parma. In these countries and in Naples three 
 or four hundred French military men ought to be es- 
 tablished with property descending by primogeniture. 
 In a few years they will marry into the jirincipal fam- 
 ilies, and your throne will be strong enough to do 
 without a French army — a point which must be reached. 
 In the discussions between Naples and France, France 
 will never desire to supply Naples with more troops 
 than are absolutely necessary. She will always wish to 
 keej") them together to meet her other enemies. 1 in- 
 tend to giveDalmatiato a prince, as well as Neufchatel, 
 which Prussia has ceded to me. 
 
 "There are about one hundred old guardes-du-corps 
 here, good men, who may be useful in your body-guard, 
 mixed with the Neapolitan nobles." 
 
 Holland, which had been overswept in her revolu- 
 tionary struggles by England, and delivered from the 
 enemy by the interposition of France, was now induced 
 to ask the emperor for a king in the person of Louis 
 Bonaparte. This amiable prince, who had nuirricd the 
 graceful Hortense, Josephine's daughter, was cstal)- 
 lislied at the Hague, Ma}^ Gth, ISOC. He became a de- 
 servedly popular ruler.
 
 208 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 The Kings of Wirtemberg and Bavaria, with four- 
 teen other princes of various degrees of rank, occupy- 
 ing the valley of the Rhine in the west of Germany, 
 associated themselves together in an alliance called the 
 Confederation of tlie Rliine, and Napoleon became, ac- 
 cording to his design, Frotector. This reach of author- 
 ity virtually dismembered tlie German Empire, and 
 added some of its most beautiful portions to the realm 
 of France. Napoleon, while thus increasing his power, 
 was raising barriers against his foreign foes. He was 
 a noble monarch in his schemes of national progress 
 and universal sway, but nevertheless, a king whose law 
 of conquest and control was/orce — and whose pole-star 
 of wondrous thought was glory, with little reverence 
 for man in his individual worth, and as little for God 
 in liis real character and spiritual worship. 
 
 Mr. Fox had succeeded Pitt in the cabinet of Eng- 
 land, and was his antagonist in politics. Plis friendly 
 relations to Napoleon awakened the hope and expecta- 
 tion among the people, of peace. But the aristocracy 
 of England were unchanged in that hostility to the 
 emperor, which had its stern and unalterable expres- 
 sion in the government of Pitt. Napoleon's views were 
 expressed in a letter to Mr. Fox : " France will not 
 dispute with England the conquests England has made. 
 Neither does France claim anything more on the con- 
 tinent than she now has. It will, therefore, be easy to 
 lay down the basis of a j)eace, if England has not in- 
 admissible views relative to commercial interests. The 
 emperor is persuaded that the real cause 'of the rupture 
 of the peace of Amiens was no other than the refusal 
 to conclude a cotnmercial treaty. Be assured tliat 
 the emperor, Avithout refusing certain commercial ad- 
 vantages, if they are sought, will not admit of any 
 treaty prejudicial to French industry, which he meaiia
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTK 209 
 
 to protect by all duties and prohibitions which can 
 favor its development. He insists on having liberty 
 to do at home all that he pleases, all that is beneficial, 
 without any rival nation having a right to find fault 
 with him." 
 
 The entire intercourse between Napoleon and Mr. 
 Fox was frank and cordial. Exchange of several 
 prisoners of note was had, and no bitter words were 
 passed. Besides the storm in parliament, the prospect 
 of a treaty declined as the conditions were more dis- 
 tinctly announced. England wanted Malta, and also 
 Hanover given to Prussia by Napoleon after the peace 
 of Presburg. Najioleon was determined to have Sicily. 
 To complete the difficulties, and remove the last ground 
 of anticipated reconciliation, Mr. Fox died, September, 
 1806. 
 
 The interesting letters of the emperor furnish a vivid 
 view of the crisis. 
 
 N'APOLEO]Sr TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " St. Cloud, September 12, 1806. 
 
 " My Brothek — I told yon that Russia had not rati- 
 fied. Prussia is arming in a most ridiculous manner ; 
 however, she shall soon disarm, or pay dearly for what 
 she is doing. Nothing can exceed the vacillation of 
 that cabinet. The court of Vienna makes me great 
 protestations, and its total want of power inclines me 
 to put faith in them. AYhatever happens, I can face, 
 and luill face, every enemy. The conscription which 
 I have just levied is going on in every direction. I 
 am going to call out my reserve ; * I am fully provided, 
 
 * In France, usually only half the conscripts are called out at first ; the 
 other half is called the reserve, and in peace is seldom called out. It re- 
 mains, however, liable to serve ; and on an emergency, the reserves of the 
 four or five previous years are sometimes called out together. This was 
 done in 1S54.— Tr. 
 14
 
 210 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 and in want of nothing. Whether it be war or peace 
 I shall not diminish your army. In a few days per- 
 haps I may put myself at the head of my grand army ; 
 it consists of nearly one hundred and fifty thousand 
 men, and with that force I can reduce to submission 
 Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. There will be a 
 somewhat formidable army in Upper Italy. Keep 
 these dispositions secret ; they will be best proclaimed 
 by victory. 
 
 ''Press your enemies sharply; drive them out of 
 the peninsula ; recover Cotrona, Scylla, and Eeggio. 
 Jerome has landed ; I have made him a prince, and I 
 have given him the great cordon of the Legion of 
 Honor. I have arranged his marriage with the Prin- 
 cess Catherine, the Duke of Wirtemberg's daughter. 
 As I shall be obliged to call for a plebiscitum on his ac- 
 count, that is to say the sanction of the people to his 
 succession to the crown, I wish Lucien not to let slip 
 this opportunity.* 
 
 " Be quite easy about political affairs ; go on as if 
 nothing were happening. If indeed I am again forced 
 to strike, my measures are so well and surely taken, 
 that the first notice to Europe of my departure from 
 Paris will be the total ruin of my enemies. Let your 
 newspaper:: uescribe me as occupied in Paris with 
 huntinr, amusements, and negotiations. If the war- 
 like preparations of Prussia are mentioned, let it be 
 supposed that they take place with my consent ; and 
 M. Humboldt must have received orders to proceed to 
 your court as Prussian minister. I will never lay 
 down my arms unless Naples and Sicily are yours. I 
 liave called your attention to Pcscara : keep there a 
 
 • Joseph wrote to Lucien. Lvicien answered that he woukl not part 
 with lii-^ wife or make any chanpe in the position of his children, and that 
 solicitations to him, which must met^t with refusals, were useless. — Tr.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 211 
 
 gufficient quantity of powder, of gun-carriages, a mili- 
 tary commandant, an engineer officer, an artillery offi- 
 cer, a storekeeper, a commissariat officer, a garrison of 
 four or five hundred men, and provisions for a month. 
 Order the troops in tlie Abruzzi to shut themselves up 
 in Pescara in an emergency, sending word at the same 
 time to the general in command at Ancona. If the 
 enemy succeeded in landing and throwing a thousand 
 men into that place, he would soon be able to sustain a 
 siege, which would be very inconvenient. 
 
 "In the midst of all these events I do not forget the 
 sea. I have schemes which may possibly in a month 
 or two make me master of the Mediterranean.** 
 
 KAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 '* St. Cloud, September 13, 1806. 
 
 ** My Brother — Everything proves that Mr. Fox 
 is dead. Lord Yarmouth has been triumphantly re- 
 ceived in London, because he was known to belong to 
 the peace party. Mr. Fox's illness has filled the nation 
 with consternation. The ministers seemed delighted 
 with these demonstrations, and all hope of peace is not 
 yet lost. The English minister in Paris is too ill to see 
 any body. He has attended no conference since the 
 arrival of his last courier. Prussia makes me a thousand 
 protestations, which do not prevent my taking my 
 precautions : in a few days she will have disarmed, or 
 she will be crushed. Austria declares her intention to 
 remain neutral. Kussia does not know what she wants, 
 but her distance renders her powerless. Such, in two 
 words, is the state of affairs. 
 
 "^I fancy that in the course of the next ten days the 
 peace of the continent will be more settled than ever. 
 As to England, I can conjecture nothing. Her con- 
 duct is decided, not by general politics, but by internal
 
 212 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 intrigues. The last news announced that Mr. Fox was 
 at the point of death ; his friends are deploring his loss 
 as if he were already dead.'* 
 
 Prussia had never been satisfied with Napoleon's 
 apology for violating her territory, when, surrounding 
 Mack at Ulm, he crossed Anspach with his troops. 
 Of this, amid the returning hostility to France in 
 Russia, and its fresh intensity in England, she com- 
 plained ; and mustering her legions, joined the new 
 coalition with those mighty empires, to crush Napo- 
 leon. She marched her army, two hundred thousand 
 strong, into Saxony. 
 
 ''The conduct of Prussia, in thus rushing into hos- 
 tilities without waiting for the advance of the Russians, 
 was as rash as her holding back from Austria, during 
 the campaign of Austerliz, had been cowardly. As 
 if determined to profit by no lesson, the Prussian 
 council also directed their army to advance toward the 
 French, instead of lying on their own frontier — a rep- 
 etition of the great leading blunder of the Austrians 
 in the preceding year. The Prussian army accordingly 
 invaded the Saxon provinces, and the Elector of Saxony, 
 seeing his country treated as rudely as that of the Elec- 
 tor of Bavaria had been on a similar occasion by the 
 Austrians, and wanting the means to withdraw his own 
 troops as the Bavarian had succeeded in doing under 
 like provocation, was compelled to accept the alliance 
 which Prussia urged on him, and to join his troops 
 with those of the power by which he had been thus in- 
 sulted and wronged." 
 
 Napoleon led his legions forward, confused the Prus- 
 sians by rapid movements, and soon encamped in their 
 rear, cutting off supplies, and possibility of retreat. 
 He again made eHorts to save the needless flow of blood,
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 213 
 
 and wrote the king, nrging the cessation of hostilities 
 and carnuge. No reply Avas received, and his troops 
 advanced in three divisions : Soult and Ney in the direc- 
 tion of Hof ; Murat, Bernadotte, and Davoust toward 
 Saalburg, and Lannes and Augereau upon Saalfield. 
 At Saalfield there was a fierce battle with the corps of 
 Prince Louis of Prussia, in which the French wore 
 victorious, and blew up Xaumburg with its magazines. 
 The prince was mortally wounded, and the Prussian 
 forces completely surrounded by the enemy. 
 
 At Jena and Auerstadt, the great armies met in de- 
 cisive conflict. Napoleon perceived on the evening of 
 October 13th, that the battle must come the following 
 day, although his heavy train of artillery was still 
 many hours behind. But he encouraged his men, who, 
 with what seemed superhuman strength, drew the 
 guns which they had up a lofty plateau in front of 
 Jena, and prepared for the desperate action. "•'Lan- 
 nes commanded the center ; Augereau the right ; 
 Soult the left ; and Murat the reserve and cavalry. 
 Soult had to sustain the first assault of the Prus- 
 sians, which was violent and sudden ; for the mist lay 
 so thick on the field that the armies were within half 
 gunshot of each other ere the sun and wind rose and 
 discovered them ; and on that instant Mollendorf 
 charged. The battle was contested well for some time 
 on this point ; but at length Ney appeared in the rear 
 of the emperor with a fresh division ; and then the 
 French center advanced to a general charge, before 
 which the Prussians Avere forced to retire. They 
 moved for some space in good order ; but Murat now 
 poured his masses of cavalry on them, storm after 
 storm, with such rapidity and vehemence that their 
 rout became miserable. It ended in the complete 
 breaking up of the army — horse and foot all flying
 
 214 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 together, in the coufusiou 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, twenty thousand Prussians were killed or taken ; 
 three hundred guns, twenty generals, and sixty stand- 
 ards. The commander-in-chief, the Duke of Bruns- 
 wick, 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 one hundred and fifty thousand, 
 but a few regiments were ever able to act in concert for 
 some time after the 14th. The various routed divisions 
 roamed about the country, seeking separately the 
 means of escape ; they were in consequence destined 
 to fall an easy prey. Mollendorf and the Prince of 
 Orange-Fulda laid down their arms at Erfurt. General 
 Kalkreuth's corps was overtaken and surrounded among 
 the Hartz mountains ; Prince Eugene of Wirtemberg 
 and sixteen thousand men, surrendered to Bernadotte 
 at Halle. The Prince of Hohenlohe at length drew 
 together not less than fifty thousand of these wandering 
 soldiers, and threw himself at their head into Magdeburg. 
 But it turned out that that great fortress had been 
 stripped of all its stores for the service of the Duke of 
 Brunswick's army before Jena. Hohenlohe, therefore, 
 was compelled to retreat toward 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 ; twenty thousand 
 surrendered with the prince. His rear, consisting of 
 about ten thousand, under the command of the celebrated 
 general Blucher, were so far behind as to render it 
 possible for them to attempt escape. Their heroic
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 2l5 
 
 leader traversed the country with them for some time 
 nubroken, and sustained a variety of assaults, from far 
 superior numbers, with the most obstinate resolution. 
 ]>y degrees, however, the French under Soult hemmed 
 him in on one side, Muratonthe other, and Bernadotte 
 appeared close behind him. He was thus forced to throw 
 himself into Lubeck, wliere a severe action was fought 
 in the streets of the town, on the Gtli of November. 
 The Prussians in this battle lost four thousand 
 prisoners, besides the slain and wounded : he retreated 
 to Schwerta, and there, it being impossible for him to 
 go further without violating the neutrality of Denmark, 
 on the morning of the 7th, Bluclier at length laid down 
 his arms — having exhibited a specimen of conduct and 
 valor such as certainly had not been displaj'ed by am- 
 of his superiors in the campaign." 
 
 Bonaparte entered Berlin the 2oth of October. The 
 Prussian monarchy had crumbled before the march of 
 his resistless battalions, and lay in ruins at his feet. He 
 describes the grand success : 
 
 XAPOLEOX TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Berlik, November 4, 1806. 
 
 "' My Bkother — The bulletins will have informed 
 you of what is going on here. I have taken one 
 hundred and twenty thousand prisoners ; j^ark, maga- 
 zines, baggage, everything has fallen into my power. 
 The three fortresses on the Oder have capitulated. I 
 have completely crushed the power of Prussia. Austria 
 has begun to arm on the pretext of protecting her 
 neutrality. We must make corresponding preparations 
 in Upper Italy. If Austria were to attack us, yon 
 would gain this advantage by my position — that the 
 Eussians would concentrate their forces in Poland, and 
 that England would direct hers upon Sweden. 
 ******
 
 216 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 " I am on the borders of Poland ; to make war in 
 that country one must have cavalry. Eelying on your 
 sending back yours, I have withdrawn eight regiments 
 of horse from Italy, and if you fail me, enough will 
 not be left there. The last two months have been spent 
 in arming and victualing my strong places in Italy. I 
 have just given orders that my army may be assembled 
 by the 1st of December ; it will consist altogether of 
 more than sixty thousand men." 
 
 Napoleon took possession of the royal palace, with 
 triumphal display ; ajid in his bulletin having spoken 
 severely of the queen who rode at the head of her 
 troops, animating them with her fiery valor and beauty, 
 Josephine remonstrated in a letter to him. In his 
 reply, he narrates briefly the pardon of the Prince of 
 Hatzfeld, who was governor of Berlin under Napoleon's 
 protection, but secretly in correspondence with the 
 Prussian army. He was arrested, taken before a court- 
 martial, and sentenced to be shot. 
 
 NAPOLEON TO JOSEPHINE. 
 
 " November 6, 1806 ; 9 o'clock p. m. 
 
 ** I have received your letter, in which, it seems, you 
 reproach me for speaking ill of women. True it is, 
 that above all things 1 dislike female intriguers. I 
 have been accustomed to kind, gentle, conciliatory 
 women. Such I love, and if they have spoiled me, it 
 is not my fault, but yours. However, you will see that 
 I have acted indulgently toward one sensible and 
 deserving woman. I allude to Madame Hatzfeld. 
 When I showed her her husband's letter, she burst into 
 tears ; and said in a tone of the most exquisite grief and 
 candor, * It is indeed his writing 1 ' This was too 
 much ; it went to my heart. I said, * Well, madame.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 217 
 
 throw the letter into the fire, and then I sliall liuve no 
 proof against your husband.' She burned the letter, 
 and was restored to happiness. Her husband is now- 
 safe. Two hours later, and he would have been lost. 
 You see, therefore, that I like women who are feminine, 
 unaffected and amiable, for they alone resemble you. 
 Adieu, my love. I am very well." 
 
 Such an incident, is a pleasant interlude to the 
 clangor of arms, the groans of the dying and the wail 
 of anguish from the living. Napoleon had feeling, but 
 with rare excerptions it was subordinated altogether to 
 his lofty plans of national and personal grandeur. It 
 never turned aside the wasting strokes of his avenging 
 arms, when the terror they inspired was auxiliary to the 
 ultimate object. Madame Hatzfeld was restored to 
 happiness ; but a great company, in the march of 
 empire, were consigned to hopeless sorrow.
 
 218 LIFE OF NAPOLECN BONAPARTE. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The position of the hostile parties.— The Berlin decrees. — ^The war goe.a 
 on. — Battle of Eylau. — Letter to Josephine. ^Offers of peace rejected. — 
 Preparations for another campaign. — Battle of Friedland. — The peace of 
 Tilsit. — Friendship of Napoleon and Alexander. — Correspondence. — Na- 
 poleon's magnificent plans.— Code Napoleon. — Designs upon Spain and 
 Portugal. — Letters. — Tour to Italy. — Disagreement witJi Lucien. — Por- 
 tugal taken. — Invasion of Spain. — Letters. — The abdication. — Joseph 
 designated for the vacant throne. — His reluctant and unquiet reign. — The 
 meeting of the emperors at Erfurth.— Josephine's divorce suggested.— 
 Eevolution in Spain. — Victories. — Letters.— Joseph again enthroned.— 
 His complaint of Napoleon.— Intelligence of an Austrian campaign. — 
 Battles of Eckmuhl and Wagram. — Quarrel with the Pope.— Peace. — 
 Divorce of Josephine. 
 
 A week's campaign had changed the fortunes of 
 Prussia. With a remnant of his almost annihilated 
 army the king had fled to the frontier of Pohantl, and 
 was '^\'elcomed witli sad surprise by the advancing 
 Alexander of Eussia. He refused renewed propositions 
 of peace, and prepared with his powerful ally again to 
 meet France on the battle-plain. 
 
 England, tlioroughly aroused, violated the law of 
 nations in her proclamation that France was in a state 
 of blockade in regard to all nations, whether hostile or 
 neutral. Private property of tlie enemy on the sea, was 
 seized, and passengers there, made prisoners. 
 
 Napoleon retaliated by issuing a manifesto, and 
 eleven edicts, called the Berlin Decrees — a measure 
 famous among the boldest acts of their author. The 
 British islands were declared to be blockaded, and 
 English property on the continent confiscated ; Eng- 
 lishmen wherever found were taken prisoners, and 
 all intercourse, commercial or civil, forbidden as
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 219 
 
 treason against the government. The difficulties in the 
 wa}' of a practical working of the decrees were very- 
 great. The fabrics of England, and tlie necessaries of 
 life which she furnished, had become indispensable to 
 domestic comfort. Evasions were sought, and dissat- 
 isfaction was general. But the question of right in a 
 national view, hinges on the disputed fact of re^a/mi/ow. 
 And odious as the Berlin decrees Avere to the people 
 of Europe, no careful reader of the conflicting testi- 
 mony, can doubt the provocation given, " by issuing 
 in May, 1806, the blockade of the French coasts of the 
 English channel." It Avas now the autumn of the 
 same year, and Napoleon was master of Northern Ger- 
 many, bringing almost the entire coast of Europe 
 under his sway ; affording the opportunity he was 
 prompt to improve, of embarrassing and crippling liis 
 formidable foe. Another act in the tragedy of wide- 
 spread war was immediately opened. 
 
 The emperor "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, ere they could reach 
 the soil of Germany, those Eussian legions which were 
 now advancing, too late, to the assistance of Ei-ederic 
 William. That unfortunate jDrinee sent Lucchesini to 
 Berlin, to open, if possible, a negotiation with the vic- 
 torious occupant of his capital and palace ; but Bona- 
 parte demanded Dautzic, and two other fortified towns, 
 as the price of even the briefest armistice ; and the 
 Italian envoy returned, to inform the king that no 
 hope remained for him except in the arrival of the 
 Russians. 
 
 " Napoleon held in his hands the means of opening 
 his campaign with those allies of Prussia, under cir- 
 cumstances involving his enemy in a new and prob-
 
 ^20 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 ably endless train of difficulties. The partition of 
 Poland — that great political crime, for which every 
 power that had part in it has since been severely, 
 though none of theni adequately, jounished — had left 
 the population of what had once been a great and 
 powerful kingdom, in a state of discontent and irrita- 
 tion, of which, had Napoleon been willing to make 
 full use of it, the fruits might have been more dan- 
 gerous for the czar than any campaign against any 
 foreign enemy. The French emperor had but to an- 
 nounce distinctly that his purpose was the restoration 
 of Poland as an independent state, and the whole mass 
 of an eminently gallant and warlike jDopulation would 
 have risen instantly at his call. But Bonaparte was 
 withheld from resorting to this effectual means of an- 
 noyance by various considerations, of which the chief 
 were these : first, he could not emancipate Poland 
 without depriving Austria of a rich and important 
 province, and consequently provoking her once more 
 into the field ; and secondly, he foresaw that the 
 Russian emperor, if threatened with the destruction 
 of his Polish territory and authority, would urge the 
 war in a very different manner from that which he 
 was likely to adopt while acting only as the ally of 
 Prussia. In a word. Napoleon was well aware of the 
 extent of the czar's resources, and had no wish at this 
 time to give a character of irremediable bitterness to 
 their quarrel ; but though lie for these reasons refrained 
 from openly appealing in his own person to the Poles 
 as a nation, yet he had no scruple about permitting 
 others to tamper, in his behalf, with the justly indig- 
 nant feelings of the people. Some Polish officers were 
 already enlisted in his army, and through these and 
 others, he contrived to awaken the outraged passions 
 of their countrymen, many of whom flocked to his
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 221 
 
 standard, in the fond belief that he was to be the lib- 
 erator of their nation." 
 
 He issued another address to the army, many of 
 whose troops were reluctant to leave comfortable quar- 
 ters for the snow-plains of Eussian war, which like a 
 trumpet-call awakened the enthusiasm IS^apoleon only 
 could inspire — a source of power greater than all others 
 wielded by his genius. 
 
 The Eussians and Prussians lay, a hundred and 
 twenty thousand strong, on the banks of the Vistula. 
 It was four hundred miles from Berlin to Warsaw, to- 
 ward which the French battalions marched amid the 
 bitter cold and driving storms of winter. The horrors 
 of this campaign were scarcely less terrific than those 
 of the Egyptian marches npon burning sands — be- 
 tween whose extremes, were gathered all the forms of 
 human suffering and degradation. 
 
 After a few skirmishes with the Eussians, Murat 
 occupied "Warsaw, the 28th of November ; and Napoleon 
 at Posen, meanwhile, was surrounded b}^ the excited, 
 hopeful Poles. Said the palatine of Gnesna : " AYe 
 adore you, and with confidence repose, as upon Him 
 who raises empires and destroys them, and humbles the 
 proud — the regenerator of our country, the legislator 
 of the universe ! " Similar extravagant expressions of 
 admiration and joyful anticipation repeatedly greeted 
 his ear. He assured the deputations that waited upon 
 him, of his sympathy, and recruiting his forces from 
 the ranks of the noble patriots, gave no further thought 
 to the diflBcult enterprise of their liberation from galling 
 oppression. 
 
 Then followed severe encounters, which stained for 
 many a league, the snow with crimson, and scattered 
 the frozen, ghastly bodies of men along the path of 
 those magnificent armies. The opposing columns soon
 
 222 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 met on the field of Eylau. Here the whole Russian 
 force, driven more than two hundred miles from the 
 Vistula by the French, made a final, desperate stand. 
 This was on February 7th, 1807 ; and as the night came 
 down, Napoleon saw in the calm, cold moonlight, and 
 waving lights of the watchfires, the enemy's line, 
 extending two miles along a gentle swell of glittering 
 ice and drifted snow ; while over all, the howling winds 
 wailed, in anticipation of the morrow, a funeral dirge. 
 Two hundred cannon were placed with silent threaten- 
 ing, at that midnight hour, to sweep the ranks of 
 the foe. While the next dawn was kindling upon the 
 storm-clouds, the roar of the artillery announced the 
 opening strife. 
 
 •^'The French charged at two different points in 
 strong columns, and were unable to shake the iron 
 steadiness of the infantry, while the Russian horse, and 
 especially the Cossacks, under their gallant Hetman 
 Platoff, made fearful execution on each division, as 
 successively they drew back from their vain attempt. 
 A fierce storm arose at midday ; 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 backward, 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 Frederic, drove back Davoust, 
 and restored the Russian line. The action continued 
 for many hours along the whole line — the French
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 223 
 
 attacking boldly, the Eussians driving them back with 
 unfailing resolution. Ney, with a Frencli division, at 
 length came up and succeeded in occupying the village 
 of Schloditten, on the road to Konigsberg. To regain 
 this, and thereby recover the means of communicating 
 with the King of Prussia, was deemed necessary ; and 
 it was carried accordingly at the point of the bayonet. 
 This was at ten o'clock at night. So ended the longest 
 and by far the severest battle in which Bonaparte had 
 as yet been engaged. After fourteen hours' fighting 
 either army occupied the same position as in the 
 morning. 
 
 " Either leader claimed the victory." 
 
 Deeds of unequaled valor were done, and fifty thousand 
 victims left on the frozen earth. Of the slain, more 
 than ten thousand were Frenchmen. In one onset, a 
 grenadier, whose arm had been torn away by a shell, 
 rushed into the assaulting ranks, refusing to have his 
 wound dressed, till the position was taken. The sight 
 greatly moved Napoleon. It was devotion too deep 
 for so dark a shrine beneath the glory of conquest. 
 
 It was the first great battle in the career of Xapoleon, 
 which did not result in decided victory. The Eussians 
 had twelve of the eagles of France, taken by Bensingen, 
 while the emperor had possession of the field at a 
 sacrifice which could not well bear repetition. "We 
 need not pause to dwell on the scenes of blood disjilayed 
 on the plain of Eylau, when the battle was over — the 
 piteous appeals to Naj^oleon in behalf of wife, mother, 
 and children — the pools of the red life-current — the 
 heaps of mangled bodies of men and horses — beneath 
 which lay the dying. Nor can fancy catch the sobs of 
 grief and the low moans of unrecorded heart-breaking, 
 in the hamlets and among the mountain homes of a 
 continent. The Eussians retired to Konigsberg ; and
 
 224 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 on February 19th, Napoleon retreated to the Vis- 
 tula. 
 
 Before his departure, he wrote to Josephine, and used 
 the following kind and descriptive words : 
 
 ** My love ! I am still at Eylau. The country is 
 covered with the dead and the wounded. This is not 
 agreeable. One suffers, and the soul is oppressed to see 
 so many victims. I am well, I have done what I 
 wished. I have repulsed the enemy, compelling him 
 to abandon his projects. You must be very anxious, 
 and that thought afflicts me. Nevertheless, tranquilize 
 yourself, my love, and be cheerful. Wholly thine. 
 
 " Napoleon." 
 
 Offers of peace were again made by the emperor and 
 rejected. And with an eloquent address to the deci- 
 mated army, he entered his winter quarters to prepare 
 for the renewed meeting with his unyielding, and now 
 equal enemy. The spring came, and with it supplies 
 from France and Switzerland, furnishing and recruiting 
 his army, till he was ready with nearly three hundred 
 thousand men to enter the contest afresh. He was at 
 Osterode, in Poland, where he divided his time between 
 his military plans and the immense burdens of state — 
 the educational, civil, and financial interests of his 
 empire. He projected the grand and beautiful Madeleine 
 — a temple of literature, and a monument of fame to 
 the bravery of the grand army. 
 
 During this vernal season of preparation for war, 
 the young prince, and intended heir to the throne of 
 France, the son of Hortense and Louis, then five years 
 of age, died of the croup. The sad tidings reached 
 Napoleon, and bowed his head in sorrow. But Josephine 
 felt the blow with unutterable anguish. She knew that 
 beyond the loss of a lovely and promising boy, was the
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 225 
 
 necessity of a successor to the crown of France, and her 
 marriage tie would not thwart the ambitious desire of 
 him in whom was enshrined her earthly bliss — her very 
 life. He wrote letters of condolence and affection to 
 Josephine and Horteuse, but these did not change the 
 fact, which threw a dismal shadow over the desolate 
 home. 
 
 Dantzic, a strongly fortified town, surrendered to 
 Napoleon, May 26th, after a terrific siege of fifty-one 
 days, furnishing a rich supply of stores for his troops. 
 The Russians struck the first blow of general conflict 
 early in June, by an assault on Ney's division, which 
 was at Gustadt. It fell back to Deppen, where the 
 emperor joined the division, and compelled the pur- 
 suers to retreat. They were followed, and bloody bat- 
 tles were fought. 
 
 Bensingen finally took his position on the west bank 
 of the river Aller, bringing that stream between him 
 and the French forces. The town of Friedland, from 
 which a narrow bridge crossed the river, was opposite. 
 On the morning of June 14th, the Russians commenced 
 the attack on the enemy, hoping to secure defeat 
 before Napoleon with the other divisions of the grand 
 army could arrive. Crossing the Aller incautiously, he 
 was inclosed in a deep bend of the river, fighting furi- 
 ously, when, guided by the thunder of the cannonade, 
 the emperor came ; he saw the situation of the Rus- 
 sians, and ordered a general assault, exclaiming, ** This 
 is the 14th of June. It is the anniversary of Marengo. 
 It is a lucky day for us." 
 
 Ney rushed upon the dense mass of Russians in and 
 before the town, and the fearful struggle became one 
 wild commotion of desperate men, plunging steeds, toss- 
 ing plumes, and waving banners. Friedland was in 
 flames, and lit up the scene, as darkness shrouded the 
 IS
 
 226 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 ensanguined plain. The allies were conqnered ; and 
 retreating, dashed into the waters which swept them 
 down, benetli a ahower of bullets from the columns of 
 the victors. 
 
 Bensingen retreated toward the Niemen. 
 
 " The Emperor Alexander, overawed by the genius 
 of Napoleon, which had triumphed over troops more 
 resolute than had ever before opposed him, and alarm- 
 ed for the consequences of some decisive measure to- 
 ward the reorganization of the Poles as a nation, began 
 to think seriously of peace. Bensingen sent, on the 
 21st of June, to demand an armistice ; and to this 
 proposal the victor of Friedland yielded immediate 
 assent. 
 
 " The armistice was ratified on the 23d of June, and on 
 the 25th the Emperors of France and Eussia met per- 
 sonally, each accompanied by a few attendants, on a raft 
 moored on the river Niemen, near the town of Tilsit. 
 The sovereigns embraced each other, and retiring under 
 a canopy had a long conversation, to which no one was a 
 witness. At its termination the ajjpearanccs of mutual 
 good-will and confidence were marked : immediately 
 afterward the town of Tilsit was neutralized, 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 difficulties which had for 
 years been deluging Europe with blood." 
 
 Napoleon wrote to the King of Naples upon the 
 close of the f^tes, rides, and royal display on the banks 
 of the Niemen : 
 
 KAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Tilsit, July 9, 1807. 
 
 " My BROTnER — Peace was signed yesterday and
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 227 
 
 ratified to-day. The Emperor Alexander and I parted 
 to-day at twelve o'clock, after having passed three week* 
 together. We lived as intimate friends. At our last 
 interview he appeared in the order of the Legion of 
 Honor, and I iu that of St. Andrew. I have given the 
 Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor to the Grand Duke 
 Constantine, to the Princes Kourakin and Labanoff, 
 and to Count Budberg. The Emperor of Eussia has 
 conferred his order upon the King of Westphalia, the 
 Grand Duke of Berg, and on the Princes Neufchatel 
 and Benevento. Corfu is to be given up to me. The 
 order of the chief of the staff to have Corfu occupied 
 by the troops whom I mentioned to you has been given 
 to an officer who is on his way to you. Do not lose 
 time iu victualing that island, and sending thither all 
 that is necessary." 
 
 The King of Prussia, who had been invited by Alex- 
 ander to join him in the negotiations at Tilsit, was 
 treated like a subdued and unregarded foe. He was 
 an ordinary man, and had been the immediate cause 
 of the late hostilities. Napoleon, therefore, despised 
 him ; and assured the Emj^eror of Eussia, that on his 
 account only did he consent to admit Frederic into the 
 royal fraternity. The beautiful queen was no more 
 honored, with all her arts of fascination ; she went to 
 her palace broken-hearted, and soon after died. The 
 Prussian king had by the treaty half of his kingdom 
 restored. 
 
 The Polish provinces of Prussia were erected into a 
 separate principality, styled ''the Grand Duchy of 
 Warsaw," and bestowed on the Elector of Saxony, with 
 the exception, however, of some territories assigned to 
 Eussia, and of Dantzic, which was declared a free city, 
 to be garrisoned by French troops until the ratificatiott
 
 228 LITE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 of a maritime peace. The Prussian dominions in 
 Lower Saxony and on the Rhine, witli Hanover, Hesse- 
 Cassel, and various other small states, formed a new 
 kingdom of Westphalia, of which Jerome Bonaparte, 
 Xapoleon's youngest brother, was recognized as king. 
 Finally, Eussia accepted the mediation of France for 
 a peace with Turkey, and France that of Russia for a 
 peace with England. 
 
 Russia thus became the ally of France, even beyond 
 the letter of the treaty of Tilsit, and was willing to 
 turn her strength against England, unmoved in a for- 
 midable and sublimely resolute, although often unjust, 
 preeminence and hate. 
 
 Napoleon and Alexander were united in extending 
 their scepters over coveted territories, aiid opposition 
 to British aggressions. Into this coalition, soon after, 
 Austria, Prussia, and Denmark entered — reversing the 
 order of conflict, and changing the position of the 
 French emperor, from solitary resistance to the rest 
 of Europe, to that of a sovereign of monarchs, in the 
 struggle with a foe, secure and defiant in his sea-girdled 
 lair. 
 
 The reliable pen of Napier has recorded the subjoined 
 verdict npon tlie desolating campaigns of the embattled 
 nations : " Up to the peace of Tilsit, the wars of France 
 were essentially defensive ; tor the bloody contest that 
 wasted the continent so many years, was not a struggle 
 for preeminence between ambitious powers — not a dis- 
 pute for some acquisition of territor}' — not for the polit- 
 ical ascendancy of one or another nation — but a deadly 
 conflict to determine whether aristocracy or democracy 
 should predominate — whether aristocracy or privilege 
 should henceforth be the principle of European govern- 
 ments." 
 
 Leaving his strong garrisons in Poland and North-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 229 
 
 ern Germany, Xapoleon returned to Paris, July 27th, 
 and was received with boundless adulation. Ho again 
 grasped with his versatile and rapid thought, the affairs 
 of his vast empire, and projected with the precision 
 and scientific skill of a royal engineer, canals, aque- 
 ducts, and bridges. The officers of state, from the 
 prince to the policeman, felt the ubiquitous power of 
 the emj^eror — " the greatest writer of his time, while 
 he was its greatest captain, its greatest legislator, its 
 greatest administrator." 
 
 Never before, did a ruler so impress himself upon 
 every part of public progress, and associate his name so 
 justly with all the history of a realm, whether in acts 
 of'benigir~siTpreTiTacy, or in the exercise of despotic 
 authority. 
 
 " The Code Napoleon, that elaborate system of juris- 
 prudence, in the formation of which the emperor 
 labored personally along with the most eminent lawyers 
 and enlightened men of the time, was a boon of ines- 
 timable value to France. * I shall go down to posterity/ 
 said he, with just pride, 'with the code in my hand.' 
 It was the first uniform system of laws which the 
 French monarchy had ever possessed ; and being 
 drawn up with consummate skill and wisdom, it at this 
 day forms the code not only of Fiance, but of a great 
 portion of Europe besides. Justice, as between man 
 and man, was administered on sound and fixed princi- 
 ples, and by unimpeached tribunals. 
 
 "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 revolution- 
 ary campaigns ; and over all the ceremonials of these 
 stately festivities, Josephine presided with the grace
 
 230 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 and elegance of one born to be a queen. In the midst 
 of the pomp and splendor of a court, in whose ante- 
 chambers kings jostled each other. Napoleon himself 
 preserved the plain and unadorned simplicity of his orig- 
 inal dress and manners. The great emperor continued 
 throughout to labor more diligently than any subaltern 
 in office. His days were given to labor 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 center of his camp he was continually 
 issuing edicts which showed the accuracy of his obser- 
 vation during these journeys, and his anxiety to pro- 
 mote by any means, consistent with his great purpose, 
 the welfare of some French district, town, or even 
 village." 
 
 August 15th, 1807, the birthday of Napoleon, was a 
 holiday of enthusiastic joy in the capital, and a scene 
 of festivity in the palace of the Tuilleries. But already 
 tokens of warfare nearer the throne than English anger, 
 were apparent. Portugal and Spain were unquiet. 
 The former opened its harbors to English vessels, while 
 the government of a degraded people was vacillating 
 between alliance with France, and open sympathy with 
 Britain. 
 
 Spain was ruled by the voluptuous Charles IV., a 
 prince of the Bourbon blood ; and was also secretly 
 leaning to the cause of England. 
 
 The private yet royal messages to Joseph at this cri- 
 sis, contain interesting allusions to the Mediterranean 
 islands which Alexander gave the emperor, and intimate 
 distinctly his designs upon Spain.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BOX A PARTE. 231 
 
 IfAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " St. Cloud, September 6, 1807. 
 
 ** My Brother — I have received your letter of the 
 28th of August, in which you tell me that General C. 
 Berthier has started, but you do not acquaint me witli 
 his arrival. If the Eussians land on your coast treat 
 them well, and send them to Bologna, where the Vice- 
 roy will give them a further destination. I approve 
 highly of Salicetti's proposal that you should send five 
 thousand quintals of wheat to Corfu. 
 
 "1 have already informed you that, although the 
 isles of Corfu do not form part of your kingdom, they 
 are nevertheless under your civil and military govern- 
 ment as commander-in-chief of my army of Naples. 
 In general, I wish you to interfere as little as possible 
 with the constitution of the country, and to treat the 
 inhabitants well. The Emperor Alexander, who gave 
 them their constitution, thinks it very good. Make 
 General Caesar Berthier aware that I wish the inhabit- 
 ants of these islands to have cause only to rejoice at 
 having passed under my dominion ; that when I selected 
 him I relied on his honesty and on his endeavors to 
 make his government popular. The idea of establish- 
 ing packets is very sensible. My troops have taken 
 possession of Cattaro ; the English are besieging Copen- 
 hagen, which still holds out."* 
 
 NAPOLEOK TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " FoNTAiNEBLEAU, October 31, 1807. 
 
 " My Brother — I do not know whether you have 
 established the Code Napoleon in your kingdom. I 
 
 * England had most unjustly sent an expedition against Denmark, a 
 neutral power, in anticipation of affinities vith France, and soon made tha 
 capital a scene of horrible slaughter and of ruin.
 
 2;]2 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 •wisli it to become the civil law of yoar states, dating 
 from the first of January next.* Germany has adopted 
 it ; and Spain will do so soon. This will be very 
 useful. 
 
 '* You ought to arrest M. B , a French emigrant 
 
 pensioned by England ; let him be shut up in a fortress 
 till we have peace. Treat in the same way Lombardi, 
 Perano, Cara, Martini, the two brothers Cerutti, 
 Laurant Purazzo, the Abbe del Arco and the Chevalier 
 de Costes. Prepare a prison in some fortress, and let 
 all these people be confined in it. I have given orders 
 to arrest all Corsicans pensioned by England. I have 
 already sent many to Fenestrelle — among others, one 
 Bertolazzio. I advise yon to take the same measure in 
 your kingdom. Order the detachment of the 81st, 
 which is at Corfu, to join its depot in Italy. It has 
 nine ofi&cers and one hundred and eighty-ihree men.** 
 
 NAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " FoNTAiNEBLKAU, November 2, 1807. 
 
 ** My Brother — I have received your letters of the 
 23d. I have not yet quite made up my mind not to go 
 to Italy ; I should not like to cross you on the road : as 
 soon as I have decided I will write to you. 
 
 *< Pray make the expedition to Reggio and Scylla, 
 and deliver the continent from the presence of the 
 English. You have ten times as many troops as are 
 wanted for that purpose, and the season is favorable. 
 I see with pleasure that you have ordered the Eussian 
 garrison of Corfu, which has landed at Manfredonia, to 
 be well received." 
 
 * This allows only two months for a chanpre of the whole civil law of the 
 country. The prophecy that Spain would soon adopt the Code- Napoleon 
 Bhowa that Napoleon already contemplated the seizure of Spain.— Tr.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 23:1 
 
 Two weeks after the last date, Xapoleon suddenly 
 signified to Josephine his intention of proceeding to 
 Italy, and bade her to be ready to accompany him in a 
 few hours. His ostensible reason was to secure the 
 grand duchy of Tuscany for his sister Eliza, and to 
 confirm by his presence the treaty of Presbu rg, which 
 had annexed Venice and other Italian provinces to tho 
 kingdom of Italy. But his main object was doubtless 
 different from either of these. The conclusion is 
 irresistible that his determination to divorce Josephine 
 was fixed soon after the death of the prince royal of 
 Holland, and that his present journey to Italy was 
 mainly for the purpose of sounding Eugene upon this 
 point. 
 
 The viceroy with his attendants came out to meet 
 him as he approached Milan ; " Dismount, dismount," 
 cried Xapoleon to Eugene ; ** come seat yourself with 
 me, and let us enter your capital together." The 
 viceroy did as desired, and the imperial carriage bearing 
 Napoleon, Josephine, and Eugene, entered the gates of 
 the city. The emperor signified to Eugene his approba- 
 tion of all that he had done, and loaded him with 
 favors. 
 
 Jerome, who had married Miss Patterson of Baltimore 
 during a cruise to this country, was compelled to send 
 her home again upon his return to France, because she 
 had no place in the new dynasty, and Napoleon refused 
 to recognize her alliance with his family. And incidents 
 of this tour increased the alienation between the 
 emperor and Lucien, who met at Mantua. Xapoleon 
 thought of Charlotte, Lucien's daughter, a brilliant 
 woman, for Queen of Spain. His letter to Joseph, and 
 M. Thiers in his history, give some account of the 
 mysterious interview.
 
 234 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 N'APOLEON" TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Milan, December 17, 1807. 
 
 ** Mt Brother — I saw Lucien at Mautiia, and had 
 with him a conversation of several hours. He has no 
 doubt acquainted you with the sentiments with which 
 he left me. His notions and his expressions are so 
 different from mine tliat I can hardly make out what 
 it is that he wants ; I think that he told me that he 
 wished to send his eldest daughter to Paris to live with 
 her grandmother. If he still is thus disposed, I desire 
 to be immediately informed of it ; the girl must reach 
 Paris in the course of the month of January, either ac- 
 companied by Lucien or under the charge of a governess 
 who will take her to Madame. It appeared to me that 
 there was in Lucien's mind a contest between opposite 
 feelings, and that he had not sufficient strength to 
 decide in favor of any one of them. I exhausted all 
 the means iu my power to induce him, young as he is, 
 to devote his talents to my service and to that of his 
 country. If he wishes to let me have his daughter, she 
 must set off without delay, and he must send me a 
 declaration putting her entirely at my disposal ; for 
 there is not a moment to lose ; events are hastening 
 on, and my destiny must be accomplished. If he has 
 changed his mind, let me know it immediately, for I 
 shall then make other arrangements. 
 
 " Tell Lucien that I was touched by his grief and by 
 the feelings which he expressed toward me ; and that 
 I regret the more that he will not be reasonable and 
 contribute to his own comfort and to mine. 
 
 " I think that this letter will reach you on the 22d. 
 My last news from Lisbon are dated the 28th of Novem- 
 ber ; the prince-regent had embarked for the Brazils ; he 
 was still in the roadstead of Lisbon ; my troops were only 
 at a few leagues' distance from the forts which form the
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 235 
 
 entrance of the roadstead. I have heard from Spuiu 
 no more than is contained in the letter wliicli yon have 
 read. I am waiting with impatience for a clear and 
 decisive answer, particularly with regard to Charlotte. 
 *' P. S. My troops entered Lisbon on the 30th of No- 
 vember ; the prince royal escaped in a man-of-war; I 
 have taken five ships of the line and six frigates. On 
 the 2d of December all was going on well at Lisbon. 
 England declared war against Russia on the 6th of 
 December. Pass this news on to Corfu. The Queen 
 of Tuscany is here : she wishes to go to Madrid.'^ 
 
 The reader may be interested by Thiers's relation 
 of the interview between !N'apoleon and Lucien : 
 
 " M. de Meneval went during the night to bring 
 Lucien from his inn to Napoleon's palace. Instead of 
 throwing himself into his brother's arms, Lucien ad- 
 dressed him with a haughtiness excusable in a man 
 without material power, but perhaps carried further 
 than mere self-respect requii'ed. The interview was 
 painful and stormy, but not useless. Among the pos- 
 sible arrangements in Spain one w^as that of the mar- 
 riage of a French princess to Ferdinand. Napoleon 
 had just received a letter from Charles IV., repeating 
 his request for such a marriage, and, though he leaned 
 toward a more radical solution, he did not exclude 
 this middle course from his projects. He wished 
 Lucien then to give him his daughter by his first wife 
 to be brought up by the empress-mother, to imbibe 
 the feelings of the family, and to be sent to Spain to 
 regenerate the Bourbons. If it should not suit him to 
 give her this part to play, there were other thrones, 
 more or less lofty, to w^hich he could raise her. As 
 for Lucien, he wished to make him a French prince, 
 and even King of Portugal, which would put him iu
 
 236 I^IFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 the neighborhood of his daughter, on condition of his 
 dissolving his second marriage, the divorced wife be- 
 ing indemnified by a title and a great fortune. 
 
 "These arrangements were practicable, but they 
 were demanded with authority and refused with anger ; 
 and the brothers separated, both excited and irritated, 
 but without a quarrel, since a part of what Napoleon 
 asked — the sending Lucien's daughter to Paris — took 
 place a few days after." 
 
 Then followed the Milan Decrees, to avenge with 
 greater severity than by the Berlin edicts the in- 
 creased embarrassment of French commerce under 
 new orders of the English government. Napoleon pro- 
 claimed all vessels a lawful prize which should sub- 
 mit to the British policy toward France. The United 
 States were independent of dictation from England, 
 and their government was assured by the emperor of 
 exemption from his rigorous measures. He commu- 
 nicated the stringent law to the government of Naples. 
 
 NAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Turin, December 28, 1807. 
 
 '* My Beother, — I send you a copy of a decree which 
 I have just issued in consequence of the changes in 
 the commerce by sea. I wish it to be executed in 
 your dominions.* Equip as many privateers as you 
 can to pursue the ships which communicate with Sicily, 
 Malta, or Gibraltar, and which go to and from Eng- 
 land. I have ordered an embargo ui)on all Sardinian 
 ships aiul shijis coming from Sardinia. It is by means 
 
 * The Milan Decree, which declared subject to capture every ship 
 which had touched at any port in the Rritish islands or in the British 
 colonies. It was provoked by Orders-in-Council, which declared subject 
 to capture every ship which had not touched at a port in the British 
 islands or in the British colonies. Between the two all commerce by 
 sea by any nation whatever was prohibited. — Tr.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BON.VPARTE. 237 
 
 of Sardinia that the English correspond at present. I 
 have ordered all vessels coming from thence to be 
 stopped. It is advisable not to make this measure 
 public. I start in an hour, and -I shall reach Paris on 
 the night of the 1st. AVhereupon I pray God that he 
 may keep you in his holy and honorable care.'* 
 
 Napoleon, after a hasty tour through the other Italian 
 provinces, returned with Jose2:)hine to Paris. 
 
 Meanwhile an army under Junot had advanced 
 upon Lisbon, Avhose fugitive court sailed for the coasts 
 of Brazil, to find security in their magnificent domin- 
 ions there. Portugal, therefore, passed immediately 
 from English into French possession. The people, in- 
 dignant at the cowardly flight of their rulers, acquiesced 
 for the time in Napoleon's sovereignty. 
 
 But Spain, the greater prize, was not his own. He 
 had said before the battle of Jena, referring to the un- 
 reliable course of that kingdom, " The Bourbons of 
 Spain shall be replaced by princes of my own family." 
 Manuel Godoy, one of the king's body guard, had by 
 his fine person and attainments won the affections and 
 control of the licentious queen. Of the three sons of 
 Charles IV., Ferdinand, Carlos, and Francisco, Ferdi- 
 nand was the heir-apparent to the crown ; and although 
 a profligate youth of twenty-five, more popular than 
 his equally imbecile father or Godoy, with the major- 
 ity of the people. It was with him Napoleon contem- 
 plated the marriage of Charlotte, the daughter of 
 Lncien. Godoy was the object of universal scorn. 
 His house, March 18th, was pillaged ; and on the fol- 
 lowing day he was rescued from violent death by the 
 guards. Charles IV., greatly alarmed, abdicated the 
 throne, and Ferdinand was proclaimed king amid the 
 wild applause of the people. Murat, Grand Duke of
 
 238 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Berg, commanding the army in Spain, marched to 
 Madrid, and took possession of that capital. He re- 
 fused to recognize Ferdinand's right to the crown, and 
 waited for the mandate of Napoleon. The trembling 
 Charles appealed to the emperor. Tlie conqueror of 
 Spain revealed his unfolding plans to its future king : 
 
 KAPOLEON" TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " St. Cloud, March 31, 1808. 
 
 '* My Brother — You have seen the news from Spain 
 in the Moniteur. I will tell yon, as a secret, that my 
 troops entered Madrid on the 34th ; that King Charles 
 protests against all that has been done ; * he believes 
 his life to be in danger, and he has implored my protec- 
 tion. Under these circumstances I shall go. I have 
 many troops in Spain ; they have been well received 
 there. I need not tell you that I have not recognized 
 the new king,f nor has he been acknowledged by the 
 Grand Duke of Berg. J They have made each other 
 civil speeches without meeting, as the Grand Duke 
 could not treat him as a king until I had recognized 
 him. I may start any day for Madrid. This informa- 
 tion is for your use, and for you alone." 
 
 April 2d, Napoleon set out for Bayonne, a town ou 
 the frontier, and at the base of the Pyrenees, to meet 
 the new monarch of Spain, who had been persuaded 
 to believe that a personal interview with Napoleon 
 would secure to him his scepter. He arrived on the 
 20th, and was soon followed by the anxious old king, 
 the queen, and Godoy. Here were mutual recrimina- 
 tions, the repetition of domestic broils, and disclosures 
 of their almost idiotic follies in government, and brutal 
 vices in private life. If crimes so manifold could jus- 
 
 ♦ His abdication and Ferdinand's succession. — ^Tr. 
 ■t Ferduuuid VU- t Murau— Te.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 239 
 
 tify the policy of a majestic, ambitious miud, then was 
 tliere an excuse for the grasp of power with which the 
 emperor took this splendid prize. 
 
 The result of the conference was, the resignation by 
 Cliarles IV. of all sovereignty, for a magnificent domain 
 and pension, which was immediately followed with a 
 similar submission, as the only alternative, by Ferdi- 
 nand V II. 
 
 Manuel Godoy, who, because of his success in effect- 
 ing the treaty of Basle, had received the sounding title 
 of Prince of Peace, assented to the disposal of the 
 crown, for the sake of safety and luxury with the 
 guilty queen, whose nnblushing shame sought, rather 
 than avoided, the eye of the world. 
 
 Napoleon issued his proclamation to the Spaniards, 
 promising them fresh political and commercial life, 
 and a constitution which should secure their national 
 freedom and glory. He announced to the King of 
 IvTaples his prospective transfer to the vacant throne : 
 
 XAPOLEOK TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Bayonne, May 11, 1808. 
 
 *' My Brother — You will find annexed the letter of 
 King Charles to the Prince of the Asturias and a copy 
 of my treaty with the king. Tlie Grand Duke of 
 Berg is lieutenant-general of the kingdom, president of 
 the junta, and generalissimo of the Spanish forces. 
 King Charles starts in two days for Compeigne. The 
 Prince of the Asturias is going toward Paris. The 
 other Infants are to occupy villas in the environs of 
 Paris. King Charles, by his treaty with me, surren- 
 ders to me all his rights to the crown of Spain. The 
 prince had already renounced his pretended title of 
 king, the abdication of King Charles in liis favor hav- 
 ing been involuntary. The nation, through the Supreme
 
 2j,0 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Council of Castile, asks me for a king ; I destine this 
 crown for you. Spain is a very different tiling from 
 Naples ; it contains eleven millions of inhabitants, and 
 lias more than 150,000,000 of revenue, without count- 
 ing the Indies and tlie immeiise revenue to be derived 
 from them. It is besides a throne which places you at 
 Madrid, at three days' journey from France, which 
 borders the whole of one of its frontiers. At Madrid 
 you are in France ; Naples is the end of the world. I 
 wish yon therefore, immediately after the receipt of 
 tliis letter, to apjjoint whom you please regent, and to 
 come to Bayonne by way of Turin, Mont Cenis, and 
 Lyons. You will receive this letter on the 19th, you 
 will start on the 20th, and you Avill be here on the 1st 
 of June. Before you go, leave instructions with 
 Marshal Jourdan as to the disposition of your troops, 
 and make arrangements as if you were to be absent 
 only to the first of July. Be secret, however ; your 
 journey will probably excite only too much suspicion, 
 but you will say tliat you are going to the north of 
 Italy to confer with me on important matters." 
 
 Joseph was a generous, high-minded man, *'too 
 kind," as Napoleon expressed it, to be a king. The con- 
 trast between these brothers, in the milder virtues of 
 humanity, is seen in their fraternal correspondence. 
 The King of Naples reached Bayonne on the 7th of 
 June,Avhere he was Avaited upon by the Spanish congress, 
 and welcomed to the sovereignty of tlie realm. July 9th 
 he departed with an imposing train, for Madrid. His 
 accession was transmitted to the powers of Europe, and 
 acknowledged by nearly all of them; but by nonemoi-e 
 cordially than by Alexander of Russia. Napoleon em- 
 braced the opportunity, as he regarded it, of ''regener- 
 ating Spain," and under this brilliant form of ambition,
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 241 
 
 began there the career of kingly piracy whicti ulti- 
 mately stranded his proud and resplendent fortunes 
 upon the rocks of St. Helena. It is true, never was the 
 pursuit of glory, and the hallucination that the world's 
 redemption was in the hands of a gifted man, more 
 grand in development and design, and more sadly bap- 
 tized in blood, than was Napoleon's. 
 
 Joseph recoiled from his mission in Spain, and found 
 it, as he anticipated, no pastime to take possession of 
 an ancient throne. His burdened, unquiet heart was 
 known only to his master, to whom he expressed his 
 fears, but received little sympath3% 
 
 JOSEPH TO 2s^AP0LE0J^. 
 
 •* July 18, 180S, 
 **SiRE — It appears to me that no one has told yonr 
 majesty the whole truth. I will not conceal it. Our 
 undertaking is a very great one : to get out of it with 
 honor requires vast means. I do not see double from 
 fear. When I left Naples, I saw the risks before me, 
 and I now say to myself every day, " My life is noth- 
 ing, I give it to you." But if I am to live without the 
 shame of failure, I must be supplied largely with men 
 and money. Tlien the kindness of my nature may 
 make me popular. Now, while all is doubtful kind- 
 ness looks like timidity, and I try to conceal mine. 
 To get qnickly through this task, so hateful to a sover- 
 eign, to prevent further insurrections, to have less 
 blood to shed and fewer tears to dry, enormous forces 
 must be employed. Whatever be the result in S2:)ain, 
 its king must lament, for, if he conquers, it will be by 
 force ; but, as the die is cast, the struggle should be cut 
 short. My position does not frighten me, but it is one 
 in which a king never was before. I have not a single 
 partisan." 
 16
 
 242 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 NAPOLEOISr TO JOSEPH. 
 
 '* Bayonxe, July 19, 1808, 10. p. m, 
 
 *'My Brother — I received your letter of tlie 18th at 
 three o'clock this morning. I am sorry to see that 
 your courage seems to fail you ; it is the only mis- 
 fortune which I feared. Troops are pouring in con- 
 tinually from all quarters. You have a great many 
 partisans in Spain ; you have all the honest people,, but 
 they fear to come forward. I do not, however, deny 
 that you have a task, but it is a great and a glorious 
 task. Marshal Bessieres' victory, entirely defeating 
 Cuesta and the army of the line in Gallicia, has greatly 
 improved the whole state of affairs ; it is worth more 
 than a reinforcement of thirty thousand men. As 
 General Dupont has been joined by the divisions of 
 Gobert and Vedel, the attack must be vigorously 
 pressed in that direction. General Dupont has good 
 troops ; he will succeed. I Avould rather that the 2d 
 and 12th light infantry had reinforced Marshal Bes- 
 sieres ; but, since you have thought proper to take 
 them to Madrid, keep them for your guard ; they will 
 soon be joined by two thousand conscripts from the 
 battalions on drill ; and these two fine regiments, with 
 those of your guard, will form you a splendid reserve. 
 You ought not to be surprised at having to conquer 
 your kingdom. Philip V. and Henry IV. were forced 
 to conquer theirs. Be happy ; do not allow yourself 
 to be so easily affected, and do not doubt for an in- 
 stant that everything will end sooner and more hap- 
 pily than you think." 
 
 JOSEPH to napoleon. 
 
 " Madrid, July 22d, 180S. 
 
 '* Sire — If your majesty would write to General 
 Caulaincourt that you are informed that in cold blood 
 
 I
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 243 
 
 he arranged the pillage of the churches and houses in 
 Cueuza, it might do much good. I know that the 
 public sale in Madrid of the church plate has done much 
 harm. Every sensible person in the Government and 
 in the army says that a defeat would have been less 
 injurious.** 
 
 JOSEPH TO NAPOLEON. 
 
 " Madrid, July 23, 1808. 
 
 *' Sire — Marshal Moncey has arrived. He found 
 everything hostile on his march. He complains bit- 
 terly that the pillage by General Caulaincourt has in- 
 creased the general exasperation. Since Cuenza was 
 plundered many of the wealthier families fly with their 
 property.'* 
 
 JOSEPH TO NAPOLEON. 
 
 " Madrid, July 24, 1808. 
 
 " Sire — The honest people are as little on my side 
 as the rogues are. Xo, Sire, you are deceived. Your 
 glory will be shipwrecked in Spain. My tomb will be 
 a monument of your want of power to support me, for 
 no one will suspect you of want of will. This will 
 happen, for I am resolved under no circumstances to 
 recross the Ebro. 
 
 " Yet fifty thousand good troops, and fifty millions, 
 sent before the end of three months, might set things 
 right. The recall of five or six of your generals; sending 
 hither Jourdan and Maurice Mathieu, who are honest 
 men ; on your part, absolute confidence in me ; on my 
 part, absolute power over the officers who misconduct 
 themselves — the union of all this alone can save th» 
 country and the army.**
 
 244 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 NAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Bordeaux, July 81, 1808. 
 
 " My Brother — I have received your letters of the 
 24th, 25th and 26th. The style of your letter of the 24th 
 does not please me. To die is not your business, but 
 to live and to conquer, which you are doing, and shall 
 do. 
 
 " I shall find in Spain tlie pillars of Hercules, but not 
 the limits of my power. 
 
 " Troops and succors of every description are on 
 their way toward you. Your forces are more by one 
 third than are necessary if they are well managed. 
 
 *' Caulaincourt did what was perfectly right at 
 Cuenza. The city was pillaged : this is one of the rights 
 of war, since it was captured while the defenders were 
 still in arms. Eussia has recognized you ; the letter 
 announcing it has been despatclied to Count Strogo- 
 noff. On reaching Paris I shall learn that Austria has 
 done the same. Your position may be painful as king, 
 but, as a general, it is brilliant. There is only one 
 thing to fear : take care not to impair the spirit of the 
 army — not to sacrifice it to the Spaniards. No measures 
 are to be kept with ruffians who assassinate our wounded, 
 and commit every kiiul of horror ; the way in which 
 they are treated is quite right. I have told you already, 
 and I repeat it, since the glorious victory of Medina 
 de Rio Seco, which so promptly settled tlie question 
 of Spain, Marshal Bessiercs is absolute master of the 
 North. Make yourself easy as to the result. I am not 
 surprised at what has happened ; if I had not expected it, 
 should I have sent one liundred and fifty thousand men 
 into Spain, and raised two conscriptions, and spent 
 eiglity millions ? I would rather have lost aj)attle than 
 have had to read Moncey's report. My health is good.
 
 LIFE OP NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 245 
 
 I reached Bordeaux this morning. 1 am going to 
 Eochefort." 
 
 Napoleon returned to Paris, again to be received as a 
 god — the idolized and dazzling wonder of their deepest 
 homage. His morality beyond a reasonable doubt, was 
 unsullied by vice, and preeminent among monarchs. 
 While adding vast empires to his own, France was 
 covered with improvements begun or completed, which 
 emanated from his exhaustless brain. But there are 
 sublime and beautiful exhibitions of a ruling passion in 
 human life, which do not change the selfish, immoral 
 character of the motive, tried by the eternal principles 
 of pure and righteous action. Najioleon can never, 
 without violence to the conscience of mankind, be viewed 
 in the light of self- forgetful love for oppressed humanity 
 — a man whose benign patriotism borrowed strength 
 and excellence from a serious regard to the benevolent 
 sovereignty of the ''King of kings." But he was a 
 great conqueror, and a great monarch. 
 
 Austria now spread again upon the horizon a cloud 
 of threatening. She had desired an occasion for rupture 
 with expanding France. Prussia was equally restless. 
 To prepare for the rising storm, by renewing the 
 treaty of place and united strength, made at Tilsit, the 
 emperor apjDointed a meeting with Alexander of Russia, 
 at Erfurth in Germany. He arrived there amid the 
 gathered aristocracy and royalty of kingdoms, September 
 27th, 1808. The autocrat was friendly and pliable, 
 pledging himself to sustain Napoleon in his plans, if he 
 might be equally favored in his designs upon Turkey 
 and Sweden. 
 
 A distinguished lady* who was an eye-witness of the 
 splendid scenes at Erfurth, thus describes them : 
 
 • Madame de Schopenhauner.
 
 246 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 " What an extraordiuaiy commotion reigned at that 
 time in the contracted circle of the city of Erfurth, now 
 so deserted! What an epoch was that in which the all- 
 powerful will of the extraordinary man who for a number 
 of years reposed on the rock of St. Helena, in a marvel- 
 ous dream of life, brought together as by a stroke of the 
 magician's wand, emperors, kings, and other distin- 
 guished men. What a clatter of brilliant equipages, 
 among which crowds of spectators, attracted by curi- 
 osity, were hustled to and fro at the risk of being 
 crushed to death. Citizens, peasants, foreigners, from 
 every country ; courtiers in richly embroidered cos- 
 tumes ; Polish Jews, statesmen, officers covered with 
 ribbons and crosses, citizen's wives, and elegantly dressed 
 ladies, porters, hod-carriers, all squeezing and strug- 
 gling to open a passage for themselves. From time to 
 time French troops marching by, with bands playing, 
 added to the confusion in the streets. The streets were 
 insufficient to contain the crowds which flowed into 
 Erfurth. The principal inhabitants were driven from 
 their apartments, and took refuge in their servants' 
 rooms, in order to accommodate the retinue of the 
 French Emperor. In the most remote streets, the 
 owners of houses reaped a golden harvest by the hire 
 of rooms. The hotels were filled to overflowing. 
 Napoleon had caused the principal performers of the 
 French tlieater to be present : Talma, Mes'd's. Duches- 
 nois, Mars, the beautiful Georges, the charming Bour- 
 goin, appeared many times a week in their most bril- 
 liant characters before tlic august assembly. A small 
 theater had been fitted up in the Jesuits' college for 
 this purpose, witli a promptitude and elegance truly 
 French. Box tickets were distributed for each repre- 
 sentation to the native and foreij^n ladies, but it was no 
 easy matter to obtain them. After urgent solicitation
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 247. 
 
 myself and friends had the good fortune to obtain 
 tickets for tlie representation of OEuipus,, in which 
 Madame Eaucort and Talma were to appear. At the 
 top of the stairs we were received by a fierce looking 
 soldier of the guard, who distributed us in several boxes, 
 almost empty at the time. I was quite fortunate at 
 being seated with two friends, in the front of a box 
 near the stage, whence we could easily see all that was 
 passing in the jiarquet. We congratulated ourselves 
 at being so comfortably seated, but our joy was prema- 
 ture. The box adjoining ours was filled to excess. 
 The door of ours was quickly opened, ' How is this?' 
 cried a soldier or policeman, I know not which, ' how is 
 this — three women on three chairs in place of six ! ' At 
 the same time he placed two ladies between ns, with 
 whom we were, fortunately, acquainted. Every box, as 
 well as ours, was closely packed ; we could scarcely 
 move. The heat was opjiressive, but we had no time 
 to think of it. The interest of the grand display which 
 Avas forming under our eyes in the parquet, so occupied 
 our attention that we thought but little of the incon- 
 venience of our position. 
 
 " Immediately in front of the stage were placed two 
 armchairs for the emperors : at each side were ranges 
 of common chairs, for the kings and reigning princes. 
 The space behind the seats began to be occupied. 
 There were present statesmen and generals from most 
 of the European powers — men whose names were then 
 celebrated, and have become a part of history. The 
 French were distinguished from the more serious and 
 modest Germans, by their richly embroidered uniforms, 
 and an air of vivacity and confidence. There were 
 Berthier, Soult, Caulaincourt, Savary, Lannes, Duroc, 
 and many others equally celebrated. It seemed as if 
 the greatness of the master was reflected from the
 
 248 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE^. 
 
 countenance of each of them. There was Goethe, 
 calm and full of dignity ; the venerable Weiland. 
 The Grand Duke of Weimar had invited them to Erfurth. 
 The Duke of Gotha, several German princes, reigning 
 or allied to reigning families, were grouped around the 
 two veterans of German literature. 
 
 " Drums were heard from without. ' It is the em- 
 peror,' was heard from every box. ' Fools, what do 
 you mean ? ' cried the officer in command to the drum- 
 mers, ' it is only a king ! ' In fact, a German king 
 entered, and soon after three others. The Kings of 
 Saxony, Bavaria, and Wirtemberg entered without 
 any parade ; the King of Westphalia, who came in 
 later, eclipsed all by the brilliancy of his rich em- 
 broidery and jewehy. The Emperor Alexander, 
 majestically tall, then entered. The state box oppo- 
 site the stage dazzled the eyes with its brilliancy. 
 The Queen of Westphalia, covered with diamonds, sat 
 in the center ; next to her, the charming Stephanie, 
 Grand Duchess of Baden, was conspicuous by her 
 graces rather than by the splendor of her apparel. 
 Some German princesses sat near the two reigning 
 princesses ; the gentlemen and ladies of the court 
 occupied the back part of the box. 
 
 " At this time, Talleyrand appeared in a box fitted 
 tip for him on a level with the parquet near the stage, 
 on account of his lameness at that time preventing him 
 from occupying a place in the parquet. The emperor 
 and kings stood before the box, to converse with the 
 ministers conveniently seated. Everybody had ar- 
 rived. He alone who had collected this magnificent 
 assembly was yet wanting. All, for a long time, 
 aw^aited his presence. 
 
 "At length, a loud beating of drams was heard, all 
 eyes were directed with a restless curiosity to the en-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 249 
 
 trance. At lengtli, appeared the man, tlie most in- 
 comprehensible of this incompreliensible era. Dressed, 
 according to his custom, in the simplest manner, ho 
 hastily bowed to the sovereigns present, who had been 
 obliged to wait so long for him, and seated himself in 
 the armchair at the right of the Emperor of Eussia. 
 His appearance poorly contrasted with that of the 
 superb Alexander. The four kings were seated on 
 common chairs, and the play commenced. 
 
 " In vain Talma disj^layed all his art, the parquet 
 before us occupied our whole attention. In the mean 
 time, the gens cVarnies at the door of our box, exerted 
 tliemselves to complete our lacking education, and to 
 inform us betweeii the acts of the etiquette to be ob- 
 served in the presence of the master of the world. 
 * Take away that lorgnette ; the emperor does not like 
 it ! ' cried one of them, in leaning over the ladies who 
 sat behind us. ' Sit upright. Do not stretch out your 
 neck ; it is disagreeable to the emperor ! ' cried another. 
 The impertinence was great ; but we took example 
 from the kings and princesses before us, and patiently 
 endured what we could not change. 
 
 " Immediately after the opening of the tragedy, 
 which Napoleon had, probably, seen a hundred times, 
 he put himself at his ease, and slept profoundly. It 
 was well known that at any hour of the day or night 
 he could sleep when he wished. Ocular witnesses 
 assure us that in the midst of a battle, he purposely 
 gave himself up to sleep, to recruit his strength, and 
 could awake at any moment he wished. On the day 
 of this representation at Erfurth, he was fatigued in 
 exercising his troops for many successive hours. 
 
 '' It was a singular spectacle to us, to see this terrible 
 man give himself up to gentle sleep, whose vast plans 
 caused happiness or uuhappiness to half the world.
 
 250 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 We coutiuued to contemplate with au astonishment 
 mixed with fear this profile of a fine antique, for 
 which the dark uniform of Alexander served as a 
 background. 
 
 "Twenty years have rolled away since — in 1828 — • 
 scarcely the third part of the life of man, yet how 
 many changes have happened in this short space of 
 time ! "What a lofty flight has the world taken in this 
 fifth part of an age ! At that time one could scarcely 
 have dreamed what has actually occurred. With what 
 fury has the scythe of time raged, and what a terrible 
 harvest it has mown in so short a period. Where are 
 the kings, the potentates, the grandees who were 
 assembled in this theater ? Where is he, even he who 
 had collected them together 'i He reposes forever 
 upon the rock round which dash the ocean's waves ! 
 The short and fair life of Alexander is finished. The 
 Kings of Saxony, Bavaria, and Wirtemberg lie in 
 their marble tombs. The late King Jerome alone sur- 
 vives, but his renown has vanished with his fantastic 
 royalty, like a dream of the morning. 
 
 ''The Grand Duchess of Baden, the beautiful Ste- 
 phanie, for a long time lamented her husband who was 
 taken away in the flower of his age. The Duke of 
 Gotha, who needed not the title of prince to charm the 
 world, is dead, and with him, his race is extinct. The 
 Duke Charles Augustus of Weimar lives only in the 
 remembrance of his friends. IIoav many imposing 
 names might be added to this melancholy list ! " 
 
 The divorce of Josephine came into the prospective 
 securities of the tlironc, which were discussed during 
 this royal conference with the sovereigns of Europe. 
 Witli tins cruel resort of ambition before his mind, he 
 repaired again to Paris. Napoleon gave Josephine no 
 intimation of his design, but continued to treat her with
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEOX BONAPARTE. 251 
 
 all the cordiality he had ever manifested. Her dispo- 
 sition was naturally joyous. She was inclined to find a 
 brighter view in every picture of life, and it was doubt- 
 less this which sujjported her so well under the sad ap- 
 prehension of Napoleon's intentions toward her. Her 
 hoi)c fulness, also, led her at times fondly to trust that 
 the storm would retire, while reason persuaded her that 
 the emperor would not allow her happiness to thwart 
 the plan which she knew he cherished. "What Avas she 
 in comparison with him ? "What was her poor human 
 heart worth, and what availed the treasure of its affec- 
 tion to him, who made them subordinate to a throne, 
 and the inscrij)tion of his name on its columns ? Bleed- 
 ing affections, blasted hoj^es, and tears, never bowed 
 the will of Napoleon. Josephine perfectly understood 
 that such trifles in his path would be swept away like 
 chaff before the resistless march of the wliirlwind. 
 
 Let not Napoleon, however, be misunderstood. As 
 we have said before, he loved Josephine, and this, prob- 
 ably, with a stronger affection than he ever gave to any 
 other object. But he would not let one of the purposes 
 or plans which he had formed go unaccomplished, 
 though the world were to perish. *' All, or nothing," 
 was his motto when a boy in Corsica, and it was the one 
 feeling of his heart when ho became a man. No plan 
 which he made was a trivial one with him, for it affected 
 himself. Everything, in his estimation, should be sub- 
 servient to him, and everything over which he had the 
 control was made so. With this view, we can easily see 
 that his love for Josephine would not endure for a 
 moment, if it conflicted with any of his designs for self- 
 aggrandizement. The empress understood it, and 
 knowing that one of his cherished schemes was for the 
 perpetuity of his empire, she now clearly saw that her 
 own sacrifice was inevitable. The Prince of Holland
 
 2ri2 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 had died ; tlie viceroy, Eugene, though adopted by 
 Napoleon, Josephine knew could never be the successor 
 to the empire. Upon no living member of his own 
 family would the emperor fix his choice, and there vras 
 thus left no alternative to his seeking a wife who might 
 bring him up an heir to the throne. 
 
 It is not at all unnatural, that Napoleon should have 
 so strong a desire for posterity. Aside from jjolitical 
 motives, and inordinate self-love, such a desire belongs 
 to every man. It is in a certain degree the outgoing of 
 every one's natural affection. The owner of a single 
 hut, or of a petty farm, is unhappy if he have 
 
 " No son of his succeeding " 
 
 to whom he can leave his solitary estate. No one quits 
 the world without desiring that there should be some 
 link to connect him still to it ; that there remain be- 
 hind him some stream of influence which has risen in 
 himself, and wliich, when he is gone, shall flow on and 
 move mankind. It is a wish natural to universal hu- 
 manity, and there arc few to which men cling with 
 such sincere attachment. It belonged to Napoleon in 
 common with his race, and was stronger in him than 
 in any other man, because his power was more extensive, 
 and his influence vaster ; it was a desire commensurate 
 with his own greatness, which grew with every victory, 
 and strengthened wiih every increase of his power, 
 winding itself more and more closely about his heart 
 with every step taken in his ascending career ; and 
 which accompanied every thought of glory, and held a 
 power over him only equaled by that wliich he himself 
 swayed so tremendously over the minds of other men. 
 The purpose, which was ripening, now disappeared 
 from the surface of affairs, before the stormy events 
 crowding upon him. Spain Mas in revolt and revolu-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 253 
 
 tion. England hud formed an alliance with that king- 
 dom, and her troops were on its soil, while her fleet 
 swept the coasts. The mountain fastnesses were filled 
 with armed men — Joseph was compelled to flee from 
 Madrid — and the butchery of French soldiers Avas ter- 
 rible. Dupont, Moncey, and Duchesne, had been de- 
 feated, and the siege of Saragossa, by Lefebre, was 
 abandoned. Napoleon hastened to Vittoria, where the 
 French legions lay encamped, awaiting his arrival. 
 Immediately the enthusiasm rose, and the forces were 
 in motion. 
 
 " Marshals Victor and Lefebre, with forty thousand 
 men, were commanded to march upon the Spanish 
 troops who were Avaiting for a junction with the ap- 
 proaching English army, in Biscay. Soult was ordered 
 to put to rout Count de Belvidere in Estremadura, 
 while Napoleon himself, taking the main strength of 
 his army, hastened with the rapidity and resistlessness 
 of an avalanche against the whole left wing of the 
 Spanish host, as it lay stretched from Bilboa to Burgos. 
 Everywhere, he was successful. The Spanish armies 
 melted away like dew before him, and the fate of all 
 those upon the Ebro was finally sealed, almost before 
 the English forces had heard that Napoleon had arrived 
 in Spain. Following up his successes, the emj)eror 
 marched at once upon Madrid, which he entered upon 
 the 4th of December, after a stern but ineffectual re- 
 sistance. Leaving the capital he joined the division 
 under Soult, which was in rapid j^^^i'suit of Sir John 
 Moore and the English army. Perceiving, however, 
 that Moore was no longer worthy of his own attention, 
 he intrusted the consummation of his ruin to Soult, 
 and returned with his utmost haste to Paris, riding 
 on post-horses, on one occasion, not less than seventy- 
 five Ensflish miles in five hours and a half. The
 
 254 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 cause of this sudden change and extraordinary haste, 
 was a sufficient one ; and it ere long transpired." 
 
 lie had received despatches from France apprising 
 him that Austria, improving his absence in Spain, with 
 his army, was uniting with England to advance upon 
 him from the north, to regain the lost glory of Aus- 
 terlitz. Joseph, not apprised of these decisive indica- 
 tions of a continental war, sent him upon the first of 
 January, with his fraternal salutations, warm expres- 
 sions of his desire for peace. The emperor replied : 
 
 NAPOLEON" TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Benevento, JaNuary 6, 1809. 
 
 **Mt Brother, — I thank you for your new-year's 
 day wishes. I have no hopes of peace in Europe for 
 this year at least. I expect it so little, that I signed 
 yesterday a decree for raising one hundred thousand 
 men. The fierce hatred of England, the events at 
 Constantinople, all betoken that tlie hour of peace and 
 repose has not yet struck. As for you, your kingdom 
 seems to be settling into tranquillity. The provinces 
 of Leon, of the Asturias, and of New Castile, desire 
 nothing but rest. I hope that Gallicia will soon be at 
 peace, and that the country will l)c evacuated by the 
 English. 
 
 '' Saragossa must fall before long, and General St. 
 Cyr, who has thirty thousand men, ought to settle the 
 affairs of Catalonia." 
 
 On the 15th he ordered the seizure of paintings for 
 the Louvre : 
 
 " I think that I wrote to advise you to make your 
 entry into Madrid on the 14th. Denon is anxious for 
 some pictures ; I wish you to seize all that you can 
 find in the confiscated hon?r>?, and suppressed convents. 
 
 I
 
 IJFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 255 
 
 and to make me a present of fifty chefs d'oeuvre, which 
 I want for the Museum in Paris. At some future 
 time I will give you others in their places. Consult 
 Denon for this purpose. He may make proposals to 
 you. You are aware that I Avant only what is really 
 good, and it is supposed that you are richly provided." 
 
 Napoleon reached the capital January 22, 1809. 
 
 Meanwhile, Soult had chased the enemy to the hills 
 near Coruuna, with one of the most ruinous, sanguin- 
 ary, horrible defeats in the annals of war. It was in 
 this campaign that Sir John Moore, the brave leader 
 of the retreating columns, fell. Joseph returned to 
 Madrid, to continue a short time his troubled reign, 
 uncheered by the willing, grateful homage of his 
 subjects. 
 
 The condition of the unhappy king, of whom Na- 
 poleon had complained that he ''was changing the 
 government, and becoming too indulgent ; " and the 
 dictatorial policy of the emperor, are vividly portrayed 
 in the affecting jirotest of Joseph. 
 
 JOSEPH TO KAPOLEOX. 
 
 " February 19, 1809. 
 
 '* Sire — It grieves me to infer from your letter of the 
 6th of February that, with respect to the affairs at 
 Madrid, you listen to persons who are interested in 
 deceiving you. I have not your entire confidence, 
 and yet without it my position is not tenable. I shall 
 not repeat all that I have frequently written on the 
 state of the finances. I devote to business all my 
 faculties from seven in the morning till eleven at 
 night. I have not a farthing to give to anybody. I 
 am in the fourth year of my reign, and my guards are 
 still wearing the coats which I gave to them four 
 years ago. All complaints are addressed to me ; all
 
 256 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 prejudices are opposed to me. I have no real power 
 beyond Madrid, and even at Madrid I am every day 
 counteracted by people who grieve that things are not 
 managed according to their own system. They accuse 
 me of being too mild ; they would become infamous 
 if I were more severe and left them to the judgment 
 of the tribunals. 
 
 " You thought proper to sequester the property of ten 
 families ; more than twice that number have been 
 thus treated. Officers are in possession of every habit- 
 able house ; two thousand servants belonging to the 
 sequestered families have been turned into the streets. 
 All beg ; the boldest try to rob and to assassinate my 
 officers. All those who with me sacrificed their posi- 
 tions in the kingdom of Naples are still billeted on 
 the inhabitants. Without any capital, without any 
 revenue, without any money, what can I do ? This 
 picture, dark as it is, is not exaggerated. I am not 
 dismayed ; I shall surmount these difficulties. Heaven 
 has given to me qualities which will enable me to tri- 
 umph over obstacles and enemies, but what Heaven 
 has not given to me is a temper capable of bearing the 
 opposition and the insults of those who ought to serve 
 me, and, above all, a temper capable of enduring the 
 displeasure of one whom I have too much loved to be 
 able ever to hate him. 
 
 " If, then, Sire, my whole life docs not entitle me to 
 your perfect confidence ; if you think it necessary to 
 surround me by poor creatures who make me blush 
 for myself ; if I must be insulted even in my own 
 capital ; if I am denied the right of naming the govern- 
 ors and the commanders who are always before me, 
 and make me contemptible to the Spaniards and pow- 
 erless to do good ; if, instead of judging me by results, 
 you put me on my trial in every detail — under such
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 257 
 
 circumstances. Sire, I have no alternative. I am King 
 of Spain only through the force of your arms ; I might 
 be so through the love of the Spanish people, but for 
 that purpose I must govern them in my own way. I 
 have often heard you say, every animal has its instinct 
 and ought to follow it. I will be such a king as the 
 brother and the friend of your majesty ought to be, 
 or I will return to Mortefontaine, where I ask for no 
 happiness but to live without humiliation and to die 
 with a good conscience. 
 
 **Onlya fool remains long in a false position. In 
 forty years of life I have learned only what I knew 
 almost at the beginning, that all is vanity excejit a 
 good conscience and self-esteem. 
 
 " A Spaniard has let me know that he has been or- 
 dered to give to Marshal Duroc, day by day, an exact 
 accourt of all that I do. I am complained of for hav- 
 ing allowed five counselors of Castile to return, while 
 fifteen more were free. Why did I do so ? Because 
 advantage had been taken of their absence to pillage 
 their houses. Sire, my misery is as much as I can 
 bear ; what I deserve and what I expect from you is 
 consolation and encouragement ; without them the 
 burden becomes intolerable : I must slip from under 
 it before it crushes me. 
 
 " If there is on earth a man whom yon esteem or 
 love more than you do me, I ought not to be King 
 of Spain, and my happiness requires me to cease to 
 be so. 
 
 *' I write to you my whole thoughts, for I will not 
 deceive you or myself. 
 
 "I do not choose to have an advocate with you ; as 
 
 soon as that becomes necessary, I retire. During my 
 
 whole life I shall be your best, perhaps your only, 
 
 friend. I will not remain King of Spain unless you 
 
 17
 
 258 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 can chink this of me. Many ilhisions have left me ; 
 I cling a little to that of yonr friendship ; necessary 
 as it is to my happiness, I onglit not to continue to 
 risk losing it hy playing the part of a dupe." 
 
 April 6th, Austria issued a declaration of hostilities, 
 and three days later, Archduke Charles crossed the 
 Inn with one hundred and eighty thousand troops. 
 \\ ith so large an army in Spain, Napoleon could hope 
 for victory only by the concentrated and rapid action 
 which before had won the field. Sending out couriers 
 to summon his battalions beyond the Alps and on the 
 Rhine to the conflict, without escort or equipage, he 
 rode with his unequaled speed when events demanded 
 his presence, accompanied by the devoted Josephine, 
 to Strasburg. He was at the head of the army, April 
 13th, and on the 17th ordered Davoust and Massena 
 commanding the two wings of the army, to advance 
 upon the enemy, while he led the center, hemming in 
 completely the divisions of Charles. After a battle at 
 Abensburg, on the 20th, a decisive, v/asting conflict 
 occurred at Landshut on the following day. The 
 archduke lost nine thousand men, thirty guns, and 
 his stores. Tlien mustering his entire strengtli he fell 
 upon the enemy at Eckmuhl, where an army of two 
 hundred thousand men presented, as they believed, a 
 resistless barrier to the weakened forces of the victor. 
 
 The struggle began at two o'clock in the afternoon, 
 and continued with fierce activity till night came down 
 npon the Golgotha of battle. The Austrians were 
 driven from the field and retreated toward Ratisbon. 
 The stupendous work was done by falling upon tiie 
 foe in full force at selected points, like the direct and 
 crushing descent of the red bolts from the echoing 
 cloud upon the sliivered oak. Napoleon took twenty
 
 LIFE OP^ NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 259 
 
 thousand prisoners, fifteen imperial standards, and a 
 large number of cannon. At Ratisbon, Charles, be- 
 sides attempting to defend the town, again gave the 
 French battle, and was overwhelmed with their impet- 
 uous legions, and compelled to flee into Bohemia, 
 abandoning Vienna to the mercy of the conqueror. 
 
 The em2:)eror, who seemed to have a charmed exist- 
 ence, and had stood unharmed amid the hail of conflict, 
 Avas wounded in this deadly encounter in one of his 
 feet, which was hastily dressed and forgotten. Five 
 days had given him another triumjih over Austria ; an 
 incredible result to his paralyzed foes. 
 
 On the 24th of April, he reviewed his army, and 
 lavished rewards of heroism upon his elated troops. 
 Davoustwas created Duke of Eckmuhl. May 10th, he 
 was before the walls of Menna. 
 
 *'The emperor had already quitted it, with all his 
 family, except his daughter, the Archduchess Maria 
 Louisa, who was confined to her chamber by illness. 
 The Archduke Maximilian, with the regular garrison 
 of ten thousand men, evacuated it on Napoleon's ap- 
 proach ; and though the inhabitants had prepared for 
 a vigorous resistance, the bombardment soon con- 
 vinced them that it was hopeless. It perhaps deserves 
 to be mentioned, that on learning the situation of the 
 sick princess, Bonaparte instantly commanded that no 
 fire should be directed toward that part of the town. 
 On the 10th a capitulation was signed, and the French 
 troops took possession of the city, aud Napoleon once 
 more established his headquarters in the imperial 
 palace of Schonbrunn." 
 
 The " sick princess" afterward became the bride of 
 the besieging emperor. 
 
 Charles, recruiting his army, had advanced down the 
 Danube, and taken his position in order of battle op-
 
 2G0 LIFE OF NxVPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 posite Vienna. Napoleon was willing to accept as the 
 archduke was to give another battle. But the ma- 
 jestic river was swollen with a freshet, the bridges gone, 
 and a thousand yards of turbulent waters between 
 them. The emperor selected the channel below the 
 capital, intersected by small islands, among which the 
 largest was Lobau, for the perilous transit. Boats 
 were prepared and anchored with chests of cannon- 
 balls, planks laid, bridges erected, and May 19th, a 
 large portion of his army was on the island, and the 
 following day, passed over to meet the hostile host. 
 He entered the villages of Asperne and Essling, and 
 waited the movement of the Austrians. On the 21st, 
 they appeared upon the rising outline of an extensive 
 plain, spreading away from the French encampment. 
 At four o'clock in the afternoon, the battle opened 
 with an assault upon Asperne, which rapidly changed 
 hands till niglit closed tlie slaughter, leaving it under 
 the opposing flags of the French and the Austrian 
 commanders ; the latter occupying the church and 
 burial-ground. The Austrians were animated with 
 their partial success ; and the next morning the con- 
 flict was renewed with fiery courage. The French re- 
 gained possession of Asperne, and Essling remained 
 unyielding under the protection of its batteries. At 
 this crisis the fire-ships of the enemy carried away the 
 bridge connecting the right bank of tlie river with 
 Lobau. To regain connection with his reserve now 
 separated from him, he must retreat to the island, 
 intrench himself there, and reconstruct the demolished 
 bridge. Just then the brave Lannes was struck witli 
 a ball, and both legs carried away. The disaster 
 brought tears to Napoleon's eyes, while the poor 
 marslial turned to him, his deity, for aid, dwelling till 
 death upon his name. During the night, the em
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 26 1 
 
 peror's troops who survived the carnage safely landed 
 on Lobau, and the islands near. Charles claimed the 
 victory ; but the undecisive advantage was too dearly 
 purchased to admit of following up the blow. Napo- 
 leon felt that the issue would shake the fearful power 
 of his magical name, and resolved to profit by the in- 
 terlude. " On the fourth of July he had at last re- 
 established thoroughly his communication wdtli the 
 right bank, and arranged the means of passing to the 
 left at a point where the archduke had made hardly 
 any preparation for receiving him. The Austrians 
 having rashly calculated that Asperne and Essling 
 must needs be the objects of the next contest as of the 
 preceding, were taken almost unawares by his appear- 
 ance in another quarter. They changed their line on 
 the instant and occupied a position, the center and key 
 of which was the little town of AVagram." 
 
 Here, on the sixth of July, the final and decisive 
 battle was fought. The archduke hud extended his 
 line over too wide a space ; and this old error enabled 
 Napoleon to ruin him by his former device of pouring 
 the full shock of his strength on the center. The ac- 
 tion was long and bloody : at its close there remained 
 twenty thousand prisoners besides all the artillery and 
 baggage, in the hands of Napoleon. The archduke 
 fled in great confusion as far as Znaini in Moravia. 
 The imperial council perceived that further resistance 
 was vain : an armistice was agreed to at Zuaim ; and 
 Napoleon, returning to Schoubrunn, continued occu- 
 pied with the negotiation until October. 
 
 A few days after he returned, he escajjed nari'owly 
 the dagger of a young man, who rushed upon him in 
 the midst of all his staff, at a grand review of the im- 
 perial guard. Berthier and Rnpp threw themselves 
 upon the regicide, and disarmed him at the moment
 
 iit52 L^FE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 when his knife was about to enter the em])oror's body. 
 Najjoleon demanded what motive had actuated tlie 
 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 honor." This 
 enthusiastic youth, by name Stabbs, son of a clergy- 
 man of Erfurth, was — justly, no doubt — condemned to 
 death, and he suffered with the calmness of a martyr. 
 
 It was during his residence at Schonbrunn that a 
 quarrel, of no brief standing, with the pope, reached 
 its crisis. The very language of the consular con- 
 cordat sufficiently indicated the reluctance and pain 
 with which the head of the Romish church acquiesced 
 in the arrangements devised by Bonaparte, for the 
 ecclesiastical settlement of France ; and the subsequent 
 course of events, but especially in Italy and in Spain, 
 could hardly fail to aggravate those unpleasant feel- 
 ings. In Spain and in Portugal, the resistance to 
 French treachery and violence was mainly conducted 
 by the priesthood ; and the pope could not contem- 
 plate their exertions without sympathy and favor. In 
 Italy, meantime, the French emperor had made him- 
 self master of Naples, and of all the territories lying to 
 the north of the papal states ; in a word, the whole of 
 that i^eninsula was his, excepting only that narrow 
 central strip which still acknowledged the temporal 
 sovereignty of the Roman pontitL This state of things 
 was necessarily followed by incessant efforts on tlio 
 part of Napoleon to procure from the pope a hearty ac- 
 quiescence in the system of the Berlin and Milan de- 
 crees ; and thus far he at length prevailed. But when 
 he went on to demand tliat his lioliuess should take an 
 active part in the war against England, he was met by
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. ^iV.] 
 
 a steady refusal. Irritated by this opposition, and, per- 
 haps,, still more by his suspicion that the patriots of 
 the Spanish peninsula received secret support from the 
 Vatican, Bonaparte did not hesitate to issue a decree 
 in the following words : ''Whereas the temporal sov- 
 ereign of Rome has refused to make war against Eng- 
 land, and the interests of the two kingdoms of Italy 
 and Naples ought not to be intercepted by a hostile 
 power, and vrhereas the donation of Charlemagne, oiir 
 ilhistrious 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 
 declare that the duchies of Urbino, Ancona, Macerata, 
 and Camarino be forever united to the kingdom of 
 Italy." 
 
 On the 17th of May, Napoleon issued, from Vienna, 
 his final decree, declaring the temporal sovereignty of 
 the pope to be wholly at an end, incorporating Rome 
 with the French empire, and declaring it to be his 
 second city ; settling a pension on the holy father in 
 his spiritual capacity — and appointing a committee of 
 administration for the civil government of Rome. The 
 pope, on receiving the Parisian senatus-consultum, 
 ratifying this imperial rescript, instantly fulminated a 
 bull of excommunication against Napoleon. Shortly 
 after, some unauthentic news from Germany inspired 
 new hopes into the adherents of the holy father ; and, 
 disturbances breaking out, Miollis, on pretense that a 
 life sacred in the eyes of all Christians might be en- 
 dangered, arrested the pope in his i^alace, at midnight, 
 and forthwith despatched him, under a strong escort, to 
 Savona. 
 
 The intelligence of this decisive step reached Napo- 
 leon soon after the battle of Wagram, and he was in- 
 clined to disapprove of the conduct of Miollis as too
 
 264 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 precipitate. It was now, however, impossible to re- 
 cede ; the pope was ordered to be conveyed across the 
 Alps to Grenoble. But his reception there was more 
 reverential than Napoleon had anticipated, and he was 
 soon reconducted to Savona. 
 
 This business would, in any other period, have been 
 sufficient to set all Catholic Europe in a flame ; and 
 even now Bonaparte well knew that his conduct could 
 not fail to nourish and support the feelings arrayed 
 against him openly in Spain and southern Germany, 
 and suppressed, not extinguished, in the breasts of a 
 great party of the French clergy at home. He made, 
 therefore, many efforts to procure from the pope some 
 formal relinquishment of his temporal claims — but 
 Pius VII. remained unshaken ; and the negotiation at 
 length terminated in the removal of his holiness to 
 Fontainebleau, where he continued a prisoaer, though 
 treated personally with respect, and even magnificence, 
 during more than three years. 
 
 The treaty with Austria was at length signed at 
 Schonbrunn on the 14th of October. The Emperor 
 Francis purchased peace by the cession of Saltzburg, 
 and a part of Upper Austria, to the Confederation of 
 the Rhine ; of part of Bohemia to the King of Saxony, 
 and of Cracow and western Gallicia to the same prince, 
 as Grand Duke of Warsaw ; of part of eastern Gallicia 
 to the czar ; and to France herself, of Trieste, Car- 
 niola, Friuli, Villach, and some part of Croatia and 
 Dalmatia. By this act, Austria gave np, in all, terri- 
 tory to the amount of forty-five thousand square miles, 
 and a population of nearly four millions ; and Napo- 
 leon, besides gratifying his vassals and allies, had com- 
 pleted the connection of tlio kingdom of Italy with his 
 Illyrian possessions, obtained the whole coast of tlie 
 Adriatic, and deprived Austria of her last seaport.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 205 
 
 Yet, when compared with the signal triumphs of the 
 campaign of Wagram, the terms on which Xapoleon 
 signed the peace were universally looked upon as re- 
 markable for moderation ; and he claimed merit with 
 the Emperor of Eussia on the score of having spared 
 Austria in deference to his personal intercession. 
 
 Bonaparte quitted Vienna on the IGth 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. 
 
 On his return to Paris, Najioleon 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 cause to be chased 
 into the sea. " I and my house," said he, " 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. 
 
 An incident occurred upon his approach to the capi- 
 tal, which foreshadowed sadly the hastening event. At 
 Munich he stopped and despatched a courier to the 
 empress at St. Cloud, apprising her that he should 
 arrive at Fontainebleau on the 27th, and directing the 
 court to proceed thither to receive him. So rapid, 
 however, was his progress, that he reached Fontaine- 
 bleau at ten o'clock on the morning of the 2Gth, and 
 of course found no preparations made for his reception. 
 This threw him into a rage, though he could not have 
 forgotten that his arrival was a day earlier than he had
 
 26C LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 fixed, and cursing tlieir tardiness, ordered a rourier lo 
 gallop immediately to St. Cloud, and announco to the 
 empress liis arrival, Fontainebleau is forty miles dis- 
 tant, and it was one o'clock before Josepliinc received 
 the intelligence. Aware of the emperor's disposition, 
 she set off hastily, with a feeling of dismay, fearing ho 
 might charge the consequences of his own haste upon 
 her. 
 
 Toward evening, Josephine arrived ; Bonaparte was 
 writing in his library, and when an attendant told him 
 the empress had come, he took no notice of the an- 
 nouncement. It was the first time he had failed towel- 
 come her after absence, and not only Josephine, but all, 
 marked so strange a mood. Inquiring after him, the 
 empress ran to the library, threw o^^en the doors, and, 
 unheralded, stepped forward to greet him. At her first 
 salutation, the emperor raised his eyes, and without 
 rising from his seat, gave her a look that was like th.e 
 touch of death. '" Ah ! so you are come, madam," said 
 he, " 'Tis well ; I was just about to set out for St. Cloud. '' 
 Josephine attempted to answer, but her emotions choked 
 her, and she burst into tears. Was this the reception 
 which was to requite her love, her fears for his safety, 
 her efforts for his success ? As she stood sobbing there, 
 Napoleon's heart smote him, and rising, he apologized 
 for his rudeness. " Forgive me," he said, tenderly 
 embracing her — " I own I was wrong. Let us be 
 friends again." Josephine was ready fo'" a reconcilia- 
 tion, but she could not at once dry her tears. Retiring 
 to dress, they flowed afresh, and for several moments 
 she freely indulged them. AVhat meant his coldness, 
 and then his returning favor ? Was his kindness real, 
 or did he show it only to give her a false hope, as the 
 boa is said to loosen its folds and look brightly in tlie 
 eye of its victim, as a i)relade to the last struggle ?
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAl'ARTE. 267 
 
 When Josephine and the emperor again met, it wdn 
 with mutual smiles, and apparent cordiality. Ea(;h 
 seemed to have forgotten the previous misunderstand- 
 ing, and mainly desirous of treating the other with 
 affection. 
 
 When at Paris, everything appeared in its accustomed 
 way, and Josephine was ever glad of a pretext W'hich 
 called them there, for at the palace, life was irksome 
 and full of disquiet. Napoleon had told her that she 
 stood in the way of his prosperity ; that he needed not 
 only an heir, but that to render his power stable, ho 
 must seek an alliance with one of the great reign- 
 ing houses of Europe ; that she lay as ever near his 
 heart, but bade her ask herself the question, if it would 
 be a pleasing reflection, that the great empire to whose 
 formation she had essentially contributed, was to crum- 
 ble away at his death. *' What a glorious sacrifice," 
 he would say, ''you can make, not only to myself but 
 to our empire." Josephine would answer sometimes 
 by tears, then by supplications, and again by arguments, 
 to which even Napoleon could not reply. She would 
 appeal by turns to his generosity, to his former love, 
 and to his superstition. She would talk to him of that 
 mysterious influence which had bound them together, 
 and against which he might not rashly sin. '* See 
 there," said she to him one starlight evening as they 
 sat alone at a window of the palace — " Bonaparte, be- 
 hold that bright star ; it is mine ! and remember, to 
 mine, not to thine, has sovereignty been promised. 
 Separate, then, our fates, and j-our star fades I '* 
 
 Nothing, however, could swerve the eni2)eror from 
 his purpose, and Josephine saw from day to day that 
 her influence over him was declining. 
 
 Bonaparte endeavored to act his part without betraying 
 his emotion, but it was in vain. The strong man who
 
 268 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 had smiled in the face of danger and death, trembled as 
 he drew near the closing scenes of this strange drama. 
 Some have represented him as appearing to act a 
 comedy, and pass with perfect calmness through the 
 ordeal ; but this is only an outside view of the 
 picture. It was no farce that made Napoleon Bona- 
 parte weep in his chamber, while his whole frame 
 shook with the emotions which were wildly strug- 
 gling in his breast. But the iron hand of destiny 
 was upon him — destiny which had impelled him on in 
 the career of glory, and still pointed to a brighter 
 eminence beyond — and he could not resist it. He 
 looked before him, but tlie abyss which was already 
 yawning at his feet was covered, and like a bed of 
 flowers, upon which his star shone undimmed. The 
 die was cast, his resolution was irrevocably taken, and 
 though, while he should carry it into action, clouds 
 might gather upon his sky, they would roll away, 
 leaving his path the clearer and brighter, in contrast 
 with a transient eclipse. 
 
 It was the last day of November, that he formally 
 announced his purpose to Josephine. He had previously 
 urged her to consent to tlie divorce, but had never before 
 positively told her that she must cease to be his wife. 
 Upon this day, dinner had been served as usual, to 
 which the emperor and empress sat down. Josephine 
 had been weeping all the morning, and to conceal the 
 tears which were still falling, she appeared at the 
 dinner-table, wearing a head-dress which completely 
 shaded the upper part of her face. The dinner was 
 one merely of form. The viands were brought on and 
 removed, but neither Josephine nor Bonaparte tasted 
 the luxuries or uttered a word. Once or twice their 
 eyes met, but were instantly averted, each fearing to 
 read the look which revealed the spirit's struggle. 
 
 I
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 2f)0 
 
 Josephine saw that her sunlight had passed away, and 
 felt that the storm would quickly spend its wrath upon 
 her. 
 
 The dinner ceremony concluded, the emperor rose, 
 and Josephine followed him mechanically into the 
 adjoining saloon. Napoleon ordered all the attendants 
 to retire, and for a few moments they were alone, and 
 both were silent. Josephine instinctively apprehended 
 her fate, but as she watched the changing expression of 
 Bonaparte's countenance, and read through these the 
 struggles of his soul, a single ray of hope darted athwart 
 the gloom. Approaching her with trembling steps, the 
 emperor gazed at her for a moment, then took her hand 
 and laid it npon his heart, as he said — ** Josephine ! my 
 good Josephine, you know how I have loved you ; it is to 
 you, to you alone, that I owe the few moments of happi- 
 ness I have known in the world. Josephine, my destiny 
 is more powerful than my will ; my dearest affections 
 must yield to the interests of France. '^ " Say no more," 
 said the empress ; " I expected this ; I understand and 
 feel for you, but the stroke is not the less mortal." 
 Josephine stopped ; she tried to say more, but the 
 appalling vision of her doom choked her utterance. 
 She endeavored to command her feelings, but they were 
 too strong to be restrained, and sobbing out, *'' Oh, no, 
 you cannot surely do it ! you would not kill me ? " she 
 sunk upon the floor, overcome with the weight of her 
 calamity. Napoleon, alarmed for her safety, threw 
 open the doors of the saloon and called for help. The 
 court physician was instantly summoned, and com- 
 mitting the hapless empress to his care, the author of 
 her misery shut himself up in his cabinet, with feelings 
 known only to Him, whose Omniscient eye " searches 
 the hearts of the children of men.'* 
 
 Josephine remained in her swoon for three hours.
 
 270 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Again aud again, the emperor came to inquire after 
 her, and would hang over her couch with an expres- 
 sion of the deepest anxiety. Corvisart, the physician, 
 and Hortense, watched eagerly for tokens of returning 
 animation ; but when the empress opened her eyes 
 again in consciousness, it was with a look so full of 
 sadness, that those who stood around, almost Avished 
 that she could then bury her sorrows in the forgetfnl- 
 ness of death. 
 
 "I cannot describe," she afterward writes, "the 
 horror of my condition during that night ! Even the 
 interest which he affected to take iu my sufferings, 
 seemed to me additional cruelty. Oh, mon Dieu! how 
 justly had I reason to dread becoming au empress ! " 
 AVhen she recovered, she made no effort to change 
 jS'apoleon's resolution, but simply expressed to him her 
 acquiescence. A day or two afterward she wrote the 
 following letter to the emperor, which, as it illustrates 
 her peculiar feelings in relation to this event, we have 
 inserted : 
 
 ''My presentiments are realized. Yon have pro- 
 nounced the word which separates ns : the rest is only 
 a formality. Such is the reward — I will not say of so 
 many sacrifices (they were sweet, because made for you) 
 — but of an attachment unbounded on my part, and of 
 the most solemn oaths on yours. But the state, whose 
 interests you put forward as a motive, will, it is said, 
 indemnify me, by Justifying you ! These interests, 
 however, upon which you feign to immolate me, are 
 but a pretext ; your ill-dissembled ambition, as it has 
 been, so it will ever continue, the guide of your life — a 
 guide which has led you to victories and to a throne, 
 and which now urges yon to disasters and to ruin. 
 
 " You speak of an alliance to contract — of an heir to 
 be given to your empire — of a dynasty to bo founded !
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 271 
 
 But with whom do yon contract that alliance ? With 
 the natural enemy of France — that insidious house of 
 Austria — which detests our country from feeling, sys- 
 tem, and necessity. Do you suppose that the hatred, 
 so many proofs of which liave been manifested, especially 
 during the last fifty years, has not been transferred 
 frcm the kingdom to the empire ; and that the de- 
 scendants of Maria Theresa, that able sovereign, who 
 purchased from Madame Pompadour tlie fatal treaty of 
 1756, mentioned by yourself only with horror ; think 
 you, I ask, that her posterity, Avhile they inherit her 
 power, are not animated also by her spirit ? I do 
 nothing more than repeat Avhat I have heard from you 
 a thousand times ; but then your ambition limited itself 
 to humbling a power which now you propose to elevate. 
 Believe me, so long as you shall be master of Europe, 
 Austria will be submissive to you ; but never know 
 reverse. 
 
 "As to the want of an heir, must a mother appear to 
 you prejudiced in speaking of a son ? Can I — ouglit I 
 to be silent respecting him who constitutes my whole 
 joy, and on whom once centered all your hopes ? The 
 adoption of Eugene was, then, a political falsehood ? 
 But there is one reality, at least ; the talents and virtues 
 of my Eugene are no illusion. How many times have 
 you pronounced their eulogiura ! What do I say ? Have 
 you not deemed them worthy the possession of a throne 
 as a recompense, and often said they deserved more ? 
 Alas ! France has repeated the same ; but what to you 
 are the wishes of France ? 
 
 " I do not here speak of the person destined to succeed 
 me, nor do you expect that I should mention her. 
 Whatever I might say on the subject v-^ould be liable 
 to suspicion. But one thing you will never ruspect — 
 the vow which I form for your happiness. ^luy that
 
 272 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 felicity at least recompense me for my sorrows. Ah ! 
 great it will be if proportionate to them ! " 
 
 Tlie empress was not a woman that yielded to despair, 
 though to appear cheerful, or even calm, at this time, 
 cost her a struggle that shook the throne of reason. 
 But she was empress still, and while her moments of 
 solitude were consumed in weeping and unavailirg 
 regret, she lost none of her dignity or ease when 
 subjected to the curious gaze of the officers of the court, 
 or the ladies who had a more immediate access to her 
 person. She even went to Paris, and presided at some 
 of the splendid fetes given in honor of Xapoleon's late 
 victories ; but in all her movements, no one detected 
 a step less light, an airless gay, a mien less commanding, 
 than had distinguislied her in the palmiest days of her 
 imperial happiness, Ilortense was at Fontainebleau 
 when Napoleon made his announcement to the empress, 
 and Eugene left Italy and hastened to cheer his mother 
 by his presence, as soon as the first tidings of her 
 calamity reached him. Both of her children desired 
 immediately to withdraw from further association with 
 Napoleon. Eugene tendered his resignation as viceroy 
 of Italy, and asked to be excused from future service. 
 Said he, " The son of her who is no longer empress, 
 cannot remain viceroy. I will follow my motlier into 
 her retreat. She must now find her consolation in her 
 children." Napoleon was much affected at this declara- 
 tion, and urged Eugene not to relinquish hastily his 
 honors. He told him that it was necessity, and not 
 inclination, Avhich urged the sacrifice of Josephine ; 
 that he still loved her, and lavished the same affections 
 upon her children as before. " Should you leave me," 
 said he, "and should I have a son, who would Avatch 
 over the child when I am absent ? If I die, who Avill 
 prove to him a father ? who will bring him up ? who is 
 
 I
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 273 
 
 to make a man of him ? " Josephine also heroically 
 pleaded Xapoleon's request. " The emperor," said she 
 to Eugene, " is your benefactor, your more tlian father, 
 to whom you are indebted for everything, and, there- 
 fore, owe a boundless obedience." History hardly 
 shows a stronger instance of self-denying devotion than 
 that which the empress exhibited during the whole of 
 these scenes. 
 
 That "fatal day" was not to be averted. It came, 
 and notwithstanding her previous fortitude, the blow 
 fell with a crushing weight upon her soul. A stupor, 
 as though death were fastening his arrow in her heart, 
 came over her. She was the gay and lovely Josephine 
 no longer. She lost the self-control which she had with 
 so much conflict gained, and was again a weak, broken- 
 hearted woman, helpless and comfortless ; a vine 
 reaching forth in vain its tendrils for the support 
 whence it was rudely torn. 
 
 The loth of December had been announced as the 
 day for the intended separation. Napoleon had caused 
 to assemble at the Tuilleries the different members of 
 his own family, the Arch-chancellor of France, and all 
 the high officers of state who composed the imperial 
 council. It was a magnificent assembly, but each 
 countenance wore a shade of gloom, as if some terrible 
 blow were impending over the dearest prospects of every 
 heart. Napoleon first addressed them and told them 
 the object of his calling them together. " The political 
 interests of my monarchy," said he, " the wishes of my 
 people, which have constantly guided my actions, 
 require that I should leave behind me, to heirs of 
 my love for my people, the throne on which Prov- 
 idence has placed me. For many years I have lost 
 all hopes of having children by my beloved spouse the 
 Empress Josephine : this it is which induces me to
 
 274 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 sacrifice the sweetest affections of my heart, to consider 
 only the good of my subjects and desire a dissolution 
 of our marriage. Arrived at the age of forty years, I 
 may indulge a reasonable hope of living long enough to 
 rear, in the spirit of my own thoughts and disposition, 
 the children with which it may please Providence to 
 bless me, God knows what such a determination has cost 
 my heart ! but there is no sacrifice which is above my 
 courage when it is proved to be for the best interests of 
 France. Far from having any cause of complaint, I 
 have nothing to say but in praise of the attachment 
 and tenderness of my beloved wife. She has embellished 
 fifteen years of my life — the remembrance of them will 
 be forever engraven on my heart ; she was crowned by 
 my hand : she shall retain always that rank and the 
 title of empress ; but, above all, let her never doubt 
 my feelings, or regard me but as her best and dearest 
 friend.'^ 
 
 The sweet but faltering tones of Josephine^s voice 
 struck a chord of sympathy in every heart, as she thus, 
 Avith great dignity, replied — '' I respond to all the sen- 
 timents of the emperor, in consenting to the dissolu- 
 tion of a marriage, which henceforth is an obstacle to 
 the happiness of France, by depriving it of the blessing 
 of being one day governed by the descendants of that 
 great man, evidently raised np by Providence to efface 
 the evils of a terrible revolution, and restore the altar, 
 the throne, and social order. But his marriage will in 
 no respect change the sentiments of my heart ; the em- 
 peror will ever find in me his truest friend. I know 
 what this act, commanded by policy and exalted inter- 
 ests, has cost his heart ; but we both glory in the sacri- 
 fices which we make to the good of the country. I 
 feel elevated in giving the greatest proof of attachment 
 and devotion that was ever given upon earth.'' When
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 275 
 
 she had finished, the empress was assisted out of the 
 u])artment, but the exercises of the day, from which 
 she was drinking such draughts of bitterness, Avere not 
 yet brought to a close. Again had the imperial family 
 and chief nobles of the realm assembled, all in grand 
 costume, to witness the final consummation, A decree 
 of the Senate had been obtained, proclaiming the divorce, 
 and all that was now necessary, was that it receive the 
 signatures and seals of the parties to be separated. 
 Xapoleon wore a hat whose sweeping plumes mostly 
 concealed his face, but an observer could still read in 
 his countenance traces of deep emotion. He stood 
 with his arms crossed upon his breast motionless and 
 speechless. A writing apparatus of gold lay upon a 
 small table in the midst of the apartment, and before 
 it an armchair was placed, Avaiting the entrance of the 
 empress. The door opened and Josephine, leaning on 
 the arm of Hortense, came slowly forward. For a mo- 
 ment she gave an involuntary shudder, and paused 
 while her lustrous eye ran over the face of every one 
 present, as though she had now for the first time gained 
 a full apprehension of her doom. 
 
 It was, however, but for a moment, and proceeding 
 forward she seated herself in the chair at the table, 
 and listened to the decree of the council which com- 
 pleted the separation between herself and the object 
 of her warmest affections. The decree was as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " Art. I. The marriage contracted between the Em- 
 peror Napoleon and the Empress Josephine, is dis- 
 solved. 
 
 " Art. II. The Empress Josephine shall preserve the 
 title and rank of Empress Queen Crowned. 
 
 " Art. III. Her allowance is fixed at an annual pay- 
 ment out of the public treasury.
 
 276 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 "Art. IV. Whatever provision the emperor shall 
 make in favor of the Empress Josephine out of the 
 funds belonging to the civil list, shall be obligatory 
 upon his successors. 
 
 " Art. V. The present Senatus-consultum shall be 
 transmitted by a message to her imperial and royal 
 majesty.'" 
 
 Josephine listened to this decree, but the warm tears 
 fell like rain from her quivering lids. Kising from her 
 chair, she pronounced the oath of acceptance with a 
 tremulous voice, and tlien overcome witli emotion, sank 
 again into her seat. Count Regnaud de St. Jean 
 d'Angely placed the jDcn in her hand, with which she 
 signed the fatal decree. The deed was done, but oh ! 
 with what a heaving heart did that martyr lay down the 
 pen, and look up to catch one glance of love from the 
 stern countenance, which, j)ale and motionless as that 
 of a statue, was turned full u23on her. "With one con- 
 vulsive sob slie rose, and leaning again upon the arm 
 of Ilortense, left the apartment no longer the wife of 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 Eugene, who had been an agonized spectator of the 
 whole scene, followed her closely, but his emotions 
 were too strong for his sensitive nature to endure. He 
 had hardly left the saloon before he fainted and fell, 
 completely overcome by his anguish. 
 
 Josephine shut herself up in her apartment, where 
 the sorrow of her soul could be unseen by human eye. 
 She had nerved herself for the issue, liad for days been 
 steeling her heart to composure, but when the blow fell, 
 she bowed like a reed before the tempest. It was in 
 vain that she assumed tranquillity : the tide of feeling 
 swept its barriers. At night she sought a last interview 
 with Napoleon. He had retired to rest when, with 
 eyes swollen and red from weeping, Josephine entered
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 277 
 
 the apartment. She threw open the door but stopped, 
 as she saw the emj^eror, doubtful whether to advunco 
 or retii'e. A tlirong of emotions — delicacy, love — 
 tlie consciousness that she had no longer any right 
 there, and an unwillingness to leave without an adieu, 
 struggled in her breast. Napoleon, dismissing his ser- 
 vant in waiting, rose and clasped the Empress in his 
 arms, and for a few moments they were locked in each 
 other's embrace, silently mingling their tears together. 
 Josephine remained with him an hour, and then parted 
 from the man who had won and broken her heart. 
 Her sobs told what a weight of sorrow still rested upon 
 her spirit as she left the apartment, but the bitterness 
 of death had jiassed. 
 
 And another trial was in store for her. The next 
 morning she was to leave the Tuilleries, and bid adieu 
 to scenes sacred to the memory of happiest years. 
 At eleven o'clock an officer of the guard entered her 
 room, and told her that he had orders to conduct her 
 to Malmaison. Silently she prepared to obey the sum- 
 mons, but paused to weep again, when she thouglit of 
 what she had sacrificed and what she was to leave. 
 To add to her sadness, the whole household, who were 
 tenderly attached to her, assembled together on the 
 stairs and in the vestibule through which she was to 
 pass, anxious to catch one last look at their martyr 
 mistress, *' who carried with her into exile the hearts 
 of all that had enjoyed the happiness of access to her 
 presence.'* The expressions of their grief as they met 
 her ears, were too much for the heart of Josephine. 
 She would have stopj)ed and taken them each by the 
 hand, but she knew if she had hesitated now, a de- 
 lirium of grief would lay her a helpless victim at their 
 feet. She leaned upon one of her ladies, and moved 
 on with mournful step, more tremulously and wearily
 
 278 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 than the uufortunate, but faithful Beauharnais, had 
 trod the floor of the guillotine. A carriage stood at 
 the gates, an officer assisted her up the steps, and 
 pausing to take a farewell gaze at the scenes of past 
 greatness and departed hajipiness, she veiled a face 
 whose twofold expression of resignation and sorrow 
 made it indescribably touching and lovely ; and was 
 borne away forever from the palace consecrated by her 
 presence, to the empire of virtue and affection, 
 
 Josephine returned to Malmaison, the mansion 
 which twelve years before she entered as the bride of 
 Napoleon, and where she had passed the happiest 
 hours of life, now heart-broken and desolate. She 
 struggled vainly to calm the agitation of her unoffend- 
 ing spirit, that forced the tears like rain from her 
 swollen eyes, and to hide the agony written in un- 
 mistakable lines upon her meek and mournful face. 
 Though past middle age, she was still youthful in ap- 
 pearance, and seemed the very augel of sorrow, smil- 
 ing through the grief and gloom of her great calamity ; 
 the more distressed, because others were sad on her 
 account. Every object that she looked upon reminded 
 her of the varied past, her present humiliation, and a 
 joyless future. Her favorite walks were no more taken 
 for refreshment or pleasure, but became the hours of 
 weeping, while every ajDartment of that villa, chosen 
 and embellished by her taste, presented to her eye 
 some trace of the man whose ambition crushed her, 
 or gave back to her imagination an echo of his familiar 
 voice. It was not simply tluit her divorce was unjust, 
 and her jiride wounded by so rudely taking from her 
 brow a crown she had not sought, but her affections 
 were torn from their object and bleeding — she was 
 spurned from a heart that had won her own, and loved 
 deeply in turn — and all to gratify an insatiate thirst 
 
 1
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 2T9 
 
 for power imd permanent fame. None but those who 
 liave striven to conceal the tliroes of anguish which 
 almost brought tears of blood, can sympathize with 
 this uncomplaining sufferer during the months that 
 succeeded her separation from Napoleon.
 
 280 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 The choice of anew empress. — Josephine's experience.— Napoleon's power 
 shaken.— The birth of a prince.— Propositions of peace with England.— 
 War with Russia. — His progress to Dresden.— He reaches Dantzic. — The 
 Grand Army cross the Niemen. — Tlie Poles hail the presence of the em- 
 peror with hope. — The Russian method of destruction to the enemy. — 
 Napoleon enters Moscow. — He occupies the Kremlin. — Letter to Alex- 
 ander. — Conflagration of Moscow.— Tlie retreat. — The march to Smolensk. 
 — Conspiracy in Paris.— Marshal Ney.— His supposed death— His rescue. 
 — The wasting army reach the Beresina. — The tragical crossing of the 
 river Wilna. — Napoleon returns to Paris. — Reaches the palace at night.— 
 The rear-guard of the Grand Army. 
 
 The choice of a new Empress of France lay mainly 
 between Austria and Russia. Alexander desired the 
 alliance because he anticipated conditions which would 
 advance his designs against the restoration of Poland, 
 and especially those upon Constantinople. After con- 
 sulting his Privy Council, a majority of whom favored 
 the Austrian princess, Napoleon opened negotiations 
 with Francis. Berthier, in behalf of his sovereign, re- 
 ceived her hand at Vienna, and the marriage was cele- 
 brated, March 10, 1810, in that capital, with great 
 splendor. The bride commenced her journey to 
 France, amid the exultation of the people. Najioleon 
 hastened to take her by surprise. Disregarding the 
 order of arrangements, he rode toward Soissons, and 
 as her carriage approached, leaving his own, sprang 
 into the presence of Maria Louisa. Surprised and 
 pleased at his enthusiasm, she said as soon as the ex- 
 citement passed: "Your l\Iajesty's pictures have not 
 ilone you justice." Napoleon was forty years of age,
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 281 
 
 the empress eighteen — both fine-looking, and in per- 
 fect health. 
 
 The following distich, which a burgomaster of Hol- 
 land placed on a triumj^hal arch erected to Napoleon, 
 is well known : 
 
 " II n'a pas fait una sottise 
 En epousant Marie-Louise." * 
 
 Napoleon had no sooner read this singular inscrip- 
 tion, than he sent for the burgomaster. " Mr. Mayor," 
 said he, " yon cultivate the French muses here ! " 
 *' Sire, I com2:)Ose a little." "Ah ! it's you, then ! 
 Do you take snuff?" added he, on presenting him 
 a snuff-box enriched Avith diamonds. "Yes, sir; but 
 I-—" " Take it, take it— box and all ! And 
 
 " Quand vous prendrez line prise, 
 Rappelez-vous Marie-Louise." f 
 
 They spent the evening at the Chateau of Com- 
 piegne, where it was expected they would first meet, 
 and April 1st, the marriage which was virtually con- 
 summated according to Austrian statutes, was formally 
 and civilly celebrated at St. Cloud. The following 
 day the grand entry was made into Paris. He acted 
 the part of a devoted lover, but could not and did not 
 forget Josephine. He endeavored in vain to induce 
 Maria Louisa to become acquainted with the former 
 wife of Naj)oleon — still the queen of his heart. 
 
 Malmaison had fallen much into decay during the 
 years of change in the empire. To restore the departed 
 grandeur and beauty was Josephine's new employment, 
 which was a double source of delight, in furnishing 
 
 * " He has not done a foolish thing 
 In marrying Marie-Louise." 
 
 t " When you shall take a pinch of snuff 
 B«mdmbor Marie-Louise.''
 
 0S2 LIFE OF NAPOLEON r.OXAPARTE. 
 
 entertaiument to herself, and a means of beuevolence 
 in the labors of the poor peasantry. Bonaparte gave 
 her a million of francs, or forty-one thousand ^Doiinds 
 sterling, on her retirement, as a part of her allowance, 
 which she devoted entirely to this object. Soon the 
 wilderness of decay " blossomed as the rose " ; the 
 waters sparkled and murmured along their channels, 
 and slumbered in their boundaries fringed with foliage 
 — the sunny slopes were gay with flowers, and the wide 
 fields alive with the laborers, who were grateful for 
 toil, if it purchased bread. In the center of this 
 miniature kingdom, the ex-empress lived more secluded 
 than before, and consequently more in unison with her 
 taste. There were less parade, and fewer guests, but 
 more freedom and greater intimacy of friendshijj. 
 
 Yet Josephine felt not a thrill of joy amid all this 
 change, unless upon receiving words of love from Na- 
 jjoleon, or at the gladness of others. The words of in- 
 spiration were deeply her experience: "Every heart 
 knows its own bitterness ! " There is nothing more sad 
 in life's changes, than the suffering of the innocent 
 for the guilty ; the unuttered grief of a bosom another 
 has robbed of hope — the slow death of one who has a 
 wounded sjiirit. But such are the woes that make the 
 pastime of half the world. The millionaire rides in a 
 gilded chariot bought with the gains that made tears 
 fall like rain — the man with a little brief authority 
 walks unmoved upon the prostrate form of another 
 whom he fears or hates — and in a thousand homes, 
 woman is a secluded martyr to the vice and caprice of 
 a heartless ruflian. 
 
 To Josepliluc, this view of earth, after the completed 
 work of desolation, which banished her from St. Cloud, 
 became naturally the habitual one, as expressed in a 
 letter to Bonaparte :
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEOX BONAPARTE. 283 
 
 " Sire — I received, this morniug, the welcome note 
 which was written on the eve of your departure for 
 St. Cloud, and hasten to rejjly to its tender and affec- 
 tionate contents. Tliese, indeed, do not in themselves 
 surprise me ; but only as being received so early as 
 fifteen days after my establishment here ; so perfectly 
 assured was I that your attachment would search out 
 the means of consoling me under a separation neces- 
 sary to the tranquillity of both. The thought that 
 your care follows me into my retreat renders it almost 
 agreeable. 
 
 " After having known all the sweets of a love that 
 is shared, and all the suffering of one that is so no 
 longer ; after having exhausted all the pleasures that 
 supreme power can confer, and the happiness of be- 
 holding the man whom I loved, enthusiastically ad- 
 mired, is there aught else, save repose, to be desired ? 
 What illusions can now remain for me ? All such 
 vanished when it became necessary to renounce you. 
 Thus, the only ties which yet bind me to life are my 
 sentiments for you, attachment for my children, the 
 possibility of being able still to do some good, and 
 above all, the assurance that you are happy. Do not, 
 then, condole with me on my being here, distant from 
 a court which you appear to think I regret. Sur- 
 rounded by those who are attached to me, free to fol- 
 low my taste for the arts, I find myself better at Na- 
 varre than anywhere else ; for I enjoy more completely 
 the society of the former, and form a thousand jirojects 
 which may prove useful to the latter, and will embel- 
 lish the scenes I owe to your bounty. There is much 
 to be done here, for all around are discovered the 
 traces of destruction ; these I would efface, that there 
 may exist no memorial of those horrible inflictions 
 which your genius has taught the nation almost to
 
 284 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 forget. In repairing whatever these ruffians of revo- 
 lution labored to annihilate, I shall diffuse comfort 
 around me ; and the benedictions of the poor will 
 afford me infinitely more pleasure than the feigned 
 adulations of courtiers. 
 
 " I have already told you what I think of the func- 
 tionaries in this department, but have not spoken 
 sufficiently of the respectable bishop (M. Bourlier). 
 Every day I learn some new trait, which causes me 
 still more highly to esteem the man Avho unites the most 
 enlightened benevolence with the most amiable disposi- 
 tions. He shall be entrusted with distributing my 
 alms-deeds in Evreux ; and as he visits the indigent 
 himself, I shall be assured that my charities are properly 
 bestowed. 
 
 "' I cannot sufficiently thank you, sire, for the liberty 
 you have permitted me of choosing the members of my 
 household, all of whom contribute to the pleasure of a 
 delightful society. One circumstance alone gives me 
 pain, namely, the etiquette of costume, which becomes 
 a little tiresome in the country. You fear tliat there 
 may be something wanting to the rank I have preserved, 
 should a slight infraction be allowed in the toilet of 
 these gentlemen ; but I believe you are wrong in thinking 
 they would, for one minute, forget the respect due to 
 the woman who was your companion. Their respect 
 for yourself, joined to the sincere attachment they bear 
 to me (which I cannot doubt), secures me against the 
 danger of being obliged to recall Avhat it is your wish 
 they should remember. My most honorable title is 
 derived, not from having been crowned, but assuredly 
 from having been chosen by you — none other is of 
 value — that alone suffices for my immortality. 
 
 " I expect Eugene. I doubly long to see him ; for 
 he will doubtless bring me a new pledge of your re-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 2S5 
 
 membrance ; and I can question lihn at my ease of a 
 thousand things concerning which I desire to be 
 informed, but cannot inquire of you ; tilings, too, of 
 which you ought still less to speak to nie. My daughter 
 will come also, but later, her health not permitting her 
 to travel at this season. I beseech you, sire, to recom- 
 mend that she take care of herself ; and insist, since I 
 am to remain here, that she do everything possible to 
 spare me the insupportable anxiety I feel under any 
 increase of her ill-health. The weakness in her chest 
 alarms me beyond all expression. I desire Corvisart to 
 write me his opinion without reserve. 
 
 " My circle is at this time somewhat more numerous 
 than usual, there being several visitors, besides many 
 of the inhabitants of Evreux and the environs, whom I 
 see of course. I am pleased with their manners, and 
 with their admiration of you, a particular in which, as 
 you know, I am not easily satisfied ; in shoi't, I find 
 myself perfectly at home in the midst of my forest, and 
 entreat you, sire, no longer to fancy to yourself that 
 there is no living at a distance from court. Besides 
 you, there is nothing there I regret, since I shall have 
 my children with me soon, and already enjoy the 
 society of the small number of friends who remained 
 faithful to me. Do not forget your friend j tell her 
 sometimes that you preserve for her an attachment 
 which constitutes the felicity of her life ; often repeat 
 to her that you are happy, and be assured that for her 
 the future will thus be peaceful, as the past has been 
 stormy — and often sad." 
 
 The too-devoted Josephine appeared no more upon 
 the public arena ; in silence and seclusion she suft'ered 
 a few years, and died broken-hearted. 
 
 Tt was not this sacrifice alone that presaged Xapoleon's 
 fall ; but passing by France and Russia, he had taken
 
 28fi LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 a daughter of the House of Hapsburg — a tyrannical, 
 faithless race. In this, while securing the favor of the 
 nobility in the royal scheme, he swept away the last 
 claim to sincerity in his conflicts for ilie lieople against 
 despotism. The niece of Maria Antoinette, whose 
 blood had scarcely faded from the guillotine, was 
 Empress of France. 
 
 Napoleon — who had overthrown the old feudal system, 
 and revolutionized Europe, prepared for the stupendous 
 changes by the corrupt monarchies of the past — failed 
 to redeem his pledge of regeneration and reconstruction 
 of half a continent laid at his feet. " He married the 
 fresh, the genial, the immortal, the glorious, the newly- 
 born future, which all coming ages will claim, to the 
 corrupt, and effete, and putrid corpse of the dark 
 ages. " 
 
 And the shock he had given to his sovereignty, by 
 the imprisonment of the Roman Pontiff, was more 
 widely felt than was apparent. These events were 
 followed by another blow upon the base of the im- 
 perial throne — startling to the callous and iron-hearted 
 monarch. King Louis disregarded the rule of Napoleon, 
 which was, to make " the first object of his care the 
 emperor, the second, France, and the third, Holland," 
 and was pliant in the enforcement of the Berlin and 
 Milan decrees, by which he grew in popularity with 
 the people. He was rebuked by Na^ioleon, and hating 
 the restraint upon his reign, suddenly abdicated his 
 throne, and retired with disgust into private life, at 
 Gratz in Styria. Holland was immediately annexed to 
 the empire of France. The Peninsular war continued ; 
 the people were unsubdued, except by the force of 
 arms ; and Joseph was still the weary, powerless repre- 
 sentative of a king. Amid these causes of irritation, 
 »\liich pointed ominously to the future, Napoleon's
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 2S7 
 
 heart beat jirouclly Avitli the fruition of cherished 
 hope. 
 
 On the 20th of March, 1811, his wishes were crowned 
 by the birth of a son. The birth Avas 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 hourgeoise of the 
 Rue St. Denis." The accoucher at a subsequent 
 moment Avithdrew Napoleon from the couch, and de- 
 manded whether, in case one life must be sacrificed, 
 he should save the mother's or the child's. '"' The 
 mother's," he answered : *' it is her right ! " Atlengtli 
 the child appeared, butwitliout any sign of life. After 
 the lapse of some minutes a feeble cry was heard, and 
 Xapoleon entering the antechamber in which the high 
 functionaries of the state were assembled, announced 
 the event in these words : *' It is a king of Rome ! " 
 
 The booming of cannon announced in the cajiital the 
 advent of an heir to the crown of Xapoleon ; and the 
 tidings spread over the realm, accompanied with all the 
 demonstrationsof enthusiasm which had before attended 
 the birth of a dauphin. The Bourbons and their 
 friends, heard in the shouts of joy, the knell of their 
 hopes. Murat had anticipated an independent sover- 
 eignty for his family in Xaples ; the King of Prussia 
 was chafing against the humbling conditions of i^eace, 
 ready to avenge the rifled tomb of Frederic, even upon 
 the husband of an Austrian princess ; and Russia was 
 preparing again for war. AVhen Alexander heard of 
 the marriage with Maria Louisa, he remarked, *• Then 
 the next thing will be to drive us back into our forests." 
 The " Continental System," as the blockade-j)olicy was 
 called, increased the antagonism of Russia, which, 
 jealousy of Xapoleon's greatness, and his refusal to give 
 desired pledges favoring the plans of extending power.
 
 288 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 had nourished. And the union with the House of 
 Austria was significant of resources for any service his 
 absohxte will might require. Sweden at this period, to 
 please the emperor, and enthrone a man she believed 
 fit to be a king, placed Bernadotte on the throne. But 
 with the appearance of fidelity to the monarch who 
 raised him from obscurity to fame, he soon betrayed 
 Napoleon, and became his open enemy. 
 
 Thus environed with difficulties, the Emperor of 
 France once more opened negotiations with England 
 for peace. He desired it, doubtless ; he would avoid 
 the hazard attending another general conflict, and he 
 preferred to develop the elements of prosperity and 
 glory in France. The decided, stern refusal of Eng- 
 land to recognize Joseph King of Spain, closed the 
 correspondence, and sounded afresh the tocsin of war. 
 Eussia was plied with English influence, and Alexan- 
 der could not long resist the jDressure from abroad and 
 his nobles at home, added to his own embarrassed 
 schemes of empire. 
 
 In April, 1812, Russia declared war. In doing so, 
 the treaty of Tilsit was broken with faithless contempt 
 of the most sacred obligations, and the signal of an- 
 other combined effort to crush Napoleon was thrown 
 out upon the vast horizon of the empire of the north. 
 
 The French emperor had issued conscriptions ; and 
 from Switzerland, Italy, Bavaria, and the vine-clad 
 hills of France, the battalions came pouring into the 
 ranks of the grand army, till half a million of men 
 were ready to march into the fearful wastes of Russia, 
 to furnish the world a tragedy of war, never before or 
 since recorded in history. 
 
 The prospective cami)aign was too daring and peril- 
 ous not to awaken fears in heroic minds. Talleyrand 
 opposed it ; Foucho drew up a memorial against it.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 289 
 
 and called the emperors attention to the important 
 crisis. Napoleon replied, " It is no crisis at all, but a 
 mere war of politics. Spain falls whenever I have 
 destroyed the English influence at St. Petersburg. 
 Did not you yourself once tell me that the word impos- 
 sible is not French ? " It deserves to be mentioned that 
 neither this statesman nor any of his compeers, ever 
 even alluded to the injustice of making war on Russia 
 for the mere gratification of ambition. Their argu- 
 ments were all drawn from the extent of Alexander's 
 resources — his four hundred thousand regulars, and 
 his fifty thousand Cossacks, already known to be in 
 arms, and the enormous population on which he had 
 the means of drawing for recruits ; the enthusiastic 
 national feeling of the Muscovites ; the distance of 
 their country ; the severity of their climate ; the op- 
 portunity which such a war would afford to Englan'l 
 of urging her successes in Spain ; and the chance of 
 Germany rising in insurrection in case of any reverses ! 
 
 Cardinal Fesch, who grieved at the arrest of the 
 Pope, looked with alarm on this expedition, as an in- 
 sane measure to secure the vengeance of Heaven. He 
 entreated Napoleon not *'to provoke at once the wrath 
 of man and the fury of the elements." The emperor 
 drew the cardinal to the window, and pointing up- 
 ward, exclaimed "Do you see yonder star?" ''No, 
 sire,*' replied the cardinal. *'But I see it,'* answered 
 Napoleon ; and abruptly dismissed him. 
 
 May 9th, Bonaparte left Paris with the empress, and 
 with triumphal splendor, followed by the shouts of the 
 people, reached Dresden, the capital of Saxony. 
 
 Here he gathered about him the kings of Prussia, 
 
 Naples, Wirtemberg, and Westphalia ; and he sat in 
 
 the palace of another, more like the monarch among 
 
 courtiers, than the royal general on his way to fresh 
 
 19
 
 290 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 and wasting conflicts with the lauded sovereign of the 
 earth's proudest realms. The population of the sur- 
 rounding country thronged the streets, and surged 
 like waves of the sea, against the palace walls, to see the 
 man before whose greatness the rulers of the world 
 were dwarfed to common men. Napoleon was confi- 
 dent of success ; the word desfiiri/ rang in the cham- 
 bers of thought like a trumpet-call to the conquest of 
 Europe. 
 
 May 28th, leaving Dresden, and parting with Maria 
 Louisa at Prague, he pressed on to Dantzic, which was 
 governed by General Eapjo, a favorite with Napoleon. 
 This officer, Murat, and Berth ier, confessed to the em- 
 peror their reluctance to engage in the perilous uncer- 
 tainty of the Russian campaign. 
 
 June 22d Napoleon issued the following bulletin : 
 
 " Soldiers ! Eussia is dragged on by her fate : her 
 destiny must be accomplished. Let us march : let us 
 cross the Niemen : let us carry war into her territories. 
 Our second campaign of Poland will be as glorious as 
 our first : but our second peace shall carry with it its 
 own guaranty : it shall put an end forever to that 
 haughty influence which Russia has exercised for fifty 
 years on tlie affairs of Europe." The address, in 
 which the czar announced the terminations of his ne- 
 gotiations, invoked the aid of Almighty Providence as 
 '' the witness and the defender of the true cause ; " 
 and concluded in these words — " Soldiers, you fight 
 for your religion, your liberty, and your native land. 
 Your emperor is among you, and God is the enemy of 
 tlie aggressor." 
 
 From Dantzic, on the 11th of June, Napoleon ad- 
 vanced to Konigsberg, where immense stores were 
 collected for the long march into Russian forests, and 
 over desert wastes. The divisions of the grand army
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 291 
 
 were commanded by Davonst, Ondinot, Ney, Eugene, 
 Poinatowski, St. C3'r, Regnier, Jerome, Victor, Mac- 
 donald, Augereau, Murat, and Schwartzenberg. Mar- 
 shals Mortier, Lefebre, and Bessieres led the imperial 
 guard. This splendid cavalcade, Avhich Xajioleon 
 reviewed on the battle-plain of Friedland, with all the 
 equipments of siege and difficult marches, reached, 
 the last of June, the banks of the rushing Niemen, be- 
 neath the dark shadow of the silent wilderness. 
 
 It was on the 24th, that the host began to cross, in 
 three great caravans at as many different points, the 
 bridges they had built ; the river reflecting the glitter- 
 ing weapons and nodding plumes, as for two days and 
 nights they moved forward under the eye of Napo- 
 leon. While reconnoitering the banks at Kowno, his 
 horse stumbled and fell. " A bad omen — a Roman 
 Avould return," he exclaimed. 
 
 Over the plains of Lithuania, the battalions ad- 
 vanced without opposition from the enemy, towards 
 Wilna, the capital of Russian Poland ; it was evacu- 
 ated at their approach. Here Xapoleon rested on the 
 28th of June ; but the magazines which he anticipated 
 had been consumed — a prelude to the greater confla- 
 gration, whose flames would prove the funeral-torch of 
 desolation wherever they retired ; every village was 
 burned ere they quitted it ; the enthusiastic peasantry 
 withdrew with the army, and swelled its ranks. 
 
 The brave Poles rallied around the emperor, and 
 petitioned him to restore to them their nationality, 
 furnishing as an expression of confidence and hope, 
 eighty-five thousand troops to join the desperate cam- 
 paign against their gigantic and cruel foe. But Xa- 
 poleon's refusal to meet the demand of Russia, " that 
 the kingdom of Poland should never be established, 
 and that her name be effaced forever from every public
 
 202 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 and official act," was no mean cause of hostilities, while 
 Austria and Prussia were too deeply involved in the 
 piratical possession, to make the intervention desirable. 
 lie accepted the heroic men, yet struck no blow for 
 Polish freedom. There is an apology in the complica- 
 tion of affairs, and still is it true, that the emperor 
 never periled an iota of power, or swerved from his sin- 
 gle object of attaining a higher summit of glory, by the 
 rescue or protection of a dependent nation. It was ne- 
 cessity or ambitious clioice that guided his interposi- 
 tion whenever given to the kingdoms and colonies for 
 which despots contended. 
 
 He remained three weeks at Wilna, detained by the 
 slowness of the arrival or the impromptitude of his 
 commissariat ; a jiause Alexander with energy im- 
 proved. A million of soldiers inured to the rigors of a 
 polar winter, swarmed to the standard of the autocrat. 
 Moscow offered eighty thousand men ; the Grand Duch- 
 ess of Kussia, whose rival was ]\[aria Louisa, equipped 
 a regiment on her own estate ; and the Cossack-chief 
 Platoff bid for Napoleon's life, with the premium of his 
 only daughter, and a dower of 200,000 rubles. 
 
 " The Russian plan of defense was already ascertained, 
 and alarming. The country was laid utterly desolate 
 wherever they retired ; every village was burned ere they 
 quitted it ; the enthusiastic peasantry withdrew with 
 the army, and swelled its ranks." 
 
 "With these scenes of conflagration hourly occurring, 
 and bloody battles between, the French legions hast- 
 ened toward Moscow. 
 
 *' On the 5th of September, Napoleon came in sight 
 of the position of Kutusoff, and succeeded i)i carrying 
 a redoubt in front of it. All the 6th the two armies 
 lay in presence of each other, preparing for the con- 
 test. The Russians were posted on an elevated j)lain ;
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. ^93 
 
 having a ■wood 011 their right flank, their left on one 
 of the villages, and a deep ravine, the bed of a small 
 stream, in their front. Extensive field-works covered 
 every more accessible point of this naturally very strong 
 gronnd ; and in the center of the whole line, a gentle 
 eminence was crowned by an enormous battery, serving 
 as a species of citadel. The Russian army were one 
 hundred and twenty thousand in number ; nor had 
 Napoleon a greater force in readiness for his attack. 
 In artillery also the armies were equal. It is supposed 
 that each had five hundred guns in the field. 
 
 ** To his sanguinary troops Xapoleon said, ' Soldiers ! 
 here is the battle you have longed for; it is necessary, 
 for it brings ns plenty — good winter quarters, and a 
 safe return to our country. Behave yourselves so that 
 posterity may say of each of you, He was in that great 
 conflict beneath the walls of Moscow.'" 
 
 At four o'clock in the morning of the 7th, the French 
 advanced under cover of a thick fog, and assaulted at 
 once the center, the right, and the left of the position. 
 Such was the impetuosity of the charge that they drove 
 the Eussians from their redoubts ; but this was but for 
 a moment. They rallied under the very line of their 
 enemy's fire, and instantly readvanced. Peasants who, 
 till that hour, had never seen war, and still wore their 
 rustic dress, distinguished only by the cross sewed on 
 it in front, threw themselves into the thickest of the 
 combat. As they fell, others rushed on and filled their 
 places. Some idea may be formed of the obstinacy of 
 the contest from the fact, that of one division of the 
 Eussians which mustered thirty thousand in the morn- 
 ing, only eight thousand 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 Bonaparte withdrew his troops and aban-
 
 294 LIFE OF NAPOLEOX BON APATITE. 
 
 doned all hope of forcing liis way tlirongh tlie Russians. 
 In no contest by many degrees so desperate had he 
 hitherto been engaged. Night found either army on 
 the ground they had occupied at daybreak. The num- 
 ber of guns and prisoners taken by the French and the 
 Russians was about equal ; and of either host there had 
 fallen no less than forty thousand men. Some accounts 
 raise the gross number of the slain to one hundred thou- 
 sand. Such was the victory in honor of which Napo- 
 leon created Marshal Ney Prince of Mo slew a. 
 
 Bonaparte, when advised by his generals, toward 
 the conclusion of the day, to bring forward his own 
 guard and hazard one final attack at their head, an- 
 swered, " And if my guard fail, what means should I 
 have for renewing the battle to-morrow ? " The Rus- 
 sian commander, on the other hand, 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 Kntusoff 
 I^erceived the necessity of retiring until he should 
 be further recruited. His army was the mainstay of 
 his country ; on its utter dissolution, his master miglit 
 have found it very difficult to form another ; but 
 while it remained perfect in its organization, the pa- 
 triotic population of the empire were sure to fill up 
 readily every vacancy in its rank. Having ascertained 
 then the extent of his loss, and buried his dead (among 
 whom was the gallant Bagratiiion) with great solem- 
 nity — the Russian slowly and calmly withdrew from his 
 intrenchments, aiul marched on Mojaisk. Napoleon 
 was so fortunate as to be joined exactly at this time by 
 two fresh divisions from Smolensko, which nearly re- 
 stored his muster to what it had been ere the battle be- 
 gan ; and, thus reinforced, commanded the pursuit to
 
 T.IFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 295 
 
 be vigorously urged. Ou the 9th, the French van 
 came in sight of the Eussian rear again, and Bonaparte 
 prepared for battle. But next morning Kutusotf 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 4th of September Napoleon reached the Hill 
 of Salvation ; so named because from that eminence 
 the Eussian traveler obtains his first view of the ancient 
 metropolis, affectionately called " Mother Moscow," 
 and hardly less sacred in his eye than Jerusalem. The 
 soldiery beheld with joy and exultation the magnificent 
 extent of the place ; its mixture of Grothic steeples and 
 oriental domes ; the vast and splendid mansions of the 
 haughty boyards, embosomed in trees ; and, high over 
 all the rest, the huge towers of the Kremlin, at once 
 the palace and the citadel of the old czars. The cry 
 of " Moscow ! Moscow ! " ran through the lines. Xa- 
 poleon himself reined in his horse and exclaimed, 
 " Behold at last that celebrated city ! " He added, 
 after a brief pause, ''It was time." 
 
 Bonaparte had not gazed long on this great capital 
 ere it struck him as something remarkable that no 
 smoke issued from the chimneys. Neither appeared 
 there any military on the battlements of the old walls 
 and towers. There reached him neither message of 
 defiance, nor any deputation of citizens to present the 
 keys of their town, and recommend it and themselves 
 to his protection. He was yet marveling 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 Miarodowitch, the general of the Russian
 
 296 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 rear-guard, and tliat, unless two hours were granted 
 for the safe witlidrawing of his troops, he would at 
 once set fire to Moscow. Napoleon immediately 
 granted the armistice. The two hours elapsed, and 
 still no procession of nobles or magistrates made its 
 appearance. 
 
 On entering the city the French found it deserted 
 by all but the very lowest and most wretched of its 
 vast population. They soon spread themselves over 
 its innumerable streets, and commenced the work of 
 pillage. The magnificent palaces of the Russian boy- 
 ards, the bazaars of the merchants, churches, and con- 
 vents, 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 diffi- 
 culty in keeping together thirty thousand men, who 
 followed Miarodowitch, and watched the walls on that 
 side. 
 
 The emperor, who had retired to rest in a suburban 
 palace, was awakened at midnight by the cry of fire. 
 The chief market-place was in flames ; and some hours 
 elapsed ere they could be extinguished by the exertions 
 of the soldiery. While the fire still blazed. Napoleon 
 established his headquarters in the Kremlin,* and 
 wrote, by that fatal light, a letter to the czar, contain- 
 ing proposals for peace. The letter was committed to 
 a prisoner of rank ; no answer ever reached Bona- 
 parte. 
 
 Next morning found the fire extinguished, and the 
 French officers were busied throughout the day in se- 
 lecting houses for their residence. The flames, how- 
 
 * An extensive fortress, iuoluding a palace aud several churches and 
 convents.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 297 
 
 ever, burst out again as night set in, and under cir- 
 cumstances which might well fill the minds of the 
 invaders with astonishment and with alarm. Various 
 detached parts of the city appeared to be at once on 
 fire ; combustibles and matches were discovered in 
 different places as if laid deliberately ; the water pipes 
 were cut : the wind changed three times in the course 
 of the night, and the flames always broke out again 
 with new vigor in the quarter from which the prevail- 
 ing breeze blew right on the Kremlin. It was suffi- 
 ciently plain that Rostopcein, governor of Moscow, 
 had adopted the same plan of resistance in which 
 Smolensko had already been sacrificed ; and his agents, 
 whenever they fell into the hands of the French, were 
 massacred without mercy. 
 
 The efforts to stop the flames were all in vain, and 
 it was not long ere a raging fire swept the capital 
 east, west, north, and south. During four days the 
 conflagration continued, and four-fifths of the city 
 were wholly consumed. " Palaces and temples,' says 
 the Russian author, Karamsin, " monuments of art and 
 miracles of luxury, the remains of ages long since past, 
 and the creations of yesterday, the tombs of ancestors, 
 and the cradles of children, were indiscriminately des- 
 troyed. Nothing was left of Moscow save the memory 
 of her 2)eople, and their deep resolution to avenge her 
 fall." 
 
 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 counseled retreat. On the third 
 night, the equinoctial gale rose, the Kremlin itself 
 took fire, and it became doul^tful whether it would be 
 possible for him to withdraw in safety ; and then he at 
 length rode out of Moscow, through streets in many
 
 298 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 parts arched over with flames, and buried,, where tliis 
 was not the case, iu one dense mantle of smoke. 
 " These are, indeed, Scythians," said Napoleon. He 
 halted, and fixed his headquarters at Petrowsky, a 
 country palace of the czar, about a league distant. 
 But he could not withdraw his eyes from the rueful 
 spectacle which the burning city presented, and from 
 time to time repeated the same words : " This bodes 
 great misfortune. '* 
 
 Napoleon again reoccupied the Kremlin, around 
 which lay in smoldering heaps the fairest portion of 
 the city, on the 20th, when the conflagration had s^jent 
 its fury. With characteristic levity, the French troops 
 opened a theater, whose applauded actors were sent 
 from Paris by the order of Napoleon. 
 
 The silence of Alexander began to awaken the pre- 
 sentiment of still more serious events. The successes 
 of the Russian forces in the battles witli their enemy 
 on the south, threatened to cut off communications 
 with the magazines iu Poland. But the resistless foe, 
 whose power the emperor feared, was advancing njion 
 him. Wmter, with its northern severity and dismal 
 length, was at hand. A second letter to the autocrat, 
 was despatched, with joroposals of peace. 
 
 Count Lauriston presented himself to Kutusoff at 
 his headquarters, early in October, but was refused a 
 passport. Kutusoff denied the right to give one, but 
 offered to transmit the letter to St. Petersburg. It 
 drew forth no reply. Autumn scattered the sere 
 leaves ; and to the dismay of Napoleon, October 13th, 
 three weeks earlier than at any recorded period before, 
 the snow shrouded the landscape, and fringed the 
 blackened walls of abandoned cities. Ui)on the 18th, 
 in a sanguinary conflict at Vincovo betueen Bennig- 
 sen and Murat, the French sustained an immense loss.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 299 
 
 This liastened the evacuation of Moscow, whicli the 
 emperor had seen to be inevitable. The immense host 
 poured through the gates into the merciless embrace 
 of the destroying elements. Mortier lingered with 
 3,000 men, to guard the retreat, and blow up as the 
 farewell peal of war's infernal thunder, the massive 
 walls of the Kremlin. 
 
 Desprez, Joseph Bonaparte's aide-de-camp, visited 
 Napoleon just before the evacuation, with despatches 
 from the King of Spain, presenting to the emperor his 
 declining power in the Peninsula. Desprez, upon his 
 return to Paris, wrote to his sovereign, the displeasure 
 of the emperor regarding his management of the war, 
 and gave the following account of the grand army at 
 Moscow : 
 
 *'The army, when I quitted it, was in the most hor- 
 rible misery. For a long while previously the disorder 
 and losses had been frightful ; the artillery and cavalry 
 had ceased to exist. The different regiments were all 
 mixed together ; the soldiers marched pell-mell, and 
 sought only how to prolong mechanically their exist- 
 ence. Although the enemy was on all sides of us, tlioii- 
 sands of men strayed every day into the neighboring- 
 villages, and fell into the hands of the Cossacks. 
 Xevertheless, large as is the number of prisoners, that 
 of the dead exceeds it. It is impossible to describe tiio 
 famine ; during more than a month there were no ra- 
 tions ; dead horses were the only resource, and even 
 the marshals were frequently in want of bread. The 
 severit}^ of the climate rendered hunger more fatal ; 
 every night we left at the bivouac several hundred 
 corpses. I think that I may, without exaggeration, 
 estimate those who have been lost in this manner at one 
 hundred thousand — the truth is best expressed by say- 
 ing that the army is dead. The young guard, which
 
 300 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 formed part of the corps to which I was attached, was 
 eight thousand strong when we left Moscow ; at Wilna 
 it scarcely numbered four hundred. All the other 
 corps are reduced in the same proportion ; and as the 
 flight did not end at the Niemen, I am persuaded that 
 not twenty thousand men reached the Vistula. It was 
 believed in the army that a great many soldiers were 
 on in front, who would rally when it was possible to 
 suspend the retreat. I convinced myself of the con- 
 trary ; at five leagues from headquarters I met no more 
 stragglers, and I was then aware of the extent of the 
 calamity. 
 
 " A single fact may give your majesty an idea of the 
 state of things. Since crossing the Niemen a corps of 
 eight hundred Neapolitans, the only corps which has 
 preserved any sort of order, formed the rear-guard of a 
 French army the strength of which once amounted to 
 three hundred thousand men. It is impossible to say 
 how contagious was the disorder : the corps of the 
 Dukes of Belluno and Reggio amounted together to 
 thirty thousand men when they crossed the Beresina ; 
 two days afterward they had melted away like the rest 
 of the army. Sending reinforcements only increased 
 the losses, and at last we became aware that fresh troops 
 must not be allowed to come in contact with a disor- 
 derly multitude which could no longer be called an 
 army. The King of Naples declared that, in delegating 
 the command to hira, the emperor exacted the greatest 
 possible proof of his devotion. Both the moral and 
 physical strength of the Prince of Neufchatel were com- 
 pletely exhausted. If your majesty were now to ask 
 me when the retreat is to end, I can say only that it 
 depends on the enemy. I do not think Prussia will 
 make much effort to defend her territory. M. de Nar- 
 bonno, whom I saw at Berlin, and who was the bearer
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 301 
 
 of letters from the emperor to the King of Prussia, told 
 me that both the king and liis prime minister were 
 favorably disposed, but that he was aware that the feel- 
 ing of the nation was different. Already several brawls 
 had taken place between the citizens of Berlin and the 
 soldiers of the French garrison ; and when I passed 
 through Prussia, I had opportunities of convincing 
 myself that no trust could be placed in our recent ally. 
 
 "It seems also that in the Austrian army the officers 
 declaim openly against the war. 
 
 '' Sad as this picture is, I believe it to be painted 
 without exaggeration, and that my observations have 
 been made with impartiality. My estimate of the ex- 
 tent of the evil is the same now as it was when I was 
 nearer to the scene of action." 
 
 Napoleon marched with his wasting battalions by a 
 new route toward Smolensk. The Cossacks made fear- 
 ful havoc with the scattered companies, cutting them 
 down, plundering, and then on their fleet horses retir- 
 ing to their forest-lair. When he passed the Souja, 
 the emperor came near falling into their hands ; but in 
 their lust for spoil, they overlooked the defiant, weary 
 leader in this terrible march of death. October 23d, 
 he rested at Borousk, sixty miles from Moscow. A few 
 miles farther on lay Eugene's force of eighteen thou- 
 sand troops. Before dawn of the next day the Russians 
 fell upon him, and after a bloody struggle were com- 
 pelled to leave the field. Napoleon embraced Eugene, 
 and exclaimed, ''This is the most glorious of your 
 feats of arms." 
 
 Learning here that one hundred and thirty thousand 
 Eussians, strongly intrenched, crossed his path, he 
 called a council of war. He decided, with bitter dis- 
 appointment, to abandon the attempt to press through 
 the defiles of Kalouga, and retire to the *' war-scathed
 
 302 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 road " in which he came so proudly to the fatal plains 
 of the north. The Russian army, ignorant of the 
 movement, and alarmed by the victory of Eugene, also 
 began a retreat ; the two armies thus flying from each 
 other, but neither awn re of the advaritage given. For 
 seven hundred and fifty miles. Napoleon had but two 
 points at which repose and supplies could be obtained. 
 Upon this awful march — this ''Iliad of Avoes " — the 
 great captain, and peerless monarch, sadly, dcspond- 
 iiigly entered. 
 
 It was on the 2Gth, that the march commenced, and 
 on the 28th the army passed over the field of Boro- 
 dino. The unburied, decaying dead, half-eaten by 
 the wolves, made the living soldier pass with averted 
 face to his own fate — mortal agony on the spear-point 
 of the Cossack, or the lethargy which has no waking. 
 Three hundred miles were traversed in ten days ; and 
 yet onward, between the Russian columns watching 
 their jorogress — followed by the dashing, savage hordes 
 of Platofl' — and the hunger-maddened wolves, the 
 struggling columns moved. With November came 
 the settled gloom and unalleviated cold of a Russian 
 Avinter. Storms howled around the thinning ranks of 
 the grand cavalcade, and the angry sky grew dark 
 above them. They fell in battalions to rise no more 
 till the resurrection morning. The brave, indomi- 
 table, chivalrous Ney, protected this retreat of the im- 
 perial army ; and his marvelous skill, his endurance 
 and courage, elevated his rank in the admiration of 
 the world, nearer his commander, than that of any 
 oilier man in the constellation of noble marshals who 
 waited on Napoleon. 
 
 November 9th, the emperor was before Smolensk. 
 Instead of the promised and expected supplies for his 
 soldiers, there was nothing but brandy — the direst foe
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPAKTE. 303 
 
 of the hungry and benumbed soldiers. They drank 
 and died in groups along the icy streets. Since the 
 (h'parture from Moscow, eighty thousand men had 
 fallen, and no more than forty thousand could now enter 
 tlie battle-field, were the opposing armies to meet. 
 
 A messenger had reached Napoleon with intelligence 
 Avhich increased his fears, and his desire to be in the 
 capital of France. Mullet, an officer, forged a report 
 of the emperor's death, and gathered to his standard, 
 in the excitement which followed, a part of the national 
 guard. He was arrested and shot. But the con- 
 spiracy revealed to Napoleon the frail tenure of his 
 regal authority, and how little a son might have to do 
 Avith the continuance of his dynasty. 
 
 Five days were passed in Smolensk, receiving des- 
 patches, and preparing for the final effort to reach tiie 
 boundaries of friendly territory. 
 
 j\Iurat, Eugene, Davoust, and Key commanded the 
 divisions of an army, reduced to less than one tenth 
 of its original numbers. Kutusoff with more than 
 double the force, hung along his track, in a joarallel line 
 of march. 
 
 At length he advanced and crossed the path of his 
 enemy. A battle followed, and tlirough wasting car- 
 nage the first division cut its Avay. Eugene's battal- 
 ions followed, and met t!ie same wall of bristling 
 bayonets and batteries. But the columns moved on, 
 and were mowed down in ranks, till only a remnant 
 escaped. This band had no other hoj^e, but to leave 
 their camp-fires burning, and creep around the impreg- 
 nable position. A Russian sentinel saw a company of 
 them and gave the challenge ; but a Pole answered in 
 the national dialect, and all was silent. The deception 
 saved the brave four thousand under Bcauharnais. 
 Davoust and Mortier, were at Krasnoi, holding the
 
 304 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 enemy back, if possible, till Xey could join them. 
 This splendid officer who led the reiir-guard, found at 
 Smolensk the heaps of the dead, assuring him of ac- 
 cumulating disasters upon the advanced divisions of 
 the army. The opposition to his progress was incon- 
 siderable, till he reached the ravine of Sormina, over 
 Avhich hung a curtain of heavy mist, and obscured the 
 masses of Russian troops, and the frowning batteries 
 which lay beyond. He was in the resistless grasp of 
 the foe. 
 
 A Russian officer summoned ISTey to surrender. ''A 
 marshal of France never surrenders," was the heroic 
 answer ; and instantly the artillery, distant only two 
 hundred and fifty yards, poured its storm of grape 
 shot into his ranks. Ney plunged into the ravine, 
 crossed the stream, and charged the astonished legions 
 at the cannon's mouth. He was beaten back by the 
 merciless fire, and still held his original position under 
 the very shadow of the grim batteries through which 
 not a man could pass alive. Napoleon, meanwhile, was 
 deejily anxious for the fate of his favorite marshal. 
 He exjiressed the intensest interest, and waited in sus- 
 pense to catch some tidings of his safety or death. 
 The night after the combat, Ney deserted his camp at 
 midnight, and retraced his steps, till he came to a small 
 stream, which, he told his men, must enter into the 
 Dnieper. On through the untraveled, liowling wil- 
 derness — through snow, and across icy j^lains — the in- 
 trepid marshal led his brave band. He was not mis- 
 taken in his plan ; ho came upon the great river which 
 he sought, and found a surface of ice, which swayed 
 and cracked beneath his feet. The soldiers in single 
 file passed over ; but the wagons laden with the 
 wounded and the ordnance, crushed the frail l)ri(lge, 
 and went down into the cold waters, sending upward
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 305 
 
 to the gloomy heavens, a shriek of wild and bitter 
 agony. The Cossacks were also upon them. Ney 
 sent to Napoleon at Orcha for assistance. Upon hear- 
 ing the intelligence, the emperor sprang toward the 
 messenger, and exclaimed : "Is that really true ? Are 
 yon sure of it ? I have two hundred millions of gold 
 in my vaults at the Tuilleries ; I would give them all 
 to save Marshal Xey." Eugene went to the rescue, 
 and in a few hours, the remnants of the grand divi- 
 sions of the imperial army, reduced since leaving 
 Smolensk from forty thousand to twelve thousand 
 men, met with mournful joy at Orcha. There were 
 but one hundred and fifty of the cavalry, and to 
 remedy the deficiency, five hundred officers still pos- 
 sessing horses were formed "into a sacred band,"' to 
 guard the person of Xapoleon. The Dnieper was 
 crossed, but tidings of additional disaster reached him. 
 Minsk had fallen ; another oasis in the desert was 
 wiped out by the legions of Eussia. A new line of 
 march into Poland, was chosen, north of the ruined 
 town, and haste was demanded, to escape the success- 
 ful Witgenstein on the right flank, and Tchichagoff on 
 his left. The Beresina was to be the next cold and 
 rushing stream, whose passage would be disputed by 
 the unwasted columns of Alexander. The point of 
 transit selected by Xapoleon was Borizolf, when he 
 heard that Dambrouski who commanded there had 
 been defeated by "Witgenstein, and abandoned the 
 position. He then advanced farther up, to Stud- 
 zianska. 
 
 " His twelve thousand men, brave and determined, 
 but no longer preserving in their dress, nor unless when 
 the trumpet blew, in their demeanor, a soldier-like ap- 
 pearance, were winding their way amid these dark woods, 
 when suddenly the air around them was filled with
 
 30(3 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 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 Oudi- 
 not, who had indeed been defeated by Witgenstein, but 
 still mustered fifty thousand men, completely equipped, 
 and hardly shaken in discipline. With what feelings 
 must these troops have surveyed the miserable, half- 
 starved, and half-clad remains of that " grand army," 
 their own detachment from whose banners had, some 
 few short months before, filled every bosom among them 
 with regret ! '' 
 
 Oudinot had been left at Smolensk, and upon the 
 evacuation of Moscow, was ordered to move forward to 
 secure the retreat. Victor was severely wounded at 
 Polotsk, and compelled to retire to Wilna. These brave 
 men parted with grief from the confident host of inva- 
 sion ; and now with deeper sorrow, welcomed the rag- 
 ged, famishing, freezing, and bleeding remains of that 
 unrivaled army, a few miles from Borizoff, which the 
 marshals had meanwhile retaken. With this augment- 
 ed force, the emporor moved toward the Beresina. 
 The river was three hundred yards wide, six feet in 
 depth, and full of floating ice. Napoleon, with artful 
 maneuvers, deceived his enemy, and the Russian com- 
 mander withdrew from Studzianska to a position eight- 
 een miles below. When it was shown to the emperor, 
 he exclaimed, " Then I have outwitted the general ? " 
 Before the Russians discovered the mistake, two bridges 
 v/ere thrown across the stream, and Oudinot had 
 passed over. When Napoleon gained the opposite 
 shore, his words of triumph were, ''My star still 
 reigns !'* November 27th the conflict opened. Into 
 tho crowded mass of soldiers, the women and wounded, 
 the Russians poured their iron hail of death.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 307 
 
 One of the bridges broke down in the midst of the 
 carnage, beneath the weight of artillery and troops, and 
 plunged the shrieking multitude into the flood. A 
 survivor of the campaign said, afterward, " The scream 
 that rose did not leave my ears for weeks ; it was heard 
 clear and loud over the hurrahs of Cossacks, and all the 
 roar of artillery." Victor defended the bridge until 
 evening, while the columns trampling on the dead and 
 dying, advanced in the cannonade of the Russian bat- 
 teries ; he then followed, leaving the wounded and 
 straggling portions of the army, on the enemy's bank. 
 lie fired the bridge and left them to their fate, as the 
 stern necessity of war. When spring thawed the Bere- 
 sina, twelve thousand bodies were drifted from its bed. 
 
 December 3d the struggling companies arrived at 
 Molodaczno. Here they met supplies despatched from 
 Wilna, to which town were sent immediately, under 
 escort, the wounded and whatever encumbered the army. 
 Napoleon called a council of war, and announced the 
 decision to his oflEicers of returning without delay to 
 Paris. 
 
 The troops were near the soil of Poland, and sure of 
 an abundance to feed and clothe them. The design 
 was approved, and the emperor on the 5th, leaving the 
 chief command to Murat, bade the garrison and relics 
 of the " grand army," drawn up before Wilna, adieu, 
 and set off at midnight with a few attendants in three 
 sledges, for the capital of France. Near Warsaw he 
 just escaped falling into the hands of a company of 
 Russians ; and on the 10th entered that city. His am- 
 bassador there, Abbe de Pradt, whose mission was a 
 failure, which occasioned his removal, congratulated 
 the emperor upon his deliverance from so great dan- 
 gers. "' Dangers," cried Napoleon, *' there were none 
 — I have beat the Russians in every battle — I live but
 
 308 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 iu 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 
 three hundred thousand men more from France." 
 
 On the 14tli he was at Dresden, and visited by the 
 King of Saxony, who renewed his pledge of fidelity^ 
 
 Four days later, he entered the Tuilleries after Maria 
 Louisa had retired to sleep. A cry of alarm from the 
 startled inmates roused the empress, and in another 
 moment she embraced, with unfeigned affection, the 
 royal fugitive. The next morning he held a levee, and 
 freely declared the disastrous ravages of fire and frost 
 among his annihilated army. The eighty thousand 
 soldiers and stragglers left at Wilna continued to waste 
 away before the increasing cold. Crossing the bridge 
 at Kowno with only thirty thousand — the " Old Guard " 
 was reduced to three hundred men — Marshal Ney had 
 fought his way on, his path lined and paved with his 
 slaughtered and frozen troops, and was the last to pass 
 the bridge, with thirty heroes by his side. Calmly 
 walking back toward the enemy's shore, he fired the 
 last shot, and threw his gun into the river. When he 
 met General Dumas on the German side, in the house 
 of a friend, he answered to the question, " AYho are 
 you ? " '' I am tlie rear-guard of the grand arm}' — 
 Marshal Xey. I have fired the last musket shot on the 
 bridge of Kowno, I have thrown into the Niemen the 
 last of our arms, and I have Avalked hither, as you see 
 me, across the forest." The annals of war can present 
 no more sublime defiance of an unconquered will, aiul 
 quenchless ardor of devotion to his king and country.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 3u9 
 
 CHAPTER yill. 
 
 Napoleon's reception after the defeat in Russia — His character. — The new 
 coalition — Battle of Lutzen. — Entrance into Dresden. — Battle of Bautzen. 
 — Negotiations.— ?iletternich. — The plan of campaign. — Siege of Dresden. 
 —Disasters.— Napoleon's desperate courage.— Battle of Leipsic. — Murat 
 abandons the Emperor's cause. — Treachery of the Allies. — The Senate 
 of France falter in their support. — Napoleon's rebuke. — Correspondence 
 with Joseph. — Napoleon at the Tuilleries. — He enters on the final strug- 
 gle. — Battle of Brienne. — Letters. — Want of arms. — Letters. — The prog- 
 ress of the Allies. — Napoleon's expedition on the Marne. — His victories. 
 — Letters from Joseph on the condition of Paris. — Negotiations for 
 Peace.— Napoleon's account of the crisis in his affairs. — His policy in his 
 extremity. — Battle of Leon. — Rheims. — Letters to Joseph. — The last 
 struggle.— The Allies advance toward Paris. — The flight of the Court. — 
 The capitulation. 
 
 The twenty-ninth bulletin of Napoleon had prepared 
 the popular mind to welcome the emperor, whose 
 eloquent words assured his subjects that the resistless 
 elements alone had snatched victory from the grand 
 army. Although nearly every family of the empire 
 was in mourning, his magical name and presence re- 
 stored the confidence, and renewed the devotion of the 
 people. The senate, officials, and public bodies, all 
 pressed up to the throne, with expressions of homage 
 and applause. Enlistments were ordered, and the reg- 
 iments of fresh troops gathered to his standard by 
 thousands. The arsenals were alive with preparation, 
 and in each habitation, the farewell to some manly in- 
 mate was spoken. Within a few weeks, Xapoleon was 
 at the head of three hundred and fifty thousand sol- 
 diers, fresh from the bosom of a loyal, gallant nation. 
 The grandeur of his genius, was seen and felt at home 
 and abroad, in the magnificent expenditures of money
 
 310 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 and labor during these years of war with the rest of 
 Europe, in national improvements. The whole sum 
 laid out on canals, docks, harbors and public buildings, 
 in nine years, was $200 ,000, 000. Such achievements of 
 intellect and power, stamp Napoleon with a fascinating 
 preeminence, which may lead the historian, and ad- 
 mirer of brilliant deeds, to a partial estimate of moral 
 qualities, which are essential elements of true 
 greatness. Napoleon's character was deficient in the 
 strength and purity which have invested with a benign 
 attraction the names of earth's noblest heroes — elevating 
 far above Alexander, Hannibal, and Napoleon, in 
 the scale of being, Washington, and the less success- 
 ful Louis Kossuth of Hungary. Every rational mind 
 feels the transcendent excellence of these Christian vir- 
 tues, which we do not discern in the Emperor, of 
 France, and without Avliich, ambition must ever have 
 an alliance with brute force, and be directed mainly to 
 personal glory. But it is also nndeniable that Napoleon 
 was vastly superior in intellectual and moral proportions 
 to the monarchs with whom he contended ; and in his 
 great campaigns, was sustained in the general principle 
 of lawful war, by the violation of sacred treaties on the 
 part of his enemies. 
 
 This does not change the motives which ruled him 
 in the invasion of Egypt, the seizure of Naples, the 
 conquest of Spain, the divorce of Josephine, the awful 
 tragedy of the Eussian expedition. 
 
 Napoleon was again mustering his energies for the 
 conflict with surrounding kings. Frederic William of 
 Prussia, a sincere ally, desired to continue his friendly 
 relations with France. The garrisons of the emperor, 
 scattered over the Prussian territory, were unable to 
 keep the jjeople in subordination. The king inter- 
 posed, indeed, his authority to protect the soldiers of
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 3U 
 
 Xapoleon from j)opulur violence ; but it soon became 
 manifest that their safety must depend on their con- 
 centrating themselves in a small number of fortified 
 places ; and that even if Frederic William had been 
 cordially anxious to preserve his alliance with France, 
 it would ere long be impossible for him to resist the 
 unanimous wishes of his people. Murat was soon weary 
 of his command. He found himself thwarted and con- 
 trolled by the other generals, none of whom respected 
 his authority ; and one of whom, when he happened to 
 speak of himself in the same breath with the sovereigns 
 of Austria and Prussia, answered, without ceremony, 
 *' You must remember that these are kings by the grace 
 of God, and by descent, and by custom ; whereas you 
 are only a king by the grace of Xaj^oleou, and through 
 the expenditure of French blood." Murat was more- 
 over jealous of the extent to which his queen Avas un- 
 derstood to be playing the sovereign in Naples, and he 
 threw wp his command. Eugene succeeded him at 
 the moment when it was obvious that Frederic 
 William could no longer, even if he would, rejaress the 
 universal enthusiasm of his people. On the 31st of 
 January the king made his escape to Breslau, in which 
 neighborhood no French were garrisoned, erected his 
 standard, and called on the nation to rise in arms. 
 Whereon Eugene retired to Magdeburg, and sliut him- 
 self up in that great fortress, with as many troojos as he 
 could assemble to the west of the Elbe. 
 
 Six years had elapsed since the fatal day of Jena ; 
 and the Prussian nation had recovered in a great meas- 
 ure its energies. The people now answered the call of 
 their beloved prince, as with the heart and voice of one 
 man. Young men of all ranks, the highest and the 
 lowest, flocked indiscriminately to the standard : the 
 students of the universities formed themselves into bat-
 
 312 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 talions, at the head of which, in many instances, their 
 teachers marched. The women flung their trinkets 
 into the king's treasur}' — tlie gentlemen melted their 
 plate — England poured in her gold with a lavish hand. 
 The rapidity with which discipline was established 
 among the great levies thus assembled, excited univer- 
 sal astonishment. 
 
 In March the allies met at Breslau ; Alexander em- 
 braced cordially Frederic William. It was stipulated 
 in the conditions of coalition, that the German powers 
 should be required to join the alliance against Napo- 
 leon, or forfeit their estates. The King of Saxony 
 refused the demand, and was compelled to flee from 
 his capital. The allies then marched over his realm, 
 and entered triumphantly Dresden. Bernadotte landed 
 thirty-five thousand troojDS at Stralsund. England 
 lavished gold by millions, to secure the revolution in 
 feeling and action among these rulers, at this crisis of 
 apparent weakness and waning power of Napoleon. 
 The struggle in Spain continued. Thus once more the 
 storm blackened around the single kingly captain, who 
 had for twenty years rocked a continent with his ad- 
 vancing steps. 
 
 April 15th, Napoleon left St. Cloud for the banks of 
 the Saale, the headquarters of his army. Maria 
 Louisa had been created regent of the empire during 
 his absence. She was amiable and loved by the emper- 
 or, who often expressed his entire confidence in her 
 fidelity and devotion. On the 25t]i, he reached Erfurth, 
 to lead onward in the shock of a continental struggle, 
 his battalions of youthful, and enthusiastic recruits. 
 His eagle eye was toward Dresden, where the czar and 
 the King of Prussia were waiting for the coming of 
 llussian legions, designing to move toward Leipsic. 
 
 May 2d, the hostile armies met unexpectedly on the
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 313 
 
 old battle-ground which drank the blood of Gustavus 
 Adolphus, near tlie town of Lutzen. Crossing the 
 Elster under cover of a dense fog, the iillied forces 
 emerged from the interposing heights, and fell upon 
 the columns of Xapoleon, During eight hours, the 
 slaughter went on, and tlie young men fell in ranks 
 around their emperor, toward whom was turned their 
 dying glance. At last, Xapoleon brought forward his 
 guard, with sixty pieces of artillery, and entered like 
 a falling avalanche, the living masses of disciplined 
 soldiers. The field was won, but too dearly for pur- 
 suit. 
 
 The allies retreated to Leipsic, thence to Dresden, 
 and finally crossed the Elbe to Bautzen. 
 
 This result was another sj^lendid achievement of 
 Napoleon's genius. The advantage in the opening 
 conflict was with his enemies, but he wrung the 
 victory from their hands. He ordered the Te Denm 
 to be sung in the churches, in commemoration of the 
 first success of his arms since he fled from tlie snow- 
 fields of Russia. He advanced to Dresden ; and be- 
 neath the smile of a vernal day, reflected from the 
 trappings and weapons of war, he entered the streets 
 of the beautiful city, with a jubilant welcome from the 
 subjects of his faithful friend, the King of Saxony. 
 The aristocracy who had hailed the appearance of the 
 allies, waited on the emperor ; and the hitherto waver- 
 ing army joined his legions. 
 
 "While the emperor paused at Dresden, Xey 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 Bonaparte must ultimately be com-
 
 314 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 pelled to carry his main force into a difficult and 
 mountainous country, in place of acting in the open 
 plains of Saxony and Brandenburg. 
 
 "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 toward Bautzen, and came in sight of the 
 jiosition on the morning of tlie 21st of May. Its 
 strength was obviously great. In their front was the 
 river Spree : wooded hills supported their right, and 
 eminences well fortified their left. The action began 
 with an attempt to turn their right, but Barchiy de 
 Tolly anticipated this movement, and repelled it with 
 such vigor, that a whole column of seven thousand 
 dispersed, and fled into the hills of Bohemia for safety. 
 The emperor then determined to pass tlie Spree in 
 front of the enemy, and they permitted him to do so, 
 rather than come down from their position. He took 
 np his quarters in the town of Bautzen, and his whole 
 army bivouacked in presence of the allies. The battle 
 was resumed at daybreak on the 22d ; when Ney on 
 the right, and Oudinot on the left, attempted simul- 
 taneously to turn the flanks of the position ; while 
 Soult and Napoleon himself directed charge after 
 charge on the center. During four hours the struggle 
 was maintained with unflincliing obstinacy ; the 
 wooded heights where Blucher commanded, had been 
 taken and retaken several times — the bloodshed, on 
 either side, had been terrible — ere, the situation of 
 both flanks being apparent, the allies perceived the 
 necessity eitluM- of retiring, or of continuing the figlit 
 against superior numbers on disadvantageous ground. 
 They withdrew accordingly ; but still with all t.he de- 
 liberate coolness of a parade ; halting at every favor- 
 able spot, and renewing their cannonade. * What,'
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEOX BOXAPARTE. :)lj 
 
 exclaimed Napoleon, ' no results ! not a gun ! not a 
 jjrisoner ! — these people will not leave me so mucli 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,' wliispered Xa2)oleon, 
 'fortune has a spite at us this day.' A few minutes 
 afterward 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 sug- 
 gestions. 'Everything to-morrow,' was his invari- 
 able answer. He stood by Duroc while he died ; 
 drew up with his own hand an epitaph to be placed 
 over his remains by the pastor of the place, who re- 
 ceived 200 napoleons to defray the expense of a fitting 
 monument ; and issued also a decree in favor of his 
 departed friend's children. Thus closed the 22d. The 
 allies, being strongly posted during most of the day, 
 had suffered less than the French : the latter had lost 
 fifteen thousand, the former ten thousand men. 
 
 " They continued their retreat into upper Silesia ; 
 and Napoleon advanced to Breslau and released the 
 garrison of Glogau. Meanwhile, the Austrian, having 
 watched these indecisive though bloody fields, once 
 more renewed his offers of mediation. The sovereigns 
 of Russia and Prussia exjDressed great willingness to 
 accept it ; and Xapoleon also appears to have been 
 sincerely desirous for the moment of bringing his dis- 
 putes to a peaceful termination. lie agreed to an
 
 316 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 armistice, and in arranging its conditions, agreed to 
 fall back out of Silesia ; thus enabling the allied 
 princes to re-opeu communications with Berlin. The 
 lines of country to be occupied by the armies respect- 
 ively, during the truce, were at length settled, and it 
 Avas signed on the first of June. Napoleon then re- 
 turned to Dresden, and a general congress of diploma- 
 tists prepared to meet at Prague." 
 
 The allies demanded that Napoleon should surren- 
 der Illyria, half of Italy, and abandon Spain, Holland, 
 the Confederation of the Rhine, and Switzerland. 
 Metternich, the unjjrincijiled and cunning politician, 
 jjresented the terms of treaty to Napoleon. 
 
 There was doubtless truth in the words of the em- 
 peror, who afterward said, ''These extravagant propo- 
 sitions were made that they might be rejected." The 
 concessions would have given, in his declining power, 
 the occasion of general conspiracy, and secured his 
 inevitable overthrow. 
 
 He had gone too far to retreat ; greater victories or 
 a demolished throne was the alternative before him. 
 But his enemies wished to gain time for the arrival of 
 Bernadottc, and the Russian forces ; while Austrian 
 and Prussian relations were more definitely settled. 
 
 The interview between Napoleon and Metternich 
 was private and spirited. The emperor expressed his 
 surprise that his own father-in-law should declare Avar 
 against France. He offered to give up the Hanse 
 toAvns and Illyria, besides granting the dissolution of 
 the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and the reconstruction 
 of Prussia, to secure peace. He added, " I only wish 
 you to be neutral. I can deal with these Russians and 
 Prussians single-handed. Ah, Metternich, tell me 
 honestly how much the English have given you to take 
 their part against me ? '*
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 31 7 
 
 At this crisis, when the allies, conscious of the great- 
 ness of Napoleon, and the uncertainty of the conflict, 
 ■were not unwilling to continue negotiations, news of 
 the victories in Spain over the French army there, 
 elated the enemy, and terminated the armistice. Wel- 
 lington had triumphed ; Joseph and Jourdan were 
 defeated. The duke was ready to pour his columns 
 into the valleys of southwestern France. 
 
 August 10th, 1813, Austria signed the alliance offen- 
 sive and defensive witli Russia and Prussia. At night- 
 fall, brilliant rockets rose successively along the frontier- 
 heights of Bohemia and Silesia, announcing the re- 
 opening of war upon the plains of Europe. Generals 
 Jomini and Moreau had joined the allied troops, and 
 Bernadotte was leading the columns of Sweden into 
 the field. This treachery was bitter to Napoleon, and 
 ominous of future disasters. Austria contributed two 
 hundred thousand men to the army which environed 
 Napoleon, making a host of nearly five hundred thou- 
 sand disciplined troops, to encounter which he had 
 only about half the number of soldiers. He was en- 
 tering on a desperate struggle for his tottering throne. 
 The opposing generals had studied the emperor's mili- 
 tary tactics, and under the direction of Bernadotte 
 and Moreau, whose experience was no trifling auxiliary, 
 the campaign was wisely planned. 
 
 The commanders agreed that whoever was first 
 drawn into the conflict, should retreat, tempting Na- 
 poleon to abandon Dresden in the pursuit, and so 
 leave the city exposed to an attack by remaining forces. 
 If successful, the magazines would fall into their hands, 
 and the French army would be broken by the interpos- 
 ing divisions of the enemy, while in the rear of the 
 French, between the Elbe and the Bhine, the allies 
 would extend their lines.
 
 318 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Blncher, a Prussian, whom Napoleon called ** the 
 debauched dragoon," commanding eighty thousand 
 Eussian and Prussian troops, threatened Macdonald's 
 division. Blucher was a great general, but a man of 
 reckless character. Napoleon knew his qualities as 
 an officer, and despised his entire want of moral prin- 
 ciple. He immediately decided to advance upon him, 
 and protect Macdonald. Blucher retired, and the 
 emperor pursued him. According to the plan of 
 operations, Schwartzenberg, with whom were Alex- 
 ander and Francis, marched toward Dresden, August 
 25th. An immediate assault would have taken the 
 city. But it was not till the next day that the allied 
 armies, in six columns, with fifty pieces of artillery, 
 opened their terrific fire upon the beautiful capital. 
 The carnage defies description. The streets were 
 deluged with blood, and the dead lay mangled in the 
 gorgeous apartments of princely wealth. St. Cyr, who 
 commanded the garrison, was on the borders of de- 
 spair, and the inhabitants pleading for capitulation, 
 when Napoleon, with the Imperial Guard, crossed the 
 Elbe, and, amid a storm of balls and shells, entered 
 the city. Shouts of exultation filled the air. Without 
 pausing to rest or eat, the reinforcement rushed to the 
 onset ; the allies were driven back, and night inter- 
 rupted the wasting conflict. A tempestuous morning 
 was the signal for renewed battle ; and with such 
 marvelous skill did Napoleon pour his divisions upon 
 the encircling host, that, before the close of day, the 
 enemy retreated. Moreau, who was reconnoitering 
 the French on a distant eminence in company with 
 Alexander, was struck by a cannon-ball, and both his 
 legs almost torn from his body. The fire was given 
 by Napoleon's order, but without any knowledge of 
 those at whom it was directed, With stoical indiffer-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 319 
 
 ence the traitor submitted to amputation, aud died two 
 da3's after. The emperor was again victorious ; but his 
 strength was exhausted, and a sudden attack of illness 
 compelled him to return to Dresden. Vandamme, a 
 fiery, daring officer, while pursuing the flying battal- 
 ions toward Toepletz, where around the magazines the 
 scattered forces were rallying, j)ushed on too far into 
 the valley of the Culm. Here he was met by the 
 Russian divisions, and, after a fierce encounter, sur- 
 rendered with eight thousand troops. General Oudinot, 
 who was ordered to advance upon Bernadotte, was 
 overwhelmed by a superior force, and defeated. Mac- 
 donald was hemmed in within a narrow defile, and also 
 conquered. When these tidings of disaster reached 
 Napoleon on his couch of suffering at Dresden, he 
 said to Murat, *' This is the fate of war ; exalted in 
 tlie morning, low enough before night. There is but 
 one step between triumph and ruin." A map of Ger- 
 many was spread out before him, and, tracing the 
 distances with his compasses, he repeated these lines 
 of his favorite poet, Corneille : 
 
 " J'ai servi, comniande, vaincu quarante annees ; 
 Du monde, entre mes mains, j'ai vu les destinees ; 
 Et j'ai toujours connu qu'en chaque evenenient 
 Le destin des etats dejjendait d'un moment."* 
 
 During the month of September, Napoleon marched 
 upon the allies under Blucher and Bernadotte, at dif- 
 ferent points, and was victorious. But his triumphs 
 Avere fruitless ; no decisive results were obtained, and 
 his army was declining in strength daily. The King 
 
 * I have served, CDmmanded, conquered for forty years. 
 Of the world, in my hands, I have seen the destinies : 
 And I have always known, that in each event, 
 The destiny of slates depended on a moment.
 
 S20 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 of Bavaria was forced to yield to the pressure around 
 liim, and join the enemy. Jerome, King of Westphalia, 
 was driven by revolt from his capital. 
 
 Napoleon, thus plunged into a sea of troubles, had 
 one hundred thousand troops with which to face five 
 times that number. It was a sublime and touching 
 spectacle of greatness passing from the zenith toward 
 a horizon of dismal gloom. His purpose was formed 
 of marching upon Berlin, cutting his way through the 
 opposing Avail of living men, and by carrying the war 
 into the enemy's country, oblige them to retrace their 
 steps, and defend their beleaguered cities. France had 
 responded to the call for 180,000 conscripts to strengthen 
 his greatly inferior force. But his officers, exhausted 
 and desponding, refused to support the emperor in ihe 
 bold enterprise — the grandest in his career. A council 
 of war was called ; and never was the mighty heart of 
 Najjoleon more oppressed and filled with sorrow. His 
 star was already in the darkness of eclipse. He coulc*. 
 do nothing without the enthusiasm of his generals. He 
 yielded to necessity, and abandoned the design which 
 he believed would have retrieved his fortunes. He 
 now turned toward Leipsic, where " as on a common 
 center, 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 im- 
 mediately the heads of Schwartzenberg's columns be- 
 gan to appear toward 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 Leipsic ; — a series 
 of marshy meadoAvs, interfused with the numeroua 
 branches of the Pleisse and the Elster, through which 
 lies the only road to France. Napoleon, having made
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 321 
 
 all his preparations, reconnoitered every outpost in j^er- 
 son, and distributed eagles, in great form, to some new 
 regiments which had just joined liim. The ceremonial 
 was splendid ; the soldiers knelt before the emperor, 
 and in presence of cA\ the line : military mass was per- 
 formed, and the young warriors swore to die rather 
 than witness the dishonor oi France. Upon this scene 
 the sun descended ; and with it the star of Napoleon 
 went down forever. 
 
 "At midnight, three rockets, emitting a brilliant 
 white light, sprung into the heavens to the south of 
 the city ; these marked the position on which Schwart- 
 zenberg had fixed his liead quarters. They wer: an- 
 swered by four rockets of a deep red color, ascending 
 on the instant from the northern horizon. Bonaparte 
 had with him, to defend the line of villages to tlie south 
 and north of Leipsic, 130,000 men, while, even in the 
 absence of Bernadotte, who might be hourly looked for, 
 the allies mustered not less than 230,000. 
 
 " The battle commenced on the soutliern side, at day- 
 break of the IGth. The allies charged the French lino 
 there six times in succession, and were as often repelled. 
 Napoleon then charged in his turn, and with such 
 effect, that Murat's cavalry were at one time in posses- 
 sion of a great gap between the two wings of the enemy. 
 The Cossacks of the Russian imperial guard, however, 
 encountered the French horse, and puslied them back 
 again. The combat raged without intermission until 
 nightfall : three cannon shots, discharged at the ex- 
 tremity of either line, then marked, as if preconcert- 
 edly, 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 him- 
 self commanded. Marmont, his lieutenant on the 
 northern side, was less fortunate. Blucher attacked 
 
 21
 
 322 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 him with a vast superiority of numbers : nothing could 
 be more obstinate than his defense ; but he lost many 
 prisoners and guns, was driven from his original ground, 
 and occupied, when the day closed, a now line of posi- 
 tions, much nearer the walls of the city. 
 
 "Gallant as the behavior of liis troops had been, the 
 result satisfied Napoleon that he must finally retreat 
 from Leipsic ; and he now made a sincere effort to ob- 
 tain peace. He accordingly sent a messenger with 
 proposals to the allied camps, but it was now too late : 
 tiie allied princes had sworn to each other to entertain 
 no treaty while one French soldier remained on the 
 eastern side of the Rhine. Napoleon received no an- 
 swer to his message ; and prepared for the difficult task 
 of retreating with 100,000 men, through a crowded 
 town, ill presence of an enemy already twice as numer- 
 ous, and in hourly expectation of being joined by a 
 third great and victorious army. 
 
 " During the 17tli the battle was not renewed, ex- 
 cept by a distant and partial cannonade. The allies 
 were resolved to have the support of Bernadotte in the 
 decisive contest. 
 
 "At eight in the morning of the 18th it began, and 
 continued until nightfall without intermission. Bona- 
 parte had contracted on the south, as well as on the 
 north, the circuit of his defense ; and never was his 
 generalship, or the gallantry of his troops, more bril- 
 liantly displayed than throughout this terrible day. 
 Calm and collected, the emperor again presided in 
 person on the southern side, and again, where he was 
 ])resent, 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 
 Blncher to push liis advantages with irresistible effect ; 
 and the situation of Marmont and Ney was further
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 323 
 
 perplexed by the shameful defection of ten thousand 
 Saxons, who went over with all their artillery to the 
 enemy, in the very midst of the battle. The two mar- 
 shals, therefore, were compelled to retire from point to 
 point, and at nightfall lay almost close to the walls of 
 Leipsic. Three cannon shots, 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 fore-stalled conscrip- 
 tions ; yet they fought as bravely as the guard. The 
 behavior of the Germans, on the other hand, at length 
 considering their freedom and independence as hangiug 
 on the fortune of a single field, had been answerable to 
 the deep enthusiasm of that thoughtful people. The 
 burghers of Leipsic 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 com^ 
 mencement 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 Avails. One of these bridges was a tempo- 
 rary fabric, and it broke down ere daylight came to 
 show to the enemy the movement of the French. The 
 confusion necessarily accompanyiug 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 intrusted the de- 
 fense of the suburbs, it is doubted whether he himself 
 cor.ld have escaped in safety. At nine in the morning 
 of the 19th, he bade farewell forever to the King of
 
 324 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Saxony, who remained to make what terms he conld 
 with the allied sovereigns. Tiie 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 intrusted to Saxons, who now, like their 
 brethren of the day before, turned tlieir fire on the 
 French. The officer to whom Napoleon had committed 
 the task of blowing up the bridge, when the advance 
 of the enemy should render this necessary, conceived 
 that the time was come, and set fire to his train. The 
 crowd of men urging each other on the point of safety, 
 could not at once be stojoped. Soldiers and horses, 
 cannons and wains, rolled headlong into the deep though 
 narrow river ; which renewed, though on a smaller 
 sc{j,le, 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 sunk 
 to rise no more. Twenty-five tliousand Frenchmen, 
 the means of escape entirely cut off, laid down their 
 arms within the city. Four sovereigns, each entering 
 at the head of his own victorious army, met at noon in 
 the great market-place of Leipsic : and all the exulta- 
 tion of that solemn hour would have been partaken by 
 the inhabitants, but for the fate of their own sovereign, 
 personally esteemed and beloved, who now vainly en- 
 treated to be admitted to the presence of the conquerors, 
 and was sent forthwith as a prisoner of war to Berlin. 
 
 *' Napoleon, in killed, and wounded, and prisoners, 
 lost at Leipsic at least fifty thousand men. 
 
 ** The retreat of the French through Saxony was ac- 
 companied Avith every disaster which a hostile peas- 
 antry, narrowness of supplies, and the persevering 
 pursuits of tlie Cossacks and other light troops could
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 3^5 
 
 inflict oil a disordered and disheartened mass of men. 
 The soldiers moved on, wliile under the eye of Napo- 
 leon, in gloomy silence : wherever lie 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 amid great 
 misfortunes. He appeared at all times calm and self- 
 possessed ; receiving, every day that he advanced, new 
 tidings of evil. 
 
 *' He halted two days at Erfurth, 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 Leipsic were making j^rogress 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 24th. It was 
 here that Murat quitted the army. Notwithstanding 
 the unpleasant circumstances under which he had re- 
 tired to Naples in January, Joachim had reappeared 
 when the emperor fixed his headquarters at Dresden, 
 in the summer, and served Avith his usual gallantry 
 throughout the rest of the campaign. Tlie state of 
 Italy now demanded his presence ; and the two brothers- 
 in-law, after all their differences, embraced each other 
 warmly and repeatedly at parting — as if under a mu- 
 tual presentiment that they were parting to meet no 
 more." 
 
 Murat saw that the prestige of Napoleon was gone, 
 and to save his crown in Na^iles, he entered into an 
 alliance with the foes of France. He immediately ap- 
 peared on the arena of combined empires, against him 
 who had made his fortune, and prevented by his oppos- 
 ing division, the advance of Eugene from Italy to aid
 
 326 I^IFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 the cause of Bonaparte. The two members of the im- 
 perial family met at Milan, as enemies. For this 
 timely assistance, the allies promised to secure the 
 throne of Naples to Murat, and his heirs ; a reward 
 which was never given to the ambitious, dashing, vain, 
 and unstable prince. 
 
 The hostile armies fell on Napoleon in his retreat, at 
 Haynau, and were defeated, after losing ten thousand 
 men. A bomb-shell exploded near him, but he escaped 
 nuhurt — his destiny was not fulfilled. He continued 
 to press forward toward Paris, and at five o'clock, No- 
 vember 5th, reached St. Cloud, and embraced the weep- 
 ing empress. It was a strange and humbling misfor- 
 tune, which seems a part of the awful retribution for 
 abandoning Josephine, and accepting the union with 
 a faithless, because a royal race, that her father was 
 then the most dreaded enemy of all the kings whose 
 myriad host, like the Assyrians of ancient battle, were 
 sweeping in concentrating circles upon the single cap- 
 tain of a decimated army. Maria Louisa felt the blow 
 which had fallen from a paternal hand, amid the un- 
 friendly strokes of those who had formed the emperor's 
 household, and received their honors from him who 
 gave thrones away to his heroes, as if the world were 
 his own. 
 
 A revolution followed the tidings of the result at 
 Leijisic, in Holland, and the exiled Prince of Orange 
 returned to resume the reins of government, Novem- 
 ber, 1813. The Confederation of the Ehine became a 
 gossamer web before the victorious allies, and tlie 
 states, as the only alternative, wheeled into the ranks 
 of the augmenting caravan of monarchs and subjects, 
 whose hydra-folds were around the struggling Hercules 
 who still kept tlio world in awe. 
 
 St. Cyr, with thirty thousand troops, who had been
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BOXAPAKTE. 307 
 
 shut up iu Dresden, capitulated, on the conditions of 
 returning to France, and no more taking uriiis against 
 the allied armies, until formally exchanged as prison- 
 ers of war. But, in contempt of the stipulation, and, 
 it must be confessed, in contrast with Napoleon's treat- 
 ment of Wurraser at Mantua seventeen years before, 
 the allies offered them starvation in Dresden, or 
 the necessity of marching to the prisons of Austria. 
 There was no sufRcient excuse for this act of infidelity, 
 and it was one of the lasting blots upon the banner of 
 Napoleon's determined foes. .Similar was the fate of 
 General Eapp and his division at Dantzic. "Welling- 
 ton had driven the soldiers of France from Sj^ain, and 
 was on the territory of their sovereign. The outposts 
 of power were all gone, and the wa}^ prepared to come 
 down upon the citadel of strength — to march upon 
 Paris itself. Napoleon afterward said of this crisis, 
 "Ere then I felt the reins slipiniKj from my liaiids.'"' 
 Though propositions for peace were made by Caulain- 
 court in the emperor's behalf, and the branded kings 
 issued at Frankfort a manifesto, the negotiations were 
 no more than a passing illusion. Najjoleon aroused 
 himself with an amazing energy for the final contest. 
 France was alive with w'arlike preparations. Conscri])- 
 tions and taxation went forward with redoubled vigor. 
 The emigrant royalists, who had been allowed to return 
 to France, were busy j)lotting against the doomed man. 
 The priests, remembering the invasion of their sacred 
 rights in the person of the Eoman Pontiff, and the 
 confiscation of church possessions, joined in the wide- 
 spread conspiracies. The wily diplomatist, Talleyrand, 
 anticipating tlie coming overthrow, commenced cor- 
 resjjondence with the allies to secure his good fortune 
 against ruin. The emperor called around him the 
 Council of State and the Senate, and made his stirring
 
 328 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 appeals. But the nation was exhausted, and tlie con- 
 flicting parties growing strong under the shadow of his 
 throne. To the coohiess of the senators, who suggested 
 that if the proposals of the allies had heen accepted 
 France might have heen preserved, he replied, " Wel- 
 lington has entered the south, the Eussians menace the 
 northern frontier, the Prussians, Austrians, and Bava- 
 rians the easterii. Shame ! AVellington is in France, 
 and we have not risen en masse to drive him back ! 
 All my allies have deserted — the Bavarian has betrayed 
 me. No peace till we have burned Munich. I demand 
 a levy of three hundred thousand men — with this and 
 what I already have, I shall see a million in arms. I 
 will form a camp of one hundred thousand at Bour- 
 deaux ; another at Mentz ; a third at Lyons. But I 
 must have grown men — these boys serve only to encum- 
 ber the hospitals and the roadsides. * * * 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 vi'ar." To the 
 Council of State he added, respecting the undecided 
 report drawn up by the Senate, " In place of assisting, 
 they impede me. Our attitude alone could have re- 
 pelled 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 bo printed. 
 They have not done their duty, but I will do mine — I 
 dissolve the legislative senate." The truth is, the last 
 conditions of the allies to reduce France to her natural 
 limits were humiliating ; and, rather than leave the 
 realm less powerful than he fouiul it, he preferred to 
 fight and conquer — or die honorably in the struggle ; 
 or, if the dire necessity arose, abdicate his throne.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 329 
 
 December 20tli, Schwartzenberg, witli the grand 
 army of invasion, crossed the Rhine near Basle, enter- 
 ing upon the ]ieutral territory of Switzerland, and 
 marched without opposition into Burgundy. At this 
 juncture, and after but little correspondence between 
 Napoleon and Joseph for months, tlie following letters 
 were written, and soon after a reconciliation was so 
 far made, that frequent notes were exchanged. 
 
 JOSEPH TO XAPOLEOX. 
 
 " December 29, 1813. 
 
 *' Sire — The violations of the Swiss territory have 
 laid France open to the enemy. 
 
 " In this state of affairs I am anxious that your 
 majesty be persuaded that my heart is wholly French. 
 Recalled by circumstances to France, I should be glad 
 to be of some use, and I am ready to undertake any- 
 thing which may prove to you my devotion. 
 
 " I am also aware, sire, of what I owe to Spain ; I 
 see my duties, and wish to fulfil all of them. If I 
 make claims, it is only for the purpose of sacrificing 
 them to the general good of mankind, esteeming my- 
 self happy if by such sacrifices I can promote the 
 peace of Europe. 
 
 " I hope that your majesty may think fit to com- 
 mission one of 3'our ministers to come to an under- 
 standing on this subject with the Duke of Santa Fe, 
 my minister for foreign affairs." 
 
 XAPOLEON" TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " December, 1813. 
 
 *'My Brother — I have received your letter of the 
 29th of December. It is far too clever for the state of 
 my affairs. I will ex2)lain it in two words. France is 
 invaded, all Europe is in arms against France, and
 
 330 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 above all against me. You are no longer King of 
 Spain. I do not want Spain either to keep or to give 
 away. I will have nothing more to do witli that coun- 
 try, except to live in peace with it, and have the use 
 of my army. What will you do ? Will you, as a 
 French prince, come to the support of my throne ? 
 You possess my friendship and your apjoanage, and will 
 be my subject as prince of the blood. In this case you 
 must act as I have done — announce the part which you 
 are about to play, write to me in simple terms a letter 
 which I can print, receive the authorities, and show 
 yourself zealous for me and the King of Rome, and 
 friendly to the regency of the empress. Are you un- 
 able to do this ? Have you not good sense enough for 
 it ? Then retire to the obscurity of some country- 
 house forty leagues from Paris. You will live there 
 quietly if I live ; you will be killed or arrested if I die. 
 You will be useless to me, to our family, to your 
 daughters, and to France ; but you will do me no harm, 
 a7id will not be in my way. Choose quickly the line 
 which you will take." 
 
 Ferdinand was restored to power ; of whom Napier 
 says, " an effeminate, superstitious, fawning slave at 
 Valencay, and now, after six years' captivity, he re- 
 turned to his own country an ungrateful, cruel tyrant." 
 January 1st, 1814, Blucher passed the Rhine ; and the 
 third division of an army, numbering a million of 
 troops, under Witzcngorode and Bulow, crossed the 
 frontier of ISTetherlauds. The wealthy citizens flew to 
 Paris with tlie news of tlie darkening storm over 
 hitherto proud, victorious France. 
 
 January 24th, Napoleon held a grand levee in the 
 saloon of tlie Tuillerios. Nine hundred officers and 
 dignitaries gathered in splendid array around the em-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTK. ;>,31 
 
 peror, with the subdued aspect of a grave ;iud nnxidus 
 assembly. Napoleon appeared in the center of the hull, 
 accompanied by Maria Louisa, and the beautiful boy, 
 for whom so fearful a sacrifice had been made. After 
 bestowing the regency on the empress, he said with 
 the firm and thrilling tones of an ever-eloquent voice, 
 " Gentlemc!!, France is invaded ; I go to j^ut myself at 
 the head of my troops, and, with God's help and their 
 valor, I hope soon to drive the enemy beyond the 
 frontier." Here he took Maria Louisa in one hand and 
 her son in the other, and continued — '' Bat if they 
 should approach the cajjital, I confide to the national 
 guard, the empress and the King of Rome" — then cor- 
 recting himself, he said in a tone of strong emotion — 
 " my wife and my child." 
 
 Tears gushed from veteran eyes ; they were shed by 
 many who cherished no strong attachment for Napoleon. 
 Officers immediately advanced from the silent and im- 
 posing circle, as pledges of the protection desired for 
 the trembling queen, and her dreaming child. The 
 hour of peril had brought from obscurity friends who 
 had lived apart from Napoleon's career. Carnot, who 
 so boldly opposed the stride to imperial jiower, came 
 forward, and offered his sword to the emperor. With 
 characteristic appreciation of iireeminent talent and 
 noble qualities, he gave him the command of the im- 
 portant city and fortress of Antwerj). 
 
 January 25th, while the snow was falling, suggestive 
 of past disasters. Napoleon having given his private 
 papers to the flames, and embraced his wife and child 
 for the last time, left Paris for the field of battle. 
 Joseph was again in the capital at the head of the 
 conncil, and next in official station to the empress. 
 
 Napoleon reached St. Dizier, a hundred miles from 
 Paris, on the 27th, and there met with a small force.
 
 332 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 the Cossacks of Blucher's army. A brief struggle fol< 
 lowed, and the French were victorious. The main 
 columns of the Prussians were at Brienne on the Aube 
 — the town where the genius of Najooleon received its 
 earliest military culture. Could the emperor drive 
 Blucher from this position, he would then lie between 
 two great divisions of the overshadowing enemy, 
 weakening their strength, and giving him the advantage 
 of his inimitable mode of warfare — falling on separate 
 masses of his enemy, like the successive shocks of the 
 earthquake which lays the city in ruins. The 28th he 
 marched in the face of a tempest, and through the snow, 
 rekindling the enthusiasm of his soldiers, and receiv- 
 ing the warmest expressions of self-sacrifice and devo- 
 tion from the humblest peasantry. The next day, he 
 stood before the bristling castle and heights of Brienne, 
 with twenty thousand men, opposed by sixty thousand 
 Russians in this stronghold, whose presence thronged 
 memory with bitter recollections. The sudden tramp 
 of the French battalions before the gates, startled 
 Blucher from his wine at the dinner-table of the chateau, 
 and he made his escajie through a postern, leading his 
 horse down a stairway. A bloody fight began, and 
 when twilight deepened over the crimson hills, five 
 thousand of the allies were slain. General Gourgaud 
 shot a Cossack when pointing his spear at the back of 
 the emperor — a moment more, and Brienne would have 
 witnessed the close, as it did the dawn, of his career. 
 Napoleon gives a graphic account of these events : 
 
 NAPOLEON" TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Brienne, January 31, 1814 ; in the evening. 
 
 ** The bulletin will have informed you of the events 
 which have taken place. The engagement at Brienne
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 333 
 
 was very hot. I have lost three thousand men, and 
 the enemy's loss amounts to between four thousand and 
 five thousand. I pursued him half-way to Bar-sur-Aube. 
 I have repaired the bridges over the Aube which were 
 burnt. In another instant General Blucher and the 
 whole of his staff would have been taken. The nephew 
 of the Chancellor of Ilardenberg, who was close to 
 them, was taken. They were on foot, and did not 
 know that I was with the army. 
 
 Since the battle of Brienne the allies have had great 
 respect for our army. They did not believe we had 
 any. I have reason to think, although I am not cer- 
 tain, that the Duke of Yicenza has reached the em- 
 peror's headquarters at Chaumont. This affair of 
 Brienne, the position of our armies, and the oj^iniou 
 which is entertained of them, may hasten the peace. 
 It is advisable that the newspapers should describe 
 Paris as determined to defend itself, and should an- 
 nounce large numbers of troops as arriving from every 
 quarter. 
 
 ''I have ordered a column of from one thousand to 
 two thousand horses belonging to the guard, two pieces 
 of cannon, three or four infantry wagons, and between 
 three thousand and four thousand men of the young 
 guard, altogether a column of from four thousand to 
 five thousand men, to leave Paris. To these should be 
 joined a company of the baggage-train belonging to the 
 guard, if there is one ready. This column is to pro- 
 ceed toward Xogent and Fismes, where it will wait for 
 further orders. The Duke of Treviso had evacuated 
 Troyes in order to advance upon Arcis-sur-Aube ; but 
 I desired him to return to Troyes, and he arrived there 
 this evening at seven o'clock. It is very important to 
 reinforce as soon as possible the division which is at 
 Troyes.''
 
 334 Lll^'t: OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Blucher retreatud along the Aube to La Rothiere, 
 nine miles from Brieune, where Schwartzenberg, incited 
 by the thunder of artillery, joined him. February 1st, 
 Blucher opened the conflict, which raged all day with 
 frightful ferocity. The eagles of Frajice were struck 
 down, and leaving five thousand of his soldiers mangled 
 on the frozen plain, Napoleon fled toward Troves. This 
 second battle of Brienne, is called by French writers, 
 the battle of La Eothiere ; in which Napoleon's ad- 
 vanced guard was posted. 
 
 The allies now definitely arranged a conference for 
 the consideration of peace. The emperor informs 
 Joseph of its character : 
 
 IfAPOLEON" TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " PiNEY,* February 21, 1814. 
 
 ''It seems that the allies have fixed the 3d of Feb- 
 ruary for opening the congress at Chatillon ; that Lord 
 Castlereagh and half a dozen other Englishmen will 
 negotiate for England, M. de Stadion for Austria, M. 
 de Humboldt for Prussia, and Rasumouski for Russia. 
 It appears that the allies feared lest the arrival of the 
 Duke of Vicenza at their headquarters might develop 
 and mature the seeds of disunion already existing 
 among them. They preferred to hold the congress at 
 a distance from their headquarters. I shall be at 
 Troyes to-morrow." 
 
 He arrived at Troyes on the 3d, and remained there 
 three days ; during which, Joseph despatched a mes- 
 sage containing the following significant passage : 
 
 "The public mind was depressed to-day, and I had 
 great trouble in keeping up the spirits of many people. 
 I have seen the empress twice, and when I left her last 
 
 ♦ A village half way hotweon Brienne and TroyeB.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. p,35 
 
 night she was more composed ; she had just received a 
 letter from your majesty in which you mention tlie 
 congress. 
 
 -'If your majesty siiould meet witli serious reverses, 
 Avhat form of government ought to be left here in order 
 to prevent intriguers from putting themselves at the 
 head of the first movement ? Jerome asks me what 
 should be his conduct in such a case ? Men are coming 
 in, but we want money to clothe them. Count Darn 
 can obtain only 10,000 fr. a day from the Treasury ; 
 this delays terribly the departure of the troops. Tliere 
 are here two battalions of National Guards." 
 
 The emperor with gleams of hope, and a faithful 
 army, lived continually under the shadow of fear for 
 his capital. In a reply to his brother he betrays his 
 anxiety : " Take away from Fontainebleau all valu- 
 ables, and above all everything which might serve as 
 a trophy, without, however, unfurnishing the chateau 
 too much ; it is useless to leave in it plate or anything 
 that can be easily removed. 1 am writing to La Bouil- 
 lerie to desire him to hold a million francs at your dispo- 
 sal, to hasten the clothing and equipment of the troo23s." 
 
 He gave orders to '' hold firmly the batteries of 
 Paris," to watch the three points of ajjproach, and 
 arm with fowling-pieces and pikes, reserves for defense. 
 
 He complains that " the bad spirit of such men as 
 Talleyrand, who endeavored to paralyze the nation, 
 prevented him from having early recourse to arms," 
 the consequence of which was the doubtful crisis of 
 national affairs. His efforts to quiet the popular feel- 
 ing were constant, and he resorted to any form of de- 
 ception to attain the object. From Nogent, on the 
 Seine, to which he had advanced, he directed Joseph 
 to " insert in the Monitcur an article, headed Cha-
 
 336 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 tillou-snr-Seine, saying that on the 6th the members of 
 the congress dined with the Duke of A^icenza ; that it 
 is remarked that all the ambassadors are on terms of 
 the greatest politeness, especially those of France and 
 England, who are full of attentions for each other." 
 
 The correspondence given at length, presents a vivid 
 picture of the crowding events of this reign of terror, 
 and exhibits the character of actors on the world-excit- 
 ing stage of royal contest. 
 
 JOSEPH TO JSTAPOLEON". 
 
 "Paris, February 7, 1814 ; 11 p.m. 
 
 " Sire — I have received your majesty's two letters 
 of yesterday. I have seen and written to the Duke of 
 Valmy. He starts to-night for Meaux. He showed 
 me a letter from the Duke of Taranto, dated the 6th. 
 He was still at Epernay, and had heard nothing from 
 your majesty for four days. He had abandoned 
 Chalons after defending it for some time. The artil- 
 lery was directed on Meaux. The enemy had entered 
 Sezanne. The intendant and the public treasure had 
 escaped falling into the hands of the enemy. 
 
 "1 inclose the exact route of the 9th infantry division 
 of the army of Spain. 
 
 " I have sent an aide-de-camp along the Chalons 
 road by way of Vitry. 
 
 '* The minister of war tells me that he sent two thou- 
 sand muskets to Montereau this morning. 
 
 " I have spoken to Louis about leaving him here ; 
 he has written to me a long letter on the subject. I 
 have determined on forwarding it to your majesty. I 
 believe that your majesty told me that tlie princesses 
 were to accompany the empress. If this should not be 
 the case, I ought to have positive orders on tlie subject. 
 I am most anxious that the departure of the empress
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 337 
 
 should not take place. We cannot disguise from our- 
 selves the fact that the consternation and despair of the 
 people may lead to sad and even fatal consequences. I 
 think, and so do all persons whose opinion is of value, 
 that we should be prepared to make many sacrifices be- 
 fore resorting to this extremity. The men who are at- 
 tached to your majesty's government fear tliat the de- 
 parture of the empress will abandon the people of Paris 
 to despair, and give a capital and an empire to the Bour- 
 bons. Although I express the fear which I see on every 
 face, your majesty may rest assured that your orders 
 will be faithfully executed by me as soon as I receive 
 them. 
 
 '*I have spoken to General Caffarelli on the subject 
 of Fontainebleau, and to M. de la Bouillerie about the 
 million for the war and the removal of the treasure.* 
 I do not know how far your majesty may approve of 
 my observations, but I must say that I think it impor- 
 tant to pay a month's salary to the great dignitaries, 
 ministers, counseillers d'etat, and senators. Several 
 have been mentioned to me who are really in distress, 
 and, in the event of their departure becoming expedi- 
 ent, it is thought that many will be detained in Paris 
 for want of the means of traveling. 
 
 " Marshal Brune has called on me ; I was not able 
 
 ♦ The treasure In the hands of M. de la Bouillerie was gradually accu- 
 mulated by Napoleon out of the contributions which he imposed on con- 
 quered towns, and out of the sale or the revenues of the domains belonging 
 to the sovereigns whom he deposed or robbed. It was completely at his 
 disposal, but was employed by him only for military purposes. Not 
 much is known as to its extent, or as to the mode in which it finally dis- 
 appeared ; but the general opinion is, that at the beginning of 1814 it 
 amounted to about 150,000,000 of francs, and that about 110,000,000 of it were 
 spent on the army before the expulsion of Napoleon. When that event 
 happened about 40,000,000 of this treasure are supposed to have remained. 
 It fell into the hands of the government which succeeded him, but was 
 never accounted for ; one or two of the great fortunes of the Restoration 
 are suspected to have been created out of it.— Ta. 
 22
 
 338 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 to see him. I have no doubt that he came to offer his 
 services. I should like to know your majesty's wishes 
 on the subject. 
 
 " Jerome is annoyed that your majesty has not yet 
 explained your intentions as to the request which I 
 made for him in two of my former letters. * 
 
 " I am told that M. de la Fayette was one of the 
 first grenadiers of the national guard on duty at the 
 Hotel de Ville. 
 
 *'The barriers will be completely fortified to-morrow, 
 and we shall begin to send artillery thither. 
 
 "^ General Caliarelli answered to the Duke of Coneg- 
 liano that he had not yet received a reply from the 
 Grand Marshal of the Palace to his request for permis- 
 sion to place twenty-five national guards at the Tuil- 
 leries. 
 
 *'P. S. — I have received your majesty's letter, dated 
 to-day, from Nogent. I have already ordered its direc- 
 tions to be followed, and I will keep your majesty in- 
 formed during the progress of their execution. 
 
 *' The courier Remy will be the bearer of this letter." 
 
 NAPOLEON" TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " NoGENT, February 8, 1814 ; 11 a. m. 
 
 *' My Brother — I have received your letter of the 
 7th, 11 p. M. It surprised me extremely. I have an- 
 swered you on the event of Paris, f that you may not 
 ask me any more about what is to follow it — a matter 
 which interests more persons than me. When that hap- 
 
 * Joseph had proposed that he should be employed.— Tr. 
 
 + If Napoleon refers to any of the letters now published, they must be 
 the two of the Gth of February. But neither of these letters mentions the 
 empress or the King of Rome. Perhaps he refers to viva voce instruc- 
 tions. 
 
 It is to be observed that he never mentions the capture of Paris indi- 
 rect terms. Here he alludes to it as " Tevenement de Paris." In his first 
 letter of the 6th he calls it " Dans des moments extraordinairo« ; " in the 
 second " Dans tout evenement imprevu."— Tb,
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 339 
 
 pens I shall be no more, consequently it is not for ni}'- 
 self that I speak. I told you that the movemeuts of 
 the empress and the King of Rome, and the rest of our 
 family, must be governed by circumstances, and you 
 have not understood me. Be sure that, if the event 
 takes place, what I have prophesied will certainly fol- 
 low ; I am persuaded that she herself has the same 
 expectation.* 
 
 ''King Louis talks of peace. His advice is ill-timed ; 
 in fact, I can understand nothing in your letter. I 
 thought that I had explained myself to you, but you 
 never recollect anything, and you are of the opinion of 
 the first comer and of the last speaker. 
 
 ''I repeat, then, in two words, Paris will never be 
 occupied while I am alive. I have a right to be be- 
 lieved if I am understood. 
 
 *'I will admit, that if through unforeseen circum- 
 stances, I should march toward the Loire, I should not 
 leave the empress and my son at a distance from me, be- 
 cause, whatever happened, they might both be carried 
 off to Vienna ; this would be still more likely to take 
 place if I were not alive. I cannot make out how, with 
 all these intrigues going on around you, you can bestow 
 such imprudent praise upon the proposals of traitors, 
 who are incapable of giving honorable advice : never 
 employ them, even in the most favorable circumstances. 
 Besides, no one is bound to do what is impossible. I 
 can no longer pay any of my officers : I have nothing. 
 
 '' I own that I am annoyed by your letter of the 
 7th, 11 P. M., because I see that there is no coherence 
 in your ideas, and that you allow yourself to be in- 
 fluenced by the chattering and the opinions of a set 
 of people who never reflect. Yes, I will talk to you 
 
 * This seems to be an allusion to something that passed in convers*- 
 tion.— Ta.
 
 340 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 openly. If Talleyrand has anything to do with the 
 project of leaving the empress in Paris in case of the 
 approach of the enemy, it is treachery. I repeat, dis- 
 trnst that man. I have dealt with him for the last 
 sixteen years ; once I even liked him ; but he is un- 
 doubtedly the greatest enemy to our house since it 
 has been abandoned by fortune. Keep to my advice. 
 I know more than all those people. If we are beaten 
 and I am killed, you will hear of it before the rest of 
 my family. Send the empress and the King of Rome 
 to Rambouillet ; order the senate, the conseil-d'etat, 
 and all the troops, to assemble on the Loire : leave 
 in Paris a jirefect, or an imperial commission, or some 
 mayors. 
 
 " I have told you * that Madame f and the Queen 
 of Wectphalia J may remain in Paris in Madame's 
 house. If the viceroy has returned to Paris, he may 
 also stay there ; but on no account let the empress 
 and the King of Rome fall into the hands of the 
 enemy. 
 
 *'Be certain that, from that moment, Austria, the 
 band which connected her with France being broken,*^ 
 would carry her off to Vienna, and give her a large 
 appanage ; and, on pretense of securing the happiness 
 of the empress, the French would be forced to do 
 whatever England aiid Russia miglit dictate. Every 
 [national] party would thus be destroyed, for * * * § ; 
 instead of whicli, in the other case, the national feel- 
 ings of the iiumbcrs wliose interest it would be to rebel, 
 make it impossible to foresee tlie result. || 
 
 * Apparently in conversation.— Tr. + Napoleon's mother.— Tr. 
 
 X Jerome's wife. — Tr. 
 
 I The words of the text are. " TAutriche 6tant d6sint6ress6e." I think 
 that tliis is their meaning. — Tr. 
 
 § Illegible. --En. 
 
 II The loss of the first part of this sentence renders the second part 
 obscure.— Tr.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 34 1 
 
 ''However, it may happen that I beat the enemy 
 on his approach to Paris, and that none of these things 
 may take place. It is also possible that I may make 
 peace in a few days. But, at all events, it appears 
 from your letter of the 7th, 11 p. m., that you have 
 no means of defense. Your judgment in these matters 
 is always at fault; your very j)riuciples are wrong. It 
 is for the interest even of Paris that the empress and 
 the King of Eome should not remain there, because 
 its welfare depends on their safety ; and since the world 
 has existed, I have never heard of a sovereign allowing 
 himself to be taken in any open town. This would be 
 the first instance. 
 
 " The unfortunate King of Saxony has just reached 
 France ; he is beginning to lose his happy illusions. 
 
 " In difficult and critical circumstances a man does 
 his duty, and leaves the rest to take its course. If I 
 should haj)pen to live, I ought to be, and I have no 
 doubt that I shall be, obeyed ; if I die, my son, as 
 sovereign, and the empress as regent, must not, for 
 the honor of the French, allow themselves to be taken ; 
 they must retreat to the last village. 
 
 " Remember what was said by the wife of Philip V. 
 What, indeed, would be said of the empress ? That 
 she had abandoned our throne and that of her son. 
 Nothing would better please the allies than to make 
 an end of everything by carrying them off prisoners 
 to Vienna. I am surprised that you do not see this. 
 I see that fear has turned all your heads in Paris. 
 
 "The empress and the King of Rome, once at 
 Vienna, or in the hands of our enemies, you and all 
 others who attempted a defense would be rebels. 
 
 " As for me, I would rather they would kill my son 
 than see him brought up at Vienna as an Austrian 
 prince, and I think well enough of the empress to be-
 
 342 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 lieve that she is of the same opiniou, as far as that is 
 possible to a woman and a mother. 
 
 " I have never seen Andromaque acted without 
 pitying the fate of Astyanax in surviving the rest of 
 his house, nor without thinking that it would have 
 been a blessing for him if he had died before his 
 father. 
 
 " You do not understand the French nation. It is 
 impossible to foresee the ultimate result of such great 
 events as these. 
 
 ** As for Louis, I think that he ought to follow you." 
 
 The only letter written by the empress which ap- 
 pears up to this date possesses interest, as I'evealing the 
 affectionate nature of the Austrian successor to the 
 peerless Josephine. 
 
 MARIE LOUISE TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Paris, February 8th, 1814. 
 
 "My Dear Brother — I received last night a letter 
 from the emperor, dated the 6th. He tells me that he 
 is well, and that circumstances, although they are 
 difficult, have improved during the last week. lie 
 desires me not to be anxious ; you know that this is 
 impossible. If you have any details, it will be very 
 kind in you to send them to me. You see, my dear 
 brotiier, from my teasing you in this way, the confi- 
 dence which I have in your friendsiiip and patience. 
 I entreat you to believe in the friendship of your af- 
 fectionate sister." 
 
 The want of muskets was the fatal difficulty in the 
 way of defending Paris. The Russian war had made 
 an enormous waste of arms, and it had been impossible 
 in so brief a period to supply the deficiency. Multi«
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 343 
 
 tudes, wlio asked for weapons, were denied. But for 
 this the capital might have been secure. 
 
 The ex-King of Spain, in a further communication, 
 alluded to a proposed order by tlie empress for public 
 prayers and religious ceremonies, in a manner that 
 discloses the unrest of the Catholic population, and 
 also the magazine of feeling, which a spark might 
 kindle into a conflagration. 
 
 JOSEPH TO XAPOLEOX, 
 
 "Paris, February 8, 1814 ; midnight. 
 
 **SiRE — I have desired M. de la Bouillerie to make 
 arrangements which will enable him, if I desire him 
 to leave Paris with the treasure, to set off in six hours 
 after receiving the order. He has, therefore, been 
 obliged to load some fourgons, and to house them in 
 the court of the Grand Ecuyer on the Carousal. This 
 was effected in the night, and the officers on guard 
 in the palace alone can have been aware of it. The 
 director of the Museum came to-day to tell me that it 
 ought to be shut up, and the things of most value sent 
 out of Paris, unless I gave him orders to the contrary. 
 As your majesty has given none to me, I could give 
 none to him. If I should receive any from your majest}', 
 I will communicate them without delay. 
 
 " It appears to me, sire, that the pi'oposed solemnity 
 at St. Genevieve will not have a good effect. The 
 public is already so depressed, and so inclined to trust 
 to accidents for its defense, that we ought not to in- 
 crease its inactivity by telling it to hope for safety 
 from religions intercession. I may add, that to the 
 incredulous these prayers would be a mere ceremony, 
 or an avowal of danger and of distrust in our own ex- 
 ertions. With respect to the good Catholics, your
 
 341 i-IFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 majesty may rest assured tliat the government will 
 obtain nothing from them till you are jjublicly recon- 
 ciled to the vicar of Jesus Christ. No, sire, in France 
 none are truly religious but those who acknowledge 
 the Pope as their spiritual head. The rest are not 
 Catholics, but unbelievers or Protestants. Therefore, 
 till I see in the 3fonUeur, *The Pope has returned to 
 Rome: the emperor has ordered him to be properly 
 escorted and received there,' I do not think that any 
 religious ceremony would produce an impression on 
 the Catholics in your majesty's favor. This, sire, is 
 the truth. The empress is in better spirits to-day. I 
 have passed the day in sustaining the hopes of people 
 who have much less self-possession than belongs to her 
 majesty." 
 
 Napoleon approved the suggestion, and the appeal to 
 the religious element was abandoned. 
 
 Like the flames of a burning forest around a solitary 
 clearing, the foes of France, with the fire of battle, 
 girdled the interior of France, and swept onward to- 
 ward Paris and the throne. The emperor desired peace, 
 and gave Caulaincourt full powers *' to keep the nego- 
 tiations alive, and save the capital." On the 8th the 
 Duke of Vicenza proposed a treaty on the basis of the 
 ancient limits of France which were the frontier be- 
 fore 1789, and nearly its present boundary ; while the 
 *' natural limits " were the Alps, the Pyrenees and the 
 Rhine. Napoleon consented to sign these conditions, 
 as a subsequent letter will disclose, if the allies would 
 immediately cease hostilities. This they refused to do, 
 and the conference closed. They declared that sign- 
 ing preliminaries would not close the war — the treaty 
 must be definitely settled. Meanwhile, Joseph wrote 
 earnestly in behalf of jjeace.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 345 
 
 JOSEPH TO NAPOLEON". 
 
 " Paris, February 9th, 1814 ; 11 a.m. 
 
 *'SiRE — I have received your letters of the 8th ut 
 8 P.M. I have sent the one to the Empress Josephine, 
 and I am expecting an answer by Tascher. After the 
 cabinet council I will see MM. de Feltre and d'Hau- 
 terive. The Minister of ^Yar has written to me a letter 
 which I send on to your majesty ; you will see that our 
 muskets are reduced to six thousand. It is, therefore, 
 useless to expect to form a reserve of from thirty to 
 forty thousand men in Paris. Things are stronger 
 than men, sire ; and when this is clearly proved, it 
 seems to me that true glory consists in preserving as 
 much as possible of one's jieople and one's emj)ire ; and 
 that to expose a precious life to such evident danger is 
 not glorious, because it is against the interests of a 
 great number of men whose existence is attached to 
 your own. Your majesty may rest assured that I shall 
 faithfully execute your commands, whatever they may 
 be. No one here has anything, directly or indirectly, 
 to do with what I am writing to your majesty in per- 
 fect openness, just as it occurs to me. 
 
 '■' I see so much depression, that I fear that it is use- 
 less to expect an army of reserve, or any extraordinary 
 effort to be made in Paris : you must, therefore, sub- 
 mit with fortitude to necessity ; whether you are per- 
 mitted to make a great nation happy, or you are forced 
 to yield, there being no choice left except between 
 death and dishonor ; and, at this juncture, I see no 
 dishonor for your majesty, unless you abandon the 
 throne, because in this case you would ruin a number 
 of individuals who have devoted themselves to you. If 
 it be possible, then, make peace at any price ; if that 
 is impossible, when the hour comes we must meet
 
 34:6 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 death with resolution, as did the last Emperor of Con- 
 stantinople. 
 
 " Should this occur, your majesty may be persuaded 
 that I shall in every respect follow out your wishes, 
 and that I shall do nothing unworthy either of you or 
 of me." 
 
 The Silesian army, in four divisions, under Blucher, 
 Sacken, D'York and Alsusief, was marching on Paris 
 down the Marne, and also along another road across 
 the marshy country by Vertus, Etoges and Montmirail. 
 The allied grand army, commanded by Schwartzenberg, 
 whose headquarters were at Troyes, was moving to- 
 ward the capital through the valley of the Seine. 
 Napoleon, at Nogent, upon the latter river, was be- 
 tween the two armies, and on the 9th designed, by a 
 flank movement to Sezanne, to attack Blucher, while 
 separated from the other portion of the invading host. 
 Unexpectedly at Baye he encountered a division of the 
 enemy, and, after a fierce contest, defeated it, and 
 reached Sezanne the same day. " The next day, the 
 10th, he beat Alsusief at Champ-Aubert ; on the 11th ho 
 defeated Sacken at Montmirail ; on the 12th he defeated 
 York at (Jhateau-Tliierry, and, finding that Blucher 
 was advancing, he turned back to Montmirail, and on 
 the 14th defeated him with great loss at Yauchamps, a 
 village between Montmirail and Etoges, and drove him 
 back through Etoges to Chalons. 
 
 " But Scliwartzonberg was profiting by Napoleon's 
 absence to march on Paris by the Seine. He drove 
 Victor out of Nogent, occupied Monterau, and pene- 
 trated beyond Nangis to Mormant, a village not more 
 than twenty-five miles from Paris. Three marshals, 
 Oudinot, Victor, and Macdonald, were opposed to him 
 with a force of about forty-seven thousand men, but
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 347 
 
 they appear to have expected defeat, and earnestly im- 
 plored Napoleon's presence. Napoleon left Montmirail 
 on the 15th, a few hoars after he had defeated Blucher, 
 reached Meaux the same day, and on the 16th joined 
 his marshals at Guignes, a small town at the intersec- 
 tion of the roads from Meaux to Melun, and from Paris 
 to Nogent. On the 17th he drove the Russians, under 
 Count Pahlen, from Mormant, and entered Nangis, and 
 on the 18th he drove the Prince of Wirtemberg out of 
 Monterau, and marched on Troyes, from whence the 
 allied sovereigns and Schwartzenberg fled in terror, 
 and scarcely paused until they found themselves more 
 than one hundred miles off at Langres. In nine days 
 he gained seven victories, made nine marches in the 
 depth of winter, most of them over cross-roads, such as 
 the cross-roads of France then were, and drove away or 
 frightened away two armies, each much larger than his 
 own. 
 
 " It is not surprising that such wonderful success, 
 immediately following two years of almost uninter- 
 rupted disaster, somewhat intoxicated him, and led 
 him to believe that the chances were again in his favor, 
 and even to imagine that the allies themselves had 
 little hope of escaping with many of their troops from 
 France." 
 
 The general feeling and the condition of affairs at 
 the capital during these triumphs, are fully and for- 
 cibly portrayed in the words of the chief of the council 
 of state : 
 
 JOSEPH TO XAPOLEOX. 
 
 "Paris, February, 11, 1814 ; 7 a.m. 
 
 *' Sire — I did not receive your letter dated Sezanne, 
 the 10th, 10 A.M., till to-day at seven. I have des- 
 patched a courier to inform Marshal Macdonald of your
 
 34S LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 majesty's arrival at Champ- Aubert, on the rear of the 
 enemy's column, then at Montmirail. 
 
 "Nothing remarkable is going on here. The public 
 mind continues in the same state. The wives and 
 cliildren of many of the principal public functionaries 
 have left the capital. The rise in the funds which took 
 place yesterday is attributed to a letter from the Duke 
 of Vicenza, giving hopes of the negotiations terminating 
 favorably. Every one is persuaded that our affairs can 
 be reestablished in no other way ; the state of the 
 exchequer and the arsenals is known to all the world ; 
 and whatever prodigies may yet be expected from the 
 experience and skill of your majesty, it is not thought 
 possible that you can struggle alone against numbers 
 and circumstances. The ministers have doubtless 
 already informed your majesty that one of the Bour- 
 bons has joined Lord Wellington's army, and that 
 another is in Holland. Many sick have arrived here. 
 Money is wanting to pay the troops ; tliey commit in 
 consequence all sorts of irregularities, which exasperate 
 the inhabitants to such a degree (I can speak chiefly of 
 those of Versailles, Compiegne, and Senlis), that it is 
 not uncommon to hear it said publicly, ' The enemy 
 could not do worse.' 
 
 "I do not write these disagreeable truths to your 
 majesty for the sake of jiersuading you to make peace 
 — I know that you desire it more than any other person 
 — but in order to console you, if you should be forced 
 to submit to conditions to which France would not be 
 reduced, if the strongtli of mind of all her people were 
 in proportion to that of her sovereign. I entreat your 
 majesty to believe that my language to the rest of the 
 world is very different ; but I am obliged to own that 
 there is no salvation for us but in the speediest peace, 
 on whatever conditions. I know no one who is of a
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 349 
 
 contrary opinion. Your majesty's most faithful ser- 
 vants are chiefly distinguished by their profound con- 
 viction that, witli jjeace, your majesty Avill find in your 
 own genius, and in the confidence of the nation, means 
 to restore our affairs/' 
 
 Again the negotiations for peace were opened, but 
 Kapoleon refused to sign an armistice on the former 
 terms of treaty. His circumstances had greatly 
 changed, and instead of a willingness to obtain a cessa- 
 tion of hostilities upon the humbling conditions of the 
 "ancient limits," according to the earnest desire of his 
 brother and other leading minds at Paris, he demanded 
 a retreat from his dominions. The whole course of 
 momentous events at this decisive time, is given in the 
 unreserved utterance of tlie emperor's policy in his 
 correspondence. The fact, which some historians 
 warmly dispute, that he identified himself and his 
 family with the glory of France, with an unrivaled 
 ambition, appears from his own confession. It is 
 equally evident that under the power of royal associ- 
 ations, and fearing the spreading influence of a neiu 
 7nan, both in his system of government, and contempt 
 of the '' divine right " of kings, England with her allies 
 was resolved, at every sacrifice of treasure and blood, 
 to crush Xapoleon, and restore the indolent, worthless 
 Bourbons to the throne of France. 
 
 XAPOLEOX TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Nangis, February 18, 1814. 
 
 " My Brothee — Prince Schwartzenberg has at last 
 shown signs of life. He has just sent a flag of truce 
 to ask for a suspension of hostilities. It is hard to be 
 dastardly to such a degree. He constantly, in the 
 most insulting terms, rejected every species of suspen-
 
 350 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 sion of arms or armistice ; and after the capitulation 
 of Dantzic and that of Dresden he refused even to re- 
 ceive my flags of truce, a barbarity of which there are 
 few examples in history. On the first repulse these 
 wretches are on their knees. Happily the Prince of 
 Schwartzenberg's aide-de-camp was not allowed to come 
 within our posts. I received only his letter, which I 
 shall answer at my leisure. I shall not grant any 
 armistice till I have cleared my territory of them. 
 From what I hear, the allies seem to have quite changed 
 their minds. The Emperor of Russia, who, a few days 
 ago, broke off the negotiations, because he wished to 
 impose upon France worse conditions than those of our 
 ancient limits, wishes now to renew them ; and I hope 
 that I may soon attain a peace founded on the terms of 
 Frankfort, which are the lowest I could accept with 
 honor.* Before I began my last operations, I offered 
 to sign on the basis of the ancient limits, provided they 
 would cease hostilities immediately. This proposal was 
 made by the Duke of Vicenza on the 8th. They re- 
 fused. They said that even the signature of prelimi- 
 naries Avould not put a stop to hostilities ; that the war 
 should last till all the articles of peace were signed. 
 They have been j^unished for this inconceivable answer, 
 and yesterday, on the 17th, asked for an armistice ! 
 
 ''You may well imagine that on the eve of a battle f 
 which I was resolved to win, or to perish, when, if I 
 failed, my capital was taken, I would then have con- 
 sented to anything rather than run so great a risk. I 
 
 * The terms offered by the allies from Frankfort were what the French 
 have called the " natural limits" of France, namely, the Alps, the Pyre- 
 nees, and the Rhine. 
 
 The term " ancient limits " signifies the frontier of France before 1789, 
 and with slight modifications, her present frontier.— Tr. 
 
 t Napoleon uses the word battle to signify his whole connected opera 
 tions againgt Blucher,— Tr.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 351 
 
 owed this sacrifice of my pride to my family and to my 
 people. But since they refused these terms ; since the 
 danger has been encountered ; since everything has 
 returned to the ordinary risks of war ; since a defeat 
 no longer exposes my capital ; since all the chances are 
 for me, the welfare of the empire and my own fame 
 require me to make a real peace. If I had signed on 
 the terms of the ancient limits, I should have rushed 
 to arms in two years, and I should have told the nation 
 that I had signed not a peace, but a capitulation. I 
 could not say this in present circumstances, for, as for- 
 tune is again on my side, I can impose my own condi- 
 tions. The enemy is in a very different position from 
 that vi^hich he occupied when he made the Frankfort 
 propositions ; he must now feel almost certain that few 
 of his troops will recross the frontier. His cavalry 
 is worn out and low; his infantry is exhausted by 
 marches and counter-marches ; he has lost all heart. I 
 hope, therefore, to make a jieace such as v/ill satisfy a 
 reasonable man ; and I wish for no more than the con- 
 ditions of Frankfort. Whisper that the enemy finding 
 himself embarrassed, has asked for an armistice, or a 
 suspension of hostilities, which was absurd, as it would 
 have deprived me of the fruit of my operations : add 
 that this shows how thoroughly he is disheartened. 
 Do not let this be printed, but let it be repeated in 
 every quarter." 
 
 Napoleon in vain looked for a more yielding spirit in 
 the enemy. A second " expedition of the Marne " was 
 the plan of the tireless, ubiquitous genius of the man 
 who has no equal in the energies of body and mind, 
 and the amazing versatility of his talent. On the 18th 
 he met and conquered two divisions of the enemy near 
 Montereau, and secured the bridge on the Seine. His
 
 352 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 exposure of his person was never surpassed by the com- 
 monest soldier. The next day was spent in erecting 
 bridges, and crossing an ahnost impassable defile ; in the 
 midst of which he wrote : " Tlie Emperor of Russia and 
 the King of Prussia were at Bray, As soon as they 
 heard that I had forced tlie bridge of Montereau, they 
 ran away as fast as they coukl. Their whole army is 
 terrified. The three sovereigns spent a few days at 
 Pont, with Madame. They intend to reach Fontaine- 
 bleau to-morrow, and in a very few days, Paris : they 
 cannot understand what is taking place. To-day we 
 have snow, and the weather is rather severe. I am 
 sending an article for the Moniteur to the empress, but 
 you may put into the Moniteur, as well as into the 
 other newspapers, under the head of Provins, a notice 
 of the precipitation witli which the sovereigns quitted 
 Bray. The Austrians protected my palace at Fontaine- 
 blean from the Cossacks. We have taken several con- 
 voys of baggage and some carriages going toward Bray. 
 Several hundred Cossacks have been taken in the forest 
 of Fontainebleau. My advanced guard will reach Bray 
 to-morrow.'' 
 
 As indicated in this language, Napoleon resorted 
 now to the system of terror. Oudinot and Macdonald 
 were ordered to march against Schwartzenberg, and the 
 troops were to shout "Vive I'Empereur ! " when in the 
 hearing of the hostile forces, to convey the impression 
 that the mighty commander was himself advancing. 
 From Montereau Napoleon marched to Nogent, thence 
 by way of Chartres to Troyes, with no battles except- 
 ing a hot and profitless skirmish with Bluchcr at Mery, 
 the result of unforeseen proximity. There was during 
 the close of February a pause in the emi^eror's move- 
 ments, for the twofold reason that peace was possible, 
 and the preceding campaign, distinguished for iuten-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 353 
 
 sity of action, made repose desirable. Orleans became 
 terrified at the ai:)proach of a small force, and he dic- 
 tated a thrilling appeal to arm and meet the assault, 
 which was to be read iu the name of the empress. He 
 directed placards of the enemy's atrocities to be scat- 
 tered through Paris ; and nothing overlooked Avhich 
 might arouse tlie people to the final struggle. Joseph 
 meanwhile was writing sad news of tiie popular unrest, 
 the rise of Bourbon sympathy at Amiens, the crumbling 
 administration ; and urging peace. In dwelling on 
 these alarming facts, he adds, with subdued expres- 
 sions of encouragement : " The people of Paris, hostile 
 to the government a month ago, touched by your maj- 
 esty's confidence in trusting your wife and your son to 
 them, encouraged and astonished by your majesty's 
 successes, are yet not in a state in which more than 
 mere fidelity and obedience can be expected. They 
 admire your genius, but they can be excited only by 
 the hope of a speedy peace, and they are by no means 
 inclined to oppose any effective resistance to a hostile 
 army, or to send detachments of the national guard 
 beyond the walls. This, sire, is the exact truth. Your 
 majesty must not rely on an exertion greater than can 
 fairly be expected from a population so disposed. 
 
 Augereau failed, at this crisis, with a strange and 
 unaccountable disregard of orders, to attack the allies 
 in flank, and march on to Geneva to cut off their com- 
 munications ; Avhicli contributed largely to the ulti- 
 mate disaster. At the moment Naj)oleon was expect- 
 ing the marshal to meet Borghese at Chambry, he was 
 exulting in the success of stratagem, which he thus an- 
 nounced in the despatch : *' Terror reigns in the ranks 
 of the enemy. A few days ago they thought that I had 
 no army ; now their imagination sticks at nothing ; 
 three hundred thousand or four hundred thousand men 
 ?3
 
 354 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 are not enough for them. They fancied that I had 
 none but recruits ; they now say that I have collected 
 all my veterans, and that my armies consist of picked 
 men ; that the French army is better than ever, etc. 
 See what is the effect of terror. The Parisian newspa- 
 pers must confirm their fears. Newspapers are not his- 
 tory, any more than bulletins are history : one should al- 
 ways persuade the enemy that one's forces are immense." 
 
 He also took advantage of the neglect of the allies to 
 confirm the treaty with Murat of security to his throne, 
 and through Joseph made a last effort to regain the 
 loyalty and cooperation of the King of Naples. 
 
 From Troyes he advanced northward to fall upon 
 Blucher, leaving Oudinot and Gerard to hold Schwart- 
 zenberg in check. 
 
 Those generals were defeated soon after. The em- 
 peror, who expected to find the enemy before Soissons, 
 learned on the 4th of March that the town had surren- 
 dered. An attack on the position failed, and on the 
 7th he gave Blucher battle at Craonne. AVitli victory for 
 tlie moment, he pursued the Prussian commander to 
 the stronghold of Laon. Upon these heiglits, protected 
 by terrace-walls, between wliich lay the fruitful vine- 
 yards, the foe were intrenched, and through the mist 
 which covered the advancing columns of the French 
 till midway on the slope, poured their terrible fire into 
 the ranks of Napoleon. Tlie storm of balls was irre- 
 sistible, and retiring, the next day, March 11th, they 
 retreated to Chavignon, leaving thirty cannon and ten 
 thousand men. At Soissons he commenced strengthen- 
 ing his position to meet Blucher, when tidings that 
 jilieims was taken by St. Priest, a French emigrant, 
 with a Russian corps, readied his ear. 
 
 He immediately and rapidly marched thither, and 
 took the town by assault at midnight. St. Priest was
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 355 
 
 killed by the same artilleryman that directed the gun 
 which cut Moreau in pieces ; and drew from Napoleon 
 the remark, '' It really seems like a stroke of Prov- 
 idence." "While these things were transpiring on the 
 field of conflict, Joseph was tortured with anxiety 
 among the restless masses at home. lie Avrote in the 
 following pleading tone to Napoleon : 
 
 ''As for yon, sire, who have been so repeatedly vic- 
 torious, I am convinced that you possess all the quali- 
 ties which might make the French forget, or rather 
 might recall to them, the best features of the reigns of 
 Louis XIL, Henri IV., and Louis XIV., if you will 
 make a lasting peace with Europe, and if, returning 
 to your natural kindness, and renouncing your assumed 
 character and your perpetual efforts, you will at last 
 consent to relinquish the part of the wonderful man 
 for that of the great sovereign. 
 
 " After having saved France from anarchy within, 
 and from all Europe without, you Avill become the 
 father of your people, and you will be adored as much 
 as Louis XII., after having been admired more than 
 Henri IV. and Louis XIV. ; and in order thus to ac- 
 cumulate every species of glory, you have only to will 
 your own happiness, as well as that of France. 
 
 :(: :|< 4: 4: :(: 
 
 ''The result of all that I hear from the ministers, 
 from the chief officers of the national guards, from all 
 the persons whom I know to be attached to the present 
 order of government, is, that circumstances render 
 peace imperative. There is not one individual in Paris 
 who would not loudly ask for it if it were not for the 
 fear of offending you ; and, in truth, none but your 
 enemies can endeavor to persuade you to refuse a peace 
 with the ancient limits. The month of March is slip-
 
 356 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 ping iiwuy, yet the fields are not sown. It is however 
 superfluous to enter into further details. Your majesty 
 must feel that there is no longer any remedy but peace, 
 and an immediate peace. Every day that is lost is 
 mischievous to our personal popularity. Individual 
 distress is extreme ; and on the day when it is believed 
 that your majesty has j)referred prolonging the war to 
 making even a disadvantageous peace, there is no 
 doubt that disgust will incline the public mind in an- 
 other direction. If Toulouse or Bordeaux should set 
 up a Bourbon, you will have civil war, and the im- 
 mense population of Paris will suj^port the side which 
 promises to give them peace soonest. 
 
 ''Such is the state of opinion ; no one can change it. 
 This being the case, the only way is to submit. If the 
 peace be unfavorable, it will be no fault of yours, as all 
 classes here insist upon it. I cannot be mistaken, as 
 my view is that of all the world. We are on the eve of 
 total destruction ; our only hope is in peace." 
 
 Napoleon Avas four days at Rheims, from which he 
 replied to the complaints of his brother in a manner 
 wholly characteristic, and which needs no comment to 
 prove the essential selfishness of his nature beneath all 
 the grander displays of transcendent abilities. 
 
 NAPOLEON" TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Rheims, March 14, 1814. 
 
 ** My Brothee — I have received your letter of the 
 12th of March. 1 am sorry that you repeated to the 
 Duke of Conegliano what I had written to you. I do 
 not like all this gossip. If it suited me to remove the 
 Duke of Conegliano, all the idle talk of Paris would 
 have no effect. The national guard of Paris is a part 
 of the people of France, and, as long as I live, I will
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 357 
 
 be master everywhere in France. Your character is 
 opposed to mine ;.you like to flatter people, and to 
 yield to their wishes ; I like them to try to please me, 
 and to obey my wishes. I am as much a sovereign 
 now as I was at Austerlitz. Do not permit any person 
 to flatter the national guard, nor Regnaud, nor any 
 one else, to set himself uji as their tribune. I suppose, 
 however, that they see that there is some difference be- 
 tween the time of La Fayette, when the people ruled, 
 and the present time, when I rule. 
 
 " I have issued a decree for raising twelve battalions 
 in Paris out of the levee en masse. On no pretext must 
 the execution of this measure be delayed. I have 
 written my wishes on this subject to the ministers of 
 the Interior and of the Police. If the people find that, 
 instead of doing what is for their good, one is trying 
 to please them, it is quite natural that they should 
 think that they have the upper hand, and that they 
 should entertain but a mean oiDinion of those in author- 
 ity over them.*' 
 
 K"APOLEOX TO JOSEPH. 
 
 "Rheims, March 16, 1814. 
 
 *'In accordance with the verbal instructions which I 
 gave to you, and with the spirit of all my letters, you 
 must not allow, happen what may, the empress and the 
 King of Rome to fall into the hands of the enemy. 
 The maneuvers which I am about to make may possi- 
 bly prevent your hearing from me for several days. 
 If the enemy should march on Paris with so strong a 
 force as to render resistance impossible, send off to- 
 wards the Loire the regent, my son, the great digni- 
 taries, the ministers, the senators, the president of the 
 Conseil d'Etat, the chief officers of the crown, and 
 Baron de la Bouillerie, with the money which is in my
 
 358 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 treasury. Never lose siglit of my son, mid remember, 
 that I would rather know that he was in the Seine, 
 than that he was in tlie hands of the enemies of 
 France : the fate of Astyanax, prisoner to the Greeks, 
 has always seemed to me to be the most lamentablo 
 in history.'* 
 
 Wellington, with the Spanish hero, Mina, had taken 
 Bordeaux, invested Bayonne, and was sweeping victori- 
 ously onward to the interior of France. " iVnd such a 
 flood of soldiers as had not been seen since the Crusades, 
 poured over France, and against one formidable man." 
 
 The once sublime solitary monarch in self-reliance 
 and magical supremacy, was now like tlie surrounded 
 and yet defiant lion, chafing against restraint, and 
 doubtful in what direction to make the desperate at- 
 tempt at escape. Should he press on after Blucher, 
 Schwartzenberg would hasten to Paris before he could 
 return, if victorious. If he encountered the latter, 
 Blucher would dash onward to the Tuilleries. He de- 
 cided to do neither, but march into the rear of the grand 
 army, and, by the terror of his name and skilful ma- 
 neuvering, direct and paralyze their movements toward 
 Paris. On the 20th he was at Arcis-sur-Aube, where 
 Schwartzenberg gave him battle, and was beaten back 
 with desperate valor. He was two hundred miles from 
 the capital, with both the generals of the allied forces 
 between him and that city. 
 
 The 22d he reached Vitry, in the path of the enemy, 
 and summoned the commandant to surrender in vain. 
 The next day lie was at St. Dizier, and subsequently 
 had sharp skirniislies with the divisions left to watch 
 his progress. Tidings reached him that tlie main col- 
 umns of the allies were rapidly approaching Paris. Ho 
 then pushed forward with a superhuman energy, and
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPAliTK. 35O 
 
 reached Troyes on the 29th, having marched fifty miles 
 in a single day. Early in the morning with the remnant 
 of his guard he advanced a short distance, and then 
 leaving tliom^ he took a liglit carriage, and, accompanied 
 by Caulainconrt and Berthier, passed through Sens at 
 dead of night, ordering rations for one hundred and 
 fifty thousand troops, who he affirmed were advancing, 
 and arrived at La Cour de France, ten miles from Paris, 
 March 31st. 
 
 " Now, if one of the marshals had been in command 
 — if he had had to report tliat sucli had been the employ- 
 ment of the last army, and the last month, of the em- 
 pire — what would have been the storm of reproach and 
 invective with which he would have been assailed by 
 Napoleon ! 
 
 The ill-success of the first fortnight may be excused. 
 In his desperate state Napoleon was forced to run great 
 risks, and the defeat of Blucher would have been a 
 glorious prize. But from the time that he marched 
 eastward, to the rear of Schwartzenberg, he seems to 
 have wandered without any definite plan, at least witli- 
 out any definite militarj' plan. He relied on the terror 
 of his name. He had so often repeated that ''in war 
 moral force is everything," that he seems to have be- 
 lieved it to be literally true. He believed that all the 
 armies that were advancing on Paris would turn back 
 as soon as they found that he was in their rear, and 
 would follow him till he could be succored by his gar- 
 risons on the Ehine. In this expectation he marched 
 and countermarched, approached Vitry on the 22d, was 
 in St. Dizier on the 23d, left it on the 24th, returned 
 to it on the 26th, tried Vitry again on the 27th, and 
 awoke from his dream on the 28th to find that, while he 
 was in Lorraine, the allies were within a march of 
 Paris.''
 
 360 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 In Paris terror and confusion reigned. " The terri- 
 fied population of the country between Meaux and 
 Paris came pouring into the capital," says an eye-wit- 
 ness, " with their aged, infirm, children, cats, dogs, 
 live-stock, corn, hay, and household goods of every de- 
 scription. The boulevards were crowded with wagons, 
 carts, and carriages thus laden, to which cattle were 
 tied, and the Avhole surrounded with women." 
 
 The empress had fled, attended with seven hundred 
 soldiers, leaving only the national guard in the city ; 
 and with a train of wagons laden with plate and money, 
 reached Eambouillet. She there addressed a note to 
 Joseph : 
 
 MAEIA LOUISE TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Rambouillet, March 29 ; 5}^ p.m. 
 
 " My Dear Brother — I have this instant reached 
 Eambouillet, very sad and very harassed. It would be 
 very kind if you would let me know what is going on, 
 and whether the enemy has advanced. I wait for your 
 answer before I decide whether I ought to go farther 
 or to remain here. If I ought to move I beg you to 
 tell me what place you think would be best and safest 
 for me. I earnestly wish that you could write to me 
 to return to Paris ; it is the thing of all others which 
 w^ould give me most pleasure. A thousand remem- 
 brances to the queen. Pray believe in the sincere 
 friendship with which I am your most afEectiouate 
 sister." 
 
 Marmont and Mortier made a fruitless, though brave 
 resistance, U]3 to the very walls of the capital. The 
 30th was a fearful day. From Montniartre, and other 
 heights, tlie allies poured tlie cannonade into the 
 streets. Officers were despatched witli flags of truce 
 to beg for a suspension of hostilities, but in the terrific
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 801 
 
 Biege, they were shot down upon the intervening plain. 
 At 5 o'clock p. M,, the capitulation was signed. At La 
 Cour de France, General Belliard came up with his ex- 
 hausted, despairing cavalry. On the way to Fontaine- 
 bleau. Napoleon learned that he was too late, and 
 springing from his carriage inquired with agitation, 
 *'What means this? Wliy here with your cavalry, 
 Belliard ? And where are the enemy ? "Where are my 
 wife and my boy ? Where Marmont ? Where Mor- 
 tier?*' Belliard, walking by his side, told him the 
 events of the day. He called out for his carriage — 
 and insisted on continuing his journey. The general 
 in vain informed him that there was no longer an army 
 in Paris ; that the regulars were all coming behind, 
 and that neither they nor he himself, having left the 
 city in consequence of a convention, could possibly re- 
 turn 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.'* 
 With such exclamations Bonaparte hurried onward, 
 dragging Belliard with him until they were met, a mile 
 from La Cour de France, by the first of the retreating 
 infantry. Their commander. General Curial, gave the 
 same answers as Belliard. *' In proceeding to Paris," 
 said he, ''you rush on death or captivity." 
 
 But soon, seeing the dreaded reality of overthrow, 
 he resumed his calmness, sent Caulaincourt to Paris, 
 to accept whatever terms might be offered, and hast- 
 ened to the old castle of Fontainebleau. In the still- 
 ness of a secluded apartment, he laid down to repose ; 
 exchanging the dreams of greatness for the feverish 
 thoughts of a fallen monarch, wlio had given away 
 thrones and kingdoms, but was now an exile from his 
 own palace.
 
 362 LIi*'E OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 Caulaincourt secures an interview with the Czar of Russia.— Scenes in 
 the capital.— Correspondence between Napoleon and Joseph.— The ab- 
 dication. — The royal debate upon the disposal of the fallen emperor. — 
 Marmont's treachery. — The conditions of the allies.— Joseph urges 
 peace. — Napoleon's anguish. — Attempts suicide. — Adieu to his army. — 
 Josephine and Maria Louise. — Napoleon embarks for Elba.— Tlie return 
 of Louis XVIII. — His reign. —Napoleon at Elba. — His return to France. — 
 The tidings reach Talleyrand on the eve of a ball. — Vain attempt to 
 regain the empress and her son. — Letters. — The exile again on the 
 throne. — The allies enter the field. — Napoleon leads the French army.— 
 The plan of the campaign.— The battles of Ligny and Quatre-Bras.— 
 Waterloo.- The charge of the Old Guard. — The victory of Wellington.— 
 The flight of Napoleon. — He reaches the Elysee. — The meeting of the 
 Chambers.— The debates. — The abdication. 
 
 The same night in which the emperor was alone at 
 Fontaineblean, Canlaincourt rode in the larid light of 
 the camp-fires around the capital, towards the head- 
 quarters of the allied kings. It was the first of April, 
 when the dawn broke upon the tumultuous city. The 
 Duke of Yicenza was repulsed, and an audience with 
 Alexander, who retained some show of interest in 
 Napoleon, seemed impossible, when unexpectedly 
 meeting the Grand Duke Constantine, the czar's 
 brother, with whom he was familiar at St. Petersburg, 
 he was conveyed in disguise to the royal presence. 
 With Alexander he passed several hours. He was 
 awhile alone in the apartment of the palace of the 
 Elysee, occupied by Napoleon for sleeping, where he 
 found private papers, plans, and maps left by his sov- 
 ereign, and committed them to the flames. During 
 three hours the triumjihal procession avus moving 
 through Paris ; fifty thousand troops — cavalry and in-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 303 
 
 fantry, all finely equipped, and surrounding the niun- 
 archs and princes in splendid array — marclied alnn'r 
 the Boulevards. 
 
 Strengthened by the influence of Talleyrand, and 
 the tract of Chateaubriand, entitled ''' Of Bonaparte 
 and the Bourbons," the royalists rallied at the entrance 
 of the allies, and from the moving, mighty throng of 
 excited people, were heard the shouts, "Vivel'Empe- 
 reur Alexander \" "Vive le Roi de Prusse I" "Vive 
 le Roi ! " " Vive Louis X VIIL ! " " Vivent les Bour- 
 bons!" The white cockades of the Bourbons, were 
 scattered through the multitude, while silent groups 
 on every hand, declared the grief of the many hearts 
 still devoted to the fallen idol of France. 
 
 As night came down, the scene was grotesque and 
 wild in the extreme. Every tongue, and people, and 
 costume were mingled in the uncertain light, while in 
 the Elysian Fields, the Cossacks held their savage 
 jubilee around their bivouac fires. It was midniglit 
 when Caulaincourt returned to Fontainebleau, and in- 
 formed iSTapoleon that the only promise of peace, was 
 in the surrender of his crown in favor of his son — in 
 a word nothing short of abdication would be accepted 
 by the monarchs who had battled for the restoratirui 
 of the dethroned dynasty swept away on the volcanic 
 tide of revolution. 
 
 The two brothers, who continued their friendship 
 in these calamitous times, exchanged messages, whicli 
 present them in an unenviable, less imposing asj^ect 
 than when viewed in the turmoil of public events : 
 
 ISTAPOLEON TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Fontainebleau, April 2, 1814. 
 
 " I desired the grand marshal to write to you on 
 the necessity of not crowding into Blois. Let the
 
 364 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 King of Westphalia go to Brittany or toward Bour- 
 ges. I think that Madame had better join her daugh- 
 ters at Nice, and Queen Julie aud your children pro- 
 ceed to Marseilles. The Princess of Neufchatel and 
 the marshals' wives should go and live on their es- 
 tates. It is natural that King Louis, who has always 
 liked hot climates, should go to Montpellier. As few 
 persons as possible should be on the Loire, and let 
 every one settle himself quietly, without attracting 
 attention. A large colony always excites a sensation in 
 the neighborhood. The Province road is now open — 
 it may not remain so for one day. Among the other 
 ministers you do not mention the minister of police. 
 Has he reached you ? I do not know whether the min- 
 ister of war has his cipher. I have none with you, 
 and as this is the case I cannot write to you on impor- 
 tant subjects. 
 
 " Advise everybody to observe the strictest econ- 
 omy." 
 
 JOSEPH TO KAPOLEO]Sr. 
 
 " Blois, April 3, 1814. 
 
 " Sire — I have received your letter of the 2d. 
 Mamma and Louis are ready to fulfil your wishes. 
 Mamma is in want of money ; six months of her pen- 
 sion is due. Neither has Jerome any money. My 
 wife has no longer any friends at Marseilles. What 
 occasions our train to appear so large is the number 
 of empty carriages belonging to the court. I have re- 
 ceived no letter from the grand marshal on tiiis sub- 
 ject or on any other. The minister of police has re- 
 turned hither from Tours. Tlie council to-day were 
 unanimous in its opinions and wishes. AYe are wait- 
 ing for your majesty's decision as to the place of resi- 
 dence. May the fears which have been excited by tlie 
 Duke of Vicenza's report never be realized ! The
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 305 
 
 minister of war has no ciplier witli your majesty, nor 
 have I. The ministers of the treasury and of finance 
 know no longer how to discharge their duties. M. de 
 la Bouillerie asks for orders to ensure the safety of his 
 convoy. One of his fourgons, containing two millions, 
 has reached Orleans ; it was left in Paris when the 
 empress went awa\^ Might not Jerome be sent to 
 command the army at Lyons ? " 
 
 Talleyrand joined Avith all his heart the cause of 
 Louis XVIIL, and was placed at the head of the pro- 
 visional government. Nesselrode, the czar's minister, 
 was decidedly in favor of a regency, securing the crowu 
 to the young King of Rome. The Senate followed the 
 treacherous Talleyrand, and passed a decree deposing 
 Napoleon. The emperor reviewed his troops on the 
 3d of April, amid the shouts, '* To Paris — to Paris ! " 
 A council of officers, civil and military, dispelled the 
 last illusion from his mind. They declared that any 
 further struggle was fruitless — all was lost. With 
 words of mournful rebuke, he retired to his room, and, 
 after hours of agonizing deliberation, he summoned 
 Caulaincourt, and handed him the following abdication, 
 saying, with the air of a conqueror chained, but not 
 submitting, '^ Depart, Caulaincourt ; depart immedi- 
 ately." 
 
 " The allied forces having proclaimed that the 
 Emperor Napoleon is the sole obstacle to the rees- 
 tablishment of peace in Europe, he, faithful to his 
 oath, declares that he is ready to descend from the 
 thi'one, to quit France, and even to relinquish life, for 
 the good of his country, which is inseparable from the 
 rights of his son, from those of the regency in the 
 person of the empress, and from the maintenance of
 
 3^6 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 the laws of the empire. ])oue at our palace of Fon- 
 tainebleau, April 4th, 1814. 
 
 *'Xapoleon." 
 
 In the hotel of Talleyrand the abdication was dis- 
 cussed, and Alexander expressed his astonishment that 
 there were no conditions in behalf of Napoleon person- 
 ally, and added, "But I have been his friend, and I 
 will willingly be his advocate. I propose that he should 
 retain his imperial title, with the sovereignty of Elba, 
 or some other island." The counsel of the czar pre- 
 vailed against the wishes of the Bourbons, who desired 
 a more secure and remote j^rison for the illustrious suc- 
 cessor of the murdered Louis. 
 
 Marmont had forsaken the fortunes of Napoleon — 
 the final blow of unpitying misfortune upon his crown- 
 less brow. The marshal concealed the plot from his 
 men nntil the morning of the 5th, when they com- 
 menced their march toward Paris ; " and for the first 
 time suspected the secret views of their chief, when 
 they found themselves in the midst of the allied lines, 
 and watched on all sides by overwhelming numbers in 
 the neighborhood of Versailles. A violent commotion 
 ensued ; some blood was shed ; but the necessity of 
 submission was so obvious, that ere long they resumed 
 the appearance of order, and were cantoned in quiet in 
 the midst of the allies. 
 
 " This piece of intelligence was followed by more of 
 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.' " 
 
 The allies sent their acceptance of nothing less than 
 an unconditional abdication, with these concessions ;
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 367 
 
 1st. The imperial title to bo preserved by Xapoleon, 
 with the free sovereignty of Elba, guards, and a navy 
 suitable to the extent of that island, and a pension, 
 from France, of six millions of francs annually. 2d, 
 The duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla to be 
 granted in sovereignty to ]\Inria 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 Bonaparte 
 family, Napoleon was still undecided whether to yield 
 all, when he received the subjoined and suggestive 
 letter : 
 
 JOSEPH TO ]^APOLEO]S', 
 
 " Orleans, April 10, 1814. 
 
 " Sire — I wrote to yon yesterday that we should 
 be here to-day, and here we actually are. General 
 Schuwaloff, aide-de-camp to the Emperor of Russia, 
 accompanied the empress. He came to Blois yesterday 
 with M. de Saint-Aignan, who said nothing on the 
 subject of his mission. If what is reported should 
 prove true, and the Bourbons should be called to the 
 throne, I am most anxious not to be obliged to ask 
 anything from them, I could not possibly live in 
 France, nor could I take my wife and children to the 
 island of Elba. If sad necessity should force your 
 majesty thither, I will go to visit you, and to jjrove to 
 you my attachment ; but it will not be until I have 
 placed my wife and children in safety on the continent, 
 
 *'A11 that takes place, sire, justifies my old and 
 fatal predictions. You must take a decided course, 
 and put an end to this cruel agony. AVhy not appeal 
 to Austria if necessary ? Your son is the grandson of 
 Francis. Why not speak the truth openly to France, 
 and at length proclaim peace, abolish the conscription
 
 368 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 and the droits reiuiis, issue a general amnesty, and 
 adopt a real constitutional monarchy ? France wishes 
 for peace and a liberal monarchy, but she does not 
 wish for Bourbons. She prefers tliem to perpetual 
 war, but she receives them only as a punishment, to 
 which she resigns herself because she is beaten. 
 
 **M. Faypoult has just returned from Italy; the 
 army there is in excellent order ; the viceroy is quietly 
 atiMantua; the King of Naples prays for your success, 
 if you desire universal peace and the independence of 
 Italy. A single effort might perhaps extricate France 
 from the abyss into which she is falling. An immedi- 
 ate decision with regard both to military affairs and to 
 politics may perhaps repair all in favor of your son ; 
 be bold enough to try it. Save the state from imminent 
 danger by getting rid of princes who will revive old 
 hatreds, and inflict a fresh injury upon the country by 
 internal disturbances, brought on by the pride of the 
 old nobility and the vanity of the new, and the character 
 of the peojile raised by the revolution to a level at which 
 Ave may lament that it was not left. 
 
 " The Cossacks have appeared on the road from 
 Beaugency to Orleans, and robbed some of the car- 
 riages belonging to the convoy." 
 
 The next day, when the allies were threatening 
 Fontainebleau, Napoleon gave his signature to the 
 dreaded instrument ; renouncing for himself and his 
 heirs the thrones of France and of Italy. His anguish 
 at the moment is described as intense beyond expres- 
 sion. But why such agony, if in the conscientious de- 
 votion of his energies to the disinterested work of ele- 
 vating the people, Avith no care for personal glory, he 
 had been overAvhelmed, and his mission prematurely 
 closed ?
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 369 
 
 He grieved for France, but a heart of vast ambition 
 was writhing under the deeper wounds to his pride, 
 and the dark eclipse of his radiant star of destiny. 
 
 That he attempted suicide in his despair, is a charge 
 that cannot be intelligently denied. To evade this 
 unpleasant fact, a late historian omits the part of Caul- 
 aincourt's testimony which proves it. In regard to 
 Napoleon's alarming illness at this time, Caulaincourt 
 adds in his narrative : '* He refused all assistance poor 
 Constance strove to give him. Ivan * was called. 
 AVhen the emperor saw him, he said : ' Ivan, the dose 
 was not strong enough.' Tlien it was they acquired 
 the sad certainty that he had taken poison." 
 
 April 20th, he summoned his officers about him, to 
 give his sad farewell. He thus addressed them : '•' For 
 you, gentlemen, I am no longer to be with you ; — you 
 have another government ; and it will become you to 
 attach yourselves to it frankly, and serve it as faithfully 
 as you have served me." 
 
 He then called before him the relics of the Old 
 Guard. He surveyed them as they were drawn up in 
 the courtyard of the castle, with tears. Dismounting, 
 he advanced toward them, and said, with strong 
 emotion : "All Europe has armed against me. France 
 herself has deserted me, and chosen another dynasty. 
 I might, with ray soldiers, have maintained a civil war 
 for years — but it would have rendered France unhappy. 
 Be faithful to the new sovereign whom your country 
 has chosen. Do not lament my fate : I shall always 
 be happy while I know that you are so. I could have 
 died — nothing was easier — but I will always follow 
 the path of honor. I will record with my pen the 
 deeds we have done together. I cannot embrace you 
 all, but I embrace your general. Bring hither the 
 
 * The physician. 
 24
 
 370 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 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 ! " 
 
 This adieu touched every heart, and amid the si- 
 lent 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, there was perhaps no one who slied bitterer tears 
 than the neglected wife of his youth. Josephine had 
 fled from Paris on the approach, of the allies ; but 
 being assured of the friendly protection of Alexander, 
 returned to Malmaison ere Napoleon quitted Fontaine- 
 bleau. The czar visited her frequently, and endeavored 
 to soothe her affliction. But the ruin of " her Achilles," 
 " her Cid " (as she now once more, in the day of misery, 
 called Napoleon), 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 Aus- 
 tria, and had begun their journey to Vienna some time 
 ere Bonaparte reached Elba. 
 
 Four commissioners, one from each of the great 
 allied powers, Austria, Eussia, Prussia, and England, 
 accompanied Bonaparte on his journey. lie was at- 
 tended by Bertrand, grand master of the palace, and 
 some other attached friends and servants ; and while 
 fourteen carriages were conveying him and his imme- 
 diate suite toward Elba, seven hundred infantry and 
 about one hundred and fifty cavalry of the imperial 
 gunrd, all picked men, and all volunteers, marched 
 in tlio same direction, to take on them the military 
 duties of the exiled court.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. S71 
 
 The journey of seven hundred miles to Frejus, the 
 port of embarkation, was performed in seven days, 
 amid demonstrations of affection from the people. 
 
 On the evening of the 28th, on board the British 
 frigate the Undaioifed, he was bound for Elba ; and 
 May 3d, at sunset, the island rose from the haze of 
 the distant horizon upon his view. Distributing a 
 purse to the crew, he landed under a salute from the 
 batter}^, at Porto Ferrajo, the chief town of his sea- 
 girdled land of exile. With a circumference of sixty 
 miles, mountainous, rocky, and much of it barren, 
 Elba lies solitary on the bosom of the Mediterranean, 
 two hundred miles from France. Napoleon immedi- 
 ately explored every valley and ravine, and with his 
 restless energies planned manifold improvements. He 
 often reviewed the few hundred veteran soldiers who 
 attended him to the island, and frequented his farm 
 a few miles from Ferrajo. Thousands from Europe 
 visited Elba, attracted thither by the presence of the 
 illustrious captain. 
 
 Louis XVIII., the brother of the slain monarch, an 
 aged gouty man, from his exile in England, went to 
 the throne of France, by a decree of the Senate. The 
 policy of Xapoleon was formally continued in the con- 
 ditions of his restoration ; but soon the ancient order 
 of things was apparent, and the cherished principle of 
 the divine right of kings, was declared in all his acts. 
 Whatever the privileges secured, they were his sover- 
 eign gift, and not the inalienable right of the people. 
 He blotted out in the date of his royal edicts, the rec- 
 ognition of any legitimate authority from the dawn of 
 the revolution to the abdication. The allies in their 
 triumph released unconditionally the prisoners of war, 
 giving to France one hundred and fifty thousand 
 veteran troops, with the memory of former victories,
 
 372 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 and answering to the story of disaster they heard on 
 every hand, " These things would never have hap- 
 pened had we been here." The corpulent old king 
 made a most unfortunate contrast to himself, with the 
 manly, energetic, fascinating Napoleon. And during 
 the summer of 1814, the murmurs of discontent rose 
 round the Bourbon throne, and reached the mightier 
 prince, even in exile. 
 
 The mother of the emperor, and his sister Pauline 
 joined him, and cheered his captivity. Between him 
 and Sir Neil Campbell, the English commissioner, from 
 a pleasant intercourse at first, there arose a cold and 
 formal distance — his government refusing to acknowl- 
 edge the imperial title, while his office became essen- 
 tially that of reporter to his cabinet at home. Napo- 
 leon hated both. 
 
 In February, 1815, Baron Chabonlon, once a member 
 of Napoleon's Council of State, visited Elba, in disguise, 
 to confer with him respecting affairs in the realm. 
 After long conversations, the Baron assured him that 
 France was ripe for revolution, and would receive him 
 back with exultation. The 27th came, and with it the 
 hasty preconcerted embarkation of the emperor, with 
 his thousand followers, in the hv'ig Inconstant and three 
 small merchant vessels. 
 
 It is a significant circumstance, that the Uiidanated, 
 an English ship, bore him to Elba, and the Inconstant 
 restored him to the transient smiles of fortune. 
 
 Upon the last day of February, the Zephyr, a French 
 brig of war, was seen sailing directly for the Inconstant. 
 The captain inquired after the emperor's health. 
 Napoleon, taking the trumpet from the officer's hand, 
 shouted back, " He is marvelously well." Other vessels 
 passing in sight awakened momentary fears ; but 
 March 1st he landed at Cannes, where he first reached
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 373 
 
 the coast of France from the campaign in Egypt, and 
 at which he embarked for Elba, ten months before. 
 
 " Wherever he passed he was greeted with accla- 
 mations. He went on triumphantly from point to 
 point — his army augmenting at every step till he 
 reached Grenoble, Avhicli threw open its gates ; and 
 reviewing seven thousand men, he pressed on toward 
 Lyons, which held at that moment a powerful force 
 under Marshal Macdonald, and Monsieur, the heir of 
 the empire. 
 
 " Meantime, the Congress of Vienna that had been 
 so long in session they had began to fight over the divi- 
 sion of the spoils of conquered nations, were astounded 
 by the news that IS'apoleon had landed in France and 
 was marching on Paris ! 
 
 " The emperor resumed at Lyons the administration 
 of his empire, having already by his eloquent procla- 
 mations electrified France. To the soldiers he said 
 — ' Take again the eagles you followed at Ulm, Aus- 
 terlitz, Jena, and Montmirail. Come range yourselves 
 under the banners of your old chief. Victory shall 
 march at every charging step. The eagle with the 
 national colors, shall fly from steeple to steeple — on to 
 the towers of Notre Dame ! In your old age, sur- 
 rounded and honored by your fellow-citizens, you shall 
 be heard with respect when you recount your noble 
 deeds. You shall then say with pride — ' I also was one 
 of that great army which twice entered the walls of 
 Vienna, took Rome, Berlin, Madrid and Moscow — 
 and which delivered Paris from the stain of domestic 
 treason and the occupation of strangers.' " 
 
 " And thus from village to village and city to city, 
 the swelling tide rolled on toward Paris, On the night 
 of the 19th the emperor once more slept at his palace 
 of Fontainebleau. The next evening he made his
 
 374 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 public entry into his capital, and amid the shouts of 
 hundreds of tliousands the conqueror of kingdoms 
 entered the Tuilleries, and was borne in triumph on 
 the shoulders of the Parisians to the magnificent salon, 
 now crowded by the beauty and chivalry of Paris, and 
 from which Louis XVIII. had but a few hours before 
 fled. Acclamations wilder than had ever proclaimed 
 his greatest victories, rang through Paris, and all night 
 the cannon of Austerlitz and Marengo sent their rever- 
 berations over the illuminated city. 
 
 "Europe — astounded by the intelligence wherever 
 it spread — was now marshaled for the last struggle 
 against Napoleon. The great powers signed a final 
 treaty, in which they proclaimed Bonaparte an outlaw, 
 and pledged their faith to exterminate him from the 
 face of the earth. Once more every nation on the 
 continent rang with the clangor of warlike preparation, 
 and before sixty days had passed, a million of armed 
 men were marching to the scene of the final struggle. 
 
 " Before the close of May. Napoleon had upwards of 
 three hundred thousand soldiers ready for battle, be- 
 sides an imperial guard of nearly forty thousand chosen 
 veterans ; while the last scion of the Bourbon race had 
 been driven from the soil, and the tri-color, which had 
 waved in triumph over so many subject nations, was 
 now unfurled again from the Ehine to the Pyrenees — 
 and from the British Channel to the shores of the 
 Mediterranean." 
 
 The force and fascination of Napoleon's mind, and 
 his thorough knowledge of all the avenues to the sol- 
 dier's heart, were never more sublimely illustrated 
 than in this bloodless march of seven hundred miles 
 over a country from which he had been driven an 
 exile, amid the acclamations of the army and the 
 people.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 375 
 
 Tlie tidings of the astounding event went before the 
 triumphal cavalcade. 
 
 Talleyrand was making his toilet, preparatory to a 
 magnificent ball given by his niece the Princess of 
 Courland, when she brought a note from Metternicli. 
 He bade her open and read it. Trembling, she ex- 
 claimed, " Heavens ! Bonaparte has left Elba ! What 
 is to become of my ball this evening ? " Talley- 
 rand assured her coolly it should take place ; but 
 the consternation which followed the announcement 
 in the royal saloon at Vienna, could not be con- 
 cealed. 
 
 The Duchess of Augouleme, whose husband had 
 been surrounded by General Gill, and capitulated, was 
 at Bordeaux ; a city with one hundred thousand in- 
 habitants and an army of ten thousand men. She was 
 the daughter of Louis XVI., and a brave and ener- 
 getic woman. She appealed with tears to the troops 
 in this hour of peril, but gained only a faint response, 
 and was comjielled to fly. Napoleon said of her caus- 
 tically, "■ She is the only man of her race.'' 
 
 The tri-color rose on tower and bulwark, till in a 
 few weeks, it waved again over the hills and valleys 
 of France. 
 
 Around Napoleon were the allied powers of Europe. 
 In vain he endeavored to open a negotiation with 
 them, presenting as reasons for his return and invasion, 
 the detention of Maria Louisa and his son by Austria, 
 the non-payment of his pension, and the voice of the 
 nation, inviting him to take again the scepter. His 
 foes were inflexible in their purpose, and could bring 
 no less than a million of troops against a force which 
 could not reach half that number. 
 
 An attempt to secure the restoration of the empress 
 and her son to the Tuilleries failed, leaving the only
 
 3TG LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 hope of a successful issue to the gathering storm, which 
 would reunite the imperial family. 
 
 Murat, King of Naples, upon hearing of Napoleon's 
 return, determined, in perfect harmony with the im- 
 petuous daring of his nature, to anticipate the em- 
 peror, and fall with fifty thousand Neapolitans upon 
 the allies. Talleyrand had with bitter enmity affirmed 
 that Murat was secretly hostile to the allies, while 
 Wellington thought him true to their interest. This 
 impulsive and fatal onset decided his position, and 
 sealed his doom. He met the Austrians at Occtrio- 
 bello, and saw his army cut in pieces around him. 
 He sought death beneath the leaden hail, but survived 
 to escape in a fishing vessel, and landed near Toulon. 
 He was seized, tried, and shot. Thus died a man of 
 lofty spirit — vain-glorious — impulsive — and fearless ; a 
 shining mark of gallant and splendid command in bat- 
 tle, whose 2)resence at Waterloo Napoleon said might 
 have changed the fortune of the world. Louis XVIII. 
 had retired to Ghent, in Holland, an ancient, deserted 
 city, to wait for the close of this new act in the drama 
 of European and Napoleonic revolution and blood- 
 shed. 
 
 A note, written meanwhile to Joseph, reveals a part 
 of the plot in assuming the reins of authority, by which 
 the bold enterprise was to be effected : 
 
 NAPOLEOlSr TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Paris, May 2, 1815. 
 
 *' My Brother — It is necessary to organize the 
 Spaniards who are in France. A junta must be created 
 composed of five members from the most active and 
 enterprising. They will reside here, and correspond 
 with the minister of foreign affairs. The existence of 
 this junta must be kept secret. It must have agents
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 •j« < 
 
 ou the principal points of our frontier on the P\Tenees. 
 The agents must be known to our civil and military 
 officers, and their correspondence with the junta be post 
 free. The business of tlie junta will be to edit in Paris 
 a Spanish newspaper, to a^^pear every two days, to be 
 circulated by these agents through every channel, and 
 in every part of Spain. The objects of the newspaper 
 Avill be to enlighten the Spaniards, to make known to 
 them our constitution, and to induce them to rebel and 
 to desert. A further duty of the junta will be to raise 
 guerillas, and to introduce them into Spain. The pres- 
 ident of the junta will be accredited to the minister of 
 foreign affairs. All the pecuniary assistance afforded 
 to the Spaniards, at the rate of 120,000 francs a month, 
 will be distributed by the junta." 
 
 To conciliate the opposing parties, especially the ex- 
 tremes of republicanism and royalty, and muster his 
 legions for conflict, was a work no mind but Napoleon's 
 would have attempted. He enlarged the liberty of the 
 press, and prepared " An act additional to the constitu- 
 tions of the empire," the latter of which was submitted 
 to Josej^h and other influential leaders of the discord- 
 ant masses. The additional decrees provided in form 
 for the arrangement of a free representative constitu- 
 tion ; hereditary monarchy ; an hereditary peerage ; a 
 house of representatives, chosen by the people, at least 
 once within every five years ; yearly taxes, levied only 
 by the whole legislature ; responsible ministers ; irre- 
 movable judges ; and in all criminal cases whatever, the 
 trial by jury. 
 
 This amendment, which secured, it cannot be denied, 
 the rights of the people to a degree greatly exceeding 
 the best monarchies of Europe, was accepted by the 
 electoral colleges, and Napoleon designated the 1st of
 
 378 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 June for a grand assemblage on the field of Mars, to 
 approve his resumption of sovereignty, and give im- 
 posing effect to the new order of things. The vast 
 area of that renowned plain was thronged with the 
 millions of soldiery and citizens. The emperor ap- 
 peared on the elevated platform in robes of royalty, 
 and stood by the altar at which the Archbishop of 
 Rouen performed religious rites. Amid thunders of 
 applause he received the oath of fidelity from the army, 
 distributed the eagles, and then retired to contemplate 
 in silence, as the roar of artillery died away, the doubt- 
 ful struggle into which his faithful battalions must 
 enter. The plan of the campaign was to cross the fron- 
 tier, and fall upon the enemy unexpectedly, and beat 
 back the overwhelming tide. Paris was fortified, and 
 all the outposts strengthened. Upon the 13th day of 
 June, with the dawning light, Napoleon left the Tuil- 
 leries to join his army. 
 
 " It was a fearful crisis. With a fortitude and hero- 
 ism, which commands the admiration of the world, did 
 Napoleon meet it. He was, as it were, alone. Jose- 
 phine was dead. Maria Louisa and his idolized son 
 were prisoners in the saloons of the allies. Eugene was 
 dethroned, and entangled in the court of the King of 
 Bavaria, his father-in-law. Murat was wandering a 
 fugitive, in hourly peril of being shot.* Lannes, Bes- 
 sieres, Duroc, were dead. Berthier, ashamed to meet 
 his old master, had followed the fortunes of the Bour- 
 bons. Marmot was a traitor at Ghent. Oudinot and 
 Macdonald, honorable men, still regarded as sacred 
 their oath of fidelity to the Bourbons. Ney, having 
 through the dictates of his heart, violated his oath, dis- 
 heartened by the sense of dishonor, had lost his power." 
 The emperor hoped to meet the forces of Wellington 
 * Afterward executed.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOI.EOX BONAPARTE. 379 
 
 and Blucher before other divisions of the magnificent 
 host surrounding him could unite their strength. Upon 
 the 13th Napoleon was at Avesnes, one hundred and 
 fifty n)iles from the capital, where were gathered all his 
 available troops, amounting to one hundred and thirty- 
 five thousand men. He reviewed them on the 14th, 
 reminded them that it was the anniversary of JMarengo 
 and Friedland, and said, " Are they and we no longer 
 the same men ? The madmen ! a moment of pros- 
 perity has blinded them. The oppression and humil- 
 iation 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 dan- 
 gers before us. For every Frenchman who has a heart, 
 the moment is arrived to conquer or to jierish ! " 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 one 
 hundred thousand men, and extending along the line 
 of the Sambre and the Meuse, occupied Charleroi, 
 Xamur, Givet, and Liege. They communicated on the 
 right with the left of the Anglo-Belgian army, under 
 Wellington, whose headquarters were at Brussels. 
 This army was not composed, like Blucher's or Xapo- 
 leon's, of troops of the same nation. The duke had 
 under his command seventy-six thousand men. His 
 first division occupied Enghein, Brain-le-Compte, and 
 Nivelles, communicating with the Prussian right at 
 Charleroi. The second division (Lord Hill's) was can- 
 toned at Halle, Oudenard, and Gramont — where was 
 the 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.
 
 380 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 It could not be doubted that Napoleon's mark was Brus- 
 sels ; but by which of the three great routes of Namur, 
 of Charleroi, or of Mons, he designed to force his pas- 
 sage, could not be ascertained beforehand. Fouche, 
 indeed, doubly and trebly dyed in treason, had, when 
 accepting office under Napoleon, continued to main- 
 tain his correspondence with Louis at Ghent, and prom- 
 ised to furnish the allies with the outline of the em- 
 peror's plan of the campaign ere it began. But the 
 minister of police took care that this document should 
 not arrive until the campaign was decided. 
 
 " On the morning of the 15th, 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 — to crush Blucher ere he could 
 concentrate all his own strength, far less be supported 
 by the advance of Wellington. Ziethen, however, held 
 out, though with severe loss, at Charleroi so long, that 
 the alarm spread along the whole Prussian line ; and 
 then fell back in good order on a position between Ligny 
 and Amand ; where Blucher now waited Najjoleon's 
 attack, at the head of the whole of his army, except the 
 division of Bulow, which had not yet come up from 
 Liege. The scheme of beating the Prussian divisions 
 in detail had therefore failed ; but the second part of 
 the plan, namely, that of separating them wholly from 
 Wellington, might still succeed. And with this view, 
 while Blucher was concentrating his force about Ligny, 
 the French held on the main road to Brussels from 
 Charleroi, and, beating in some Nassau troops at 
 Frasnes, followed them as far as Quaire-Bras ; and 
 finally took possession of that farmhouse, so called be- 
 cause it is there that the roads from Charleroi to Brus- 
 sels, and from Nivelles to Namur, cross each other. 
 
 Blucher had prepared to meet Napoleon, through the
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 381 
 
 treachery of General Bourniont, who deserted on tlie 
 eve of battle, and carried the intelligence of his ad- 
 vance and intended surprise. But for this desertion, 
 the issue of the struggle might have been greatly 
 changed. 
 
 Intelligence of the emi^eror's movements reached 
 "Wellington at six o'clock in the evening. 'J'he rumor 
 did not prevent a brilliant ball which had been arranged 
 by the Duchess of Eichmond for the principal officers 
 of the army. 
 
 The clouds were rolling away from Napoleon's star, 
 while the thunder of his cannon broke upon the festive 
 mirth of the gay assemblage. At dead of night the 
 bugle sounded, and the drum's stirring beat was heard 
 in the streets of Brussels. 
 
 Upon the 16th, the emperor marched toward Ligny, 
 which the Prince of Orange had retaken with the 
 Nivelles road, reopening the communication of Blu- 
 cher with Brussels. Unexpectedly he encountered 
 that general leading eighty thousand men, with a divi- 
 sion of sixty thousand. The day wore away amid terri- 
 ble battle-scenes, and night hung a curtain of darkness 
 over the horrors of the calmer field when the roar of 
 combat nad ceased. 
 
 Napoleon was victorious, and had Ney, according to 
 orders, come up to intercejjt the retreat of the Prussian 
 troops, the rout might have been complete. The brave 
 Ney upon reaching Quatre-Bras the evening of the 15th, 
 heard nothing of the foe at this point, and anticipated 
 its occupation in the morning without serious oiDposition. 
 His weary soldiers lay down beneath the wings of a 
 tempest upon the drenched ground, to snatch a brief 
 repose. Meanwhile Wellington was at Quatre-Bras, 
 and to the dismay of Marshal Ney, prepared with a 
 formidable array of disciplined troops, to dispute his
 
 382 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 further progress. A sanguinary encounter failed to 
 open a passage for the heroic marshal. Wellington, 
 hearing of Blucher's defeat, fell back to the more ad- 
 vantageous field of Waterloo, to join tlie Prussian army. 
 
 Napoleon, in his bulletins, announced two splendid 
 victories at Quatre-Bras and Ligny, costing the allies 
 twenty-five thousand men, and th-e French nearly 
 twenty thousand. These results awoke the enthu- 
 siasm of the nation to its former ardor, and again in- 
 vested Napoleon's name with the terror which lost its 
 power when the Undaunted turned her prow toward 
 Elba. 
 
 Leaving Grouchy on the track of the Prussian divi- 
 sion of the allied army, the emperor hastened to Quatre- 
 Bras to unite with Ney and advance upon Wellington, 
 if possible to secure a battle before the arrival of Blucher 
 who was within a few miles of the duke with seventy 
 thousand troops. Toward night of the 17th, Napoleon 
 came in sight of Waterloo. Expressing an intense de- 
 sire for a few hours more of day, he went forth in the 
 storm to reconnoiter the position of the enemy. He 
 sent orders to Grouchy to continue his pursuit of the 
 Prussians, and be prepared to aid him in any emergency 
 which might arise. 
 
 Napoleon and Wellington had each about seventy 
 thousand men. The English forces extended their 
 lines more than a mile, and were nearly that distance 
 from the town of Waterloo, on a gentle slope, separat- 
 ed from tlie broad plain by a beautiful declivity. In 
 front were the most reliable troops, then those who had 
 already severely suffered in the previous battle, and be- 
 hind both were posted the horse. The waiting foe lay 
 in a convex form, bending at each extreme toward the 
 forest of Soignies. It was a wide and open field — a fit 
 arena for the grand and terrible strife at hand, and
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 383 
 
 affording the most favorable ground for retreat, and 
 renewed defense to the duke in case of defeat. 
 
 " Finally the day of Napoleon's last battle broke in 
 clouds and wind, after a night of tempest. It was 
 Sunday — a day which, since the time of the Saviour, 
 Christian nations have devoted to mercy, adoration, and 
 repose. But the Sabbath of the 18th of June, 1§15, 
 witnessed the struggle of one hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand men grappling with each other in the terrible 
 work of destruction, and whoever may have rejoiced in 
 the result, the carnage of that day filled Europe with 
 mourning. At eleven o'clock Xapoleon's bugles gave 
 the signal ; Jerome advanced with a column of six 
 thousand men, and the battle of Waterloo began. 
 Under the cover of heavy batteries, w^hose balls flew on 
 their errand of death over the heads of his troops, the 
 King of Westphalia charged the right wing of Welling- 
 ton, which rested on the Chateau of Hougomont. 
 Slowly the engagement extended, from point to point, 
 and division closed with division, till the tide of battle 
 had swept over the plain — two miles from wing to wing 
 — and one hundred and fifty thousand men had closed 
 in the terrific struggle. The battle had now lasted 
 from eleven till four, and ten thousand men had fallen 
 every hour. Broken, bleeding, and exhausted bat- 
 talions had charged, and closed, and recoiled, and so 
 equal had been the conflict that victory seemed about 
 to fold its wings over a mutual slaughter." 
 
 Wellington's columns began to M'aver, and Xapo- 
 leon felt the joy of anticipated triumph, when thirty 
 thousands ti'oops, under Bulow, deployed into the field. 
 This advance guard of the Prussian army poured their 
 tempest of death upon the columns of the French. 
 Napoleon sent ten thousand men to beat back the 
 fiery wave of destrnction ; charging impetuously, they
 
 384: LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 succeeded, aud hope again brightened over the em- 
 peror, whose restless eye was often turned with intense 
 anxiety toward the slopes across which Grouchy would 
 wheel his columns into the plain. The marshal heard 
 the awful cannonade, but still refused to deviate from 
 his original orders, aud couriers had failed to reach him 
 from Waterloo. Still the emperor's ranks swept down 
 upon the enemy with desolating effect. Wellington was 
 also impatiently looking for help, and as he saw the 
 falling lines, and the drops of bitter emotion gathered 
 upon his brow, he exclaimed, despairingly, " AYould to 
 heaven that Blucher or night would come ! " The 
 French cuirassiers charged the right of the British, 
 and were permitted to advance within ten yards when 
 a deadly fire drove them back. Again and again they 
 rallied, rode between the squares, and were cut down 
 by the cross fire, till the splendid body of cavaliers 
 was slain. Then the blaze of artillery gleamed the 
 whole length of the French line, and the enemy were 
 ordered to lie on the ground, to escape the iron hail 
 that filled the air. 
 
 At this crisis, Blucher emerged from the woods, and 
 uniting with Bulow, led sixty thousand troops to the 
 standard of Wellington. Napoleon discovered in a 
 moment the peril — the day must be Avon or lost by a 
 desperate, decisive blow. The Old Guard, the glory of 
 all his armies, had been kept in reserve. 
 
 Forming them into two columns, and putting them 
 under the command of the dauntless Ney, he pointed 
 to the terrific forest into which they must move like a 
 falling bolt from the clouds. A throne, and the future 
 of empires, hung on the issue of the hour. As the Im- 
 perial Guard marched forward in silence, Napoleon 
 said, *' Heroes of all my victories, I confide to you my 
 empire." They answered with a single shout, " Vive
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 385 
 
 I'Emperenr ! " and without a note of martial music, they 
 went with resolute ste]") toward the glittering steel, 
 and yawning mouths of war's wasting engines, over 
 which stood the manliest forms of England and her 
 allies, Nay had never been conquered, and the de- 
 sertion of his sovereign, moved him to the onset with 
 burning ardor. Napoleon from the elevation watched 
 the meeting of the fearless band with the waiting 
 legions. 
 
 The plain was crossed, and the Old Guard made 
 a charge to which no battle-plain had trembled be- 
 fore. In flame and smoke they disappeared, and 
 neither they nor Napoleon knew where they were. 
 The shock was felt along the columns of the Iron 
 Duke, and made a momentary pause, only to pour a 
 more consuming fire uj)on the devoted band. Napo- 
 leon saw through his glass the slaughter of that last 
 defense of his throne, and with a paleness on his face, 
 and anguish in his heart, threw himself into a square, 
 resolved to perish with his dying heroes. Cam- 
 bronne, the commander of the troops around the em- 
 peror, entreated him to save his life. He yielded, and, 
 turning away from the exultant enemy, rode toward 
 Paris. The remnant of the brave men, who gazed 
 after Napoleon, was soon surrounded by the victors, 
 and a flag of truce sent to spare the needless carnage. 
 Cambronne replied in the memorable words of hero- 
 ism, '' The Guard dies ; it neve?' svi-renders ! ^' The 
 sound of his voice died away in the fresh volley of 
 balls, and soon the Old Guard Avas no more. Night 
 came down, and the good angels watched with grief 
 over forty thousand bleeding bodies of the slain, while 
 the silence of their vigil was broken by the groans of 
 many hundreds wounded and writhing in a bed of gore, 
 
 Wellington had lost one hundred officers and fif- 
 25
 
 386 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 teen thousand men ; while of the seventy-five thousand 
 Xapoleou led to battle, no more than thirty thousand 
 ever bore arms again. The Prussians pursued the fly- 
 ing fugitives, and butchery crimsoned every village 
 and hamlet in their path. jSTapoleon hastened to Qua- 
 tre-Bras, and contemplated still another rally, which 
 was there j)roposed, then proceeded to Charleroi, riding 
 all night, while the sound of pursuit came to his ear on 
 the quiet air. 
 
 " On the 19th the caj)ital had been greeted with the 
 news of three great victories, at Charleroi, at Ligny, 
 and at Quatre-Bras, and one hundred and thirty cannon 
 fired in honor of the emperor's successes ; his j^artisans 
 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 be kept. A great, a decisive field 
 had been fought, and the French army was no more. 
 
 '' On how sandy a foundation the exile of Elba had 
 rebuilt the semblance of his ancient authority, a few 
 houi's of adversity were more than sufficient to show." 
 
 He conversed" freely with Caulaincourt upon the 
 disasters of the day, bitterly condemned Bourmont, 
 complained of Grouchy, and exjiressed his purpose of 
 uniting the two Chambers in an imperial sitting. But 
 they had anticipated his order, when the tidings of 
 Waterloo reached them. The allies, like a locust- 
 swarm, a million strong, were ready to fall upon Paris, 
 and panic spread through the capital. Napoleon as- 
 sembled the Council of State, and vividly portraying 
 the crisis of the nation, urged the necessity of a tem- 
 ])orary dictatorship to save the fortunes of France. 
 Carnot, it seems, now approved the measure, and gave 
 his voice for it. But it was affirmed that in the Cham-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BON Ar ARTE. 387 
 
 bers the tide was setting against the emperor, and the 
 sacrifice of their former idol was plainly the ruling 
 sentiment. Lafayette was the advocate of this last 
 resort, to avoid "the seas of blood" which must flow 
 if the effort to regain the throne were continued. But 
 Napoleon clung with desperate energy to the crum- 
 bling scepter in his hand, lie planned a new campaign 
 to sweep the allies from the soil — already drenched in 
 the life-current, and fattened with the bodies of men. 
 The Chambers continued for several days their stormy 
 debate. Lucien who, with Josej^h had repaired to the 
 Elysee, advised the emperor to rally the relics of his 
 Guard and dissolve the hostile assemblies as he had 
 done at St. Cloud on the 19th of Brnmaire. The 
 trancendent genius of Napoleon, under the pressure 
 of these opposing forces, and sustaining the agony of 
 a crushed heart, was bewildered ; and Lucien, in view 
 of it always said, "The smoke of Mont St. Jean had 
 turned his brain." 
 
 During these mental conflicts and excited debates, 
 the Chambers had reached the vote upon the em- 
 peror's abdication, when, having seen the unavoidable 
 and overwhelming necessity, he sent by the hand 
 of the willing, treasonable Fouche, who secretly re- 
 joiced in the overthrow of Napoleon, the subjoined 
 proclamation " To the French people : " 
 
 " Frenchmen ! In commencing war for the main- 
 tenance of the national independence, I relied on the 
 union of all efforts, all wills, and all authorities. I 
 had reason to hope for success, and I braved all the 
 declarations of the powers against me. Circumstances 
 appear to have changed. I offer myself as a sacrifice 
 to the hatred of the enemies of France. May they 
 prove sincere in their declarations, and to have aimed
 
 388 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 only at me ! My political life is ended ; and I pro- 
 claim my son, Napoleon II., Emperor of the French. 
 Unite for the public safety, if you would remain an 
 independent nation. — Done at the palace Elysee, June 
 22d, 1815. 
 
 *' Napoleon." 
 
 A fierce discussion followed the reading of this 
 paper. Marshal Ney gave his voice for peace, even 
 with a Bourbon throne. The Chambers finally ap- 
 pointed a deputation to wait upon Napoleon, accept 
 the abdication, and expressing the gratitude of the 
 nation for his great sacrifices and glorious deeds in 
 its behalf. He thanked the delegation — warned them 
 of their mistake — and pointed them to his dynasty as 
 the only hope of France. 
 
 Thus closed the second and brief reign of the most 
 gifted sovereign of any age — thus ended the hundred 
 days of Napoleon.
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 389 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The second abdication.— The indecision and distress of Napoleon. — He 
 resolves to take refuge in the United States.— He leaves Malmaison 
 for Rochefort.— Letter from Bertrand to Joseph.— Negotiations with 
 England for passports. — These are denied. — Napoleon throws himself 
 upon the mercy of England. — The reception, and voyage to the 
 English coast. — The decision respecting the emperor's fate. — He con- 
 templates suicide. — The departure for St. Helena.— Arrival at the 
 island.— Napoleon's residence. — His treatment in exile. — His habits. — 
 Progress of disease.— His religious character.— His last hours. — General 
 Bertrand's account of the emperor's death. — His burial. — The re- 
 moval of his remains to France. 
 
 The last desire of the emperoi' when lie resigned his 
 crown, was the immediate elevation of Napoleon 11, 
 to the prospective sovereignty of France. Lahedoyer 
 pleaded for it in the Senate. The soldiery caught the 
 enthusiasm of this rallying shout. Fouche. who had 
 been placed at the head of the provisional government, 
 and preferred the Bourbons, became alarmed, and sug- 
 gested the importance of the emperor's removal from 
 Paris. June 25tli, disguised in ordinary apparel, he 
 retired to the lovely grounds and quiet rooms of Mal- 
 maison, " but was no longer greeted by the warm em- 
 brace of Josephine — the divorced wife had forgotten 
 all her wrongs and her sorrows, in the hallowed pre- 
 cincts of the village church of Ruel. Wliat may have 
 been the feelings of the fallen emperor, as he walked 
 through the deserted halls of Malmaison at midtiight 
 in the midst of the ruins of his empire, and so near 
 the ashes of his divorced Josephine, we do not wish 
 to know. As he had lingered at the Kremlin, Dres- 
 den, and Fontainebleau — the three stages of his ruin — 
 so did he linger at Malmaison. The spell was still over
 
 390 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 him — fiite had decreed that when the sapped castle at 
 lust fell, the ruin should be complete." 
 
 Had he, as he contemplated, embarked without de- 
 lay for the United States, he might have been the 
 illustrious citizen of a republic he admired but did not 
 attempt to copy for war-ravaged France, neither de- 
 sired, while his dynasty could fill the throne. Napo- 
 leon's retreat became a guarded prison, surrounded 
 with soldiers under the command of General Becker. 
 Fouche was inlaying a double game of treachery : urg- 
 ing the emperor's departure from France in two frigates 
 furnished for his service, and, at the same time, com- 
 municating with the allies respecting his movements. 
 While the provisional government was afraid of his 
 escape from Malmaison to lead again his battalions into 
 the field, the allies were lining the coast with a naval 
 force, to prevent his flight to a foreign shore, and 
 secure the hated victim of their resistless power. 
 
 An asylum in the United States was finally the 
 choice of the emperor. Application Avas made to Wel- 
 lington for passports, but the duke replied that he had 
 no authority whatever to give a safe-conduct to Napo- 
 leon Bonaparte. 
 
 Meanwhile the mind of the captive, which had been 
 driven from one plan of desperate action to another, 
 was soothed by the presence of the lovely Hortense, 
 faithful to her mother's example, and the devoted 
 Caulaincourt — with a throng of friends, both officers 
 and citizens, whose sympathy Avas sincere, and whose 
 lives they were ready to offer on the altar of their 
 affection. June 29th, amid the beauty and joy of sum- 
 mer at Malmaison, he bade adieu to Hortense, glanced 
 over the familiar scenes, hallowed by the memories of 
 Josephine, we may not doubt with bitter thoughts of 
 irreparable wrong, passed out of the open gate which
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 391 
 
 lie should enter never again, and with Geiieral Becker, 
 Count Bertrand, and Savary, in the carriage assigned 
 him, hastened toward Rocliefort. The jirocession of 
 personal friends who resolved to share his exile, were 
 to join the emperor by a different road. At night 
 Napoleon rested in the castle of Kambouillet, thirty 
 miles from Malmaison. With the early light of the 
 next day, he pressed forward, and driving all the night 
 following, halted at Tours on the first of July. 
 
 He reached Eochefort on the 3d, and took up his 
 residence in the prefect's house, with the view of em- 
 barking immediately : but he forthwith was informed 
 that a British line-of-battle ship, the Bellerophon, Cap- 
 tain Maitland, and some smaller vessels of war, were 
 off the roads, and given to understand that the com- 
 manders 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 a crew of a small flat coasting vessel, a 
 cUaussee-marree, and attempt the escape in this way 
 under cover of night. But all experienced seamen 
 concurred in representing the imminent hazard of 
 exposing such a vessel to the Atlantic, as well as 
 the numberless chances of its also being detected by 
 the English cruisers. ''Wherever wood can swim,"' 
 said Xapoleon, '^'therelam sure to find this flag of 
 England." 
 
 July 9th, Napoleon landed on the Isle of Aix, of]' 
 which the Saale and Medusa were anchored. The
 
 392 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 allies had entered Paris, and were virtually in pos- 
 session of the sovereignty, which Fouche formally 
 held for the Bourbon king. The excitement which 
 the emperor's presence on the island awakened, 
 brought the order to the commander of the frigate, 
 that " the act of disembarking Napoleon again upon 
 the soil of France " would be declared high treason. 
 The friends of the emperor believed that an appeal to 
 the hospitality of England would be rewarded with a 
 magnanimous treatment of his person. It was plainly 
 the only alternative ; and July 14th, Las Cases and 
 Savary went the second time on board the Bellero- 
 flion under a flag of truce, to inquire whether Napo- 
 leon would be received in that vessel if he decided to 
 go to England, They were assured by Captain Mait- 
 land that the ship was at his disposal for safe con- 
 veyance to Britain. He immediately desj)atclied the 
 following note to the jjrince regent, afterward George 
 IV., written the preceding day : 
 
 "RocHEPORT, July 13, 1815. 
 
 " KoYAL Highness — A victim to the factions which 
 divide my country, and to the hostility of the greatest 
 powers of Europe, I have terminated my j^olitical 
 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 con- 
 stant, and the most generous of my enemies. 
 
 ''Napoleon." 
 
 General Bertrand at this date informed Joseph of 
 the decisive step taken. • 
 
 BERTRAND TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " Isle of Aix, July 14, 1815. 
 
 *' Prince — The emperor communicated this morn-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 393 
 
 ingwith the British cruisers. The admiral's answer 
 has not reached us, but the captain* is ordered by the 
 goveriiment to receive the emperor if lie shoukl pre- 
 sent himself with the persons composing his suite. 
 The captain is not acquainted with the further inten- 
 tions of his government ; but he does not doubt that 
 the emperor will be well treated ; for, even if the 
 government should wish to act otherwise, public 
 opinion in England will, he thinks, force them to 
 behave as they ought to do on such an occasion. M. 
 de Las Cases has returned on board, f and to-morrow 
 morning the emperor will repair thitlier. His majesty 
 desires me to give you this information." 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that no pledge regarding the 
 ultimate action of the English cabinet was given ; but 
 Napoleon threw himself entirely upon the honor and 
 generosity of his foe, in the conscious dignity of his 
 position, and reliance upon the popular feeling in the 
 empire to whose shore he sailed. The letter Avas com- 
 mitted by Maitland to Gourgaud, who proceeded with 
 it in the Slaney, but was not allowed to land ; it was 
 sent by other hands to the prince regent. July 15th 
 the brig Epervier conveyed him out of the Aix roads. 
 The wind was unfavorable^ and the barge of the Bel- 
 leroplion bore him to the ship. Tears fell, and shouts, 
 rose long and loud while he moved away from French 
 soil, French vessels, and French soldiers, neither of 
 which his feet or hands should press again. The 
 officers of the Belleroplion awaiting the appearing of 
 Napoleon, with the mariners drawn up in order be- 
 hind them. When he reached the quarter-deck, 
 uncovering himself, he said calmly and firmly to 
 
 * Maitland of the Bellerophon. 
 t The Bellerophon.
 
 394 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Captain Maitland, "I come to place myself under the 
 protection of yonr prince and laws." The commander 
 answered with a bow, and conducted him to his cabin. 
 The officers were then jiresented, and, as everywhere, 
 the emperor became popular with all whom he met — 
 the crew especially admiring the wonderful man of 
 whose terrible presence on the field of battle they had 
 only heard. He made himself familiar with every 
 part of the ship, and complimented highly the quiet 
 subordination and superior discipline of the English 
 navy. On the 23d the Bellero^^hon passed Ushant, 
 where a view of the coast of France arrested the 
 mighty exile's moistened eye. He gazed silently and 
 sadly upon the dim outline of his arena of greatness 
 and glory ; but his crowding thoughts and deep emo- 
 tion no pen was iiermitted to record. Tlie 25tli the 
 vessel which attracted toward it the interest of a hemi- 
 sphere, dropped anchor in the harbor of Torbay, 
 amid countless boats crowded with curious people, 
 whose shouts greeted Napoleon as often as he appeared 
 on deck to gratify the intense interest his name and 
 fate awakened. All communication of the Bellero- 
 plion with the coast was forbidden, and, after a sus- 
 pense of a few hours, orders came to proceed to 
 Plymouth Sound. At noon of the following day, the 
 ship's sails were furled before that ancient town. The 
 respectful and kindly attentions to the emperor, which 
 had marked the voyage, gave place to the stern for- 
 malities of guarding the captive, while his doom was 
 in the hands of the Privy Council. The populace 
 from a great distance poured into Plymouth, and the 
 excitement became so strong, that " two frigates were 
 appointed to lie as guards on the Bellerophon, aiul 
 sentinels were doubled and trebled both by day and 
 uight." Upon the 30th, Sir Henry Banbury, under-
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON RONAPARTE. 395 
 
 gecretary of state, with Admiral Keitli of the oluiimol 
 fleet, anuounced the final decision of tlie iJiitish 
 government, whose main provisions were these : " 1st, 
 That General Bonaparte should not be landed in Eng- 
 land, but removed forthwith to St. Helena, as being 
 the situation in which, more than any other at their 
 command, the government tliought security against a 
 second escape and the indulgence to himself of per- 
 sonal freedom and exercise, might be reconciled. 
 2dly, That, with the exceptions of Savary and L'AlIe- 
 mand, he might take with him any three officers he 
 chose, as also his surgeon, and twelve domestics." 
 
 Napoleon betrayed no agitation when the surprising 
 document was finished, but with perfect composure im- 
 mediately protested against the unjust decree with his 
 own nnequaled eloquence : '' I am the guest of England, 
 and not her prisoner. I have come, of my own accord, 
 to place myself under the protection of British law. In 
 my case the government has violated the laws of its 
 own country, the laws of nations, and the sacred duty 
 of hospitality. I protest against their right to act 
 thus, and aj^peal to British honor." The emperor 
 complained of the inexcusable insult of refusing to 
 give him his imperial title, recognizing him only as 
 General Bonaparte. He recoiled from exile on a 
 rocky island between the tropics, and again contem- 
 plated suicide. He said, " After all, am I quite sure 
 of going to St. Helena ? Is a man dependent upon 
 others when he wishes that his dependence should 
 cease ? * * * Jt jg only necessary to create a little 
 mental excitement, and I shall soon have escaped." Las 
 Cases remonstrated, and suggested the memories of 
 the past upon Avhich to live, and the unwritten record 
 of his grand career to be prepared for the future. 
 The dark and criminal thought was banished, and
 
 396 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 submission to his destiny was the imperative necessity. 
 There is some palliation for the extraordinary and 
 unlawful course of England. Napoleon had escaped 
 from Elba. His name was still a spell-word in 
 France, and his influence over the masses immeas- 
 urably greater than that of any other living man. The 
 British cabinet were afraid of his presence where the 
 possibility of rescue should attend him. From the 
 beginning, fighting for ancient, transmitted royalty, 
 regarding Napoleon as a new man — with a system 
 subversive of the established order of things — and 
 having learned to fear him more than all the kings 
 of Europe besides — the English ministry were deter- 
 mined to cage the imperial lion. 
 
 While this view modifies the treatment, it does not 
 remove the indelible stain of needless cruelty in the 
 banishment and confinement of the noblest foe Britain 
 ever met and subdued. 
 
 Preparations were now hastened for the voyage to 
 St. Helena. O'Meara, surgeon of the Belleroplion, ac- 
 cepted heartily the appointment of Napoleon's j)hysi- 
 cian. The remainder of his suite were Count Montho- 
 lon and his lady ; Count Bertrand, lady, and three 
 children ; Baron Gourgaud, and Count Las Cases. 
 The Nortlinmberland, commanded by Sir George 
 Cockburn, arrived August 7th, and received Napoleon 
 with his circle of friends on board. The emperor bade 
 adieu very cordially to Captain Maitland and his offi- 
 cers, thanking them for their magnanimous bearing 
 toward him while in the Belleroplion. The testimony 
 of Maitland respecting his prisoner is very beautiful. 
 He writes, " It may appear surprising that a possibility 
 should exist of a British officer being prejudiced in 
 favor of one who had caused so many calamities to his 
 country ; but to such an extent did he possess the
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 397 
 
 power of pleasing, that tlicre arc few people who could 
 have sat at the same table with him for nearly a 
 month, as I did, without feeling a sensation of pity, per- 
 haps allied to regret, tliat a man possessed of so many 
 fascinating qualities, and who had held so high a sta- 
 tion in life, should be reduced to the situation in which 
 I saw him." 
 
 The Northnm'berJand sailed August 9th, 1815, at- 
 tended by a fleet of nine vessels. While they were 
 tacking out of the channel, Napoleon looked toward 
 the coast of France, with straining vision, to catch 
 one more glimpse of its distant outline. The clouds 
 lifting gave him the sight, and "France ! France \" 
 was the shout of the self-exiled companions of the 
 captive-king. The emjjeror gazed silently, and then 
 uncovering his head, he exclaimed, Lund of the hravc, 
 I salute thee! Farewell! France, farewell!" The 
 spectators were deeply moved. During the voyage 
 Napoleon threw the fascination of his conversational 
 powers over all, winning the love of those who had 
 been taught to hate him. 
 
 October 15th, the cry of " Land !" from the mast- 
 head, attracted toward the rising form of an island the 
 mournful interest of the royal party ; and the next day 
 the Korthumherland cast anchor in the harbor of St. 
 Helena. It lies six thousand miles from Europe, and 
 one thousand two hundred miles from the coast of 
 Africa. It is ten miles in length, and six broad, Avith 
 precipitous cliffs, preventing access, except by three 
 narrow defiles. 
 
 Much of it is barren rock, with pleasant valleys re- 
 lieving this desolation amid the infinitude of waters. 
 The 16th Napoleon disembarked, and walked in tlie 
 shades of evening the streets of Jamestown. 
 
 No apartments suitable for the reception of the exile
 
 398 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 were found iu the lonely desert to which he was borne. 
 Longwood, three miles from Jamestown, the country 
 house of the lieutenant-governor, and situated in a 
 wild ravine, was selected for the residence of Napoleon. 
 
 "With the alterations which were designed, it was a 
 scanty, solitary habitation, assigned to the greatest 
 monarch of the world, and his faithful band of friends. 
 Tlie immediate residence to which he repaired was 
 culled The Briers — a small and secluded farmhouse, 
 occujHed by Mr. Balcombe, who made every effort to 
 afford him a comfortable seclusion. 
 
 Napoleon's bitter complaints and appeals to the 
 English government were in vain — nothing was done 
 to cheer the solitude of the powerless sovereign. 
 
 December lUth, the emjoeror removed to Longwood. 
 Guards and sentinels encircled his grounds, and no 
 means of security were sjxired to make escape from the 
 l)rison-isle impossible. In the spring of 1816, there 
 was a change in the government of St. Helena, which 
 increased the annoyances and trials of Napoleon. In 
 reference to it Lockhart, in whose biography of the 
 captive is the severest and most unqualified condemna- 
 tion of his motives and deeds, writes the following : 
 
 '' In April, 181G, Sir George Cockburn was super- 
 seded by Sir Hudson Lowe, who remained governor of 
 St. Helena, and had the charge of Napoleon's person 
 until his death. The conduct of this officer has been 
 much and justly censured by various writers. Napo- 
 leon conceived and retained from the first a violent dis- 
 like toward him ; and the governor, as soon as he be- 
 came aware of this, did not fail fully to reciprocate it. 
 It seemed that every circumstance, whether of business 
 or of etiquette, which occurred at St. Helena, was cer- 
 tain to occasion some dis]nite between the two, the pro- 
 gress and termination of wliich seldom passed without
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON HONAP \RTE. 399 
 
 an aggravation of mutual hostilities. It was deemed 
 necessary that the greatest vigihuice should be exer- 
 cised, which could not be done without giving offense 
 to the liaughty mind of Napoleon ; and rather than 
 submit to the restraints which were imposed, he often 
 chose to seclude himself within the precincts of Long- 
 wood. It cannot be doubted but that the constant 
 irritation in which he was kept toward the governor 
 was a principal means of shortening his life." 
 
 And yet in the late publication of the Letters and 
 Journal of Sir Hudson Lowe, edited by William For- 
 syth, we have quite a different view of the matter. 
 And it is no easy task to reach a just conclusion be- 
 tween these conflicting statements from official papers 
 and private diaries. It is difficult to discei'n how 
 much is coloring for mere effect, and which are the 
 unadorned facts in the case. Sir Hudson Lowe's 
 journal gives the regulations, bill of fare, and allow- 
 ance of wines ; all of which, if these statements are at 
 all reliable, were ample, and siiould have been satisfac- 
 tory. But upon comparing the notes of both friends 
 and foes, including the sale of silver plate, which it 
 was affirmed Napoleon resorted to, that he might not 
 suffer hunger, we are compelled to believe that much 
 was done and said by the exiles to awaken sympathy in 
 their behalf, and hatred to England ; Avhile on the 
 other hand, in perfect harmony with the feelings and 
 conduct of the British ministry from the dawn of 
 Napoleon's greatness, they did pursue, even in exile, 
 with enmity and injustice the man whose single hand 
 liad shaken the throne of their splendid empire. 
 
 Napoleon was much of the time cheerful, but often 
 desponding, indignant, and unhappy. Without re- 
 ligious trust, and surrounded by skeptical minds, of 
 whom Montholon was acknowledged to be witliout
 
 400 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 character for truthfulness, he certainly was no model 
 of resignation — no martyr, calm in conscious recti- 
 tude and purity of purpose. The visions of individual 
 and widespread suffering of Egypt, Spain, and Russia, 
 and, more than all else, of JosejjJiiiie, which swept over 
 the horizon of thought, must have increased his dis- 
 quietude, and irritable moods. It is true, he bore 
 eloquent testimony to the transcendent excellence of 
 the Scriptures, and the deity of Christ, but not a day 
 in his life displayed the ^iractical power of either upon 
 his heart. 
 
 Ilis manner of living was regular and abstemious ; 
 " he never took more than two meals a day, and con- 
 cluded each with a cup of coffee. He generally break- 
 fasted about ten o'clock, and dined at eight. He 
 preferred plain food, and ate plentifully, with an ap- 
 parent appetite. A very few glasses of claret, scarce 
 amounting to an English pint, which he chiefly drank 
 at dinner, completed his meal. He sometimes drank 
 champagne, but his constitutional sobriety was such 
 that a large glass of that wine Avould bring the color 
 to his cheek ; and it may be truly said that few men 
 were ever less influenced by the api:)etites peculiar to 
 man than Bonaparte. He was exceedingly particular 
 as to the neatness and cleanliness of his j^erson, and 
 this habit he preserved till his death.'' 
 
 In converse with friends, when his kingly mind 
 displayed on social, civil, scientific and moral themes, 
 the amazing scope of its knowledge and its penetra- 
 tion — in walks, which gradually ceased as his antipathy 
 toward the espionage under which he moved be- 
 came more intense — in dictating protests against the 
 cruelty of his foes, and memoirs with which to em- 
 balm and vindicate his fame — Napoleon passed more 
 than five years of captivity ; which drew to it the
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 401 
 
 interest of the world — an interest born of idolatrous 
 admiration, intellectual homage, military enthusiasm, 
 kindest sympathy, and deepest hate. 
 
 The neglect of exercise, and the mental struggles 
 of the emperor began to develop constitutional dis- 
 ease, and weaken those physical energies which were 
 no less marvelous than his versatile genius. In 1817 
 the decay of strength became visible, and with intervals 
 of relief and comfortable convalescence, he steadily 
 declined. O'Meara was his medical attendant till the 
 summer of 1818, when Sir Hudson Lowe removed him 
 on account of his sympathy with Napoleon. The lieu- 
 tenant-general offered him the services of an English 
 physician, which were promptly refused. The follow- 
 ing year the British government consented to the ap- 
 pointment of another medical adviser by his friends in 
 Europe ; and Dr. Antomarchi, an atheist, accompanied 
 by two Eomish priests, at the suggestion of Napoleon, 
 arrived at St. Helena. The interviews with these 
 ecclesiastics were evidently without much spiritual 
 benefit. Notwithstanding the effort of a late writer to 
 invest the captive's whole character, especially when 
 its finishing touches were received under the deepening 
 shadows of his last hours, with Christian graces, we 
 hear him discoursing of the Elysian fields, where he 
 anticipated meeting with his marshals, with Hannibal, 
 and Cffisar, and having a pleasant talk over their battles ; 
 unless, he continued, " it should create an alarm in 
 the spirit-world to see so many warriors assembled 
 together." This certainly was nothing better than 
 trifling, and the whole tenor of his conversation on this 
 momentous theme was wanting in any satisfactory 
 recognition of his relations to God, and his mission 
 among men. At the close of 1820 his symptoms grew 
 worse ; his stomach rejected food ; his repose was dis- 
 26
 
 402 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 turbed, and his frame became emaciated. While the 
 succeeding spring was clothing the wild forests with 
 verdure, -and hanging flowers upon the cliffs of St. 
 Helena, Napoleon was rapidly sinking in the embrace 
 of his fatal malady. He made the disposition of his 
 gifts to friends, and dictated his will, which contained 
 "for a codicil, ten thousand francs to the wretch who 
 attempted to assassinate the Duke of Wellington.'' 
 
 The reason assigned for this astonishing act of a 
 dying man, is, that " Cantallon had as much right to 
 murder that oligarchist, as the latter had to send me 
 to perish on the rock of St. Helena.'' 
 
 But the close of the scenes of earth drew near. May 
 3d the last sacraments of the Catholic church were 
 administered by Abbe Vignali. The night of the 4th 
 was one of delirium. The tempest began to rise, while 
 the most fearful conflict of the greatest conqueror of 
 men was subsiding in the victory of his last enemy. 
 
 Amid the roar of elements, his mighty — ambitious 
 — broken heart — shouted wildly, " Tete d'armee ! " 
 Head of the army ! The morning broke upon the spent 
 warrior ; helpless in the stujior of death's approach, 
 he lay till the tempestuous day was fading into eve- 
 ning, when the proud spirit passed away to the righteous 
 tribunal of the King of kings. 
 
 A post-mortem examination revealed, what Napo- 
 leon had for some time previous to his death suspected, 
 that like his father before him, he was the victim of a 
 cancer in the stomach — aggravated by those influences 
 which of themselves would have made inroads upon 
 his fine constitution. 
 
 A letter from Bertrand addressed to Joseph, who 
 had taken refuge in America, and was living in New 
 Jersey, gives an interesting narrative of these events :
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 403 
 
 BERTRAKD TO JOSEPH. 
 
 " London, September 10, 1831. 
 
 "Prince — I write to you for the first time since 
 the awful misfortune which has beeu added to the 
 sorrows of your family. Uncertain whether a letter 
 would reach you, as I was not quite sure of your address, 
 I hoped that a letter from you or from Eome would 
 acquaint me with it. I have decided on depositing 
 this letter with Messrs. Baring, and I hope that you 
 will receive it. 
 
 "Your highness is acquainted with the events of the 
 first years of this cruel exile ; many persons who have 
 visited St. Helena have informed you of what was 
 still more interesting to you — the manner of living and 
 the unkind treatment which aggravated the influences 
 of a deadly climate. 
 
 " In the last year of his life, the emperor, who for 
 four years had taken no exercise, altered extremely in 
 appearance : he became pale and feeble. From that 
 time his health deteriorated rapidly and visibly. He 
 had always been in the habit of taking baths ; he now 
 took them more frequently and stayed longer in them ; 
 they appeared to relieve him for the time. 
 
 " Latterly, Dr. Antomarchi forbade him their use, 
 as he thought that they only increased his weakness. 
 
 ** In the month of August he took walking exercise, 
 but with difficulty ; he was forced to stoj) every min- 
 ute. In the first years he used to walk Avhile dictating ; 
 he walked about his room, and thus did without the 
 exercise which he feared to take out of doors lest he 
 should expose himself to insult. But latterly his 
 strength would not admit even of this. He remained 
 sitting nearly all day, and discontinued almost all oc- 
 cupation. His health declined sensibly every month.
 
 404 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 ** Once in September, and again in the beginning of 
 October, he rode out, as his physicians desired him to 
 take exercise ; but he was so weak that he was obliged 
 to return in his carriage. He ceased to digest ; his 
 debility increased. Shivering fits came on, which ex- 
 tended even to the extremities ; hot towels applied to 
 the feet gave him some relief. He suffered from these 
 cold fits to the last hour of his life. As he could no 
 longer either walk or ride, he took several drives in an 
 open carriage at a foot pace, but without gaining 
 strength. He never took off his dressing-gown. His 
 stomach rejected food, and at the end of the year he 
 was forced to give up meat ; he lived upon jellies and 
 soups. For some time he ate scarcely anything, and 
 drank only a little pure wine, hoping thus to support 
 nature without fatiguing the digestion ; but the vomit- 
 ing continued, and he returned to soups and jellies. 
 The remedies and tonics which were tried produced little 
 effect. His body grew weaker every day, but his mind 
 retained its strength. 
 
 " He liked reading and conversation ; he did not dic- 
 tate much, although he did so from time to time up to 
 the last days of his life. He felt that his end was ap- 
 proaching, and he frequently recited the passage from 
 * Zaire ' which finishes with this line : — 
 
 *' * A revoir Paris je ne dois plus pretendre.' 
 
 Nevertheless the hope of leaving this dreadful country 
 often presented itself to his imagination ; some news- 
 paper articles and false reports excited our expecta- 
 tions. We sometimes fancied that we were on the eve 
 of starting for America ; we read travels, we made 
 plans, we arrived at your house, we Avandered over that 
 immense country, where alone we might hope to enjoy
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 405 
 
 liberty. Vain hopes ! vain projects ; which only made 
 us doubly feel our misfortunes. 
 
 *•' They could not have been borne with more seren- 
 ity and courage, I might almost add gaiety. He often 
 said to us in the evening, ' Where shall we go ? to the 
 Theater Fran9ais, or to the Opera?' And then he 
 would read a tragedy by Corneille, Voltaire, or Eacine ; 
 an opera of Quinault's or one of Moliere's comedies. 
 His strong mind and powerful character were perhaps 
 even more remarkable than on that larger theater 
 where he eclipsed all that is brightest in ancient and 
 in modern history. He often seemed to forget what he 
 had been. I was never tired of admiring his 2:)hilosophy 
 and courage, the good sense and the fortitude which 
 raised him above misfortune. 
 
 " At times, however, sad regrets and recollections of 
 what he had done, contrasted with what he might have 
 done, presented themselves. He talked of the past with 
 perfect frankness ; persuaded that on the whole he had 
 done what he was required to do, and not sharing the 
 strange and contradictory opinions which we hear ex- 
 pressed every day on events which are not understood 
 by the speakers. If the conversation took a melancholy 
 turn, he soon changed it ; he liked to talk of Corsica, 
 of his old uncle Lucien, of his youth, of you, and of all 
 the rest of the family. 
 
 ** Toward the middle of March fever came on. From 
 that time he scarcely left his bed, except for about 
 half an hour in the day ; he seldom had the strength 
 to shave. He now for the first time became extremely 
 thin. The fits of vomiting became more frequent. 
 He then questioned the pliysicians on the conforma- 
 tion of the stomach, and about a fortnight before his 
 death he had pretty nearly guessed that he was dying 
 of cancer. He was read to almost every day, and die-
 
 406 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 tated a few days before his decease. He often talked 
 naturally as to the probable mode of his death ; but 
 when he became aware that it was approaching lie left 
 off speaking on the subject. He thought much about 
 you and your children. To his last moment he was 
 kind and affectionate to us all ; he did not appear to 
 suffer so much as might have been expected from the 
 cause of his death. When we questioned him, he 
 said that he suffered a little, but that he could bear 
 it. His memory declined during the last five or six 
 days ; his deep sighs, and his exclamations from time 
 to time, made us think that he was in great pain. He 
 looked at us with the penetrating glance which you 
 know so well ; we tried to dissimulate, but he was so 
 used to read our faces that no doubt he frequently 
 discovered our anxiety. He felt too clearly the gradual 
 decline of his faculties not to be aware of his state. 
 
 " For the last two hours he neither spoke nor moved ; 
 the only sound was his difficult breathing, which gradu- 
 ally but regularly decreased ; his pulse ceased ; and 
 so died, surrounded only by a few servants, the man- 
 who had dictated laws to the world, and whose life 
 should have been preserved for the sake of the happi- 
 ness and glory of our sorrowing country. 
 
 ''Forgive, Prince, a hurried letter, which tells you 
 so little, when you wish to know so much ; but I 
 should never end if I attempted to tell all. 
 
 " You are so far off, that I know not when I shall 
 have the honor of seeing you again. I must not omit 
 to say that the emperor was most anxious that his cor- 
 respondence with the different sovereigns of Europe 
 should be printed ; he repeated this to us several 
 times. In his will the emperor expressed a wish that 
 his remains should be buried in France ; however, in 
 the last days of his life he ordered me, if there was any
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 4(j7 
 
 difficulty about it, to la}" him l^y the side of the fount- 
 aiu whose waters he had so long drank." 
 
 Napoleon's body was dressed as in life, '' with white 
 waistcoat, and breeches, black cravat, long boots, and 
 cocked hat." Thus laid out in a room hung with 
 mourning, the military cloak worn at Marengo thrown 
 over his feet, and a crucifix on his breast, the Abbe 
 Vignali said prayers for the repose of his soul, while 
 the spreading intelligence of his death brought many 
 to the place of mourning. On the morning of the 8th, 
 the corpse was removed to a coffin of tin, enclosed in 
 lead, which was covered by another of mahogany, and 
 drawn by four horses, was borne to the secluded spot 
 the departed emperor had chosen. 
 
 Sir Hudson Lowe remarked amid these last offices, 
 " He was England's greatest enemy and mine too ; 
 but I forgive him." The 27tli witnessed the embarka- 
 tion of the household friends of Napoleon for France. 
 
 July, 1830, brought a new revolution there — the 
 Bourbons were driven from the throne, and Louis 
 Philippe crowned. The Chamber of Deputies present- 
 ed a petition, asking for a demand upon the English 
 government for the remains of NajDoleon to repose, 
 according to his desire, upon the banks of the Seine. 
 But decisive action was delayed. In July, 1832, the 
 only son of the emperor, named King of Eome, but 
 called by the Austrian monarch the Duke of Eeich- 
 stadt, died at the age of twenty-one years — terminating, 
 in a direct line, the dynasty for which a wife had been 
 immolated upon the altar of ambition. 
 
 In the spring of 1840, M. Guizot presented the 
 claim for Napoleon's ashes to the British ministry. A 
 few days later, the following note was sent by Lord 
 Palmerston, in reply :
 
 408 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 ''The government of her Britannic Majesty hopes 
 that the promptness of its answer may be considered 
 in France as a proof of its desire to blot out the last 
 trace of those national animosities which, during the 
 life of the emperor, armed England and France against 
 each other. Her majesty's government hopes that if 
 such sentiments survive anywhere, they may be buried 
 in the tomb about to receive the remains of Napo- 
 leon." 
 
 Accordingly the Prince de Joinville, with two war- 
 ships, sailed for St. Helena. He arrived on the 8th 
 of October, and upon the 15th, the anniversary day of 
 Napoleon's landing there, the work of exhuming the 
 remains commenced. After nine hours of labor, the 
 coffin was lifted to the light of heaven. The cover- 
 ings of the silent form were removed, and there, unde- 
 cayed, lay the marble face, whose expression had awed 
 the kings of Europe. A tempest rose and sounded 
 the requiem of the funeral march of the second burial, 
 as it had done the transit of his soul to the realm of 
 spirits. 
 
 Amid the firing of salutes, and beneath flying ban- 
 ners, the coffin was conveyed to the ship. It sailed 
 on the 18th of October for France — a quarter of a cen- 
 tury after his exile began. 
 
 December 2d, the flotilla reached the harbor of Cher- 
 bourg, where the remains were received by the steam- 
 ship Normandy, and conveyed to the mouth of the 
 Seine. The progress of the imposing ceremonial was 
 attended by all the display of 2)opular enthusiasm pe- 
 culiar to the nation, and which was so grateful to the 
 living emperor, but now fell upon the rayless eye, and 
 "dull, cold ear of death." 
 
 At Havre, the rioli sarcophagus of ebony was placed 
 on an imperial barge in the miniature chapel, covered
 
 LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 409 
 
 with emblems of mouruing, and the funeral cortege 
 of twelve steamers moved np the river Seine, toward 
 Paris. 
 
 Along the banks, for a hundred miles, the populace 
 stood in endless lines, and over them waved gorge- 
 ous flags — and above them rose the triumphal arches 
 and pyramids covered with purple and spangled with 
 golden stars. We cannot feel for a moment in the 
 sober light of revelation, that the answer to a question 
 proposed by a biographer of the departed warrior, is at 
 all doubtful of solution : '' Did Xapoleon, from the 
 spirit land, witness this scene, and rejoice in the tri- 
 umph of his fame ? " lie had to do with more serious 
 employments, and a calmer, clearer review of his 
 crimson path of renown, than the illusions of earth 
 allowed. 
 
 In the afternoon of the lith, the cortege arrived at 
 Courbevoie,four miles from the capital. 
 
 A statue of Josephine welcomed the ashes of him 
 who had broken her lieart, while Maria Louisa was 
 quietly living at Parma, ajiparently careless of the stir- 
 ring pageantry as the throngs were forgetful of her. 
 
 The remains were taken on shore to a Grecian tem- 
 ple constructed for the occasion, and thence placed 
 upon a magnificent funeral car. Thronged with ex- 
 cited millions, the royal chariot passed on to the 
 church of the Invalides, which was decorated with 
 splendor exceeding that of any oriental palace. Upon 
 the shoulders of thirty-two of the Old Guard, it was 
 borne toward its resting place in the temple, when 
 Louis Philippe and the dignitaries of state advanced to 
 receive the sacred relics. 
 
 The coffin was deposited in the catafalque, the sword 
 of Napoleon laid upon it by General Bertrand, mass 
 was celebrated, and the crowd slowly left the illustrious
 
 410 LTFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 dead to the silence of that rejDose which mocks the 
 strife, the ambition, and the glory of men. 
 
 Napoleon was great — intellectually towering above 
 the princes and monarchs of many generations, as 
 Mont Blanc overtops the Alps and the Apennines. He 
 had no rival in the tactics of war — in the sanguinary 
 tragedies, whose actors were kings, and whose arena 
 was a hemisphere. His ardent imagination was under 
 the guidance of reason, whose intuitions were clear as 
 morning light, and as rapid in their comprehensive 
 action. His sovereignty was more elevating to the 
 masses, and far-reaching in its aims, than that of any 
 of his lauded foes. But he was " a moral dicarf," and 
 even in his magnanimous deeds, always advanced his 
 fame. He aspired after unquestioned preeminence 
 among the thrones of Europe, but he had not the higher 
 qualities of heart and the pure philanthrojiy which 
 would have made it safe to hold the power that seemed 
 at times within his grasp. 
 
 Rulers and people of future generations will muse 
 with wondering over his brilliant career — the wide- 
 spread suffering which attended it — the noble deeds, 
 the gigantic crimes, and the retributive fall of 
 
 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
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